Sunday, February 22, 2009
Cadiz
Hey!!! So yesterday about 11 of us went to Cadiz for Carnival. It was quite an experience!!! Carnival is a big celebration in Spain and other countries that is similar to our Halloween but for adults and like 12 million times bigger. There are people dressed up in extravangant costumes EVERYWHERE (literally) and people come from all over Spain to go to Cadiz. It lasts all week long, and there are parades and music contests and lots of fun!!! Cadiz is near Portugal on the southern coast of Spain, and we left Granada at noon yesterday and arrived in Cadiz around 7:00 PM. There were 500 people going with the program we were with (which included just the bus ride for 20 euros! lol) We were dropped off right by the Atlantic Ocean and we watched the sunset on the beach - absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Then the nightlong party began!! We basically just walked around the city watching live bands, eating baked potatoes, and having a good time :) Some people slept on the beach and others (like myself) enjoyed Cadiz for a full 12 hours before reboarding the bus at 7:00 AM. This festival was so unlike anything else I have ever experienced. People are just so laid back and there to have a good time. I didn't see one police officer until we were walking back to the bus, nor were they needed! It was really amazing to be a part of something so different than what I am used to. You guys should totally check out our sweet masks in the pictures! haha we were probably the most underdressed people there!! And today, Katie's parents arrived in Granada!! So even though I am exhausted, I went out to dinner with them and talked about their travel and our life here in Spain :) It is soooo nice to see people from home!! Mr. Szafranski tipped the waiter almost 6 euros and the guy was so happy that he shook all of our hands (which they dont do here haha) and gave us a round of shots! (Waiters/waitresses are paid salaries here and a 20 cent tip if anything is sufficient in Granada) Then they went back to their hotel to try and adjust to the time change so they can enjoy the city for a couple of days before heading to Poland. I myself am headed to Morocco on Wednesday night, so my next post will probably be next Sunday when I get home! Miss you guys!
Friday, February 20, 2009
La Alpujarra
Hey everyone!! Sorry the posts are coming slower now...School is taking a lot more energy than I expected because I ended up taking 5 classes so I will be coming home with 18 credit hours!! The overachiever in me couldn't resist taking advantage of the lower tuition and more liberal class settings :) I also am pleased to announce that I have an intercambio!!! (which means I meet with a Spanish speaker and we practice our Spanish and English with each other) And she is soo fun, and I have been spending quite a bit of time with her. Also, this week I have been fighting a nasty cold...Katie went to Ireland with only hoodies (and it was snowing!) and she got me sick :( but I am feeling better today. I ended up having my second pharmacy disaster this week - the cold medicine I bought is prescription strength and it makes me very drowsy and what not - and apparently I am allergic to something in it - so my face is itchy and red like it gets when I wear makeuppp!!! Haha i am seriously having no luck with European pharmacies. But on to happier things - I went to La Alpujarra last weekend and it was amazing!!! It is a district of granada in the mountains right next to the Sierra Nevada. We traveled through the three white villages Pampaneira, Bubion and Capileira, and we ate lunch at a traditional Alpujarran restaurant in the last village. I ordered a vegetarian plate because every dish had ham in it....apparently they are famous for their ham - whoo hoo! ;) It was really beautiful and interesting to learn about the history on the way there. I guess a lot of famous people have houses here because it is so private and secluded. (Like U2 and Steven Spielberg - P.S. some Indiana Jones scenes were filmed up there bc Steven loves it so much!) We did a little bit of hiking but nothing compared to the mountain hike I did in January. It was very fun and relaxing and beautiful. Take a look at the pictures and see for yourself!! Miss you all dearly! <3
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Roma, Italia
Hey!! This is the last blog from Italy!! If it's the first Italy blog you are reading, you should scroll down and read about Milan, Venice and Florence first!
Friday, Feb. 6 cont.
We had a very hard time finding this hostel because there was no sign anywhere in sight. When we finally did find it, boy were we in for a surprise!! Haha you just have to see the pictures - we walked through a huge wooden door and are welcomed by the smell of mold! - Yuck! Then we got into the hostel, and our "receptionist" was laying on a couch watching music videos. We were sooo confused when he asked us for 132 euros in cash!! After paying him, we put our stuff down and chose our bunks from the 8 beds available. We didn't have sheets - just a matress cover and a small blanket folded up. The paint or paper or whatever it was was falling from the ceiling...and the window was locked shut. We decided to try to relax by taking a shower in the three available bathrooms (one of which has a giant hole in the wall and another has its shower curtain ripped halfway off the pole) and we realized that we don't have towels. We asked him about it and he told us they were 2 euros each and if we wanted a tiny locker to lock up our valuables, he needed a 10 euros deposit....at this point we are HATING this hostel - especially compared to the other 3 cities!! But we finally got settled and met the Polish couple and the 50 year old man from Austrailia who were living in our room...Two beds were still vacant when we went to find something to eat for dinner. We ended up eating at Pizzeria Rocci where I had the absolute best pizza I have ever had in my entire life!!! (salami of course) The waiter did not speak English and ordering was absolutely hilarious - we made sure to leave him a good tip ;)
Sat. February 7
