Notte Bianca/ Fiesole

Ok so originally I did not even want to write a post for this past weekend. Mostly because I was bummed I did not get to go where I originally planned and because it was not as eventful as I would have liked. But I haven't written in awhile and I'm sure my parents would like to know I'm still alive over here! My original plan was to go to Prague with Bus2Alps. Unfortunately not enough people signed up and the trip was canceled. I did have the opportunity to go on the school trip to Switzerland, but did not really care to.

So anyway Friday night, April 30th, was a huge celebration throughout the entire city of Florence, called Notte Bianca or "White Night" which apparently loses the meaning in translation. Basically everything stays open really late and there is a constant party in the streets. The whole town, including kids, seemed to stay out enjoying the festivities until 1 or 2 in the morning. I guess parts of the celebration went as late as 6 a.m.! The theme for Notte Biana is "creative insomnia," but I guess that doesn't quite translate either. We noticed this starting in the evening when we could hear a band from down the street banging drums. There were huge celebrations in every piazza all night long. First we went to the Uffizi Piazza and caught a really elaborate light show projected onto the hallway of the Uffizi which portrayed the bricks transforming, being knocked down, and then built back up again. At midnight was Drew's 21st birthday so we had to make it back to Bigallo for the countdown. Since almost all of my housemates were going on the school's trip to Switzerland, their plan was to stay up all night anyway. (The bus leaves at 4:30 a.m. for that trip) Next we headed to Santa Croce where a bunch of tents have been set up for the week  (having nothing to do with Notte Bianca) selling traditional Italian eats. There was another band thumping in the Piazza so we crowded around with all the other Italians to join in the celebration. After that was done, we walked to Piazza Republica to see what was going on there. It was not as wild. The scene was mellower with a dance floor set up in the middle of the square. People were doing the tango I think. Some couples were dancing very sternly and seriously, while others were just fooling around with their partners. I came back to the house and waited to go to bed until all the drunk idiots left for their trip. There was no point in sleeping, the whole city was up! I sent them off which was hilarious to watch them walk down the street on their way to the Alps.

On Saturday I wanted to do something close by to make up for not going anywhere. Brian was the only other person in my house who did not go on the trip so we decided it was a good day to visit Fiesole.  Fiesole is a pretty little hill-town overlooking Florence. It is only a 15 minute bus ride away. There was not much to do there besides admire the great view of Florence.

There were a few nice churches, one of which was hosting a wedding. The big site to see was a historical Roman-style amphitheater with its surrounding archaeological area.

We walked around the site as well as the museum inside. I thought it was really cool how they had a lot of modern art spread throughout the site in addition to all of the scattered stone foundations. I thought this one was the coolest:

After walking around the town a little bit more, we decided we had seen just about everything. So we hopped back on the bus home to San Marco.

***Good news though: I thought my travels were over once the Prague trip got canceled BUT I just booked plane tickets and a hotel room in Malta for this upcoming weekend. I'm pretty excited, it should be really nice there.***