Ciaoooo,
My time in Florence is coming to a bittersweet end. It has been one awesome semester, filled with traveling and new experiences. I fell in love with Florence just like everyone said I would. I adjusted to the different, but always interesting and fun, Italian culture. I made tons of new friends and have one of the best times of my life. I had the most amazing time here, and I can't wait to come back to Florence one day. It has honestly been life-changing, and I can't even begin to describe it. It has made me feel so much more independent and I know that one day I'll be able to successfully live on my own after doing it for four months in a different country. I have also learned to cook a little better. A lot of studying abroad deals with different cultures and interactions that aren't always familiar to me. Italian culture is much more slow-moving than American culture, and that was a big adjustment. When things went wrong, I had to learn to just accept them and let them happen, and stop worrying as much. I learned to take life as it comes.
I met so many great people, looking to expand their horizons just like I was. They were all amazing, and I will miss all my friends, but I'm sure I will see my Penn State friends very often. I loved the experience of a smaller city school compared to Penn State, which is in the middle of nowhere, but absolutely huge. I enjoyed the different atmosphere. I loved being in a city and I will definitely consider living in a city after I graduate.
I loved so much about Florence. Although I'm not an expert in art and architecture, I enjoyed all of it. I have so much more respect now for all the Renaissance history here in Florence, and it was awesome to learn about it in my Story of the City class. The food was the BEST food I will ever have in my life. I was blown away by the pasta, steak, and of course, pizza. I think I will miss the pizza the most, just had my last Gustapizza tonight. :( Florence is a beautiful city and I loved living here. Of course there's some things I won't miss, such as the ambulance sirens, men staring, and mosquitoes, but the pros outweight the cons by 1000000%.
I enjoyed traveling a lot. I traveled to: Interlaken, Rome, Barcelona, Paris, Pisa, Lucca, Siena, San Gimignano, Venice, Capri, Pompeii, and the Amalfi Coast. I had a great time in all of my trips, but my two favorites were the Amalfi Coast and Interlaken. I was a little burnt out after spring break and all my travels before, so I didn't do as much traveling the second half of the semester. I enjoyed Florence, and did a lot of day trips around Italy. I liked Italy so much and I will be back one day. After all, I threw the penny over my right shoulder in Rome... so that means I'll be back.
This has been one of the best decisions I have ever made, and I think that will continue with me throughout my life. I will always remember what I've learned here, and how it has been a life-changing experience. Just yesterday it feels like I was moving into my apartment, and now I'm moving out. I had a great night last night with all of the friends I met, and at our farewell reception we were able to say goodbye to all of the wonderful faculty and teachers. Our soccer team was recognized at the reception, and it was a good time. Today, we shopped for souvenirs, ate at the best restaurant and best pizza place, grabbed gelato, and relaxed in the Boboli gardens: all the things I'm really going to miss in Florence. I'm really excited to be home at this point and see all my friends and family. But I can't help but feel a little sad to be leaving Florence, and I know I will miss it. Time really flies when you're having fun; as corny as that is.
Arrivederci Firenze,
Katie
Back to the USA I go <3
Friday, May 3, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Ciao a tutti,
I've been having a great past 2 weeks in Florence! I decided not to go to Germany because I would rather go to Berlin, and I wasn't a huge fan of the company who was running the trip. I'm sure I will make it back to Germany one day, hopefully after I'm rich. I cannot believe I have less than 2 weeks left in Florence. It's very bittersweet because I'm very excited to be home, but I will really miss it here. I have my bucket list of things that I still need to do before I go: a few more restaurants to eat at, and some shopping to be done.
Last weekend, I relaxed and got some work done. On Saturday, me and some of my friends took a day trip to Cinqueterre, which is on the coast of Italy. "Cinqueterre" literally means 'the five lands', because it is 5 little towns on the coast which are all fairly close to each other. Cinqueterre reminds me a little of the Amalfi Coast and how the houses are built into the mountains overlooking the water. It's very beautiful. There are a lot of hiking and walking paths in between the towns. It would take a while to hike/walk to all of them in one day but we were planning on hiking to a few towns. We got to the first town, Riomaggiore, and was told that only one hiking path was open and everything else was closed. This was because it rained so much this spring and there were some mudslides which damaged the paths and made them too dangerous. So after hearing the disappointing news, we took a train to the second town, Manarola, which was probably my favorite. The houses were so colorful and pretty. We had the perfect day with sun all day, and a great breeze. We started hiking up the mountain, and it was very difficult and exhausting. We hiked up the mountain for probably close to an hour. The coolest part was seeing the views. There was also these cool statues of the progression of people carrying crosses up the hill. We saw so many crosses, they must have been very religious. If you made one wrong step though, you could tumble down the whole mountain which was pretty scary. We hiked up to a town called Volastra (not part of the 5 lands) and then continued our way down to the third town, Corniglia. The whole hike was about 2 and a half hours and it was so fun, exhausting, and rewarding. We saw some really amazing views that we wouldn't have been able to see if the walking paths were open on the water. We ate lunch and got some gelato in Corniglia and then took a train to the fifth town, Monterosso, and skipped the fourth town. At Monterosso, we just decided to spend the rest of our time on the beach. It was so nice out and we were pretty exhausted from all the hiking. It was a great trip and I'm even thinking about going back next weekend, just for a day.
This past week was good. I already have written an evaluation for my teacher which is so weird that I'm leaving so soon. I've been working on final papers for my classes and attempting to do
some work. Last week we had our playoffs for soccer. We made it to the
semifinals, by beating our other school team. We lost to a close game in
the semifinals. I'm sad soccer is over, but I had a great time playing.
At volunteering, we helped set up the curtains for their stage for their
play. Their play is so good but I wish we were still here to see them
perform.
This past
weekend was fun; I just spent it hanging out with friends and we took a day
trip to Pisa today! I finally made it to Pisa!! Most people warned me that it
was a very boring town, and that all you do is take a picture with the tower
and leave. I didn't think it was too boring. Caroline and I walked
from the train station to the tower, and along the way we walked through a
little market and got some food. We took funny pictures with the tower,
and since it was nice out, we just relaxed on the grass near the tower, church,
and baptistry. The tower was really cool. We didn't climb up it
because there was nothing to do, and it's not even that tall so the views
wouldn't be spectacular. We just decided taking tourist pictures was
enough.
This week I
have a few more things to cross off my Florence bucket list. I still need
to buy some souvenirs for myself, including a leather jacket. They are so
expensive but they really are a lifelong purchase. I found one that I
really love, but I want to see if maybe I can find something a little cheaper.
I have already crossed off my big leather bag, which I'm too afraid to
use because I don't want to get it dirty. I have two big food places I'd
like to go to: Acqua al Due, and Il Latini. Il Latini is supposed to be
the best steaks in Florence, so I'm very excited about that. Other than
that, I'm looking forward to spending the week with friends, and making sure I
eat gelato everyday. I am in shock that I leave so soon, it's very
bittersweet.
Buonanotte,
Katie
Monday, April 8, 2013
Buongiorno Ragazzi,
I had one of the best trips I've had this past weekend!!! I went to the beautiful Amalfi Coast and I want to go back this weekend, if only I could. We booked the trip through a company and they pretty much plan everything and make it extremely easy and fun. We left thursday night at 8 PM and arrived in Amalfi Coast, specifically the town of Sorrento around 2 AM. We were staying at a hotel called Hotel Florida and it was pretty nice and clean. They had a pool that wasn't filled yet, and a courtyard with tons of lemon and orange trees. It felt so much like summer and we had a beautiful weekend of warm and sunny weather.
After getting there closer to 3 AM, we had about 3 hours of sleep and then we were on the move. We had to catch the ferry to Capri (island off the coast) at 7:15. I slept most of the way on the ferry and then we started hitting really big waves and after waking up, I was really motion sick. Then when we got off I was so relieved, only to find out that we were getting on a smaller boat to do a boat tour around the whole island. I felt a little better on this boat, but still pretty sick. I didn't throw up though!! I think at least two girls on my boat threw up, and there were a lot of people who didn't look so good. Anyways, the boat tour was really awesome. We saw the blue grotto, but unfortunately we couldn't go into it because the tides were too high. The water was such a beautiful blue though. We also got to see the green grotto which was a greenish-blue water. After the boat tour, we hiked up to the main part of Capri and got to take amazing pictures. We got fresh squeezed smoothies, and I got a lemon and blood orange one and it was delicious. We then took a bus to Anacapri, which is on the other side of the mountain and a little bit higher than Capri. We got really great pizza for lunch and shopped around. I bought some really pretty earrings. They sell a lot of coral jewelry. We also saw all the shops that make handmade leather sandals right in the store. They were all so beautiful, but the lowest price I saw was 65€, which was crazy. After shopping, we took a chairlift to the top of the island. The views up were awesome, but we were in a cloud when we got to the top, so we couldn't see any of the island, just white cloud. It was pretty funny. After Anacapri, we went back down to Capri and just took a nap in the sun until it was time to get back on the ferry to Sorrento. We got back to Sorrento with just enough time to shower and go out to dinner. The town of Sorrento is cute, but there wasn't much going on at night.
On Saturday, we were headed for Positano. We took little buses there because the roads are very tiny and they wind up the mountain, it was a pretty crazy view. We got to Positano around 11, and we pretty much just laid on the beach all day. The beach was a black sand beach which was really cool because I had never been on one before! I also found a lot of sea glass which is just pieces of glass, but the sea has worn it down so it's a different coating but they're all different colors. I collected a bunch to bring home. The farther part of the beach was sand, but the part closest to the Mediterranean was rocks. We laid on the rocks, and it was surprisingly comfortable. Although if you walked around for more than 5 minutes, it was pretty painful on your bare feet. We took a break for a quick lunch and some quick shopping, but for the most part we just laid on the beach and hung out. We went in the water a few times even though it was pretty cold. The water was so blue and beautiful. The way the houses and buildings are built into the side of the mountain makes it look like paradise. I absolutely want to go back one day. After we got back to Sorrento, we showered and ate dinner at the hotel. Then we went to the other hostel's bar, but it was pretty boring so it was an early night.
On Sunday morning we left around 10 to head home. On the way home we stopped at Pompei which was only an hour away from Sorrento. I loved all the ruins in Rome so I was really excited for Pompei. We had a guided tour which was nice, even though the tour group was a little too big in my opinion. Pompei was a huge city for being built in 79 AD. The map we were given was extremely large and I would have gotten lost if I wasn't on a tour. We saw a lot of ruins, and it was crazy how well everything was preserved because of the volcanic ash. Pompei was built right on the water, but because of all the volcano eruptions, it is now probably a mile from the Mediterranean. We saw churches, market places, a brothel, and even some mansions which were very large. One of my favorite things we saw was the theater, which was older than the colosseum, but not nearly as big. This theater was just used for plays, not gladiator fights. Seeing the preserved bodies was scary, but also interesting. They are so well preserved that some of the ash has come off and you can see the skeletons. When Mt. Vesuvius erupted, it first erupted with volcanic ash, which contained sulfur so when it hit the town of Pompei, everyone died instantly because it suffocated them. The lava would flow later. It was really interesting to learn about. After the tour, we went to a place that our tour leaders recommended for lunch. They had told the restaurant there would be a lot of people coming to there and they still only had three people working. It took us a half hour to place our order and an hour just to get pizza. It was ridiculous and extremely frustrating. By the time we got our pizza we were already late for the bus and had to take it pizza boxes with us. We had a pretty relaxing drive back and got home Sunday night around 10.
This was probably one of my favorite trips because it was so beautiful. The weather was amazing and everything we did was truly awesome. I had an amazing weekend with my friends, and I loved just laying on the beach. Interlaken is still one of my favorite trips too. They are both two opposite extremes, but I loved both trips. I am still debating about traveling to Germany on April 18-21. The travel company that most of my friends are going with is really unreliable and I don't really want use them for my trip. I would like to go to Germany, but it is the second to last weekend that I am in Florence and I only have three weekends left, which one will be spent studying. I also want to take a few day trips to some places I haven't been to Italy yet. Some of these places are Cinqueterre, Viareggio (beach), and Pisa. I don't want to regret not going to Germany, but I really want to spend my last weekends in Florence. I am also very worn out from traveling; it can be truly exhausting.
This week I have a few things going on. I have two soccer games tomorrow night and it's playoffs. On Wednesday night, I have a Renaissance dinner that I signed up to go to with my history class. It was a little expensive, but the courses are going to be amazing. It's a five course dinner, first course: ginger and pasta and walnuts, second course: potato with tomato and cheese sauce, third course: renaissance boar suffused with chocolate, fourth course: spicy beef, and a fifth course consisting of a dessert. And of course, there is unlimited red wine. I'm really excited about this meal, if you couldn't tell. Then on thursday, I have volunteering. I'm probably just going to have a relaxing weekend and do a day trip or two.
Ciao,
Katie
I had one of the best trips I've had this past weekend!!! I went to the beautiful Amalfi Coast and I want to go back this weekend, if only I could. We booked the trip through a company and they pretty much plan everything and make it extremely easy and fun. We left thursday night at 8 PM and arrived in Amalfi Coast, specifically the town of Sorrento around 2 AM. We were staying at a hotel called Hotel Florida and it was pretty nice and clean. They had a pool that wasn't filled yet, and a courtyard with tons of lemon and orange trees. It felt so much like summer and we had a beautiful weekend of warm and sunny weather.
After getting there closer to 3 AM, we had about 3 hours of sleep and then we were on the move. We had to catch the ferry to Capri (island off the coast) at 7:15. I slept most of the way on the ferry and then we started hitting really big waves and after waking up, I was really motion sick. Then when we got off I was so relieved, only to find out that we were getting on a smaller boat to do a boat tour around the whole island. I felt a little better on this boat, but still pretty sick. I didn't throw up though!! I think at least two girls on my boat threw up, and there were a lot of people who didn't look so good. Anyways, the boat tour was really awesome. We saw the blue grotto, but unfortunately we couldn't go into it because the tides were too high. The water was such a beautiful blue though. We also got to see the green grotto which was a greenish-blue water. After the boat tour, we hiked up to the main part of Capri and got to take amazing pictures. We got fresh squeezed smoothies, and I got a lemon and blood orange one and it was delicious. We then took a bus to Anacapri, which is on the other side of the mountain and a little bit higher than Capri. We got really great pizza for lunch and shopped around. I bought some really pretty earrings. They sell a lot of coral jewelry. We also saw all the shops that make handmade leather sandals right in the store. They were all so beautiful, but the lowest price I saw was 65€, which was crazy. After shopping, we took a chairlift to the top of the island. The views up were awesome, but we were in a cloud when we got to the top, so we couldn't see any of the island, just white cloud. It was pretty funny. After Anacapri, we went back down to Capri and just took a nap in the sun until it was time to get back on the ferry to Sorrento. We got back to Sorrento with just enough time to shower and go out to dinner. The town of Sorrento is cute, but there wasn't much going on at night.
