Spring Break Passport

It has been one crazy week where I was out all day and had spotty internet access at night. But otherwise, my spring break was amazing. My parents came to hang out with me during the break which was really nice. They came to Florence a couple days before my program was finished, and then we went first to Nice, France by train. The train ride there was close to seven hours long in total, but it was worth it. The flight there would have cost more because of all my baggage. And besides, trains are kind of fun.

Nice was lovely, but the real stars were the nearby towns we visited. It's all along the French Riviera, and we visited Monaco (and, by extension, Monte Carlo) and Cannes. Cannes was definitely my favorite. Besides the awesome seafood we had there, the water and the beach was beautiful and the sand was actually sand instead of rocks. It also helped that the one clear day we had in France was when we were in Cannes. There weren't many people either, it being an off-season time, and so it was the perfect time to travel. I can't believe how crowded it would get during the summer!

Nice from a clifftop view

One of the many boats in Cannes

Me and the Cannes beach

 After spending three days in Nice, we took a direct train to Paris. Paris was also beautiful. I love big cities and Paris was definitely it. We hit most of the big tourist attractions such as the Arch of Triumph, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Shakespeare & co., the baby Statue of Liberty, and Cleopatra's Needle which is a really pretty thing, though perhaps not as big of an attraction as the others. There were a lot of people, as expected, but I really enjoyed the bustling city life. The apartment that we rented was outside of the city center near the hostel St. Christopher's and right next to the canal, and that was a really nice location. Also, St. Christopher's seems like a really nice hostel. If I ever go back to Paris on my own, I'd plan on staying there and taking the metro around.

A blurry picture of the Arch

Cleopatra's Needle

The sparkling Eiffel at night

Baby Statue of Liberty

The coolest bookstore ever!

Notre Dame (sans bells)

Along with Paris, we also went out to Versailles to see the palace. It was overwhelming, but the history of the place amazed me. I love learning about all that history and the grounds of the palace was pretty much unable to walked through in one day. Or until someone collapsed. It's HUGE. There was also an absolutely amazing bakery there too called (don't laugh) Bigot Bakery. They had the best pastries I've ever had anywhere. No wonder all the pastry chefs train in France...at least so I've heard.

The gates to the Palace of Versaille

One of the streets in Versaille

Four days in Paris was wonderful and I felt that I saw all that I really wanted to in that time. On Saturday we made our way to London via train and so far I have really come to love this city. The underground is the best and easiest public transportation I've ever taken. I really want to stay here longer and learn all about London and Londoners, but of course this is just the beginning. There is so much to see in the city and there is so much to do I can't wait! The first night, cooking didn't seem to be too much of a problem. We've all seemed to coordinate our own cooking schedules well enough and I'm glad. The kitchen is a bit small, but workable if only a few people are in there at a time.

All in all, my spring break was pretty awesome and I can't wait to see what London has for me. There are more Protestant churches here and I'm definitely going to be looking into that for this coming Easter Sunday. Is it really coming to Easter already? My list for things to do in London is growing everyday and let's see if I can get them all done! My goal is to check each and every one off. Here's my list so far (though I'm sure it's far from finished):

-Charles Dickens Museum
-British Museum
-British Library
-Pollock's Toy Museum
-Kensington Gardens
-National Gallery
-Museum of London
-Harry Potter WB Studio Tour
-Westminster Abbey
-Natural History Museum
-Walk on Tower Bridge (if possible)
-Shakespeare's Globe
-Camden Market
-Brick Lane Beigel Bake
-Tower of London
-Victoria & Albert Museum
-Ride in the London Eye
-Visit Liverpool and Surrey

I'm sure I'll hit most of these museums with classes, but I'll let you all know when I start ticking these things off my list! There are so many things to do in seven weeks. Cheers!

My Final Hurrahs

With three days left of class and four days left in Florence, it's hard not to count down the days. As I have obviously already done. Finals, however, tends to distract one from the sadness as well as all the awesome food Florence has to offer. There's got to be hundreds of blogs just dedicated to the good eats, and here are my two cents:

1. The Diner - American diner. How American can I get?
2. Gelateria dei Neri - The best gelato around and it's not super crowded.
3. Grom - The second best gelato around and right next to the Duomo. One reason why hundreds of tourists are there every time I go.
4. Libreria Cafe la Cite - A cute coffee shop with a laid-back feel.
5. Kikuya - Good nachos, good drinks. Gets too crowded too fast, though.
6. Be Bop - No food, but great drinks and awesome live music. Tuesday Beatles nights!

