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.

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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!

New Plan:

NORWAY.
You know how I was talking about doing that WWOOF farming program in Italy? Now I want to go to Norway. The thing is, I have a lot of good, logical reasons why I should want to return to Italy, primarily the whole learning Italian thing. But despite the good reasons, I just found myself to be less excited about the idea that I should have been. I'm not sure exactly why. I'm very happy to be in Italy now, and I like learning Italian a lot, but I think I just want to try something different. Allora, no lo so. But the point is, if I'm not as stoked about it as I want to be, I don't think I should do it.
Now as it happens, when you become a member of WWOOF Italia, you also get access to another list of some random countries that don't have their own WWOOF program. On this list are Norway and the Netherlands (among others, of course), and both of these sounds new and exciting, so I'm going to look for a farm in one of them instead. A bunch of farms in Norway look beautiful, and I would love to go there if I could. Why Norway, I'm not sure I could tell you exactly. Maybe because it really is soooo different from Italy. Well, we'll see. And in the end, if I never find somewhere I really want to go in Europe, I'll come home a couple weeks early. As much as I want to adventure for as long as I can, when it comes down to it, I'm only going to do the things that I want to and am excited about. My funds are to college-student-esque  to afford to do things that aren't worth it. So Norway. We shall see.

Now let's see what I can fill you in on from this week in Italy. It's been slow, which is nice because I'm still making up for sleep lost over spring break. And the weather has been bellisima! Around 60-65 farenheit, which his nice. The best places to sunbath (or "take the sun," as it is in italian) are the Campo, where it's always fun to people watch (especially tourist watch), and by the university, where there'a a grass area overlooking Chianti. It's been nice. And Wednesday I returned to the soup kitchen, and had a really good time. There were more young volenteers, which I hadn't seen before, and I felt much more comfortable with them than the nuns. They were all so nice!
Oh, and there was a lady there from Holland, who didn't speak any Italian but spoke English, and she told me that she's walking (WALKING) the Francigena. This is the old pilgrimage road that leads to Rome, and Siena, back in the day, made a lot of money off of pilgrims enroute, and it had a hospital, which then meant a place for hosting foreigners, not for sick people. Now the old Ospedale is a museum across from the Duomo. The Francigena starts in Canterbury, but she began in Holland. Still. I think she said it was 18,000km. And she wasn't young, either. I would guess somewhere between 55 and 65. Anyways, she ended up at the soup kitchen because the convents host the pilgrims for meals and give them places to sleep.  It was really interesting talking to her, and I think she was glad to have an English speaker around.
Then today we went back to the Uffizi with my art history class. I have to say, I'm glad I'd been to Uffizi on my own before hand because I wasn't super thrilled with the class visit.  The problem is that the teacher, who is very nice and very knowledgeable, doesn't seem to really take us seriously as art history students. Not in a mean way, but he always makes comments like, "bad news, guys, we'll be here for a couple hours," or "good news, only two painting left." As if we don't want to be there. But we do. It also seems like he dumbs down the lesssons, and is afraid to use real art history terms. It bothers me. I see that he is only trying to cater to what he thinks our level is (which is probably based on former students he's had through the SIS program, which only gets LC students one semester every other year), but I think that we should be treated like serious art history students. If someone isn't interested, that's their problem, but I like to be challenged and I want to be expected to have to think and work. It's annoying. Anyways. It was nice to revisit some of the paintings and things, but I really  liked being there on my own better.
OH. In other news, my roommate Julia and I are planning on renting a Vespa on Sunday, just for fun. Wish us luck driving!

