Plus ça change, Plus c'est la même chose.: Orsanmichele, The Baptistry, and Santa Maria del Fiore.

Decided to take a quick study break to write this blog!

Today was a jam-packed day of visits. We started off the morning in class where Caitlin and Kimberly talked about Orsanmichele (The old grainery that is now converted in to a church) and Dr. Halpern talked about Dante’s Divine Comedy. I’ve studied the Divine Comedy before but I’m discovering even more the second time around which is great! After class we headed to lunch. Kelsey, Cassandra, and I got pizza from a small bakery. I tried a zucchini and tomato slice, which of course was delicious. I don’t even know why I keep explaining how the food is because everything I’ve had has been really great/better than American food (Sorry Chick Fil A, Ledo’s Pizza, and Noodles, I still love you.) After lunch we did some readings and chilled until we had to meet for the outings.

We started our afternoon at Orsanmichele where we viewed many famous sculptures and saw an ornate, gold and white tabernacle incasing a painting of the Madonna and Child. After this we headed to the center of Florence to the Duomo. We first went in to the Baptistry, which had the most beautiful ceiling I’ve ever seen. The entire thing was a mosaic of rich colors and gold that told Biblical stories. The Baptistry also has three doors that are very well known. The north and south doors told stories from the New Testament and life of John the Baptist respectively. The east door was a replica. The real door is made completely of gold and told stories from the Old Testament (It was on display in the Museo).

After this we explored the Duomo and I was finally able to see the inside of the Dome I read so much about in Brunelleschi’s Dome. We finished off the day in the Museum about the Duomo, by that point I was running low on energy! What do we do when we run low on energy here? EAT GELATO! After our Gelato, we decided to climb the bell tower. About half way up, I was seriously starting to reevaluate my decision. I’m not a clostrophobic person but the stairwells are extremely small and go on for MILES it seems. Once to the top of the tower, I was happy again. We had a 360 view of Florence. I just soaked up the sun and enjoyed the view.

Andrew, Kelsey, Jae, Sean, and I then headed to the only Mexican restaurant in town, Tijuana. I of course decided to get a fajita! After dinner, I came back to the Instituto and started working on assignments.