Photos!

Just thought I'd post a few of the best photos with the sky that I've taken. I'll try to make of post of Santa Chiara sometime too.

The sky was certainly in my favor for these.


Siena - That's Piazza del Campo with the tower.




The Duomo in Siena

Assisi

The bell tower right next to our school.

The castle that can be seen from behind our school.

Lucca + Pisa

Friday we went to the beautiful city of Lucca.

Just when I think Italy can't get much more fantastic than what I've already found, I find something better. I'd never heard of Lucca and it was almost felt like just another field trip as we got up at 6am (Or maybe 6:15... if you're me) to get jump the 7:09 train to Florence where we'd transfer to the Lucca train. I had no idea how much I would fall in love with this city.

It started off on an interesting note when we arrived and stopped in the station's bathroom before going into the city. To the surprise of every single girl in the group, the toilet was pretty much just a porcelain hole in the floor that some water ran into when you flushed. I have to say, bathrooms are the most unpredictable part of Italy. You really never know what to expect. And for the record, I did use it. As Kelly, a girl in our class, said, "It's just like camping."

It did get better after that though. There was a beautiful church around every corner and we tried to go in all of them. Lunch was really good. I got risotto yet again, my new favorite, and finished with the best tiramisu I've had ever. Then we ran around to some more churches, climbed a tower with trees growing out of it, and five of us checked into our hostel, which turned out to be very nice. Lucca is about three hours by train total from Castiglion, and Pisa is another 30 minutes. Since we came that far for class, we opted to spend the night in Lucca so we could travel to Pisa the next day. This was an excellent choice.

After checking in, we decided to go shopping, something we normally avoid due to be scant on time. However, we had the whole evening and we'd already been to see the architecture. Plus, Lucca is filled with tons of fun little shops all within perfect walking distance of our hostel. So, we just had fun, running around and looking at things. We had a good dinner which included wine and more tiramisu (Kelly and I are both big fans, as I know my family is too!).

Everything was pretty much closed after dinner (the Italians close up shop around 8pm and eat dinner late) so we headed back to the hostel and pretty much just had fun staying up talking and being silly. It was so much fun just to kick back and not worry about anything for the night. Usually we're running around trying to see as much as possible in the amount of time we had, but Lucca was a very relaxing and just plain fun experience.

The next morning breakfast was brought to our room, which we all just thought was the greatest thing in the world, and then checked out and headed for Pisa.

There isn't a whole lot in Pisa besides the well known leaning Tower, Baptistry and Cathedral. That's actually all we did. We hopped off the train, ran accross the city to it, bought tickets to everything we had time to see, and spent our time in that area. I didn't climb the tower, because it was pretty expensive compared to climbing the Duomo in Florence, but I did enjoy the rest of it.

After that we got on a train back to Florence and made it back to Santa Chiara in time for dinner! Oh, with one more quick stop for the best gelato ever in Lucca.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. Lucca, a city of about 80,000 people, is probably on the top of my list for favorite places. It had the best vibe about it. I really enjoyed myself there. The rest of our group did too, which also helped make the experience a good one.

Next Wednesday we go to Orvieto! So, until then probably...

Roma!

As I said in an earlier post, I was in Romelast week! A LOT happened. It was an extremely busy and exhausting four days. I apologize for not getting this post up sooner. We were going to stay most of Saturday, but ended up leaving a little earlier just because we were very tired.

Tuesday morning we took a three hour train ride to Rome and hopped on a bus to our hotel. Our hotel, Albergo Sole, is only a two star hotel, but it was great. The bathroom was three times the size of ours here at Santa Chiara, which isn't saying a lot, but it was clean and comfortable and worked perfectly.

After checking in we went straight to St. Peter's. It was beautiful and absolutely huge. We went inside on a tour and took a lot pictures. We then moved onto Hadrian's Mausoleum, the Four River's fountain, and the Pantheon. After that we were cut loose to find dinner, which ended up being in the basement of some building and pretty good. Then we went walking toward Hadrian's Mausoleum to see it at night and right next to it we found an ice rink! So a bunch of us paid 7 euro and went ice skating! I fell down four times and have bruises everywhere, but it was worth it!

The next day we got up and went on another tour. First we stopped by some ruins filled with cats! It was called Torre Argentina and has been turned into a cat sanctuary and are well taken are of. Some of them came up to see us even, they're very tame. It was a really interesting idea! After that we moved onto the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. We didn't go inside as a group, but afterwards we bought tickets and went into Palatine Hill and then the Coloseum. Then we grabbed lunch and went to the Trevi fountain and headed back to the hotel. It sounds like we just jumped from place to place, but we really spent a decent amount of time at all of them, but we just did so much! After taking a nap, we had dinner, gelato, and then bed.