The two vacant beds were filled by two guys from Barcelona sometime during the middle of the night. We woke up early and headed to Piazza Venezia which holds Il Vittoriano, a monument dedicated to king Victor Emmanuel II. The view from the monument was amazing and we saw sooo many important things here (like the Palazzo (palace) Venezia which was used by Benito Mussolini as his headquarters, and he addressed the people from its balcony!) Then we went to the Pantheon! It was really amazing to see something sooo ancient! (125 AD) Until the 20th century, the Pantheon was the largest concrete structure in the world, and Michelangelo studied its dome before starting work on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. It was used for so many things over time and now serves as an active church. A lot of famous people are buried here as well (including the artist Raphael and the first king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II) After the Pantheon, we went to the Colosseum!! This was by far one of my favorite things we saw on our trip. We also went to the Foro Romano which holds the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city. It served as a city square and central hub where people gathered for justice and faith a reallllyy long time ago. We went to Palatino (Palatine Hill) as well and then headed to McDonalds for lunch. We were feeling pretty homesick for Spain as well as the US, and keep in mind that this was the very first time since January 3rd that I had eaten American fast food...We ended up wandering around some more and seeing the Teatro Marcello (ancient theatre built right before the Roman empire) before heading to the grocery store to buy food for dinner. We were allowed to use the kitchen in our hostel - so we cooked some box pasta and ate salad and pasta for dinner to save some money. Since McDonalds, I had not been feeling well at all, and the girls were planning on going on this famous barcrawl from the Spanish steps, so I went to the Pharmacy to find something to calm my stomach - BAD IDEA! haha They don't let you shop for your over the counter medication in Europe...when you go to a pharmacy, you have to talk to the pharmacists and they give you what you need. So here I am in an Italian pharmacy where very little English is spoken trying to tell them that I ate McDonalds for the first time in a month and my stomach was killing me. The guy who spoke the most english gave me a box of pink pills that said Ibuprofen on them....so I asked him if it was pain medication and he said yes...I told him I needed something for digestion to which he responded with a puzzled look....so I told him I ate too much McDonalds (haha) and he smiled and nodded and gave me a different box of pills which I paid for. He said I could take 3 a day (and of course I could not read the directions because they were only in Italian) - so I took one and laid down for an hour. It didn't help at all so I took another one and started to get ready to go out. By the time we were all leaving, I still didn't feel very good and we got about 10 minutes away from the hostel when I decided to turn around and come back. The pills ended up working as a LAXATIVE! and I had taken 2 - so you get the idea! I was stuck in this wierd hostel with the creepy owner and the old man from Australia because everyone else had gone to the barcrawl!! Haha when I think about it now it is pretty funny, but I was not happy then. I took a shower and laid down to read, and I fell asleep with the light on. I woke up to the old man standing a foot from my bed (I was on the top bunk so his head was level with mine) All I saw was his huge fluffy white beard and I screamed and jumped back haha - and he wanted to know if I wanted the light off?? I was so creeped out I couldn't go back to sleep until they all came home from the barcrawl...what a night!!
Sunday, Feb. 8
Dorothy went to meet her friend who was studying in Rome, so Heather and I went to the Piazza del Popolo, The Spanish Steps (The widest staircase in all of Europe - Beautiful!!!), the Villa Borghese (the largest public park in Rome), and the ZOO!!! The zoo was so cool because we were allowed to get so much closer to the animals than at home. They also had a lot of different animals than what we have at home. This was one of my favorite days because it was beautiful weather and we were so relaxed. We met Dorothy at the Fontana di Trevi (The largest Baroque fountain in Rome) The legend holds that if visitors throw a coin in the fountain, they are sure to return to Rome....and you better believe we threw a coin in that fountain! haha - About 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain every day and are collected at night. The money goes to a supermarket for Rome's needy. Then we went to the grocery store and made chicken ceasar salad with penne pasta for lunch/dinner. Then we went for gelato (Yum!) and came back and had a long talk with the Barcelona guys about Spain and poetry and random things haha - We thought one of them didn't speak English very well - but he was just shy at first! When we asked them their ages, they told us they were 27 and 29 and then told us (in english) that men don't get old, they get interesting. I asked them what women get, and he said "No hablo ingles." (I don't speak English!) haha they were hilarious. It was realllly awkward for me and the old man since the previous night, but the girls loved him - he said we reminded him of his daughter - which I thought was creeepppyy! We went to bed early because of our busy day to come.
Monday, Feb. 9
We went to St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican!!! It was absolutely amazing. The dome of St. Peter's was designed by Michelangelo. We saw soo much famous art by Boticelli, Bernini, Raphael and Michelangelo. The Gallery of Maps was one of my favorite parts, as well as the Raphael rooms covered in his frescoes and of course the Sistine Chapel. We were there for the entire morning, and it was this day that I discovered my coffee addiction that has developed over the past month. I was almost falling over when we finally went for lunch and had really good pizza and potato and cheese rolls...haha we thought they were mozzerella sticks! Then we stumbled across an outdoor market and got the best nuts ever!! I don't even know what kind they were, but they had shells. We walked around the Trastavere neighborhood for hours. It was one of Rome's great medieval working-class neighborhoods that spoke its own distinct dialect and had traditional street fairs and poetry, but it became very touristy in the 1990s. We also went to Piazza Mattei/Santa Maria de Trastavere which, according to legend, had a stream of pure oil flow from the earth on the site of the church on the day Christ was born, signifying the coming of grace and God. There is a column next to the altar marking the spot - check it out in the pics! We walked back towards the river when it started getting dark and took a lot of night pictures!! We sat by an ice skating rink and people-watched for a while before going to meet Dorothy's friends in the Piazza Navona (Really pretty fountains) to go eat dinner. Dorothy's friend Kate and 6 of her friends came to eat dinner with us and Dorothy, Heather and I ended up getting appetizers AND a 2 course meal. We were so hungry and exhausted and we knew that it was our last night in Italy, so we ate every bite of it! haha - Then we got MORE gelato and crashed the minute we got back to the hostel.
