Happy Thanksgiving! BAM in Venezia

Current location: on a train, somewhere in between Bologna and Rome. It’s my first Thanksgiving not in Ithaca. But, I am so thankful to have Melissa and Bari here so I’m not alone on one of my favorite American holidays. So, instead of eating the greatest meal of the year in Ithaca with the fam, BAM spent Thanksgiving in the one and only city on the water- Venice. After spending a couple rainy days in my Perugia sweet Perugia, we somewhat spontaneously decided to take a trip to Venice. We were there for a perfect 24 hours. We arrived yesterday (Wednesday) around 4:30, took a water bus, and found our way to our FANTASTIC hostel off the Fondamente Nove waterbus stop just as the sun began to set. First, what a nice man at the desk at the hostel, and what a great room! We started walking towards St. Mark’s Square, and on the way we found some adorable shops, including the most memorable book store, The Most Beautiful Book Store in the World. Piazza San Marco was breathtaking upon it’s first appearance to us- everything has such a different charm and peace to them at night. It was just beautiful!! While standing in the empty square we called the family to wish them a happy thanksgiving and to tell them we were in Venice! What a surprise to them! Then we found ourselves a cute restaurant where I FINALLY got some good Italian profiteroles (an Italian dessert). I can’t believe it took me this long to get some, but they were worth the wait. Yummy.

On Thursday, we got breakfast delivered to our room from the guy who runs the hostel! And it was a legit full breakfast, with croissants, rolls, nutella, jams, tea, and orange juice! We were up and out by 9 and we went to go see St. Mark’s square by day. They had the platforms up because due to the crappy weather this week, the square was flooded. Fortunately, it cleared up later in the day and we were able to frolick with the famous pigeons in the square, but until then we did a super cool tour of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge Palace). It had some pretty fantastic rooms, including the enormous council room that had enormous frescoes on the wall and a giant clock that had 24 roman numeral digits and went counter clockwise. My favorite part of the palace, though, was the dungeons- we walked across the bridge of sighs (*siiigh*) and into the prison cells. And yeeesh. I am never committing a crime … in the 15th century … they were not at all comfortable. The coolest part of that section was in one cell they had an exhibit of drawings/sketches that one prisoner somehow managed to put on the wall of his cell. I don’t know how they got it in a display case … maybe it was plastered? I dunno, but it was pretty wild to see those. Then, we went inside St. Mark’s Basilica. Again … wow. I didn’t know that the entire ceiling as well as the design on the outside is actually a mosaic. The background color is gold, and it was seriously enchanting. I’m really glad we went inside. Then, our last sight-seeing destination was the bell tower. Once again, we timed things perfectly- we got to the top just in time to hear the bell ring at noon. So besides that exhilarating aspect, the view was incredible. We could see Venice and beyond, all the way to the Alps. So glad it was a clear (although cold) day.

After lunch and some more shopping, we rode back to Perugia and upon our return, made ourselves a pretty kick-butt Thanksgiving dinner (if I do say so myself) of gnocchi with pesto and salad. Happy Thanksgiving!

On Friday we went to Assisi, a small yet famous I guess? town an hour bus ride from Perugia. Before going, we read about St. Francis, for whom the big church there and other things are for. If you get a chance, go read about this guy. He was the MAN. Basically, he was the son of wealthy nobility, but he got a calling from god to lead a life of poverty, compassion, and equality. So one day, Francesco (his Italian name, and I figured out that the reason why so many Perugians are named Francesco is because they are named after this saint) stood in front of his father and his whole town and stipped naked, declaring his new life. He accepted everyone with equality, including women, and eventually gathered some followers. The monks who now live in Assisi (we saw them everywhere) are some of them. It was really interesting to read about. Seriously, if you have time, just look up some stuff on him on the internet. I found it very inspiring. Once again, I’ve never been a very spiritual person and do not feel a strong connection to Jesus (obviously), but the story and the history behind St. Francis of Assisi was really interesting to me. Oh italy, you sure are turning me into an art history, architect-noticin’, saint-lovin’ girl. Assisi is also an adorable town- we were only there for a couple hours but I would have no problem having another go at it, cuz there were a few things in the guide book that we missed.

The one last adventure that Italy provided for us was the bus home- somehow we missed something between the lines, because the bus that we got that was full of Italian middle schoolers apparently did not stop in Perugia, even though the info at the bus stop said it did. We dunno what happened, but the bus driver was on a very rainy highway not going towards Perugia and told me in Italian that that was the last stop. Umm, what? But he was very kind and called his other bus driver friend, dropped us in some ugly random town, and we waited for 20 minutes and another bus heading to Perugia picked us up. Hahaa, whoops.

What a BAM-ful week! I saw them off very early on Saturday morning. I was so thankful for them coming, again. Not only did it let me to re-discover Perugia for my self as I showed them around and give me an excuse to eat as much gelato as possible, but I got to be their tour guide in their first experience in Europe and have the company of people who have known me the longest. Yay family =)

