19

(Venice part two)

This is the kind of gross weather we woke up to on Saturday morning, though I had the true joy of experiencing it firsthand during the middle of the night.

We took a boat (photo is inside the boat) early morning to Murano, which is the island where the glass is made. We went to the factory and watched them do a demonstration (really cool) before going to the showroom where the guys tried to sell us everything under the sun. Thank you, but I do not need to buy a dancing horse made out of glass. I'm afraid it would clash with my living room. Or something like that. I did buy myself a ring though, which I think is pretty.

After that we went to Torcello, which is one of the barely inhabited islands. It has a really old church with really old mosaics though so apparently it was worth a visit. I've seen quite a lot of really old stuff on this trip so far. I have to say that island was fairly disgusting. Apparently part of the reason it was orginially abandoned was thanks to malaria from the mosquitoes, which I totally understand. I'm covered in bites at the moment and have been since the moment I arrived in Florence. I literally have a bite on my pinkie. How is that even possible?

We went to Burano after Torcello. It's an adorable island where all the houses are different colors. Legend says that because it's an island of fishermen. Apparently the fishermen used to get very drunk on their days off and wake up the next morning in the wrong bed in the wrong house. Interesting story anyway.

The island is famous for its lace, which is sold everywhere. It is not however famous for winding alleyways, which made stealth mode that much more difficult. We hid in a store for a while and ventured into residential courtyards, but by far the best moment of stealth was hiding in a corner and having the people walk by and not even notice us. I must have been a spy in a previous life, because that is skill. Three of us managed to escape again. We had lunch and did some shopping before having to leave that island. As we were leaving the sun came out in full force and the day became absolutely beautiful. And for the record, in one of the shops an old woman making lace informed me that my Italian was very good.

We then had the option to be dropped off at Lido, which is an island with a beach. I of course took this option (never one to miss a beach) and so did my four close friends and another guy. We had actually bought swimsuits the day before in Venice as none of us knew we even had a beach option until we got there. It was a bit interesting as we had to change in the middle of the beach and had no towels (just a map to put our stuff on), but the beach had beautiful fine soft sand. The water was surprisingly shallow and full of crabs, which was nerve-wracking. We ended up lying on some rocks and just chatting for a couple of hours, which was really nice.

Before leaving the island we stopped at a grocery store. A real grocery store that was really big (first big grocery store of the trip) and picked up cheese and bread and fruit for dinner. We caught the equivalent of the bus back to the main island (a boat) and ate on the side of a church in St. Mark's square, as seen below. It was a really cool thing to do, with all the people to watch and such, not that we were technically allowed to do that (so said the trash cans).

We wandered some more afterwards and took showers before going on a gondola ride at about 10pm. This was without a doubt my favorite part of the trip, thanks to the perfect time of day. The gondolier said he had been doing this job for 19 years and was the 7th generation to do so in his family, which is pretty incredible. The canals were so quiet when we went through them. He pointed out Marco Polo's house, Casanova's house, and said the area we went through was one of his favorite districts. We passed several former palaces having parties. That is the kind of Venice I would want to get to know. It's why I think I would like the city more in the dead of winter. Though it's the flooding season, I think seeing the city with less people, more quiet would be amazing. Maybe that's just the kind of person I am.

We walked back to the hotel afterwards next to one of the smaller canals. A speedboat with two boys and loud music came by and actually began to pull over for us to get on. We hesitated and didn't. I can't decide if that was the worst decision of my life or the best. On one hand cruising around Venice in a speedboat with a couple of Italian boys, loud music playing sounds like a pretty amazing night. On the other, they could have drowned us in a canal or something. I think I'm going to have to call not getting on the boat a bad decision. Damn.

The next morning the group was going on a tour of the Jewish ghetto. I skipped that with a friend and the two of us wandered around the city some more. We saw the Bridge of Sighs, which was a serious disappointment as it was covered in advertising. Boo city of Venice for that major failure. I did some minor shopping. We went back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit (I acutally got to read some of my book), before heading as a group again on a boat and then on a bus back to Florence.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good weekend.

18

Venice (day one)

We left early on Friday morning and took a bus to outside the city and then a boat to the place in the above photo. Our hotel was just around the corner. As a note of interest, Venice has 217 churches.

The rooming situation was interesting. The four girls I'm good friends with were in one room and I was in an adjoining room with three people I am not so fond of. One of which was the annoying girl from Rome last weekend. Another was a different girl who talks too much. And the third was the girl who drank far too much when we were in Elba, though she went off with other friends most of the time, so that was okay.

