To the Euro-free land of Pyramids and Camels...

I never thought I'd make it to Cairo. It's always been a dream of mine to go to Egypt and although I don't have the time to do the long trips around Egypt, I'm so happy that I'm able to experience Cairo. It makes a huge difference of course that Zack has been studying here for 4 months. With his Arabic and knowledge of the city he makes for a pretty good tour guide/bodyguard, plus he's really good at stopping me before I get royally ripped off with just about every purchase.
After arriving in Cairo, Zack picked me up at the airport and we made our way over to the Marriott (thanks mom and dad). Following check in we headed out to my first Egyptian meal. I got some chicken thing (Zack told me it was Egyptian) and he got the rabbit version. Being a cheap student in Italy has really made me protein deprived so I was happy with the chicken (and of course the price). Accompanying our dishes we had lemon juice and peach sheesha...apparently all very Egyptian. I love my authenticity. After dinner Zack treated me to some delicious Egyptian desserts. They were amazing! All basically encased and drowned in honey. The whole night was definitely a nice change from Italian pasta, pizza and wine. We enjoyed the desserts over at Zack's Colgate roommate's apartment while I was introduced to all of Zack's friends. Then back to the hotel for an early turn-in.
Day 2:
As Zack got up at 6:15 for a long day of classes, I slept in until about 10. It was pretty joyous, but I did feel bad that Zack had to get up so early. After lounging around for awhile I decided to get up and go to the gym. It took m awhile to find the gym at the Marriott but I did get a chance to see how amazing the hotel really was. It's beautiful. Following my workout I went back to the hotel room took a long bath and ordered some soup for lunch. Just as I started eating the soup I heard a knock on the door and when I opened it I was thrilled to see Zack! He decided to come back early instead of wait and not get back until about 6:30. It was great. We ended up taking a long walk around Zamalek (the area in Cairo I'm staying in) and then we went to get food at Zack's favorite chicken place. For two 1/2 chickens along with salad, rice, bread and sauce we paid 40 Egyptian lbs, which is equivalent to a little less than 8 US dollars. In Italy I'd be lucky to get a side dish at a restaurant for that price. I love Egyptian lbs. After dinner we went to the apartment again to hang out with Zack's friends.
Day 3:
Today was my first full day in Egypt! Of course, being the lazy college students that we are, we didn't manage to make it out of the hotel until about 12. But nevertheless we had a pretty busy day. We jummped into a taxi and headed off to the 'Garbage City'. There's an Arabic name for the place which is much more appealing but it's also decieving. The place is really a city of garbage. Sound dirty? It was. Sound smelly? It was. Sound cool? Definitely was. Basically there is a community of people in Cairo that collect all the garbage and sort it out. The population is mostly Coptic Christian and they would feed the organic waste to all the pigs. Unfortunatently, as my tour guide Mr. Buzzell told me, the Egyptian government killed more than 300,000 pigs in fear that they would spread swine flu and now there are no more pigs to feed, so the garbage is really starting to collect. Anyways, it was a cool place to walk around and explore a bit. We saw a whole assortment of animals, dogs, goats, donkeys and even rats. We/Zack befriended an Egyptian guy who introduced him to all his friends who then proceeded to surround him. This eventually led to a photo shoot of Zack and his new found friends.
After spending some times with our/Zack's new friends we made our way out of the city and started walking towards the citadel. I don't know much about the citadel but it was beautiful and such a nice change from the churches of Italy. The mosques were gorgeous. I love Islamic architecture. Plus we got a nice panaromic view of the city with a glimpse of the pyramids rising int he background (see photos).
After the Citadel, it was about 4 and we walked to the Al-Azhar park (about 20 min away) to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous. Right as the sun set all the minarets around the city blasted the call to prayer, each one trying to out-do the other. Once there was nothing left to see of the sunset we walked to Khan el-Khalili, the giant Cairo bazaar. Since we literally hadn't eaten all day we decided to grab a quick 'snack' at a food stall near the market. I got to try my first falafel (tammeh) in Egypt! I had plenty when I went to Israel but I was excited to try it in Egypt. The man who worked there was adorable. He though we was a genius photographer (he was pretty good) and insisted on taking photos of us. After refueling we ventured into the market. It was incredible! I didn't buy a single thing because I was way too overwhelmed with everything. I did have a minor obsession with finding some cheap gold which I quickly found out is non existant in Cairo. So we wandered and while we walked away empty handed we have every intention of going back.
Following our day of adventures we went back to the hotel to chill for awhile and when we started to get hungry again for dinner we wandered to the streets in search for koshery, the quintessential Egyptian street food. SO good. Scott kept on insisting that I try it and I finally did. I don't even think I could tell you what was in it. Some sort of combo of stuff. But it was good. Another chill night at the apartment until bed time...
Day 4:
Tuesday was another pretty late start for us. We originally planned on going to the Egyptian Museum and then the pyramids but when we realized that it was about 1 by the time we made it out of the hotel, we decided to hold off on the museum. As we were walking out of the hotel we met a driver/tour guide/egyptian cassanova (he apparently had 17 wives)who told us about his very cheap offer to take us to the pyramids and give us a tour. It seemed like a pretty good deal but we wanted to discuss it over lunch. We went to a pizza joint called Mason Thomas (I know, why get pizza in Cairo? But it's one of Zack's favorite and I was curious about Egyptian pizza). While eating our pizza we discussed the offer and decided that we didn't want to be dragged down by a tour guide, instead we hoped into a taxi towards the pyramids! While in the cab, the driver handed Zack his phone so he could talk to the 'manager' of camel/carriage/horse rides in Geiza. Zack politely said that we want to walk around the pyramids and we don't want a camel ride. Unfortunately, upon arrival in Geiza, the cab driver stopped the car and the guy from the phone jumped in the cab and they took us to the 'headquarters' for all the tours. After awkwardly sitting while this man tried to sell us his tour we kindly told him that we were poor students who simply want to walk around the pyramids. It was really really difficult to finally get away from him. By the time we did it was already 3:15! We had the cab driver drive us to entrance and after so altercation with the ticket guy (we bought 2 student tickets even though I left my student card at the hotel so the guy wouldn't let me in even though the ticket had been bought). Zack had to give the guy some bakshish to calm him down.
Finally we made it to the pyramids! They were INCREDIBLE. It's no wonder they're considered a wonder of the world. I really couldn't believe that I was standing there next to them. While we were walking around I foolishly took photos of the men on camels and got ushered into having Zack and I ride one. We both rode around for like two minutes, took some pictures and then poor Zack had to fight with the man because he was trying to rip us off. We walked away paying the guy 20 Egyptian lbs (about 4 US dollars) and I learned my lesson to not be lurred in the scams. At 4 o'clock the Tourism Police kick everyone out of the 'park' but since we had just gotten in there we decided that we would do our best to avoid getting kicked out and hopefully be able to see the sunset. We were extremely successful. We hid underneath a cliff by one of the pyrmaids as the sun was beginning to set. There was literally not a single other tourist out there. Everyone was gone. It was just me, Zack, some randoms on camels and horses and the tourist police...oh and of course the three great pyramids. Definitely one of the coolest experiences of my life. Eventually we decided it was time to head out of the park so we wandered back through the desert, shoes filled with sand. After the amazing Pyramids we went back to the hotel for downtime. Walking through the desert is tiring! For dinner we got Tammeh again and it was an early night for us because Zack had to be at school all day for exams. Alarm is set for 6am!

è tutto finito

I'm currently writing from my hotel room in Cairo. The semester has finished, I've left Florence and have begun my Christmas break in Cairo/Singapore. I can't believe it's all over. The semester ended really quickly. Finals went well but it was definitely hard to focus. I was ready to leave by the last week and all I wanted was for finals to be over so I could enjoy the last week with my friends. That was a little hard to do, but I did my best. Saturday I spent running errands around Florence, going to the market to buy presents etc. We went to the Christmas market in Santa Croce and wandered around there. It was adorable! Had all the Christmas decorations every celebrating family could dream of. Of course there wasn't a single hannukah decoration but when is there ever? I think the market was suppose to be a copy of the famous German and Viennese Christmas market because there were a ton of food stalls with German/Viennese food...struedal, sausages, giant pretzels etc. There was also a delicious vino caldo stand which served small cups of hot spiced wine. So good! Throughout the last week I would wander over to the market for a breath of fresh air, it was SO cute.
Sunday, Monday and Tuesday was spent almost solely on studying with a little packing and a lot of movie watching thrown in there. I managed to sufficiently procrastinate by watching Gone with the Wind (a 4 hour movie)and an entire season of a TV show my friend told me about called Modern Family. Don't worry parents and grandparents, I studied and got done what I needed to. Tuesday night I went to my first Italian apertivo! It's a genuis Italian inventio where you go to a bar, order a drink and get food along with the drink, all for 8 euros. If you find a good enough place you can basically make the apertivo your dinner, which is what my friends and I did.
Wednesday was my "hard" day. I woke up pretty early and went on a run (which ended up being my last run in Florence :( ), then studied a bit and went up to school for my Art History final. After the final I worked on my self portrait painting for my class, took my italian oral and then had my art critique. It all went pretty well! Wednesday night my friends and I went to La Giostra for our 2nd to last meal in Italy. As usual, it was AMAZING. Tons of proseco, wine, limoncello, pasta and appetizers. Delicious.
Thursday was the last day in Florence and we all had our Italian written exam to take. It was basically impossible to study for that test. I, and I'm pretty sure everyone else, was SO distracted with the idea that the semester was almost done. But finally we were all done! Of course we had an unbelievable amount to get done before everyone left the next day. Our aparments had to be cleaned and I had to finish packing! It was an extremely hectic last day. We had a lot of plans for what we wanted to do for the end but unfortunately we had to cut a bunch out because of time. Thursday night Shelly, Jenny and I ate our last meal in Florence at Aqua al Due, where I got the pasta taster with small plates of 5 types of pasta. I figured it'd be a perfect end to Italian food. The night was a late one as we tried to 'live it up' for the last night. I think I went to sleep at about 5am, only to get up briefly at 6 to say by to Jenny and then my alarm went off at 9 30. It was BRUTAL.
Friday morning was HECTIC. Last minute packing, cleaning and goodbyes. SO sad. Jenny left first, then Shelly, me, and last to leave was Nami. I was meeting Joci at the train station at about 11 15. When I finally got into the taxi I started to get really sad and I'd be lying if I said I didn't start to cry a tad. Leaving really is bittersweet. There's no other way to describe it. I was obviously SO excited to go to Cairo and see Zack and then to be in Singapore with him and my family, but I knew that I was going to miss Florence and, more importantly my friends. Every time I saw the Duomo through the buildings as I drove to the train station I started to cry a bit harder. That city is gorgeous. I can't imagine living in a more beautiful city. It's filled to the brim with history and art, which for someone like me, is heaven. I need to go back there when I'm older.
Joci and I, along with my 3 massive bags and my backpack got on the train to Rome where we stayed for the night. By the time we got to the hotel at the airport it was about 2 30. We wanted to go into the city but we either would've had to wait for the free shuttle leaving at 4 or figure out how to take the train from the airport. We choose the later and it was quite the experience. We got on the train that said: Roma Metroplitana (which we assumed meant the center of the city) but we had no clue where exactly we needed to get off. Eventually we noticed that the train was not getting any closer to the center of Rome, but instead was getting further and further away. Joci finally asked someone which direction we were heading in and it turned out that we were in fact going in the opposite direction we needed to go in. We got off at the next stop and figured out how to buy a ticket back to Rome, as well as made the effort to ask, in Italian, how we get to Rome. We made it to Rome at tjust about the same time the bus would've gotten us there. After about 1.5 hours of wandering around and window shopping we started making our way to the bus stop for the shuttle. We were both pretty hungry and wanted to buy some food to bring back to the hotel but we decided that it would be better to find out were the shuttle was going to pick us up and then find food nearby. That would have been a grand idea if only there had been any sort of food store within a 10 block radius of the bust stop. I'm pretty sure Joci and I managed to find THE only area in Italy without food. Score. So we just hopped on the bus and ended up getting the cheapest items on the room service menu at the hotel.
We got up pretty early to get to the airport. Joci had a 10 am flight and my flight wasn't until 1:30, but because my ubelievable amount of luggage, I went to the airport with Joci so she could help me. She was a lifesaver. After saying bye to Joci I hung around for about 2 hours until I was finally able to check into my flight. Lovely Italian style, I got to wait in a line for 45 min, check in and then wait in another line for 20 min before recieving my boarding pass (thanks to baggage fees). Waiting for my flight I embraced the last hour or so I had in Italy and then happily got on the plane on my way to Cairo...