Visiting with Leo

This weekend past weekend was the field trip for my Leonardo da Vinci class. I had to catch a bus at 6:43am (ugh) to a rainy Florence (this is my third time in Florence, and I’m three for three for rain. I hope someday I can see it in the sunshine). After 3 hours we arrived at the Museo nazionale del Bargello. The exhibit we primarily stopped there to see was, unfortunately, closed (ha, that’s Italy)- we were supposed to see some of Andrea del Verrochio’s work, who was Leonardo da Vinci’s mentor and teacher. Instead ,we got to look around at some Michaelangelo sculptures. Then, we went to the famous Uffizi!! Where we saw three great Leonardo da Vincis: The Baptism of Christ, which was done by Verrochio and Leonardo in Verrochio’s workshop when Leo was still very young. Leonardo painted part of it (if you bother to look it up on the internet, look at the two angels on the left. Leo painted the on the far left and also the landscape behind the angels), and it was so exquisite compared to Verrochio’s work that Verrochio, showed up by his young pupil, decided it was better that he stick to sculpturing. Apparantly Verrochio never picked up a paintbrush again. We also saw Leo’s Annunciation, and his unfinished Adoration of the Kings. Although we were there for Leo, my favorite part of the Uffizi was two paintings by Botticelli in the next room. Botticelli was another prominent painter during Leo’s time who my professor has mentioned a couple times in my Leonardo class. So, I don’t know much about him but in my boredom of my own reading a few weeks ago I wound up flipping through Carly’s Renaissance Art History book and flipped to a page that talked about Botticelli’s two most famous works, the Birth of Venus and Primavera. They are so beautiful- I love the Greek mythology and the interpretations of all the stories. Every painter of the time interpreted it differently.

After the Uffizi, a couple of my classmates and I got lunch and hit up the flea market. I’ve decided that the Florence is definitely my favorite that I’ve seen. It was the first European market I had ever been to in my life, and I have yet to find one that beats it. After shopping, a very nice Polish guy directed us towards the Palazzo Vecchio (means old palace- it still serves as the Town Hall in Florence) where we had to meet the rest of the class, cuz my awful sense of direction got us walking the wrong way. The Palazzo Vecchio was super cool- we had seen pictures of it and it was cool to be inside. On the giant walls is where Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were commissioned to paint frescoes of two famous battles. The frescoes were barely started, and they were eventually covered up by frescoes by another painter some years later. However, somehow there is proof (dunno how all this high-tech art history detecting equipment works), that what Leo began on the wall of the Battle of Aghiari remains underneath the painting that is on the wall now. The giant room was lined by statues, some by Michaelangelo. I saw another statue that caught my eye immediately, a new favorite along with the one of the opera performer one I saw in the Accademia which I failed to get the name of. This one was a sculpture depicting Florence’s defeat of Pisa, personified. Florence was represented by a woman, and Pisa by a man. And the woman was obviously kicking butt, and the man was begging for mercy. The feminist in me was very satisfied =).

Then we hopped back on the bus and rode 4.5 hours to Milan, where we checked into our very nice hotel in the outskirts of the center. Abbey, Shannon, (girls from my class) and I took the metro into the center, where we met Shannon’s roommates, found a great little restaurant for dinner where I had some spiced gnocchi and traditional Milanese risotto, and later I called Dhana and met her in front of the Duomo! We hung out and walked around the center for about an hour and a half, and it was so great that I got to see her twice in 3 weekends! Then Abbey, Shannon, and I hopped on the metro to get back to the hotel, but I guess we weren’t paying good enough attention and we realized that we were on the wrong line- it forked off the wrong way. We got off as soon as we noticed, tried to run to get on the metro going in the other direction, but it was 12:31 and we had missed the last metro of the night by one minute. So, after walking back and forth down a road and past the same bar like 4 times, we went into a hotel and got a map and some directions from two very nice Italian men and we walked about 10 blocks to the hotel. Once again, none of us were worried and we just saw it as an adventure. It was fun and we just kept laughing at ourselves/our situation, but we were relieved to see the hotel after a 20 minute walk in the very windy cold.

The next morning, we went to a private museum called the Ambriosa and saw one more Leo called A portrait of a musician (a guy with a red hat on, long hair, you might have seen it around …), and work by some Leonardo followers. After that, we walked to the Santa Maria delle Grazie for our long-awaited viewing of The Last Supper. I wasn’t expecting much … I mean I was excited because of all the hype about it, but I hadn’t really heard much of it before this class and I knew it was important because we had to make the reservation 2 months in advance. But after standing in a room to get sterilized, I walked into the barren room and there it was, this enormous, beautiful fresco in front of me. I was breathless for a second, and I don’t really know why. It was just … incredible. And I had no idea it was so large. It’s like, 8ft x 25ft or something like that (I suck at measurements … but you get it … it’s ginormous). But … ahhh. I don’t know how else to describe it. I think part of my surprise was it’s fantastic condition. It recently went through an 11-year cleaning and restoration process, but all the images of it we had seen in class were all from before the cleaning, so I was so taken by the detail, rich colors, and immense clarity. We only got 15 minutes to gaggle at it, but Shannon, Abbey and I all agreed that it was sooo not what we were expecting. I didn’t want to leave after 15 minutes … it wasn’t enough. I am still surprised at my own reaction, especially cuz I’ve never been that much of an art geek but it really was beautiful and I am so lucky that I got the opportunity to see it!

After The Last Supper, we went to the Sforza castle yay!, but this time we went inside and took a look around the museum where we saw a ceiling that Leo painted, and another famous Michaelangelo statue (although I guess it’s not that famous because I forgot the name of it already). Then, it was back on the bus, and a 5.5 hour ride back to Perugia, where I rushed off the bus to go down to the train station to greet MELISSA and my cousin BARI! I won’t go into details, but there was some confusion, lack of communication, and worrying, but after a stressful hour of waiting around the train station wondering where the heck they were, we found each other and it was time to begin our BAM weekend in Italy!!!

I wrote this right after my fall break, it's time to post.

