Tis’ the season

Somehow time has raced by, and now we are coming into our week of mid-terms. And then in less then two weeks I will be going back to Domodossola with Estefani to spend Christmas with her Italian family!

It is pretty cold here now, and it is only going to get colder. I need to invest in some warmer clothes, but it is somewhat obnoxious having to buy all of these things knowing it will only get insanely hot again come summer. And then what to do with all of these cold weather clothes I have bought here? I could bring some back of course, but I wouldn’t be able to bring back everything. It would just be too much..

On Thursday our school threw a holiday banquet, and we all gave each other gifts by doing a Secret Santa. It was fun, and surprisingly the caterers were serving wine, but a lot of people couldn’t quite keep themselves together and so it ended fairly early. But it was definitely fun watching our director bust out some moves with some of the students! Haha, sigh, what to do..

My friend Rachel is coming to visit me in January! After I get back from London with Ginny. If I haven’t already mentioned it, I booked a trip to London for NYE with my friend Ginny! Quite exciting. I really want to see the fireworks display over the London Eye. Can’t wait! And then when I get back Rachel will be here and we are trying to plan on going somewhere together. We are thinking Amsterdam, but considering the short amount of time we have and how complicated it can be to just get into the city center of Amsterdam, I might try and suggest going somewhere else.

There is an adorable little holiday market going on in Piazza Santa Croce (the nearest square to my house) and it has food and merchandise from Germany, England, Holland and France. They have some really nice slippers and hats, and I am thinking I need to get me one of dems. It is too cold! And especially where I am going for Christmas. I can’t wait to play in the snow! They live where it snows, and I am so excited. I haven’t been able to play in the snow on Christmas since living in Washington. Mmmhmm… sledding:)   (Frank Sinatra- White Christmas)

Although the winter is cold, and there are lots of grey days that seem long and dreary, I just keep in mind that I have a feeling spring is going to be wonderful and it is going to be so nice and warm. I can’t wait for spring and summer, to travel around, and be able to wear dresses again!

La mattina con il arcobaleno

This morning my friend Jackie and I finally went and checked out this big outdoor market here in Florence called “Il Mercato del Cascine,” and since nine am this morning on my day has been great! I feel compelled to write about today because of some things I encountered, but also because of how they made me feel, which reminds me- I haven’t written a lot yet about the aesthetics of being here in Italy. I have mentioned when things are beautiful or eye catching from time to time, but I haven’t delved into my reactions and feelings as much as I would have liked. So! from here on out I am going to attempt to write about the way these things make me feel, as to hopefully record more of these moments actively, instead of passively…

So this morning while Jackie and I were walking along the river Arno, the sun decided to poke its way through the mass of grey clouds overhead  to reveal a spectacular rainbow. It was so vivid and beautiful; it stretched across the river and over some surrounding buildings. We managed to take pictures under the rainbow, after it stopped raining so hard. And then when we thought it couldn’t be any more beautiful, a second rainbow formed alongside of the first! So cool! I must sound like such a huge dork, but seeing these rainbows made me feel so happy. And over the picturesque Arno, it was a sight for sore eyes indeed. It was such a perfect morning. Here I am, hardly having just risen from bed, walking along the Arno in Florence with my new friend Jackie, and we are greeted by these two amazing rainbows, and a gorgeous ancient landscape. I tell you,  it couldn’t get much better then that.<3 It really made me feel at home, laughing and telling jokes with Jackie along the river. Even looking back on it now it makes me so happy. And it was only this morning! I was trigger happy with my camera, snapping pictures left and right like a tourist. I guess I still am partly a tourist, I have only been here three months, but I like to think I am little bit above the stereotype of the starry eyed tourist, or so I hope:-P

The market was awesome as well; it stretched on for days and we spent almost three hours there! I found lots of little things to send people back home per Natale (Xmas) and some things I wanted, like rainboots, etc. All for so cheap, quite exciting. I sure love me some bargains!:)

Overall, the moral of this post: I need to take more morning walks!

Ciao Diciembre!  Arrivederci amici e famiglia!

Giving thanks for two Thanksgivings!

