FLORENCE,  ITALY
September 25, 2016

Today is Sunday, September 25th, our 42nd day of traveling.  We caught the 0632 Regional Train to La Spezia, changed to a larger train to Pisa, then caught another train that took us into Florence. All our connections were only a few minutes apart and it still took 3 hours and some change to walk into our church building.  Our taxi driver was funny.  He kept encouraging us to go to Arizona.  Ha Ha.   He liked Flagstaff.......Nevada, not so much, where he was pulled over by a Smokey for doing 90. He tried to claim that he didn't speak English, but his wife confessed she did.  The Office4 let them off without a fine if they get out of Nevada.  "So we go to Arizona", he said.  😁
   We grabbed a quick bite to eat at McDonald's across the street from the train station before getting in a taxi.  Our first destination is to the Florence Church of Christ at Via San Donato 13.  Although a large number of the Italian membership were missing today due to a city wide cancer awareness run, a tour group from the USA was there.   A couple of our American brethren led songs and prayers.  The sermon was in Italian.
   We met Luigi and Julie.  Julie is a Niece of Jim and Linda Williams, friends from the Newberg and Camp Yamhill days.  We also met Dan Cooper, the leader and organizer of the tour group.   He has led many groups over the years, both to Europe and tours into the Holy Lands.
   We met Bart Liddle and his wife and kids.  He is here leading and teaching a group of college students this semester,  from Lipscomb University.  They do a semester in Florence, similar to what Oklahoma Christian does in Vienna.
  We came out of church and tried unsuccessfully to phone or hail a taxi.  Luigi was kind enough to walk us up and down and around the corner and across the canal bridge to point us to a bus stop to catch a bus to city center.
  We made  our way to the Galleria dell Accademia, where we stood in line for an hour and a half in the hot Tuscan sun to buy tickets. Some Italian guy tried to cut in line just in front of us but he got run off by a dozen irate people.
   The Gallery was very nice and dripped with irreplaceable history.  The largest statue,  which draws thousands of people every year, is the 18' tall Statue of David.   That's a big chunk of marble! Michaelangelo was commissioned to begin carving big Dave in 1501 and finished about January 1504.  It was a solid chunk of white marble. Dave is fully unclothed, unashamed and undaunted.  He stands as tall as the length of George Washington's smile on Mount Rushmore. (I bet you didn't expect that analogy!  😁)
   From there we walked down to visit the massive DUOMO of Florence, a huge church of the Catholic persuasion, built in 1436.  We were inside this church on our last visit to Florence in 2006.  The exterior was being renovated at that time and was covered with scaffolding.  It was, of course gorgeous!
  We got to see a large parade of ordinary people crowding the street and following behind loud speakers with everyone singing and chanting all the way up to the main entrance.  They crowded around to hear the pope or cardinal or whoever it was, begin preaching to the crowd.   We aren't sure what the occasion was.  Not sure if it happens every Sunday night or not.
   It was near midnight when we made it back to our flat in Manarola.  Our day was long and we were exhausted.  Probably not going to do that one again!
   Tomorrow we chill out and call it a recovery day!