quattordici giorni

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

After a long day of hauling my over-packed suitcases all over hell and back, I’m sitting in my room in Florence and thinking to myself:

Rome, who? Florence, you have my heart!!!

Amy, Lindsey, and I woke up at the butt-crack of dawn and took our last run to the Vatican. I’ve never wanted to stay in bed so bad in my life! And that’s saying a lot considering it’s a battle to get myself out of bed every day. I was so tired and exhausted and our room is always so cold and dark in the mornings. It was so worth waking up early though. We were able to see all the people setting up their markets and opening their shops. It wasn’t quite as busy, so we were finally able to enjoy Rome in some semi-peace and quiet! (Granted, that still probably sounds like Springville during Art City Days!) It was a perfect way to bid farewell to our home for the last two weeks.

We packed up all our things and walked a few blocks to catch the metro that would take us to the train station. Envision, if you can, my 50 pound suitcase (that is one of the largest of the group) in one hand and my carry-on in the other trying to get up and down stairs as fast as I could to keep up with the group. It was insane! We were lucky to get escalators a couple times, other than that, we were taking those stairs head-on! I had one suitcase on either side of me and shuffled my weight back-and-forth to move my bags up and down the stairs. I thought for sure my arms were going to yank out of the sockets leaving my hands still clenching white-knuckled to my suitcases like an episode of SpongeBob! I already have blisters on my hands and my arms are SO sore! As painful as it was, it was pretty humorous! In between groans and swear words, we were all laughing so hard.

We finally made it onto the train and I was in and out of sleep the entire 3 hours. As we drove, we passed Tuscany homes spread throughout green rolling hills and long rows of olive trees and vineyards. It was so beautiful. That’s the image I had in my mind when I set out on this trip and I was bummed to see that Rome was nothing like that!

Florence is perfect! I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally be here. I was getting burned out in Rome and desperately needed a change of scenery. Not only is Florence new, but it’s more my style. It’s smaller than Rome and a lot more peaceful and slower paced. We can walk everywhere and don’t have to rely on a metro to get us around. There aren’t quite as many people. It’s a lot cleaner. It has a happy medium between buildings/city-life and nature/scenery. If you can’t tell, Florence and I have hit it off pretty well. I have high hopes for us!

We got to our hotel and unpacked our things for a little bit before Steve split us into teams and sent us on a “scavenger hunt.” He gave us a paper with directions how to get around town with some fill-in-the-blank’s we had to find. It was a great way to wake us up after an exhausting morning and get us acquainted with our new home. It’s beautiful here. I’ll have much more to tell you once we’ve spent time learning about everything, but there are some incredible things here. There’s a gigantic dome that is the heart of Florence and is the main cathedral. You guys, it’s ENORMOUS! It looks like something straight out of the Hunchback of Notre Dame! There’s also a river that runs through the edge of town lined with authentic Italian brightly colored buildings.

I still really miss you guys. Italy is great, but there really is no place like home! I can’t tell you how glad I am that we decided not to stay and travel after. I’m so ready to see you all in a little over 2 weeks!

Arrivederci!

Wit