The Final Hours

It is somehow, suddenly, my last day in this wonderful city. I walked around this morning, got my last cappuccino at my favorite café, and took in all the sights one more time. And I thought, how strange that it feels like I got off the plane here yesterday. Venice seems like a day ago and Rome a week ago. Paris might have been a dream I only imagined. Yet at the same time, it feels like I’ve been away from America for an eternity. I got comfortable here and it almost began to feel like I’d been here forever, would be here forever. Here, Florence – the city that took me in and showed me Italian life, the best pizza and the best gelato, how to order an espresso and how to avoid the clawing eyes of creepers on the streets. How to walk in heels on cobblestone streets, cook pasta with a boatload of different sauces, shop for the best tomato. In four months, I traveled outside of it too – to three other countries and about ten other cities and towns in Italy. Each one had its own charm, traditions and people welcoming me along the way. Each one I will never forget. And with the best of friends to join on me on these travels, I cannot think of a better way to have spent this semester. I’ll return in less than 24 hours to the land of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, all-day internet access and cell phones that always work. Like I said in the beginning, a novel is like a dream in which everyone is you. I hope this record of my trip has been that for you – a world of crazy Dubliners, historical gravesites, shining monuments and whirlwind bus-rides that you could feel a part of. Ciao, all, and see you back in the States!

The CinqueTerre - a roomie daytrip

CinqueTerre means “five lands” – an area of the coast were five typical Italian seaside towns are lined up along the ocean. Tourists and excited Italians alike walk between the towns on footpaths that connect the adorable communities. The hikes are different levels of difficulty between each town, so my roommates and I stuck to the easier areas, then zipped by train to the final two towns since the walks there are more difficult. Between the first three towns, we took a leisurely stroll along the cliffs of the coastline, winding between tree-covered hills overlooking the water the whole time. It was absolutely gorgeous. Be sure to look at the attached pictures, because words just don’t do justice to the CiqueTerre! It’s a lazy, dreamy kind of place, with not too many people crowding the paths, and just enough quiet to make the waves the only soundtrack you’ll hear. Me, Allie and Colleen were awed by the tourquoise ocean and bright green hills, dotted at intervals with the CiqueTerre towns – miniscule communities of probably 300 residents each, full of multi-colored buildings, laundry fluttering in the wind, and lots of seafood restaurants. Each town sat nestled into hillsides, looking out at the ocean peppered with colorful boats and beaches of tourists sunning themselves. We picked a beautiful day for a CinqueTerre walk and nearly overheated in our sneakers – something even too hot to be wearing in nice warm Florence these days. But it was perfect: eating sandwiches as we “hiked” through paths lined with pink, red and yellow flowers – preserved by the National Park that oversees all five towns. We found a random cemetery at the peak of one hill and a long stretch of what looked like the CinqueTerre housing projects on one path. We think these were actually shacks destroyed by a storm and never restored, since some even had furniture and sinks left broken inside. Other than that point though, the trip was full of sunshine and amazing views. Walking between towns was one great view in itself, out into the water, while each town had its own charm and scenic appeal. The first two were smallest, but the fourth town (Vernazza) had great sunning spots – a small beach and cove with a rocky peninsula scattered with people snacking and chatting and enjoying the view of kids running in the water. We stopped there for a while and called home to say hello (where Mom and Dad were Googling pictures of the CinqueTerre to check out where I was), as boats moved in and out of the harbor. A large “cruise” type boat full of tourists came toward the peninsula, where we were sunning on the tip, and suddenly its driver called out “Scusate! Scusate!” meaning, “Excuse me!” or basically – move out of the way, and fast. It turned out we happened to be sitting on the exact spot where the boat was docking. Woops! We scurried away just in time for the huge bow to hit shore, and moved to a more low-profile spot. After resting, we took the train to the last town called Monterosso. This is the most beach-resort type town, the largest of all five with a long boardwalk of restaurants and a stretching sandy beach. After our day of sweating in the sun, the girls and I hunkered down on the beach among stones and felt the cool water, tried to skip rocks, and prepared for the three-hour ride back to Florence. Of course, that train was delayed, therefore causing us to miss our connecting trains later, and it ended up being quite the five-hour travel home. As usual, the night presented us with its very best example of Italian transportation. I was thinking of journeying to Assisi next weekend, to check out Saint Francis’ Basilica, but after the train disasters so far, I’ll just have to see!

Either way, it’s going to be a great last two weeks here. I went to a photography exhibit with my Photo class this afternoon (no more Italian class, so I can sleep till 2:00!) which was interesting since we got to see lots of original “first-cameras” from the 1890s. Tomorrow is the final day of Art History with a trip to non-other than the Pitti Palace – right across from my apartment, where I’ve been trying to tan on the Palace’s concrete lawn the past few days. And after that, just a review of my sketchbook with my Art professor and one last celebratory weekend before final exams begin. Then, can you believe it, I’ll be taking tests and packing up before Saturday the 16th rolls around and I hop on a plane to JFK. See you then!!

Post-Venice, Pre-America

It’s been a lazy week in Florence since returning from Venice. The weather is beautiful and everyone here is on the edge of their seats because we only have three weeks left in the program. Three! So, I’ve been finishing up Italian classes – last one today, yay – and will take the final exam tomorrow before celebrating for a good 24 hours after. Or at least taking a nap…Then celebrating for the weekend by heading off to the CinqueTerre! It’s a group of coast towns that are all within walking distance of each other. You take a gorgeous stroll along the ocean and visit all five towns along the way – I’ve heard it’s very nice and can’t wait for Sunday.

This week, I restocked food in the apartment and cooked a bunch – asparagus and lemon chicken from the market near the apartment, garlic mashed potatoes and corn another night, and of course all kinds of pasta imaginable, as usual. It was my friend Jen’s birthday this past weekend so we went out for an appertivo with the girls (where you buy one drink and get tons of free buffet food) so that was nice. Afterward, I found a place that was showing the Red Sox v Yankees game and got to watch the last few innings which was great! I miss them so much and am pumped to get home to keep up with Boston sports again. Fortunately, I also found a bar that showed the Celtics Playoff game 4 this week (the one where they lost to Chicago in double overtime…) so that was another fun night and good Bostonian/Florentine memory! In other news, I went to the Duomo Museum where they have lots of original copies of the sculptures and doors of the Duomo and Baptistry before it was damaged in the 1500s. My friend from home was visiting so I took the chance to see some Florence sights I’ve missed so far – and it turned out to be an interesting trip since much of the art there were things I’d learned about in my Art History class here. Speaking of which, we had our second to last class today! It was a little sad, I’ll miss my American teacher Rocky so much. We saw The David and learned all about how Michaelangelo created the famous sculpture (which was originally meant to sit 70 feet in the air on the side of the Duomo). That was my third time seeing The David and it will never get old!

So for the last few weeks here I plan on seeing everything in Florence there is left to see, eating lots of GustaPizza down the street, and enjoying the company of all the friends here I may not see for a while once going back home. Everyone feels a little nostalgic about leaving but also excited to see friends and family at home, and I pretty much feel the same way. It will be nice to have peanut butter again!

Turning 21 in Venice

PICTURES OF ROME AND VENICE ON THE LINKS OVER THERE!! --->


Water water everywhere…That’s Venice. Just to recap, I’ve so far been to Paris for Valentine’s Day, Dublin for Saint Patty’s Day and Rome for Easter...what more could a girl ask for? Venice for her 21st birthday maybe? Yes. And it was fantastic. I’d feel too bad for the other cities if I said that Venice was my favorite of them all – but let’s just say I love love LOVE Venice.

But just to backtrack for a second…on the day before my birthday, last Thursday, I was surprised with flowers and then my roommates set up a whole birthday décor in our little kitchen – complete with noisemakers, signs, champagne, cake, and giant multi-colored cardboard birthday ties. Like a tie a guy wears, yes. Weird, but kind of funny when we got all our friends and Nick to wear them out later, ha ha. Anyway, it was a fabulous day-before-birthday. I went out to dinner with a small group to a place right on the Arno River at the tip of the Ponte Vecchio, then headed home for cake and ice cream and wearing giant ties. Oh, and also I got to wave around a gold wand that Colleen and Allie bought for me, since most girls these days are wearing crowns for their 21st birthdays. I thought the wand was an even nicer idea, and absolutely loved waving it and tapping people with it all night. So, after cake we joined up with more friends, including Nick’s cousin Brianne who was in town for a few days, and went out to a club around here called, fittingly, TwentyOne. Lots of people go there all weekend, and it turned out to be a great night with lots of dancing and good company.

Too-early in the morning, Nick and I boarded a train to Venice for the weekend. It was now officially my birthday and so of course I got to be queen for the day and boss him around as much as I wanted. This pretty much meant I sent him to grab McDonald’s breakfast while I bought the train tickets and we hurried to catch the train as it almost left without us…

And so, we were suddenly riding across a sea of murky but pretty-blue water into the main island of Venice. I was so excited to see what this city had to offer, as it was unlike any other I’ve visited and I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from this fabled town-on-water. It turned out to be even more amazing than I thought. Leaving the train station, we landed at the edge of a main canal and followed our very confusing printed directions from there to the hotel. At every turn, I took more and more pictures, thinking this must be the prettiest bridge in Venice or this must be the cutest little house in Venice – only to find that the next bridge or the next turn or the next house was even more adorable. And when we made it to the hotel area, I fell in love with the beautiful piazza I found myself standing in. The cobble-stone square was surrounded by colorful shops and cafes, had benches and trees nestled in its center and was full of local Venetians walking dogs, sitting in the sun and enjoying cappuccinos. Though there were still tourists, our Piazza Margherita felt completely genuine Italian the whole time we were there, and never seemed less busy than that first view. From dawn till the wee hours of the morning there were people crowding the square, even when the rest of Venice seemed to still be sleeping. It was gorgeous under the sun and sparkling with life at night – I could not have asked for a better first taste of Venice.
After checking in to the hostel with our very cute old landlord (who we ended up discussing Italian agriculture and water shortages with later in the trip), I dropped my stuff in our room overlooking the square and headed off to explore the city. We ventured first to San Marco square, the main hustle and bustle tourist area of Venice, where pigeons flock by the thousands into the football-field-long piazza. To reach San Marco, it’s easiest to take a vaporetto (water-bus) and walk the boardwalk along to the square – though everything in Venice is really walking distance, even more so than tiny Florence. So we hopped a crowded boat to San Marco and joined the throngs of tourists gaping at masquerade masks, striped T-shirts and captain’s hats that Venetian vendors had for sale along the boardwalk. It seems that everyone coming to Venice wishes they were a gondolier. I’d hoped to ride a gondola, but it turns out they are super expensive and not really worth the money – it seemed better to spend that on a good birthday dinner later in the night. So, we explored San Marco square for a bit and even visited the Doge’s Palace – a huge column-lined palace on one edge of the square where the Doges (or Dukes) of Venice lived way back in the day when they had dukes. It paled in comparison to Versailles, since no palace can keep up now that I’ve seen the best, but still offered an interesting view of old Venetian royalty – especially the Duke private prisons, where he could torture and sneer at any prisoners he felt like holding there in his very own palace. The best room was the Great Council room, lined with portraits of all the old Doges, except for one that had been blacked out – a portrait of a Doge who had offended some officials and been accused of treason.

