Ciao Gabrielle!

So for the past few watercolor classes with Gabrielle, he has taken us outside to paint. Garbielle's house is next to a little stream where he says he fishes and it has a perfect view of the castle in the distance. Not sure where the fish are that he's catching, because we didn't see any when we looked into the stream. At some point while we were trying put brush to paper and fighting the wind from taking our paper away, Gab told us that he has another house only 7 minutes away (on foot) given to him by the government, but he'd never move there because he loves that stream more than his family. After we painted for awhile, we had our usual tea and pie while talking to Gabrielle about anything and everything. We asked him what he thought about the current train strike, and he told us (while acting things out) that he wanted to kick all the workers in the butt and hire people who would work. The train strikes here are relatively frequent and also really dumb. They basically announce that they won't run trains for about 6 hours one day, but they still come to work to tell people that there is a strike and the trains that take kids to school still have to run. Sorry Joe, you don't get a random day off. You have to take kids to school! Dumb.

Anyway, after talking to Gabrielle for awhile he took us out to his garden behind his house. He has a decent amount of stuff planted, and he said that it produces way more than he can use so he gives most of it away. He picked about a million radishes for all of us to take home and eat. They're actually pretty good with bread, olive oil and salt.

The past two times we went to Gabrielle, he told us at the end that he could take a few people in his car to ride around the area. I didn't go one of the prior times (he has room for 4 people max and there are 7 of us) so I jumped at the chance to go this time. We hopped in the car and he started driving us away from Castiglion and towards the hills. We climbed up the ridges for quite some time, getting glimpses here and there as the town got smaller. Once we were towards the top of the ridge, Gabrielle stopped along a little settlement that was having some restoration work done. It looked really old and worn day...like it should possibly be condemned but people were living there and trying to fix it up. As Andres, Ryan, Stephanie and I were walking around, we came to a spot where the trees were cleared and we could see out. I can't even describe how beautiful the scenery was. The castle that usually looks so high up was way down in the valley, and we could see all the way to a lake near Moltepulciano, which is a good 45 minutes away. Absolutely breathtaking. The four of us stood in silence for awhile until Ryan really summed up the moment with "And none of us has a camera". Ultimate bummer. The thing is though, breathtaking landscapes never really turn out well in photos, at least not with my camera, so perhaps its just as well.

The next class, which was our final class, I was ready with a camera just in case. Our projects were due later that week and most of Wednesday and Thursday were full of trips, so a few of us brought portions of our projects to water color. After pie, tea, and more radishes, Gabrielle took a few more of us on a driving trip. This time we went to a small little house up on one of the ridges where a friend of his lives. This was another house that looked like someone probably shouldn't be living in, the windows were broken and the place was in some disrepair. While we were walking around, Gabrielle took a little grass plant, made a lasso out of it, and lassoed my classmate Beth's finger with it. He then told her this was how he caught lizards and she was his lizard for the day, so she had to walk around on her leash. Once Beth's finger was released, we got back in the car and Gab drove us in between the ridges towards Cortona. It started getting pretty close to dinner, so Gab turned the car around and started gunning it down the windy, hilly, roads back to town. Now I never get car sickness, but oh my goodness. The Mamba rollarcoaster has nothing on Italian driving. How these people don't get into more accidents/ fly off of ridges I'm not sure. We were pretty excited to be on stable ground once Gabrielle let us off by the study center where we hurried back to catch dinner.

Things I've Learned:

Poppys are all over the Tuscan landscape right now, and they are amazing! I might be developing a new favorite flower. Sadly, no sunflowers while we're here.

Almost everyone that lives in the valley down from the Castiglion hill has their own personal garden and many people here make their own wine and olive oil.

It's apparently normal to drink wine at breakfast/lunch, according to Gabrielle. Now I know why siesta is after lunch. Wine coma!

These Shrubs Feel Like Jello!

For the past two Wednesday field trips, we traveled to villas and gardens in and around Tivoli. The first Wednesday, we hopped on a bus at 7:30 and set out on the three hour drive to Hadrian's Villa. When we got there, we were either a half hour early or our teachers scheduled wrong but we waited around for 45 minutes next to port-a-potties. They were very scenic. Eventually we met up with our tour guide and she took us into a little room that had an architectural model of the entire villa, which was HUGE!!! My classmates said that their architecture history teacher (mine was different since I started a year earlier than them) told them that Hadrian created this villa for his male lover. Pretty sweet present if you ask me. She took us in through the main gate and wall that surrounded the villa. Everything now is unfinished brick but apparently back in the day all the walls of the buildings were covered in marble. In the estate, there are three main attractions. The first is the small house which has a little moat surrounding it. It's not full of fish, but Hadrian originally used it to swim laps around the house. I think I now officially want a baby moat around my house... Maybe a drawbridge too. The second attraction was the bath complex...which was enormous! We couldn't get very close because they are currently doing some reconstruction work, but the place was pretty impressive. I think it begs the question, how much bathing did they really need to do back then. Did wealthy people do anything else? I mean, everyone likes to hang out at the pool but their complex was a little ridiculous. The third attraction was a really long reflection pool that had some columns, arches, and statues around it. This was the spot that we had all seen lots of pictures of, so we played there for awhile. After our tour, we had some quick sandwiches outside and headed out to Villa D'Este which was about 20 minutes away.

The Villa D'Este is a pretty good sized estate with a lot of fountains. We first went inside the Villa which has a lot of frescoes depicting the trials of Hercules. It was built and owned by a super rich Cardinal that they called "the pope that never was" because he was one of the top contenders for pope 6 times. After walking through the villa we went outside to the gardens. The gardens had lots of beautiful fountains and water features. Probably the most impressive spot was a series of reflection pools lined with flowers that lead up to the main large fountain at the top of the axis. Above that fountain was a terrace with a water organ, a trellis of flowers, and some more beautiful fountains. We spent a fair amount of time there, exploring the different fountains and sculpture, and just taking goofy pictures.

This last Wednesday, we traveled to Villa Lante and the Parc de Monstre (park of monsters). The villa Lante...well there isn't much of a villa there. The villa is in some disrepair and it's pretty small. The walls are completely covered in frescoes and our tour guide explained that people at the time believed that having blank walls was bad luck because it made you think of death. I can't say I've ever looked at a white wall and automatically thought of death, but what ever floats your boat I guess. They also had scorpions painted all over the place, 77 in one loggia! Our guide kept calling it a craw-fish, but it was definitely a scorpion. The garden in front of the villa was full of manicured shrubs that were arranged in rectangles and little swirls. We figured out that when we pressed down on the rectangular shrubs, they jiggled like jello! We entertained ourselves that way for at least 15 minutes before the guide led us out of that section and on to the next. He explained that the garden had mostly shrubs and almost no flowers because they were too expensive and difficult to maintain. However, there were some super super ultra pink flowers at the top of some stairs. I had no idea flowers came in that color, they were practically neon. We played around in a few more fountains and water features, and found a partially dead tree that we could climb in. Score. After that we moved on to a more park like area away from the villa where we found a cat lair. Seriously there was at least 10 cats together around a little pond with cat food near by. Where did the cat food come from? Probably the old lady doing laps around the pond giving us the stink-eye. We also found two more pools close together- one had lots of tadpoles and the other had a bunch of frogs. It's a kiddie and adult pool! Adorable. 