As for the other two, the weekend turned into a giant game of hide and seek -- except they didn't know that we were playing. More like run away and hide from them I guess. We termed it "Stealth Mode." Venice is the perfect city for playing that because it's all tiny alleyways and canals. All we had to do was walk quickly and keep making turns.

In the process of getting ourselves lost we discovered a submarine in the Grand Canal. Interesting. And a giant chair thing. I'm not really sure what it is. I'd guess an art project though. Venice was full of different small art exhibits (and big ones of course) all over the place. I was surprised by it actually.

This is view from the bridge from the Accademia over the Grand Canal. Venice is beautiful with views like this, but the city wasn't quite what I had expected after hearing person after person fall in love with it. I found the city somewhat sad instead. The entire place is mobbed with tourists, from all over the world. There are just people everywhere. It felt more like a zoo exhibit than an actually place. I know some people live there, but I guess they're more like caged animals in a city like that.

We visited the Peggy Guggenheim museum that afternoon as a group. It's a museum of modern art that Peggy collected over her lifetime, set in the house she renovated for it and to live in. I'm not a huge fan of modern art, but it was interesting to hear the stories of how she had collected these things, who she was friends with, and why she had designed rooms in certain ways.

My favorite part of the museum was the sculpture garden, though not for the sculpture. Apparently Yoko Ono donated a tree for the purpose of people making wishes. You can see it in the picture above. Basically people write their wishes on pieces of paper and attach them to the tree. At the end of the day the museum collects them and sends them back to Yoko Ono. It's a really cool idea. The wish above was definitely one of the more interesting. Quite a lot of them were for things like health and happiness. I did of course leave my wish, but we all know that if I tell it won't come true.

Another interesting part of the garden was her throne. Apparently she used to sit on it in the garden wearing giant sunglasses and watching the people who came to visit. One day I hope to be able to be that eccentric. For now I'll settle for mimicking it.

After the museum we walked to the Rialto, which is the famous bridge over the Grand Canal. Once again pretty but mobbed with people. Three of us managed to get ourselves lost again and separate from the annyoing ones for dinner, which we had on a bridge by one of the small canals. And yes, it did smell. Ew. Expensive food too. So expensive.

We wandered again for a while after dinner and found an amazing wine shop by the hotel. Sort of wine shop/bar really. There was an old man behind the counter who was so helpful. He got us a bottle of chilled Prosecco and recommend a red wine that he let us taste before buying. The best part was his friend who was there though. I kind of wish he was my grandfather - he was that cool. He started talking to us about where we were from and what we were doing and such. Except he would repeat what we said and add "Wooow" to the end. For everything we said. Absolutely hilarious. He was somewhat hard to understand at times though because of his accent. I'm assuming it was a Venetian accent since that's where he's from. He actually used to be an architect. Venice is a pretty cool city to be an architect in.

After that we sat for a while in the hotel garden, drinking our wine and such, before going to bed early. Not that it mattered since I had one of the worst nights of sleep I've ever had. Definitely in the top 5 worst anyway. It poured with rain and thunderstormed all night. I was in a cot under the eaves in an attic style room. I was rained on. Inside. The roof leaked on my face in the middle of the night. I woke up to a strange ticking sort of noise and rolled over to discover it was dripping on my face. Horrible, horrible way to sleep. I had to move my bed at 3am and then sleep on a wet pillow. Ugh. Stupid hotel.

I'll do day two in the next post.

17

Basically this was the only reason worth getting up so far today. Thank god for cappuccinos with breakfast, and happy designs drawn in.

I was up at 7am this morning to help out a friend. She's applying to be the fourth Fanta girl, and I'm doing the filming of the video for her. We were at the Duomo bright and early, so we could film without lots of people in the background.

I got back, napped, and got on the computer to find horrible things going on in my bank account. Someone somehow got my debit card number and charged a flight in Africa and two enormous phone bills to the account. With that and the overdraft/charge fees, I was $900 short. It's all sorted out now, but I had to make a whole host of phone calls (including to the parents at 5am their time -- sorry!). Hopefully it will all be okay by the time I get back home. Luckily I have another account with another bank.

Anyway, that drama made me late to Italian class and I missed giving a presentation. Then I did badly on a quiz thanks to not studying at my usual time because of the card stuff. Then I had another presentation that the professor somewhat debated to my face.

All in all, not the greatest day. Not the worst either though since everything will be okay. Kind of just a pain. Tomorrow though I leave bright and early for Venice, which is going to be absolutely amazing. Thank goodness.

