I'm in Firenze!

Hi all!  I am finally in Florence.  After two years of planning this thing and waiting I am finally in Italy.  I got here two days ago on the 27th and ran into some trouble with my luggage.  It got stuck in Munich and didn't arrive until yesterday.  But I can't really complain about anything.  My time here has been really cool.  I've been apartment hunting with a few leads and also taking time to enjoy the city.  Heres the Ponte Vecchio at dusk.

Truly amazing.  The sunsets here are out of this world.  There are so many colors!  I wanted to paint it but realized that putting that range of color on canvas would look ridiculous.  Only in real life can it look as beautiful as it should. 

Today was the first day that I got to explore without an agenda.  I spent the morning drawing the Duomo and some sculptures in the Uffizi.  It was really nice to get back in my sketchbook.  The art in the public here is amazing.  It is so easy to just pass it by, but if you take a few minutes to look at the work and realize that it is over five centuries old and you develop a fuller appreciation for it.  

Here is the fake David in the Palazzo Uffizi.  I will for sure see the real one soon!  I think this is where the original one was first placed however.  

And here is the Duomo with a suspicious tourist.  The Duomo is really cool because it was a hugely progressive engineering design at the time that took over 170 years to complete.  Cambio, the one who designed it, and even Giotto, who took over the project later and was well known for his Scrovegni Chapel, didn't get the see the finished Duomo.   I still can't believe that I went from studying this last semester to walking past it every day.  

Italian word of the entry: Affittasi - for rent