So long Florence...hello Sorrento!

We have finally left Florence.

The word "finally" sounds like I couldn't wait to leave that city and move on to the next city, and that certainly isn't true. I just mean that it seems like we had been there for forever, and I was ready to see new places...But there were a lot of things about Florence that I absolutely loved and will miss:

1) The Arno River. It carved a wide expanse of "breathing room" down the middle of the city, and it was wonderful to walk across and take pictures of the Ponte Vecchio (the old bridge with all the jewelry shops.) 

2) San Miniato. Besides the church in Assisi, this was my favorite church of the trip. It's the one that sits on top of a small mountain slightly outside of the city, and it is just beautiful. 

3) Knowing where I was and knowing how to get to the grocery store, the laundry mat, our favorite gelato place, favorite sandwich shop, and the fruit market by heart. I felt a sense of independence and belonging for the better part of those three weeks just because I didn't have to pull out a map at every corner.


4) Cooking class adventures! Florence has a lot of options as far as cooking classes...and it was so much fun!

5) Seeing more sculpture and paintings than I ever thought I would. If I could make a good approximation, I would say I saw in Florence about 75% of the information I have learned in my art history classes.


6) Having Liz as my roommate! She made me laugh harder than I had in a very long time, and she is brilliant. Go stalk Liz Barfield on facebook!

But like I said, I am glad to be moving on. We left yesterday morning for the train station, and went speeding on a EuroStar train straight to Naples, and then took a bus from Naples to Sorrento. (see map!....I love maps...I secretly wanted to be a cartographer once upon a time.)

Naples is a large, busy city, and full of much louder people. We noticed the difference immediately in the personalities of the people compared to Florence, Venice, and Milan. The more south you head in Italy, the crazier people get! It took about an hour to get from Naples to the smaller, seaside town of Sorrento...and this place is beautiful. The views along the coast remind me a lot of Cinque Terre, and there are orange and lemon trees everywhere. Our hotel is really cute, and my new roomie is Anna, one of my new favorite people on this planet! We had a talking session last night with Shealy "Lil Spoon" White (our new nickname for her), and it was awesome. 


After an AMAZING night's sleep, we woke up, ate breakfast, and drove to Pompeii, a place I have wanted to see for years! This place is unbelievable. Picture a whole town, complete with streets, shops, houses, and temples, and then take out the people, the paint colors, the roofs, and belongings inside the houses, and you have Pompeii. It is one of the largest archaeological sites in the world, and the quality of preservation of this city is amazing! And yes, we were able to see a couple of the "bodies" of the people who were trapped when Mount Vesuvius erupted. (Though I learned that those bodies aren't actually petrified bodies. They are merely the casts of molds. When the people died from the eruption, they were covered by layers of ash. They ash hardened around their body before their bodies decomposed, so after their bodies did finally decompose, they left an empty "shell" which archaeologist merely filled up with plaster to show the pubic what they looked like.) We spent the whole day there looking around and listening to our guide, and now I am sitting in an internet cafe with a couple people trying to get some things done online. Two little Italian twin girls just walked up to Sarah and I and tried to talk to us in Italian, but we had no idea what they were saying...I need to learn Italian...


Much love!

The Wonderful Adventures in Cinque Terre

The pressure of adequately conveying my experience in Cinque Terre is making me stall on this blog. I sat here, in our um, quaint hotel lobby for a while trying to think of the best way to write how breathtaking, beautiful, fun, difficult, relaxing, energizing, exciting, amazing, and totally epic our adventure in that place was. I guess I’ll just write down what happened and hope that the perfection of the trip comes through on its own. (See handy dandy map again for reference.)

Twelve of us woke up early Friday morning to catch the 7:00 am train from Florence to Pisa to La Spezia to Corniglia, the “middle” town of the five towns. (Sarah Hanson took a different train with a friend, but she planned to meet us there.) The plan was to start the hike in Corniglia, hike to the next two towns, Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare, take a train to our hostel in Levanto, get to our hostel, then hike the next day to as many towns as we could before catching a train back to Florence. The train station in Florence is a couple minutes away from our hotel, so we easily got to the train station on time. Some people grabbed some good ol’ train station food, and we headed to our platform. (Let me pause here to say that everything about train stations and platforms reminds me of Harry Potter and old black and white films...aka, awesome.) Suddenly, everyone became a little flustered because there was some confusion about where our train was. There was one that said it left at 6:53...was that ours? We decided it was, and the second we ran on the train it began moving. Whew! First experience catching a train in Europe, done! We had to change trains in Pisa and then in La Spezia, but we made both of those. As we sat in the final train that was headed toward Corniglia, we suddenly stopped in the middle of a tunnel. We weren’t sure exactly how far from Corniglia we were, and thus how far from the ocean we were. As we stared at the blackness outside the windows, we began moving again. Darkness, darkness, darkness, then suddenly, OCEAN! Beautiful blue ocean all around us and below us! We had been going through a mountain along the coastline, and when the tunnel ended, we were at the sea! I screamed of course.