A Beautiful Run

This will be short but I have to document it. I went for a run this morning along the Arno. It rained all day yesterday and so this morning was really cold. The weather in Italy is completely random. One second it's raining and the next it's sunny (reminds me a bit of home). So when I started my run around 8:30 it was cloudy but looked as though it would clear away. About 15-20 min in it started to rain. I ran across one of the bridges on the edge of the city center and started making my way back in, towards the Ponte Vecchio. About 5 min later I began to notice a rainbow forming directly in front of me. Slowly the rainbow became brighter and more colorful, and eventually I noticed that another one was forming directly above it. As I kept running, the cold rain falling in my face, both rainbows got bolder until I realized that they arched all the way across the river and seemed to be forming a bubble around the city of Florence. It was incredible. One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. The colors of the rainbow contrastly greatly with the dark grey clouds behind them. One end was on one side of the river while the other ended between the Duomo and Santa Croce. INCREDIBLE. Part of me wanted to stop and stare for as long as it lasted, but most of me wanted to just keep running. As stupid as it sounds, I thought I could get to the end and be standing in one of the rainbows. But we all know that's impossible. Duh. So as I kept running the rainbows got more and more beautiful and then in an instant, they disappeared. Just like that. I was pretty bummed that I didn't have a rainbow to keep me company for the rest of my run, but it was truely amazing as it lasted. I only kick myself because I don't go running with a camera...

Graziegiving and Operation Exploration

So, as of today, November 29th, 2009, I have less than two weeks until my semester in Firenze is over. I can't believe it. It has honestly been a major whirlwind. I feel like it was just yesterday that I lugged my two gigantic suitcases up the three very steep, pitch black stairs of this apartment. Everything has been incredible here. The classes, the people, the travel, the culture. I have loved it all. When I leave Florence on December 11th, it's going to be extremely bittersweet (as most endings are). I'm spending the night in Rome with my friend Joci and then Saturday the 12th I have a flight to Cairo to visit Zack. So with exactly 13 days left before leaving Italy, I have 13 days more of experiencing Florence. I've already done a lot but clearly there is always more to do. It's definitely hard to be motivated to do work when all I want to do is wander around Florence. My friends and I have created quite the list of things to see and go to before we leave and we've started to check things off...
Thursday, was of course Thanksgiving, and what kind of Americans would we be without celebrating? Boy did we celebrate. Shelly and I cooked up quite the feast, all in about 4.5 hours. We made.......stove top turkey, pumpkin pie, apple crisp, green bean casserole, glazed vegetables, parmesean garlic mashed potatoes, italian foccacia stuffing, corn, cranberry sauce, and threw in a store bought panetone for italian flair (a type of cake-ish christmas bread). The cooking before the feast was definitely stressful, and it definitely made me appreciate the 1/2 catered thanksgiving dinner I've been to the past couple years. But needless to say, we cooked and cooked and cooked and produced a fantastically delicious feast. I was very proud of myself and Shelly. We got lucky and used Shelly's sister's best friend's apartment (which had an oven!)and we had eleven people at the dinner. It was so much fun! We barely had any leftovers! It was a very successful thanksgiving, and even though I'm really sad I wasn't with my family, I'm glad I was forced to create my own feast.
The Friday after thanksgiving was detox day...ish. I sat in my room ALL DAY writting an Art History paper. I left my apartment once to get some water, but otherwise I was sitting on my bed, laptop on my lap and papers thrown everywhere. By dinner time my paper was done. I was SO productive! Felt lazy as hell, but it's hard to complain considering the amount of work I got done. Basically now, I have two tests and a quiz standing before me and the end of the semester. Beautiful.
Following my extremely productive Friday, Saturday was spent exploring Florence. Shelly and I met our friend Joci at 10:30 at San Marco, the church and cloister. I was suppose to go there for a class but thanks to Florence's stupid museum hours, I had to look up all the images online. It was really cool to be able to see everything in person rather than on Google images. San Marco was the home to, in my opinion, Florence's most evil tyrant: Savonarola. He was a fiery priest who, following the exile of the Medici family, began priesting death and damnation to anyone who was even the tinniest bit 'sinful'. He scared artists such as Botticelli to burn his own beautiful paintings in the middle of Piazza Signoria in what was known as the Bonfire of the Vanities. To make a long story short, he got too much power, started bashing the Pope and the church, so the Pope had him tourted and burned. Great Renaissance story...fascinating for me. So we got to see the church Savonarola preside over and spent most of his time. Pretty cool.
After San Marco we wandered the streets 'piazza hopping'. Usually every Saturday and Sunday there's a market in each of the piazzas, but of course the one Saturday we go looking for the markets, they don't exist. We still wandered around though and a very good time. For lunch we crossed a restaurant we wanted to try off our list, Cafe Za Za in the San Lorenzo market. Very good. Following lunch we did some more wandering, some shopping and then parted ways for some down time before dinner. I've been wanting to get some photos taken of the sunset in Florence so I ventured out at about 4:30 to try and do that. Of course it was a clear night so the sunset was virtually non-existant. Instead I ended up spening a long time in book store,wanting to buy half a dozen books to read, but walking out with one more on Renaissance Florence, a last hurrah.
For dinner we were able to check off another restuarant we wanted to try. We all split three small thinigs, topped off with a glass of wine. Delish. After dinner I went home, crawled into bed and spent two hours laughing and crying over Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias. I can't believe I'd never seen it before!
Sunday is work day again. I'm going to go to a market down the street that's suppose to be selling vintage jewelry. SO excited. 13 more days...

olive harvest and orvieto!

I'm late with my blogging...typical, but nevertheless, I must document everything I've done!
So last friday was the olive harvest! The NYU campus here in Florence, Villa La Pietra, has a ton of olive trees all in the middle 'Death Valley' area. November is the beginning of the olive harvest so for two euros each we were able to spend the day harvesting, with lunch and a oil tasting included in the price! Not too bad. Pretty cheap labor though. The actual harvesting was a lot of fun! It's easier than I expected, but after about 3 hours of picking olives off a tree, I was a bit bored. Basically all that was needed to harvest is a basket and the ability to pull a bunch of olives easily off the branches. We were expert harvesters, plowing down atleast a dozen trees in our alloted time. Finally at 1 they yelled to us: Pronto! (apparently the italian way to let us know that lunch is 'ready'. So we ran up the hill to the giant stone picnic table outside the art studio where lunch was being cooked on a coal fire. Very rustic. Lunch was ribollita (a Tuscan soup of bread and vegetables...delicious) accompanied by real garlic toast and sausages. All very delicious.
Following lunch was our oil tasting. I wasn't really sure what to expect with the tasting, but regardless I was suprised with how it went. I've done my fair share of wine tasting but olive oil tasting is a whole different experience. You're basically taking a shot of oil. Which, yes, was pretty disgusting. We only had to do three (olive oil, virgin olive oil and extravirigin olive oil) but it was still a tad nasty. The guy in charge, Nick, explained to us the olive oil process, the differences between the types and what flavors to expect. My favorite is the extravirgin oil, mildly piccante (spicy).
After lunch we were suppose to do two more hours of harvesting but my friends and I decided to bounce home since we were harvested out. Clearly we're not built to be Tuscan farmers....
The next day me and two other friends (shelly and michael) went to Orvieto! Orvieto is a little town in the south of Umbria, so it was about a two hour train ride from Florence. We left at about 9 20 and got there at about 11 30. After taking the cable-car-like-ride up to the town from the train station, we wandered around a bit and then stopped for lunch. The town is very old with a deep Etruscan history. The Duomo there, basically the main attraction, was incredible. The gothic facade contained beautiful mosaics and sculptural work. I actually had studied this church in AP Art History, I think, but I literally didn't remember anything about it. Pretty sad. Regardless, it was beautiful. I posted some photos of my trip, which obviously has pictures of the Duomo.
After the church we wandered the town and stumbled across a little museum with underground Etruscan dwellings. VERY cool. Small and short, but so cool to see the cellars and wells the Etruscan used 25 centuries ago. After the tombs we decided to head back to Florence and relax for the rest of the weekend. Sunday of course was a day for work.
Unfortunately Orvieto was my last trip outside of Florence for the semester. I decided that I didn't want to spend anymore time or money outside of Florence. For the rest of the semester I want to spend my time exploring parts of Florence I've never been before....

