Firenze

Ah sorry everyone that I haven't posted everything, I've been sooo busy! ok so heres a recap of my week.
last week we began our "internships" which so far have just been the grad students who work at the museum take us around the city talking to us about the different things we are seeing, one day it was ancient roman stuff, another day it was works by caravaggio, and today it was the significance of the different streets. Its hard to understand them sometimes because they are speaking very fast italian, but my comprehension skills are definitely improving (I can now understand almost all the words in the italian versions of the disney songs, i call that a win!). In class we are just watching movies (depressing neorealism movies) and reading stories (depressing stories) and learning grammar and stuff (which is kind of depressing) hahaha, but actually its kind of fun, and i am getting better because i can just focus on italian, and I have other people here to help me, which is super nice.
So on friday our teachers took us to the Vatican, where we went inside the basilica. It was overwhelming, so grand, and its the biggest basilica in the world. (there is actually an unwritten rule that it has to be the biggest) and there are actually marks in the center, citing where the other churches end making sure that st. peters is the biggest. Afterwords we went down to where they had all the tombs of all the old popes (and a swedish queen). I even secretly snagged a pic of john paul II's tomb (i quickly ran away because the security guard was coming after me hehe). but it was incredible, so massive and grand. I even rubbed the foot of the st. peters statue from the original basilica (apparently it brings good luck).
So after that my group came back and then about half of us went to the train station to go to FIRENZE (florence). we got a cheap regional train that took about 4 hours, which was nice because i got all my homework done. So we arrived around 9ish and went to find our hostel, well unfortunately when we got to where our hostel was we couldn't get in, some people had to let us in and they said they had never seen anybody on the floor of our hostel. We got up to the floor and we met some americans (one of which goes to st. marys!!!!! it was sooooo weird!!!!!!!) anyways they said they had waited 3 hours for the lady to come let them into their rooms and they hadn't seen her since. So we called the lady and finally got a hold of her, and in the end she just told us to go find another place because she didn't want to deal with us, unfortunately we had already paid the 10% deposit.
So we were quite frustrated, but the americans we met told us about a nearby hostel so we went there and they were able to get us rooms for 20euro/night. so it ended up working out and the reception people at the new hostel were really helpful and nice.
So saturday we had reserved tickets for the museo uffizi, which was great because that meant we didn't have to stand in a super long line! the Uffizi was amazing!!!!! there was so much great art, and I even saw botticelli's Birth of Venus!!!!!! and primavera too!!!!!!!!! I was so excited you have no idea! It was amazing to see the original of something i have studied for so long. super cool.
So after that we went and looked a the duomo, but it cost to go up to the top, so we didn't. but we did got to hands down the best pizzeria ever!!!!!! that pizza was by far the best pizza i have had in italy. AMAZING! it was like gustopizza or something like that.
So by this time it was about 5ish, so we walked to the edge of the city up this huge hill to the piazza Michelangelo, where there was the most breathtaking view of firenze, it was incredibile! and saturday was gorgeous, 70 degrees and sunny!!!!! (I love the sun).
unfortunately on sunday it was about 50 degrees and raining (i felt like i was back in seattle), but it wasn't too bad because our only plan for the day was to see the Academia, where michelangelo's David is. There really isn't anything else in the museum except david, but David=wow, so worth the 18 euro we paid to see it. Its one of those things you think you've seen pictures of so why see it in person, but I'm telling you the pictures don't do it justice. that thing is massive!!! i think about 4 m high! and the detail in every curve is astounding. I probably stared at it for a good 20 min. it was mindblowing. seriously.
So after that we were super tired, so we just went and took an earlier train back to rome, where we more or less crashed.
So that was my week, this weekend we are going to assisi with my program, which should be fun, i'll try to keep this more updated.
Ciao tutti!!!
~Alyson~
:-)