qui per un breve periodo

the next-to-last supper

Well, this is it. Yesterday I said a tearful goodbye to my beautiful one-speed bike (with bell and basket), wandered aimlessly around the San Lorenzo market, ate my last pizza quattro formaggio and had my last yogurt-and-cioccolato-fondente gelato, mailed packages home, and cleaned out the refrigerator in the apartment.

This afternoon Katherine and I will be in London, where I will use up the next four days- hopefully not spending money- before heading home.

I have had terribly mixed feelings about living in Florence. I still believe it is a much better place to be for a short time- say, 2 weeks- and would rather have lived in a city like Torino, or Rome, or Bologna. But Florence is magical, and the last few days it has re-cast its spell on me. I will miss it.

So, things I will never forget about Florence:

1. the afternoon sunlight on the façade of Santa Croce.
2. the Simon and Garfunkel impersonator at the Uffizi, who played the “Greatest Hits” CD in its EXACT order every night for a week.
3. gelato from De Neri and GROM
4. Panino numero uno from Antico Noe
5. running along the Arno around sunrise, eve though the Arno stinks.
6. the markets
7. the wine
8. piazza santissima annunziata
9. the homeless woman who mopped the steps of the Ospedale degli Innocenti every morning
10. Elia, the owner of the school café, who always called me “cara” (dear), and always gave me a piece of chocolate with my cappuccino.

And, of course, on the opposite side, things I hope to forget about Florence:
1. dog poo in the streets
2. stepping on dog poo in the streets
3. the smell of urine in every alley
4. the cold, cold rain
5. watching Florentine men eat tripes (stomach lining)
6. not being able to communicate with anyone (which is not really Florence’s fault, it’s mine…)
7. mosquitoes
8. tourists
9. men who say “ciao bella”
10. vendors who try and sell roses or CDs inside a restaurant while you are eating.

The other night Katherine, Sai, Wilson, and I set out into the frigid Italian air to take in Florence's holiday decorations- especially the official city Christmas tree. Here are a few shots from our wanderings. Buon feste!

My studio review was last night, which means I finally have time to spend blogging again! The review went well- I met some fun spanish architects and we all got great feedback... better than can normally be expected, I'd say. So to fill you in briefly on the last two weeks:

3 days in Rome.

in front of St. Peter's

Our last school field trip started the morning after thanksgiving dinner. Needless to say we were all quite full and tired. I spent half of the trip with a group from my history class looking at architecture in Rome built under Fascist rule, so I was glad I had been there before to see the ancient archtiecture. My history professor is a highly knowlegable and fascinating man who reminds us all of our grandfathers. Needless to say, wandering Rome with him was a real treat, and a seriously needed change of pace from the rest of the field trips this semester. We saw the Forum Mussolini had built for the Olympic Games (that never took place because WWII started), as well as his own private gym, a fencing hall (converted into a police headquarters... go figure), several post offices, and the E42 district. This is an area south of Rome that was planned to be the new city center and was to house the International Expo of 1942 (which again never happened). The district was never fully realized- in fact, only 6 out of some 50 buildings were constrcuted, and now it has been filled in with strange housing blocks, losing practically all of its significance. The last day of the field trip I rejoined my studio and visited Hadrian's villa and the Villa d'Este, outside Rome.

10 days of studio, studio, studio.

Immediately upon our return to Florence everyone hit crunch time for finishing studio projects. Nothing too eventful happened in this time, except that Florence suddenly got very, very cold.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

German Christmas market outside Santa Croce

Around the same time we returned from Rome, Florence was transformed into a city of Christmas lights. Much like at home, the shops are all advertising the holiday and people seem to be merry and bright. I hope to get a few good pictures of the city lit at night, to include them in a later post. It is so nice to have a little Christmas cheer over here, although I think it has made a few of us even more homesick.

So, in less than two weeks I will be home. Next Friday we move out of our apartment and fly back to London, where Katherine and I will spend 4 relaxing days decompressing before heading back to the states on the 21st. If you're in Nebraska between then and mid-January, I want to see you!

Happy Thanksgiving from Florence to all my family and friends!! I pray for you all a day (or two or three) of rest and fun with those dear to you, and I am thankful every day for the wonderful people God has brought into my life!

Tonight my roommate and I are hosting dinner for our 18 classmates to celebrate- I'll post some pictures next time!

Take care and be safe-

This is a group photo taken of my class (13 of us plus our prof) last weekend at the top of a campinile in Verona. I can't take credit for the panorama, unfortunately.

Happy November! After ten days of travel I am happy to be back in Florence, even as I realize that November means my days here are short. In just 6 quick weeks I will be back in Nebraska. My week of travel was wonderful, even though I had school projects looming in the back of my mind. The places we went and things we saw worked as good temporary distractions, and so I enjoyed myself despite my waiting course load!

The best thing about where Katherine and I traveled was that we got to experience a week of true autumn. Florence has not had much to offer in terms of changing leaves or pumpkins or cider, but simply by heading north we found all three in abundance. Although we left with no intended “theme” or connection between the places we were going, by the end of the week we realized that the somewhat morbid theme of “cemeteries” seemed to fit our travel quite well!


Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb

In Zagreb, Croatia, we spent Halloween wandering through the country’s largest and best-maintained cemetery, Mirogoj. Since the following day was a major religious holiday in Europe (All Saint’s Day), the cemetery grounds were packed with families adorning their loved ones’ gravesites with beautiful flower arrangements and votive candles. The life, flowers, and lights transformed the cemetery into a beautiful and mysterious city park.

In Salzburg our theme continued, as on All Saint’s Day we visited the cemetery of St. Peter’s church (picture the mausoleums in the scene in “The Sound of Music” where the Von Trapp’s are hiding in the convent). Prague took us through one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Central Europe, where ornately carved stone markers are crowded together and serve as a reminder of the deep roots the Jewish community has in the area.


Jewish cemetery in Prague

Finally, a day trip from Prague to the once-prosperous mining town of Kutna Hora led us to one of the strangest sights in the Czech Republic: an ossuary (chapel) decorated with the bones of 40,000 bodies taken in the Black Death during the late middle-ages. Apparently the monks who founded the chapel were at a loss as to what to do with all the bodies after the deadly plague, and eventually one monk (whom some believe was not so right in the head) and an architect decided it would be a fitting memorial to use their bones to make chandeliers, coats of arms, crosses, and other various chapel ornaments.


the ossuary chapel at Kutna Hora

Beyond the seemingly morbid, all of the places we visited were amazing, and each was unique from the others. We managed to see both sides of Croatia: Split on the coast, and Zagreb further inland, were like night and day. Salzburg - the land of Mozart, the Alps, and hills that sing – proved its beauty simply in its people, sights, and food. And Prague found a new place in my heart as the most beautiful European city by night.


Split, Croatia


Salzburg Cathedral dome


Prague by night

So, with fall break now behind me, only two field trips (to Venice and Rome) and a whole lot of schoolwork remain in my semester in Italy. Call me crazy, but I think I will be ready to put the luggage away for a while and stay in one place!