| March 2 - 6 | Sofia, Bulgaria |
| March 6 | Plane to Bratislava, Slovakia |
| March 6 - 11 | Explore Bratislava, Prague, Vienna and Budapest (please give me suggestions, I don't have much time this week to look into all the options) |
| March 11 | Fly back to Milan from Bratislava, sleep overnight in the train station |
| March 12 | Take the first morning train back to Florence |
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Spring Break Plans
Our spring break is from March 5 - 9, so here are my (almost finished) plans:
Monday, February 26, 2007
Comments
I've enabled anonymous comments on the blog (didn't realize they were off) so feel free to leave comments.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Another Weekend
We started midterms this week (huh? I have classes for 2 months longer, and I've been here for 1...) so things have been a bit busy. I am also not traveling this weekend to allow myself to catch up on school work and just relax a little bit.
Request: if there are any pictures that you find on my Flickr that you particularly enjoy, please let me know. I am trying to find out what people like.
I am still doing research on this, but have some of it figured out already. Basically it is going to consist of flying to Bulgaria on March 2nd, visiting Ina's relatives and seeing Sofia and then flying to Greece mid the next week and traveling around some of the islands and Athens, finishing by flying to Rome or Milan on March 11th. Should be a very interesting and fun trip!
Last weekend (February 16-19) was rather busy. I'll outline each of my trips below:
Pictures
Map
Our one class trip for the semester was to Siena and San Gimignano. Siena I'm sure most of you have heard of at some point and as well as being vicious rivals with Florence since the Middle Ages, is most famous for its yearly horse race: Palio. This race involves ten horses from the seventeen Siena contrades (or neighbordhoods). Each contrade is named after an animal and has their own colors, celebrates holidays together and overall "sticks together." The event is VERY competitive and thousands of people come to watch the 45 second event.
Siena is also home to "La Basilica Cateriniana di San Domenico"
This church has a few rather strange properties: first, it holds the head of St. Catherine as well as her thumb, both of which are on display within the church--creepy. Her body is actually buried in Rome, separate from her head and thumb.
Of course no Italian town would be complete this it's own Duomo...
This Duomo was rather interesting. It is one of the only churches to be done in black and white marble inside and due to a planned expansion it was to be the largest church in Italy. However, the black plague struck Siena in the 13th century and construction of the expansion was halted, only later to be turned into a parking lot:
Inside:
Piazza Del Campo in Siena:
This is where the thousands of people gather for the Palio.
There were some really beautiful flowers outside of a flower shop, so I took some pictures:
As well as some fruit outside a shop:
Pictures
Map
Also on our class trip was San Gimagnano.
San Gimagnano is one of the only areas in the Tuscan area that produces white white: Vernaccia. The town itself is home to 14 towers that can be seen as you approach the city. In the 13th century, this town was home to over 70 towers belonging to churches and family castles making for a fantastic skyline. In the 13th century, almost all were destroyed when the Medici family (I believe??) declared war on this area and destroyed many of them.
There is a fabulous view to be had from this city, however, as it over looks some of the Tuscan valley.
There are walls surrounding most of the city which can be climbed.
The city also (supposedly) has the best gelato in the world... however, the store that claims this (and the people who have had it agree) was closed for construction during the time we were there.
Pictures
Map
Ah, Milan, the fashion capital of the world (and the 2nd largest city in Italy). Definitely a major industrial city, but it has some charm. Ervis and I made the trek from Florence by train to Milan and then headed to the Duomo area where one of the largest shopping areas is found.
Above is Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the oldest shopping malls. It is home to shops of many of the world's top labels, Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. It's a pretty neat shopping center and also has a place to wish for good luck:
The floor mosaic represents arms of four Italian cities, Milan - red cross on white ground; Rome - the wolf, Florence - the lily; and Turin. - the bull. Follow tradition and spin your heels three times on the most "delicate" parts of the bull. Legend says that revolving three times on one leg placed exactly in that position brings good luck and fortune. Of course we tried had to try it...
Next we visited the Milan Duomo...
The facade was under construction, but we entered the church (which happens to be the second largest cathedral in the world)...
The Cathedral was very nice, but after seeing so many of these already they tend to lose their "amazing" feel. It had some very nice stained glass, and a creepy statue which apparently is the most prized piece of art in the cathedral:
Otherwise, did some shopping (mostly at Zara who still had a ton of nice clearance items) and then hopped on the train to go to Mantova where we were staying.
Map
Mantova is about a 2 hour train ride east of Milan. The original plan was to go back to Milan the next day, but after determining how close we were to Venice and knowing that Carnevale was happening there, we decided to change our plans.
We stayed at a friend of Ervis' apartment. Mantova has that 'small-town' feel to it. The stay was incredible and the hosts were overaccomadating. Unfortunately the only languages they spoke were Albanian and Italian so Ervis ended up translating, or at least doing most of the talking. They did have satellite TV, which received channels from the Balkan area so I had the opportunity to watch a few Bulgarian TV channels (Zdrave and Evrope TV).
The next day we bought tickets to Venice and hopped on the train.
Pictures
Map
On our way to Venice, we had a train switch in Verona. Verona as some of you may know is the setting for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It is also home to the "Arena" which, built in 30AD (!!!!) is the third largest in Italy. I have to claim that this is the oldest man-made place I have ever been to.
It was quite an amazing site even though most of the upper ring was destroyed in an earthquake in the 13th century.
We then ventured to see if we could find the supposed "Romeo" and "Giulietta" homes. After some struggle, we were able to find Romeo's home:
Not very exciting, two signs:
*yawn* boring.
Giulieta's home was so exciting we walked right past it without seeing it:
The inside of the tunnel leading to the supposed "balcony" (now restaurant) is lined with notes professing love between various couples:
It is also good luck to rub Giulieta's right breast:
(I swear!) Nothing bad (or particularly good) has happened to me yet, so I guess it worked.
Pictures
Map
Beautiful city, streets full of water, please advise.
