Florence and Arrezzo

On Thursday, I traveled with a group of 59 A&M students to Florence, Italy. Florence is about an hour away from the town I live in (by bus). We went to a romanesque style church overlooking the entire city and learned about the frescoes (paintings that are made in two layers: one plaster layer with a simple drawing and another layer with colored paints). The frescoes in some of the churches have been destroyed with age or removed by man. For example, most of the frescoes in San Maria were demolished with the French Revolution. Also, the church called Sant Croce in Florence flooded due to the Anno River and several of the art pieces were destroyed because the people were busy trying to survive the rising waters. The Santa Croce is the place of burial for Michalengelo, Machiavelli, and supposedly Dante. His body is actually located in Rivenna. We walked by Dante's house in Florence and learned about his wife Beatrice. Galileo's home was too far up into the hills to visit, but it was neat to know that we are near by. After a huge lunch and real, American vanilla ice cream, we had the afternoon off to shop in the markets. The leather in Florence, since the city is known for its leather quality, is a little pricey. That doesn't keep tourists away. Joy and I found tons of souvenirs in less than thirty minutes.

In a smaller town called Arezzo, a native named Monica showed us around. After a long walk down the hill from the center and a short train ride, we started out on a long day's trek around the city. All of the Italian cities have a street called Via Roma (the road to Rome) and Corsa Italia to remind the citizens of their Roman and Italian heritage during the fascists regime. The Medicci family, a huge political family in Italy who imported spices and gained great wealth, built their fortress here. The Medicci's, from whom we get our word "medicine" because of the six capsule looking spheres on their crest, built a fortress in this town. The Medicci's had the famous "fleur di lei" as their flower, but when one of the daughters married a royal frenchman, France adopted the flower as their own. The markets in Arezzo stretched for miles, but after hours of walking all we wanted was pizza and water. After a cheap lunch and some gelatto, the entire town fell asleep and all of the shops closed from 1-3:30. We made it back to the center in time for dinner and the town's Medieval festival.

The fesitval has been going on for the last three nights. It is similar to a fair in America, except that EVERYONE comes, young and old alike. They sell wine for 1 euro, have flag throwing displays, make fresh bruschetta and roast a pig. This has been the best way to get into the culture and really become part of the town. Our friend, Areon, shows us around since his English is almost flawless. This morning, I enjoyed my first real breakfast with CEREAL ( you better believe it), eggs, and yogurt. This kind of thing is unheard of in the Italian culture. About ten of us went to mass this morning. People were surprised that I went to worship with them since I'm not Catholic. I just remembered Jesus saying to the Samritan woman that we will all worship together on the same mountain. The service was in Italian, but that definitely did not limit the way that the Spirit could ellicit praise from my mouth. It looks like Sundays will be catch up days at the center. I'm looking foward to a relaxing day of reading, napping, and pizza before we go to a classical concert in the hills tonight. Ciao!