it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Hold onto your [winter] hats; Florence is going green!

But more on that momentarily.

I started off the day with two midterms: one at 9 AM in my Italian Language class (Boom. Easy peasy.) and finished with a 12 PM exam in my Travel Writing class (Prompt: "Impressions of Florence"). I feel confident that I did well on both, and after I finished my essay, I flounced across the river to accompany Mary to a costume exhibit at the Palazzo Pitti, an old palace originally built by the Pitti family that was later taken over by the Medici. It is now home to several different museum exhibits.

The exhibit was interesting, but tiny! It only took us about 15 minutes to get throught the whole thing. So since the weather has been so nice (of course, during midterm week when we are all being antisocial cave creatures), we decided to take advantage of another Pitti feature: the Boboli Gardens. Today, it was sunny and probably in the mid-sixties: perfect garden-exploring weather.

The "Gardens" were so large that it was more of a park. It is definitely going to take another visit to feel like I've really seen everything Boboli has to offer.

The back of the Palazzo Pitti.

It's almost...dare I say...springtime!

We made another friend! He even let us pet him.

Because...what is a garden without a statue of an obese man riding a turtle?

Tomorrow is going to be full of all of my favorite things...shopping at mercato centrale, lunch with Gillian at Sergio Gozzi, and then...studying. Studying all afternoon until my cooking exam at 6 PM after which we are PUB CRAWLING for St. Patrick's Day. Epic.

Hope your day was as green and gorgeous as mine was! Ciao!