Belgium

Ghent

We left Prague at 8am and had an 8 hour drive to Koblenz. Koblenz is a quiet German town at the intersection of two major rivers. It was once a stronghold in WWII as an anti-aircraft defense fort. Some blown out buildings and old military forts still stand today. There wasn’t much to do so we just went to beer garden for dinner and got caught up on some homework. The hotel was very oddly decorated but we actually got suites here, which was nice because the rooms in Europe are usually tiny. We left Koblenz at 8am the next morning to go to Ghent.

On the way to Ghent, we stopped at Antwerp, Belgium for two hours. We went into the famous church, Cathedral of Our Lady, for about 30 minutes with our art teacher. It was very impressive, and we saw the “Raising of the Cross Altarpiece.” It looked like we came in just after they had finished Mass because there was thick, overwhelming incense everywhere. After the church, we had lunch and each tried a Belgian beer. The weakest beer of our five was 8.5%. Belgium definitely has the strongest beer in Europe, much more so than Germany. Apparently they have over 400 types of beer in Belgium. After lunch, Ryan got his first bag of Belgium chocolate which he blindly ordered. It turned out to be nasty, filled with some kind of grape goo so he gave them away. We got back on the bus and headed to Ghent.

When we got to Ghent, we worked on our papers for a while then had a delicious welcome dinner of Belgian French fries, chicken, and salad. The fries here are the best in Europe. After dinner, we went to a strip of bars that looked a lot like UGA in Athens. Tanner and I played pool for a few hours then we all tried to walk around but found out most of the bars were homosexual…so most of us went back to the hotel pretty quickly.

On the second day, we went to the St. Bavo’s Cathedral by our hotel. Here, we saw the massive Ghent Altarpiece and a few other works. Then we took the bus to Brussels. After the hour drive, our bus driver gave us a quick tour because that’s his home town. We stopped by the atomium, which was built for the 1958 Universe Exhibition. It’s nine balls totaling 1.4 billion times the size of an iron atom. The balls are connected with escalators and the fastest elevator in the world, and there’s a restaurant in the top ball.

Then we went to a modern instrument museum which was cool. It had orchestra instruments and pianos all the way back from 1500s along with some ancient instruments. Then we went to the top floor where one of the workers gave us a private tour or some restored pianos that Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, etc. used to play. Our teacher and the guide played a small concert for us on different pianos. Then we had 2 hours to explore the city.

We first stopped to get delicious chocolate covered Belgian waffles. Then Jimmy and I got meat keishe for lunch which was one of the best meals I’ve had. Next we searched and found a bar/brewery called Delirium that we had heard of from other groups. All 50 kids in or group showed up, and we got 2 liter beers that were about 10%. The beer was really good, and the glasses were massive. However, some people couldn’t really handle the Belgian beer so the chaperones were pissed with how loud we were on the bus ride back.

I really liked Brussels – it seemed like a clean, interesting city. There was lots of good food and it wasn’t too crowded. I would have rather stayed there than Ghent. When we came back, Ryan and I intended on taking a nap at 6pm then waking up for dinner, but we ended up not waking up until 2am…I couldn’t really go back to sleep so I stayed up reading and studying some.

The next morning, we had 4 hours of review for our final exams then took the bus to Brugge. Here, we got lunch at a really good café and I picked up a variety pack of chocolates. Some of the chocolate is really good here, but there too many varieties to choose from. We went to the Groeninge Museum, which has many Northern works that I liked. Afterward, we wandered around Brugge until it started raining and we stopped off to get a beer and wait it out. We barely made it back to the bus on time. I liked Brugge – it was a really quiet, pretty town but there wasn’t much to do. I prefer Brussels in Belgium. When we got back, Ryan and I walked 30 minutes to find dinner because everything closes so early in Ghent. When we found a place, it was all in Dutch so we accidentally ordered a meal of a pound of French fries each with a ton of mayonnaise…we just picked something random on the menu. The fries were good, but we had way too many. I also got a Bicky burger – some kind of fried patty of beef and sausage meat with ketchup and honey mustard. It was actually pretty good, but the fries were too much. We should have known we were wrong when the guy gave a funny look when Ryan ordered “frieten with fries.”

We had our art final exam on Thursday morning then spent most of Friday studying for the music test. We got lunch and got sushi for dinner, but that’s all we did besides studying on Friday. Then we had our music final exam at 8am Saturday morning and we were on the bus going to Oxford by 10:15am.

