Rome and Northern Italy!

These last few weeks have flown by! I can't believe that the semester's end is only a few weeks away, it seems way too soon! Last week we had our program's northern Italy trip. It was really fun. I loved seeing a bunch of different cities in the north, they were a lot different than Rome. But before I talk about that, I'm going to try to remember some of the stuff we've been up to while in Rome.

One the best things I've done lately here in Rome is go to the Borghese Gallery. It was sooo full of such amazing pieces of art. My very favorite ones were Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, Rape of Persephone, and his David. I had learned about all of those last year in Heritage, and it was just so great being able to see them in person. I've decided that Bernini is definitely my favorite sculptor. His stuff is all around Rome, seriously, there is a bunch of his stuff in museums, churches, random piazzas, everywhere! We walked to the Gallery so we therefore had to walk through the Borghese Gardens, and they were really pretty. It was raining that day, so they probably weren't as pretty as they are in the sunlight, so I really want to go back up there soon. And it's finally turned to nice, warm weather here in Rome, so hopefully I'll make it up there soon.

Although I haven't been up to those gardens lately, I have been back to the orange gardens we found. It was sooo nice the two times we've been back up there. Me, Jillian and Leanna went the first time and brought books and just lounged around for a few hours. We felt a little guilty, not going out and going to museums or whatnot, but we decided that we were experiencing real Italian culture. Italians always seem to just being out doing fun stuff, relaxing, and hardly ever at work! Well that might be an overstatement, but sometimes it seems like the whole city is on vacation. But yea, it was just such a nice sunny day to be out in the sun reading. And the best part was that I was reading Twilight! I've become a tad bit of a fan of it :) I haven't finished the last one yet, but will be this weekend! Haha, anyways, Jillian and I made it back up there again, on another sunny day. I think it's one of my favorite places in Rome.

Another fun thing we got to do was take a tour of the Pontifical North American College (the NAC). It's where all of the seminarians that are learning to become priests go to school and live. They are the ones that organize God Squad and they always come to our lunches at the hotel . We have become friends with a group of them and always have a blast with them. But one Sunday afternoon a bunch of us got a tour of the NAC. The best part was at the end when they took us up to the roof which had a fabulous view of Rome! We ended the tour with a trip to Old Bridge gelateria (one of the best ones in Rome).

And then last week was our big trip to Northern Italy. We took one day trip to Siena before we went to Northern Italy for the week though. Siena was really pretty and hilly. We took all our tours and then we were free for lunch. One of my friends, Meghan had been there before and knew of an amazing little restaurant that homemade their pasta there. It was sooo good!! We spent the rest of the afternoon in the big piazza watching all the little bambini (children). And ended the day with some really good gelato.

Last Tuesday we left bright and early, 6am, for our Northern trip. The bus ride was 5 hours long :( but it wasn't too bad, with ipods and books (especially Twilight!). We got to Ferrara and went to the Jewish semitary where we had some oral presentations (I luckily was not in any of the classes that required those so I didn't have to make any presentation the entire trip!). We saw Giorgio Bassani's tomb (he's a famous Italy author from the last century). We went to two different palaces and then went and saw the big castle in the middle of the city. For the entire trip we were staying at a hotel in Ferrara and just taking day trips to different cities around the rest of northern Italy. The hotel that we were staying in was super old and used to be a palace in the 15th century! Jillian and I got a quad with two other girls, Michelle and Jessica. Our room was really neat, it had two levels and a balcony.

Wednesday we went to Mantua, where we went to two more palaces, Palazzo Te and Palazzo Ducale. They were pretty cool. There was a bunch of really nice art work in them. After tours we had lunch. We had been told that the specialty of Ferrara and Mantua was tortellini with pumpkin in it. I had tried it the night before in Ferrara, but was told to try it in Mantua as well because it was different. It was really good in Mantua. They put cinnamon and sugar on top of. We also found a really good bakery with these little specialty pastries. That night back in Ferrara we got Mexican! It was the first time since being at home that I've had Mexican. As much as I love Italian food, it's kind of a problem because they don't have many ethnic restaurants at all, so all you eat is Italian food, so it's nice to have a change.

Thursday we went to Ravenna. My favorite thing there was being able to see Dante's tomb! Ravenna's specialty food is this sandwich thing that you can get any kind of cheese and meat you want in it, and it's in this flat bread type stuff, it was really good. They also have lots of fruits there so we hit the grocery store up and got a whole lot of fruit for the rest of the week. Friday we went to Padua wehre wee got to go to Scrovegni's Chapel. It's this little chapel that has all these different beautiful paintings. The only weird thing was that before we were allowed in the chapel we had to be "disinfected". It was strange. We had to sit in this airtight room for 15 minutes while I guess they were sucking out all the dirt in the air or something. Later that afternoon we went to Vicenza, where we saw the Teatro Olimpico, it's this really old theater. It was pretty neat looking, it had all these statues surrounding it and a really cool stage design. It was really funny though because once we were done with oral presentations, they guys that had let us in told us we should stay for a "performance", which we thought would be really cool...false. It was really just a light show sort of. And it went on for 15 minutes. And we all, including the professors couldn't stop laughing.

Saturday, was our last day, and we went to Bologna. I think that Bologna was probably my favorite city. A lot of the cities were pretty quiet, and I think I'm just more used to Rome and all it's noise, that I liked Bologna a little better because it was more busy. We did a bunch of tours of the churches and the piazzas around the city. Bologna also has two leaning towers in it, like Pisa. And they were just stuck right in the middle of downtown. Supposedly the entire city was filled with towers, everyone had one. I really wish I could have seen that! After tours we found a restaurant for lunch and got to try Bologna's specialty, their meat sauce, and it was pretty good! We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around looking in shops and of course getting gelato. Then we made our way back to the bus and had a lovely 5 hour ride home.

Overall, the trip to Northern Italy was really fun. I really enjoyed being able to see such a variety of cities, I think I got a good feeling of Northern Italy. I'm excited though because Jillian and I are leaving this Thursday night for Sicily! So now I'll be able to see some of Southern Italy. I'll try to write about that trip when I get back. Ciao!