Ballet, Chianti, & Roma...Oh My!

Sorry to keep all of my stalker readers waiting, but here goes nothing:

THURSDAY: The most important part of today was going to the ballet. Kristie, Ari and I got dressed in our ballet best and went out to a lovely dinner before. We went to the pizzeria down the street from us and split some pizzas. I actually knew what I was ordering this time. Of course I was getting anxious about time (it was already 8:00pm and the ballet started at 8:30) so I just wanted il conto (the check). However, our waitress surprised us with "a present" of biscotti and Drambuie.

I learned that I absolutely LOVE Drambuie - it tasted similar to apple juice ... delicious. We booked it to the ballet, found our seats after completing a maze through the theatre, and watched a Midsummer Night's Dream.

I'm not sure if it was the company performing or if Italian ballet is always like this, but this ballet was not exactly classical ballet. In fact, it was very contemporary, which I actually enjoyed more. I had never read Billy's play, but the dancers were amazing and I fell in love with Puck. He was so quirky. After the ballet, Ari, Allie, and I booked our trip to....LONDON!!! For those that know me well, London has never been on the top of my Euro list. However, it seems as though Morocco and now Istanbul are crossed off of the list (for obvious reasons) so I'm up for London and seeing a show! So stay tuned for that.

FRIDAY: Up bright and early for our Chianti trip, most of the roomies headed to the train station to split into groups. The bus ride to Chianti was windy, but after an hour we made it. Wow. The countryside is absolutely gorgeous. Plus the fact we were going on a school field trip to a wine tasting was the best thing ever. I love school over here. We went and toured a winery owned by the Pazzo Family, which "pazzo" in Italian means "crazy." The family apparently were the ones who plotted to kill off the Medici Family so they could be the wealthiest. Crazy story. Anyway, the castle was gorgeous. A family currently resides there and I am immensely jealous of them (minus the fact they don't have heating, so ha!). We met the 87-year-old grounds keeper who doesn't speak any English but likes taking pictures with girls.

He was a babe. After a mini tour of the castle, we had lunch.

Delicious! I don't even really know what I was eating but it was something like: salami/cheese, pasta with tuna, & cristini with tomato paste and olive oil. Whatever it was, I'd eat it again. Then we learned the Three S's of wine tasting etiquette. Swirl, Sniff, Sip. Something like that...am I right? We tried two different types, both delicious.

Afterwards, we went to the gift shop, scouted for some goodies, and even found wine in a bag! Anyone who thinks Franzia isn't classy obviously hasn't been to Chianti, where even they sell wine in a bag. Finally, we took a lovely stroll into the countryside. Why? Simply for photo ops. So we stood aimlessly for about 20 minutes waiting to hear some insight into wine, chianti, anything relevant but nope. We did get some cool pictures though.

So Chianti trip was a success. Plus, it was free so I enjoyed it even more. I LOVE WINE!

After getting home from the trip, we all immediately packed and got ready for Roma! Our train was a half hour late, but we made it and prepared ourselves for our first real Eurotrip. A bunch of people were heading to Rome from our program, so it wasn't really scary at all. Sad to say, there weren't any gypsies on this train.

We successfully found our hostel, The Yellow, which was only a few blocks from Roma Termini. We checked into our room, not of course without some issues. So the 8 of us roomies traveled to Rome together and they separated us 6 people in a bedroom, and then 2 in a bedroom (with 4 randoms). That wasn't going to happen so we switched things around and it ended up 5 and 3. Not much better, so we just figured we'd bunk together and sleep all 8 in five beds. At least we'd all be together. That left an empty bed in our room for a random and a random we got. Nicholas (Nico for short) from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He was 21, very nice, and backpacking throughout Europe. I think it's absolutely fascinating that individuals from most countries, once you graduate University, go backpacking across the world. I wish it was customary to the U.S. We met a lot of Australians in our hostel that were packing, too.

