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 :)