Corniglia was beautiful. We got off the train at around 10:30 to warm, sunny, and breezy weather, and I was ready to hike! We first tried to start on the trail near the station, but a woman in a booth-like structure told us we weren’t allowed to go because of the rockslides. We saw people walking toward Corniglia on the trail, so we asked her why they could walk it. “They live here,” she curtly said, and that was that. So we took the road for a while, but then found an opening to trail number seven about forty-five minutes into the hike, so we took the trail the rest of the way to Vernazza. The trail was the most beautiful I have ever seen. It hugged the side of the mountain with the view of the sea to our right almost the entire way.

Vernazza was...yep...beautiful. A teeny town built right between the sea and the mountains, the ocean water hit the rocks a couple feet from the front doors of the shops. We wandered around a bit finding sandwiches and small pizzas at different cafes and then ate our lunch by the water and talked about how we’re all actually coming HERE for our honeymoon (as opposed to Assisi and everywhere else we swore we were coming to on our honeymoon.) We didn’t want to stay too long, though. We still had to hike to the next town north, Monterosso, before then heading to Levanto to get to our hostel by 7:00 pm. On our way to Monterosso we ran into a ton of Americans, some from California, some from Mississippi, some from other places. It was so nice to stop for a while and talk to them and feel like we were back at home for a couple minutes.

When we arrived at Monterosso, all we could think about was getting to the water! We found the beach and ran to take off our shoes and dunk our feet in the freezing ocean water. It was one of the most beautiful days I have ever seen when being on a beach.

After staying on the beach for a while it was time to head to Levanto! Four people in our group weren’t going to spend the night, so we all went to Monterosso’s train station to buy their tickets back home and buy ours to Levanto (we didn’t hike to Levanto because it technically isn’t part of Cinque Terre, and it was a bit too far to make it by seven.) Everyone bought their tickets, said goodbye to the four people going back to Florence, and then we caught our train to Levanto. Once in Levanto, we found our amazing hostel pretty quickly. This was my first time in a hostel ever, and it was such a good first experience! Sarah and her friend met up with us, so there were...nine of us in one room, all to ourselves. After speed showers, wine purchases, and a wonderful dinner at a local restaurant, we drank our wine, met some other American kids at the hostel, and sat on the beach. A wonderful ending to a wonderful day.

The next morning we woke up (all feeling a little sore from the hike before), ate breakfast at the hostel, and were out of the room by 10. We spent some more time walking around on the beach for a while, and figured out that it was actually full of beautiful sea glass! The sight of all of us digging in the sand for the glass was pretty funny, but so worth it.

After a quick stop to the fresh produce market for some hiking fuel, I was back to the trails! We decided to first hike back to Monterosso to spend more time there, and then hike to the bottom two towns if we could. I was really sore from the day before, and was having a hard time at first climbing up the steep trail. I couldn’t believe the amount of compassion and unselfishness our group had developed for each other after Mattie immediately offered me her Motrin and someone else (I forgot who!) offered me their banana, which helps with tight muscles. I felt so much better soon after that. Ahhh...sometimes too much love is overwhelming. We reached Monterosso in about two hours, and as soon as we got to town, it started raining. The timing could not have been more perfect! But because of the rain and thunder, we decided against trying to reach the bottom two towns. It was getting too stormy and too late. So we headed to the train station, and off we went back to Florence!

Without a doubt, this small excursion away from the city has been my most precious memory from the trip so far. I am definitely coming back to Cinque Terre someday to see the bottom two towns we missed...anyone want to come with me?? Oh, and little side note: On our way back to Florence, my new wonderful friend Shealy introduced me to an amazing up-and-coming band, The Heart and the Head. This song is a little sad, but for some reason, I have not gotten it out of my head since I heard it. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2J-0EtsCpo

Much love!

David, Fourth of July Italy style, Pisa

Happy Italian Unification Day! (Italy’s equivalent of our Fourth of July). I decided to skip out on dinner tonight to stay in and do a ton of homework, eat some food I bought from the grocery store (oranges and rice cakes, anyone?), and fill everyone in on what’s been happening these past couple days. It’s been a pretty exciting week so far!

On Monday, we started the day off bright and early with an excursion to the little town of Fiesole, which sits on a hill overlooking Florence. I suppose at one time this little town was further away from Florence, but because of Florence’s natural expansion over the years, Fiesole today is more like a suburb of the larger city. It still has a lot of its village charm, and of course, amazing views. We did the usual church-visiting, note-taking deal, ate lunch, and then did more touring in Florence. I can’t tell you how many churches we’ve seen just in Florence alone...I can’t keep them all straight anymore. To be honest, all the marble, elaborate altars, painted ceilings and mosaic floors make me miss the simple and bare environment of Radius, my church back home. The churches here are breathtaking, and we marvel at the time and craftsmanship that was required to create these structures, but nothing compares to plain hardwood floors, fold away chairs, and a single wooden cross as a place to worship and discuss the One who doesn’t care about earthly decorations.