16

Yesterday was La Festa di San Giovanni (The Festival of Saint John). He's the patron Saint of the city so the whole day was a party. There was a parade in the morning that my lazy sleepy self missed. There was one in the afternoon that was apparently better though and we went to that. It was the parade leading up to the Calcio Storico (which literally translates into historical soccer, but that's not a good way to describe it). Basically teams from the neighborhoods of the city (Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce, etc) play "soccer" against each other. This year the two teams that made it to the final were the Rosso (red) and Azzurro (blue), which is why the guy above is holding a blue soccer ball and a red soccer ball. The costumes are the "storico" part.

Full armor, drums, trumpets, flutes, cannons, crossbows, flag twirling people. Basically one of the coolest parades I've seen in a long time. Especially because everyone follows after it, going to the Calcio Storico, which is the actually match.

This is the red team. I do not support the red team because they blue team was much more attractive. They were the Italian boys I had been looking for. The question now is where I can find them from here. The red team was more on the scary side. As in beat you into the ground-scruffy-tattooed scary. Boo red team. Fanatic fans though, since the team is neighborhood. The guy's arm in the photo of the red team is actually with tattoos for the neighborhood and the entire Calcio Storico event. That's devotion.

The red team absolutely slaughtered the blue team though. 14.5 to 3.5. Booooo. They probably won because of the scary thing though. "Soccer" is not soccer as we know it. I'd actually say it's a lot closer to rugby. There were about fifty guys on the field, along with a few referees and about eight EMTs (the Italian equivalent anyway). All wearing the strange historical pants. The beautiful players all shirtless. The guys are allowed to do basically anything it takes to get the ball to the end of the field and put the ball over the wall. And the other team being allowed to do anything to stop them.

We have to do interviews each week for my Italian class and yesterday we had to ask about the festival. I talked with two police officers with two friends. In the words of the policeman (loosely translated): the soccer game is just a cover for the young guys from rival neighborhoods to beat each other up. Seriously. Guys just run at each other. They ignore the ball at somepoints and just beat on someone. Guys are in rather compromising positions all over the field, holding each other down so they don't jump on the person with the ball. Two guys were carried off the field on stretchers. Some other people from our group watched a guys hand get bent backwards and cut spurt everywhere.

Basically it was the most amazing yet bizarre sport I've ever seen. I'll have to steal a video a friend took to show the real way the game works. Not that we ever figured out what the half points were.

There were fireworks later in the evening, but of course we missed them because we were at dinner. Technically I was waiting for other people to get their second courses. I'm actually really disappointed about missing them because I love fireworks. Seeing them over the Arno would have been amazing, but it would have been ruder for me to tell everyone to finish their dinners or eat only one course or something else presumptious like that. Shame really.

15

Ah, Roma.

Three of us visited this weekend. We left Florence bright and early and took the long train (four hours) to Rome. We booked into a hotel that others from our group had booked, which turned out to be a disaster. It was a really nice hotel, but was a twenty minute cab ride outside the city, which is useless when you want to actually visit historical places. After quite a bit of arguing with the hotel, we managed to cancel our reservation and move to a hotel in a much better location (thanks to booking.com). Just the three of us moved.

The second hotel was nothing special, but well located not more than a fifteen minute walk from most of the stuff we wanted to visit. We nicknamed it Guantanamo Bay though thanks to some interesting security measures. Our room was on the fourth floor. We had to walk up one set of stairs outside the hotel lobby, go through a first door, walk up another three flights of stairs, unlock a giant wooden door, walk through a hallway, unlock an iron grate kind of prison door, walk down a hallway, and unlock our room. Many many keys.

Friday afternoon we visited the Forum first. It's really pretty, but was a lot of walking on rather painful stones. You'd think that the Romans would have used flat stones for paving, but apparently not. I discovered my new favorite phrase: Neronian Cryptoporticus. We visited it, but I'm still not sure exactly what it is. Some kind of dingy hallway maybe?

After that we went to the Colosseum. After that to the Trevi Fountain. We had a decent dinner around there before heading back early to the hotel and passing out with exhaustion. Rome is a lot of walking.

The second day (Saturday) we were up bright and earlyish to visit Vatican City. Surprisingly, we only waited for a half hour in line before going in. It was disgustingly crowded. I didn't really want to go, but one of the girls I was with had never been to Rome before and did want to see it. I guess it's just not important to me. I even skipped going into the Basilica. Whatever.

After that we were planning on going to at art museum that the other girl I was with wanted to visit, but had a bunch of issues with the bus schedule and tickets and whatnot. Honestly, I'm glad because there's only so much art I can stand to see in a day. The Vatican filled that quota for me.

We ended up in the Piazza Navona instead, looking at the fountain and people watching while enjoying fresh Bellinis.