So we went to dinner right next to our hostel, literally. We had melon and prosciutto for appetizer then I had gnocchi for dinner. Wonderful. There was a rowdy bunch of Italian boys behind our table, which made for some akward/entertaining dining. We got back, met Nico, and went out for our first night in Rome. This night actually was a complete and epic fail, besides the fact we found where we aimed to go and we learned to use Rome's subway system. The subway is incredibly easy, simply because there's only 2 lines. Regardless, I'm proud.

So we took the subway to Spagna, which allowed us to stumble upon the Spanish Steps. They're so massive (we later had to climb up them to get home) but gorgeous. After a little mapping, we met up with the boys and found our way to a club, Gilda. We realized how expensive and ritzy a big city like Rome is when they told us drinks were 10 Euro each. So we just invaded the dance floor and danced the night away.

That was serious. It was a fun time, we made some friends from Notre Dame that have been studying there since September. It was a good night. On the way home, Emily and I had to get pizza that looked too good to pass up. And it was. I got French fries & ham on mine.

I'm going to have to make this. It was SO yummy. A good start to our Roman adventures.

SATURDAY: We woke up early and grabbed breakfast to go. We took the subway to the Colosseum and learned that Vatican City pretty much closes on Sundays so instead, we turned right around and took the subway to the Vatican. We traveled around the Vatican Museum, which is absolutely amazing.

It is HUGE. We wandered through the various museums simply to get to the Sistine Chapel. The most amazing part of these old European buildings are often the ceilings.

Walking through, it is a complete 360-degree experience, with beautiful decor from the ceilings to the floor. So the Sistine Chapel. Incredible. I don't know how else to describe it, but luckily for everyone I snuck a picture.

Then we found ourselves in front of the Vatican. For not being a super-religious individual, I fell in love. Just from the outside, the buildings are beautiful and enormous.

Then, once inside, the basilica was even grander. I think that the Vatican was my favorite part of Italy. (BABCI: I know you're reading this and I wish you had been traveling with me. All I could think of was your story when you went to mass in the Vatican. But don't worry, surprises for you when I get home in May!) So just wandering around the Vatican was amazing. It is so massive inside that I felt like I was constantly discovering new crooks and places I hadn't previously walked through. If you've never been there, add it to your bucket list...NOW!

So after being awed by the Pope's place, we accidentally stumbled into a fashion show. We saw the fancy cars, the fancy clothes, and the fancy people. It was actually really cool. Onward. We had lunch with the boys at a little ristorante and then found our way to the Pantheon. It wasn't my favorite place we visited in Rome, but amazing none-the-less. How did the Romans build all of these magnificent places? I have no idea, but they're incredible.

A long day filled with walking, walking, and even more walking made for some tired, hungry babies. We all went back to our room, said our hellos to Nico, and got ready for the night. We had our wine and pizza in our room and the Jaime and Ann visited for a bit to help Nico open his corked wine bottle.

What a fabulous beginning to a crazy night. We took the subway to find the Notre Dame boys at a bar called Scholars. After a lot of mayhem (because that's the only word to describe what occured), Emily, Ari and I made it to the pub. We hung out with the Notre Dame guys, Andy & Andy, and eventually Jaime, Kaila, and Ann found us too. We danced, sang, and were merry for almost all of the night. Andy was gracious enough to send us home in a taxi and we met the rest of the rigazze! I fell right asleep :)

SUNDAY: We had planned on attending mass at the Vatican but with 8 people you can't plan times. So we all woke up, packed, racapped the ridiculous-ness of the previous night, and checked out of the hostel. Good-bye Yellow! Good-bye bedroom with pretend gunshots all of the wall. Good-bye man-smell. It was a very welcome goodbye.

So the day was filled with the Colosseum and a 4-hour walking tour (from Guide Emily, of course) of the Roman Forum. The Colosseum was actually really cool inside.

I just can't imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago, but the fact that it is still standing is amazing. After a million pictures (that all look the same) we ventured to the Roman Forum, where a bunch of ruins remain.

