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From Abroad

...doesn’t work very well.

One of the girls from Ohio University (there are 4 girls from there) and I decided in our free weekend in Tuscany we were going to go to Venice… we found a cheap hotel/hostel (It seemed more hotel than hostel) and planned on buying our train ticket from Florence this morning (We had to take a train to Florence first… about 30 minutes typically).

And as much “winging it” when traveling ends up… it didn’t work out. Train tickets to Venice were sold out, save for a +100 euro round-trip first class ticket we weren’t willing to shell out for… we didn’t want to see Venice that badly!

Instead, we had an AWESOME day in Florence, even after I quote ”...Was not impressed by Florence, it did nothing for me.” Florence, to me, isn’t particularly beautiful… it’s kind of a toned-down New York on a different river with some medieval stuff and an old banking family (the Medici). We found so much to do and see, however, mostly in the form of museums and exhibitions but it is kind of what we needed after a week of constant running (Rome, Pisa, Lucca, Sienna, a vineyard, and ALL DAY by the pool yesterday that wiped us out… all within in the past 5-6 days!)

We started heading towards the Salvatore Ferragamo shoe museum. On the way we found a small sign promoting a photography museum and for a student rate of 7.50 Euros we went in. It was AMAZING. Photography is a new passion of mine. There was a huge exhibit this one guy did of a bunch of marine stills… ship wrecks, natives, beach scenes… some of the ones, especially from the South Pacific, were amazing to see (especially ones with the locals in huts and stuff). (PS: Sorry I don’t remember people’s names maybe I will remember later on when I look at ticket stubs. Also I will add pictures). The museum had all these original negatives from the 1800s and stuff… it was so cool to see Rome before restoration on the ancient Roman remains. It also had a great avant-garde section. I think it was important for us to see as fashion majors, because this stuff was so inspiring, some of the pictures would be great inspiration for an ad shoot or something (I kind of have an interest in that as a career!)

We stopped for a panino (sandwich) then made it to the shoe museum, which was AMAZING. The shoes were insanely beautiful and it was so neat to see all the old orders for celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, and Sophia Loren. They also had the wooden casings he made shoes off of from the Duchess of Windsor, Audrey Hepburn, and Drew Berrymore, to name a few. They had a great movie about how he made his shoes by hand and what processes made them so comfortable (a piece of wood to support the sole, which all the weight of the body rests on… less then 2 inches of space to distribute a body’s weight on!).

On the way to the shoe museum we saw an ad for an Impressionist Exhibit at a museum, so we headed there. On the way we stopped at the Costume Museum at the Pitti Palace, an old Medici palace. We went through the Costume Museum, which was really cool. They restored the clothes Cosmi and and Eleanor Medici and their son were buried in from the 1500s (and by restore I mean piece together on a table what hadn’t deteriorated) . I am pretty sure the Pitti Palace was Louis XIV’s inspiration for Versailles… the set-up is kind of the same, the gardens in the back are somewhat similar… but of course, Versailles blows Pitti Palace out of the water!! (Which is what King Louis was going for, I am sure!) ((Catherine Medici and her advisor were buddies with King Louis, so he had to have been influenced by it, even if he never saw it in person…)

We finally made it to the Impressionist Museum, which had a really cool set up that was different from any I had seen before. There was a big interaction thing for both kids and adults… it was called “The Mystery of the Dead Impressionist” (I am not sure who was dead, some famous impressionist I can’t think of… not Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Gangauin… someone who was friends with Van Gogh and Monet, I am guessing… hmmm). Anyway… so you got this basket (and I am going on assumption, I, unfortunately, did not get to play) and you go around and look at all these paintings and play with lights and stuff and figure out who killed this guy. This stems from the whole purpose of the exhibition, which is that they used x-rays and high-tech stuff to prove that Impressionists planned all their art out and didn’t just wing it, like it looks like they did. There was also this awesome Van Gogh doll with a removable ear you “are supposed to give to someone you love”. For anyone who is interested (and if anyone reads this… I hope they do even though it is tres long), they sell cool Impressionist finger puppets a card store on Walnut Street (Krazy Kards maybe it is called??) in Shadyside in Pittsburgh… they also sell a Marie Antoinette doll with a different dress and a pop-off head I am “dying” (haha I am rather tired and thought that was ironic) to have (HINT HINT I WOULD LOVE THAT ANYONE WHO IS READING THIS… PRESENT TIME????).

So that was our fun adventure in Florence. I also walked by some amazing stores I was not appropriately dressed to go in… Dior, Tiffanys, Gucci, Burberry, Armani, Chanel, etc. etc. etc.. I have all the time in the world (or two weeks) to that in Milan starting on Sunday.

I am planning a mega-long run tomorrow morning since I have absolutely nothing to do so I am going to leave Bug Villa (Where I can get on the internet and get eaten alive by mosquitos and hopefully not die of West Nile at the same time) and get ready for bed. Ciao!

Me at the Ferragamo shoe museum!