Obviously I haven't done too much eating outside of my home stay, but I have been enjoying home-cooked meals every night. It's worth not spending 20 euros or so at some pizzeria as a student.

In the last week since coming back from Rome, I've been trying to study for finals (going slowly) and papers (even worse), but I have been spending a lot of time at my new favorite cafe, Libreria Cafe la Cite. It's a cute little place that is a lot bigger inside than it looks. I'm pretty sure they play live music too around ten at night. As the name suggests, it is part bookstore/library. People go in there all the time just to look at the books. It's a really cozy environment for anyone who wants to spend a euro-fifty on a cappuccino and sit on one of the couches to read or study.

Other than that, school's been school and everyone's been getting a little flustered about final projects and papers and all. Finals are stressful wherever you are, as I have quickly discovered.

One thing that spiced up my weekend was the trip to Tuscany. It would have been more beautiful if it wasn't raining, but it was still lovely. After checking out a monastery and a couple different churches, the fun part most of us had been waiting for finally came. We took a visit to Capezzana where our (incredibly attractive) tour guide showed us around the winery. After the tour, we had a little wine tasting session where we tried three different wines. It was so tasty and along with our tasting, he taught us how to drink wine properly. Like a refined connoisseur. I know I'm going to be showing off a little to everyone when I get the chance.

Besides that, this weekend was, well, really relaxed. Other people had their fun out late at night, but I enjoyed spending the rainy afternoons at La Cite drinking coffee and doing some work. Little cafes are the best finds in my opinion. Almost as great as finding amazing gelaterias. And attractive men whose families own an international (delicious) wine-producing vineyard. Together, they have the power to create...the happiest little American student around!

A view from the winery. 

The blessed vineyards.

The three wines tasted.

A glass of my favorite: Barco Reale di Capezzana

Roman Holiday

Last weekend I went on a Roman holiday. While I didn't meet my Gregory Peck, I did fall in love. With the city, just to make that clear. Rome is absolutely amazing for anyone who likes bigger cities, lots of historical sites next to modern buildings, and Roman history. I can see why Rome is such a beloved city by so many. It certainly surpassed my expectations. During the three days we were there, I was able to go to the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel, the Trevi Fountain, and stick my hand in the Mouth of Truth. There was a lot packed into two and a half days and I went a little picture crazy in Rome which is enough of an indication for people who know me that I was really taken by that place.

Roman Forum

Roman Forum

Starting at the beginning, we arrived in Rome by train around nine in the morning and, after dropping our stuff off at the hotel, went right away to tour the Roman Forum. It was absolutely, hands-down my favorite ruins to tour. We had a tour guide who was adorably short (and she noted it with pride) and very informative. She painted pictures for us of what ancient Rome must have looked like in the years before Christ and kept me captivated the whole time. I never realized how deep my interest in ancient Rome was until she started talking. We walked around for maybe an hour and a half or two hours, and then stopped in a really nice grove where we ate our lunch. We probably only walked around half of the Forum because I saw a whole other part to it during our break, but we were on a tight schedule.

Roman Forum

Inside the Roman Forum

After lunch, we went to the Colosseum and had a special tour where we got to go from the bottom of the Colosseum where the gladiators and others would enter the stadium to the top where the poorer people sat. It was definitely a thorough tour of the place, but it made me a little sad. How grand the Colosseum must have been when it could seat 87,000 people and was so lavishly decorated! Seeing the skeleton of what it once was and imagining the grandeur of the place was depressing.

Ground level of the Colosseum

First level of the Colosseum

Second level of the Colosseum

Third level of the Colosseum

The Pantheon

That brought my mood down, but after that we went and toured the Pantheon, another really awesome site considering the people who used to meet there, and then got really good gelato. Afterwards, there was another hour and a half walking tour which was actually really interesting, though my feet definitely hurt after being on my feet all day, and after ending the tour in Piazza Navona, we made our way back to the hotel for some rest. My friends and I got dinner on our own at a nearby restaurant called Insalata, a place seemingly known for their salads (I didn't try their salad) with decent dinner prices, and then walked around for a bit before going back in to sleep early after the long day.