After the villa we headed to a little place for a nice sit down lunch. With full bellies, we hopped back on the bus and headed out to the Park of Monsters! This park is a mostly naturalistic park, minus the giant stone animals and monsters hanging around. We found a giant turtle, elephant, some people, a leaning building, and a HUGE scary face whose mouth you could climb in to and take pictures. We didn't have a guide here, so we just ran around and took pictures by what ever wasn't roped off. The park was actually smaller than I thought it would be, we got through it pretty fast and had tons of extra time so most people laid in a field next to a cute little temple. That was basically the end of our day other than a bus ride home. I have to say, touring gardens was a really nice break from all of the art museums and frescoes. Jello shrubs are much more entertaining!

Things that I've Learned:

You can never have too many "do not do (insert something)" signs. The Villa Lante had at least nine different things you couldn't do, such as: play soccer, bring a dog, play a trumpet, take pictures (even though it's outside and no one followed that rule), walk on closely spaced tables... actually we finally figured out that last one was supposed to be a banister. So many rules!

Water features encourage buffoonery. Buffoonery encourages picture taking.

Easter!

Sorry I've been a little short on updates lately. We're at the end of our semester so everyone is finally in studio, drawing our little lines and painting pretty little pictures. Also, I realize that I didn't really wrap up the Cinque Terre blog, but the gist of the last day was that we walked around some more and basically traveled on a train all day back to Castiglion F.no (and Orvieto for the other girls).

And now, on to Easter festivities! As you can imagine, Easter is pretty huge here in Italy. During this time, we got to see probably the coolest ritual that our town celebrates every year. We had heard about the several day long processions and how the outfits that they wear are from really ancient rituals... oh yea and they look exactly like the KKK. Someone from the town in charge of the rituals came to explain them to us while one of our administrators translated. He explained that the robes come in white, black, and dark blue for three different brotherhoods. After explaining for a long time in Italian what the robes look like, Paolo (our translator) just laughed and said "They look like the KKK". I've been wondering if Italians knew what those robes look like to us and now I know that they do. Maybe that's why only three towns in Italy still do this ritual.

The first procession was on Wednesday. It started at about 9:30- 9:45 in a loggia towards the top of the hill and they walk through a few streets finally passing by our study center and ending at the church. (I recently just found out that the church next to our study center is Castiglion Fiorentino's Duomo. It's a cute little church, but definitely not up to Duomo standards). Most of Santa Chiara emptied out into the piazza right in front of the church and waited till the procession came our way. We could hear them coming before we could see them because they had loudspeakers with Italian chants playing on a loop. They kind of sounded like creepy incantations and I had no idea what they said, except for the occasional "Holy Mary or Holy Father". That's about all I can pick out. Almost everyone in the procession has a lit candle and they walk in a line on either edge of the street while a few important figures come down the middle of the street. For every procession there's a new statue of Jesus and the one on Wednesday shows him post-flogging with the crown of thorns. After the large group of hooded townspeople (little kids are robed in the procession too!) come through the street, they are followed by a band and then regularly dressed townspeople. They filed all the way to the church and then turned around to go back the way they came.

Friday's procession was the same except the statue of Jesus depicted him post mortom. We watched from our windows this time, partially to get pictures from an aerial view but mainly because it was cold and we were already in pjs. Saturday night at midnight was the big procession plus Easter mass. This was also the first time that the Santa Chiara chapel was open to the public. The chapel has been used for storage and is in really bad condition so it has been closed for a long time while the study center is trying to gather funds to restore it. Unfortunately, that's the story of a few churches in our little town. We heard that there was going to be fireworks and doves were going to be released once the statue of resurrected Jesus was rushed into the church. I am always down for some fireworks! The procession was much smaller than on previous nights, and the robed individuals no longer had their hoods on. Big improvement I'd say. They rushed Jesus into the church and then.... not fireworks really. More like small bombs going off on the patch of grass by the study center. You could definitely tell who the Americans were because we all yelped when they started going off, it was kind of scary actually. I also didn't see any doves being released, but the little bombs did tick off all the bats so they were flying around like crazy. Close enough to doves I guess. We also noticed that Easter here must be like New Years at home; after the fireworks/ ball drop everyone starts kissing everyone and yelling Buon Pasqua! The mass was really short so we got back in plenty of time to work on studio.

Things I've Learned:

So you thought Americans dressed like crap for church right? You haven't been to Easter Sunday mass in Italy. The nicely dressed people are in jeans; I may have seen a suit or two. No colorful spring dresses or ties here!...except for the Americans of course.

The day after the procession there are "pericolo" (danger) signs all over the streets because the cars skid on the wax left from the candles. As if driving through narrow medieval streets wasn't hard enough!

Cinque Terre- Day 2- Kelsey's Birthday!

April 16

Today was Kelsey's birthday! Buon Compleano Kelsey! The girls and I started the day off right with an egg, sausage, tomato, and potato medley. We got dressed  for the day, packed our towels for the beach, and set off! The first item on our agenda was to hike to Manarola which was the next town over. Apparently, Cinque Terre is a national park so you have to pay to walk on the trails, which is kind of interesting. We bought our tickets (which no one checked of course) and walked in the direction that we thought the trail was. After watching people the day before, we thought you had to walk to this edge area and then through town to get to the main trail. I think that's how it normally works, but that trail was blocked off at the time. We eventually found another way to the trail which is also known as the via dell'amore. Awesome, we're on the love road. Good thing there were six of us so we could partner up, hold hands and skip down the road of love. Along the way we found some aloe plants whose leaves had been carved into by tourists wanting to leave their mark somewhere without actually vandalizing property. Nice work. There are also lots of locks all over nets and fences on the trail, which are supposed to symbolize love between two people that can't be broken. If only Cara, Kels and I had a lock we could have made a roommate bond... precious.

We eventually made it to Manarola which was probably the prettiest of the towns. I actually happen to have a shot of the town as the background on my mac computer, which I had downloaded before I even knew anything about Cinque Terre. So my mission for the day- get a picture similar to the professional one on my computer. We wandered through the town a bit, got some gelato, and began walking the trail to the next town. The trail ended up being closed (a lot of them are before prime tourist season) so we had to take a train. The girls and I wanted to go to Monterossa which was the 5th town (Rio is the 1st) since that's where the beach is. After a long wait at the train station due to a 20 minute late train, we made it to Monterossa. This town has a bunch of shops, an unusual church (it has modern chandeliers and Italian gothic-esque pillars, interesting combo) and finally the beach!!! Ok, beach in Italy doesn't mean endless sand and surf like it does in the USA. Here, the beach is a short stretch of rocks and pebbles. Good enough for us. It was way too chilly to go swimming and the sun kept sneaking behind clouds so we didn't get any sun. Instead we watched some loud American strutting her stuff, an Italian family that played volleyball for about a million years, and random excessive PDA on the beach. For some reason in Italy, if you wear shorts that go right above your knee you get stares but if you mount someone in public that's perfectly fine. I'm still trying to figure out what that's about.

Once it was clear that the sun was going to stay hidden for awhile, the girls and I got some Daiquiris and went shopping. Kelsey got a bunch of good buys and I found a really cool ring that was drilled out of a shell. It's pretty nifty. After we had seen most of the stores, we wanted to head by train to Vernazza. We soon figured out that the trains had it out for us. So for some reason, the trains in Cinque Terre are REALLY on Italian time. Like, 30 minutes late all of the time. If they were all that way it would be easier, but sometimes the later trains come before the earlier trains and they don't all go to the same stops. (For example, sometimes the 14:23 train is on time so it comes before the 14:07 train which is late and you don't have any way of knowing which is which unless they are on time). So we hopped on what we thought was our train which skipped Vernazza and went all the way to Riomaggiore. So, we got on the next train that went back the other way. On the ride when we showed the conductor our tickets and explained what happened, he told us that it wasn't his problem and we had to buy new tickets with penalty. So, we just got off at the next stop (which is what you do in Italy if there's a problem with your ticket. They tell you you'll have to pay a 50 euro fine but getting off the train is an option too). The stop we ended up at was Manarola again, were we did some more shopping. Since we had so many problems with the train that day, we hiked back to Riomaggiore...at sunset! The trail was really beautiful and peaceful since hardly anyone was on the trail.

