Il Mio Viaggio in Italia!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Venice..

I'm posting this way after the fact, but I just decided that I should put some closure on this trip and put up pictures from my last couple weeks in Italy...

Well, I went to Venice for a day, as planned... I wasn't sure whether to expect to love it or to hate it. (Well, maybe not to hate it, but maybe not to be impressed with it) I had gotten a lot of fairly mixed reviews about the city. Some said it was their favorite place in the whole world and that they would love to spend any time possible there. Some said that it was stinky and that it wasn't as charming as one might hope. Fortunately, I was impressed with Venice and would LOVE to go back someday. However...I would like to make that trip with someone else. By this point in my trip, I was tired of traveling alone and was ready to be with Allisa - just to have a travelling companion.

Oh, and one more thing...I ended up meeting a few girls from UVA while waiting in line to buy tickets for the boat to Murano!

Here are a few of the highlights:

The charming "streets" of Venice!

I got to go to Murano, a small island right near Venice, where they have glassblowing exhibits. I made it in time for the last show of the day, which was awesome to see! That was the ONE thing that I really wanted to see in Venice...

The glassblower and his shop

The beginnings of a vase

Firing the vase

Adding a swirly bit...

The finished vase! Held with tongs of course...it's really hot!

And here is a video of him making a horse:

Making a horse!

I don't know how he can do that...

Lots of beautiful glass!

A candid photo of a gondolier and a couple little girls skipping across one of the many bridges...

Only in Venice can guys be cool and wear ribbons on their hat!

pretty boats and buildings...

some of Venice's famous sites: the Rialto and a richly decorated gondola!

View from a bridge

A bunch of gondoliers killing time... Too bad it costs almost $100 to ride in a gondola!

Venetian masks for Carnivale!

Basilica di San Marco

there are so many pigeons in Piazza di San Marco!

Friday, July 24, 2009

More in Milano...and Lago Maggiore... (two more new updates below!)

On Tuesday of the next week (after Florence and the DMB concert), I got an email from my dad saying that my brother was basically assaulted that weekend and had received a terrible concussion. I was really worried about him and couldn’t call my family or anything. It was hard to get news for a couple of days, so I couldn’t tell if he was really okay or not. But thankfully by Thursday or Friday I had gotten to talk with my parents and a little bit with Andrew, and I knew that he was in a lot of pain, on a lot of medications, was lucky to be alive after the kind of concussion he had received, but that he was okay(ish). Anyways, all of that really just made me want to be at home and to be able to be near my family and help out with anything that I could. But the only thing that I could do is to pray, so that’s what I did—along with my friends here too. I think that was the only eventful thing that week, but it was enough to fill up the whole week. That weekend I had planned to go to the countryside with the Serri family, but with everything that had happened and how tired I was from the previous weekend and the fact that I wouldn’t be able to talk to my family if I went to the countryside (but could use Skype at Samuel’s house if I stayed in Milan)…I decided to stay in Milan.

Saturday morning I just my Bible, a towel, a water bottle, and a book and went to the park and tanned and read and prayed. It was really nice to get a chance to do that…In the afternoon I went over to Samuel’s, talked to my mom for a long time on Skype then talked to Trey for a long time. Cassidy came over and the three of us talked for quite a while. Then Samuel’s roommate Mnquazi (pronounced like Nwa-zee, except with a click!!! on the “Nwa” part. Yay for cool Malawian names.) came and we chatted with her too. Then Kunda (his other roommate) made us all dinner and the five of us hung out. I spent the night at Cassidy’s, then we went to an Italian church Sunday morning with Samuel. His friends from the church, Alessio and Silvio, bought us lunch afterwards, and it was fun to just sit and visit for a while. After church, Cass and I headed over to International Church of Milan for their service. So it was church all day…I really enjoyed that church service (I love the pastor and his wife, as well as a lot of people in that church), then we all went and got Chinese food afterwards. Yum yummm…

Last week, there was basically nothing but work, work, work. I was working around 10-12 hours a day (plus a 30-45 minute trip to and from the school). I would usually leave around 7:15 or 7:30, start working around 8, finish up around 8 or 9 pm, then get home between 8:30 and 9:45. I was trying to finish up all the simulations we wanted to get done, so I was working really hard all day, without even really taking a break for lunch most days. Of course this week, once I was finally done with everything I had done, we found out that there were errors, which meant that everything I had done that week was completely useless. That is one thing that is really a bummer about research…you can go all-out in one direction and then find out (sometimes way more than a week later) that you were all wrong. Not a very good feeling. Without going into too much detail, research has been a bit discouraging and frustrating, often times because of things like this (among other things). I currently have only 4 days left next week and then I have to be done. So I don’t have any choice but to write my paper with the results I’ve got…and hope for the best.