Altar in the Pantheon

Saturday started off with breakfast at the hotel and then a trip to Vatican City. It is its own city within Rome where the Pope would live (if there was a Pope). We had a special tour of Necropolis, an underground crypt where people before Christ buried their dead in the walls lining the streets that used to be at ground level however many thousands of years ago. We also saw one of the first portrayals of Jesus in a mosaic of someone's tomb and he looked a lot like Apollo, the sun god the pagans worshiped, with some very important, but subtle, differences. It was all very fascinating, but a little creepy.

Then we went to the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica. The basilica was enormous and lavishly decorated, though it was a bit too ostentatious for my liking. Although it was incredible, the decor was just a bit too overwhelming. The church also held Michelangelo's The Pietà, one of his first sculptures and, in my opinion, most polished works. It was unfortunately behind glass, so I didn't get to get a good picture of it, but it was certainly beautiful.

After the Vatican, we had lunch and then went to see the Sistine Chapel. We had to get through a lot of the museum first, however, just to get our money's worth and see what the program directors wanted to show us. When we finally got to the chapel, it wasn't exactly all that I expected. It was fascinating, but also had an overwhelming number of frescoes and paintings. After that, we were free once more to wander, and after getting dinner we went back to the hotel and talked for awhile before I went to bed. Other people had more interesting nights out in the town, but I just wasn't feeling it.

Careful, it bites!

Sunday morning, we had breakfast, packed our things and put it away, and then were free to explore the city on our own. A couple girls and I decided to hit two main places: the Mouth of Truth and the Trevi Fountain. As huge fans of Roman Holiday, my friend and I both needed to take the opportunity to stick our hands where Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck did. We had planned to go to the fountain first, but a few wrong turns and we ended up heading towards the Mouth instead. Getting there early was a great idea because the weather was beautiful and the line was short. We went through, got our pictures, and then left all in maybe ten minutes.

View of the city behind us lovely ladies

As we made our way to the Trevi Fountain, we passed a lot of ruins, pagan temples, and random broken down walls and pieces of stone that were just lying around. The random ruins looked like trash that the Romans had never bothered to pick up even though I know and they know it has more meaning than that. It's a connection to their past, so nobody bothered to pick up the stones where it fell, although I'm sure if independent pieces were in the middle of the street they moved it to the side. They also may have left those things there because it was too heavy, but I like to pretend there's meaning to everything there.

Random piece of a pillar

Arches in a broken wall

We also passed the Altare della Patria, otherwise known as the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II, and climbed up the back way to some museum I still don't know much about. It was pretty, though, and we had a beautiful view of the city where I took a lot of pictures. When we finally made it to the fountain, we took more pictures, had lunch there, and then made our way back. That was probably my favorite part of the trip, being able to explore and see so much of the city. I love seeing the ruins next to the modern city and Rome is pretty clean, something I hadn't expected.

One of the many pagan temples

And we finally made it to the Trevi Fountain

S.P.Q.R.

One fun fact about Rome is that the letters "SPQR" are everywhere in the city from the ancient ruins and arches to the trashcans and manhole covers. It stands for the Latin phrase "Senātus Populusque Rōmānus", or "The Senate and People of Rome," obviously a phrase that was coined and used when ancient Rome was a republic. By having these letters around everywhere, it's another way modern Rome can connect to her rich past. It became something of a game for me to find the letters wherever I went.

Once our free time was up, we met back at the hotel, grabbed our things, and took a bus to the Borghese Museum which consisted of a villa-turned-museum and a large park for the Romans to enjoy. The villa had really awesome paintings and sculptures from Bernini, who is now my favorite sculpture, to Caravaggio's paintings. Apparently most of the real sculptures that used to be a part of the family's collection were sold to Napolean and are displayed in the Louvre. Lucky I'm going there in the next two weeks!

The magical-looking fountain in the
Borghese Park

After that, there was a three-hour bus ride back to Florence which was quite entertaining. We watched Gladiator during most of it and I was able to point out the places in the movie that I had just been to and some symbols that I recognized. It was a happy moment for me as I watched a portrayal of what ancient Rome might have been like then.

Of all of the cities I've ever been to, Rome is my favorite, and, God be willing, I'll be back.