This is one of the many things that my travels thus far have taught me:
When only traveling through cities for a few days, it’s tough to have the opportunity to embrace the city’s real life. Usually, you have a little bit of time which you use to hit the big touristy stuff. Although those attractions are a must-see, that stuff usually doesn’t give you a good sense of true culture in these cities. So, the best way to get an authentic cultural experience is through the one thing that everyone wants and needs- FOOD. As you all know, I am always an advocate of eating, but this is only part of the reason why I seriously suggest this for any future travelers. You have to eat, so you might as well take the extra few minutes to search for the most authentic meals you can while abroad. Food is the best because you’re never going to get it anywhere else (restaurants in the states, even if they are authentic, don’t count in my opinion), and it’s not something you can get from a postcard, a photograph, or in stories. Those are all ways through which you can remember your experiences vicariously, but food IS the experience. You’ll remember exactly how it tasted and how it felt; and that, exactly that, is something you will not ever get again. In all honesty, a lot of I remember the most about the cities to which I’ve traveled is what I ate. Personally it’s been a big step for me - trying to embrace culture through my stomach has enabled me to briefly get over my disgust in some food groups (seafood) for a second and give them a whirl. So yes, dad, I tasted mussels and tuna steak…and wait for it … squid (eek!) in a seafood paella in Barcelona. Yeeaackk. They all tasted the same- nasty and fishy, but seafood paella is a classic Spanish meal, especially in cities on the coast like Barcelona, so I felt a duty to taste it. I also sampled lots of sangria in Barcelona- but how can you blame me? It’s native to the area, and it’s delicious. I had no problem embracing English food culture- an enormous, greasy hamburger, French fries, hot soup, Strongbow (my first ever drink on tap- it’s a sweet cider mixed with beer), cheddar cheese, and an “English breakfast” with bacon, eggs, hash browns, beans, toast, and tea. Yup, no problem there. And since that’s what they normally eat there, I don’t consider it cheating. The same thing of course applied in Greece. No complaints here either. I ate as much Greek food as my stomach and wallet allowed. And of course while living in Italy I’m doing the same thing with food. There is no way I am ever going to enjoy American pizza again after the 1 euro slices I can get everyday here. And the gnocchi, the cheese, tomatoes, the fresh pasta, the wine, the pesto …
Case in point: as my father says, mangia mangia (eat eat).
So yeah, yes, there’s my paragraph on food. I didn’t even get to talk the chocolate baklava from the bakery… that could have a paragraph of its own …

No fabrications. Just adventure.

So, the my blogging in the last couple weeks shows how things have been going over here- school things have piled up so unfortunately I haven’t been able to update you guys on the awesome things that have been going on in between. But I HAVE been keeping good track in my real journal so I could eventually write these in here. So, despite their belated-y (don’t think that’s a word), here are some more records of life in Italia!

My weekend in Milano! I feel like I deserved this weekend. I kind of decided on a whim that this would be a great weekend to travel to Milan to see Dhana. For those of you who don’t know Dhana, she’s an Italy native who was an exchange student at my high school during senior year. She quickly joined my group of friends during her time at Penfield, and we’ve kept after graduation (thanks Facebook!). She’s now going to school in Milan and insisted on me coming to see her when I was over here for the semester. Anyways, I hadn’t been out of Perugia for a while and it felt time to do something by myself and for myself. The idea of travelling on my own was a bit unsettling, but I wanted to challenge myself so that obviously didn’t stop me.
So, Dhana is an absolute sweetheart (Dhana, if you’re reading this, you rock!) and it was so great to see her. Although we weren’t really that close during senior year, she embraced me as if we were and she made me feel so comfortable. And, as a bonus, Erin (Mahany) (another Penfielder) was in Milan visiting Dhana for a couple days during her fall break from studying in London, so there was another familiar face to see. We went strolling and shopping around the city as the sun went down, and I got my first glimpse of the Duomo of Milan. Ohhh umm wow. I unfortunately didn’t have my camera on me but I can remember the way it looked in the twilight- it was almost glowing. It was like how Pisa looked at night 4 years ago, radiating in the dark.

For dinner, I had hands down THE most enormous pizza I have ever attempted to stomach in my life. It was a giant cheese pizza with parmesan and eggplant.
Random interesting fact that I learned in my History & Culture of Food in Italy class: the Italian word for eggplant is “melanzane”. The name comes from a combination of “mela” (Italian for apple) and “nzane”, like the English world “insane”. When eggplant crop first got introduced, it appeared to the Italians as a strange looking apple, and they thought it was poisonous. Therefore, they named it the “insane apple”. Thanks, Peter Fischer, for that!
Let’s see if I can explain this pizza … the plate was about twice the size of my face, and the pizza was hanging off the edge all around by about an inch. Thankfully, living in Italy for three months has prepared me for this, and my expanded stomach did pretty well with finishing about ¾ of it. It was obviously amazing, and thought I would never eat again.

The pizza.

We spent the rest of the evening in the apartment, for our plans to go out on the town failed miserably due to our laziness. Instead, the three of us spent time catching up and reminiscing about high school. Lots of memories there.

