A firenze

Well, on Thursay morning we took a two hour train to Florence. All of us were spread out in the train because the train service in Rome was less than helpful. I sat next to a guy that we have dubbed Europunk. He decided his foot room and elbow space on the armrest were more important than anyone elses comfort. Jackie sat next to a nun, and we mostly slept the whole way here. When we got to the city, we stepped out of the station and finally understood that we had left Rome. The city was clean. It did not smell like urine, or beer and the people, and the cars were friendlier and generally more open to Americans and tourists in general. Our apartment here is so nice. There is a pillow for each person and bedspace made to suit as many people as we have. No more sardines.:)The company left a bottle of wine and a bowl of fruit for us to enjoy as we look out over the plaza below our window. We met with Joe at the city's Duomo and walked around the city for a little while. Joe had booked tickets for us at the Accadmicca and we got in to see Michaelangelo's David. The statue is huge, which is odd considering the idea of david being so small. But I understand why the work is so revered. I cannot believe the detail old Mikey put into it at the age of 29. Davids right hand in particular, the strong one, is so detailed that the veins pop and you almost expect the see blood flowing under the surface of the marble. We were given a while to sit down and draw David. I felt though, that my work is basically inadiquate to compare with David, and I would not want to see his beauty marred on a page in my book. I wandered instead and found quite a nice sculpture of Magdeleine. She was put in the back corner of one room behind other sculptures, and she was, in genereal. ignored by the wave of people that came through the room. As there were no chairs in the gallery, i plopped myself down on the floor and drew her for probably 45 minutes. I was amazed at the number of people that spent time looking at her increased once my presence there seemed more important. I had many people looking over my shoulder at my work, but generally, i ignored them and kept skecthing. I am pretty sure it is one of my better drawings of late. The issue with the people watching has to make me wonder what else I could make tourists stop and look at, just by sketching them. When I left, I thanked the guard for not making me get off the floor and we left to go to the Duomo {dome}. Joe joined me and my roomates on a 463 step trek up the dome. The view was quite beautiful and the late afternoon haze created an almost surreal perspective of the Tuscan hills. We spent awhile up there then headed down and went to dinner, without Joe. Andie and I shared a bowl of roasted wild boar, which was quite tender, and therefore probably not wild. The waiters joked with us by singing american songs as they passed by and generally we had a good evening. Because we had to work on our regional roman wrap up for the morning we went to a bar to get some euro cappucino before we got to work. We stayed up until about 130 working on reviews and diagrams while below, outside our window the restaurant had live music playing. I showered, with actual continual hot water and went to bed.

This morning i had a rude awakening when a truck tried to fit inside a candy jar. Well, knock it over anyway. The hustle and bustle below us started early but since i was awake anyway, i didn't really mind. We met joe again, at the duome, since it is the most visible place in the city and walked around the city comparing ren architectuire to gothic. We looked at some plazas and spent some time at the river sketching the Ponte Veccio. While I was sketching, a nice young australian told me my work was "gorgeous" But I think he just wanted to sound like steve irwin. As I stood at the wall by the river, i saw atleast 4 different groups of poeple skulling on the river. I was sad though as there space was limited and they had to keep turning around. After the Ponte Veccio we walked to a church where my roomies and I gave our wrap up of rome and therefore finished all the work for the quarter for LA 411. Its pretty nice to have that out of the way. We were set free early and we met up with Kelly who is studying here and walked with her through the many markets and venders in the area. We bought produce and groceries and Jeff Yuen made us 5 girls dinner for the 4th time, which we ate happily around the table in our cute apartment above the plaza.

Tommorrow we hope to take a day trip to Venice but as the train system is on strike today, it might not happen. I do hear that these strikes are frequent and quickly ended, so, here's hoping.