Today I was wrong about a few things, like it isn’t our last trip to Florence, and we didn’t see the David statue, and it wasn’t mostly sunny in the morning. It was, however, a wonderful day! We slowly made our way to the Uffizi Gallery, Kelsey bought a Swatch on the way (everyone is getting these new watches that wrap around your wrist twice – hers is teal, of course). We met with our tour guide, Laura, and waited in line to go through security. This is when the first exciting thing of the day happened.
First of all, a giant tourist group tried to cut us in line, but Laura caught it just in time, and she yelled a little in Italian, but they moved to the back of the line. Then we finally got to the metal detectors, and I was one of the first ones in line, so I saw how there was another group of students – Italian high schoolers. They had all jammed their bags onto the tiny bag scanner at once, and as it went through they huddled around the other end to grab theirs. Unfortunately, one girl remained behind, and we soon caught on that her bag was stuck inside the scanner. Laura kept asking if we could go through, since some of us don’t have bags, but the security man kept saying no. We stood and watched as they tried to figure out what to do. We college-educated people didn’t understand what the problem was, seeing as the scanner was about 4 feet long, and they could have reached in to grab the bag. They all stood around for a bit, yelled at the girl, and then brought in other security guards to figure out what to do. They finally had one come to our side of the scanner and look into the machine. The bag was right inside the rubber flaps. He poked it with a buzzy thing, and then began to pull it out. Laura finally had us go through some offices to get to another security point as they were just starting to yank the poor girl’s bag out. The strap looked like it was tearing, so I’m assuming it didn’t turn out well for the girl. We all made sure our straps were wrapped around our bags and set each one slowly down in the middle of the conveyor belt.
We went through the Uffizi and saw lots of art, starting with some Byzantine stuff, leading to some early Leonardo da Vinci and ending with some morbid Caravaggio. We didn’t see the David statue – apparently it’s in the Accademia, not the Uffizi. We left the Uffizi filled with knowledge and hungry for a sandwich. The sun had come out and it was almost hot outside. We all met at our favorite little hole-in-the-wall, I Fratellini. I had ham and cheese. Then we got gelato from our favorite place, where I had the best combination known to man, chocolate and raspberry. We strolled along the main street in Florence and soaked up the wonderful sunshine. How could this day get any better you ask? Well, first of all we saw some guys getting arrested for selling posters (tax-free). Always entertaining.
We walked to an open market where they had everything you could imagine. I got a beautiful sparkly blue and gold scarf for 5 euro, looked at lots of leather purses, wallets and key chains, and finally purchased a sparkly purple and silver mask for the masquerade! It’s very K-State Couture. After wrapping up the shopping we headed to the Galileo Museum for class. We talked about…I fell asleep and had a dream I was paying attention, but don’t remember anything. After class I went to the book store and got my favorite nerds (daddy and Eric) a special gift. Then we began a leisurely walk to the train station.
On our way to the station, we walked past all the horse-drawn carriages you can take rides in. We had noticed earlier how tourist season was beginning – there were 5 times the people in the piazza and there were triple the amount of horses as there had been in previous trips. We walked past all the horses, and almost made it through the piazza before we turned around when we heard a loud commotion. One of the horses, carriage attached, was going nuts in the middle of the piazza! The horse charged through a group of people, but being blocked in by the stores made a sharp turn back to the piazza. The carriage started tipping over, a man tried to stop the horse, the whole mess was quickly running into an outdoor restaurant, knocking over tables and causing people to run in all directions. The man that was trying to stop the horse soon ended up underneath its feet – I was terrified it was going to trample him to death! Luckily the carriage finally tipped over (onto a hostess stand for the restaurant) and the man escaped being crushed. The horse kept bucking and trying to run as it headed for the center of the piazza again, with the carriage dragging behind. Somehow the horse was finally stopped by several men, and they worked quickly to calm it down and get the carriage off.
Two times the horse headed to the center of the piazza space, and people started running and screaming, not helping the matter any. Being nosy human beings, there was a huge group of people in a circle around the horse. I will admit I was part of the problem, but this just doesn’t happen every day! We had watched the whole thing unfold, and I felt like I was part of a movie. I kept getting frustrated when new people would walk into my movie – somehow they didn’t notice the huge disaster on the ground, police trying to pick things up and keep people back, and they just strolled right on through. It’s crazy how little people pay attention to their surroundings.
They finally calmed the horse down enough to walk it to a metal stand. Right in front of the Chanel store. Probably the most interesting situation I’ve ever seen. Now we have a crazed horse, tied down but still kicking and stomping on the ground, with merely a sidewalk separating it from the display windows of the Chanel store. The faces on the workers from Chanel were priceless. At first they were freaking out, watching carefully that the horse was under control. Then they started to try and help the situation – they sent out a small bowl of water. The police taped off the sidewalk and started to block an area off in front of the store with officers and vehicles. We left to catch our train, but I do wish I could watch the news because I’m sure that made the cut. Imagine if it had busted through the Chanel windows – that would have gone international!
As we walked to the train station we went in front of the Duomo, where I was ambushed by horse-drawn carriage after horse-drawn carriage. It was a terrifying experience. I will never ride in a horse-drawn carriage, what if there had been people in that?!
Anyways, made it home safe and sound and tomorrow brings a visit to La Pievuccia. Riccardo, owner of the vineyard I’m working with for studio, told us he will be bottling the wine all day tomorrow, so we plan on walking down there and checking it all out.
Cara Marie
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