Amsterdam

So here it is: my last weekend travel update. It’s sad, but I need to get used to doing a lot of “lasts” in the next few weeks.

This weekend was Amsterdam. I had no idea what to expect, and didn’t do any research on the city, but everyone told me I would absolutely love it. I did. It was disappointing to spend only 48 hours there. I did a lot of wandering, which was great but also very cold. I don’t know how to describe Amsterdam other than “cute”. It was adorable. There were Christmas lights on almost every street. (They just turned them on in Florence too!) I even thought it was cute when two boys were pouring water on passersbys just because they were doing it out of window in an old Dutch building in front of a canal. There were shops in every window – books, clothes, cool house gadgets, etc.  – and each was cuter than the next. What I saw of the city reminded me of places like Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and P-Town. It may have been because of the water and the tourists (there were more than in Florence), but I think it had more to do with the trendy shops everywhere. I just did a lot of window-shopping in the neighborhoods with the cute stores. Everything, including food, was really expensive.

The architecture was fantastic too. Most of the buildings are tilted and crooked. I’m assuming the foundations just weren’t supportive enough to keep them straight. The effect is awesome. Some buildings were built with strange angles for corners and mess with your mind’s sense of perspective. Other buildings are so titled that the windows are on a diagonal. As my friend Ben said, “You can see why the cubists liked it so much.” I loved the windows on all the buildings – huge and open. They weren’t like Florence’s windows that are always shuttered and closed. I could even look in a few of the second story windows to see apartments, offices, and dinner parties.

The thing that surprised me the most about Amsterdam was the “seediness.” I expected it to be dirty and trashy. And it was dirty and trashy, but in a cutsie way. We were intrigued by the red light district and walked through it a bunch of times. Even though the prostitutes were disturbing and sad, they weren’t dirty hookers standing on the street. They each had their own little cubicle and turned men away that they didn’t like. With all the neon lights and British and American tourists, a lot of areas of Amsterdam felt like a movie set at night.  It was seedy in a non-dangerous way, like P-Town or LasVegas. (I’m comparing Amsterdam to cities I’ve visited in the US, but it’s really much different from anywhere I’ve been before.)

We kept a little diary to remember everything we did, but after the length of last weekend’s post, I won’t go into every detail.  We spent a lot of time just hanging out, trying to stay out of the cold.  We forgot to research what traditional Dutch food was (oops!) so I ended up eating a lot of fast-food, like Subway-style stirfry and a falafel. We did sit down for pancakes once. They were as good as we expected them to be. I got Poffertjes, which are quarter-sized pancakes, and they were covered in walnut ice cream and whipped cream.

On Friday afternoon we went to the Van Gogh museum, which was awesome. There’s a field surrounded by museums, the Museumplein, that reminded me a lot of the National Mall and got me a little excited to go home to DC. The museum was great. The people in charge must know how many people want to get close to the actual paint – there were rope barriers and glass frames on every painting. On Saturday we went to the Anne Frank house. I only read excerpts from the book and I remember parts of the movie from when I was younger, but seeing where she lived made me want to read the her diary. The most moving room was her bedroom, where they still have all the clippings from magazines that she used to try to decorate her walls. They had her actual diary on display too, which was really cool.

This was the first time I’ve traveled with more than two other people and it was definitely a lesson in compromise. There were a lot of people I wanted to meet up with and hang out in Amsterdam, but after a few hours I realized it wouldn’t be possible to see everyone. We actually ran into Ben and Cameron (from Rome) twice, which made it a lot easier to hang out with them. I tried really hard to meet up with Jess’s (from AU) friend that she met in Madrid. After a day of phone calls trying to meet up, we finally both decided we could meet at a bar – only to find out that it was a chain and there were four or five in Amsterdam. It didn’t help that all the street names were un-pronounceable either. Dutch is a very funny language.

All in all, Amsterdam was added to my “Cities I’ve Been To But Need To Go Back To” List. I don’t think I got everything out of Amsterdam that there was to get. I didn’t do any research before I left, so I didn’t know which neighborhoods I wanted to go to or what things I wanted to see. I’m glad I didn’t have expectations though, because it was difficult to do everything that everyone in the group wanted to do. I also stayed in a hostel downtown, so I didn’t venture into the outskirts much. I’ve heard from a lot of people that the cities surrounding Amsterdam are the same thing, just less touristy. So, I guess I’ll just have to stay longer next time! (Jess & I are already semi-planning a trip for next May. We’ll just need to see what funds are available at the time!)

More Rome & Happy Thanksgiving

I apologize that I’ve gotten lazy with this thing. So much happens everyday that I want to write about and it’s difficult for me to sit down and summarize it. (As you can see by the length of this post, I’ve gotten very bad at summarizing.) I always end up writing about my weekends, because that’s when I have time to digest everything I’ve been thinking about and spit it out into some kind of cohesive whole.

If I had to pick a theme for the last two weeks, it would be meeting new people. Now that everyone is traveling less, I’ve spent more time with people from SACI, and we’re all wondering why we started hanging out with only a few weeks left. Also, staying in Florence has allowed me to meet some of the endless travelers filtering in and out of the city and it’s been a lot of fun to hear their stories and get to know them.

Two weekends ago, Allison’s friend from home was visiting, so I decided I would make it a “touristy” weekend in Florence. I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but I wanted to live with the kind of abandon I do when I’m visiting new places - aka go out to eat a lot. It was fun and I ended up trying out two restaurants I’ve wanted to go to for a while. One of them, I Due Fratelli (The Two Brothers), is a little hole in the wall near the Orsanmichele. You order from the list of about 30 panini (I got wild boar and butter), choose which kind of wine you want in your mini glass, then stand outside and eat. I guess it’s the closest thing you can get to Italian fast food. There’s even little numbered shelves on the wall for you to put down your wine!

