Wow, so I have a lot of catch up to do. I'll just start with two weekends ago. We decided to stay in Rome two weekends ago, which is always a nice idea. Midterms were last week so the weekend consisted of some sightseeing and walking around our beautiful city, but unfortunately also included a whole lot of studying (a good preview to the next week). But one afternoon Jillian, Maria and I went looking for the key hole on Aventine Hill that supposedly had an amazing view. That afternoon was so beautiful! On the way up to the key hole we stumbled upon this orange garden that had an amazing view as well. It looked over the entire city! We will definitely be going back there for a picnic or studying once it gets a little warmer. We did eventually find the key hole, and it really was great. It's this random door with a big key hole that you look through and is a garden with a little aisle of ivy going up to a window thing that has a perfect view of St. Peter's! It was really neat. It was also cool because we were standing obviously on Italian soil, bu looking through a garden that was property of another country (I can't remember the name), then looking at St. Peter's which is on Vatican property, so technically we were looking at three different countries at once! After that, we kept walking and found this quaint little church. It had amazing echoing abilities! No one else was in there so we started humming and it sounded so cool! We were going to try to sing something but then people walked in haha. We want to go back there for mass sometime though. We walked on and found ourselves near St. Paul Outside the Wall which we thought was actually pretty far away. We saw the pyramid which was cool. We ended up taking a bus back for me to make it to class in time, but realized we weren't as far away as we thought so we're probably take that walk again sometime.
That weekend was also Valentine's Day. Jillian and I decided to have our own special dinner that night. We got all dressed up and were really excited about getting some really good food. We asked our friend Daniel where we should go for dinner, and he suggested a place right around the corner. Unfortunately, when we got there we soon found out that a nice little restaurant on Valentine's Day might be a little hard to come by without a reservation. We were disappointed but kept walking. We ended up at the Pantheon, and thought that that would serve as a great backdrop. We were stupid though and picked the worse restaurant in that piazza! It was so disappointing, it was probably the worse meal I've had in Rome! Jillian's tasted like it was microwavable Chef Boyardee! And I don't even know what mine tasted like, horrible is all I can say! We were a little perturbed to say the least, but to make things better we went straight to Giolitti's, which is the best gelato in Rome. Some of the friends we've made there helped make the night a little better and gave me an extra flavor :) After that, we headed back to the room and made the wise decision to watch "Three Coins in the Fountain", which is a movie that won the Academy Award in 1954. It is all shot in Rome, and it was just so much fun to see our little world on a movie! Of course, it was an incredibly cheesy romantic story, but what else do you really want to watch on Valentine's Day!?
The next week was midterms, no fun at all! Most of the time here the work load is very minimal (compared to back at Millsaps), which how it should be while you're studying abroad trying to travel etc. But last week definitely was a lot of work! But now it's all over and so far the grades have come back good. Friday night, to celebrate being done with midterms and to make up for our horrible meal the past weekend, we made the safe and delicious decision of going to Baffeto's for dinner. It was so good! They have the best pizza ever and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who comes to Rome. Also, in the spirit of Catholicism, being in Rome and all, we watched Sister Act, which was super fun.
Saturday (this being this last Saturday), Leah, Jillian and I left for a three city tour. We took a train Pisa first. Pisa was nice, mostly just for the tower and the surrounding area, other than that, there really isn't much at all to see. The tower is really neat though! It's just amazing to me that it's still standing! It was really funny because like us, everyone there was taking the picture where you look like you're holding up the tower. What made it really funny was that there was this huge open grass area, but no one was supposed to be out on it, but of course everyone did go out, so every 5 minutes you heard the patrol whistling telling people to get off. Other than the tower, we went in the cathedral which was pretty. We also went into the Bapistry because it supposedly had a really cool acostic system thing and they did demonstrations. This one lady would get everyone quiet and then would sing a note and it would echo back a whole bunch of times at all the different pitches. It was kind of crazy, I really wish I could have heard a choir in there though. We also went into this old cemetery that had frescos. It was pretty because the sun was setting and was shining in through these arches.
