I am now waiting here, so I decided to post pictures of my apartment here in Florence. 

Here is the kitchen:

The “Living Room”:

My bed:

The bathroom:

The door into the Boy’s quarters:

Here are a few of the last dinner night we had:

(these are cookies that they cooked in a frying pan because they couldn’t find a cookie sheet!)

I am so excited to see Lindsey in 24 hours!

So we left on the bus early in the morning as usual and drove all the way to Pisa, the land of the tourists. Vendors selling tourist crap (postcards, Pinocchio puppets, models of the leaning tower, leaning travel mugs, etc) were EVERYWHERE. We had to fight our way through them to get to the main square. There we saw the tower, the church, and the baptistery. The tower was impressive, but… not that interesting. The church was like a big jewelry box! It was beautiful. The baptistery was my favorite, though. It was a big, open, octagonal building with simple decoration. Every half hour one of the guards gets up in front of everyone and just sings! The acoustics of the space amplify the singer’s voice incredibly, and the melody was quite moving.

Finally, after an hour of aimlessly walking around the tourist stands, we headed back for the bus and were off to Lucca. It is one of the only Tuscan cities that managed not to be taken over by the Medici family, due to it’s skillfully build protective wall, as well as it’s small army. Because of this, it has a separate kind of charm the other cities we’ve visited lacked. There was an antique show going on when I got there, which was very different from the ones back in the states! Some of the antiques were from the renaissance and beyond (or at least they claimed to be). I had to restrain myself from purchasing anything, because, as much as I would love an antique piece of jewelry or tea set, it would just be too costly and impossible to bring home in one piece!

Elizabeth took us around to the church where Saint Zita lies (her body supposedly did not decay and smelled of roses due to a miracle), another beautiful church, and took us on a small tour of the town, pointing out an old Roman amphitheater that has since been transformed into a square full of shops and restaurants. The old brick and stone was exposed in some places, and we could see the foundations of some of the archways. When I was walking around I paired off with a girl named Katie who is a grad student studying art conservation and archeology. She and I clicked and walked around town for the rest of the day, peeking down unnamed alleyways and visiting the playground. (We actually hung out this morning and went to see Santa Croce {there was an amazing printmaking show in the cloisters by Pietro Pargi} and the museum that houses Donatello’s David. The David was in active restoration on the second floor, so I got a nice view of his backside as the woman was restoring it.

Last night my friends and I had the last potluck dinner. It was the best one yet! At least 20 people showed up and everyone went all out with their dishes (probably because we are trying to clean out our fridges!).

Tomorrow is my last day of classes. I have an Italian final in the morning that I am very nervous about and I must finish aqua tinting my last etching and print it. Overall this trip has been so wonderful. The school itself has not been the best or most helpful, but I have met so many wonderful people here and truly experienced a different culture on my own. I am very proud of this.

Here are some pictures of Pisa:

Here are some of Lucca:

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p280/ldorcus/Summer%20in%20Florence/P1010285.jpg

I can not wait for Saturday! I am very excited to see Lindsey again, an hiking Cinque Terre is going to be a lot of fun.

At around 4pm I met up with a couple friends and we went to the Monastery at the top of the Piazza di Michelangelo to listen to the Monks chant. It was my favorite church so far. The ceilings were wooden and decorated in almost a celtic style, and the walls had a lot of exposed brick and half-sketched frescos. Downstairs had beautiful arched ceilings with a lot of ironwork. The Monks walked behind an iron gate into an area behind it, and began their service. It was very pretty!

My favorite part of the trip to that chapel was the cemetary behind it. The density of the monuments was incredible! A lot of the stones had pictures of the deceased on them, and there were many small, highly decorated tombs around, many of them covered with mosaics, ironwork, and colored glass.

So, Carrara. On friday my printmaking class went to the Marble Quarries in Carrara with the sculpture class (The same place where Michelangelo got his marble for “David”). It was BEAUTIFUL. We first walked around the town next to Carrara, which has the most amount of sculptors per square foot in the world! Sculptures are everywhere. They were having a public exhibit of a mexican artist’s work, and it was amazing.

Here is an example of this artist’s work:

Then (in the same town) we toured some marble studios and inside was an amazing mosaic studio. It was a small room filled with mosaic pieces and four old men carefully assembling these exquisitely detailed images on the desk in front of them. In the next room was a huge mosaic laid out on the ground, each piece carefully labeled and separated in preparation of its shipment to New Mexico. It was such a rare opportunity to be able to see the old traditional artisans at work.

Here is one of the artisans:

Afterwards we hopped on a bus to see the mountains that were being quarried. As we were driving up, I thought they were snow-capped. But our tourguide pointed out that all the white we saw was just white marble! We drove to the top, i think it was about a 30 minute drive from the base, and then we hopped in this dirty old van, stuffing way too many people inside for the van’s own good, and drove into the mountain. Inside was like a marble icebox! The ceilings were VERY high, and every surface surrounding us was pure marble. Apparently they have so much of it that a truckload is sent down every two minutes!