We left behind San Marco square for the evening and began the search for dinner – a restaurant in a back alley that Anthony Bourdain (of the Travel Channel show “No Reservations”) visited in his food-tasting episode on Venice. Even though I’d only been in Venice for a few hours, I knew already that we would get lost more than once. And sure enough, it took us probably 45 minutes to go in circles and find the place (not the first or last time we’d get lost in these winding tiny streets and curving canals). When we got there, we enjoyed appetizers standing at the bar, where they serve buffet-style servings to customers that want to sample a few things then move on to another place. It’s sort of like tapas, except with a 1 euro glass of wine and a variety of interesting Venetian seafoods. After, we walked along the Grand Canal in the center of the city and by the Rialto Bridge, the largest and most spectacular bridge of the city that has shops on it just like Florence’s Ponte Vecchio. The restaurants along this road were packed with tourists and we sat at one for a delicious birthday dinner of veggie soup, roast chicken and seafood spaghetti (mussels in Venice were great!). Since I’ve been collecting small souvenirs, receipts and ticket-stubs from everywhere I go, I asked the restaurant for a business card – but it seems they don’t speak English as much in Venice, and it was tough to communicate ‘business card’ for some reason, so the waiter ended up handing me some other table’s receipt with the name of the restaurant on it. We ended my 21st birthday watching a jazz quartet at a pub near our square and savoring chocolate mousse at the restaurant beneath our hotel. Perfect!

Saturday was island day. After hotel-provided croissants and cappuccinos, we visited the Peggy Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art – one of the many Guggenheims, and an impressive collection of art gathered by the American heiress. The museum actually used to be her home in the last thirty years of her life, right on the edge of the Grand Canal where she lived among the works of Dali, Jackson Pollack and Picasso. I’d never seen Picasso or Pollack originals in an exhibit before (mostly just Renaissance stuff in Florence!) so was psyched to see the abstract and unusual works Peggy had collected as her life’s work. Outside was a beautiful sculpture garden, a corner of which houses her grave and a plaque commemorating the gravesites of her twenty-some dogs. Quite the “museum.” So, we followed our modern art education with another vaporetto ride to San Marco Square and this time walked through Saint Mark’s Basilica – the main attraction and golden glimmering headpiece of the piazza. Even inside, this church was the goldest, shiniest one I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen a lot of churches on this whole Europe thing…But Saint Mark’s was the most glittery of all – spires and mosaics and paintings all in gold from ceiling to floor. The interiors of its several domes were plastered with gold and I think even Jesus’ eyes were gold in a few portraits. It was a pretty amazing sight, especially walking up to the balcony to look out on the shining lagoon and San Marco square dotted with tourists scattered like ants far below. You can also view the famous horses up there – four bronze life-size horses that the Venetians stole from Constantinople when they ransacked it in the Fourth Crusade; and now their copies (real ones protected indoors) sit proudly on the upper balcony of Saint Mark’s Basilica.

So after the Basilica, we took a longer vaporetto ride off the main island and out into the vast lagoon to head for the islands. Murano is the biggest one, where we went first, and is known for its world-famous Venetian glass. There, I dragged Nick into about 10 or 12 glass shops, picking out beads for Mom and wondering at all the beautiful objects I had no idea could even be made from glass. There were entire tiny orchestras of glass people playing instruments, glass balls that could bounce, real-size glass violins and giant birds with thin glass wings. Everything was full of color and frighteningly fragile. Whole chandeliers of pure glass hung in the shops and I was afraid to turn around the whole time. We headed off for another island later, one called Burano, which is known for its lace. This smaller island, what my guidebook called “sleepy,” was as colorful as the glass in Murano. Every building was a different bright shade of purple, green, yellow, blue. It was quieter and seemed to span only a few streets wide. There weren’t too many tourists and even the canals were empty of boats or gondolas. Burano offered us a snack and a peek at its pretty lace, but soon I missed Venice and my bustling own square.

We took the hour-long vaporetto back to the main island with a shrieking school group and landed in time for another night at the pub we’d discovered on Friday. This time though, there was a rock band (with a clarinet even) playing soft Italian rock to the movements of a strange showman who gave a little “performance” as the music played. He looked about thirty, scruffy and bearded, and was building something out of cardboard in the middle of the bar room when we arrived. As I enjoyed the music, I watched as this strange man proceeded to put his cardboard contraption aside then begin slicing fruits with trimming sheers and dropping them into a blender on a chair in the center of the room. All these things he materialized out of nowhere. After mixing a smoothie over the sounds of drums and thumping bass, the man slurped down two mugs full of fruit, spilling all over his shirt and then licking it up from the stains on his shirt and smoothie lingering on his arms….And it wasn’t over yet. He then pulled out the sheers again, and this time a whole old-fashioned shaving kit to go with them, and stood at the back bar shaving his curly beard in the mirror. Weird? I thought so. But we started to ignore his shaving after it lasted over 20 minutes, and turned back to the music – just in time for the man to return (without sideburns) and extract a black turtleneck, white pilot’s jacket, goggles and a bomber hat from his bag…then retrieve the cardboard “airplane” (I now realized it was an airplane) and dance around the room as though flying in the flimsy plane, all in time to the music. So, it appeared, after all this craziness, that the man doing strange things in front of the whole room of people was in fact part of the show – though we didn’t know this for a good half hour. Odd? Yes. But it was funny, and added quite the bizarre element to the band – which was actually entertaining enough even without the crazy bomber pilot in a cardboard plane.

And so for our final day in Venice I said goodbye to our little square and little café and hotel room without hot water or electricity – and we spent the day buying train tickets, visiting one final church, and I climbed the bell tower of San Marco square to look one last time at Venice from above while Nick explored the Civic Museum in search of the wing dedicated to Napoleon. It was a slightly raining last day, fitting with my mood since I didn’t want to leave! Venice was just so cute and so gorgeous, it’s definitely one place I’ll be going back to someday…though I guess I’ve said that about everywhere. Not bad, not bad at all for a 21st birthday.

Romaaaaa per Pasqua! ....for Easter

Another magical trip. Allie and I woke up early on Friday and took the 3.5 hour train from Florence to Rome, where we met up with Nick and checked into “David’s Flat” – our hostel only ten minutes walk from the Colosseum. Since the room wasn’t ready yet (typical Italy), the three of us wandered down to the Colosseum while we waited for my roomie Eva and her roommate to arrive from Germany. The walk was a little sketchy, through a park full of what looked like homeless people and down a gravelly hill of youngsters playing soccer among broken Heineken bottles. At the bottom, the Colosseum loomed before us all of a sudden – a huge stone ruin in the middle of a busy rotary, cars churning incessantly around it. Rome is a strange contrast of urban against ancient, modernity against dilapidation. I sipped a cappuccino gazing out at our first view of this city of newness and ruin, amazed that it took only a few hours to go from quaint Florence to bustling Rome.

After Eva and Macey arrived, we set out for the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. All of the ruins (Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Forum) were closed Friday because the area was preparing to host the Pope that night for a pre-Easter cross-carrying ceremony. So, we landed at the beautiful Trevi fountain among hundreds of other tourists, tossed coins in the crystal blue water for good luck and started our trip out right. Us girls talked about the part in the Lizzie Mcguire Movie when Hillary Duff visits this fountain, while Nick looked on with confusion. We grabbed gelato – our first of I think 4 gelato stops on this trip – and went over to the Spanish Steps nearby. No one was really sure what the Steps signify or why they’re called Spanish, but they are a pretty breathtaking part of the city. The Steps were over-crowded while we were there, covered in tourists and Italians basking in the day’s sun that shone on the hundred-or-so sparkling marble stairs. At the bottom is another boat-shaped fountain which also signifies something I can’t remember. But, either way, the Spanish Steps are a must-see in Rome and provided us with a nice rest from our full day of walking (since we had gone all the way to the Colosseum only to find it was closed). After, we visited the “world’s largest, most lavish” McDonald’s down the street – a necessary stop for our group of American youth who obviously depend on McD’s as a part of our daily lives. It was pretty big, and yes, there was a large gold ‘M.’ I guess I was impressed.

Then, we headed home to meet Anna – me, Eva and Nick’s friend from GW – at the hostel, where she had flown in from San Francisco. With the whole group finally together, we went to dinner at a restaurant recommended in my Rick Steves’ Italy guidebook. Did I mention that I LOVE guidebooks now? Kind of weird I know, but Rick Steves is the best, and always has great day-guides and tips on how to skip lines, eat at the best gelato places etc. Anyway, Rick led us to a good place, where we enjoyed pasta and tiramisu with the Colosseum glowing in the background. The waiter called Nick “maestro” and “boss” since he was dining in the company of five lovely girls; it was funny. And when we finished, we continued on to the main area of ruins, where the Pope was doing a ceremony on the hill of the Roman Forum, overlooking the Colosseum. It was about 9:00 at night and all the ruins were gorgeous, lit up against the night sky and surrounded with thousands of people holding candles for this Easter vigil. We stood on a hill by the ruins that gave us a pretty good view of the Pope and the crowd; Anna and I perched on the tires of parked cars to get a better view and I even sat on Nick’s shoulders like a five-year-old for a while. I’m too short for this stuff! But it was a fantastic start to the trip, gathering with so many people to witness Benedict XVI speak in Latin and Italian about God knows what. Still, this couldn’t even prepare us for the awesomeness of Easter mass on Sunday…more on that later.

