La mia vita a Firenze: December 2, 2011

December 2, 2011

This morning I woke up a little after 7:00 and met my Medici class at the Medici Chapel at 9:00. Connected to the church of San Lorenzo, it is made up of the Chapel of the Princes and the new sacristy, which holds the tombs of Lorenzo il Magnifico and his brother Giuliano. It was very cool because we had never been there before and we didn’t even know it was there. The tombs of the two brothers were made my Michelangelo so it was fun to make comparisons with his other works we have seen over the course of the semester. After that, we went to Lorenzo’s library, which is one of the most well endowed libraries and the world. It has been beautifully reserved and it is just so grandiose! It was a very cool place to see and experience.

After Medici, I headed back to school because I had two hours before my Weaving the Tale class at 1:00. I finished up my preparations for my presentation on my paper topic for Medici on Monday, ate lunch, and did a little more work on my art project for Weaving the Tale. Then we had our Weaving the Tale class/workshop at 1:00, which was helpful in fleshing out our ideas and getting a little bit of feedback. We finished up around 2:30 and I headed home. Once I got home I worked on a little bit of homework and then Franzi and I decided to go to the Christmas Market because it wasn’t raining and it is supposed to rain all weekend.

We headed out around 4:30 so we could see all of the Christmas lights on our way to the market and see the market itself all lit up. We took quite a few detours on our way to Piazza Santa Croce because we followed all of the beautiful lights that are now all turned on because it’s December! We even got to see the Christmas Tree all lit up in Piazza del Duomo (although I did not get a photo, sorry!) It was little a Christmas wonderland with all of the beautiful lights up and down every street :) The market itself was another Christmas wonderland and we decided we want to come back like every night because it is such a fun place to be. It smells absolutely delicious with all of the German food, strudel, and mulled wine…yum. We wandered around, looking at all of the crafts and such for sale, which were all beautiful and, of course, we wanted to buy everything we saw. We did give in and buy a pastry that looked and tasted kind of like mini donuts but wasn’t exactly that…whatever it was, it was absolutely delicious! After spending about an hour at the market, we headed back in the direction of home but walked along the river, coming to Ponte Vecchio, which was decorated with Christmas lights as well. Plus, on top of everything, it was the most beautiful night—it was in the upper 50s even after the sun had gone down and it was clear so you could see the moon and the stars!

We got home a little after 7:00 and soon after it was time for dinner. Tonight was pizza night! We started out with my favorite little doughy rolls with salami and cheese, which I finally remembered the name of! BOMBOLINI! We followed that with salad and the most delicious pizza we have had so far :) We finished off with clementines even though we didn’t think we could eat anything else because we were all so full! We spent about an hour and a half together at dinner tonight, which was absolutely wonderful! I don’t even remember everything we talked about but we certainly had a good time :)

Now that dinner is over I am really quite tired so I will probably lie in bed and finish up White Christmas because I did not have a chance to do that last night. Then I’ll probably go to bed fairly early (at least for a Friday night) although I have nothing to do tomorrow morning so I get to sleep in as well! OH and I just realized that today was my last day of classes because next week is finals…that’s crazy. I hope all of you have a wonderful start to your weekends! Happy Opening to the cast of White Christmas, Happy Birthday to Ben, and Happy Christmas Fest (still) to everyone at St. Olaf!

All my love,

Kari