Spring Break

Our Sorrento vacation has been off to an interesting beginning. Friday morning we hopped on a bus, and then a train, and then another train, and 6 or so hours later made it to Sorrento. When we first arrived, we were all very happy to be here—the whether was lovely, and the part of town we wandered through to find out hotel was cute and nice. We were all happy and excited when we arrived at the address of our hotel. The sign on the door said to call the number listed, and a man from the hotel came to meet us, and told us that he was taking us to our beachfront apartment, which had a kitchen and internet. It sounded great, but when we got there and he opened the door, it was not what we had been expecting. First of all, while the property was near the beach, the beach could not be seen from the apartment itself. In fact, nothing could be seen from the apartment; there were no windows. It was painted an uneasy light aqua blue, and the beds we nothing more than fold out cots. We were not pleased. We asked if he had a different apartment, and he showed us the one next door, which was almost exactly the same. The guy was clearly trying to make the sale, and didn’t really understand what we didn’t like about it. He was on the phone with his boss, and as the saga progressed we all began to feel more and more uncomfortable. So we left. With no place to go, we wandered back into town—and into the Hilton Sorrento Palace. Like mom always told me, sometimes the best solution is to throw money at the problem. We originally only got the room for the night, since we were all tired and hungry and wanted a place to stay. Now let me say, the Hilton Sorrento Palace is waaaaay nicer than any Hilton I’ve stayed in in the states. When we entered out rooms, we were all just so happy to be somewhere nice and clean, and not to mention the terrycloth robes and slippies! So I decided to do a quick calculation on the Hilton Sorrento Palace notepad, taking into account the shared cost of the room and the cost of the other hotel we had booked for the rest of trip (which, luckily, are guide book recommended, unlike what has come to be know as “the dungeon”) and our transportation costs to and from Siena. And we decided that, given the 600 euro stipend Lewis and Clark had given us for the week, it was reasonably (albeit, barely) within our budget to go ahead and stay in the Hilton for entirety of the four nights we had planned in Sorrento, since we’d planned everything else economically. We were all ecstatic about this decision. And so far, it’s been great! Breakfast in the morning was incredible: a huge buffet spread, featuring both Italian cold cuts and scrambled eggs, which is an unheard of breakfast in this country. And real American style coffee! And they even had HP and Tabasco sauce! Now I know we’re supposed to be enjoying all things authentic and Italian, but these Americanisms are quite the exciting novelty at this point. And not to mention that the brunch room had huge windows and a balcony with a perfect view of Mt. Vesuvius. NO BIG DEAL. 

Our first day in Sorrento, after our wonderful Hilton brunch, we decided to just putz around Sorrento. We wandered down to the water, grabbed some pizza for lunch, and stopped at a little grocery to pick up some olives, artichoke hearts and cocktail supplies for the hotel before dinner. When we were ready we headed out for dinner (prawn risotto, mmmmmm), and hung out for a while before started to head back. But as it happens, on the way back to our hotel happens to be a bowling alley. And, feeling the wine from dinner a bit, we decided to stop in. So far, aside for making the Hilton Sorrento Palace our home, this has been the best decision we have made on this trip. We had a great time; it was really silly and fun.

Positano!

This morning we had another slow start and another nice breakfast before hopping on a bus to Positano, a little town on the Amalfi Coast. Unfortunately it was raining and overcast, but the sea and the views were still nice and it was fun to walk around. It’s still the off-season, though, I’d be interested to see the town busier and sunnier. 

Tomorrow we’re planning to heading to Herculanium and maybe Pompeii. It looks like we probably wont get a chance to get to Napoli, which is too bad because I really wanted to see it, but then, there’s chance I might end up down here again this summer. And there was nothing there in particular that I wanted to do, really, I just would’ve liked to get a sense of the city and grab some pizza. Allora, we’ll see how the next day goes before we head to Ischia. The good news is, no matter what we do we’ll have fun, and ever since the dungeon escapade it has been nice and relaxing, to say the least. 

---LATER---

So we made it home to Siena alive! Let's see, where'd I leave off... 

Herculanium and Pompeii were definitely one of the highlights. We went to Herculanium first, since it's better preserved, even though it's smaller since it hasn't yet all been excavated. It was almost like a scavenger hunt, wandering through the ruins and looking for cool carvings and mosaics in the different rooms and buildings. It worked out well that we went there first. because there was much more art and whatnot to see than in Pompeii. Pompeii was HUGE. What impressed me about that was the size and the feel of the city. It felt like a real, lived in place, yet the whole thing had been buried under volcanic ash. Crazy.

