Pisa & Florence (Take Two)

So this past weekend was the Pisa/Florence trip with the entire SMCM group, & I was really glad that I'd already gone earlier in the semester with Chelsea b/c we really didn't have all that much time there. We left Saturday morning, stopped by Pisa for about an hour and a half (the Tower is still there, still leaning), arrived in Florence by sunset, and then left Florence just one day later. So my time there was pure leisure, no need to hit up the tourist spots or anything. I just wandered around with Sarah and Lilian, did a last bit of souvenir shopping, and then window shopped for the rest of the time.

Saturday night we managed to find a Japanese restaurant, which was definitely a highlight. It was this tiny little nook of a place, with only like six or seven chairs, but it was amazing. Lilian and I were definitely hyping it up because we had been craving sushi for basically the last month or two that we've been here, and this place looked fairly legit, haha. It was called Lucky Sushi, and it was delish.

Sarah's salmon fried rice - yum!

Lilian's california roll & spicy tuna roll - also yum!

My noodles with shrimp and california roll - not exactly what I expected cuz I thought it was gonna be soup, but definitely still delish!

 We spent the rest of the evening wandering around the market stalls and admiring the Christmas lights adorning the city streets. Most everybody else in our program went out drinking that night, but the three of us were pretty content to stay in our room, surprisingly entertained by this one program on Italian TV called Io Canto (I sing) - we think it was some kind of children's singing competition combined with a concert, and a majority of the singers were honestly not that great (there were a few that we loved, tho), but they did sing some American Christmas carols and it was pretty fun to add our own commentary. 

Pretty Christmas lights! They had many different kinds on different streets, along with a bunch of lit Christmas trees, but my camera doesn't do well to capture them, so I kind of just didn't bother with most of them.

Christmas lights above the market stalls

Different lights still lit on Sunday morning

Sunday morning we got up for our free breakfast, and Lilian and I decided to check out Sunday Mass at the Florence Duomo. It was very cold in there and the service was all in Italian, but I was able to follow the general sequence of the readings and whatnot (the bulletin also had the readings in English, which was nice), and we just took in the beauty of the church from the inside. The Masses are held in the part that is not open to tourists in the afternoon, so we were able to see the large altar up close, as well as the huge painting on the inside of the dome, which was quite grand. Travel guide Rick Steves has said that it was Michelangelo's inspiration for the Sistine Chapel, and after seeing the entire thing now, I could definitely see that. I actually kind of liked it more than the Sistine Chapel.. it just seemed more vibrant or something.. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but basically it was neat getting to see that in its full splendor.

The main altar (not where we had Mass, the service we went to was in a smaller side chapel)

The awesome inside of the Dome - click to see in more detail.

The rest of the morning was spent just wandering around Florence; I took Lilian to see the Ponte Vecchio bridge and Piazza Michelangelo, where we got a hazy view overlooking Florence in the fog. Lunchtime we met up with Simona and Dan (so they could cover our lunch expenses, our cash funds were pretty low/nonexistent, haha), and then we had about two more hours of wandering and window shopping until it was time to leave. We meandered down this one road that seemed to consist entirely of shops with random stuff (a telephone in the shape of lips or a high heel, shiny frog figurines with feathered boas and tiaras, a fairly atrocious assortment of possibly designer dresses, lots of fur and shinyness all around..), so we had fun dipping in and out of those and commenting on all of the oddities in what I dubbed "Florence's FunkyTown" :P Basically it was just a chill day of roomie hangout and being silly time, so it was a lot of fun :)

Ponte Vecchio bridge

Me in front of the bridge

Christmas trees on the bridge

  

We tried two shots of us looking nice and smiling. They didn't work out so well. This was take three :P

 

The last time we were here, Chelsea and I saw like three different Asian weddings by Piazza Michelangelo. Apparently the trend continues even in December.

 

The clouds started to clear up some in the afternoon, giving us a rather glorious sunset when it came time to leave :)