That weekend was a lot of fun, and we met some of the travelers I’ve been talking about. It’s strange, because these people could have easily be written off as people I’ll never see again, but for some reason (I’ve been calling it the traveler-bond in my head) I have a feeling we’ll keep in touch, and I’ve actually met up with a few since then. On Friday, we met a guy named Luke who was traveling around Europe for a semester. He heard us speaking English, asked us if we were American, explained that he was traveling alone and asked if he could tag along with us. We brought him to lunch and climbed the Duomo. He ended up hanging out with us and another group of our friends for the rest of the week. On Saturday night, we met two guys, Ben and Cameron, who also pulled a “Hey are you American?” They’re studying art and photography in Rome and were visiting Florence for the semester. We hung out with them and Katie’s (from home) friend, Alex, who is also studying in Florence for the semester, until early in the morning. Later, on Monday, Luke found a new friend in his hostel, Ily, from Canada, who’s also traveling around Europe.

That Sunday, Jess came to Florence with her school and it was great to see her again. Over the summer we promised we would meet up in Europe, but I didn’t think it would actually happen. On Monday I brought her to La Cite where we tried to listen to the live music but ended up just talking our faces off and catching up on a much of the last two months as we could. Later in the night I brought her over to Santo Spirito and we continued talking on the fountain until it got too cold. On our way over the bridge going home, we ran into Luke, and met Ily. We all ended up back in my apartment talking about life and art and other things until Jess caught the first bus back to her hotel in the morning.

The rest of the week was good. We watched a movie one night, made fajitas another. On Thursday night, I spontaneously decided to go on the Rome field trip with school. I had thought about going, then stopped thinking about going because I didn’t have anyone to go with. I realized that it could be fun to go alone and that’d I’d never get a free trip to Rome again so I went home at 2:00 a.m. to start packing and woke up two hours later to finish and catch the train.

This entire semester I’ve battled with myself over the best way to travel. I’m never sure if it’s better to see all the sights, or simply wander around and get a feel for the city. I know that the best solution is a little of both, but this trip to Rome made me realize that seeing side streets, discovering cool places, and meeting new people is what really makes me happy. The school trip was with the art history teacher, Helen, that I’ve heard nothing but bad things about. Even people who really enjoy art history complain that she is too intense and spews out way too much information for everything she talks about. It was true – the tours I did with her were overwhelming and exhausting and I had to constantly remind myself that I love the thing she was talking about. She had the ability to make me despise things I would have normally found breath taking. I did the first tour in the morning with her to visit the Colosseum and the Forum, which I wasn’t able to visit when I went with my parents. I’ll admit that by the time we actually got there, I was tired and cold and wet from the rain. I would have preferred strolling at my own pace instead of sprinting around with Helen, but it was great to see everything and the top of Palatine hill was beautiful. And although she’s overwhelming, Helen has a lot of interesting things to say.

I left with my friend, Jess, from SACI (no Jessica who I’ve talked about a lot), who was also on the trip, after the Forum to go back to the hotel. We’d been touring with Helen for 8 hours and we were exhausted. (There were still three more hours of tour left!) After a quick rest, we strolled around near the Trevi Fountain, people watched, and grabbed some dinner. That night, I met up with Ben and Cameron, who I had met the weekend before. They live in an amazing apartment with seven other guys from their school. It has a balcony over-looking Campo di Fiori, which is a piazza filled with bars and people hanging out. We stayed there for a while, again talking about art and life (it’s pretty much all I do these days), then headed over to Trastevere (the “bohemian” neighborhood on the other side of the river) with some of his friends. I’ll admit that I wasn’t in love with Rome the first time I went. But I found that it comes alive around midnight. There were people everywhere, crowding all the piazzas and narrow streets. I loved how big and bustling it was and really felt that I had found a piece of Rome that hadn’t sold out to the tourists yet.

The next morning, when I woke up, I realized that I really didn’t want to go see anything touristy. All I really wanted to do was walk around and take pictures – so I did. And it was one of my favorite moments of the trip. Sure, I missed out on some things like the perspective gallery and a palace (which I actually stumbled upon in my wanderings), but getting lost in the streets of Trastevere was great and I also went to visit Castle St. Angelo. It was really early, so there was nothing open, but it was a gorgeous day and it was awesome to wander around on my own. When I finally continue uploading my pictures, which won’t be until I get home, you can see how beautiful it was.

I met up with the group at the Vatican later in the day. This time, I was prepared for the stressful crowds, and zoned out a little to make it more enjoyable. I got to see the Raphael Rooms and I can see why we missed The School of Athens the first time. The frescos are huge! They’re so much bigger and impressive than I imagined them to be. Like in the Forum, I wish I could have spent more time in front of it, but I’m glad I got back to see what I did. I also got to see the Sistine Ceiling and St. Peter’s again, and they’re just as impressive the second time. (One of the T.A.s on the trip has seen the Ceiling four times, and has cried each time!)

After St. Peter’s we left the group again to leisurely stroll to the last place on the tour, which was far away. We found a cute street filled with expensive boutiques and great vintage shops. We also grabbed a drink in a cute bar filled with art and cool lights, and each table was covered with magazines about art, design, fashion, music, etc. It revived us a little and we headed over to Santa Maria della Vittoria, which has Bernini’s St. Teresa in Ecstasy. It was supposed to be a big deal, and Helen had special permission from the priest to bring us there when the church was closed, but it was a bit of a let down. Unlike the David, which is incredibly better in person, this statue was high off the ground and surrounded by an altar that made it difficult to see. It was Baroque tradition to combine elements of architecture, sculpture, painting, and lighting, so the overall chapel was stunning, but the sculpture itself is easier to look at in photos.