okupazoine e lucca

Things are definitely slowing down a bit here. I'm not sure if has something to do with my complete lack of motivation to do schoolwork (don't worry mom & dad, i'm doing well) or the lack of big trips, but things feel slower. We're hitting the home strech of study abroad. There's a little over one month left here and like the end to anything, it's bittersweet. I'm clearly having the time of my life in Firenze. It's been an incredible experience, I've made some amazing friends and I've really discovered the depth of where my passion in art lies. This city is filled with art, history and culture and I love it. Of course, studying abroad doesn't come without missing people and things. Soon I'll be back to the beauty of the dollar (singapore or u.s., I don't care which one) and the comfort of my own room, however briefly. But for now, I have one more month to 'do florence' and make the very most out of my time. My roommates and I made a list of what we have left to do and see in Florence. It seems very dooable.
That being said, I didn't do very much this weekend. Friday we had a mandatory 'okupanzione' day. I wish I could explain to you what that meant, but I don't know. Basically what I got from it is that it's a culture day. I signed up to do jewelry making and graffiti. Both fun, neither very italian though. Graffiti was the closest to touching on fundamental part of Italian culture, being as graffiti is EVERYWHERE in Italy. However, we didn't get to touch a spray can, or graffiti a wall. Instead we painted a piece of cloth. I didn't feel nearly as illegal as I was hoping. We painted a giant wine bottle with: pace, amore e vino (peace, love and wine) written in the middle. Quite the graffiti statement. That was about it for Friday, like I said, nothing to exciting.
Saturday my roommates and I decided to go to Lucca for the day. We didn't know what to see or what to do in Lucca but we heard it was a cool place to check out. So we did. Getting a slow start, we arrived around lunch time, got lunch and then wandered. Typical of our luck, none of the churches were open so we ended up walking around this really cute antique fair. It was huge and had the coolest stuff! Unfortunately, everything that wasn't a piece of crap and was worth buying was way to expensive.
Of course, like basically every small Italian town, there was a chocolate festival. It wasn't huge but had some tasty goodies that we had no choice but to try. We headed back to Florence around 4 30 and were back for dinner and bed :)

Venezia

Finally I went to Venice! I've been wanting to go for so long and with the semester coming to an end, it's about time I went. We left early friday morning and stayed for only one night, to save money. The entire experience was amazing! One of the coolest and most picturesque cities I've ever been to. You don't get what it's all about by just looking at pictures. You have to see it for yourself. And I did! Finally! The train ride was about 3 hours, which I of course slept through all of. When we got there we jumped right on a water bus to find our cute little Bed and Breakfast! I found a place in the San Polo area and for one night and such a good location it was perfect. After we wandered the streets and found the B&B we went to get some food. One pizza and one stupidly slow waiter later we were finally ready to go out and see the city. First stop: St. Mark's Square. Such a cool place. The buildings are like nothing you've ever seen before. Incredible. We went into St. Mark's Basilica and it was gorgeous. The entire ceiling is COVERED in gold mosaics from all different artistic periods: Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque. I wish it was brighter there so I could've gotten some good photos. It was incredible.
After the Basilica we walked along the water stopping in some free exhibits for the Venice Biennale. We wanted to go all the way to the Garden to see the main exhibit but once we made it over there it started to rain so we decided to skip out on the outdoors stuff and find something to do inside. Our solution: The Peggy Guggenheim museum! I'm so glad we ended up going there. It was filled with Picasso, Klee, Miro, Dali, Koonings, and so much more. I LOVED it, which says a lot coming from a Renaissance obsessor. Modern art is really growing on me...
After the Guggenheim we wandered back to the B&B and grabbed dinner. Back in our room by 8 and in bed by 8 30. Beautiful. Of course, we didn't actually go to sleep until 11, which is still pretty early.
We got up at around 8 and were quickly welcomed by a quaint breakfast, which we ate quickly so we could get out and be productive. And productive we were. First stop, and the one I was the most excited about: Murano! I LOVED it. I read a book this summer called the Glassblower of Murano and it made me so excited to see it all. We took the water bus over and right when we got there went to see a glass blowing demonstration. SO cool. He made a horse out of a single piece of glass. Awesome. We got some stuff at the store and then went to wander around Murano. I never thought I'd like glass so much but I found myself wanting to stop in every store to look at all the crazy glass art. I'll have to go back there when I have the means to afford all the stuff. I did walk away with some jewelry so I can add it to my collection.
After Murano we made another attempt to go to the Biennale exhibit at the Garden, only to veto the idea when we found out that the entry fee was 8 euros, with student discount.
With about 3.5 hours until we had to get on a train back to Florence we walked on the water again to San Marco to go to the Palazzo Ducale. The Palazzo Ducale was the palace of the Doges of Venice. Pretty high class guys but apparently barely had any power. The Palazzo was beautiful. The rooms were ornate and massive, covered in paintings, fabric and wood carved ceilings. We even got the chance to walk through one of the biggest rooms in Europe. No kidding. We were trying to figure out how much it would cost to rent out for an event...but seeing as we couldn't afford entry into the Biennale exhibit we probably wouldn't be able to afford the room. After going through the Doge's apartment and all the government rooms we went across the Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs) over to the prisons. Can't help but love prisons. When we left the Palazzo, the Piazza was completely flooded and there were small boardwalks set up for people to get across. Shelly and I had our rainboots on, in true Venetian fashion, and waded through part of the water, until we decided it was getting too deep. Venice is basically one gigantic puddle. After the Palazzo Ducale we stopped somewhere quickly for lunch and then made our way across the Grand Canal to find the Sucola di San Rocco. True to tradition, once we found the place, we decided against going in because of the entry fee. Instead we went to the train station and were able to get on a train back to Florence much earlier than we thought. While we were sad to leave Venice when it seemed like we had so much more to explore, we were definitely happy to get back to our cold, yet suprisingly cozy, apartment. We finished our night with sweatpants and watching Clueless. Perfect end to a great weekend.

It's About Time

It's been a hot minute since I've written. And because of that I need to conserve my sanity and keep everything short and sweet. To begin, I made a horrible horrible horrible mistake and pressed the wrong button on my camera. Therefore I'm sitting here at my computer, after having gone on an incredible trip for ten days, with not a photo to prove it. All 2000+ photos I took on my camera this semester are gone. sono un'po' stupida e poi i tutti di foti sono deletati. So, I'm sorry for the lack of photographic evidence of my fun. On to my blogging...

weekend of October 9-11:
This weekend was my art history class trip to Verona, Padua and Mantua. We were suppose to be gone from Friday until late Saturday night. The first stop was Verona where we went to the San Zeno Church to see the famous San Zeno Altarpiece by Mantegna. Much to my dismay, we did not stop by the infamous balcony from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Apparently there is not art-historical reasoning behind stopping there. So be it. After a lovely lunch in Verona, as we were leaving, our Professor told us some unfortuante news. He had a death in the family and he needed to get back to Florence that night. We would have time to stop in Mantua but not enough time to stop in Padua. Part of me was very happy to be able to get back to Florence since it was the weekend before mid-terms, but the other part of me was bummed to the core that we would be missing out on Padua. That was the one place my grandma told me I should go in Italy so I'd be able to see the Scrovegni Chapel by Giotto. Unfortunately, because of timing and cost, I don't think I'll be able to make it there this semester (sorry grandma).
So we went to Manuta, saw the Palazzo Ducale (Home of the Gonzaga Family), got on the bus and drove back to Florence.

Skipping ahead...past midterms because, let's face it, they were miserable and not worth talking about....
FALL BREAK! October 15-30
15:
Off we go on fall break! After rushing out of my Italian midterm, Joci, Shelly and I hope on a train to Milan! The train was nice and relaxing, but the second we got to milan we were basically running and rushing until we got to our flight. The bus leaving the train station was 15 min late leaving so we got to the airport with about 20 minutes until the gate closed. We had to get our visas checked and go through security but it was all good once we got there since our flight was ten minutes delayed and no lines! The flight to Madrid was easy and once we got to our hostel we went to sleep so we could get up early!