On Saturday, we did more shopping (what else is there to do in Milan, anyways?). Unfortunately, we didn’t get to climb to the top of the Duomo, but we DID see all the other sights, the famous ridiculous streets of window shopping that I feel like I’m not even wealthy enough to look at, and we went to the top floor of the 7 story department store that gives us a great view of the top of the Duomo. And up there on that top floor where there was a restaurant and gourmet food for sale, we saw a bottle of 100euro olive oil, and my favorite: 95euro for “refined spring water from Beverly Hills” in a glass bottle with “bling” written in rhinestones. Yeah.
We also got some gelato (caffe & panna cotta), and I put my heel on the famous bull on the floor near the duomo and spun three times for good luck, and I bought myself a nice pashmina scarf that I can now say I got in Milan! Airforce Military jets flew over the city when we were there. Twice. It was strange and kind of scary, no one knows why they were there.

Me at the duomo!

After gelato and last shopping came my favorite part- The Palazzo Sforzesca (The Sforza castle). Another historical fact, this time from my Leonardo da Vinci class (wow, my classes are really coming in handy in this entry!): Ludivico Sforza was the Duke of Milan in the late 1400s, and Leonardo da Vinci lived in Milan and worked for him for about 20 years. He commissioned the painting of The Last Supper (which is in the Santa Maria delle Grazie church very close to the Sforza palace).
Aaaanyways, sorry if you couldn’t give a hoot about the history, but that was for Maddie (hehehee), the palace was sa-weeeet. We walked through to an amazing and enormous courtyard, through some smaller gardens, and out to the park behind it. It was away from the hustle & bustle of the city, and besides running into a couple tourists, we mostly saw locals taking a jog and couples walking hand-in-hand and cuddling on the benches. I love that it’s possible to put a park like that in the middle of a city. We were there as the sun set- it was incredibly peaceful and romantic. I was content there and very glad that Dhana made that one of our stops.

With Erin & Dhana at the fountain in front of the Sforza Palace.

Erin had to catch a train, and after she left we had dinner at Dhana’s apartment of 4 kinds of pasta/risotto at the apartment. Then, we (me, Dhana, Dhana’s boyfriend Matteo, and Dhana’s roommate Julia), went to Rolling Stone, a concert venue/discoteca. They were having some kind of International Student week, so they had to pretend to be French to get in, but they did, and … rave. Inside was, essentially, nzane (insane. Like insane. Get it? GET IT?!). Huuge. Double dance floors- one was on the second floor, surrounded by sound-proof glass so they could play different music. The atmosphere was a bit overwhelming at first- strobe lights, scary/twitching stuff playing on repeating TV screens, loud music, crowded. We got a drink and danced! Danced! Danced! It was mostly rock music (which I have noticed Italians love to dance to … I find it difficult) but they also played some awesomely random selections such as This Thing Called Love (and yes, I OBVIOUSLY did the dance from the Roost). The club closed at 4:30, and since the trams weren’t running that late, we walked all the way back to her apartment. We got back around 5:30 and crashed.

On Sunday, we slept in (obviously), and during breakfast/lunch we watched the 2008 MTV Europe music awards. This is only worth mentioning because it was OBAMA MANIA! It was out of this world- it’s like he’s a rock star. Except, he’s our next President, and Europe is ALL over it. In the half an hour that we watched, there were enormous references to/chants cheering for/things like Katie Perry’s sequined dress of the face of Barack Obama. It is just … crazy. I can’t believe how his worshipped over here. How all of this is so powerful, popular, and prevalent overseas. What is it like in the U.S.?

Then it was time for me to go back to Perugia, and boy did that begin an adventure. First, we got the train station 15 minutes before the train I was planning on taking left, but all the ticket machines wouldn’t let me buy a ticket, and we found out the train was full. Thankfully there was another train leaving 15 minutes later that I got a ticket for, but what happened to me with the first train must have happened to lots of other people, because it had 3x as many people as it should have. It was one of the compartment trains. I spent the first 2 hours squatting/curled up on my backpack on the floor in the very very narrow hallway outside the compartments. Luckily I snagged a seat when I did, about 2 hours to my connecting stop in Arezzo. The train kept filling up as we got closer to Arezzo, and it got to the point where all the compartments were full, people were standing in the compartments, all the seats in the hallway were taken, and people were standing on both sides of the compartments in between the seats. It was quite unpleasant. I sat there and thought, “ohh, so THIS is why people pay an extra 15 euro for an express train (which I took to Milan and it was soo nice) …
The only reason I caught my train out of Arezzo to Perugia is I followed some girls I heard talking on the train about going to Perugia as well- I didn’t know what time the train left Arezzo, but I knew the lay over was short I heard the girls talking about having to run. Thankfully I saw them out of the corner of my eye when I got off the train- they jumped off the train, across the platform, and jumped on the other train directly parallel to the one we just got off. I was about to run and double check the sign to make sure it was the right train, but then I heard the release of air that meant it was about to leave, so I just got on the train and hoped that it was the right one. I thankfully had walked onto a car on which I immediately saw someone else who I recognized from my program, so I knew I was on the right train. I was so thankful to not be travelling completely by myself anymore, so I sat next down to the kid I recognized and we wound up chatting the whole way back to Perugia about our travels and abroad experiences. I was glad he was with me when we got off the train too, because we had to track down a bus to take us back up the center since we missed the last mini-metro by 5 minutes. It was nice to meet someone else and to share stories and experiences about being here.