That night, after grabbing some dinner with some girls from SACI, I met up with Ily, the Canadian that Luke found in Florence. He had new friend with him that he found in his hostel, Julio, from Mexico. Julio was hilarious, and exactly what I picture a stereotypical Mexican to be. Later in the night, the girls from SACI went to bed, but I stayed out a while longer with Ily and Julio. It was pretty crazy to be hanging out in Rome with a Canadian and a Mexican. At one point, we met an Afghani. He was excited to meet Ily and Julio, but when I told him I was American, he squinted his eyes and said, “Americana? Sono afgano.” (I’m Afghan) I quickly responded “Mi dispiace!” (I’m sorry!). But we concluded (in broken Italian) that neither of us like the war, and that we’re all friends. Again, it’s amazing how strong the traveler bond is. Ily, Julio, and I spent the rest of the night sitting on the banks of the Tiber, thinking about how many people before us had done the same thing, continually bringing up how amazed we were by the strangeness of our “North American Triumvirate”.

The next day, we woke up early and caught a bus to the Borghese Museum. It was cool and there were a lot of Caravaggio’s and Bernini’s. It was here that I realized Helen was so torturous because she is more concerned with the actual history of the art instead of its social impact and meaning. Her descriptions sound like timelines instead of interesting facts. We spent the rest of the day touring the fountains at Villa d’Este in Tivoli and Hadrian’s Villa. They were absolutely beautiful and we were able to watch the sunset on the ancient Roman ruins of Hadrian’s Villa. The ruins were amazing because we were allowed to walk around them and even on them. It was difficult to imagine what the structures were like thousands of years ago, but like in the Forum, I could feel the importance of what had been there.

 

 

Today was Thanksgiving and all day I've felt very strange. I was the most homesick I've ever been, but lately whenever I think about going home and leaving Italy it makes me more sad. I almost got teary when we listened to Alice's Restaurant in graphic design (although I was happier when SACI had apple and pumpkin pie in the gallery). Yet at the same time I can’t believe I have to leave Florence in just a few days. I'm ready to go home. I just got back from a great pot-luck dinner which cheered me up. People were great - there was even stuffing, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. It didn't replace a good family meal, but I guess I need to get used to breaking traditions and starting new ones.

I’m off to Amsterdam in a few hours. It should be a lot of fun. I’m going with a group of girls, some other people from SACI are on our flight, Katie’s friend Alex and his friends from NYU will be there, and so will Ben and Cameron from Rome. I’m hoping it will make me ready to live up my last few weeks in Florence and get ready and happy to go home to the US.

Ugly Americans Visit Italy

by Shea’s Mom & Dad

We were honored when Shea asked us to write this ‘guest blog.’  We couldn’t duplicate Shea’s inspiring writing, so we wrote this primarily to remember our trip (thus the long length and excessive detail).

We arrived safely in Rome (the flight was a story I’m not allowed to tell).  Shea met us in our hotel near Piazza del Popolo, and we ventured out with our private tour guide.  Her knowledge of the Italian language and art history were only surpassed by her extensive knowledge of Italian food and wine.  The long walk to the Spanish Steps and the Trevi fountain (MUCH larger in life than pictures can capture) was exactly what the Doctor ordered for our jet lag.  We wandered from the Trevi into the highlight of Dad’s trip: the Pantheon.  We saw so many wonderful things, but the ancient perfection of the Pantheon was striking.  The interior view of the spherical dome, built before Christ, and its layered-square patterns made us think that architecture hasn’t improved much since then.  We wondered how many people have visited the Pantheon over the last couple thousand years.  We continued our walk to Piazza Navona, and back up along the Tiber.  After a nice dinner at a table on the street, we walked back to our hotel for a well-deserved sleep.

 

Our second day was a lesson in planning and managing our blood-sugar levels.  We took the metro to Circus Maximus, and walked entirely around the Circus and Palentine Hill (because the entrance to the Forum was almost exactly opposite of the Metro stop that Dad chose).  Fortunately it was sunny and only about 100 degrees (if you subtract 32 degrees and divide by 1.8, that’s approximately 1000 Celsius), and Mom only infrequently reminded Dad of how stupid his mistake was.  We found ourselves at Piazza del Campidoglio, designed by Michelangelo, and the Capitoline museums.  The bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius was amazingly realistic, and only survived the church’s purge because people thought it was a statue of Constantine (making us think that the quality of fundamentalist Christian education hasn’t changed much).  We had a great view of the Roman Forum and the Arch of Severus Snape.  Walking around the Forum, Dad was absolutely pissed to see that Mussolini built a major road, Dei Fori Imperiali, right over the Forum, and Shea was quick to point out that the road was not even in his Top 10 Atrocities list.  We walked around the Colosseum and took a break at the Arch of Constantine.  The next stop in our plan was ‘St. Pietro in Vincoli’ (St. Peter in chains), which should be named ‘St. Pietro nel Mezzo di in Nessun Posto’ (St. Peter in the middle of nowhere).  We tried to reach it through the Domus Aurea ruins, which would have been a lovely walk if we weren’t overheated and unrested.  When we finally found the middle of nowhere, the church had just closed for the early afternoon.  This was when the ‘ugly Americans’ made their appearance.  We showed the locals that they don’t have the market cornered on quick tempers and fits of rage.  Shea was finally able to stop us from yelling at each other and convinced us that we needed to stop at a café for lunch.  Within minutes, our moods lifted and we enjoyed a long lunch.  By the time we were done, St. Peter in Chains was open again, and we saw Michelangelo’s Moses and the altar with the chains of St. Peter.  With our new appreciation of high blood-sugar levels, we stopped for gelato (and did so every 10 minutes for the rest of the week).  This helped, because when we finally reached the entrance to the Forum and found that it was closing, we just accepted the fact that we made a mistake, and would have to return some day with Luke.  It’s amazing how European culture can transform uptight Americans into people who really don’t give a shit.  We continued on to Piazza Venezia with the Trajan Column, walked up the Emanuele monument for another good view of the Forum.  We walked across the tiny medieval island (Isola Tiberina) to Trastevere.  We went into Santa Maria in Trastevere and had another beautiful dinner on a small piazza.  We took a tram back over the Tiber, and walked from the Area Sacra (Roman ruins) back to the hotel.