After Pisa we hopped on a train to Lucca, which was a pretty ride because the sun was still setting. Ahh the Tuscan sun is just so pretty! We got to Lucca and found our hostel which ended up being that we were the only ones going to be staying there and the guy that ran it didn't stay the night, so we were all a little unsure about that, but no worries we all came out alive (however, I did wake up to the sound of a really creepy, scary cat that had to have been very angry right outside our window). That night we went into the city walls to walk around. The city of Lucca literally does have these huge medieval walls surrounding it, which is super cool! We walked around the town for a long time, getting lost, but that was ok. Lucca is much less touristy than any of the cities I had been to so far, I really liked it. It's a town you could live in very easily. We got dinner in Lucca, but headed back to the hostel early because we were all exhausted.
The next day we walked around Lucca a little more. We found this really neat tower (there are a lot of towers in Lucca) that had trees at the top. We climbed up the stairs, lots and lots of stairs, to the top and got a beautiful view of Lucca just as the city was waking up. It was very serene. Then we grabbed breakfast and headed to the train station to catch a train to Viareggio for some Carnevale fun.
Carnevale is the Italian version of Mardi Gras. When we got there there were so many people getting off the train all dressed up in all different sorts of silly costumes. Once we got to the festivities the costumes only got better. There were countless families dressed up together, in bee, skunk, hot pink bunnies, royal families, Italian mobsters, anything you could think of. We found some food for lunch and top it off when some gelato while we sat listening to the band that was playing. After a while the parade started. There were so many weird floats! We didn't really understand them, we wished we knew more about the culture so we could understand better. One of the more interesting ones was a communist float that had a huge devil's face on it with communist symbols all over it. All the floats were all so interesting and creative. Supposedly there was one with Obama on it somewhere along the line but we had to run to catch our train before it got to where we were. Overall the trip was really fun, it was nice to see three different places in one weekend.
This week has gone well so far. Nice change from midterms. Today was Ash Wednesday, so with the start of Lent, was the beginning of the station churches in Rome. Each day there is a different church that has traditionally held mass during lent in the years passed. So this morning Jillian and I, along with a group of other girls were up before 6am so we could make it to the 645am mass. Although it was early it was nice. Today's church was up on the Aventine Hill which of course was a pretty walk. And all the seminarians (many that we know from Mass at the Saint Mary's chapel and from God Squad, which we have one Mondays) were there. It was a nice start to the day. Later on today a few of us attempted to go to this outdoor market near the Vatican but it wasn't open today unfortunately, but we did get some gelato from probably the best to get it after Giolitti's, so all was good. Then tonight some of us went to see Revolutionary Road at the theatre near us. It was a good movie I thought, sad though.
So I hope I've caught up on things now. And p.s. someone told me it is hard to leave a comment because I guess you had to sign into aol or google or something to leave one, but I changed it now so that you don't have to do that, you can just do anoymously, just sign your name at the end so I know who wrote it.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Barcelona
This last weekend, three other girls (Jillian, Leanna and Laurel) and I went to Barcelona, Spain. I was really excited about going because before studying Italian, I had studied Spanish for 5 years, and had yet to go to Spain. We booked a late flight on Thursday night using Ryanair. Now if you don't know what Ryanair is, it's this airline that has really cheap flights around Europe, but sometimes (most of the time) they fly you into a city that is outside of the city you want to go to. So then, you have to take a bus ride to where ever you really wanted to go. Our flight took us to an airport that was an hour and a half outside of Barcelona :( but that was ok, we were still really excited when we landed! We had planned on getting a late dinner there since everyone we had talked to had said that people in Spain stay out really late and don't usually eat dinner until around 11pm, so that sounded perfect to us!
When we got to the city we strapped on our luggage and determined to get some real Spanish food set out into the city. However, as we continued on our journey, store after store was closed, we didn't quite understand. It was also strange because it seemed like all the stores had names that were in Chinese writing. After walking around not finding anything open for about 20 minutes we finally ran into an open restaurant, although it was not quite Spanish, it was sort of a mix of Spanish and Chinese, run by Chinese but sort of Spanish food. We walked in and everyone awkwardly stared at us, while we awkwardly stared back. At that point our group wanted to just turn around and leave but we thought that would be even more strange so we sat down. Jillian decided to order this meal that said it was rice with a tomato sauce and eggs. It was a little weird because as one meal came out after the other we noticed that they were coming out of the little closet off to the right. We would hear a little knock on the door and our waitress would go over and fetch one of our meals. Jillian's lovely dinner ended up being a plate heaping full of white rice with about a gallon of ketchup on top. It was pretty gross. Oh and then the bread smelled like fish, very strange. Anyways, we awkwardly ate our meals, being the only ones in the restaurant that were actually eating, and got out of there pretty fast. We couldn't stop laughing about our disgusting first meal in Barcelona. But don't worry, that first meal was not a sign of what the weekend was to bring.
