Exciting Times a Firenze!

The following weeks in Florence provided me with some of the fun and excitement I'd been looking to find around town all semester. It started to sink in for me just how little time I had left and I made it a point to get out and do interesting things around this beautiful city.

One of my favorite things to do was hike to Piazzale Michelangelo, and on one occasion I visited the church above it, San Miniato al Monte, and took in the breathtaking view of my little city below.

One week the Mostra Internazionale dell'Artigianato (which will from now on be referred to as the Craft Fair) came to the Fortezza di Basso in Florence. I didn't expect this to be quite as fun and exciting as it turned out to be for me. It reminded me of craft shows back home and there were soooo many neat little things that I really didn't need but really wanted to buy. Also, I guess the 'theme' this year had something to do with balloon art, because we wandered into a building full of nothing but huge balloon sculptures of everything from the Mona Lisa to Ratatouille.

Balloon Mask

Balloon Remy the Rat!

In later days, I made it my goal to climb all those things in Florence I set out to do in the first place. I decided if I could climb 1000 steps to the top of the isle of Capri, 400 something steps in the Campanile or the Duomo were definitely not a challenge. Still, I worked my way up, starting with Giotto's Belltower, or the Campanile. I knew this would be a good trek because I'd get a nice view of Florence as well as a closer look at Brunelleschi's incredible dome next door. Favorite moment: sneezing in the stairwell and hearing 'bless you' from a multitude of tourists in at least 3 different languages. I used to get frustrated with all the tourists blocking my route to class, but on this occasion I found it really remarkable that so many completely different people were all in this tiny little stairwell sharing this experience with me.

Campanile

Looking through a grate in the floor

Hello, Duomo.

Piazza della Repubblica from the sky

Next on my to-do list was to climb the Duomo. I'd heard plenty of scary things about this climb, that the line to get in is really long, that it's really cramped, that it's poorly lit, that some of the steps are difficult to climb, that sometimes the people in front of you are really sweaty and you're pretty much stuck behind them until you get to the top. It really wasn't bad, and surprisingly when I went there was no one in line ahead of me, so it was a pretty quick 20 minute climb in between the layers of the cupola before finally popping out at the top. I had fun looking out over the city and trying to locate things from above like my apartment, my classes, my favorite sandwich stand, that place where I sprained my ankle, etc. It was also fun to listen to the tourists at the top state very matter-of-factly (and very incorrectly) what all of the major buildings they could see were.

View of the huge mural from one of the inside terraces

Leetle stairways

Over the edge

Piazza della Repubblica from inside the dome

I wished I'd made these climbs much much sooner in my stay (though the weather for the most part of the semester really was not conducive to climbing big marble structures) because I'd do them over and over again if I had had time. Those last couple of weeks in Florence, while maybe a little bittersweet, were some of my favorite because they really encouraged me to dive into everything the city had to offer that I hadn't gotten into yet. I'm glad I had those opportunities, because those are the little things I'll love and remember the most about Florence.

Next up: Last minute trip to Cinque Terre!

Amalfi Coast, or "Eat, Pray, and Loooove"

My trip to the Amalfi Coast was one I had been looking forward to for a long, long time, and it almost didn't happen for me. My class schedule this semester kept me in class on Thursday evenings until 8:30 at night, and pretty much any trip through either EuroAdventures or Bus2Alps departed Florence at 7:30pm at the latest. I had to do a good deal of bartering and begging with my professor to "please please let me leave early because all I want in life is to go to Amalfi".

So anyway, Thursday night I hopped on a bus with some new friends headed for Sorrento, in the Campania region of Italy. It was on this bus that I was first introduced to the incredible, adorable, inspiring, incredible Father Bruno. Father Bruno is 70+ years old, he is a painter, a priest, a wine maker, a teacher, and, recently, a tour guide to a bunch of college kids. He exuded energy and I'm sure this trip would not have been the same without him.

So we checked into our 'hotel' around 2am, which turned out to be a beautiful villa in Positano located on a lemon orchard overlooking the ocean. Incredible. The next morning we woke up early, met Bruno downstairs, and accompanied him on a bus trip to nearby "Po-si-ta-no"(Bruno made sure we could pronounce it properly, as he did with many other words on this trip). The day was overcast and rainy, but the beach and the town was beautiful. We played in the (freezing cold) water for a while, then warmed up with some pizza and panini.