On Tuesday, we saw David! I mean, THE David. In the world of sculpture, Michelangelo’s David is equivalent to the Mona Lisa, his popularity easily observable from the huge crowds waiting outside the Accademia to see him. The ridiculous amount of naked sculptures we’ve seen on this trip rivals the number of churches, but this sculpture, by far, definitely has a reason for being one of the most famous. It really is an amazing piece of art, right down to the anatomically correct position of the veins in his hands.  (Though there was one piece of David that technically wasn’t anatomically correct...Historically, the Biblical character of David was a Jew, and this David didn’t look very Jewish, if you know what I mean...) No one is allowed to take pictures of him anymore (due to copyright laws?), but we had fun sneaking as many as we could.

Wednesday was entirely dedicated to two things. 1) The Uffizi Museum, and 2) The 150^th anniversary of Italy’s unification celebration, which is technically today, but they started celebrating the night before. One thing I didn’t realize about Italy before I arrived is that it is technically a younger country than the States. All the little towns and areas of Italy didn’t become a single country until around 1860. So, their “unification” is basically like our Fourth of July, only bigger. The streets and plazas were completely packed full of people waiting to watch the fireworks and partay. It was crazy, but how awesome was it to be in Italy for their 150^th anniversary?

Today we drove an hour and half to Pisa to see that oh so leaning tower and its accompanying Cathedral and Baptistery. It was a pretty disgusting day weather-wise with cold winds and a constant, annoying drizzle, but the weather held out for us when we climbed to the top of the tower. Climbing up the tower was an adventure in itself. I didn’t expect to feel so much of the lean, but there were times that it was difficult to keep your balance as you climbed the spiral staircase because it was leaning so much! The view from the top wasn’t the highest, but the surrounding mountains covered in dark storm clouds made it one of the most beautiful views we’ve seen. I wish I could write and tell you how wonderful and beautiful the town of Pisa is, but that just isn’t true. It is sad to see a town that has succumbed to so much tourism that it loses its charm and intrigue because of it. The few parts we walked through had nothing but cheap souvenir shops selling Leaning Tower figurines, sketchy-looking fast food restaurants, and gas stations. I’m sure that if we had had more time in the city, we would have found better areas, but all we saw was a poor, dirty town living off of the world’s fascination with its bell tower that leans to one side. This was the thought that stayed in my mind as we left that place, and I wondered if it was just the bleak weather that was affecting my opinion, or if Pisa is really that dreary all the time.

Anyway, tomorrow is a free day, and a group of us is taking a train to Cinque Terre!! (Cinque Terre is a beautiful area on the coast containing five different small villages that are built basically on the cliffs of the coast.) The plan is to take the train to one of the towns and hike the rest of them to our hostel, where we’ll stay for one night, hike some more the next day, and then come back to Florence in the evening. So pumped to spend two days outdoors! It’s going to be an early start, though. My bed is calling my name.

I miss everyone at home a lot. My day was brightened exponentially by a video that Sarah and Kat made me today, but it also made me miss Furman that much more. I am not usually one to ever get homesick (something I used to brag about), but for some reason on this trip I’ve been anxious about getting back to certain things. Maybe it is because we’ve moved so much, or because we don’t have a set schedule every day...whatever it is, I hope a good dose of hiking will cure me of this recent relapse of homesickness.

Much love!

Florence, so far

(I technically wrote this yesterday, but the internet wouldn’t let me load it)

I’ve been a Florentine for ten days now! 

Where to begin... since arriving in Florence, the best moments of the trip have happened, and the worst moments have happened. I guess because we are living here for such a long period of time compared to the rest of the trip, there is a lot of room for many ups and downs while we are here. But let me first start with what Florence is like.

The Italians consider Florence a “little big city” (I forgot the phrase in Italian) because though it is considered one of the most well-known, art-capital-of-the-world cities, it really isn’t that big or overwhelming. You can get pretty much anywhere in the city center on foot, and we have definitely proven that with the tons of walking we’ve been doing (yay butt!). There are a lot of nice stores and cafes here (some that sell their cappuccinos for a lot less than others), and not nearly as many cheap touristy stores as we saw in Venice. The Italians I’ve been able to talk with have been very friendly, but there is also a very surprising American/British population here. I definitely hear English on the streets of Florence more than I hear Italian, something I didn’t expect. For the most part, we have had beautiful, cool, sunny days for touring, (Spring is almost here!) but the past couple days have been rainy. Our tour guide for our time in Florence is named Francesca, a hilarious, upbeat woman who always keeps us on our toes. She is hilarious and very eager to help us in any way she can.