On Saturday, we decided to do the humungous Vatican Museum and Saint Peter’s Basilica, the largest church in all of Christendom that sits grandly in the huge piazza of Vatican City. I had heard that the lines for the Vatican could be pretty long, especially because we were there at the peak of tourist season and also Easter weekend, but nothing could prepare us for the sight of thousands of people circling a six block radius around the museum when we arrived. It was utter chaos, and we finally gave in to the third English-speaking tour guide who approached us asking if we wanted to skip the line – even if we had to pay a tiny fortune to do it. In the beating sun, we agreed to the 35 euro price and figured it was worth it to ensure our entrance to the museum before it closed, since the line would have been about a three-hour wait. Ridiculous! And so, we emptied our pockets to the tour guide and joined a group of thirty other American and British tourists on an English guided tour – complete with headsets and a guide who held her felt flower high so we could always see where she was in the crowd. I thought the streets surrounding the museum were chaos – then I went inside. Even crazier, almost toe-to-heel people traffic throughout the whole museum, moving like snails in one large pack. Our headsets buzzed with our guide’s explanations of famous statues and ancient maps of Italy, before reaching the long-awaited Sistine Chapel at the end. She showed us close-up images of Michaelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling and walls of the chapel, describing in detail the meaning of each. I didn’t really know what to expect of this renowned church, and actually thought that the painting of God reaching out to Adam took up the whole ceiling of it (the famous one with two fingers pointing to each other and almost touching?) In truth, the painting is pretty small and takes up only one section of about ten other paintings in a row along the chapel’s fairly small ceiling. More impressive was Michaelangelo’s “Last Judgment” painted on the largest wall of the chapel, swathed in bright blue sky and angels contrasting with the grotesque images of Hell. One of the people even holds the skin of a man – Michaelangelo himself, where he painted his own body (or just hanging skin) into the painting. According to our guide, Michaelangelo wasn’t even happy about having to do the Sistine Chapel. He was on bad terms with the Pope at the time, who commissioned the work, and had to struggle day and night with a crick in his neck and poor lighting to finish the paintings for which he didn’t even approve the subjects. As Michaelangelo became even more frustrated with the Pope, he changed the subjects of some of the pieces and even painted one figure in the “Last Judgment” with its naked butt facing the Pope’s seat in the chapel – so the Pope would have to stare at some guy mooning him every day during mass. Go Mich.

After the Sistine Chapel (where I managed to take some forbidden photos), the two-hour tour finished and we visited St. Peter’s Basilica next door. The massive church took my breath away as I walked in, staring at the huge length of it and not even being able to see the rest of the maze. Exhausted from the day, we ended up walking in the wrong direction around the church – against the traffic of everyone else – and only glanced at the famous “Pieta” sculpture of Mary holding the crucified Christ. Still, the Basilica was an amazing sight inside and out, with its giant dome and interior marble sculptures of previous Popes and Bishops that outdid any statues I’ve seen in Florentine churches. I even recognized one of the two Medici Popes that ever served, from the Medici coat of arms above his sculpture and my engrained knowledge from Art History class this semester.

Unfortunately, the crypt of past Popes and the Vatican Museum closed just as we finished the Basilica – so we weren’t able to see Raphael’s famous “School of Athens” painting that pictures tons of philosophers and painters like Donatello and Michaelangelo depicted talking together in one huge piece. For some reason, the English tour didn’t take us to these must-see rooms and our guide neglected to mention that the Museum wouldn’t allow us back in after viewing the Basilica. Sad. But, this gives me a reason to go back someday! And so, we grabbed lunch instead and headed to the Pantheon. Again, another structure that no one knew the real significance of – except that it’s a random large dome in the middle of a nice piazza. Nothing is painted onto the inside of the dome, but the light flowing from its ceiling windows makes the circular building a unique place to stand in for a moment. And after, gelato again! This time, we stopped at what Rick Steves calls “Rome’s Best Gelato” – indeed, you could hardly walk through the tiny gelateria, crowded with tourists with sticky fingers and dripping cones. And then, home for naptime, where I caught an hour of sleep before waking up in time for a late pizza dinner down the street with Allie and Nick. The others went out for a pub crawl, but by the time we found out their exact location, it was too late to meet up and go out all together. Instead, the rest of us got a good night’s sleep in preparation for morning Easter mass given by the Pope at St. Peter’s Basilica – the most important Christian man in the world at the largest Christian church in the world, for the most significant Christian celebration in its faith…quite the day.

I actually assumed that we would witness very little of the mass. The square in front of the Basilica can hold 350,000 people, and the mass was expected to see even more than that, crowding the blocks surrounding the church. People with reserved tickets (expensive ones) sat in thousands of chairs set up in front, while the rest of us lowly tourists were meant to pack in through the piazza and beyond. I thought we might get as far as a block after getting off the metro, and then have to watch the crowds in front of us listening to the Pope from nearly a mile away. Well, the day had a surprise in store for us. Nick started following a Police motorcycle making its way through the crowd, with the five girls scrambling in tow, clutching each others’ purses to make an unbreakable line. We landed somehow in the center of the crowd, but still at the very back of the square – probably four football fields away from the Pope, who stood chanting and singing and speaking Latin from a red-velvet-covered balcony in the middle story of the Basilica. At random intervals, the crowd surged forward and we moved with it, not knowing what we were inching towards. Suddenly, we found ourselves at a small entry point in the metal gate surrounding the square – and an official waved us inside. In minutes, I was walking through wide open spaces in the middle of the square, moving easily between people and getting closer and closer to the Pope with the others following behind. We were confused – how did we even get here? Who let us through? Was this a ticketed area? Without hardly voicing these questions aloud, we sped through the sparse crowd and found a good spot in the very center, looking at the Pope from only about 200 yards away. As we looked around in awe at our amazing location, feeling so lucky and baffled at once, the Pope began blessing each country. The crowd shouted and waved flags as Benedict XVI blessed everyone from Russia and Iran to the Phillipines and, of course, America. We whooped and hollered and took a million photos of our unbelievable morning. It was an Easter to never forget!

And to keep the greatness going, we visited the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum for the rest of the day. The Hill is a huge area of old Roman palaces left behind from its emperors – it’s full of temples, housing and a stadium for ancient games. Ruined columns and walls litter the ground at random, while one of the buildings even shows off an interior with painted walls still intact from ancient Rome. From there, you walk straight into the Forum – with its long expanse of arches, temples and lonely pillars from buildings that were once there. I’m pretty sure this is where the Senate of Rome met, where Caesar would have been killed by Brutus on its steps. And best of all, the Colosseum was next. I’d been looking at its grand beauty for two days and hadn’t gone inside yet, so I couldn’t wait to see the oval interior where gladiators fought and ancient Romans battled against captured animals in front of shouting crowds. It was everything I hoped for – sky-high stone walls where I could imagine the laymen sitting to watch duels, and a maze of walls in the center where animals (and people) were kept before fights…surrounded by several levels of tiny arched windows and crumbling stone. It was beautiful but also kind of sad, to remember the thousands of deaths that happened here while a blood-thirsty world looked on. And at the same time, the Colosseum gave me the closest view of ancient glory and architectural splendor Rome provides. Best. Day. Ever.

On our last day in Rome, Eva and Anna and Macey left early in the afternoon to go back to Germany – so Nick, Allie and I wandered the city looking for something to do that wasn’t closed, since it was Easter Monday and most sights are closed on Mondays anyway. We tried to visit Nero’s Golden House, the home of one of the most brutal Roman emperors, but it was closed for renovation. We tried to see the Borghese Gallery of Art but that was closed too, and finally ended up taking the metro to a sketchy part of town where there’s a famous cemetery (right up Nick’s alley) that also turned out to be closed. Luckily, there was a cute little cat village we could see through the gates and a petite marble pyramid built by an ancient emperor when Rome was influenced by the Egyptian fashions of Cleopatra and Emperor Marc Antony. The area was sort of ghetto-ish and we got out pretty quick, back on the metro towards a church called San Paolo that turned out to be probably my favorite church in all of Europe. San Paolos’s Church was the largest in Christendom until St. Peter’s Basilica was built, and it is today the most beautiful – at least that’s what I think anyway. The interior is made completely out of different colored marble: blue, greens, pinks, beige and pure whites created the columns, walls, stairs, railings and everything else. One arm of the cross-shaped church seemed a mile long and was lined with marble pillars on each side, then lined with a border directly below the ceiling that depicts circular mosaic portraits of every Pope in history. At the end of the line (Benedict, who we saw) were empty circles for future Popes. And when we went outside, I realized that the church was even more gorgeous that I saw inside. There is a grassy, palm-tree filled courtyard with white statues and beautiful white pillars in front of a painted, golden peak of the church’s façade. It was the prettiest outside and inside of any church I’ve seen, and we hadn’t even planned to see it. Sometimes the best things are off the beaten path…

Mopeds!! are fun...