OK, I lied about nothing particularly bad happening. My train story to follow is not anything of a "fun time." Since we decided to drop off in Verona for two hours on our way to Venice (I could only recommend about 45 minutes so you can see the Arena, skip everything else), we hopped on another train to go to Venice. On the way there, we could not find a place to sit other than in the aisles. Not exactly a pleasant trip since every 30 seconds someone was trying to walk past you. When the ticket inspector came around, I figured I was fine since I had bought the ticket to Venice and validated it. He then informed me that because the ticket was for a Tren Ordinare and not intercity, that I would need to pay a supplement.
I thought to myself "ok, no big deal, should be a few Euro." Ervis had lost his ticket in Verona so he had to purchase a new one for E10.50. When the inspector informed me that the total was "dodici euro cinquanta" it took me a moment to figure out that it was E12.50 for the "supplement" and not a "few Euro." I paid the man and then wondered why I ended up paying over E20 for my ticket and Ervis paid only E10.50. Oh well.
We got into Venice over a bridge to the city as the train station is on the island. WOW, what a beautiful entrance. The water is a magnificent blue/green color and all the boats, etc make an absolutely gorgeous view. When arriving into Venice, we got out of the train station, noticed that there were a fair number of people, but nothing to be alarmed about (due to Carnavale, which is an event that happens every year in Venice and usually brings thousands of people).
We crossed the bridge to enter into the main area of Venice and started our walked towards Piazza San Marco. We soon realized why many people take the public water buses. Twisting throughout tiny, crowded alleyways, we followed what seemed like thousands of people towards what we were hoping would someday be San Marco (in all honestly we really thought we were following a bunch of tourists into some secluded area of Venice to be robbed or something--the route didn't seem to make much sense and never seemed to end).
We finally made it to Piazza San Marco only to discover that we were not the only ones that wanted to be there
Now, I have seen hordes of people before, but this was INSANE. I am not surprised that Venice is sinking at 2.5" / decade, it probably sinks quite a bit with all these people standing over this swamp they call a city.
We didn't stick around for the concert in San Marco and decided to head towards the shore, along the way we saw quite a few characters:
The side facing the Grand Canal was great. Still full of people, especially over the bridges, but at least you could breathe.
OK, maybe not. From the shore you could see quite a few boats and ferries boating people around. Across from San Marco was Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore:
Shortly after we left there and went towards the Venetian Arsenal.
Caught some pictures of more Carnavale participants:
(This is Ina's favorite picture I think of all time...) and ran into some locals having their own, more private celebration:
As well as some dances:
After some small purchases, we made our way back to the train station, a few hours ahead of our scheduled train (7:49pm). We had to make a connection again in Verona to go back to Mantova. We got back around 5:30, so we tried to catch the 5:51. We waited at the binario for the train to come, they made an announcement (in Italian) that the train would be 5 minutes late. We waited, about 10 minutes later a train showed up showing "Verona" on the side (it was a massive, double decker train). A few people asked if this was going to Verona, since it appeared to be, we said yes. We looked at the sign for the Binario and it said it was going somewhere else and was not departing for another 25 minutes. We asked the police officer if this was going to Verona as it indicated and he said no, but offered no assistance.
We tried as hard as we could to find a train official with no luck. We finally found the conductor, who when asked if it was going to Verona, said no (even though it STILL said Verona on the side on the LCD). We determined after looking at the train schedule on the board that we had somehow missed the train. The next train was the one we were planning to take originally and was leaving in two hours. We decided to look around for a little while longer around the train station area and took some night shots from the bridge:
We crawled back into the train station about 7:05 whic at this point was incredibly busy with people wanting to leave Venice. We looked at the board and saw that a train was leaving at 7:07. We RAN across the station to see if we could catch the train, saw it was still there and tried to get in. Now this is where I wish I would have had my camera out. I have NEVER seen a bus, car, boat, train, or anything as full as that train was. There was not a single bit of room in any car for myself and definitely not for myself and Ervis. We stood there in disgust as the train rolled away.
We went back to check the boards again only to find that we had misread the original train schedule (since it was Sunday) and there was not another train to Verona until 9:09pm. The last train departing from Verona to Mantova was 8:40pm, which we needed to make unless we wanted to sleep in the train station. Long story short, we eventually found that we could take a Milan train that was going through Verona, get off there and catch our train to Mantova with about 5 minutes to spare.
Map
OK I can't really count that I've been here, but we stopped here for a few minutes on our way to Florence from Mantova.
We now have flowers blooming in our garden! Spring is here ;) (well at least in Florence)
Request: if there are any pictures that you find on my Flickr that you particularly enjoy, please let me know. I am trying to find out what people like.
Spring Break Plans (March 2-11, 2007)
I am still doing research on this, but have some of it figured out already. Basically it is going to consist of flying to Bulgaria on March 2nd, visiting Ina's relatives and seeing Sofia and then flying to Greece mid the next week and traveling around some of the islands and Athens, finishing by flying to Rome or Milan on March 11th. Should be a very interesting and fun trip!
Last weekend (February 16-19) was rather busy. I'll outline each of my trips below:
Siena, Italy (February 16, 2007)
Pictures
Map
Our one class trip for the semester was to Siena and San Gimignano. Siena I'm sure most of you have heard of at some point and as well as being vicious rivals with Florence since the Middle Ages, is most famous for its yearly horse race: Palio. This race involves ten horses from the seventeen Siena contrades (or neighbordhoods). Each contrade is named after an animal and has their own colors, celebrates holidays together and overall "sticks together." The event is VERY competitive and thousands of people come to watch the 45 second event.
Siena is also home to "La Basilica Cateriniana di San Domenico"
This church has a few rather strange properties: first, it holds the head of St. Catherine as well as her thumb, both of which are on display within the church--creepy. Her body is actually buried in Rome, separate from her head and thumb.
Of course no Italian town would be complete this it's own Duomo...
