day 35: friday, festival of san gionvanni- woke up at 5 to walk back up to piazzale michelangelo and watch the sun rise over the mountains. it was a bit cloudier than i would have liked, but it was still beautiful. as we got to the bottom of the hill, the sun was just breaking over the tops of the buildings along the river and it was so perfect
- slept until 9:30 when caryn and i got up and went over to the boys' to wait for petrie. mike, david, andrew, alex, caryn, petrie and i went out to try and find the parade in celebration of san giovanni but were unsuccessful. we did run into brandon, joe and dylan by the duomo though.
- walked over to santa croce with caryn, david, alex and mike to pick up the boys' tickets for the match this evening. each year in florence there is a competition between each of the neighborhoods of florence. it has existed for centuries and all the men dress up in their traditional garb, there is parades, and then 27 men per side fight in a game that has no rules for 50 minutes to get the ball over the other teams' line. it gets pretty violent, to say the least, and to witness something like that (today is the final) is pretty much the dream of every adolescent male... they're pretty excited.
- walked home, made spiral mac 'n'cheese for lunch and took another nap
- woke up at 3 and skyped greg briefly before heading out to the accademia with caryn
- private tour of the accademia with rocky! our small group (petrie, brad, amanda, dylan, joe, brandon, kari, caryn and i) decided we liked him so much that we wanted to pay him to go with us to see michelangelo's david and it was totally worth it! we probably spent an hour in front of the statue, discussing everything from the political implications of david, the structural integrity and the artistic license michelangelo took in sculpting him (let's just say, he is certainly not a 10-14 year old boy). we also focused on 4 unfinished michelangelo sculptures originally commissioned for the tomb of pope julius... they were, for me, more impressive than david himself as it seemed as though the figures were literally breaking out of their blocks of marble. it was really cool to see the process of sculpture-making frozen in time
- walked home and wandered around our neighborhood until we found somewhere to eat.
- showered and got ready for the fireworks in celebration of san giovanni (saint john the baptist) at 10. the fireworks were, in my opinion, more beautiful than most of the displays i've seen in the states. there was way more of the sparkly delicate ones and less of the loud, obnoxious, brightly colored ones... that being said, the show ultimately felt a little lackluster; it was repetitive and lacked a sense of inspiration or creativity. the finale at the end made up for it and, honestly, the opportunity to watch fireworks over the arno for 45 minutes is priceless
- went out to the old stove (at piazza senioria, not the duomo) with mike, caryn and kari. we had a really enjoyable evening sitting in the booths and just hanging out. it may have been less crazy than some of our friday nights, but i probably enjoyed it more. walked kari home, as usual, and had more bonding time, i can't wait to hang out next year!
