Firenze, Toscania: a return to childhood

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A few days ago we had our first "weekend", a two day break every six field days, so my friend AJ from Lawrence and I travelled to Florence to meet up with some of her friends from high school (and now Lawrentians as well!). What an amazing weekend! With Wiggle Bear, backpack, and artisan Passion Fruit and Grapefruit gelato in hand, we wandered around the amazing city, seeing sights that were both refreshingly new and oddly familiar from eighteen years ago. One of the best moments was when the four of us-- AJ, Maddie, Chris and I-- hiked up the many stone stairs to the Piazza di Michelangelo to drink some white and look out over Florence. Climbing those stairs I had a Deja Vu moment, because I don't think I have seen any pictures of that spot, but I had a sudden vivid memory of climbing them before. Looking out over the Arno River, the Duomo, all the red roofs and the mountains of Tuscany in the distance, there is scarcely a more beautiful sight in the whole city I am sure.

For dinner we met up with Maddie's parents and I ordered a wonderful Gnocchi for dinner-- I'd think I would be sick of pasta by now, but not yet! After dinner, Maddie Chris and folks had to leave, so AJ and I wandered Florence some more, ran into our new boyfriend David (see photo), and then spent the evening with a hookah and Bloody Mary's next to the Uffizzi (alas, we didn't get to go in this time). On the way back to our hostel, we stopped by a free organ concert for a few minutes that was wafting out of a nearby church at 11pm-- only in Italy! The hostel was exactly what we paid 17 euros for-- sixteen girls in a fourth-story bunk room with no air conditioning, but hey we're in college! In the morning we ate a delicious breakfast of espresso, panino and watermelon, wandered aimlessly a bit, then went to the Galileo museum and saw some of Galileo's and others' early scientific instruments. It was pretty fantastic to see how far science has come since then, but also to think that those inventions were so revolutionary for their time-- I definitely need would have thought up anything similar! We saw a bit more of the city, and didn't get to go in any of the main churches or museums (Santa Maria Novella, which is across from the train station, unfortunately cost more euro than I had to spend at that moment). But we DID, however, stumble across the Gucci Museum near the Uffizzi, and decided to order an espresso that was only 1.10 euro! Little did we know that if the waiter in an Italian cafe asks you if you want to sit at the bar or a table, sitting at a table yields an extra few euro in service charge. Lesson of the weekend, because instead of 1.10 we ended up paying 4 euro each! pretty crazy. In a few weeks when I return, I have a whole list of places to come back to and visit inside as well!

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Photos

Wiggle Bear, Florence and I
Near Piazza de Michaelangelo

Galileo Museum
A 15th-century apparatus to predict the parabolic movement of a ball launched in the air.

"Sfera armillare" by Antonio Santucci
A strange celestial map from somewhere between 1588-93, made by Antonio Santucci in Florence.