Nantes!!!

The train ride lasted about 3 hours and when we arrived in the station, we all took cabs to the IES center. We got a tour of the center and found out theres a student kitchen here to use! The people are all very nice but are no very happy when we speak English in the center. (Right now there are Uncle Sam signs everywhere saying, in french, I WANT YOU to speak French). Its a little intense but good at the same time. At least here we have all had at least 2 semesters of French so its not like italy when some people started out with none.
i dont remember exactly what we did that first day, but in the afternoon our host families came to pick us up. My host mom showed up second to last with my little host brother Paul. She's very sweet and has had 5 host students before so shes very good at being patient and understanding with my fra-talian remabling. I have 4 host siblings in all--Paul is the youngest (10), then Maylis (14), Alex (15) and Clotilde (17). I didnt get to meet my host dad until later that week because he was working in Paris. Our house is in a little neighborhood 20 mins from the center on the bus/walking. Its a pretty big house with 4 bedrooms, a rec room, two bathrooms, and laundry room on the first floor, and offices, kitchen, living/dining room, parents bedroom and breakfast nook on the second floor.
I have my own room which probably used to be the nursery. Unlike my italian host mom, my French host mom just does my sheets every so often and otherwise stays out of my room. I had dinner with them all the first night, which was pizza and an interesting transition from italian pizza. Though we dont have salad with every meal, we still have bread and because I live with kids we have dessert most night too! WOOOOO!
Drawback: I have to ride the bus into town, NOT ride my bike, thus Im not burning off said dessert as easy and will probably gain a lot of weight in France. Am I really all that concerned? Not at all. I have all of July and August until I need to be able to jump more than an inch off the ground and wear spandex...
The next day I rode the bus in with my host mom and Katie, another girl from the program who happens to live a street away. We did a tour of the town and probably some other introduction stuff. I dont remember much from those first coulpe days because I was struggling to take everything in and dealing with the fra-talian problem. more soon...ill bring my journal so i can remember what ive been doing!

First days in france story

I probably left off with arriving at CDG after not sleeping on the plane. Thus, I was a bit delirious and had trouble finding (and leading the group of italians who decided to follow me, thinking I knew what I was doing) the baggage claim area. I did get there eventually after asking a few people for directions and wandering around aimlessly. My bags were crazy-heavy so I didnt want to walk very far. According to the map provided by IES, I could walk out any door and catch the bus to Montparnass (the train station in Paris central closest to our hotel), but after waiting for half an hour at the stop, I asked a bus driver who said I had to go all the way down the sidewalk to a different stop. I got on the right bus after about an hour total of waiting and rode to Paris. I sat next to a nice French guy coming back after a semester in Iceland so I fumbled around in fr-ital-ish (french, italian, and english) trying to talk to him, but he spoke some english so it was ok
When i got to Montparnass, I dragged my luggage to the hotel and met one of our directors for the first time, Katie M. She showed me to a room that already had A TON of stuff in it and I freshened up a bit then went with her to get a french phone and join our group.
They were all waiting at the Musee d'Orsay and we got into line and I started trying to learn peoples names and keep them straight. While we were in line, one of the girls in our group dropped her glasssed and they went down into a grate so we were all trying to fish them out until a nice french guy lifted the grate next to it so she could go down and get them. Musee d'Orsay was ok...it was a lot of art that i knew nothing about so Kristine and I ended up just sitting on a bench until the group was ready to leave. Some of us went and had dinner at a little restaurant then toon the metro back to the hotel, meeting the creepiest italian creeper i had yet to meet in the metro station. Why he started talking to me in italian (and more importantly, why I replied in italian) I will never know. But we finally did manage to get rid of him and get back to the hotel. I changed rooms because the one they put me in already had two people in it (thus the crazy amount of luggage).
The nexy day we went to Notre Dame and got to climb all the way to the top and see all of Paris. The view was to die for, in my opinion even better than the Eiffel Tower because you could SEE the eiffel tower and distinguish other places clearly. Plus there were sweet gargoyles everywhere. Unfortunately none of them talked and we never got to see Quasimoto :(
After Notre Dame we were free to explore a bit, so I went with a group to the Arc de Triomph then back to the hotel for a long long nap. The Eiffel Tower was at 7 so I grabbed a crepe on the way and then we took the elevators up (i really felt like that was cheating though). Obviously the view was incredible from there too but it was cold and windy so slighty less enjoyable. BUT as we were leaning taking out pics of the city, some of our friends on a viewing deck below told us to turn around and look up and it was incredible...the tower was lit up and sparkling and we hadnt even noticed. It was absolutely beautiful. We came down and took more pictures of the whole thing from the bottom then went across the street towards all of the other flashing lights (people taking pictures of the tower) and joined them.
We had to go to bed early that night because we were getting up for the early train the next morning...of course when we got to the train station, we had to wait for the 9:30 train anyway so there wasnt much point in being up at the crack of dawn.
When the train came, we had to BOOK IT. Italian trains were MUCH different and I was not expecting at all to have to hurry to find our seats because we were in carriage 19 and it was like an eigth of a mile away. The train went on so far I couldnt even see where it ended. We dragged our luggage all the way down to our car and threw our stuff in so the train wouldnt leave without us. We all made it on, sat down, and began the journey to Nantes...

