Vienna

So as it turns out, I love Vienna. Like really a lot. It's really different from Italy of course, everything is neat and clean and organized and incredibly easy to firgure out. It's impossible to get lost in this city, everything is so clearly labeled all the time.
Krissy and I took an overnight train from Florence to here on Saturday night and arrived Easter morning. Of course everything was super quiet and calm, but it was nice because we were pretty sleepy. After we found the hostel and dropped off our things, we headed down to Schlosspark Schonbrunn, where we rested in the sun and spread out with our map and guide book to plan our time in Vienna. After that we went to old town Vienna, where we saw St Stephan's church, which was huge and Gothic, and St Peters, which was not huge and super Baroque. We wandered around a bit and walked through Volksgarten, another pretty park, and enjoyed the sun and flowers.
The nest day we got up and headed to the really big art musuem that I'm not even going to try to pronounce, and saw Hunters in the Snow and whatnot. Later we went to the modern art museum, but that one turned out to be a bit weird. We didn't have time to get to the Albertina or the Belevedere, and honestly didn't really figure out that those museums had a lot of stuff we'd have been interested in there until it was too late. The guide book failed us on that one. I must come back though, I want to see the Gustav Klimpt and Monets and whatnot that we missed. Maybe before I meet up with my parents when I have a few unplanned days I can come back, because I reaaaaally like it here, and I realllly want to see those museums. Hmph.

And today we saw the Shonbrunn Palace, where the Hapsburgs (specifically Maria Theresea) lived, which was cool, and spent a while hanging out in a Viennese Coffee house, which I also really enjoyed. Viennese Coffee is goood.
Anyways, I'm sad that we missed those museums, but I love Vienna. Like I said, I hope I can come back. Maybe one day I'll try to learn German, too, that could be fun.

All Packed Up

Sadly, the Sienese part of my adventure has come to an end. I'm glad the program wasn't longer, I think it was a good amount of time, but I'm still sad to leave Siena and my host family. But hey, in a few hours I'll hop on a bus to Florence, grab one last Italian dinner, and then Krissy and I are off to Vienna, Austria I'll try and post here when I can but who knows when I'll get internet.
Wish me luck!

Last Sienese Weekend

Only a few days left in Italy before the travel adventure begins! It's odd that this is the last week, but I'm also glad to get moving, because I'm getting a bit restless here. As much as I've really enjoyed being in Italy and had so much fun with my host family and learning Italian and whatnot, it's still hard to be stationary in a foreign country for so long. It's funny some of the things that you can get used to, like not being able to understand. At first it made me feel a little stupid all the time because I'm really not used to just striaghtup not being able to understand, but you get used to it and come to make peace with it. That's an aspect of reverse culture shock I'm definately anticipating: suddenly comprehending everything said and written around me automatically will be overwhelming! I think it'll be nice to be on the move because it wont feel so odd not to feel completely at home and at ease in countries when I'm only there for so long. I feel at home here in Siena in a lot of ways, of course, but there are many cultural things that I just wont be able to understand, and I'm not exactly fluent in the language (although I've certainly come a long way), so its hard to feel completely, as the Italians say, at my ease.
Anyways, my last weekend in Italy was a lot of fun. On Saturday we had our last program excursion,a trip to the beach on the Tuscan coast. The Mediterranean was lovely, of course, and it was generally a nice day relaxing in the sun. Then on Sunday a few friends and I headed to Lucca for the day, which is another small Tuscan hilltop town. It's very medieval looking, and VERY small. We rented bikes and rode the around the city walls. Super pretty and it was nice to be able to get a bit of exercise other than walking for a change! But like I said, Lucca is tiny so the entire loop around the city wall is only 3km so we did it twice in no time. Overall both days were slow and relaxing and a really pleasant way to spend our  last weekend.
And since this is the last week, it's finals, which is funny to me because usually aren't you supposed to classes first? We had classes of course, but none of them were particularly serious or rigorous, so I can't say I'm at all stressed about any finals. I had art history today, which went well, and tomorrow I have a paper due which I've already done most of, and anyways, it's not due until 4:30. It's funny how Italian professors assign things-really, there isn't much of an assignment at all. This paper was basically: write about something interesting we talked about in the class, as long as you have things to say for. It's a funny way of dong things, but maybe  that's just the American in me.
ALSO I almost forgot to mention that Monday was my last day of teaching english to the bambini. Teaching was fun and all but I'm glad it's over. I liked the kids, but coming up with a lesson plan I absolutely hated.  I'm really glad I did it, but I don't see teaching ESL anywhere in my future. But hey, the teacher gave me a giant tin egg full of Lindt chocolate, so I even got more out of it than I was expecting!
Anyways, I'm excited and nervous to get moving, but I know it'll all be a good time.