Aside from work, in the last week, a few other things went on also. On Saturday, I met up with Cassidy, Amanda, and a girl from Cassidy’s school named Amy (who is staying in Torino for a few months). We went shopping for a bit (they had already been shopping most the day), then went to Amanda’s and got ready really quickly for a concert that we went to. The concert was at the church we went to before and we hung out with Alessio (Silvio couldn’t make it). We had a really good time.

Amy, Amanda and Cassidy at the concert

goofy pose

not-so-goofy pose...me, Amanda, Cassidy, Allessio, and a really sweet girl from his church (I'm awful I can't remember her name!)

Sunday morning we got up and donned our swimsuits—we had church at Lake Maggiore with ICM this week. We took the metro to a stop and were picked up by our respective rides, then we went and hung out at the lake all afternoon, grilled burgers, sang worship songs, read scripture, and just visited and fellowshipped (and tanned and swam a bit too). The water was quite cold though, as a big stream from melted Alps-snow was flowing into the lake right near where we were! The lake was beautiful and it was so nice to spend a day out there.

Amy, Cassidy, and Gamu at the lake!

I sure do like those mountains...

pretty swans :)

me, Pastor Jim and his wife Karen. I enjoy them a lot :)

Me and Cass, my best bud in Milano!

Pretty lake!

Tuesday was my last night at Bible study, as next week Cassidy, Amanda, and I are going to Mimo (Italy’s number one pizzeria apparently), which is about 45 minutes out of Milan I think, with Alessio, Silvio, and some of their friends. I move out of my dorm that day as well…so I’m really starting to feel things in Milan winding down to a close. Though I have really enjoyed it, I can’t say that I’m not happy to be finishing up my time here. That is, I am definitely okay with leaving if that makes sense. I am excited to go down to Rome and the Amalfi Coast, though, and meet up with Allisa for a week and a half. I think that it will be so nice to have a real vacation (once this research paper is over!) for a little while. Hopefully it will be a really enjoyable time, which I’m sure it will be! Then, right after, I leave to go home! Oh, forgot to mention, I’m planning to go to Venice on Saturday. Should be fun!

Lucca again! (DMB concert)

"GAHHH! I'm so close to Dave!!" He may look far away...but he's not :)

After my busy two days in Florence, it was nice to go back to Lucca and visit Aniek. I really love that city, and definitely wouldn’t mind going back there someday. Aniek and I went to her apartment and put my things down, then we headed to a pizzeria with lots of yummy pizza flavors. The pizzas were pretty big, but with thin crust—so we each got one. One of us got a red pizza and one got a white. We split each pizza into two different flavors—so in the end we each had two pieces of four different types of pizza. It worked out quite well. We ate a lot and brought the leftovers back for the next day. Aniek and I had a nice time hanging out, and then we went back and went to bed. In the morning, we got up, had some breakfast, hung around a bit, and then headed for Viareggio—to the beach! It was a beautiful day, and it was so nice to lie out and get some sun. (And we had leftover pizza for lunch!) Our friend Sophie from New Zealand joined us for a little while as well. Unfortunately Aniek was sunburned from a few days before, so she couldn’t enjoy the sun as much. The water felt great, though we only went in for a few minutes, and afterwards wished we had gone in for more. Oh...one other thing...we rode past lots of pretty sunflower fields, one really cool thing about Tuscany:

pretty sunflowers

We got back to Lucca and I took a 20-minute nap, we showered, got ready, had a yummy dinner that Aniek made, and went off to the Dave Matthews Band concert! We got there about 20 or 30 minutes before they opened the gates and managed to get close to the front! The concert was “in piedi” which means that you have to (get to) stand. Which also means you can be super close…we were only a couple rows of people away from the stage, which was SO cool, especially compared to my seats at the venues where I’ve seen DMB before. They played for almost four hours and it was all really good.