The next day we visited the Vatican.  We went through most of the Vatican museums in the morning, including Egyptian and Etruscan museums, the hundreds of statues in the Chiaramonti and Pio-Clementine Museums.  The Greek statue of Ajax, which only has its torso remaining, was significant, because Michelangelo kind of had a statue-crush on it (even though he thought it was Hercules) and modeled many of his male torsos after it.  We probably spent too much time looking at the sculptures, because the Gallery of Tapestries and the Gallery of Map were mobbed.  By the time we got to the Raphael Rooms, we could only squeeze our way through, and we didn’t recognize that we passed by the School of Athens (we’ll also have to see that on our next visit).  We spent almost an hour in the Sistine Chapel, and we probably could have spent another hour there.  Its small size didn’t detract from the impact of Michelangelo’s ceiling and the Last Judgment.  Between the statues and the paintings, we must have seen a thousand penises that day (about 300 in the Sistine Chapel alone) – not to mention many manly women (Renaissance Rome and Florence must have had kick-ass field hockey teams).  We went into St. Peter’s Basilica, which was more immense than can be described.  Michelangelo’s Pieta and Bernini’s altar (with bronze stripped from the Pantheon) were just a couple of the highlights.  We exited into Piazza de St. Pietro.  We had cappuccini on a street café near the Vatican, went back to the hotel for our bags, took a Metro to the Termini, and got a fast train for Florence.  We had an excellent Florentine dinner and stayed in Shea’s apartment.

We started our first day in Florence with a trip to the market.  Mom was in heaven to see all of the fresh produce, dried fruits, mushrooms, cheese, meats, and fish.  We supplied ourselves for a nice lunch at Shea’s apartment of salami, cheese, bread, olives and figs.  We went into the Duomo.  The interior is disappointing compared to the exterior, but the mosaics in the Baptistry are amazing.  Shea explained the significance of the Baptistry doors.  The differences between the original doors and Gilberti’s 2^nd set of doors are subtle, but capture the beginning of the Renaissance, with more realistic, human poses and perspectives.  The 3^rd set of doors, also by Gilberti, are called the doors of Paradise, because Michelangelo said that if he could take anything to heaven with him it would be Gilberti’s doors (he also chose ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ as his favorite book and album that he’d take).  With Shea’s apartment overlooking the Baptistry, we took a moment each time we passed the doors to enjoy them.  We went to the Gallaria dell’Accademia to see Michelangelo’s David.  David is worth the hype (exaggeratedly large head and hands, but only modest manlihood).  The Gallery is small but adds to the David experience.  Michelangelo’s four slaves and St. Matthew were left as works in progress, and they show Michelangelo’s approach to sculpture and his genius.  Mere mortals will sketch the image in two dimensions on each side of the marble block, and carve off large chunks so the block takes the rough dimensions of the statue; but Michelangelo just started sculpting from front to back, letting the form emerge from the marble.  St. Matthew and the four slaves are crawling out of their blocks in various stages of emersion. The contrast to Michelangelo’s approach is apparent when you see the large gallery of plaster casts with wire frames that other sculptors used to ‘see’ the form before sculpting.  We went to Santa Croce and saw the tombs of Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Galileo and a chapel by Brunelleschi.  We were shocked to see how rundown the frescos were, but then saw pictures of the flood and how much damage was done to the church in the museum.  Ciambue’s crucifix in the museum is also an early milestone of the Renaissance, being an orthodox crucifix, with a more human Christ that is less iconic.  We wandered back through Piazza della Signoria, Dad’s favorite place in Florence, with the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, the Neptune fountain, copies of Michelangelo’s David, Hercules, an open area with Roman and Renaissance statues (Perseus, Hercules and the centaur, Rape of the Sabine women, …), street performers outside the Uffizi, with statues of prominent Florentines (da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, Dante, Galileo, Machiavelli, Boccaccio, Vespucci).  It’s incredible how many revolutionary people came from this small city under the patronage of the Medici’s during the Renaissance (an example of how tolerance and investment in education, arts & sciences can elevate an oppressed society to greatness).  We had a small dinner (a rare occasion on this vacation) at a Pizzeria.  We probably had a little too much wine, because we alternated between high-volume giggling and yelling.  At one point Shea loudly scolded Dad for his views on modern art (something like ‘not appreciating modern art is similar to not believing in evolution’).  However, after another round of gelato on the walk back to Shea’s apartment, we agreed that she’d begin showing Dad the significance of modern art, starting with the Renaissance.

The next day we started out over the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli gardens.  It was a nice walk to the top of the hill to get a view of the city on one side and the Tuscan hills on the other.  Then, we left Florence in a rental car and set out for the Chianti region.  Renting a car in Italy had disaster written all over it, but it worked out well.  We got a nice little Fiat 5-speed, and the driving was fun… for Dad.  We headed out toward Greve, and made a turn to see Montefieoralle, a small, medieval walled village on the top of a high hill.  The road was narrow and twisting (it was essentially a paved goat path near the top).  Mom didn’t see much, because her eyes were shut tight.  We continued through Chianti and stopped for cappuccini at Castellina, another hill-top fortified town. Our next stop was San Gimignano (pronounced San Jimin…. you know?), a walled city with many high towers that is frozen in Medieval times.  Although most of these walled cities had towers, built by prominent families, most of them were destroyed as the power of their builders diminished and the Church demanded that no tower be higher than its cathedral’s duomo.  San Gimignano was once a powerful city, on the pilgrimage route to Rome, but when the route changed to include Assisi (the new hot pilgrim destination), it became a ghost town (scene on the road to Assisi: fat, gay monk on a donkey- ‘Oh, nobody goes to there any more!’ dirty peasant- ‘where?’ monk- ‘San Jimin…. you know!’).  We drove to our hotel in Sienna, and our perfect week of weather changed.  It was lightly drizzling when we set out from our hotel outside the walls, but the rain got heavier as we made our way into Sienna.  The silver lining is that we ducked into a great restaurant for one of the best meals of our trip.