Gyros, jean mattresses, spanakopita, souvlaki, sirs, madams, armies, ruins, hills, baklava, and 4-wheelers: ATHENS

Day VIII
All clearly needing sleep, we slept until 11. We got up and around and without any knowledge of the city or the Greek language besides as map, tried to find the beach. We were very unsuccessful and wound up at the city center of Athens. I didn’t realize how much of a city Athens really is- it didn’t feel much like I had imagined Greece would, besides all of the Greek everywhere. We checked out the flea market, did some shopping, and got our first AMAZING AMAZING gyros. A huge chunk of lamb, tsasiki sauce, onion, lettuce wrapped in a super thick pita … ahh just thinking about it makes my mouth water. Yours too, I bet. Haha, sorry. We spent all day wandering the center. We also admired the Acropolis, which just sticks up in the middle of the city, with the Parthenon just chilling there in clear view. That’s another thing that reminded me that we were actually in Greece. Besides that, I couldn’t believe we were there! For dinner, Nick, his roommate, and other friends took us to their favorite gyro place- this time I got one with chicken (they put French fries right inside), and I got a taste of the Italian I had been missing with some berry gelato. That night, we hung out with Nick’s friends and roommates and had a great time getting to know them.

Day VIII Athens
Nick and us girls took a ferry to the island called Aegina (apparently the pistachio capital of the world- they were everywhere), where we got yet another gyro (I swear I could never get sick of those), and walked around the edge of the island looking for a beach. Unfortunately, we were again unsuccessful in our beach-searching, but walking around the island was gorgeous. Despite the overcast sky, the water and surrounding mountains were so scenic. Jess, Chelsie (who met us in Greece after the first half of her break with her family), and I caught a taxi back to the port and on our way to see some ruins that we saw from the ferry, we decided to be spontaneous and rent 4-wheelers to ride around the island! Jess and I have been talking about riding on a moped/scooter/a similar vehicle ever since we got to Italy so we could NOT pass this one up (also, since my knee was in a very unhappy state at the time, it was another excuse to do it). And ahhh! It was SO much fun! I let Jess drive because I loved riding and looking around/I get nervous/people in Europe drive much differently and I didn’t want to spend too much time getting concerned about not getting killed. So with crazy Jess behind the wheel and me behind her, we sped (er … that deserves quotations … “sped” … we floored at 40) around the island. We passed Carly and Nick and Elisha and Sarah and the best part was the surprised/confused/amused look on their faces when we rode by them! We passed/ got passed by lots of Greek locals as we drove around. Half of them shot us dirty looks because we couldn’t go any faster, and half of them smiled because we probably looked ridiculous. We rode towards the ruins found another great view of the beach, and then realized we were on a one-way road and could not follow the sign we had passed earlier that lead us to the port. We asked a Greek man on a moped who was stopped near us how to get to the port and because of his lacking English he couldn’t explain well, so he just said, “come with me,” and he lead us around to bring us back to the one way street. It was so kind of him, and how funny that must have looked- a Greek man on his nice moped, and three laughing American girls mounted on two incredibly slow and noisy 4-wheelers following him around the side streets of Aegina! Twice we passed some older men doing some landscaping, and we were laughing at ourselves because we could not believe what we were doing, and they stopped their work a just laughed with us as we were stopped at their intersection. I loved their Greek smiles- brilliant white teeth against their dark, sun-kissed skin. We waved at them both times and just could not stop laughing.

Satisfied with Aegina, we took the ferry back to Athens, and when we got back a big group of us went to a taverna (family restaurant-type place, only Greek) for dinner with Nick’s roommates and friends. I got a pretty decent chicken souvlaki and a Greek salad with incredible feta. Yummm Greek food. Afterwards, a couple of Nick’s friends took us to a really nice bar where we got drinks and hung out for a while. Went to a club in Athens- check.

Day IX
We climbed the Acropolis today! Saw the Parthenon! And all the other ancient ruins! And got a 360-degree view of Athens from the Acropolis- how beautiful. It’s another really ginormous city. Around the Acropolis there are lots of other ruins and old temples that we saw. Got yet another lamb gyro for lunch from the same place from which we got our first ones on Thursday (that makes 4 gyros in 3 days … oh yess), and Sarah and I went to go see the 198(3?) Olympic stadium, which is built on top of the old old stadium, and also the nearby National Gardens. It was nice to get away from the crowds.

For dinner, Matt (one of Nick’s friends) took me, Chelsie, Elisha, and Sarah to THE BEST meal I had in Greece. It was a little taverna hidden away from the center- as soon as we walked in I knew it was was going to be perfect. The way it was decorated with old photographs and classical musical instruments of Greek folk music made it feel like the real Greece I had been waiting for. The meal was a fixed menu, kind of like tapas- little plates with a little bit of everything. Tsasiki sauce, a seasoned beef in a sauce, beans, a cheese pastry friend thing, French fries, a pastry roll thing with ham and cheese, Greek salad, homemade bread, and endless house red wine. And, to top it off, there was live music! An older, beautiful woman sang and played the guitar, wonderfully serenading us with authentic Greek songs. She was so fantastic. Everything was so wonderful! The adorable old Greek men who served us practically chased us out the door on our way out, offering us more wine … hehee. Matt took us bakery hopping on the way back, stopping to get some baklava and a strange crème brulee-esque cake and some of that chocolate baklava and three different bakeries. When we got back, we grabbed Elisha and Nick’s other roommate Caleb and they took us up the hill near their apartment, up to the highest point in Athens. We were way above the acropolis- we could see it below us. We saw the entire view of Athens by night. It was just incredible.
So, yeah, Greece: check.

Day X
A drawn return to a very chaotic Perugia on it’s last day of the Eurochocolate festival. No, I didn’t stop to look around because a) I was exhausted, b) it was too crowded, and c) it was too expensive. But don’t you fear, fellow Waldmans, I can get Perugina chocolate here anytime I want and I may just save some of it for y’all.