16:
One day in Madrid and lots to do. We started our morning stopping at a Starbucks to get breakfast and coffee. I know, I know, Starbucks in Europe!? But honestly, you can't beat the coffee there. You can't get a normal coffee in Italy, atleast not easily, it's either espresso, cappucino or a latte. Following a delicious, hot coffee, we went to the Prado. AMAZING. One of the best art museums I've been to. I loved it. Not too big but not too small. We were there for 2 hours and saw basically the whole thing: goya, valazquez, mantegna, fra angelico, and even the incredible Hieronymus Bosch (Garden of Earthly Delights). I would probably rank that museum above the Met. I loved it that much. So managable.
After the museum we went walking around to get some lunch, and then wandered to the Palace. We didn't go in but we walked around it to see it. We had a flight in the late afternoon to Portugal so we had to get back to the hostel and get our bags to get to the airport.
One time zone and a flight later and we've arrived in Porto, Portugal!!A whole new language and a whole new country! We got to our hostel and after getting settled in, we found a place for dinner. We were basically the only ones there but we had a good time. I got fish, which is something I never do in Italy on a students budget. The salmon cost about 8.50 euros where in Italy it would've cost atleast 14 euros. Unreal. Dinner was finished with a 35-year-old Portuguese man coming to sit at our table, probably under the impression that we were atleast in our late 20s. He taught Shelly to dance, bought us some Portugues desert wine and that was that. We said our goodbyes and safely returned to our hostel.
17: First day in Portugal! We started off taking a walking tour that was in one of the guide books we had. We wandered through the streets of Porto, stopping at the occasional church and sometimes going inside. It was really cool to see a Portuguese church, especially in comparison to the massive ones all over Italy. We wandered across the Duoro (the river running through the North of Portugal) and after stopping at various Porto wineries to gather information for the afternoon, we sat down for lunch overlooking the river.
After lunch we met up with the other four girls that we were 'traveling' with: Nami, Jenny, Alex and Kim. We overlapped a bunch with them but for the most part we had seperate itineraries. After meeting up we went to a Porto wine cellar tour followed by a tasting. While not a fan of Porto wine (more on the sweeet side), I will never turn down a tasting. Plus, adding to the cheapness of Portugal the whole tour plus tasting was only 4 euros. amazing. For dinner we went to this adorable traditional Portuguese place where I got cod (verrrry portugese). Delish. Our second and last night in Porto ended with a early bedtime since we had to get up for buses tomorrow.
18: While four of the girls got up at 3:45 to catch a bus down to the south of Portugal, Shelly, Joci and I got up at a reasonable time to catch the bus down to Lisbon, stopping in Coimbra to break up the 4.5 hours. Coimbra is apparently a university town but going on a sunday resulted in nothing to see and nothing being opened. We stopped and had lunch and got on a bus around 3 to go to Lisbon. Upon arrival in Lisbon we were thrilled when we, first of all found out that our hostel was right next to the metro and that our hostel was SO nice. Five-star hostel if there was such a thing. SO clean and cute. It looked like it was designed by Urban Outfitters and Ikea; a perfect combination. Happy to have such amazing accomodations, we went off in search for dinner, which we found only after being bombarded by dozens of pushy portuguese with menus on the streets. All in all a great day!
19: The next day we went to a small town about an hour west of Lisbon called Sintra. It was a cute town known for castles and palaces; as the tour book described, it is whimsical and hobbit-like. I wish I had pictures to show because it was truely a beautiful and some-what whimsical place. we did A LOT of climbing up to the top of a mountain where there was an old moorish castle. very cool. The town itself was adorable. Filled with tiny streets and beautiful views. Of course because it was such a little, touristy town, we got royally ripped off with everything we did. Conclusion: Portugal is still part of Europe and still part of the rip off euro system. Yay Europe! Back in Lisbon, we went to another castle (more stairs and climbing) and for the evening we found yet another cute restaurant for authentic portuguese cuisine...I'm pretty sure I ordered ribs there, which, for anyone who knows me, is a rarity. We ended the night with a cocktail and bedtime. Joyful.
20: Today was our only real full day in Lisbon and it was great! We got up and went to do all the sight seeing: Monestary of St. Jerome, Tower of Belem, and the Se Cathedral. Unfortunately we had a rainy forcast so we ended up going up to the big Lisbon mall by the ocean to have lunch and wandering. It was a very relaxing day. We ended it with our last portuguese meal when our four other friends met back up with us. After dinner we went out dancing. I know what you're thinking, by dancing you mean drinking. Well yes but this time we actually danced...salsa! We found this one place where there were actual dance instructors who would lead us in salsa dancing! SO much fun. Later on we befriended a group of Portugese military guys. They were very nice and fun to hang out with in Lisbon!
21: Today we left the Portuguese lifestyle behind for Barcelona! We got in around early evening so it was already dark but we ended up walking around the Boardwalk area and finding a seafood place for dinner (Barcelona is known for seafood).
22: One day in Barcelona to see everything. And low and behold it poured ALL day. Not just poured but basically torrential downpour. I felt like I was in Singapore only it was about 55 degrees not 85. I couldn't believe how much rain there was. We were able to see the Sagrada Famiglia, The Cathedral, The Picasso Museum and then we had to go back to our hostel because it was raining way too hard to do anything. The Sagrada Famiglia was a very intersting place. I'm still not sure what exactly to think about it. I was impressed at the sheer size and unique characteristics of the structure but I was so dissapointed in how incomplete it was! It was begun in 1882 and to this day is still not finished. It's not suppose to be done until 2030! that's 150 years of costruction and it's the 21st century! As an art history major who is obsessed with churches (paritcuarly the Duomo in Florence) I can't believe how long it's taking them to finish the Sagrada Famiglia, especially considering the amount of modern technology available. It was cool to see a 'work-in progress' and all the artists and architects busy working away, but I'm definitely going to need to come back and see the final product to get a real impression (Barcelona 2030?).
I LOVED the Picasso Museum. Most of his really famous stuff are in other museums but it was SO cool to see his earlier works and his progression from where he began to how he is remembered today. Definitely a highlight of my trip.
After warming up and drying off at the hostel we decided that even though it was raining we would try and do something. So what's the perfect rainy day activity?? A movie! We all went to go see, "I Love New York" in a random Spanish movie theater. Loved it. Afterwards we ate dinner together and I went back to the hostel to get some sleep for the next day!
23: What a day. Around 1am the previous morning I got an email from the airline saying there was a strike in Italy and the flight I'm on the next day may be rescheduled. I tried to call every number I could to find out more information but my phone was out of money! When I woke up the morning of my flight, at 7:00, I checked my email right before leaving only to find out that my flight to Rome, to meet my mom, was cancelled! I quickly jumped in a cab and went to the airport. To make a long story short, after frantically calling people on a pay phone (courtesy of 20 euros worth of coins), I was able to get on a flight leaving at 3:00pm. I was really lucky to get out of there. I ended up going back into Barcelona to spend some more time with my friends. We went to La Pedrera, Gaudi's house, which was very cool. All in all I'm somewhat happy that my flight was cancelled because I got to see more of Barcelona, and under better weather conditions.
I finally got to Rome and my mom at around 7:30pm. I was so happy to finally see her! We went out to a cute dinner near the hotel where my mother had her first glass of Italian wine...and so the love began.
24:Our first day in Rome was BUSY. We woke up and saw Ancient Rome: The Pantheon, the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Column of Trajan and the Arch of Constantine. Leaving Ancient Rome, we jumped into a cab and made our way over to the Vatican! I was SO excited for this, being the good Jewish girl that I am. For some reason I'm fascinated with all of it. I was bummed he wasn't hanging around when we went there. We were so lucky beause there were almost no lines getting in. It was great. We went through the entire Vatican Museum, quite quickly, stopping at the various famous masterpieces such as the School of Athens. Of course we (or atleast I) spent a significant amount of time in the Sistine Chapel, which was truely incredible. Words can't describe, but I'm sure I don't have to say that because everyone knows that the Sistine chapel is incredible. We left the Sistine Chapel, and walked over to St. Peter's Square and St. Peter's Basilica. The Basilica was AMAZING. Huge, immense, elaborate, just incredible. I feel like I need to use a thesaurus with this blog because I keep calling things incredible and amazing. But they were. Of course I wish I had photos to show, but I guess you can just Google it.
After the Vatican we wandered back towards our hotel and had a bit of a rest before dinner time. We had done a lot of walking and wandering. Our last dinner in Rome was incredible. We were literally the only English-speaking people there (which is always a good sign). We got artichokes roasted between bricks, which was one of the best things I've ever tasted. SO simple but SO delicious. I honestly don't even remember what we ate for our main...I think we shared two pastas or something. The artichokes were that good. Didn't even have desert. We waddled home and passed out before 11. Plus we got an extra hour of sleep, yay European daylight savings.
25: For our last day in Rome we did a lot more wandering than site seeing. We went to the Campo and Piazza Navona, the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. All very cool but of course all very touristy. We had a lovely leisurely lunch in the piazza Navona, complete with wine and obnoxious street preformers.
In a sense we ran out of stuff to do in Rome so we went back to the hotel and tried to get an earlier train to Florence. We hopped in a taxi and I told him "Termini". About 20 mins later, which was far to long to get to the train station, I asked him where he was going and he said Ciampino, the Rome airport! So we missed the train we wanted to take and ended up just taking the orignal train leaving at 4 30.
Finally we made it back to Florence! At 6:09! I took my mom to her hotel and waited around while she got ready for dinner and then we walked over to my apartment! After the meeting of the roommates and the short tour of my tiny apartment we went to dinner across the street at a place called La Giostra. It was incredible. One of the best meals I've had in Florence. Upon arrival, we were welcomed with a complimentary glass of prosseco (italian champagne). We ordered an appitizer, giant asparagus with parmesean, but literally two minutes later they brough us a complimentary tasting of about 6 different things, bruschetta, salumi, tomato mozerella, peppers etc. Delicious. We were already full after that but ordered our mains: split a risotto funghi and osso bucco. The asparagus came and it was SO good. It came with parmesean melted on top and then with bread crumbs and melted butter poured over. Again, one of the best things I've ever tried. Even more full, our mains arrived and we painfully tried them both. The Osso Bucco was out of this world. Best osso bucco I've ever had. I'm sure many people will hate me for this comment, but I have no issue with eating baby cow. Especially when it's that good. No offense to baby cows. Obviously we were stuffed to the core and there was no space for desert so, once again, we waddled back to the hotel room (which I decided I was going to camp out in for the week) and passed out.
26-30: Not to jump through the whole time I spent with my mom, but I'm getting a tad tired of writing on this blog. We basically saw the entire city. Went to basically every museum and every church. I blabbled my mouth of spilling random tidbits about the art and architecture (I had a lot of random tidbits to spill and I'm pretty sure my mom got tired of it). We went to the Academia and saw the David, the Uffizi where I showed off my Renaissance Art knowledge, Santa Croce, San Lorenzo, Medici Tombs, climbed to the top of the Duomo (amazing), and went to Piazzele Michelangelo to watch the sunset. We did some shopping in the market, bought presents, bought semi-matching leather jackets, wandered through the streets. She took my friends out for dinner which was a lot of fun, and of course we drank a significant amount of wine. I'm so excited to share a bottle with her when we get home. I had an amazing time with my mom and I was very very sad when she left, although I was far to tired to truely emote since I had to take her to the train station at 6:15 in the morning. Dreadful. But I miss her, and her paying for everything. Back to being broke...
30: After dropping my mom off at the train station and saying my goodbyes, I went home and passed out until around 8. Shelly and I decided to go to Cortona and Arezzo for the day. We had no concrete plans, just to jump on the train and wander. It was a great day. We had such a relaxing time. We had a fabulous and indulgent lunch in Cortona, pecorino cheese fondu and truffles (splurge of the weekend) and then went to Arezzo and wandered. Arezzo had the cutest antique and vintage stores that were so much fun to look through. Since we were both museumed and churched out, we avoided all sight seeing. We headed back to Florence around 5 and stayed in, going to sleep pretty early.
31: Today we went to San Gimigniano! Me, Shelly, Jenny and Michael all decided to go over there for the day and I'm so glad we did. It was the cutest medieval town. Filled with towers over looking Tuscany, one of which we climed. The weather was perfect and the view was breathtaking. We spent about 3 hours there and as we were waiting for the bus, I made the biggest mistake of 'formatting' my photos. and now they're gone. It's a sore subject and I'd rather not talk about it. Being Halloween, I cured my depression by dressing up as a witch, watching Mamma Mia, eating candy corn and getting a bloody mary...I would deal with it all on sunday.
November 1: Finally! The end of my blog! This day was pretty miserable. I just spent the whole day trying to figure out my camera (which was a failure). This week is Joci's 21st birthday, so much to celebrate! and Venice this weekend! until next time...