Tuesday, Feb. 10
We woke up early and set out to find a good view of the city. We walked up to Aventine Hill and attempted to find the "keyhole" view of Rome in Piazza di Cavlierei di Malta. We didn't realize it was an ACTUAL keyhole in a door! haha We walked around some military base for like an hour looking for it - it was realllllly amazing though when we finally asked some guards where it was. And then it was time to get to the airport for our flight. It was such an amazing trip!! I hope you liked reading about it :)
Friday, Feb. 6 cont.
We had a very hard time finding this hostel because there was no sign anywhere in sight. When we finally did find it, boy were we in for a surprise!! Haha you just have to see the pictures - we walked through a huge wooden door and are welcomed by the smell of mold! - Yuck! Then we got into the hostel, and our "receptionist" was laying on a couch watching music videos. We were sooo confused when he asked us for 132 euros in cash!! After paying him, we put our stuff down and chose our bunks from the 8 beds available. We didn't have sheets - just a matress cover and a small blanket folded up. The paint or paper or whatever it was was falling from the ceiling...and the window was locked shut. We decided to try to relax by taking a shower in the three available bathrooms (one of which has a giant hole in the wall and another has its shower curtain ripped halfway off the pole) and we realized that we don't have towels. We asked him about it and he told us they were 2 euros each and if we wanted a tiny locker to lock up our valuables, he needed a 10 euros deposit....at this point we are HATING this hostel - especially compared to the other 3 cities!! But we finally got settled and met the Polish couple and the 50 year old man from Austrailia who were living in our room...Two beds were still vacant when we went to find something to eat for dinner. We ended up eating at Pizzeria Rocci where I had the absolute best pizza I have ever had in my entire life!!! (salami of course) The waiter did not speak English and ordering was absolutely hilarious - we made sure to leave him a good tip ;)
Sat. February 7
The two vacant beds were filled by two guys from Barcelona sometime during the middle of the night. We woke up early and headed to Piazza Venezia which holds Il Vittoriano, a monument dedicated to king Victor Emmanuel II. The view from the monument was amazing and we saw sooo many important things here (like the Palazzo (palace) Venezia which was used by Benito Mussolini as his headquarters, and he addressed the people from its balcony!) Then we went to the Pantheon! It was really amazing to see something sooo ancient! (125 AD) Until the 20th century, the Pantheon was the largest concrete structure in the world, and Michelangelo studied its dome before starting work on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. It was used for so many things over time and now serves as an active church. A lot of famous people are buried here as well (including the artist Raphael and the first king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II) After the Pantheon, we went to the Colosseum!! This was by far one of my favorite things we saw on our trip. We also went to the Foro Romano which holds the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city. It served as a city square and central hub where people gathered for justice and faith a reallllyy long time ago. We went to Palatino (Palatine Hill) as well and then headed to McDonalds for lunch. We were feeling pretty homesick for Spain as well as the US, and keep in mind that this was the very first time since January 3rd that I had eaten American fast food...We ended up wandering around some more and seeing the Teatro Marcello (ancient theatre built right before the Roman empire) before heading to the grocery store to buy food for dinner. We were allowed to use the kitchen in our hostel - so we cooked some box pasta and ate salad and pasta for dinner to save some money. Since McDonalds, I had not been feeling well at all, and the girls were planning on going on this famous barcrawl from the Spanish steps, so I went to the Pharmacy to find something to calm my stomach - BAD IDEA! haha They don't let you shop for your over the counter medication in Europe...when you go to a pharmacy, you have to talk to the pharmacists and they give you what you need. So here I am in an Italian pharmacy where very little English is spoken trying to tell them that I ate McDonalds for the first time in a month and my stomach was killing me. The guy who spoke the most english gave me a box of pink pills that said Ibuprofen on them....so I asked him if it was pain medication and he said yes...I told him I needed something for digestion to which he responded with a puzzled look....so I told him I ate too much McDonalds (haha) and he smiled and nodded and gave me a different box of pills which I paid for. He said I could take 3 a day (and of course I could not read the directions because they were only in Italian) - so I took one and laid down for an hour. It didn't help at all so I took another one and started to get ready to go out. By the time we were all leaving, I still didn't feel very good and we got about 10 minutes away from the hostel when I decided to turn around and come back. The pills ended up working as a LAXATIVE! and I had taken 2 - so you get the idea! I was stuck in this wierd hostel with the creepy owner and the old man from Australia because everyone else had gone to the barcrawl!! Haha when I think about it now it is pretty funny, but I was not happy then. I took a shower and laid down to read, and I fell asleep with the light on. I woke up to the old man standing a foot from my bed (I was on the top bunk so his head was level with mine) All I saw was his huge fluffy white beard and I screamed and jumped back haha - and he wanted to know if I wanted the light off?? I was so creeped out I couldn't go back to sleep until they all came home from the barcrawl...what a night!!
Sunday, Feb. 8
Dorothy went to meet her friend who was studying in Rome, so Heather and I went to the Piazza del Popolo, The Spanish Steps (The widest staircase in all of Europe - Beautiful!!!), the Villa Borghese (the largest public park in Rome), and the ZOO!!! The zoo was so cool because we were allowed to get so much closer to the animals than at home. They also had a lot of different animals than what we have at home. This was one of my favorite days because it was beautiful weather and we were so relaxed. We met Dorothy at the Fontana di Trevi (The largest Baroque fountain in Rome) The legend holds that if visitors throw a coin in the fountain, they are sure to return to Rome....and you better believe we threw a coin in that fountain! haha - About 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain every day and are collected at night. The money goes to a supermarket for Rome's needy. Then we went to the grocery store and made chicken ceasar salad with penne pasta for lunch/dinner. Then we went for gelato (Yum!) and came back and had a long talk with the Barcelona guys about Spain and poetry and random things haha - We thought one of them didn't speak English very well - but he was just shy at first! When we asked them their ages, they told us they were 27 and 29 and then told us (in english) that men don't get old, they get interesting. I asked them what women get, and he said "No hablo ingles." (I don't speak English!) haha they were hilarious. It was realllly awkward for me and the old man since the previous night, but the girls loved him - he said we reminded him of his daughter - which I thought was creeepppyy! We went to bed early because of our busy day to come.
