I stayed in Florence last Wednesday through Friday with my friend Virginia from Mac. It was interesting to see how other Americans live abroad. When I got there Wednesday, it was pouring, so I bought an umbrella from one of the pushy-umbrella-men on the street and went exploring. The town itself is smaller than I thought, it's really easy to walk around the whole thing in an hour or two. I stopped in the Salvatore Ferragamo shoe museum when the rain got really bad. He was a smart man.

On Thursday, Virginia had a midterm at her art school, so I spent a good 10 hours just walking around and seeing the sights. I started at the Uffizi, the famous museum of Renaissance art. After that I explored their large duomo in the center of the city and climbed to the top of Brunelleschi's dome and saw the panoramic view of the city.

By the way, I had the best gelato of my life at this place called Vivoli on a tiny side street. It is supposedly the best in Italy...I can believe it. I don't understand why America can't do ice cream like that.

At sunset, I crossed the famous bridge full of expensive jewelry, the Ponte Vecchio and went to the Piazzale Michaelangelo, a large park that overlooks the city. I just sat up there for awhile and listened to my ipod. It was great.

Virginia and I went to the Accademia on Friday morning and saw Michaelangelo's David. It is actually breaktaking by the true definition of the word. It is much bigger than I thought. The definition on the sculpture makes it hard to believe that he completed it in just three years.

When I got back to Milan, I started to transfer my Florence pictures to my computer and I accidentally deleted them all! I am still really pissed at myself. I can't believe I did that. I took a ton of really cool ones, too. Ah well, I need to stop thinking about it.

As much as I thought Florence was pretty, I am glad that I study in Milano. About half of the people there are American study abroad students and the other half are tourists from America and Japan. It kind of hurt me hearing English everywhere...it was almost like taking a trip back to America for a few days. It just took some of the charm away.

It was interesting to hear what some of the Americans there thought of Milan when they visited. Basically, the summary of it was: "it's a big, dirty city where no one speaks English". I'm not sure what they expected being that it is in Italy where people speak Italian. Ah well.