Thanksgiving

Hello. Just wanted to get a quick update on here. I'll put up a longer post, maybe tomorrow or Friday, about our trip to Sicily this past weekend. But for now I wanted to talk about my brother coming to visit and Thanksgiving time at the villa. My brother flew in on Saturday, and was here till Friday so needless to say there was a lot of funtivities. Both Saturday and Sunday we went to the Florence Wine Tasting Event at Palazzo Piti. Ten euros for unlimited, really, really good wine. It was great. We also got a chance to see HP 7 in ENGLISH, which was awesome. They have intermission in Italian movie theaters so that was weird. But the movie was by far the best on to date I'd have to say. Tremendous.

So what did we do. Well, I got into Florence almost every day / night to walk around with him, hang out, talk, catch up, all those good brotherly things to do. Definitely had a lot of good bonding time. He also got the chance to go out to the bars with me and my friends one night, so it was nice that Mike got to meet them all. We went to a couple really great panini places, and focused on that and pizza since he was not as inclined to have pasta. We went out for a nice dinner on Tuesday I think, to this place called Mamma Gina's, which was tremendous. We had a solid, multiple course meal that was great, and recommended by my boss from this summer as being the best food in Florence. We really didn't do that much sight seeing wise. Just a lot of walking around, eating, drinking, and talking. It really was a good time

My brother also had the chance to come to the villa on Wednesday for a fantastic lunch, and hang out in Sesto all day and then some of my friends joined us out to eat for dinner. THEN, there was Thanksgiving. Unfortunately all the pictures of me and Mike hanging out / at Thanksgiving are on his camera. So I'll have to edit this post with pictures once I get ahold of them. Thanksgiving was great though, it was definitely nice to have some family with me, and the villa did a great job of making it seem as close to home as possible. The food was amazing, possibly, dare I say it, even better than back home. Definitely the best Turkey and stuffing I've ever had, with homemade pumpkin pie, turkey soup, mashed potatoes, and some other goodies. Like I said, they did a great job of replicating a large, family, Thanksgiving style dinner. Hats off to you Villa.

Other than Sicily this weekend, and my brother coming to visit, I've been pretty busy getting things done. A lot of papers and what not that I've been neglecting have finally started to catch up on me, and with less than 3 weeks left, dear god not much time left here, I got to get the ball rolling. No other trips are planned, other than a possible day trip to neighboring Prato. I've decided I want to spend my last weeks here in Florence and Sesto as much as possible, and enjoy my temporary hometowns to their fullest. So check back in later this week for an update on the Sicily trip.

P.S. Badgers being in the Rose Bowl would happen the semester I am away from college football....still, definitely excited about it.

EDIT: Photos

Bruno and Co. going to town

Brother, myself, and villa buds

Setting up the tree at the villa

Long time, no post

And I'm likely to keep it that way. At least until next week. I've been really busy lately, getting school work and such done. PLUS, now my brother is in town. So all of my free time is going to be devoted to going into Florence to hang out with him and the like. We went to the Florence Wine Tasting event on both Saturday (when he arrived) and Sunday, and it was fantastic both times. Then, after wine tasting on Saturday we went to go see Harry Potter. Which was great. Hands down my favorite one thus far. Super accurate / intense the whole time. We then went to a really old restaurant that I like to go to, and his old self was too tired from traveling to do anything after that, so he went to bed. Then yesterday, wine tasting again around 4, then we made a Brittish friend at wine tasting, and she came with us to eat at Guesta Pizza, which easily has the best pizza in Florence. We then went out to this bar that had some live music going on which was great as well. Today I need to do a whole mess of homework, and he is going to museums and wandering and such, so I will not be seeing him until Tuesday

I'll start posting more after this weekend. We have thanksgiving dinner here Thurdsay which Mike will be attending. Then he leaves Friday morning, as do I. Me and some of my villa friends will be headed to Sicily for the weekend, which should be a great time.

When in Rome

Villa group at the Colosseum

This past weekend we went to Rome. Another fantastic weekend of studying abroad. Rome is a pretty amazing city. There was way too much to go do and see in two and a half days, and I would very much like to go back at one point in my life. Just the whole combination of having all the ancient ruins and sights to see, plus the Vatican, plus a great night life made Rome one of the best weekends of the year so far. We went as a whole program, and were there from Thursday through Saturday. Other than the 4 hour bus ride, it was a great day. So here is a day by day breakdown.