After dinner we caught the metro to our hostel, which actually turned out to be really nice! It's always a little worrisome not knowing what the hostel is going to be like. When we checked in, we got to know the guy that was working the night shift, Nacho. He was super nice and helped us figure out everything we should do over the next few days. He even offered to make us a real spanish dinner on Saturday night and help us find our first destination in the morning since he would be leaving around the same time as us.
So the next morning, Nacho helped us metro our way to the first park we wanted to see, then we all got breakfast. Then he dropped us off at our tour around Barcelona. It was a free walking tour that ended up being really nice. We got to see a bunch of the historical sites around Barcelona, including the art school where Picasso would sit on the steps of and draw, the church where the wood that Columbus brought back from America is located and a whole lot of other stuff. We ate lunch at this really good Spanish restaurant Nacho had suggested and I got to have a Spanish omelet which was sooo delicious! We also had Crema Catalyan which is the Spanish version of Creme Brulee, sooo good! After that we went to the Picasso museum which was really neat! Later that night we went to a dinner where we got tapas, and then saw flamengo dancing. The day was packed full of really fun stuff!
The next day, we slept in, which was sooo nice! Not too late though, because we had a full day of walking ahead of us. First we decided to go to Park Guell, which is a park that Gaudi designed, it was soo cool! If you have never seen any of Gaudi's work, definitely check it out, it's so different than anything I've seen so far, it kind of reminded me of Disney World, but real art. Then we walked to Sagrada Familia, which is a cathedral that Gaudi designed as well, it is sooo cool! Part of it looks like what a sandcastle would look like if you put water on it, or built it with wet sand. After that we walked to two other houses that Gaudi built. The second one, the one that he lived in, we took a tour of. It was soooo cool! Me and Jillian decided that we will live there someday. There was this really neat fireplace and the two front rooms were completely open to the street with huge windows. The wood around the entire house was so cool too, really smooth. Then there was the awesome rooftop that had the most amazing tile designs. I really can't describe the house in a way to help you understand, so you'll just have to look at pictures. Anyways, then we walked around for a while and found this restaurant/bar that was called "Obama-British Africa" or something like that. It was a neat place with all this african art everywhere. We thought the name was funny though. We got this super good crepe with a lot of chocolate, bananas and walnuts, so good! Then we attempted to go to this magic fountain show, but it was closed, I was sad.
That night, Nacho made us this amazing lentil stew. It took a long time to make, but that just made it all the better. We ended up staying up talking with Nacho and some of the other people staying in the hostel. We talked with this one guy that was from Colorado. He has been backpacking around Europe for 5 months by himself and he had a bunch of stories to tell us from that and then from his hitchhiking around the U.S. We learned never to trust a guy wearing a dolphin spray-painted shirt.
The next morning it was time to go back to Rome. As much as we enjoyed Barcelona, we were all happy to get back to our city.
I am looking forward to Thursday because we are going to the ballet to see Sleeping Beauty. And then this next weekend we are staying in Rome. Hopefully, we will be able to fit in a lot of sightseeing this weekend, but midterms are also next week, so unfortunately there will also be some studying.
Hope all is well back at home. Miss you all and wish you were here exploring with me.
When we got to the city we strapped on our luggage and determined to get some real Spanish food set out into the city. However, as we continued on our journey, store after store was closed, we didn't quite understand. It was also strange because it seemed like all the stores had names that were in Chinese writing. After walking around not finding anything open for about 20 minutes we finally ran into an open restaurant, although it was not quite Spanish, it was sort of a mix of Spanish and Chinese, run by Chinese but sort of Spanish food. We walked in and everyone awkwardly stared at us, while we awkwardly stared back. At that point our group wanted to just turn around and leave but we thought that would be even more strange so we sat down. Jillian decided to order this meal that said it was rice with a tomato sauce and eggs. It was a little weird because as one meal came out after the other we noticed that they were coming out of the little closet off to the right. We would hear a little knock on the door and our waitress would go over and fetch one of our meals. Jillian's lovely dinner ended up being a plate heaping full of white rice with about a gallon of ketchup on top. It was pretty gross. Oh and then the bread smelled like fish, very strange. Anyways, we awkwardly ate our meals, being the only ones in the restaurant that were actually eating, and got out of there pretty fast. We couldn't stop laughing about our disgusting first meal in Barcelona. But don't worry, that first meal was not a sign of what the weekend was to bring.