This was incredible to see what the city structure was like and the various structures located in the city. One of the more interesting places was called House of Vestals, where virgins would sign a 30-year contract. They lived in this house and if any man entered they would immediately be killed. Very cool place.

After the walking tour, we took the subway to the Trevi Fountain and wow! It is beautiful. Even before visually seeing it, we could hear it from down the street. Of course a tourist attraction, there were tons of people there and I even ran into Emily M. I grabbed a coin of of my wallet (making sure not to get gypsied, of course) and did my cliche pictures in front of the Trevi. I made my wish and bam! Now I'm waiting. The fountain is actually very beathtaking in it's entirety, I wasn't expecting it to be as big as it is. So all eight of us made our wishes and we grabbed dinner. I don't know where to begin about the fiasco that was our dinner. We walked into a tiny cafe/mart-type thing and sat down and ordered the spaghetti carbonera, because it was only 5 Euro and that's extremely cheap for anything Rome. We wait awhile for our meals, tight with time and trains to get back home. So eventually, we see a waitress (from another restaurant) deliver 3 plastic delivery bags to our waiter. We're all thinking, "OMG, he ordered our food from somewhere....this is unreal" and yes! Not even a minute later, he begins serving our spaghetti to us. It was slightly infuriating, slightly humorous, and slightly humiliating. Oh well, we're cracking up now. We made the slow train home to Florence, which takes 4 hours but is only a third of the regular price. Worth it. We napped, we laughed, we ate, we cried (maybe). We got back home around 11pm, completely exhausted. It was definitely a memorable weekend with the girls. We even made some new friends. Success.

Anyways, Rome. Checked it off the list. I'm not sure I'd go back there again, though. It was a great city, but mainly because of the Roman ruins and structures. Vatican City was incredible, as well as the Colosseum area. However, as for Rome as a city itself, it was dirty, scattered, and overpriced. I prefer Florence any day over Rome. So I am extremely thankful to be studying in a wonderful city such as Florence, where I don't see cars getting broken into, where a drink costs 2 Euro, and where I can walk everywhere and anywhere. Rome, maybe you were meant to stay in history.

TODAY: Finally, I'm updated to the present. I know I missed a bunch of great things about the past week, but oh well, my memory only lasts so long. Today was a struggle to get up for class. My feet, I'm almost positive, we're swollen from all of the walking we did this past weekend. Soc class was interesting. We spent the first 45 minutes attempting to take the class picture, which we successfully did outside of the school. Then Italian. Love it. Now for the past 12 hours, I've been the biggest waste. Hopefully we're booking trips as soon as my roomies finish competitively singing Disney songs. Currently playing: "Be A Man."

I'll try to keep updating as much as possible. Until then, buonanotte!

294.

Yep, that's right. 294 steps to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We did it.

...REWIND.

Last night, the girls and I stayed in. We went to a pizzeria near our apartment, about a 2 minute walk away. I had my first real pizza:

I just ordered one off of the menu and this is what I got: HOTDOGS, plus sausage and proscuitto. So delicious. I didn't want to be rude so of course I had to eat all of it. Nom nom nom. One of the waiters came over after our meal with a try of Limoncello shots for us. How kind. I love the Italians! Then after dinner, we were all so tired (the most tired I've been here by far). So after a little skyping [ :) ], I was off to bed. I had a horrible night sleep (due to the assumed exorcist haunting our room and waking up every half hour thinking we missed our train) but we all woke up on time and got our train to Pisa with Joe.

Our very first Euro train ride! Ah! So exciting. We got our tickets validated (because you must do that before boarding or else you get charged full ticket price) and found our platform. We ran into our other PSU friends on the train - how weird! Looked like it was just a Pisa kind of day. NBD. So we also discovered that gypsies ride trains too!

And they give out souveniers! How thoughtful. Gypsies. Oh, gypsies. So the train ride was eventful chatting with the girls. After about an hour, we arrived in Pisa. When planning, we had heard that all there is to do in the city is to see the Tower and that's it. Fortunately, Emily's guidebook has a walking tour of Pisa so we were all excited for that.

