Why can't I take keys?

Back to school on Monday. And after a bit of perspective a la Nikki, :) I was thrilled to be going to class! haha! (thanks, Nikki)

First class of the day was Italian (ugh, I mean yay!) And once again, my teacher continued to slowly and painfully strangle any enthusiasm anyone in the class had for learning Italian. PAINFUL. But I will not bore you with further rantings on my Italian teacher.

My World Religions class has been studying Judaeism, so Monday, we had a field trip to the Synagogue in Florence. We were meeting outside of classtime, so we had to find the place ourselves. Luckily, with internet in my apartment, I was able to Google map the location and get turn by turn directions. Ahhh....internet...it really is a beautiful thing. :)



So, I found my way to the synagogue and met up with some of my classmates. Our teacher met us out in front around 2, and we headed inside. This is where things start to get a little bizarre:

First of all, I am still a little thrown off by the idea of having to pay to see a church (but in all fairness, this is typical of most churches in Florence.) But then, the lady at the desk told us no cameras, no phones, and no keys or any other metal. Ok- phones, I understand; cameras, a little annoying, but I still can see where they're coming from; but keys? What??! Ugh...anyway, so we all had to check our bags into one locker (surprisingly, they all fit!) and then buy our ticket, and go through the most bizarre metal detector I had ever seen. It was like a little glass tube that had a sliding door on both sides: press the button to get in, and then it checks for metal and the door opens. It would really suck to be claustrophobic because that thing was tiny!

Anyway, so then we met up with our tour guide, who took us into the Synagogue. The temple was really beautiful, and I would have loved to take pictures, but remember- no cameras. Oh well. The Synagogue, and the Jews of Florence in general, has a very interesting history. The Synagogue was built in the 16th century, and most of the furnishings are original. During WWII, the Synagogue was occupied by the Nazis; they didn't destroy any part of the temple, but they tried to destroy the Torah scrolls. Luckily, the Jewish community in Florence had hidden the scrolls in the countryside before the Nazis arrived. The most damage the temple has endured was in the 1966 flood. The water mark is still visible on the walls. (and on a side note, markers of how high the water reached during the flood are all over the buildings here, you just have to know what to look for; they're little white plaques, which look deceivingly like the street signs here). After our tour in the temple, we got to go through part of the Jewish history museum. We got to see wedding and new baby heirlooms, and some of the Torah scrolls and dressings. It was pretty cool.
Then we went back for class. Ugh. The visit had been cool, but adding another hour on to an already 2.5 hour class did not make me happy. Oh well.

Last class of the day was Mafia. Today we were talking about the influence of cinema on the image and stereotypes of the mafia. We watched parts of Scarface (the original one), The Godfather (Part I), and Mean Streets. Again, Mr. Stefano is a really cool teacher, and he makes the class really interesting!

Back to the apartment for dinner and internet- spent the evening Skyping with Mom & on AIM with Jackie, and doing a little homework. Just chilling out after a long day. Finally talked to Jared on AIM for a little while before I went to bed. Let me just say one more time how awesome it is to have internet in the apartment!

Today, I had Renaissance Art, which I thought was going to be really boring, but is actually turning out to be one of my favorite classes! We learned about Renaissance sculptures today, which was really cool. My teacher told us about the different mediums they used, and then the actual process. Then she told us about some of the most famous sculptors and their work, showed us some slides and discussed the elements. I don't know how she does it, but she simplifies the material so that even someone like me (who knows nothing about art or art critique) can even feel like they have something intelligent to say about art.

The main focus of today was on the Baptistery Doors. They have a really cool story behind them: The first door was commissioned to a sculptor in 1336, but then a competition was held in the 15th century to decide who would create the bronze sculpture work on the next door. Seven artists entered, and each was given one panel on which to create a scene of the sacrifice of Isaac. Two finalists were chosen: Brunelleschi (yes, of Brunelleschi's Dome) & Ghiberti. The judges actually called it a tie, but Brunelleschi refused to collaborate, so the doors were commissioned to Ghiberti, who did the North Doors, and then later was commissioned to do the Gates of Paradise.

It was awesome because after learning about the doors, and seeing slides and specific elements of the doors, we put our coats on and went to go see them! Which would have been a lot more fun if it hadn't been cold and rainy. I will post pictures of the doors on here later, but I didn't really feel like taking pictures today.

After Art, I had ballet, which was fun. We continued our usual barre work, and did a few more advanced combinations. We moved on to a little center work today as well. Fun, fun!

As today was cold and rainy, I spent most of the afternoon indoors. After class, I went to the supermarket for groceries and picked up some more postcards. Then, I spent the rest of my day doing laundry, picking up the apartment, working on the blog, chatting with Mom. Pretty lazy day. But, I'd rather take care of this stuff on a rainy day like today. There will be plenty of nice, sunny days for exploring and adventures!
Ciao!