Monday, Feb. 9
We went to St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican!!! It was absolutely amazing. The dome of St. Peter's was designed by Michelangelo. We saw soo much famous art by Boticelli, Bernini, Raphael and Michelangelo. The Gallery of Maps was one of my favorite parts, as well as the Raphael rooms covered in his frescoes and of course the Sistine Chapel. We were there for the entire morning, and it was this day that I discovered my coffee addiction that has developed over the past month. I was almost falling over when we finally went for lunch and had really good pizza and potato and cheese rolls...haha we thought they were mozzerella sticks! Then we stumbled across an outdoor market and got the best nuts ever!! I don't even know what kind they were, but they had shells. We walked around the Trastavere neighborhood for hours. It was one of Rome's great medieval working-class neighborhoods that spoke its own distinct dialect and had traditional street fairs and poetry, but it became very touristy in the 1990s. We also went to Piazza Mattei/Santa Maria de Trastavere which, according to legend, had a stream of pure oil flow from the earth on the site of the church on the day Christ was born, signifying the coming of grace and God. There is a column next to the altar marking the spot - check it out in the pics! We walked back towards the river when it started getting dark and took a lot of night pictures!! We sat by an ice skating rink and people-watched for a while before going to meet Dorothy's friends in the Piazza Navona (Really pretty fountains) to go eat dinner. Dorothy's friend Kate and 6 of her friends came to eat dinner with us and Dorothy, Heather and I ended up getting appetizers AND a 2 course meal. We were so hungry and exhausted and we knew that it was our last night in Italy, so we ate every bite of it! haha - Then we got MORE gelato and crashed the minute we got back to the hostel.
Tuesday, Feb. 10
We woke up early and set out to find a good view of the city. We walked up to Aventine Hill and attempted to find the "keyhole" view of Rome in Piazza di Cavlierei di Malta. We didn't realize it was an ACTUAL keyhole in a door! haha We walked around some military base for like an hour looking for it - it was realllllly amazing though when we finally asked some guards where it was. And then it was time to get to the airport for our flight. It was such an amazing trip!! I hope you liked reading about it :)
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Firenze, Italia
Florence is the third city of our Italian adventure so if you have not read about Milan and Venice yet, you should scroll down. Also, if you are not able to leave me comments, you should scroll even farther down and read my entry titled, "Follow my blog" so you know what to do and we can keep in touch!!
Tuesday, Feb. 3 cont.
Once again, we had a good location very close to the train station and the Duomo in Florence, but it was certainly a very different scene than Venice. This was very city-like, but different than Granada. We arrived at the hostel to find a sign taped to the door saying "call this number when you arrive." We had to wait about a half hour to get in, but once we did it was very nice. Our room was HUGE!! Check out the pics. We were very hungry (like always haha) and we set out to look for a restaurant. We found a place that looked nice and when we tried reading the menu outside, we realized that it was all in Japanese!! We were so confused and about to walk away when we saw a man laughing at us and waving us inside. He said you are not Japanese are you? Then he showed us the menu in English (this was obviously a very touristy place!) and we decided to stay. It was very nice inside, and (like most of Italy during these 10 days) full of Japanese people. We found out that Florence has more tourists than residents living in the city...which just baffles me! The food was really good and our waiter "Dustin" was absolutley hilarious!! He spoke to us with a New Jersey accent and when we asked him where he was from, he said he was from there. Of course 10 minutes later he told us that he was really from Italy and he just liked the New Jersey accent. We asked him how he learned English and he said he just picked it up in this restuarant and through people he met - so you can obviously see how many tourists come there!! He gave us free pizza bread when we were done eating because I think we were entertaining him. haha We got gelato before going home and went to bed exhausted from travelling.