We got on a bus at 7:15, and arrived at our hotel, which was actually really nice for a change, at around 11. We then switched our game plan around and toured Ancient Rome on Thursday as opposed to Friday due to a potential public monument strike. Which never happened. The Italians are always threatening to strike and never actually follow through with it. Anyways, we split up into two groups and had a tour guide take us through the various ancient ruins of Rome. We spent the vast majority of time touring the Forum. It was definitely one of the neatest things I've ever seen. Just ridiculous to think about how well preserved it is, and how old some of the things we saw actually were. Pretty neat to be walking around the same areas that Ceasar and other ancient Romans did. So we toured the Forum, and saw the Colosseum from the outside and walked all around it. HOWEVER, due to too much jabbering from our tour guide, our particular group did not get a chance to go inside due to lack of time, which proved to be fatal since we did not have time to go back inside whilst in Rome.

Forum

More Ruins

I really don't know what else to say about the ruins and Colosseum. It just is kind of mind boggling to realize how advanced the ancient Romans were and how they were able to create these monumental buildings and how they had developed such a dominant society so long ago. Honestly just walking around in a history book. Then, we toured this church called San Clemente. Again, it was like walking around in a history book. It was kind of three things in one; a 16th century church built over an 11th century church built over some ancient cult ruins. It was really neat to get to see, but I was really tired by this point so I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I should have. So then we went back and napped. And then we went out to a club in Rome that someone I once worked with recommended, and it was a good time. Again, the Rome nightlife was great. END OF DAY 1. FALSE, not end of day 1. Before dinner / going out we went to see the Trevi Fountain at night. Great choice. By far the coolest fountain I've ever seen, plus seeing it all lit up at night was great, and there wasn't nearly as many people running around as there was during the day.

Middle part of the Trevi at night

Bridge to the Vatican City and St. Peter's in the distance

The next day was a trip to Vatican City. I again really don't know what to say. It was amazing. St. Peter's is by far the most impressive religious building / structure I've ever seen and been inside, and the Vatican Museum was unbelievable and held the most ridiculous treasures possible. And the Sistine Chapel. It was one of those moments where you literally couldn't speak. Left me speechless. Just amazing that someone could've painted something that gorgeous. It was a great life experience to make the trip to the Vatican City, and I definitely saw some unbelievable things. We then continued the day by going to the Trevi Fountain yet again to see it in all its glory during the day, then proceeded to go to a "Bone Crypt" that my parents discovered. It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a crypt in a church that is made ENTIRELY of human bones. Skulls, ribs, femurs, everything. There were corpses and skeletons in said crypts, and the bones were arranged in a really odd manner, including various chandeliers and lamps made out of bones. After that interesting experience, we went to the Spanish steps, walked around, and took some pictures. Finally, we hung around in the Piazza Navona for a while, which was also pretty neat. We closed out the day with a trip to an ice bar. It was ok. I was expecting bigger things. They gave you a parka type deal, and it was super cold inside. It was pretty cool, with the bar being made entirely out of ice and what not, including all the tables, chairs / stools, and even the cups themselves. Kind of a novelty. END OF DAY 2

Day 3 was more of a relaxed day. A couple of us headed on over to ancient Rome again, and walked around the Forum / the Colosseum. Then, we made our way to the Pantehon, which was under construction, but was still a pretty neat site. It houses the tomb of Raphael, so that was pretty cool to see. And it was a pretty cool building in general. Then we hopped on the bus and went to the Borghese musuem, which was also a fun trip. We saw many works of art by the likes of Titian and Raphael, and a whole slew of statues by Bernini that were also really cool. Then we took the bus and went home. END OF BLOG. Enjoy the following photos. Go to Rome.

The Vatican's "Map Room" with a gold ceiling.