In the morning, we set out in our little Fiat for a winery tour at Castello di Brolio.  The drive was pretty and enjoyable, until we realized that we were lost.  We had a reservation for the winery tour, so after we figured out where we were, Dad raced through the twisty, narrow roads (ignoring the protests of Shea and Mom) to get to the winery.  We were late, and missed the grape pressing portion of the tour, but saw the large warehouse of casks, bottling and wine tasting.  Arden and Shea suggested that we walk up to the castle, which was just a ploy to sober Dad up before we got back into the Fiat.  The castle had a beautiful view of the surrounding hills with vineyards and olive groves.  On our walk back down to the car, we saw a small crew of men harvesting olives.  Olives are one of Mom’s favorite things in the world (probably from her traditional, pseudo-Greek upbringing in Astoria), but she made the mistake of picking a ripe olive off a tree and eating it – I don’t think it ever reached her stomach.  We drove on to have nice lunch in Volpaia, a hill-top village.  On our walk around the small town, we saw the real deal: grapes had just been pressed in a small winery, and transferred to vats.  The grape casings were loaded into a small cart, men were carrying pails of grape juice, and the cobblestone streets were stained bright, Chianti red.  We drove back to our hotel and walked into Sienna.  We visited the Piazza del Campo, with the inclined, scallop-shaped square and the famous tower.  The Duomo in Sienna was more elaborate than Florence’s, and the Piccolomini Library had amazingly bright frescos that depicted the life of the Pope from Sienna.  After a brief visit by the ugly Americans who argued over the most appropriate bakery to buy panforte, all was made well by a few glasses of chilled sambuca back at the hotel. 

The next day we left Siena and returned to Florence.  We stopped in Monteriggioni, yet another walled, hilltop village that had been deserted and was re-established in the 1960s.  It’s the destination of many Medieval geeks who are software developers by day and knights in their dreams (presumably still searching for the fair maiden who will see the knight within).  We drove on to Volterra, a large, walled, windy City.  We visited the Roman theater and baths, a small harvest fair, the fortress, and the Etruscan acropolis, the oldest landmark of our trip (~500 BC).  After our drive back to Florence, we returned the rental car, and had a dinner of apertifos and shared a bottle of nice Chianti at Shea’s apartment (Dad wanted to eat some liver with fava beans for the full effect, but Mom didn’t see the humor).

Back in Florence, the next morning we walked to the Piazza San Marco and Piazza Santissima Annunziata.  We saw the shrine of the Madonna and the annunciation, painted by a no-name friar.  His other paintings mustn’t have been so good, because people believe he was miraculously helped by an angel (kind of a Renaissance art version of a ‘one-hit wonder’).  There was an open market in the Piazza which must have inspired us, because we bee-lined it to the larger San Lorenzo market and bought one of everything (wallet, belts, scarves, pair of boots, pair of gloves).  We walked over Ponte Vecchio to have lunch in Piazza del Santo Spirito.  After lunch, we went to the Bargello, an old city palace with a large courtyard, and a museum with Michelangelo’s Bacchus Drunk (apparently modeled after a college freshman), Donatello’s St. George (his David was being restored), Verrocchio’s David, and Giambologna’s Mercury.  Our attempt at adopting a European eating schedule kind of backfired.  After another bottle of Chianti at Shea’s apartment, we began looking for a restaurant.  It was Saturday night and All-Saints’ Day, so the streets and restaurants were packed.  After another brief visit from the ugly Americans, we found a restaurant that was unassuming from the street, but seemed to be popular with the locals.  We had to wait for a table, but we enjoyed watching the grill chef at work.  The meal was worth the wait, and we finished with biscotti, vin Santo and limoncello.

Our last day in Florence, we took a bus across the Arno to San Miniato al Monte and Piazzale Michelangelo.  The ride was a nice way to see other parts of the city, including the Porta Roma.  San Miniato was a small church with a large cemetery and crypt, so it was beautiful and creepy.  Saint Minias was an early Christian martyr who was decapitated down by the river, but realizing that a church in his name would be more popular if it overlooked Florence, he picked up his head and walked up the hill.  His bones are on an altar in the lower level of the church.  There was a lone nun kneeling in prayer in front of the relic and a young man playing the huge pipe organ, making the experience simultaneously scary and uplifting.  Piazzale Michelangelo has a view of the entire city and was a popular strolling location for Florentines, and for some strange reason it’s also a common place for Asian weddings (?).  We took a bus back to the city, walked by Santa Maria Novella, Piazza Republica, Piazza della Signoria (again), and had lunch at Piazza Santa Croce.  We had cappuccini and gelato at Vivoli, stopped one last time at the Baptistry doors, and said ‘ciao’ to Shea.  We took a slow train back to Rome and flew out the next morning.

We saw much of Rome, Florence, Sienna and other parts of Tuscany.  The deep, layered history was something we’ve never seen before.  We often saw ancient Roman or Etruscan ruins, alongside Medieval and Renaissance buildings, melded with modern Italian culture.  It was wonderful to hear that each statue, monument or painting had a story (some places must have thousands of stories).  Despite the many wonderful places we visited, we think the long lunches at street-side cafés, or slowly sharing a bottle of Chianti and enjoying each other’s company are what we’ll remember most.  Thanks, Shea.

