Roma and Venezia

So this is going to be a super-long entry because it will cover my trips to Rome AND Venice.  I meant to update sometime during this last week about Rome, and I wish I could use schoolwork as my excuse, but I can't!  I've just been constantly on the go doing one thing or another, especially because it was two of my good friends in the program's birthday on Thursday.

Rome was the first big trip that  I took- we left last Thursday afternoon and came back Sunday evening.  I had already been, back when I went to Europe with my family in 8th grade, but I wanted to experience it again with a better background in history and more of my Italian bearings about me.  I'm glad I did it, but it was extremely overwhelming and I was so happy to get back to precious Florence.   But as for what I actually did...

Thursday night we went out to a great dinner, where I had Amatriciana, a pasta dish that Rome is famous for.  It was the best Roman meal I have ever had, including during my 8th grade trip.  Afterwards, we walked around in a huge CIRCLE for an hour, no thanks to my map reading skills (which I redeemed the next day!), and so most people ended up going to sleep after that, but Marielle, Stacey and I went out for a little while across the Tiber and sang some karaoke!  The next morning we split up, which I ended up regretting somewhat because it sounds like Formia, where some of my friends went, was really beautiful, but I got to see the Catacombs, which I have been waiting for pretty much since the last time I went to Rome.  They were amazing, and I got goosebumps thinking about the very earliest Christians in Europe- just such a cool concept!   Especially because the Catacombs are on the Appian Way, which is just about the oldest/coolest thing ever.  The picture of the cross  above is on the Via Appia right across from the San Sebastian Catacombs.  Anyway, before the Catacombs we walked around the Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain, which each seemed so much less huge and mysterious than they did when I was 13-  which made me feel like maybe I am developing some European traveling skills!  And also made me feel like I am pretty old.  Then that night we went out to dinner at a restaurant that apparently American study abroad students frequent, because there were big posters all over the walls with lists of colleges.  And we got free "sexy wine", whatever that means (literally, it was sparkling red wine... but the menu referred to it as sexy wine).  Then we walked around near the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona, which has Bernigni's Four Rivers fountains, before calling it an early night for our big day the next day.

The next day five of us did a guided tour of the Vatican museums, which was so worth it because I probably would have done my usual museum routine of speeding through without paying any attention.  I still vividly remember sitting in the Louvre with Emma and Jacob begging to leave/coming up with the name for our dog (Which I  naturally railroaded them into choosing and then promptly gave up any claim of actually owning her!  Sorry guys!)   The Sistine Chapel was amazing, but sort of frustrating because the guards completely lost control of the crowd and EVERYONE was taking flash photography.  I'm not a huge art preservationist or anything, and I understood why people wanted to take pictures, but it certainly ruined the serenity of the chapel to have a flashbulb in my face every five minutes.   And I really enjoyed the Basilica, which I'm not even sure I went to the last time I was there.   I loved this one statue that showed someone stepping on England because of the way that country had abandoned the Vatican/papacy (pictured below)... I like to be reminded that Episcopalianism exists in this extremely Catholic country.  However, I was really glad that three of my friends are Catholic, because we went into a quiet prayer chapel in the Basilica at their request and it was probably one of the best parts of my trip.   Later that day we tried to go to the Colloseum, but it was closed, which was actually quite a blessing in disguise because when we went Sunday it was beautiful.   So instead, Stacey and I went to the Pantheon, which was perfect for the amount of time we had.  And on the way we saw a left wing Italian political protest, which you know I was super excited about.   That night we tried to go out to this bar that's copmletely made of ice, but it didn't really work out...

Sunday was a beautiful day, perfect for the outdoor stuff we had left to do!  We had a guide for the Coliseum and the Palatine Hill, and I was suuuuper excited about the Palatine hill and the Forum obviously, because I am a history nerd like that.  It's just so cool that there are remnants of such an ancient city RIGHT THERE.  Anyway, after that we took the train back and I was so glad to see Florence again!

