Firenze! Part II

Sun 25 Jan 2009

*********Friday***********
Friday was bittersweet, having to leave the hostel. In retrospect, we probably should have gotten everyone's contact information, but at that point we didn't really think about it. I do vaguely remember telling Crystal to friend me on Facebook when we got back to the hostel, so I guess I'll see when I get some internet if that happened.

Nick, Chelsea and I got up at the ungodly 7 a.m. to start our day, which, after the night before, gave us about four hours of sleep. That would soon turn out to be the theme of the weekend. Surprisingly, Sam was up getting free breakfast the same time we were. We parted ways, hoping to one day see each other again.

The three of us headed out right after we ate in search of Michelangelo's The David. We hadn't bought tickets ahead of time and wanted to make sure we got to see it. After some misled wandering, we ended up at Accademia where the statue is housed. We'd been warned of hours-long lines and the need to purchase tickets ahead of time with a specific appointment given to you on them. Instead, we arrived at the museum to no lines, hardly any people at all in fact, and the ability to get right in and power walk towards the statue. Which also proved to be unnecessary, because, as I said, there was pretty much no one there.

Seeing the David is for certain my favorite, most memorable part of the weekend. They don't let you take pictures, but I doubt I'd need them anyway with the mental shots I'm left with. I knew it was an incredible work of art, but somehow the knowledge of the sheer size of the statue had eluded me until this day. It's absolutely huge. It's immaculate and perfect, up on a pedestal and as big as Goliath, not David, should have been. For me, it was literally breathtaking. I must have spent at least 15 minutes just gazing at it, and that's not including the time I took to look at it when I passed back through the room to get to to the other end of the museum. If there's any one bit of sightseeing that I would tell someone to do while in Firenze, it would be seeing the David, hands down.

The rest of the museum wasn't very large and didn't take us much more than an hour to get through. After, we went to St. Lucia (?) cathedral and museum, which, like Accademia, housed an immense collection of art that dated at least back to the early 1600s and at most back to the early 1300s. Which really is awing and nobling and made me think, partly about the sheer age and time the art had gone through and partly about how everything, every single piece of art we saw, was at least religious and almost entirely Christian. A lot of really interesting discussions and lessons about religion went on this weekend.

After the cathedral/museo we were ready for lunch. The MTV Europe bible guided us to an inexpensive, tiny (especially while lugging our huge travel backpacks) ristorante with amazing food and a really good vino rosso della casa. Another theme of the weekend would soon become ordering (at least) a bottle of red wine with every meal.

Full of food, we walked to the Duomo. We planned to wait to walk the 460-some odd steps until Lauren, Kristin and Felicia arrived the next day, but we couldn't help but look inside. That building is insane. After some contemplating and discussing, we decided that the building wasn't just so awing because it was so, so old, though that was certainly a part of it. It was also, we realized, because the Duomo is so massive on the outside, but it's also massive on the inside. Instead of being like a skyscraper in New York that's gigantic from the outside but once you step inside your head is only so far from the ceiling, inside the Duomo was so cavernous (and, of course, maddeningly gorgeous) that it's immense size was still visible and undeniable from inside the building. And that was a quite the architectural marvel to see, especially considering how long ago it was made.

After the Duomo it was starting to rain a bit and we went to go find our hostel so we could ditch our huge backpacks for the rest of the night. The lack of sleep caught up to us, or at least tried to, when we checked in. Our room was supposed to be for five people, but only had four beds at that point. We were just starting to fall asleep on three of them when two of the guys who worked there knocked to see bring in the last bed. We started to nod off again as they finished, but were awakened by a knock from a jock-ish looking kid who was also staying at the hostel.

His name was Blake, he was from Michigan, he was staying with 11 other kids who were studying in Roma, and he came in to say hi and meet us. He told us they were going out later and him and Nick exchanged numbers so we could meet up with them later. Nick called him later that night, Blake didn't pick up and we never saw or heard from him again, thus earning him the nickname of Blake the Flake for every future time I'll tell this story.

We met up with Kayla, Carrie, Alex and John for some pre-dinner drinks at a cafe. Prosecco, which is basically champagne, is a big before dinner drink for women in italia, and in Firenze it became a staple for us pretty quickly (or in Nick's case, a glass of red wine). For dinner we went to a place Kayla and Carrie had heard about from their hostel. The ristorante had a prizze fisse menu, and we were so stuffed with amazing food we couldn't do dessert.

We went to the Lion's Fountain for drinks after, which we came across randomly and where we toasted to Firenze. We split up afterwards; Nick, Chelsea and I were ready to take on a Firenze bar crawl, Kayla and Carrie went back to their hostel after dinner and Alex and John peaced after drinks.

We stumbled onto the grand opening of a packed club and a couple other places. It was pretty late at night when, like the night before, we came back across the Duomo, lit up gorgeously at night. With just the three of us, we were trying, pretty unsuccessfully, to take a picture of ourselves and the Duomo. A group of about six girls were passing by, and, in uncertain English, asked, "Do you want? Us? Take photo? Of you?"

"Si, si, photo, grazie!" we replied. And after, "You want? Us? Take photo? Of you?"

"Yes, si, thank you!" they said. Then, grazie's and ciao's were exchanged as we parted ways. But while they were still within hearing range, Chelsea sighed, "I love Italy."

The girls' heads snapped back. "You speak English?" they asked, seemingly shocked.

Well, yeah we do. They laughed and told us our italian had been so good they thought we were italian. I have to say, it was a good ego boost after only two weeks of Italian language class ever for Chelsea and me. We walked with them while trying to (unsuccessfully) find the Shot Cafe again, but instead came across a cheap diner-type place that was still open selling breakfast and beer after 3 a.m. Right next door held what would become our first visit to a Firenze club. We lost those other girls somewhere, but had an awesome time dancing with each other and italians for the rest of the night. On the way back to our hostel, we went on the doomed adventure to if we could find Sam, which we must have subconsciously known would be unsuccessful. We got back to the hostel after 4 a.m. and passed out so we could be ready to meet Lauren, Felicia and Kristin at the train station the next day before 11 a.m.