We wandered around the city, found an information office and got maps, and began our adventure. It's exciting to just roam the streets of foreign cities. We checked out the last Keith Haring artwork left in the city of Pisa. It was so fun and bright! How have I never heard of him?

Emily asked for directions from the two cutest ladies so we followed them to the Fiume Arno and we explored a bit around. We made a stop at the Chiesa Santa Maria della Spina. I was actually pretty disappointed because the church looked a lot bigger in our guidebook. No reason to go in.

So after the chiesa we wandered around to find some lunch. I just had a caffe americano and we went to visit Europe's oldest botanical gardens. It was 1.5 E to get in and it was worth it. It was a pretty garden to walk around, although I'm sure it would be even more beautiful once the flowers bloom. So we walked around the gardens for a bit and had some family photo shoots.

Then we were off to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We found it, no problem, and proceeded to take the cliche "hold up the tower" pictures. Since there's 10 of us, it took a little while but it was fun seeing all of the other tourists' poses.

Definitely worth the trip. Then we walked around the cathedral and the baptistery and ran into other students on our trip.

We decided it was necessary to pay the 15 Euro and climb the Tower! All of us minus one climbed the entire 294 steps to the top. It was extremely interesting to begin climbing and actually FEEL which way the tower was leaning as you ascend to the top. Some stairs are easy to climb and then others, depending on the lean, are more difficult. We finally made it up to the top and let me just say...WOW.

The view was absolutely amazing. We could see the entire city of Pisa and some of us even ran a lap or two around the top. All in all, the Tower is a must-see (even if the rest of the city isn't).

We ventured our way back down through Pisa to the train station, but of course not without stopping at Pisa's best gelato shop, La Bottega del Gelato. I had two flavors: coffee and hazlenut. It was SO delicious!

After some more walking & ticket problems at the station, we were on our return train to our home, Florence.

The night was somewhat uneventful. We made family pasta and sauce with proscuitto, cucumbers, red pepper, and anything else we could find in our kitchen. It turned out delicious - as always - and after many outfit dilemmas, we made it to Naima for Happy Hour. It was an early night, which I liked, and I slept for twelve hours. I think I needed it.

TODAY: I slept in until noon (after a couple of panic attacks last night that where was "the man" in our bathroom even though it was just Em) and went through pictures from yesterday. A couple more roomies woke up and we ventured out to explore, with no destination in mind. We walked near the Piazza del Repubblica and saw a crowd formed around a fountain of a pig. We noticed they were touching his nose and putting a coin in his mouth, which they let fall out. I assume it's good luck if the coin falls through the grate below the mouth because whenever it did, the individual was very happy and did a "yes!" motion. So of course I want my wishes to come true so I too fed the pig fountain a coin. YES! My coin went through the grates. Good luck to me!

Then we walked to Ponte Vecchio and just window shopped the gold stores. I can't wait to buy something from the bridge. Hungry for lunch, Kristie took us to Dante's Pizzeria, which is conveniently close to our apartment, just on the opposite side of the river. Kristie and I split a prosciutto pizza which was delicious.

I wonder if Italians eat at much pizza as I think they should. Then we wandered up to the markets to browse scarfs and I successfully got two (for lower than asking price). I'm still not comfortable trying to bargain the vendors down. This is something I'll have to work on.

Honestly, this life is surreal, My Sunday consisted of gallivanting around Florence, just aimlessly window-shopping and taking in the scenes. This is the life. I can't wait until the weather gets warmer and I can stay outside sunup through sundown (after sundown, it gets much more chilly). Alright, now on to homework, which doesn't seem acceptable to me seeing as I'm on a four-month vacation. School? What?

Off I go! BYE!

Fiesole & Friends

Buongiorno!

It's been a bit since the last update (sorry mommy, I know you've been stalking) but Wednesday was some-what uneventful. At least as uneventful as you can get in this beautiful city.

