Italia e molta bella!

So, since it's exam week, it's also PRIME time for me to be on top of this blog. Last week I wrote just before I went to a Fiorentina soccer game. We lost, unfortunately, but it was a cool experience nonetheless. The weather has been BEAUTIFUL lately, knock on wood, and I have been falling even more in love with this city than I already was. I feel like I don't usually write that much about Florence, so I have been trying to think of things to share in this post. One thing that jumps to mind is this crazy substitute teacher I had last week. He brought a boombox to class and played techno background music the ENTIRE class. No exaggeration. The next day, I told my teacher Ornella that "non mi piace, perche ho avuto una malatesta dopo clase"... aka, I didn't like it because I had a headache after class! I also spend a large amount of my time being extremely amused by my literature teacher, Stefano. It's impossible to completely convey how funny he is without doing a live imitation, but suffice it to say that he gave us a walking tour of "Dante's Florence" last Thursday and spent about 90% of the time on his cell phone. Today in class, we had a "mock quiz," and he told us that we were not allowed to write "odd little things" on our paper. My classes here are less challenging than Carolina, to say the least, but I realized how much I appreciate them when I was studying for my art history exam and I could remember the works with much more ease than I did when I took art at UNC because I have actually SEEN so many of them. One last thing from the past week that I want to remember about Florence is this amazing church that is near my house called the Santissima Annunziata... it houses this painting called "The Miraculous Image," because it was supposedly painted partially by the hand of God, and I was in awe the entire time we were in the church. It was amazing. Like so many other things in Florence, it was largely constructed through patronage from the Medicis. I am very much amazed by how influential they were in the city where I live today. I am giving a presentation tomorrow on Botticelli's Primavera, also a Medici commission.

After what felt like a very long week in Florence, I flew off to Trapani, Sicily this weekend! I seriously had NO idea what to expect... Sicily was not somewhere I investigated very much at all. The minute we landed, my breath was taken away by the AMAZING countryside. I have never seen anything like it and I don't even know how to describe it, I just hope my pictures will suffice. We arrived at our hotel Friday afternoon, which was located on top of what seemed to me like the busiest cafe/bar in Trapani, and immediately went walking along Trapani's coastline. We had read about this supposedly beautiful little islands called the Egadi islands, so we decided to try to go to one called Favignana. Unfortunately, we did not realize that during the off season it would be absolutely DEAD, so instead of walking along the beaches like we thought we would, we took some great sunset pictures and drank some wine before heading back to Trapani. We ate dinner and then had a pretty early night. The next day, we ventured to Palermo, because we'd heard/read that there was more to do there than in Trapani. The two hour bus ride there was the MOST beautiful ride I have ever taken in my LIFE. It felt like it flew by because I was so enthralled by the scenery. Palermo was a beautiful town and we spent most of our time there outside of the city at this gorgeous gold cathedral called Monreale. After we took a substantial amount of scenery pictures at this beautiful overlook (where there were TONS of the love locks that are all over Italy- you put a padlock on somewhere you go with your love so that it stays there forever), we ate at a cafe looking out on the cathedral and I FINALLY got a waffle with nutella similar to the ones I smell in Florence every day when I go running. I was not disappointed, although my waiter was not very kind. He yelled at me for having my shoelaces untied. After a stressful misunderstanding with bus tickets, we got back on the bus to Trapani, had a delicious dinner recommended by the proprietor of our hotel (quite literally- he got someone to walk us there!) and collapsed into bed. The next day we walked around the Trapani coastline a little more before and ate some delicious pastries (Trapani had the best I have tasted in Italy! SOOO amazing and there were like 3 shops within a block of each other) we caught our flight back to Pisa/Florence. It was a beautiful, relaxing weekend, and now I just have to get through 3 more days of class/exams until SPRING BREAK, when I will travel to Dublin and London. Then Jacob comes and we are off to Prague and Cinque Terre, with a little touring around Florence in the midst of that. I can't wait!

above: My friend Colleen and I on Favignana

above and below: scenery from the bus ride to Palermo


I am also getting excited for this summer, even though I don't want this semester to end. I can't believe it is going to be my last summer at camp... it has been 12 years since my cute boy hair cut self fell in love with Hardtner and I am so excited to make this last summer my best one! But until then, I am LOVING life in Florence! I wish I could share it with all of y'all!

Above: A picture that does not at all do justice to the beauty of Monreale
Above: Patee, Colleen, me, Stacey overlooking Palermo
Above: The love locks I was referring to

Above: People who are probably definitely in the Mafia... I was in Sicily, after all

Parigi+Parents

Wow, I thought I waited a long time to write my last post... I have to get better about this! Well since I last updated, I took a trip to Paris to visit Olivia, my parents and sister came to visit, and I took a school trip to Milan/Mantua/Ferrara. This weekend, finally, I am getting some much needed rest and relaxation! The only plans I have are a soccer game on Sunday and some HOMEWORK, because my midterms are coming up! So I will try to keep this update as brief as I possibly can considering all that I have to say...

