PV comes to visit

Even though we got to bed at one am and had very little sleep the night before, the insanity continued. PV was showing up on the 8:15 bus so we got up early and went to meet him. Now when I say early I mean accounting for a few things. Me not waking up. The bus not being at its stop when it says it will (or the next one!) And the 30 min ride around town to get there. All happened and when we got there he wasn't there. I checked my phone (I had forgotten to turn it on again) and he had emailed saying he missed his bus and would be there in an hour. We walked most of the way back to our site to hit out favorite cafe ("bar") for cappalloni and cappachino then back to the station where he was waiting for us. We went to the Duomo Piazza and toured the baptistry. It was amazing! Its ceiling was all tiled andhad gold behind clear tiles in places where it just sparkled. Its floor was a hodge podge mix of different patterns which was explained in the commentary I rented. It had been erected on the site of some homes and they just kept the original floors of the homes and built the baptistry as a special place to carry out this one (missing a catholic word, it will come to me). After seeing that it was time to book over to the Muse de Academia to visit David. First we went into the instrument part. That was cool! They had an old harpsicord and piano forte there and beautiful violins and cellos and this weird snake horn. They had some things you could manipulate your self and I learned that technically a piano is a percussion instrument because a mallet on the arm hits the string and a harpsicord a stringed instrument because it is plucked by the arm. Then we entered a huge hall. Now there are statues of David all over Florence. There is a huge Bronze one next to camp and a stone one in a piazza somewhere in town but the original marble David is unfathomable. I walked into the hall and it looked like every picture I had ever seen of him. I took some shots mydelf to document I was there and walked down the long hall. The closer I got the bigger he got. His demeaner stayed the same, thoughtful, older after having slayed Goliath, but he was bigger than life. His hands were incredible! The veins and nubby bones and tendons were all there as if you were studying a giants hands. His eyes were not solid like all the other statues we had seen so far, they looked real like you could loose yourself in them. He was the best part of my day. There wasn't anything else in that museum worth seeing besides a wonderful special collecting showing by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. We left full. Then we went back to the Basillica to climb the Duomo. Okay so the leaning tower of Pisa was scarry. This was almost worse. There were aswesome moments lke when we were so close to the fresco painted ceiling you could touch it and whe you realize you are walking between the ceiling and the roof of the dome and there is hardly room to stand straight. There are places so small I don't suggest a clausterphobic person go! The inside of the church was beautiful and in describable. When we finished climbing the 453 steps (something like that) and emerged at the top I almost lost my nerve. The breze was strong and there was a flimbsy fence separating us from certain death. I was not the only one hugging the columns on the dome behind me. I did not like being that high up with so many people excited and carelessly jostling around for a good picture. After it thinned out. I found a quiet spot near the fence and listened to a hispanic women giving a group of kids a history lesson about christ and peter and paul (in English!) That's where Jacquie and PV eventually found me. PV tried to get me to stand near the fence for a pic. I'm sure it didn't turn out well. I was not a happy camper. I took forever getting down the tight steep skiny stair rails. I'm glad it wasn't a ladder or everyone would have known my legs were shaking. I was happy to be back on the ground at long last. We made our way to the famous "gold bridge" that is full of jewlers selling very expensive pieces. Then I bought my Florence jacket and we nade our way to camp. My foot is huge. All this walking on a sprain is not fun at all but I'm trying to ignore it as much as possible. We got back to camp in time for happy hour. They have this one really good italian beer called Poretia that I wish we had at home. After taking a break, enjoying the view and the sun going down we went back to the piazza where the play had been and eat at a Doner Kabab place we had noticed the day before while looking for Michealangelos house. After that we found gelatto and rushed back to the bus station only to find it closed. The lady who sold PV the ticket had given him the wrong time apperantly so we took him home, snuck him into camp and we all crashed. Itd been a really long and wonderful day.