dont climb hills if you have a stuffy nose. i almost died.

mamma mia this city is absolutely spectacular.

today was our first day of intense italian language class. it can be very frustrating at times to separate my french from the new italian. since i dont know how to ask any question i have in italian, my first instinct is to always ask in french. alas, THIS IS NOT FRANCE and it will not fly. now we have the rolllling "R" instead of the throat R. thankfully i am able to execute both, though clarissa said she can detect a french accent in my attempted new italian language.

anyway, after class we went to the phone store called TIM and bought our sim cards to put in our most-likely-ghetto-ass phones we rent from the program. they better be decent. in france, i got this barrio brick of a phone that peaced out on me after only a week, refusing to charge. i gave up and went cell-less for the entire trip. i am now sitting in the tiny computer lab thing at Linguaviva, our language school, waiting for our official orientation to start at four. later we are going to go out for the first time while we still living in the city. apparently, our homestays are somewhere out in the suburbs, therefore we are not able to wander home in the wee hours of the morning as buses (the only mode of public transportation) stops at midnight. on the subject of "today" i have nothing more to say, therefore i will chronicle my first full day in firenze.

as posted before, clarissa and i arrived after a million years of travel on saturday. we slept slept slept and rested to be able to explore on sunday which we most certainly did. we walked around with another student from our program, ross, who had already been here for two days before us. first we went to ponte vecchio, the bridge that is lined with shops crossing the Arno, and from there decided to climb high above the city on the south side of the river. the first very impressive hill we climbed led up to a fortress which, being sunday, was closed. the walk was worth it though; the entire way up we walked along the city's old fortress wall, absolutely magnificent and imposing. once we reached the top, we pretty much turned around immediately. afterwards, we took on the large hill across from the one we just climbed. this new mountainous hill was the home of what is supposedly (and later proved to be) the best view of florence. i dont remember its name but it's named after michelangelo, topped with a replica of David. from there we climbed a bit higher and explored the monastery, st miniato. Mass was being held at the time so we didnt have a chance to really see the inside of the church. we found out yesterday that it is going to be one of our sites for class, though. after many photos and much time gazing down upon firenze, we descended and cross the river once again, heading to the Duomo. needless to say, it was stunning and i can't wait to go inside.

the only thing i could really think of the entire time we were up on the hill was how amazing it is that such a revolutionary era of art took place in such a small town, the town that i was looking down on. there are only a few buildings one is able to recognize from the view (the duomo, city hall, pitti palace, etc) and one is able, at least i was, to marvel at the idea that the immense concentration of such wonderful art is not just limited to those few landmarks, but it spread throughout the city in what look like ordinary buildings; no via was untouched by the renaissance. it is just so easy to let your mind wander and consider the fact that maybe the very place you are standing, brunelleschi or giotto or fra angelica could have been standing there at one time, as well.