This Duomo was rather interesting. It is one of the only churches to be done in black and white marble inside and due to a planned expansion it was to be the largest church in Italy. However, the black plague struck Siena in the 13th century and construction of the expansion was halted, only later to be turned into a parking lot:
Inside:
Piazza Del Campo in Siena:
This is where the thousands of people gather for the Palio.
There were some really beautiful flowers outside of a flower shop, so I took some pictures:
As well as some fruit outside a shop:
San Gimignano, Italy (February 16, 2007)
Pictures
Map
Also on our class trip was San Gimagnano.
San Gimagnano is one of the only areas in the Tuscan area that produces white white: Vernaccia. The town itself is home to 14 towers that can be seen as you approach the city. In the 13th century, this town was home to over 70 towers belonging to churches and family castles making for a fantastic skyline. In the 13th century, almost all were destroyed when the Medici family (I believe??) declared war on this area and destroyed many of them.
There is a fabulous view to be had from this city, however, as it over looks some of the Tuscan valley.
There are walls surrounding most of the city which can be climbed.
The city also (supposedly) has the best gelato in the world... however, the store that claims this (and the people who have had it agree) was closed for construction during the time we were there.
Milan, Italy (February 17, 2007)
Pictures
Map
Ah, Milan, the fashion capital of the world (and the 2nd largest city in Italy). Definitely a major industrial city, but it has some charm. Ervis and I made the trek from Florence by train to Milan and then headed to the Duomo area where one of the largest shopping areas is found.
Above is Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the oldest shopping malls. It is home to shops of many of the world's top labels, Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. It's a pretty neat shopping center and also has a place to wish for good luck:
The floor mosaic represents arms of four Italian cities, Milan - red cross on white ground; Rome - the wolf, Florence - the lily; and Turin. - the bull. Follow tradition and spin your heels three times on the most "delicate" parts of the bull. Legend says that revolving three times on one leg placed exactly in that position brings good luck and fortune. Of course we tried had to try it...
Next we visited the Milan Duomo...
The facade was under construction, but we entered the church (which happens to be the second largest cathedral in the world)...
The Cathedral was very nice, but after seeing so many of these already they tend to lose their "amazing" feel. It had some very nice stained glass, and a creepy statue which apparently is the most prized piece of art in the cathedral:
Otherwise, did some shopping (mostly at Zara who still had a ton of nice clearance items) and then hopped on the train to go to Mantova where we were staying.
Mantova, Italy (February 17-19, 2007)
Map
Mantova is about a 2 hour train ride east of Milan. The original plan was to go back to Milan the next day, but after determining how close we were to Venice and knowing that Carnevale was happening there, we decided to change our plans.
We stayed at a friend of Ervis' apartment. Mantova has that 'small-town' feel to it. The stay was incredible and the hosts were overaccomadating. Unfortunately the only languages they spoke were Albanian and Italian so Ervis ended up translating, or at least doing most of the talking. They did have satellite TV, which received channels from the Balkan area so I had the opportunity to watch a few Bulgarian TV channels (Zdrave and Evrope TV).
The next day we bought tickets to Venice and hopped on the train.
Verona, Italy (February 18, 2007)
Pictures
Map
On our way to Venice, we had a train switch in Verona. Verona as some of you may know is the setting for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It is also home to the "Arena" which, built in 30AD (!!!!) is the third largest in Italy. I have to claim that this is the oldest man-made place I have ever been to.
It was quite an amazing site even though most of the upper ring was destroyed in an earthquake in the 13th century.
We then ventured to see if we could find the supposed "Romeo" and "Giulietta" homes. After some struggle, we were able to find Romeo's home:
Not very exciting, two signs:
*yawn* boring.
Giulieta's home was so exciting we walked right past it without seeing it:
The inside of the tunnel leading to the supposed "balcony" (now restaurant) is lined with notes professing love between various couples:
It is also good luck to rub Giulieta's right breast:
(I swear!) Nothing bad (or particularly good) has happened to me yet, so I guess it worked.
Venice, Italy (February 18, 2007)
Pictures
Map
Beautiful city, streets full of water, please advise.
OK, I lied about nothing particularly bad happening. My train story to follow is not anything of a "fun time." Since we decided to drop off in Verona for two hours on our way to Venice (I could only recommend about 45 minutes so you can see the Arena, skip everything else), we hopped on another train to go to Venice. On the way there, we could not find a place to sit other than in the aisles. Not exactly a pleasant trip since every 30 seconds someone was trying to walk past you. When the ticket inspector came around, I figured I was fine since I had bought the ticket to Venice and validated it. He then informed me that because the ticket was for a Tren Ordinare and not intercity, that I would need to pay a supplement.
I thought to myself "ok, no big deal, should be a few Euro." Ervis had lost his ticket in Verona so he had to purchase a new one for E10.50. When the inspector informed me that the total was "dodici euro cinquanta" it took me a moment to figure out that it was E12.50 for the "supplement" and not a "few Euro." I paid the man and then wondered why I ended up paying over E20 for my ticket and Ervis paid only E10.50. Oh well.
We got into Venice over a bridge to the city as the train station is on the island. WOW, what a beautiful entrance. The water is a magnificent blue/green color and all the boats, etc make an absolutely gorgeous view. When arriving into Venice, we got out of the train station, noticed that there were a fair number of people, but nothing to be alarmed about (due to Carnavale, which is an event that happens every year in Venice and usually brings thousands of people).
We crossed the bridge to enter into the main area of Venice and started our walked towards Piazza San Marco. We soon realized why many people take the public water buses. Twisting throughout tiny, crowded alleyways, we followed what seemed like thousands of people towards what we were hoping would someday be San Marco (in all honestly we really thought we were following a bunch of tourists into some secluded area of Venice to be robbed or something--the route didn't seem to make much sense and never seemed to end).
We finally made it to Piazza San Marco only to discover that we were not the only ones that wanted to be there
Now, I have seen hordes of people before, but this was INSANE. I am not surprised that Venice is sinking at 2.5" / decade, it probably sinks quite a bit with all these people standing over this swamp they call a city.
