Today, after class, I wrote several postcards in the Piazza Republica. I love the Piazza Republica because everyone is just hanging out, enjoying the day. There is a merry-go-round for the the little children and caricature artists for the tourists, but there are also many benches filled with interesting people. I got into a conversation with a man who was born in Egypt, but has lived in Florence all his life. It felt very natural to discuss my situation and studies with this complete stranger and within several minutes another older lady sitting next to us jumped in and the two of them had a 10 minute conversation about why in America we call this city Florence, but in Italy it is Firenze etc... Although I went back to my postcards at this point, it was still fun to see how willing all the Italians were to talk with anyone about anything.
After I finished my postcards, I went back to the Ufizzi, which is Florence's most famous museum. Although I had been there on a guided tour a week earlier, I still wanted to take my time and really soak in all the great artwork. All the great Renaissance works are featured there- paintings by Michelangelo and Leonardo to name a few. The Entire building is impressive. The huge two story building was built to impress. The halls are lined with intimidating sculptures dating back to Roman times and the ceiling is covered in gold and intricate pictures. The building is in the shape of a U and if you look out the windows at the bottom of the U at sunset you get a great view of the mighty River Arno and the old bridge, Ponte Vechhio.