On Saturday, we were headed for Positano. We took little buses there because the roads are very tiny and they wind up the mountain, it was a pretty crazy view. We got to Positano around 11, and we pretty much just laid on the beach all day. The beach was a black sand beach which was really cool because I had never been on one before! I also found a lot of sea glass which is just pieces of glass, but the sea has worn it down so it's a different coating but they're all different colors. I collected a bunch to bring home. The farther part of the beach was sand, but the part closest to the Mediterranean was rocks. We laid on the rocks, and it was surprisingly comfortable. Although if you walked around for more than 5 minutes, it was pretty painful on your bare feet. We took a break for a quick lunch and some quick shopping, but for the most part we just laid on the beach and hung out. We went in the water a few times even though it was pretty cold. The water was so blue and beautiful. The way the houses and buildings are built into the side of the mountain makes it look like paradise. I absolutely want to go back one day. After we got back to Sorrento, we showered and ate dinner at the hotel. Then we went to the other hostel's bar, but it was pretty boring so it was an early night.
On Sunday morning we left around 10 to head home. On the way home we stopped at Pompei which was only an hour away from Sorrento. I loved all the ruins in Rome so I was really excited for Pompei. We had a guided tour which was nice, even though the tour group was a little too big in my opinion. Pompei was a huge city for being built in 79 AD. The map we were given was extremely large and I would have gotten lost if I wasn't on a tour. We saw a lot of ruins, and it was crazy how well everything was preserved because of the volcanic ash. Pompei was built right on the water, but because of all the volcano eruptions, it is now probably a mile from the Mediterranean. We saw churches, market places, a brothel, and even some mansions which were very large. One of my favorite things we saw was the theater, which was older than the colosseum, but not nearly as big. This theater was just used for plays, not gladiator fights. Seeing the preserved bodies was scary, but also interesting. They are so well preserved that some of the ash has come off and you can see the skeletons. When Mt. Vesuvius erupted, it first erupted with volcanic ash, which contained sulfur so when it hit the town of Pompei, everyone died instantly because it suffocated them. The lava would flow later. It was really interesting to learn about. After the tour, we went to a place that our tour leaders recommended for lunch. They had told the restaurant there would be a lot of people coming to there and they still only had three people working. It took us a half hour to place our order and an hour just to get pizza. It was ridiculous and extremely frustrating. By the time we got our pizza we were already late for the bus and had to take it pizza boxes with us. We had a pretty relaxing drive back and got home Sunday night around 10.
This was probably one of my favorite trips because it was so beautiful. The weather was amazing and everything we did was truly awesome. I had an amazing weekend with my friends, and I loved just laying on the beach. Interlaken is still one of my favorite trips too. They are both two opposite extremes, but I loved both trips. I am still debating about traveling to Germany on April 18-21. The travel company that most of my friends are going with is really unreliable and I don't really want use them for my trip. I would like to go to Germany, but it is the second to last weekend that I am in Florence and I only have three weekends left, which one will be spent studying. I also want to take a few day trips to some places I haven't been to Italy yet. Some of these places are Cinqueterre, Viareggio (beach), and Pisa. I don't want to regret not going to Germany, but I really want to spend my last weekends in Florence. I am also very worn out from traveling; it can be truly exhausting.
This week I have a few things going on. I have two soccer games tomorrow night and it's playoffs. On Wednesday night, I have a Renaissance dinner that I signed up to go to with my history class. It was a little expensive, but the courses are going to be amazing. It's a five course dinner, first course: ginger and pasta and walnuts, second course: potato with tomato and cheese sauce, third course: renaissance boar suffused with chocolate, fourth course: spicy beef, and a fifth course consisting of a dessert. And of course, there is unlimited red wine. I'm really excited about this meal, if you couldn't tell. Then on thursday, I have volunteering. I'm probably just going to have a relaxing weekend and do a day trip or two.
Ciao,
Katie
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Ciao Ciao,
I have been so busy lately and I totally forgot about blogging. This week was a busy week for me because I had two quizzes and I also had a paper to write for next week since I will be away this weekend. We only had a three day week which was awesome because the Italians celebrate Easter Monday more than they do Easter.
Last week wasn't too eventful, although I did go on a field trip with my class to San Marco Monastery. It was interesting because we were learning about a friar from the middle ages that lived there. It's a very very plain building so it wasn't my favorite, but it was interesting. Other than that, it was a pretty relaxed week.
This past weekend I stayed in Florence, and it was really fun. It was nice to stay and hang out in Florence and I ended up being pretty busy. On Friday, I went to the Medici tombs and they were pretty cool and unlike anything I'd seen. It was this huge room with extremely extravagant tombs. We actually ended up going our weekly history class field trip there yesterday. Then I met up with Abby and we went to check out the Medici Palace. I expected it to be more extravagant but they lived so many places in Florence, so I guess it just depended on the style of whomever lived there at the time. I enjoy learning about the Medici family and that's what I'm writing my history final paper on.
On Saturday, we were planning on going to Viareggio which is a beach close by that you can just take a train to, but it planned on raining all day and being pretty windy, so we decided to skip that. Instead, Sara, Abby, and I went to Gustapizza pretty much for breakfast. I'm going to miss Gustapizza so much when I get home and there's really nowhere in Pennsylvania at least that has pizzas anything like that. Me and my roommates always joke about how we should open a pizza place like Gustapizza at Penn State. Katie's family was visiting so I went out to dinner with them that night to this really good place nearby, and it was really fun.
On Easter Sunday, we woke up early to go to to stand right near the Duomo to get good seats for the fireworks. There's a parade throughout the city, but everyone just really focuses on the fireworks. We saw the parade come through and then the little tower they shoot fireworks off of was brought in at the end of the parade. It was supposed to be pulled by two oxen, but I couldn't really see, seeing as I'm really short. We waited there for about an hour and a half and finally the fireworks started. It started from inside the church when the priest throws a dove-like shape firework at a certain spot, which triggers the fireworks, and this huge rush of smoke comes from inside the church to this little tower and then the fireworks started going off. I was only expecting a few big fireworks, but it was about 15 minutes worth of fireworks. They launch them off right in between the Duomo and the Baptistery and these buildings are so close together. I'm surprised it doesn't damage the buildings. It must be such a fire hazard, plus there are so many people standing close to it and the little tower looked like it was wood. It was the most bizarre Easter celebration I've ever seen but it was very cool. After, my friends and I walked around the leather market and I bought another leather purse. I can't help my addiction. Later that day, I went to Easter Mass in Santa Maria Novella Church, which is the church really close to me. It was the first time I had been in there, and it's very pretty. I couldn't understand the mass at all. Most of the time I can pick out a few words from each sentence, but the fact that the microphone was echoing made me not understand anything. It was nice to be in church though. The only thing about Italian mass is that they don't sing, which I just expected they would. It's very interesting. After church, my friends and I had a potluck dinner with tons of awesome food. We had eggplant, salad, bread, mashed potatoes, baked brie, and broccoli. I made bruschetta and also an interesting lemon cake. I bought the cake mix from the Italian grocery store so it came out good but I wasn't sure what to expect. The baked brie was so delicious and so easy, and I don't know why I don't just make it all the time!
On Easter Monday, we had no class so we decided to take a day trip! We took the train for about an hour and a half to Lucca. It's this old medieval town which still have all the city walls still intact. It was a really cute, small town. When we first got there we found a place to each lunch and had some pretty good pizza. We walked around for a little bit and there was a market nearby where we got some dessert. After that, we rented bikes and biked through the town. I was nervous I was going to hit someone but I successfully didn't. I was also really skilled at taking pictures while riding my bike. After biking through the town for a little, we went to this path they have that is all around the city walls and you can bike or walk around the whole town and it was very pretty. There was so much green and it was a beautiful day. After biking, we went home. There's not too much to do in Lucca, but it was fun and relaxing.
Tonight I leave for the Amalfi Coast at 7:30 PM!!!!! I am so excited, it's going to be so beautiful. There are a lot of little towns on the coast but we're specifically going to Sorrento. Then each day we're taking a trip. We will be going to Capri which is where the famous Blue Grotto is, Pompeii, and also Positano which is another coastal city. It's going to be in the 60s and fairly sunny throughout the weekend! :) Although, I'm not sure it'll be bathing suit weather, but I'm still bringing my bathing suit. The water will probably be pretty cold.
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (April 4-7): Amalfi Coast!!! I cannot wait, I'm so excited!
Next weekend (11-14): Just hanging out and staying in Florence
April 18-21: We are looking into Springfest in Munich, Germany. I really want to go to Germany!!! So then I could use at least a little bit of German.
April 25-28: Staying in Florence for our last weekend! Then HOME the next weekend... AHH can't believe it's coming to a close!
Ciao Ragazzi,
Katie
I have been so busy lately and I totally forgot about blogging. This week was a busy week for me because I had two quizzes and I also had a paper to write for next week since I will be away this weekend. We only had a three day week which was awesome because the Italians celebrate Easter Monday more than they do Easter.
Last week wasn't too eventful, although I did go on a field trip with my class to San Marco Monastery. It was interesting because we were learning about a friar from the middle ages that lived there. It's a very very plain building so it wasn't my favorite, but it was interesting. Other than that, it was a pretty relaxed week.
This past weekend I stayed in Florence, and it was really fun. It was nice to stay and hang out in Florence and I ended up being pretty busy. On Friday, I went to the Medici tombs and they were pretty cool and unlike anything I'd seen. It was this huge room with extremely extravagant tombs. We actually ended up going our weekly history class field trip there yesterday. Then I met up with Abby and we went to check out the Medici Palace. I expected it to be more extravagant but they lived so many places in Florence, so I guess it just depended on the style of whomever lived there at the time. I enjoy learning about the Medici family and that's what I'm writing my history final paper on.
On Saturday, we were planning on going to Viareggio which is a beach close by that you can just take a train to, but it planned on raining all day and being pretty windy, so we decided to skip that. Instead, Sara, Abby, and I went to Gustapizza pretty much for breakfast. I'm going to miss Gustapizza so much when I get home and there's really nowhere in Pennsylvania at least that has pizzas anything like that. Me and my roommates always joke about how we should open a pizza place like Gustapizza at Penn State. Katie's family was visiting so I went out to dinner with them that night to this really good place nearby, and it was really fun.
On Easter Sunday, we woke up early to go to to stand right near the Duomo to get good seats for the fireworks. There's a parade throughout the city, but everyone just really focuses on the fireworks. We saw the parade come through and then the little tower they shoot fireworks off of was brought in at the end of the parade. It was supposed to be pulled by two oxen, but I couldn't really see, seeing as I'm really short. We waited there for about an hour and a half and finally the fireworks started. It started from inside the church when the priest throws a dove-like shape firework at a certain spot, which triggers the fireworks, and this huge rush of smoke comes from inside the church to this little tower and then the fireworks started going off. I was only expecting a few big fireworks, but it was about 15 minutes worth of fireworks. They launch them off right in between the Duomo and the Baptistery and these buildings are so close together. I'm surprised it doesn't damage the buildings. It must be such a fire hazard, plus there are so many people standing close to it and the little tower looked like it was wood. It was the most bizarre Easter celebration I've ever seen but it was very cool. After, my friends and I walked around the leather market and I bought another leather purse. I can't help my addiction. Later that day, I went to Easter Mass in Santa Maria Novella Church, which is the church really close to me. It was the first time I had been in there, and it's very pretty. I couldn't understand the mass at all. Most of the time I can pick out a few words from each sentence, but the fact that the microphone was echoing made me not understand anything. It was nice to be in church though. The only thing about Italian mass is that they don't sing, which I just expected they would. It's very interesting. After church, my friends and I had a potluck dinner with tons of awesome food. We had eggplant, salad, bread, mashed potatoes, baked brie, and broccoli. I made bruschetta and also an interesting lemon cake. I bought the cake mix from the Italian grocery store so it came out good but I wasn't sure what to expect. The baked brie was so delicious and so easy, and I don't know why I don't just make it all the time!
On Easter Monday, we had no class so we decided to take a day trip! We took the train for about an hour and a half to Lucca. It's this old medieval town which still have all the city walls still intact. It was a really cute, small town. When we first got there we found a place to each lunch and had some pretty good pizza. We walked around for a little bit and there was a market nearby where we got some dessert. After that, we rented bikes and biked through the town. I was nervous I was going to hit someone but I successfully didn't. I was also really skilled at taking pictures while riding my bike. After biking through the town for a little, we went to this path they have that is all around the city walls and you can bike or walk around the whole town and it was very pretty. There was so much green and it was a beautiful day. After biking, we went home. There's not too much to do in Lucca, but it was fun and relaxing.
Tonight I leave for the Amalfi Coast at 7:30 PM!!!!! I am so excited, it's going to be so beautiful. There are a lot of little towns on the coast but we're specifically going to Sorrento. Then each day we're taking a trip. We will be going to Capri which is where the famous Blue Grotto is, Pompeii, and also Positano which is another coastal city. It's going to be in the 60s and fairly sunny throughout the weekend! :) Although, I'm not sure it'll be bathing suit weather, but I'm still bringing my bathing suit. The water will probably be pretty cold.
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (April 4-7): Amalfi Coast!!! I cannot wait, I'm so excited!
Next weekend (11-14): Just hanging out and staying in Florence
April 18-21: We are looking into Springfest in Munich, Germany. I really want to go to Germany!!! So then I could use at least a little bit of German.
April 25-28: Staying in Florence for our last weekend! Then HOME the next weekend... AHH can't believe it's coming to a close!
Ciao Ragazzi,
Katie
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Hola,
I haven't blogged in a really long time, but I went to Barcelona last weekend!!!! It was really fun and pretty relaxing. They don't have a huge amount of museums to go to so it was pretty cool just to hang out in the city. We got there thursday night and the hostel we stayed in (called St. Christopher's) was really nice. I swear the bed was bigger there than my own bed in Florence. They had a bar downstairs and a really awesome menu, and the food was delicious. We ended up eating there at least three times. That night we just hung out at the bar downstairs, and then went to an Irish pub. On Friday, we walked around the Montjuic mountain and it was pretty. There was a huge palace with lots of waterfalls on the way up. After we climbed up a little bit there was the 1992 olympic stadium that you could go in. This mountain was a pretty view of Barcelona. We went to a lunch place and I ordered cheese tacos and bravas. Bravas are fried potatoes with a spicy sauce on them. The cheese tacos were literally just blocks of cheese, it was hilarious, obviously bad translations on the menu. We walked to the harbor and the beach and it was awesome. We took off our shoes and put our feet in the sand and just sat for a while, it was so beautiful. We also put our feet into the freezing Mediterranean. We ate at the hostel on Friday night and then we went out to a well-known club. At the club, there was a concert going on, so that was fun. The clubs were very very expensive in Barcelona.
