Home Sweet Home

Back to Italy. Whole lot of fun and schenanigans occured during fall break, which I'll get to talking about over the next couple of days. Probably a post about Barcelona one day, then Edinburgh the next, then finishing up with Amsterdam. Just making sure everyone knows I'm safe and sound and back in the villa, I know Olsen likes to worry.

Fall Break on my mind

It's almost that time. One day from today, me and five other guys from the villa will be departing for our fall break adventure. By the way, America needs to get on this fall break business. Granted MEA was nice in high school, but a week long fall break is about to be great. I just got done with the busiest week of school we've had yet, and that I probably will have during this entire semester. Tests in every class this week, four in all. Definitely did more studying and work these past three or four days than I have during the rest of the semester. But that is all about to be over, with just Italian coming up this afternoon.

So this fall break business. We're leaving at 3:30 AM from Florence, to go to the Pisa airport. Our plane leaves at about 6:30 AM for Barcelona. Very excited about Barcelona, as it should definitely be a bit warmer than it has been here lately. Getting to Spain was a big point on my sutdy abroad to do-list, so I'm very excited. We will be there for three nights. THEN, around 6 on Monday, we fly from Barcelona to Edinburgh, Scotland. This might be the part of the trip I'm most excited about. There's a lot of other kids from the villa going to Barcelona and Amsterdam, at the start and ends of the trip like us, but we are more or less the only ones going to Edinburgh. Our hostel is right next to the Edinburgh Castle, which should be great, and I feel like this is a place that people wouldn't normally vacataion to, but would be neat to get a chance to see while being in Europe for a long period of time. THEN, early Thursday morning we fly from Edinburgh to Amsterdam for the final leg of our fall break. I'm also very excited for this portion of the trip as well, since I've heard nothing but good things on Amsterdam. Should be a great time all in all. So this means that you won't be hearing from me until I return from fall break. Which is next week Sunday sometime. Yikes.

I'd just like to wish my parents safe travels on their way to Italy, as they will be arriving while I'm out and about for fall break. Enjoy the first portion of your Italy trip!

Pictures

Typical Cinque Terre View

Corniglia, the town we stayed in

Vernazza, view from our hike

Manarola. The water was really blue

Sunset from our terrace

Hiking Champions

Out to dinner

Beach in October!

Best Weekend of the Trip

Hello everyone, sorry for the long time between posts. I've been extremely busy with sightseeing and funtivities with Steph while she has been here! Her flight home leaves in about twenty minutes, but this was easily the best weekend / week of the trip I've had so far. Hands down. I'll break down the days, then include pictures / more detail in a later post. Just really busy right now. Got to catch up on schoolwork, we have our "midterms", if you will, next week. I really appreciated the fact though that she took the time / money to come fly out and visit me. It definitely meant a lot and it was pretty ridiculous that our first definitive vacation together was in ITALY when we are 20 years old. Anyways, here's how the days went. AGAIN, pictures to come on a later date. That date being tomorrow hopefully.

Thursday: Steph flew into Florence around 10:00 Thursday night, after a full day of travel and an eight hour layover in Amsterdam, as well as an hour delay in Amsterdam. But she made it. It was so good to finally see her again. Our hostel was really nice and clean, with a balcony right outside of our room. It was also right by the train station, so we walked to drop Steph's stuff off, then went for a late dinner down past the Duomo, which she got to see at night so that was cool. Anyways, I got a pretty good pizza and she enjoyed a calzone, and we had some white wine, then called it a night.

Friday: Friday, we left the hostel to go to Cinque Terre. For those who don't know, Cinque Terre is on the Italian Riveara, on the Mediterranean Sea / in the North West portion of Italy. It is a beautiful stretch of land, with the five towns of cinque terre all within hiking distance of each other. The towns are Riomaggiore (the only one we didn't see), Manarola, Corniglia, Manarola, and Monterosso, laid out in that order. The towns are very pretty, old fishing towns in more or less the mountains. Look it up on Wikipedia and / or wait for my pictures to show up.

We took the train from Florence to there, got in around 3 in the afternoon due to train delays / confusion at the station, and took the local train to the town we were staying in, Corniglia. Corniglia was probably the smallest, least touristy town so that was really neat. We had some trouble checking into our hostel and thought we were going to be roomless, but it all got figured out, no worries. The place was nice, a lot of cats / cat decor throughout the hostel though. Pretty weird. But our room had a view of the sea and there was a rooftop balcony which was sweet. Friday we pretty much explored Corniglia, hiked a bit, went down to the sea, and walked around. Pretty mellow since we were both tired.