Yours always, Venezia

This weekend ACM took all of us to Venice for the weekend. There are not enough words for how amazing it was, but I'll try to pen them down. Er, type it out.

An introduction to Venice.

The view from our balcony.

Venice is definitely one heck of a place. It's so different from any city I've been to and probably any city I'll ever go see. There is water literally everywhere. There are no cars, no buses, no motorbikes; just boats. And water. And people. So many people, most of which are tourists. Once we got there, we stayed in a quaint little hotel called Hotel Messner. We had picked our roommates beforehand and my room, in my opinion, was the best. My roommate and I were the only ones who got a balcony that looked out onto the water. Anybody could see us right from down below, but I loved being able to just step out and enjoy the mornings before breakfast.

When we first got to Venice, we went straight to the island of Murano that is known especially for making glass. The glass there was amazing and I know almost everyone in the program splurged a little more than they might have originally planned to on that island. I am definitely a part of that group, but it was all so beautiful. We watched a glass-blowing demonstration, and though that could be so awesome to watch for anyone who hasn't seen it before, it wasn't new for me. What was new to me was the sculpting the guy did. He formed a horse and a swan out of hot glass in less than five minutes each. It was like watching life form right before my eyes.

The horse on the left and the still-hot
swan on the right.

The colors used for the glass.

After that show, he led us (predictably) to the gift shop where they had Murano glass for decent prices. They apparently had it cheaper for tourists there, and I believe it after shopping around the main island of Venice. I bought one too many things on the island, and then we left for the hotel. 

After dropping our stuff off and taking a little break from all the traveling we'd done to get there, we went to check out Palazzo Ducale with the professors. It was lovely and beautiful like every palazzo in Italy, but we couldn't take any pictures. There were so many rooms to see that my brain got a little overwhelmed with all the visual stimulation. 

Basilica di San Marco

We had some free time afterwards and we mostly took that time to try and find our way around. I had planned on taking a nap, but ended up getting something to eat and then wandering around. I met up with some other people from the program and we talked in Piazza San Marco until it was time for us to meet at the Basilica di San Marco. The inside and outside of the Basilica was absolutely breath-taking, and we had the entire church all to ourselves. We got to watch the interior light up, revealing its lavishly-decorated domes one by one and its high ceilings and beautifully crafted arches. The high altar was revealed by a slow turn by the guard and I could swear my jaw dropped at the intensity of the design. The craftsman really wanted his altar to be for God, although Jodie later told us it had been stolen from Constantinople. Seriously though, who wouldn't want to steal that for their own church? It fit right into the scheme of the interior anyway. 

After that, we went and had dinner at the hotel and we all pretty much knocked out afterwards. It had been a long day for all of us. 

A panorama photo of the altarpiece.

One little part of the high ceilings. The
domes and arches are ALL over inside.

Piazza San Marco at night.

The next day we had most of the day free to explore. After a morning visit to the Basilica dei Frari and the Scuola di San Rocco, we split up and got lunch before checking out the list of places we had decided to go to the night before. ACM had given us a list of places to check out that we could get our tickets reimbursed for later, so of course those were the first on our list. Lunch was at an awesome little place that I can't remember the name of, but it didn't have a cover charge and it served seafood, something Venice is, and rightly so, known for. Being from the west coast, I know what fresh seafood tastes like, and the "frutti di mare" that was in my pasta was definitely fresh and delicious. I think I'm going to keep missing it until I get fresh seafood again. 

After lunch, we went back to the Basilica to go up to the second level where there was a little museum and we could step outside and get a great view of Piazza San Marco. It was a warm day and the sun felt really nice after being insider the cooler church. It was also a great day for taking pictures, and I'm really glad for that. 

The view from the top of the Basilica. The hint of my finger makes it legit.
Photography skills. What up.

After looking around the upper level of the Basilica di San Marco, we split up once again, half of them going to the Guggenheim Museum and the rest of us going to an archaeological museum near San Marco. It was a large museum and I hadn't expected that, but it showed a lot of the palace where a royal family used to live and then lots of old statues, coins, books, etc. It all seemed kind of thrown together randomly, but it was a cool find. We spent a lot of time in there because there was just so much to look at. Looking at things from the past always makes me wonder of how it's going to be in the future. We have much better records of how things are now for the future, but we still keep trying to piece together the ancient past. It's amazing to see how systems worked back then and how things were made. Will it be that mind-boggling for a student two thousand years from now when they look at artifacts from the early 2000s? These are the things I wonder about. 

