What a Bumpin' Ambulance!

I'm a little too scatterbrained and exhausted right now for coherent thoughts about the last week, so here are some tidbits! Interpret at will:) Uploading pictures is seeming to be a several hour endeavor, so here's one to get you excited and there are a bunch more on facebook. I'll try to post more soon. 

Rome was a hot, sweaty, ancient, feline, aesthetic overload. 3 days packed with museums, monuments, panini, pizza and postcards. Completely exhausting, but great. I got to see all the Vatican art, the Borghese (twice because it was so intense and beautiful), the Colliseum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain and anything else notable you can think of in Rome. Including the cat sanctuary. Fun fact: The Rome Cat Sanctuary, of national prestige, is located on the very spot where Julius Caesar was assassinated. If Caesar gets homeless cats, I cannot fathom what would be erected where I die. Rome was really, really hot. To give you an idea, we passed a store and seeing a cashmere coat, one of my friends said, “that makes me feel nauseous.” Highlight of Rome: One night we were downtown and heard really heavy bass coming from somewhere and saw some flashing lights. We looked around to find, not a club, but an ambulance with it’s lights flashing and sub “woofing,” if you will. 

We stopped in a little town called Viterbo for a few hours on our way from Rome to Florence. John, Jack, Caitlin and I made complete fools of ourselves when attempting to eat lunch. The language barrier is very humbling at times. We saw lots of little churches, some beautiful doors, and ended the afternoon on a highway median having grass fights and recalling rap songs from middle school? More accurately, I sang rap songs from middle school and the other three rolled around laughing and throwing grass at me. Quality. Highlight of Viterbo: I paid 30 cents to use the restroom before leaving. This involved walking into a silver metal box that sounded like it was going to take off and warned that if I was not finished in 15 minutes, it would eject me.

Florence was pretty refreshing after Rome, both in temperature and experience. We saw the Uffizi (and therefore every major work of Renaissance Italian art), Bargello (everything that wasn’t in the Uffizi), the monastery of Fra Angelico (favorite art seen in person so far, absolutely breathtaking) and the duomo (verb: to duome, pronounced “dwome”). The first night I ran into some friends from Wake and loooooved having my college worlds collide in Italy. Furman people, Wake people, some that new each other, all of which I knew, it was great. Had fantastic, leisurely dinners, great conversations, and lots of exploring. Bought a lovely, probably overpriced, gold metal belt with a leaf buckle at a vintage store on the river. Italian life is oh so sweet! 

We got to Cortona yesterday afternoon…woah. No words right now, I’m still getting goosebumps and a little teary when I look around and go through the town :) As a little teaser, here is what I see when I wake up and sit up in my bed. I fully intend to gush about it later!