Thursday night was another movie party at the girls’ place so we baked a birthday cake for Cody! Brie’s semester-long chocolate cake craving was thus fulfilled. Thanks to our moms who brought us box cakes for our b-days!
Well I guess we did one thing out of town, because Friday we went back to the Castello di Verazzano in Chianti. This is the same vineyard we went to with our moms but we had also signed up for a free school trip to go. It was so beautiful and we loved it there so we were excited to go again. We are grateful for the tour guide we had on our previous experience because this time we were led around by a very Italian man who was difficult to understand. Some Italians drag their words into a long string of what sounds like one word. This was such an Italian. We had a different wine tasting this time; this one came with a meal including several courses, so we spent about the entire afternoon enjoying that! I think I was still full the next day. We were especially happy that we didn’t have to get up so early to catch a school trip and it didn’t last the whole day so we ended up having the girls over for a game night. But we were sad because it was our last day in the gorgeous, fall-colored Tuscan countryside. ☹ It is completely beautiful there; we want to come back some day!
Saturday, all day, we tried to hit as many museums, churches and festivals as we could. It was crazy!! But we felt really good about making sure that we were finally seeing many of the things we came to see before it’s too late! 5 weeks left and we’re getting a little frantic and packing our weekends. I even got my art history book out the night before to make sure we knew what to look for in the art museums. It was amazing. We saw the Uffizi, the Academia (where the real David is), the Bargello (museums), the churches of Orsanmichelle and San Marco (contains a monastery-museum of Fra Angelico’s frescos) and an exhibition in Palazzo Strozzi. As we were walking along between these locations we ran into several other attractions because there was a city-wide event going on all weekend called Florence 2010. Aparently there’s a biannual festival to celebrate the city and they hold several festivals and there was a parade, and there was a migrating fiber-glass copy of the David being shown in the 3 different places it was originally supposed to stand. I don’t remember why, but they also filled most of the Duomo square with turf so we walked through grass in the middle of the stone city! It made the area look a lot like the Duomo in Pisa. We found an inexpensive Chinese food place where you can order takeout so that night we crashed with some of that for a change of pace. We decided the Bargello museum and the monastery were our favorite things we saw that day. The Bargello displayed several everyday artifacts like jewelry, dishes, furniture, armor, and weapons, and they were from othercountries as well as Italy. It was pretty cool to see those things beyond paintings and sculptures. The monastery was just beautiful and peaceful, plus we went in the late afternoon when the sun was streaming in through all the windows. That monastery contains one of the first libraries so we got to see some original illuminated manuscripts which are amazing! It was an exhausting (as you can see by the third picture below) but wonderful day!I recently heard from my advisor at NWC about an opportunity for a graphic design internship with Rise Ministries in Sheldon. It sounds like the perfect thing for me so I am really excited to apply! I spent most of Sunday re-vamping my resume and portfolio. I had to redesign my whole logo/identity since I have a new name. So it was lots of fun to get back into designing again. I love it! I am really hoping to get this internship because I have always wanted to use my graphic design skills to help a church or ministry of some sort so this would be a completely amazing first step of my career. We are getting a little anxious to hear from my church about hiring Cody for an internship. We keep planning like that’s going to happen but we actually still don’t know if that’s what’s going to happen. Please pray that all works out for the best!
Every second Sunday of the month there is an antiques fair in one of the church squares so we went to check it out so I could take some pictures for my photography class. So many beautiful and interesting things to see. Then we met up with the girls again to check out the olive oil festival that was ALSO going on this weekend. Florence is crazy.
We were nervous as we rounded the corner for the square because it didn’t seem very noisy or crowded so were worried it was over, but then we noticed in the corner there was a tent set up. “Oh! that’s it I guess.”
We’re used to see rows and rows of booths filling an entire square for these types of festivals. But here there was a small, clean white tent filled with room-like spaces for producers to display their olive oils. Every year right after olive harvesting, there are festivals like this for the new olive oil and everyone comes out to get it! Everyone had samples so we got to try some of the peppery-tasting new oils on bread and we picked one out to bring home with us! During our tours and museum visits, we are often perplexed by the continuous discovery of how intermingled pagan and Christian symbols became. It seems weird that there are crosses and doves, with zodiacs etc. We also often wonder a little bit about all the festivals and markets that take place right outside of the churches, or even the fact that you have to pay to see some churches. Sometimes it just makes me picture Jesus running around and overthrowing tables. hmm…
It was an amazing weekend, and we did a lot but we still have several things on the list if you can believe it! So there’s another crazy museum day in our near future already all planned out. We’ll keep you posted. This past week was completely rainy and awful for weather – not something I was altogether very well prepared for. I don’t really have any waterproof shoes with me… Oh well, we’ll survive because our heat works wonderfully and I’m all nostalgic about the radiators we have in our apartment - there are like the ones in the house I grew up in and are especially helpful for drying socks! I'm working on adding some more pics from fall break. I like to have things in order, so they're kind of intermingled with the ones I already posted. Also check out our Facebook album for more pics from this weekend!
This week is paper writing and then to Rome for the weekend!
Love Always,
Kait & Cody
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