After dinner we caught the metro to our hostel, which actually turned out to be really nice! It's always a little worrisome not knowing what the hostel is going to be like. When we checked in, we got to know the guy that was working the night shift, Nacho. He was super nice and helped us figure out everything we should do over the next few days. He even offered to make us a real spanish dinner on Saturday night and help us find our first destination in the morning since he would be leaving around the same time as us.
So the next morning, Nacho helped us metro our way to the first park we wanted to see, then we all got breakfast. Then he dropped us off at our tour around Barcelona. It was a free walking tour that ended up being really nice. We got to see a bunch of the historical sites around Barcelona, including the art school where Picasso would sit on the steps of and draw, the church where the wood that Columbus brought back from America is located and a whole lot of other stuff. We ate lunch at this really good Spanish restaurant Nacho had suggested and I got to have a Spanish omelet which was sooo delicious! We also had Crema Catalyan which is the Spanish version of Creme Brulee, sooo good! After that we went to the Picasso museum which was really neat! Later that night we went to a dinner where we got tapas, and then saw flamengo dancing. The day was packed full of really fun stuff!
The next day, we slept in, which was sooo nice! Not too late though, because we had a full day of walking ahead of us. First we decided to go to Park Guell, which is a park that Gaudi designed, it was soo cool! If you have never seen any of Gaudi's work, definitely check it out, it's so different than anything I've seen so far, it kind of reminded me of Disney World, but real art. Then we walked to Sagrada Familia, which is a cathedral that Gaudi designed as well, it is sooo cool! Part of it looks like what a sandcastle would look like if you put water on it, or built it with wet sand. After that we walked to two other houses that Gaudi built. The second one, the one that he lived in, we took a tour of. It was soooo cool! Me and Jillian decided that we will live there someday. There was this really neat fireplace and the two front rooms were completely open to the street with huge windows. The wood around the entire house was so cool too, really smooth. Then there was the awesome rooftop that had the most amazing tile designs. I really can't describe the house in a way to help you understand, so you'll just have to look at pictures. Anyways, then we walked around for a while and found this restaurant/bar that was called "Obama-British Africa" or something like that. It was a neat place with all this african art everywhere. We thought the name was funny though. We got this super good crepe with a lot of chocolate, bananas and walnuts, so good! Then we attempted to go to this magic fountain show, but it was closed, I was sad.
That night, Nacho made us this amazing lentil stew. It took a long time to make, but that just made it all the better. We ended up staying up talking with Nacho and some of the other people staying in the hostel. We talked with this one guy that was from Colorado. He has been backpacking around Europe for 5 months by himself and he had a bunch of stories to tell us from that and then from his hitchhiking around the U.S. We learned never to trust a guy wearing a dolphin spray-painted shirt.
The next morning it was time to go back to Rome. As much as we enjoyed Barcelona, we were all happy to get back to our city.
I am looking forward to Thursday because we are going to the ballet to see Sleeping Beauty. And then this next weekend we are staying in Rome. Hopefully, we will be able to fit in a lot of sightseeing this weekend, but midterms are also next week, so unfortunately there will also be some studying.
Hope all is well back at home. Miss you all and wish you were here exploring with me.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
I just had the most fabulous weekend in Florence! Saturday morning, Jillian, Leanna, Caitlin and I got up at the very early hour of 5:30am to catch our 4 hour train to Florence. The ride wasn't bad at all, I slept most of the way there. Once we got there we found our way to our hostel. At first I was a little disappointed because it seemed like Florence was very similar to Rome by the looks, but the weekend definitely proved me wrong! We checked into our hostel and then decided we would go to the Duomo. The dome itself was huge (I think the biggest before St. Peter's was built). It was so big that they had to build a dome within the dome to help support it. The dome with in the dome had a dipiction of the Last Judgement, which was really neat. To get to the top we had to climb a good 500 steps! It was quite a hike, but totally worth it! At the top we could see eveything there was to see in Florence. And it was such a beautiful, clear, sunny day. The city was just beautiful, with pretty hills off in the distance. It was nice to get the big picture of the city.