This weekend, I stayed in Florence for Thursday and Friday to celebrate Stacey and Samantha's birthdays, and then got up at FOUR IN THE MORNING to go on a school trip to Venice.   We stopped first on Burano, a cute little island with really pretty colored houses that reminded me of the French Quarter, and then we went to Murano, the glass-blowing island, where we saw a great glassblowing demonstration (a picture of the factory where we went is below).  And I got souvenirs for Mom, Dad and Nannie!  Finally it was on to Venice, where it was the opening weekend of Carnivale, which was nuts, and totally reminded me of home- there were Mardi Gras masks everywhere and people in costumes who looked like they belonged on floats.   I was definitely feeling some homesickness this weekend because I'm sick, which always makes me miss my parents, and because I felt like if I closed my eyes in Venice I could have basically been at a parade- at one point a band even played that sounded like any high school marching band.  But anyway, Venice and the other islands are just so neat- even though I knew that the only transportation was  by foot or by boat, to see it was just surreal.  

 

 After a day of walking around in the hectic Carnivale crowds, we were treated to a five course meal which was in some random suburb of Venice (thirty minutes away from our hotel which was definitely a... special hotel... it had all of these crazy Valentine's Day decorations and there were hourly room rates.  Thank you LDM.)- not the best meal I have had in Italy, and I was extremely exhausted.   But it was a neat experience nonetheless.  Thankfully, I have great friends with the same traveling mindset as me, because as we got back on the bus I heard my friend Patee talking about taking an early train back on Sunday rather than the bus at 5 pm.  I practically screamed with agreement, since my 

 was really taking a toll on me by that point, and so we took the early boat to Venice with the program the next morning but wandered off by ourselves and had a great morning looking around the island before the crowds swarmed in!  I bought some more souvenirs and we rode a gondola for only 20 Euros each... which is a great deal, from everything I've heard.  I also bought some more souvenirs... something for Emma, JulieAnn, Sydney and Becky!   As well as some things for me... :).  As we got to the train station, we saw HERDS of people getting off to celebrate the opening day of Carnivale.  We took the Eurostar back to Florence (my first fast train experience here!  And it was well worth it!  Probably some of the best "emergency" money I have spent since I've been here) and I have been trying to recover from my sickness ever since.  Venice was so beautiful, but I definitely wish I would have been less under the weather while I was there.

These past two weekends have made me really appreciate Florence.  I'm excited to show my family around here and also excited for the two weekends after this one, because I will be in Florence for both of them except for one Saturday/Sunday when I have a school trip to Milan (but since weekends are so long here, that's only really 1/2 of my weekend!).  And despite my homesickness for Mardi Gras, I actually miss home far less right now than I often do when I'm at school- probably because I'm having such amazing adventures, but also because it is really nice to live in a bustling city again.   The size and atmosphere of this place definitely remind me of New Orleans a LOT.

Next weekend I am off to Paris to visit Olivia.   I cannot wait!  I'm so lucky that I get to see one of my best friends while I'm here, and in Paris to boot!  Then the day I get back Mom, Dad and Emma arrive in Florence and I am going to be their personal Tuscan tour guide all week.  I can't wait for that either!  It will be nice to be around so many people from home around this time of year, for various reasons, but particularly because I will be so envious of everyone enjoying the best free show on Earth at home!  Time is absolutely flying by, I have been here for a month now!   I am just still in awe that I get to experience all of this.  However, I do miss all of y'all a great deal!  I think of something that I want to share with someone from home at least once a day.  Probably you should all just drop everything and come stay with me!   I will probably not update again until after my family leaves, so until MARCH, ciao ciao!

Siena, More Firenze, Perugia, Assisi

It feels like it's been so long since I wrote my first post, but really it has only been a little over a week! There is just so much going on here all the time that every day feels like it's at least two or three days in one. So let's see what has happened...

