Viva Firenze!
November 25
Yesterday… let’s see… what happened yesterday… I don’t even remember.
Oh, wait, yea I do. Yesterday was day #2 of “Viva Firenze.” Marilena and I had an entire list of museums and monuments and famous sights in Florence to go visit. Unfortunately due to some bad blood sugars we only went to two of the eight places BUT they were both awesome.
Our first stop was the old monastery in San Marco. Lots and lots of frescoes depicting. The. Same. Things. Over. And. Over. Again. Religious frescoes are really beautiful BUT when you see a million of the same one they get a little bit old. I’m glad that we went to the monastery though because the upper level of it was the sleeping quarters and all of the cells were open for the public to see. It sorta looked like a really depressing dorm with lots of religious symbols everywhere. It was really cool to see. Considering how much of an asshole he was, Savonarola was given a really big room.
After San Marco, we continued our walk downtown and were planning on heading up the dome of the Duomo but a long line and a low blood sugar stopped us. Instead we went to the Uffizi. Even though I’ve been to Firenze before and even though I’ve lived here for three months now, I have never been in the Uffizi. Unacceptable.
The line was reasonably short which was nice. The Uffizi is really great. Huge and full of super famous stuff. Even though we just sorta power-walked through it we did go to every single room. It’s cool because I have now taken so many art history courses that I don’t need a guide to tell me about any of the pieces. It’s like I can give myself my own tour of famous museums! Botticelli’s Birth of Venus was as impressive as I’ve always imagined it to be.
For lunch we ate at Yellow Bar. When we got there the guy seated us in a booth that fit four and already had two 13 year old boys sitting in it… eh, they really cram people into their restaurants. The boys looked horrified to be sitting next to us. It was awesome. A really good pizza and a really good beer (and a really good buzz) later we decided to head home.
At a bookstore on the way home I bought myself a new book. It’s been, well, three months since the last book I read (I just couldn’t get myself through the one I brought here, Wuthering Heights, for some reason) and have been itching to get back to reading – at SCU I always have about 5 books lined up to read. I ended up getting Running With Scissors. I can’t remember who it was that told me this was really good but I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time now. YAY! I’m so excited. Ahhh, new books; it’s the little things in life!
For the 10 minutes we were in the bookstore, it rained. How lucky are we?
For the rest of the afternoon Marilena and I watched one of the only in-English movies our family has. Out of Africa? I think it’s called that. We only finished about half of it but so far it’s been good. It was so freezing in our house that Marilena and I both pulled our huge comforters out of our rooms to bundle up with on the couch – we got laughed at by the entire fam. Figures.
The plan for the night was to go to dinner at a well-known restaurant called Za’ Za’. We were excited cuz a) it was, liek, the first time that we were eating out for dinner since we’ve been in Firenze (Susana’s cooking is so good that we’ve been resisting eating out) and b) a lot of our friends wanted to go with us. Well… somehow our group of eight people ended up being a group of three. God I hate flakes. Well, it’s not even flakes – I hate when people say their going to do something then decide they’re not going to but assume you know they’re not doing it anymore and never formally let you know. Whatever.
Dinner with Marilena and Amelia was so much fun I’m actually happy no one else came. Our waiter LOVED Marilena. He kissed her on the cheek. Hehe. It was cool because he only spoke to us in Italian even though he knew that we were American and spoke English. AND it was even cooler because he knew that I understand everything he was saying and, liek, complimented me on it! FINALLY. Jeez.
Gnocchi, pasta del mare, bruschetta, a liter of wine, bread, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar later we headed home. On the way Marilena got in a fight with a lady in a gelato shop. It was retarded. Wait, no, the lady working in the shop was retarded. The whole scene was really funny actually. So gelato was nixed and our second option (which we settled on) was McDonald’s soft serve. It was yummyyyyy (and reminded me of late night trips with Steph to get soft serve at school; ahhh miss you steph!). At home before bed we tried to watch more of Out of Africa but it was so late and we were so dead that we only watched it for about 10 minutes before calling it a night. I must admit, our Viva Firenze weekend was a real success.
