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This leads me to my next point. I hate Florence. It is a terrible, aweful city. Sure, the museums are full of much of the worlds great art and the array of streets and squares and buildings are like one huge outdoor museum.... but the city itself has no soul. It has nothing. The people have nothing. It is fake and condescending. The only pieces of reality are hundreds of years old and lie in buildings behind glass and on pedistals requiring 5 to 10 euros to view. Its full of Americans studying abroad. There is something horribly wrong when they get mad for not assuming that they speak English in Italy. The place is stuck up and boring. Which brings us to the next stop.....

I love Rome. It is entirely the opposite (except that it also has world class art and is a joy to see outside. However, our hostel was terrible (not an unimportant part of travel). Bad hostel stories are pretty much all the same, so I wont recount this one. Basically we got up early and saw the sights (lots of them). St. Peters in Chains with Michelangelos Moses. The Collusuem. Palatine Hill (the absolute personification of Italy.... full of history and lacking in any bit of order or explanation). Forum. Capitaline Hill. Victor Emmanual Monument. Trajans Column. Campo del Fiore (incorrect spelling, Im sure) where we ate pizza for lunch and watched the world go by.... an old lady selling produce, school kids, business men on lunch, and clueless tourists. Piazza Nivona (cheesy, tourists, boring). Pantheon (endlessly brilliant). Random Churches. The Trevi Fountain (coin over the shoulder for luck.... I cant saw what I wished.... but we know I want to be at Emory next year). Spanish Steps. The crypt of a church (forgot the name) decorated (seriously) with the bones of 4000 monks (less cool, more creepy).... an inscription said "we are what you will be. you will be what we are." St. Teresa in Ecstacy (a personal fave). Borghese Musuem (Baroque sculpture and post Renaisance painting..... Berninis Daphne and Apollo must be the greatest sculpture ever). We polished the day off with cheese, crackers, and cookies from the coop being eated on the steps of a fun local square.

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