The people near us would’ve made the concert quite…interesting…even if the music had been boring. There were these two American ladies (sisters) and their mom (who was celebrating her 70^th birthday by being at a DMB concert in Italy. AWESOME.) who were right near us. Before the concert started they were refusing to get closer to the stage as everyone else was scooting up and they kept making a fuss about how “in the US it’s all sitting and we have seats” to all the Italians nearby. They were blocking people from getting closer and being very rude. Because I was American, I started a friendly chat with them, then after a bit, I explained that “in piedi” means standing, and tried to tell them that it was really cool that we got to stand. Anyways, I made friends with these ladies, but also was making friends with all the Italians around—asking where they were from and such. Anyways, a few of us managed to scoot around these ladies who had a large space in front of them where they wouldn’t let anyone go. But they didn’t fuss too much. I won’t go into all the details of how these ladies stirred up drama, but for one thing, at different times during the concert, they each left to get a beer or go to the bathroom—and asked us to help them save the spot (which is rather impossible at a place like that). So we did our best, which worked the first time. Then the second time, the people behind wouldn’t let the sister through (probably because the one lady who was in the front was being so rude). She asked me to help, so I spoke to the people in Italian and asked them to let her through. They kindly refused, explaining that they wouldn’t be able to see…which I totally understood. But this lady just glared at me even though I tried, and didn’t say thanks for talking to them or anything….it was just very interesting and rather ridiculous. But by the end of the concert Aniek and I had a whole new group of Italian friends and these ladies had a whole group of Italian not-so-friends. Plus these women seemed miserable to me…but oh well. Oh yeah, one girl from Rome asked to take her picture with me—I think she thought it was really cool that I was from Virginia, the same state as the Dave Matthews Band haha.

Other highlight of the night…I was wearing my VT shirt, in hopes that I basically would get invited up on the stage and get to play Boyd Tinsley’s electric violin…(For those of you unHokies, DMB played at our school after the shootings and they are from the town where our rival school is, so they are very familiar with Virginia Tech). Anyways, I didn’t get to play his violin this time. But when he was walking off the stage, Boyd definitely looked at me, gave me a nod and waved at me(!!), which in my opinion is a good start.

We went to bed and got up the next morning, had our coffee and breakfast, and said our goodbyes—Aniek went to our little language school and I went to the train station. I had hoped to catch the Regionale train to Florence, then the Intercity to Milan. However, of course…there was a train strike. I ended up waiting for almost an hour, then taking a bus to Florence. After arriving, the Intercity was no longer an option and the next two Eurostars were full. So I had to wait for 2 or 3 hours and pay the 40 Euro or whatever it is. Bummer. There was a girl who lived in Milano from somewhere in Africa who was in the same boat as me (the bus, waiting, and the other train), so we hung out all day. She was sweet, but there was a bit of a language barrier. When she spoke on the phone, I heard a mix of Italian, English and her African tongue all at once, which was rather interesting to hear. When I finally got back to Milan around 3 (I had left Aniek’s around 8:45), I was exhausted. But it was a Monday and I had work to do—so I went straight to the lab and got some things done before going home. All in all, it was a really fun, but definitely tiring, weekend.

Pictures from the concert:

The famous Andrea (aka Borat) "I'm super excited" pose

Dancing Dave...

Me and Aniek!

us at the concert...a little sweaty...

close-up of Boyd

close-up of Dave

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Florence! (And Modena too)

Me with the Ponte Vecchio in the background

So I am rather late in getting this entry out into cyberspace…if any of you are closely following, I’m sorry for the delay (though I’m sure no one lost sleep over it…at least I hope not). These last couple of weeks have been incredibly busy, so writing has been low on the priority list. Anyways, back to Florence and Lucca! (This was…2 ½ weeks ago—the first weekend in July.)

Well…I took work off on Friday (worked longer Thursday to get a little bit more stuff in), got up early Friday morning, and took the metro over to Milano Centrale (speaking of which, I really need to get a couple pictures of that building sometime - I heard it was built under Mussolini during World War II and is a really cool, huge building). I hopped onto an intercity train bound for Napoli. Don’t worry, I didn’t go all the way…I had decided to take this train and to hop off in Modena for a quick errand and just to explore briefly. This city in Emilia-Romagna is famous for its fast Italian cars (Ferrari’s and Masserati’s in particular) and its balsamic vinegar. I walked around the town for a bit, stepped into a pretty church, and just wandered until I found a cute little Enoteca, a shop for wine and – of course in Modena – aceto balsamico. I never knew much about vinegar, but like wine, the older the vinegar is, the better it is. At this little shop, they had bottles ranging from within the past year all the way up to bottles from over 100 years ago. When I came in, the man running the shop offered me a taste test. (I didn’t know people did that for vinegar!) I tried a cucchiaino (little spoon) of vinegar from an 8-year old bottle, a 12-year old bottle, and a 15-year old bottle. I think I also got to try a 30-year old kind, but I can’t remember for sure. The man was explaining to me (in Italian of course) about how the thicknesses varies over time and about how certain ones are better on certain dishes…some types are good on salad (the “younger” ones), some on cheeses, some on meats (the “older” ones I’m pretty sure), and some on gelato!! When he told me that some people eat balsamico on gelato I looked at him and definitely didn’t hide my surprise when I asked him about it. Personally, I think that sounds a little disgusting, no matter how old the balsamico is.