On saturday, we went to the market, and they had so much seafood it was insane. Almost every other stand was seafood. I ended up getting an empanada and a smoothie, and they were both great. We then walked to Sagrada Familia which is built by the famous Gaudi. It was one of the coolest churches
I've been in. It was anything but traditional. Gaudi had a passion for nature, and he designed the church to have a lot of natural light, which is a lot of stained glass windows, and the ceilings are huge, with the pillars intended to be trees. It was very beautiful. After that, we started walking to park guell, and we got really lost. It ended up being a lot farther walk than we thought it would be. When we finally got there, it was worth it. It was an absolutely amazing view of Barcelona from the top of the mountain. This was a park made also by Gaudi. It has the famous mosaic tiled benches, and a few cool looking buildings. It's a really cool park and we spent a while just walking around and taking pictures. We started to walk back to the hostel and it ended up taking us an hour, which was rough when we had just been hiking around the mountain. We grabbed dinner at the hostel and I got a mexican salad which was so delicious. We relaxed after dinner and then we headed to port olympic which was a harbor area we hadn't been to. It was a great night life there. They have a ton of restaurants all outside and then clubs right on the beach. We went to a restaurant and I got a dessert and we had some sangria. It was relaxing, and we thought about going to a club on the beach but it was just so expensive. On Sunday, we packed up and checked out of the hostel. We walked around and went into the Barcelona Cathedral. It was pretty traditional, nothing like Sagrada Familia. It was pretty but a lot of it was blocked off because mass was going on. After, we saw a marathon in the streets, and there was this St. Patricks Day dressed band playing in the streets. It was fun. Then we did a little shopping and made our way to the airport. We got home around 5.
My week was good. My classes are starting to get more difficult because they're assigning many final papers, so I need to pick some topics for those. Volunteering was so fun this week because the kids we're working with are doing plays in English that they will perform in April. The 4th grade is doing the Wizard of Oz and the 5th grade is doing Alice in Wonderland. I got to help them recite their lines and play their roles. It was so cute, and they speak English so well. With my family business class this past week we took a field trip to the Gucci factory. It was really cool because we learned that Gucci makes everything by hand for the most part. That's why it's so expensive!!!! We got to see some of the leathers which are made out of snake, crocodile, deer, etc. We then watched some of the workers cutting the leather for the bags, all by hand. To get a job in cutting leather, you have to have at least 20 years of experience; it's insane. Then, we saw them assembling some of the bags. The one guy was working on a trunk with only one other man. They said it takes them about a month just to make one. Those were in the made-to-order area though, so it's for very high profile clients. We also saw how they make the bamboo handles. It's a very intense process to pick the perfect bamboo stick because it has to be the exact measurements and the knots have to match up. They throw out so many bamboo sticks. They use fire to bend and set it. It was a really cool field trip.
This past weekend I stayed in Florence, but it was a really nice weekend. On friday, we took a bus to Fiesole, which is a town about 15 minutes outside of Florence on the hills. It is a very small and quiet residential town but it has one of the best views of Florence. We found a park, and brought food that we bought at the food store to have a picnic. The park was just a woods, and after we ate, we did a lot of hiking. We hiked to the top and it was again, an awesome view. There was a rock up there that was apparently where Leonardo da Vinci launched a flying machine. We kept hiking and found the Etruscan ruins. They were just little houses made out of stone. It was cool because I learned about the Etruscans in my history class. They were one of the first to settle near Florence in 300 BC. It was a really great time to hike around the woods and relax. It was nice being around green and it reminded me of home. When trying to take the bus back to Florence, we were told that there was a bus strike. I knew strikes happened often but it was so bizarre that it happened within the 3 hours that we had just taken the bus. We asked tourist information what we should do and they said that a taxi would be very expensive, and that it was a nice walk back to Florence and not too long. So we decided to walk. It was a nice walk and we saw the beautiful, huge, practically mansions, of Fiesole. We also got to see the sunset which was pretty. But, instead of the half hour walk we thought it was, it was about an hour and 15 minutes. We were exhausted when we finally got home. I looked up the distance and it said we walked 4 miles home.
On Saturday, we went to Mama's bakery with a bunch of our friends. I got a bagel with cream cheese!!!! I was so excited to have a bagel. I also got a cupcake that I had been craving. It was a nice change from croissants and I will absolutely be going back. After that, we went to Boboli gardens and just hung out on the grass. It was really fun, and I got to catch up on some magazines. It was a really nice day. I felt so lucky, because not many people can say they just sat in the palace gardens all day reading and overlooking an awesome view of Florence.
Next weekend is Easter weekend so we have an extra day to our weekend. I'm not really sure what I'm doing as of now. Either I'm just going to stay in Florence and hang out or I might go to Cinqueterre, which is a coastal town. It's supposed to be very pretty, and you can hike a lot around there. It won't be too warm, but it will still be nice. I think I'm going to plan that today! I'll try to keep up more on this blog haha!
Ciaaaao,
Katie
I haven't blogged in a really long time, but I went to Barcelona last weekend!!!! It was really fun and pretty relaxing. They don't have a huge amount of museums to go to so it was pretty cool just to hang out in the city. We got there thursday night and the hostel we stayed in (called St. Christopher's) was really nice. I swear the bed was bigger there than my own bed in Florence. They had a bar downstairs and a really awesome menu, and the food was delicious. We ended up eating there at least three times. That night we just hung out at the bar downstairs, and then went to an Irish pub. On Friday, we walked around the Montjuic mountain and it was pretty. There was a huge palace with lots of waterfalls on the way up. After we climbed up a little bit there was the 1992 olympic stadium that you could go in. This mountain was a pretty view of Barcelona. We went to a lunch place and I ordered cheese tacos and bravas. Bravas are fried potatoes with a spicy sauce on them. The cheese tacos were literally just blocks of cheese, it was hilarious, obviously bad translations on the menu. We walked to the harbor and the beach and it was awesome. We took off our shoes and put our feet in the sand and just sat for a while, it was so beautiful. We also put our feet into the freezing Mediterranean. We ate at the hostel on Friday night and then we went out to a well-known club. At the club, there was a concert going on, so that was fun. The clubs were very very expensive in Barcelona.
On saturday, we went to the market, and they had so much seafood it was insane. Almost every other stand was seafood. I ended up getting an empanada and a smoothie, and they were both great. We then walked to Sagrada Familia which is built by the famous Gaudi. It was one of the coolest churches
I've been in. It was anything but traditional. Gaudi had a passion for nature, and he designed the church to have a lot of natural light, which is a lot of stained glass windows, and the ceilings are huge, with the pillars intended to be trees. It was very beautiful. After that, we started walking to park guell, and we got really lost. It ended up being a lot farther walk than we thought it would be. When we finally got there, it was worth it. It was an absolutely amazing view of Barcelona from the top of the mountain. This was a park made also by Gaudi. It has the famous mosaic tiled benches, and a few cool looking buildings. It's a really cool park and we spent a while just walking around and taking pictures. We started to walk back to the hostel and it ended up taking us an hour, which was rough when we had just been hiking around the mountain. We grabbed dinner at the hostel and I got a mexican salad which was so delicious. We relaxed after dinner and then we headed to port olympic which was a harbor area we hadn't been to. It was a great night life there. They have a ton of restaurants all outside and then clubs right on the beach. We went to a restaurant and I got a dessert and we had some sangria. It was relaxing, and we thought about going to a club on the beach but it was just so expensive. On Sunday, we packed up and checked out of the hostel. We walked around and went into the Barcelona Cathedral. It was pretty traditional, nothing like Sagrada Familia. It was pretty but a lot of it was blocked off because mass was going on. After, we saw a marathon in the streets, and there was this St. Patricks Day dressed band playing in the streets. It was fun. Then we did a little shopping and made our way to the airport. We got home around 5.
My week was good. My classes are starting to get more difficult because they're assigning many final papers, so I need to pick some topics for those. Volunteering was so fun this week because the kids we're working with are doing plays in English that they will perform in April. The 4th grade is doing the Wizard of Oz and the 5th grade is doing Alice in Wonderland. I got to help them recite their lines and play their roles. It was so cute, and they speak English so well. With my family business class this past week we took a field trip to the Gucci factory. It was really cool because we learned that Gucci makes everything by hand for the most part. That's why it's so expensive!!!! We got to see some of the leathers which are made out of snake, crocodile, deer, etc. We then watched some of the workers cutting the leather for the bags, all by hand. To get a job in cutting leather, you have to have at least 20 years of experience; it's insane. Then, we saw them assembling some of the bags. The one guy was working on a trunk with only one other man. They said it takes them about a month just to make one. Those were in the made-to-order area though, so it's for very high profile clients. We also saw how they make the bamboo handles. It's a very intense process to pick the perfect bamboo stick because it has to be the exact measurements and the knots have to match up. They throw out so many bamboo sticks. They use fire to bend and set it. It was a really cool field trip.
This past weekend I stayed in Florence, but it was a really nice weekend. On friday, we took a bus to Fiesole, which is a town about 15 minutes outside of Florence on the hills. It is a very small and quiet residential town but it has one of the best views of Florence. We found a park, and brought food that we bought at the food store to have a picnic. The park was just a woods, and after we ate, we did a lot of hiking. We hiked to the top and it was again, an awesome view. There was a rock up there that was apparently where Leonardo da Vinci launched a flying machine. We kept hiking and found the Etruscan ruins. They were just little houses made out of stone. It was cool because I learned about the Etruscans in my history class. They were one of the first to settle near Florence in 300 BC. It was a really great time to hike around the woods and relax. It was nice being around green and it reminded me of home. When trying to take the bus back to Florence, we were told that there was a bus strike. I knew strikes happened often but it was so bizarre that it happened within the 3 hours that we had just taken the bus. We asked tourist information what we should do and they said that a taxi would be very expensive, and that it was a nice walk back to Florence and not too long. So we decided to walk. It was a nice walk and we saw the beautiful, huge, practically mansions, of Fiesole. We also got to see the sunset which was pretty. But, instead of the half hour walk we thought it was, it was about an hour and 15 minutes. We were exhausted when we finally got home. I looked up the distance and it said we walked 4 miles home.
On Saturday, we went to Mama's bakery with a bunch of our friends. I got a bagel with cream cheese!!!! I was so excited to have a bagel. I also got a cupcake that I had been craving. It was a nice change from croissants and I will absolutely be going back. After that, we went to Boboli gardens and just hung out on the grass. It was really fun, and I got to catch up on some magazines. It was a really nice day. I felt so lucky, because not many people can say they just sat in the palace gardens all day reading and overlooking an awesome view of Florence.
Next weekend is Easter weekend so we have an extra day to our weekend. I'm not really sure what I'm doing as of now. Either I'm just going to stay in Florence and hang out or I might go to Cinqueterre, which is a coastal town. It's supposed to be very pretty, and you can hike a lot around there. It won't be too warm, but it will still be nice. I think I'm going to plan that today! I'll try to keep up more on this blog haha!
Ciaaaao,
Katie
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Ciao ragazzi!!!!
My spring break was awesome :) It was so great to see my family and Matthew. I loved having the time off from school, and I really enjoyed Rome. I also liked being a little tour guide and showing them around Florence. I was also able to tour Matt around Rome because my family and I did tours on the previous days.
I did the basic Florence sight-seeing with my family and Matt. They came at different times, but I took them to see most of the same things. I brought them to see the david, ponte vecchio, piazzale michelangelo, palazzo pitti and the boboli gardens, gustapizza, leather market, san miniato, and I even brought them by to see my schools. We also got to see the duomo and climbed it. But, there were things that I hadn't done that I got to do with my family. On the first day while my brother and Dad were napping since they were very jet-lagged, me and my mom went to San Lorenzo. San Lorenzo is a church that is attached to the Medici Tombs. It was very plain but it was pretty, and there was a nice green courtyard with an orange tree in the middle There was a bunch of restaurants that we went to that I had never been to. Also, we went to a bar called Fiddler's Elbow that I had never been to. It was very relaxing and cute. I had been to the boboli gardens before, but I saw a whole other section with my family and it was really cool. The gardens are so huge; I don't know if I'll ever actually be able to see the whole thing.
Rome was really really cool and I enjoyed it a lot. We left for Rome on Sunday, and for some reason our train was an extra 40 minutes which was weird. We got to Rome and we decided to take a cab from the train station to the hotel. It was only a 15 minute walk but we had a lot of luggage. The cab was 33€ which was a total rip-off, and I think that's when I realized that Rome is much more expensive than Florence. The first day we just mostly walked around the city. It's a very large city and you could use the metro, but I was nervous about that since I heard some of my friends were pick-pocketed on the metro. Throughout the week, we did all the important things in Rome. We saw the Spanish steps, which I didn't find that impressive, but maybe there's a cool story behind it that I don't know. We saw the Trevi fountain, which I thought was pretty and I threw a coin in over my right shoulder, which means I will be back to Rome one day. Another cool fountain was the moses fountain. I enjoyed the Pantheon, which is a church, built like a cylinder with a sphere in it. The coolest part about it was that there was an actual hole in the top and when it rains, there's a drain at the bottom of the church. We saw many, many churches, they seemed to be on every corner. Saint Maria in Trastevere was beautiful, an incredibly far walk but it was very pretty. We also saw Santa Maria degli Angeli, which on the outside looks as if it is tiny and ruined since it looks so old, but then you walk in and it's incredible. We saw many piazzas, one of my favorite being Piazza del Popolo, which was the ancient entrance to North Rome, and the doors were really cool. The church in the piazza was called Santa Maria del Popolo and it had the Chigi chapel which was painted by Raphael. There were a few things that we didn't go in but were cool to look at. One was the Borghese villa. It was pretty but we were tired of art. I wanted to go into the Medici Villa but it's used as a French school now. Also the Castel Sant'Angelo was really cool looking. It actually has a tunnel that connects to the Vatican to keep the Popes safe in case of attack. I think that was used a long time ago but it still stands.
In Rome, we had two tours. The first one was of the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. I loved the Vatican. St. Peter's Basilica was beautiful, and I didn't think it was that big until I went in. It was an optical illusion because it's actual bigger than your eye thinks it is, which is crazy because I think it's huge. It's so gaudy and beautiful. The altar inside is made of solid gold and bronze and it's just crazy how awesome it is. Michelangelo built the church for about the last 15 years of his life and he stopped working on it only 3 days before he died. Bernini built the square which is actually an elliptical, which is supposed to symbolize Jesus's arms welcoming people into the church. The church has about 300 statues, 11 chapels, and it is has biggest dome. We went to see the Sistine Chapel which was in the Vatican Museum. It's interesting that they make you pay to see it, which is pretty controversial. I think it was very impressive, but I only spent about 10 minutes in there. The second tour we did was the colosseum and the roman ruins. The colosseum is cool because it used to be so much bigger and prettier than it was, but because of the fall of the Roman Empire, people came to the city and took things from buildings to put on new buildings, and that's why the colosseum has so many holes in it. We learned that the gladiators were slaves of the rich, and made their owners money, although it was quite an investment to train them. The first act of the show was exotic animals and gladiators fighting and there was lots of killing, and then a lunch break. The second act was two gladiators dueling right up until the point of death, and then the loser would ask the emperor to spare his life. Most of the time, the emperor saved him because he gave his best and it was a good show. I got a lot of great pictures at the colosseum. After, we saw the Roman ruins, which was really cool. There was an awesome church built into an old ruined church. It's funny because people back then knew that there was stuff sticking up from underground but they never excavated it. Now it's all excavated in one area and it's really cool. There was a memorial to Caesar in there. Also, there are only two metros in Rome because every time they try to dig, they find more ruins and can't build there. Matthew got into Rome on Wednesday, and we all went out to an awesome dinner. I hated saying bye to my family because I already miss them but I will see them soon and I had a great time with them.
