Arrivederci Firenze!

My last day in Florence! Well that is, until the lovely miss Tibby arrives. Then I will get my FINAL look at the gorgeous city I've come to love so much...

But today was a good last hurrah. First, we had our class midterm which was basically just writing essay questions based on what we had learned thus far - it was pretty easy. 

Then for the rest of the day we had nothing planned except for cleaning up our apartment and packing. Sabrina and I did exactly that and when we were finished we sat around for a bit, she read her novel and I researched more on my upcoming trip to Greece (I'm going after our 2 weeks in Rome). Also, Sabrina might come with for a few days which will be so awesome!

Anyways, after our hour of sitting we got hungry and for lunch had some of the most meat-intense sandwiches I've ever eaten. See, since we're leaving, we have been trying to eat the rest of all of our groceries and unfortunately we had just recently bought more packages of turkey and salami, so we had to finish it all today.

They were delicious but very intense and then, of course, we had to finish off the ice cream we had bought as well as some fruit. Needless to say, we were in a bit of a food coma afterwards.

But we were tired of sitting around and so decided to take a little stroll over to see the Leonardo da Vinci museum. It was really cool. Basically they had built a bunch of Leonardo's machines and even recreated some of his sculptures and then showed his original sketches beside them. They had made his armored tank, a few of his flying machines, some of his other war machines, and scientific measuring contraptions....

Here are a few:

flying machine!

machine study of how a wing moves

prototype of Leonardo's fountain pen

...some kind of boat/hydraulic mechanism

one of his war machines...the blades at the back rotate as the horses move. Very nasty way to go for the soldiers...

...armored tank

another flying machine!

copies of his notebook sketches...

After the museum, we kind of just wandered around that part of the city - taking in the sights before we had to leave. We stumbled across the Jewish synagogue - Tempio Maggiore - which was beautiful and huge.

 And we even found a big public park where we sat on this bench...

...as you can see, it was not easy, but it sure was fun to try!! haha.

Then after our butts got sore, we eventually wound our way back home again and somehow ended up watching a video on Jeffrey Dahmer after reading MSN reports on the cases of cannibalism that have been all over the American and Canadian news...

We were a little freaked out.

But eventually we left to meet up with the rest of the gang and go to a final group dinner provided by our study abroad program. The restaurant was so cute and the food was really amazing - two different kinds of pasta, a platter of mixed meats (included rabbit!), and then a dessert of a delicious fruit tart. And even the waiters were hilarious - one in particular (a wiry, gray-haired fellow) was always urging us to eat more and more and telling us how much he loved some of the girls' tattoos but never had the guts to get any himself. lol!

Then after our stomachs felt like they were about to burst, we all headed back over to our neck of the woods and to a bar with two particular good-looking twins. Oh yes, tonight BOTH Paolo and Marco were present... But personally I liked talking to one of the other workers - this tall quirky bartender (I think he might've been the owner) who was super funny and constantly joking around with us. Also, when I ordered a kahlua and cream, he was a bit confused and somehow I ended up with whipped cream on top! But we both laughed about it and really it was delicious anyways and so pretty!

So now I'm here - last night in the apartment and anticipating our next stop - Rome! - with bated breath. Can't wait! And will that I'll blow a kiss to you Firenze, until we meet again!