Cool church in Modena...

Me inside the Enoteca...the balsamico taste-testing station is right behind me to the left on the barrel thing

Just a quick fun fact…I don’t know if I’ve mentioned my ghetto, poor-college-kid way of saving money on maps or not…but if I go to a smaller city, I take a photo of the map on my camera and just look at my camera and use that instead of purchasing a map (I’ve done this for Modena, Pisa, and Cremona at least…maybe more too lol). Pretty sad, I know, but it works.

There were a couple of things in Modena that I had heard about that I thought would be cool to see—for instance the Biblioteca Estense, a library where they have a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy from 1481, as well as an early map of Colombus’s voyages from 1501. However, because I really wanted to spend a good portion of the day in Florence, I left Modena after wandering around for just an hour or so and didn’t go into any other buildings.

When I left Modena, I decided to take a train to Bologna (on the way to Florence), thinking that I would then be able to catch a cheap train to Florence. I thought about exploring Bologna as well, but decided against it. Unfortunately my guesstimations were off and I had to take the Eurostar train, which was somewhere around 30 Euro (I think?). It was basically enough so that I didn’t save me money by having gone on that Intercity train I first took…But I arrived quickly and without any problems.

My first stop in Florence was a church called San Lorenzo. Parts of this church (which was the Medici family’s parish church) were worked on by Brunelleschi and parts by Michelangelo. I was most excited about going into the Cappelle Medicee and the Cappella dei Principi, the Medici family mausoleum where (I believe) nine of Michelangelo’s statues are. It is supposed to be quite ornate and a neat place to see. However, upon arrival, I was disappointed to learn that entrance was 9 Euro. There was no student discount and there was a separate fee for going into the church. I couldn’t bring myself to pay 9 Euro for what looked like a 2-room museum. So I paid the slightly lower fee into the church and settled for that. I knew that there would be lots of things to see and that I would be spending a lot of money already on other places…

The side of San Lorenzo

After visiting San Lorenzo, I headed over to Florence’s famous Duomo: Santa Maria del Fiore. This building, along with its baptistery and tower, is absolutely beautiful. It’s busy, decorative marble patterns, along with its sheer size, make it quite a sight to see! The baptistery is one of Florence’s oldest buildings and the doors on its east side are quite famous. In the early 1400’s, there was a competition between the most famous artists of the time to design the doors. Ghiberti won the competition and made ten unique bronze reliefs representing scenes from the Bible—ranging from Adam and Eve’s exile to Moses’s receipt of the Ten Commandments to Joshua and the Battle of Jericho to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. After seeing and looking closely at the Baptistry doors, I decided to climb to the top of the Duomo, even though it was expensive. I had been told by my friend that it was a necessary experience in Florence! I think it cost around 8 Euro, but I paid up and started climbing. As I got near the dome inside I was able to see the frescoes on the ceiling much more clearly. It is a scene from the Last Judgement and contains some pretty grotesque images. By the time I got to the tippy-top, I think I had climbed 462 stairs (or something like that). It was tiring, but much like the tower in Cremona, the view was well worth the hike up the stairs! From the top, it is possible to see all of Florence and beyond into the Tuscan countryside.

Florence's beautiful Duomo, with the Baptistry in the front

The famous East Doors of the Baptistry

Me at the top of the Duomo with pretty Florence and Tuscany in the background

After enjoying the view for a while, I climbed down all the steps and proceeded onward to the Bargello. One of Florence’s many famous museums, this building used to be a prison where executions would frequently take place in the courtyard. This museum in particular has an impressive collection of sculptures. In addition to some interesting statues (and a cannon with the head of Saint Paul sticking out of it!), old coats of arms of old Florentine families hang around the courtyard.

After seeing the sculptures and some other neat exhibits, I walked over to Piazza della Signora, a huge piazza full of (copies of) famous statues. It is quite the hang-out spot and is quite beautiful. In addition to Michelangelo’s David (the real one used to stand here, but it has since been taken to a museum and replaced with a copy), there is also the famous Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna, along with several others. The Fontana di Nettuno (over 400 years old) sits on the piazza as well.