Beautiful Positano

We then hopped on a bus to visit the town of Amalfi before heading back to Sorrento for a lovely dinner with Bruno. The next morning we woke up extremely early to catch a ferry to the island of "CAH-pri" (not like the pants). On the agenda for today was taking in some beautiful sights, climbing 1000 steps to the town of Anacapri, taking in some more beautiful sights, and hopefully swimming. Well, I greatly underestimated the intensity of climbing the Phoenecian steps, because for whatever reason 1000 didn't sound like a lot. Once someone mentioned that we only climb something like 87 steps to our Italian class twice a week, I knew I was gonna have a problem. And yeah, the climb kicked my ass, but it was breezy and beautiful the whole way up. Once our whole group, Father Bruno included, reached the top our next activity was to... climb back down the other side of the island (haha!) and visit the Blue Grotto, hopefully do some cliff jumping. Unfortunately the water was too choppy and it wasn't safe for us to do either of those things so we headed back to the town center to lay on the beach for a while. I took it upon myself to go for a scaled down version of cliff jumping, more like rock hopping, into the once again extremely cold water.

Beautiful Capri

View from something like 600 steps up

Beautiful beach, and the rocks I hopped off

That evening, Bruno invited us all to join him on a trip to Naples for what he mostly only described as "Eat, Pray and Loooooove, with Juulia!" We visited the original pizzeria, where Julia Roberts once ate when she came to Italy. It was delicious pizza, but I'm not gonna lie, I still think Gusta Pizza in Florence is better. This side of Naples was pretty sketchy (though I've heard other parts are beautiful) so we pretty much went right back to Sorrento as soon as we finished eating our pizza.

The accordianist in our train car

Pizzeria da Michele, authentic Neapolitan pizza

Sunday morning we packed our bags and made a pit stop in Pompeii on the way back to Florence. Pompeii was, of course, a very interesting experience, and we enjoyed such wonderful sights as penis pavers, a mummified pregnant girl, and an ancient McDonald's. It was really one of the coolest cities I've ever seen or probably ever will see.

Leading the way to the Lupanaria

Ancient people, stored on shelves with ancient pottery

Besides all the touristy stuff, Pompeii was also really beautiful

This trip was so much fun, and I was glad to spend time with some new friends and challenge myself with new experiences (climbing 1000 steps, rock hopping into the Mediterranean Sea, "Abbey Road" across Pompeii stepping stones). Easily one of the most fulfilling and memorable weekends of my life.

Up next: the International Craft Show, and climbing stuff around Florence

Spring Break in Italy

Hello, readers.

3 months ago I'm sure I left you all eagerly waiting to hear about my Spring Break adventures, and then every adventure I didn't tell you about in the weeks following. There are plenty of posts coming, but I'll just pick up where I left off for now.

On March 18th my wonderful parents arrived in Florence to spend their spring break gallivanting around Italy. I was so incredibly glad to finally have my family back for a while, and I'm so glad I could give them this opportunity to travel with me (this was mom's first time in Europe :]). Unfortunately I didn't take too many pictures of this week because I was too focused on enjoying my time with them.

First things first, I had to spend the evening showing them around my new little 'hometown'. We grabbed lunch at one of the patio restaurants in Piazza della Repubblica, where mom and dad had their first taste of 'real' Italian food (note: 'real' to Americans, 'touristy' to Italians) as we sat and people watched for a while. Then we hopped over to the San Lorenzo leather market, which we probably walked through 5 times the whole week because mom loves to shop, where I finally bit the bullet and purchased a real Italian leather jacket.

The next day we headed back into the city center to meet our guide for our fantastic Segway tour. Yeah, we were 'those people', and I have to say it was fun to play tourist in a city I'd gotten so 'used to' over the past couple of months. I impressed myself with how much I already knew about the city, and learned a bunch of little facts to impress everyone I knew who hadn't gone on an official tour of the city yet.

Tuesday we hopped on a train and headed to Rome. Mom and Dad took plenty of goofy iPad pictures to celebrate their first Italian train ride, and we had fun trying to talk to the Italian lady across from us who brought her puppy with her.

Our first day in Rome we toured the Vatican, natch, got gelato, and I showed them around some of my favorite places in Rome, like the Trevi fountain and Piazza Navona. The next day we toured the Colosseum and the ancient ruins, and dad and I made a trip to the top of the 'wedding cake', or the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele. I'd day this offered us the best view of Rome, since we could see ancient Rome, the Piazzas, as well as St. Peter's Basilica.

