Pisa and Lucca

Another field trip with Helen...

Lessons Learned in Pisa:
1. The leaning tower does not lean as much as one might think! Still fun to do the typical poses though. My roommate Liz decided to start a photo collection of other tourists pretending to push the tower straight from angles that you couldn't see the tower. An example:


2. Inside the baptistery, when a man tells you to be quiet for the vocal demonstration, listen to him. He will stroll into the center and his voice will be AMAZING. One voice sounds like an entire chorus. Also, listen to Helen talk a little, but take the time to go to the second level and look around. She doesn't stop to do this.

3. When craving artichokes, don't go for fried artichokes. Pizza will be a better option.

4. If Helen says meet at 2pm, do not think 2:05 will be okay. The group will have moved on to the next stop (but don't worry, the bus hasn't left yet!)




Lucca
A gorgeous little town. Lauren and I split off from the group almost immediately, and were later joined by Kahla, Liz and Diana. We just wandered around town, bought some delicious candies and then ended up meeting up with everyone to go into some churches.
At the end of the day, Helen bought us cakes that are only made in Lucca. SO GOOD. The flavors were vegetable, chocolate, plum and chocolate chip. The most interesting one was the vegetable one, surprisingly delicious!

Second Week of Classes

Monday morning my friend Kahla and I went out an adventure to kill two birds with one stone; I had to walk to do my digital multimedia Florence walk and we wanted to investigate the stadium for soccer or volleyball leagues. Sadly, we were only successful in one goal, but at least it was my homework assignment! The women we talked to at the stadium just laughed at us and told us there were only men’s leagues for soccer. I think we’re going to go play pick-up at the park and I’m e-mailing the University of Florence to see if I can play volleyball with one of their club/intramural teams (not sure what exactly it is as the website was in Italian…)

Otherwise, just lots of normal class stuff. Two Italian quizzes, I am a champ at responding to Come te chiami? (what is your name?) and Come sta? (How are you?). I successfully ordered everything I wanted at the market all in Italian. And I have a cute old Italian man at the market that I always go to his vegetable stand. He teaches me new words in Italian and slips extra things in my bag for free! I’ve gotten spring onions, extra oranges, extra lettuce and more from him! Gotta love making new friends.

I also made a boot investment! I bought real Italian leather black boots. I’m pretty pumped about them, my first substantial Italian purchase (probably my only big buy besides purchase. Unless I decide to get a leather coat…Florence is known for its leather by the way if anyone didn’t know!) It was kind of intimidating though because I went into this store on my own since I had separated from my roommate Diana so I could go to class and she could go back to the apartment. They brought me to the basement to look at more boot options and then the woman helping me decided I should look at leather jackets and began dressing me in “Italian style.” I barely escaped, running to class. But afterwards I headed back to buy my boots, refusing the jacket they kept trying me to buy. I was not ready to make that big of a decision…we all know I am awful at making up my mind and all I knew was I wanted boots.

Then today (Friday) I had a field trip to Bologna for Arte Fiera (Art First), an international exhibition of contemporary art. All of those conference centers I’ve played in for volleyball tournaments have nothing on this place. The art show was spread out over three buildings and each was FULL of art everywhere. Very overwhelming. But also an amazing opportunity. We arrived in Bologna around 10:45 and weren’t leaving until 6. I might go to an art school here in Florence, but that did not prepare me to look around for 7 hours of pure art…

A group of 5 of us decided around 3 pm that we had had enough and needed a break, so grabbed a bus to the center of Bologna and wandered around the actual city. We took a break in a nice café, and then headed back to get the bus back to Florence. Definitely would not have made it for three more hours looking around the convention center as amazing as it was. Now I need to catch up on sleep for my trip to Pisa and Lucca tomorrow!

Adventuring out of Florence

Saturday- Ravenna
Woke up at an ungodly hour and had to meet at Piazza Indipendenza at 6:50 am. As you can guess, the streets were pretty much empty except for bleary-eyed SACI kids making their way to the bus. Luckily, we had a 3 hour bus trip ahead of us and ample nap time.

Circa 10 am (this comes directly off the schedule we got from the professor guiding us! She is very tied to her schedules and timing. Nothing gets in her way. Gotta love Helen) we arrive in Ravenna.
[Brief explanation. SACI’s art history classes have an on-site component, which basically means there’s a 3 credit field trip addition to the course. But for those of us not in the art history classes, sign-ups are put in the main building every Monday before a trip and anyone is welcome to go on the trip for free as long as there is room. Amazing deal! Free trip, plus the most knowledgeable art history guide I have ever met.]