Let’s start out with the not so great moments since arriving in Florence:

1)    I lost my first large chunk of money (50 euros)

2)    Liz, my roommate, and I both woke up on Friday sick as dogs. It was convenient that Friday, Saturday and today were all free days, so we didn’t have to tour the museums and churches while sick, but it was also a bummer to spend most of our time indoors. We’re both a little better today, but it is definitely going around. Cameron, Dr. Hestermann, Amanda, Roo, and Jane-Allison all have similar symptoms...Liz is convinced it’s a deadly Italian pathogen we’re not used too...I'm convinced it's just a cold. 

3)    I experienced my first extremely uncomfortable situation with an Italian man. Of course, I did everything wrong that you’re not supposed to do in a situation like that, but it’s difficult not to be polite! I was sitting in the lounge area of our hotel Thursday night by myself with my laptop, trying to get some work done and emails answered. All of a sudden, this slightly older Italian man walks by, stops, and proceeds to have a conversation with me. At first I was only bothered by the fact that he was interrupting a very important email I was trying to concentrate on, so I smiled politely while I answered his questions. Then he asked me if I wanted a drink with him. I said yes. Oops. So he went to the bar, came back with two drinks, and sat down next to me. He asks me more questions, grabs my hand, strokes my wrist, and then proceeds to talk about sex. Hooray. It was soon after this that I got up enough courage to tell him I had to go. The best part of this whole story is that he works at the hotel...as our waiter. So I get to see his beautiful face many more times before we leave.

I guess in retrospect, there are worse things that can happen. I’ve realized if those are the worst moments of the trip so far, I’m having a pretty good trip! And now, the best moments:

1)    Walking through the Boboli Gardens. My camera battery died before I was able to take any pictures of this beautiful place (sorry!), but I didn’t mind. I enjoyed just walking around with the group and staring at all the beautiful green. The Boboli Gardens are located behind the Pitti Palace and is probably the most famous park in Florence, known for it’s huge size and old history (I think it was designed in the middle of the 16^th century). It was so refreshing to walk around such a large expanse of green after spending so much time surrounded by traffic and buildings. If I have come to any realization so far, it is that I am never going to live in a city. I miss the trees too much.

2)    Walking up the dome of the Duomo AND the Duomo’s belltower in the same day! The hike up the stairs (around 450 for each of them) was not easy, but it was fun telling each other we were almost there. Once we got to the top, the view of Florence from these structures was unbelievable! We were able to climb on one of the warmest, most sunny days we’ve had so far, and it was amazing to be able to take pictures, point out landmarks we recognized, and try and count all the villas in the surrounding mountains.

3)    Wednesday was Dr. Leavell’s 70^th birthday! For those of you who don’t know Dr. Leavell, he would be proud of the fact that I was telling everyone is age, because he does NOT look nearly that old. He and his beautiful, wonderful wife Judy (who came to Italy with us!) have spent the majority of their lives traveling the world together, and there is no stopping them. Their next planned trip is for Egypt! They have so much spunk, energy, and kindness between them, it is hard not to be obsessed. Anyway, we wanted to let Dr. Leavell know how much we loved him, so we had a little birthday party for him in the hotel after dinner. Isn't he the cutest??

4)    Italian hot chocolate. Or more like a melted chocolate bar in a cup. I was with my wonderful Jackie when I got my first cup last week! 

5)    Yesterday, I decided to venture out of my quarantine zone to join some girls in a walk up to the church of San Miniato, located on a huge hill overlooking the city. We wanted to make it to hear the Gregorian chants that the monks do. After powerwalking up the side of the hill for forty-five minutes (with Ashley in heels because she had to go somewhere directly afterwards and didn’t have time to change...she is baller), we got to the church with four minutes to spare...until we realized that we were actually an hour early. After laughing at ourselves for how quickly we had walked, we decided to make the best of our hour by the church and get some gelato. Sitting on the steps, eating gelato, and gazing out of the city with these new, uplifting people in my life was so wonderful. An hour later we really did hear the chants in the church...simply haunting and beautiful.

Time to get some sleep before a full day of touring tomorrow. I hope all my Furman people’s spring breaks went amazingly! Miss y’all oh so much.

Much love!

Too many towns!!

Wow. Time has flown by since landing in Milan three weeks ago...we finally made it to Florence on Thursday! We even drove through some snowy landscapes in between San Gimignano and Florence:

Three words to sum up Florence so far: fast-paced, friendly, and, strangly, homey. We are in Croce di Malta hotel, a five (or seven) minute walk from the Duomo, and my new roomie is the beautiful Liz Barfield!

