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.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
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…
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…
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
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!
Monday, March 16, 2009
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!
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!!
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!!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, March 9, 2009
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!
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!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Just an update...
I've added more pictures from all my trips to the right of the blog - San Gimignano, Paris and a bunch from Florence are all there in separate albums on my webshots page. I'm still learning how to use it, since I just got one for abroad, so just started putting titles on the pictures so y'all know what they are! Enjoy!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Trains, Buses, Mormons, and Champagne: A Daytrip
We learned a little something about public transportation today: it sucks. Systems in Italy don’t seem to have any sort of clear organization, schedule, plan etc. that would make it at all simple for potential users to figure it out. Even the Italians we met along our way yesterday agreed. So let me back-track – Colleen, Allie and I decided to go for a roommate daytrip to San Gimignano. We had been to this small town with the school program but that was the terribly raining day when no one had umbrellas remember? So we wanted to return and really see this place for what it is: a tiny village of cafes and pottery shops on the top of a hill, notable for its seven tall towers that stand prominently above the Tuscan countryside. The views were even amazing in the rain/fog, so we knew it would be spectacular on this 60-degree beautiful day. Sounds great right? Well, we had to make it there first.
There is a bus that runs every hour from Florence to San Gimignano; we hopped on the 12:40 out of the city, and the information guy at the station told us we had to switch buses in Siena. Or so we thought he said. The ride should take about an hour, he told us. We were excited and chatty, boarding the bus then putting on our ipods to relax and take in the countryside on our way. At some point, we stopped in a town called Poggibonsi, where the station hosted signs saying a bus to San Gimignano would leave from there in the next ten minutes. We were indecisive and finally stayed on our bus, since we’d been told to switch only in Siena. As the bus pulled away, we watched the signs for San Gimignano (only 12 kilometers away) fly by and disappear as signs for Siena cropped up – about 25 kilometers away…And suddenly we were no longer in small towns, but back on a highway, heading for Siena and clearly away from our destination. Confused, we pulled out ipod headphones off and started to get annoyed. Where are we going? Why was San Gimignano the other way? We finally reached Siena and I asked our bus driver which bus to take to San Gimignano. He looked at me funny and said the town had been a long time ago, we were supposed to get off and switch in Poggibonsi. Fabulous. He flagged down a passing bus that read “San Gimignano” on its front, we scrambled off and fled across the middle of the road to our new bus, all its passengers staring at the three American girls running, lost, from bus to bus. Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty-five go by and we are sure we must be close. Suddenly we are in the hills and see a town looking much like San Gimignano atop a hill. This is us! The bus stops at the hill’s bottom and we stay on, thinking it will drive up and stop also at the top. But no, it pulls away and heads back into the main roads, away from San Gimignano. We missed it. AGAIN.
Or so we think. At the next stop, we realized we’d back-tracked to the Poggibonsi area, where this bus again stopped. We got off, thinking we’d have to switch here, and I asked the driver as an after-thought which new bus to take. He gave me a similar look as the other one, and told me to stay on this one – didn’t we see that the front said “San Gimignano”? True, very true. So we got back on and headed towards our town. We sat in the front three seats of the bus and told the driver to tell us, explicitly, when we had reached San Gimignano. The hulking blue bus wound through the beautiful farms and hills, by herds of sheep and little cream-colored villas, and finally – finally – we hit San Gimignano. Three hours after leaving Florence, we hop off the bus, somehow still excited and SO happy to be there. A one hour trip had turned into three, and yet it had been a gorgeous ride and we were all in the confusion together.
We strolled through the single main street of San Gimignano, stopping in ceramic shops and taking note of restaurants for dinner later. At the end of the main road, a gravel path leads visitors to an overlook that looks out at the whole countryside. The sun was out and on this clear day, Italy looked inspired by a postcard. The three of us sat on the edge of the cliff and took in the view, taking pictures of each other finally seated in our little San Gimignano. We walked even further, up to the tower poking above the horizon, where you can climb up and see even better views. Later, we stopped for dinner and had delicious bruschetta, pasta and of course hot chocolate – pure liquid hershey’s in a cup. It was a great reward from our tough travel.