We didn't stick around for the concert in San Marco and decided to head towards the shore, along the way we saw quite a few characters:
The side facing the Grand Canal was great. Still full of people, especially over the bridges, but at least you could breathe.
OK, maybe not. From the shore you could see quite a few boats and ferries boating people around. Across from San Marco was Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore:
Shortly after we left there and went towards the Venetian Arsenal.
Caught some pictures of more Carnavale participants:
(This is Ina's favorite picture I think of all time...) and ran into some locals having their own, more private celebration:
As well as some dances:
After some small purchases, we made our way back to the train station, a few hours ahead of our scheduled train (7:49pm). We had to make a connection again in Verona to go back to Mantova. We got back around 5:30, so we tried to catch the 5:51. We waited at the binario for the train to come, they made an announcement (in Italian) that the train would be 5 minutes late. We waited, about 10 minutes later a train showed up showing "Verona" on the side (it was a massive, double decker train). A few people asked if this was going to Verona, since it appeared to be, we said yes. We looked at the sign for the Binario and it said it was going somewhere else and was not departing for another 25 minutes. We asked the police officer if this was going to Verona as it indicated and he said no, but offered no assistance.
We tried as hard as we could to find a train official with no luck. We finally found the conductor, who when asked if it was going to Verona, said no (even though it STILL said Verona on the side on the LCD). We determined after looking at the train schedule on the board that we had somehow missed the train. The next train was the one we were planning to take originally and was leaving in two hours. We decided to look around for a little while longer around the train station area and took some night shots from the bridge:
We crawled back into the train station about 7:05 whic at this point was incredibly busy with people wanting to leave Venice. We looked at the board and saw that a train was leaving at 7:07. We RAN across the station to see if we could catch the train, saw it was still there and tried to get in. Now this is where I wish I would have had my camera out. I have NEVER seen a bus, car, boat, train, or anything as full as that train was. There was not a single bit of room in any car for myself and definitely not for myself and Ervis. We stood there in disgust as the train rolled away.
We went back to check the boards again only to find that we had misread the original train schedule (since it was Sunday) and there was not another train to Verona until 9:09pm. The last train departing from Verona to Mantova was 8:40pm, which we needed to make unless we wanted to sleep in the train station. Long story short, we eventually found that we could take a Milan train that was going through Verona, get off there and catch our train to Mantova with about 5 minutes to spare.
Bologne, Italy (February 19, 2007)
Map
OK I can't really count that I've been here, but we stopped here for a few minutes on our way to Florence from Mantova.
Flowers!
We now have flowers blooming in our garden! Spring is here ;) (well at least in Florence)
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Seriously now
This will be another VERY long post. Take an afternoon off for this one. For those of you who do not need to know what ive been doing every minute of my life for the past 3 weeks, just ignore this one.
Why can't I just post updates on a normal basis? My efforts will be increased....
I'm somewhat frustrated with blogger: since coming to Italy, the entire site has been in Italian, which isn't horrible to get around with but I like seeing English. So what do I do? I select 'inglese (Stati Uniti)' and I still get Italian. *sigh*
Update: I found how to get it to stay in English.
It has been a busy few weeks since my last update. I'll describe my experiences below:
My Italian is still lacking. I somewhat blame this on myself and not taking as much time as I would need to properly learn the language. We've discovered and expressed frustration to some of the people at the school (CAPA) that there are far too many Americans and tourists in Florence. I can walk down a street on any given day in the downtown area and not see a single Italian. The town is overrun with tourists: mostly American and Japanese and thus there is very little reason to actually learn the language.
I feel that a large majority of my time right now is spent doing homework. For the classes I am in, there still seems to be much more work than I expected. It makes me look back at my past experiences at NDSU and wonder how I did a full-time job and school at the same time.
I've been somewhat avoiding the night life for the past few weeks since I feel that I have somewhat fallen behind in a few of my classes and need to spend some time catching up. I haven't really seen that the nightlife here is all that great anyways--I could go to any town in America and see the same things I see here at a reduced cost. I'm going to try adventuring out of the downtown area when I get a chance, see if it is better there.
Ina brough along my new lenses so I have been taking some pictures with those. They are great to have and have allowed me to take some better pictures. Ina also bought me a webcam so anyone that has Skype can now video chat with me :)
I cooked Thai food (Basmati Rice w/ curry Salmon and Chicken) for my roommates last week. I tried to make it as mild as I could and it seems that it was still too spicy for a few of them. I guess we'll have to stick to things less spicy.
We found a place that offers a kilogram (2.2 lbs) of Gelato for 6.50 Euros. Since even a small container of Gelato is usually 4 Euros, this is a great deal and we've bought about 2 kilos for the five of us so far.
And now onto the trips and visits:
Pictures
Map
In January CAPA offered a hiking trip to an area just North of Florence: Fiesole hills. We took a bus and then hiked around some paths until we reached Fiesole. The view of the city was amazing. Ina and I also made a similar trek when she visited and loved it. The pictures are self-explanatory for the most part, its just a great view. In addition to almost being ranover by cars about ten times, Ina and I also entered an old monastery and picked up some Gelato while we were there.
Pictures
Map
Ina had the opportunity (or rather *had* ;)) to go to Madrid for a week during the last part of January and early February. This was a perfect opportunity for us to get together during my absence from the US. I flew out of Florence on Friday and set my return date for Tuesday morning as I was planning to spend my birthday with her. Ina's flight arrived about an hour earlier than mine so she was nice enough to wait for me at the airport ;) She didn't even recognize me when I got out of the baggage area. In her defense, I was wearing clothing that she had never seen before--I had bought a long black pea coat in Florence and she had never seen it before. I don't think I'll ever let her live that one down. She actually said that when she was peaking through the door to the baggage claim that she saw a tall blonde guy with a pea coat and wished thought that I would look good in such attire. :)
Our hotel room was tiny (barely room for the bed) and had a very awkward shower. There was a opaque piece of glass that covered about 1/3 of the shower and didn't do much for keeping water from splashing all over the bathroom floor. Overall the hotel was nice, and had internet which we used a few times to check email and call people.