After that we went to the Pantheon (which of course was in the middle of Mass when we arrived). After waiting we were able to go inside. Once again, not that interesting the second time around. We headed to the Spainish Steps afterwards and managed to catch the end of a concert that a band of firemen were playing, which was fantastic. The best part was when they played the Italian national anthem and everyone in the crowd started singing. Pretty cool.

We had the best dinner I've had so far in a little side street not far from the steps. Amazing bruschetta and eggplant parmesean. Plus the most delicious house wine I've ever drunk. A friend ate cockeral, which was also interesting, though somewhat disappointing (it was very dry). My meal was great though.

Sunday one of the girls left early because I really wanted to visit the catacombs, and she did not. Honestly I was very glad because she was really getting on my nerves. I'm friends with her, but I've decided that I don't really want to spend any more extended time in close proximity with her. Maybe it's just that we don't have anything in common besides being transfer students and being on this trip together. She's loud and bouncy and seriously chatty, none of which apply to me. I just don't get people who talk all the time. Is there something wrong with silence? I think it can be really peaceful. Why bother talking if what you're saying isn't worthwhile?

I did get a bit snappy with her, which I feel bad about. It could have been worse though. I could have said what I was really thinking. Or thrown something at her, which I seriously considered at several points. For example, however the topic came up, I told her that one of my serious pet peeves is people singing and shouting in public places (and generally being obnoxious). Apparently this made it hilarious to her to start singing everywhere we went. Are you kidding me? I sure as hell meant what I said and would be happy to punch you in the face if you don't close your mouth. Especially in the mornings. I do not do mornings. I do not function like a human being. I do not need you in my face.

On a positive note though, the other girl was fantastic (the one who hadn't visited Rome before). She is fairly quiet and we got on really well. The two of us made the journey out to the catacombs on Sunday. Thanks to getting off at the wrong bus stop, we had to walk 600m to a fork in the road, 900m somewhat backtracking to the first catacombs. We stupidly decided we would rather visit the other ones instead and walked another 600m to farther ones, which were closed. We walked back to the first ones, which were closed for another hour and fifteen minutes. Let's just say it didn't run so smoothly.

The Roman road that we walked was really cool though. Nice and straight and beautiful. After a decent wait we got on a guided tour, which was really cool. The catacombs were amazing. 500,000 people buried in the one we saw (100,000 of which were babies). It was a labyrinth of tombs built into the walls. It was interesting to see the way early Christianity has changed to where it is today. Different symbols, different languages. Pretty cool.

On our way out it started pouring with rain. So gross. More gross were the creepy guys we had to sit next to on the train back, who kept talking in whatever language (Slovakian or something) and staring at us. Asking us where we were from. I pretended to sleep to avoid it, but definitely felt a hand stroke my leg. Gross. Go buy some deoderant, learn either English or Italian, and try your creeping with someone stupider. When you stare at us and start talking with a dirty little smile, we do know you're talking about us. Ew.

Back in Florence safe and sound at the moment though. Hooray. I'm in midst of planning a trip to Southern Italy for the weekend after this one.

14

Proof that I drove a scooter. This was my lesson.

Monday night, my Italian professor had arranged a olive oil/balsamic vinegar tasting at this place. Eight of us from my class went (half the class). It was so much fun. That's all of us, with my professor (the woman) in the back, and the man who led the tasting next to her. We're in the basement of the building, which was actually part of a prison that held...Machiavelli, I believe. The room was the guard-room, and is connected to the rest of the prison rooms with tunnels. They have a couple pieces of 13th century rock still visible, not that you can see in the picture.

We tried two different balsamic vinegars first - one aged eight years and one aged ten. Both were beyond delicious. Especially with lots of amazing parmesan cheese. And bread. They also gave us a really nice olive oil. Then it turned into more of a wine tasting (but we're supposed to say that my professor didn't also organize that). We had a white and two reds (one a Chianti of course). There was also food: prosciutto and salami for every except the vegetarians. We were given caprese and some fried things. I'll admit that I did try both the prosciutto and salami though. I'm making my way back into meat very slowly. The whole tasting was a blast though. There was another group of students with us, from William and Mary and they were a lot of fun. It was nice because the owner spoke in Italian to us, but a woman would translate for the other group, so we could actually make sure we understood correctly.

Other than that, not very much exciting. Six of us went out last night, but the bar we wanted to visit was apparently too girlie for the boys, so we picked up a bottle of limoncello instead and went back to the hotel for a while. All I can say is that it is truly terrible when hot. After that we went out again to an Irish pub, and wandered around for a bit. Nothing particularly exciting.

13

The weekend in Elba was fantastic. The island is quite the pain to get to though. We left on a 5.30am train and then caught a 9am ferry from a tiny little port city. The ferry ride took about an hour.

