The past week has been filled with classes, more exploring, and a ton of walking! My classes are so interesting and new. They're definitely not anything I'd be able to take in the states. One of my art classes is a photo editing class where we are asked to bring in photos that we've taken and then we take on the role of an editor to create a comprehensive chronology of our photographs-make a story-and gain the ability to be objective of our own work. (which is VERY hard). My teacher was born in Oak Park, but he's literally lived all over the world- Florence, Paris, London, New York, South Carolina- he is most definitely someone I will learn a lot from. And he's just a super cool guy, and considering the class only have 5 students in it, I think we'll all get to know each other pretty well.
Well, enough about school because, let's be honest, I'm hardly even thinking of classes when I live in such an amazing place. I decided that on wednesday after my class I would go exploring again on my own. I ended up at the duomo again and finally went inside. Not only is the inside the most amazing sight I've ever seen, but if you pay 8 euro you can walk up to the very top, the copula, and see all of florence. The duomo, which means dome, was designed by Brunelleschi, who was one of Florence's most important artists and architects. When I started walking up the stairs of the church, all I could think about was that I was climbing something made by Brunelleschi- someone who I had studied in school for months! After a while though, that enthusiasm faded and my legs starts to hate this decision as I realized I wasn't even near the top and I had already climbed hundreds of stairs! A couple hundred more and I reached the first of 2 stops on the tour up to the top. I was walking around the inside of the dome, where incredible Renaissance paintings covered every inch of ceiling over my head. I looked down and was in awe of how something SOO tall could have been built so many hundreds of years ago. After some more strenuous steps and creepy passageways I emerged onto the copula. It was the most amazing sight. I could see all of Florence and beyond! I saw the Santa Croce and where my apartment was located. I saw the Orsanmichele and the Santa Maria Novella. After taking a whole battery's worth of pictures on my camera I took some deep breaths and started my descent. The trip down didn't take nearly as long as the one up, but as I stepped off the last step into the piazza I realized I had made my first real important memory of living in Florence. Who knows if I would ever pay 8 euro again to climb until my knees broke, but the fact that I did it on my own and took in the moment with no one else around really made all the difference.
Hopefully, I'll have many more spectacular memories in Florence to come....
Ciao for now!
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