The weather during the time we were there was rather miserable. It was not nearly as cold as Fargo, but was windy and cold (about 30f) and raining through part of the trip. The first night we were there we were trying to find our way around the city and get something to eat. We found this task to be more difficult than it should have been. We were given some very poor directions from the lady at the desk of the hotel and ended up far away from the Metro (subway system) that was going to take us to Sol, the main commercial area of Madrid. We eventually found a Metro entrance and quickly learned how to use it. We made it to Sol, walked around for a few minutes without much luck and finally found a place that was offering a salad bar buffet of some sort. We sat down there and it ended up being a full buffet (first and probably the only buffet I'll eat in Europe) with salad, pasta, pizza, some spanish food and lots of desert. Since this was my first experience interacting with anyone there and found out quickly that I am already very accustomed to saying things in Italian and many times found myself saying grazie rather than gracias. Over the few days I was there I changed my habit and ended up actually having the reverse problem when I got back to Florence. On the way back from the restaurant, we actually got lost (partially due to bad directions again) and Ina ended up with frostbite on her face.
Saturday we had to ourselves again so we did some sightseeing and shopping. We didn't really plan our sightseeing very well so we just stumbled upon things. We saw some very nice churches and courtyards.
I was trying not to be too disruptive taking pictures, but this was a beautiful church.
Das Popeski
Late Saturday, Ina's coworkers arrived so we went back to Sol and tried to find something to eat. We at a Turkish Kabab restaurant (it was about 3am there) that was barely even open. We had to sneak under the door that was half closed.
Sunday we decided to take the Madrid Vision tour (by bus) around the city. It was again freezing cold and driving around in an open-top bus is not exactly pleasant. We did get to see some neat things and then try to wander and find some place warm to have coffee. We found a coffee place that only offered half of the menu they advertised and then couldn't even make that--but it was warm! Ina and I decided to try the "old Madrid" tour and ended up sitting on the bus for a few hours conversing rather than seeing the sights.
Sunday night we adventured downtown yet again, found a Thai place and ate there. We then decided to try and find some of the Madrid nightlife. Got invited by some bouncer into a club where we stayed the rest of the night.
Monday was my birthday and the rest of the people had meetings all day so I slept in (until 10:00!!) and then left with my camera to do some shopping and explore. I am convinced that Madrid does not have any clothing stores for men. I think I found one or two mens clothing store and about 100 womens. Ina and I did find some good deals at H&M later and I bought a striped jacket, jeans, a shirt and some other miscellaneous things.
For lunch I wandered into an Indian place. It said 'abierto' on the door so I figured they were open. I went in and was very confused: it was dead silent, there were barely any lights on and there was absolutely no one there. I thought about just leaving, but I really wanted the food (I already knew what I wanted) so I wandered around to see if I could find someone. I finally heard someone in the kitchen so I yelled at them and tried to use my little spanish to ask if they were open. He didn't seem to understand what I was saying and didn't know what I wanted. Another lady came out who happened to speak some English. She asked what I wanted (very rudely I might add) and I said I was wondering if you were open. She still didn't seem to understand that this was a restaurant and I might possibly want something to eat so I started to edge towards the door when she said no. After some more hassle, I eventually ended up eating there.
After leaving the restaurant I decided to get myself lost (not really on purpose) and just wander around. I ended up in what I would call some sort of China town with import/export shops EVERYWHERE. I stopped into one because I saw some cool stuff (of course for women) in there. I bought a couple of things for Ina and left. I took some pictures of some things around a residential areas and as I was taking a picture of this sign:
a man approached me (rather angrily it seemed) and started talking to me in Spanish. It seemed he was asking me what I was taking pictures of and I said the sign. He took a book out of his pocket and motioned for me to take it. I was hesitant, started to grab it and then he pointed on the book to "Cuba" which is where he was from. I said I was from the United States and then from Minnesota. Another gentleman approached us, who I found was from England. I talked to him for a few minutes and then we parted ways--interesting.
We went out to eat at this rather nice restaurant in Southern Madrid near our Hotel. We all ordered Paella with seafood. The company, appetizers and wine were awesome and overall it was a very good meal:
I left early Tuesday morning (6am) and due to conversation, I never really slept. The taxi ride to the airport was interesting with the taxi driver feeling it necessary to go 175km/h (~110miles/hour) and take turns at about 100km/h (60mph)-he did get me there alive and on time so I guess I can't really complain (although it was 25 Euros=$33). The first flight was from Madrid to Milan and that went smoothly. I got to the Milan airport and had about a 2 hour layover--I sat and did some reading until it was time to board. Everyone lined up, stood there until the plane was supposed to leave and then sat down-it would seem the plane was delayed (although they never said that).
Two hours later they made an announcement that we were all to go to the information desk and see what was happening. Rather than make an announcement to everyone, they talked to the 4 people in front that were able to get there faster than the 75 other people. At this time many flights outbound from Milan were cancelled and rumors were that flight control went on strike. They decided to put us on a bus and drive us to Florence. I was slight upset because I was to arrive at 11, I had class at 10:30 and was going to take a taxi to get to part of it and then I had two classes later that afternoon that I had not planned on missing. The bus left about 1:00pm and we arrived about 5:45pm, just in time to have missed all of my classes for the day. What a waste. Due to this fact, I have multiple absences in a few of my classes and a reduced grade (it is unexcused since it was travel related). *sigh*
Pictures
Ina with her trip also was able to fly to Florence for a few days (Friday through Monay originally but she extended her stay to Wednesday). I planned to meet her at the airport and then take a taxi back to my place with her. I ended up getting somewhat lost in NorthEastern Florence since the bus that I needed to connect with to get there stopped running 2 hours earlier leaving me basically stranded with a map and no idea where I was. I ended up calling a taxi and taking it to the airport. I would have been late, but Ina's flight was 25 minutes late so it worked out. When we got back to my place, we ate and then went down the block to Plasma (the club in the first post). It was definitely a lot better than any of the other clubs I had been to, but we didn't stay. We went to another new club downtown, Dolce Zucchero, and stayed there about 20 minutes before we left to walk by some of the major sites (Duomo, Santa Croce) and then go home.