Yesterday… let’s see… what happened yesterday… I don’t even remember.
Oh, wait, yea I do. Yesterday was day #2 of “Viva Firenze.” Marilena and I had an entire list of museums and monuments and famous sights in Florence to go visit. Unfortunately due to some bad blood sugars we only went to two of the eight places BUT they were both awesome.
Our first stop was the old monastery in San Marco. Lots and lots of frescoes depicting. The. Same. Things. Over. And. Over. Again. Religious frescoes are really beautiful BUT when you see a million of the same one they get a little bit old. I’m glad that we went to the monastery though because the upper level of it was the sleeping quarters and all of the cells were open for the public to see. It sorta looked like a really depressing dorm with lots of religious symbols everywhere. It was really cool to see. Considering how much of an asshole he was, Savonarola was given a really big room.
After San Marco, we continued our walk downtown and were planning on heading up the dome of the Duomo but a long line and a low blood sugar stopped us. Instead we went to the Uffizi. Even though I’ve been to Firenze before and even though I’ve lived here for three months now, I have never been in the Uffizi. Unacceptable.
The line was reasonably short which was nice. The Uffizi is really great. Huge and full of super famous stuff. Even though we just sorta power-walked through it we did go to every single room. It’s cool because I have now taken so many art history courses that I don’t need a guide to tell me about any of the pieces. It’s like I can give myself my own tour of famous museums! Botticelli’s Birth of Venus was as impressive as I’ve always imagined it to be.
For lunch we ate at Yellow Bar. When we got there the guy seated us in a booth that fit four and already had two 13 year old boys sitting in it… eh, they really cram people into their restaurants. The boys looked horrified to be sitting next to us. It was awesome. A really good pizza and a really good beer (and a really good buzz) later we decided to head home.
At a bookstore on the way home I bought myself a new book. It’s been, well, three months since the last book I read (I just couldn’t get myself through the one I brought here, Wuthering Heights, for some reason) and have been itching to get back to reading – at SCU I always have about 5 books lined up to read. I ended up getting Running With Scissors. I can’t remember who it was that told me this was really good but I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time now. YAY! I’m so excited. Ahhh, new books; it’s the little things in life!
For the 10 minutes we were in the bookstore, it rained. How lucky are we?
For the rest of the afternoon Marilena and I watched one of the only in-English movies our family has. Out of Africa? I think it’s called that. We only finished about half of it but so far it’s been good. It was so freezing in our house that Marilena and I both pulled our huge comforters out of our rooms to bundle up with on the couch – we got laughed at by the entire fam. Figures.
The plan for the night was to go to dinner at a well-known restaurant called Za’ Za’. We were excited cuz a) it was, liek, the first time that we were eating out for dinner since we’ve been in Firenze (Susana’s cooking is so good that we’ve been resisting eating out) and b) a lot of our friends wanted to go with us. Well… somehow our group of eight people ended up being a group of three. God I hate flakes. Well, it’s not even flakes – I hate when people say their going to do something then decide they’re not going to but assume you know they’re not doing it anymore and never formally let you know. Whatever.
Dinner with Marilena and Amelia was so much fun I’m actually happy no one else came. Our waiter LOVED Marilena. He kissed her on the cheek. Hehe. It was cool because he only spoke to us in Italian even though he knew that we were American and spoke English. AND it was even cooler because he knew that I understand everything he was saying and, liek, complimented me on it! FINALLY. Jeez.
Gnocchi, pasta del mare, bruschetta, a liter of wine, bread, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar later we headed home. On the way Marilena got in a fight with a lady in a gelato shop. It was retarded. Wait, no, the lady working in the shop was retarded. The whole scene was really funny actually. So gelato was nixed and our second option (which we settled on) was McDonald’s soft serve. It was yummyyyyy (and reminded me of late night trips with Steph to get soft serve at school; ahhh miss you steph!). At home before bed we tried to watch more of Out of Africa but it was so late and we were so dead that we only watched it for about 10 minutes before calling it a night. I must admit, our Viva Firenze weekend was a real success.
posted by tera a firenze at 6:20 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home