Of course the first thing we did was go to the beach. Again it was a rocky beach, but it was beautiful. The ocean is so clear over the rocks. It was also a perfect temperature - cold, but refreshing. A bunch of us just spent the day lounging. At some point a couple of the guys went to get some wine. I shared a bottle of Prosecco (which was delicious) with a few people. One of the girls who traveled with my group decided it would be a great idea to drink a liter and a half of wine. Needless to say I'm not her biggest fan at the moment. Seriously? How stupid can you be? We had to carry her back to the hotel after she passed out on the beach - and she fought us the entire way. I was talking to one of her friends in the program yesterday who said this was apparently what she does every weekend. Are you kidding me? That's not fun at all, for her or for the people who have to put up with her. The next morning when we had to tell her what she had done (she blacked out before she even finished the wine) she just laughed. No "I'm sorry" or "Thank you guys so much for taking care of me." Just haha.

So not funny. And so not hanging out with her ever again.

Anyway the other five of us went out to dinner and ate like starving hyenas. Seriously. Appetizers, pasta, four bottles of water, three baskets of bread, and even dessert. I have no idea why we were all ravenous. I'm pretty sure we scared the restaurant people with the sheer amount of food put away by five girls.

The next morning we got up and rented scooters (like Vespa-type things). It was amazing. I drove one of them with a friend behind me and had the most fantastic time. There's nothing like the feeling of speeding down the road, wind everywhere. It's a bit scary with all the cars on the road passing you, but going up and down the mountains was so cool. I'm going to have to own a Vespa one day.

Very dangerous though. We rented three of them for the six of us, and my Vespa was the only one brought back in the same condition that we got it in. I sped ahead to the beach, leaving the others a bit behind, which turned out to be a fantastic thing. They were almost at the beach when they got somewhat lost. One (driven by a girl who was so careful and cautious) pulled off the side of the road to look at the map, and the other slammed into it from behind - going so far as to go on top of it and topple both over onto the girls from the first one. The only way it could've happened is if the second Vespa driver accidentaly used the throttle instead of the brake. Of course, she won't even admit that the crash was her fault, causing the two on the first Vespa to have to pay a hundred Euros each for damage to the scooter (thank go we took out crash insurance - it would have been 500 Euros otherwise). The second scooter even left the first scooter and went to the beach. What is wrong with people? How hard is it to say "I'm sorry" and even "Are you okay? I saw the scooters fall on you." I just don't understand at all.

So the second scooter went off towards the beach. Karma bit them from behind though, and they got into another crash on the way there. Serves them right. Seriously. They each had to pay a hundred Euros too. It's something, but doesn't make up for the blameless ones on the other scooter having to pay.

I had fun at the beach though with my friend on our cool and crashless scooter. More power to me for being an awesome driver. Sort of anyway. With some more practice I really could be.

Anyway I forgot to mention before all the crash drama that we visited Napoleon's former house on Elba. It's way up on a hill (is anything in this country not a hike up a hill?). Kind of a small house, especially for someone who formerly ruled the country, but absolutely beautiful gardens and views of the ocean. I'd happily be exiled somewhere like Elba. Much better than wherever off the coast of Scotland that they exiled him the second time. Bad move, that Hundred Days thing Napoleon. Power is not worth a permanent trip to the coast of Scotland. I'd probably be dead within a week. The two pictures here are of the house and garden.

I would say Sunday was a less adventurous day, but that's not really true. We spent the morning at the beach again before catching a ferry back to the mainland at 1.40pm for a 3.30 train. The train never came. I found out when I got back that it didn't come because the early morning train had broken down and couldn't be fixed quickly. Too bad the train station couldn't tell us. They had shut the ticket office that day because they changed the train schedule. That day. Really? We had to wait for a bus to some tiny town nearby. The bus never came. Or the one after. Or even the one after that. Two people managed to take a taxi to the town to catch a train to Pisa and then Florence, but some annoying other Americans stole our other taxi. Which left us waiting for a 6.45pm train. I have never spent that much time in a train station before. Luckily the area with the ferry tickets had a shop to buy food, so we were able to eat. So annoying though. We finally got back to Florence at 9.45pm.

I got good news when I came back though - the rude roommate left for the US Saturday and isn't coming back. The technical excuse is that her uncle is sick with Crohn's, but neither I nor my other roommate believe that, though it's the story we're putting out because it's what she told us. Circumstances are suspicious, because the night before she had been talking with my other roommate and saying how much she hated the program and the people here, etc. She spent Saturday shopping before leaving. If it was really a family emergeny, I think she would have done everything in her power to get out of the country as soon as possible.

