This morning I woke up at 7am to be ready to climb the dome at 8:30am, but Dr. Zaho took one look at the weather (cloudy and wet until the afternoon) and changed the plan to meet at Capa at 10am. So all of us, who had woken up early, didn't know what to do. We don't have much food here anymore so I suggested eating at an American diner near Capa. We got there right as it opened at 9. It was so cute. It's called The Diner, the interior is painted with brightly colored paints, there are pictures of famous American musicians all over the walls, and the music playing throughout the restaurant was all popular American songs from the 1980s. We (Geoff, Katia, Krista, Emily, Zoe, and I) were the only ones in the place and we had so much fun. The food was delicious too. I got a big cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream and a breakfast platter with one chocolate chip pancake, two scrambled eggs, cooked broccoli, and whole wheat toast with a fresh blueberry jam. Oh my goodness it was divine. Geoff pointed out the irony of the whole meal: we're so used to eating at Italian restaurants in America, yet we found ourselves eating at an American restaurant in Italy. The interior and the food felt like home (the American waitress also added to the effect), but when we looked out the doors near our table we saw a centuries-old Florentine street. It was so bizarre and hilarious.
After we were done eating that delicious and perfect meal, we walked over to Capa and hung around until a decision had been made as to how we were going to start our day. We decided to climb the dome first because the weather had cleared up and it was gorgeous out again. So we headed over to the Duomo and got in line. When we were near the door we got sassed by a woman and her daughter who thought they could enter the cathedral that way, but Dr. Zaho ended up getting the upper hand and we all got a kick out of it. Once we got in we immediately began climbing stairs. There were so many. There were so many different kinds of stairs too, it was weird. But it went by quickly and it was totally worth the sweat when we got to the top! The view was incredible. We could see every part of the city and it was easy to pick out landmarks after being here for nearly 3 weeks. And after climbing to the top of so many things and places with beautiful panoramic views of the city, it's cool to see those places from the one thing we used to center ourselves with. We hung out up there for a while, Zoe gave her presentation, and we all took a lot of pictures. "There's no place like dome" - Katia.
When we eventually made our way back to solid ground we broke for lunch. Everyone went to Mario's for lunch but me, Katia, Brittany, and Ana Maria. Instead we went to this place called "pizzA" because we wanted pizza. I ended up eating bread with oily potato slices on it. It was weird and not that awesome. Then we went to Geoff's favorite gelato place, Grom, and it was also not up to par with what I was hoping for. La Carraia is where it's at. After lunch we walked over to San Lorenze where we were supposed to meet and just sat on the church steps and chatted for about an hour before the rest of the gang showed up.
We all walked around the church and entered the back doors to see the Medici Chapels. This, as you can imagine, is where the entire Medici family is buried. The first room is essentially just a vast marble floor with dozens of tombs scattered throughout it. This summer, though, they have an exhibit set up in there too. So we saw some cool art as well as the tombs of the most famous family of the Italian Renaissance. The next room was a giant room called the Hall of the Princes, where four or five giant tombs were on the walls. It looks like someone vomited black marble all over this room, because that's essentially all it was. And the tombs were humongous. Like, small giants could have been buried in there. It was weird but also really cool. The next room was much easier on the eyes, because Michelangelo designed it himself. There were four major tombs with a total of 9 big sculptures by Michelangelo.
Once we were done with that room the place closed and we were done with our day. Katia and I walked around a bit and eventually made our way home to sit on the terrace and enjoy the weather. We're having our tortellini for the last time in our apartment tonight. Bummer.
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