After my parents left, me and Matt did Rome all that day. Rome wasn't built in a day, but we saw it in one (well the important parts anyway). We went to see St. Peter's Basilica, Trevi fountain, the Pantheon, and the ruins. It doesn't sound like much but they're all so far away from each other. We tried to see the Sistine Chapel but it ended up being closed the day after me and my family saw it. They closed it to clean up and get ready for the conclave. I was bummed for Matt, but I think the church is much more impressive. We caught our train at 4 and we were absolutely exhausted.
Like I said, me and Matthew did mostly the same stuff in Florence as my parents. We also did a few different things too though. We also went to boboli gardens and I found new things with him too, like this cool island fountain. We went and saw Santa Croce, which is a beautiful church that I had always wanted to go in. It has the star of David on the top but it's a Catholic church, and it's the huge mystery about this church. When we were in Rome, our tour guide said Michelangelo and other very famous people were buried here, and I had no idea. We saw Michelangelo's, Dante's, Machiavelli's, and Galileo's tombs. They also had some cool paintings in the church. On our way to piazzale michelangelo, we saw a garden and it's another way up to it, so that was fun to explore. I had been on ponte vecchio before, but with Matt we actually looked at all of the jewelry and I don't understand how people afford it, it's so crazy. We got a lot of pastries and cappuccinos and I think I might have gotten Matt to like the cappuccinos. We found a really great place to eat lunch across the river, and they only spoke Italian so that was pretty cool. We also put a lock on the ponte vecchio, so hopefully it doesn't get cut off! I had a great time with Matt, we relaxed and took our time to see Florence. Saying goodbye to him was also hard. I had a great time though.
It still feels like a dream. I am so lucky to have a family and boyfriend who were able to visit me. I think they really enjoyed Florence and Rome and I'm glad I got to show them around. I had an amazing time and it was incredibly hard to say bye to them. I'm glad I got a little taste of home, and it's only about 7 more weeks until I'm home!
Tomorrow night I am leaving for Barcelona!!!! I'm really excited, and it definitely snuck up on me. It's supposed to be decent weather there; I'm hoping it's warmer and less rainy than Florence right now. I can't believe I'll be in Spain in less than 24 hours, it's so unreal.
Buonanotte,
Katie
My spring break was awesome :) It was so great to see my family and Matthew. I loved having the time off from school, and I really enjoyed Rome. I also liked being a little tour guide and showing them around Florence. I was also able to tour Matt around Rome because my family and I did tours on the previous days.
I did the basic Florence sight-seeing with my family and Matt. They came at different times, but I took them to see most of the same things. I brought them to see the david, ponte vecchio, piazzale michelangelo, palazzo pitti and the boboli gardens, gustapizza, leather market, san miniato, and I even brought them by to see my schools. We also got to see the duomo and climbed it. But, there were things that I hadn't done that I got to do with my family. On the first day while my brother and Dad were napping since they were very jet-lagged, me and my mom went to San Lorenzo. San Lorenzo is a church that is attached to the Medici Tombs. It was very plain but it was pretty, and there was a nice green courtyard with an orange tree in the middle There was a bunch of restaurants that we went to that I had never been to. Also, we went to a bar called Fiddler's Elbow that I had never been to. It was very relaxing and cute. I had been to the boboli gardens before, but I saw a whole other section with my family and it was really cool. The gardens are so huge; I don't know if I'll ever actually be able to see the whole thing.
Rome was really really cool and I enjoyed it a lot. We left for Rome on Sunday, and for some reason our train was an extra 40 minutes which was weird. We got to Rome and we decided to take a cab from the train station to the hotel. It was only a 15 minute walk but we had a lot of luggage. The cab was 33€ which was a total rip-off, and I think that's when I realized that Rome is much more expensive than Florence. The first day we just mostly walked around the city. It's a very large city and you could use the metro, but I was nervous about that since I heard some of my friends were pick-pocketed on the metro. Throughout the week, we did all the important things in Rome. We saw the Spanish steps, which I didn't find that impressive, but maybe there's a cool story behind it that I don't know. We saw the Trevi fountain, which I thought was pretty and I threw a coin in over my right shoulder, which means I will be back to Rome one day. Another cool fountain was the moses fountain. I enjoyed the Pantheon, which is a church, built like a cylinder with a sphere in it. The coolest part about it was that there was an actual hole in the top and when it rains, there's a drain at the bottom of the church. We saw many, many churches, they seemed to be on every corner. Saint Maria in Trastevere was beautiful, an incredibly far walk but it was very pretty. We also saw Santa Maria degli Angeli, which on the outside looks as if it is tiny and ruined since it looks so old, but then you walk in and it's incredible. We saw many piazzas, one of my favorite being Piazza del Popolo, which was the ancient entrance to North Rome, and the doors were really cool. The church in the piazza was called Santa Maria del Popolo and it had the Chigi chapel which was painted by Raphael. There were a few things that we didn't go in but were cool to look at. One was the Borghese villa. It was pretty but we were tired of art. I wanted to go into the Medici Villa but it's used as a French school now. Also the Castel Sant'Angelo was really cool looking. It actually has a tunnel that connects to the Vatican to keep the Popes safe in case of attack. I think that was used a long time ago but it still stands.
In Rome, we had two tours. The first one was of the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. I loved the Vatican. St. Peter's Basilica was beautiful, and I didn't think it was that big until I went in. It was an optical illusion because it's actual bigger than your eye thinks it is, which is crazy because I think it's huge. It's so gaudy and beautiful. The altar inside is made of solid gold and bronze and it's just crazy how awesome it is. Michelangelo built the church for about the last 15 years of his life and he stopped working on it only 3 days before he died. Bernini built the square which is actually an elliptical, which is supposed to symbolize Jesus's arms welcoming people into the church. The church has about 300 statues, 11 chapels, and it is has biggest dome. We went to see the Sistine Chapel which was in the Vatican Museum. It's interesting that they make you pay to see it, which is pretty controversial. I think it was very impressive, but I only spent about 10 minutes in there. The second tour we did was the colosseum and the roman ruins. The colosseum is cool because it used to be so much bigger and prettier than it was, but because of the fall of the Roman Empire, people came to the city and took things from buildings to put on new buildings, and that's why the colosseum has so many holes in it. We learned that the gladiators were slaves of the rich, and made their owners money, although it was quite an investment to train them. The first act of the show was exotic animals and gladiators fighting and there was lots of killing, and then a lunch break. The second act was two gladiators dueling right up until the point of death, and then the loser would ask the emperor to spare his life. Most of the time, the emperor saved him because he gave his best and it was a good show. I got a lot of great pictures at the colosseum. After, we saw the Roman ruins, which was really cool. There was an awesome church built into an old ruined church. It's funny because people back then knew that there was stuff sticking up from underground but they never excavated it. Now it's all excavated in one area and it's really cool. There was a memorial to Caesar in there. Also, there are only two metros in Rome because every time they try to dig, they find more ruins and can't build there. Matthew got into Rome on Wednesday, and we all went out to an awesome dinner. I hated saying bye to my family because I already miss them but I will see them soon and I had a great time with them.
After my parents left, me and Matt did Rome all that day. Rome wasn't built in a day, but we saw it in one (well the important parts anyway). We went to see St. Peter's Basilica, Trevi fountain, the Pantheon, and the ruins. It doesn't sound like much but they're all so far away from each other. We tried to see the Sistine Chapel but it ended up being closed the day after me and my family saw it. They closed it to clean up and get ready for the conclave. I was bummed for Matt, but I think the church is much more impressive. We caught our train at 4 and we were absolutely exhausted.
Like I said, me and Matthew did mostly the same stuff in Florence as my parents. We also did a few different things too though. We also went to boboli gardens and I found new things with him too, like this cool island fountain. We went and saw Santa Croce, which is a beautiful church that I had always wanted to go in. It has the star of David on the top but it's a Catholic church, and it's the huge mystery about this church. When we were in Rome, our tour guide said Michelangelo and other very famous people were buried here, and I had no idea. We saw Michelangelo's, Dante's, Machiavelli's, and Galileo's tombs. They also had some cool paintings in the church. On our way to piazzale michelangelo, we saw a garden and it's another way up to it, so that was fun to explore. I had been on ponte vecchio before, but with Matt we actually looked at all of the jewelry and I don't understand how people afford it, it's so crazy. We got a lot of pastries and cappuccinos and I think I might have gotten Matt to like the cappuccinos. We found a really great place to eat lunch across the river, and they only spoke Italian so that was pretty cool. We also put a lock on the ponte vecchio, so hopefully it doesn't get cut off! I had a great time with Matt, we relaxed and took our time to see Florence. Saying goodbye to him was also hard. I had a great time though.
It still feels like a dream. I am so lucky to have a family and boyfriend who were able to visit me. I think they really enjoyed Florence and Rome and I'm glad I got to show them around. I had an amazing time and it was incredibly hard to say bye to them. I'm glad I got a little taste of home, and it's only about 7 more weeks until I'm home!
Tomorrow night I am leaving for Barcelona!!!! I'm really excited, and it definitely snuck up on me. It's supposed to be decent weather there; I'm hoping it's warmer and less rainy than Florence right now. I can't believe I'll be in Spain in less than 24 hours, it's so unreal.
Buonanotte,
Katie
Friday, February 22, 2013
Ciao!!
I should be doing homework and studying for my midterms but I really don't feel like it. So instead I decided to blog about being in Florence in general. I haven't had time to blog about Florence too much, I've just been focused on blogging about traveling. These are the things that I like and I don't like!
LIKES:
1) Beauty: Florence is the most beautiful city I've ever been in. Everywhere I walk is so pretty and I often have to remind myself that not all cities look like this. The buildings are all so cute and I love how small the city is that I can walk everywhere.
2) Markets: I like all the little markets with fresh food. They're so easy to stop by on the way home and just grab some ingredients for whatever you're making for dinner that night. The grocery stores here aren't very big because most Italians only buy their necessities and shop multiple times per week. It's a much different lifestyle.
3) Cheap wine: Wine is so cheap here compared to the United States. It's only 3€ for a bottle which is really awesome. They also have a wine filling store where you can bring an empty bottle and fill a liter of wine for only 1.50€. America is much more expensive.
4) Slow pace: The Italians definitely have a slower pace. When they say a certain time, they will take their time getting places, they're never in a huge rush. Even just walking around town, they walk so much slower than I do. I also think that none of them work and all they do is shop and buy food, but I doubt that's completely true. It's nice having a change of pace. I find myself to be less stressed out here, but that could also be because of my next like...
5) Not a lot of homework: My classes are all interesting and I like most of them. I never find myself having a lot of homework. Italian is the only class I have homework for each night. It's a lot more writing essays and such, but it's a nice change. I haven't written essays since probably high school.
6) Food: The food here is awesome!!!! I don't think there's something that I've had that I didn't like. Everything is amazing. I'm going to miss the mozzarella here the most. It's so much better than at home. It's always so fresh. It actually comes in water so it stays fresh.
7) Small school and staff: Coming from a huge school and campus, it's nice to experience the small school atmosphere. I know so many people from my school because our classes are so small. I like having 17 person classes, it's a good change. The staff at the school is wonderful. They are all so incredibly nice, and are so helpful with anything you ask of them. They also have so many events that the students can attend for free or for low cost and they're all so fun.
8) City life: It's cool being in the city and being able to experience the night life. It's nice having a semester of school in the city after being in a small town before.
9) Restaurants: All the restaurants here are so unique and cozy. The restaurants are all very small. I haven't seen a restaurant bigger than about 20 tables. There aren't chain restaurants here like there are in the U.S.
10) No classes on Fridays: After having classes 5 days a week, it's awesome to have a long weekend every single weekend!!
11) History: I really enjoy learning about the history of Florence. I've already seen a lot of the museums but there's more I want to experience as well. I find all the stories so interesting. My one class is called "Story of the City"and one class we have a lesson and the other class we take a field trip to somewhere historical around Florence. It's so cool to learn the stories behind everything with the ancient and medieval worlds.
DISLIKES:
1) Dog poop: There's no grass here so the dogs just poop on the sidewalks (which are very skinny). It's annoying because a lot of people don't pick it up, they just leave it there.
2) Little weird dogs: The dogs here are all weird mixed breeds, and they're kindof ugly. Also, they're are little tiny dogs. I get really excited every time I see a dog that's normal looking and a bigger size.
3) No living room: Our kitchen is nice, but we don't have a family room where we can all hang out in so the kitchen becomes our hangout spot. It's annoying because we can't have many people over since our kitchen really isn't that big.
4) Mosquitoes: Apparently the mosquitoes here are really bad in the summer. Most of that cause is probably because the windows don't have screens. But, we have had mosquitoes in the house, and it's annoying to wake up with bites on your arms.
5) Bread: I expected the bread here to be great, but it's been so incredibly disappointing. It's usually too hard and difficult to eat. The best bread I've had here has been from the supermarket.
6) Rain: I didn't expect it to rain that much in Florence. In January, it seemed like it rained every single day. It doesn't snow, but I would rather it have snowed than rain everyday. It's been raining a bit less, so I'm hoping it will rain less and less.
7) Weird hours for restaurants: The restaurants here don't usually open til 7 PM, and I'm usually starving by 5 PM so it's really inconvenient. I still haven't adjusted to their schedule. Also, a lot of markets and stores close from 2:30-4:30 during the day. It's such a random time.
8) Long classes: Although tuesday/thursday classes at Penn State are an hour and 15 minutes, for some reason, my hour and a half classes seem incredibly long.
9) Tourists: There have been more and more tourists arriving and I find it somewhat annoying. They all travel in huge packs and slow me down on my walk to school. They're usually pretty obnoxious as well.
Despite all my dislikes, I'm loving it here and I can't wait to show Florence off to my family and Matt!
Now I better go get some work done,
Katie
I should be doing homework and studying for my midterms but I really don't feel like it. So instead I decided to blog about being in Florence in general. I haven't had time to blog about Florence too much, I've just been focused on blogging about traveling. These are the things that I like and I don't like!
LIKES:
1) Beauty: Florence is the most beautiful city I've ever been in. Everywhere I walk is so pretty and I often have to remind myself that not all cities look like this. The buildings are all so cute and I love how small the city is that I can walk everywhere.
