Last School Week in Firenze

I have so much to catch up on!!! I’ve been incredibly busy soaking up my last week in Italy.  I am really not ready to leave -- but, as my professor says, that is perhaps the best time to leave (when you aren’t tired of it). In any case, I am very much going to miss it. I’ve had such a wonderful time -- and honestly, next to Italy, the United States isn’t really that cool! 

Sunday night: Ah! It was such nice weather! There was a cool wind all day -- it was wonderful. That night, I took the bus up to Fiesole (I love that name) to watch the sunset. The view was AMAZING and I sat and talked to one of the girls from the program for a while. Fiesole is a lovely town -- it’s quiet, very close to Florence, and just quite charming. 

View from one side of Fiesole:

Awesome Modern Art Sculpture in the town center

VIEW!

Monday I had my last presentation for class: Machiavelli’s The Prince. We got out pretty early, so we went grocery shopping -- which really becomes the highlight of my day. I love going to the market! Ah! Anyways, then I made lunch and went to the Boboli Gardens with Kelsey and Chelsea.  There was a costumes exhibit inside, which was fun to fawn over =) Then we went and attempted to explore the gardens. 

View From Gardens:

Gardens

Another View =)

Another View

Fountain

It was beautiful, but there were lots of stairs and we were hot and tired. . . so we ended up taking a shade break on some stairs for a longgg time. We left Boboli and dropped by Edison (the bookstore) and then went to try one of the top five gelato places in my lonely planet book: GROM. GROM WAS AMAZING. I’ve had some pretty fabulous gelato this trip, but Grom was definitely the best. wow. I had Creme di grom and Venezia Ciocollatte. . . it was incredible. 

Tuesday I went to class, and then we all headed to Santa Croce. 

Santa Croce is a beautiful church, and many famous Florentines are buried inside.  We saw Michelangelo’s and Galieo’s tombs, among others. 

Michelangelo's Tomb

I then went home and took a longggg nap (I didn’t sleep well the night before).  After that I went shopping for gifts, which was slightly frustrating because I was being very indecisive about what to get people! ah! I was mildly successful though and headed back to make dinner. I made spaghetti with pesto for dinner, which was quite delicious =) Then I met my friend Gina and we went to take a mini-hike along the last set of walls of Florence. As we crossed the Ponte Vecchio, the sun was setting. . . It was so gorgeous. 

We found the wall, and had a nice hike around it -- of course, all the views were beautiful and so peaceful. 

We stayed until it got dark, and then had a slightly scary walk back, as it wasn’t well lit! However, we did make it back, and it was a lovely night =)

Wednesday I got to sleep in! We met at Capella Medicci in San Lorenzo at 11:45 (where we couldn’t take pictures by the way). Wow, the Mediccis were ridiculous. Their tombs are perhaps the most lavish and ostentatious things I’d seen. It was beautiful, but absurdly lavish.  We also say Michelangelo’s Night and Day, which was pretty cool -- except that she definitely looks like a man. . . her womanly parts look added on. It was a Michelangelo day, as we went to the Accademia too! I always thought Michelangelo was someone whose works would really strike me -- but actually, I think Donatello’s works appeal to me more. However. . . the David was awesome. I didn’t realize how big it is. . . and how beautiful a man he is. . .wow. Phenomenal. It’s pretty captivating. The Accademia also has a pretty cool collection of musical instruments from the Renaissance too.  I learned how a harpsichord and a piano work! Anyways, I was just exhausted for some reason, so I took a very looooong nap and then worked on my final literally all night. I took a one hour nap from 3-4AM and then finished the final by 7 AM -- sent it in, and worked on my journal until we had to leave for the hike at 9AM, which brings us to. . . .

Thursday! Which was just one long, exhausting day. On no sleep, we went on a 2 hour hike through Chianti ending in Greve.  It was funny -- I can’t sleep on busses, so the only people awake on the bus were me, the professor and her husband. EVERYONE had stayed up all night doing the final. It was pretty hilarious. It was a lovely hike though. Most of it was down hill =) And of course, everything is beautiful in Tuscany.  

We got there (finally) and had a nice lunch, where I was introduced to prosciutto e melone which was absolutely glorious. 

We then walked a little through town, and then bussed back to Florence. I was so. tired. After an hour of downtime (i.e. packing really quickly and then napping) we were off to the train station to go to VENICE!