Florence continued

So we continue to browse by the vendors and other shops in Florence as we made our way to the Galleria Dell'Accademia, where the real statue of David lies. Normally you need to make reservations for this museum and the Uffizi, but we called and the attendants said that because they're not in peak season we shouldn't have to wait in line. Apparently in the peak seasons, you could be standing in line for hours. It was only 6.5 euros to enter the Accademia, and we enter into a large room filled with paintings. Of course the Accademia is known for its holding of Michelangelo's David, the real one. There are a couple fake ones around Florence, but they moved the real one inside so that it wouldn't undergo any further environmental damage. We then go into a long hallway filled with several unfinished statues, and immediately you see David at the end of this hallway. I was immediately taken back for both its size and beauty I was not expecting. He's 17 ft tall and the structural detail is just mind blowing. There is barely any facial expression and he is completely naked, standing with his slingshot draped across his back. Such a simple pose, but yet such an enormously powerful statue. I think I just stood there in awe for a good five minutes; unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any pictures. The rest of the museum just had a couple of other rooms with some more statues and paintings, so we left the Accademia and headed to get lunch before our reservation at the Uffizi Gallery. Magda, our Italian teacher recommended we go to the make your own panini place so we tried it out. It's funny though because when I think of make your own panini I think of tons of toppings, but this place was like nicely set up with high tables and then menu was written on the board in all Italian. Good thing I knew what prosciutto was lol, but the great thing about this place was everything was so fresh. They literally carved the meat right there in front of you. They also gave you a free complementary glass of house wine with your sandwich. It was really strong wine too because we were all feeling it after just one glass, even Bryce. When we were done we headed to the Uffizi. When people talk of Florence, almost all people will tell you that the Uffizi Gallery is a must see. It is said that it's one of the oldest and most famous art galleries in all of Europe. It houses thousands of paintings and sculptures, many by the famous Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, and many others. We went into room after room filled with paintings that covered the walls, and most of them were larger than me. The Gallery was put together to display the many valuable pieces collected by the Medici family, the richest family in Florence that ruled for a dynasty. Just like the Accademia, we were not allowed to take pictures which stinks because I want to be able to remember it forever, especially some of my favorite paintings. You could spend hours in the Uffizi and still feel like you didn't see everything. Even for the "off season" the gallery was pretty crowded. After the Uffizi we decided to walk to the piazza de Michelangelo which is on top of a hill in Florence where you can see the entire city. The tour guide told us it was a 45 minute walk, and we didn't have much time until sunset so we tried to figure out how to talk the bus there but that ended up not working. So we just walked, and I'm glad we did because it was at most a 15 minute walk up a lot of stairs. At the top, the view was incredible. You could see a whole panorama of the city, and we got there just in time for the sun to start setting. I got some really amazing pictures.We walked back down to town, and to our hostel to get ready for dinner. We decided we wanted to go out for a nice sit down dinner, because let me tell you I'm sick of pizza. I'm going to come home and never want to eat it again. Don't get me wrong it's really good here, but I'm sick of bread and cheese. So I ordered grilled salmon and vegetables. The salmon was a really small portion, but the vegetables were delicious. It was eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes grilled and topped with olive oil and spices. We also all split two bottles of wine; Florence is known for their Chianti. I've become quite the wine drinker now since it's normally the cheapest thing you can get. I do have to say the beer in Europe is really tasty too, and I haven't even been to Germany yet. We didn't go to dinner until 8:30, and stayed until 10ish so we decided to just go back to the hostel for the night. Florence I guess isn't known for their night life, because I don't think we passed a single bar. I think most people go out to dinner and just stay really late. More classy than us Americans. We woke up early the next morning to get our free breakfast, and then we caught an 11:30 train to Pisa. As a group, we were deciding to either do Tuscany or Pisa for Sunday, but the problem was we only had Sunday to do everything and the latest train back to Lugano was at 5:55pm. So that pretty much cancelled out Tuscany, but I think all in all we really wanted to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa; Tuscany is just really pretty and known for its vineyards. Plus Pisa was free, and Tuscany we'd probably have to take some kind of tour. On the train ride to Pisa we actually set next to other Americans who were studying abroad in Florence, so it was fun talking to them. It wasn't too far from the train station to Pisa, and you could see it from a distance. The thing though was besides the leaning tower and chapel there wasn't really anything else in Pisa to do. The town was actually kind of sketchy and dirty compared to what were used to. So we caught an earlier train back to Florence and walked around the city, grabbed lunch (of course it was pizza), went to our hostel to get our bags, and back to the train station. We caught our on time train back to Lugano and arrived around 9:30pm (in time for the ravens game) which I won't even discuss here because it'll make me depressed. It was definitely wonderful to be back at the Montarina though after a long, jammed-packed but amazing weekend. I do have to say though this week back has been pretty stressful since we got out midterm essay today that's due Thursday morning, and have a million other things to plan. Our ideal trip to Paris this weekend was ruined when we figured out it would be 96 euors to reserve a seat, and now our backup plan to go to Rome might be ruined as well because the Italian trains are going on strike from Thurs at 9pm to Friday at 9pm. So we gotta figure out all that which should be fun on top of everything else. And I have to make sure that I post enough pictures on this blog so Barb's eyes don't go blinder from reading all my words. You asked for more pictures, and I took 250 this weekend! But I can't post them all here it would take way too long so you can check them out on my facebook.