I had classes, classes, and more classes. We had our Story of Florence class, which meets once a week for three hours. Good thing Emily is in it too, or else I'd go crazy. We practiced our gypsy dance in the school's full mirror before class began (since we have no mirrors in our apartment, womp). We made a friend simply because she is scared of us and our craziness. The class seems interesting enough and is taught by an English professor. He appears very enthusiastic about the subject matter and we learned that for the first half of every lesson, we will be in the classroom and for the latter, we will be out somewhere on-site. I can't believe these are my classes. Going to the Duomo for the morning or traveling to a cafe to interact with Italians. Wow. I am a lucky girl!

So Wednesday evening, all of the roommates and I decided it was best to stay in and relax, store up some energy for our crazy weekend. Emily and Jess prepared dinner which consisted of seasoned chicken caprese. Delicious! I am actually learning to cook (grazie emily) and look forward to the market. After dinner, we decided to discuss where everyone wants to travel and we came up with an insane list of weekend trips, as well as perhaps the most insane spring break travel proposal. ever. Trips include Interlaken, Barcelona, Budapest, Lisbon, and Morocco, just to name a few. Although we stayed in, we got so ccaught up in planning that we really didn't get to bed early at all. At least I got a sound night sleep.

Thursday was extremely eventful. I had my 9am Art History class, where we met outside of school and proceeded to walk around the city to examine Roman architecture of churches and piazzas. We learned about the various ways to examine edificios from the outside, noting the type of materical used, such as marble or rough stone. Hopefully, this will grow on me. It was freezing out and I only had my rain coat on (poor planning - it didn't ever even rain!), so I was quickly in a bitter mood. However, that lifted a bit as we traveled out of narrow streets up to the Palazzo Vecchio, where I learned that it serves as Florence's city hall.

I wish ours looked like that! Wow! I continued to cheer up - not warm up - when we finally concluded our first on-site visit at the Duomo. My love. This was the first time I stepped foot in the Duomo and it was nice. I must admit this masterpiece, for me, is much more enchanting and mesmerizing from the outside, with its pink, green, and white marble. The inside is beautiful as well, don't get me wrong. I love this building.

After my first class, I met up with Kristie and Rachael and two other girls and we walked a few minutes to the Marketo Centrale. Kristie, who speaks Italian very well, helped me to learn how to order items on my own. I ordered myself a chunk of bread (while pointing,"Vorre questo pane" = "I want this bread"). I also ordered due ("doo-ay" = 2) mozzarella and some prosciutto. The butcher was very helpful because he caught me off-guard by asking me which prosciutto I like best: salty or sweet. I replied salty and then he took down a gross looking piece of prosciutto to slice, so I panicked and said "no no! sweet! sweet!" He must have known how confused I was because he shaved off a tasting from both the salt and sweet and let me taste test. Sweet it is! Although all prosciutto is delicious! I felt good at trying to order in Italian and I think that the vendors appreciated my effort.

After the market, I made a quick sandwich of bread, oil, fried prosciutto, mozzarella and garlic/pepper and was off to my second class of the day. I love my Italian class. It's great to have a friend - Kaila - in it and my professor is extremely positive and encouraging.

After Italian, I met up with Kristie and Ari (who we affectionately call Big Papa or Little A) to go shop for leather jackets. We went to Massimo Leather , a shop that our roommates recommended. Massimo (or at least the owner) was very helpful and persuasive. I ended up trying a bunch of jackets, but I absolutely LOVE the one that I purchased.

It's a new style, hooded, and of course black. The girls and I tried to haggle with him - Kristie spoke Italian to impress him, but no luck. Then Ari got 10 Euro off of mine and her jackets and eventually Kristie's too. I was happy with that, considering my jacket was originally 390 Euros.