Saturday was a day of walking. We walked to around, saw the sights: Duomo, Ponte Vecchio, Santa Croce, Piazza Della Signoria, Uffizi (outside), etc. We ran into my roommate Taylor on the street and decided to go to mass with him at the Duomo. There was supposed to be an english service at 5pm, but we found out it wasn't in the Duomo, it was in another, smaller church. There was a service in Italian at 6:30 so we decided to attend that. It was a very neat experience. I don't think I could have possibly understood the priest even if he was speaking English because the entire area echoes so much. It was also the first time that I had been inside the Duomo which is by far the largest church I have ever seen in my life.
Sunday we took the bus to Fiesole Hills. As I said earlier, there isn't much to describe, it's just a cool Italian town with a spectacular view. This was one of Ina's favorite places. And of course, we had Gelato:
Monday we had more plans: I had class in the morning so Ina met with me at the Duomo at 10:00. We entered the Duomo and took pictures and then bought tickets to climb to the cupola. WOW. What an experience. If you are ever in Florence, you must do this. It gives a spectacular 360 degree view of Florence:
as well as being able to more closely see the artwork of the Duomo ceiling:
We also ate Sushi for lunch!
After leaving the Duomo we tried to inspect some other museums (all of which are closed on Mondays). We then headed up to Piazzale Michelangiolo just before sunset. I would recommend trying to do Piazzale Michelangiolo and the Duomo at sunset. You can get some amazing pictures from both:
Tuesday we investigated some of the local museums: Academia and Uffizi. There were no cameras allowed at either gallery, but we were able to sneak some pictures. The final, real, 15ft tall statue of David is shown at Academia:
Along with 'The Rape':
which is a very interesting piece because it was done such that there are infinite viewpoints (because the people are wrapped around eachother).
Uffizi offered many statues as well, but none that compared to these two. The Uffizi is massive and you could spend hours looking at every piece that is held there. We did manage to take some pictures of some Leonardo paintings as well as "The Birth of Venus":
We sat down after basically an entire day of walking and had REAL cappuccino:
and then went and saw some "wildlife" near the river:
Ina unfortunately had to leave Wednesday morning ending her Italian adventures...
Pictures: Pisa / Lucca & Viareggio
Last weekend I traveled by train to Pisa, Lucca and Viareggio.
Pisa (Map) you all of course have heard of and possesses the Leaning Tower of Pisa:
The site of the tower was interesting. There were a crazy number of people there, most of them making the usual "holding up the tower" pose:
I thought it was just as much fun to throw the tower in the trash:
Overall pretty boring, just basically was there to take pictures of the tower and the river:
Lucca (Map) is a city which still has its defense walls in tact:
We arrived there at night so I don't have very many pictures and our experience was somewhat short. The most exciting thing we found was this hole-in-the-wall chinese restaurant that gave us enough food to feed a mouse and left us more hungry than when we got there.
Viareggio is an Italian sea city (Map):
When we arrived there was a carnival at the city which lasts from February through the end of Lent. I could not believe how many of the citizens and visitors were dressed up. I can't believe that it would be possible to get adults, teenagers and kids to dress up in America for anything the way that they dressed up here. The carnival was gigantic, and although we didn't go into it (13 euros to enter), it made finding the sea much harder as it seemed to take up half the sea shore.
The view from the harbour was great. The Alpuan mountains as a backdrop against the city, people surfing, and sailboats and yachts made for good scenery. The beach was gigantic and seemed to stretch forever. It wasn't quite swimsuit weather, or it would have been nice to take a swim.
When we were there, the polizia arrested a few illegals that were selling knock off sunglasses and paintings. You see these people everywhere, but this was the first arrest we had seen.
Pictures
Map
My roommate Ervis and myself decided to hike through Boboli Gardens yesterday. Boboli Gardens is a large garden in Florence that was laid out for the wife of Cosimo I de'Medici in the 16th Century. It is seated behind Pitti Palace. The garden is a large 11 acres just south of the center of Florence (with a spectacular view!).
I plan to go back when I have time and the flowers have started to bloom.
Why can't I just post updates on a normal basis? My efforts will be increased....
I'm somewhat frustrated with blogger: since coming to Italy, the entire site has been in Italian, which isn't horrible to get around with but I like seeing English. So what do I do? I select 'inglese (Stati Uniti)' and I still get Italian. *sigh*
Update: I found how to get it to stay in English.
It has been a busy few weeks since my last update. I'll describe my experiences below:
General
My Italian is still lacking. I somewhat blame this on myself and not taking as much time as I would need to properly learn the language. We've discovered and expressed frustration to some of the people at the school (CAPA) that there are far too many Americans and tourists in Florence. I can walk down a street on any given day in the downtown area and not see a single Italian. The town is overrun with tourists: mostly American and Japanese and thus there is very little reason to actually learn the language.
I feel that a large majority of my time right now is spent doing homework. For the classes I am in, there still seems to be much more work than I expected. It makes me look back at my past experiences at NDSU and wonder how I did a full-time job and school at the same time.
I've been somewhat avoiding the night life for the past few weeks since I feel that I have somewhat fallen behind in a few of my classes and need to spend some time catching up. I haven't really seen that the nightlife here is all that great anyways--I could go to any town in America and see the same things I see here at a reduced cost. I'm going to try adventuring out of the downtown area when I get a chance, see if it is better there.
Ina brough along my new lenses so I have been taking some pictures with those. They are great to have and have allowed me to take some better pictures. Ina also bought me a webcam so anyone that has Skype can now video chat with me :)
I cooked Thai food (Basmati Rice w/ curry Salmon and Chicken) for my roommates last week. I tried to make it as mild as I could and it seems that it was still too spicy for a few of them. I guess we'll have to stick to things less spicy.
