13: Spring Break Part 1 - FLORENCE

Before I talk about my particular adventures in Italy, I first want to say that I have again failed to be a normal girl in my preference for romance languages.  French doesn't do it for me, and Italian just sounds silly.  Throughout my total of six days in Italy, every time I heard the Italian language, all I could think about was this:

Even Spanish isn't having the effect it used to... and I can't seem to tell the difference between it and Catalan... Maybe Romanian will impress?  Otherwise its just Portuguese.  I might be biased.

So it is safe to say that I easily resisted the charms of the Italian males, though whether they have very much "charm" is also something to be decided.  Here are my favorite pick-up lines that I heard while walking around Florence and Rome (in order).

1. Hey baby girl.  Wanna have my babies?
2. I want to know you.
3. OH MY GODDDD (though, of course, the "God" sounded more like "Got" with the accent)
4. Bella!/Ciao bella! (standard)
5. Hiiiiiiiii!
6. Hey baby!

Italian men were particularly adamant about showing their affection in Florence, where I was traveling with a few other girls.  Thankfully meeting up with Dan drastically reduced the amount of cat-calling.

I arrived in Florence via Bologna last Wednesday.  My friends had all left the weekend before to start their vacations earlier, but I decided to stay behind and maybe catch any classes that we would have on Monday and Tuesday.  Of course, all of these classes were canceled and I ended up doing quite a lot of reading.  One day I even went into seven different Chinese discount shops.  I also made a video a lá Paris, Je T'aime's "Arrondissement," which I will be posting sometime this week.  Safe to say that I was very happy to get to Florence and meet up with my friend Ora for some good human contact.

I arrived in the city rather late, so I didn't get much of a feel for Florence until the next morning.  Unfortunately Ora still had class during that week so she wasn't able to show me around much.  But that was completely fine, as her roommate from last semester, Melissa, was visiting her at the same time.  We were instant travel buddies and, with the help of the ever-helpful Rick Steves, we managed to see quite a lot on Thursday.

First view of the Duomo... nice.

After eating delicious sandwiches, Melissa and I headed into the historical area of Florence.  As we walked from Ora's apartment to the Duomo, the city suddenly turned into that mental image of what Italy should look like: golden houses, tiny winding streets, and suddenly: the most ornate church exterior I've ever seen.  Though it is known as the Duomo, its technically named Santa Maria del Fiore and was built sometime in the 1870s.  It was absolutely beautiful, with green and pink marble, statues, paintings... so beautiful.  Unfortunately I was wearing shorts so we couldn't go into the church that day.  We tried to walk in and were promptly kicked out by a very strict Italian security guard.  We checked out the Baptistery, where copies of Ghiberti's famous bronze doors replace the originals (which are now in the Duomo's museum).  The copies were still amazing though.  It's insane to think that they are basically two-dimensional.

The front of the Duomo

The side of the Duomo

Ghiberti's bronze doors

They weren't very wealthy...

After ogling the bronze doors, Melissa and I made it up to the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi.  I had had enough time away from the excessive amounts of palaces in Sintra and I was ready to see the interior of one belonging to one of the richest and most famous families in European history... and the palace was fantastic.  It was later owned by the Riccardi family (hence the name), who definitely were not strangers to wealth, and the interior showed it.  The Chapel of the Magi, which is instantly recognizable to anyone with even the smallest amount of art history knowledge (like me), was fantastic.  Inside there was also a ballroom with the most gorgeous painted ceiling I've ever seen and mirrors lining the walls, all of which were decorated with paintings.  Melissa and I definitely took advantage of the paintings and took, perhaps, the classiest Myspace photos known to man.

It would be weird to have this in my future house, right?

After the palace, we wandered a few backstreets and found the Casa di Dante, which was disappointing.  The tiny museum was expensive and crowded with excessive information about almost everything but Dante himself.  Oh well.  At least I can tell Mr. Healy, my high school World Lit teacher, that I went to the house where Dante maybe? probably? lived.

Actual Dante portrait though.

With a bit of a information-headache, Melissa and I continued our walk through Florence, passed the Orsan-Michele, and arrived in the Piazza Signoria, where the Palazzo Vecchio stands in front of the Uffizi Gallery.  We didn't go into either of these buildings: the palace because Rick Steves told us it wasn't worth it, and the Uffizi, which was far too close to being closed at that point to stand in the ridiculously long line.  We did pop into the Palazzo Vecchio's front courtyard and the outdoor statue exhibit, which houses the original Rape of the Sabines by Giovanni Bologna.  Very cool.

View of the Arno River from Ponte Vecchio

We then walked over to Ponte Vecchio, which was crazy crowded and full of GOLD!  We crossed to the other side of the river, had a coffee and received a free pastry, and then walked to the Piazzale Michelangelo.  From this square you can see all of Florence.  Definitely one of the most magnificent views I've ever seen in my life.  Photos seriously don't do it justice.  Looking over Florence like this might have been my favorite part of the entire trip.

Me and my travel buddy Melissa at Piazzale Michelangelo

After the Piazzale Michelangelo it was time to return to Ora, get dinner, and head out on the town.  All I will say about that night is that it involved too much tequila and I now owe Ora quite a few favors.

Lion Friend #1 of Italy.  

The next day, Ora borrowed a few of her friend's museum passes and we beelined for the Bargello, which was amazing.  The sculpture in that museum, which used to be a prison and police station way back when, was incredible.  Since we never made it to the Uffizi, this was definitely my favorite museum.  There, I made my first lion friend of my trip.  The amount of pictures I have with stone lions is starting to get a little strange.




