Observation time in Florence

Once again guys I must apologize for Internet that will not let me post my blogs! I have been documenting my notes on word and will transfer them into a blog as soon as it allows me to do so. It's a technology world and I'm just trying to get it to work with me!😝

Culture is most commonly misunderstood to be the same in all aspects for certain parts of the world, but I do not believe that is the case. One thing I have noticed moving around from city to city in the past couple of weeks, is that the cultures are very similar but each town has their own way of doing things. They are different in a way that makes them the same. The same goes for the United States. How many times have you heard, 'that's an American thing'. I hope you are as tired as hearing that as I am. I try not to generalize about Italy as much as people generalize about America, but it happens to everyone. In saying that as we are extremely different on some cultural things from state to state, or even from city to city that are a couple of miles apart. 

Locations have a lot to do with how culture is affected. In Aosta it was a widespread farming culture, which lead to fresh foods being a huge deal and agricultural focused schooling. When we relocated to Venice  we were able to see a whole new cuisine of adding more seafood and the culture of everything having to be imported in just to have daily things, a city on water is nothing like a city of farming! So why do we generalize the cultural aspects of things like this. Florence was a good mix of Aosta and Venice to me, but the main focus of the town was not agriculture or imports and fishing, it was art. A whole city dedicated to walking and breathing the art that influenced a country and the world for the most part. 

Sometimes I catch myself forgetting to take a step closer and look at the surroundings that I am around at the moment rather than generalizing on past experiences of the whole. I think we all catch ourselves doing that at some point! At this point of my trip I am finished with the observations in the classroom and have moved on to the next two portions of the class which is the focus of culture and cuisine. To be open to observe something so new to me, I have to pay attention to the smaller things in life. 

Without trying to generalize the whole in saying this, the smaller things in life here are some times the most important way to view things. All of the places I have been while traveling Italy have remained to focus on a slow pace style of life rather than rushing through things. From everything to taking your time while eating and having time to talk between courses, to enjoying nightly walks while eating gelato. I honestly don't know how I will be able to go back to a life style with no siesta in the middle of the day. I mean gave you ever heard of shutting down most of the town for a couple of hours from 2-4 just to go home and take a nap and then coming back? It sounds crazy but let me tell you it has been the best thing in the world. 

So enough of all of that, I just had it on my mind the past couple of days since I wasn't able to upload my daily post! My knowledge of opening up to the ideas of a different life style has grown beyond what I could ever imagine on this trip.. And I am still learning, but on to the fun things!!

In Florence I was able to meet David, because you have to meet David when you come to Florence... If you don't well that's just not okay. 

 

We were beyond excited to be able to take a few selfies with this amazing piece of art!

We also killed ourselves and our legs by climbing to the top of the Duomo, which was a total of 468 steps just to get up to the top! Then Greg and I went up the bell tower of the cathedral which was another 414 in one day... Go ahead you can call us crazy! I can assure you I have paid for it 😌  

This was the view from the top of the duomo! The bell tower which you see behind me is what we decided to climb next, I have learned that explorations is truly just the wake of bad planning!! 

We were able to watch many glorious sunsets from different locations such as the top of our private roof top! 

Pitti gardens, first off no husband would ever love me enough to allow me to build a home and garden this large just because I didn't like the castle I was given to live in the first time around! This was completely overwhelming with beauty, and just comes to show the amount of power and wealth were I'm some these families back in the day...

A really cool thing that we also got to witness totally by accident, was being in Florence for their Independence Day. They had a small ceremony where one representative from each branch of their military attended to take the time to thank each and every branch. 

 

Just like in the USA, we are beyond thankful for those that serve for this country and we take time to thank them!

Thankful for these fun experience that are guiding my way in exploration to better understand the cultural aspects of this city 😊