Thanksgiving in Italy was actually much more successful then I thought it would be; We ended up having two Thanksgivings because some friends from school had a Thanksgiving dinner at their place last Saturday, and then my household decided to have our own yesterday. We decorated our living room with lots of Christmas lights to make the atmosphere more festive, since of course Italians do not celebrate Thanksgiving, and so we couldn’t find Thanksgiving decorations. But my roommate had the ingenious idea (which yes, I mocked a little bit at first) to make turkey hands just like we used to in elementary school. ( I only thought that the turkey hands wouldn’t be successful because I wasn’t sure how cool our friends actually were, but I have to say that the fact that they were down to make them gave me hope for the upcoming year. We are among good people:)) We put them up on the wall for some home made love!

So we made turkey hands and toasted to being in Italy. My roommates and I made a pumpkin pie, roasted a chicken and made mashed potatoes. Some other foods people brought to our Thanksgiving potluck included: another tasty chicken, a walnut, cranberry and gorgonzola salad, potatoes with cheese, marinated greenbeans, bruschetta, and stuffing.  For dessert we had pumpkin pie, a chocolate panatone (tall cake like thing they sell here around the holidays) called “Ciocco Party” haha and rice crispy treats! It was a great turn out and everybody felt the holiday spirit and felt a little closer to home:)

The other Thanksgiving we went to on Saturday was really nice as well. There was a lot more food there, and it was all so amazing. At both Thanksgivings everybody really came together and took their cooking responsibilities  seriously, and we all feasted quite well.  Our friends who had us over on Saturday had a really nice atmosphere for the holiday as well because their walls are painted a warm, light orange and their couches are a deep red color. Very fitting for autumn. They were actually able to make a turkey and it felt a lot more like Thanksgiving, but I have to say- our christmas lights and vibe we had going on was pretty awesome. Our friends who came have been telling us all day of how much fun they had, and I am really glad we could provide a little piece of home, away from home!

After spending a few hours at home mingling and eating with everyone, we decided to go out to some local spots by our house. We discovered this really awesome little place called “Angie’s Pub.” Quite ironic that it is called Angie’s pub, since one of my best friend’s back home is named Angie! It is such a cool little place too, very artsy and divey. There is back room with a bar and dance space, and all kinds of unique art all over the walls. The people who work there are really friendly too, which is a nice chance. Surprisingly enough it is hard to find people that are nice to Americans, because the majority of us don’t know how to keep it together and are typically loud and rude.

So it is nice to have a place close to our house where they aren’t as judgemental as others can be, and I think it helps a lot that we try and speak with them in Italian, because believe it or not, a lot of American students come here and don’t care to learn the language! Such a shame, because I think that Italian is a very beautiful language, and I am really happy to be learning it.

After going out late, we came home and slept in this morning. There is a place down the street from our house (apparently we live in a very central location, which has its pros and cons) called The Diner and is modeled after Diner’s back home in America. It actually doesn’t look anything like a classic Diner inside, it is actually pretty classy with nice bright walls and Jazz music playing in the background, but they serve classic American food like pancakes and burgers. So this morning (or afternoon rather) we decided to try it out and it was honestly kind of strange eating there! It was the first time I had eaten a burger in three months, and it felt a little  out of place haha! Having a burger in Italy?? But it was pretty awesome nonetheless, because honestly, one of the things I miss the most about home is being able to talk with friends over greasy diner food the morning after a crazy night out. Felt really awesome to do that once again, and my friend is friend’s with the guy who runs the place! And so he was really nice to us, and we stayed until “Happy Hour” and were treated with complimentary mimosas. All in all, it has been a great past couple of days.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! Hope everbody’s Thanksgiving was the best that it could possibly be<3

Florence is starting to feel like home

Since getting back from PLP break we have started our fall semester. I am taking “Early Renaissance Art,” “Museum Studies: The Uffizi,” and “Florentine Architecture” as well as the mandatory Italian Grammar and Italian Reading and Conversation courses. So with a total of five classes I have found myself quite busy, and I am enjoying them pretty well. For my Museum Studies class we are taught by one of the five curators at the Uffizi- the Uffizi is a world renowned Museum here in Florence. It is incredibly famous and houses some of the most famous Renaissance artworks in the world. Some pieces that can be found there include: Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” and “Primavera.” The Museum also has works by Michelangelo, Raffaello, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Giotto. A few weeks ago we got to go on our own private tour through the Museum on a Monday (the day the Museum is closed for restoration and work purposes) and it was quite mindblowing seeing that place practically empty. Thousands of people go through there each day, and we got to go through as a class of twenty, with no one else around! There were only a few restoration teams, archaelologists and curators running around doing their jobs. So cool!