Michelangelo's David

After seeing the piazza, I walked around for a little while, with intentions of heading towards the station to catch a bus and try to find my hostel before darkness got too close. I walked around a while, saw some interesting stores and some that I shouldn’t be anywhere near… : )

Throughout the day, I forgot to mention, I had done some shopping. I bought a Florentine leather purse(!) and a couple other things. I ended up buying a good priced, cute but casual brown purse. I had bartered with one man in a shop to the point where he offered me a 240-Euro purse for either somewhere around 60 Euro (I can’t remember if it was 40 or 60)…but I told him I was on a student budget and really couldn’t bring myself to even spend that much. So I kept looking and found something that I liked for only 25. I got something for Michael and for Trey from a vendor close to my age who said he would give me a little discount because he “liked my face,” even though he knew I was buying something for my boyfriend. After I paid him, he asked if I wanted to “change boyfriends” and was sad when I turned him down. Shopping in Florence kinda made me laugh.

Florentine leather! So many good-smelling leather stores everywhere...

Then I caught the bus and ended up meeting two girls going to the same hostel on the bus, which was very nice. The hostel (which Andrea had mentioned to me before as looking really nice) was in a beautiful location with camping available on the grounds as well. The rooms weren’t spectacular, and I had to use a sheet to dry off with after showering (shhh don’t tell haha), but for only 20 Euro, it was well worth it. There were two really sweet Brazilian girls (around 22 and 26 or something, I think) and their mom in the room with me. I was very thankful that the Lord provided kind people (and not too crazy) as roommates for the night. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention—there’s a funny thing going on with rooms for me…I keep getting 208’s! My hostel room was 208, my dorm room here is 208, and my room next year in my dorm is 208! Question mark?

The outside of my hostel!

The foyer of my hostel!

So many keys for 208's...

As this journal entry is getting quite long, I’m going try to be a bit more succinct describing Saturday’s travels. In the morning I made my way over to the Fiume Arno (Arno River), which splits Florence in half. My first stop (which I was…nerdily…really excited about) was the Museo di Storia della Scienza (Museum of the History of Science). Unfortunately it was under renovation, so the two main floors were closed. I got to see the entry level and the basement, though, which had some really neat science and astronomy-type things. They even had an Astrolabe that Galileo Galilei used—and some old books by him! It should be really cool when they finish the museum up—I saw a display thing about it…I think if I get married someday, I’ll make my husband take me back to that museum I think.

Cool telescopes and globey things at the museum...

After the museum, I walked across the famous Ponte Vecchio, which was built in the mid-1300’s! Apparently, it was the only bridge in Florence not destroyed during World War II. (This is random but speaking of WWII, the other night I had a dream that WWIII started—the US declared war on Asia. Bad call.) This bridge has two parts—the main part and the elevated part. The part that it elevated was added on after the main part and was used by the Medici family to cross the river to and from their palace. This way, they could avoid mingling with the “common folk.”

close-up of the Ponte Vecchio with an Italian flag in the foreground...

Palazzo Pitti and the Baboli Gardens were next on the list. Unfortunately there are two separate fees and each one is almost 10 Euro. Everywhere in Florence costs a big chunk of change, so I was trying to be selective about which places I went. I decided that I would choose one of the two, and I went with the gardens (which also included a visit to a couple smaller museums). I was very happy with my decision and really enjoyed walking around the garden. There were some gorgeous flowers which I took lots of pictures of—using my new camera : ) I got to go to a costume exhibit, where they went through the changes in dress over the centuries. It was the coolest seeing the really old dresses. They even had fragments which had been pieced together from one dress from sometime around the 1400’s (I think)!!

Palazzo Pitti from the back--check out that view of the city!

All I'm saying is that if that is the view from your garden...life can't be too bad...

I had fun taking flower pictures...

Pretty rose...

After the gardens, I walked around the city a little bit more, made another quick purchase or two from the market vendors, and headed to the train station to catch my train for Lucca—I was quite exhausted after those two full days, though being in the park was very nice and a bit rejuvenating. Once I hopped on the train, it was only another hour and a half and I was back in Lucca! The sun was starting to set as the train was traveling, which was quite a treat—getting to be rolling through the hills of Tuscany, in a not-crowded train car, watching the sunset. Mmmm…mi piace!