Wed. February 4
We had breakfast in an adorable little nook in the hostel, and then went to The Gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti which houses DAVID!! Michelangelo's David (1504) was one of the best things I saw on the entire trip. He has been in the Gallery since 1873 when they took him from the Piazza della Signoria (Which we also saw) to protect him from the weather. We saw replicas of him around Florence but seeing the real thing was sooooo amazing. I honestly can barely remember the rest of the art gallery - I stared at David for at least an hour. (We totally took illegal pics of him too so check them out haha.) The gallery also has a really cool instrument museum that was begun by the Medici family! We also saw the Duomo which was really cool on the outside and unlike anything else we had seen. Later, we went to the Piazza San Lorenzo which was like a HUGE flea market and walked around for a long time and saw the Medici Chapels where a lot of the Medici family (really important family in Florence from the 13th to 17th century - 3 popes!) is buried. We also went to a large indoor market where I had the best sandwich of my entire life, and all it was was salami and cheese!! It was so fresh - they sliced it right in front of us and it was sooo good! We also got super good almonds here! :) We walked around and window shopped and found out that Italian boys are even more aggressive than Spanish boys! (Which I didn't think was possible) For dinner we went to this amazing restaurant called Il Pirata and we paid 7 euro for an all you could eat buffet! There were a lot of Italians there, and it was very authentic and delicious!! (I discovered I really like pesto sauce?) I took pictures of the food so check it out! ;)
Thursday, Feb. 5
We started at Piazza della Signoria which has a copy of David, a bunch of other famous statues, and a really cool fountain. We took a thousand pictures there and then went to the Piazza/Basilica di Santa Croce (I know, I know - all these stinkin piazzas! You have to look at the pictures and then it will make sense!) which is where Michelangelo and Galileo and a bunch of other famous people are buried. There is a statue of Dante outside in the Piazza, but he is buried somewhere else. Next we went to the Uffizi Gallery which holds the world's most important collection of Renaissance art - oh my goodness it was humongous! There is soooo much art there it was ridiculous and I honestly cannot even remember most of it. We got some illegal pics...but for the most part it was just wandering around looking at art for 4 hours. It was really cool, but afterwards I was all arted out dude - I had no idea what most of it even was I just knew it was famous. A lot of the Medici family art collections and works by Michelangelo, Giotto, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael are here so that was cool. Then we went to Ponte Vecchio which I absolutely loved!! It was Florence's first bridge built in 1345 and it is the only bridge that survived from the Medieval days (all others were destroyed in World War II). It is lined with all these cute shops and the view is just amazing. When we went to find lunch, we discovered that everything closed at like 2 or 3 (or really whenever store owners want to close)...but after an hour of looking, we finally ate at Gusta Pizza because they stayed open for us and closed after we ate :) Then we climbed and climbed until we got to Piazzale Michelangelo which had an AMAZING view of the city and a green bronze copy of David ;) and then we got gelato and climbed even higher to the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte which is a Monastery that sits at one of the highest points of Florence (and obviously has a great view)! There was a huge cemetary there and it was a gorgeous day, so we stayed up there for a couple of hours and enjoyed the scenery. Afterwards, we went to see some friends who are studying in Florence in their apartment. (A presidential scholar and one of my good friends from ESA are studying there and it was so nice to see them!) It was cool to see their living conditions and how different they are from ours!! Even though it was fun and interesting, it made me really appreciate living with a family and living in Granada because it was just so different.
Friday, Feb. 6
We went back to San Lorenzo Market and bought pashminas (scarf like things made in italy out of cashmere and silk -sooo nice) and then window shopped some more and ate lunch at Il Pirata (I got Lasagna and it was amazing!!!) Then we took a 4 hour ghetto train ride (The whole side of the train was full of grafitti and it totally should not have taken 4 hours but it was the cheapest one! haha) And we were off to our fourth and final city!
Tuesday, Feb. 3 cont.
Once again, we had a good location very close to the train station and the Duomo in Florence, but it was certainly a very different scene than Venice. This was very city-like, but different than Granada. We arrived at the hostel to find a sign taped to the door saying "call this number when you arrive." We had to wait about a half hour to get in, but once we did it was very nice. Our room was HUGE!! Check out the pics. We were very hungry (like always haha) and we set out to look for a restaurant. We found a place that looked nice and when we tried reading the menu outside, we realized that it was all in Japanese!! We were so confused and about to walk away when we saw a man laughing at us and waving us inside. He said you are not Japanese are you? Then he showed us the menu in English (this was obviously a very touristy place!) and we decided to stay. It was very nice inside, and (like most of Italy during these 10 days) full of Japanese people. We found out that Florence has more tourists than residents living in the city...which just baffles me! The food was really good and our waiter "Dustin" was absolutley hilarious!! He spoke to us with a New Jersey accent and when we asked him where he was from, he said he was from there. Of course 10 minutes later he told us that he was really from Italy and he just liked the New Jersey accent. We asked him how he learned English and he said he just picked it up in this restuarant and through people he met - so you can obviously see how many tourists come there!! He gave us free pizza bread when we were done eating because I think we were entertaining him. haha We got gelato before going home and went to bed exhausted from travelling.
Wed. February 4
We had breakfast in an adorable little nook in the hostel, and then went to The Gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti which houses DAVID!! Michelangelo's David (1504) was one of the best things I saw on the entire trip. He has been in the Gallery since 1873 when they took him from the Piazza della Signoria (Which we also saw) to protect him from the weather. We saw replicas of him around Florence but seeing the real thing was sooooo amazing. I honestly can barely remember the rest of the art gallery - I stared at David for at least an hour. (We totally took illegal pics of him too so check them out haha.) The gallery also has a really cool instrument museum that was begun by the Medici family! We also saw the Duomo which was really cool on the outside and unlike anything else we had seen. Later, we went to the Piazza San Lorenzo which was like a HUGE flea market and walked around for a long time and saw the Medici Chapels where a lot of the Medici family (really important family in Florence from the 13th to 17th century - 3 popes!) is buried. We also went to a large indoor market where I had the best sandwich of my entire life, and all it was was salami and cheese!! It was so fresh - they sliced it right in front of us and it was sooo good! We also got super good almonds here! :) We walked around and window shopped and found out that Italian boys are even more aggressive than Spanish boys! (Which I didn't think was possible) For dinner we went to this amazing restaurant called Il Pirata and we paid 7 euro for an all you could eat buffet! There were a lot of Italians there, and it was very authentic and delicious!! (I discovered I really like pesto sauce?) I took pictures of the food so check it out! ;)
Thursday, Feb. 5
We started at Piazza della Signoria which has a copy of David, a bunch of other famous statues, and a really cool fountain. We took a thousand pictures there and then went to the Piazza/Basilica di Santa Croce (I know, I know - all these stinkin piazzas! You have to look at the pictures and then it will make sense!) which is where Michelangelo and Galileo and a bunch of other famous people are buried. There is a statue of Dante outside in the Piazza, but he is buried somewhere else. Next we went to the Uffizi Gallery which holds the world's most important collection of Renaissance art - oh my goodness it was humongous! There is soooo much art there it was ridiculous and I honestly cannot even remember most of it. We got some illegal pics...but for the most part it was just wandering around looking at art for 4 hours. It was really cool, but afterwards I was all arted out dude - I had no idea what most of it even was I just knew it was famous. A lot of the Medici family art collections and works by Michelangelo, Giotto, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael are here so that was cool. Then we went to Ponte Vecchio which I absolutely loved!! It was Florence's first bridge built in 1345 and it is the only bridge that survived from the Medieval days (all others were destroyed in World War II). It is lined with all these cute shops and the view is just amazing. When we went to find lunch, we discovered that everything closed at like 2 or 3 (or really whenever store owners want to close)...but after an hour of looking, we finally ate at Gusta Pizza because they stayed open for us and closed after we ate :) Then we climbed and climbed until we got to Piazzale Michelangelo which had an AMAZING view of the city and a green bronze copy of David ;) and then we got gelato and climbed even higher to the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte which is a Monastery that sits at one of the highest points of Florence (and obviously has a great view)! There was a huge cemetary there and it was a gorgeous day, so we stayed up there for a couple of hours and enjoyed the scenery. Afterwards, we went to see some friends who are studying in Florence in their apartment. (A presidential scholar and one of my good friends from ESA are studying there and it was so nice to see them!) It was cool to see their living conditions and how different they are from ours!! Even though it was fun and interesting, it made me really appreciate living with a family and living in Granada because it was just so different.
