Mike Jutan's World: Florence

I spent 3 nights in Florence and had a fantastic time. I went to the Gallerie Del Academie, home of Michelangelo's David. That ROCKED and was definitely worth the 2.5 hours waiting in line!! Crazy but it was totally worth it. I then ran into the Montana girls again and we had a great time hanging out and hiking to the Ponte Vecchio bridge and up to a really nice lookout over the city. We had dinner near an old gate and wall of the city which rocked too and it was awesome to hang out with them again!! Good times.

The next day I went to the Uffizi Gallery and saw Bottecelli's Birth of Venus (the naked chick riding the clam, hehe) Pretty freakin' cool. Also more hanging out with the Montana girls which was awesome as usual. In the evening we came across a random symphony orchestra!! SOOOOOOO cool!! It was amazing and afterwards there was a guitar player and his hippie dancing and duet singing girlfriend playing lots of Simon and Garfunkel. Fantastic.

The next day I dropped off my stuff at the Train Station and then went to the big Synagogue, which is the 2nd biggest in Europe after the one in Hungary and the 5th biggest in the world! It was cool and the tour guide was really nice and had lots of interesting things to say about the history of Jews in Florence and in Italy, as well as the fact that the Synagogue was built in a very Sephardic style, so much more Arabic-influenced than any Synagogue I've ever seen before.