September 18, 2006 - Firenze, Italy

September 18, 2006
Firenze, Italy

First of all: Thanks to the entire Koehne family and my Italian brother for giving me comments in the last few days – It puts a smile on my face!

This morning I woke up at around 9:00 and was happy to see that it was a nice day outside. I chilled in bed for a while and thought about what we had done so far and what we have left on our trip. It just recently hit me that this is a HUGE trip!

Anyway, after we all got cleaned up and packed our things we headed out of the hostel. The Bastons went to the train station to get their tickets to Cortina (they are going to see their mom) and I cruised to my new hostel. After dropping off my stuff I made my way over to the train station. I found the other boys and we grabbed some lunch.

I then had to say goodbye to Peter Baston. He is going to go from Cortina to Portugal and I don’t know if I will see him again. It is a sad thought as he has been a perfect traveling buddy. Pete and I knew each other before the trip but we have formed a good friendship over the last month. We have many of the same interests and get along really well. I wish he could travel with us for a longer period of time. I will definitely miss him!

B and I said a quick goodbye but it was nothing special, as I will see him again in a few days (hopefully). I hope the brothers make it to their mom! I am a little sad that I won’t get to see Marty but I guess that’s how it goes sometimes.

I left the train station feeling a little weird and alone. I had a hard time deciding whether or not I wanted to go to Cortina with the Bastons or spend some time alone in Florence. In the end, I decided it would be a good time to rest and charge up for the rest of our time in Europe.

I determined the best thing to do would be to head over to the statue David. I wondered through town and eventually found the Galleria Dell’ Accademia (where Michelangelo’s masterpiece is housed). Unfortunately, I had failed to note that almost all museums in Europe are closed on Monday (for some reason unbeknownst to me)!

Instead, I decided to head to the next most famous thing in Firenze: the building known as Duomo (officially S.Maria del Fiore). It is a massive building that dwarfs almost everything else in the city. It is quite spectacular to look at. I also decided to fork over the 6 Euros to hike to the top. It was the most stairs I have climbed yet (463)! The view from the top was impressive. Since the building is in the very center of the city and is by far the tallest building around, you can see everything!


After descending all of the stairs I headed to Ponte Vecchio (a famous bridge across the Arno River). It is one of the only bridges I have seen in Europe that has shops and restaurants on it. I took many pictures and hung out on the bridge for a while. Once I had my fill I cruised around and found myself back near Piazza Michelangelo (where we camped a few days ago)

I climbed the steps to the Piazza and took a bunch of photographs before heading back down. From there I slowly meandered back to my hostel to rest for a while. On my way back I passed through several piazzas that had a bunch of statues. Some of them looked like they might be famous.

And I saw the smallest pizza delivery vehicle ever! I thought it was cool…

In the evening I met and old Coos Bay friends who happens to be interning here in Florence: Tara Sullivan. We met at the train station at around 7:00 and then cruised to a little restaurant that she knew of. We had a few drinks and a light snack. I had not seen her since high school and it was fun to catch up. At about 8:00 she had to leave to eat dinner with her host family and then go meet up with her boyfriend.

I decided to head back to my room. After getting lost once, I made it back. I am currently sharing a room with some girls from Santa Barbra. They just went out to get some wine and dessert. I would have gone but I am too exhausted. I am going to play around on the internet for a while and then get to bed.

I plan on waking up early and making my way over to the David. I am quite excited to see the most famous sculpture in the entire world!