Day three we got up early and went back to the Roman Forum, and those ruins were amazing, before hiking over the the Vatican at 11am. We then spent the next four hours or so wandering the Vatican Museum. It was so big. We saw the Sistene Chapel too, which was different from what I expected. All the paintings seemed much smaller, but I know it was just because they were all so far away. After we finished touring the museum we went back to St. Peter's to go in the crypts. Pope John Paul II's crypt was down there. There were a lot of people kneeling and praying and still mourning him. It was very interesting. Then we went back to our hotel for a quick seminar with Bob and then we went to a place right next door for dinner. We ate a ton of food. I had seafood risotto, roasted lamb, creme bruelee (which was actually awful and nothing like it is back home!), and wine. It was so much fun. I think we sat there for two hours. It was very Italian dinner.

The last full day we got up and once again ran around all over the place. We quickly visited the Pantheon again, a chuch called San Lorenzo, the Spanish Steps, and then jumped on the Metro out to Ostia Antica. Ostia Antica is an entire city of ruins. It was absolutely amazing. I took almost 100 pitures. I could have spent the entire day there, but we were all hungry so we took the Metro back into the city. We grabbed super cheap sandwiches and then split up to take care of some studio homework. After that, we went back to the hotel, napped, and left to go to the ballet! We went to see Sleeping Beauty. It was incredible! We were in the balcony so we couldn't see perfectly, but it was still beautiful. The eight of us who went really enjoyed it.

By the time we got back to our hotel, which was 12:30, we were SO tired that we all agreed to just come home in the morning. So, we got up at 10:00, checked out, and got on the train to come back.

It was an amazingly fast, fun week. I even had a huge blister on my foot to prove it. I would have gone into even more detail, but this is getting extremely long. Ciao!

Food

It seems colder here these past few days. It's finally stopped raining and it's gotten colder. I'm thankful for the sun being out, but I'm shivering in all my classes! Italy has restrictions on how much heat you're allowed to use, so the heat is only on here a couple hours in the morning, evening, and night. My room has been consistently between 66 and 68 degrees, which isn't too bad.

We have our first studio project due in about 40 minutes. I finished last night around 2am. It's nice to have that out of the way. We leave for Rome tomorrow. Next week is another week of classes, after that, a week of Venice, and then the next week we're on spring break! So, between now and spring break, I basically have just one week of classes. I think I'm going to enjoy that.

This is a food post. I don't have a whole lot to say right now, so I'll just show you some of the things I've been eating and drinking. The french fries were some of the best fries I've ever had. We've had them probably three times? I never knew Italy was big on french fries!

Anywhere and Everywhere.

Time here is a blur. One minute it's flying by, the next minute we're moving at snail speed. My concept of what day it is has completely disappeared.

Since I last updated we have been to Florence again, Perugia, Fioano, and Siena. That's a lot of traveling in the one week since I last wrote, let me tell you.

Florence was fun again. We got a tour of the Duomo, which was pretty amazing. We didn't have time to go up in the dome yet, but there's a lot of people planning to when we go back in two days (Friday). I haven't quite decided what I will do yet. The day was rainy and cold, so we mostly spent the day shopping and eating. This was my lunch and a picture of the Duomo from our first trip:

Saturday only five of us, Kelly, Collin, Jeff, Amanda, and I went to Perugia. It was small group, which was perfect for exploring. Perugia is absolutely beautiful in certain spots too. At first we thought it was kind of dirty and it didn't look very Italian, but after walking up the incredibly long and giant hill, we found the good stuff!

Pretty amazing, I think. But as you can see, it was rainy this day too. However, the rain didn't really bother us. We were having too much fun just exploring. Lunch was an interesting experience because I made two mistakes. One: I order a peperone pizza... which apparently that's not pepperoni... it's PEPPERS. And I am not a pepper fan! I won't make that mistake again! And two: We didn't know what are waitress was asking so we accidentally order a round of espresso for everyone. It was extremely strong, but I drank it anyway! We laughed about it all day, though.

The next day we to went Fioano for Carnivale! Which is a big celebration that happens every year and they do a parade and there's some carnival food and it was just a very fun day. We even had cotton candy! Oh, and there was confetti and silly string everywhere and no one was immune to it! There were small Italian children who would just run up to you, throw a fist full of confetti at you and run away. There were people who probably grandparents also doing the exact same thing. Everyone was having fun.