Friday, Feb. 6
We went back to San Lorenzo Market and bought pashminas (scarf like things made in italy out of cashmere and silk -sooo nice) and then window shopped some more and ate lunch at Il Pirata (I got Lasagna and it was amazing!!!) Then we took a 4 hour ghetto train ride (The whole side of the train was full of grafitti and it totally should not have taken 4 hours but it was the cheapest one! haha) And we were off to our fourth and final city!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Venezia, Italia
Venice was our second city in Italy and my personal favorite. If this is the first Italy blog you are reading you should scroll down and read about Milan first! And if you are not able to leave me comments you should scroll farther down and learn how to follow my blog!! :)
Sunday, Feb. 1 continued
We arrived in Venice and it was raining once again! We found our hostel very easily from the train station, but no one answered when we buzzed the door. So we roamed Venice for 3 hours stopping for pizza by the slice (salamino!! Haha yum) and when we finally got into the hostel, the owner said “Good thing I was here…you are early!!” We didn’t even tell him we had been there for three hours. We tried making small talk and asked him what the weather was supposed to be like for the rest of the week. He replied, “You will know when you wake up.” Haha he wasn’t too friendly, but the place was sooo nice!! We had our own private room and bathroom again and we got breakfast in bed in the morning!!
Monday, Feb. 2
We took a ferry around Venice for an hour. It’s like a bus for the people who live there, but we thought it was amazing and used it to sight see. Unfortunately, the only camera we had died, but we got plenty of pictures later so don’t worry. By the time we were done, we were freezing and I ended up buying 8 euro gloves even though I already had a pair back in Granada. All of the stores were selling decorative masks. They were literally everywhere we turned, and we were very confused. We eventually found out that they were for the festival of Carnival which is in February in Venice. We also saw sooo much Murano glass – it was absolutely gorgeous. They had everything from jewelry to wine stoppers made out of this glass that is found on one of the islands in Venice. It was very expensive and breakable otherwise I would have bought ALL of you something I promise ;) All day we were followed around by Japanese tourists because they thought we knew where we were going!! We ate chicken sandwiches at a small café for lunch and met some Americans from LA. When we heard them speaking English, Heather got really excited and yelled, “They speak American!” And Dorothy and I told her that they could clearly understand us haha. They told us they were studying in the Netherlands and all of us were just so excited to find other people who spoke English. It was so hard to be in a place where we could not communicate with the majority of the people. Then we got 1 euro gelato even though it was freezing cold outside, and we bought sandwiches for dinner and ate them in the hostel. We were literally the ONLY people in the hostel which was kind of creepy!!
Tuesday, Feb. 3
We went to Piazza San Marco - a very famous plaza in Venice where a lot of movie scenes are filmed. For example - Vantage Point was filmed in this plaza!! Take a look at the pics. There were tons of pigeons here too haha and we took pictures of a family that was literally COVERED in them! I laugh so hard when I even think about it! You have to look at the pics! We also went into the church. We also went to the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo which is a small palace with a huge famous outdoor spiral staircase leading to the top that is from the 15th century. It was really pretty and hard to find! AND THEN WE WENT ON A GONDOLA RIDE! We got a "student discount" after we said no to the 80 euro offer and we had the best tour guide ever! He spoke English and he gave us a 35 minute tour. We saw Fondamenta de la Preson which was the first prison in Venice from the 13th century, The post office haha, the first bridge also from the 13th century to be built in Venice, Marco Polo's house, Santa Maria de la Fava which is an old 15th century church, Cassanova's house, and of course, we went under the kissing bridge <3 We learned soo much from our guide!! He told us all about the water levels and the flooding. He told us that people only use the first floor for storage and that not everyone has boats because the city is small enough to walk everywhere. (There were literally no cars here at all in case you didn't know) And we asked him if it was hard to man the gondola and he said "With winds it's very technical." Then I asked him if his arms were really strong (he was wearing a jacket) and he said "Yes" with a huge grin, and that just made his day!! After the ride, we went to the huge Rialto fish market and walked around and ate fresh nuts. We had awesome paninis for lunch. (I have pictures) and italian pastries!! (I had cannoli crema) And then it was time to go to Florence.