When in Bologna and Certaldo

This was quite the weekend! Two day trips and each SO much fun. On Friday me and four of my friends went to Bologna for the day. It's about an hour from Florence so not too abd. We got there around 9:30 and stayed until about 4 45...it was perfect! We probably didn't do nearly as much historical and culture stuff as we had hoped but I think we're going to try and go back there before the end of the semester. We spent a lot of time wandering the streets aimlessly, which is honestly my favorite type of travelling. Bologna is home to the world's oldest university (i believe) and so we walked through the streets in the neighborhood where the university was. It was quite the college town. It was a bit unfortunate because we have to travel with a small budget and going to places like bologna, known for their food, puts a limit on what we can try. We can't afford to have a nice lunch in bologna to try the cuisine so we just ended up having a typical italian meal. Still good obviously.

Today was SO much fun. Amazing. We went to two towns in Tuscany for my sociology class. The first town was called Montelupo. It's known for it's ceramics so we went to the ceramics museum. It was interesting I suppose. The museum was suprisingly nice considering the size of the town but it was pretty plain and boring in terms of it's content. I love pottery but I knew all the stuff that was discussed so it was only so interesting. After the museum we had time for lunch and exploring until our bus left at 3 00 for certaldo.

Certaldo was my heaven. Entry was free (thanks NYU)but then my friends and I bought a nice wine glass for 3 euro in order to have a wine tasting. Basically this little tiny medieval town on a hill was hosting a food festival. There were dozens of stalls set up selling their products and of course, there were tons of samples. Cheese, meat, bread and olive oil, chocolate and wine wine wine. SO much fun. We spent almost three hours wandering around sampling everything. My professor even shared her beer with me! The smells, the tastes, the sights, everything was incredible. You don't taste food like that in the U.S. I tried gorgonzola right from the wheel...with flies all around! It felt so authentic! I tried wine jam (??)and wild boar...maybe it was the wine but I felt progressively more and more fearless when it came to trying all the meats. I definitely had some mystery meats. But all delicious. I just kept thinking to myself how wild it was that I was on a school trip and not on vacation. Only in Italy.

This upcoming week is a bit busy getting ready for midterms and on Friday-Saturday I'm going on another school trip to Padua, Mantua and Verona! A domani!

Parlare con i nonni

I'm loving my Italian class. Today "i nonni" (grandparents) came into our class to talk with us. We were split into small groups and assigned to 1 or 2 "nonni". Our task was to ask them questions about Italian food, what their favorite kind is, favorite desert, pasta etc. Tomorrow we're going to the Mercato Centrale for class to buy ingredients for a meal that "i nonni" recommended we cook. Then next week we're going to meet with "i nonni" again and tell them how the cooking went, how we liked the food and show them photos. I'm so excited!
Talking to them today was such a challenge. But a fun challenge. My group was with a woman named Lena and a man named Lorenzo. Neither of them spoke ANY english so we literally had to fight our way through speaking italian and hope that they understood what we were saying. It was definitely difficult but such good practice. They told us what they eat, explained the Tuscan diet (a diet of poverty), their favorite deserts, they even told us what gelato places to hit up in Florence. I love talking to Italians! I can't wait to meet up with them again and tell them how all the cooking went. We're going to make a veggie pasta, called Pasta Ortolana, and a salad. Tomorrow, my long day of three classes isn't going to be too bad (hopefully) because I have site visits for all of them! Bargello in the morning for Renaissance, Mercato Centrale for Italian and Museo Marino Marini for Painting. Ciao!

A Relaxing Weekend in Elba

It's been about a week since my last blog, which only means that I'm so busy that I don't have time to talk about every individual day. That's good.
This past weekend my roomate Shelly and I went to Elba! I know what you're thinking, where the hellba is elba?? Well, Elba is a small island off the western coast of Tuscany and it's beautiful! We went for the entire weekend. I had class on Thursday until 2 45 so I rushed to the train station to catch a 3 27 train. We ended up sprinting with our huge backpacks to catch the train, which was of course at the furthest possible track, and once we made the train, it left about 15 min late. Perfect. Sweaty and out of breath, we sat down in our seat for a breather. About halfway from Florence to Pisa (a stop on the way), I realized that we forgot to vallidate our tickets. Even more perfect. Not validating tickets (getting them stamped by machines) can result in fines, which for poor college students, is no good. So, as soon as the train stopped in Pisa, I sprinted off the train, dodging dozens of travelers to validate the ticket. As soon as I stamped them, I jumped on the nearest car, seconds before the train started to move. Shelly was a bit worried since I wasn't in the right car but I popped through the doors in a minute or so and she was very releaved that I made it!
From Pisa we changed the train in Livorno (which we only figured out once we were the last people on the train) and then took a bus from the last train station to the ferry terminal 20 min away. Of course, our bus arrived 5 min before the 7 o'clock ferry was scheduled to leave so again, we sprinted to buy the tickets and then ran across a massive carpark towards the boat. Yet again, we made it in the nick of time only to have the ferry leave late. Nice. We were very happy to have caught the earlier ferry because otherwise we would have had to wait until 10!
When we arrived in Portoferraio, Elba, we found a nice restaurant and had dinner. We befriended the waiter and he was nice enough to give us a half bottle of wine on the house. He understood that we were college students :) After dinner we had our first experience with the marvelous expense of Elba. Our cab from Portoferraio to our hotel (about 15 min away) was 28 euros! We finally got to our hotel and it was quite the pleasant suprise. Very modern with a nice bathroom, balcony and kitchen...it had an oven! Quite the luxury for us Florentines.
Friday was a stressful day. We decided to rent bikes for the day for 5 euros and go to the beach. Of course with the bikes we got the back breaks didn't work, the seats were far too low and we had no helmets. Thus a horrible combination. The beach that was suppose to be 3km away downhill ended up being uphill/downhill for quite awhile. We decided to lock our bikes at the beach and call the hotel to pick them up. Once at the beach we went to a hotel to have breakfast/brunch (10 euro buffet). What we didn't realize was that the hotel was a hot hang out for bees. Let's just say eating toast with jam and honey was not a repelent for the bees. We ended up spending the majority of our breakfast lurring the bees with honey and trapping them under various plates.

After breakfast came our lovely experiment with local transportation. Finding the bus stop proved to be impossible so we ended up giving in and jumping in a taxi to go the beach. 40 euros! That was a splurge. We finally got to the beach and spent the entire rest of the day there. It was beautiful and such a good end to the very hectic day. Since we had spent so much money we decided to cook dinner that night and so we went to the grocery store to get supplies, as well as food for breakfast and lunch the next day. Three meals from the grocery: 17 euros. Saved us a lot.

Saturday was a much more successful day. Armed with a correct bus schedule, our tomato and mozzerella sandwiches and the determination to have a great day, we set off for Portoferraio. We decided to go to the tourism office and get some advice and the nicest woman was there full of information. She basically planned our entire day out for us! At 10:30 we caught a boat that took us on a tour of the northern section of Elba, including a underwater look at the marine life (very cool). Unfortunately the two hour boat ride resulted in mild to extreme-ish seasickness and we were quite happy to get back to land. We had our sandwiches after lunch and then caught the bus to a beach called Procchio. Typical Shelly and Sophie, we missed our stop on the bus and ended up having to catch another back to the Procchio stop. Minor hiccup which lead to a beautiful afternoon spent on the beach. Procchio was amazing. Pictures hardly do justice. I went swimming in the ocean and it was INCREDIBLE. Crystal clear water, soft soft sand and no creepy marine life. It was perfect. For our last dinner in Elba we went back to the first restaurant we went to. Our friends from the first night were there and they were very happy to see us back. At the end of the meal, when we asked for our bill, our new friend/waiter Stefano told us that it was taken care of. As in, our 40 euro meal was free. On the house. Let's just say we were far from upset. Great end to the weekend.
Sunday morning we got up, paid our bill and went to the Napoleon Villa. Apparently Napoleon was exiled there. I'm not very caught up with French history...I actually don't know anything about French history, sad I know. But he had a pretty sweet set up in Elba. Nice mansion on the cliff, with an ocean view. Not really the exile most people would expect. It was a nice, realxing morning with zero problems with public transportaion. Of course the last day we're there, we finally figure it all out. We grabbed a quick lunch in Portoferraio and then, again, had to spring to the ferry at 12:40. We literally got there five seconds before the boat closed up. VERY close call. The boat ride was relaxing, we played cards and from there the travel home was a cinch. No suprises and no rushing.
All in all it was great weekend. Shelly and I travel very well together so it was perfect. I'm happy to be back in Florence and excited for all the other travels...I need to work out where to go! Next weekend Bologna?? (pronounced Ba-lon-ya...not Ba-loney)