The Peggy Guggenheim Museum was next and we spent another long time there looking at all the crazy art inside. The art was very modern and was breather from all of the religious iconography we had been looking at. I love all the iconography, don't get me wrong, but seeing something different after five weeks of it was kind of nice. Some of the art pieces went way over my head, but they had a little terrace that was right on the Grand Canal. It was undoubtedly my favorite part of the whole museum. 

The wishing tree.

We were pretty pooped after all the walking around, but by then it was time for a little nap and then dinner. With all of us being in the same hotel as our friends, we spent a lot of the night talking until sleep and thoughts of tomorrow overpowered us. 

The next day felt a little more rushed. We had to get out of the hotel and deposit our stuff in a storage area, and then went to tour the Galleria dell'Accademia. It was more paintings inside another museum that I really liked, but I was itching to use my free time to go see more parts of Venice. 

Not our gondola, but this is what they
generally look like. Fancy.

Once the tour was done, we went to lunch once more, walking around aimlessly for at least forty-five minutes before finding a Mediterranean restaurant for a decent price, and then went to find a gondola to ride. Not one of those water taxis, but a legit expensive gondola. Personally, I don't think it was worth the money we spent even if it was split between five people, but at least, if you ride it once, you can say you did. The view was beautiful and I got to see parts of Venice you can only see from the water. Our gondolier was also pretty funny and he gave us a mini tour, though he didn't sing for us. The ride was very peaceful once we went down the smaller canals.

I felt like I was entering another world.

After that, we did a bit of more rushed shopping before meeting up with everyone again to pick up our bags and leave the island. We took a boat to the train station and then the two-and-a-half hour train ride back to beloved Firenze. As beautiful as Venice was, I don't think I could ever live there. Comparing Venice to Florence, though Venice does have an otherworldly feel and a lovely charm to it, Florence has my heart not only because it's beautiful and the center of art, but because it is more real to me. Venice is a dream; Florence keeps me grounded. 

In Pictures from Italy, Charles Dickens titles his trip to Venice, "An Italian Dream." Dickens can articulate much better than I can, so I end with his words: 

"I have, many and many a time, thought since, of this strange Dream upon the water: half-wondering if it lie there yet, and if its name be VENICE." 

An Update

Apparently Carmina Burana is not actually an opera, it's a cantata. Meaning there's no linear plot, so I was even more lost than in Don Giovanni. With their flamboyant corsets and mostly naked people on stage, it was quite interesting, but not my kind of show. Needless to say, it was an adventure getting home too afterwards. The theater it was at, the Nelson Mandela Forum is across town from the Duomo area and right across from the sports stadium in a poorer-looking neighborhood. It's not a nice place to walk around in at night, but I had to anyway. Walking around trying to find the theater at eight-ten at night by myself was scary, but doing the same to try and find the bus to get home around eleven was scarier. At least then I had friends with me, but we made sure to first find a well-lit street with more people and then pull out the map to find our way back. I probably won't be making my way back to that side of town unless I really have to.

Besides that experience, the Chocolate Festival is around! It started Feb. 8 and goes till the 17. The chocolate vendors set up their tented shops in Piazza Santa Croce where people can buy chocolate and/or real hot chocolate (cioccolata calda...mm!). It's not always the cheapest, but there are some really great chocolate concoctions to try there. And, if you're lucky and it's not busy, they might even give out free samples. It's a small festa, but definitely worth it. The chocolate is excellent here.

At the end of the fifth week here, I've been just starting to make my end of the program plans. I'm going to London after spring break for the next part of my program and I'll really have to scrimp and save there. I do find myself spending most of my money here on food and souvenirs. Sometimes more on food, though, especially with the Chocolate Festival around.

One exciting find was The Diner, an American-style diner (literally) that serves American-style food. My friends and I had brunch there on Sunday and it was so good. Decently priced too, and the waitresses spoke English. Not only that, but we got 10% discount cards for being students and they recommended the restaurant right next to them that also gave discounts and served really good food. I'm planning to check that out sometime, but I usually eat breakfast and dinner with my host mom just to save money. Otherwise I'm not going to have any for the traveling I'm planning to do after the program!