Florence will be our most “permanent” destination on the trip. We get to be here for three straight weeks! It will be a welcomed break from all the constant town-hopping we have been doing since we left Venice. Since leaving the sinking city, we have visited Padua, Ravenna, Assisi, Montepulciano, Siena, and San Gimignano, along with a couple pit stops to see a random church, winery, or even a cheese factory along the way (the cheese factory being a small farm with baby goats frolicking about). The last time I wrote we were in Ravenna...and to be honest, I am having a hard time separating those couple days in Ravenna from all the others spent in the other towns. Being able to see so many different places has been an amazing part of this trip, but it has also been the most tiring. I didn’t realize just how little down time we would really have. Today I actually have time to sit down and write this because this is our day off, our second day off since landing. I don’t want to sound like I am complaining...I know how lucky I am to be able to be in Italy. But no matter what country you’re in or what you’re seeing, sometimes you just need time to yourself to recharge and think about all the things you’ve been doing. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish that today.

The towns I mentioned above were all awesome, but some ranked higher on the awesome scale than others. Ravenna and Siena were the largest, busiest of all of them, but the smaller towns were my favorite. Coming in at a number one was the amazing day spent with the Gattavecchi family at their wineries in Poggio alla Sala and Montepulciano.

For our wine class we basically have to visit a ton of wineries, taste their wine, and write reports about each one. We’ve been to...ten or eleven already, but every winery is very different, and they each have their own way of doing things. For this particular wine tasting, I forgot that I was at a family’s business, and instead thought that we were all having a huge dinner at an old friend’s home. The owner of the business (probably a very wealthy and intelligent business man) was dressed in jeans and an old jacket, and served all 26 of us himself. Most of the other wineries also did this, but we all just connected with this amazingly sweet and humble man and the way he treated his guests. We were served delicious homemade food and tasted five different wines. Such a happy relaxing meal!

After the meal, we all walked around the gorgeous town of Montepulciano to look at the shops and scream at the amazing views. 

Coming in at a close number two was the picturesque fairy-tale village of Assisi. All I had previously known about this little village was that there was a Saint Francis of Assisi, but maybe that’s why this mountain-top heaven is so special...it is so removed from anything wordly (wars, development, etc) that it has kept its pristine beauty. We drove up the huge hillside toward Assisi as far as the bus was allowed to go. When it couldn’t go into town any further, we all got out, walked the rest of the way up, and screamed at the amazing view. Nothing but green grass, houses, mountains as far as we could see! We walked up to Saint Francis Basilica...by far my favorite church. Simple and quiet on the outside, is it preserved in time by the lack of modern development around it. The inside was bright and colorful, with a strange blue-green tint covering the ceiling. We had an amazing guide for this church and for the rest of the town (which is mostly just shops, much amazing views, homes, and more churches). I wish I could remember his name...After the tour we explored the town, I lost my camera in a hat store then found it again, and saw the most beautiful sunset in the world...(the picture of which I have been trying to upload for forever now...)

What a good day.

Time to enjoy the sunshine/do some homework before our group dinner tonight. Hopefully I’ll have some Florence stories for everyone soon. I hope all my Furman people are having fun on their Spring Breaks! You better tell me all about them...I think I'm starting to get a twinge of homesickness :( 

Much love!

Leaving Venice

I am now in hotel number four, in Ravenna. We left Venice bright an early this morning on a water taxi just like the ones we rode in on. Sunny, perfect weather didn’t make it any easier to leave this crazy sinking water city.

           

Highlights of Venice:

1)    My roommate Jackie. What an amazing, caring, wonderful person in my life! Of all the reasons why I came to Italy, I think the top is to meet and form relationships with new people, people I normally wouldn’t hang out with because of differing majors/friend groups/living situations. Jackie was a quality roomie, especially when she was convinced, in her sleep, that I was her mom.

2)    Our tour guide Guido. The patience and unassuming nature that man has is something I strive for every day! And he was hilarious. When the group took a boat to the small island of Torcello, we visited a stone “throne” that was supposedly Attila the Hun’s. There is a legend that if you sit on that chair, you will be married to the love of your life in a year. So Guido took it upon himself to sit in the chair, surrounded by all the girls on the trip.

3)    The roof of San Giorgio Maggiore. The quiet, simple, and stoic nature of the inside of this church was something I already liked when I walked inside, but I fell in love with this building the moment I we were able to walk on the roof. It was a perfect late afternoon, and the views were indescribable. On one side you could see nearly all of Venice, and on the other was a pure expanse of blue ocean.

4)    The Church of Saint Mark. The gold mosaics of the walls and ceiling of this structure are everywhere and overwhelming.

5)    People dressing up in masks and costumes to get ready for Carnival. Carnival is actually going on next week I believe, but a lot of people were already wearing their masks and capes (think Casanovas everywhere) to get ready for it.

6)    Running to bakeries, gelato shops, or coffee shops with people after dinner and tasting other people’s goodies.