And it wasn’t over yet! Now we had to get back to Florence. Sounds easy enough? Think again. Our driver who finally dropped us off in San Gimignano had told us to switch in Poggibonsi on our way back to Florence. We successfully bought tickets and hopped on the bus to Poggibonsi at 7pm, tired and yearning for home. The bus arrived soon in Poggibonsi, where we got off and saw that a bus left for Florence in ten minutes, at 7:35. Well, 7:35 came and went, and suddenly the Florence bus on the schedule disappeared from the list. No bus ever came. The next was at 8:15. And so we waited, again. At around 8:00, Allie came running up to me from inside the station, with two Italian boys in tow. These buses on the list are only regional, they had told her. What we saw on the bus list that said “Firenze” – or Florence – was only a street in a small nearby town called “Strada via Firenze.” The next bus to Florence was in over an hour, at 9:15. But, good news! We could also take a train, if we wanted, and they would even help us buy our tickets from the Italian-language machine. There was no way we were waiting another hour for a bus, and so we relented. It turned out one of the guys was American and the other Italian – they were Mormon missionaries on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ throughout Italy. Apparently, their mission extends to helping lost American girls buy train tickets back home. They were very helpful in their spiffy matching suits, and shook our hands politely before leaving. And so we waited, again. Half an hour until our train, and this time, we were getting on the right one and going HOME. We sat alone in the station playing word games on a cold bench, until a group of four Italian men walked in carrying about two bottles of champagne and wine in their pockets. A few yards away, they popped them open and joked with one another in Italian, laughing and peeking over at us, sad and tired on our bench. Finally, the crew walked over with plastic cups and asked if we’d like a drink. Why, yes! We were enthusiastic. They popped open a new bottle of champagne right there and poured us each a generous cup. It was a good end to a long day, as we hopped on the train back to Florence with our new friends and spent the ride sharing their wine (which, interestingly, they actually made themselves) and communicating in a fun mix of Italian, English and Colleen’s Spanish. After a disastrous two trips, it actually ended up being a really fun day. We were finally heading back to Florence, and this time there was champagne. Phew!
So now it’s Sunday and we are beat from a long weekend. My roomie Brooke from GW had visited on Friday and we had a great time hanging out at a club we frequent in Florence. Good times and a familiar face! Today, I’ll be holing up in the apartment to finish my art work for Sketching class, maybe watch a movie, and eventually venture out to buy groceries. Only another week and a half until spring break!
There is a bus that runs every hour from Florence to San Gimignano; we hopped on the 12:40 out of the city, and the information guy at the station told us we had to switch buses in Siena. Or so we thought he said. The ride should take about an hour, he told us. We were excited and chatty, boarding the bus then putting on our ipods to relax and take in the countryside on our way. At some point, we stopped in a town called Poggibonsi, where the station hosted signs saying a bus to San Gimignano would leave from there in the next ten minutes. We were indecisive and finally stayed on our bus, since we’d been told to switch only in Siena. As the bus pulled away, we watched the signs for San Gimignano (only 12 kilometers away) fly by and disappear as signs for Siena cropped up – about 25 kilometers away…And suddenly we were no longer in small towns, but back on a highway, heading for Siena and clearly away from our destination. Confused, we pulled out ipod headphones off and started to get annoyed. Where are we going? Why was San Gimignano the other way? We finally reached Siena and I asked our bus driver which bus to take to San Gimignano. He looked at me funny and said the town had been a long time ago, we were supposed to get off and switch in Poggibonsi. Fabulous. He flagged down a passing bus that read “San Gimignano” on its front, we scrambled off and fled across the middle of the road to our new bus, all its passengers staring at the three American girls running, lost, from bus to bus. Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty-five go by and we are sure we must be close. Suddenly we are in the hills and see a town looking much like San Gimignano atop a hill. This is us! The bus stops at the hill’s bottom and we stay on, thinking it will drive up and stop also at the top. But no, it pulls away and heads back into the main roads, away from San Gimignano. We missed it. AGAIN.