first days in france

Here is my generalized comparison of Italy and France (bear in mind I was only there for 4 months and only here in France for 2 weeks so far):

Italy pros:
Its easy and cheap to travel from city to city
BICI!!! (Bikes! at least in Ferrara) convenient, cheap, independent (as in I dont risk missing them or getting stuck in real traffic)
amazing incredible tremendous delicious food. cappellacci. lasagna. eggplant parm. anything with parm. anyhing with balsamic vinegar. anyt food in italy.
gelato (yes, this deserves its own private category)
Great host family
A program which didnt discourage drinking and had really no travelling restrictions
Group dinners with unlimited wine
Wonderful friends who I miss terribly!!!
Cool architecture everywhere, and which is different from city to city.
Being familiar with everything after having been there for 4 months (booking hostels, travelling, speaking, typing on their keyboards etc)

Italy cons:
All females wear high heels
All females who dont wear high heels everyday are stared at until they succomb and buy a pair to wear everyday. Then they stare at you for whatever else youre not wearing
Men stare unabashedly and think a conversation is "whats your name? whats your phone number? Do you want to get a coffee with me?" basta.
You cant leave the house with your hair wet, OR go to sleep with your hair wet
There is no such thing as "your own space" not even your own bedroom
If it is the middle of the day, thursday afternoon, sunday, or raining, nothing is open
the postal system
Everyone smokes

France Pros:
Food. Not AS great as in Italy, but still great. Plus I get dessert every night :)
Crepes
Guys dont stare as much and dont seem to be as tunnel-visioned
Having 4 siblings in my host family!!!
People seem more human here, though unhumanly skinny
Still cool architecture, plus it feels more open here than in Italy
Carrefour and Monoprix (like walmart or target)
Things are open at normal hours and in most types of weather. I cant comment on hurricanes, blizzards, or heat-waves, but we've had thunderstorms and everything is still open
My family sings grace at dinner, and they can actually sing!
Its not as expensive to ship things home
University lunch is only 2,90 euro and we have a student kitchen at IES
My host mom does my laundry (im not actually allowed to) but otherwise stays out of my room

France cons:
Everyone still smokes
I have entirely too much free time (aka I wish I could be getting more than 3 credits)
Im still not used to this stupid keyboard with all its re-arranged buttons
I have to take a bus everywhere and the night bus only runs until 12:30
Our program is very anti-alcohol...despite the fact that most of us are legal even in the states
We have Fridays off but mandatory excursions on two saturdays. Thus, we have 3 weekends to freely travel, but two are before midterm and finals week.
Its not as easy or cheap to travel here as it was in italy
Theres no gelato or cappellacci

That said, I love both France and Italy but I think I would prefer to stay in France for an extended period of time (aka teaching assistantship program) and visit Italy when I can. OK...next post will be a detailed storyline of my life in France...maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