After the Bargello, we went to an "American Diner" owned by a British guy named Valentino in the heart of historyical Florence... but it worked.  Best BLT I've ever had.  And then... things started getting a little strange.

First, there was San Lorenzo market.  I was pretty excited to go to there and find a nice leather handbag despite the fact that I always seem to be targeted in flee markets and other outdoor markets all over the world.  Apparently I look very gullible and scared, which somehow translates into possible profits for very adamant vendors who speak very little English.  I was purusing one little shop and found the perfect bag, though I was a little confused as to why the strap was so small.  A young Italian man came over to help me and seemed very confused as to why I wanted a larger strap on the bag.  After I explained about shoulder straps, he said to be very seriously, "But that's a man's handbag."  I almost laughed in his face and quickly exited the shop.  Oh, Italy.

However my buzz from this ridiculous moment soon disappeared.  I was still looking for a bag when a very friendly middle-aged Italian man came over and ushered me and Ora into his shop.  He was very adamant about the selection and quality of his bags, but after a little bit of haggling I decided I wasn't particularly interested.  Unfortunately he took this as a sign for further haggling and continued to lower the price until he suddenly blew up in a fit of self-important pity.  He started lecturing us on all the work that he does, all the designing and leather working and how all the other shops are copying his designs with lesser value.  He accused us of making him drive down his prices until he would basically make no profit and started pin-pointing Ora's bag, which she had bought in the beginning of the semester, as work far lesser than his.  Of course Ora wasn't going to let him talk that way about one of her purchases, and I just tried to slowly back away before he tried to show me another handbag.  After all his declarations of designing and quality, I thought it might be a bit rude to simply tell him I didn't like his bags enough to buy one.  We finally escaped and thought that our bout with crazy people was over and done with for the day.

And then Accademia happened.

The Galleria dell'Accademia is where The David (you know, just a little famous) lives, so of course we had to go.  Armed with the museum passes (which gave us free tickets), we went in and tried to get free admission.  At the Bargello, the ticket person had barely looked at the passes and given us tickets, but at the Accademia, the woman behind the studied the passes and proclaimed, "These are not you!"  Ora angrily insisted that they were ours, but the woman didn't believe us at all.  She even rejected Ora's, which actually was her pass.  Melissa and I tried to insist as well, but I am not actually Korean and Melissa did not have red hair, so our lies were pretty pitiful.   The woman behind the counter began screaming about how we were committing a crime, how we were stealing someone's identity (though we hadn't stolen a thing... we had been given their identities very freely), and suddenly yelled, "I'm calling the police!"

Of course we began freaking out, pleading with her to just let us pay for the ticket.  But she stomped out of the ticket booth and pulled aside a security guard, who looked at our cards and said thoughtfully, "Well these aren't you."  Yes, we had established that, Mr. Security Guard.  After quite a lot of arguing and yelling, the security guard finally convinced the ticket woman to just sell us tickets.  She practically threw them at us and we retreated into the museum.  We sat down, heads still whirling from our almost-arrest, when suddenly Ora leaned forward and said, "Oh look.  There's the David."  I don't know what it is about the statue that makes it so amazing, but I truly stood in front of it for ten minutes, mesmerized.  Something about the facial expression on that statue is just mind-blowing.  You think you know a work of art until you are standing right in front of it...  I wish I could have taken a picture but, of course, they want to sell lots of prints and postcards so that wasn't allowed.  The rest of the museum was just okay, though they had a pretty neat exhibit of gilded paintings.  The David was worth the drama and ticket price though.

I ate this entire pizza.  I'm not ashamed.

We walked back to the Duomo after that and began our food tour: First, we got some delicious gelato from Grom, and then headed back to Ora's apartment.  That night we trekked to Florence's best pizzeria and ate the delicious pizza in a rather sketchy park in a slight drizzle... and yet the pizza was still amazing.

Secret croissant

We returned to the apartment, napped, and then headed out again late that night to find a "secret bakery."  There are apparently several of these in Florence.  Our specific secret bakery is, by day, some sort of import/export business that bakes pastries at night and then ships them during the day.  The workers who have to bake all of these pastries so late at night are apparently very distraught by the unfair hand they were dealt (baking pastries for a living... rough), so they sell pastries at night through their backdoor.  At 3 AM, we got in a line in front of a close door, which a worker in a chef's jacket occasionally opened, took orders, and then handed out nondescript white bags full of croissants.  We had to pay in cash (no trace!), received our croissants, and then ate them as we returned to the apartment.  They did very well to distract us from the multitude of creepy Italian men.  What they did not realize is that a chocolate-filled croissant (or in my case, two such croissants) is far and away more desirable than their company.

Me with il Porcellino, who bares a striking resemblance to my dog.

Me and my buddy Machiavelli

The next morning was my last morning in Florence, so we got up super early and tried to go to the Uffizi but were conquered by a three-hour-long line.  Instead, we took pictures of the statues of iconic Italians outside the museum, got the best hot chocolate in Florence at Rivoire, and finally made it inside the Duomo, which was beautiful and very cold.  We also walked over to the Mercato Nuovo, where I finally found my leather bag and received lots of luck from il Porcellino, the iconic boar statue in Florence.  After a sandwich run, it was time for me to board a train for Rome... But first, a few more photos:

Locks from Lovers on the Ponte Vecchio

Inside the Duomo... so beautiful

I was a little obsessed with my new bag...

And thus marks the end of this particular post.  Far more fun times to come in the next one!  Roma!