Florence

From Rome to Florence, we took the bullet train. I haven't been on one since Japan. It wasn't as fast as the Shinkansen, but it did have some lovely scenery. And a lot of tunnels.

Florence is more modern than I thought it would be.
There are so many shops. Dozens, or hundreds of leather places. Lots of tourist shops. And a lot of really beauitful shops. Plenty that sell hand made stuff.
There are a lot of outdoor markets too, which are fun to walk around.

We stumbled across the boar statue, which I recognized it immediately because Dad has a little one in the living room. So, you're supposed to pet the boar's nose, and if you do then you will come back to Florence. I know because I asked my cousin about it just now.


Ooh, here's a strange story. In middle school, I had a pretty bookmark that I liked a lot. It said "here I fell asleep." I guess it must have been a gift from my uncle, or cousin. And then I lost it.
So as we were walking along the river in Florence, we spotted a nice paper shop called Il Papiro. While inside, I noticed a tray of bookmarks, and the shape of them seemed familiar. Then I gasped, because there in the tray was the same exact bookmark that I had in middle school! That company is the one that created the design, and they're the only ones that carry it.
The shopkeeper liked my story, so she gave me the bookmark. Now I have my middle school bookmark back.
I walk into a shop half way across the world, and find my old bookmark. Wow.

We also stumbled onto the tomb of Boticceli.

Took a day trip to the little nearby town of Fiesole.
And we went to the Uffizi museum, where there's a lot of famous art. Like the Birth of Venus painting.

And we went to the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, and oddly enough, Machiavelli.

Well, we went to a lot of museums, and saw a lot of famous statues. The Bargello has a lot of statues. And we saw some Michelangelo statues at a Medici building.
I climbed to the top of the Duomo. It's a freaking awesome view.
Ooh, and there's a museum of works of inlaid stone, which are incredible too.

There are a lot of statues of David. But the one that is all over Florence is Michelangelo's David. The whole city is enamored with it.

I've seen several of them. And we got to the biggest one, figuratively and literally, early before it was surrounded by packs of tourists.
I've seen a lot of naked statues on this trip. For some reason, most of them are guys. Eh. Weird. And a lot of the women statues look very guyish. And visa versa. It's hard to tell from behind a lot of the time.

Every day on Florence, Mom and I walked around in the morning, then came back in the afternoon to collapse in our hotel. Then a few hours later when I actually had some of my energy left, I would go out on my own to wander around. It's fun to wander around and explore on my own.
Man, my feet got so tired though. Phew.

Our last morning in Florence, we went across the river. My cousin's sister has a jewelry school, called Alchimia. So she showed us around. It's a great place.
And that afternoon, we met my cousin, Christy. And we went to her place.