Returning to the Motherland: Coscia. Thigh.

Ciao tutti!

Well, I thought today would be an uneventful blog, until I got to class and learned otherwise, so you all lucked out!

I had a bit of a slow start this morning, so it was already 12:30 by the time I was on my way to school. Since PaniniK was on my way, I decided to stop in there today. I got speck, asiago and lettuce on a sesame seed bun. I didn't get my panini toasted today, and it was actually very good! I could really taste the freshness of the bread this way.

In class we talked about the book we were reading and the crime/detective genre of novels. I think this was the most talkative our group has been. Obviously we all really liked this book a lot better than some of the others we have read so far. We went over the "rules" of how to write a good detective story, and we all noticed that some of the most popular crime movies and books break many of these rules. For one of our final projects at the end of the semester we have to write a short story. I had mentioned how funny it would be if we all wrote a detective short story about our class where one of us gets killed. I was just throwing that out there thinking it would be cool, but the other 3 people in my class seemed to think that would be really cool too! So now we are all going to write a short story and see how each of us approaches the same basic plot. We figured it would only be fair if each of us gets killed in one story, so we drew names as to who is killing who off in each of our stories.

So after our lecture and discussion part of class, we headed off to walk up to the Piazzale Michelangelo area, where the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte is. This church is up on one of the highest points of Florence, and many believe it to be one of the most beautiful as well as mysterious churches in Florence. Apparently quite a few books and movies use San Miniato as their main set because of its dark and mysterious qualities. (If any of you have seen the 1976 film Obsession, that is the San Miniato church.)

So we had to head from one of the lowest parts of Florence, up to one of the highest parts of Florence. 20 plus minutes of walking up steep hills and steps and I was ready for a break! My thighs are definitely sore after today!

The church definitely does seem a bit over bearing and powerful from the view at the bottom of its steps.

There weren't any lights on in the church, so it was hard to get any good pictures. This is one of the few that turned out. The floor of the church is devoted entirely to tombs. Apparently after Santa Croce ran out of room this became the second most popular place "prestige" wise to be buried.

It was nice that our class ended as the sun was setting. It made for a scenic walk back down the mountain.

I think the view from San Miniato is actually positioned a little better than Piazzale Michelangelo, even if you can't get the full panorama from here.

The copy of David up in Piazzale Michelangelo. He is made out of bronze, and thus is now green from oxidation, which isn't very appealing to look at, but he looked nice with the sunset behind him.