View from the Vittorio

After a whirlwind couple of days in Rome we packed our bags and headed to Venice. After unloading and wandering around Piazza San Marco for a while we grabbed dinner a restaurant recommended by Rick Steves, and took a gondola ride through the canals of the city. :] Dad had mentioned before that the one thing he wanted to do when he came to Italy was ride in a gondola, and it was really a great experience. Our Gondolier was wonderful and we learned so many cool things about when Venice was built, and which notables and celebrities (Casanova, Andrea Palladio, Brangelina....) had lived where.

The next morning we headed to the island of Murano, where mom and I once again did tons and tons of shopping while dad took in the sights. That afternoon we headed back to Firenze and enjoyed a relaxing evening before mom and dad headed back to America.

It was really neat being able to show them around Italy, and I was so glad to be able to share my experiences with them.

My next few weeks were 'uneventful' compared to much of my time abroad. I spent more time getting to know Florence and taking little local field trips, which I hope to post about when I finish all my big 'vacation' stories.

Next up: Amalfi Coast!

Life in Florence

Time for some honest reflection on my time abroad, halfway through my semester. I'd say this particular post is probably mostly for myself to collect some random thoughts, but maybe with any luck at all it can shed some light on the whole experience for anyone else thinking about studying abroad later.

First of all, I think a big part of my experience over here has been very greatly impacted by some personal struggles that I was never expecting to have to deal with. I imagined that coming to Italy was going to fix all my problems, I convinced myself that problems really just can't exist during a semester abroad, and I think that mindset only made it harder for me when everything wasn't immediately perfect. I'm disappointed that I won't come home with only positive memories of my time in Florence, but I'm still learning a lot about myself and the life I have from this experience.

Something I've noticed is that every time I travel somewhere else on a weekend, whether it's to Nice, or Rome, or Lucca, I find myself wondering why I chose Florence. When I get away to somewhere new I feel like my head is so much clearer, everything is so much more exciting, and I get that feeling of "problems don't exist here" that I was looking for. Combined with the simple fact that I have to go to school and spend time dealing with my personal drama when I'm in Florence, I've started feeling a little let down when getting off that train or bus after a weekend away.

I really don't want to go home in May and say my temporary hometown was my least favorite of all the places I went this semester, so lately I've been trying to make my life in Florence a little more like the trips I take. At least once a week I try to set up little excursions for myself, whether it's only to visit the Uffizi or to hike up to Piazzale Michelangelo, or going out to dinner with friends. My friend Kathryn and I go out to get gelato about once a week now, and I've started trying to cook some more exciting meals for myself at home (usually my lunches and dinners consist of some spaghetti with olive oil and garlic powder with a forkful of Nutella for dessert), and there's a group of us here who organize weekly dinner dates at each other's apartments. The little things like these make my weeks in Florence a little more exciting, and I think it's really important that I have things like that to look forward to during the week.

I'm not going to say that I don't still spend plenty of time staying in the apartment watching Modern Family or pinning recipes I'll probably never make, but I am trying to liven things up occasionally. I want to make sure I have plenty of fond memories from Florence, and not just the places I jet off to on the weekends.

Lucca and Pisa

Last weekend we took our final trip with Accent. We were reunited at the train station with our incredible guide Freya and took a quick train to Lucca. Lucca, like Siena, was one of those cities I knew nothing about and really didn't expect much from. We were greeted by beautiful ancient walls wide enough to bike on (with plenty of locals doing exactly that). Inside the city walls, we visited the Cathedral (each column on the facade was different), climbed the Torre Guinigi (which had a cool tree garden on top), and stopped in the central amphitheater for a nice lunch in the sun.

After lunch, Emily, Audrey, Nicole, Kaylen, and I parted from our guide and hopped on the next train to Pisa, only a 20 minute ride from Lucca. Pisa is kind of almost exactly like a smaller, cleaner, more pedestrian friendly version of Florence. When we crossed the town's river we fully expected to see our familiar Ponte Vecchio on the left. Anyway, we headed straight to the famous Leaning Tower to take our touristy pictures before the sun set. We had a blast taking cheesy pictures and looking ridiculous to anyone not in the picture, then headed back home to Florence.

Sitting on the walls of Lucca

Amphitheater where we stopped for lunch

It's kind of wrong to not take cheesy pictures when you go to Pisa...