Sunday, Feb. 1 continued
We arrived in Venice and it was raining once again! We found our hostel very easily from the train station, but no one answered when we buzzed the door. So we roamed Venice for 3 hours stopping for pizza by the slice (salamino!! Haha yum) and when we finally got into the hostel, the owner said “Good thing I was here…you are early!!” We didn’t even tell him we had been there for three hours. We tried making small talk and asked him what the weather was supposed to be like for the rest of the week. He replied, “You will know when you wake up.” Haha he wasn’t too friendly, but the place was sooo nice!! We had our own private room and bathroom again and we got breakfast in bed in the morning!!
Monday, Feb. 2
We took a ferry around Venice for an hour. It’s like a bus for the people who live there, but we thought it was amazing and used it to sight see. Unfortunately, the only camera we had died, but we got plenty of pictures later so don’t worry. By the time we were done, we were freezing and I ended up buying 8 euro gloves even though I already had a pair back in Granada. All of the stores were selling decorative masks. They were literally everywhere we turned, and we were very confused. We eventually found out that they were for the festival of Carnival which is in February in Venice. We also saw sooo much Murano glass – it was absolutely gorgeous. They had everything from jewelry to wine stoppers made out of this glass that is found on one of the islands in Venice. It was very expensive and breakable otherwise I would have bought ALL of you something I promise ;) All day we were followed around by Japanese tourists because they thought we knew where we were going!! We ate chicken sandwiches at a small café for lunch and met some Americans from LA. When we heard them speaking English, Heather got really excited and yelled, “They speak American!” And Dorothy and I told her that they could clearly understand us haha. They told us they were studying in the Netherlands and all of us were just so excited to find other people who spoke English. It was so hard to be in a place where we could not communicate with the majority of the people. Then we got 1 euro gelato even though it was freezing cold outside, and we bought sandwiches for dinner and ate them in the hostel. We were literally the ONLY people in the hostel which was kind of creepy!!
Tuesday, Feb. 3
We went to Piazza San Marco - a very famous plaza in Venice where a lot of movie scenes are filmed. For example - Vantage Point was filmed in this plaza!! Take a look at the pics. There were tons of pigeons here too haha and we took pictures of a family that was literally COVERED in them! I laugh so hard when I even think about it! You have to look at the pics! We also went into the church. We also went to the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo which is a small palace with a huge famous outdoor spiral staircase leading to the top that is from the 15th century. It was really pretty and hard to find! AND THEN WE WENT ON A GONDOLA RIDE! We got a "student discount" after we said no to the 80 euro offer and we had the best tour guide ever! He spoke English and he gave us a 35 minute tour. We saw Fondamenta de la Preson which was the first prison in Venice from the 13th century, The post office haha, the first bridge also from the 13th century to be built in Venice, Marco Polo's house, Santa Maria de la Fava which is an old 15th century church, Cassanova's house, and of course, we went under the kissing bridge <3 We learned soo much from our guide!! He told us all about the water levels and the flooding. He told us that people only use the first floor for storage and that not everyone has boats because the city is small enough to walk everywhere. (There were literally no cars here at all in case you didn't know) And we asked him if it was hard to man the gondola and he said "With winds it's very technical." Then I asked him if his arms were really strong (he was wearing a jacket) and he said "Yes" with a huge grin, and that just made his day!! After the ride, we went to the huge Rialto fish market and walked around and ate fresh nuts. We had awesome paninis for lunch. (I have pictures) and italian pastries!! (I had cannoli crema) And then it was time to go to Florence.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Milano, Italia
This post begins my 10 day adventure to Italy so get excited!! =) I am going to write 1 for each city, and some will certainly be longer than others, but the pictures I eventually post will tell you the most!
Saturday, Jan. 31
Heather, Dorothy and I arrived at the Granada airport 4 hours early because none of us actually checked the paperwork, and I thought we left at 5:00 PM but we didn't leave until 7:00! So we bought some books and magazines and Kinder chocolate (yum!) and waited it out in high spirits. We arrived in Milan around 10:00 PM and did not realize that the directions to our hostel were from a different Milan airport and we were actually about an hour outside of the city...So we found a shuttle and were dropped off in what we believed to be the middle of nowhere. The streets were nearly deserted. NO ONE spoke English, and whoever said Italian and Spanish were similar was wrong! So we walked around showing people our directions to our hostel and not understanding a word of what people were saying to us. Finally, a very enthusiastic man took our directions and told us that he knew where it was (in very broken English) so we followed him thinking he was going to point us in the right direction. Instead we find ourselves in his "taxi" watching his GPS and taking a 20 minute ride to the hostel while he belted out Italian tunes. Before we left, we asked him how much it was going to be and he said 30 euro total. When we arrived, however, he demanded 30 euro from EACH OF US and when we tried to fight him, he said he would give us a discount of 25 each. We were exhausted, we had all of our passports, credit cards, etc and just decided to pay him and get safely into the hostel which was also virtually in a deserted, middle of nowhere area. So we get into the hostel and encounter the very welcoming staff who were from Romania and spoke English! We recounted our story for them and they laughed and said we got ripped off - it should have costed us around 15 euro total rather than 75. We didn't think it was very funny....but they gave us free bottled water ("with gas" which is like seltzer water and apparently preferred among italians - yuck!) Check-in took about 1/2 an hour because when we gave him our IDs (2 Illinois licenses and a school ID), he wrote down Jesse White, Jesse White, and Curtin Heather - haha, and when he realized it, he had to re-do all of the paperwork. Finally, we put our stuff down and set out to get our first Italian food! We found a nice restaurant, and I ordered pepperoni pizza which in Italian is pizza with red peppers. Nontheless, it was delicious, and I learned to order "salame" or "salamino" in the future. The hostel was very nice inside. We had our own private three-bed room with our own bathroom. It was virtually like a budget hotel. We crashed around 12:30.