Whatever, it's fine with me. There's actually space in the room now. And I don't have to worry about my stuff. No more using my shampoo, my razor, my roommates facewash. No more sex while we're in the room. No more refusal to turn the A/C off despite the temperature reaching the point where it's too cold for me to even sleep. No rude comments about having a coughing fit in the middle of the night (she seriously said to me: "You should stop coughing. You'll give yourself a sore throat." yes thanks for the advice, I had wondered about whether coughing was good for me).

Maybe you didn't get the vibe, but I'm pretty damn pleased about it. This solves a lot of problems.

12

Today we took a group field trip to Assisi, with professors. We had to get up bright and early, which wouldn't have been quite so bad if we hadn't gone out clubbing last night. It was a lot of fun though. Oh and I had a great dinner after class with friends. We went to the supermercato, picked up two loaves of bread, some olive oil, and some balsamic vinegar and sat eating on the steps of a Medici church. It was beyond basic, but such a fun thing to do with a group.

Anyway we took a huge bus to Assisi this morning, where we stopped at two churches as a group. The first was an enormous Gothic cathedral built to house two small churches where St. Francis (San Francesco) prayed or something like that. Religion is not my forte as you may be able to tell. There was a little area under one of them that he lived in for a long time. Tiny tiny area. I think he may have also died there. Not really sure.

I've never been a religious person, but I understood in one of the small churches. It was a tiny stone building with crumbling frescoes. Maybe had eight seats total with a little altar. It had this smell though that must have lasted for centuries. It smelled like forest (it did used to be in the forest when St. Francis used it). Like nature. Like something living. And for a moment there, I honestly believe I could have been religious. There was something so personal in that tiny little church that I could have believed in some sort of god. It was incredible. It felt so peaceful and comfortable, especially in contrast to the monstrosity that was built around it. I don't like Gothic architecture, even Italian Gothic, because it makes God impersonal. It's impressive, but not particularly fulfilling.

I have to say, I don't really know how to act in big churches like that without the religious background for them. So I tend to go the way I remember visiting all of them with family before. No pictures ever inside churches. More importantly, lighting two candles for the grandfathers. I'm not sure what the significance of the candles is. Maybe it's for memory. Maybe it's for something in heaven. I just don't know, but it feels right to do it.


We visited another big church afterwards where St. Francis is buried. I found it interesting that his body was buried so well that it wasn't actually found until the 19th century. The monks wanted to make sure nobody would take pieces for relics. It's quite an idea. It's the church with the large rose window in the picture.


A group of us wandered around Assisi for a while before discovering the most fantastic place for lunch. Down a little alley in a tiny hotel was an outdoor restaurant with an amazing view of the Tuscan countryside. The waitress was absolutely fantastic and (even better) didn't speak English, which meant we got to practice our Italian. I had the best pasta I've eaten since I've been here: spaghetti with some sort of herb oil and chopped herbs, plus sundried tomatoes, capers, and beautifully fresh black olives. I don't usually like olives but these were amazing (as they should be in a place that grows them).

After lunch we visited another church (Santa Chiara I believe) before just bumming around in town for a while. It's really picturesque set in the hills. It's also a very clean town, which I was impressed by. We got back at about eight. Tomorrow I'm leaving for Elba for the weekend with a big group. Specifically leaving on a 5am train. 5am. 5.a.m. Beyond early. I'll be back in touch with my computer on Sunday evening.

11

Still sick, but doing better than earlier. Sadly I have no voice, which sounds interesting. That is probably my fault though. Monday night five of us went and sat on the steps of the Duomo for a few hours. Once again, met creepy Italian guys. One of them actually cursed and spat when he was leaving because we were ignoring him. Another was just plain crazy: he sat and kept looking at us over his shoulder when he thought we weren't looking, before getting up and sprinting away. Legitimately sprinting the length of the Duomo and down the street. We did have a nice time people-watching though. There were some...interesting outfit choices. Especially among some of the Americans.

Afterwards we went to a nearby bar with a larger group of people. Just a small place, but with excellent drink prices - a serious rareity. That was probably where I can be blamed for losing my voice thanks to talking over music. It was fun though, so I don't mind too much.

Last night I met up with a friend from highschool and her family. We had a really great dinner nearby. I tried ribollita for the first time, which is a Florentine specialty. It's bread soup with vegetables. Really delicious and filling. Afterwards my friend and I went down to one of the bridges at sat there for quite some time with amaretti cookies and some wine. It's a surprisingly fun thing to do. I love looking at the bats in particular.