The moped ride yesterday had to be one of my favorite days abroad so far. Me and Allie were dressed and ready about an hour before our friends picked us up; we sat legs-bouncing and excited in the kitchen, barely able to contain ourselves for the adventure ahead. Andrea and Mattia picked us up on their mopeds around 3:00 and we headed off into the distance, with helmets of course. Under the beating sun, they drove us toward Fiesole, a small town just outside Florence that overlooks the city with beautiful views. Our hair flapped in the wind but the boys drove slow enough that I wasn’t scared – even on the long hills and curvy curves of the ride up to the city outskirts. As I gripped the handlebars along the sides of the “motorino” I looked out at Florence unraveling below me and knew I was finally a part of this city. The people below were my neighbors and friends, my teachers and café waiters. I was suddenly Italian and so proud of it. And when we reached the hilltops, the four of us scooted off the mopeds to explore the Fiesole antique market. Since it was Sunday and gorgeous out, the town was flooded with native Florentines selling goods and tourists eating gelato in the sun. Even when the clouds came and a few drops of rain interrupted, the streets remained bustling. We wandered for a while and checked out old copies of Shakespeare plays in Italian (so cool!) then hopped back on the bikes for a fun ride back down. In the stop and go traffic, Allie and I could talk to each other from the mopeds and the boys communicated about what streets to take. It was a fabulous day of friendship and fun, and I definitely put that Sunday in my top ten best days in Florence. Not to mention, me and Allie met up with the girls back in the city and went out for some amazing Mexican food – yes, Mexican food is absolutely delicious in Florence, even though you wouldn’t think it. Ciao for now!

La Traviata

It’s been a week of very Italian things. I learned the history of the Medici family during Renaissance Art History class, complete with several references to The Godfather – which I finally saw this week for the first time. Apparently, some of those Medici dukes were not unlike Vito Corleone and the infamous Michael. I’m glad I got the reference. My eyes have finally been opened to the greatness of the Godfather, and in addition, me and my roomies watched our final few episodes of the Sopranos Season 1. We’ve been watching all semester but didn’t have the last couple, so Sheena brought them from the U.S. and we are just dying to start on Season 2 when we all get home. Very Italian, again. And to top off the typical week, me and the girls went to an opera last night! It was “La Traviata,” the story of an ill woman who falls in love with Alfredo, whose father does not approve of their marriage and eventually tears them apart, only for them to come back together as Violetta dies of her long-time illness. Good stuff. It was in a small church near our apartment, nothing big and actually narrated in English before each scene began so that its touristy audience would know what was going on. There were probably about 35 people in the tiny church, but everyone loved it and I’m glad I went – even if I couldn’t understand anything and my ears are still ringing. It was fun to get all dressed up and go out to dinner together beforehand too. We ate raviolis and soufflé overlooking the Arno River, talking about how weird it will be when we all leave here in only 5 weeks. Five weeks! I can’t believe it’s coming so quickly; before I know it, I’ll be packing my things and putting my passport in place to return to the U.S. The weeks until then will be packed full though – Rome, Easter, Venice, turning 21, Meredith visiting and a possible trip to Barcelona. Phew! I can’t wait for the Coloseum…
And one more Italian thing! – Me and Allie are going for a moped ride today with our Italian friends, up to the hills looking down on Florence, and it’s such a beautiful day the view will be amazing! I guess this means I’ll be ready for the Harley when I get home…

Sheena's Week!

Long time no see! So, here’s the rest of my week with Sheena:

We did it all. My good buddy Ed from GW came to visit from where he is studying in Cairo this semester, and we all had a blast together. He updated me on his life and it was so great to catch up – he told Sheena and I how the girls on his abroad program can’t wear skirts in the streets, how he can live on 8 bucks a day for meals, and how he’s seen the pyramids and the staff Moses used to part the Red Sea (supposedly). Cairo sounds amazing and I would love to visit there someday, to see just how different it is from all of Europe. And as Ed regaled us with stories of Egypt, we hit the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens for a full day of Medici history on Friday. We visited the gardens first, since it was a beautiful day out and you never know when rain may strike. And it was just perfect – the vast expanse of uncountable acres is full of vine-covered statues, pools with swimming ducks, fountains, lions heads and busts randomly dispersed between grassy knolls and tree-covered pathways. We explored for a couple hours, wandering through the almost deserted gardens – they are so huge you hardly see anyone else! And after, I led Ed and Sheena to their first taste of Florence gelato and we sat enjoying it in the sun. For the afternoon, we wandered the city picking up souvenirs and admiring the Duomo, Santa Croce church, and the small jazzy band serenading tourists outside Croce. As our foot were almost worn down, we dragged them to one last spot – back to the Pitt Palace, where we explored fifty rooms of paintings and royal apartments of the Medici Dukes. And to finish the day right – GustaPizza for dinner!

On Saturday Sheena and I headed out to visit our relatives for the weekend. We stopped in Pisa so Sheena could view the famous tower (my third time seeing its leaning glory) and I absorbed the drizzle on the grassy park while she visited the Pisa Duomo and Baptistry. Dahlia picked us up there and drove us to Castiglioncello, where Sheena finally met Giorgio and Stefania and we presented them with the painted Easter eggs Mom had sent from the U.S. They absolutely loved them and the toffee candy she’d made, and of course showered us with gifts for the family that Sheena was to take back home. Dahlia and Stefania took us to Riparbella so Sheena could see the house our great-grandfather built overlooking Tuscany with its olive trees and fresh eggs from the lady next door. We went out for dinner with them that night, and Bean was quite the little experimenter. It was a seafood restaurant, and Sheena ended up trying a spaghetti dish covered with crawfish, shrimps, calamari (NOT fried) and tiny baby octopuses…very interesting, but I think she actually liked it! I, of course, had pizza.

And on Sunday, they took us to Volterra, another hilltop town near them that’s known for its special translucent marble goods and an area of Roman ruins. It rained all day but we were able to view the ruins from above, looking down on a small forum with rows of spectator seats and broken pillars – my first ruins in Italy, and sure to be overshadowed by the ones I’ll see in Rome next weekend! But they were beautiful anyway, and the rest of Volterra was a cool hodge-podge of churches and shops full of dazzling, smooth marble objects – everything from jewelry boxes to plates, and hanging lamps to little marble Easter eggs. I wanted everything I saw, and am thinking of shipping an entire store of it to furnish my first home whenever that may be. Really.

After a raining day with the relatives, Sheena and I headed home laden down with baked goods, fruits and juice that Stefania made us take so kindly. We spent the night cooking bruschetta and risotto for dinner, and watching more episodes of the OC which Sheena had brought me from home. On Monday, Sheena went to see Donatello’s famous bronze David statue at the Bargello museum while I went to Italian class. She wandered some more of the Florentine markets, and when I was finished with class we grabbed delicious paninis, sat out in the sun doing homework and basking in Florence’s beauty. That night, Allie had returned from Venice with her family and Colleen was back from Paris, so we all motivated ourselves to go out again and headed to Friends Bar around the corner from our apartment. After about an hour there, we all realized how tired we really were and went home for some sleep. But not to worry! Wednesday we went out big and had a blast, after another full day of Florence fun with Sheena. We had planned it perfectly – for her last day, since we knew it was supposed to rain, we scheduled a visit to the Uffizi Gallery. Under a single half-broken umbrella (destroyed from the wind in Volterra), we splashed our way to the Gallery and beat the line with our reserved tickets. I had been there before, but only with Art History class and didn’t get to see everything. So, I told Sheena the stories I knew behind the artist Giotto’s painting of the Madonna and the myths from Boticelli’s Birth of Venus and Spring. I bet you know them – the one with Aphrodite sitting in the giant shell in the ocean, covering her body with her long blonde ponytail? And the other one in the forest with the girls dancing and the blue guy reaching down to pull the nymph into the sky to become his goddess? Yeah, you know them. Anyway, we saw those (my favorites in the gallery) and a slew of other famous paintings from the Medieval and Renaissance periods. The gallery was packed on such a rainy day, and by the time the last annoying tourguide plopped her group in front of a painting so know one else could view it, we were ready to leave. And so with that, Sheena finished all there is to do in Florence in a whopping six days of whirlwind adventure. We had a blast on her last night with all my friends and said goodbye in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday – after searching out a 7am cab for a half hour in the dead early-morning city. Luckily, she made her plane perfectly and got home to open the pile of college letters on our kitchen table. I am so proud of her – Brown and UPenn! Choices, choices, choices…Such a lucky girl and such lucky parents too. What will they do without her home? Fortunately, I’m graduating in a year and the job market’s not too good right now, so this daughter just may be free-riding from home for a while.

But for now, I’m sticking with Italy and so happy with that. Me and a group of girl friends are going to an Opera on Saturday! We’re going to get all dressed up and go out for appertivo dinner then head to the Opera house for my first Italian opera…or any opera at all for that matter. What an experience! And in only a week, off to Rome for Easter to finally see my lovelies Eva and Anna, and of course Nick too. And THEN (it’s not over yet, nope) Venice for my birthday on the 17th! Twenty-one in one of the greatest cities in the world, what more could a girl ask for? Well, maybe just that great purse I saw at a Florence shop the other day… But really, it’s going to be the best birthday! And I’ve got sooo many purses already…

Sisters in Florence

Sheena’s here! And we’ve been having a fantastic time. She arrived safely (and with all her luggage!) on Wednesday morning, and we’ve being going non-stop ever since. After only a two-hour nap, she started on her education of Florence. We took a little walking tour of the city and I showed her around my favorite streets, stopped in some shops, and sat out for lunch and cappuccinos at my favorite café called Bar Pitti (“bar” means café in Italian). This cup of coffee kept her alive and well all day, and then we headed out for a nice dinner together at a restaurant overlooking the Arno River. It was right off the Ponte Vecchio, situated so we could even see the Palace Vecchio lit up at night across the river. In the dimly lit restaurant, we ordered bruschetta and wine, listened to jazz and caught up on all the exciting things going on in Medfield since I had left. It was wonderful to hear about home and school and who’s dating who now. She told me about our friends in a band, who’ve been touring colleges and doing shows and making record deals. I’m so proud of them! I also heard about the recent musical she starred in, and how she borrowed my famous green prom dress to wear for her on-stage kiss scene. So, we chatted and ate gnocchi and spaghetti, then came home to prepare for a night out with all my Florence friends. A big group ended up coming to the apartment to hang out, then we all herded out together to cross town for a club called FullUp, which I had never been to. It wasn’t crowded when we got there, but after a half hour the place filled up and we spent the night dancing away and having a great time. She said she had a fabulous time and I’m so glad to have shown Bean an awesome first day in Florence!