Sunday, Feb. 1
We woke up early to a wonderful breakfast - cappuchinos, croissants, and NUTELLA!!! which is a chocolate spread (sort of like butter) for toast. I was in heaven. Then we set out to explore the city. It was freezing and rainy!!! And because of the warm weather in Granada and the limited packing space (check out my backpack for 10 days in the pics), I lacked proper winter attire - especially gloves! But we saw the Duomo (cathedral) and it was by far my favorite one out of all of the cities we went to. It looks like it is made of crystal and from a Disney movie =) And in the piazza (plaza) outside while we took pictures, I was offered bird seed which I thought I was supposed to drop for the masses of birds...but before I could thank the man (who was expecting money in return), I was attacked by a flock of pigeons, and I dropped the seed and ran away screaming!!! HAHA when I think about it, it is hilarious, but I was seriously scared out of my mind. They are nowhere near as bad as cicadas, but I now have a little fear of pigeons after being nearly pecked to death! We walked around the beautiful square for a while where all of the shopping was located - Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. It was fun to window shop for a while, but we ended up wanting to get the heck out of Milan, and we paid extra to take an early train to Venice...and we also had to pay 1 euro to use the public bathrooms in the train station! It was like shopping carts at ALDI, except you didn't get your money back when you left =( and that was our Milan experience - pretty disastrous I know! But keep reading!!
Saturday, Jan. 31
Heather, Dorothy and I arrived at the Granada airport 4 hours early because none of us actually checked the paperwork, and I thought we left at 5:00 PM but we didn't leave until 7:00! So we bought some books and magazines and Kinder chocolate (yum!) and waited it out in high spirits. We arrived in Milan around 10:00 PM and did not realize that the directions to our hostel were from a different Milan airport and we were actually about an hour outside of the city...So we found a shuttle and were dropped off in what we believed to be the middle of nowhere. The streets were nearly deserted. NO ONE spoke English, and whoever said Italian and Spanish were similar was wrong! So we walked around showing people our directions to our hostel and not understanding a word of what people were saying to us. Finally, a very enthusiastic man took our directions and told us that he knew where it was (in very broken English) so we followed him thinking he was going to point us in the right direction. Instead we find ourselves in his "taxi" watching his GPS and taking a 20 minute ride to the hostel while he belted out Italian tunes. Before we left, we asked him how much it was going to be and he said 30 euro total. When we arrived, however, he demanded 30 euro from EACH OF US and when we tried to fight him, he said he would give us a discount of 25 each. We were exhausted, we had all of our passports, credit cards, etc and just decided to pay him and get safely into the hostel which was also virtually in a deserted, middle of nowhere area. So we get into the hostel and encounter the very welcoming staff who were from Romania and spoke English! We recounted our story for them and they laughed and said we got ripped off - it should have costed us around 15 euro total rather than 75. We didn't think it was very funny....but they gave us free bottled water ("with gas" which is like seltzer water and apparently preferred among italians - yuck!) Check-in took about 1/2 an hour because when we gave him our IDs (2 Illinois licenses and a school ID), he wrote down Jesse White, Jesse White, and Curtin Heather - haha, and when he realized it, he had to re-do all of the paperwork. Finally, we put our stuff down and set out to get our first Italian food! We found a nice restaurant, and I ordered pepperoni pizza which in Italian is pizza with red peppers. Nontheless, it was delicious, and I learned to order "salame" or "salamino" in the future. The hostel was very nice inside. We had our own private three-bed room with our own bathroom. It was virtually like a budget hotel. We crashed around 12:30.
Sunday, Feb. 1
We woke up early to a wonderful breakfast - cappuchinos, croissants, and NUTELLA!!! which is a chocolate spread (sort of like butter) for toast. I was in heaven. Then we set out to explore the city. It was freezing and rainy!!! And because of the warm weather in Granada and the limited packing space (check out my backpack for 10 days in the pics), I lacked proper winter attire - especially gloves! But we saw the Duomo (cathedral) and it was by far my favorite one out of all of the cities we went to. It looks like it is made of crystal and from a Disney movie =) And in the piazza (plaza) outside while we took pictures, I was offered bird seed which I thought I was supposed to drop for the masses of birds...but before I could thank the man (who was expecting money in return), I was attacked by a flock of pigeons, and I dropped the seed and ran away screaming!!! HAHA when I think about it, it is hilarious, but I was seriously scared out of my mind. They are nowhere near as bad as cicadas, but I now have a little fear of pigeons after being nearly pecked to death! We walked around the beautiful square for a while where all of the shopping was located - Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. It was fun to window shop for a while, but we ended up wanting to get the heck out of Milan, and we paid extra to take an early train to Venice...and we also had to pay 1 euro to use the public bathrooms in the train station! It was like shopping carts at ALDI, except you didn't get your money back when you left =( and that was our Milan experience - pretty disastrous I know! But keep reading!!
Follow my blog!
Ok - so I hear some of you are having problems leaving comments on my blog. All you have to do is look to the left of this blog right above the pictures of my followers, and click the tan link that says "Follow this blog." after that, you will be able to leave me comments on my blogs and my pictures! Also, in case you didn't know, you can click on the slide shows on the sidebar to view the pictures individually and larger! Let me know if you have any questions/problems with this. My email address is arcolla@ilstu.edu
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