So Ravenna is known for it’s Early Christian and Early Renaissance art. The trip was full of church after church after baptistery. My favorite church was San Vitale, the official church of the Byzantine emperor and his church. The interior was gorgeous and had mosaics everywhere. I also liked San Francesco which has a crypt that is always full of water and goldfish swimming around in it. Not sure why that is…but pretty cool to see!

After a longggg day of trekking around Ravenna, we got back on the bus and headed home to Florence, getting back around 8:30 pm. Good thing we had to wake up for round two tomorrow…







Sunday- Medici Villas and Vinci
Biggest mistake was two Helen field trips in a row. Helen is a whirlwind of knowledge. On the bus every morning of a field trip, everyone is given a headset so that we can hear her explanations (fancy fancy eh?). Luckily, this means when you have had enough history of what that giraffe symbolizes in the fresco, you can just turn the headset off and explore on your own. Which is what I learned day 1 in Ravenna, giving me an advantage day 2 and making the trip that much more enjoyable!
This trip was absolutely gorgeous. The sights and views we saw really were how I always imagined Italy.

We started the morning off later (7:40 am woo!!), arriving at the first Villa soon after. The Medici Villas are just outside of Florence, making it a pretty convenient visit. We saw three different villas, Castello, Petraia and one farther away, Poggio a Caiano. This last one was my favorite with a gorgeous front porch, impressive frescoes throughout the house and a fun interior to explore (turns out all thouse house tours with my parents when I was younger really made me a fan of looking at old/new/model/villa/anything houses.) Then we were free to explore the gardens for a picnic lunch!




We left the villa and headed into the winding hills of the Italian countryside. GORGEOUS GORGEOUS GORGEOUS. Cameras were snapping away like crazy. Another funny note about field trips with SACI kids is the quality of the camera and the amount of scrapbooks out, pencils quick at work observing what we see. Definitely not what I’m used to but I love looking through everyone’s work. One guy also gave me some great pointers on perspective that will help with my illustration projects.
When we got to a little village, Carmgnano. The rest of the group set in the church for about 30-40 minutes to observe the renowned Visitation. My friend Lauren and I decided to peek in at the painting and then explore the town to see the views. It was a refreshing break and we got great pictures!

Then we traveled to the land of Leonardo, Vinci! We went to the Museo Leonardiano with reconstructions of some of his inventions. We also stopped at the house that it is believed he grew up in.

All in all it was a great trip. Exhausting weekend though.

Tech Problems but Embracing the Art World

So! I finally just figured out my camera issues. And by figured out I mean I tried everything I knew to do, gave up and then borrowed my roommates card reader since mine apparently is possessed.

AKA good news, I am currently in the process of uploading photos from Rome to Facebook. I don't have many from Florence yet since I hadn't been able to upload the Rome ones and didn't want to lose Florence pics either...but I'll start documenting! For now, maybe I will steal some from my roommates (which I promise to update on later...I'll do a whole first impressions etc etc post...clearly I am going out of order here)

Art World.
SACI is an art school. Duh. But still overwhelming, such a different culture than I am used to back at AU. I feel like AU everyone is so motivated, looking into the future, la la la. Here it is a much more creative vibe and things are more do what you find appropriate or interesting. Not that that isn't the same as AU, the follow your own course deal, but it is just different.

I am taking Book Arts, Illustration, Digital Multimedia, Literature and Visual Arts and Italian. So far I really like all of them.

My first assignment for Digital Multimedia is to walk to what I deem "the end of the city" and sit down and reflect about the experience. So this could be the actual end of the city boundaries or where the center of Florence (much more touristy) meets the actual Florentines (where true Italians live). I'm excited to wander the streets some more and do this!

Italian moves really fast. My professor is all about moving forward and cramming as much information into our heads. It's definitely helpful though because while pretty much everyone in the city center speaks some English, they are much more willing to help if you know some Italian as well. It is kind of funny actually because one of my roommates is fluent in Spanish and sometimes will just speak to them in Spanish because the understanding goes both ways (mostly) but it's just hard to speak in either when you know the other.

Okay so this is kind of a rambling message but I just wanted to rant about my camera, but I figured that out. So decided to ramble about other things!

First Impressions

I will do lists. Mostly because I've learned that is a good way to organize, secondly because it helps me keep things straight!


APARTMENT AND ROOMMATES
So my apartment is HUGE. There are 5 of us- two were here last semester (Marcy who goes to school in Baltimore and Nelly from London) and then three of us are new, Diana from New Jersey and my roommate Liz from Pennsylvania.

There are 3 singles and my double room. But the double is like all of the singles in one room size wise so we kind of treat it like another living room. There are two bathrooms, a living room, kitchen, dining room and this extra room that so far we use for hanging laundry (no driers which I predict will make me frustrated soon at least concerning my jeans!).