7)    Taking walks with people like my Katie Love down the main canal and talking about life.

8)    The fact that Venice floods. The high tide occurs twice a day, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that Venice floods twice a day, but it does affect the water levels significantly. I only saw water bubbling up late at night, but what a strange sight it was. Instead of the water spilling over the sides of the canals, it actually bubbles up all over the city from vents that are specifically designed for that purpose. You can sit close to Saint Mark’s Square and watch the water slowly cover it. The water then goes back into the canals through the same holes.

9)    All the hundreds (well, it seemed as though there were hundreds) of all the little bridges going over every tiny canal. Looking down every canal from these bridges gets you a perfect picture every time.

10) The bells coming through our windows in our rooms. There is just something about ringing church bells...

After we left Venice we made a quick pit stop to Padua, the home of Europe’s second oldest university. I really loved the little bit of Padua we saw, and I wish we could have stayed longer. It is much less touristy than Venice, with cobblestone streets, residents on bikes, and Padua University students walking around everywhere. The highlights of this day trip were touring the world’s first operation theater (med school students who watched their teacher operate on a dead body), and the Scrovegni Chapel. The chapel is small and simple, but covered from floor to ceiling with frescoes by the famous Italian artists Giotto. My favorite part is the ceiling: bright blue and covered with stars.

It’s nearly midnight and we have a full day touring Ravenna tomorrow. We’ll be here for two nights, then it is off to Assisi, then Siena! I miss you all bunches. Let me know about any updates with you guys.

Much love to you all!

Out of the countryside, into Venice

A full week has yet to go by since we landed in Milan, but it feels like I have been here for so much longer.  We are already in our third hotel (Hotel Firenze) in Venice, our third major destination, at which we arrived last night! My new roommate Jackie (we get new roommates every time we move) and I are sitting in our room, working on our winery tour reports. Well, at least she is :) Our room is small and beautiful. This building is very old, nestled in between all the other buildings, so you can't even tell it is here from the front. The sounds of Venice are coming through our window...voices, bells, clicking boots...but I am getting distracted. I will go back a little to catch everyone up.

After we finished touring Fontanaferra and eating a wonderful dinner on Monday, we woke up early on Tuesday to visit two more wineries: La Corte (which is owned by the same family that owned our hotel) and Contratto. Obviously La Corte was very close to our hotel, and afterwards we had a wine tasting of five different wines. On our way to Contratto, we stopped at a beautiful little town, Acqui Terme, to have lunch. Know for their natural hot springs, Acqui Terme is probably one of my favorite places so far. It has cute colorful shops, some cobblestone streets, and good food. A group of us ate lunch at a pizzeria and then went right down the street to the most amazing gelato place I have seen yet. The coffee gelato was delicious!! 

After lunch we headed to Contratto, in a town which I can't remember. It is an amazing winery with huge underground cellars, all dug out by hand. After the tour of the winery, the second wine tasting of the day was underway. I have never had so much wine in my entire life as I have had these past five days...and I am slowly getting used to it. 

The next day, it was time to head to Venice. I was sad to be leaving the La Corte Hotel and the Piedmont region in general. It really is one of the most beautiful areas, and it was cold and rainy the whole time we were there. I can't imagine how breathtaking that area is during the summertime. 

The three and a half hour drive to Venice wasn't bad (we stopped for lunch and a tour of ANOTHER winery..Valpolicella) but once we arrived, it got crazzzzehhh.

First of all, it was completely dark, and completely pouring. To get to Venice, you have to pull up to this docking area, and split the group up into smaller groups, and get into these covered motor-powered boats. Once nine of us were in a boat (who knew where all our luggage was at this point), we were wisked away down the main canal. We couldn't see anything because it was dark and stormy...we knew we had arrived when the boat drivers started yelling at us to get off. So we did. Fortunately, after some asking around, we found Hotel Firenze! (It is literally just a door in a narrow alley way, so I am so surprised we made it.)

After we all arrived from out boats, we headed to dinner. Walking to dinner wasn't a problem...walking BACK was. By the time we had finished dinner, the high tide had come in. I don't know why I didn't know this before, but the lovely town of Venice is submerged twice a day, and unfortunately, we didn't  ride canoes to dinner. My poor Toms are still airing out in the bathroom. 

Today consisted of a full day of touring Venice (I was in the Piazza de San Marco, mom!) We visited the Doge’s Palace, the Basilica San Marco (gorgeous!!), the Museo Marciano, the Camponile, and the Museo Correr. We have a new tour guide for Venice, named Guido (I know, Jersey Shore, anyone?) and he is PRECIOUS. He's been a tour guide for nearly 30 years, and his attitude and upbeat personality kept us going through the day. Tomorrow will be an equally busy touring day, and I can't wait to hang out with him again!