The weekend before Mardi Gras I flew to Paris to see Olivia. It was soooo great to see one of my best friends in the world, and we both kept expressing our disbelief that we got to visit each other (something that is definitely not a regular occurence) all the way across the ocean! My flight unfortunately kept getting delayed, so I didn't get to her apartment until after 1 AM! So on Friday, after some much needed sleep, we headed out to explore. We had delicious onion soup for lunch and then went to the French Pantheon, which, much to our surprise, is the burial place of tons of famous people. I was most excited about Emile Zola (since I have such a complicated relationship with his book Germinal) and Marie Curie! It was interesting to see the inside of a French church after seeing soooo many Italian cathedrals. After that we went to the Sacre Coeur and sat on the steps for awhile, taking in the view and listening to a cheesy musician- minus the view part, it kind of reminded me of Jackson Square. That night we had a delicious fondue dinner... at a restaurant that serves wine in baby bottles?! That was weirder than I thought it was going to be, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself nonetheless. The next day, we got lunch with Liv's roommate and Maddie (I can't say enough how cool it is to see my high school friends over here!) and did some shopping. After we left Maddie, we did a pretty extensive tour of Pere Lachaise, the cemetary where all kinds of people, from Oscar Wilde to Chopin to Jim Morrison are buried. That night, Olivia and I ate some delicious rotisserie chicken and potatoes that we had purchased from a street market earlier, and then went out for a little while, first to a place called student bar that serves their cocktails with a marshmellow inside, and then somewhere down the street where we met up with Misa! It was seriously a little Franklin reunion in Paris. The next morning we slept forever (you will see why I was so tired when I recount my family's visit) and then I caught my flight back to Florence that night! My family arrived a few hours before I did, and after a little bit of confusion, made it safely to their hotel, right down the block from my school!



I saw my parents and Emma Monday morning before class and then spent the afternoon walking with them around the Arno- we window-shopped on the Ponte Vecchio and went to the Piazza Michelangiolo so I could show them the great view! That night we had a delicious dinner at Za-Za. The next day, we visited the Accademia and saw the David (it is SO big! And amazing!), then did some shopping and celebrated Mardi Gras with the best dinner I have had yet in Italy- at a place called Il Latini. Five courses, no menu, just a waiter telling you your options. SO delicious. Unfortunately, after Tuesday, the cold I had been fighting for about two weeks took a turn for the worse and Wednesday when I visited the Palazzo Pitti and Boboli Gardens with my family I had to leave early because I was having stabbing chest pains. An afternoon of resting in their hotel room definitely helped, but my dad thinks I might have had walking pneumonia and I honestly did not start feeling truly better until maybe yesterday. BUT that didn't stop me from going to Siena with them the next day, where we had a delicious meal at the restaurant I wrote about earlier. We finally tried Bistecca Fiorentina, which was REALLY rare (I could hear my roommate JulieAnn freaking out all the way from Thailand) but very delicious. Friday (my final day with my family, since I had to go on my school trip) my dad bought Emma and me Valentine's Day presents on the Ponte Vecchio and then we ventured to Pisa, and took the required tower pictures (I am going to post my dad's because it cracks me up! He wore a suit the almost the whole time they were here. Definitely not typical tourist in Bermuda shorts!). I was sad to see them go, but glad that they made it back safe (after getting delayed because of the crazy winter storms on the East Coast!), and excited to remember that I still have one family visitor to look forward to- Jacob comes in 26 days! In case my countdown wasn't a clue, I am SO excited to see my brother!!



My field trip to Milan/Mantua/Ferrara was fairly uneventful. The waking up early part was a lot less painful than Venice since it was not nearly as cold and we had a lot more time to rest. It was Fashion Week in Milan, but unfortunately we didn't really see many indicators because we were only there for a few hours during the day. It was also the last day of Carnivale (but only for Milan! Everywhere else in Italy finishes on Mardi Gras like we do), so of course there were lots of crowds and confetti. We visited a palace in Milan and then the Duomo, which is really beautiful- lots of stained glass. Some friends and I enjoyed a long lunch before our bus took us to Mantua, which is a really quaint little town. That night we had a DELICIOUS dinner there that included a quiche with peas, pumpkin ravioli, and some amazing chicken salad! The next day we toured Mantua's palace before heading to Ferrara to tour- guess what? Its palace! We arrived back in Florence to some gross weather that didn't stop until yesterday- which is super ironic because some friends and I cancelled a bike/wine tour for yesterday because of the weather! But we still have plenty of time to do that in April, when the weather will be even better. And I got to go on a great hike with my roommate Stacey yesterday in Fiesole- on the hill where Leonardo da Vinci did his first flight thing.


I am still totally in love with Florence and my friends here, but I have definitely been missing all of y'all at home a lot recently- I really missed everyone in New Orleans because it was Mardi Gras (although Jenna, Mimi, Isha and Charlotte took some precious pictures pretending I was there... which was seriously SUCH a sweet gesture!), and after almost two months of being away, the vacation feeling is wearing off and I'm realizing that I won't get to have one of my mandatory weekend trips home this semester and that I'm not going to see my friends in Chapel Hill until AUGUST. But I have so much to look forward to- tons of trips, Jake's visit, and beautiful weather to experience in Florence in the next two months and then my final summer as a college kid... so bizarre! Until next time, ciao ciao! I love all of y'all!