Once we got back to Rio, we were starving. The girls and I quickly found out, however, that most places were full and wouldn't even bother to make a waiting list. One place told us they were full at the moment and when we asked how long they thought the wait might be they basically told us there wouldn't be any tables open for us. RUDE. I still haven't figured out what Italians have against making money. We finally were able to get into the place directly under our apartment close to the water. Cara and I shared spaghetti and lobster (yum!) and we celebrated Kelsey's birthday with some chocolate cake. After a yummy dinner the girls and I hung out for awhile and passed out early.

Cinque Terre- Day 1- the Destroyer of Shoes

Friday, April 15

Since the 16th was going to be Kelsey's birthday, Cara, Kelsey plus some Orvieto girls, Rachel, Jordan and Jordan's sister Mackenzie and I decided to travel to the paradise of Cinque Terre! There weren't many hostels available, so the girls and I found an apartment in Riomaggiore (one of the five towns) that came out to only 22 euro a person a night. Super awesome deal. Kelsey, Cara and I took a morning train to Florence, to Pisa, to La Spezia and finally to Riomaggiore. Riomaggiore is the first of the five towns, and it's absolutely beautiful. Upon leaving the train, we were greeted by a large mural of native inhabitants which were depicted as farmers and a tunnel that led us from the train station to the town. The one side of the tunnel was entirely composed of murals made from different local rocks, glass, marble, and anything you can find on a beach. Pretty impressive. Once in the town, we made our way to the place where we had to check in for our apartment. The online review had said that the main downside of the apartment was treacherous stairs. I think it was mostly Americans that had posted this, so we were anxious to see how exaggerated this review was. (We've noticed on reviews that since Americans are used to a different standard they tend to complain about everything. Guess what, there's no elevator to take you up to your apartment on the hillside of Italy. You might have to climb up a steep hill or even steps with your luggage. Weird, I know...) We checked in and the lady running in charge (a cute little British lady now living in Italy) took us to our apartment. There were some steep steps, but not too many and at least they weren't made of uneven carved rock like everywhere else. The apartment was pretty awesome. Large bathroom, two bedroom with two double beds and three fold out beds, a living room, and kitchen with dishwares. Did I mention it also had a balcony facing the water? Absolutely perfect. We were right over the dock area with tons of boats and a little built up rock pier that wrapped around the front of the town.

Since the girls and I had a kitchen, we decided to cook dinner that evening to save some money. We found a little Coop and fruit stand where we got noodles, chicken, veggies, fruit and of course Vino. We went back to the apartment to store our purchases before we set out exploring. For some reason, the first thing on everyone's list except mine was to climb the rock pier all the way out to the tip. Perhaps if I didn't have my purse or a massive hole in the tip of my flats I would have been game for it... or if I wasn't the clumsiest person on earth. We hopped from rock to rock for awhile, dodging sharp angles and mini revines (ok, revine is an exaggeration but it still would have really messed us up if we fell in between some of the rocks we were jumping). Once we had made it most of the way out and we were directly infront of the town, Cara and I made a pit stop. The rest of the girls wanted to continue to the tip (which was a bit further) so Cara went with them but I hung out where I was. For one, there wasn't anything more to see at the tip, I was already in prime picture taking local. Second, something about really beautiful scenery makes me value alone time, which I gladly took for awhile. Eventually, dark clouds started to roll in so I called the girls to start climbing back with me. The climb back wasn't as easy. The hole in my flat had definitely gotten bigger and I was slipping in my shoes all over the place. We eventually made it back and decided that we should probably start making dinner.

It's been a minute since those of us at Santa Chiara have cooked a meal so Cara willingly took the reigns of our dinner. We made chicked pasta with alfredo, pesto, tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, and cheese. yum! Cara and I shared a Chianti wine (since we're living in Chianti country, it's become our favorite) and the other girls drank white wines. We spent the rest of the night chatting and people watching outside our balcony. Lovely ending to a lovely day.

This is what Italy + this weekend has done to my shoes. They are now resting in pieces in a trash heap in Castiglion Fiorentino. Farewell dear shoes, you have served me well.

Best Day of our Young Lives

In the spirit of laziness and trying to catch up on this blog, I am poaching this entire entry from my roommate Cara's blog.  Enjoy enjoyers!

Friday was the best day of my life.  I think that pretty much sums it up.  I checked the weather for our region the night before, and it was supposed to be a high of 66 and sunny all day.  My roommates and I decided to bust out the sun dresses.  I chose a bright yellow dress, my favorite one.  I also wore my new bright coral flats from Venice that have flowers on them.  I made the executive decision to leave all jackets at Santa Chiara.  You may think these are irrelevant details, but these choices lead to all my dreams coming true in the form of the best day of my life. 

The plan for Friday included meeting with an architect at a resort she renovated, having lunch cooked by a wonderful chef, and going to a vineyard for a wine tasting.  We took a morning stroll to wear we were meeting our bus, and as we were going downhill all the school kids were walking uphill.  We got some strange looks from pretty much every Italian that walked or drove past us, because they were all bundled up in the 45 degree morning, and we were dressed for a summer pool party.  It was a brisk morning, I’ll admit, but nothing I can’t handle. 

We hopped on the bus, I fell asleep, and when I woke up we were in the most beautiful area I have ever seen.  I thought I had become numb to the breathtaking scenery that surrounds me everywhere I have been in Italy, but this was something else.  We had arrived at Borgo Finocchieto, a place that had once been a village, but has been renovated into an amazing resort.  It is just south of Sienna, about an hour and a half north of Castiglion Fiorentino.  We watched a video on the restoration, and it has an amazing history.  They interviewed a man that lived there from his birth in 1923 until it started collapsing in 1983.  He now lives just down the street and is 88 years old.  In the video we watched, he talked about how there used to be stables on the main level, and about where he lived – in one of the buildings with 60 other people.  The buildings that had once crammed poor Italian farmers into tight spaces are now high class apartments that rent for up to 21,000 euro/week.  And they’re worth it.  Pictures will have to describe what I saw, because everything was so beautiful I can’t put it into words.

When we first met the architect, we were standing outside the main building.  We were listening to her talk about the history and some background on the project, and all of a sudden a fighter jet flew right over our heads!  The manager of the resort, Marco, told us we were close to the Air Force Base, assuming American.  A few minutes later another one flew over head – this one fully armed with missiles on either side.  Sweet!  They must have known we were coming and did a fly over just for us!

We toured the site before going into buildings, and as we stood in the warm sunshine we all agreed we made a wise choice with the dresses.  We saw beautiful views from every part of the site – it sits up on a hill that has a historic castle on it too, so you can imagine how it’s prime real estate.  There were a couple artists with easels out painting the sites.  We walked around the vast green grassy fields, saw the tennis and basketball courts, saw the sleek oval shaped pool that overlooks the valley, and went inside the work-out room (which I would dare to call a complex).  The work-out room was fully stocked with everything you’d need to work off all the delicious Italian food.  The weights are right by the window that overlooks the pool and valley below – I’d work out every day if I had that set up!  We went back into the locker rooms, where they have everything from a hot tub and sauna to a cold plunge and steam room.  Not to mention it is all curvy walls and modern and pretty.