The Hike to My Twenties

This weekend was amazing. Everything about Cinque Terre was incredible and, like I say about everything in Italy, I will definitely be going back there. For those of you who don't know, Cinque Terre means 5 towns in Italian and consists of 5 towns which hiking paths connecting them. The length of each varries but the two trails at the end are 1.5 hours and in total it should take 5 hours to hike. Unfortunately, one of the long paths was closed because of the rain but we were still able to see all of the towns. Each of the trails varried in level of difficulty as well so we got a lot of variety throughout the whole day. So....we got to Riomaggiore around 10:00 in the morning on Saturday and began our adventure! The first path, from Riomaggiore to Manarola was pretty easy and took about 30 minutes. It was called Via dell'Amore (Road of Love) and it was basically a walking path on the coast. Very beautiful but definitely crowded.
When we got to Manarola we took the train to Corniglia since the path was closed. The hike from Corniglia to Vernazza was about 1.5 hours and definitely much harder than the first hike. The water kept getting bluer and the cliffs kept getting more and more dramatic. Everything was lush and untouched. It was raining a bit during this trek but not too hard where it became uncomfortable. And despite the clouds and rain, it was beautiful.
Hungry and in need of energy, we decided to use Vernazza as our lunch stop. Vernazza was one of my favorite towns out of the five. It was right on the water and had the cutest shops, cafes. After lunch we chilled for a bit on the pier we noticed the clouds moving away and the sun finally shining. That was our signal to get moving to the last town so we could relax on the beach for the rest of the afternoon. Of course, with the sun comes the heat and we definitely noticed an increase in temperature on the last leg. It was also the hardest trek in total because it was so much uphill and downhill. Lots of old stairs and precarious paths on the cliffs. I loved it though. Nothing feels better than being out of breath going up a really steep hill and then getting to the top and looking around at the gorgeous view: crystal clear turqouise water hitting against the cliffs, surrounded by lush green medeterainian landscape.
We got to the last town, Monterosso Al Mare at about 4:30 or so and the sun was still shining! The first task however was not to go to the beach, but to find a place to sleep for the night. We had a lot of trouble finding a hostel open for that weekend so we managed to find a random apartment. We decided that since the apartment had no name and no reservation policy (the guy on the phone asked me my name and told me to call him), that we would try when we got there to find a legit hostel. Fortunately we found a great place where all eight of us were able to stay in one apartment for only 25 euros each.
Once we found the hostel, we quickly changed into our bathing suits and headed straight to the beach! It was SO nice to just lay on the beach for an hour (before the sun started to disappear and the heat left) after a long day of hiking. I was really happy that we got atleast three hours of beautiful weather! For dinner we went out at this cute restaurant. Shelly and I split a pizza and it was delicious!
We definitely ended our day with a bang. After dinner we wandered around the town and stumbled upon a concert on the pier. The band was playing Italian music and there were a few people dancing, so we decided to join in and get the party started. And we did. So well. The eight of us dominated the dance floor and after a few songs (warmup) some locals joined in. Soon enough the dance floor was pretty filled and we were learning Italian line dancing. Perfect. Nothing like dancing with Italians at the beach.
We called it an early night (one of the earliest I've had since coming to Italy) so we could get up nice and early and enjoy the day. Unfortunately,when we woke up, the weather was really crummy. We went to breakfast and by the time we were done it looked like it was about to downpour. So we went to a cafe and played cards while it rained. Eventually we made an executive decision to try and take an early train back to Florence. The weather wasn't as nice as we'd hoped and we all had a bunch of hw to get done before the week. So we caught a train back to Florence and we were back at our apartment by about 5 45.
All in all, despite the crummy weather, this weekend was amazing. It was beautiful (check photos) and a physical challenge, which is always fun. Next weekend I'm going to Elba with my roommate Shelly and the weather looks perfect. So that will be my beach vacation!
Tonight for dinner Shelly, Nami and I went to Danny Rock, an American 'diner' around the corner. We were going to cook but decided we were too lazy. It was a great end to an incredible weekend and a great start to my twenties!

Finally Went to A Museum

Shelly and I decided it was about time that we venture to a museum. We've been living here for three weeks and have yet to go to the Uffizi or the Academia. So today, we hit up the Uffizi and it was INCREDIBLE. Studying Italian Renaissance Painting and being able to go and see all the paintings in the Uffizi is one of the best parts of Florence. Plus, our Amici cards get us in for free and allow us to cut the line. It's great. I honestly didn't know what to see in the Uffizi. I knew beforehand that it is the mostm famous museum in Firenze but I wasn't really sure why...of course I figured it out very quickly after entering. One of the first rooms we went into contained The aesta from Giotto, Cimabue and Doccio. Seeing all three of those paintings of the Madonna Enthroned was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. We compared the three paintings in class so it was extremely interesting to see all three of them in the same room. I could've spent hours in there. I felt bad because there was so much information that I wanted to share with my friends about the painting but I'm sure I ended up sounding really pretentious. I just really love Italian art.
We wandered around the Uffizi for a little over an hour but I know I'm going to have to go back. I saw the Maesta collection and Titian's Venus of Urbino, but I didn't get to the Birth of Venus or the Caravaggio collection. There is just so much to see there that I didn't want to overwhelm myself trying to see it all at once. I'll just have to go back!
Other than the Uffizi, our day was very relaxed. My roommates and I decided to have a mini-dinner party with just the four of us. Shelly made stuffed tomatoes with spinach, mozzerella and pesto, Nami made risotto with peas, onions and asparagus and I 'baked' no-bake cookies. It was so nice and relaxing to all eat together!
Tomorrow we have to catch the train at 7:55 for Cinque Terre! We'll be back Sunday night...so it's bedtime for me...until then...

Site Visits and Angry Neighbors

Another busy week in Florence! Every day there is something new to plan, and once we finish planning one thing, we move onto to another thing. My roommate Nami thinks I'm going to get a brain aneurysm from planning so much. I wouldn't be suprised...although that would be a shame if all the planning went to waste. So far, here's a list of upcoming trips:

19-20th Cinque Terre
24-27th Elba

October is going to be a busy month. So much more planning to do! But for now I'll just update my blog.
Yesterday, for my sociology class we went to the the Museo degli Argenti in the Palazz Pitti. It was incredible. The museum exhibited the main rooms of the Palazzo (which was owned by the Medici family) and a collection of gorgeous decorative and utilitarian objects. The walls in the large halls were unbelievable. They were compltely covered in frescoes which were painted to make it seems as though the space all around you was endlss. We kept looking around trying to figure out if the balcony painted on the wall was actually a balcony or just a flat surface. It was unreal. The photo below is one of the rooms, but it really doesn't do the place justice. You'll just have to come visit me and see it for yourself...

The rest of the museum had the most ornate jewelry (my mom would love seeing it), ivory carving, gold platters and, my favorite, wine goblets made of massive conch shells. Incredible! I kept trying to guess how much I could buy them for...let's just say I don't have enough money.

So that was yesterday and today for my Early Masters of Italian Renaissance Painting course we meet at Santa Croce to spend the class period. I was very happy cause I live less than 5 min from Santa Croce so I didn't have to wake up too early. The church doesn't open until 10 and class started at 9 so our professor walked us around the area pointing out monuments (michelangelo's house) and explained the layout and architecture of the surroundings. So interesting! The church was amazing inside. Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli (to name a few) are all burried there. There are sculptures from Donatello and painting by Cimabue and Giotto. A lot of it was covered in scalfolding because of restoration but we were able to see what we wanted to see: Giotto's frescoes in the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels. They were impressive to say the least. I definitely need to go back there because there was a lot I missed. 2 hours and 45 min is definitely not enough time!

The last thing to report is about the neighbors. Until yesterday, we had yet to meet our neighbors. We had all these plans to leave a note in Italian with a bottle of wine to introduce ourselves or to bake a cake (even though we have no oven) and give it to them. But of course that fell through and we hadn't met them. But yesterday we were sitting in our kitchen and our door bell goes off. A middle-aged Italian man walks in towards our window, rumbling off some words (in Italian of course)while eating a cracker. Using the little Italian that I know, along with his basic pantomiming, I figured out that he wants us to keep our shutters closed so the pigeons don't sit on them and poop on his clothes hanging below. He went to the window, shook off the pigeons, dropped some crumbs on the floor and left. That's it. No, ciao! Mi Chiamo Luigi, piacere! (hi, mi name is luigi, nice to meet you). Nothing. Then tonight we went back to the apartment the same time as the wife and son and all the wife said was to go upstairs and close our shutters that minute because of the pigeons. Let's just say they're not the nicest neighbors. Non mi piaccono! We want our shutters open so we can get light in our apartment. So annoying.
That's my update...on to work. I need to finish everything for next week before leaving for Cinque Terre on saturday! A domani!

The Well Needed Getaway

It's been awhile since I've last blogged. Things have been hectic in the lives of us intrepid study abroad students. Me and five of my friends are trying to plan our fall break trip and it's become a huge pain to get everyone together to plan. We're trying to go to Morocco (Marrakech and Fez) and then Barcelona. Everything is sounding amazing but we can't get anything done or finalized until everyone is in the same room, which seems to be an impossible feat. Tomorrow we made a definite plan to get together at 6pm and not leave until everything is done. Fingers crossed.

But today was AMAZING. One of the best days so far. There were seven of us that went on the bike tour through Chianti. We met the tour guide and the rest of the group at 10am, drove to the start and started biking! In total we rode 20 km, 5 before lunch and 15 after lunch. First stop was the winery Le Conti. The property has been with the same family since the 1200s and all 600 acres are beautiful! We got a short, but informative tour of the winery, learning about the wine and olive oil they bottle. It was so interesting to learn about wine and of course it didn't hurt that we got to try it afterwards. The wine and olive oil was so good! I definitely want to do another winery tour so I can learn more about wine. Maybe an educational session? I'm sure I'll find something in the next 3 months. Following the winery we rode for about 15 minutes to lunch. Lunch was truely an indulgence. The whole tour cost us 60 euros and we got a winery tour, wine/olive oil tasting, three course meal at an amazing restaurant and a choice of gelato or cold drink at the end of the biggest hill. The experience was worth every penny. All of us were in the best mood the entire day. I don't remember the last time I've been so happy doing something so simple like riding a bike. The scenary was BEAUTIFUL. Vineyards, olive groves, villas, churches, and monasteries were scattered across the landscape. After every hill we climbed up, the view always proved to be worth it. Plus the weather was PERFECT. Not too hot, not too sunny, but always beautiful. Basically the day was incredible. Tomorrow may be a different story, when we wake up sore and exhausted, but no matter what, it was worth the experience.