Going to Oxford, we went through customs and entered the “chunnel.” It’s a huge tunnel built on the floor of the English Channel. The bus driver drove the bus into a huge train that closed up and transported everyone through the tunnel. We just stayed in park while the train sent us under the water to Britain – it was pretty cool. We got into Oxford Saturday around 6 or 7pm then had a great dinner and had to go to orientation. The Worcester campus is beautiful, apparently about half of their budget goes to gardening.

On Sunday, I woke up early and walked around campus for a while. Then I went into town in the afternoon and got a bunch of groceries. Later, Matt, Clay, and I went for a 45 minute run along the canal that felt great. I really enjoy being with my friends from FIJI again; I was getting tired of being with the same people in my group every day. Tonight we are probably going to a local pub to watch the England soccer game.

You know you’re in Belgium when:

• You hear 3 different languages in one city.
• There are tons of road side waffle stands.
• Every store claims to have the finest chocolate in Belgium.
• The wind never stops blowing.
• The lightest beer is 7% alcohol content.

Prague

The next morning we boarded the bus for Prague. The bus rides keep getting worse and worse. We drove an hour in the opposite direction to get a 5 minute tour of the palace where Franz Joseph Haydn used to work and compose. We listed to a few songs in the concert hall there then boarded the bus again after getting chicken schnitzel for lunch. For some reason we kept stopping every hour at rest stops, so the 4 hour ride ended up taking 9 hours. The bus is starting to get pretty smelly too, luckily we only have a few more long drives. I’m starting to read Sphere by Michael Crighton now.

            When we got to Prague, it was pretty much like I expected. The weather was kind of dreary and everyone seemed kind of sad. The city is a lot different from the others we’ve visited…you can tell it’s in Eastern Europe. Most of the architecture is more gothic and Byzantine-ish and they seem to love dark, blackish colors and green iron roofs. Everything is pretty cheap, but not as cheap as I was expecting. The exchange rate is 20 to 1, so I took out $100 and got a 2000 Krohn bill. Their money is cool looking, and I think 2000 Krohn is about all I need for two and a half days in Prague.

            We had class for 4 hours the first morning then immediately went to a museum in a palace near Prague Castle. It was small and unimpressive. The castle is on a massive hill pretty far away from the hotel, so it’s about an hour walk straight uphill. We misjudged the time it would take to get there, so we had to jog about a mile to get to the palace on time. The Prague Castle is the biggest castle in Europe, and it must have been really intimidating back in Medieval times because it’s literally on the biggest hill in the Czech Republic. After the museum, we went back to take a nap at the hotel, but Ryan and I got lost for about an hour on the way back. Prague is difficult to navigate, but it was a pretty cool way to explore the city. Like most European city, Prague randomly has little squares in the city with small statues or fountains. Prague seems to be a big tourist town, and it is true that beer is actually cheaper than water. While we were walking around, people were setting up projector screens to hold public viewings of the Czech vs. Poland soccer game. It was really cool how they were setting up bands, food stands, and markets for a public party. In the afternoon, people were getting ready as they were sunbathing at the beer gardens and drinking unlimited beer. Or some reason, a lot of people walk around without shirts here which I guess is just something unique for the city.

            Unfortunately, we couldn’t watch the soccer game because we went to see Don Giovanni in the same theater that it premiered in. I actually liked the opera more than I was expecting – that seemed to be the feeling for everyone in the group. We all had balcony seats so we had separate viewing areas that held about 9 people each. The show was great, but it lasted almost 4 hours. My only problem with opera is that it lasts way too long and seems to waste a lot of time repeating things. But luckily this one had subtitles too so we knew what was going on. We finished the opera around 10:30 and went to a place called the Beer Factory. They had kegs in each table that tracked how much beer we drank. Each table’s score was updated on the wall, and we ended up winning the night after about two hours. We finished with 37 liters, but it wasn’t really fair because we had about 20 guys.

