Pictures from the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens

These are pictures from my second day in Florence, Tuesday 6/24/08.

This is the back of the Pitti Palace, taken from the Boboli Gardens. You can see a small part of the hills you have to walk up to get to and around the gardens. I have no idea why I didn't take a picture of the front of the palace.

This is nothing but a picture of a monkey scratching its butt. It really doesn't take much to amuse me.

Some of the famous Tuscan hillsides taken from Boboli.

More of Tuscany.

More of Tuscany and part of the old town wall.

Still more. Apparently for this shot I moved half of one degree to the left from the last shot. I didn't want you to miss a thing.

One of the many trails through the gardens with the old wall guardtower behind.

From the top of a neat little water feature. I love running water. Not the sink variety mind you, but the stream/waterfall/aqueduct variety.

From the bottom of same. From here the water went under ground for the path to cross it and re-emerged on the other side to continue its downhill trek. I want one.

A little island in the middle of a pond. We enjoyed some pigeon-watching from a bench.

The amphitheater, or half of it, located immediately behind the palace. Complete with obelisk. I'm having a difficult time taking pictures that aren't crooked.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this handsome fellow. This is the classic pose called "naked man riding turtle." I love the way he's sticking his hand out. I'm imagining him riding through the streets just waving and saying, "Hey. What's happenin'? Yeah, I'm just out riding my turtle."

Tuesday 6/24 - Friday 6/27

I didn't write much at all about these four days. After doing a pretty good job of chronicling the trip over here, I didn't really write anything in my notebook for a few days. I'll have to make a better effort in the future to remember to jot stuff down as I go. Here goes...
Tuesday 6/24/08
We walked back across the Arno and up into the hillside, this time a little west of where we were yesterday. We went to the Pitti Palace (pronounced pee tee not pity) and walked through the Boboli Gardens. The palace was cool but kind of boring since our passes only got us into the gardens and a costume exhibit in the palace. There were probably some really cool things in the palace but we didn't see them. Is this a good story so far? The Boboli Gardens on the other hand, and despite its lack of boboli pizza, was amazing. It was huge. We walked around it for quite some time. It has wide open areas, fountains, amazing views, and lots of paths through the trees. It would take hours to explore every trail. It was tiring though. Everything seemed to be uphill. Florence is certainly not for people who don't want to burn some calories walking up hills. I'll have some pictures in the next posting.
One interesting thing about the palace (the Palazzo Pitti) is that there is a covered corridor that runs from it all the way down the hill, across the Ponte Vecchio, over the Via della Ninna, through the Uffizi Gallery, and into the Palazzo Vecchio. It was built so that the Medici family could move quickly, freely, and inconspicuously from the government palace (Vecchio) to their residence (Pitti).
After we walked back to our street (Via de Neri) I had my first experience with Florentine gelato. I don't know what the difference is but it is so much better than plain old ice cream. Plus, it has a cooler name. After that we went to another Sarah's apartment to visit. This Sarah was one of last year's grad students and has stayed on as a teaching assistant. Also, for reasons unknown, Sarah refers to her as Vanessa Avery in her blog. Since this happened to be the feast day for St. John the Baptist (the patron saint of Florence) everyone in town went down to the river to watch some fireworks in the evening. We (Kellin, Sean - another TA - Sarah, Sarah, and I) watched from the Ponte alle Grazie. It was packed. There were so many people out tonight. The fireworks lasted about forty minutes. It was pretty fun. Then we had to fight through the herd of people to get back to Sarah's place. On the way home from Sarah's, I got to experience another new culinary delight. You may know it from Sarah's blog as Ka-tom, or however she spells it. It's just kabob in a tortilla-like wrap, but it is delightful. Hits the spot.
We ended the evening by going to the Lion's Fountain Irish Pub. We went with Sarah to hear some live music. My Sarah and I only stayed for one drink. It had been a tiring day.
Wednesday 6/25/08
Here's where it gets boring. We woke up late and went to Sarah's school in the afternoon. We stayed quite a while reading and working on the computer. For those of you who don't know, this is pretty much our only access to the Internet. We went home, had dinner, and watched Germany beat Turkey 3-2 in the first semifinal of the European Championships.
Thursday 6/26/08
We got up late again (or at least I did) and went to school all afternoon. I had a chance to look through her school's library. It is very small but neat, being in an old house. The history section is really small but it has a whole lot of medieval history crap that I'll love to read. After I finish my book about unsolved serial killings in Florence, that is. We went home, had dinner, and watched Spain beat Russia 3-0 in the second semifinal of the European Championships.
Friday 6/27/08
Finally acting like a responsible adult (which I am not), I woke up at 7:30 and we left the apartment by 8:30. Sarah had to be at her school's library by 9:00 because she had a job. She has been employed to take an inventory of the library's books and journals. She worked until about 2:00 when the library closed. However, the grad students have some perks including being aloud to stay after the library closes and the undergrads (Sarah calls them "the undies") are kicked out. So we stuck around while Kellin and Lara worked on their assignments that Sarah already finished. Sarah and I just kept reading our non-school books until we were all ready to go around 6:00. We then went home and had dinner. After dinner Sarah and Kellin decided to watch Crimson Tide. After that we read some more and went to bed.
We live exciting lives. We eat, we read, we watch tv. What else is there to do in Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance?

Pictures from 6/23/08

The reason that it took me so long to post another entry was because I was having trouble figuring out how to post pictures on this site. It's not difficult, but it doesn't really work the way I want it to. So this will have to do.
I took this first set of pictures on my first day in Florence when Sarah was showing me around Florence in an effort to keep me awake. I didn't even think to take my camera out until we crossed the Arno River into the hilly Altrarno area. There are some amazing views of the city from over there. We started our assent and I began taking pictures from the Piazzale Michelangelo.


This is the first shot from the Piazzale Michelangelo. You can see much of Florence, including the Duomo (aka the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore) and various other things that I can't remember, and the Arno River.


Unfortunately Sarah's not with me at the moment. So I will go ahead and just say that this is another shot of Florence east of the last shot. If Sarah was here I could tell you what some of the other things were.


This is some ridiculous statue I found. It doesn't look realistic at all and the proportions are way off. Total rubbish.

The rest of these pictures were taken at or from the church called San Miniato al Monte. Unfortunatley we couldn't take any pictures from inside, but this church was amazing. You can look it up on wikipedia or something to get some pictures. This is a shot of the building immediately to the right of the church.

Another shot of Florence, this time from the front of San Miniato al Monte which is on one of the highest points in Florence.

Once again...

San Miniato al Monte is a very old church. It was begun in 1013, so it is almost 1000 years old. It is named after St. Miniato (or Minas) who was an Armenian prince that became a hermit. Supposedly he was beheaded at the order of the Roman Emperor, but he merely picked up his head and walked back across the river and up the hill to his hermitage. This church is considered the finest Romanesque structure in Tuscany and one of the most beautiful churches in Italy. I agree, which means nothing because I don't even know what Romanesque means.

In case you haven't seen it enough.

This is a gate from the original city wall. Jealous?

This is another portion of the city wall.

And another. All three of these shots of the wall are from the small portion of Florence on the south side of the Arno.

The trip

Sunday 6/22/08
After about 2.5 hours of sleep I woke up around 5:00am to get ready. My dad and I left around 5:50 after saying goodbye to my mom who had already left for work.
We arrived at the airport in Cincinnati before 7:30 and I was through security and at my gate by about 7:35. So much for arriving 2.5-3 hours early for international flights (unless you're in Atlanta, in which case you'll want to arrive about seven hours early). I had to do some last second rearranging with my bags in order to get my two checked bags under 50 pounds each.
Of all the people on the flight from Cincinnati to Chicago O'Hare, guess which one got the worst seat on the plane. Give up? It was me. I had a wall in front of me allowing for no leg stretching, I had an aisle seat while all the window seat people around me had their windows closed and weren't watching the wonderful view, and I was seated next to a woman who was taking up entirely too much room. I had to sit at an angle and hang out into the asile. Of Course, the flight attendant bumped into me every time he walked by. Sarah, I think that he looked like a Ramon. Plus, the woman sitting next to me was wearing a shirt that said "This is what a feminist looks like." Good to know. At least it was a short flight.
So, do you remember my complaints from four hours ago (two seconds ago in your time)? Well, forget them. On the flight to Frankfurt in a big ol' 777 I had a window seat and an empty seat next to me! I think that it was the only empty seat on the big ol' jet airliner. Sarah, I think that the main flight attendant in my sector was probably named either Todd or Dmitri, I couldn't tell. Wow. Eight hours with an empty seat next to me, could it get any better? To answer your question, yes it could. I think that the other flight attendant working my area was probably named Olga or Helga or maybe Brunhilda. Also, one of the Germans at the ticket counter looked like Jens Lehmann, for all you Arsenal and Germany soccer fans. Nobody? Oh well. Also, he said, "Now boarding blue-eyed, green-eyed, and dark-haired people" twice in the span of about five minutes. There was a good deal of laughter on both occassions. Also, he kind of looked like a curly-haired David Hasselhoff. Sexy.
There weren't any really good movies available on the plane so I watched Vantage Point, which was okay. Unfortunately, even with all that room to myself, I couldn't sleep or get comfortable except for a few ten minute naps. Oh well, the views of the Netherlands and Germany were spectacular.
My final flight was a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Florence. Luckily, I just happened to ask a random German about my flight because they had changed the gate and I had no way of knowing. Actually, the first Lufthansa person I asked just told me to wait by the original gate and someone would come by eventually. What a liar. I saw highlights of last night's Spain-Italy game from Euro 2008. Italy is not going to be a happy place when I get there. On a good note, Cesc Fabregas (an Arsenal player) scored the winning penalty kick in the shootout that beat the Italians.
A team of blind Chinese athletes just walked by. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just stating a fact.
While checking in for the flight a guy noticed my shirt and told me that he went to U.D. I talked to his wife on the bus to the plane and found out that she was a librarian (apparently at a rich, private school in New Jersey) and that she had a grant to go visit libraries in Florence, including I Tatti.
Now I'm squished into this little plane and I am quite uncomfortable. I have never thought of myself as xenophobic, but it does feel pretty wierd being surrounded by German-speakers. Of course, I'm going to be surrounded by Italian-speakers soon.
When I finally got off the plane in Florence and retrieved my luggage I saw a beautiful and familiar face running my way. I hadn't seen Sarah in almost six months and she looked so pretty. I, on the other hand, was exhausted, disheveled, and probably smelled a little bit. Or maybe a lot. We walked around town most of the day. She said I had to stay up until 10, which would mean being awake for pretty much 35 straight hours after only sleeping 2.5 hours the night before. I did take a little nap back at her (or our) place.
We walked all around the city. We saw her school, a lot of the historic town center, and crossed the Arno to see more over there including an amazing old church called San Miniato al Monte. It was amazing. We had a little picnic up in the hills with some wine, pasta, fruit, cheese, and prosciutto. It was great, but I was exhausted. So we went back home and I started to unpack. It was tough because there's not much storage space. Luckily, Sarah made a lot of room for me. By the time I got to bed it was almost midnight. So, even though Sarah's tired of hearing about it, I'm going to describe my lack of sleep one more time. From the time I woke up Saturday morning around 9 to the time I went to bed in Italy around midnight, I had spent 57 hours running around, sitting around, and flying with only about four hours of sleep. Thus ends the whining. Maybe.
Thus also ends what will probably be my longest posting. We'll see.

Testing the waters

Since this is my first posting and I do not really know what I am doing I guess I will just describe my current state of affairs. I am now jobless. Today was my last day at the library. I have three days to get myself ready to travel to Italy. I've got lots of stuff to buy and pack, lots of laundry, and probably lots of stuff to forget to pack. I'll be making the trek to Columbus tomorrow to do some more research for Sarah at Ohio State then party with some Columbus people. There's nothing like waiting until the last minute to get things done and spending an entire day not doing those things that need to be done.
I know that this was a pretty pathetic posting, but it's a start.