Yesterday, we woke up relatively early for a full day of activities. We packed picnic lunches and headed to the Duomo, which I surprisingly haven’t ever toured or even visited since the first week I was here and went to mass. It’s actually quite empty-looking inside, making the floor more impressive than any other church I’ve seen. It is completely created out of giant marble mosaics, open to view without hardly any benches or pulpits or huge altars covering it. There are a few stained glass windows, but the Duomo is much darker than other churches I’ve been in, and its most exciting spectacle is the famous painting done inside the cap of the dome. You walk along the dim church until suddenly you’re standing under a giant upside egg-shell with a fresco done by the renowned Italian artist Giotto. In fact, the dome’s construction was actually inspired by an egg-shell – the architect who designed the unusual and very sturdy dome was a Florentine in the late 1200s named Brunelleschi. He took part in a competition put on by the city of Florence, when it was looking for an architect to design one of the largest domes ever made. They gave a bunch of architects an egg and said whoever can make an egg stand up vertically would get the job. Brunelleschi cracked his in half, as everyone else looked at theirs dumbfounded, and stood his half shell on the table. And so, after building the dome using ancient cranes and stone-moving contraptions, Brunelleschi died a very famous man and is now buried in a tomb beneath the Florence Duomo.

Next stop, the David. Even though I’d already seen it, and will see it again on a school trip, I knew Sheena had to see Michaelangelo’s world-famous piece before leaving this city. And for me, it was just as shatteringly impressive the second time around. Last time I visited though, there was hardly anyone else at the exhibit; this time, there was a giant crowd of tourists, loudly gathering and pointing up at David holding his stone and slingshot (after killing the 14-foot giant Goliath, if you don’t remember the Biblical story – I didn’t until my Art History professor reminded me of it this week). So, Sheena figured this would be a good time to snap some discreet photos – even though it’s strictly forbidden and monitored at this particular gallery. You’re really not supposed to take pictures. But, this is a once-in-a-lifetime viewing (or for me, three times), so she hid behind a pole and actually got some great photos of the giant, graceful figure. After checking out Michaelangelo’s other unfinished sculpture pieces, we walked to the nearby S.S. Annuziata square, where I took pictures of Bean sitting on the steps of the hotel that our Grandma and Grandpa stayed in decades ago. We ate our sandwiches in the sun, then walked to the Mercato Centrale, or Central Market. It’s this huge market of leather goods, t-shirts, sunglasses, purses, scarves and ceramics that covers a few blocks. And when we got too tired to walk anymore, we journeyed home to cook dinner, grabbing a canoli on the way to save for dessert. Of course, Sheena fell asleep immediately on my bed while reading, I blogged and started dinner. And after our pasta with meat-sauce and peas on the side (gotta have your veggies!), we motivated ourselves again – to walk all the way up to Piazzale Michaelangelo, the square with the fake David statue overlooking the whole city, lit up beautifully at night.

Dublin (day 2) and back to London: spring break then back to Florence!

Day Two in Dublin was just as exciting as the first. The streets were still crowded, but somewhat less crazy than the festivities of Saint Patrick’s day before. Remnants of green confetti and broken bottles littered the sidewalks, and a few Dubliners looked as though they might have never left the party from the previous night. Our first stop? Breakfast! We had a delicious Irish version of American breakfast at a café, complete with pancakes, bacon and eggs – something I have seriously missed since being in Europe. It was a nice break from cereal in the apartment and pastries in Italian cafes. After stuffing ourselves silly, we headed out into the yet-again beautiful weather of Dublin for some sight-seeing. Dublin Castle is one of the main attractions of the city, so we scheduled a tour there for later in the day, and wandered over to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. We hadn’t actually planned on seeing it, being just another church and all, but we had time before the Castle tour. After passing by the impressive Christ Church which spans a few blocks in the city center, we walked down the bustling main road and suddenly came upon a grassy opening. In the middle of the busy, messy, dusty city – a huge expanse of sudden, bright green and there, on the edge of it, was Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. It contrasted darkly against the fresh grass and glistening sky, an amazing sight on an unimpressive street. This thing came out of nowhere, and blew me away. The lawn was gorgeous on such a nice day, and covered with children playing ball, couples lying in the sun, tourists snacking on sandwiches before their next endeavor. Me and the girls took this chance to catch some sun, while Nick visited the cathedral (we were too tired and didn’t want to pay), where he saw Jonathon Swift’s tomb and the gothic interior of the Cathedral. After a half hour of rest, we left the precious green and checked out the plaque at the park’s exit – a small stone indicating the spot where Saint Patrick baptized people way back in the day.

Back at Dublin Castle, we joined our tour led by a girl with a very pretty Irish accent. It was cool to spend the hour tour listening to her play on words and learn about the place where old officials and Irish leaders spent their days. Most of the building is actually pretty modern-looking, with brick siding and big windows, but parts of the ancient castle are left over and can be seen from the outside – one of four circular towers remains, and underground you can see water from the original moat and dilapidated stones from the old walls of the castle. We saw the ladies drawing room, where women used shields to prevent their made-up faces from melting when sitting by the fires. We viewed the throne of old Irish kings, where Queen Victoria also once sat (and they had to add a foot stool and cut the legs of the chair because she was too short). In the dining room, fifty chairs surround a long table, with seats with larger bases for the ladies since their huge dresses needed so much space at dinnertime. And finally, we saw conference rooms where important officials from many countries have met over the past century and continue to meet today, including Bill Clinton a few years ago.

After the castle, we walked to Trinity College, the most famous university in Dublin probably, which was a beautiful campus of grassy lawns, athletic fields, and benches with hundreds of students milling around. Nick had been dying to see the Book of Kells, an ancient and apparently famous Bible, in Trinity’s museum, so me and the girls sat in the sun again while he learned enough history for the rest of us. After, we walked to a nearby square to see the renowned Oscar Wilde statue, a full-color glazed statue of his figure lying across a huge rock while smoking a pipe. Our guide-book calls it a “flamboyant” pose. He looks very intellectual, though, and it’s interesting to see a statue in color, as though he’s almost there with you. Nick reverted to being an 8-year-old boy for a minute and tried to climb up the giant rock to sit next to Wilde, while I took pictures of his funny failed attempt. The rest of us of course had to try too, after this spectacle, and us girls were able to make it up the rock pretty well – even though the picture of me looks like I’m about to fall to a harrowing death or something. So, we said bye to Oscar Wilde and trekked across town to the Jameson Distillery, one of the big sights of Dublin though probably a close second to the Guinness Brewery. Now, I’m not a whiskey fan, but this visit was very very cool. Most of us in the group had never been to a distillery or brewery factory before, so Dublin seemed like a great place to try it out. We were placed in a tour group with a guide who looked like he’d been out celebrating Saint Patty’s Day until the wee hours of the morning, but he was hilarious nonetheless. We watched a video about the Jameson family who started this famous Irish whiskey, and then toured a model of the factory processes – mashing the grains, distilling the liquid three times etc. It was only a model because the distillery actually stopped functioning in 1971 and Jameson is now produced from a factory in Cork, Ireland. This old distillery even had plastic statues of people working to sort the grain and make the whiskey, kind of creepy but also really funny. After, Nick got chosen to be part of a whiskey tasty performed in front of the whole group – he and a few other volunteers got to try American, Scottish and Irish whiskies and learn about the differences in taste and how each is made. I got the sense that the Irish don’t like Scotch, since our guide told the volunteers to throw the Scottish whiskey over their shoulder instead of tasting it! That was something I saw everywhere actually – a certain pride and passion for their country that is not so apparent in other countries. The Irish love being Irish and I don’t blame them. Dublin was one of the best parts of spring break by far!

But it wasn’t over yet……after the distillery, we grabbed SuperMac burgers for dinner (to save cash) and went to see James Joyce’s statue as night rolled in. He was bronze and holding a cane, looking very dapper in his dark suit. Across the plaza from him is an even more random sight – the Millennium monument, a gleaming silver spike as high as a skyscraper that lights up at night to commemorate Ireland’s movement into the 21st century. And to contrast this futuristic piece with the past, you can also see the Irish Declaration of Independence across the street in the window of its Post office. A small plaque is embossed with the declaration’s text for all the world to see, and on the Post’s soaring columns – bullet holes from when the English invaded and tried to prevent this very independence from coming to fruition. As we stood gazing up at the century-old holes, a Dubliner passing by stopped and randomly began giving us a history of Dublin. This short, scruffy man went on and on about how the Irish fought the British and how James Connelly was their greatest martyr and got thrown in jail for his rebellion. The guy looked sort of homeless, but we humored him for a bit, having learned that Irish pride is fierce and not to be reckoned with…when suddenly, he was talking about Dublin’s prison where rebels were sent during the conflict and mentioned that HE had actually once been jailed there. Our eyes widened and I squashed my purse beneath my arm, until Nick said we had to go and our group hurried away wondering how we ever got to talking with a probably-drunk homeless criminal. But, we did learn a lot about Dublin independence history and how the bullet holes remained in the building, so it wasn’t a complete waste of ten minutes. That was when Nick and I remembered we had shaken this guy’s hand. Ew…

Back at the hotel, we all donned ridiculous bathing caps that the hotel made us wear and hopped in the pool and sauna before getting shut-eye for our 8:00am flight back to London. The caps cost three euro and I only paid it because I was thirsting for the jacuzzi….turned out the jacuzzi was as cold as the pool, and the sauna made us want to jump in a pile of snow. Not the best pool experience after such a long day. But, it was soon 5:00am, and we all rolled onto our scheduled taxi with bleary eyes and hungry stomachs. Tooooo early.

Luckily, our flight was perfectly on time and dropped us in London where I napped for the rest of the afternoon and Nick got to sit in class for two hours. Byzantine history – not something I’d want to focus on after a 5am wake-up call from the hotel and hours on a plane. But, he made it through, and we motivated ourselves to have a nice dinner out that Thursday night. He took me to a French tapas restaurant where we tried out everything from venison with mashed pumpkin and smoked salmon strips, to sausages and two types of foie gras. It was delicious, a very nice vacation from pizzas and kebabs and spicy Indian food that we’d had one night. Our waitress was French even! It seems like the countries with good food are well-aware of London’s lacking in the area, since there are tons of Indian, Chinese, French and Italian restaurants lining the streets. Well, in between all the fish-and-chips places anyway.

