On Friday I had no class, so I decided to stay in Florence and see some of the sites there. I woke up and went to the Uffizi Meusem. The line was really long to get in, but luckily I had my card that was given to me by my study abroad program that lets me get in free and skip all of the lines. The meuseum itself was very pretty, with frescos on the celings and walls. I went into all the exhibits and looked at the paintings. I was able to find the paintings Auntie Cathy messaged me about by Artemisia Gentileschi! You can see these in my Florence photo album. It was exciting to have found them!

After I left the Uffizi I crossed the Arno and looked around in the shops. Florence is known for its leather for a reason. I have never felt leather as soft as I have felt it in some of the real Italian leather shops. I walked back to Pitti Palace to find artists that were selling their artwork. I found some paintings of Florence by an artist who was extremely nice and sold them to me for cheap! She also noticed I liked the poppies in some of her other paintings, so she offered to paint a poppy on the painting of the Duomo that I picked out. How nice!

After some window shopping I walked over to the Academia to see the David. Again, there was a very long line that I skipped with my meuseum card, thankfully. David is striking to see even for the second time. I noticed that his hands and feet are abnormally large in porportion to his body. I also learned that the David was meant to be in the Piazza della Signoria, but they moved him to the Academia. There is a "fake David" that is now im the Piazza to demonstrate where he should be. I see the fake David all the time when I walk through the square. The fake David is noting compared to the real David.

I needed comfier shoes to walk in since my flip flops did not last the miles I walked in Lucca and Pisa, so I bought some espadrilles for walking on the way back to the apartment. It started to pour, but luckily I was close enough where I could run to my apartment in a few minutes. It is funny how the second it rains, the guys who try to sell things to people on the street suddenly appear and try to sell you an umbrella miraculously.

Once I got back to the apartment soaking wet, I started to plan my weekend and got ready to go to dinner with the rest of my roommates that were not traveling this weekend. The rain had stopped like it always does after half and hour, and we walked to a restaurant one of my roommates wanted to go to that was across the river. It was very cheap, and was definately a place that only locals go to. There wasn't a very big selection, and my minestrone soup looked like pea soup, so I think I'm going to stick to the touristy spots still.

After dinner I decided to go for a run outside before bed. I ran my normal route along the river. I love running at night because it is much cooler and the city is really pretty all lit up. There are still a lot of people walking around as there are during the day so it is still safe. I definately ran faster though just in case. Check out my pictures from Friday in my Florence album!