The day after I wrote my first post I went on my first trip outside of Florence, to Siena. It was a really rainy and cold, but still so exciting to finally be doing TRAVELING, since the minute you get to Europe everyone wants to know if you've been 8000 places in the one week that you've been there. And Siena was precious, so that also helped ease the pain of the rain and cold. About 30 of us went, but we ended up splitting off into smaller groups to make exploring easier, and the group I was with went to this really delicious little restaurant that my friend Stacey had been to a few years ago when she was traveling with her family in Italy. I had pici, which is a past dish that I think originated in Siena (I recognize that I am still a stupid American traveller so I always question myself about these things...) and it was sooo good. I am putting up a picture of it, in fact! Anyway, aside from consuming great food in Siena, I saw their huge brick Piazza del Campo, which was sadly completely empty because of the weather, and toured the Duomo, the Cripta (which is actually not a crypt but an old part of the Duomo that was just excavated about 10 years ago), a church where St. Catherine's HEAD is kept, the place where St. Catherine was supposedly pushed down the steps by the devil, and this outdoor stadium thing whose purpose I'm still not quite sure of (Cary? Care to explain? It is near the soccer stadium) but I heard some jazz music practice coming out of the building adjacent to it so that was pretty cool.
After Siena I went to my first discotecca, which was quite the experience! The next day was the first pretty day I’d seen since I’d been in Florence, and some friends and I went and took really great sunset pictures at the place I talked about last time Piazza de Michelangiolo. Then this past week was a blur of the final week of our pre-session. I finally got to go to the top of the Duomo in Florence, which was absolutely breathtaking, and on Thursday I had my first Italian pizza, and even better, free tiramisu for dessert. Then this weekend I went on my first real weekend trip, to Perugia and Assisi. It was such a good time!
We arrived in Perugia around 4:30 and discovered that our hotel (not a lot of hostels in the area) was RIGHT in the center of everything, so we dropped our bags and ran to take some pictures before the sun went down. We walked around and saw some really beautiful churches, although it was right around Mass time, so we didn’t get to go into the Duomo that night because we didn’t want to interrupt the service. We got a little bit lost a few times, but since the area is so small, it didn’t really matter, and probably the most exciting thing we saw was a street that had spikes in some of the walls that were supposedly used to hang the heads of criminals. That night, we had an AMAZING five-course meal (for only 13 euros each, which included everything except wine!) at this restaurant our tour book told us about, and boy were they right! We were probably really obnoxious by the end of the meal, but we were so excited because we could tell we were the only tourists in the place.
















We had planned to spend the night in Perugia because it’s a college town and we’d heard the nightlife was great, and as we were leaving the restaurant some students (and one American study abroad advisor?) took us under their wing and showed us around to some of the bars. It was about 11:30, which is early in Europe in general but apparently EXTREMELY early in Perugia, so even though there was a huge crowd outside in the piazza (near some steps where we’d heard everyone hangs out), nothing was really getting started yet. In Perugia, you can’t drink out of bottles outside, but plastic cups are okay, and my friends were all tickled to see people milling around with drinks outside. Considering that thanks to my hometown, I still don’t believe that open container laws are for real, I wasn’t quite as delighted, but it was still a really cool experience. We eventually found a pub but had a pretty early night since we knew we had tons of sight-seeing to do.

The next morning we finished our tour of Perugia. After the Duomo, we walked to a beautiful circular church that we couldn’t go inside of, but we could climb the tower next to it and we got a great view of the city. We also stumbled upon this cute little wine/chocolate/bread/jam shop and I bought some chocolate for myself, (because Perugia used to have a HUGE chocolate factory that Nestle bought out) and a souvenir for my parents! Then it was on to Assisi. We got to Assisi and waited in the cold for a few minutes to catch the bus before we decided a taxi would probably be not much more expensive. Boy, was that the best move we ever made because my friend Colleen has a fractured food, and Assisi isn’t quite as easily walkable as other Italian towns, so our driver offered to give us a grand tour of the city and gave us time to stop at every location. He even took pictures for us! The best part about that was that we got to go to this place called Ermeo delle Carceri, which is a beautiful wooded hermitage high up in mountains, as well as a place called the Rocca di Maggiore, the first of which we never could have gotten to by foot, especially fractured foot, and the second of which we wouldn’t have had time to walk to. Assisi is absolutely BEAUTIFUL, I can’t even begin to pick my favorite church although obviously seeing St. Francis’ basilica was amazing, and it reminded me of the St. Francis prayer that I know a lot of people I worked with this summer love. We didn’t get to go into the top of the Basilica because it closed early on Saturday, but the bottom was good enough for me! I think if I did have to pick my favorite church, it would be the San Rufino, where St. Francis was baptized, because it is a church so old that it was built on top of Roman ruins, which you can see through glass floors!







Now I am just relaxing until my real classes start tomorrow, including a wine tasting one! Wines of Tuscany! Miss and love everyone! Oh, and just a little shout out to Becky Wood because she LOVES blogs. Also, to my family/friends who are Catholic- please tell me if you have a confirmation saint or just one who is special to you because I would love to say a prayer for you if there is ever the opportunity in one of the millions of churches I go to. Not that everyone is not in my prayers always, but you know! Love and miss everyone!