Florence: day 3

I started out my morning pleasantly enough-by tumbling down the stairs. Okay, I'm exaggerating. It was only the last few. The staircase here is really dark, so it's impossible to see the bottom steps. I banged my arm against the corner of the wall and twisted my ankle a bit, but otherwise I was okay.

We arrived at the Accademia around 9 AM and surprisingly didn't have to wait in line at all. Most of the art got repetetive after a while (baby Jesus and Mary, baby Jesus and Mary, baby Jesus and Mary, oh, look, baby Jesus and Mary and a creepy looking angel!). It was cool seeing the David again, though. I don't think I appreciated how impressive it is when I saw it in high school- I mean, when you're sixteen and you see a massive statue of a naked man, your attention probably isn't focused on the artistic details. It's an amazing sculpture; right down to the veins in his arm, the David is unbelieveably lifelike (besides twenty-foot height and all-over marble complexion). There was also a musical instrument exhibit that I really enjoyed; it was a nice break from the practically identical biblical paintings, anyway.

After the Accademia we planned on going into the Duomo, but all of it besides the tower was closed, and entrance to that cost six euro. We decided not to waste our money on getting winded climbing four hundred something stairs, opting instead to climb the ones to the lookout from the day before to have lunch there again. Most of the group decided to take the train to Pisa a little after lunch, but I passed. I had a bit of a headache, and anyway, I'd already seen the leaning tower before; there's not much worth seeing in Pisa besides that. Kristen chose not to go either, so we napped back at the hostel instead. Now I'm going to shower, relax a bit more, and then the two of us will grab dinner later (pasta tonight-YES!).

Later:
I just got back from dinner. Bruschetta Fiorentina, ravioli and mushrooms in truffle sauce (which I'd never had before but had heard about on cooking shows and I was curious), and a canoli with candied orange rind and chocolate lining the inside of the pastry. I am going to gain back every pound I have lost, drag our plane back to Spain crashing down under my ungodly amount of Italian food-induced weight, and I will die happy.