We found a place that offers a kilogram (2.2 lbs) of Gelato for 6.50 Euros. Since even a small container of Gelato is usually 4 Euros, this is a great deal and we've bought about 2 kilos for the five of us so far.
And now onto the trips and visits:
Fiesole Hills & Monte Ceceri
Pictures
Map
In January CAPA offered a hiking trip to an area just North of Florence: Fiesole hills. We took a bus and then hiked around some paths until we reached Fiesole. The view of the city was amazing. Ina and I also made a similar trek when she visited and loved it. The pictures are self-explanatory for the most part, its just a great view. In addition to almost being ranover by cars about ten times, Ina and I also entered an old monastery and picked up some Gelato while we were there.
Madrid, Spain
Pictures
Map
Ina had the opportunity (or rather *had* ;)) to go to Madrid for a week during the last part of January and early February. This was a perfect opportunity for us to get together during my absence from the US. I flew out of Florence on Friday and set my return date for Tuesday morning as I was planning to spend my birthday with her. Ina's flight arrived about an hour earlier than mine so she was nice enough to wait for me at the airport ;) She didn't even recognize me when I got out of the baggage area. In her defense, I was wearing clothing that she had never seen before--I had bought a long black pea coat in Florence and she had never seen it before. I don't think I'll ever let her live that one down. She actually said that when she was peaking through the door to the baggage claim that she saw a tall blonde guy with a pea coat and wished thought that I would look good in such attire. :)
Our hotel room was tiny (barely room for the bed) and had a very awkward shower. There was a opaque piece of glass that covered about 1/3 of the shower and didn't do much for keeping water from splashing all over the bathroom floor. Overall the hotel was nice, and had internet which we used a few times to check email and call people.
The weather during the time we were there was rather miserable. It was not nearly as cold as Fargo, but was windy and cold (about 30f) and raining through part of the trip. The first night we were there we were trying to find our way around the city and get something to eat. We found this task to be more difficult than it should have been. We were given some very poor directions from the lady at the desk of the hotel and ended up far away from the Metro (subway system) that was going to take us to Sol, the main commercial area of Madrid. We eventually found a Metro entrance and quickly learned how to use it. We made it to Sol, walked around for a few minutes without much luck and finally found a place that was offering a salad bar buffet of some sort. We sat down there and it ended up being a full buffet (first and probably the only buffet I'll eat in Europe) with salad, pasta, pizza, some spanish food and lots of desert. Since this was my first experience interacting with anyone there and found out quickly that I am already very accustomed to saying things in Italian and many times found myself saying grazie rather than gracias. Over the few days I was there I changed my habit and ended up actually having the reverse problem when I got back to Florence. On the way back from the restaurant, we actually got lost (partially due to bad directions again) and Ina ended up with frostbite on her face.
Saturday we had to ourselves again so we did some sightseeing and shopping. We didn't really plan our sightseeing very well so we just stumbled upon things. We saw some very nice churches and courtyards.
I was trying not to be too disruptive taking pictures, but this was a beautiful church.
Das Popeski
Late Saturday, Ina's coworkers arrived so we went back to Sol and tried to find something to eat. We at a Turkish Kabab restaurant (it was about 3am there) that was barely even open. We had to sneak under the door that was half closed.
Sunday we decided to take the Madrid Vision tour (by bus) around the city. It was again freezing cold and driving around in an open-top bus is not exactly pleasant. We did get to see some neat things and then try to wander and find some place warm to have coffee. We found a coffee place that only offered half of the menu they advertised and then couldn't even make that--but it was warm! Ina and I decided to try the "old Madrid" tour and ended up sitting on the bus for a few hours conversing rather than seeing the sights.
Sunday night we adventured downtown yet again, found a Thai place and ate there. We then decided to try and find some of the Madrid nightlife. Got invited by some bouncer into a club where we stayed the rest of the night.
Monday was my birthday and the rest of the people had meetings all day so I slept in (until 10:00!!) and then left with my camera to do some shopping and explore. I am convinced that Madrid does not have any clothing stores for men. I think I found one or two mens clothing store and about 100 womens. Ina and I did find some good deals at H&M later and I bought a striped jacket, jeans, a shirt and some other miscellaneous things.
For lunch I wandered into an Indian place. It said 'abierto' on the door so I figured they were open. I went in and was very confused: it was dead silent, there were barely any lights on and there was absolutely no one there. I thought about just leaving, but I really wanted the food (I already knew what I wanted) so I wandered around to see if I could find someone. I finally heard someone in the kitchen so I yelled at them and tried to use my little spanish to ask if they were open. He didn't seem to understand what I was saying and didn't know what I wanted. Another lady came out who happened to speak some English. She asked what I wanted (very rudely I might add) and I said I was wondering if you were open. She still didn't seem to understand that this was a restaurant and I might possibly want something to eat so I started to edge towards the door when she said no. After some more hassle, I eventually ended up eating there.
After leaving the restaurant I decided to get myself lost (not really on purpose) and just wander around. I ended up in what I would call some sort of China town with import/export shops EVERYWHERE. I stopped into one because I saw some cool stuff (of course for women) in there. I bought a couple of things for Ina and left. I took some pictures of some things around a residential areas and as I was taking a picture of this sign:
a man approached me (rather angrily it seemed) and started talking to me in Spanish. It seemed he was asking me what I was taking pictures of and I said the sign. He took a book out of his pocket and motioned for me to take it. I was hesitant, started to grab it and then he pointed on the book to "Cuba" which is where he was from. I said I was from the United States and then from Minnesota. Another gentleman approached us, who I found was from England. I talked to him for a few minutes and then we parted ways--interesting.