            On the second day in Prague, we toured Prague Castle for a few hours. It was a long walk to get there again, but this time we went over the famous St. Charles bridge. The castle actually wasn’t that good – it wasn’t what I was expecting at all. It was more like a big palace instead of the castles I was envisioning from Scotland. The place was huge though, and we toured the big church inside it and saw the changing of the guard. Then we walked back to the hotel for a nap. At night, we went on a pub crawl that met at the astronomical clock. The clock was pretty cool but not as big as I thought. We saw it chime at 9pm when a couple little figurines popped out and a guy played the Czech national anthem on trumpet. Prague seems to be more of a tourist party city…there’s some history and things to see but not nearly as much as the other cities we visited.

You know you’re in Prague when:

• There are hundreds of promoters trying to sell you deals to bars or strip clubs.
• There are more cash exchange shops than food shops.
• Wearing shirts in public is optional.
• It’s the only place you can easily spend a 1000 dollars in a day.
• Most everything is in English; it feels more like an American city.

Vienna

We walked back to the bus from our Venice hotel for about 30 minutes in the rain. Then we had an 8 hour bus ride to Vienna, which wasn’t too bad because we were going through the Italian vineyards and Austrian Alps. Everyone was studying for the music test tomorrow and writing our papers about the concerto. It’s nice to be back to German food, but it’s hard switching languages. I keep thinking in Italian. On the first night in Vienna, everyone was busy studying and finishing our papers. We had our listening test in the morning and a 4 hour music class.

           

            On the first day, we got a tour of an opera house in Karlzplatz square. It was ok but not as impressive as the one in Paris. Then we went to a little microbrewery called 1516 for lunch and tried their sampler of Weissebier, Lager, and Black and Tan. It was a neat place, and they liked us when we brought like 15 more guys back for dinner. After lunch, we went to another museum with ancient instruments. This was actually pretty impressive, I saw a bunch of old string instruments that are worth millions now because they literally can’t reproduce the sound today that they used to make back then. There was also an exhibit that walked you through the development of the grand piano with a lot of diagrams of how a piano works. Dr. Hayden got on an old harpsichord and played for a while. Then we toured some old Medieval armor and weapons and headed back to the hotel to nap.

            At night, we went back to 1516 to watch the Germany vs. Netherlands soccer game. The place was packed and everyone was smoking, but it was still a lot of fun. It was a great game, and the place would erupt every time a goal was scored. So I finally got in a little bit of the European football experience.

            On the second day in Vienna, we went to a really good painting museum in the Upper Belvedere (an old palace of one of Austria’s rulers). They had a big garden by the palace that we ate lunch in before going to Stephansplatz. Ryan, Jimmy, and I wandered around the massive church in Stephansplatz for a while and went in a massive department store in the shopping district there. Everything was really expensive though so we didn’t buy anything. The crowded squares are pretty annoying because there are hundreds of promoters dressed up as old composers trying to sell you concert tickets. They are really persistent as I saw them hassling lots of groups. Luckily we just kept our heads down and didn’t get bothered too much. After getting a special cheese-cooked sausage in a bun for lunch, we met at a museum (Kuntzpr…something) in the Museum Square. This was an awesome museum with about 15 works that we learned about in class. While going to these museums, we get extra credit if we act out scenes or statues and take a picture of it. So we did a few of those like the Rape of the Sabine Woman with Ryan, Jimmy, and I.

            We met at 8:00 that night to go to Mozart-Saal Hall for a string quartet performance. The group was one of the top 10 string quartets in the world, so it was an awesome show. The first and last pieces were really good, but the second was a more contemporary movement by Debussy. It was really strange and eerie and seemed completely random, so we didn’t like that one as much. For the encore, they played a slow dance song that was really beautiful. I recognized the melody but couldn’t remember the name. The hall that we saw it in was much better acoustically than the other church, and we had pretty good seats in the balcony. After that, we went back to the hotel and went to a famous club called the Praterdome. It was located in what looked like the Disneyworld of Vienna but it was a lot of fun. When you get there, you can pick between two bars (house music or black/R&B) then at midnight the dividing wall lifted and it became one big dancefloor.

You know you’re in Vienna when:

• There are hundreds of annoying concert promoters dressed as Mozart trying to sell tickets.
• Street performers are typically playing violins or other instruments.
• Everything is in German but no one actually likes talking about Germany.
• Going to a concert or performance is a weekly activity.

Venice

            The drive down to Venice was about six hours which wasn’t too bad. Italy has the prettiest countryside I’ve ever seen with vineyards and mountains everywhere. Our bus driver is crazy the way he takes the turns around the mountains, so it’s pretty tough to sleep on the bus.