Things I've Been Doing

This weekend was the first in over a month and a half that I didn’t have any plans and it was great to just hang out and do nothing in Florence. It felt good to sleep in, sit and talk with my roommates, and do a little homework too. Friday night I went to a café/bar/library/jazz club that I’ve been dying to get to for a while. It’s a really cool place and definitely somewhere I want to go back to during the day. Afterwards we wandered around and ended up meeting some kids that we hung out with for the rest of the weekend. They all study at Florence’s University and live outside of the city near Fiesole. Eventually one of the guys started talking about how he was related to the Medicis and owns a hotel near the Duomo. I didn’t believe him at all – until he showed us the hotel! They’re more stereotypical “Italian” than other Italians we’ve been hanging out with when it comes to appearances. None of them are ashamed to admit that they’re very into they way they look and one of them even talked about how much he likes his style. It’s fun to talk to them about it, because that’s something so completely different than guys in the United States. Last night we taught them some American card games and had a Connect Four tournament. Luckily they’re just as dorky as we are and actually enjoyed it.

Earlier in the week I went to a soccer game with a bunch of girls from SACI. Fiorentina was playing Bayern Munich so there were Germans everywhere before the game. There was a carnival feel in the air all day – especially because the Germans hanging out and drinking on the steps of the Duomo were chanting and singing. In the stadium they have a whole section for fans of the opposing team with plexiglass dividers and security guards keeping people at least 20 feet back. The stands were packed and the fans were loud. It was great. Florence scored early in the game, but Bayern Munich got a goal toward the end and it finished in a tie. It was cool to see the differences between the game and sports at home. We realized that people cheered happily when someone almost scored a goal, even if they missed, just because they did a good job.

Classes have been going well. They’re easier than the ones at home so I haven’t been stressed out yet. We’ve finally started going to contemporary art museums in my Museology class, which I’m very happy about. Every time I go to one it’s like a breath of fresh air. Being surrounded by the Renaissance has made me a little tired of it (only a very little though – it’s impossible to not be in awe almost all the time). A lot of these museums have awesome libraries too and it’s been great to look at all the books. My Italian is getting better. I probably wouldn’t even be able to be friends with the guys we met this weekend if we didn’t know a little. I’ve gotten used to grocery shopping a few times a week and I’ve figured out which stands in the market are better for certain things, but I still don’t know how to cook. The days are getting shorter. Luckily we’re having an unusually warm fall, but the nights have started to get pretty cold. And luckily the second stage of culture shock didn’t last too long. I admit that there are still some things that bother me about Italy, but I can laugh about it now and accept it for what it is. I’m also amazed that I only have a month left and it’s hard to hate something when you’re trying to savor every moment! 

PS - Go Obama! I watched some of the election in an "American" bar but I had to leave because the Americans were being so obnoxiously American. 

Halfway Through

I’ve obviously fallen behind with my blog, so stay tuned for a fall break guest post from my parents. We just spent a great week seeing the sights and getting fat in Rome, Florence, and the Tuscan countryside, but I’ll let them tell you about it. I’ll also try to get some more pictures online soon. My internet connection’s pretty bad (it took me forever just to get this post up) and I’ve taken more than 700 pictures in the last two and a half weeks, so it could take a while.

Now that my parents are gone I’m starting to get homesick. I think it’s a phase that will pass soon and I’m sure it has also something to do with the fact that I’m trying to register for classes and get an internship and work out my living situation and follow the elections, all from Italy. Being with my parents also reminded me of a lot of things I love about home. I’m getting tired of little things like not being able to wear sweatshirts, paying to sit down everywhere, feeling lost and clueless about simple things like where to buy super glue, and basically feeling like dumb American tourist almost all the time. It’s the second stage of culture-shock. I thought I had skipped right from euphoria to integration, but I guess there are defined stages for a reason! Luckily, even though I'm feeling slightly anti-Italy, there are still so many things I love about it. Just looking out my window at the crowd of people ooohing and aahing helps me realize that I'll be able to find superglue and that paying an extra euro to sit down really isn't that bad.

[Edit: Sorry for the grumpy post. After two art classes, seeing and talking to my friends, and walking around Florence I realized I'm dumb and I love Italy.]

Barcelona

Sorry so late, but here’s another weekend travel post: this time Barcelona! (I wrote this two weeks ago after I got back and never posted it.) I finally wore myself out this weekend. Traveling the previous weekends and exploring Florence on the weekdays caught up to me and now, four days later, I’m still tired.

The trip started out a little stressful – I had class all morning, I didn’t pack until two hours before we needed to leave, and there was a train strike, so the first train we could catch to the airport was cutting it close. We ended up sitting on the train tracks once we got on the train, then running to the check-in counter just in time! We finally got to our hostel in Barcelona around 11:30. Luckily, everything in Barcelona, and I think all of Spain, starts really late, so we still had plenty of time to unpack and get ready to go out.

That night we went to Razzmatazz to see of Montreal and I met up with Jess, who was in Barcelona with her study abroad program. It was great to see her and I met all of her friends from her school. The club was a lot of fun and the show was great – of Montreal is known for their wild shows that include things like mini-skits, animal costumes, and body paint. We stayed until the band was finished, took a walk to see the beach, then finally rolled into bed at our hostel at 7:30 in the morning, almost delirious from lack of sleep.

We knew we would regret not waking up and doing things during the day, so we headed out around 11:30 to go to Las Ramblas, the main strip of Barcelona. Unfortunately it was drizzling and cloudy, but it was easy to see how beautiful the city was. It was also much more “cosmopolitan” than Florence, and we spent the morning doing things I still feel a little guilty about, but were almost like getting a taste of home. They have Dunkin Donuts in Spain! I don’t even have Dunkin Donuts in Washington, DC, so I obviously had to get an iced coffee. Allison went into Starbucks and got an iced tea, which they also don’t have in Florence, and we both spent some time looking around H&M.

