Last night we did our second "night tour of the churches of Firenze" Two nights ago as we were walking across our piazza and we noticed the doors were open to Santa Croce. Since Jonathan still hasn't been in it we thought we would find out what was going on. We were directed to the side doors. We were promptly led into the church and joined a little tour group that was being conducted in English. A wonderful, kind older Italian man was our guide. What luck to get a detailed tour of the church was see ten times a day. We picked up a brochure they had there and realized there were going to be tours of churches for the rest of the week. Last night was the church Ognissanti, most famous for the fact that Amerigo Vespucci was a member. Again, we had a wonderful, spunky guide. This time an older woman of about 75-80. She was so excited about everything as she told the stories of the artwork that filled the church. Sometimes, she would look at a painting and say "There are just too many paintings, I don't know anything about this one!" We also met an American lady on our tour who has been living in Firenze for six months a year since 1961. After the tour she invited us to go to a small village of Fiosole (I think that is the name of it.) in the hills overlooking Firenze. We are going to have the famous Florintine beef steak. She is going to drive us there. Can't wait! We arranged to meet her next Tuesday at 12:30 at the Europa Garage Parking.

Then to make a very interesting evening more interesting we ran into a HUGE religious procession coming out of the il Duomo. We have no idea what it was all about. It seemed that all the important religious people were there as long as just members of the congregation. It took

half an hour for everyone to pass. We then got a beer at a club near my school and met a nice American proffessor. All in all, a lovely evening and one that is making us like our new town more and more.

Here is a little information about the church we visited:

The Church of Ognissanti, on the North bank of the Arno just to the West of the city centre, dates from 1249, and owes its origins to a group of Umiliati monks from Lombardy (North Italy) who set up Florence's first wool mills there, powered by water diverted from the Arno by a weir. Wool was to become the powerhouse of the first phase of Florence'c wealth.

Ognissanti became the parish church of several wealthy merchant families, including the Vespucci, one of whose members (Amerigo) gave his name to the Americas. Sandro Botecelli(1444 - 1510) and Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 - 1494) were also members of the congregation, and the latter left behind one of his best "Last Suppers" in the convent (equals monastery) refectory.

In 1561 the Umiliati, now on the verge of suppression (this happened in 1571), vacated the premises and were replaced by Franciscan Spiritual Minors. The church was reconstructed in 1582, and again in 1748. During the eighteen hundreds there were two suppressions (1810 and 1866) and by 1923 the place was in use as a store and Carabinieri base (which it still partly is). More recently the Franciscans (who had regained possession earlier in the nineteen hundreds) handed over to the Benedictines for the next watch!

It's 5:45 pm Friday. I just woke up from a three hour nap. It was a late night last night so I needed to catch up on my sleep. I woke up this morning with all intentions of going to school. I got up late so I dashed to a little restaurant that has pastries set out. I also ordered an American coffee. I suppose it sounds bad that I order American coffee and not Italian coffee. Well, Italian coffee-espresso, machiato etc. is served in the smallest cup you have ever seen and on top of that it is only half full! It's literally a shot of coffee. Of course, I drink coffee partly to wake up but also to sit for a while and sip away at my large coffee. The only coffee you can do that with is American coffee. This is served in a bigger cup (still not big enough) It's only a fourth filled but it comes with hot water that you pour in yourself. I haven't figured out exactly why they can't just put the hot water in. Anyway, this morning I ordered my pastry and my coffee and went outside to their little area they have on the street to have my quick breakfast. My coffee never came so finally I went back to the counter and asked again. The bells of Santa Croce then began to ring and I realized it was 9 am. I was late for school. It was such a beautiful day I decided to take advantage of it and went to a little park about a 15 minute walk away and studied on my own all morning. It was so nice sitting in a park that actually has trees and watching the moms and dads and kids playing on the playgound equipment. The best thing about it was the fact that there are no tourists in this area. I really feel like I'm in Italy when I'm there. I missed everyone at school but I had a really good study session. Italian is NOT an easy language. I can't imagine that I'll ever be able to speak without out slowly thinking of all the grammar points. I guess, I thought that way about Japanese as well...we'll see. In the mean time I do enjoy studying it so that is what is important. I'll continue studying hard to learn to speak the language but I may never learn to drink the coffee.