This city keeps getting better and better. I keep having to metaphorically pinch myself, to wake myself up from this dream. Being here is so surreal, that word doesn't even begin to describe it.
-So, yesterday Feb 1 was a really awesome day. I found a Methodist church actually! In a catholic country, super weird. The service was in Italian (oops), but even so, afterwords some members of the small congregation came to talk to me because I was a new face (also at least 30 years younger than everyone there, so I was very out of place). Even though I didn't speak their language, the kind smiles on their faces, and the fact that an older woman put her arm through mine and started patting me made me feel instantly welcome. There is something about Christian people!! They are different than everyone else! Love and kindness transcend language barriers! Anyway, I said I didn't speak italian, so they brought over an older man (who was the husband of the lady who started patting me) who spoke perfect English. He talked to me for a little while, asking me where I was studying, etc. He was telling me that even though there is an English service in the same church Sunday nights, that I am always welcome at the Italian one. He also said if I needed anything at all, to ask them and they would be willing to help. He also told me how this experience is going to change my life and my mindset about people and cultures. Smart man! And how kind of him to offer his help to me, he had never even met me before! Love breaks down barriers, its amazing to see. Christian people are so great, so full of Jesus; just loving people and strangers like Jesus would. That was a great experience. He also told me that he is Jewish, and his wife is Methodist. He spends sunday morning in the methodist church with her, and she spends saturday night in the synagogue with him. I couldn't believe two people of different faiths were able to function so well in a marriage. It was a beautiful story, and I really hope to talk to them again. Well, I would be talking to him and he would be translating for his wife... lol. By the way, I took his advice and went to the english service, and it was good :) maybe I'll continue going to both services, perhaps listening to people speaking will help me with my lack of italian skills.
-Anyway, after a cute lunch a hipster crepe/sweets/gelato place, we decided to walk up to a place called Piazzale Michelangiolo... this is one of those places where despite the 60+ pictures I took, none of them compare with seeing this with your own eyes. Sorry not sorry I took so many pictures. So this place is a hike up a hill on the Oltrarno side, with many many stairs, almost as bad as the Duomo. Probably a 30-40 minute walk, so it's kind of far. But when you finish you're up higher than the Duomo, and you can see legitimately all of Florence. Right out in front of you is just this vast landscape of colors and it was so gorgeous. You can see all my pictures on my flickr account but, you can't even begin to imagine how this place looked. It was the most gorgeous view I've ever seen.
-We continue walking, because there is more stuff to see up there of course. We find this church up even higher than the lookout point we were at, and I am so glad we stopped. Monastero di San Miniato was the name of this place, and it was so beyond gorgeous. A catholic monastery built in around 1290 something. Gilded altar stations with gorgeous paintings and inset gems, the apses and transepts of the church housed private prayer areas also with gorgeous Byzantine art and covered in gold, the walls housed humongous frescoes depicting Jesus, saints, God, and everyone you could think of. In the very front area with the main altar down below the prayer altar station, was the relic area, which housed the bones of Saint Miniatus (not sure of spelling). The floor was covered with names, from the names of the people interred there. Crazy. But the best thing was at the top level, very front of the church by the pulpit on the ceiling, a huge fresco of Christ the pantocrater giving the blessing gesture to all those who worship there, and also giving blessings to the city below. More amazingly was the fact that it was covered, absolutely covered in gold. And it was huge, probably easily 25 feet tall. The Byzantine style painting, the gold, the just overall feeling of smallness in the presence of God was just amazing. This is another thing my pictures do not do justice with. You have to see this in person, it is just an amazing work of art, I was doing everything I could not to cry. Also, their pipe organ was huge. and very epic. What a site to remember.
-Today, February 2 was our first day of classes. I had ceramics and watercolor painting today. HANG ON, I just said I have classes in Florence Italy. This is still so hard to believe-- how lucky and blessed am I to have this experience?!?!? I am walking in the same places where so many great artists, philosophers, inventors, scientists, thinkers, innovators, architects came before. It is insane to think that they are still alive in their works/museums here. Everything is so well preserved here, it's like living in history with technology just more modern than in their time.
Anyway, I'm super tired. Renaissance Italian Architecture class tomorrow at 9am woohoo! Goodnight! Buona sera, buona notte, ciao ciao.
PS, both my professors said bye to us today by saying "Ciao ciao!" I guess that's an Italian thing. Also, it's very hard to find notebooks with lined paper. I searched a few stores to find it. Most people use graph paper notebooks to take notes in... how strange.
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