So a very successful shopping trip and I was off to my last class of the week, my Cultural Literacy class taught by Professor Sarah Barker, who is actually Australian. She is the cutest person I've ever met. She is constantly smiling and nodding. There's 13 students in this class and I know 5 already. We discussed, generally, the differences between Italian and American cultures. We are encouarged to look at our new environment through an "Italian lense" rather than an American one. I am going to love this class.

So finally, last night. Wow. Last night was entertaining and of course a blast. The upside of living with nine other girls is that we're almost always up for whatever, wherever, and hanging out with whoever. We are all very outgoing and last night I was impressed with where the night went. Of course, it started out with family dinner of pasta and proscuitto (we woke up from naps late so it was best to stay in for dinner) and then decided the plans for the night. We went to Naima for happy hour (what else is new?) and saw many of our friends. Cosimo and Pietro joined us soon enough and everyone was having a blast. The boys were teaching us Italian and we were asking them how to say certain phrases so that we could use them later, or in my case, call Pietro out for being "rude." They were hilarious, even though they only had "just one beer." After Pietro drank two of Emily's teas - and spit them all over the floor not once, not twice, but tre! times, we decided enough! Shortly after midnight, we all ventured to the black & white party at TwentyOne, a night club right down the street.

I enjoyed the club and was able to talk with Pietro and his friend Matteo. Italian friend count: 3. Success. Pietro and Matteo were making jokes all night about relationships and how Italian culture is very different because "you can have American girlfriend AND Italian girlfriend. It is ok." Personally, I don't agree but hey, the "Italian lense."

After Twenty One, it was time for one last snack so of course I cook up some sauteed prosciutto and mozzarella sandwiches. Delicious. I was successfully able to SES-creep and talk to friends back home. Sometime after four, I went to bed in the best mood.

This morning, Emily and I were up at 8:30 for our field trip to Fiesole. After some confusion about the meeting spot, we caught up with our class and took the bus.

We ascended up the hills (similar to the Hollywood Hills) to Fiesole, just outside of Florence, where many wealthy families and individuals live. The view was gorgeous. Of course, it is about 30 degrees outside but it's not State College weather so we can't complain. Our teacher is a little quirky but he managed to entertain us this morning. We arrived before the museum opened so instead we took a mini tour to the edge of the city to get a breath-taking view of Florence.

It is incredible how visible the entire city was.

After taking a few pictures, we had to climb back up the hill to the museum. I honestly thought I was going to get sick, it was too much exercise for too early in the morning - or ever. We talked with our professor's au pair, Jessica, who was from San Diego. Now that's an idea! (Ha Ha).

We toured through the ancient Etruscan and Roman ruins of Fiesole. They were more interesting than I had anticipated. It's incredible to think about how such places were created hundreds of years ago. We learned about the Amphitheater, the temples, and the bath houses.

We saw an ancient sacrificial table where the Romans would sacrifice animals to the gods, as well as cut open animals and look for their livers. Interesting.

The construction and layout of the bath house was interesting as well: there were four separate areas, according to the temperature of the water. The bath house was the only place where people of different societal status interacted. Best part of freezing our butts off outside: having a lolzcat follow us around. Precious.

We finally were able to escape the frigid temperature and horrid winds and went inside the museum. We looked around for possibly ten minutes and were back on the bus home to Florence. I enjoyed our first field trip in this class and we have a great group of students (at least the 6 that attended today).

Emily and I passed a McDs on our way walking home from the bus and of course we were curious. We went inside and noticed dramatic changes than from our beloved American ones. The menu, for one, rarely displays the prices of food, which was annoying. Also, they did not have any breakfast items. I just got some nugs and shared fries with Em (which tasted better than the US). We needed Ketchup for the fries and could not find it anywhere. Of course it's not free, it cost us 20 cents for one little packet of ketchup. ABSURD! Never again. We're making it necessary to check out the various McD's across Europe. Judge us.

Alright so now that I've spent the last hour updating this blog and thawing from our arctic adventures, it's time for us to venture out and explore the city! Gnocchi for lunch? Yes.

BYYYEEEEEEE