            When we got to Venice, we weren’t allowed to take the bus onto the island so we had to stop and take the metro bridge called the “people mover” across the river. Then we had to haul our luggage about 1/3 of a mile over bridges and cobblestone streets to get to the hotel. It took about an hour just to get there. The hotel is pretty bad – I think it’s a one star and our room smells really bad because of something in the bathroom. My first impression of Venice isn’t very good – it seems very crowded and dirty with not much to do except spend money. It’s not a very practical city; almost everything is either a sit-down restaurant or an expensive shop. There are no laundromats, grocery stores, post offices, or anything. So I’ll probably have to wait for Vienna to do laundry, which is bad because I’ve run out of clean clothes. Ryan and I hauled our suitcases to a Laundromat just to find out that it had closed and been replaced by a fashion store. There are tons of different types of people here, but everyone seems to be pretty wealthy. There are also hundreds of street salesmen who get really annoying when trying to sell you knock off purses and souvenirs. On the first day, we didn’t really do anything except walk around the city and have our welcome dinner (lasagna again). Everybody was busy studying for the art test and finishing the two papers due on Saturday.

            On the second day, we had our art exam and then music class until 12:00. Then we took the vaperetto, or water bus, down to the Accademia for an art museum tour. This was actually a really good museum with lots of Venetian Baroque works. After the museum, we picked up lunch and went to St. Marco Square (the tuna in Italy is really good). Then we transferred to a different water bus to get to the island of Murano, which is famous as being the best glass blowing region in the world. We saw a demonstration of a guy blowing a glass vase, but there wasn’t much to do besides that. We wandered around the shops and went in the glass art gallery. There were some really pretty pieces there that ranged from $100 - $80,000 each. It was just a massive gallery of nothing but glass.

            Then we took the bus back to our hotel and got kabobs for dinner. At night, all 50 people in our group went to a casino. Not many people made out too well – blackjack killed everybody. One kid made 220 euro but others lost 100, 120, or even 160. I ended up losing 60 playing blackjack and roulette but it was probably worth the entertainment (Ryan and I did much better in roulette than blackjack). One of our group leaders, Darryl, must have lost at least 500 euro because he was there for 8 hours. Pretty much everyone is looking for the cheapest meals possible now.

            On the next morning, Ryan and I walked to the Guggenheim museum because we didn’t want to take the bus. The water buses here are cool until you actually ride one when it’s really slow and everyone is packed in like sardines. It takes about an hour to get down the Grand Canal. So we walked but got lost a few times because the streets of Venice are so confusing and divided by water. We ran into dead ends at least 5 times because the streets weren’t on the map. Literally the whole city of Venice is the exact same – the streets look the same and there are only identical shops and restaurants even in the more residential areas. But we made it to the museum, took a tour of the contemporary exhibit, and then went to St. Marco’s Square for a walking tour. On the way, we also saw the Rialto Bridge and the Bridge of Sighs (called that because that was the transfer point for prisoners into the maximum security prison long ago). The walking tour took us by St. Mark’s Basilica and the bell tower. The Basilica was huge with architecture from the Byzantine Empire, but we didn’t go in because it cost a good bit of money. There are winged lions located all over the city because St. Mark is the patron saint of Venice. The Square was extremely crowded with thousands of pigeons, but I got cookies and cream and caramel gelato afterward.

            After the walking tour, we went to get a sit down pizza lunch then had an hour water bus ride back to the hotel. Then we found a Laundromat in the afternoon before going to the concerto at St. Vidal Church at night. The orchestral concerto was in an old church with about 150 people in the audience. The group had 3 violinist, two violas, a bassist, a cellist, and a harpsichord player. They played the Four Seasons by Vivaldi (one of my favorite songs), a dual violin solo piece by Vivaldi, and a few works by Handel. They were extremely good, especially the cellist and violin soloists, but the church was almost too big for their little group. I loved it - it was an awesome show. The performance was near perfect and we had pretty good seats. After the last song, they bowed and left then came back for an encore. Their last song was an incredible cello solo with the cellist in the middle. The cellist was all over the place – moving his head, twisting his body, shaking his hair, etc. – he thought he was a rockstar or something. After the show, the players came out to take a group picture with all of us. Then we left and some people went to the casino. I went and just watched people play blackjack and tested how well I could keep up with card counting…it was actually really easy but it wouldn’t help because the dealers were rotating 8 decks.