After we left the Duomo we caught a bus to one of Jillian's family friends who lives in Florence. It was actually quite miraculous that we found the place. We had no idea where it was, only the bus line to get on, but somehow we found our way there! When we got to Vonna's house she gave us tea and pastries and we all sat around talking in Italian. I was really impressed with how much I understood! She showed us old pictures of when she had gone to visit Jillian's dad's family when her dad was about our age, it was so funny to see! Then her son Neri came over and told us he would take us out that night and show us around Florence.
First, he took us to Piazza di Michelangelo, which over looked a different part of the city. It was really pretty because the sun had just set and all the lights were turning on and reflecting over the river. After that he took us to this fancy bar where he got us pre-dinner drinks with strawberries. The bar overlooked the river and the Ponto Vecchio (the superold bridge, and the only one in Florence that the Germans didn't burn down during WWII). Neri took us for a long walk around the city showing us everything. It was so nice to have a person that really knew Florence. It was so cute he kept saying "this is my city", he seemed so incredible proud of everything, I loved it! After the walk we returned to the bar that actually had a restaurant on the other side of it and we had dinner there. Our table overlooked the river again and there was nice music playing. Neri ordered all these traditional Tuscan appetizers and explained all about them. We had wine, pizza, chocolate dessert, and some espresso. I was sooo full by the end of it! It was so nice too because he insisted on paying for all 4 of us! After dinner he wanted to take us to this bar that he always goes to. It was really funny because everywhere we went Neri seemed to know everyone! It was such an Italian thing! The bar was really fun because he got us drinks and we all went outside and some of his friends who spoke a little english showed up. We tried to teach Neri some American slang and it was hilarious! He thought all the words were so funny because they didn't make any sense at all. After quite a full night he took us back to our hostel.
The next day, we all got up and decided to go to some museums. It was a good day for museums because it was cold and rainy outside. I was really happy we had spent so much of the last day outside. First we went to the Galleria Accademia where David is. It was so awesome to see! He is absolutely huge! After that we went to the Uffizi. It took us about 3 hours for the whole thing. There was so much amazing art there!! Some of my favorites were of Botticelli's and Caravaggio. The Uffizi is a must see for anyone that goes to Florence! After that we had lunch and caught our train back to Rome. I absolutely loved seeing Florence and I am now really looking forward to Barcelona next weekend!
After we left the Duomo we caught a bus to one of Jillian's family friends who lives in Florence. It was actually quite miraculous that we found the place. We had no idea where it was, only the bus line to get on, but somehow we found our way there! When we got to Vonna's house she gave us tea and pastries and we all sat around talking in Italian. I was really impressed with how much I understood! She showed us old pictures of when she had gone to visit Jillian's dad's family when her dad was about our age, it was so funny to see! Then her son Neri came over and told us he would take us out that night and show us around Florence.
First, he took us to Piazza di Michelangelo, which over looked a different part of the city. It was really pretty because the sun had just set and all the lights were turning on and reflecting over the river. After that he took us to this fancy bar where he got us pre-dinner drinks with strawberries. The bar overlooked the river and the Ponto Vecchio (the superold bridge, and the only one in Florence that the Germans didn't burn down during WWII). Neri took us for a long walk around the city showing us everything. It was so nice to have a person that really knew Florence. It was so cute he kept saying "this is my city", he seemed so incredible proud of everything, I loved it! After the walk we returned to the bar that actually had a restaurant on the other side of it and we had dinner there. Our table overlooked the river again and there was nice music playing. Neri ordered all these traditional Tuscan appetizers and explained all about them. We had wine, pizza, chocolate dessert, and some espresso. I was sooo full by the end of it! It was so nice too because he insisted on paying for all 4 of us! After dinner he wanted to take us to this bar that he always goes to. It was really funny because everywhere we went Neri seemed to know everyone! It was such an Italian thing! The bar was really fun because he got us drinks and we all went outside and some of his friends who spoke a little english showed up. We tried to teach Neri some American slang and it was hilarious! He thought all the words were so funny because they didn't make any sense at all. After quite a full night he took us back to our hostel.
The next day, we all got up and decided to go to some museums. It was a good day for museums because it was cold and rainy outside. I was really happy we had spent so much of the last day outside. First we went to the Galleria Accademia where David is. It was so awesome to see! He is absolutely huge! After that we went to the Uffizi. It took us about 3 hours for the whole thing. There was so much amazing art there!! Some of my favorites were of Botticelli's and Caravaggio. The Uffizi is a must see for anyone that goes to Florence! After that we had lunch and caught our train back to Rome. I absolutely loved seeing Florence and I am now really looking forward to Barcelona next weekend!
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