The next day we packed up and, sadly, had to move out of the Hilton. Our next stop was Ischia, and we got to take boats to get there!

We first took a hyrdofoil boat to Napoli, which was fun, and then hopped on another ferry to Ischia. Now, the thing about Ischia is that it's gorgeous and nice, but really more appropriate to go to in the summer. Whether aside (it rained on and off), in march everything is still closed for the off season.

The most disappointing example was a certain restaurant we had wanted to go to. You see, there is a bar in Siena that we frequent, and we have become friends with the owner, Dominico. When he heard we were going to Ischia, he told us his friend had a resturant out there, and we were all excited to go. But alas, closed. So instead, a little low in spirits, we decided to stop at a grocery store and improvise a feast in our rented hotel/apartment thing. It actually ended up to be a really fun night, we stayed in, ate, played yahtzee and watched mean girls while it stormed outside. It turned out to be a rather refreshing break from Italian style everything.

The next day was our last on Ischia, since we were only spending the one night, and we ventured over to the giant Ischia Castle. This was probably my favorite Castle I've been to so far. It was just so big and castle-y. Wandering around we happened upon gardens, wine making stations, and a bunch of cool tower and things. And the view! I didn't really get to learn a whole lot about the castle since the inside was closed (again, the off season), but it was cool just to be there, really.

We kind of hung around Ischia and the hotel for the rest of the day, since we were planning to take the ferry back to Napoli and from there an overnight ferry to Sicily. Unfortunately, it began to rain and the ferry we had planned on taking off the Island was canceled! We were able to get another one, but by that time it was too late to make our overnight boat. Luckily, we found an overnight train. Unluckily, there were no more seat reservations available. We were able to get on the train, but had to spend the night sleeping in the aisles. This is why we do these things when we're still young and spry. We made it Sicily in the morning as planned, but we all exhausted from the less than comfortable journey. We made it to the hotel, but of course it was much to early for our check in time. However, this turned out to be our favorite hotel of the trip. It was pretty and quaint, and the lady immediately let us drop of our stuff and ushered us upstairs to the breakfast room, which was cheery and pleasant and overlooked the water. We spent the rest of the morning sunbathing on the roof until our room was ready, which had balconies facing the sea. Once we'd gotten all settled in and cleaned up, we went out for lunch and wandered around the town in the sunshine. Later in the evening, a few of us ventured into the town part of Taormina (where we were staying on the outskirts) and had a fun time walking around and enjoying the view. On the bus ride back there was an old guy arguing about politics with the bus driver, which was really fun to see and hear. It seemed as though the old guy was a Burlusconi supporter and kept saying how we HAD to be smart because he spoke five languages. Even though they were arguing it seemed to be friendly and all in good fun.

The second day in Sicily, we really wanted to see the ancient Greek temples. However, they were a couple hours away. The hotel offered to set up a guided excursion for us, but that wasn't really what we wanted. So instead, we rented a car and drove across Sicily ourselves! It was a fun road trip and definitely worth it to see the temples, many of them were really well preserved.

Our last day we relaxed and wandered around town, and finally Sunday made out way to Palermo to catch our flight back to Tuscany. 

It was a successful journey, and I liked see the South. It is really different than the north, the look and feel are completely different, which I suppose makes sense since Italy was only unified 150 years ago.

Il Mio Compleanno!

