Firenze.

Florence:
After a weekend spent in Firenze, home of the David and the Duomo, this is what I have discovered: Florence is a touristy city chock full of jewelry, history, ancient churches, shoes on sale, glamorous stores, many museums, priceless art, gelaterias, and waffles with nutella.

Saturday I viewed Damien Hurst's diamond covered skull scuplture which was set alone in a completely black room (you can imagine the sparklyness). I also took a tour of the Medici's old mansion home, the Palazzo Vecchio, entirely covered in frescoes of greek gods and goddesses. I traversed una strada completely dedicated to diamond rings, bracelets, gold and silver necklaces, etc, all artfully displayed in giant glass windows facing the well populated streets. Bling!

The bad part about the weekend was that we did not sleep well Saturday night because of the noise on the street. The three other women and I stayed in a room that was entirely pink (bedding, curtains, walls) in a hostel owned by an angry Russian man who could speak a little Italian and a little English.

In spite of this, Sunday was a fantastic day of exploring and art viewing. We made it into the Uffizzi without any wait and walked around viewing the statues and famous paintings for almost three hours. My favorite part of the musuem was seeing Botecelli's Primavera. After the Uffizzi we had a great lunch of affordable personal pizzas made by an Italian man who did all of the cooking, cleaning, and waiting at a nearby pizzeria that he just opened in December. We learned that the trick to not paying over 9 euro for a bowl of vegetable soup is to make sure the restaurant does not charge a sitting charge in addition to tip. (Hello tourist city!).

We were amazed by the elaborate tombs kept company by sculptures of sad looking women in the Sante Croce Cathedral. I had alot of fun taking pictures of the arched ceiling, detailed relief, and red candles reflecting on a small statue of the mother Mary.

We witnessed a short lived sciopero (strike) on the beautiful Ponte Vecchio bridge (15minutes) and enjoyed espressos in the (very overpriced) caffes in the center.

Florence is a fantastic place to visit (and expensive!) but as I stepped off of the train after a brief 2.5 hour train ride and took the city bus back home, I was very, very happy to be back in the university town and historical center of Perugia, in my own cream colored bedroom with my very kind, considerate roomates.

Hurray for my first weekend of travel!!! Salute:)