Weekend in Florence

A group of us went to Florence for Friday and Saturday. It was absolutely stunning. Friday we went to the Accademia Museum to see the David. The David was unbelievable. I've seen pictures of him, but I never thought he was going to be that big. He was at least 20 feet tall. We stayed there looking at him with amazement for a good 15 minutes. There wasn't much else in the building. Most of the remaining statues were only plaster replicas, so we didn't stay much longer after that.

I snuck a picture of David.


We then walked and shopped for a bit.

The best panino I think I will ever eat.


Mom, Dad: You would have LOVED this store.


As we passed the Duomo it was about 4:30, so we randomly decided to head to the top of the Duomo for sunset. It was the best 6 euros I think I'll ever spend! To get to the top, you have to climb 463 stairs. That may or may not sound like a lot, but let me tell you....I was feeling it the next day! Reaching the top, not only were we out of breath from physical exersion, but looking out over Florence at that time of day, truly took our breath away.

Photos from the top



The peeps. Me, Lauren, Kristen, Casey, and Andrew


Casey and I


Lauren


Italy's a fan of live music in the streets, which I completely enjoy.


Kristen and I soaking in some Vitamin D, something we haven't seen much of in Perugia.


Overall, it was a great weekend. Florence is a beautiful city, but it made me really thankful to be studying and living in Perugia. I'm actually able to speak the language here. In Florence, people wouldn't even let me attempt to speak Italian to them before they spoke English right back to me. Another thing that annoyed us: we went to dinner Friday night at a pretty small restaurant. It was really good food, but they basically shoved us out because other Florentines were waiting to eat and the owner said he needed to seat them! That would never happen in Perugia. We were slightly disheartened by that, but it didn't dampen our spirits too much.

On another note, I tried dance class out back here in Perugia last Thursday night. The class was composed of mostly high schoolers, so I felt a bit out of place. It was strange too because the instructor didn't even lead class at all. The warm-up was memorized by all the girls, which I thought was strange. They told me to go back on Tuesday to the class that starts an hour later...it's an advanced class. I'm hoping that will be a bit better. It felt good to dance again though because it had been nearly a month!