2) Markets: I like all the little markets with fresh food. They're so easy to stop by on the way home and just grab some ingredients for whatever you're making for dinner that night. The grocery stores here aren't very big because most Italians only buy their necessities and shop multiple times per week. It's a much different lifestyle.
3) Cheap wine: Wine is so cheap here compared to the United States. It's only 3€ for a bottle which is really awesome. They also have a wine filling store where you can bring an empty bottle and fill a liter of wine for only 1.50€. America is much more expensive.
4) Slow pace: The Italians definitely have a slower pace. When they say a certain time, they will take their time getting places, they're never in a huge rush. Even just walking around town, they walk so much slower than I do. I also think that none of them work and all they do is shop and buy food, but I doubt that's completely true. It's nice having a change of pace. I find myself to be less stressed out here, but that could also be because of my next like...
5) Not a lot of homework: My classes are all interesting and I like most of them. I never find myself having a lot of homework. Italian is the only class I have homework for each night. It's a lot more writing essays and such, but it's a nice change. I haven't written essays since probably high school.
6) Food: The food here is awesome!!!! I don't think there's something that I've had that I didn't like. Everything is amazing. I'm going to miss the mozzarella here the most. It's so much better than at home. It's always so fresh. It actually comes in water so it stays fresh.
7) Small school and staff: Coming from a huge school and campus, it's nice to experience the small school atmosphere. I know so many people from my school because our classes are so small. I like having 17 person classes, it's a good change. The staff at the school is wonderful. They are all so incredibly nice, and are so helpful with anything you ask of them. They also have so many events that the students can attend for free or for low cost and they're all so fun.
8) City life: It's cool being in the city and being able to experience the night life. It's nice having a semester of school in the city after being in a small town before.
9) Restaurants: All the restaurants here are so unique and cozy. The restaurants are all very small. I haven't seen a restaurant bigger than about 20 tables. There aren't chain restaurants here like there are in the U.S.
10) No classes on Fridays: After having classes 5 days a week, it's awesome to have a long weekend every single weekend!!
11) History: I really enjoy learning about the history of Florence. I've already seen a lot of the museums but there's more I want to experience as well. I find all the stories so interesting. My one class is called "Story of the City"and one class we have a lesson and the other class we take a field trip to somewhere historical around Florence. It's so cool to learn the stories behind everything with the ancient and medieval worlds.
DISLIKES:
1) Dog poop: There's no grass here so the dogs just poop on the sidewalks (which are very skinny). It's annoying because a lot of people don't pick it up, they just leave it there.
2) Little weird dogs: The dogs here are all weird mixed breeds, and they're kindof ugly. Also, they're are little tiny dogs. I get really excited every time I see a dog that's normal looking and a bigger size.
3) No living room: Our kitchen is nice, but we don't have a family room where we can all hang out in so the kitchen becomes our hangout spot. It's annoying because we can't have many people over since our kitchen really isn't that big.
4) Mosquitoes: Apparently the mosquitoes here are really bad in the summer. Most of that cause is probably because the windows don't have screens. But, we have had mosquitoes in the house, and it's annoying to wake up with bites on your arms.
5) Bread: I expected the bread here to be great, but it's been so incredibly disappointing. It's usually too hard and difficult to eat. The best bread I've had here has been from the supermarket.
6) Rain: I didn't expect it to rain that much in Florence. In January, it seemed like it rained every single day. It doesn't snow, but I would rather it have snowed than rain everyday. It's been raining a bit less, so I'm hoping it will rain less and less.
7) Weird hours for restaurants: The restaurants here don't usually open til 7 PM, and I'm usually starving by 5 PM so it's really inconvenient. I still haven't adjusted to their schedule. Also, a lot of markets and stores close from 2:30-4:30 during the day. It's such a random time.
8) Long classes: Although tuesday/thursday classes at Penn State are an hour and 15 minutes, for some reason, my hour and a half classes seem incredibly long.
9) Tourists: There have been more and more tourists arriving and I find it somewhat annoying. They all travel in huge packs and slow me down on my walk to school. They're usually pretty obnoxious as well.
Despite all my dislikes, I'm loving it here and I can't wait to show Florence off to my family and Matt!
Now I better go get some work done,
Katie
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Bonjour!
I spent this past weekend in Paris! It was awesome, I really enjoyed it. This past week before Paris was pretty uneventful, I was just catching up on sleep from my Interlaken trip. I volunteered officially for the first time with the elementary school. It was fun to meet all the kids, and the ones that I worked with were very advanced english speakers. One little girl even gave me a postcard that she had gotten from a museum. It felt great to volunteer. Also last week, my field trip was to a church called San Miniato and it's up on the hills with a beautiful view of Florence. The church was from the medieval times and it was very dark and almost creepy. There weren't many windows, and the church was split-level, which is very unordinary for churches. It was a cool field trip, I really like that class.
My weekend was so awesome!! I traveled with my friends this weekend, and my roommates did a mix of staying home, and some went to London. I was excited to travel with a different group! There were seven of us but we accomplished so much in just two and a half days and it worked out that we all pretty much wanted to do the same things. Our flight to Paris was at 7:20 AM, so we were pretty exhausted all weekend after not getting much sleep before the weekend either.
We got to Paris at 9:20 AM on Friday and took a shuttle to our hotel to check in and meet up with the other girls who had come in on Thursday night. After meeting up, we started planning out our day. First we went to grab some breakfast. We each got a pastry and split a baguette. The bread is AMAZING in Paris, I don't understand why Italy's bread sucks. Also, the pastries were all so good no matter what you ordered. The metro was just about 20 feet away from our hotel, right across the street. We figured out the metro pretty quickly. The metro is so efficient and convenient, I'm surprised it isn't like this in the U.S. After we planned out our route, we decided to go to the Louvre first. We saw the Mona Lisa, which in my opinion wasn't all that impressive. There was a really cool egyptian exhibit in the Louvre which was my favorite part there. There was a real live mummy! The Louvre was unbelievable huge. I couldn't believe how long it stretched around. After the Louvre, we headed to the Orsay Museum and it was also cool. I liked the Louvre better but Orsay was cool. Orsay was mostly paintings and sculptures. We saw a lot of Van Gogh, which was a lot cooler in paintings than in books when we just learned about them. I definitely have a lot more respect for the artists we've learned about now that I can see the real paintings. We also saw Monet, and Degas. After the Orsay, we headed to Notre Dame!!! It was a really pretty church. On the way there, we saw love-lock bridge and there were so many locks on there, it was adorable. We got to Notre Dame, and when we went in, mass was going on. It was actually pretty cool, but there must be pretty annoying for the people actually trying to listen with all those tourists around. After Notre Dame, we tried to head to a fondue place but it was way too busy, so we just grabbed dinner somewhere else. The meals in France were so cheap, they were 15 Euros for a 3 course meal with an appetizer, entree, and dessert. It was nice because we don't have that in Florence. After dinner, we walked around a bit and saw the Moulin Rouge area. We were so exhausted we just went home and went to bed because we were getting up early the next day.
On Saturday, we woke up early to go to Versailles! It took us so long to get there because Versailles is on the outside of the city. We thought we knew how to get there but we had to switch so many trains because they kept ending. Finally, we realized that the one train we needed wasn't going to Versailles that day and we had to take another that would take us in walking distance. It was probably a good hour or so of travel time, but it was completely worth it. Versailles was my favorite part. I loved seeing the palace. The palace was where Louis the 14th, 15th, and 16th stayed, as well as Marie Antoinette, and another Marie. I loved all the rooms. They were incredibly gaudy and overwhelming, but it was awesome to picture living back in that time. Even the dauphin's apartments were nice. We thought we were done looking around until we walked outside and realized the gardens extended very far, and there was Marie Antoinette's estate down there. My friend and I walked down there and wanted to see the estate. Unfortunately, we had gotten separated from our friends earlier and they had our tickets, so we had to pay just to see the estate. The estate was much more home-y and quaint than the palace, but it was still very nice. The one funny thing is how small their beds were, because they were much shorter back then. After Versailles, we headed to grab some lunch. We all got grilled cheeses and fries. Their fries are pretty good -- I mean they are FRENCH fries after all. The grilled cheeses were cool because they put cheese in the middle AND on top, and I love cheese. After that we headed to the Eiffel Tower!!! Honestly, the Eiffel Tower is cool but it's brown and somewhat ugly. It's really pretty when it's lit up at night though. Apparently the guy who built it ate lunch everyday under the tower because that's the only place he couldn't see it. We waited in line and we were planning on taking an elevator to the top. Me and my friend Abby were freaking out because we don't like heights that much. The top ended up getting closed while we were in line so we could only go to the second floor which is about halfway up. That was a little easier to handle than going all the way to the top. We still got great views, and it was cool. After the Tour Eiffel, we went to see the Arc de Triumph. It was big, and to get to it you have to walk down stairs underground and then back up, since the intersection is so crazy. Under the Arc de Triumph, they had their tomb of the unknown soldier, which was very pretty. They don't have a guard that watches it like the U.S. though. We then headed to another great dinner, where they gave us free white wine with raspberry. It was delicious. After that, we headed home and slept.
Sunday morning, we just took our time getting to the airport. When we got there, our one friend found out that for some reason she was on the later flight. I think Expedia messed it up. The flight home was okay, we hit a lot of turbulence which really freaked me out. I was glad to be home after a busy two weeks of travel.
Paris was awesome, but I'm so glad I'm studying in Florence. Paris is way too big of a city for me, and even though the metro was convenient, it still took a good amount of time to get places, and you can't really walk anywhere. The metro is quick, but you have to switch trains a lot to get specifically where you want. I always like having the option to walk places. The other thing about Florence, is that I feel a lot safer here. In Paris, there were a few sketchy incidents that occurred. My one friend was getting money out of an ATM machine and there were some young, about 13 years old, boys near by. I thought it was kindof weird that the boys were so close, but then I felt bad for judging them so I just ignored it. Apparently, when my friend got to the screen where you pick the amount you would like to withdrawal, the boys covered the screen with a paper, pressed the maximum amount button, and were trying to grab her money before she could. Luckily, a french man from across the street ran over and yelled and them, and they ran away. My friend got out 250 more Euros than she planned but at least she was holding them and not the boys. There was another incident where we were getting off the metro and some man was getting on and all of a sudden, four policemen ran and pulled the man off the metro. That was scary because we hadn't even seen policemen or security on the metro until then. And then in the airport on the way home, there was almost two women fighting. Some cashier came out from behind the counter and pushed the customer and I thought for sure there would be a fight. It was quite an interesting weekend.
This week I've just been relaxing and getting ready for midterms next week. Next week, I'm supposed to start playing soccer, which I'm very excited about, but I have 4 midterms next week and I'm supposed to play in 4 soccer games. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to go to them, so we'll see how my studying goes. I have a lot of studying to do. Most of my midterms are essays, which makes me a little nervous seeing as I haven't had essay exams probably since high school. I have a lot of studying to do!!
Cannot believe my family will be here in 8 days!!!!! And Matthew will be here in 2 weeks!!! I am so excited to show them around Florence and I'm also excited to see Rome!!
Ciao ragazzi,
Katie
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Ciao ragazzi!
It's been an awesome week and an even better weekend. Last week was good. I had two quizzes that I did well on, and I played in a practice soccer game. I think we start the real games against other schools next week. It was so great to play again. I also went to the elementary school that I will be volunteering at. It was a really nice school and I was surprised at how early they start teaching english. These little 6 year olds were already learning english phrases. I'm excited to start volunteering this week, it will be very fun. I went to Interlaken this past weekend, and it was possibly the most beautiful place I've ever been. Florence is a very pretty city but Interlaken is this beautiful snowy place with amazing mountains. It's so serene and amazing.
We left for Interlaken on thursday at 8 PM and didn't get there until 4 AM. I woke up as we were on the side of the mountain in the snow and driving so slowly up the hill. It was probably the most terrifying ride I have ever been on but we made it! When you enter Switzerland, it's just tons of mountains so there was a lot of tiny roads up and down the mountains. I was just glad that I didn't have to drive on those roads. We got to our hostel and immediately slept for about 2 hours. The hostel was so nice, super clean, and they were very helpful. I feel like I was a little spoiled for my first hostel experience. We all got to stay in the same room so that was nice. We went with a company called Bus2Alps and they were so helpful and nice compared to the last company we booked a trip with. After we slept, we got up to have breakfast and get going to start skiing!! My friend Colleen and I had booked a full beginner's day and we were really excited. We got there and found out that we couldn't have a lesson because not enough people had signed up. So our choices were to pay more and have a private lesson, or to just do a half day skiing and have our lesson in the afternoon. We decided to do that and it was so perfect. The lesson was sweet, our instructor was really friendly, and the mountains were beautiful. I was so glad I took the opportunity to ski. I wore so many layers that I was actually so hot on the mountain, and I never once was cold. We went down the bunny hill the whole time, with little kids flying past me, but I didn't care, I had a blast. After we got home, we went out with a big group to grab dinner. All food in Switzerland is crazy expensive. It was hard to find a meal that was under 15 swiss francs (swiss francs are basically the same amount as dollars). We all went out and had swiss cheese fondue for dinner. It was very filling, but I wish we had gotten chocolate fondue instead! We were all so exhausted Friday night that we went to bed early.
On Saturday, me and some of my friends went to Zurich. It was so cool! Zurich is a really pretty city and it was only about a two hour drive away from Interlaken. It's pretty small but it reminded me a little of Boston. It was very clean and people friendly. It was snowing and it was so beautiful. First, everyone made a stop at Starbucks, since there are none in Florence. It was nice seeing some familiar American stores there. We walked around the city, saw a beautiful church, and then we got to climb the Grossmunster church and see the views of the city from the top. It was awesome, and Lake Zurich is beautiful. We got lunch and shopped. For lunch, we all got rostis. A rosti is Swiss food, and it's basically a hashbrown with toppings. Mine was the rosti on bottom, then cheese, bacon, and egg on top. It was delicious; it pretty much just tasted like breakfast. After we got back to Interlaken, we grabbed dinner and then spent the night with all of our friends at the other hostel's bar. It was a great time, and so fun because we knew so many people from our program on the trip this weekend.
On Sunday, we walked to the beautiful lake in Interlaken. It was about a 20 minute walk and we got to see a lot of the local houses. They all look like little toy cabins, they are so cute. The lake was so clear and blue, it was like we were in the caribbean. I was in awe of how beautiful this place is and I hope to go back someday and bring my friends and family. After, I bought lots of chocolate, and it was unbelievably delicious. Chocolate, unfortunately, is also very expensive. We grabbed some burgers for lunch - which were weird and tasted more like sausage - and then got on the bus home! We were all exhausted by that point.
I feel like this trip was probably different that the others I will be doing. Most of seeing other places is just walking around and going to museums and such. But this trip, we got to do really fun activities while seeing the country. They had a ton of stuff you could do: skiing, snowboarding, paragliding, skydiving, night sledding, etc. It was very expensive but 100% worth it. It was also really awesome, because in Switzerland they speak Swiss-German, so I could read and understand things! It was a nice change from being in Florence where I can only understand a little.
