Florence, Day 13

First off, let's just all appreciate the view I get while walking around this city.

Overlooking the Arno.

Now that we've taken care of that....

We discussed our library worksheets in Italian class today. One of the questions dealt with talking about our favorite book(s); I, of course, talked about Lord of the Rings, but found out that there are apparently some more negative connotations associated with the series here in Italy, since some radical underground political groups use some of the symbolism in the book to represent their organizations. Well. Color me surprised. However, once Luigi explained this to us he told me that I "didn't look like one of those people." Glad to hear it. It's always interesting (if not surprising) to hear about the different meanings of books in a different culture.

Isa and I used our break to go get more of that magical food: gelato sticks. I know I've said it before, but I need to reiterate: those little things are amazing. I can't get over the fact that they're from McDonald's. They're just so good!

After lunch the whole group followed Jodi down to the Galileo Museum (I took the first picture on the way there) for a big group tour. It was incredible. I've included a picture or two from our tour, but I can't believe I actually some of the artifacts I saw today.

A geo-centric armillary sphere

Two of Galileo's own telescopes!

There were so many things to see. I can't even really put it into writing. But it was amazing and if anyone is going to Florence at any point in the future, I would definitely recommend going to the Galileo Museum. (Click on the link: there's a virtual tour!)

Sarah, Isa, and I went back to Linguaviva by way of some souvenir shops. We hunted down some postcards to mail off to the States and then went on a quest for gelato. We ended up finding the gelateria that my host mom thinks is the best in Florence and I tried apricot gelato for the first time.

Back at the apartment, we had rice, cheese, fish, salad, and plums and grapes for dinner. I still have not mastered the art of completely deboning my fish. It was not entirely pleasant. After dinner Sarah and I settled down in our room for homework and some jams. Time to get back to work on my Italian adverbs!