As the title says, it was a well needed getaway. Tomorrow is cleaning, working and planning day, so no time for fun (pressumably). Next weekend is Cinque Terre! We're going to be there from Saturday morning to Sunday evening. My fingers are crossed that the weather will be nice...photos will be updated shortly...

loving the sense of belonging

I didn't blog anything yesterday because for the first time ever I didn't really have time. Class was good, although that whole 3 hours for class thing is something to get use to. It's just SO long. I had two other 3 hour courses today and the one at 9 am is really interesting (Early Masters of Italian Renaissance Painting) but the professor only gave us a five minute break. At 9am that's a bit harsh...
Last night I sat around my computer trying to find a place to stay in Cinque Terre for the weekend of the 18th. We're all going to go but it's impossible to find a place to stay. All the cheap places are booked. So I finally got in touch with someone, not really sure who, who said that he had two apartments with space for 7 people. We have 8 but he said it's fine if we have one extra. So we're 'booked', although the only information I have is the address and that it's across/above/next to (not sure which one) a wine shop. That is all. The place only asked for my name and nothing else...so we are just hoping it exists when we get there! It's only one night so if all else fails, we have the beach to sleep on.
Today I had my first official painting class! I was definitely intimated since I've never painted before, but the professor seems great and it ended up being pretty fun. We spent the 3 hour class painting still life and it was very interesting how quickly the time went by. I worked on one painting of peppers the entire time and I still feel like I could have spent longer on it.
But the point of this blog entry, aside from mundane updates, is that everyday I spend in Florence I feel more and more like I belong here. There really is no place like Firenze. I've traveled a lot and met a lot of different people, but living here gives me a whole different feeling. I'm learning the language, befriended the people, seeing the art, learning the history (and seeing it). Everything is fascinating here and although it's only been a few weeks, I'm already starting to feel like a local. Let's just say it's going to be hard to get me back to colgate after this...

correre in Firenze

Today was a fairly uneventful day. I woke up after a blissful night of sleep, skyped with my mom about another update on travel plans, grabbed a delicious mezza panino (half sandwich) across the street and then too the bus up to class! After Italian class I went to the library to get some work done. The one book I wasn't able to buy at the book store is the one book I need right now. I have about 80 pages to read by Wednesday and, since they don't let you check books out of the library, I'm hoping I'll find the time to read it all by Wednesday...hmmmm. I ordered the book and hopefully it will be in next week before my next Wednesday class. I walked from the campus by my apartment and decided it was about time to try out a solo run. I prefer to run with people in cities that I'm not comfortable with, mostly because if I get lost/get hit/hit someone I have a friend to help me deal with the problem. But today was the day for me to try it out myself. So I left and ran for about 45 minutes. It was beautiful (of course) and I only almost got hit twice! Not bad for the crazy driving of Italy. Running in Italy is fascinating. Almost no one runs outside (I'm pretty sure Italians are a superior race...all that pasta and no exercise). While I ran today I saw four other people running the entire time. It's kind of cool though because you really feel like you're part of this exclusive club. Everyone stares at you like you're crazy for running (? not sure why it's so strange), but the few times you past by another runner it's like you have this special connection. I like it. The people walking on the streets are horrible though. Nothing makes me more made than when I'm running towards someone and they don't move an inch. My momentum makes it ten times harder to stop than theirs. But, all in all the run was great! Felt so good to run. After I ran Shelly and I finally went over to the gym when it was open! So we got our membership and we can go whenever we want for the semster. It's less than a 10 min walk from our apartment so it's perfect. We're going to try and go tomorrow morning after a short run. It's still so nice out for running.
Now is dinner time! Ho molto fame (I'm very hungry) and we found a restaurant around the corner to check out....A domani!

I love my lazy sundays...

I love lazy sundays and that's exactly what I had today. I went to sleep at 1:30am and slept until 11:20 in the morning! For those of you who know me, both of those are completely out of character for me. I hadn't slept so well since I've been here! It was great. When we finally left the house at about 1pm my roommate Shelly and I tried to find the gym nearby to get a membership but everytime we go, it's closed. It's the strangest thing. we're going to get an italian speaking person to help us decipher the voicemail. we just want to go to a gym! Tomorrow we're going to run on the Arno again because the weather has gotten so nice. It's definitely getting much cooler which is nice, but I love the heat and sun so I don't know how i'll feel about the weather in a month...
This afternoon we got a late lunch at a restaurant we found last week. The waiter was basically an Italian Vince Vaughn and quite the character. He constantly told us he loved us and after making fun of my 'intermediate' italian he decided to give us a discount on our two pizzas, a pasta and three glasses of wine (a total of 25 euros). It was a very enjoyable, relaxing meal. We did some planning for travel (since last night, three bottles of vino rosso did not facilitate that) and we've more or less figured out where we want to go this september.
After lunch we went to the Boboli gardens (free entry, no line...best thing ever) and 'did work'. The gardens were beautiful! Cosimo I built them for his ailing wife and that is quite the present. We only saw about 1/3rd of the actual gardens which means I'll obviously have to go back.
The rest of the day was pretty chill. I grabbed some more frozen veggies at the grocery for dinner, and got locked out so I sat across the street with a glass of red waiting for my roommates to get back. For the rest of the night I've just been doing some Italian and talking to various friends. Tomorrow is class! 1:30 Italian...I have such an incredible schedule. I love Firenze.

Siena

Siena today was amazing. I didn't realize how different it would be from Firenze until we arrived. The bus ride was about 45 mins long and we had to walk from the bus into the city because they limit the traffic in Siena. We started off with a two hour tour of the city, learning about the 'neighborhoods' (owl, wolf, forest...I couldn't decide which one I would want to belong to). Each neighborhood competes in a bi-annual horse race, the Palio and the winner gets braggin rights or something and a period of fasting. This year's winner, from the August 16th race was the owl neighborhood, so I think I'd want to be part of them...
The town itself was so quaint and unique. Unlike Firenze, every single building was old. The steep streets and twisting corners would almost inevitably lead to a view of the Duomo (not to be mistaken with the Duomo in Firenze, obviously), the Piazza del Campo or the Tuscan country side. It was breathtaking. Of course I took hundreds of photos so consult the web album to check it out. We ended our tour in the Piazza del Campo and went to find lunch. Despite the rip-roaring high prices of Europe, we managed to find a decently priced meal. Five of us went to a small ristorante, each of us got a pasta (I got penne all'arrabbiata...SO good) and we shared a litre of the vino rosso di casa (red house wine). The bill for each of us was only 6.30 euros! In my opinion, molto economico!
The next part wasn't so economico...we wanted to go inside the Duomo and we thought we would get a student discount (3 euros) but they don't like to give student discounts in Siena...so we ended up paying 10 euros for entry into the entire building (cathedral, baptistry, crypt and museum). We decided to get our money's worth so we went into everything except the museum (b/c of time). Everything was gorgeous. The facade, the marble inside, the frescoes, stained glass windows. Beautiful. I was a bit dissapointed with the crypt because it was essentially a contemporary sub-terranean space that had bits and pieces from the original crypt. I guess I was partly expecting some tombs or something...
Without sounding like a bad jewish girl, I find it a bit sad that these churches are no longer in use. They were built hundreds of years ago and managed to stay functional until someone decided to close it off as a religious location and turn it into a tourist site. Everything is roped off, people are pushing and shoving, and you have to pay a ridiculous amount to see all the beautiful art. I don't know why I was so bothered by this today. I understand the need for tourism but I feel that they could atleast have limited hours and try and maintain the original intention of the building.
Ok, rant over. Back to Siena. Following the overpriced church we wandered the tiny streets and stopped at the famous Siena Pasticceria, Nannini and bought the Sienese cookie, Ricciarelli, which is a soft, almond cookie covered in powder sugar. It was SO good. Obviously...not suprised that I like a baked good.
We left Siena around 4 and the entire ride back I attempted to capture the beauty of the Tuscan landscape using my incredible new camera but was plagued with bad timing and misplaced trees. I got a few good shots but I can honestly say that in order to see the beauty, you need to come and see it for yourself...
Tonight is trip planning night, accompanied with wine, of course...I think tomorrow I might actually try and go to a museum/church. I'm not sure if i've mentioned this but NYU gave us these AMICI cards which provided us with free, unlimited entry into almost all the museums and churches of Firenze. Meaning we can cut the line and not pay the 12+ euros to get in. INCREDIBLE...it's National Jewish Culture day so we're going to go get a free tour of the Synagogue, which is in the same neighborhood as us (Santa Croce). We'll see how that goes...

Siena Tomorrow

I think I forgot the beauty in doing nothing. When you go to a place you've never been you feel like you always need to be doing something. In Florence there's always a museum to see, a church to go to, an area to explore and a gelato flavor to try. But when I stop to think for a minute, I realize that I'm going to be here until December and that it's OK to have a day where I don't spend every minute of the day doing something. I woke up this morning to the lovely sound of two Italian men yelling back and forth from our kitchen to our bathroom, around 10am. Last night was a late night so I wasn't asleep until 4am. Our hot water was being fixed from 9-11:40 and the guys literally did not stop yelling. I stayed hidden in my room until they finally left at 11:40 and went from lying in bed on my computer to sitting at the kitchen table on my computer. Great progress.
Around 1pm two of my roommates emerged from their rooms, finally awake. Shelly and I decided that it was panino time so we threw some clothes on and went across the street. It turns out that this panino place we've been going to, Antico Noe, is considered one of the best panino places in Florence! It has rave reviews online. Now that my friends and I have befriended the people who work there, maybe we'll get a disconto?? We even hung out with Andrea last night and I think it's safe to say that we're not just being his friend for the panino. We carried our hot paninis back to our apartamento to do some work and about 30 minutes of 'doing work' we got bored and decided to go to Piazza Santa Croce to sketch/read. It was so relaxing to just sit and draw (even if it was done badly). It's definitely going to be a favorite pastime of mine. Maybe I'll go and try to sketch the duomo one day...ha.
That basically sums up my day. My beautifully simple day. I cooked dinner for myself again and despite not getting anything academic done today, I feel like it was a productive day. Tomorrow we're off to Siena for the day! Photos and stories are soon to follow...

Bringing out the Artist in Me...

This intro to painting class is going to be an awesome experience. I love art and I wish I were good, but I'm pretty sure I'm not...However, having a roommate who's good at drawing and taking a course in painting will hopefully improve any potential talent or mere ability that I have lying deep inside. The course seems very relaxed and our only homework is to sketch or paint as much as we can. So far, I have 'sketched' a lamp, an orange, a bobby pin and a still life that Nami set up for me. I tried the still life today (a bottle of wine, a mug and a peach) and Nami taught me how to do shadding. It was so much fun! I felt like a true artist. I even had pencil all over my hand when I was done. I'm going to keep practicing...Here's my first sketch that I'm not too terrified to post...