4 wheeling with Jess, Aegina


me & the Parthenon, gyrossss

Afterthoughts of break:
Just kidding, I’ll spare you. It’ll be posted in a few days =)

Hospitals, hostels, high noon, cranberry, royalty, burgers, broadway, strongbow, rollercoasters, Amber alerts, and autumn: LONDON

Day V
On the plane, I definitely knew we were headed for the UK when I heard the flight attendants come around asking for “rubbish”. Just imagine it in the accent. “Rubbish? Rubbish, sir? Rubbish, anyone?”
We finally got our passports stamped at the Stansted airport!!
We missed the last tube (that’s what the metro is called in London) by 2 minutes, so we had to take a night bus and walk the 5 minutes to the hostel. But I didn’t mind the night bus- we got to see the London bridge and a glimpse of the London Eye and Big Ben by night!

The next morning there was free breakfast at the hostel, but it turned sour quickly- my roommate Carly, who has a very severe nut allergy, ate two flakes of a cereal that apparently had an almost glaze of some sort, and after panicking a bit and taking some Benedryl, (no epi pen was needed, thank goodness) she decided that she had to go see a doctor. The doctor down the street wouldn’t treat her because she wasn’t an EU citizen, so we had to take her to St. James Hospital. Just for precautionary purposes, after the initial drugs that stopped her allergic reaction, she had to stay in the hospital. So, while poor steroid and anti-histamine-full Carly slept in a hospital bed, we went and explored London. We saw Parliament, Big Ben at noon!, the London Eye (but we didn’t go on it because it was expensive and a long wait), Westminster Abbey, Picadilly Circus, St. James Park. Oh my gosh, it was all SO SO BEAUTIFUL!! And it was the first I’ve actually seen of fall since I’ve been here- in Perugia there is no grass and no trees therefore no visible proof that it’s autumn. But in London the leaves were falling, and that sweet fall smell was in the air. And the best part is that we had a most brilliant blue sky- no rain in sight for our two days in London! I guess the rain got sick of following us around in our travels. So in St. James Park we shuffled through the leaves! And that lead us to Buckingham Palace where we saw the famous guards. At one point they started very officially pacing back and forth. It wasn’t all it’s been cracked up to be, but it was still pretty wicked. I kind of wish the palace looked more like a palace, though. Its looks more like some official government building. Which I guess it is technically … We also found ourselves near some other parks whose names I cannot remember. One was right behind the Parliament building. It was a big open grassy area where there were all kinds of people we’re around. Some guys were tossing a rugby ball back and forth, a friendly soccer match was happening, and people were just strolling along. It made me realize how long it had been since I had seen a big grassy area. It was just so gorgeous- the grass was a rich green and the sky was perfectly blue and the sun was wide and bright. We chilled there for a while.

Other general highlights of the day: In St. James Park, we overheard the most hilarious conversation. I wrote down the quotes immediately in my notebook to make sure I’d get them exactly right. Again, the effect of the accent is very important- two men in their 30’s or 40’s were bickering. One very angrily said “There’s no whipped cream in society anymore. We’re in a recession- there’s no more need for whipped cream and frothy milk!” His friend annoyingly responded “Oh, shut up!” Okay it doesn’t sound funny now, but it really was hilarious.

Ever since London I’ve been trying to think of the perfect adjective to describe it. But I can’t put my finger on it. “Beautiful” just doesn’t cover it. There’s a whole other element that the entire city encompasses that gives it its charm and sophistication and class. There’s gotta be a word that means all of those things … someone with a good vocabulary help me out here. Especially if you’ve been to London (Brittany & Brynn, that’s your cue).

So after doing the sight-seeing in main street London, we picked up Carly at the hospital, got turned around trying to take a bus back to the hostel (thank goodness people there speak English or we never would have found our way), and got ready to go out for dinner and then a show! Carly and I, who had already seen Wicked, were off to Spamalot when the rest of the crew went to Wicked. First, SARAH HIN met us for dinner and we had what I had been craving of London for weeks- French fries and an enormous, juicy, hamburger. It was so delish. Spamalot was so well done- funny and a fantastic cast. The other girls of course could not stop raving about Wicked- they even got to meet the cast after the show! After our London musical experiences, we met up with Sarah again with her friend and she took us out to a popular club near Picadilly Circus (one of the main city plazas). Sarah was a sweetheart and bought us all a round of drinks and we stayed and danced for a while! Jess, Elisha, and I, who stayed the longest, got back to the hostel at 3:30 by the time we found the right night bus to take. Went to a club in London- check.

Day VI
I got myself up at 7:30 am to meet up with the one and only Alyson with a Y for breakfast!! The original restaurant at which we planned to have breakfast was closed (even though it’s a breakfast food restaurant ..?), so we just walked around and talked and found a café where I got some English tea and a real English breakfast with hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, beans, a think hunk of bacon, and toast. It was so fun catching up with my favorite name twin! Our date was sweet but all too short since I had to get back to the hostel for our last day of sight-seeing and she had class, but our hour together was definitely a highlight of the week!

We headed to Notting Hill (yeah, like the movie! No, I didn’t see Hugh Grant) for the market but it wasn’t as exciting as I was anticipating- first of all, we were all low on pounds so we could not buy anything, and everything was so expensive that we couldn’t have afforded it anyway. But Notting Hill itself is an adorable part of town. Jess and I decided that we’re buying a flat there. And we met a super cute English guy in a coffee shop who told us how to find the market who we wanted to take with us. That was mostly what Notting Hill offered to us, but I’ll take it. English men. Yummy. I dunno if it’s just me, but it seemed to me that everyy English man has searing eyes- most of them were blue or green. It was incredible. And hard not to stare. At some points during our wandering, even if we were pretty sure we knew where we were going, we found it necessary to stop a man on the street to ask for directions just so we could listen to him speak.