On Friday in London, my last weekend there, Nick and I went to Winchester for a daytrip. Allie, Larissa and Emily were staying at a hostel and seeing many of the London sights I already had, so we took the day to explore a little country town. The main event there was Winchester Cathedral, which crops up out of nowhere kind of like Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Winchester’s has a similar expanse of luscious lawn surrounding it and houses the burial place of one of my favorite 19th-century English authors – Jane Austen. In fact, it turns out that she lived in a nearby village but came to Winchester when she fell ill later in life. We went later to see the modest yellow home with its plaque honoring the great writer.
Anyway, we joined a tour of elderly tourists in Winchester Cathedral and listened to the old British tourlady stutter about English history and the day the cathedral almost crumbled from underground floods, only to be saved by a diver now famous in Winchester history. She showed us the huge stained-glass window that was shattered by Viking attacks and later put back together piecemeal – it looks kind of like a kaleidoscope now. Nick got excited about the bones of English Kings and one queen, encased in decorated boxes – even though no one really knows whose bones are whose, since they all mixed together in another attack on the cathedral centuries ago. When we found Jane Austen’s grave on the cathedral floor, the flat black stone doesn’t even allude to her famous writing, I’m not sure why. My camera died just then, though, and we left Winchester Cathedral to buy batteries, telling the staff that we would be back soon to take a quick photo of Austen’s grave. Before we left, we got to talking with a tourguide who took great pleasure in our being American and Nick’s interest in British history. We asked about the Winchester Bible, but the man said the cathedral’s library where it’s held was closed today. A little disappointed, we left for the batteries and returned a little later. At the front door, the staff asked if we were the Americans who had asked about the library. Why yes, I said, after a moment of confusion. They told us that a private tour was awaiting us, and to go ahead up to the secret library in the maze-like depths of the cathedral. Surprised, we ascended a flight of rickety stairs and found the library, where a jolly smiling guide asked if we were the Americans wanting to see the Winchester Bible. Why yes!, we said again. And so, Nick and I got a private viewing of the ancient Bible used by the cathedral since its beginning, as the tour guide pointed out the intricate drawings and even mistakes in the Latin text. He told us how, when the book was re-bound in 1948, someone ripped out and stole a two-page spread. Embarrassingly for us, the man laughed, they think the thief was an American. Apparently, the missing pages showed up in a museum in New York a few years later and had been bought for one million dollars from an unknown seller. If an Englishman goes there today, our guide told us, the Americans there are very protective of the stolen pages and it is difficult for even an English curator or official personnel to view the spread. Oh America, always taking what’s not ours. But either way, it makes a good story, huh?

So after seeing the cathedral and Jane Austen’s house where she died, we wandered by Winchester College for young boys and peeked through the gates of Woolvey Castle – where the Bishops of Winchester have always lived and continue to inhabit today. We also saw the table from King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table, a huge round table tacked up on a wall of the famous Great Hall, where dark green and beige sections break the table into pizza-like slices with each knight’s symbol on the triangles. Behind the Great Hall, a war museum shows off a scaled model of the Battle of Waterloo, where my Napoleon-obsessed boyfriend snapped pictures as I fed ducks in a fountain outside. The sun was shining and the wide expanse of water and lawn lined with trimmed bushes was beautiful. We walked back to the main area of Winchester and took one last look at its small, café- and shop-lined streets, where an accordion player had serenaded us that morning. The small English town was probably my favorite day of London – an escape from the city and a place of history that its people care about deeply. It’s not hard to imagine why Jane Austen would travel this area to write her stories of love and create characters like Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett. If I could, I’d definitely go back to Winchester to live in her house and pen novels all day. We’ll see how that works out.

For my last day in London, Nick and I went again to the Borough Market and ate delicious feta-covered lamb burgers from a Greek food stand for breakfast. It was a day of markets: Giorgio had recommended we visit Portobello Market in the Notting Hill area of London, so we ventured there and found ourselves smack in the middle of a flowing street – full of artisans, antique dealers, fruit stands, souvenir tables, clothing tents and tables and tables of goods new and old. I tried on costume jewelry and picked up a book of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales dated from 1822. We walked by giant telescopes, lamp stores, buckets of silverware and old mugs. The mile-long market was a hodge-podge of vendors wedged into a random neighborhood. It was totally unexpected. And after a walk through its crowded streets, we met up with Emily and Allie to sit down for a cup of coffee. I got hot chocolate and remembered why Italy has the best hot chocolate in the world. After hearing about their past few days, we found the travel bookstore featured in the movie “Notting Hill” with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant – a movie I love, and was so honored to buy a map of Rome in the bookstore from the film. It was weird being inside and seeing the spots where Julia and Hugh stood in the movie!

And so ended spring break, after a dinner at Pizza Express (great pizza in London, actually!) and an early-morning wake-up to catch my Sunday flight at 8:00am again. This second early flight taught me something about flying. Mainly, don’t book flights at this time of day, it’s too early. But, I made it back to Florence for a long afternoon nap and got to hear all about Colleen’s break in Lisbon, which sounds like a cool city to visit but not great for food or clean streets.
I’m happy to be back in Florence, but had such a fantastic time this break. Dublin took the cake for exciting natives, while London sights were unforgettably full of literary history I’ll never forget. And the best part of being back? Sheena will be here in two days!!! I can’t wait for sis to come and share this abroad experience with me. It will be so nice to have a piece of home here, I wish Mom and Dad were coming too. We’re going to do so many things and eat so much gelato I can’t wait! I’ll try to blog as much as possible. Hope you made it to the end of this long post and enjoy the photos! Much love.

Dublin, day one: Some people drank some beer

I know people say this a lot, but when I tell you that Dublin was a whirlwind few days, I really truly mean it. The greatest, most fun and interesting whirlwind of all time. Ireland withstood all of my expectations and exceeded them. The short trip was some of the best days I’ve had abroad so far, and I feel absolutely lucky to have gotten the chance for this visit. I mean, I celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day the rough and tumble way – with the Irish, in Dublin, in their pubs, with their Guinness. To be correct, I only had a sip of Guinness because I’m not too big a fan of it, but still – these couple days were an amazing experience I will never forget. How many people can say they’ve worn a bright green beret around the streets of Dublin on St. Patty’s Day, absorbing the shouts and laughter of the true Irish on the most Irish day of the year?

Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start…After waking up at 8am on Tuesday, Nick and I finally arrived in Dublin around 1pm. Since we’re young, innocent and unprepared 20/21-year olds, we hadn’t checked on how to travel from the airport to our hotel. Can’t be that hard, right? Well, it turned out that all the people telling us that Dublin doesn’t celebrate St. Patty’s Day were horribly wrong, and much of the public transportation that day was clogged with busyness. The woman at the airport told us it could take a bus two hours to reach our hotel, which was somewhat poorly placed outside the city center and not easy to access. There was another bus, which would take us close to the hotel but require some walking, so we hopped on and of course I was cranky from travelling and had to use the bathroom the whole way…but we made it to Newlands Cross, where the airport woman had told us the bus driver could direct us to the hotel. He couldn’t. Instead, we had to trek uphill (with Nick graciously carrying our very heavy large backpack) to another hotel and ask directions to ours. After a few different direction-givers, we found quickly that the people of Dublin are extremely kind and friendly – a fact somewhat forgotten as we then began the stifling warm ten minute walk to our hotel along the middle-of-nowhere highway. Soon, the Green Isle Hotel loomed in front of us, and despite the warm summer day, we were relieved to stumble inside. After checking in, we dropped our stuff, splashed cool water on our faces, and turned back outside for the 30-minute tram ride into Dublin city center.

As we watched stops like Red Cow, Bluebell, Jervis and Abbey Street roll by, I got more and more excited to land in Dublin. And then we did, and stepped off the train into a pulsing crowd of bright green hats and red beards. The streets were jam-packed with Dubliners and tourists decked out in bright green hats, clover-covered faces and fake leprechaun beards. Within minutes, I had gotten a clover painted on my cheek and purchased a couple-euro green beret that read “Ireland” with the Irish symbol of a harp sewn on it – which I wore proudly for the rest of the day and got many comments on (someone even asked me if I was French…no, I said, I’m Irish for the day). We met up with Allie, Emily and Larissa, my friends from Florence, and heard all about the crazy St. Patty’s Day parade they had witnessed earlier. The five of us decided to grab food at a nearby pub – and, looking around, realized that “nearby” pretty much meant every building within view. We chose O’Neils, and promptly ran into Colleen (my other Florence roommate) and a group from my abroad program, who had been celebrating the day since early morning and left us later to take naps at their hotel. They directed us toward the fantastic Irish buffet at O’Neils, though, and we had a delicious meal of turkey, potatoes, carrots and beer. The whole place was loud and bottle-necked full of happy people in hats. It was quite the introduction to Dublin. And so, after an hour or so there, we moved onto another pub…and then another…and another…and another. Until finally, I think we covered most of the Temple Bar (main pub area) of Dublin, and felt satisfied enough to return to our hotel. But first, let me tell you about some people we met along the way:

At one of the pubs, we stood outside to avoid the thick, heavily drinking crowd indoors, and it was pretty nice out so the streets were pleasant. A group of Irishman waved our group over and started chatting with us five, asking about our hometowns and how we liked Dublin so far. It was clear they’d had a long day of celebration, and an Irish friendliness was apparent in their jolly smiling faces. One of them asked why Allie didn’t have a drink in hand, and when she said she wasn’t feeling well (she’s not a big fan of beer) they looked confused and said, “Well, why don’t you just have a Guinness then?” She told them, of course, this was what made her feel sick in the first place…they looked more confused and just told us, “Guinness is the hangover cure, so…” It looked like the Irish didn’t quite understand that for someone who doesn’t like beer (probably unheard of for them), Guinness wasn’t exactly the cure for beer-induced nausea. It was a funny introduction to the world of native Irishmen and the halo of worship surrounding Guinness. I was laughing my butt off and absolutely enthralled with their jokes and stories about this town. When we were ready to move on, it was nice to have such good counselors on what pubs to hit next.