I am enjoying my other classes pretty well, but they aren’t incredibly exciting. It is hard to pay attention sometimes beacuse most of my teachers are from Italy and don’t speak English wonderfully, and so they talk very slow and are hard to follow. I am working on some strategies so that I can better pay attention in class, because sometimes it is practically torture. Another thing that is somewhat frustrating is that because I am taking all art classes, and a lot of the classes visit sites around Florence, I am going to have to visit certain sites multiple times that cost money. So I am going to have to pay to see the same thing over and over, and that is going to build up. Kind of upsetting, not that I don’t want to see the sites, but I wish they could collaborate more to save us some money.

Last week I had my friend from England come and visit. His name is Kieran and I met him a long time ago on a cruise that my family and I took around New England and Nova Scotia. It is pretty cool that we have been able to keep in touch for so long, and it was really fun hosting him around Florence. He had never been here, and there is a lot to show those who have never visited Florence. I have been wondering what I can do with my love of tour guiding, aside from being a tour guide of course. I wonder how I could make better money off of that..?

Last weekend our school took us on another trip, to Northern Italy. We went to: Verona, Mantova, Vicenza and Padova. We stayed two nights in Padova, and went around to the other cities throughout the weekend. There was so much to do and see; they always pack so much into our trips that we are always incredibly overwhelmed and exhausted by the end. But this was the first full weekend trip, and although it was quite long, I really enjoyed it. We got to go to this amazing outdoor market in Verona, which wasn’t necessarily what we went there for, but it was so amazing and all of the food was sooo good! Verona has a beautiful ampitheater, that looks a lot like a smaller version of the Colosseum, and among many other things, an awesome Castle called “CastelVecchio” (Old Castle).  The Castle is interesting because a modern architect was recruited to restore parts of the Castle, and managed to incorporate modern pieces and architecture into the ancient Castle, and it happens to work and flow amazingly well. It is mostly made out of red brick, and the architect (Carlo Scarpa) used a lot of dark wood and iron to make walls, rails, doors, etc. that work surprisingly well with the old styles of the Castle.

Also in Verona is where you can find Juliet’s balcony, from the story of Romeo and Juliet, because fair Verona is where the story takes place. Is is quite a beauitful, quaint little town, and I liked it very much. Beneath Juliet’s balcony is a golden statue of her, where tourists bombard one another to take pictures of themselves holding her right breast (for good luck more or less.)

On Saturday (since we did Verona all of Friday because we left Florence at 7:30 am!) our school went to Vicenza, which some friends and I skipped out on to go to Venice:-P Venice is a 3 Euro train ride away from Padova (where our hotel was) and so we could not pass that up. It is very expensive to get to Venice from Florence, and there happened to be this amazing art show called “La Biennale” going on. La Biennale is a biannual art show held in Venice, and other cities around the world, and it is very large and famous. It is situated in this beautiful garden and consists of many different small buildings that house exhibits from countries all over the world. Essentially, it is a massive Multi-national Modern Art Show, and it is amazing! It only goes until next weekend and I am so happy that my friend’s roommate told us about it, because it was too cool! Thank you Veronica!

Anyways, We spent most of our day wandering around Venice trying to find this thing, and when we finally did we got to see most of the main exhibition, but there was still a lot left to see by the time it closed. Yoko Ono had an exhibit there, but of course it was incredibly plain and lackluster. Compared to the life-size, man-eating, ceramic flowers and haunted house like exhibits, it was nothing. She typed some “Words to live by” on pieces of paper and put them up on a wall. Wow, way to go Yoko. You ruined the Beatles.

