Florence, Italy (April 10-11)

Before we left Siena, we went to see the Duomo. It opened at ten so we checked out of the hotel, and got some pastries for breakfast before. The Duomo was beautiful, so much detail... It was funny because every one working there had a shirt that said, "Hello my name is Duccio" along with their real name tag. We finally figured out that Duccio designed and/or painted alot of the Duomo... Also there was "OPA" all over the place inside. We never did figure that one out!
One that note, we left Siena and took a train to Florence. We had some trouble finding the hostel until we ran into some other American students who were staying there. They told us they had been in Rome for the earthquake and their building was shaking.... We have met so many people who said similar things to this, I am so glad we didn't have to deal with it! The hostel was extremely nice! They had everything you could possibly want: cheap but good restaurant, two bars, swimming pool with changing neon lights, sauna, washing machines, internet and maps an all the info you could want along with planned daytrips to places. It was odd because everyone spoke English and all the signs and posters were in English. The whole atmosphere seemed very American to me...
After we got settled we went out to explore a little. We found an awesome outdoor daily market where we could buy any souvenirs we could possibly want. I got a green leather journal with celtic knots on it. We saw the Duomo there and got some gelato and sat by the river enjoyed the late evening. That night we had pasta back at the hostel for dinner, got a 3 euro bottle of wine that the hostel was offering and played cards and finished the day with a swim.
The next day, since it was Good Friday, I tried to find a church to attend Good Friday mass. There was church we could see, just the steeple, we kept looking for it, but it was never where we thought it should be! We gave up on that and went to the bridge that has all the really expensive jewelry shops on it (Ponte Vecchio). It was beautiful, we sat on the bridge and people watched for a while then got some gelato (We had gelato every single day we were in Italy) and explored the other side of the river. On our way back to the hostel I found a church, so I went there and tried to decipher the passion of Christ in Italian using my knowledge of the story, the paper with the italian on it and my French, Spanish, English and Latin skills. I think I got most of it! Natalie and Jessie were supposed to go see the David while I was there, since I had already seen it. Unfortunately the line was too long, so they didn't. We ate pizza in the hostel that night and went swimming again.
The next day we went to see the David early; it is amazing how large and detailed he is! I can actually understand why he is famous--unlike the Mona Lisa... We then got some breakfast and checked out. Our Ryanair experiance on this trip was really bad. I didn't know it, but I was getting very sick and our bags were too heavy so we had to check, but I forgot to put my knife in the checked bag, so we had to check another..... Not a good day. But we made it successfully to the Paris hostel and then went straight to bed.

-Maria

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