Tuesday, June 8th

Payton

Where to start? Well I'll start from the beginning. This morning began with the cooing of pidgins reverberating off the stone of our stone apartment. I rolled over, checked my phone and saw that it was 5am. After contemplating filing a noise complaint on said birds I decided to turn the other cheek and rolled over and went to bed. I woke back up around 9 then munched upon some salami and cheese for breakfast. I must say, the deli food is much better here than in the states. MUCH better. The salami is spicy and the cheese tastes like it came straight from the great cheese mountains.

After imaging a mountain made of cheese for a brief time I got dressed and cantered on over to the Santa Mariana Plaza which is roughly a 2 minute walk from our apartment. The group bought tickets for 3.50 then walked into a beautiful garden and upon our entry immediately walked out. Too much garden to handle, I suppose.

The 3.50 was not to be spent in vain however! Oh no my friends we made our way from there to a church that was a hop jump and a skip away. In we went and sketching commenced. We drew them books up all pretty like and after 2 sketches over the course of 45 minutes we were set free. I left by myself, let myself become yet another slave to facebook for half an hour, then ate a delicious chinese lunch by myself. After that I was kinda bored and had a food hangover so I headed back to the apartment to lie down. That was short lived however, because Zach told me he was going to go to the bank. I needed money and that sounded like a grand old time so I accompanied him.

I snagged a beer, because there are no public drinking laws in this country and we wandered around the Duomo for about 30 minutes until we discovered the bank in question we had passed by 5 times. Woops.

We got out some money then waited for some friends to meet us there. They met us there and good times commenced. We walked to their apartment, sat infront of a fan, and devised a plan for the day. We decided to visit the Uffizi and that we did. Well some of us. Tamara and Krysten walked off to do some scavenging but Leanne and Alizsha joined so off we went: Payton (Payton refers to himself in 3rd person occasionally), Zach, Taylor, Amy, and the 2 aforementioned. We walked to the Uffizi upon our feetsies then walked right in with those glorious museum passes we had been given. I felt like I was a V.I.P. until a security guard scolded me for not taking the camera out of my pocket.

We walked up 4 flights of stairs (to which I imagined the Rocky theme song playing) then began our visual tour of the Renaissance. There were lots of pictures of creepy babies and geese. Those were the two themes I noticed.. and Jesus. It was an interesting little visit but towards the end all the divinity began to blend into each other. On the way out we saw a Carbagio (sp?) exhibit that was pretty splendid. It was surprisingly brutal. I could have imagined several of the paintings as black metal album covers.

After that we found ourselves a nice little eatery and ate. It was delicious. After that we found some gillato and ate that. It was delicious as well. Now it is 9:04 and we must meet up in 12 hours. So that means that I am going to stop rambling and go hit the bars for a few hours and hopefully head back by midnight.

¡Buenos tardes amigos!
Payton


Zach

Today was an important day. Not a big day, but a mile stone. I finally reached the point where I let myself stopped to take a rest. I haven't stopped moving since I got here. Every time a new opportunity presents its self, I'm there. Which doesn't leave much time for foot, sitting, or sleep. But to date, I haven't felt that any part of any day has gone to waste.

We met at San Lorenzo at 10, which wasn't a problem, because my apartment is on the same block. The dome of the Medici Chapel glows in my kitchen window at night, and the vendors selling paintings back up to my street corner. We went inside to sketch the interiors. There was no photography, or bare shoulders allowed. So groups of American girls were wandering through this beautiful historic gem, paying homage to Donatello wearing something between a pancho and scrubs. I don't know how long we stayed, I scratched out 3 or 4 different drawings from a couple of perspectives. We all just kind of decided when we'd had enough and trickled out to do whatever we wanted the rest of the day. It was a lot different than sketching in a public square. No tourists taking our pictures like we were the statues we were surrounded by.



I met up with most of the girls from apartment 4. Apparently we forgot Tamara. I'm sorry Tamara. We paid an extra 2.50 euro to see Michelangelo's staircase. This is one of those things your professor goes on and on about in art history classes while you quietly doodle in the margins of your notebook wondering why of all the things Michelangelo did, a staircase means anything. But I have to admit. It was awesome. It's a small space, but the stairs are perfect. I touched a work that his hands made. It's too big, everything here has too much history, too much significance to fully comprehend the scale of what we've gotten ourselves into. But none of the students I've talked to are letting that slow them down.



We went deeper to see a collection of old hand painted manuscripts up the stairs, then may our way out again. I slipped off to take a nap, have a shower, and eat something. It was a cold shower, and I only had enough time for a few bites of cold pasta left over before I had to be on my way, but its Italy. And you can't be mad in Italy.

I met with Payton, and all the girls from apartment 4 at the Banco Tuscana by the Duomo. We're all starting to need cash. From there we were onto the Uffizi! I'd had the opportunity, with an hour of free time to run through it once already with Kaitlin. And only getting to spend an hour int he Uffizi is criminal. It just feels dirty jogging by sculptures, and paintings the entire world reveres. And Payton totally sang the rocky theme up the stairs. Today was much nicer, and we had the only Art History major in the class with us. She got to see her single favorite painting. Titian's Venus. It was so cool watching someone star struck by art.

Cravaggio's exhibit has been advertised all over the streets. An image of Medusa's decapitated head still screaming with his name slapped across it hangs on every surface things are hung. He didn't have much up though, but I'm glad we saw what we did. At 6:30 they closed and we left.

We stopped and got dinner at a pizzeria on a corner. Cafe Colonial? Or something. I couldn't see the sign and was blind with hunger and my feet felt like ground beef. Dinner was delicious. I highly recommend the place we can't recall the name of. My Italian's getting better. I'm understanding more, and people get more excited when I smile when I catch them saying things. It's 9:30, which means it's only just gotten dark. I've sent sent out pictures and read all my emails. And there's nothing left to do now but find a new place to get a beer I've never heard of.