Day 13

Hello!

Today was pretty awesome. I slept for about 10 hours last night, but woke up again with a sore throat and messy sheets. We didn't have to meet until noon so I got out of bed around 10 and just took my time getting ready and eating breakfast.

We met at the middle of the Ponte Vecchio at 10 and it was a disgusting mass of people just crowding the bridge. I'm typically not bothered by large crowds of people, but this was just uncomfortable in every way. It might have been because my head was throbbing and my nose was perpetually running. By the time the Tintori girls met us, the mass of people had cleared a bit. So we walked down the road toward the Pitti Palace, a building completed in the late 15th century by the Pitti family, who were friends with the Medici family at the time. These days, the palace acts as a museum for a variety of galleries. At the present moment there's the permanent exhibition in the Galleria Palatine, plus a modern art exhibit, a gallery of dresses from the mid-1800s and beyond, as well as a vast and beautiful garden known as the Boboli Gardens.

On the way there, however, we stopped in a little church to see one large painting in a small chapel. It was the first mannerist painting of the Renaissance. The scene is of the deposition of Christ; the colors are fantastically bright - there are pinks that fade into blue and shades of green that you've probably never seen before. It was awfully lit until we got a kind woman to turn the lights on for us for a few minutes before they closed the church up.

When we made it to the Pitti Palace, we went straight for the the Palatina Gallery. It was awful at first. The first few rooms we were in were filled to the brim with angry people who were on guided tours and there was no ventilation, so it was hot in there (I said, "Pitti Palace? More like Heat-y Palace, am I right?" It's Sunday Punday you guys.) We finally made it to a place where there were few people and we could enjoy our surroundings. The ceilings were all incredibly decorated with baroque gilding and descriptive frescoes. There was a countless number of paintings in each room, displayed in Salon-style where they're all over all the walls. For those of you who have seen my room in Orlando, this museum hung all their paintings like I hung the stuff on my big wall. Anyway, that got kind of annoying especially when we had to move far away from a piece just to see it without a glare. But overall we saw some cool stuff (a lot of Raphael pieces) and we were done really early. Dr. Zaho let us go free after that exhibit.

So Katia and I headed straight for the costume exhibit while everyone else went right to the gardens (except Zaho and Ana Maria - they went back to Tintori because Ana Maria wasn't feeling well at all). We saw so many cool dresses and had fun trying to guess what was from what time. We weren't very good at it. But my favorite dress was from 1910 because it looked like it was straight from the Titanic. After that we went into the gardens and found Zoe and Krista and just walked around, eventually finding the rest of the gang. It was gorgeous. At one point the phrase "tremendously beautiful" scrolled through my head. It was just so lush and green and the layout made everything feel mysterious and magical. I thought I would see the characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream prancing through the woods at any minute. We eventually made our way to a lovely staircase that led us to the most incredible rose garden I've ever seen. It was laid in an a geometric pattern with a fountain in the middle. There were walls on one side of it covered in hanging roses, a cute building on another side, and the rest was open to a view of the surrounding land. I loved it. I felt so at home because I was in my long floral skirt. The air was so crisp and fresh and it rained at one point but I didn't care at all. Everything was just beautiful and nothing was wrong in those gardens.

Eventually Katia and I made our way towards the exit in order to find a bathroom. It was a bit of a trek in itself to get to the exit. On the way there we passed another cool little rose garden, then we found a really funny statue of a short, fat, naked man sitting on a giant turtle. Like, what? I loved it. Then we discovered the most amazing place I've seen on this trip so far. It's called the Buontalenti Grotto. I didn't find this out until we had walked away and found a map somewhere; there were no plaques that I could see to describe the space we were in, so I have some personal research to do. Man, was it incredible. I don't even know how to explain it. I tried explaining it to Geoff later and could only use pictures and a video I took to do the job. (http://www.google.it/search?hl=en&gs_rn=14&gs_ri=psy-ab&cp=14&gs_id=1h&xhr=t&q=buontalenti+grotto&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.46751780,d.bGE&biw=1086&bih=597&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=EjyZUbPsPM3Esgbg3YHQBA) So there's that link, I hope it helps. It was just this place created with I'm assuming some bricks and a lot of this rock and shells and I don't even know. There were some frescoes on the walls, but all the figures and some animals were created in relief with this shell material. The domes ceiling was frescoed as well and there were a few really cool sculptures in there. I just didn't get it. My mind was blown. Please look at the pictures of it on Google.

So after that Katia and I used the bathroom then left the palace to wander that side of the river. We walked down a side street to discover a small piazza with a gelato shop and a few restaurants, so we got gelato. Then we walked around some more and eventually ran into everyone else as they were emerging from a store. A few seconds after this encounter, Brittany said, "My wallet isn't here," as she was rummaging through her purse. All our hearts dropped. We asked where she saw it last, if her purse was closed, etc. Her purse had been partially closed when she was looking into a storefront window and felt someone bump into her. She turned around and saw a man and woman, the woman with a cleft lip. She said she felt creeped out but thought no more of it until she found her wallet missing. So we stood on the sidewalk for some time while she made different phone calls and figured out what to do. Emily and I eventually walked with her back to the Pitti Palace to speak with the police there. It was a wreck. First they wouldn't let us in the gate to talk to them, then when we entered, the man didn't speak English and barely seemed like he wanted to help. Though he gave us an address to the nearest station with English-speaking officers. (They went there later and apparently the men barely spoke English and were openly making fun of the girls there. Ugh.)

When we left Pitti again, a few people went with Brittany to the other station, others shopped, and Katia and I took the long way home. We walked down some streets we hadn't been down and peeked into a few cute-looking shops. We eventually made it home, sat for a few minutes, and decided to go out for dinner. Geoff had just left for the same reason, so we joined him in the street and walked to a pizza place Dr. Zaho had suggested in the Santa Croce Piazza called Finisterrae. It was awesome and delicious. Katia and I ordered a large pizza that was 2 classic pizzas (Capria and Bianca with eggplant) combined. Our waiter, Giuseppe, thought we wouldn't be able to finish it. We couldn't. We each ate 3 slices and gave up. So Geoff, who had eaten a full-sized personal pizza with a bunch of toppings, finished it off for us by eating the last 2 slices. Giuseppe was proud that our plates were clean, so he gave us a "present" with the check: free shots of limoncello. Neither Geoff or I drinks, but we did them and man did it burn. But it was real cold out so it was a nice way to warm my chest.

After that filling dinner (it's been over 2 hours and Geoff is still "so full") we walked home and have just been relaxing. I got to video chat with my family, so that was nice. I miss them and my friends now, but I'm sure going to miss this when I'm gone.

Now I'm really sleepy and ready for bed. Good night!!