Across the street, I suddenly noticed a man dressed in costume, and this was where we met our second crew of intriguing Irishmen. The outfit turned out to be a costume of Saint Patrick: in long green robes, a golden staff, long beard and pointed green hat that sort of looked like he might be the Pope. “Saint Patrick” was delighted to take photos with our group, and his friends talked to us while snapping pictures. Nick bantered with one about Irish poetry, then the guy convinced me he was from France and when I told him I spoke French, began speaking French with me. Confused, I responded mostly in English until he finally said, “Oh, are you American?” …Yet again the crazy Irish entertained us with their antics – the women were shooting photos of us left and right, while the leader of their pack talked poetry and convinced us they were all French (while speaking in obvious Irish accents), then told us that Saint Patrick was their brother. I’m still not sure what to believe, and we parted ways with a slew of pictures and a few interesting memories.

The best Irish encounter was yet to come, though, and I’ll have to save that one for another day. Day Two in Dublin coming soon! And some pictures…

To Ireland!

I'm about to go to Dublin - And I am so so so so excited. Unnaturally excited. It's 8:00am and I'm bursting at the seams to get going. I even woke up a few minutes before it was absolutely necessary, just because I was TOO excited to sleep any longer. The flight is at 11:40, so we're leaving in a few minutes to catch the train at London Bridge station to Luton Airport. I think I'm so pumped because I don't know what to expect from Dublin. At this point Italy can't really surprise me anymore, and I pretty much knew what to expect from Paris and London...but Ireland will be totally new to me and I can't wait to land! I'm like a kid going to Disney Land right now. Happy Saint Patty's Day...See you in a few days!

London Calling

The voyage continues......After the British Library yesterday, we took a nice warm walk through London to the British Museum - It's basically England's version of the Louvre, and in all honesty, I think I saw more cool things here than in the Louvre. Maybe my feet were less tired or something, but I just really enjoyed looking at all the artifacts and pieces of ruins inside the Brit Museum instead of the art of the Louvre. This museum was much better organized and had actual giant chunks of Roman and Greek ancient ruins inside the building. For some reason I was extremely impressed by the huge masses of columns from Rome that sat in the quiet, nearly empty basement of the British Museum - And there was even a long hallway filled with wall engravings and broken pieces of sculptures that the British ambassador in the 1800s took from the Greek Parthenon to show off in England. The Venetians raided the Parthenon in the mid-1600s and the Turks blew it up later, so the ruins were eventually stripped of almost all its major sculptures, which are now scattered in museums across the world. They were overwhelming to view, against the backdrop of a re-constructed Greco-Persian temple. And in other rooms, I viewed Egyptian mummies, some of the oldest clocks, watches, and coins of the world. The British Museum had a wide variety of sculptures, and even though I'd seen soooo many in Florence, I really did love the Roman ruins. Can't wait to see more in Rome!

Oh, and the best thing of ALL - I got to see Platform 9 3/4 (from Harry Potter, for anyone who doesn't know) at King's Cross Station on my way back from the British Museum. I think I was more excited about this than any other tourist destination I've been to yet. Just kidding, kind of, not really...but it was SO great - just a hidden corner of the huge station, with a small sign indicating Platform 9 3/4 and a pretend cart that's cut so it looks like it's driving invisibly into the wall. Very exciting, even though Nick pretended like he didn't know me while I got all excited about Harry Potter. And don't worry, I got plenty of pictures.

Today, we took a daytrip just outside London, to Greenwich where the 0 degree latitude (the Prime Meridian) goes straight down the center of the earth. It was nice to get out of the bustling city for a little, and it was a beautiful day to explore the seaside (or actually just river-side) town. It felt like a small village, with lower buildings than London and lots of cute shops and cafes. Maybe the best part of the day was when we stopped for scones - filled with jam and clotted cream - right outside the train station when we arrived. Snacking on these for our walk by the wharf and up to the royal observatory, we walked through the only sunshine London has seen in probably five years. I felt very Englishy with my scone. It was delicious. And still clogging my arteries. Mmmmmm.
So up the hill we walked, a long stroll up a grassy field toward the observatory, where we stood in line with all the other tourists straddling the two hemispheres of the earth. I stood on the east while Nick stood on the west and we took a photo of our feet on opposites sides of the world. The observatory has planetarium shows, which we didn't bother to see, but otherwise had a pretty cool display of a telescope and all the contraptions astronomers of the 1600s used when they started discovering how the universe really worked. It was a nice walk, the scone was fabulous, and the Prime Meridian was something I never thought I would see. Overall a very successful day, and Nick even got to spend a few minutes looking at SUPER exciting naval artifacts at the Greenwich Maritime Museum.

So we're going to Dublin tomorrow for Saint Patrick's Day, expecting to celebrate it the good old fashioned American way - within limits, of course. Be back on Thursday for some more blogging and rest after a fun few days! Pictures posted soon on the Webshots link on the top left of my page! Cheers loves!

Cheers Mate!

I have officially landed in the land of tea and crumpets. I've taken the tube, seen the Queen, and heard some wonderful British accents. Well I didn't actually see the Queen, but I did go by her house. On the first day I got here, Nick and I hit Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey. The Abbey was really fascinating, as I got to see my first glimpse of all the interesting literary history that London has to offer. Chaucer, Henry James, D.H. Lawrence and T.S. Eliot are buried there, and George Eliot (writer of Middlemarch, a great and famous must-read) has a honorary stone in the ground with the others. And there are many more. Even Charles Darwin! All these people and hundreds of others have stones in the floor (right for us to walk over) indicating their years of birth and death. They are presumably buried beneath the giant church, though some (like George Eliot, who was actually a woman - in real life Mary Ann Evans) merely have a stone and are buried elsewhere. Chaucer's is the best, with an actual grave and casket area commemorating him. Pretty impressive. And then there's the royalty: Elizabeth I, Mary I and Mary Queen of Scots are there. Edward the Confessor and Henry VII have formidable monuments and burial areas, but I thought Elizabeth's was the coolest. She is buried in a side chapel of the Abbey, directly beside Mary I (whom Elizabeth had executed, ironically). They are actually within the very same monument, with a light gray casket cover displaying a laying woman who looks a lot like Elizabeth I suppose. Something interesting - all the statues of the dead people on top of their caskets have small animals at their feet. I know that a dog means "fidelity" - which we saw under many a dead historical figure's foot - but others include lions, deer, goats, porcupines etc. and I plan on looking up sometime what these represent. Anyway, Westminster Abbey was more than anything I even thought it would be - I was really moved to see where all these people were buried, especially my fave D.H. Lawrence and the lovely Chaucer! It's truly a testament to the greatness of Gothic architecture and literary history. I was definitely NOT Westminster crabby on this visit!!

Buckingham Palace was our next stop. I was a little sad I didn't get to see the Changing of the Guards, since it's only once a day, but still got to view the Palace and see some guards from far away. But none of them had those cool furry hats you see in movies. Oh well. The palace is of course gigantic and really impressive, although Nick didn't think it was anything too special - I think we've seen way too many amazing things to be over-impressed by a plain British building anymore! It IS big though, and the prettiest part is the huge fountain out front, complete with statues and swarmed with tourists taking photos of the palace in the background. From the fountain is the "mall" of London, reminding me a lot of the national mall back in D.C. - a long park with strolling people, nice flowers and a half-empty reflecting pool. It was actually a good day for a stroll, and in fact has been pretty nice weather since I've been here. Warm enough for no scarf or hat even! Spring is here!

On Friday night, after Westminster and Buckingham, Nick and I met up with some of his friends from King's College here, who also happen to go to GW. They are really fun, nice people and we had a great night out all together - exploring a new area of the city they hadn't been to, called Old Street, where there were a few cool pubs and dance places. One of his friends is even visiting Florence in a few weeks and doesn't have plans for what to do there, so I told her I'd show her around. And funny enough, we ran into them all again the next morning, in a random part of London at a random food market where we were grabbing breakfast. Small world! It was a very cool place - Borough Market - with tons of food stands for sampling everything from cheese and salami to pastries or meat. It felt so authentic and was a really fun way to see London in action. After breakfast, I just HAD to grab a Starbucks coffee, since they're on every corner here and I miss it so much! Not surprising but, Italy doesn't have Starbucks. Probably because the chain stole Italy's words for grande and venti and turned them into American sizes of paper cups. Paper cups! The Italians would be simply disgusted. Ha Ha, anyway I very much enjoyed my Starbucks mocha as we walked the very Boston-Harbor-like boardwalk along the Thames. In fact, on a random side-note, I'd like to say that I think London is SO similar to Boston it's eerie sometimes. I've pointed this out a few times, and Nick noted very astutely that - duh - the British DID colonize America, namely the Boston area...So, Boston looks a lot like London and vice versa, and it's a very pleasant reminder of home when I pass by areas reminiscent of Quincy Market or the bricked, colonial buildings of downtown. Too bad the T doesn't take after the tube, or the Boston subway would be MUCH nicer.

After delicious Starbucks, we went into the Tate museum of Modern Art. I haven't seen too much modern art in my day, especially not in the Italian world of the Renaissance, so this was a nice change. There was even some Picasso and Matisse there, and a giant iron spider two stories tall that I could hardly walk by without bolting the other direction. It was pretty interesting but not very big, so we walked by the Globe theater then and imagined what it was like there when Shakespeare put on Hamlet or Much Ado About Nothing in the great courtyard within. It costs a lot to do a tour, and the Folger's Theater in D.C. is actually modelled after the Globe, so I kind of already know what it looks like. Plus, little did I know, the next day would be an even more interesting Shakespeare day!