            On the last day in Venice, we left at 8am to go to Pruva which is west of Venice. It was about an hour train ride to this small town. Here, we saw the Arena Chapel and St. Antonio’s Basilica. We got an art lecture before going into the Arena Chapel, which is now a museum. It was painted by Giotto and sculpted by Pisano in two years in the 1400s. The paintings were old fashioned but still really good (they’ve had so much damage, they had to be restored many times). The walls depict a pictorial representation of the Bible – from the Madonna not being able to have children, to the birth, to the death, and the resurrection. In all, it’s maybe 25-30 very easy to understand paintings. Then above the entrance door Giotto painted Judgment Day with heaven and hell on the left and right. The guy who funded the building of the Chapel, Sciggotti (or something like that) is shown on the heaven side offering his Chapel to the angels. He actually built the Chapel to save his father’s soul from hell after his father had died (his dad is referenced in Dante’s inferno as a usurer in hell – back then he was known as a very sinful loan shark). Sciggotti also wanted to ensure hos pwn admittance into heaven because he had also practiced greed in charging high interest for loans. My art teacher loved being in the Chapel because she took a whole class only on the art in that Chapel.

            Then we walked to St. Antonio’s Basilica and got a lecture about the general’s statue in front of the church. I went in with some guys. It was a huge church with at least 20 side chapels – pretty similar to the others we’ve seen but this one was more Baroque in style (emotional paintings, active projecting sculptures, lots of decoration). It was really beautiful, and Ryan and I touched the tomb of St. Antonio, just cause it seemed like all the locals were doing it.

            After the church, we got kabobs and walked back to the train station. On the way back, we ran into a bachelor/bachelorette party that made Ryan participate and ask some questions to the bride (who was really drunk). I guess that’s a tradition in Italy or something, everyone was just laughing and making fun of the bride. And she was covered in flour, ketchup, mustard, paint, etc. It was funny but really weird.

            When we got back to Venice, most of our group took a boat to Lido, which is an island to the south of Venice. Here we went to the only beach in Venice, which was actually pretty nice and about two miles long. We bought a volleyball and played beach volleyball for about 4 hours. It was great to do something active besides walking, and our team actually turned out to be really good. A group of Italians challenged us a few times for the court and we won every “shorts vs. speedos” match. They were good sports but pretty creepy with the girls. We took the water bus back around 8:30 to pack and shower before bed.

            Overall, I really didn’t like Venice, and I doubt I’d ever want to go back. It was always really crowded, and all the salesmen and restaurant owners got really annoying. There’s not much to do except eat and walk around, and the walking gets really repetitive after a while. I was really glad to go to the beach one day to get out of the city. The only major things to see are St. Mark’s Basilica, Murano, and Burano (known for its lace making) but even these weren’t that impressive. Venice looks good in the pictures and from afar, but once you’re there it’s pretty expensive, annoying, and dirty.

You know you’re in Venice when:

• There are just as many canals as roads – you can take a water taxi anywhere.
• It smells like fish or sewage. There’s no grass anywhere.
• Gondolas are all over the canals.
• All you can find are restaurants and shops.
• Cars aren’t allowed on the island.

Rome

We left Florence for Rome at 8am and stopped by Pisa on the way. We got pizza and walked around Pisa square where the cathedral, bapistry, and Tower of Pisa are located. The tower looks like it is leaning way more in person than any of the pictures I’ve seen. It leans because water and ground saturation have caused the marble and limestone base to erode over the years. It took a long time to build from 1100 – 1300 with three different architects working on it at different times. We took a few pictures here then continued to Rome. Rome only exists because it has a massive water table beneath it. Because of this, all tap water in Rome is clean and drinkable.