I wish I could explain some of the artwork, but it was just too far out that explaining any of it would make me sound straight up crazy. My favorite one though was one that someone turned into a house of en erotic writer. You walk around the “house,” and bits and pieces of his house gave you an insight to his life. The first thing you see when you enter this exhibit is  a small pool out front of the house, where the previous owner is laying face down, drowned fully clothed in his business suit. His shoes are sitting on the edge of the pool to make it appear more like he drowned himself. Then you walk into his bizarre, mostly glass house, to discover he is homosexual and an erotic writer. He has a large frame full of men’s labeled underwear, with the different names of his models/ lovers. His bed is inlaid in the floor and has condoms on the side table. His house is mostly barren with his office, bed, and kitchen in opposing corners.

The most interesting thing about the house was his desk- typically askew with an array of crumbled pieces of paper strewn about, supposedly his displeasing works, and his typewriter with the beginnings of his autobiography still in place. He had pictures of naked men and random knick knacks lain about, and it was somewhat disturbing, but all together intriguing; I really enjoyed how they made a story out of still life and how much it resonated with me. It was quite a creative idea and I wish I could talk to the person who created it.

The day in Venice was wonderful, and it as great to see all of my friend’s reactions, because none of them had been there before. Venice is an gorgeous city, and it is unexpectedly awe inspiring (to say the least) whilst visiting it for the first time.

Mantova and Padova were beautiful as well, but couldn’t quite compare to Verona and Venice. We visited some spectacular churches and palaces, which were quite amazing, but it does get a little old when that is all you see, time after time. After 20 or 30 churches, 10 to 15 palaces, you get the picture. They had shit ton of money, and didn’t give many of the slaves/artists any credit or recognition. In Mantova we visited Palazzo Te, which I have to say has one of the most beautiful wall paintings I have yet to see. It has a room called “The Room of the Giants” and the paintings literally take up all of the space on the walls, giving the room a neverending feel. You cannot detect any definition in the walls, and it was the first we had seen like this. All of the other paintings on the walls of palaces and churches are framed, or limited, whereas the room of the giants was not. I will post a picture of it, since I took some discreetly because we weren’t supposed to, and hopefully you can get an idea of how it feels to be inside.

When the weekend finally came to a close, it felt so good to be back in Florence. Each time we go traveling, I end up missing Florence, and it is starting to feel more and more like home.

Well time to go be more productive. Ciao ciao for now

PLP Break in Sicilia

I just got home from being in Sicily for a week for our PLP (Preparatory Language Program) break. We had been in this program for two months and so now it is over and we have begun our fall semester today.
Sicily, Sicily, Sicily…where do I begin? I guess I will take it day by day and do my best to recall all the craziness that went down,

Last Friday (the day after my 22nd birthday) after the last final exams, my friends: Liz, Estefani, Jackie, Ginny and I took a three hr train to Rome to stay the night there, because our flight to Palermo (the capital of Sicily) left out of Rome the next morning. We booked our flight from Rome to Palermo because it was the most economical, and to go anywhere you pretty much have to leave out of one of the larger cities, like Rome or Milan. So we stayed in Rome Friday night and took it pretty easy, since our flight left at seven am the next morning and we had to be up by four. Yes, four am. The next morning we woke up and successfully made it to the airport and into Palermo. I fell asleep and missed the spectacular arrival (there is a view of a beautiful mountain when landing in Palermo) but luckily my friend took pictures:) We found a hostel and stayed in Palermo for one night, unexpectedly though because we were intially supposed to stay with someone in a near by town and couch surf for two nights. When we arrived we called him but he didn’t call us until much later, after we already decided to get some rooms at a hostel and spend the day there instead.
Palermo is not the most beautiful Sicilian city, but it does have it’s perks. We found an amazing cafe with awesome food, coffee, and sweets for very cheap, right on the main drag!
Our hostel was kind of eccentric, with palms trees and random art inside by the front desk. I read that is was suppsedly once a palace of some of the ancestors of the current owner. It was decorated with strange art, something of which we noticed were that there were unique metal chandeliers scattered around the place.
That night we met some other travelers and went out to dinner at this loud, very Sicilian restaurant, where I tried anchovies for the first time. I didn’t actually mean to order a pizza with anchovies on it, but it was a somewhat pleasant surprise and was something new and exciting I didn’t expect to do! Anchovies are a big thing in Sicily, same with Arancini (fried spherical things that are filled with rice, meat and cheese. They look like oranges, hence the name Arancini, the word for oranges in Italian.) Aside from having beautiful beaches, crazy drivers, and people that exhibit darker features then those in Northern Italy, Sicily is also known for it’s strange marionettes, ceramic arts, Cathedrals, mosaics, ancient ruins, and Europe’s tallest active Volcano- Mt. Etna.