Then today, Wednesday, we went to Siena. Unfortunately, I haven't put pictures of Siena on my computer yet, but we climbed to the top of the unfinished part of the Duomo there and it was one of the best views I have ever seen. Soon, hopefully, I'll put some up. Posting pictures is tricky because we don't have a lot of internet bandwidth to use here.

That's all for now! We're going back to Florence on Friday and then we go to Rome on Tuesday for four days! Should be great!

The Italians

As I said in my last post, the Italians are wonderful and they love us here in Castiglion. Last night I had my first real experience trying to speak to someone in Italian who didn't speak English too.

Mary, Jess, and I went out to get stamps and envelopes before dinner. We worked out where we were going and what we needed t say before we left.

The envelopes were in a little bookstore with notesbooks and other paper supplies as well. ("La busta" is how you say envelope in Italian.) The shopkeepers seemed very pleased we had come in and immediately showed us every envelope they had, apologizing for their lack of English. Then, as we were paying, one of them gave us tiny little post-its with cigarettes on them as a welcome to Castiglion. Despite not being a smoker, the gesture was really nice and we laughed about it as we left.

Next we went to the Tabacchi, which is kind of like a convience store where we could get stamps as well. I went first. I decided to be brave, even though this was my first real time having to ask for something in Italian without one of our professors or someone more fluent being around.

"Vorrei anche trenta francobollo gli per Stati Uniti."

Translation (I think):

"I would also like 30 stamps for the United States."

I was buying postcards too, hence, the "also". Jess and Mary got theirs too and we left. It was so much fun, being able to use Italian. I'm not sure it was completely right, but it was fun. I think all three of us agreed it was a good experience. It's hard not being able to just go up and ask for what you want easily. You have to put some effort into it.

So, that was my first experience really using Italian besides the basic "ciao" and "grazie"! It makes Italy all the more fun...

Week One

Well... I'm in Italy!

It's almost been a week. I've been wanting to write a post for a while, but until today I've been really busy and trying to avoid the internet.

We got here exhausted. I barely slept on the plane due to a small Italian child screaming behind me. Luckily there were movies and a map on the back of the seat in front of us to tell us how far we'd traveled. That made the time go fast.

When we got here we took a rather scary bus ride here, that I mostly slept through. We got our rooms right away and it has hardy any storage and a tiny, tiny bathroom, but a beautiful view.

We mostly went through orientation things the first couple days. Exploring studio to find things that had been left from previous years. That was kind of fun, like treasure hunting... except for studio supplies, haha.

Thursday we went to Cortona, the little town from the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, which was about 7 miles away on another kind of scary bus ride. It was beautiful though. The hills were crazy. We do a ton a walking, which is fine, except that it's mostly up an down hills. My shins and ankles hurt just thinking about it!

Friday we went to Florence. Yes. Florence. It was fantastic. The buildings, the streets, the wonderful stores, amazing. At one point, we were just wandering around and turned to find the Duomo RIGHT THERE. It was a great surprise. We just walked up to it in awe. I also had gelato there for the first time. Simply amazing.

Saturday, yet another adventure, we went to Arezzo, by train ths time. Ten minutes by train. There was an antique market going on that filled up so many streets. There was so much stuff. We looked at it for hours.

Today we didn't have anything planned, which I was thrilled about until it happened. Turns out, I'm really homesick, I just didn't know I was so busy. I can't sleep, I just feel very out of place. It's so different. I'll just tell you about the things I love so far.

The Italians are wonderful. They really like us, here in Castiglion Fiorentino. A lot of them speak English, but a lot don't too. Still, they're very welcoming and I really like them.

The food! On my gosh, the food. It's insane. We eat at 12:30pm and 7:30pm and there's a ton of it. Pasta or soup followed by meat and veggies with salad, and then desert. Usually desert is fruit, which I'm actually trying to eat. I'm eating a lot healthier here than normal. Very few snacks, which the exception of the gelato, haha.

The scenery. It's beautiful. It's so inhabited. You can see for miles, but there's hundreds of houses scattered about. Not like Kansas where there's nobody for miles and miles.

The architecture, of course. Even if it's not old, it's made to look old. Everything blends together. We've gone to lots of churches too.

Paolo, who is the man who runs Santa Chiara. We've had one class with him, and he's brilliant. So interesting. Everyone enjoyed listening to him. Our class is held around Castiglion Fiorentino, so no boring lecture halls. We get to experience what he is talking about.

Well, it's getting late. I better call it a night. I don't know how updates will go, but I'll try! I'll also try to add pictures, eventually. Right now they're too large. Maybe in a day or two!