With all the wine you can drink, you can imagine there were a few spills of the day.  Our professor, Chip, knocked over a wine glass and it shattered – way to go, teach’!  My spill of the day was actually intentional.  I was so thirsty I poured myself a huge glass of water from one of the bottles.  Unfortunately it turned out to be the sparkling water.  I tried to chug it, but all the bubbles were too hard to get down.  I decided to pour it out under the table.  I sneakily made sure everyone around me had picked up their bags, and I lifted our clean white table cloth and slowly poured my glass out, creating a puddle underneath the perfectly set table.  Later that afternoon I did find some red sauce on my white cardigan, no idea how it got there. 

After we stuffed ourselves with the wonderful food, we walked out to the edge of the property and basked in the sun.  Well some people basked.  I chose to frolic around in the surreal atmosphere I was in – we hopped over the string that fenced in the clean cut grass and adventured into the tall grass on the hill.  This was the height of my day.  Of my life.  I was in my favorite dress with my favorite new shoes running through lush green grass in perfect weather at an amazing resort after eating an amazing meal, in Italy.  I even belted out some “Sound of Music” while I was spinning on the hill.  There are plenty of pictures to give you a better idea, and plenty of new profile pics for me!  Unfortunately, we had to snap back to reality and realize that time ticks on, and we had another appointment to make – a wine tasting just down the street.  We all slowly made our way to the bus and said goodbye to paradise. 

We had been told that at the next place we would have to walk about a mile, because the bus can only go so far.  Walking a mile was no big deal.  When we came to a dirt road with a woman flagging us down, we saw the mile we were going to have to walk – all uphill.  We began walking up the hill, and the steeper the incline got the happier I was with my wardrobe choice.  If I had been wearing much more I might have had a heat stroke.  It was still beautiful and wonderful and so awesome, just a little more strenuous than expected.  Didn’t put a damper on the perfect day though, considering the landscape we were walking through.  When we got to the top of the hill the woman, Analise, goes, “Oh, you wish it was this house! Keep going!” So we walked another half mile or so, and finally arrived at her house. 

This was another historical building.  It used to be a monastery, and then a convent, and now is her home and vineyard.  She told us about her history, how her and her husband moved there, looked out at the land and asked, “A fourth child, or wine?”  They chose to plant some grapes and see how it goes.  They struck gold and now produce 4000-5000 bottles each year.  We saw the cellar, and then went in the church that is attached to her house.  The church has enough room for about 30 people, and that would be pushing it.  It’s very small, and still has all the original architecture and even some original furniture.  She told us that she sometimes has a priest come and do Mass, on special occasions such as before and after harvest. 

The wine tasting was very casual, probably because she had 30 college students with her.  We tried one red wine, and it was very good – I think as a whole we bought the rest of her stock for the year.  We all just hung around and talked, and refilled our glasses as much as we wanted.  I was just thrilled that there were saltine crackers and natural water.

 

After the wine tasting we hiked back down the hill, got on the bus, and I fell asleep until we were pulling into Castiglion Fiorentino.  We took a quick nap before dinner, ate pasta with olives, potato quiche, and even got a blood orange for dessert.  I showered, watched a movie (The American – warning, very confusing and depressing), and now I’m about to hit the sack.

What a perfect day.  Best day ever.  Wish I could relive it.  Saturday we plan to go to Orvieto for a battle between the two schools on the soccer field.  We plan on losing – already accepting it.  In the evening we’ll be wearing our masks and parading around Orvieto for a jolly good time with all the K-State kiddos in Italy. Hoorah!

After the tour of the site, we went inside the buildings.  We saw some of the rooms that you can rent out, all looking pretty five-star to me.  There are living rooms and kitchens and studies and big-screen tv’s for the guests.  They kept the original architecture as much as possible, including one of the buildings that was built with rammed-earth walls.  They did some tricks, such as a solid wood beam (that spans much farther than it should) has a steel wide flange inserted into it, hidden into the original design.

Enough of that, next we watched the video I talked about that had the history and some of the restoration process.  After the video we asked the architect some questions, and then it was time for lunch!  They had prepared one long table in the courtyard for us to eat at.  It was on a porch overlooking a fountain, reflection pool and garden area, and all the scenery past that.  We had an antipasta of veggies and cheeses and meats, all in weird combinations with odd sauces and all delicious.  Next we had ragu penne pasta with WILD BOAR meat. Yum.  For dessert they brought out a beautifully presented strawberry shortcake-like thing.  It was like a pound cake, with ice cream in the middle of the cake, strawberries all over the top, whipped cream and a sweet little chocolate spike on top.  I think they used Hershey’s shell syrup to make the little accents.

London- the Rest All in One

So since I'm so far behind on my blogs, I'm going to sum up London pretty quickly. The combination between our lack of internet and Italy's phenomenal weather lately has kept me off the computer. Plus, I have acquired my first sunglasses tan line. This kid is getting bronze! Something about not being attacked by every bug in a five mile radius here makes me go outside a lot. Anyway, the following is a brief summary of the rest of spring break!

I'd also haven't proof-read this- no time no time!

Sunday, March 20

Since this was the last time that Robert and Anosh could hang out with us (they had to go back to work during the week which entailed traveling elsewhere) we decided to go to a magical place that everybody loves-- the zoo! The zoo was pretty awesome, watching animals is always hilarious since they're sometimes very inappropriate, as they were that day. I made sure to wear my black and white stripped shirt so that I could get a picture with the zebras. They weren't cooperating, so I just got a picture with the zebra sign. We also saw a guy that seemed to poses the ability to summon mercats...like a mercat whisperer. after that we went to the petting zoo portion where I managed to mistake a sheep for a goat, don't ask me how that happened. We went to a few more sections of the zoo, Heather spent a lot of time trying to kick pigeons, and then we left for Regent's park which is adjacent to the zoo. The park was really beautiful. Some of it was rigorously maintained and some was more free and natural from the romantic movement. There was also a wedding company doing a photo shoot with gowns by a fountain, pretty sweet! After a day of pigeon kicking, we were quite hungry so we headed out to Chinatown (in Piccadiliy square) for some delicious Chinese food. I have to say, it was much better than the Chinese food we've tried in Italy.

Monday, March 21

This day was JAM PACKED! After a late start, we headed out to the tower of London where we saw the crown jewels. So Shiny! They also had armor from various kings as well as weaponry on display. What else does the tower posses you ask? Well, there was carved graffiti from several famous prisoners and apparently, the place raises it's own ravens. THESE BIRDS ARE ENORMOUS!!!!! While Brit and I were eating the little sack lunch we brought, the ravens were hopping way too close for our comfort. Little school children proceeded to taunt the monsters. Watch out for that beak kids! We also spent a lot of time looking for the Bloody Tower exhibit, which was supposed to house old torture devices and stories. My dad had mentioned that when he went the exhibit was really cool. Unfortunately, it has been diminished to a room with literally two things. Lame sauce.

After the tower we went to the Tower Bridge. The bridge is really beautiful and had some cute little movies and interesting exhibits inside. The interior was super industrial, so Brit and I took a lot of pictures there. Next was the engine room, with beautifully painted engines that displayed how the bridge worked. After the engine room, Brit and I started to make our way to the Monument for the London fire. Along the way, we found a Galleria that looked like an old industrial arcade and had a sweet pirate ship sculpture. Near the Galleria was a random tilted black egg sculpture, and probably my new favorite sculpture ever-- a giant cartoon looking tree in the middle of a small plaza with real trees. Now that was a tree that I was willing to hug. We finally made it to the Monument, where we proceeded to climb about a million steps. Every time any of us come upon some activity that involves climbing a lot, we think "we've done this a million times, this should be no problem". Lies. I discover this fallacy about three-fourths of the way up the tower where I'm pausing to pant. The view from the monument was beautiful, so the climb was totally worth it. Not to mention, when we climbed down there was someone waiting to give us certificates that said we climbed all those steps to the top. Precious! Lastly, Brit and I made our way to St. Pauls. We made it at the very end of its open hours, so we only stayed inside for a few minutes but it was gorgeous. Lots of white and candles, very classy. After the church, it was dinner time! In a city of a million choices, what did we select to eat? Why KFC of course. I have been craving fried chicken like no body's business. Brit and I finished the evening with some shopping. Lovely!