Our hostel was located on a nightlife street where many loud clubs and bars are located. Strangely enough, we hardly saw any tourists (although the bars looked like they definitely catered to tourists) and the street was filled with young Sicilians.

Some words about Sicilian youth and fashion:…What. the. fuck?
As we all know, in some cultures there exists latent (or sometimes not so latent) prejudices, such as things like homophobia or prejudices against people from other backgrounds. And although they are somewhat homophobic in Sicily, they dress very feminine (or at least what we would DEFINITELY consider feminine for men in American culture) and are very affectionate towards one another for being so homophobic . Every day during the evening many Italians and Sicilians take a walk around town and talk about whatever they please, this is called the “Passegiata.” While walking, talking, and observing one another, people traditionally link arms, men included. To greet one another, people kiss each other on their cheeks, as often as we would shake hands in the states. Guys hold each other on their vespas and mopeds. But when talking about gay men or anything to do with homosexuals, people generally gawk with displeasure and usually make stereotypical gestures, or avoid the subject altogether. I have yet to completely understand this “cultural oxymoron,” and will continue on the subject later..

After we were done with Palermo, and weren’t actually able to go and stay with Dario (the guy who was going to host us from Couchsurfing) we were lucky to get in touch with one of my friend’s landlords who is from a little town called Caltagirone in the south east part of Sicily. They had told him that we would be traveling there, and called us just in the nick of time, since we didn’t really know where we were going to go. We had planned to play it by ear, but we had in mind some of the cities we wanted to visit. The south eastern side of Sicily is, in some people’s opinions, the more beautiful part of Sicily, so we were set on going down there. Salvo, Ginny and Jackie’s landlord, insisted we come stay with him so we can use his house as a base, and thus travel from there. He was incredibly hospitable and generous, so much so that he lent us his land rover so that we could drive to the towns we wanted and get the most out of our trip. He saved us so much money, and was so incredibly kind. We only wanted to stay a couple of nights, but he insisted we stay as long as possible so that we could save money on lodging. So we headed down to Caltagirone, which is on the other side of Sicily. It only took us about two and a half hrs by bus, for eleven euro! We were looking at trains initially, because trains are the most common and economical way to travel throughout Europe for the most part, but the train took eight hrs and cost more then the bus! How is that possible?!

Two hours later we arrived in a nearby town to Caltagirone called Piazza Armerina. He picked us up and drove us back to the house we would be staying at, which was in fact a different house down the street from his own, after taking us around his town and showing us around a bit. Caltagirone is called “La citta delle ceramiche”- the city of ceramics. It is a very beautiful, very small town, and literally, everything is decorated with ceramics. The churches have ceramics designs, there are ceramic shops everywhere. The street signs are ceramic, and there are even painted ceramic tiles on parts of the road and sidewalk. It was a really nice little town to call home for our trip, and Salvo has lived there his whole life, and so he knew a lot of nice people and had a good time telling us about his home.

