Susnset in Florence and Fun with Friends

Cinque Terre

This past weekend we went to Cinque Terre, which is 5 towns (hence the name) on the West coast of Italy. We only spent Saturday there becuase we couldnt find anywhere to stay. It is defintely a place I would love to go back to some day. It is absolutely gorgeous, as you can see from the pictures! You can hike between all the towns, but I choose to go the beach all day. The beach as lots of rocks and pebbles, so it is quite painful getting in and out of the water. The water is really deep right after you get in, so we learned real quick that once you got to a certain point in on the shore you just dove in to avoid anymore pain. Getting out is a different story. We were probably entertaining to the locals! The sun was very intense and hot, so after being the sun for a while jumping in the water was very refreashing becuase it was so cold. It wasn't freezing though. A nice break from the hot water back home.
It is the second week of class and already time for mid-term. I have to right a paper on "Primavera" by Botticelli, so that what I am going to be doing tomorrow. I dont have class tomorrow because we are going to the Uffizi Gallery tonight (the famous meseum here in Florence). There is a lot of renaissance art there. I am really excited!
The others pictures are of some moutains we saw on our train ride back to Florence and the night time pictures are of Florence taken from a piazza that I went to last night with some friends.

Pictures from Como

The first picture is from Milan. We had a lay over here on the train and we didn't want to go far, so we ate at McDonalds!

Como

Sorry it has been so long, but between finding the time and actually being able to long in has kept me from posting. Last weekend my roommates Robin, Anna, Rachel, Meredith, and I went to Como, Italy, which sits on Lake Como. Como is in northern Italy very close to the Swiss-Italian border. It is absolutely beautiful there. I would love to got back someday. It was nice to get away from all the crazy tourist here in Florence. We took an hour ferry boat ride around the lake where we stayed. Again, it was gorgeous! The lake is huge. You can take a ferry to the opposite side, which would take 5+ hours and you would end up in Switzerland. There is a villa in another city, that was 2 hours from where we were, where they shot the wedding scene of Anikin and Padme and they also shot some scenes in Casino Royale. I don't know which ones, since I haven't seen it. We wanted to go to this villa, but it was to far away to make it back in time for our train.
Class started on Monday. I am taking Renaissance Art in Florence and Italian Regional cooking. The art history class is really cool, because we walk around the city and actually go and see what we are talking about. So far we gone to the Duomo, the bapistry, and the museum to the Duomo. While we walking through the museum we entered this one room and there stood Donatello's Mary Magdalen!! I had no idea that it was there. Its one of my favorites pieces of art. Today we went to Santa Croce (a famous church here in Florence), which is beautiful. The cool about this church, is that Michaelangelo is buried there. There are other "graves" and monuments for other famous people, such as Galileo. My cooking class is only on Monday nights. It is lots on fun cause after we are done we get to eat! The chef who is the instructor is hilarious. I helped cooked the dessert, so maybe when I get back I can impress yall with my skills..haha!

oh yea....Happy Fourth of July!!!