BolognaVenicePadua

This weekend was my last week of traveling before the study abroad program ends in two weeks! I managed to see three different cities though, albeit two of them I saw only briefly. We set off on Thursday afternoon to Bologna, where we had tickets to see the concert of an American band called Deer Hunter. We got to Bologna fine, and headed to our hotel, which had been booked online a few days prior. Unfortunately, when we got there the hotel had no record of our reservation, even though we had a confirmation email pulled up on an iphone and everything. It was frustrating but eventually we figured it out, and we all had to pay a bit more than we'd planned, but it worked out okay. By the time we got settled in it was late and we were hungry, and it was getting close to concert time. We hopped in a taxi and went to pizza place that had been recommened to us by the hotel. We got there and sat down, and who was sitting at the table behind us but the very band we were going to see that night! Our friend Julian, who's a really big fan, went to say hi and embarassed himself but they were pretty nice. If anyone asks, we had dinner with Deer Hunter. We had our pizza, which was very good, and then headed to the show which was a lot of fun. It had been a long time since any of us had been to a concert and we were all excited.

Add caption

The next day we got  up and headed to Venice! Walking out of the train station was an experience in itself, because no city will ever be quite like it. There's that whole no streets, only canals and boats thing for one. It's a lot of fun just to wander around, crossing bridges and enjoying the tall buildings everywhere. And the tiniest little alleyways are actually the streets you need to get anywhere. It's an adventure. Our hotel in Venice was great, pretty close to the train station and close enough to everything else. It was actually more of a bed and breakfast, a little apartment which the lady rented out rooms, and made us breakfast and just generally took very good care of us. I think my favorite thing that we did in Venice was see the Peggy Guggenheim collection the next day. For one, it was refreshing to see modern art, aka no Jesus or Mary's anywhere. It was great though, I was really excited to see Picasso, Calder, Severini, and Pollack paintings. I think my favorites were the Severini's, and if it would be easier to travel with I would have been tempted to bring home a poster of his Sea=Dancer.

We spent a lot of time in Venice just wandering around and taking things in. We also tried to go to Harry's bar one night, but it seemed to be closing right when we got there, which was took bad. Then today after checking out of the hotel we took a train to Padua to see the Scrovegni. We ended up having just enough time in Padua to see the chapel and hop right back on the train, but that was all we wanted to do anyways. And of course, it was beautiful. It's amazing that Giotto frescoed that entire space. And it was fun finding the panel that I had written a short paper on, The Last Kiss of Judas.
I'm sad to be leaving Italy in two weeks, but I'm really excited to travel, I think the time will go really fast once I'm changing cities every few days. Krissy and I got our tickets to go to Vienna as soon as the program ends, so that will be exciting!

New New Plan: The Netherlands

Okay. let's see if I can catch us up here. Lately I've been really preoccupied with planning for the summer, which is daunting and difficult. As far as the farming goes, I am now officially spending the last two weeks of June farming in Holland, which should be fun! Wish me luck though, I've never farmed before! Other than that, here's what I have so far:
After I leave Siena, I'll be going to Vienna, Budapest and Prauge with Krissy, and then Germany with Alexa, and then I'm heading to Scotland to visit my friend Lily for a couple days. After that I head to London and Paris on my own before heading to Frankfurt to meet Julia. Julia will be here for 3 weeks and we will be going to Portugal, Spain, France (probably south), Switzerland and Germany. Then I'm heading back to Italy to go to Rome with my parents for a few days before going to Holland to be a farmer an then, finally, I go home on June 30th. Whoo. It's exciting but there's a lot to plan, and I lot that is easy to worry about, even though I know I shouldn't. And of course it'll be expensive, but I figure that this is one of the few times in my life when it is socially acceptable to be completely broke, so I may as well take advantage of that and enjoy my money the best I can. Of course I'm trying to be frugal but it's hard. Sometimes I want to just give up and come home already, but I know that once I get going it'll be awesome and life changing and worth it and all that. I just hope I can find places to sleep! If anyone has any European friends who like house guests, let me know. Seriously.
Anyways, life in Siena:

This past weekend, my friend Kate and I went out to dinner with some Italians, which was a lot of fun but always silly. Apparently all young Italians think that Miami is the cool place to go. If they ever do make it, all they will find (in my opinion) is a bunch of old people, just like in Siena. I really think they watch too much American MTV.
Saturday they took us to Rome, which was nice but a looooong day. We saw the Ara Pacis, which I really liked, the Colusseum and the Forum on Palatine Hill. I think the Forum was my favorite, it's so pretty and really interesting to see all the old temples and then the ruins of political buildings.
Sunday was much more relaxing, they took us wine tasting in Multipulciano. The wine was awesome, and the view way by far my favorite from this trip. The drive up is really the quintessential Tuscan view of farms and rolling hills.
After the wine tasting they took us to Pienza, which is the little town where Pope Pius II is from. He actually rebuiltit himself and tried to design it as the perfect city architectural layout, and thought it was going to be a super big deal, but it never really caught on. Again, though, amazing view. And they have awesome pecorino cheese there.
Sorry for the lack of detail today, but I'm a bit worn out, I think actually mostly from all the worrying and planning! Ah well, as long as I make it back to the states alive I'll be happy!