French Riviera

The first weekend in March brought me to the French Riviera for my friend Audrey's birthday. I really didn't know what to expect from this trip, mostly because the French Riviera isn't in my Rick Steves' Italy guidebook, but I think this was easily the best weekend I've had here so far.

Thursday evening I ducked out of class early to catch our 6 hour EuroAdventures bus into Nice. We moved into our "hotel" (there were 6 of us in a room with bunk beds) at around 1am and immediately crashed. Going to breakfast Friday morning at a nearby creperie and realizing I actually had a working knowledge of French was an excellent kick start to an amazing weekend (I took 3 years of French in high school and 2 semesters at TCU but I never really felt like I 'knew' the language, so this was really exciting for me). Later that day we took a short train to nearby Monte Carlo, where we mostly just wandered around admiring the big boats, fancy cars, and beautiful ocean views. After visiting the famous Monte Carlo casino and the Hotel de Paris we headed back to Nice, where Sarah, Natalie, and I had lunch at a really incredible Lebanese restaurant (I have never seen so many different kinds of restaurants in such a small area).

Saturday we took a day trip to Cannes and just enjoyed the sun, the beach, the food, and the shopping. That night was Audrey's birthday and all 15 of us went out to dinner at a nearby Hibachi restaurant. This was really an interesting experience and we all soon realized that even hibachi food isn't the same as it is in America. Afterwards we headed downtown to catch the tail end of some of the Carnivale festivities. Carnivale in Nice is very, very different from its Venetian counterpart. It's a little (a lot?) edgier, which I realized after being greeted by a group of 15 year old French boys shouting really obscene things at us in English and getting sprayed directly in the face with silly string by some stranger. While a little off-putting at first, we all ended up having a pretty great evening.

The next day we headed to the ancient town of Eze on our way back to Florence. Eze was recently named one of the world's 10 most picturesque villages and I definitely think it's a must-go for anyone visiting the area. It's high up in the mountains so there's tons of clean air and gorgeous ocean views, as well as quaint little old shops and gardens. Eze is also home to the Fragonard perfume factory, which I was able to tour and pick up a few fancy perfumes.

All in all I had an absolutely incredible weekend. I really enjoyed getting to spend time with friends, but most of all I think the beautiful scenery, friendly locals (it definitely helps being able to speak their language), and incredible food really stole my heart. I did not want to get back on the bus to Florence. I felt like I could have stayed there forever, so I really hope I'll get the chance to go back some day.

One of many marinas in Monte Carlo

Beautiful architecture (also once home to Selena Gomez)

Didn't do any real gambling here, but it's a pretty building

Beautiful beach in Nice where I napped in the sun for a good 15 or so minutes

Macarons, of course.

Flowers at a little street market

Confetti and fun at Carnivale

Rome

I'm back with a series of updates about my most significant events of the past month. So let's start with the trip to Rome.

Friday morning (2/17/12) our TCU group gathered at the train station where we met our awesome Australian tour guide, Freya (she's pretty great, so if any of you are ever in Florence I highly recommend you take a tour with her). We hopped on our train and arrived in the Eternal City about 2 hours later. We checked in at the Hotel Navona and pretty quickly set out to explore. One of my favorite things about Rome was the juxtaposition of all the ancient ruins scattered among medieval and renaissance architecture, as well as more modern buildings throughout the city. I'm not sure if any other city has so many different eras of monuments still standing.

Over the next 3 days we visited all your standard Roman sites with our guide: the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Vatican, the Colosseum, the ancient Roman forum, as well as countless other cathedrals and political buildings. But I'd have to say my favorite part of the trip was all I got to do in our free time. We had 2 incredible dinners there, once in the Campo de' Fiori with Jenna, Briana, Stephanie, Sarah, and Carrie, and the night after we went to a fun prix-fix restaurant behind the Pantheon with almost our entire TCU group. I also enjoyed walking through the different piazzas, my favorite being Piazza Navona where local artists and performers set up every night around the 3 beautiful fountains in the center.

There was so much to see and do in Rome, and I'm so glad that I'll be able to go again this week when my parents come to visit.

Cat sanctuary in some ruins near where Caesar was stabbed

Fountain in Piazza Navona

Pantheon (by the way, the floors inside slope down to gutters, so that's why it doesn't flood when it rains)

Ancient amphitheater underneath apartments built in the Middle Ages

TCU at the Colosseum

St. Peter's Basilica

Trevi Fountain