Our time in Italia is coming to a close. Honestly I'm ready to move out from the heat of the Tuscan sun and into cooler Germany. We went to The Uffizi today and I found myself among Michelangelo and Raphael and the like. The Uffizi is one of the oldest and most famous art museums in the world. I was told it more prestigious than The Metropolitan in NYC. The gallery is inside the Palazzo degli Uffizi which was another home to the Medici family. The family actually built a huge passage (The Vasari passage) connecting the Palazzo degli Uffizi to the Palazzo Pitti (where the Boboli Gardens are). The palaces are not close to each other so the passage stretches above quite a distance and was the family's means of not being harassed or even killed when they were out of favor with the Florentines. The passage goes over the Ponte Vecchio (The Old Bridge) and over multiple other buildings through secret passageways. The Medicis declared that only goldsmiths could own shops on the bridge that were under the passageway so they would not have to smell the likes of butchers and other food shops. Thus today only fine jewelry shops (goldsmiths) own shops on the Ponte Vecchio. Both of the palaces are ridiculous inside and its hard to imagine people actually living in one them, much less the same family living in both. Luckily we had reserved tickets or we could have possibly not even gotten in. Apparently its not uncommon for people to wait for hours and never get in. Talk about popular.

We had to do laundry today. Whoo that was fun! Not. Call me spoiled but I am so not a fan of laundromats.

The men are really starting to annoy me. I'm tired of being oggled. A few had an interesting experience while out the other night. The men think they can grab whenever, but Lauren informed them otherwise with, "I am American and I have choices! You cannot just touch me!" I'm not a very affectionate person to begin with and I'm starting to get very edgy. Its time to say 'Ciao' to Florence and 'Hallo' to Germany.