There's a chocolate festival going on in Florence this week, literally 2 minutes from my apartment. We signed up early and tonight we get to go to a free wine and chocolate tasting! I'm really excited :) Other than that, this week is pretty relaxed since I will be getting ready to go to Paris friday morning! We still need to figure out everything we want to see but it will be fun regardless. I want to definitely see the eiffel tower and the louvre. I'd also like to see Versailles because I've heard it's beautiful. I'm so excited!
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Feb 15-17): PARIS! I am so excited!
Next weekend (Feb 22-24): The weekend before midterms, so I will probably be studying and just relaxing after all of my traveling!
THEN IT'S SPRING BREAK!!!!
I miss you all! Ciaoooooo,
Katie
It's been an awesome week and an even better weekend. Last week was good. I had two quizzes that I did well on, and I played in a practice soccer game. I think we start the real games against other schools next week. It was so great to play again. I also went to the elementary school that I will be volunteering at. It was a really nice school and I was surprised at how early they start teaching english. These little 6 year olds were already learning english phrases. I'm excited to start volunteering this week, it will be very fun. I went to Interlaken this past weekend, and it was possibly the most beautiful place I've ever been. Florence is a very pretty city but Interlaken is this beautiful snowy place with amazing mountains. It's so serene and amazing.
We left for Interlaken on thursday at 8 PM and didn't get there until 4 AM. I woke up as we were on the side of the mountain in the snow and driving so slowly up the hill. It was probably the most terrifying ride I have ever been on but we made it! When you enter Switzerland, it's just tons of mountains so there was a lot of tiny roads up and down the mountains. I was just glad that I didn't have to drive on those roads. We got to our hostel and immediately slept for about 2 hours. The hostel was so nice, super clean, and they were very helpful. I feel like I was a little spoiled for my first hostel experience. We all got to stay in the same room so that was nice. We went with a company called Bus2Alps and they were so helpful and nice compared to the last company we booked a trip with. After we slept, we got up to have breakfast and get going to start skiing!! My friend Colleen and I had booked a full beginner's day and we were really excited. We got there and found out that we couldn't have a lesson because not enough people had signed up. So our choices were to pay more and have a private lesson, or to just do a half day skiing and have our lesson in the afternoon. We decided to do that and it was so perfect. The lesson was sweet, our instructor was really friendly, and the mountains were beautiful. I was so glad I took the opportunity to ski. I wore so many layers that I was actually so hot on the mountain, and I never once was cold. We went down the bunny hill the whole time, with little kids flying past me, but I didn't care, I had a blast. After we got home, we went out with a big group to grab dinner. All food in Switzerland is crazy expensive. It was hard to find a meal that was under 15 swiss francs (swiss francs are basically the same amount as dollars). We all went out and had swiss cheese fondue for dinner. It was very filling, but I wish we had gotten chocolate fondue instead! We were all so exhausted Friday night that we went to bed early.
On Saturday, me and some of my friends went to Zurich. It was so cool! Zurich is a really pretty city and it was only about a two hour drive away from Interlaken. It's pretty small but it reminded me a little of Boston. It was very clean and people friendly. It was snowing and it was so beautiful. First, everyone made a stop at Starbucks, since there are none in Florence. It was nice seeing some familiar American stores there. We walked around the city, saw a beautiful church, and then we got to climb the Grossmunster church and see the views of the city from the top. It was awesome, and Lake Zurich is beautiful. We got lunch and shopped. For lunch, we all got rostis. A rosti is Swiss food, and it's basically a hashbrown with toppings. Mine was the rosti on bottom, then cheese, bacon, and egg on top. It was delicious; it pretty much just tasted like breakfast. After we got back to Interlaken, we grabbed dinner and then spent the night with all of our friends at the other hostel's bar. It was a great time, and so fun because we knew so many people from our program on the trip this weekend.
On Sunday, we walked to the beautiful lake in Interlaken. It was about a 20 minute walk and we got to see a lot of the local houses. They all look like little toy cabins, they are so cute. The lake was so clear and blue, it was like we were in the caribbean. I was in awe of how beautiful this place is and I hope to go back someday and bring my friends and family. After, I bought lots of chocolate, and it was unbelievably delicious. Chocolate, unfortunately, is also very expensive. We grabbed some burgers for lunch - which were weird and tasted more like sausage - and then got on the bus home! We were all exhausted by that point.
I feel like this trip was probably different that the others I will be doing. Most of seeing other places is just walking around and going to museums and such. But this trip, we got to do really fun activities while seeing the country. They had a ton of stuff you could do: skiing, snowboarding, paragliding, skydiving, night sledding, etc. It was very expensive but 100% worth it. It was also really awesome, because in Switzerland they speak Swiss-German, so I could read and understand things! It was a nice change from being in Florence where I can only understand a little.
There's a chocolate festival going on in Florence this week, literally 2 minutes from my apartment. We signed up early and tonight we get to go to a free wine and chocolate tasting! I'm really excited :) Other than that, this week is pretty relaxed since I will be getting ready to go to Paris friday morning! We still need to figure out everything we want to see but it will be fun regardless. I want to definitely see the eiffel tower and the louvre. I'd also like to see Versailles because I've heard it's beautiful. I'm so excited!
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Feb 15-17): PARIS! I am so excited!
Next weekend (Feb 22-24): The weekend before midterms, so I will probably be studying and just relaxing after all of my traveling!
THEN IT'S SPRING BREAK!!!!
I miss you all! Ciaoooooo,
Katie
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Buongiorno,
It's been another great week and also a busy one. I should really try to blog more in between so I don't have to type out these huge blogs, but I always forget. My week was good, my classes are starting to get more serious and I have an italian test next week which I'm pretty nervous about since we learned so much in just a few weeks. I'm going to have a busy upcoming week. I officially signed up for soccer and we have our first practice game this wednesday. I also have signed up to volunteer helping at an elementary school and we meet with the principal on Wednesday. It should only be a few hours a week so I'm looking forward to it. This past week I officially booked my flight to Barcelona! I should be booking my hostel soon. My friend Colleen and I are going March 14-17.
This week was fun! Tuesday my friends and I went out to Tijuana, which is a mexican place. They're pretty rare here in Italy but it was so awesome. We got nachos, toastadas, and margaritas. Tacos is my favorite meal so I was really happy. We will definitely be going back. Also on Tuesday, we went to the Uffizi Museum, which was cool. There were a ton of busts and paintings. On Wednesday, my story of the city class went on a really cool historic tour of the city. We saw exactly where the city of Florence was during the Roman Empire. It is so small to what the city is now. We saw the rounded walls of where the coliseum once stood, which is now houses. We saw where the center of town used to be. We were able to see the 1966 flood marks on the buildings, and they were way over one story high. I really enjoy that class. On thursday, we tried to go to Cappelle di Medici, which is the Medici's tombs, but it was closed. We ended up just walking around and shopping.
On Friday, we just hung out around during the day. We went to the diner and it was awesome. It's an American diner so they had pancakes and breakfast sandwiches and burgers. I got chocolate chip pancakes and I was so happy. Later around 6:30, we got all dressed up and went out to the restaurant literally across the street. It was really nice and delicious. We had a really great dinner. I got spicy spaghetti and it was way spicier than I imagined it. We then went to the opera around 8!!! It was so fun to get dressed up and go out to something so formal. The only problem was that we all bought new heels and they were very cute, but it was awful walking in them on cobblestones. The opera was good, the singers were so talented. It was just hard to pay attention to a 4 and a half hour opera when it's all in Italian. They had the subtitles projected on top of the stage, so I could look at it and identify about one word in each line, but that wasn't very helpful. The opera was called Don Giovani, and I looked at the wikipedia summary during intermission to get to know more about the storyline. It was truly exhausting and we came back and immediately went to sleep.
On Saturday, we went to Venice. I was so excited to see Venice. We booked our transportation with this one company since it was cheaper than doing it on our own. It took about three hours to get there and when we got there the group leaders weren't very helpful. We took a water taxi to San Marco, which was where carnivale was happening. Although, mostly everything was cancelled since it rained the entire day, was freezing, and incredibly windy. We all knew it was going to be miserable so we decided to make the best out of it. When we got there we got lunch with a big group of us, which was fun. We warmed up and then shopped around for a while, and it was cool because they have so much Murano glass there. Murano is another island and it's famous for the glass making there. We then went in and got "dinner" somewhere. And by dinner, I just mean we got bruschetta and I got hot chocolate, which was literally just melted chocolate. It was so thick, but it was good. We were told that the leaders would be back by 7 and they made it sound that whoever got on the first bus would leave first once it filled. Instead, that didn't happen and we sat on the bus for an hour waiting for everyone to get back. The ride back took about 4 hours because it rained, and snowed pretty hard. The bus was blowing air conditioning, so it was freezing, and at some point the ceiling was leaking. It was not the best trip, and we won't be booking with that company again.
Today, we are going to the diner again! I have a lot of work to do and then we are going to watch the superbowl tonight! We had to reserve tickets since so many people like to go see it. It makes sense because there are so many students here.
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Feb 7-10): INTERLAKEN! I'm so excited, but I need to figure out if I can rent everything I need there.
Next weekend (Feb 15-17): Paris!!! I can't believe it's so soon. We need to start looking up the places we want to go!
Feb 22-24: This is the weekend before midterms!! I will most likely be studying but we were also thinking about taking a day trip to Pisa and/or Lucca.
I can't believe the weekend after my parents will be here!!! I'm so excited! I've started writing out places to take them and everything. Time is flying by here.
Ciao Ciao Ciaoooo,
Katie
It's been another great week and also a busy one. I should really try to blog more in between so I don't have to type out these huge blogs, but I always forget. My week was good, my classes are starting to get more serious and I have an italian test next week which I'm pretty nervous about since we learned so much in just a few weeks. I'm going to have a busy upcoming week. I officially signed up for soccer and we have our first practice game this wednesday. I also have signed up to volunteer helping at an elementary school and we meet with the principal on Wednesday. It should only be a few hours a week so I'm looking forward to it. This past week I officially booked my flight to Barcelona! I should be booking my hostel soon. My friend Colleen and I are going March 14-17.
This week was fun! Tuesday my friends and I went out to Tijuana, which is a mexican place. They're pretty rare here in Italy but it was so awesome. We got nachos, toastadas, and margaritas. Tacos is my favorite meal so I was really happy. We will definitely be going back. Also on Tuesday, we went to the Uffizi Museum, which was cool. There were a ton of busts and paintings. On Wednesday, my story of the city class went on a really cool historic tour of the city. We saw exactly where the city of Florence was during the Roman Empire. It is so small to what the city is now. We saw the rounded walls of where the coliseum once stood, which is now houses. We saw where the center of town used to be. We were able to see the 1966 flood marks on the buildings, and they were way over one story high. I really enjoy that class. On thursday, we tried to go to Cappelle di Medici, which is the Medici's tombs, but it was closed. We ended up just walking around and shopping.
On Friday, we just hung out around during the day. We went to the diner and it was awesome. It's an American diner so they had pancakes and breakfast sandwiches and burgers. I got chocolate chip pancakes and I was so happy. Later around 6:30, we got all dressed up and went out to the restaurant literally across the street. It was really nice and delicious. We had a really great dinner. I got spicy spaghetti and it was way spicier than I imagined it. We then went to the opera around 8!!! It was so fun to get dressed up and go out to something so formal. The only problem was that we all bought new heels and they were very cute, but it was awful walking in them on cobblestones. The opera was good, the singers were so talented. It was just hard to pay attention to a 4 and a half hour opera when it's all in Italian. They had the subtitles projected on top of the stage, so I could look at it and identify about one word in each line, but that wasn't very helpful. The opera was called Don Giovani, and I looked at the wikipedia summary during intermission to get to know more about the storyline. It was truly exhausting and we came back and immediately went to sleep.
On Saturday, we went to Venice. I was so excited to see Venice. We booked our transportation with this one company since it was cheaper than doing it on our own. It took about three hours to get there and when we got there the group leaders weren't very helpful. We took a water taxi to San Marco, which was where carnivale was happening. Although, mostly everything was cancelled since it rained the entire day, was freezing, and incredibly windy. We all knew it was going to be miserable so we decided to make the best out of it. When we got there we got lunch with a big group of us, which was fun. We warmed up and then shopped around for a while, and it was cool because they have so much Murano glass there. Murano is another island and it's famous for the glass making there. We then went in and got "dinner" somewhere. And by dinner, I just mean we got bruschetta and I got hot chocolate, which was literally just melted chocolate. It was so thick, but it was good. We were told that the leaders would be back by 7 and they made it sound that whoever got on the first bus would leave first once it filled. Instead, that didn't happen and we sat on the bus for an hour waiting for everyone to get back. The ride back took about 4 hours because it rained, and snowed pretty hard. The bus was blowing air conditioning, so it was freezing, and at some point the ceiling was leaking. It was not the best trip, and we won't be booking with that company again.
Today, we are going to the diner again! I have a lot of work to do and then we are going to watch the superbowl tonight! We had to reserve tickets since so many people like to go see it. It makes sense because there are so many students here.
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Feb 7-10): INTERLAKEN! I'm so excited, but I need to figure out if I can rent everything I need there.
Next weekend (Feb 15-17): Paris!!! I can't believe it's so soon. We need to start looking up the places we want to go!
Feb 22-24: This is the weekend before midterms!! I will most likely be studying but we were also thinking about taking a day trip to Pisa and/or Lucca.
I can't believe the weekend after my parents will be here!!! I'm so excited! I've started writing out places to take them and everything. Time is flying by here.
Ciao Ciao Ciaoooo,
Katie
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Buonasera,
It's been almost a week since I blogged so I have a lot to catch all of you up on :)
The week was pretty uneventful, just had my classes and some homework to do. One of my classes was cancelled since we're going to have a longer field trip time in April. We learned all about Fiesole, which is the countryside right outside of Florence. We will go there on our field trip. It's supposed to be beautiful and it was one of the Etruscans first colonies back in the ancient times. I'm really excited to go there; it's supposed to be awesome at sunset. This week I also signed up for a soccer tournament and we play during the week. I'm excited to play soccer again, although I didn't bring my cleats with me! I also signed up for volunteer activities. I signed up for helping out with preschoolers or helping high school students with their english. Hopefully the schools schedule matches up with mine and I can do one of the activities. I was debating on buying a gym membership this past week. It's about 200€ for a semester. I would love to go to a gym but I just don't think I'll have time to get my money's worth out of it. I should start running again, but I do walk around a lot.