After Notting Hill we stopped for a quick lunch before going to the National Gallery Museum. However, we never got to the museum because Jess went next door to use the bathroom while we were stopped for lunch, and never came back. For 3 hours. We started worrying and waited there for her for the whole time. Carly and her friend went to the museum to look for her there in case she went to the museum without us, but with no avail. While the rest of us sat there, confused as to how this happened. We decided to go back to the hostel in case she was waiting for us there, and within 5 minutes of us arriving, she walked in the door. She apparently had walked two feet into the place where we were having lunch, didn’t see us, so went to the museum just thinking we would meet up later. So unfortunately while the rest of us sat there confused and starting to worry, she was able to make it to the museum.
England: check.

After we talked about never getting lost like that again haha, we took the tube to the airport for Greece! We had the gate to ourselves for a while, so we had a picnic for dinner on the floor and played cards until it was time to get on the plane. Carly’s boyfriend Nick, who was our host for Athens, picked us up at the airport and we took the bus to his apartment. We crammed ourselves in his apartment and all cuddled on the floor on top of a pseudo mattress made of the contents of our bags.



the London Eye and a blue sky, Me & Sarah jumping for joy


holding up da Big Ben, Out on the town with Hinnie

Tapas, cocaine dealers, paella, statues, scaffolding, stray dogs, street performers, and sangria; BARCELONA

DAY I
As a great start to our trip, Alan saw us off in Piazza Italia where we got the bus to the airport. AND he brought us CHEDDAR CHEEEESE! From Ireland! We snacked on it while waiting for our flight! And so, I took my first RyanAir flight to Barcelona- RyanAir has a RyanAir song that they play during take off and landing. Haaahaha. We arrived in Barcelona at 6:30 and took an hour bus ride to the center. To find our hostel, instead of taking the metro like the website suggested, we decided to be bold and walk and find it ourselves. After an hour of circles and turn arounds, we found it! After getting settled in the hostel we went out in search for food- at this point, it was after 11:00, which is normal time for dinner in Spain—and we found tapas. Oh my gosh, tapas. We got a kind of friend potato with a garlic sauce, a couple kinds of meat kebabs including sesame seasoned chicken and seafood paella (which, despite it being seafood, was okay) and some amazing Spanish style bruscetta bread. And of course, I had my first ever Sangria. Uhhum, yummy.
Then we wandered and found a Hagen Daaz- real ice cream! As much as I love gelato, it was so great to have real ice cream.

Day II
Woke up to pouring rain- it seems to follow us wherever we go! But again, we didn’t let it stop us. First we caved and got some Starbucks for breakfast- I felt majorly guilty but my white chocolate mocha and blueberry muffin were so deliciousss. I tried to order in Spanish … That has been the most difficult and frustrating part of Barcelona so far. I can’t remember ANY of my Spanish. It’s all getting mixed up with Italian in my head. Like, it felt weird to be greeting people with “hola” and not “ciao”. It has made me realize, though, how much Italian I really know. But I really did forget the basics! Just hello/goodbye/thanks/excuse me/please/I’m sorry/counting has taken me a sec to process. I just want to speak Italian all the time. So anyways, we walked for a while- 40 minutes maybe-down to the central areas with AWESOME architecture and shopping. I just loved all the buildings there. Where we were reminded me of the Los Angeles Promenade that I saw this summer, Gothic style. And there were tons of vendors with cool crafts. There I did the majority of my Barcelona purchases- I got a super bold necklace that I can’t wait to try to wear without looking like an idiot, a new wallet (finally), a shrug, and some gifts for some peeps. Yeah, for you. We also found the Port of Barcelona and saw the ocean.

The most memorable part of my day- when it was lightly raining and we were shopping along the center, we were standing near a homeless man sitting on the ground. And Elisha saw him and went over to him and offered him her umbrella. It was so simple and kind and I was so inspired by it, first it made me sad that doing that didn’t even occur to me. But it has also now put that thought in my head and I will always remember it and next time, I hope it will occur to me. She said “my holy spirit spoke to me and said,
‘give that man your umbrella’ and I said ‘no, I need it’ and then I thought, ‘no, I don’t’”.

In the evening, Amanda, Sarah, and I got an extra scenic view of the city while we got turned around looking for the metro … for 45 minutes. For dinner, we went down to the bay and got Sangria that was better than the night before and Elisha and I split a huge pan of meat paella. The restaurant was a great choice- the staff and waiters were super nice, the guys from Madrid sitting next to us offered us some of their appetizer (mussels- which I tasted! Be proud!), and the Austrian men sitting on the other side of us struck up a conversation as well! Oh, and be proud of me again- I also tasted some of the other girls’ seafood paella. We even took pictures with the waiter guys, and one of them gave me his cell phone on which to listen to Bollywood music, which he sings, apparently. He said that everyone “at home” (India) says that he is the spitting image of some famous Bollywood star? Funny dude. Afterwards, we wandered over to the beach and took pictures on the bay and beach! But we had to leave after dipping our feet in the water and just enjoying ourselves because we were in freakin Spain! because some sketchy guys tried to sell Sarah drugs when she was waiting for us on the boardwalk. And that was our cue to get out of there. We got free passes on the street from a club on the bay called Catwalk- we went in for 15 minutes. Went to a club in Barcelona- check. It was crazy cool inside, but just a little intense for us after our long day. The rest of the bay was fun to walk around, though- there were some super cool buildings and a strip of real hoity toity (yeah, I said it, Andrea Mel and Maren, I hope you read that with Jack Kelly’s accent) guest-list-only clubs.

