Day 13

On to day 13, our last full day in Florence.

In class we had a seminar by Lex on The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. We then had a very interesting lesson on the beginnings of Rome and the heyday of the Republic, as well as the great expansion of Rome in its first 500 years of being.

After class I grabbed pizza and headed back to the hotel. I used the internet for a bit then headed up to pack. After packing I wasn’t sure what to do so I decided to do a bit of shopping, or at least browse more, after all, Florence is famous for its shopping along with its art. I ended up at the leather jacket store from before and I tried on a few ones. The first 2 were the typical motorcyclish ones; black, tight fitting, shiny. Then I tried on a looser, matte, dark brown one and I loved it. Seeing as this was my last chance, I needed a jacket for fall anyway and these are known to last forever, I bought it for 150 euros ($216), which is the largest single purchase I have ever made, but I think it was justified.

For dinner we went to a nice rustic Tuscan restaurant with beautiful art everywhere. After dinner I decided I may as well go out on the town with everyone seeing as it was my last night in Florence. We explored around the city and found it is quite different at night. We met quite a few groups on trips like ours (a lot of them were college age), most of them out for a drink. We passed through the Piazza della Signoria where a youth orchestra was playing amongst the statues, and then in the Piazza San Lorenzo there was a jazz band playing in a little gazebo, which was cool. At one point we met a group from Hungary and I had a rough conversation with them in half English, half Hungarian. At the end of the night we ended up at a gelateria where we ate gelato with a Norwegian boy who looked about 13, but was probably about 15 or 16 who was sipping away coolly at his third champagne sized glass of Absolut Vodka. The fact that he was treating it like water alone was astonishing, but the fact that he could carry on a fully intelligent conversation in a language not native to his was unbelievable. We tried to catch his name, but it sounded like Kshglaus. So after about 3 tries we just called him Laus and bid him goodnight before heading back to the hotel. We had a grace period before we had to be in our room so we hung out in the hall, ate snacks and vandalized each other’s arms and legs with a sharpie. It was quite a bonding moment. After curfew I fell asleep fairly fast, despite the infernal air conditioner.