This Friday, we took a school trip to Chianti. I wasn't sure what to expect, I knew it was an Italian countryside. It was so beautiful and quaint. Our first stop was the Trebbio castle. We got a tour throughout some of the rooms and the wine cellar. The tour guide was great, she told us about how the castle originally belonged to the Pazzi family, who competed closely with the Medici family for popularity and wealth. The Pazzi family decided they wanted to kill the two Medici brothers, and asked the Pope for help. The Pope agreed and gave the Pazzi family an army. They succeeded in killing one of the brothers on Easter in a church, but Lorenzo Medici escaped. He then plotted and succeeded in killing off the whole entire Pazzi family. The Medici Family took over the Trebbio castle and only left two of the Pazzi family crests on the walls since Davinci had created them. The castle was huge, about 43 rooms, but we were only allowed to see a few. There is a family who looks after the castle that lives there now. After the tour, we had an awesome lunch and wine tasting. Chianti is famous for their red wine, and vineyards can only call their wine Chianti if it is made in the Chianti area, and only if they use a certain type of grape. It was interesting to learn that if a wine is older, the droplets will fall slower down the side of the glass after swirling it around, than a new wine would fall. The first two wines were good. The dessert wine was gross. It's apparently a tradition to eat biscotti with the dessert wine and dip it into the dessert wine. I just liked the biscotti on it's own. We then got to walk around the area and take pictures. I was incredibly bus sick on the way back so after I got home I had to buy these stabilizing bracelets and medicine for the next day trip!
On Saturday, we went on another school trip to Siena and San Gimignano. I wasn't bus sick, so that was a plus. We got to Siena first, and it was a gorgeous day. It was sunny and warm and perfect for walking around. In Siena, we went to the cathedral and it was so pretty. It's a lot smaller than the duomo here in Florence, but it is a little more detailed inside. Everything was covered in beautiful paintings, or tiles. It was really cool to see how intricate every picture was. We were able to see the baptistry also, and climb up to the top of one museum to see all of Siena. We got lunch in Siena at a great pasta place with a bunch of our friends, and then we were off to San Gimignano. San Gimignano was a lot smaller of a city than Siena. It was soooo small but really cute. It was cool but I don't think there were that many locals walking around, we only saw tourists. We got to walk around, and see the little church they had there. They have walls surrounding the city from medieval times, since the walls were a form of protection from attacks. We could have walked around the city in just an hour or two. After we saw the church, we climbed up to the fortress and just sat down and enjoyed the sun and the view. It was nice to relax for a while.
And finally today, was maybe one of my favorite days in Florence so far. We woke up and wanted to go to the American Diner for pancakes! Italians don't eat any pancakes or waffles for breakfast; they just eat croissants and donuts and pastries. We got to the diner and it was a long wait, so we decided instead to go to our favorite pizza place - Gustopizza. We grabbed it to go and ate outside on the stairs of a church because it was so warm out today (I got sunburn...) We were trying to see the boboli gardens at Palazzo Pitti, and they close early so we wanted to eat as quickly as possible. We finally got to see the gardens after our first two failed visits! I guess third time really is the charm. The gardens were very pretty, and on a hill so we did a lot of climbing. We climbed to the top and could see a great view of Florence. We had no idea the gardens were so huge... we will have to go back another day to see the rest of the gardens we didn't see today. We ended up even going to another section of the gardens called the bardini gardens. There we could also see more awesome views of the city. We will have to go back into the gardens in springtime when all the flowers have bloomed. When walking around these gardens we heard music and saw all these people, and realized they were on piazzale Michelangelo. We decided to walk up there, and see more beautiful views of the whole city. The Piazzale is free and anyone can go and stand up in the big square. The fake David (Michelangelo's famous statue) is up there, and doesn't even compare to the real one. There was a lady singing and we ended up grabbing a drink and listening to a free concert for about an hour. She was singing english songs too! It was so awesome to see the view of the city from there. Then we went home and now we're just doing some homework and relaxing. It was a great day.
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Feb 1-3): Opera on Friday, Venice Carnivale on Saturday, and possibly Pisa on Sunday!!
Next weekend (Feb 7-10): We have officially booked Interlaken!!! So excited for the Alps!! I'm thinking about ice skating, Zurich day trip, maybe trying skiing, and definitely the chocolate show. :) I just have to figure out how to rent all the snow gear I'm going to need!
Feb 15-17: Paris!! We officially booked our hostel. It's a little far away but we can just take the metro in. It looks nice and it's in our price range!!
Ciao!!! I miss you all!
It's been almost a week since I blogged so I have a lot to catch all of you up on :)
The week was pretty uneventful, just had my classes and some homework to do. One of my classes was cancelled since we're going to have a longer field trip time in April. We learned all about Fiesole, which is the countryside right outside of Florence. We will go there on our field trip. It's supposed to be beautiful and it was one of the Etruscans first colonies back in the ancient times. I'm really excited to go there; it's supposed to be awesome at sunset. This week I also signed up for a soccer tournament and we play during the week. I'm excited to play soccer again, although I didn't bring my cleats with me! I also signed up for volunteer activities. I signed up for helping out with preschoolers or helping high school students with their english. Hopefully the schools schedule matches up with mine and I can do one of the activities. I was debating on buying a gym membership this past week. It's about 200€ for a semester. I would love to go to a gym but I just don't think I'll have time to get my money's worth out of it. I should start running again, but I do walk around a lot.
This Friday, we took a school trip to Chianti. I wasn't sure what to expect, I knew it was an Italian countryside. It was so beautiful and quaint. Our first stop was the Trebbio castle. We got a tour throughout some of the rooms and the wine cellar. The tour guide was great, she told us about how the castle originally belonged to the Pazzi family, who competed closely with the Medici family for popularity and wealth. The Pazzi family decided they wanted to kill the two Medici brothers, and asked the Pope for help. The Pope agreed and gave the Pazzi family an army. They succeeded in killing one of the brothers on Easter in a church, but Lorenzo Medici escaped. He then plotted and succeeded in killing off the whole entire Pazzi family. The Medici Family took over the Trebbio castle and only left two of the Pazzi family crests on the walls since Davinci had created them. The castle was huge, about 43 rooms, but we were only allowed to see a few. There is a family who looks after the castle that lives there now. After the tour, we had an awesome lunch and wine tasting. Chianti is famous for their red wine, and vineyards can only call their wine Chianti if it is made in the Chianti area, and only if they use a certain type of grape. It was interesting to learn that if a wine is older, the droplets will fall slower down the side of the glass after swirling it around, than a new wine would fall. The first two wines were good. The dessert wine was gross. It's apparently a tradition to eat biscotti with the dessert wine and dip it into the dessert wine. I just liked the biscotti on it's own. We then got to walk around the area and take pictures. I was incredibly bus sick on the way back so after I got home I had to buy these stabilizing bracelets and medicine for the next day trip!
On Saturday, we went on another school trip to Siena and San Gimignano. I wasn't bus sick, so that was a plus. We got to Siena first, and it was a gorgeous day. It was sunny and warm and perfect for walking around. In Siena, we went to the cathedral and it was so pretty. It's a lot smaller than the duomo here in Florence, but it is a little more detailed inside. Everything was covered in beautiful paintings, or tiles. It was really cool to see how intricate every picture was. We were able to see the baptistry also, and climb up to the top of one museum to see all of Siena. We got lunch in Siena at a great pasta place with a bunch of our friends, and then we were off to San Gimignano. San Gimignano was a lot smaller of a city than Siena. It was soooo small but really cute. It was cool but I don't think there were that many locals walking around, we only saw tourists. We got to walk around, and see the little church they had there. They have walls surrounding the city from medieval times, since the walls were a form of protection from attacks. We could have walked around the city in just an hour or two. After we saw the church, we climbed up to the fortress and just sat down and enjoyed the sun and the view. It was nice to relax for a while.
And finally today, was maybe one of my favorite days in Florence so far. We woke up and wanted to go to the American Diner for pancakes! Italians don't eat any pancakes or waffles for breakfast; they just eat croissants and donuts and pastries. We got to the diner and it was a long wait, so we decided instead to go to our favorite pizza place - Gustopizza. We grabbed it to go and ate outside on the stairs of a church because it was so warm out today (I got sunburn...) We were trying to see the boboli gardens at Palazzo Pitti, and they close early so we wanted to eat as quickly as possible. We finally got to see the gardens after our first two failed visits! I guess third time really is the charm. The gardens were very pretty, and on a hill so we did a lot of climbing. We climbed to the top and could see a great view of Florence. We had no idea the gardens were so huge... we will have to go back another day to see the rest of the gardens we didn't see today. We ended up even going to another section of the gardens called the bardini gardens. There we could also see more awesome views of the city. We will have to go back into the gardens in springtime when all the flowers have bloomed. When walking around these gardens we heard music and saw all these people, and realized they were on piazzale Michelangelo. We decided to walk up there, and see more beautiful views of the whole city. The Piazzale is free and anyone can go and stand up in the big square. The fake David (Michelangelo's famous statue) is up there, and doesn't even compare to the real one. There was a lady singing and we ended up grabbing a drink and listening to a free concert for about an hour. She was singing english songs too! It was so awesome to see the view of the city from there. Then we went home and now we're just doing some homework and relaxing. It was a great day.
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Feb 1-3): Opera on Friday, Venice Carnivale on Saturday, and possibly Pisa on Sunday!!
Next weekend (Feb 7-10): We have officially booked Interlaken!!! So excited for the Alps!! I'm thinking about ice skating, Zurich day trip, maybe trying skiing, and definitely the chocolate show. :) I just have to figure out how to rent all the snow gear I'm going to need!
Feb 15-17: Paris!! We officially booked our hostel. It's a little far away but we can just take the metro in. It looks nice and it's in our price range!!
Ciao!!! I miss you all!
Monday, January 21, 2013
Buongiorno,
This past weekend was really fun!!! We didn't travel this weekend, we just ended up staying in Florence. Since my classes end by 10:30 AM on thursday, I felt like we had so much time to do everything! Although it ended up being a pretty relaxing weekend, which is what I think we all needed because we've all been very tired.
Thursday night after I blogged, we went to a really awesome family style dinner place. There were 12 of us, and we all got 2 bottles of wine, bread, 2 big appetizers, and 3 dishes of pasta. There was so much good food, and I was so full, and the best part was that it was only 15 Euros. It's a great place to go with a big group.
On Friday, we decided to do some exploring and we didn't end up accomplishing all that we wanted. But, it was still really fun. We went to the general market, which is basically like the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia. There's tons of fresh food and meat. They have really weird meat there, like cow stomach/brains, and a lot of seafood like octopus and squid. We walked around and just browsed and decided to come back on Saturday to buy things. You mostly have to speak Italian there, so we brushed up a little bit before we went on Saturday. After the market, we walked around the little stands of leather jackets, purses, and scarves. It's called the leather market and it's a lot cheaper than buying leather in the actual stores. I'm not sure that it's real leather but it looks nice enough. We then decided to go back to the Pitti Palace and try to see the Boboli gardens which are supposed to be very pretty. We got there around 4:30 only to find out they had closed at 3:30. We were bummed, but we finished walking through the parts of the museum we hadn't seen. We went home, made dinner, relaxed, and then caught up on our sleep.
On Saturday, we went back to the market and bought a few things. My italian was awful, so I mostly resorted to pointing to things... they get mad if you touch anything. I bought some strawberries, a tomato, and a pepper all for only 1.75 Euros, which was really cheap. After that we stopped by the leather market and I bought a new purse. I managed to haggle down the price from 18 to 15 Euros so I was pretty happy about that. We found a supermarket really close to us when we were walking home a different way! We've been going to one that is about 20 minutes away and now this one is only about 5, so it will be way easier. We then decided to go the the museum called Academia which has the David sculpture in it. I was somewhat forcing myself to go there because I just thought the David was just some statue that everyone over-exaggerates and I was only forcing myself to go just because I had heard so much about it, but I wasn't expecting too much. Instead, I was blown away by how unbelievable it was. It was HUGE and it was so beautiful. I was so blown away by how human-like it looked and wondered how Michelangelo carved it. It was definitely worth seeing.
On Sunday, we went to a futbol game!!! We walked to a breakfast place and met up with "Florence for Fun" which we ordered our tickets from. They were really cheap tickets and we went with other Americans. We grabbed breakfast before we went and they had bagels!!! It was so nice to have a bagel again. It's really hard to find a bagel here, they really only have croissants. Then we walked to the stadium. We watched Fiorentina vs. Napoli. It was a good game, and luckily it only rained for about 20 minutes when we thought it would rain the whole entire time. The game ended in a tie, 1-1. The fans were so crazy and really into the game. There was a whole line of security guards standing in between the two team's fans, most likely so they didn't start fighting each other. After that, we went home and finished our homework!
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Jan 25-27): School trip to Chianti on Friday, then Siena and San Gimignano on Saturday. We talked about maybe Piza on Sunday, but we haven't planned anything.
Next weekend (Feb 1-3): Opera trip on Friday, then the Venice Carnivale on Saturday! We also talked about doing Pisa this weekend, but are still figuring things out.
Feb 7-10: We might be going to Interlaken, Switzerland, which is the alps!! We would do it with a group trip, and we get round trip bus (8 hour ride) and hostel included in the price. There is a lot to do there, such as ice skating, skiing, skydiving, bungee jumping, snowshoeing, etc. I was considering doing night sledding, ice skating, chocolate show, and a day trip to Zurich. We haven't booked this yet but I think we are close to doing it! I think we will be getting a discount since we have a large group of us going.
Feb 15-17: I officially booked my flight to Paris!!! I didn't think I really wanted to go to France that badly, but now I am so excited. I am leaving Friday morning and getting to Paris at 9 AM. It's only a two hour plane ride. I'm hoping to see the eiffel tower, and the louvre, and Versailles. We come back to Florence on Sunday afternoon. It should be a really fun weekend.
Ciaoooo!
This past weekend was really fun!!! We didn't travel this weekend, we just ended up staying in Florence. Since my classes end by 10:30 AM on thursday, I felt like we had so much time to do everything! Although it ended up being a pretty relaxing weekend, which is what I think we all needed because we've all been very tired.
Thursday night after I blogged, we went to a really awesome family style dinner place. There were 12 of us, and we all got 2 bottles of wine, bread, 2 big appetizers, and 3 dishes of pasta. There was so much good food, and I was so full, and the best part was that it was only 15 Euros. It's a great place to go with a big group.
On Friday, we decided to do some exploring and we didn't end up accomplishing all that we wanted. But, it was still really fun. We went to the general market, which is basically like the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia. There's tons of fresh food and meat. They have really weird meat there, like cow stomach/brains, and a lot of seafood like octopus and squid. We walked around and just browsed and decided to come back on Saturday to buy things. You mostly have to speak Italian there, so we brushed up a little bit before we went on Saturday. After the market, we walked around the little stands of leather jackets, purses, and scarves. It's called the leather market and it's a lot cheaper than buying leather in the actual stores. I'm not sure that it's real leather but it looks nice enough. We then decided to go back to the Pitti Palace and try to see the Boboli gardens which are supposed to be very pretty. We got there around 4:30 only to find out they had closed at 3:30. We were bummed, but we finished walking through the parts of the museum we hadn't seen. We went home, made dinner, relaxed, and then caught up on our sleep.