We are literally right next door to SACI which is pretty convenient. Although of course, there are two buildings and EVERY SINGLE one of my classes is in the other building that is a 15 minute walk away. Oh well, makes me not be lazy and explore the city more.

THE CITY ITSELF
Florence is a gorgeous city, so full of history and art and life. I haven't been to many of the "sites" yet, but am planning to do it all while I'm here!

The interesting thing to note about Florence is it is full of tourists and Americans studying abroad. I had no idea when I decided to study here. I thought it was kind of off the map for studying abroad and I would be going somewhere a little different. I guess this is because the Rome program at my school is so popular. But now I know after reading a TON of guide books that Florence is the most popular study abroad location in the world. Who knew?!

My favorite thing so far, but also one of the most frustrating/challenging, is the grocery shopping. Now I'm pretty sure everyone knows that I am not the best chef, although I definitely get by with a little creativity and sometimes the occasional creation (do people remember my enchilada casserole sophomore year? quite good. plus the occasional potato/pasta salad). Now here I don't have my staple peanut butter (WAY expensive), Cheerios or tortillas to make the go-to quesadilla. I've been exploring different ways to make pasta, loving myself some bread and sandwiches and going crazzzy in the market trying to decided what to buy. The market is so overwhelming. It's a huge indoor market with fruit, vegetable, meat, bakery...you name it, they've got the stand. I've been trying out my Italian, learning how to order things. It actually works out great because today when I tried to order in Italian and showed an interest in the language, the cutest old man serving me gave a wink and added some extra items to my bag for free! Score.

But enough about the market...FOOD! GELATO! BREAD! PIZZA! PASTA! so good. Everyone saying Italian food is amazing was not wrong. Definitely so great that I came over a week early with my dad and had the wonderful food experience with him because now I have to life the typical college life and can't go out dining on Italian cuisine every night. Instead I have to create it myself and wait for the special nights out to indulge. But this of course doesn't count towards gelato. That is allowed any day of the week.


SACI AND ORIENTATION
I commented a little about SACI and classes in the last post so I won't say much here. The first couple days upon arrival we had orientation. Paperwork was confusing as anything, but I am pretty sure I have everything in now to register with the police and have a permit of stay.

The best thing we've learned is that for all of the weekend field trips run by the school (that are mandatory for classes) are free for all other students! So we put down a 50 EURO deposit and as long as we show up for the trip, we get the deposit back. So this weekend I am going to Ravenna on Saturday and the Medici Villas & Vinci on Sunday. I'll update on those afterward!


NIGHTLIFE
Yes indeed...I am now legal to drink! At least here...still not for 6 months back in the states, but luckily I will spend 5 of those months abroad.

First night out we ventured to this place Fish Pub. Free champagne for international students and then 5 shots for 5 euros. We tried various flavors...but then decided to move on to new venues because this one was full of American students. We wandered, wandered and stopped into a couple of places but finally our group had grown smaller and we ended up at this little place Shot Cafe. We befriended the bartender and ended up talking to him all night, getting advice on places to go in Florence and his favorite restaurant in the city (he gave us the chef's name and told us to tell her his name and we would be taken care of...nice!). It was a successful first night out.

Since we have tried a couple random Italian clubs, a few more bars...but nothing notable. I did get lost in the city trying to walk a couple friends home late at night. But surprisingly, it was ME who was guiding us and found our way to both apartments and then back to our place! I have definitely improved my sense of direction. Maybe because I'm not relying on other people to get me there...either way, I am excited.

Okay this post is long enough. I am done. After this I will just do current updates, hopefully less rambling but that is how I function sooo we will see if I organize my thoughts any better.

Roma Roma Roma

Ciao!

So I have already spent a week in Rome and have arrived in my apartment in Florence.

I'll give a brief Rome overview for everyone. My dad and I loved it...were uber tourists (well probably not as much as my dad wanted to be, I made him wait for me to wake up around 9, so we didn't get out of the door until around 10. but hey! the Romans don't seem to like being up early, so neither should I) We definitely took advantage of eating great Italian food; lots of pasta, bread and pizza were eaten. Not as much wine if my mom was here, but definitely tried some.

Day 1-Wed., January 5: Arrive at 4

My dad and I arrived at the airport around 4pm where we were immediately attacked by taxi/shuttle/who knows what drivers all offering to take us to our hotel. We finally accepted when a man grabbed us and said he could get us there for 35 euros. So off we went, scarily driving down the highway.

We just wandered around the streets nearby our hotel, grabbing some pizza for dinner. Went to bed around 9...reallllllyyyy tired.

Day 2-Thurs: The Epiphany!