So, one more post before spring break starts tomorrow! I may or may not be able to post during the next ten days, but I'll at least do it when I return to Siena.
Alright, so the only thing I really want to write about this week is my birthday.
It was good, but weird. Might I begin by saying, Monday birthdays are always odd, especially since we had a test on Tuesday. But what was really weird about it was celebrating with a borrowed family. Honestly, I never really thought about family as a big part of my birthday, because they just were around always. And yeah, last year I was off at college by my birthday coincided with parent's weekend, so I was still with mom for that (or the day before, but still). My host family is great and all, but they're not really mine the same way my family at home is. Alessandra made me tiramisu, which was delicious, but too soft for the candles to stand up in for very long, so instead of singing to me they all yelled "VELOCE VELOCE VELOCE" at me to blow out the candles before the fire hit the food. I found this to be rather funny, but still odd. And like I said, we had an Italian test, so I didn't do anything at all that night. We went out the next  night though, for my both my birthday and my friend Rachel's (who's birthday is march 8th), which was a lot of fun.  And the good news is, I got 103% on the Italian test!
Anyways, that's the birthday news. Next adventure, il sud! We're heading to Sorrento tomorrow , and we'll make our way around Napoli, Herculanium, Ischia, Capri, and at the end, Sicilia. We're all just super excited to relax and hopefully it'll be nice and caldo (hot). It's a bit funny to be taking a vaction from what already feels like a vaction, but believe me, we all need it. Although the course work is not in the least bit challenging, living with a random Italian family is. No matter how great and wonderful they are, the fact is, we're still guests. And it's hard to try to take on a whole new life style and set of cultural norms in addition to the whole language thing. So as much as it'll lovely to return to our Italian mommies and daddies, we are quite looking forward to just living with each other for a bit and getting a chance to relax and recharge. I'll do my best to keep you posted!

Piglets and a Festival

Tonight I am so very sleepy, but I will do my best to fill you in on the weekend.
Saturday they took us to a pig farm and then to a cheese farm. The pig farm interesting because apperently the kind of pigs they raise, the cinta sienese is specific to Siena and no longer very common. They're distict because they are black with a white stripe, and there are some painted into the good government side of Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good and Bad Government. They told us that these pigs are hard to raise and people do it just because they happen to love these kinds of pigs. The pig farmers who raise them formed a coalition sort of thing that sets up really strict requirements about what they're fed and how much space they need (At least an acre available for every 2 pigs, I think they said), which makes them expensive. In addition, this kind of pig gains weight SUPER fast, and so they can't be sold if they're too fat, and they're hard to sell anyways because they're so expensive.

We got walk around in the pins and pet them, they gave us silly plastic booties to put over our feet for trekking through the mud. They're we some cute little piglets too!
Then they took us inside and fed us pig. The guy explained all the different types of meat (where it came from in the pig, etc) and told us what order to try them in. It was a little weird eating it after just seeing the pigs, but we didn't let it bother us.
Next they took us to a different farm where they make cheese. The farm is run by only 3 people, a sister and two brothers, and they do ALL of the cheese making process. She showed us all the equipment and explained the different processes, including the pasteurization of the milk, the forming and draining of the cheese and the aging of the cheese. Seeing how it worked was cool and all, but I have to say, the overpowering smell of cheese was a bit much for me.
Then came my favorite  part, the cheese tasting. We only tried four different kinds but they were tasty. The first one was my favorite, it was the youngest of the ones we tried, I think only a week or two old. The third one had been aged for several years and was good but intense. Last they gave us ricotta with honey and cinnamon to eat it with, which was very tasty.


And today they took us to a Carnivale festival! The one we went to was small but a lot of fun, in a town called Foliano. Apparently they have 4 contrade there, but I don't think it's nearly as cool since they don't have a Palio or anything. Each one had a big float though,
which were supposedly supposed to be allegories of something or other, but they were all really weird. One had a mad scientist and a tiger, whatever allegory that is is beyond me.

Confetti!

Krissy and Simon and I went on a mission to find some carnivale food and ended up getting these things called Cinnacine, which were large salty disks of fried dough. They were very tasty at first, but we really should have shared one, because by the end I was overloaded on fried-ness and I couldn't finish it.
Oh yeah, and one of the really fun things about carnivale is the confetti. It's everywhere, people buy big bags of it and throw it at each other. Not even people you know, necessarily, just at everyone. The streets were covered in confetti, and by the time we left, so were we. I still have a bunch in my hair! Oh and people dress up like it's halloween. I didn't but Julia was an old lady, which turned out to be hilarious! The kids were the best, though, so cute all dressed up and running around throwing confetti. A couple even randomly got us with confetti!
We ended up spending most of the day dancing in this one area where a band was playing American hits, which is always a good time.

I'm happy to have made it home though, 'cause all I really want is a good night's sleep!