10

Well I had quite the weekend. We left for Cinque Terre early Friday morning. It took about three hours to get there by train. The place is absolutely stunning. It's technically five little villages set in coastal mountains. We stayed in Riomaggiore, which I think is the second largest village. Our hostel was a bit bizarre, but really nice. I think families rent out their homes to the hostel company, who then rents out the rooms to students. Our house was at the very very top of the village. You could not possibly get any higher. Let's just say that the walk up was a nightmare.

Twenty of us went on the trip (there are about fifty in the program). When we got there, we all headed to the beach in Monterosso, which is the largest and nicest town. All the towns have beaches, but most are too rocky to actually relax on. Monterosso's beach is still rocky, but also has some sand. Still painful to walk barefoot on though. A bunch of us went swimming in the sea, which was cold but not unbearable. The sun came out and we bought bottles of cheap cheap wine and basically passed the afternoon bumming around.

I went out with a group of 7 girls to dinner in a fantastic place. There was some great pasta (particularly good pesto) and cheese. We wandered around afterwards in the town. The photo is from a concrete pier-type thing that we sat around on. As you can see, the mountains are literally part of the coastline.

Cinque Terre is known for its hiking though. There are trails between all the villages that weave through the mountains. So bright and early at 10am I got up with one of my roommates to start hiking. Of course those who had agreed to meet us were still asleep. Of course. A group had left earlier that morning to do the full five hour hike between all five of the villages. We ended up meeting them in the second-to-last village, Vernazzo, and joining them for the last leg to Monterosso, which coincidentaly happened the be the hardest leg.

I discovered that I still hate hiking.

It is just not part of my skill set to climb up and down several hundred "stairs" (rocks placed carefully). The flat bits were alright, but the stairs nearly killed me. It was worth it though because the views from on top of the mountain, looking back at the other villages were absolutely stunning.

It's like it wasn't even real. The trails just wandered along terraced land, up and down, with incredibly narrow paths and even patches of mud thanks to the rain earlier that day.
It probably took me between an hour and a half and two hours to complete that one trail. Needless to say, I was exhausted afterwards and so was everybody else. We went back to the beach and swam again to cool off, but the sea was really rough thanks to the stormy weather. All I can say is that I'm in quite a bit of pain at the moment.

The six of the nine boys that had come with us and one girl left that evening to go back to Florence. The rest of us stayed. We had dinner in a cute little restaurant (which we nearly filled up) and made friends with a handful of people. Later we went to really the only bar in the area which was mobbed. We met up again with the people from dinner, our hostel roommates, and made friends with a large group of Italian guys who spoke very limited English.

A bit later, a group of us headed down to the beach in Riomaggiore, where some people had started a bonfire. It was pretty cool to see such a large group of people, most who had never met each other, sitting around the fire chatting and laughing. We met people from all over the place (most of whom seemed to be named James, for whatever reason). I got to practice my Italian some, which was fantastic until I realized that the phrase I couldn't quite understand was actually "can we go back to your house tonight." I've said it before but I'll say it again: Italian men can be creepy.

We woke up early again this morning to leave. Seven of us decided to stop in Pisa on the way back, since we had to switch trains there anyway. Really the only thing to see was the Leaning Tower.

It was a bit of a disappointment really. It's a tower so badly designed that it's now falling over and has become a tourist attraction. Really bizarre when you think about it. We couldn't go into the church either as they were holding mass. I'd say we spent perhaps half an hour at the church and tower. It's a pretty place, church, tower, baptistry, and monastery surround by lush grass, but that's really all going for it.

Apart from that, I'm not really feeling so well at the moment. I may be on the verge of a cold as a large group of people seem to be getting sick at the moment. That plus a large pile of homework does not bode well for my night. Luckily one of my roommates is fantastic. She's given me medicine and even picked up some bread and strawberries for me. I seriously owe her.

Apart from my group that went to Cinque Terre (for the most part, all fantastic people), a group of about twenty went to Rome this weekend. They're the group of people I really don't know yet. I'm not sure if I will get to know them, with the way some of them act. Another group had a day trip to Pisa and Lucca. A few others visited family and such around the area.

9

No pictures today because I keep forgetting to take them. Oops. Nothing too exciting has happened though. Some good dinners. Listening to street performers at night. Classes are killing me. Actually I should re-phrase that. Going out is killing me. I've yet to go to bed before 3am, but get up every day at 9. If we go out clubbing it's more like 5am before I get to sleep. I'm trying my hardest to stay awake in class, but it's really difficult. I have a half hour between them and have been running out for espresso. And having cappuccino in the morning. I have never had this much coffee in my life before. My heart goes a little crazy for a while, but it is a necessary evil.