Raphael's "School of Athens"

Inside of St. Peter's

Outside of St. Peter's

Trevi during the day

Portion of the Spanish Steps

Rain, rain, rain, rain, Parents, rain, rain rain

RAIN. That's all Italy is in November. Just rain galore. Which is pretty unfortunate, because then I feel like I'm wasting the last month and a half by hanging out inside the villa and what not. But, a group of us recently booked a trip to Sicily over thanksgiving weekend, so hopefully that will bring warmer weather. Also, our villa program has a trip to Rome this weekend, and the forecast is good. Weather.com better not be lying to me, like it usually does. We will be having tours of the Vatican City, as well as Ancient Rome, as well as plenty of free time to explore / go out at night / etc. I'll provide a more detailed post about it when I get back. In other news, I just got done spending some quality time with the parents. Spent a couple of days and meals with them here in Sesto, and got to show them around a bit. Then spent some dinners with them in Florence, at a place called Ciro and Sons, which was some of the best food I've had since I've been here. They even tagged along with our Art History class tour of the Uffizi on Thursday, which Barb and Glenn thouroughly enjoyed. We then took off to Venice

PARENTS!

 

 

 

 There they are! So instead of writing out a lot about Venice, I'm just going to list a couple quick highlights
1) canal-side hotel
2) WINE Tasting! Had the best wines that I've had since I've been here. Really good Prosecco and Pinot Grigio, as well as some really good red. The appetizers that came with each glass were tremendous as well
3) Great food the entire time
4) Mass at St. Mark's
5) Doge's Palace again
6) Gondola Ride
7) Getting to spend time with the parents
All in all, it was great to spend some time with the parents. Really glad that they could come visit, and that they had a great time on their trip in Italy. They flew home on Monday. And now I'm off to Rome. Take Care.

Me and Mom at wine tasting

Me and Glenn at wine tasting

Final Fall Break Post

Some of us on the "Iamsterdam" letters

AMSTERDAM. HOLLAND. The final leg of our fall break bonnanza. I'm going to try to keep this post shorter than the other fall break ones mainly because I'm getting tired of all this blogging. Amsterdam was great. Plain and simple. It was quite different than the other two cities, whole new architectural style and had canals EVERYWHERE. Our hostel was right in the heart of the city, which was great. However, the rooms were real small, honestly like being back in the dorms. Plus, we had to walk up three stories worth of VERY NARROW stairs to get to our room. It was real trecherous. But anyways, Amsterdam.

Day 1) Arrived Thursday. Real tired, so we napped until the afternoon. Then we more or less just wandered around town. Amsterdam was really cool. Just the whole city and vibe of the place, I really liked it. The city is planned out in kind of a curvy way, it's super hard to describe. But it's really neat with all the canals. Here's a link of a map of Amsterdam http://tinyurl.com/Amstermap . Again, we didn't do a whole lot Friday. Just got accustomed to the town, wandered around, etc. Friday night we checked out a couple bars downtown which were a good time. Had a couple Amstels and Heniekens, which are brewed either in or near Amsterdam. Also, for dinner, we had our first Wok to Walk experience. This place was great, we went back one time each day. It's basically an Asian Chipotle. You picked your noodles / base, then added pretty much whatever you wanted in it, and topped it off with any of their delicious sauces, then it was all stir fried together. Delicious.

Canals galore

 Day 2) Day two was also one of the best days of the trip. We slept in a little bit, then decided to rent bikes, bike around town, and eventually we eneded up at the zoo. It was an absolute blast. It was only 10 euros to rent bikes for the entire day. So me and the guys I was with met up with some other girls from our villa that were there and biked around town. I highly recommend it. It was nice because we got out of the city center a little bit, and saw some quieter parts of Amsterdam. Amsterdam is also a super biker friendly city, so we had no problem getting around whatsoever. Here is a picture of some penguins at the zoo.

Our Bikes

We also found ourselves at Wok to Walk yet again for dinner. It was a great decision to go in for round number two. Then Friday night was our club night at Amsterdam. It was again a lot of fun. Ton of people there, and it was a three story club which was pretty ridiculous. Lot of good music as well. End of day 2. ONE MORE THING. I finally had POFFERTJES. These are really good, little dutch pancakes smothered in powdered sugar and butter. I used to get them all the time in Pella, especially at tulip time. I had them twice on their trip, and they were great both times

Poffertjes!