From Caltagirone we drove to a number of towns, one each day until we left on Saturday morning. First we went to Syracusa and Ortigia, one of the larger towns on the south eastern coast of Sicily. Syracusa is famous for it’s ancient Greek ruins and part of town called Ortigia, a small island like annex next to Syracusa, similar to Newport Beach and Balboa Island. Not that the towns are anything like Orange County (in any way!!) but the island is more cutesy then the main city and consists of more expensive housing and tourist shopping. Ortigia has one of the most interesting churches I have visited thus far, although there are so many it is difficult to recall. That church has a specific vibe that I felt much deeper then some of the other churches I had previously visited. The piazza it is located within was spectacularly well kept and white. The marble that was used to construct it was astonishingly white, and because it was later in the day it was fairly empty and quite beautiful. We witnessed a gorgeous sunset and then drove home after a long day. Before going to Ortigia we visited an archaeological site in Syracusa where an ancient Greek theatre is located, as well as a giant cave called “The ear of Dionysus.”

Each day we experienced immense frustation while driving, so I will not discuss this in depth. My friend Jackie was the only one of us who was experienced with driving stick shift, and with the nature of Sicilian driving, one could imagine how crazy it was and how scared we all were for our lives. Jackie did a good job, but we all collectively “drove,” so to speak, otherwise, it was impossible to maneuver those roads! There pretty much aren’t any rules for the road, and people continusouly make alternate lanes and pull crazy moves that you would NEVER see in the US!

Since we were saving so much money we went out to a nice dinner almost every night, and did as much as we could for Salvo, even though he would hardly let us. Sicilians are incredibly nice and friendly, at least all those that we met, but we were told it was apart of the culture and that most people are anyways.

The next day we went to Taormina and Catania. These two cities are close by one another and are considered two of the most imporant places to visit while in Sicily. Catania is the second largest city in Sicily, and Taormina is a small town atop a large mountain that looks out to the sea, and has some of the most beautiful beaches down below along the shore. Many celebrities have stayed in Taormina, including Roald Dahl and Elizabeth Taylor. It is a popular vacation spot because it absolutely gorgeous, and has some very beautiful beaches and ritzy resorts. There is a gorgeous ancient Greek theater there that looks out to the ocean, and a castle at the top of the mountain that has spectacular views around it’s perimeter. We went through the local public gardens, which is definitely one of the most beautiful public gardens I have ever seen. It has a breathtaking view of the coast line down below, as well as old little buildings that give it so much character and charm.

After spending the day in Taormina, eating gelato, and venturing back down the mountain, we headed to Catania and arrived rather late. We went to a castle there, which is a free museum today, and tried to visit the Cathedral, but arrived too late. We had dinner and met up with some friends that we met at our hostel in Palermo, and then headed back to Caltagirone for the night. We missed out on a famous fish market, but hopefully next time I will get to see it, cause Sicily is definitely somewhere I have to go back to!

The next day (last Wednesday) we went to a small town near by called Piazza Armerina. There is a famous villa there that has some cool mosaics, and is famous for it’s well kept mosaic of some ancient women in bikinis in some sort of competition. Unfortunately a lot of the Villa was closed off due to restoration purposes (surprisingly enough, like many tourist sites throughout Europe) and so we said our goodbyes to Liz and went back to Caltagirone for the day. Liz is my roommate who was with us for most of the trip, but left early to head to Milan to visit and friend and see a concert for one of her favorite bands.

On Thursday we went to Mount Etna, and this time Salvo came with us. Since he is a native, he knew where to go so that we wouldn’t have to pay, and still get to see some amaaaaaazing sights. We drove up almost to the top of the mountain/volcano, and hiked up even further to see some craters and some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. Mt. Etna is an active volcano, it’s most recent eruption being just last year. A lot of the mountain is covered mostly in gorgeous trees or lava rock. When it erupted in 2002 it destroyed a restaurant and some buildings that were on it’s northern side. So we hiked up part of this mountain, somewhat fearing for our lives and saying our goodbyes just in case; we hikeu up so high we were above the clouds and it looked like we were seriously on mars. As far as we could see there were just hills and hills of lava rock and clouds, and the moon was visible since it was about 2 or 3 in the afternoon. The peak was covered with snow and the trees were beautiful multicolored for autumn. It was so beautiful, and I cannot believe I actually hiked up an active volcano. It was so quiet and empty up there, I feel like I will never experience anything else like that in my life, and that may be the closest I ever get to feeling like being on another planet…until I actually go to Mars, of course;) On the way up the mountain we stopped amidst some gorgeous yellow trees and collected chestnuts to roast later, since we got so pro at that while visiting Estefani’s family in Domodossola :-p

The next day we relaxed in Caltagirone, cleaned, and made cards for Salvo. We restocked some food, toilet paper and beer, and watched some funny Italian tv. The last night we went out to a nice restaurant that we previously visited and really liked, and had a great time talking in Italian and reminsicing of our time in Sicily.