For lunch we each got a Pesto Pizza, which was pretty good actually. Then for dinner we took the train to the next town, Manarola, and walked around there. We ate dinner at "Trattoria Dal Billy", which was tremendous. Got a great almond chocolate cake for desert, had some good wine, and Steph had really good pesto pasta while I got Carpacia (?).  Then we took the train back at 11, met some people from California and Australia on the train, and got guided by this random guide dog up the 382 steps to get from the station into the town, which was pretty neat. End of Friday

SATURDAY: Saturday we got up early and hiked from Corniglia to Vernazza. This hike took about 2 hours and was pretty treacherous. Lots of uphills / narrow paths / not for the weak hikers. It provided amazing views of the hills / sea / looking down on the towns. Probably one of the coolest things I've ever done. THEN, we arrived in Vernazza between 11 and 12, walked around and went down to the main square and by the port there. This was definitely my favorite town, really cool place. AND, Steph had her first gelato experience here, it was tremendous. We then continued to hike 2 more hours from Vernazza to Monterosso. This hike was even more treacherous, and provided even more fantastic views. But we definitely were going in the easier direction. A lot more downhills than uphills. We also ran into some other kids from my program that were there on the trails, so that was neat. We then spent the rest of the day at the beach in Monterosso, and swam in the Medeterranean, since we had fantastic weather all weekend.

We took the train back around 6, showed up and what not, and ate dinner at this nice place in Corniglia. We each had gnocchi with pesto, and we split a bottle of the local Cinque Terre DOC, this really good white wine. A great dinner. Then we bummed around Corniglia, but the night life there is non-existent, so we enjoyed some wine on our balcony and called it a night.

SUNDAY: Thus ended our Cinque Terre experience. Probably the most beautiful place I have ever been to with so much fantastic food and wine, it was the best weekend I've had since I've been here. Steph and I had an unbelievably good time. We took and earlier train home since it was gloomy, and got to our second hostel around 2:00. This hostel was really nice as well, and they gave us breakfast. The rooms looked just like hotel rooms, so we were very happy with the selection of that place. It was nice in Florence so we walked around the various outdoor markets in Florence, and walked past the Duomo and some other landmarks again.

Then, around 4 or so, we took a bus into Sesto so I could show her the town and the villa. We walked all around the villa, so Steph got to meet some more of my buddies here, and we took a quick tour of Sesto. We also stopped at my favorite gelato shop, and ate dinner and my favorite pizza place in Sesto. We then bused back, and went into Florence for a cocktail at this really cool bar we found, Rex Caffe. After that we called it a night.

MONDAY: Tour of Florence day. We got up early to start touring around and what not, but unfortuantely a lot was closed. We had breakfast at the hostel, then went first to the Medici Chappel. This was really cool, and I hadn't been in there yet. Then, we actually went inside the Duomo, so that was pretty neat. All the while it was great to just walk around on the streets of Florence with Steph. We also walked down the ritzy shopping street, Tournabuoni, and peaked into some of the stores. We walked across the Ponte Vecchio, saw all the main piazza's and a whole mess of the palaces. We went into the Palazzo Pitti, which is my favorite Palazzo in Florence, and checked out the Boboli Gardens.
We ended the afternoon with a tour of Santa Croce, which was great. Michelangelo, Gallileo (sp?) and Machiavelli are all buried there. We also stopped at this pastry shop and got these excellent little chocolate and fruit pastries.

By the end of all this, it was about 3 and started to rain, so we went back to the hostel and napped. We then went to dinner at this great pasta joint, and I had the best pasta I've had since I've been here. It was purple in color since it was drenched in red wine, and it tasted fantastic. Steph had some kind of pasta with ricotta cheese that she liked very much as well. After that we went to a bar by the Duomo to meet up with some of my villa friends who were out for someones birthday, so that was a lot fun. Then we went back and called it a night.

TODAY: Really nice day. We got up early, and went to see the Academia. This is where "David" is housed, so that was cool to see agian. THEN, we got a chance to go into the Uffizi as well. I was very pumped that I got the chance to take Steph to these places and spend time with her there. Then after this it was around lunch time, so we went to this place called Gusta Pizza. HANDS DOWN the best pizza I've had since I've been here. It was tremendous. Then we just walked around Florence for a while, got gelato one last time, and then I saw her off to the airport.

ALL IN ALL, it was a tremendous week / weekend. It was so good to see Steph, and definitely very hard to watch her leave. BUT, we had a great time, many fun memories, and it will be something that I will not soon forget

Steph is coming to visit!

Hi. Steph is coming to visit this weekend! She should be here in a matter of hours, so I'm quite excited. However, this means there will not be a post until Tuesday or perhaps later. Just a heads up. I'll update this thing then.

Pictures from Venice

Gondolas Everywhere

Venice from the main bridge

Venice in a nutshell

The square at night

Part of the ceiling in St. Mark's. Ridiculous

St. Mark's square, with the basilica itself in the back

Close up of one of the mosaics. St. Matthew.

