Today is our last day here in Florence. We're finally going to climb The Duomo this afternoon then have dinner at a rooftop restaurant. But how does a rooftop compare after climbing to the highest point in Florence? Then afterwards we're on to the ever painful packing challenge. We've already run into a roadblock (or more like skyblock) with that and we haven't even started. According to Italian law or whatever the source of the problem is, we can only have one b...

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...

Ethics class was actually pretty interesting today. We began talking about Aquinas' Four Laws (eternal, divine, natural and human). We also discussed the Four Ethical Traditions. The Deontological tradition was pretty harsh. There's no shades of gray. If something is right it is always right and if something is wrong it is always wrong. I. Kant came up with the Categorical Imperative in the 18th century. The Imperative is something you are duty driven to do witho...

Today was fairly uneventful. We did the class thing for a few hours, then lunch, then I finally got to do some shopping! Not for me though... gifts and what not for everyone else. I finally spent money on something other than food and traveling. Oh, but I did make "friends" with one of the merchants at the leather market. I got pretty things ;-) Anywho we found out we'll be in Germany while they're playing in the World Cup! I can pretend to be 'futbol'...

To continue from last night (the girls were ready to go to bed).... Up the mountain we went. Coming down we really realized it was ridiculously steep and wondered how we ever made it up. When we finally made it to the bottom we headed straight to find some water (not free in Italy) and ended up finding 2 girls from CofC. We headed back to the train station to catch the 6:28 train back to Florence, but first we needed a potty break. That is one of the most diff...