Here is the mountain, and some pictures i tried to take inside:

I will write about my trip to pisa and lucca tomorrow! Right now i need to get back to class.

and here I am with some friends at Piazza di Michelangelo:

I also want to say hi to everyone, Poppa, Aunt Jenny, Grandma Beth, Lindsey, Mom, Dad, Gabe, and furball and the dogs, because i miss you all very much.

Here is an example:

Here is the town:

Next we got on the bus to San Gimiliango, a town that Mussolini actually modified during the second world war to make it the “Disney World of Medieval Towns” as a form of propaganda . Nate, Alyssa, and I broke off from the group and walked around the town, looking in all the interesting little shops and galleries we could find. We saw the most beautiful views of the hillside– each patch of land on the slope was cultivated and colored slightly differently. We found an amazing sweets shop that was full of chocolate and walnut paste, chocolate with chili pepper, and tool shaped chocolate.

Here is San Gimiliango:

I will post more pictures of Piazza di Michelangelo and maybe some of my apartment as soon as possible.

Tomorrow, I am going to the Marble Quarries with my printmaking class, Saturday i might go to Cinque Terre and another town with some friends, and then on Sunday I go to Pisa and Luca! Then only a week after that i am meeting up with Lindsey.

After we hoofed back down the steps, a few of us went to the Piazza de Republic, which is a large plaza with street performers, street artists, and of course, a big, bright carousel! There was a “band” there named the Gruppo Romm Draculas which consisted of a cellist, an accordion player, and a man who dissembled a harpsichord and played it by hammering the top strings. They are amazing. I bought both of their cds and The I was on my way back to my apartment to bed. (after a midterm, 6 hours of printmaking and a small hike I could barely keep my eyes open!)

Today all of my roommates were gone since Kyle is in Rome and Ariel and Nate went on the Art history trip with their class. So instead of bumming around, I was up at 7 and off to the Museum of Zoology, a slightly hidden place full of taxidermy animals and wax replicas done of human bodies, inside and out. They were mostly all made when this type of thing was taboo, so it was pretty interesting to see. After that I stopped at the Pitti Palace, the former home of the Medici family, to check out the costume museum and the Boboli Gardens! The museum was full of old antique women’s dresses and accessories. The garden was MASSIVE. I almost got lost a couple times in the winding paths of the gardens. The trees surrounding the paths grew in a tunnel-like structure, which made me feel like some kind of deep forest explorer. The best thing about it was that I could be “exploring” for more than a half hour, then run into some beautiful old stone wall, or a beautiful renaissance building out of nowhere!

I think when Lindsey and  I come back to Florence I will take her up to the Piazza de Michelangelo at night.

Here are some pictures from the Zoology museum:

Here are some from the Gardens:

The Outside:

Inside the Duomo Museum:

(This is Donatello’s “Mary Magdalene”!

The Mosaic Dome inside the Duomo Baptistery:

And for good measure, a pastry shop!

and Gelato, which I admit I have not indulged in yet

So far today I have visited the Duomo dome, Museum and Baptistery, as well as San Lorenzo. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures in San Lorenzo, but I assure you it was beautiful

Also, before I begin to explain, I’d like to say hi to Poppa and Aunt Jenny who now have my blog address. Hi guys! I miss you a lot and I can’t wait to see you when I get back and show you all of my pictures.

So this morning I woke up at 7:30 on the dot (I’ve been doing that even without an alarm. It’s kind of nice) and I made some eggs and toast for breakfast, sat down with my roommates and enjoyed the morning for about an hour. It was very nice and relaxing, and just what I needed since yesterday was so tiring. Then I was out the door at 8:50am to go to the Duomo to climb the dome. Usually there is a long, LONG line of tourists waiting to get in and climb the 400-something steps to the top. Today, however; there was nobody! I walked straight in, paid my 6 euros and started climbing. It was very tiring. My legs were shaking by the end of it, but it was definitely worth it! The climb was mostly old, narrow, stone stairwells which turned into narrow spiral staircases as I got closer to the top. I was so glad it was practically empty since it would have been very claustrophobic.

The first “break” in the climb was the inside of the dome, which was decorated entirely with HUGE frescoes. It was amazing to see. There was also an amazing view of the Chapel beneath us and the circular stained glass windows underneath the fresco.

The second was a small room filled with the original statues that used to sit on the outside of the building. They were at least 10 feet tall!

The third was the actual top of the dome. I could see ALL of Florence from up there! It was so beautiful! There were about 15-20 people at the top, but it wasn’t crowded at all. I stood up there for about half and hour, taking pictures, enjoying the breeze, and just looking at Florence from above. I will definitely have to take Lindsey up here the morning we are in Florence!

Yesterday in printmaking class I finished drawing my lithograph on to my stone, so tomorrow I am going to etch it with acids and print it! I’m very excited because I’ve never printed with stone before.

Some of my friends and I have also decided to have a “Dinner night” every Wednesday night (I posted a photo of the first one a couple posts ago). Last night’s was so much fun. Emily made a pasta salad, Justine made a green salad, and Ariel (my roommate) made a fruit salad! It was a night of good salads!

I will post pictures of the top of the Duomo probably later on today, since it is taking a long time to upload.

Ciao!

On Thursday I might visit the Duomo and the great statue of David!

Here are some pictures I took in Siena with my Digital Camera: