Life in Roma

This weekend Rachel and I went on our trip to Florence. It was a pretty fun-filled weekend. We got to Florence at about 1 on Friday and booked into our hostel. It was called Emerald Fields and it was all right. It had a funky smell but was clean and everything like that. That afternoon we walked a round and found the Academia gallery and the Uffizi Gallery. Both had absolutely no lines and so we didn’t have to wait at all. We saw Michaelangelo’s David and the Prisoners. David is cool but let me just tell you that he does have a mullet. Also I noticed that his hands are extraordinarily large, although somebody told me that that was done on purpose. I did note that his second toe was longer than his big toe if anybody cares about that. Other than that he is pretty awesome. The Prisoners were really cool. They are a collection of four sculptures that are not completed. So you can see these guys that are coming out of this big block of marble. It is really interesting. People don’t know if he meant to leave it like that to symbolize the mind being trapped in a mortal body or if he just ran out of time. After that we went to the Uffizi gallery which has a lot of paintings. The highlight is the Birth of Venus which is a very beautiful painting. Rachel and I hovered near a tour group to hear the guide talk about the painting. Other than that, we were disturbed by all of the pictures of babies that look like little adults. We kept on seeing them over and over again. So…after the galleries we went back to the hostel to get our coats. Florence is not too big; I don’t think that there is a metro system, only buses. So the point is that we could walk to our hostel no problem from wherever. We went to dinner just to get some pizza and talked a bit. Then we went back to the hostel and talked with other people there until we went to bed. The next day we woke up and walked to the opposite side of Florence across the Ponte Vecchio where all of the jewelry stores are. We also did some shopping at the market on the way there. Then we went into the Gardens of Boboli (or something like that). They were really nice and a great place to escape. You can check out the pictures…it is basically all these paths and fountains leading up a big hill where there are great views. So we walked around for a couple of hours and took pictures. Then we wandered around some more and shopped. We were trying to figure out where we wanted to go on Sunday because we wanted to do a day trip. We decided to take a really early train to Venice and spend some time there. So we got some soup and spring rolls at a Chinese restaurant (the first time I had Chinese in Italy…it was okay) and then went to bed pretty early.

Sunday we got to Venice at about 10 and had a lot of trouble finding a train back to Rome. The only one that was available was a slow train leaving at 1:30. So we only had limited time in Venice. We ran around seeing everything and taking pictures of the canals and such. Also, we were on a hunt for certain items for ourselves and others and so we did some shopping. We kind of got lost wandering in the alleys and such. It was a very nice place and I feel like I could have spent more time there…but probably no more than a day and a night. There didn’t seem to be much to do besides walk around, shop and eat dinner. Also, it does smell weird, kind of like vinegar or something like that. We couldn’t really figure it out. So needless to say the train ride back to Rome was long and awful. By the time we got back we decided what we needed was food, Friends and gelato. So we ate dinner while watching Friends and then we got gelato. I had:

Soy vanilla: the reason that I like the soy flavors is because they are much lighter and refreshing than the regular without being fruity. I think that the vanilla was pretty good but the chocolate would have been better…2/5
Zuppa inglese (trans. English Soup…don’t as me why): I wasn’t really sure what this was when I ordered it. Apparently it is some sort of Italian dessert with cream, sponge cake, marmalade, and either orange or cherry liqueur. It kind of had a funky taste and it wasn’t my favorite… .5/5