Unreal

Day 3: Day three was a lot more low key / touristy I suppose. We got up somewhat earlier (10ish) and went to the Anne Frank house. This was the annex that she spent her time in hiding in. It was very moving and quite somber. It was also quite informative, and we had the opportunity to see pages from her original diaries. Definitely a must see in Amsterdam. Then, we moved on to one of the city parks, that had the big IAMSTERDAM letters. Get it? I Amsterdam. I AM Sterdam? Funny business.  After climbing on the letters with the little kids and taking photos, we moved on to the Van Gogh Museum. This was great because it was a completely different genre of art than what I've been used to seeing in Florence. Van Gogh was quite talented, but also extremely insane. Still, got to appreciate his art. Then for dinner we went to an Argentinian Steakhouse, which was so-so. They honestly have them everywhere in Amsterdam, so we figured that we had to try them. We literally got dragged in to one of the steakhouses by one of the owners. A whole slew of them came up to our group and tried to get us to go to their restaurant. It was ridiculous. The one we went to was subpar, so obviously I had to go get some late night Wok to Walk. We didn't do much that night either, just drank casually at the hostel and then went out and walked around town. POW, end of fall break.

The Anne Frank House

Typical Amsterdam

All in all Amsterdam was a blast. There was some super uncomfortable / ridiculous parts of Amsterdam (I'm looking at you red light district) but otherwise it was a great time. Fun Fact, we saw Johnny Knoxville in the Red Light District one night. Anyways, THE END OF FALL BREAK. Off to Venice with the parents. Bye

Fall Break Round Two, Scotland

Scotland Highlands

SCOTLAND. This was definitely my favorite leg of the trip. There was only six of us on the excursion to Edinburgh, so it was a nice little break from being with absolutely everyone from the villa. We arrived REAL late on Monday. Got in at around 11:00 PM, off to the hostel and arrived at about 11:30. We were all wide awake, so we explored the area around our hostel and found this really neat little bar/club right close by. It was pretty fun, there was a whole lot of people our age hanging around, which was nice. AND EVERYONE SPOKE ENGLISH. It was so nice to be able to actually communicate with the people around you. There was also fast food galore, which was definitely something that I haven't been used to. Definitely way more like America than anywhere else I've been. Except for the cars driving on the wrong side of the road and what not. That was super confusing. I would look to the left and start crossing the road, and I'd almost get run down by a car coming from the right. Yikes. I didn't figure that out honestly the entire time I was there. Didn't help that our hostel was in a busy / downtown part of Edinburgh which provided ample opportunities to get hit by cars. This was probably my favorite hostel however. Great location, and it was a super hipster place. Lot of backpacking bros there, and it had a bar in the hostel, pretty neat.

Edinburgh Castle

Part of the Royal Mile

 Day number 2. We got up around 10 or so and made it to the start of our FREE WALKING TOUR of Edinburgh, which was one of the highlights from the trip. Our tour guide was named Izzy, and she was from Chicago. These are a couple of sights we saw, shown above. We saw the Edinburgh castle, which was quite impressive. We also spent a lot of time on the Royal Mile, which is the main street in Old Edinburgh, and has many important government buildings and churches, etc. on it. We not only saw many landmarks and things on the tour, but learned a lot of fun facts as well. Such as, there used to be a lake right near Edinburgh castle that eventually filled with feces due to the lack of a sewage system. Also, Edinburgh was big on witch burning, and some of the walls in the cities are made out of witch ash. We also learned Edinburgh is one of the most haunted places on Earth apparently, and toured a famous graveyard that houses over 100,000 corpses. We also learned and saw the Cafe where JK Rowling wrote some of the Harry Potter novels before she was famous, as well as getting to see the school that apparently inspired Hogwarts, and the tombstone of Tom Riddle in said graveyard that apparently inspired Lord Voldemort. Being the HP fan that I am, it was a great tour. After the tour we had a little bit of time to wander, and we went into the National Musuem, which was free. We mainly went to see the stuffed Dolly the Sheep, the first sheep ever cloned, which is displayed in a glass, rotating case. Our tour guide called it "Disco Dolly"

VOLDEMORT. Tombstone from said graveyard

Birthplace of HARRY POTTER!