On our first day in Rome, we visited Vatican City in the morning. 25,000 people walk through the Vatican everyday in the high season, and it was definitely crowded. It was kind of disappointing how touristy the country has become. We walked through the Vatican museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica. The Sistine Chapel was smaller and simpler than I expected and St. Peter’s Basilica was purely massive and so ornate. Both were extremely beautiful – Sistine for its frescoes and St. Peter for its sculptures and decoration. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel depicts nine scenes from Genesis surrounded by many apostles. It took Michelangelo four years to finish this starting in 1508, and he couldn’t bend his neck down for a year after finishing it. Then on the front wall is Michelangelo’s Final Judgment, which is one of my favorites. This took him 5 years to complete, starting at the age of 60. It shows Judgment Day, with humans being taken to heaven or hell according to the books. The entrance to hell is actually right behind the altar as a reminder to the congregation. When finished, this was a very controversial work because Michelangelo showed many of the angels and saints naked without halos. This caused a huge uproar, and the private parts were painted over after he had died. The Chapel has been cleaned many times because the incense and candle smoke has left the surface nearly all black. The museum was ok – not as good as some of the others we have visited.

We also walked around the courtyard and learned that the pinecone and peacock used to be old symbols of Christianity (because the peacock never rots when it dies, it shows resurrection). In the library, the walls are painted with the School of Athens where only philosophy, religion, poetry, and justice will bring you to truth in life. There’s actually a ton of Egyptian art in Rome because that became really popular when Rome conquered Egypt in the mid first century. The museum also had a statue of Hercules that was struck by lightning – so the Roman people declared it blessed by God and buried it in a marble sarcophagus like a person.

In St. Peter’s Basilica, there were so many side chapels with ancient tombs and statues. There are only three women buried in the church and St. Peter is buried beneath the altar. The saying, “I build the church upon this rock” reads across the base of the largest dome in Europe, meaning that St. Peter is the rock upon which the church is built.

After the Vatican, we went by S’Angelo Castle (which was an Illuminati meeting place) and went on a walking tour with Dr. Townsend. First we went by the Pantheon which was huge but not very interesting. It still has an open dome, so there are drains in the floor for when it rains. Then we walked through Rome and stopped in a few churches with works by Caravaggio and sculptures by Bernini. That was interesting, but it was about 90 degrees today so the walking was rough. We also went by the Fountain of Four Rivers and the Trevi Fountain.

After the tour, we walked down to the Coliseum. One of the girls got her camera pickpocketed out of her purse on the way there, but the guy must have been really good because she was walking with about 20 people. The Coliseum was exactly as I expected. It was massive and extremely advanced for the time that it was built. Pretty much everything I already knew about it was accurate – the feasts, the brutality of the fights, the corruption, etc. It was really cool being in it and being able to walk to the top row, but there wasn’t much I didn’t already know.

On a side note, as of right now my favorite sculpting artists are easily Giambologna, Bernini, and Michelangelo. My favorite European snack is bresaola (a cured beef slice) with mozzarella on bread (fresh mozzarella is the best cheese I’ve ever had). My favorite beer is St. Augustine Weissebeer and my favorite wine is Tuscana Chianti. Besides that, Italian pizza is so much better than American, but the pasta and other dishes are pretty similar.

I'll post more about Rome after our next two days here.

Florence

Today we left Munich at 7am to drive 10 hours to Florence. It was a terrible, hot bus ride where I couldn’t sleep but the scenery was absolutely beautiful. We drove straight through the Alps in Austria and northern Italy then through wine country in Italy. We went by an hour stretch where it was nothing but vineyards on either side of the highway. The weather in Italy is very hot and humid, similar to home.

            When we got in around 5pm, we tried to walk to the opera but it was cancelled because something fell on the stage. So we just walked back through the city and went to a bar at night because it was someone’s birthday in our group.

           

The next day, we had class for 4 hours then met at the Uffizi museum in the afternoon. This housed the famous Birth of Venus painting and Madonna of the Long Neck. It was cool to see many of the works that we’ve been learning about in class. The Uffizi wasn’t as big as I had expected, but it was set up much simpler than the Louvre. And nearly every work there was internationally famous. We also saw the Caravaggio exhibit with his Medusa shield.

           

After finishing the museum, we walked around the main plaza, Piazza del Signatori (or something like that) where the huge fortress city hall building stands. This is where Michelangelo’s David statue stands guarding the city of Florence. Throughout the city, you’ll see statues of David everywhere along with the Medici family coat of arms. Florence adopted David as their local symbol because they were smaller than surrounding Italian communities but they believed they were capable of beating anyone with intelligence, cunning, and the grace of God. The Medici family is solely responsible for supporting the arts in Florence up until the 1400s, when they became too powerful and the city ousted them from power. Michelangelo’s David is 16 feet tall and stands as an ironic symbol against the Medici.