Saturday morning Salvo drove us to the bus station in Piazza Armerina and we said our goodbyes. We left him with a bottle of Jack Daniels and some homemade cards and went on our way back to Palermo.

When we arrived back in Palermo we went back to our same hostel and went out to Aperitivo and spent Halloween in Sicily. (Aperitivo is like Tapas, it is where you pay for a drink and get free food or appetizers.) Since the street our hostel was on is pretty crazy at night, we got to see how Sicilians do Halloween, while sipping Sangria at a latin bar. It was pretty crazy and fun to observe their interpretation of our American Holdiay. I honestly didn’t expect anything to be going on, and to our surprise they did celebrate in a small way with simple costumes and decorations.

While in Palermo we took a bus over to a city called Monreale and visited this famous church. The church is famous for having gold mosaics inlaid throughout all of its walls and ceiling. It was magnificent; one of the only churches I had seen at the time with such an abundance of golden, shimmering artwork.

Yesterday (Sunday) morning we took a train to the airport in Palermo, flew out of Palermo (saw a Pizza vending machine! Yes, it cooks a pizza and vends it to you for five euro! We weren’t the only ones amused by this novelty, fyi) and landed back in Rome, waiting around for about an hr until our train left for Florence. After having woken up at seven am, to arrive at our destination by eight o’clock at night, I was severly exhausted and incredibly happy to be back at home in my bed.

All in all, it was an amazing trip, and it worked out really well. I feel like I was able to get to know, and become closer to, some new friends, and we got incredibly lucky with the housing situation, among many other things. There is SO much that happened, and that is just the skeleton of it all. I may add more later, but for now, I have been typing forever and I need to go and be more productive! Again, my apologies if I misspelled or wrote anything completely wrong.

Ciao ciao for now

Roma Oct.17th and 18th School Trip

I have been so busy that I didn’t get to write about our school’s trip to Roma, so here it goes!

A few weeks ago our school took us to a few cities, and then our last stop was Rome. We spent the night in Rome and left the next day. It was a jam packed weekend and I was dead tired by the end, but it was really awesome to go some of the places we did and see some of the amazing things that we saw.

Our first stop was the Necropolis of Tarquinia. Outside of Tarquinia there are many ancient tombs; they are all underground and fairly small, with paintings and designs that reflect characteristics of the persons who were once buried there. They are all empty, and are constructed to look like little houses. I liked Tarquinia because I had never been to a Necropolis before, but after Tarquinia we went to another Necropolis in Cerveteri, of which I liked a lot better.

The Necropolis of Cerveteri consists of a bunch of above ground huts that are covered in grass and shrubs from years gone by. Many of us believe they look a lot like The Shire from Lord of the Rings:) There are tons of these tombs, none of which have paintings like the ones at Tarquinia, but they are much larger, large enough so that people can go inside and explore. They all look the same for the most part, with the same lay outs, and some are larger then others, and they are all completely made of stone. There was one tomb at Cerveteri that had preserved paintings inside, and it was my favorite because the paintings were still fairly vivid and distinguishable. It is called the “Tomb of the Release” and you can see the paintings through a large glass window. It was insanely fun running around this place, pretending like you were on another planet or had traveled back in time; my roommates and I made a short video, pretending to be in the land of Indiana Jones:) All of the tombs are tombs of the Etruscans (the first people of Italy) and the site is pretty large. There are so many tombs that we were told not all of them have been excavated, even up until today.

Finally after visiting these two places we arrived around seven at night in Rome. We checked into our nicer then expected hotel and got ready to go out. I was beyond exhausted, but went out to a lovely dinner with some friends and toughed it out. For some reason I wasn’t well that night, I think it was from waking up early, doing stuff all day and not eating enough, but I had to call it an early night so that I could feel better for the next eventful day in Rome. I was bummed cause my friends went out and explored, but I really couldn’t do anything I felt so miserable.
But the next morning I felt great from finally getting enough sleep, and went around Rome all day.

