Firenze

So almost two weeks ago API sponsored another trip for us to go to Florence for two days and one night. Of course this meant that we had to be up at the crack of dawn to leave Friday morning but even after only two and a half hours of sleep we were up and ready to go. The bus ride was about four and a half hours but I slept the entire time, including through the rest stop we made around 8:30.

After arriving we check into the hotel, dropped our bags and began our guided tour of the city. We saw the D'Uomo and Santa Croce churches as well as the statue of David in one of the museums.D'Uomo
Santa CroceFrom left to right: Chelsea, me, (David) Lindsay. This picture was taken illegally since you're not supposed to have cameras out at all. Shhh don't tell.

We passed the Uffizi gallery which is the home of the most Italian paintings in the country, and headed to the Ponte Vecchio bridge. After a couple hours of that we had free time to spend in the famous leather and goods market. I hunted for about 45 minutes going up and down every street looking for the perfect shoulder bag which is all I wanted out of this Florence trip. Eventually I set on one and started to haggle with the small man trying to push it onto me. I won't say how much I paid but I will say that I got him down by 60 Euro which I was proud of. I'd like to think I'm a pretty savvy bargain shopper, so this one splurge is ok with me.
ugh it's SO nice. But anyway after that we trooped back to the hotel for an afternoon nap before the night festivities. At 7pm we met back up with the entire group and walked over to a great Apertivo place for Italian cocktail hour. The food was fantassstic but because we were there on an API sponsored event we had to get fruit drinks or soda which was lame because I just wanted a glass of wine. After apertivo mi amici and I wanted to see as much of the city as we could since we were only there for really a day and a half because we were scheduled to leave at 5 on Saturday afternoon. We decided to find some Florentines and ask them what to do at night. Luckily enough we found two girls about our age outside the Santa Croce where we had apertivo and they gave us a few nightspots to see, with the last one being an Italian discoteca called Mericana. Before making it there we went to three different places while taking a mini walking tour and a much needed stop for some gelati. Once ending at Mericana we met up with some more friends and danced the night away.

Api loves waking up early so we dragged our bodies down to breakfast in the morning where I had the best hot chocolate ever mixed half way with a cappuccino and a lovely ciccolato cornetto, the essential Italian breakfast, coffee and a chocolate pastry. Who can't live with that. Following breakfast was another guided tour across the Ponte Vecchio, through town and up a great hill to a beautiful church overlooking the entire city.View from the center of the Ponte


This is the Ponte Vecchio and when you cross the bridge either side is lined with shops and trattorias. Lots of jewelry for sale here. The church we saw was on top of this hill overlooking the city. Look to the right of my chin and there is the bridge in the earlier picture.

After the second guided tour we had more free time to shop and see anything else in the city we were interested in. I stayed with Kate for the most part and we shopped here and there. I really wanted to get into the Uffizi but we didn't leave enough time because I didn't account on the line being almost an hour to get in. I'm planning on going back to Florence for at least a day trip to make it to the museum. Kate and I also got lunch then gelato and sat on the D'Uomo steps to do a little people watching.

We met back up with the rest of the group to head back to Rome around 5. Various people were now adorned with new leather jackets, belts and bags. Everyone was giddy from their shopping and haggling experience but only 15 minutes into the bus ride, as usual, the bus was silent and everyone napped the ride home away.

Tonight I'm flying to Budapest with Lindsay and Chelsea and staying with one of Chelsea's friends and day tripping to Vienna on Saturday. I'll be back in Rome Monday night but hopefully I'll get in one more entry before I leave tonight, I have much more to catch up on.

9/22/08

So I've just walked for about an hour trying to find the deBernardis camera shop near Campo. I began too proud to stop and ask someone to help me find it but have already referenced my map three times since I left the art studio. Defeating from wandering, I finally stopped in a little trattoria and asked, turns out I was around the corner for the last fifteen minutes just not looking in the right place. Damn the little Roman curvy side streets everywhere with no street signs. As I follow the road a dentra (to the right) the store front comes into view with the kodak logo hanging above the door, the door which is blocked because of the large metal grate that's been pulled down. Shop's closed. I look at my phone: 3:30. Here I sit killing time til 4 when I hope the shop reopens after riposo. Roman naptime.