Amo Italia

It goes without saying that I love this country. Firenze is incredible and it seems that everyday I have something new and exciting happen to me and I fall more and more in love with it. This morning I got up at 7 15, took a shower and walked to class. I stopped for un espresso but it took me 40 minutes to get up to school. I walked way too fast because I was afraid I would be late but ended up being 20 minutes early and super hot from walking. It was well worth it because I love my 9am class. I'm taking Early Masters of Italian Renaissance Painting and it's so interesting. The professor is really good and he seems to know a whole lot about Firenze. I found out in class that the street we live on is one of the oldest streets in the city! For the class we're going to have a lot of site visits in the centro and in early October we're going to take a overnight to Padua, Mantua and Verona. It's going to be really fun to see different places with a Professor there to talk to us about what we're looking at. After class I had a break where I ate lunch and read for a course. Italian was right after and that went well again. My last class of the day was Introduction to Painting. I thought it was suppose to be from 3-7 but it turns out that the schedule was wrong and it's only suppose to be a 3 hour course! I was so relieved when I heard this. Plus, for today's class we didn't have any art supplies so the Professoressa got taxis for us to go downtown and buy our art supplies. I was out of class at 3:45 instead of 6. It was bellilssimo!
After class I met up with my roommate Nami and we wandered around the mercato centrale, she was looking for a purse, I was looking for shoes. Because we're in Italy and we're allowed, we bought mini bottles of vino rosso to accompany us on our shopping excursion. We were both successful! I bought a pair of handmade leather shoes from a shop near our house. The guy who worked there was so nice (like all Florentines, it seems) and he was helping us with our Italian. Everyone keeps saying that we'll be fluent by the end of the semester and I hope they're right! I love going out in the city speaking Italian to all the locals. It's really challenging but for some reason I'm not all that intimdated. Everyone is so friendly and willing to teach.
For dinner I just ate another panino from the same place as last night (another guy who works there was there tonight and his name is also Andrea...we thought he was pulling our leg but apparently there are two Andreas at this tiny panino store).Both Andreas a good panini makers....it must be an Andrea thing.
Tomorrow I only have Italian at 1:30 which will be so nice. Saturday we're going to Siena! NYU is having a day trip there for only 10 euros so my friends and I bounced on the opportunity! I can't wait to start travelling around Italy...I need to make a list of places I want to go! So many places, so little time...

Gli Miei Amici Nuovi

This morning I went for another run with my roommate Shelly. It was nice again to get out and run around the area, although it was a tad hotter today this morning than when we went in the evening, but still a nice run. After we ran we stopped at a fruit stand right outside our apartment (we live in the best location) and I bought fruit from the nicest fruttavendola (fruit vendor). She was so patient with my italian and she said she would remember us. She's going to be there all semester so I'm going to continue to buy fruit/veggies from her. I got two peaches and an orange for only 1.45 euros. I think that's cheap...who knows. My conception of prices has become so distorted being here.
I got up to school early so I could have a cheap lunch with my friends before Italian class. It was 3.00 euros for salad, bread and fruit. not too shabby. My Italian class went well again. I'm feeling very comfortable and it definitely helps that we have huge windows look out at the beautiful Tuscan landscape to distract me. It's an hour 15 min class which is nothing. My next class was my Sociology of Culture course. 2 hours and 45 min long. It's pretty brutal but the professor is this adorable italian women who completely understands that the length of the class is crazy. It seems like it will be a fun time. Hopefully I enjoy the sociology...
After class we walked back into the centro, bought some books and then grabbed dinner. Last night on our way home from gelato we decided to look at this ristorante across the street from our apartamento. This little alley, suprisingly enough, is really sketchy during the day but at night time it seems that all the crazies disappear and two cute ristorante pop up. One of those ristorante has a sandwich place with THE cutest italian boy, named Andrea, all of us have laid eyes on. He has fallen from a painting. He was very nice and, again, patient of our minimal italian knowledge. So tonight for dinner we all stopped by to get panini! They were SO good. We can make our own and I got mine with pesto, pecorino cheese, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, and onions. SO good. Later my roommate Nami and I went right across the street to grab a glass of wine and talk...this little wine store has two benches outside and some snacky food if you want. We just got a small bottle of wine and sat on the benches and talked. Of course we met the guy who worked there, Fabio (yes, like the long haired large 'model'). He was so friendly, gave us un disconto on our vino and talked to us about school. It was a very relaxing end to the evening.
Today was such a great day because I feel like I'm really getting to know the Italian locals. Between the fruit vendor, the panini maker and the wine man, speaking Italian is becoming more and more comfortable. I have to get up at 7 15 for a 9am class tomorrow. I'm in class from 9-11:45 (Early Masters of Renaissance Painting), 1:30-2:45 (Italian) and 3:00-7:15 (yes, four hours, of intro to painting).
Buone notte!

First Day of Classes and Discovering the Gelato Gem

Classes started today. I was nervous for Italian and excited for History of the Italian Jews. By the end of the day I love Italian and dropped Italian Jews. I was under the impression that the class would be a bit more about religion (I'm not sure why exactly) but it's too much history and I won't be able to have it count towards my major. Plus it was a 3 hour class that was painful to get through. It seems interesting but being bored in the first class is never a good sign. When I got back to mio apartamento I looked at the available courses and found one I thought I would like. It's called Sociology and Culture and basically studies the way cultures view food in different ways. Why some like one type of food and others don't, the way people react to food...I'll get a better idea of what it's about when I start but two of my roommates are in the class so I'm so excited. Plus the focus is on food, particuarly Italian food so what's not to like???
Intermediate Italian went better than expected. I remembered more than I thought and I really like the professor. I already feel more comfortable with speaking.
To end of a pretty crappy day (with the whole lock-out thing)my roommates and I decided to get gelato. My Italian professor told us to go to this one place across the Arno called La Carraia and my friend Joci's homestay 'sister' also recommended it. We walked to try it out after dinner and it was so good!! Best AND cheapest yet. 1.30 euros! It was a very nice end to a frustrating day...tomorrow I have Italian and the culture course and my roommate shelly and I are going for a run in the morning! must balance out all the gelato! ciao!

Here's to Horrible Nights...

So last night was pretty crummy. I wanted to get to sleep early because we have classes today, but I wasn't really that tired. At about 1:10 my friend called me because she was across the street and I decided to go down and say hi so I wouldn't have to yell from the window. I was outside for about 5 minutes and when I came back up, my key wouldn't work in the apartment door. I called my roommate because she was still awake and she came to open it and her key wouldn't unlock the door from the inside! Neither key was working so I was locked out and my other three roommates were locked in! Basically to make a long story short, I called the emergency # and they sent one person over to get the door open and nothing happened, then they sent another person over and nothing happened and finally at about 3:10 or so they decided to take me to campus to sleep for the 'night' and they would deal with it in the morning. Two of my roommates missed their first class and we all got so little sleep. Let's just say I was not a happy camper through the whole experience.
So...moral of the story is, don't get locked out of your house in Italy because no one will help you. It's 10:30am now and I have 3 hours till class. I wanted to wake up early and get some stuff done and now i'm exhausted. I guess I'll try and stay awake for the rest of the day. I hope I don't fall asleep in class...

LINK FOR PHOTOS: http://picasaweb.google.com/spg261/Florence#

La Bellezza di Firenze (The Beauty of Florence)

I never thought I would eat mexican food in Italy but last night I did! We decided to try out this mexican place last night that was right around the corner and it was actually pretty good! We were the only people there aside from a couple and it was a pretty large restaurant (bigger than any italian one we've been in, interestingly enough). Instead of water, which you can't find anywhere for free, they gave us sangria's for drinks! Then we tried to order some cocktails (mojitos and margherita's) but apparently the place had just reopened and the bartender was at a wedding so they couldn't make some of them. To apologize for that, they gave us more sangria...can't complain. I got chicken quesadillas and they were good! It was a lot of fun. After getting dinner we walked to this random place on the opposite side of the Duomo to try a canoli that our friends claimed was 'the best'. We went back to our apartamento and drank some cheap wine. We decided earlier that we wanted to find the cheapest wine at the grocery and see if was any good...we found one that was 1.80 Euros and I guess it wasn't too bad. Nothing compared to the cheap wine in the U.S. though. My friends and I were planning on going to this club called Central Park that apparently a lot of International students go to. We didn't realize, when we decided to walk, that it would take almost an hour to get there. We kept asking for directions and would continue to get more and more lost. Eventually a few of my friends and I decided to jump in a taxi and get back to the city center. I ended up grabbing a beer with my friend Joci in a Piazza and then I went home. A pretty bust night in the end.

Today, was great! I woke up at 10:15 (BELLISSIMO!) My friends and I signed up for a red bus tour around Firenze and it was really nice to see everything from a different angle. The best part by far was the 5 min stop at Piazzale Michelangelo across the Arno. It was one of the most incredible views I've ever seen. (Refer to the photos to check out the view). Following the bus tour we wandered around for a bit to find a cheap place to grab a panino for lunch, which ended up being a harder feat than we had imagined. Everything in Italy is SO expensive and we keep ending up in touristy areas which doesn't help the situation. We gave into a 4 Euro panino and a 1.50 bottle of water...about 8 dollars...so I guess not too bad.
Following lunch we checked out H&M (not good) and then starting wandering everywhere! We finally walked across the Ponte Vecchio and ventured across the Arno. It seems like it's a bit cheaper over there so we might walk over for meals occaisionally. It was such a nice day today which made wandering around so nice. It was sunny and beautiful but there was such a nice breeze. My roommate Shelly and I decided to finally get our butts running and while it was a bit challenging to get going since we were so tired, I'm so glad we did.
It was amazing. Running in a foreign country is incredible. Not only do you get to explore the area but you notice a lot of stuff you otherwise wouldn't notice by walking. Usually when we've been walking we've also been talking. When I went running I was really able to listen to everyone and everything around me. Plus, the view running on the Arno was breathtaking. Then sun was getting low and beginning to set (we ran around 7) and it seemed like the city was covered in this red glow. It was beautiful. So far, one of my highlights.
Dinner tonight was quite the experimentation. I had no idea what I was doing and just freestyled my way. I decided to try and cook farro (a type of grain native to Italy). The package I got from the supermercato had a picture of farro with vegetables, but when I opened it I realized that there were no vegetables. So I improved and took out a bent out of shape pan, lit the gas stove and cooked the farro. I added garlic salt, oregano and parmesan cheese and it wasn't too bad...until I sat down and realized I was eating a bowl of grains and that was it. It took me about 3 mins to realize that I had bought some frozen vegetables yesterday I could put in the farro! A little olive oil and reheating later and voila! a perfect little meal that actually wasn't that bad. We have a stove in our kitchen but no microwave or oven, so cooking might get a little tricky. We might try and get a toaster oven...
So...tomorrow classes begin! I have to be up at La Pietra at 1:30 for Italian and then at 3:00 I have my History of Italian Jews course. I have all morning to dilly dally and I'm not sure what I'll do...maybe sleep...
Sorry the freakishly long posts. I'm thinking that once classes start I'll have less to talk about. We'll see though. This is basically my travel journal so I'm going to document everything! Until next time...