We went out to eat at this rather nice restaurant in Southern Madrid near our Hotel. We all ordered Paella with seafood. The company, appetizers and wine were awesome and overall it was a very good meal:
I left early Tuesday morning (6am) and due to conversation, I never really slept. The taxi ride to the airport was interesting with the taxi driver feeling it necessary to go 175km/h (~110miles/hour) and take turns at about 100km/h (60mph)-he did get me there alive and on time so I guess I can't really complain (although it was 25 Euros=$33). The first flight was from Madrid to Milan and that went smoothly. I got to the Milan airport and had about a 2 hour layover--I sat and did some reading until it was time to board. Everyone lined up, stood there until the plane was supposed to leave and then sat down-it would seem the plane was delayed (although they never said that).
Two hours later they made an announcement that we were all to go to the information desk and see what was happening. Rather than make an announcement to everyone, they talked to the 4 people in front that were able to get there faster than the 75 other people. At this time many flights outbound from Milan were cancelled and rumors were that flight control went on strike. They decided to put us on a bus and drive us to Florence. I was slight upset because I was to arrive at 11, I had class at 10:30 and was going to take a taxi to get to part of it and then I had two classes later that afternoon that I had not planned on missing. The bus left about 1:00pm and we arrived about 5:45pm, just in time to have missed all of my classes for the day. What a waste. Due to this fact, I have multiple absences in a few of my classes and a reduced grade (it is unexcused since it was travel related). *sigh*
Ina's Vist to Florence
Pictures
Ina with her trip also was able to fly to Florence for a few days (Friday through Monay originally but she extended her stay to Wednesday). I planned to meet her at the airport and then take a taxi back to my place with her. I ended up getting somewhat lost in NorthEastern Florence since the bus that I needed to connect with to get there stopped running 2 hours earlier leaving me basically stranded with a map and no idea where I was. I ended up calling a taxi and taking it to the airport. I would have been late, but Ina's flight was 25 minutes late so it worked out. When we got back to my place, we ate and then went down the block to Plasma (the club in the first post). It was definitely a lot better than any of the other clubs I had been to, but we didn't stay. We went to another new club downtown, Dolce Zucchero, and stayed there about 20 minutes before we left to walk by some of the major sites (Duomo, Santa Croce) and then go home.
Saturday was a day of walking. We walked to around, saw the sights: Duomo, Ponte Vecchio, Santa Croce, Piazza Della Signoria, Uffizi (outside), etc. We ran into my roommate Taylor on the street and decided to go to mass with him at the Duomo. There was supposed to be an english service at 5pm, but we found out it wasn't in the Duomo, it was in another, smaller church. There was a service in Italian at 6:30 so we decided to attend that. It was a very neat experience. I don't think I could have possibly understood the priest even if he was speaking English because the entire area echoes so much. It was also the first time that I had been inside the Duomo which is by far the largest church I have ever seen in my life.
Sunday we took the bus to Fiesole Hills. As I said earlier, there isn't much to describe, it's just a cool Italian town with a spectacular view. This was one of Ina's favorite places. And of course, we had Gelato:
Monday we had more plans: I had class in the morning so Ina met with me at the Duomo at 10:00. We entered the Duomo and took pictures and then bought tickets to climb to the cupola. WOW. What an experience. If you are ever in Florence, you must do this. It gives a spectacular 360 degree view of Florence:
as well as being able to more closely see the artwork of the Duomo ceiling:
We also ate Sushi for lunch!
After leaving the Duomo we tried to inspect some other museums (all of which are closed on Mondays). We then headed up to Piazzale Michelangiolo just before sunset. I would recommend trying to do Piazzale Michelangiolo and the Duomo at sunset. You can get some amazing pictures from both:
Tuesday we investigated some of the local museums: Academia and Uffizi. There were no cameras allowed at either gallery, but we were able to sneak some pictures. The final, real, 15ft tall statue of David is shown at Academia:
Along with 'The Rape':
which is a very interesting piece because it was done such that there are infinite viewpoints (because the people are wrapped around eachother).
Uffizi offered many statues as well, but none that compared to these two. The Uffizi is massive and you could spend hours looking at every piece that is held there. We did manage to take some pictures of some Leonardo paintings as well as "The Birth of Venus":
We sat down after basically an entire day of walking and had REAL cappuccino:
and then went and saw some "wildlife" near the river:
Ina unfortunately had to leave Wednesday morning ending her Italian adventures...
Pisa / Lucca / Viareggio
Pictures: Pisa / Lucca & Viareggio
Last weekend I traveled by train to Pisa, Lucca and Viareggio.
Pisa (Map) you all of course have heard of and possesses the Leaning Tower of Pisa:
The site of the tower was interesting. There were a crazy number of people there, most of them making the usual "holding up the tower" pose:
I thought it was just as much fun to throw the tower in the trash:
Overall pretty boring, just basically was there to take pictures of the tower and the river:
Lucca (Map) is a city which still has its defense walls in tact:
We arrived there at night so I don't have very many pictures and our experience was somewhat short. The most exciting thing we found was this hole-in-the-wall chinese restaurant that gave us enough food to feed a mouse and left us more hungry than when we got there.
Viareggio is an Italian sea city (Map):
When we arrived there was a carnival at the city which lasts from February through the end of Lent. I could not believe how many of the citizens and visitors were dressed up. I can't believe that it would be possible to get adults, teenagers and kids to dress up in America for anything the way that they dressed up here. The carnival was gigantic, and although we didn't go into it (13 euros to enter), it made finding the sea much harder as it seemed to take up half the sea shore.
The view from the harbour was great. The Alpuan mountains as a backdrop against the city, people surfing, and sailboats and yachts made for good scenery. The beach was gigantic and seemed to stretch forever. It wasn't quite swimsuit weather, or it would have been nice to take a swim.
When we were there, the polizia arrested a few illegals that were selling knock off sunglasses and paintings. You see these people everywhere, but this was the first arrest we had seen.
Boboli Gardens
Pictures
Map
My roommate Ervis and myself decided to hike through Boboli Gardens yesterday. Boboli Gardens is a large garden in Florence that was laid out for the wife of Cosimo I de'Medici in the 16th Century. It is seated behind Pitti Palace. The garden is a large 11 acres just south of the center of Florence (with a spectacular view!).
I plan to go back when I have time and the flowers have started to bloom.
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