Halloween in Florence

After the Sensation White party in Copenhagen, I flew down to Florence, Italy along with Taylor and Lindsay Kimble, another Elon student studying in Copenhagen. Well actually we flew to Bologna first, and then took a train to Florence to save some money. Going along with my pattern of eating foods related to their origins/common name, in the 30 minutes we had before out train I found a pizza place that had bologna on its pizza. OK FINE the guy said "hotdog" in his broken english, but I'm pretending and I don't care to hear otherwise.

In Florence we met up with Taylor's friends Michelle, Caroline, and Lexi, who were nice enough to meet us at the train station and walk us to their apartment where Taylor would be staying. Just on the 15 minute walk there, we passed more beautiful and historically important landmarks than there are in my entire hometown.


Boom. "Oh hold on a sec, I need to walk around this badass building to get to my astronomy class." I quickly began to realize why my friend Jacki had loved studying here her sophomore year - this town isn't real. Florence, as I would come to learn, is the home of the Renaissance and birthplace of the modern world - people don't actually go to school here - they live in a fantasy world of amazing italian food, awesome buildings, bridges, and captivating landscapes, oh and some classes they have to go to every now and then.

Even the girls' apartment was on a street right off the main touristy drag, right next to Pizzaria O'Vesuvio - recently made more famous as the pizza place the cast of the Jersey Shore worked in. Ah I hate that show. Not relevant to the historical buildings, but still really cool.

I waited in their apartment until I could connect with my friend Chris, who I had met at Oktoberfest (you may remember him from such enthralling posts as Oktoberfest, and maybe thats it I can't look back now I have a bad memory and have no internet access to see what I had written). When I did connect with him, it turned out he lived just around the corner...literally...and next to Dante's House - one of the famed tourist attractions in Florence where the author Dante had lived. Of course. Fantasy world.

That night we ate italian food, and my tastes buds changed forever. Never again will they be the same - YOU'VE BROKEN ME ITALY. Some examples:



Two kinds of pasta and turkey with cheese wrapped in chicken wrapped in cheese wrapped in bacon - like I said, I'm forever tainted.




Pizza the way it was supposed to be made.

Sadly thats it for pictures of food in Italy, guess I didn't bring my camera out much. More on food throughout Europe later (Just wait till I get to my post on Paris).

The following day Taylor and I toured Florence on our own with the help of my guidebook. We went first to the cathedral, or Duomo, the centerpiece of the town (partially pictured in the first picture). We walked down to the Uffizi Palace and around the Piazza della Signoria and the other fixtures of the old part of town, and more and more we stood around in awe, jaws down to our knees in disbelief that her friends refer to this place as "where they go to school".

We then walked over to the Ponte Vecchio, the shop-lined bridge across the Arno River. Pictured below...



Taken from the top of Mount Michelangelo, tallest natural point in city

Time ran short, and we met up with the girls to plan Halloween costumes. This was a long process of trying to come up with an idea or group theme to make all of our costumes cheap, witty, and yet easy as well. Of course, that would not be easy. Props to Michelle Gill for coming up with the winning idea - the four girls were gelato flavors and I the gelato man (I just bought a 5 euro chef apron and borrowed chris's hat - not lazy, genius. The girls put a lot more effort into theirs and created little gelato cups with their own flavor and attached them to their heads, with matching/relevant outfits). Picture to be added later after I steal it off facebook. We went on a pub crawl, along with dozens of other students, many from Elon which made my night that much better seeing so many familiar faces (especially my AZD girls). The night was a blast.

The next day I saw Taylor off to the train station for her trip to Barcelona, and then I headed back for some more touristy stuff. First headed to Galleria dell'Accademia, the museum that houses Michelangelo's statue of David, as well as other great works of his and many others. I don't care how many pictures you see, the statue of David will take your breath away when you see it in person (No picture, cameras not allowed). After I climbed to the top of the Duomo for this ridiculous view:



The glorious red-tiled roofs of Florence

After I met back up with Chris to hike the tallest natural point in the city, mount Michelangelo...



and then headed to Santa Croce Church...



where you can see this awesome statue of Dante looking down angrily at the people of Florence for once putting him in exhile out of their city in his lifetime, a piece of history every Florentine is still embarrassed about to this day.



Inside I saw and admired the finally burial places for Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli. Don't know why I like to see famous graves.

Headed to Madrid after a very fast few days in Florence to meet up with a friend of mine from home. Florence was just a taste of what Italy has to offer and I cant wait to get back (should be near the end of my journey)


- Matt

Location:Florence, Italy