ACM is taking all of us to Venice tomorrow on a weekend trip. It's going to be really fun and I'm excited to see everything. The last time I went to Venice for carnevale was horribly windy and rainy, and this time they said the water's risen quite high. I really hope my trip to Venice this time around is at the very least a little nicer and less rainy!

Celebrate for the Weekend

Classes are finally over for the week! I live for these three-day weekends. I'm actually surprised at the amount of work that we're expected to do for the my classes. Along with Italian, which isn't that bad at all, I'm taking Florence Through the Eyes of the Victorians and Collaboration. The first class has a lot of little projects which are easy to forget until the last minute. I've barely been making the cut so far, but I'm using this weekend not to travel, but to catch up on all that I should be doing. The second elective I'm taking isn't bad; the professor is really knowledgeable, but there's more lecturing than I like. I guess that's expected from an art history course, but I wish there was less of it.

Having classes onsite can be tough sometimes. One of the coolest places and also the worst places to have class is the Uffizzi Museum. It's an awesome, huge museum with so much to see, but there are so many tourists because it's so well-known as well as so many students. Not to mention there aren't any places to sit. For one of the 2 1/2 hour classes, I had to stand in front of paintings and walk around with all of my things on and it was torture. Really interesting, but torturous on my back. I'm really glad I brought hiking boots with me. After breaking them in, they make walking all over the city so much easier. I do, however, feel like I don't fit in and am currently looking to buy some new Italian leather boots. Let's hope the sales last for awhile!

I have classes every day now Monday through Thursday. Italian is everyday in the afternoon, but my two electives change. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have the Collaboration class; it's for three hours in the morning on Mondays and an hour and a half in the afternoon on Wednesdays. I have my other elective on Tuesdays and Thursdays; three hours in the afternoon on Tuesdays and two hours in the morning on Thursdays. The schedule is spaced out which I'm really glad for. Some of my friends only have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and are so burnt out after running around everywhere Wednesdays and Fridays don't feel like days off, but time for recuperation.

On Tuesday we, as a program group, went to see the opera Don Giovanni. It was my first time seeing a real opera and I really enjoyed it. The theater seating confused me a little, but I got a pretty good seat accidentally so I didn't really mind. The only thing was that I didn't get all that was going on in the opera. I had to look it all up afterwards and then it made sense. My Italian class helped me understand a lot of the subtitles that were on the screen above the stage, but of course I don't know it all. I'm going to see another opera tomorrow night and not make the same mistake. One fun factor is that I get to dress up. I only brought one nice dress for events like these and it has really come in handy. It's all thanks to the Maggio Card from the program that these theater shows and concerts are discounted. Perks to being an ACM student, I say!

So far, I think my favorite museum is the Bargello. I went there with my class today and it was so cool. It used to be a prison, but I didn't really get that vibe. They have a lot more things on display and things that span from the Medieval times too, not just the Renaissance. I am very interested in that time period, so seeing suits of arms and Medieval weapons and such was really cool. There was also a Michelangelo room for his sculptures and a variety of other artists. I didn't get to see it all, but they didn't have many paintings like the Uffizzi nor was it so big and busy. Not only that, but it was a great place to have class because there were large benches in the courtyard that we could all sit on. They also had seats that we could move around to sit and draw inside the museum. I hope to go back there again and maybe try my hand at sketching some of those beautiful sculptures and pieces of armor if the room is open.

Buon Giovedì Grasso!

Italy with Class

Time and time again I find myself amazed at everything that has been going on here. This weekend, in particular, was busy and freaking amazing. The first week of classes was hectic and threw me off the schedule I've been used to for the past three weeks. It was kind of a slow transition, but I think I'll get used to it. There is a lot more work than I had expected to do for the two electives I'm taking, but I know it won't be too horrible. And if it is, well, I'll just have to make do with what I've got.

With the classes being on site, I get to see so many awesome places. This week I went into the Duomo, saw the frescos of Santa Croce up close, and walked around the Duomo museum all for free with my classes. There is so much that I never would have really appreciated without learning about it there. One of my favorite places was Santa Croce not because Galileo and Dante are buried there, but because it is a different church from the others. It's less dressed up, in a sense, and when all of the ostentatious decorations and paint is imagined away, the simplicity of the church is what makes it beautiful. I really liked that, but that church, as well as all of the others, are always colder inside than outside. Temperature-wise, of course.