Yesterday, we went to the British Library and the British Museum. Both were equally inspiring. We took the tube to King's Cross station and headed into the famous Library which holds a collection of literary artifacts. These include things like Gutenberg's first printed Bible, pieces of the Magna Carta, Leonardo da Vinci's notebook pages, Shakespeare's own hand-writings, notes from Galileo and Jane Austen, original manuscripts of works by Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Bronte. I almost had a heart attack. Inside the glass cases, withered books were held open to the original pages of Jane Eyre, Mrs. Dalloway, and Sylvia Plath's very first published poem, Insomnia. Pages from Handel's Messiah were on display, beside Beethoven's piano tuner and only a few steps away from lyrics the Beatles wrote on paper scraps. The words to Yesterday, Help!, and Ticket To Ride were scratched in faded pen onto yellowing paper that Lennon and McCartney held in their own genius hands. Across the room were letters Charles Darwin had written to his partner Wallace about the Origin of Species. There was a massive case chock full of first editions of Shakespeare's plays and pieces from the First Folio - the original tragedies and comedies produced in the early 1600s. Truly amazing. I was astounded at how inspiring these old texts could be - to think that Austen and Bronte had touched these pages and Galileo had written his thoughts of the universe in this notebook, or John Lennon read these words that Paul had written so haphazardly. Not to mention the hundreds of religious documents from Buddhism, Zorastrianism and Christianity that held the secrets of historical figures too ancient to even imagine.

I must get back to the wonderful city of London now, back later for more!!

Spring Break!

I am preparing to leave for London tomorrow! Midterms have gone really well, and even the Italian exam wasn't that bad today. One last hurrah out tonight with the girls and then we'll all be boarding our separate planes tomorrow for our different spring break destinations. I'll be meeting up with Allie, Larissa and Emily in Dublin mid-week next week for a few days and then going back to London for the end of break. Can't wait to get on the flight tomorrow night and see my first glimpses of England! I'll have internet at Nick's so will be blogging as much as I can...ciao!

Midterms, and soon break!

On Sunday, Giorgio and Stefania took Allie and I to Lucca. It’s a fairly small town near theirs and has a tall, thick wall surrounding the whole city along with a moat outside of it. The wall enclosing Lucca is flanked on both sides by grassy hills leading down into the town, and on top is a boardwalk for visitors to walk along. Inside its walls, Lucca is pretty similar to Florence – narrow streets, lots of mopeds, cafes and souvenir shops. And of course, most prevalent of all, churches! Stefania took us into probably five different churches – by the end of the day, every pew and pulpit and altar looked the same to me, but it was still nice. One church had really interesting angel statues on its peak and another had a gold and bright-colored painting on the exterior – something I haven’t seen anywhere else (and I’ve seen my share of churches in Italy already…) We stopped at a café for bruschetta lunch and Stefania bought me a t-shirt commemorating Puccini, since he was born in Lucca and the town was celebrating his musical genius for a weekend festival. I tried to buy her flowers for their home, but she truly and absolutely wouldn’t let me, asking instead for a personalized postcard from Florence when I see them next. I think I can handle that.

So it was a fun and relaxing weekend, though Lucca was a lot of walking, and I came home exhausted by Sunday night. Luckily, Stefania left me with two bags full of goodies – cheese, cakes, cookies, fruit and juices – to get through this week of midterms! Actually, they haven’t been bad at all so far. Photography was predictably easy, with a few simple multiple choice questions. I studied hard for Renaissance Art History and think I did well on that exam this morning. It’s been a really great day – sun shining, finally, and my Italian class has been cancelled for two days in a row. So, after Art History, my roommates and I sat down for cappuccinos and paninis at a café and studied for our Italian midterm. While, of course, regaling each other with stories of home and the confusingly phrased questions our Italian teachers had written on exams. It felt wonderful to bathe in the sun and feel so very Italian. After, Allie and I spent the afternoon wandering the city and hanging out with our new Italian buddies. They are students at a Florence university for math and sciences, and one has taken a certain liking to my roommate, so we’ve been spending a lot of time with him and friends speaking in a mesh of English and Italian. It’s fun to speak the language with native Florentines and learn from each other. Today I taught them “yo” (as in “hi”) and “be right back.” I’m not sure they really understood. But either way, we get to practice Italian and help them learn English and it’s so interesting to understand both languages in a new way. For example, “I’m busy” doesn’t really have a direct translation in Italian. Instead, they have about a million other ways to express this meaning without an actual word for “busy.” I learn something new everyday with Andrea, Mattia and Niccolo, and they learn something from us! It was such a nice afternoon, sitting in Piazza Pitti playing cards and forgetting our formal grammar rules. Even if I miss a pronoun or verb conjugation here and there, we all know what we’re talking about…most of the time.

Another random thought:

My Italian class is a hodge-podge of girls with different backgrounds, ages, hometowns, first languages and hair colors. One is 29, from Australia and has been living in Europe for three years in different places. Another is 18, Canadian, and in Florence on a voice scholarship. Another is originally from Turkey and comes to class with pink hair and doll make-up; she’s a fashion design major. The rest are from as far as Hawaii and as close as England. And then there is me and Allie, the all-American early-20s girls in our jeans and t-shirts. I love going to class each day and not only learning Italian language, but hearing about their Italian boyfriends, where to eat good sushi in this city, and how to cook dishes native to their own home cities. Since my class is intermediate Italian, many students have been in Florence longer than me, up to a few years for some. We spend part of class learning grammar and the rest learning from one another in a way I couldn’t have encountered even at GW. Diversity has a whole new meaning here. And even better, despite our differences, we’re all getting to know one another so well that we study for quizzes in groups and share dinners out. Some of the older girls are great for Florentine tips, telling us the best gelato, Chinese food and cheeseburger places. We met for wine and cookies at one student’s apartment last week to study for an exam, and last Friday for lunch at a sushi place they recommended. It’s so nice to get to know people from class, and I feel like I am really getting to know the inner-workings of this city.

Good Thing I'm Not Afraid of Heights

I spent a lot of this weekend climbing up and down important things. I went to Pisa (again) with Allie, to meet Giorgio there since we stayed in Castiglioncello with my family for a night. Last time I was in Pisa it was pouring rain and too foggy to go up the tower, so Allie and I made the trek on Saturday. You could literally feel the entire building tilting to one side as you climbed up - I had to grab hold of the walls to keep from feeling like I might fall over! The stairs, like everywhere in Italy it seems, were skinny and slippery stone steps that wound up and up and up to the top. The view from there was great, looking down on all the tourists on the lawns surrounding the huge Pisa Duomo and its Baptistry. Giorgio waited for us at the bottom with our backpack and purses, and then we left for the half-hour ride home to Castiglioncello along the coast. It was awesome to see these views for a second time in the beginnings of spring - the coastline was clear and the water was a turquoise color not unlike the Caribbean. Blue skies and seagulls overhead, and it was perfect. Back at the house, Stefania had prepared us tea and cookies for a snack and then we all headed out to explore some other towns around theirs. They took us to the house in Riparbella that my great grandfather built (Grandma Wood's father) with the help of Stefania father. Dahlia (her sister) and Stefania grew up there, taking a bus to school in a town nearby called Cecina. The house is perched on a tiny hill in the small village-town, complete with a little elderly neighbor who came by to hand Stefania fresh eggs from the woman's chickens while we were there. I poked around the small house, which is closed up for the winter because Stefania and Giorgio live there during the summer, and found photos of my long-ago relatives along with a room full of trophies from my fourth-cousin Matteo's sailing competitions. Stefania even pulled out some photos of my Grandma and Grandpa sitting in these very rooms when they visited years ago. It was cool to think that my own family had built this house and passed it on for so many decades. I will definitely be coming back with Sheena when she visits, and hopefully sometime again in the far future. So much history!

They then took us to a chocolate festival in Cecina before dinner (where of course Stefania and Dahlia HAD to buy us candy) and into a town called Vada, for dinner. The restaurant was lively with kids running around, and Giorgio ordered every antipasto on the menu to make a slew of appetizers into a long meal. We each got a pizza, too, and they laughed when Allie and I asked to take our leftovers home. They just don't do the boxing food thing here I guess!

I've got to take a study break now, but be back on later to post some more from the weekend!

Before Break...

The week has been low-key but fun so far. I finally booked the hotel for Rome, just a few minutes away from the Colloseum and am so excited! Easter at the Vatican should be very very cool. Besides that, I’ve spent the days in class – learning past tenses in Italian and taking photos of the Florence streets in Photography. It turns out that my Photography professor is extremely well-known in Italy and even in the United States. She photographs bands and musicians, mainly in concert but also portraits. Annalisa even has a close relationship with the artist Moby, and spent six months following Radiohead on tour to photograph their shows. Pretty amazing. And also interesting – her husband is a famous musician in Italy, with a band called Negramaro. I even found their CD at the library here and it sounds really good! Now I know, personally, two of the more famous artsy people in Florence/Italy. I had no idea.

Midterms are next week, right before spring break. They shouldn’t be too bad, since I only really have two “hard” tests – one for Italian and one for Renaissance Art History. That will be the worst, memorizing dates and places and church names and Italian artists…I haven’t taken a history test in probably five years. English papers are a breeze by now, but I’m a little worried about knowing all these dates and names. I started on a study guide and my roommates and I are planning to study this weekend, so it should be OK. Other than that, Italian probably won’t be too difficult – except that I’ll have to rush through it to bolt to the train station and catch a ride to Pisa Airport next Thursday! Break is so soon and I can’t wait. I’ll be in London for the weekend, then heading to Dublin for a few days during the middle of the week with my friends from school here. After that, going back to London and possibly doing a day trip into the English countryside. And when I return to Florence, Sheena’s coming! Mom and Dad randomly surprised me with the fact that my sister would be visiting for a week, and it’s going to be so fun! I have lots of plans already for all the Florentine things we’ll do – mainly eat pizza and gelato, because let’s be honest, those are the only things you really MUST accomplish here. Sheena will be sleeping on a mattress on our floor for the week, and we’ll be visiting the family in Castiglioncello again so she can meet Matteo, Stefania, Giorgio and Dahlia. (I am also going this weekend with my roommates so they can get some good old Italian cooking too!) March is going to be a whirlwind, but SO great. London, Dublin, then Sheena, then Rome, then my birthday weekend (maybe Venice?) and then Eva visits. Suddenly it’s May and I’ll have only a week of class before packing up. So strange, it’s going by so fast but so wonderfully.