Florence

So, it is finally time to post about the area I have been living in for the past five weeks. Hopefully this post successfully becomes how I have imagined it. Understand I am not developing this post on the basis to capture the popular attractions of Florence, rather the parts most important to me. 


Enjoy!

Some favorites buildings and sculptures I would see every day:

My street which leads to the water. Right next to it was the Uffizi Museum where the Birth of Venus by Botticello is at.

My favorite sculpture in Plaza della Signoria. It depicts Perseus holding up Medusa's head. Her headless body lays besides his feet.

I love how the blood and gore is depicted in thick squiggles, as if her whole body contained snakes (not just her hair).

View from directly beneath the sculpture

I HATE THIS SCULPTURE! Its a replica of the real David by Michelangelo and it is INCREDIBLY OFF PROPORTIONS! Even though it copies the real sculpture quite well, it is nothing compared to the original. I only posted this up because I could not take any pictures of the real one, which I didn't mind since I spent four hours sketching him.

 Plaza della Signoria before all the tourists arrive 

There are many different ways to walk to the Duomo from my apartment. Theres this one, which is filled with shops and usually crowded with people. This is in the morning when the supply trucks come and unload. Definitely have to be careful from getting hit while walking down this street in the morning.

The Duomo! Amazingly detailed. 

The entrance to the outdoor vendors, the main objects being sold were leather goods, jewelry, scarves, trashy touristy items, and weird items (such as Bob Marley shirts and pipes).

Studio Arts Center International (SACI):

My fantastic photography teacher Romeo flying around on the wall. A past student drew these mini cartoon figurines all over the photography room with Romeo's head glued on top. Theres one of him smoking weed and another of him being all the Winnie the Pooh characters.  

Glance from where I usually sit in the photography room 

My favorite enlarger right by the air conditioning

I BOW DOWN TO THIS PROCESSING MACHINE! I will miss it dearly.

Giant light table. Romeo is in the lime green shirt helping out one of my fellow students.

Carly waiting for her plates to dry from the Varnish

Keeping clean  

Developing room which is located in the first floor of SACI. At first, I hated going into these "closets" with the heavy drapes, because being in the pitch black and loading my film into the container was nerve wrecking. One time I was in there for 30 minutes. I got used to it luckily. 

The front desk. The night receptionist is in this photo, but during the day a dude was there who helped me with all my random problems.

My three (plus Madi's) favorite gelato places:

Those people look happy. Anyways, it was not exactly the gelato I went for, but the price and location (one minute walk from SACI). I could get a 1 Euro cone with two flavors. Usually I tried to mix it up and get random ones (such as risotto and pear, nutella and chocolate, and coconut).  Right across from it was a torture chamber museum, which is why I would walk straight back to school after getting my delicious yummy (gore tends to gross me out). 

Pretty lights. Probably the prettiest gelato parlor I visited in Florence, but the most unhappiest employees (maybe the lights get blinding after a while). They had a huge range of flavors, which made it difficult to choose. The best combo I had there was banana and chocolate. 

And my favorite place, Grom! Its actually a chain and there are some in NYC. The gelato had a different texture than others, a tad more liquidity. I loved watching the employees make perfect little bloops of gelato and plop them on top of each other. Hopefully I can find a good online photo depicting this. I fell in love with it's apricot and dark chocolate. So good!

Thanks to whatever blog I stole this from. Anyways do you see the perfect scoops of heaven? The system was interesting  as well, the gelato were hidden in slots and covered with lids.  

It would not be proper to talk about my favorite gelato places without some gelato photos! This was at Madi's favorite gelato place across the river. 

Someones happy

Sarah modeling her gelato

The happy ending to my five weeks in Florence:

July 24th is a national Holiday in Italy. Before the fireworks, an organization were handing out these beautiful lanterns. 

Random folks preparing a flying lantern. They had to wait until the wax was hot enough to let it go over the bridge.

Almost ready!

Jordan letting her baby go! Not all the lanterns were successful, floating sadly to the river below. 

Some organization folks have a serious talk

Before the fireworks. I was playing around with my shutter speed trying to capture the realistic color of the night. 

Julia. We sat on the strip across one of the rivers. 

Playing around. I love this photo because of the color and relaxing focus. 

Fireworks! 

They were not spectacular, but it was a lovely way to end my stay in Florence.

And that concludes my five week stay in Florence. 

Although I did not get to talk about every aspect I enjoyed, savored, and disliked about Florence, I hope you enjoyed reading my blog for the past four weeks. 

I am in Paris for a week, so except a couple more posts about my continued Europe travels. 

As for the future of my blog, I am still unsure yet.