Speaking of going out, last night was clubbing again at this cool outdoor place pretty far away from the center here. It was a lot better than the place the other night, and a lot cheaper. Especially with free drinks, yay! There was an incident when I got back though. One of my roommates had also gone out. I went to sleep only to wake up to her having sex with someone. With us in the room.

Are you kidding me? How disrespectful can you be? This morning my other roommate and I discovered that both of us were awake for it, which was horrible. Beyond horrible. I can't even describe it. Ughh. We seriously have to have a talk with her about it. I'm happy to be woken up at any hour and sent out of the room if that's what it takes for me to never endure that situation again.

On a more pleasant note, I'm leaving tomorrow for Cinque Terre and am really excited about that. About twenty of us are going to explore and spend time on the beach, etc. It should be really good.

8

Ciao!
I've had a somewhat lazy day today. It's the Festa della Repubblica and therefore classes were canceled. It's kind of like Memorial Day here. Shops closed and such. Last night we went out clubbing again so we slept late this morning. The club was...interesting. It was full of either Americans or creepy Italians. Notes:

to the guys in button-downs with popped collars and skinny jeans: you are not cool
to the white guys pretending to be ghetto-fabulous: you are not cool
to the DJs playing R&B and bizarre rap you can't dance to: you are not cool
to the men refusing to take no for an answer: you are not cool

Seriously people, get a grip on your egos. It may shatter your entire worldview, but you need to learn that you really aren't all that. You are also the reason I left the club at 3.45, which is a bummer. There is no acceptable reason to be grabbed and groped while walking to find friends. There is not reason for that to continue despite me blatantly telling you no, several times.

Anyway, I'll live.

Yesterday was rainy and kind of gross. Not gross like Philadelphia in the rain, because it's still pretty, but gross like disappointing. We left purposely in the direction opposite of the Duomo, but somehow still ended up back there. Typical. I swear there is no possible way to get lost in this city. The picture is the Piazza SS. Annuzziata. We couldn't decide what SS. stood for so I personally made it super-saint. I looked it up today and wasn't far off. It's santissimo - like super-sacred. Pretty good on my part. We actually ended up back there again today, and it looks a lot nicer in the sunshine. Didn't take any photos though. I think it may house a museum and something else, but I'm not really sure what.

Today I left the hotel with a friend at 2.30. We took a huge walk and got back at 5.30 with aching feet. Somehow we walked through the Jewish quarter (Jewish ghetto) and up to the main highway essentially. I should add that we found a cinema showing the Coco Chanel movie. I may have to go back and watch it. After that we went back down to the Arno. Found a ...concrete thing that crosses it diagonally where a group of old people were sunbathing, a guy was fishing, and some young people were just hanging out. It would be fantastic to go back one day and have lunch out there. It's behind me in the first picture. And the picture above is from me standing on it. With the hills and everything behind it, it's beautiful.

7

Ah, Florence at night. Saturday evening we headed out to a bar by our hotel (only 5 minutes from the Duomo). We had a great welcome to Florence with a free bottle of wine. There's some sort of Chianti festival going on for the next couple of days. All I can say is that it's delicious. After that a huge group of us headed out to a club, Space, which was pretty decent. Some weird karaoke to old music and upstairs dancing to old rap for the most part. I hadn't heard some of those songs for ages. Like since eighth grade. Interesting. A group of us left pretty early at about two. But seriously - that was over twenty-four hours since we had slept thanks to jet lag.

Sunday was a bit of a waste. The morning anyway. We all passed out until pretty late. I was up at one, but people were up between probably noon and three-thirty for the most part. We had our orientation thing at 5. The school building is beautiful and old. It's hidden in some little streets but was built in the 12th century. It's strange to see the old pieces of frescos in the same room as an enormous screen and projector. Like they don't fit together properly. Class starts later today and is totally strange hours (I have from 2.30-7 essentially).

This is what the Pitti Palace looks like when drunk.

Just kidding. I don't have much of a steady hand for the larger exposures. I'll try that one again in the daytime. We had a delicious dinner last night at a little restaurant around the corner from here. Some seriously fantastic fresh and homemade pasta in a spicy sauce (Pici alla Fiorentina). A bit later we headed out to the river and found a bar. Trendy but with killer drink prices. It was cool to just sit on the wall by the river, watching the bats, the people. Listening to some sort of pounding music. Wandered around some more afterwards. There are endless streets to wander around. I'm not worried about getting lost because all we need to find is the direction of the river and then the Duomo. Pretty serious landmarks.

I had my first cappucino this morning at the hotel with breakfast. I should have take a picture of it because the guy had made a smiley face in the foam. A nice touch to the morning.