Tuesday, March 22

On Tuesday we took the tube to Kingston station to see the Natural History Museum. BEST MUSEUM EVER. The astronomy section was insane. They had a giant red and purple metal-esque globe that you could ride into on an escalator. I think I took about a million pictures of it. The museum also had lots of jewels, some dusty dinos, and a lab a research area called the cocoon. The cocoon had tons of interactive tables that were like a touch screen, but they looked like the images were just projections. I felt like I was in the future. This also brought me to the conclusion that there's nothing better than a Natural History Museum-- I feel like they're always high on my list of favorite things when I visit cities. We had a delicious lunch there with yummy lemonade and made our way across the street to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Wow, they have a lot of stuff in there. We found a section that housed post 1900 graphic design and furniture, which Brittany geeked out about since the Interior Architecture kids have taken furniture history classes. Lots of greats in that exhibit.

Next we went to Harrods to shop. Oh boy do you need a map in that place. Our favorite sections were probably the furniture, lighting, and autographed plaque section. They had a Gone with the Wind plaque with lots of autographs for only 1,800 Euro. Wrap that sucker up and I'll eat it on the way home. We wandered into the toy department where a really bored musician found a magical light in my pocket and talked our ear off for quite some time. It was moderately entertaining to say the least. By this time we were really tired, so we went back to the hostel/bar and got some food there with a guy staying there that was from the states and traveling on his spring break. While the three of us were eating, some Cockney kid came in the bar and started going up to people and rapping in their faces. By the look of the staff's faces I gathered that this wasn't a rare occurrence. They finally got him out of the bar, we finished our fish and chips, and made our way to the lounge to get some internet and watch youtube videos. I hadn't watched one since I've been in Italy because our internet is awful, so obviously I just watched Red Eye clips forever. Perfect end to a great day!

Wednesday, March 23

Since this was Heather's birthday, we went to Hampton Court for the day (which was her selection). We saw lot of exhibits about King Henry VIII and his wives/advisers. Not me mention we saw Henry walking around himself. We had to kneel when he walked by. The court obviously had lots of beautiful rooms, but even more beautiful was the gardens. Not to mention there was a hedge maze! I am always game for a labyrinth. After making it to the middle and trying to find the way out, Heather, Mark, Brit and I could only find the wheelchair exit so we finally just took that. After spending the day there, we met up at Topshop with some British guy named Christian that Heather and Mark had met. We went to his favorite pub which had beautiful stained glass and an intricate wood bar. Classy place. After good conversation for about an hour and a half, we got dinner and then split with Christian. Best part of the night- Icebar London!Literally, the whole bar is made of ice. They split people into 35 minute parties and you get a huge blue poncho with gloves. Even the glasses are made of ice, it's pretty epic. After that, the cool night felt really warm so we strolled for awhile before we made it back to the hostel.

Thursday, March 24

Super busy day. We visited Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey (this one we actually went in to, there's about a million people buried there), Saw a random protest about government budget cuts, saw Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, where people were playing leap frog and feeding squirrels, a horse museum, and Somerset house. We thought we could actually tour the house, (that's what the guidebook said) but instead it was just modern art exhibits. They did, however, have a really cool furniture exhibit which made up for the rest. Westminster Abbey had a lot going on inside, wayyyy too much to look at. Thankfully they had a great audio tour that explained a lot of the chambers and sculptures on graves.

Friday, March 25

First thing on our list was to go to Waterloo Bridge since it's my second favorite Vivien Leigh movie. My plan was to take a picture where she stands several times on the bridge, but alas the bridge today is not the same as in the movie (it was filmed in 1940). Boo. Brit and I made our way to the Tate modern and along the way, we found a really cool underground graffiti skateboarding park. One of the walls had a mural of an elephant swimming under water and a girl diving in after. Next we crossed the Millennium bridge to the museum. They had some pretty good artwork actually, Richard Sera, Dali, Tanguay, and so on. One thing that was not good, a million little school children yelling and running around with pencil and paper. Whose idea was it to give grade-schoolers pencils in a fine arts gallery?! I predict those walls will be repainted very soon. We left the gallery and got some Starbucks, which I have desperately missed. Brit and I went back to Camden to explore the markets the rest of the day. The market's are huge!!! Camden is kind of the punk rock center of London, so the markets had some entertaining merchandise and people. In one of the stores, Brit and I talked to a guy who kept staring at a chick across the way wearing super tight, thin green tights as pants. He kept asking us if we thought it was fashionable, and when we said nope, it's scary, he talked to us forever about all the scary fashions he sees women in. He also thought we barely looked like we were out of high school. That ol thing again. I have noticed that people seem to look older in London, but I'm not sure why. We finished the day with McDonalds happy meals...and boy were we happy.

Saturday, March 26

This day was awful. We had a plane to catch at 7:30 so woke up in the middle of the night to catch the first bus available. After the bus let us off not where Heathrow Airport's website said it would, we found a subway station to take the only tube line that went to the airport. The tube broke down. So here we were stranded on the only line to the airport with tons of other people who also had international flights to take. They finally took us to the nearest station, where we waited for the workers to find an alternate route. The workers had us get on a different line there to another station to take a different tram which you need different tickets for to get to the airport. By this time, it was already about 6:45 so we and a lot of others we met on the train knew we were missing our flight.

When we got to the airport, we were informed that we had to buy a completely new ticket (which cost more than the original two way ticket). we rushed through the airport to make that flight and got to Milan were we had to find a bus to the train station. First we got on the wrong bus. We waited about 30 minutes till the right one came and took the bus to the Duomo. There we haled our bags through the streets to the station were we took a metro to train station. At the train station, we bought tickets and had 5 minutes to find and get on the train. We just made it. After the train let us off in Arezzo, we ran to the bus stop to catch the bus (which actually waited for us since the guy saw us running) to Castig F.no. Finally made it home. At this point we had been up since the early hours of the morning and had only eaten a muffin all day...which meant it was time to scarf a pizza at pirate bar. I'd like to mention that if you count the different modes of transportation we used this day, we were on 11 different vehicles. ridiculous.

after that happy note, some fun things the English say:

Silverware = Cutlery
Bangs = Fringe
Bathroom= Gents or Ladies
Mind the Gap!
Exit = Way Out

Things I've learned:
too many things, but I've learned that English fashion (at least right now) is scary! It's a cross between ugly shapeless vintage and ill fitting tights as pants. Not to mention the cool thing right now (in Italy too) is to wear short jean shorts with brightly colored tights under. Dude, it's spring, just wear capris like a normal person. And that is my rant :)

London part 2

Saturday, March 19

So this morning we were supposed to meet Heather and Mark at Piccadilly Square at 10am. Brittany and I got up a little late (our beds were surprisingly very comfortable), ate, and headed out there. We made it there around 15 minutes late and didn't see them anywhere. We waited around till just before 11, and then finally assumed that they had left without us. We made our way to the Portebello Market in Notting Hill, which was only on Saturdays and we heard from the bar staff that it was really cool. We walked out of the subway and followed some signs that led to the market. Along the way, we passed through some really cute row houses that were all pastel colors. Precious. We knew when we were about to arrive at the antique market, because all of the sudden the entire road was jam-packed with people and we could hardly move. There were tons of stands with all kinds of different things; old signs, jewelry, kitchenware, plus tons of stands with random other things. While wading through the human sea, Brit and I noticed this little old man who was walking with a cane and a dog on his shoulders. He walked around the market like that the entire time we where they, and the dog never tried to jump off. And I thought my purse was kind of heavy! After Brit found a cute little necklace at the market, we made our way back up the street to some other stores. One of the clothing stores that we passed had entire walls of old sewing machines as their decor. It was pretty cool actually. At some point while we were shopping, we got a delayed text from Heather and the group saying they wanted to meet at 11. That explains why no one was at the meeting place earlier. Waiting is starting to become a theme of the trip.