Or so we think. At the next stop, we realized we’d back-tracked to the Poggibonsi area, where this bus again stopped. We got off, thinking we’d have to switch here, and I asked the driver as an after-thought which new bus to take. He gave me a similar look as the other one, and told me to stay on this one – didn’t we see that the front said “San Gimignano”? True, very true. So we got back on and headed towards our town. We sat in the front three seats of the bus and told the driver to tell us, explicitly, when we had reached San Gimignano. The hulking blue bus wound through the beautiful farms and hills, by herds of sheep and little cream-colored villas, and finally – finally – we hit San Gimignano. Three hours after leaving Florence, we hop off the bus, somehow still excited and SO happy to be there. A one hour trip had turned into three, and yet it had been a gorgeous ride and we were all in the confusion together.
We strolled through the single main street of San Gimignano, stopping in ceramic shops and taking note of restaurants for dinner later. At the end of the main road, a gravel path leads visitors to an overlook that looks out at the whole countryside. The sun was out and on this clear day, Italy looked inspired by a postcard. The three of us sat on the edge of the cliff and took in the view, taking pictures of each other finally seated in our little San Gimignano. We walked even further, up to the tower poking above the horizon, where you can climb up and see even better views. Later, we stopped for dinner and had delicious bruschetta, pasta and of course hot chocolate – pure liquid hershey’s in a cup. It was a great reward from our tough travel.
And it wasn’t over yet! Now we had to get back to Florence. Sounds easy enough? Think again. Our driver who finally dropped us off in San Gimignano had told us to switch in Poggibonsi on our way back to Florence. We successfully bought tickets and hopped on the bus to Poggibonsi at 7pm, tired and yearning for home. The bus arrived soon in Poggibonsi, where we got off and saw that a bus left for Florence in ten minutes, at 7:35. Well, 7:35 came and went, and suddenly the Florence bus on the schedule disappeared from the list. No bus ever came. The next was at 8:15. And so we waited, again. At around 8:00, Allie came running up to me from inside the station, with two Italian boys in tow. These buses on the list are only regional, they had told her. What we saw on the bus list that said “Firenze” – or Florence – was only a street in a small nearby town called “Strada via Firenze.” The next bus to Florence was in over an hour, at 9:15. But, good news! We could also take a train, if we wanted, and they would even help us buy our tickets from the Italian-language machine. There was no way we were waiting another hour for a bus, and so we relented. It turned out one of the guys was American and the other Italian – they were Mormon missionaries on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ throughout Italy. Apparently, their mission extends to helping lost American girls buy train tickets back home. They were very helpful in their spiffy matching suits, and shook our hands politely before leaving. And so we waited, again. Half an hour until our train, and this time, we were getting on the right one and going HOME. We sat alone in the station playing word games on a cold bench, until a group of four Italian men walked in carrying about two bottles of champagne and wine in their pockets. A few yards away, they popped them open and joked with one another in Italian, laughing and peeking over at us, sad and tired on our bench. Finally, the crew walked over with plastic cups and asked if we’d like a drink. Why, yes! We were enthusiastic. They popped open a new bottle of champagne right there and poured us each a generous cup. It was a good end to a long day, as we hopped on the train back to Florence with our new friends and spent the ride sharing their wine (which, interestingly, they actually made themselves) and communicating in a fun mix of Italian, English and Colleen’s Spanish. After a disastrous two trips, it actually ended up being a really fun day. We were finally heading back to Florence, and this time there was champagne. Phew!
So now it’s Sunday and we are beat from a long weekend. My roomie Brooke from GW had visited on Friday and we had a great time hanging out at a club we frequent in Florence. Good times and a familiar face! Today, I’ll be holing up in the apartment to finish my art work for Sketching class, maybe watch a movie, and eventually venture out to buy groceries. Only another week and a half until spring break!
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