 

We visited the Colosseum, The Palatine Ruins, The Pantheon, and many more tourist locations. After we split from our group, some friends and I walked around and explored some random places we hadn’t been. We came across a random small festival at the Piazza di Popolo (sp?) and got some gelato after a loooong day of walking. We left that evening to go back to Florence, and the next week we had finals and finished our PLP, and thus commenced our PLP break!

La Castagnata Coimese

This past weekend I went to Coimo (the town I started out in when I arrived here almost two months ago) to visit Estefani’s family for a “huge festival.” Being from San Francisco I expected quite the party, because they said it was something we “HAD TO COME BACK FOR!” Well, it wasn’t as huge as we expected, but it was far from disappointing. The first night we arrived to learn that the festival went night and day from friday through sunday. In the day time it was a festival of local foods and castagne (Italian for chestnuts), because apparently it is chestnut season, when all of the chestnuts fall from the trees and get roasted by us humans. Local venders were selling all sorts of chestnut products, from chestnut liquor to chestnut soap, and the list goes on and on. There was a whole section of the festival just of people working giant, pan like devices over small fire pits, roasting giant portions of castagne to eventually sell to the townspeople.

Because we were in with the locals, we didn’t pay for anything, which was probably the best part of all! When we arrived Friday night, after having an amazing home cooked Italian meal by Elena’s (Estefani’s distant family) family, we went over to the festival to see what it was really about. After an absolutely horrible, deafening band played, a DJ took the stage and played an array of different genres of music. So weird! The theme of the night was “Far West” with decorations of every country western american stereo-type one could imagine. They played “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” and many more country western classics. It was a straight up hoe down, inch by inch. It took Estefani and I a minute to ease into the situation, because at first we couldn’t help but make fun of this small town party, but after a while we joined in and had ourselves a good ol’ country western time! There just aren’t words to describe.. But after a while, as it got later into the night, the house music came on until we decided to leave and that was a little more tolerable. It seems like even in small-town Italy, just like in small-town America, people seem to favor country music. Who woulda thought?! It was quite the sight to see these Italians, who look so Italian and European on the outside, doing the grapevine and line dancing. Twilight zone, fo sho.

The next day we went to the festival after an epic lunch and were greeted by free wine and castagne. We took a little walk around the town to walk off our immensely full bellies, and meandered around unti dinner time. After dinner we went back to the festival to see that the dance theme had changed to a type of ballroom dance at a different site of the festival. We hung out with the people selling castagne, and Estefani got her chance at trying to work the roasting pans! I took some video of her strugglig with it at first, but she got the hang of it after a while. She did better then I did anyway! I am not an adequate Castagne roaster! I also tried tripe for the first time that night at dinner when Daniela (Estefani’s second aunt) made us minestrone with tripe. I liked it but I couldn’t eat a lot of it cause the consistency (for me at least) takes a little getting used to. It is kinda of chewy and pretty filling.

Basically our trip consisted of us eating a ton of amazing food, wine, and castagne. I was so sleepy all weekend because I was so full all of the time! No complaints, but it was definitely something I wasn’t used to, living the college student life. I wish I could fit more in my stomach, and/or taken some of it back with me!

Next weekend we are going on a fieldtrip to Rome with the school, and then after that is my birthday and our “PLP Break.” We were planning a trip to Greece (some friends and I) but we decided to change those plans for a number of reasons. Mostly because we felt a week wasn’t enough time to explore as many places as we wanted to in Greece for the amount of money it was going to cost. Instead we are looking into Puglia, a region in the south of Italy that is still warm and very beautiful. We are going to go around and explore the towns of Puglia for a week more of less until school starts up again on Nov. 2nd.

It was a really nice weekend but I need a break. I keep going out of town for the weekend, and the next two weeks are pretty much the same thing, so when we get back from break I think I am gonna take it easy for a while.

Ciao ciao amori!