I'm glad to be taking so many art classes here. I hope it opens my eyes to new things. Already I can feel my perspective changing. Painting today was relaxing and really cleared my mind, the fact that we're allowed to listen to music while we do so is really enjoyable too.

Sometimes I feel the pressure from the city crunching down on me. It's not school because my classes aren't so hard or anything, and I get along with everyone here so the only thing else I could think of it to be is the hustle and bustle of the city. Boston never really got to me like Rome does, it's much bigger here and way more intimidating. It's definitely the city that's bothering me, and it's inhabitants. The pushing and honking and rudeness, you never escape it. Maybe a good talk with my photo or sketch professor would do me good. I think I'm missing adults in my life. When I'm at home I have my family around me at all times and when I'm in Boston I have professors to talk to as well as people at Bed Bath. I want to talk to everyone everywhere I go now, just strike up conversation with a stranger, especially when I see mom's on the tram with little kids or babies, but the language barrier is killing me, I've been trying to get better though. I don't think Italians are too up for random conversation though.

scrap book

I've been buying a few postcards from each place that I've been to so far.
The only one I've missed is Bracciano when we went camping, but at the same time I'm kind of glad I didn't get one because that entire weekend was like a hazy riposo so it seems fitting to not have one. Once this trip is over I plan to make a giant scrapbook and use the post cards as well as pictures and tickets and little written passages about each place I went to and the things I did with my new friends and roommates. I hope it's something I'll actually do and complete it before I lose interest it in. Maybe I'll ask for a nice photo album/book for Christmas.

AS ROMA

So two Tuesday's ago on the 16th was Adriano's birthday and a couple days before some of the guys were talking about going to a soccer game. AS Roma happened to be playing that day so a bunch of them went to see how much tickets would be. Well as everything API gets, it began with 6 of us buying tickets, then calling our respective roommates to let them know and of course more and more people found out about it and it ended in about 30 American students trying to get on one bus all wearing various Roma jerseys and t shirts that we had bought earlier that day to show our Roman pride. Which we had to made sure that the tickets were in the Roma fan section of the stadium otherwise we wouldn't have been able to sport our new gear. I, of course, bought my jersey from a street vendor and was so proud that I haggled him down from 10 to 6 euro only to later find out that Mancini, the name on the jersey, was traded to another team last season. Haha, that would happen to me. But everyone said he was a sick player and I figured that it also made me look like a long time fan to have an old jersey.

The game started at 8:15 i think and I didn't get out of class until 6:30 so I had to rush home to change and meet up with people to leave at least an hour before the game started to get there in time. We attempted at splitting into three smaller groups and traveling to the game just so we weren't in such a huge obnoxious group, but would we really be Americans if we weren't? Of course we ended up meeting a group downstairs that took extra long to leave and another group of people once we got on the tram, then arriving at the bus stop we met up with even more people that we didn't know were going also. As annoying as the huge group was it really made it a lot of fun. Once getting to the stadium after talking to an Italian kid on the bus about American football and "real" football the original 6 or 7 of us who bought tickets first realized we weren't sitting in the same section as everyone else but a little further up, which actually made for better seats because you see the field in its entirety. After about 10 minutes into the game we decided to sit down with the rest of the group because they were all together down about 20 rows.

This is me and the birthday boy Adriano.

The game was for the Champions League qualifier and was against some Romanian team that I don't know the name of. All I do know is that it was supposed to be an easy win for us. Roma scored in the first like 20 minutes of the first half and then that was it. The other team had two more goals throughout the game and after they made the first one Roma pretty much fell apart and stopped playing as much offense and needed to work on their defense more. We were bummed that they lost in the end but it was still a lot of fun to see all the hardcore Italian fans yelling and cheering and organizing chants and stuff like that, waving flags and scarfs everywhere to show their team pride.

What have I even been doing?

Clockwise from top (roommates): me, Kate from Wisconsin, Emily from Boston, and Chelsea from California

Just some things I've done while in Rome.