After the market, we went back to Camden to get food and go grocery shopping. First, we went to McDonalds (yay bad American fast food!) The McDonalds was actually a really nice one, and it had a orange-green-purple decor which I haven't seen in one before. We got our meals and went up to the second floor seating since the first floor was full. While we were eating and minding our own business, a fight between two guys started across the room. Not sure what they were arguing about, but I think one was an employee and he was escorted out. Behave boys, there are children around! After that we thought it might be wise to get the hell out of Dodge. Brit and I went to a small express grocery store to buy bread, fruit, and other things to make lunch with so we didn't have to pay for it most days. Best decision ever, because there's a 20% VAT tax on everything plus the horrible conversion rate from pounds to dollars was about to kill us. We dropped our goodies off at the hostel and then decided to head out to Trafalgar square for a bit. When we got off at our stop (which was a few blocks from the square) we happened upon a church and memorial/crypt. Being the nosy kids we are, we decided to wander down through the crypt. It was called St. Martin in the Fields and in the crypt was of course graves...with lunchroom tables over them. Whoever decided to combine a cafe with a graveyard is a creeper. I mean, I personally have never had the desire to eat a sandwich on top of a dead person but maybe that's just me. We explored some of the relics around there and a photography exhibit that was also in the building.

Next we were back on track for Trafalgar. The square is huge! There were a few fountains, some lion sculptures that people were climbing on, and a giant ship in a bottle on a pedestal! Pretty random, right? While Brit and I were there, we saw a guy balancing on a plank over a ball while juggling knives. He had quite the crowd till he finished and then asked for money. There was also a break dancing group showing off their skills which was pretty cool. During this time we got a text from Heather's friend, Robert, telling us to meet them at one of the tube stops (I don't remember which now) and we were going to hang out at Anosh's flat before getting dinner. We met up with them around 7, popped into a store to get some wine that wasn't as cheap or yummy as we are now used to, and headed over to his flat. The flat was really adorable. It was a studio, meaning the living room was also the bedroom plus a small kitchenette and bathroom. The windows opened out to a beautiful street with lots of white row houses like the one we were in. We all hung out, talked and watch the South Park movie (always a classic) and then headed to Anosh's favorite burger joint to finish off the night.

London part 1

Friday March 18

Today was the day we had to say goodbye to Venice and hello to London town! Brittany, Heather, and I got up really early, packed and had a little bit of breakfast before we set off. Just like everything else in Venice, we had to take a ferry to get to the airport. When we were on the ferry we did a little people watching. There was the cutest little girl whose mom was putting lip gloss on her. Adorable! We got to the island where the airport was and proceeded to walk about 10 minutes to the entry of the building. After checking in, the girls and I hung out for awhile till we were off! We landed in Rome and had to make our connection there. In case you were wondering, the international terminal in Rome is really confusing. The terminals are just round desks in the middle, and you have to go down an escallator and hop on a tram to get to the plane which is just hanging out randomly in the middle of nowhere. After the flight we had to go through customs. I was super excited to get a stamp from rome and london, but then I found out that all the stamps look the same and didn't have the name of the courty on them. Boo! We waited awhile in line and finally got through. At this point Heather was practically sprinting ahead because her finace, Mark, had flown in earlier and was waiting to pick her up at the airport. He also brought Brittany and I candy. Nice! At this point we split since they are staying in a hotel (and we are in a hostel). Brit and I got out little Oyster cards (for the subway system), found the subway station, and headed with all of our junk out to Camden Town!

So the hostel we're staying in is attached to a bar called Belushi's. The staff was super friendly when we got there, and sorted out a few problems we had with the booking. Plus we get discounted food and drinks there. Score! The room isn't awful, and the bed is actually more comforitable than the one in the hotel in Venice. Who knew? After getting settled in, Brittany and I headed to Piccadilly square to meet up with Heather, Mark, and a friend of theirs from highschool who is living and working in London right now. The official meet time was 8:30. We got there a little early and waited....and waited...and waited. after waiting almost 40 minutes, Brit realized that the time on her ipod hadn't been set to London time, so we were actually and hour early. Oops. On top of that, they ended up being about 30 minutes late, so were felt like we were there forever! Piccadilly square is kind of like Times Square in New York, except with pretty buildings around it. Brit and I went into a few stores in the area. There was one mega souvenier shop which had a map of the tubes on socks...get it?! TUBE SOCKS! I thought this was much funnier than it actually was. Also, we passed by an adult entertainment place that had a sign saying "No VAT increase on lap dances". Good to know.

Once Heather got there, we met her friends, Robert and Anosh. We all wandered a bit, picted up some really good street burritos, and found a pub to hang out in for the night. Eventually, Brit and I made it back to the hostel and met two of our roommates who were Italian university students staying in Camden for 3 nights. They didn't know much English, we don't know much Italian; it was perfect.

Things I've Learned:

Since people drive on the other side of the road in London and lots of people apparently get hit for looking the wrong way, the city has painted on the road directions on which way to look before crossing. Apparently people's parents never told them to look both ways before crossing.

The food here isn't great. Therefore, crappy American fast food is acceptable. They also don't charge you for water here, and bathrooms have toilet seats. I'm in heaven. 

The subway system is the easiest thing in the world to use. I'm in love.

Venice part 3

Thursday, March 17

The day began same as before, yummy breakfast but sans coffee this time. Luckily, the rain weather forecast was wrong and it was sunny and mild. Joy! Kelsey and Cara slept in a bit as usual and needed more time to get ready for the day, so Heather and I ran some errands and then went to the beach on Lido. There was some building and stair structure that wasn't open at the time, so we found our way around it to the actual shore. The beach was kind of dirty, but it was still peaceful...well, except for the random scarf vendor walking around trying to sell scarves to the 5 people on the beach that day. After the beach, we went back to the hotel to pick up Cara and Kelsey and then hopped on a ferry bound for the Ca'd'Oro. Quick note: the Ca'd'Oro (also called the house of gold) has basically been my favorite piece of architecture since I saw a picture of it in my architecture history class freshman year. Needless to say, I was psyched out of my mind that I was getting to go into it. The line that we took went down the main canal and made tons of stops, so we basically got the grand tour of the city center on our way. Everything along the grand canal is absolutely beautiful, especially on a sunny day. The girls and I exited at our stop and made our way into the Ca'd'Oro museum. On a normal day, it would have cost 12 euro. However, today was the celebration of 150 years of Italian unification day (ps, it was also St. Patty's day), so we got in for free. I love Italian Unification!!! Our tour guide from the previous days mentioned that Venice wanted to be it's own country, like Texas, and probably wouldn't do much for the unification day. Free museum entry is good enough for me.