Tiramisu birthday!

I also got to spend my 21st birthday here in Florence which was a blast! Besides the program and my peers making it special, my host mom made me a tiramisu birthday treat and gave me earrings which was really sweet of her.

After dinner, a few of us went out to a place called Be Bop where they have Beatles Night every Tuesday. The place doesn't open till 10 p.m. and stays open till around 2:30 a.m., but the drinks were reasonably priced and the music was really great. The Beatles cover band were made up of Italians, but they were actually really good at their impersonations. The stage, seating area, and bar are all underground too which gave it a cooler feel. I really liked it and I'm planning on going back sometime.

The Italian Beatles cover band.

Besides classes, though, I went on two trips this weekend. The first was to Siena with the program. It was a full day trip and we were able to have guided tours in the churches and museums as well as have time to explore and walk around on our own. There are some people who didn't think we had enough time to ourselves, but I was happy with the time we had. It's always nice to start off in a new place with a tour just so you can get your bearings and learn more about its history, and then go off and walk around. There are lots of hills in Siena that reminded me of San Francisco, so we definitely had a lot of exercise. Siena is a smaller, quieter town than Florence, but no less beautiful. We got to climb up to the random wall that was abandoned after being built, and the view from up there overlooks the town and all the country around it. It was quite a climb up the circular staircase that was very narrow and tight, but it was definitely worth it in my opinion. I also learned somewhat from experience that Italian wine, though very good, is also much stronger than wine in America. I may not have expected that, but I'm glad I know now.

The three Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity.

The inside of one of the many rooms
inside of the Duomo.

The Duomo of Siena.

The view of Siena from the top of a hill.

The view of Siena from the random wall.

Two of the many costumed people.

Then on Saturday, most of the people from the program and I took a trip on our own through EuroAdventures, a European student travel site. We went to Venice to see carnevale and it was around 65 euros for the bus ride there and back and entertainment on the bus. We had a pretty large group and we inadvertently split ourselves in half between the two buses going. It was a pretty even split too, so walking around and getting lunch was easier on us and the restaurants.

Lunch was nice because we were lured into a fancy-looking place with the promise of free cocktails, no tax, no cover charge, and 6 euro pizzas. The guy was true to his promise and so I was pretty pleased with that. Note to self: sometimes those people who are trying to get you into their restaurants are actually true to their word.

My friend about to get hit by a banana.

A view of the party parade.

The weather was horrible in Venice when we went; it was rainy, windy, and really cold. But after getting lunch, we found the parade of people all wearing masks, dressed up in costumes, the band, and people partying all around. It was a lot of fun joining them. We were able to kind of blend in with the crowd wearing our own masks, and took lots of pictures of and with the costumed people. We went off on our own after awhile to take a little break and wander. Then we found the parade again and followed them all the way to the Mediterranean where they took a boat somewhere. We took that as our cue to leave, but following them, some of them grabbing us and dancing, others getting hit with blown-up bananas, was a lot of fun. It really felt like a moving party with the theme, strangely, being about bananas.

The mask I bought in Venice for 4 euro.

After the parade was done for us, we went and took another break at a cafe where we spent nearly an hour and a half just talking and laughing at all of the things that had transpired that day. Then it was time to meet up with everyone again and, by then, all of our umbrellas were breaking in the unbearably harsh wind and rain and we were dying to get into the bus and stay there for the three-hour ride. It took us forty-five minutes to get from San Marco square to the buses; usually it takes around an hour to get to San Marco, but we were pretty desperate to get back.

Venice!

I could see why Venice is such a romanticized city. The canals that surrounded us everywhere were beautiful and is definitely the city's trademark, though the gondola rides are very expensive. The way people get across is usually by water taxi which is sometimes easier than finding the bridge to get across.

All in all, going to see and experience carnevale was worth the time and money. Even with bad weather, we got to party along with a lot of other tourists and Venetians and have a good time together. Though the two groups we split into never really met up, I think we both had an awesome time. While we were following the parade, the other group went bar crawling, and we both had fun stories to share afterwards. We're going to Venice in two weeks with the program, but by then carnevale will be over. I just hope the weather is better by then!