One night we went to a special club event at this place called Gilda. It happened to be Stephanie's (my apartment-mate) birthday so all the girls got made up nice and went out with the boys from our program to dance the night away.
The special DJ for the night was DJ AM who is actually from PA and is quite famous apparently in the US for DJing obviously but also collaborating with musical artists and dating Nicole Richie. So a lot of people were excited to see him but I had never heard of him before. Regardless we had a great night of dancing and partying only to find about a week and a half later DJ AM was flying out of Atlanta with Travis Barker the drummer from Blink-182 and their plane crashed due to problems at takeoff. Four of the six passengers died leaving just DJ AM and Travis to survive with 2 and 3 degree burns all over their chests, arms and heads. So crazy that something like that happened right after we saw him in ROME. Weird.


Friday of that same week we left Rome for an API excursion weekend. First stopping at Mt. Vesuvius after the tightest squeeze I've yet to see a bus get through on the road we let out our breaths and got off the bus and began the hike up to the crater top.
These pictures don't even give you a good idea as to how deep it was.

After that we got back on the bus, checked into our hotel in Sorrento and went out for dinner on API's tab. For starters we had lobster and seaweed fried dough balls which were delicious and oily. Tomato and basil sauce potato gnocchi for dinner and some kind of lemon layer cake with whipped cream for dessert. At night we got some champagne wandered around the city and went to karaoke.

Saturday morning was so overcast and rainy while we were eagerly awaiting the hydrofoil boat to take us to Capri. The weather was such a downer and we were just outside getting wet for about 25 minutes. Once we got on the boat and over to Capri it was like a whole new day. The sky cleared up and the sun burst through. Luckily by lunch time, where we stopped for the best pizza in town, it was so hot out we wanted to find the beach after eating. So we did a self guided walking tour on Via Tragara that led us across the coast of the island and down to the beach where we got pina coladas and hung around by the water.

Next the group split up and I took a bus with Josh, Alec and Adriano to the other side of the island called Anacapri which held the mountain with the chairlift to the highest point on the island. We found the chairlift station and I had assumed that it would be like a car that held 4-5 people at a time and took you up but I was very wrong. Instead it was a single chair per person much like those swings at a carnival with the small metal bar that comes down across your lap and your legs dangle down so I had to take off my flip flops to make sure I didn't lose them. It was so awkward for me to get on and off the chair lift because its just like a ski lift so it's constantly moving, which is also a little intimidating to me because it's all about timing and grace getting on and I have a hard time with that haha. So up we went a 12 minute ride each way. My ride up was the absolute most peaceful moment I've ever had in my life.


I think it allowed me to reflect on my time here thus far and to realize how lucky I am. It was probably one of the first times I've gotten a chance to just sit down and pinch myself to realize this is all real and I'm having the greatest opportunity ever, this 12 minute ride lasted longer for me, and only concluded to allow me to be one of the most complete forms of happiness I've ever had. Once reaching the top we regrouped and soaked in some more great views. On the ride down I called Winston to share the moment with him after calling my parents to wish my momma a very happy birthday and see how everyone was doing as well as talk about my trip so far.

After the chairlift we headed back to dock for the boat back to Sorrento to spend another night there. After a little shopping we went out for dinner which was mildly disastrous because I made the mistake of inviting about 30 ppl to meet in the lobby at 8 and thinking some people would go off and do their own thing i expected 10 at the most. But when all 30 showed up I began to panic because we didn't have reservations or anything and we were walking across town to a restaurant that I read about in a book. So we got there, and obviously they didn't have room for us and we split into three smaller groups and went separate ways. I got sort of upset that the night or dinner rather didn't go the way I had planned it to and it made me feel like my mom. Mainly I think because especially when it comes to organizing some kind of event or group of people she always makes sure everyone is put ahead of herself and it's all planned out to run smoothly, but when it doesn't for me I panic and get upset because it didn't execute the way I thought it should've therefore my expectations are set too high sometimes I think.

Anyway dinner ended up just fine with a nice mix of most of my roommates and some boys that don't live across the hall and therefore we don't see as much. Afterwards we met up with some more people and got warm cider/beer at a pub and kept the night pretty low key just talking around the table.


