FLORENCE...

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Just got back from Firenze otherwise known as Florence...

But let me back up to last Monday. Started getting homesick because well, it was a Monday, and Mondays always remind you of the work ahead...and when you are stuck inside our tiny campus for long periods of time, you get a little kooky. And when you get kooky, you get homesick. Monday evening was actually quite nice though...i went to Praise and Worship in the chapel and made friends quickly with the lovely Deacon Sam (who greeted me by name only after meeting me once like a week before). We discussed all kinds of things, and I told him about my service site that I would be visiting the next day. He flipped out and got so excited he was practically dancing around...apparently he had done work with the Missionaries of Charity before and was in love with it. He grabbed me by the face and said with a big smile, "You are so blessed!" So, basically the priests and deacons here are the coolest people ever.

The non-original David outside in the Piazza...not as cool as the indoor one but still exciting!
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Tuesday I got up early to go to the service site. Got there and the nuns put us right to work. Charlena and I were placed in a room with a couple of sinks, buckets, soap, and piles of clothes. The nuns are old school and do all the wash by hand...so we learned how to wash clothes by hand this week. One of the nuns was pretty nutty and had a specific way of doing it, and you could tell the other nuns were rolling their eyes a bit at this one because she was a little bossy (no kidding, i saw another nun make a face at her!), but she was nice enough and showed us the right way to do it. Her name was Sister Mary of course. We rinsed, washed, scrubbed, rinsed and rinsed again, before ringing the clothes and leaving them to be dried. We were only there two hours, but it took us the full time to do the clothes. We scrubbed the undies of homeless guys, to sum it all up. I think I will enjoy it there. They weren't kidding when they said, "Be prepared to get your hands dirty" in the job description....

Young Bridgie with the Old Bridgie...
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Heard a guest speaker from the Jesuit Refugee Services in Human Rights class on Wednesday, which was pretty cool. That night was our big Mass of the Holy Spirit at the Church of San Ignatio and then dinner. Our cabbie that night was a man who put on old school American rap and sang along with us. Thursday was our first on site class at the Roman Forum, also amazing...and Friday was a makeup day, but I had no class and was abe to go on a morning tour of the Church of Saint Clement church with Father Bosco (my catholic writers teacher) and a group of kids who were also free. This church is three churches built one over the other. The top one is on main ground level, an 11^th century church. If you go downstairs, there is a 4^th century church. And one more level down, a 1^st century one. Amazing. Pretty cool to walk through so much history in one place. After the tour, he took us for pizza near the Colosseum. That night, a group of kids and one of our SLA’s and took the train to do what they call the Friday night food run. This involves meeting up with a little old Italian man who cooks all day so that he can feed homeless guys dinner once a week. He puts a load of food in his van and hits the road. Volunteers show up to help him pass everything out. So we found him, and handed out pasta, sandwiches, tea, and sweet rolls to bunches of guys at three different stops around Rome, the final one ending outside the Vatican. We saw polite guys as well as grabby guys & crabby ladies, but the best was interacting with the little old man Gigi, who makes it all happen. Everyone respects him, and he treats them all like friends. When we went to leave, he gave me a traditional Italian double cheek kiss. We tried to give them to the rest of his worker friends, and I ended up missing terribly (you have to remember to go to the right cheek first or else) and kissing a middle aged man pretty much on the mouth and it was awkwardly hilarious. He was a bit embarrassed being the humble little guy that he was…

Unhappy laborers on the march...
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Instead of going home to rest for Florence, a couple kids and I from the bunch left the Vatican to go find a bite to eat. We ran into our lovely deacon and priest friends two minutes later, who were out for Father Ryan’s birthday (a precious and intensely HAPPY guy who had just turned 28 I believe…yeah they are all super young). They showed us how to find some good food, gave us some lively stories and sent us off into the night. We ended up sampling pizza and pastries in Trastevere. Sadly we didn’t get home until late, and had to wake up at like 4 the next morning for…

Early Carnivale excitement!
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FLORENCE!

Upon arriving, we were met by a parade of some sort...people were giving a demonstation in the streets.  There have been a few different protests/gatherings/demonstrations since we've been in Italy, but we haven't wuite figured out exactly what they are about.  Politics.  Anyway, we found our hostel (very nice for a hostel holding a group of about 10), and went straight to the Ufizzi for our reservations at 11. The Ufizzi was good (saw the “Birth of Venus”), although by the end of it, I was beginning to feel the dizzying effects of about 2 hours of sleep from the night before as well as hunger with a side of dehydration. We headed out to find “I Fratellini” (literally, “Little Brothers”) a Rick Steve’s recommendation, which was a hole-in-the wall-sandwich stand that served a glass of wine and sandwich for about 4 euro…nice deal! I tried a pork and tartuffo cream sanwich and tried a bit of Katie's Chianti white wine (the main stuff in Florence, which is so far the one i liked best).  We spent the majority of the day after that just walking around shopping and running into other Rome Center kids (there were a ton there this weekend). We found the best gelato known to mankind…and took a picture of us eating it outside the shop. The owner ran outside after us and asked if we could send him the picture! After a bit more shopping, Brooke, Katie and I got separated from the bigger group (and the girl with the cell phone) so we ended up wandering between the hostel and the main church for a good while…due to Brooke’s good thinking, we left a note inside the hostel door on the steps for our main group telling them we would be back every hour on the hour and asking them to wait for us, since they had the KEY). In the meantime, Brooke managed to acquire the attention of a 19 year old Italian boy who followed us around for the next half hour or so before we told him we had to leave to find our friends. He told us he’d wait on the church steps until we came back. We didn’t come back. Brooke was not leading him on as much as trying to practice her Italian skills with him. At the seven o’clock hour, Kyle was there at the hostel waiting for us! Excellent indeed. The big group went to dinner at one place and went on to the discoteca. A smaller group went to dinner somewhere else so we could go home and go to bed. We were beyond tired. We ended up at a cute little place, which was sorta pricey for the small portions…but my handmade ravioli was delish so I didn’t care that there were only 5 on my plate…Katie and I proceeded to the hostel and fell dead asleep. Today, we woke up and checked out, then went to the Accademia gallery, famous for the David. I kept thinking the David was going to be one of those things that everyone thought was so great and actually wasn’t so impressive, but I really liked it and I was very impressed after all. It’s much taller than I thought it would be for sure. I felt dumb for not knowing that The David is modeled after David from David and Goliath…but it is!

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We headed off to explore more shops and the market and then ate some lunch. Brooke, Lauren and I broke off to check out the Ponte Vecchio (“Old Bridge”), which was beautiful. Apparently, all they sell on that thing is diamonds. We weren’t looking for diamonds today, so we took some pictures around the area instead. Eventually we headed back to the train station to check on the situation, because apparently the regional trains were on some sort of strike. They like strikes. When we first arrived in Florence, we found out that the cabbies were on strike, but only in certain areas. So we couldn’t get a cab. Oh well. We learned quickly that everything was within walking distance anyway. We did manage to make it back to Rome alright on the train without paying extra but leaving a little later. I managed to find some excellent souvenirs for some people before leaving, but I won’t reveal anything now…

I loved Florence. I recommend it to you. Yes. YOU!