On Saturday, we went back to the market and bought a few things. My italian was awful, so I mostly resorted to pointing to things... they get mad if you touch anything. I bought some strawberries, a tomato, and a pepper all for only 1.75 Euros, which was really cheap. After that we stopped by the leather market and I bought a new purse. I managed to haggle down the price from 18 to 15 Euros so I was pretty happy about that. We found a supermarket really close to us when we were walking home a different way! We've been going to one that is about 20 minutes away and now this one is only about 5, so it will be way easier. We then decided to go the the museum called Academia which has the David sculpture in it. I was somewhat forcing myself to go there because I just thought the David was just some statue that everyone over-exaggerates and I was only forcing myself to go just because I had heard so much about it, but I wasn't expecting too much. Instead, I was blown away by how unbelievable it was. It was HUGE and it was so beautiful. I was so blown away by how human-like it looked and wondered how Michelangelo carved it. It was definitely worth seeing.
On Sunday, we went to a futbol game!!! We walked to a breakfast place and met up with "Florence for Fun" which we ordered our tickets from. They were really cheap tickets and we went with other Americans. We grabbed breakfast before we went and they had bagels!!! It was so nice to have a bagel again. It's really hard to find a bagel here, they really only have croissants. Then we walked to the stadium. We watched Fiorentina vs. Napoli. It was a good game, and luckily it only rained for about 20 minutes when we thought it would rain the whole entire time. The game ended in a tie, 1-1. The fans were so crazy and really into the game. There was a whole line of security guards standing in between the two team's fans, most likely so they didn't start fighting each other. After that, we went home and finished our homework!
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Jan 25-27): School trip to Chianti on Friday, then Siena and San Gimignano on Saturday. We talked about maybe Piza on Sunday, but we haven't planned anything.
Next weekend (Feb 1-3): Opera trip on Friday, then the Venice Carnivale on Saturday! We also talked about doing Pisa this weekend, but are still figuring things out.
Feb 7-10: We might be going to Interlaken, Switzerland, which is the alps!! We would do it with a group trip, and we get round trip bus (8 hour ride) and hostel included in the price. There is a lot to do there, such as ice skating, skiing, skydiving, bungee jumping, snowshoeing, etc. I was considering doing night sledding, ice skating, chocolate show, and a day trip to Zurich. We haven't booked this yet but I think we are close to doing it! I think we will be getting a discount since we have a large group of us going.
Feb 15-17: I officially booked my flight to Paris!!! I didn't think I really wanted to go to France that badly, but now I am so excited. I am leaving Friday morning and getting to Paris at 9 AM. It's only a two hour plane ride. I'm hoping to see the eiffel tower, and the louvre, and Versailles. We come back to Florence on Sunday afternoon. It should be a really fun weekend.
Ciaoooo!
Thursday, January 17, 2013
I haven't blogged in like 4 days! Haha I've been so busy. This week was good, and very busy. I like all of my classes. It's a lot different here because there are some exams in my classes, but mostly papers. I'm used to just exams with my business major. My italian class is awesome, instead of just learning vocabulary like most level 1 language courses, we've been really immersed into it right away. He's been teaching us all the terms we should know as we learn to get around Florence. I've been trying to use as much as I can when I'm ordering food, and in stores. Yesterday, two people came up to me in the stores and spoke Italian so I was excited that maybe I kind of look like I fit in.
My other classes are good too. My identity and culture class is a sociology class where we compare Italian and American cultures, so it's interesting and fun. I'm also taking Family Business in Italy, and we actually already took a field trip to the Gucci Museum (who knew they had a museum?!). It was very classy and obviously all of the handbags and luggage were all very elegant. It's kind of crazy to me that they actually have a museum of Gucci. It was cool though because Gucci started out as a family business. My last class is called story of the city, and I have it twice for 90 minutes each on wednesday. The first class is learning about the history of the city, which is interesting. I also feel somewhat stupid because I haven't taken a history class since high school! The second class of the day is used to for field trips around the city. It seems like it's going to be really cool and hopefully I will learn a lot.
We climbed up duomo which is the dome part of the cathedral today. Earlier this week we climbed the bell tower that is right next to the duomo. The bell tower was 414 stairs, and the views were really awesome. The dome allows you to be a little bit higher up. The dome is cool because when you climb it, you walk right under the ceiling paintings to you're able to see them close up. They had some weird creepy paintings on the top of the cathedral, but it just blows my mind how they even got up there to paint it, let alone paint it really well. The dome was 463 stairs and definitely tiring, but so worth it. The bell tower and the dome have the tiniest stairways that you have to go up and down on the same one, but it's very old and fascinating. At the top of the dome, we met some people who are in a home-stay program, meaning they have a host family and they are staying there while going to school at their program. They were really nice and they told us they were going to a soccer game on Sunday, which now we are thinking about probably doing! They were really cool and we might even hang out with them later. Because they are living with host families, they know a lot more of the local places to go.
After we went to the duomo, we found the best gelato we've had yet. I got dark chocolate and crema la grom. Crema la grom was chocolate and cookies and pure deliciousness. I got it in a cone and it was only 2.50 Euros. We will definitely be going back there. Speaking of delicious food, there's a restaurant right below us and I finally grabbed some take out there for dinner last night. I got lasagna and potatoes for only 5 Euros and it lasted me two meals. It was really great lasagna. I feel like now that I know how good and cheap this place is that I won't be cooking as much. The restaurants are weird here because they open at 7PM for dinner and I'm usually hungry before that so it's sometimes frustrating.
It's really awesome being done classes by 10:30 AM on thursday, because it leaves us so much time to do other activities and explore more of Florence!
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Jan 18-20): Check out some more museums. The kids we met told us how they are going to try and stay in Florence for the first month and do limited traveling because the museums become very crowded in February with tourists. I'm really glad they told us that because now we will try and do as many museums as possible! We were also considering a trip to Pisa for a day this weekend, but we haven't planned anything yet. We definitely are also trying to go to the soccer game on sunday!
Next weekend (Jan 25-27): Friday, we have a free school trip to Chianti which is more out in the countryside. We get to do wine tasting and it should be a good time. Saturday, we are doing another school trip to Siena and San Gimignano which will be cool. It's nice to have already organized trips.
The weekend after (Feb 1-3): The school's opera trip got moved to the 1st and was originally full, but now that they changed the date, people already had other plans. The opera was originally 75 Euros, but now is only 10! They had spots so we signed up to do that on February 1st. The 2nd is the Venice Carnivale and that should also be really fun.
I'm loving Firenze! I just don't know when I'm going to have time to do work!
My other classes are good too. My identity and culture class is a sociology class where we compare Italian and American cultures, so it's interesting and fun. I'm also taking Family Business in Italy, and we actually already took a field trip to the Gucci Museum (who knew they had a museum?!). It was very classy and obviously all of the handbags and luggage were all very elegant. It's kind of crazy to me that they actually have a museum of Gucci. It was cool though because Gucci started out as a family business. My last class is called story of the city, and I have it twice for 90 minutes each on wednesday. The first class is learning about the history of the city, which is interesting. I also feel somewhat stupid because I haven't taken a history class since high school! The second class of the day is used to for field trips around the city. It seems like it's going to be really cool and hopefully I will learn a lot.
We climbed up duomo which is the dome part of the cathedral today. Earlier this week we climbed the bell tower that is right next to the duomo. The bell tower was 414 stairs, and the views were really awesome. The dome allows you to be a little bit higher up. The dome is cool because when you climb it, you walk right under the ceiling paintings to you're able to see them close up. They had some weird creepy paintings on the top of the cathedral, but it just blows my mind how they even got up there to paint it, let alone paint it really well. The dome was 463 stairs and definitely tiring, but so worth it. The bell tower and the dome have the tiniest stairways that you have to go up and down on the same one, but it's very old and fascinating. At the top of the dome, we met some people who are in a home-stay program, meaning they have a host family and they are staying there while going to school at their program. They were really nice and they told us they were going to a soccer game on Sunday, which now we are thinking about probably doing! They were really cool and we might even hang out with them later. Because they are living with host families, they know a lot more of the local places to go.
After we went to the duomo, we found the best gelato we've had yet. I got dark chocolate and crema la grom. Crema la grom was chocolate and cookies and pure deliciousness. I got it in a cone and it was only 2.50 Euros. We will definitely be going back there. Speaking of delicious food, there's a restaurant right below us and I finally grabbed some take out there for dinner last night. I got lasagna and potatoes for only 5 Euros and it lasted me two meals. It was really great lasagna. I feel like now that I know how good and cheap this place is that I won't be cooking as much. The restaurants are weird here because they open at 7PM for dinner and I'm usually hungry before that so it's sometimes frustrating.
It's really awesome being done classes by 10:30 AM on thursday, because it leaves us so much time to do other activities and explore more of Florence!
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Jan 18-20): Check out some more museums. The kids we met told us how they are going to try and stay in Florence for the first month and do limited traveling because the museums become very crowded in February with tourists. I'm really glad they told us that because now we will try and do as many museums as possible! We were also considering a trip to Pisa for a day this weekend, but we haven't planned anything yet. We definitely are also trying to go to the soccer game on sunday!
Next weekend (Jan 25-27): Friday, we have a free school trip to Chianti which is more out in the countryside. We get to do wine tasting and it should be a good time. Saturday, we are doing another school trip to Siena and San Gimignano which will be cool. It's nice to have already organized trips.
The weekend after (Feb 1-3): The school's opera trip got moved to the 1st and was originally full, but now that they changed the date, people already had other plans. The opera was originally 75 Euros, but now is only 10! They had spots so we signed up to do that on February 1st. The 2nd is the Venice Carnivale and that should also be really fun.
I'm loving Firenze! I just don't know when I'm going to have time to do work!
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Today, I'm starting to become a little less jet-lagged Some of my roommates and I woke up around noon, and we walked to the Palazzo Pitti. Palazzo Pitti is an awesome museum, and with the school we received a museum card for all the museums in Florence and we can go to any of them for free. Palazzo Pitti, also called the Pitti Palace, is an enormous palace owned by the Medici family. The Medici family bought it and it was the residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. In the 1700s, Napoleon took it over and used it as a power base. The palace was unbelievable. We were able to see the actual rooms they used for audiences, guests, bedrooms, and bathrooms. The rooms were unreal, there was so much beautiful painting and sculptures in every room. The ceilings in the palace were my favorite part because it's amazing they were able to paint so beautifully. I can see why Florence is very well known for its art.
In the palace, we were also able to see some artwork, jewelry, modern art, and a lot of the kitchenware they used. Everything was so detailed and there was a lot of diamonds, gold, and ebony used. It's crazy to think that they were so rich. It's also really cool being in the palace and knowing that people hundreds of years ago also were in that room. My favorite room was a room they used for events, which was filled with at least 30 chandeliers. The only thing I hated about this trip was that we weren't allowed to use our cameras in the museum, and I would love to show everyone how beautiful it was. However, we did manage to sneak a few pictures! Hopefully I can take my family and Matthew when they come to visit! We weren't able to do the whole palace in one day so we will definitely have to go back. There is a whole huge garden area behind the palace that we tried to go look at, but it was locked. We weren't that bummed because it was really rainy and cold today.
After we left the museum, we stopped by a ristorante and had a nice dinner. I got penne with a spicy sauce and it was awesome. It was a little cute place with just the older man taking orders and the wife bringing out the food. After dinner, we stopped to get some gelato! I got caramel and chocolate flavors together and it was delizioso! We are now finally home and just relaxing and getting ready for class tomorrow. My first class is at 9:30 which means I have to get up early.
Ciao ciao
In the palace, we were also able to see some artwork, jewelry, modern art, and a lot of the kitchenware they used. Everything was so detailed and there was a lot of diamonds, gold, and ebony used. It's crazy to think that they were so rich. It's also really cool being in the palace and knowing that people hundreds of years ago also were in that room. My favorite room was a room they used for events, which was filled with at least 30 chandeliers. The only thing I hated about this trip was that we weren't allowed to use our cameras in the museum, and I would love to show everyone how beautiful it was. However, we did manage to sneak a few pictures! Hopefully I can take my family and Matthew when they come to visit! We weren't able to do the whole palace in one day so we will definitely have to go back. There is a whole huge garden area behind the palace that we tried to go look at, but it was locked. We weren't that bummed because it was really rainy and cold today.
After we left the museum, we stopped by a ristorante and had a nice dinner. I got penne with a spicy sauce and it was awesome. It was a little cute place with just the older man taking orders and the wife bringing out the food. After dinner, we stopped to get some gelato! I got caramel and chocolate flavors together and it was delizioso! We are now finally home and just relaxing and getting ready for class tomorrow. My first class is at 9:30 which means I have to get up early.
Ciao ciao
Friday, January 11, 2013
I finally have time to actually start blogging! I arrived on Tuesday morning, and brought to my apartment from the airport. The apartment is nice! It's probably bigger than my apartment at Penn State. The buildings are really old, but they're so beautiful. Florence is a really pretty city full of history and art and beautiful buildings. I love being able to walk around and know that I get to live here for four months! The first night was tough, it's pretty overwhelming being in a whole different country. But, the second night was fun and a little easier to handle. I'm still pretty exhausted from traveling, but hopefully I get on their schedule soon.
The first day, I moved into our apartment, which is pretty nice. There is 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen. We unfortunately don't have a living room with couches, but our kitchen is pretty modern and large compared to everyone else's. The buildings are so old and different here. The radiator in our room didn't work the first night, so it was a little cold, but now it's fixed. The buildings are definitely different here. We have to open the window after we shower for about 15 minutes, so mold doesn't start to grow. They have trash bins underground and that's where we have to take the trash.
Yesterday, we had our first day of orientation. It was a lot of boring presentations. After we got dinner at a small restaurant that had great gnocchi. There are so many ridiculously cute small restaurants. They never seem crowed because I think there are so many options for places to eat. Also, we are in a very high end location in Firenze. There are so many expensive stores, including Prada, Gucci, etc. We are definitely going to have to shop at the cheaper markets. Yesterday we went to a few different Irish bars with some people in our program. It was fun, but not a lot of Italians go to those bars.
Today was our last day or orientation! We got a lot of things accomplished today. At orientation, we learned about schools trips, and volunteer activities. I also got my schedule, finally:
monday:
italian 9:30-10:30 AM
identity & culture in italy - 1-2:30
PM
family business in italy - 3-4:30 PM
tuesday:
italian 9:30-10:30 AM
family business in italy 4:30-6PM
wednesday:
italian 9:30-10:30 AM
story of the city 11-12:30
identity & culture- 1-2:30 PM
story of the city - 4:45-6:15 PM
thursday:
italian 9:30- 10:30 AMFor our lunch break, we went to this awesome pizza place across the river called Gustopizza. It was really great pizza, so I’m sure we will be going back. Later that day, we got our books and finally our SIM cards! Hopefully the phones work out!!!
Ciao
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