Venice Was Cool Beans

Blogspot is being beyond frustrating right now. It isn't letting me upload pictures, so I'll try again tomorrow and just have a post of Venice pictures. So this post is going to be all text, my apologies. This weekend we had a program-wide trip to Venice, which was something I was looking forward to ever since arriving in Italy. And I definitely was not disappointed. Venice was probably the most unique and overall best city I have ever been to. I'm very glad that I'll get the chance to go back there with my parents when they come to visit in November. We departed the Villa at about 7:30 Sunday morning, and headed off on a bus to Venice. And about 3 hours later we arrived.

The very first thing we got to do was to take a private boat tour through the main "canal" of Venice. Venice is actually just bunch islands with a whole mess of canals running through it, and one main canal that is shaped like an S that weaves through the main island of Venice. Somewhat confusing, but it was really cool to see canals and boats roaming around everywhere as opposed to cars, buses, mopeds, etc. I didn't see a single car the entire time that I was there, which was really weird. There's a lot of these little narrow side streets and alleyways all over the place, and everything was really jammed together, which was pretty cool as well. But the first stop on our private boat tour was the island of Murano. Murano is extremely famous for producing the highest quality glass in the world, and the island was basically nothing but glass factories and glass shops. Some of the stuff in these stores were absolutely ridiculous. We got to see a demonstration of glass blowing / the whole process as well so that was pretty neat. I guess it's basically a family tradition type deal, which made it even neater. So that was Murano, a whole lot of glass.

After Murano, the boat tour continued. It was really nice to get to see Venice from that perspective, and just seeing all the buildings built right alongside the water and canals. After driving around, the boat docked right by our hotel, where we stayed Friday night. The hotel was pretty nice. Kind of small rooms, but it had a courtyard a lot of us chilled in late Friday night which was nice. From the hotel, we walked over to the main piazza of Venice, St. Mark's Square. I'll have a picture of this that I'll put up once this site gets it's act together. But it was a huge square, lined with shops, these really cool buildings that used to be used for administrative purposes, and of course the church of San Marco. And Pigeons. There were so many pigeons all over Venice, it was pretty ridiculous. 

We had some time to chill in the square for a bit, but then we got to go on a tour of the Ducal Palace, where all the politicians, governors, and politics in general took place in Venice. It was a really cool building, built right by San Marco. A ton of political frescos, and a bunch of different rooms. Almost all of the ceilings were made out of / had some type of gold in them, so that was really cool to see. There was also this gigantic room, probably larger than a football field, that held the entire Venetian Parliament, which I believe was made up of a couple thousand men, so that was pretty neat to get to see. After the tour of this palace, we had some free time. Some buddies and myself just wandered around the streets of Venice, and tried to get away from all the tourists. BTW, way more tourists in Venice than any other city I've been in. But anyway, we walked along some streets, stopped in some shops, nothing too exciting. Just really cool to get a chance to experience some parts of Venice I feel like I normally wouldn't have.

One quick note, the food in Venice was nothing special. All the meals we had weren't that great. We were all very anxious to get back to the Villa and enjoy a meal prepared for us by Bruno on Saturday night. Pretty funny how spoiled we all are with food now.

Also, another side note, gondolas are great. I didn't actually go on a gondola ride because they're hella spendy, but they are everywhere and look really cool. I have a picture of them as well that I'll put up. Super stereotypical as well. The drivers all wore striped shirts and those hats, pretty much exactly what you imagine / see in movies or whatever.

The best part of the entire trip was easily a private visit to San Marco Basilica at night. It was honestly just our program in this tour. The brought us into the Basilica in the dark, then slowly turned the lights on the reveal this place. It was unbelievable. There are very few times in my life where I've been speachless but this was definitely one of them. The Venetians were heavily influenced by the Byzantines, and absorbed a lot of Byzantine culture. So the entire ceiling of this place is gold mosaics of various biblical scenes and figures. It was probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I'll have pictures of this as well, because I can't even begin to describe it. We also got to go up on the altar / behind the altar which was neat. There was this altar piece made out of gold that had thousands of precious stones in it, which was really cool. AND, we saw the tomb of St. Mark himself, and got the chance to go into the Basilica's catacombs. It was far and away the best part of the trip.

Saturday morning the weather was finally nice, and some of the group including myself went to Venice's main art museum. It was pretty neat, a lot of Titian's and Bellini's and such. Venetian painters were a lot different than Florentine painters, just in the way that they use colors and such, so it was nice to get a chance to see different styles than what we've seen in Florence thus far. The rest of Saturday was basically devoted to wandering around Venice. And again, we didn't do a whole lot. We got some food, walked around the heart of the city, and took the time to walk down some side streets and such. It was nice to have all that free time just to be able to get out and walk around Venice and see things that I normally wouldn't get the chance to. Then around 4 in the afternoon we hopped back on a boat that took us to our bus, and headed back to Sesto. That about sums up the Venice trip. It was a great time and I'm very anxious to get back there. One of the most interesting and unique places I have ever been. I'll try to get these pictures up as soon as possible.