Day III
Today we toured the Gothic center! We went inside the Cathedral of Barcelona, although we didn’t get to see the outside of the Cathedral because it was under tons of scaffolding =( Boo. But outside the cathedral was a band of older men playing instruments (not very well …. Haha) and a few groups of people folk dancing in a circle in the square!! Yay! Afterwards we just did tons more walking around the Gothic center and shopping center and took tons of pics. On the way back to the hostel we watched a group of 4 funny guys put on a hip hop street dancing show. Then everyone else went to see the Sagrada Famiglia cathedral but my stupid knee sent me back to the hostel to sit down and ice. Arghh.
For dinner, we went to a restaurant called QuQu where I got some delicious chicken and (yes, Andrea) profiterol! Funny that my first profiterol was in Spain …. It was okay but I was just excited to have some of it! Then we had a couple drinks at a bar near our hostel where we had a chance to talk to some girls from California who were staying at our hostel as well.

Day IV
We took the metro and climbed the HUGE hill up to Parque Guell where there was an amazing amazing amazing panoramic view of the entire city, facing the water (the bay where we were the day before). I didn’t realize how enormous Barcelona is- it looked bigger than Manhattan to me! And it was cool because we could see where we had walked, and I’d say we covered a good third of it by foot in our 3 days. Go us!

Side story 1: When at the highest most point at Parque Guell (a big cross made of stone up on a hill thing … yeah, descriptive, I know), some Italians were up there with us, about my age, a little older. I overheard them talking Italian. I was standing next to one when he wanted his photo taken, and I somehow made eye contact with his friend who motioned for me to get in the photo with him. I laughed and said okay, why not, hahaha, and then he asked me if I spoke English. I answered him Italian, “yes, but I speak a little Italian” so I talked to them for a few minutes all in Italian! And they were speaking normal speed (I think) and I understood it all! I think it was the highlight of my day. The rest of Parque Guell was so cool! There are a couple more of Gaudi’s works there, plus a huge open square with local artists, and tile designs on benches and a really beautiful, colorful place all together. We walked slowly back towards the hostel because we had nothing else to do- we (me, Carly, Elisha, and Jess) stopped in The Tea Shop, and had fun sampling and smelling the millionsss of kinds of teas they had. I really do like tea!

Back to the hostel to get our stuff, took the very crowded metro to the bus station, bus to the airport, and got into the air to LONDON! So one country on my list- Spain: check.


The beautiful city! , me & Carly at the Port of Barcelona on our rainy first day.


Paella & sangria on the bay, Cartwheeling at Park Guell!

finally time for my fall break bloggin'

Hola, ‘Ello, Yahsu (?), and Ciao, loves! I am back from my 10-day gallivant around Europe and I am all in one piece! And of course I kept VERY good track of the events of my 10 days so the blog would be ready for it. So without any further adieu (spelling?), here is the best account I can give you without my fingers falling off from too much typing of this week and a half- which certainly is so far and probably will be the most diverse, challenging, rollercoastering, and memorable of my life. I’ll post them as written in my journal so it’s like it really just happened.

Oh wait! First, a little thing before I write about my break:

On Monday the 27th I heard a Guster song – "Satellite" – playing at this itty bitty grocery store outside of the center of Perugia!!! I heard it while I was with Mauro and I FREAKEDD. People here, even Americans, have not heard of Guster and here they are playing in a grocery store. So, in my excitement (with a bit of insanity, Mauro agrees), I emailed Guster in hopes that they would just read that they have a super fan in Italy who heard them playing in this tiny city. Two days later, guess what arrived in my inbox …. YEAHH! A response from the one and only drum-bangin, hand-bleedin, baby-makin thundah-god Brian (or, cuz we are now on nickname terms without capitalization, bri). Here it is:

what an awesome message! we don't plan to tour italy soon, but we might visit with our
wives and babies independently and drink olive oil until we're drunk.

cheers

bri

On Oct 29, 2008, at 6:11 AM, waldma_a@denison.edu wrote:

[Hide Quoted Text]
My favorite boys of all time- Adam, Ryan, Joe, and Thundah-god,

I am a long time die-hard fan and loyal follower of yours from Rochester, New York. I am currently studying abroad in the tiny city of Perugia, Italy. The most amazing thing happened yesterday that I HAD to email you about so I really hope you read this- I heard "Satellite" playing in an itty bitty grocery store here in Perugia!! I seriously flipped out and tried to explain to the Italian friend I was with how incredible it was that I heard you playing in this tiny store in this tiny city (he did not understand my insane reaction). I am so pleased that you guys have made it overseas!!! I will continue to tell every person I meet here (there are people from all over the world) to listen to you- I've been doing it since I got here in September. Any chance you'll come play a show here?? I'll rep for you!

I am forever yours, Guster! Vi amo molto!!
Alison Beth Waldman, your Italy rep at your service =)

p.s. I spent the entirety of last week listening to your Guster on Ice album. It makes me so damn happy. Happier and Demons will never cease to give me chills.

umm, yeah. okay, now time for break bloggin'.