Ok, we're supposed to meet in the lobby to head to dinner soon. I probably won't be posting so often in the future, but I am taking advantage of our free working internet here in the hotel while I can. 

Much love to you all!

                                                                   

                                                                             

                                                                        

Milano and FontanaFredda

Finally! Working internet, an outlet for my computer charger, and time.

I am sitting in the beautiful lobby area of our second hotel already, called La Corte, with Jackie, Megan, and Dr. Hestermann. It is a small, rustic hotel on a hill in the small town of Calamandrana (I hope I spelled that right.) We left Milan this morning and drove three hours to Alba to tour our first vineyard and winery, Fontanafredda.

The flight to Italy went amazingly well. I sat with my plane buddy Liz Barfield, and slept most of the time. We flew on Lufthansa, a German airline, so all of our stewardesses were German and spreken de deutsch! We landed ahead of schedule in the Frankfurt airport, and sat down in the waiting area for our connecting flight to Milan. The first thing we figured out was that Europeans don’t really use water fountains as much as Americans do. Everyone stared at a group of seven or eight of us as we aimlessly wandered around the airport with our empty Nalgenes, looking for water like we were going to die. We finally found the single water fountain later on... After a very quick connecting flight, we landed in Milan in the early afternoon on Saturday. Our lovely tour guide, Andrea (he’s a boy) was there waiting to meet us. He has green eyes and walks verrrrrry slooowly :) We loaded up into our bus, and it took about an hour to get to our first sightseeing destination – the Duomo di Milano! It was a beautiful, clear day when we stepped out of the bus and saw this enormous cathedral, which began being built in 1386. The white marble practically glistened against the bright blue sky. There were thousands of people walking around the square in front on the Duomo. It was so surreal to be there surrounded by so many Italian voices and noise and movement right after stepping off the plane. We toured the inside of the cathedral, and then walked around the surrounding area briefly before heading back to our hotel.

We met for dinner at a restaurant around seven, and we were the very first people there. Everyone eats so late here! And it’s not just that they eat later (people started to show up around 8) it is that they eat slower. A meal could easily last up to two and a half or three hours, but there is so much time between courses to talk, digest, and sip your wine that you don’t feel like it has been that long.

The next day was an early start with breakfast at the hotel, followed by a full day of touring. We visited the Brera Museum (FILLED with paintings...one of my favorites was Francesco Hayer’s The Kiss), the famous Scala opera house, a quick lunch break (a cheap cafeteria-style place called Ciao) the Sforzesco Castel, and the Basilica of Saint Ambrose. We went back to the hotel for a quick break before it was dinnertime again at a different restaurant. (I wish I could remember all the different restaurant’s names to make any recommendations...I’ll try to write them down from now on.) Dinner the second night was even better than the first. I had the best tiramisu in the world! The time after dinner was spent trying to find free internet in Milan, which a group of us found right by our hotel outside of a small club, but it was expected that you bought drinks if you wanted to use their internet...so we did...Unfortunately my battery died soon afterwards, so I spent the rest of the time sadly telling the flower guy I didn’t need a rose and observing Italian nightlife.

The next morning we loaded up on the bus again, left the city of Milan, and drove to the countryside of Alba, in the Piedmont region of Italy, to visit Fontanafredda.

The area this winery covers is enormous. It is more like a small community than a winery, with countless buildings, gardens, a pond, old cellars, a church, small areas of woods, and a huge gift shop. We spent a long time wandering the gardens and taking pictures before our tour of the winery began. My only regret was that it wasn’t summertime. The grape vines have to be beautiful in the summer.

Our tour was very interesting, and the oak barrels were huge! So much work and tradition and time goes into making the wine. After the tour, which was an all-day event, we headed to our hotel that I am in now. I wish we were here for more than two nights! The view outside my bedroom window is perfect, filled with old buildings and trees and green and fog...I will try to take more pictures of the area tomorrow morning.

I keep telling myself that even though I will be exploring this country until April, I need to appreciate every little stop along the way. So I will try to keep that up.

Much love to you all!

We have arrived!

Hey everyone!

We have arrived in Italy!!!

I am sitting in my room with my new roomie for a few days, Hannah, in Milan. The traveling part went fine. We just got back from eating dinner together with the whole group. I can't believe I am here! We have already seen the Cathedral of Milan. So beautiful it was beyond words. 

I am so tired I can hardly type, so I will try to give a more comprehensive update later!