After we got through with our American guilty pleasures, we met up with Allison’s friend from home who’s studying in Barcelona. She brought us around some of Gaudí’s apartment buildings and we went up to Parc Güell. I was surprised – I don’t really like Gaudís architecture at all. I love his tile work and I think his ideas were interesting, but I thought the overall structures of his buildings were ugly. I’m hoping one day someone will talk some sense into me and I can go back and appreciate his work.

Later that afternoon I met up with Jess and two of her friends to walk around and look for a place to grab some tapas. It was fun because they’ve all been living in Spain so they were able to translate the menus and talk to the waiters for me. We sat around drinking sangria and talking until they had to go back to their hotel and I met up with Allison and her friend. We wandered around the gothic quarter hopping into different bars and listening to the street musicians. Before this, I was a little disappointed by Barcelona, but strolling around the gothic area changed my opinion. The streets were narrow and dimly lit. The bars were all a little funky and really cute. I think I liked it because it was so anti- everything I had done that morning. Later that night we sat on a bench people watching on Las Ramblas, and of course, we ended up meeting some Italians!

Sunday was sunnier than Saturday and it made me wonder if my earlier disappointment in Barcelona was just because of the weather. Allison and I headed back to the gothic quarter to walk around and take pictures. We found a lot of cute shops and galleries and we stumbled upon a teeny, tiny bar in a little plaza that had murals and colored lights hanging around. The bar had nachos with cheese and jalapeños! I’ve been craving nachos since I’ve been in Europe and that was great. After walking around for a while we took the metro up to see La Sagrada Familia – Gaudí’s cathedral. Again, I wasn’t really impressed. I think if we had gone inside I may have liked I more, but I thought it was uglier than traditional cathedrals, and I didn’t see the point of most of the decorations. Before we left for the airport, we had a long lunch of tapas, paella, and sangria to complete our Spanish experience.

This trip made me realize that it’s impossible to do a city, especially one like Barcelona, in just two days. It also made me realize that when you only have two days, you need to try to find the flavor of the city or do the toursity things. Trying to do both is just too exhausting! 

Sardinia

Like I said in an earlier post, each day here surpasses the last. I just had an unbelievable weekend that was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I went with Allison and Jessica to visit Lucio at his family’s apartment in Cagliari, Sardinia. I want to give a little forward to this post with a description of what a character Lucio is. We met him at Santo Spirito the first night we went (when I posted the video of Jessica) and then met up with him again the next day. The second time we talked to him he explained that he was just stopping to visit a friend in Florence (we see his friend around all the time now) and that he actually lives in Sardinia. Long story short, he invited us to visit him while we could still enjoy the summer weather in Cagliari and we booked a flight within the next few days. Lucio is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. He seems like a character taken out of some book. His mother was Austrian, so he doesn’t look Italian, he’s about 6’5, and if he’s not gay, then he’s extremely metro sexual. And the way he speaks English is hilarious. It’s not that he can’t speak it – he’s almost fluent – it’s the flamboyant way he says things and the way he flails his arms around when he gestures that made all of us constantly laugh at him all weekend.  What’s more interesting is the way he lives and thinks about life. He’s 27 (which is still pretty young in Europe) but he doesn’t have a career, and doesn’t plan on having one anytime soon. He floats around Europe finding ways to make money. Allison keeps calling him the Italian Jack Kerouac. For a while he worked with a youth mobility group that traveled around Europe. Last year, he was in London bartending at a gay bar. Just last month he was in Morocco living with an author. Now that he’s back in Cagliari, he’s trying to earn some more money so he can go someplace else. We spent all four days there sitting around talking, so he was able to explain a lot of his philosophies on life. For example, he always talks about how he will never be able to live a routine life. He thinks it’s pointless to work so hard to simply be content. He says, “I want to rise naked from the dirt every day.” That way even a piece of bread or a place to sleep makes him incredibly happy. Or, another example, when we bought him a cake at a bakery, he cut it up into pieces and served everyone, but stared at and fiddled with his piece for a while. He explained that he knows the expectation of how great something will taste is just as good as how it actually tastes, but he can make the expectation last as long as he wants. Clearly these things work for him too, because he seems to be one of the happiest people I know. He’s indescribable, but I hope that puts a picture in your head.

Cagliari is a city on the southern tip of Sardinia, which is an island off the coast of Italy. Lucio is an interesting character, but the place he comes from is even more intriguing. I won’t go into the whole history of the place (if you’re interested check this out). Basically, the island’s a little bit Italian, a little bit Spanish, but essentially its own culture. It was really cool to try and spot the influences of other cultures and to find what made Sardinia Sardinian. The first thing I noticed was how proud Sardinians are of where they live. Lucio’s friend had “Sardegna” tattooed all over his arms and everyone was excited to answer questions I had about the place. They have a unique language, their own beer (Ichnusa), their own wines, a special liquor called mirto, and even unique kinds of bread. Halfway through the trip I realized that things were reminding me of Mexico and Costa Rica because of the Spanish influence. Also, I don’t know if it’s the company Lucio keeps (I’m sure that has something to do with it), but every Sardinian I met was extremely friendly, happy, and generous. People were constantly dropping by Lucio’s apartment just to say hi or play some music. When they greeted each other, and sometimes us, they acted like they hadn’t seen each other in years, and when we left they acted like they wouldn’t meet again for years. Everyone made us feel at home and like one of them.