We have to walk past the Vatican everyday to get pretty much anywhere (if we're walking at least). This morning there was a HUGEEEE line all around waiting to get in for the Epiphany! Gorgeous tree in the square with a hand-carved Nativity scene outside.

We went to the Castel Sant'Angelo. Pretty cool! Outside the castle a parade was organizing. So we did our castle thing and then came outside to see the parade set off. Lots of medieval garb, drumming and horses. Then we just kind of wandered, saw a gorgeous church, ate some yummy pasta for lunch.

In the evening we did a nighttime walk around Rome. My favorite spots were the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, where we saw carolers!

Day 3-Fri: Colosseum, Palantine Hill, Roman Forum

(First day on the metro! Thanks Roma Pass, making me feel right back at home in DC)

I think I’ll just let my pictures speak for me here. It was AMAZING. I can’t believe all of this has been here for over 2,000 years. The skyline in the area surrounding the Colosseum is astounding because it’s just a normal building and then BAM, this gigantic piece of history!

For dinner we went to a restaurant near our hotel (of course, Rick Steve’s recommended it…his travel guide is my dad’s Bible while we are here). The waiter made us try a shot of limoncello for dessert! Yum (but very sweet)

Day 4-Sat: National Museum, Catacombs

Set off to go see the National Museum; great art, lots of statues. My favorite part was on the top floor there were sections of frescos from rooms found in ruins.

Then we grabbed a bus and headed to Appian Way (one of the most ancient roads in Rome). We strolled down the road, until we came upon the first Catacombs. I was the last one of our group while we were walking underground and the tour guide always made sure no one was behind me (apparently in high season they have lost people! yikes!) I can’t imagine going down into this in the summer when there are so many tourists; we were definitely lucky we came in January and traffic is slow.

We walked the rest of the Appian Way and caught a bus back into the city. We explored a Basilica before heading back to the hotel before dinner with the one and only Elizabeth Mackey!!

Day 5- Sun: Villa Borghese

Today was mostly a wander around the park kind of day. Gorgeous park, kind of the Central Park of Rome. We people watched a lot, observing all of the roller bladers, bikers and walkers. I saw a cool stroller that kind of had a built in sleeping bag for the baby, hard to describe but take my word for it…sweet.

Our reservation for the Borghese Gallery was at 5, so when we realized we had some time to kill, we went to the Cemetery of the Capuchin Monks. Kind of creepy!! All of the bones are artistically arranged, apparently from over 4,000 monks!

On return to the park, we headed to the gallery to check our bags and head on in. The gallery was amazing, definitely worth checking out. I had a moment of panic that I had lost my purse, racing around the gallery trying to retrace my steps and find my dad. Then of course I realized that I had checked it at the beginning so there was no way I could have lost it…but woo, panic. Now that I know how it feels to have lost my purse (without having actually done it) I am VERY careful with my bag.

Day 6- Mon: Churches!! San Clemente, etc. Pantheon

I planned the itinerary for today, I allowed my dad to offer a few suggestions but decided to take control for once!

Our first stop was at San Clemente. You could go down two layers below the church to see areas that had been built over. There was a whole other layer below that that hadn’t even been excavated. The history that has been buried blows my mind.

We wandered in and out of churches all throughout the city in our course to end at the Pantheon. Crazy that so many domes have been mirrored off of this.

Not an action packed day, but definitely beautiful.

Day 7- Tues: Vatican

Culture overload.

St. Peter’s was gorgeous and definitely one of my favorite things we did in all of Rome. We started the morning by climbing to the top of the Cupola. One layer let us get a bird’s eye view of the inside of the cathedral, and once you got higher you could go outside and see all of Rome. There were three Italian women climbing in front of us and we had some fun trying to joke around with them.

We toured around inside (I hitched onto a tour group because I love hearing the history but don’t want to pay for a guide…a dilemma of every sort. Luckily I am a pro at joining groups or looking up the information myself). Then we went into the crypts below and saw where a lot of the pope’s were buried, including Pope John Paul II (soon to be a Great come May!)

After grabbing lunch at a delicious salad place (you can only eat so many carbs), we went to Museo Vatican. And whoaaaa was there a lot here. Obviously one of the highlights was the Sistine Chapel. I loved how the guards kept having to shush everyone and chase people down who had cameras.

(Sidenote: Sorry for the lack of photos...my camera isn't letting my upload about 80 pictures so I am working on that. Also I will link to full albums soon!)

LAST NIGHT IN ROMA! Dad and I grabbed our last breakfast and headed off to the train station. Annoyingly, I broke the handle of one of my suitcases on the way, but otherwise no disasters. We made our way into Firenze…