Almost There

I am writing this from the same spot I have been in all week: the basement of the library, at more or less the same computer, usually with my trusty study buddy Megan.
If you have seen me or talked to me at any point since I've been back at Furman, you probably heard me say the same thing over and over again..I just want to get to Italy. Everyone going on this trip knew that pre-Italy schoolwork was going to be tough, and everyone also knew that it was going to be worth it. Once we land in Italy the majority of our time will be taken up by traveling and sight-seeing, and it simply won't be conducive to hold normal classes. So, though we will constantly be learning, we won't have as much work. To make up for this, our lovely professors (who really are lovely when they're not asking you to ditch sleep, social life, and sanity) have opened the floodgates of Furman hell.
So...through bloodshot eyes and fried brains, we are still reasurring ourselves that Italy IS worth it, and that we are halfway through our last week of classes. After Friday, on which we have two exams, things will get much easier, and I will finally have time to do some major shopping and packing.

There HAVE been some positives this week:
On Tuesday we had our first little field trip to a vineyard and winery in North Carolina, about 45 minutes from Furman. Green Creek Winery is a small, recently opened, precious little place. Owned by Alvin Pack (awesome name), Dr. Hestermann and the whole group were treated to a tour of the winery and a wine-tasting session. I am no wine connoisseur (yet!), but I thought their wine (which they grow, process, bottle, and sell right there) was very good.
Our class finally finished all our presentations for both biology and history class. Yay!
I am getting better acquainted with a lot of people going on the trip, and am learning that I am so blessed to be able to meet so many hilarious and supportive people.

That's all for now. Almost there...cue The Princess and the Frog :)

Italian Refugees and Dinner in Plyer

I never thought dinner in the science building would ever be that good. 
As part of our wine and olives course, our whole class, our professors, and their families eat an Italian dinner together every Wednesday night at 5:30, cooked by a group of students in the class (I am part of the group that cooks next Wednesday.) Tonight we had a delicious salad, bread with olive oil, chicken, bowtie pasta, veggies, and a desert that started with the letter s... for super yummy. One point for Dr. Hestermann for a really really good idea. 


The whole day preceding dinner is a blur. Already losing steam because of lack of sleep (stupid Lorenzo de' Medici), class was slightly complicated with a lack of a definite classroom for us. Apparently because we are only here for a couple more weeks, there hasn't been assigned a single room for us to meet. Fortunately we have very easy going professors, who smile and say, "Well, that's the Italian way!" So the refugees we will be. 


What I learned today:
Dr. Bibb says the word "squishy" often, and to describe things I wouldn't normally think as being squishy. "Many of Joseph's brothers were illegitimate...it was a squeeeeeshy situation." 
Dr. Leavell loves to talk about the fact that he doesn't have any hair on his head. 
The Brick Testament is quite a scholarly source when exploring the intricate stories of the Bible. http://www.thebricktestament.com/ 
There are some wonderful people on this trip that I can't wait to get to know better!


Alright. I wish I could recount the day in better detail, but sulfur compounds, the topic of my biology presentation, is calling my name. 

Day one..finally.

My first blog. Weird. I kind of feel like a 37-year-old single woman, typing away in an apartment in New York. With cats. Not that there is anything wrong with being 37...

Anyway, I will push past these feelings of wanna-be-artsy-weirdness and explain to whoever will be reading this that I have a real reason in writing. 

On February 11th, I will be flying out of Atlanta with 21 other awesome Furman students and 3 precious Furman professors to study in Italy, and spending the remainder of my spring semester there! (I come back home April 8th). I am starting this record-keeping now because our classes that we will be taking while in Italy have started today (they were supposed to start Monday, but after a pretty significant ice problem that caused the roads to be too dangerous, classes were canceled for four whole days), and I wanted to write down the necessary intro speech to this wonderful semester before classes started to get really messy. 

Basically, I will be taking four classes, three of which will begin here at Furman and continue in Italy, and the fourth will be a travel study course. The classes I am beginning now are Italian Medieval and Renaissance History, The Bible and the Arts, and Regional Agricultural Science (which is a biology course about how grapes and olives are grown, processed, and consumed in Italy. Yes, a biology course about nothing but wine and olives.) These next four weeks at Furman before we leave are going to be pretty demanding, as we will be learning a TON of information and taking tests before we leave, so as to have an easier schedule when traveling from city to city all over Italy :) I keep telling myself all this work now will pay off once we're all there. Other than classes, we will be spending the rest of our time traveling from city to city, touring ruins, museums, churches, farms, and vineyards. The majority of the trip will be spent in Venice, Florence, and Rome, but we will be visiting many other regions as well. Through this adventure, I hope to expand my knowledge of art history to help toward my major, but I also hope to simply...grow. Grow in my knowledge of the world around me, grow as an adaptable and flexible person, grow in my relationships with friends, in my ability to meet new ones, and grow in my independence and self-confidence. 


I will try to update a couple more times before leaving on the 11th, but I won't be too worried about recording the ho-hum life at Furman. The real reason for this blog will be to remember and share with you guys the experiences I will have in Italy, a place I never thought I would be fortunate enough to visit this early in my life. 

Well, I'm off to continue reading the biography of  Lorenzo de Medici...I'll be in the library for the next four weeks of my life.