Sunday was Pompei! Which I enjoyed way more than I expected to. The API group split into three smaller groups and had about a two hour walking tour of the ruins with an extremely informative guide. There were stray dogs everywhere playing and following us around. I learned a lot about their architecture and building methods as well. Afterwards we had an hour or so of free time to eat and get souvenirs. This is my roommates Lindsay (NJ) me and Emily (MA)
Sooo I guess thats a pretty substantial update for now. Next up for post is the AS Roma soccer game!

I can't believe it's taken me this long to see Life is Beautiful.
My head is so heavy right now I can't write anything else about it.









I'm going to Tuscania this weekend. With Michael Moore, Kate, Guy and James.
Camping, a lake, a castle and a city.
Hopefully soon I'll write about the Amalfi Coast and this trip afterwards.

I'm actually going to school here... right?

So I've failed to mention anything about my classes thus far. Now about the third week in I'm pretty used to my routine for school during the week. Mondays I have off. Which is splendid, and has allowed me to go to the Santa Marinella beach a couple times with Linsday who also has off and Kate, who is done with class at 10am. But back to classes--

Tuesday's I have my Intro to Painting class from 2:30 to 5 with Guy and a different Lindsay, one he went to high school with. This class is probably going to be my most challenging because I haven't painted at all since 9th grade and even then it was an abstract and a still life for Mrs. Pepe who loved me and gave me A's regardless of what my 'art' looked like. I really like the lax setting of art classes but at the same time I don't think I'm going to be getting enough instruction and input from the professor. Jeremiah has him for a different class and we agreed that art professors are teachers or artists and him being a real artist isn't going to have anything to help me with but telling me whether he likes what I'm doing or not, which could be bad news for me. I'm trying hard though I really am. Today I went to the studio on my own and thankfully it was empty. I was able to work on my still life alone with my music playing and the windows open.

After that class I rush over to main campus with Lindsay for my Intro to Art History class. This is the only real academic class I'm taking with a written mid-term and a short term paper about 4 pages on any work of Roman art created before the Renaissance. (any suggestions?) Probably the most boring thing in the world because we sit in a dark room for an hour and a half and listen to this middle aged man talk in monotone about his slides and scribble notes furiously to make sure I get all the information before he switches to the next slide. Thankfully I found out he posts all the power points online so I can catch up with my notes before the next class, or before the midterm. Hah. We've been in this class twice a week for three weeks and he still has no idea of anyone's name and how many people are in the class because he just calls attendance and doesn't directly address anyone for the rest of class. At least last week we were doing Egyptian art so I was super interested in that, and the pyramids and stuff, really cool.

Wednesday's I have only one class from 2:30 to 5 and that's Rome Sketchbook. Lindsay (my roommate this time) is in that class with me and we just sit and draw buildings from different perspectives. Each class we meet at a different piazza in Rome and find something cool to sketch. The professor for this class seemed much like my painting professor at first but I've come to learn that he lets us draw on our own and as we do he comes around asking us questions about proportion and perspective and straight lines and other things. I like the way he teaches because he makes us realize our own, not so much mistakes but little wrongdoings along the way of the sketch, and if they're too large to correct in the current sketch or if he is generally unhappy with the proportions or something like that then he'll tell us to start over and improve as we go on to the next sheet.

Thursdays I have Black and White Photograpgy from 10:30 to 1 and then Art History again later in the afternoon. Photography is only a class of about 6 and is instructed by the only Italian professor that I have. Serofino has been speaking English for the last 5 years and still struggles with sentence structure sometimes. My favorite parts of class time is when he can't think of the word he's trying to translate and he looks to us for help. Sometimes we understand and other times we give him the same questioning stare back. The miscommunication between us doesn't effect the understanding of class material. This is my favorite professor and I think part of it is the mysterious brow he always hides behind and only occasionally allows his wonderful personality and passion for pictures out for the world to take in. Even after only one class I learned a lot about lighting and shutter speed and lines in photos. You have to listen to him carefully to decipher the little tricks and hints about taking pictures he hides in his accent.

So that's a little info on my classes. Now I'm off for Henry and Lisa's birthday celebrations, next update will be about the Amalfi coast trip API took us on last weekend.

Ciao!


ps. leave commentsss! i think enabled comments for people who don't have blogs so you can try again if you're still reading Aunt Susan.

Love and miss you all! <3