So that was day one. We got fish and chips for dinner after a day of exploring and touring. Best fish and chips I've ever had by far. Tremendous. It was some hole in the wall place that was recommended by our tour guide, and she definitely did not let us down. It was unbelivable. Post dinner, five of us went on a pub crawl in Edinburgh. That was a blast and a half. We went to five bars and ended at a club that was once an old, abandoned church. The bars were all different too, one was a backpackers bar, one was more of a soccer bar, one was Halloween themed, and the others were just normal bars. But it was a great time, and got to experience various Edinburgh pubs, etc. Then we went to bed, because we had a big day coming up tomorrow.

Scotland Highlands, One of the Glens.

The next day, this is Wednesday now, was possibly my favorite day of fall break. We had scheduled a bus tour that would take us all around the Scotland Highlands, and up to Loch Ness. Said tour started at 8:00. We woke up in our hostel at 7:37 and the tour bus stop was 20 minutes away. Whoops. Luckily, we all got ready REAL fast, and had our hostel call us a taxi. We got there just in time. It was a pretty small tour bus, only about 15 people, and our tour guide was great. He was a higlander, so he knew a whole lot of stories and histories about the highlands, and told us all about William Wallace (aka Mel Gibson in Braveheart). He also wore a kilt. Our first stop of the tour was about an hour in to go see the most famous "Highland Cattle" in Scotland. This guys name was Hamish. I still don't understand why, but we all were obsessed with Hamish and had a great time at this stop. We even bought Hamish snacks to feed to him. Again, I can't explain this obsession, but it was great.

Hamish

            The tour continued on up around the Western boarder of Scotland, and we saw a couple of neat castles / bridges etc. along the way, including one of the castles that was used to film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, called Doune Castle. Our next stop was a small, costal town to grab some quick lunch. It was pretty neat to get to see the coast, despite the fact that it was raining on and off all day. We then continued on and stopped in Glen coe, one the most famous Glens in Scotland. I think the picture above was from Glen coe. The landscape throughout this entire tour was great. Just really large hills with that orange tint to it, and there were so many little mountain streams coming off from them that you could drink from and what not. Which I did and it was great. The water there is super dark and almost has a brownish tint, but apparently it's not dirt, but just happens that way from the highlands and what not. Or so our guide claimed.

After taking pictures and seeing Glencoe, we finally arrived at Loch Ness. Getting there was pretty cool because it was definitely something that I never thought I would ever see in my life. The lake itself is almost 23 miles across, 1,000 or so feet deep, and extremely dark. Definitely the darkest lake I've ever seen. Unfortunatley, it was raining so it wasn't as pleasant as it could've been, but it was still really cool. The town Loch Ness is in is really small, called Fort Augustus, so the lake itself is definitely the main attraction. We did not see the monster, however, we did see some ducks. We then continued the tour heading back towards Edinburgh, and made one stop in a small, victorian town whose name escapes me at this time. Nope, it was called Pitlochry, there we go. It was a pretty neat stop,  just one main street with a lot of old, victorian style shops on the sides of the roads. It reminded me a lot of small towns on the way up to cabins and what not, except for a lot nicer. The also went all out for Halloween, and had decorations up all over the place, so I guess they do celebrate it in some spots of Europe. Then, we finally made our way back to Edinburgh after a day of seeing the highlands, glens, highland cattle, and loch ness. It was a great day. The next morning, we headed off bright and early for Amsterdam.

Loch Ness

      

Fall Break Part 1, Barcelona

View of Barcelona from Park Guell

 All right, fall break post number one. Just want to start by saying that this was definitely one of the best weeks I have ever had. It was a tremendous amount of fun and I saw a lot of things that I never thought I would ever get the chance to see. So with that out of the way, let's start. We left for Florence on the 12:37 AM bus early Friday morning. We then had to sit around Florence until our bus for the Pisa airport left at 3:00 to catch our flight at 6:30. It was quite the ordeal. PLUS, the airline we flew on, Ryanair, blows. Super strict about carry on baggage. It has to be under a certain weight / dimensions and they're very particular about it and almost always weigh / measure, etc. Needless to say I was way past the limits in every way possible, so boarding the plane was very nerve wracking. However, escaping with no fines, we landed in Barcelona at around 9:00 AM. We were all super tired, so after checking into the hostel we proceeded to nap the day away. Another fun fact, upon arrival I almost got ran over by a moped, so that was pleasant. But luckily the disaster was averted.