We first entered into the lower portion that opened up to the canal. This portion of the house had flooded the night before, this we gathered due to the random seaweed hanging out on the floor near the canal entry. Although this portion of the house was relatively original, the rest of the interior had been converted into a modern museum to house some of the artifacts. I was a little disappointed by that portion, but the exterior balconies were really nice and the girls and I took lots of pictures there. Or as our friend Alice says, we had a photo-shoot. After the photo-shoot, we grabbed paninis, gelato, shopped, and then headed to meet our class at the Peggy Guggenheim. As we were making our way to the Guggenheim, clouds started rolling in and we didn't have umbrellas with us. Just as our group assembled and started to make its way into the museum, it started pouring. We couldn't have timed it better. There were some interesting pieces in the collection, some Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Picasso, Mondrian and so on. We finished with the gallery as the sun was starting to come out, so we went out to the museum's little courtyard. Outside was a wish tree where you wrote something down and stuck it on the tree. Some of the wishes were really sweet, like "please help Japan" in little kid writing. And then there was one that just said "rich". Nice.

After making our wishes, we headed back to Lido to freshen up for dinner. The plan was to meet up with some of the Orvieto group for dinner. When we were talking to the other group, they hadn't decided where they wanted to eat so they told us to meet them at the train station. The station is an hour away from our hotel, so we were a bit late getting there. When we got there, the group had left Cooper by herself to come find us. She talked to the group about where they were, and they went to a place that would have been only 20 minutes from our hotel, so we had to hardcore backtrack. Nice planning team. Once we got to the stop, three different people on the phone proceeded to give Cooper wrong directions to where they were eating. After wandering around for awhile, we finally found the place. By the time we got there though, almost everyone was done eating so they left in about 10 minutes. Failure. We ate our overpriced food and after the rest of the group set out to find the pub that the rest of the Orvieto group had gone to. While this was going on, Heather and I decided to bail and go back to the hotel since we had a flight in the morning. The rest of the night was pretty chill, just packing and hanging out with Heather and Brittany, my travel buddies for the next week. Best part of the night- Since mom has taught me well, I always check under the bed when I'm leaving a hotel. While checking under the bed, I found a glasses case. Upon opening it, I found RayBan sunglasses that actually fit my face perfectly. Jackpot!

Things I've Learned:

If I ever have too much money, I'm definitely getting a little villa in Venice, for at least some of the year. I know I haven't been all over the world or anything yet, but it's my favorite of all the places I've visited.

Although the ferry system is exactly like the subway system,but on water, it throws a lot of people off for some reason. Also, I have better sea legs than most of my friends. This is another signs that I should live in Venice part time.

Venice part 2

Wed March 16

So this morning we got up bright and early and had breakfast at the hotel. The spread was pretty incredible, i have to say. During the course of this breakfast, I managed to drink about an entire pot of coffee. This was a terrible choice. I now know why some people choose to go caffeine free. It was absolutely pouring that morning when we got on a ferry bound for Murano. There was a pretty big group of us going, including the roomies, the boys, plus my London roomies and a few others. When we got off the boat, a man directed us to the left where there were signs pointing us towards a glass blowing demo. The demo was free, and a lot less explanatory than one I had seen previously, but it was still really cool. Attached was the showroom where we browsed and bought souvenirs. After most of the group getting pushed out (they weren't buying anything, they were just standing in the door), we headed back to the main area where the shops were. Unfortunately, it was during siesta so only the ones right by the dock were open. The large group was being indecisive and not going in anywhere, so Cara, Kelsey and I split of since we had a few more things we wanted to look for. While walking around, we happened upon another demonstration area connected to a shop where we could go in and just watch the men make glass sculptures. I'm pretty sure we stood there for a good 20 minutes.

After that, Kels Cara and I went back to a shop to get something that Cara needed time to think about. While doing this, the big group decided to go back to Lido. The girls and I were waiting at our stop for awhile when we saw a boat pull up at the next station over with Ryan on it. As the boat started to unload, we also saw Zach, Annie, Brit, so on and so forth. Apparently, they had gotten on the wrong boat and just circled the island. I got their attention and told them to come over to the stop that we were at. Only a few came over at first, and a bunch wouldn't at all due to a little wounded pride. About half of them almost got on the same boat they had the first time and did the whole loop again!!! That half only came over when our boat finally pulled up and all of us were getting on. Another thing about the day, everyone was super whiny about the weather, especially the boys! I've never heard so many guys complain about being cold and wet before when everyone else around them is in the same boat...literally. hehe. But seriously, suck it up! During this time, my little 10 euro umbrella from my first trip to Italy broke. Thomas tried to help me fix it on the boat, but it was a goner. It's replacement is about twice as big and cost the same though. Good trade in! The drawback is that I keep whacking people with the new umbrella, and people can't find me when I'm using it since it covers the entire upper half of my body.

After our little adventure we headed to St. Mark's Basilica for our tour. Sabine was our guide again and she led us into the church which was pretty segregated inside and looked different from ones we had seen previously. The most interesting thin in the portion was a large, golden relief that was COVERED in precious stones. I don't even remember what Sabine said about it's purpose, I was just staring at all the sparkles. I'm pretty sure I've never seen so many precious gems in one item before. After the church we toured the attached museum portion and saw lots of relics. I have to admit I wasn't paying complete attention at this point, I think my blood sugar was low and I was pretty dizzy. After the museum, Sabine led us outside for a walking tour. Luckily, it had stopped raining just in time. We walked around for about 15 minutes before Diana got a text from Jeff Clark who had gone off somewhere and gotten separated from the group. (this happens a lot actually, just to Jeff not the rest of the group). While Brittany and our professor Chip when back to try to find him, the rest of the class we played in a piazza, had some sword fights with our umbrellas, and took pictures which displayed how we felt about the situation: Kelsey was ready to punch someone, I was cheering her on, Dan looked bummed as he held the two portions of his broken umbrella....so on. During this time, we also began taking note of all the broken abandoned umbrellas littering Venice's streets and trash cans. Glad my first cheapo umbrella lasted longer than that! After they found Jeff, we continued our tour where we lost our where abouts and ended up at a large bridge market, I think it was Rialto? Anyway, at this point we were released so Cara, Kelsey, Sarah Masalskis found a little place to eat, shopped, and had some yummy gelato.

At this point, it was time for us to catch a ferry to the stop called Academia for a concertto at 8:30 (which our professors had scheduled). The rain had resumed and the tide was high, so flooding was occurring in some areas. Because of this, the number 2 ferry that we needed wasn't running so we had to take the number 1, which stops at every little spot known to man. Be barely made it to the concert, but that beats almost! The string group was really great, they even did three encore numbers! After the lovely concertto, we headed back to Lido at went to a little wine bar across the street from our hotel. Here we played cards and harassed the owners to shine a light on/ spin the tiny disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Once we were done there, there was an after party in Andres and the boy's room, but being the old lady that I am I went to bed early.

Venice part 1

Tuesday: March 15

Our train to Venice was at the lovely hour of 7:10 in the morning, so the girls and I were up quite early to finish packing and get our buns down to the train station. We also discovered that it's really hard to pack for two weeks in really small bags. The forecast for the entire time we were to be in Venice was rain, which was a bummer. Our first train took us to Florence, and then we hopped on our first Eurostar (an expensive, fast train) to Venice. Once we got there, we all had to grab a ferry to Lido, the island where our hotel was. The ferry we happened to be on felt like the slowest moving craft known to man. I could be exaggerating, but I don't think so. Like the forecast had promised, it was raining so once we got off the boat and got our stuff we rushed to the hotel. After getting there, we didn't have much time before we had to all meet to leave for our walking tour so Cara, Kelsey, Andres, Jake, Ryan and I found a quick food place near our hotel. The girls and I ordered pizza and ended up only having 8 minutes to eat it. Ever tried to eat a whole burning hot pizza in 8 minutes. Let me save you the trouble, it doesn't end well.

