The Last Couple of Days

It's been more than I week since I've been in Florence and I am trying to keep up with e-mail, Facebook, this blog and my own journaling. It's proved to be difficult so I'll try and post some pictures and tell a little about each one. Overall, my trip thus far has been extremely interesting and very character revealing. I am beginning to think a bit differently about some things while here, for example, I'll probably never be able to eat American food again... ever (I'll post some pictures soon so you can see what I mean). We took a trip to Sienna recently as well so I'll have those posted. Otherwise, here's what's been going on in my eyes for the last couple of days.

 Here are some better pictures of Florence during the daytime. This is the Arno River, one of my favorite places to go so far.

Here is Santa Maria Novella, the first cathedral we came across on our nighttime walk. The facade is completely white and green and there is a beautiful fresco above the enormous doors at the front entrance. This cathedral is about three blocks from where I live.

Here are some photos of the Duomo area during daytime. Every time you walk around the corner, the Baptistery and the Cathedral take your eyes by surprise, no matter how many times you've seen it. The white and green exterior gleam in the sunlight and the terra cotta dome is completely different during the day.

Here are my fellow classmates this term: Hannah, Carly and Abby. Eating lunch on the steps of the cathedral.

Inside the Duomo: It is incredibly cold and very quiet. 

Introducing your favorite Latin professor... MAGISTER!!!

The view from San Miniotto. You'd think that the streets are farther apart from looking at this, but really every place is close to one another and it takes a mere amount of minutes to cross from one building to the next.

I keep finding this guy everywhere. We're not sure if he's a commissioned artist or not, but either way, I like the variety of stuff he's got hanging on the street signs. I'm probably going to do a post full of all the graffiti I've found.

As we were heading home one night, the bells at Santa Maria Novella began to ring and as a result, thousands of birds shot into the sky, cheeping and chirping their way into chaos. It was quite a sight to see and lasted for almost two minutes.

THE BIRDS!!! THE BIRDS!!!

Here is the theatre we went to. We saw an opera (Don Pasquale). It was in Italian with Italian subtitles so I didn't catch much of what was going on, but either way it was very interesting to see not only an opera, but Italian theatre. I wish I could have snapped a picture of the set. It was an enormous nine room house with fully functional staircases and doors. 

Here's the gang, looking our best on our night at the opera.