It does end.. at some point we do leave Italy

On Saturday morning we had reservations for the Academia and the Uffizi.
You have to make reservations days in advance or you wait in impossibly long lines. It costs an extra $4 a piece, but it's worth it.
First, the Academia... where David is housed. In fact, this is in the buildings that have been the "art academy of Florence" for 100s of years. Michaelangelo was studen there.
But however many years ago, when they realized that they needed to save and restore David, they built this gallery.
The Academia is my favorite of all the "museums" we visited. First, it's not that big. Second. It houses, along with David, four other Michelangelo sculptures... and those happen to be my favorite artworks.
It turns out that Michelangelo believed that you did not turn a piece of marble into a piece of art... he believed that whatever was in the marble needed to be freed. He was simply releasing the statues from their marble encasements.
The four statues that lead to David are called the prisoners as they are all partially finished sculptures... still partially imprisoned. They show how he worked.... they show that the work was done by human hands and that it really started as a chunk of rock... it makes a difference, because David is perfect and sometimes you believe he isn't 500 years old and wasn't made before computers and lazers and so forth....
In today's technological age, David would not be hard to create. In his day, he was a miracle.
And he is massive, impressive, pure white, gorgeous and we sat for hours and just looked.
After that, there's a "workshop".. shelves and tables where student carvers used to work, that houses student work...lots of partially finished pieces. This was also cool.
We headed straight to the Uffizi when we were done. They are the Offices (offizial) of the Medici (who ruled Florence for years and financed the "birth of the Renaissance" be paying for - being the patrons of - the artists that lived and worked in Florence).
The Uffizi was opened as an art gallery in 1500-something and is the oldest continuously open to the public art gallery in the Western World.
This is where you can walk right up to the paining of the Birth of Venus. If you wanted to die and then spend eternity in hell, you could even touch it. I did not.
But it's huge... full of sculpture and religious art and alters from churches and paintings of Medici rulers (and their illegitimate children). After a few 100 paintings of the 12 stations of the cross and Mary holding Jesus all done on wood with lots of goldleaf and not much talent we were just on overwhelm. I decided to concentrate only on little dogs in paintings... I even saw one that reminded me a lot of Jenna.
Funny enough, when we got to the book store at the exit, there was a book on the Dogs of the Uffizi's Paintings.... so I'm not the only one. I just want you to know.
I do accept that I'm mostly crazy about my dogs. But so be it.
After that, I could do no more.
We went back to the apartment. I needed a rest and some down time and a bath. I couldn't breathe or sit or walk or do anything with any amount of joy by this point.
So, Mike went off to the Internet Cafe and the various Bike shops in Florence by himself and I read children's stories to Clare and Joe's grandson Ian, took a long bath and just generally relaxed.
That night, Mike took me to dinner. We again went ot the open air restaurant where Joe and Clare and Mike and I had eaten earlier in the week. It was perfectly stereotypical and yummy, too.
So that was that.... a nice stroll. A walk home. Bed.
Sunday dawned. We ate a breakfast meal and then took our leave of Joe, Clare, Eddie, Beth, Ian and Doddle (aka Aspen). We took the bus to the train. We took the Train to Piza. We stowed our luggage in the luggage check and went to the front entrance.
It was pouring.
Piza is right on the coast, so it rains a lot.
We bought an umbrella. $14.
We walked. It was deserted.
We decided to stop and have lunch because they stop serving at 2 p.m.
The grumpy waiter was unhappy because it was wet and no one was lunching.
It stopped raining.
We walked a little further after lunch and BAM, there was the tower. It leans.
It really, really leans.
Mike and I just really couldn't believe that it's still standing. it's been standing for 800 years. It's NUTS.
We took some pictures and started to wander through the tourist stands... soon, we realized we had found a street fair - the vendors were back on the street with all their wares out as soon as the rain stopped. I have no idea how... but 1000s of people were on the streets.
I bought a few last things as we made our way back to the train.
We took the six-mintue trip to the airport. We read, ate dinner, boarded our plane and flew to London.
It was 11 p.m.
We had 1o hours to kill.
We promptly went through immigration in London and got a hotelroom. Just like any Residence Inn here in the US. We walked there, through a traffic round-about, in like five minutes. We slept really well, got showered and dressed. Got back to the airport. Checked in, ate and found out Christopher Reeves had died.
Soon, another 9 hour flight and we were back in Dallas.
Chris and Peggy Reyher picked us up at the airport with snacks.
We unpacked and played with our doggies and desperately wanted to sleep at 6 p.m.
But we made it. We had Mexican Food and stayed awake until 8:10 p.m.
The next morning we both had to work. Boy... that first day sucked.
But our great adventure was over and aside from my health issues (I was sick for another three weeks) and tha fact that my counterpart in Chicago had had her baby while I was gone and was now out on Maternity Leave, it was all as it had been.
Mike got hte pictures on line by Wednesday morning.
Me... I've spend three months just writing about it.
Next... I'll tell you about visiting my brand new Godson.
But for now.
Ciao. Buono Noche.