Sagrada Familia

The first actual productive thing we did was to go see the "Sagrada Familia" church in Barcelona. Definitely the coolest church I have ever seen. It honestly looked like something straight out of Pirates of the Carribean, just the way it was designed and constructed. It was designed by the Spanish architect Gaudi, who is quite famous, and his architecture is all over the place. Barcelona in itself is a super modern, metropolitan city, and was really different than everything we were used to in Italy. Which makes it even odder to see this random, unusual Gaudi architecture sprouting out all over the place. All in all, it was definitely one of the cooler cities I have ever been to. The weather was great the entire time, probably sunny and 70's, pretty solid for the end of October. So that was day number one. Pretty much seeing the Sagrada Familia, napping, and wandering around Barcelona getting a feel for what the city was like and all. We then grabbed some lunch at this rando asian food restaurant called CASA FONG, which was unbelivable. Really good, we went there twice in fact. Super cheap too, so it was perfect. Then, Friday night we met up with some girls from our villa that were also in Barcelona at the time and went to one of the best mexican restaurants I've ever been to called Rossa Negra, I believe. It was tremendous. Line was super long so we had to lounge around the restaurant / bar area for like an hour and a half before hand, but that wasn't that bad since we all just chit chatted, made friendlies with the locals, and drank a bit. Day number one, done.

Just a quick side-note, we had a really nice hostel. It was pretty cheap and six of us had our own private room so we didn't have to deal with any riff-raff or sketchy individuals, which was nice. It also had a really nice patio and lounge area, and the staff was pretty helpful. It was right off of one of the main streets in Barcelona, in an area called Gracia, so good location as well.

The beach

The next day was a Saturday. Again, we didn't do a whole lot, but I honestly wouldn't have had it any other way. We made our way back down to the beach, shown to the right, and lounged beachside most of the day. We also indulged in some Paella, which was tremendous. Had to fit in some Spanish cuisine and not just mexican and asian food after all. We also took the time to have some tapas and brew at a beachside restaurant. My favorite tapas that I had whilst being there were definitely the Patatas Bravas, which was more or less just fried potatoes with this special kind of hot sauce on it, which was very good. Kind of reminded me of Raising Cane's sauce, but hot. So we spent the day eating and lounging, which was great. We also roamed around the streets and various districts of Barcelona a little bit more. Again, saw some sweet buildings designed by Gaudi, and again was loving the fact that I was finally running wild in a modern city again, as opposed to Florence. Saturday night, we decided to make some dinner at our hostel to save some money. It turned out great, breakfast for dinner of course. We made omlets and breakfast potatoes, quite good.

Me and some buddies at the beach

Also, Saturday night was our club rat night. We thought it was about time to hit some Barcelona clubs, and we went to one right down on the beach, which was a great choice. It was a pretty fun place, but the best part was definitely being able to leave the club on a moments notice, go chill on the beach for a quick minute, then head back in. It was a great time

Beachside Boardwalk on the way to the clubs. That kind of metallic looking thing in the upper/middle right was part of one of the clubs.

Needless to say our late night antics led to a mid-afternoon wake up. Which was fine, because we didn't really have an agenda and other people from the villa we were left had already moved on to their next destinations. We didn't really do too much on Sunday. More or less explored the downtown area around our Hostel as opposed to the beach, which was pretty cool. We found this great mexican restaurant for our last dinner, and I got my first and only glass of Sangria. Not a huge fan. But I was a huge fan of the mexican food we had. Best enchiladas of my life. Then we woke up the next day and a couple of us went to Park Guell. This was a park that overlooks Barcelona's skyline (see very first picture posted), and it was designed by none other than, you guessed it, Gaudi. It was a really cool place, and definitely wish we had more time to explore it, but alas our plane left for Edinburgh at around 5 o'clock. The park was great though, as was Barcelona. All in all this was probably the most unstructured, lounging, and food eating portion of the trip. Really liked the city itself too and definitely wouldn't mind finding myself back there at some point. Next stop, Edinburgh!

Park Guell

More Park Guell

Even more Park Guell