Florence, I Mean, I Guess It Is Okay...

Alrighty, so one full week between posts is not good.  It makes me feel the way that Andre Smith must've felt when he saw himself run the 40 yard dash in this video (:43-:53 seconds in).  I'll admit, it isn't impressive.  And I know that my loyal readers, all 4 of them (even though it says I have 11 followers, I fail to believe that many people actually read it) must be really disappointed.  Good news though, I'm back for a while and should be able to post away.

No reason to beat around the bush: Florence is an incredibly beautiful city.  It absolutely puts Athens to shame, but then again so would a rotting piece of meat sitting in the sun for a week.  So that's a little harsh, Athens isn't that bad.  It is just incredibly urban and reminds me alot of Las Angeles.  Logically it won't possess the same beauty as a much smaller city in Florence.  I was visiting my roommate from BC, Chris Mario, and he lived a short ten minute walk from the Duomo.  Basically that means that he had an awesome location and had access to all the cool sites in the city.  And when we weren't body-brawling or consuming wonderfully cheap paninis, we toured around the city.

The first thing that I loved about Florence is the architecture of the city.  If I were to fall out of a plane randomly and had no idea where I was, I could've guessed for sure I was in Italy.  Whereas if you dropped me in the middle of Aghia Paraskevi, I probably could not tell you I was in Greece.  It gave an incredibly authentic feeling, which ironically, Mario said is quite the opposite.  It didn't take long to see what he meant:  Florence is very much a touristy city as well.  There's nothing wrong with that, because it is gorgeous there, but by the end of the weekend I could tell what he meant.

First, if you haven't taken a look at my pictures from Florence, you definitely should to see what it looks like from the tallest building in the city (that would be the Duomo).  We went in the early evening and hung around long enough to watch the sun set over the hills to the west.  The roof of the cathedral as well is jaw-dropping.  The amount of time that it must have taken to paint that ceiling gives me a headache at the thought of working on something artistic for that long.  Second, the other big touristy thing we did was go and see the David.  It is bigger, nearly perfect and more impressive than you think (and no, I am definitely not talking about his wiener).  Everything about it quite literally screams, "PERFECTION."  I'd imagine that Michelangelo did a MJ shoulder shrug when he finished as if to say (for those of you who don't get the comparison) "I don't know how I did it."  There is quite a bit of incredible art in that museum, which is a shame for all those pieces because the David literally blows everything out of the water.  Don't try and take a picture though unless you want your head bitten off by angry Italian museum employees.

Sidenote:  I have now determined that museum staff are some of the most unhappy/unfriendly people on the face of the planet, challenging the DMV for that award.  After going to museums in the US, Spain, Greece and now Italy, I am not sure I have seen a single one smile.  Granted, I would hate my life too if I worked as a person who just stood there all day as people came up and gawked at art, but heaven forbid they smile even once.  Take the pretentious stick from out of your ass and try to be a little friendly, mkay?  Good.

The food we had was...well if you need me to tell you that it was delicious, you haven't been paying close enough attention to the glowing review of Florence thus far.  Of course, the fashion and clothing shops were definitely a favorite of mine, but I'm catching enough heat for my metrosexuality at this point that I don't need to toss gasoline on the fire.

Gelato.  Enough said.

Alrighty, that's probably long enough although I could definitely go into a lot more detail.  If you are interested in hearing more about Mario and mine's adventures, you can hit me up on Skype (peter.mertens11 or just search for Peter Sean Mertens) or send me a Facebook message.  I love hearing from people back home!  Seriously.  Hard to believe that I only have 38 more days left in Athens.