I can’t go into everything we did when we were there, we were up until sunrise every night, but I’ll explain some highlights. The trip wasn’t very touristy. In fact, when we walked through Castello, Lucio told us we should probably go ask a tour group if we wanted historical information about the place, because he really didn't know much. We spent a lot of time sitting around Lucio’s apartment, which is aweomse. It’s almost near the top of one of the hills of Cagliari, and it’s at the top of the building. It has a terrace overlooking the city and the water in the distance. He lives there with his younger sister, Erika, and her boyfriend of 8 years, Maurizio. This weekend, his father was also staying in the flat because he was fighting with his wife. Normally, he lives with her further north in Sardinia. It was a great experience staying with them because none of them spoke English! We spent a lot of time on the terrace listening to Lucio and his friends play guitar, Jessica play her violin, or just talking about whatever we felt like talking about at the time. Lucio tried to teach us how to cook every time he made us a meal and even taught us the proper way to make Moroccon tea (It was the best tea I’ve ever had in my life.)  Every morning he fixed us caffe lattes while we sat and soaked up our last opportunity for sun before the winter comes.

Our first night, after dinner, we went to a tapas bar for an open mic. Open mics aren’t very common in Italy, but Lucio’s friend, Alessio, has spent time in London and LA so he’s been trying to get them started in Cagliari. Alessio is another person with an interesting life story. He toured with his band around the US and Canada for a few years, then got married to a forty-year-old lesbian so he could stay in LA. Before his paperwork was finalized he accidentally took a bus to Mexico and ended up in jail! Everyone in Cagliari was obsessed with the blues, and the open mic was incredible. We sat until 3:30 in the morning watching some of the most amazing musicians I’ve ever met play together. There were a lot of guitarists but there was also a keyboardist, a saxophone player, a few people used Jessica’s violin, and there were a lot of amazing vocalists. Throughout the whole trip I realized that everyone in Sardinia tries to participate in music-making in some way – even if it’s simply keeping beat or singing along.

After the open mic we walked around the tiny, ancient streets to a few more places. Many of the bars we went to had no signs indicating that they were anything more than a door on a wall. Inside, the places were always packed, and it was great to finally be the only Americans in a bar. Our first night, after visiting a few bars, we stopped at a bakery to grab food. The bakery opens at midnight to start cooking pastries for the bars (in the Italian sense of the word) throughout Cagliari. Lucio and his friend brought us to the back door where we could see them kneading the dough and packing up the finished products.  We got pizzettas, little flaky pastries with tomato paste inside. I don’t know if they’re a Sardinian thing or if I just haven’t found them yet in Florence, but I’m definitely going to look for them!

On Saturday, after Erika fixed the family risotto, we drove down to the main beach in Cagliari, Poetto. Lucio was originally planning on bringing us to the less touristy beaches, but even Poetto was gorgeous. It was long and straight and there was so much sand. It wasn’t too crowded; Lucio said not many people go to the beach this time of year and it was also really windy. We had to go into the Mediterranean at least once though, and the water wasn't bad. The waves were good for body surfing and it was a lot of fun to be in the ocean again.

That night was one of my favorite moments from my stay in Italy so far. Lucio cooked for us, and we all sat down and had a family dinner. It doesn’t sound very exciting, but Allison, Jessica, and I all agreed that it was our favorite part of the trip. The food was great, and we were even able to eat boar sausage that Lucio’s grandfather recently made. The best part of the meal was communicating with Lucio’s family. There was such a language barrier, but we were still able to talk. Lucio translated a lot, but we also tried to speak in Italian. This weekend made me much more confident in speaking Italian because unlike Florence, I was forced to use it to talk to people. Lucio’s family was fun and we had a great time. Later in the trip, Lucio told us he was happy because his dad doesn’t usually like having people around, but he enjoyed spending time with us. They were all very interested in the United States. This trip made me feel a little prouder to be an American. Everyone I talked to, and Lucio especially, has so much respect for our country. Lucio talks all the time about how badly he wants to live there. When we tried to tell him it wasn’t worth it, he told us, “You don’t understand, because for you it seems like such a simple idea, but your country is made by men for men. To me, that has so much meaning.” He went on to explain how he loves America because it always lands on its feet. And despite how much he hates the consumerism of America, he would move there just for the music!

Another highlight of my trip was the next afternoon. We had been lounging around all day, watching movies in Italian and singing and playing guitar. Lucio’s friend Dani was with us, and when I found out he did Tai Chi I asked him to teach me. Within minutes everyone was outside on the terrace breathing in through our nose and out through our mouth, stretching, and just relaxing. Again, it sounds like a strange favorite moment, but it was beautiful to watch the sunset on the city while everyone around me was relaxing and stretching.

That night we drove half an hour to Dani’s beach villa in Villasimas. The drive was absolutely stunning, but unfortunately we left after dark and I don’t feel like I saw half of how stunning it really is. The road was all along the coast, and because the island is mountainous, it was curvy and turny and hilly and exciting. Jessica got carsick! The drive back was even more amazing, because by the time we left, the moon had risen high in the sky and lit up a lot of the coast. We stopped at one viewpoint and stared at the ocean for a long time.

Before we left the next day we had a great lunch at a restaurant nearby. The first wine they brought out to us was to acidic for Lucio, so they brought us some Cannonau which is good wine from the north of Sardinia. We got to talking about America again during lunch and Lucio made a point about Italian culture that I found very interesting. When he said he wants to move to America because we actually have culture, we were shocked and told him we thought Italy had much more culture than we’ll ever have. It was difficult for him to translate what he thought, but he argued that Italy used to have culture, and now it’s living on a stereotype of what that culture was. His example was Carnevale in Venice. He said that in the Renaissance they dressed up and wore masks so that they could run around and do whatever they wanted with who ever they wanted. Now, people wear masks because they used to wear masks in the Renaissance, and that's the only reason. He said he feels like Italy’s culture is slowly dieing.

I’m sorry for such a long post. I hope you can tell how exciting and inspiring this weekend was for me. Something about Sardinia made me feel different, a little more alive. Since coming back to Florence it’s been difficult for me to get the smile off my face. I may not “rise up naked from the dirt” every day, but I’m certainly trying to appreciate everything like Lucio and his friends do!