Bright headlights bounce on the puddles as it drizzle. The airport shuttle bus halts by the sidewalk near the Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence, a hub filled with peddlers, taxi cabs, buses, and recognizable American franchises. I doubt my eyes for a second that I had arrived in the ancient city of Florence.
I make the pit stop to the University, Lorenzo de’ Medici to get my keys and came home to a spacious apartment on the 2nd floor right by the back of the Duomo, decorated with tapestries, paintings of quotidian scenes of Florentine lifestyle. The ceilings still reveal the wooden scaffolding and the marble hallway floors echo our voices throughout the whole floor.
A stout, cheery man named Marcello Bellini (pronounced march-ello) marches in and starts the class off with the origins of Florence— Decumanus and Cardo, two main roads of Florence, the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and La Signoria. After one of a half hours of rapid-fire time travel through Florentine history, we go outside and walk for an hour in the winding streets of Florence in order to experience where Michelangelo once lived and the Medici family resided.