            This square also has tons of other statues, like Neptune and the Rape of the Sabine Woman (one of the best sculptures I’ve ever seen). There is also a cool bronze statue of severing the head from Medusa. This is a very touristy area with gelato and Panini shops every 10 yards. Pretty much every flavor of gelato is delicious and way better than ice cream.

            Then we walked to the Duomo, which means “Cathedral.” The Duomo is the third largest church in Europe, but it is the oldest, largest dome in the world. The building was completed 200 years before the dome, simply because it took that long to find a design that could construct a dome large enough to fit. We spent an hour hiking to the top of the dome, which was scary but definitely worth it. At the top, you could see views throughout Italy and to the Swiss Alps. On the way up, you walk through the dome itself because it was actually designed as two domes with about 8 feet of space between the two. The pathway takes you through a walkway that goes halfway around the inner base of the dome, so you are looking down 200 feet to the alter and main chapel of the cathedral. The Duomo is another symbol of the city – people don’t say they are from Florence; they say they were born “in the shadow of the dome, under David’s watchful eye.”

            Then we saw the Duomo baptistery where the Gates of Paradise cover the front door. These were gold sculpture scenes on the doors created by Ghiberti as a pictorial description of Christ’s life. They weren’t as bright in person, but still really beautiful. The other two doors have similar bronze sculpture scenes from previous periods. After that, we walked back to the hotel through the huge leather black market. It seems like Florence is best known for their leather products because there are hundreds of really expensive stores throughout the city. It also holds the headquarters of Gucci.

On the second day, we went to the Bargello museum which holds the real Rape of the Sabine Woman and a few other famous pieces. Then we had a 2 hour lunch at a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant. We were the only customers while we were there, so they put on Bob Marley and Michael Jackson music to accommodate “the Americans.” The food was really good, but it took about 45 minutes to get the check and leave like everywhere else in Europe. Then we went on a walking tour of Florence which was great since our teacher lived in Florence for a while. We ended at the Brancacci Chapel, which holds the Expulsion of Adam and Eve and Tribute Money. The second day was a lot of walking and art history lecturing. At night, we went to Piazza del Michelangelo and watched the sunset over Florence. Then we went to an Irish bar where we bought drinks for some Airborne guys that were leaving for Afghanistan in the morning.

We went to Pitti Palace on the third day. This was similar to Versailles, but not as big. The duke of Florence used to live here, but now it is a palace converted into a museum. It was ok, not too special but the architecture of these palaces is interesting. They have secret doors in all the nice rooms for the servants to enter before disappearing into their own network of crappy rooms in the center of the palace. We ate lunch in the gardens and walked to the top, which is one of the highest points in Florence. The garden slopes severely uphill, so it’s actually not a good walking garden at all. After that, we walked to the Academia to see the real Michelangelo’s David, Duchamp’s spoof on the Mona Lisa, and a musical instrument exhibit. Finally, we hiked to the other side of town to see the concerto “The Magnificent Mandarin” and the opera “Bluebeard’s Castle” that were previously canceled.

Combined, these lasted about 3.5 hours. The orchestra was fantastic in both. “The Magnificent Mandarin” was really weird as it was only dancing with no words. But I liked “Bluebeard’s Castle,” the opera singers were really good and the show was packed. They got a standing ovation with everyone shouting Bravo! At the end so it must have been a good performance. Luckily, they projected English subtitles on the screen for us. I liked the opera overall; I just didn’t like how much downtime there was between people singing.

Overall, I liked Florence, though probably not as much as Munich. Florence was also easy going and beautiful. It was larger than I thought but pretty easy to navigate with the river running on the south side. Most of the people were nice, but some were creepy and strange. There were tons of gypsy ladies in Florence begging for money, but there were also tons of artists painting on canvases, walls, and roads for tips. It was a very artsy city that is definitely proud of its heritage.

You know you’re in Florence when:

• The sidewalk isn’t wide enough for one person.
• Everyone drives a moped or motorcycle.
• The people are very impatient and usually will not speak in English.
• Anywhere you walk you’re in the shadow of the dome.
• There is a sculpture or piece of art on every street corner and every store/restaurant.
• Thousands of street vendors are trying to sell you leather, sunglasses, souvenirs, etc.
• Every meal includes carbs and olive oil.
• Some wine is cheaper than water, and most of the water is carbonated.