About half of our school was in one hotel and the rest were in another down the street, so we all met up before getting on a ferry to take us to St. Mark's Square. We met our tour guide Sabine, who talked a lot about the glory of Venice at the time of it's creation and how it sought to be bigger than Rome. She also mentioned that it was bad luck to stand between the two large columns at the entry of the square, which is where we were told to meet. Good going ksu, way to inflict bad luck on us! Since it was raining, she quickly talked about the elaborate carvings on the outside of the palace and ushered us inside. The palace is pretty extensive, lots of rooms with frescoes and gilded ceilings. Sabine told us about the Venetian Doges and the judicial system of the time that Venice was established- apparently it was pretty strict. After the palace we went on a walking tour of the city. The rain had reduced to a drizzle at this point, which was nice. Once we were done with our tour, the group headed back to Lido for Chinese food. (yup, again). It was pretty awful. The only upside was the fried ice-cream that we ordered for desert. I hadn't had it before, but baby I'm a believer now! After gorging ourselves with unhealthy things, we went back to the hotel room and hit the hay.

Why are you Wearing That? It's Toga Tuesday, Duh!!!

Tuesday 3.8

Today we had studio and seminar as usual and then watercolor. During our cake and tea session, which is of course the best part of the class, Gabrielle told us a little about his childhood in Castiglion. Since he was born in 1948, Italy was a hot mess from the war. Apparently his earliest memory is of a left over bomb (i think he meant a grenade or road device of some sort) blowing up in between Cortona and Castig F.no. Also, in his grammar school classes, they had pictures of grenades and other war devices left around and instructions to not touch them, because some kids in his class (3 brothers) had been killed and maimed from picking one up. So all of this was way depressing, but I had already finished my cake so no ruining of the food occurred. I know that's what you all were worried about. He also talked about current events and politics (as usual) and I found out how different an Italian's meaning of Left v. Right is. He was saying they're basically a right country now because left is Fascist, Communist, and Socialist. Then he asked if the USA was a left country because we elected Obama and he heard that BO was a lefty. Not that far left dude! Even the liberal kid in my class told him we were a more right country. Glad to know we're all on the same page on that one.

We left watercolor a little earlier than we usually do because we had to get back to the Study center for Toga Tuesday! Well, a few ksu people decided that fat Tuesday should turn into a toga party. We not so sneakily snuck our bedsheets down to studio and got ready so all the ksu students could walk in together. Andres carried the torch...which was a T-square. So architectural. Amazingly enough, no red sauce got on my or my roomies' bed sheets. After dinner, we changed out of the bed sheets and headed out to Velvet. Apparently in Italy, Fat Tuesday = Halloween. All the locals were dressed up in Halloween costumes, plus a bit more drag than I'm used to seeing. Maybe we should have left the togas on? After happy hour at the velvet, it was time to go back to the study center and play some card games. I've discovered that the few years I have on most of the others at the study center does make a difference. I find myself not being able to stay out very late and yelling at those kids to keep it down at night. So louuuuddddd. I'm officially an oldy moldy.

Wednesday 3.9

Today was our trip to Assisi! The orvieto group mentioned that it was really beautiful, and it did not disappoint. Assisi is probably the prettiest place we've been. It's a super clean late medieval town with greenery everywhere and most of the stone is a local pink stone. Obviously, the whole town is dedicated to the memory of St Francis of Assisi. We went to a few churches like usual. The first was the Basilica of St. Francis. This church is actually comprised of three different churches on three different levels! The first one (ground level) has really intricate frescoes on the walls and the vaulted ceiling. It's probably the most painted church we've been in. The church below it wasn't open, but the one above was so that's where we headed next. This church was more romanesque and gothic so it had really high ceilings.  On the walls were frescoes depicting the life of St. Francis. Two portions of the roof's frescoes were damaged from an earthquake (i think our tour guide Mara said it happened in 1997). Apparently those portions of the roof completely fell through and the restoration team literally picked as many specs of paint off the floor and put them back where they belonged on the roof. The Italians don't fool around when it comes to restoration.  We also went to the church Santa Chiara (one name I'll actually remember) and then the Museum and Cript of San
Rufino. Most of these churches were built on top of other things, so elements of the church are stripped away so you can see the ruins under them. Pretty cool. This town, like all the others, is really big on relics. In Santa Chiara they had all kinds of things that were supposed to have been St. Claire's...including her white blond locks of hair in a box. I'm guessing she was albino by the color of hair they had on display.

After lunch, a group of us walked up to the castle on top of the hill. I'm marking this as the first castle I've
actually gotten to go in, and let me tell you it was totally worth 5 euro. For some reason most people didn't want to go in, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't ever pass up a chance to run around in a castle for a few hours without a tour guide or tons of tourists. There wasn't much actually in the castle, except for cheesy medieval exhibits and really small staircases. The coolest part was a reallllly narrow long hallway that led to the lookout tower. I have no idea how people got past each other in that space back in the day. After climbing to the top of the tower, we were rewarded with an amazing view of Assisi and the land around it. Perfectly picturesque. After basking in the sun for awhile, we finally came down and wandered around a bit more before heading back to the bus.

Saturday 3.12

Since the last time we went to Sienna it was raining, a few of the girls (Brittany and Amanda from IA and Stephanie from LA) decided to go back there to actually get some pictures. We had originally planned on going to San Gimianno, or San Gimi-Johns as everyone keeps calling it, but it was going to be 7 hours of traveling for only 2 hours there. Bummer. Sienna was lovely though. We went by train so we had to figure out which bus to take to get up the hill. Luckly, the spot that it dropped us off at was close to where we had previously been so we found our way easily. After getting some much needed pizza, we headed to the main piazza and took pictures, then wandered to the Duomo to do the same. The rest of the day was for shopping! In one of the stores that had lots of jewelry and bric-a-brac I managed to get a coiled-snake ring stuck on my finger and by the look of the lady running the store I thought she might try to cut my finger off to get it. After about 15 minutes of two of us tugging, I was finally freed and a rule was made the Marissa is no longer allowed to try on rings in stores. Probably a good thing. We were also able to hit up a gelato shop called Grom that our previous tour guide, Giovanni, said was amazing but it was closed when we went on our field trip. I got Limone and Pink Grapefruit; I hadn't seen the later before. BEST GELATO SO FAR.

After the gelato, we headed back to the bus stop. We weren't sure what bus to get on to get us back to the station because the schedule was super confusing and terribly arranged. While we were talking aloud trying to figure it out, a guy who looked around our age with red hair came up and started to help us out. He was very obviously American. I don't know where Brittany's mind was when he started talking but at some point she goes "hey, you speak really good english!" He looked at her and replied, "yea, I'm from Michigan". Fail of the day. Silly Americana! Anyway, he got us back to the train station and we set off for home.

Things I've Learned:Every town you go to has confetti stuck in the cracks of the cobble stone. I don't know when or why they use confetti so much, but it's everywhere.

The cover charge for restaurants is well worth it to be able to use a decent bathroom.

Parental units- I now eat oranges, specifically blood oranges which are the most delicious things ever. Be proud.

Tuesday we're off to Venice and then London! I'm going to try to get internet at some point on this trip, but I
don't know if I'll be able to post. So, till I find internet again, Arrivedarci!