last days in ferrara

The last week in Ferrara without classes would have been an optimal time to explore the city, visit some close cities (like Modena and Ravenna) or have some picnics out in the parks. But good 'old mother nature was not on our side. I ended up spending a lot of time at the apartments or at the house because it was too miserable to ride my bike anywhere let alone try to travel elsewhere. I did manage to see the castle on Thursday with Caitie before our final dinner. We got accosted at the top by a very nice, very verbose man who wanted to know our real american opinions about Obama and the oil spill and health insurance without letting us have a word in edgewise. As we were walking around the tower there were blue skies north of the city and dark ominous ones to the south. Guess where the weather comes from in Ferrara. Ill give you a hint: three minutes into our tour it started torrentially downpouring.
We finished the tour of the castle then got our bikes and went back to her place. If there is a silver lining to this story its the fact that I was exasperated enough to try riding my bike and holding the umbrella again and this time I succeeded and had no near-death colissions with italian motorists. Score!
We stayed at Caities until the final dinner and I went early to play soccer. A lot of you probably know how "well" I play soccer and for those of you who dont Ill just say that the game began with me getting hit in the face with the ball as I tried to stop it from getting into the goal (unsuccessfully) and ended with me tripping over the ball and falling in slow-motion into a split position the colapsing on the ground completely. Basically, Ricardo (one of our italian directors) beat all of us single-handedly. But it was really fun :)
Also fun was the showering situation afterwards because there were at least 6 of us who wanted showers, guys ang girls, and the shower stalls didnt have curtains. But we figured it out and made it to dinner on time. Dinner was amazing. We had an anti pasta of meats and yummy cheeses (who ever thought you would hear me say THAT) and little carmelized onions and sundried tomatoes. Then we had one of the best cappellacci dishes i can remember. It was made the Mantova way, so the pumpkin and parmesean were mixed with a sweet almond flavoring and the sauce was creamy and sweet like a dessert. Jenna and I ate a TON because Derek doesnt really eat and AJ didnt like them. Then we had a meat course, but the cappellacci was the most memorable part. Everyone had submitted their best photos and we all got a copy of a disk with everyones pics and the slideshow was playing throughout dinner. There was a photocontest at the end and I won for "La Dolce Vita3 categorie with my pic of Keester at the 4 hour sicily lunch stuffing her face with pasta.
Afterwards we went to the piazza and to the apartments for awhile and made it back to the house by 5am after taking Catie and Andrea home on our bikes. The next day was pretty low key but I did eat a delicious caprese pizza for lunch, gelato from K2 afterwards, and said a final goodbye to our directors. For dinner Clara made lasagna alla bolognese and we all took pictures together after the dessert of fresh ferrara strawberries with sugar. Teresa and I gave Clara a frame with our picture in it and I gave Paolo the ciee shirt i had won for the photo contest. Then Paolo and Clara went to bed and Teresa and I went to the apartments and to the piazza one last time. It was a pretty chill night and Andrea and I fell asleep on one another for an hour or so. We all rode to Andreas and said goodbye there then went back to our house around 5 again. Teresa stayed up the whole night but I decided to take a couple-hour nap before my train/plane the next day. I didnt set my alarm right because Clara had to wake me up and I got ready really fast. She had made real toast for breakfast and everything but I couldnt really sit down and enjoy it because i got up so late :( I said goodbye to Clara, who said between tears, "I didnt want to come to the train station so I wouldnt cry!" And I was of course crying too. Paolo drove Teresa and I to the station and I said a less tearful goodbye to Paolo then Teresa helped me carry my stuff and get a ticket. FORTUNATELY I was on track one and didnt have to drag myself up and down stairs. Everyone was hurrying to get on the train so Teresa and I said a shorter goodbye than was necessary for a whole semester of sisterhood and she helped me onto the train. She left and the doors closed and I realized that a) this was a 2 level train so I would have to drag my stuff up or down 2 levels to have a seat and b) the train wasnt leaving for another 10 minutes. So I just sat down on the stairs and tried to get some zzzs
The ride to the airport was uneventful except that I didnt have to pay the bus ticket somehow. Then at the airport I found out that they werent even checking in for my 12:30 flight until 10:30 so I got there (the usual in America) 3 hours early for nothing. I talked to a sweet Italian couple who also got there 'on time' while we were waiting, and realized how much better my italian has gotten in the past semester. Not only did I have something to talk about with them, but I had a general understanding of where they said they were from and understood almost everything they said to me.
Around 10:45 they started checking us in and I got sent to another window to pay for my overweight bag then had to go back to get my boarding pass then through security. They didnt even make me take my liquids out at security and it took all of 30 seconds. I got a croissant and my final italian coffee for breakfast, which I realized later on the plane was a very stupid idea because I couldnt sleep. Idiot. And with that I end this post and will start a new one all about France!

rain rain rain

Rain. Thats what my last post ended with and thats what this one begins with. Essentiall it rained for the last few weeks with a few days of sunshine. I was determined to go to Florence and Siena and wanted to do a whole trip including Volterra and Lucca too but by the time we booked the hostels, Siena was booked and Volterra was really out of the way if we werent going to Siena. So the new plan became Florence, Pisa, and Lucca. I went with Sam and Lauren then we met Kristi in Lucca. Laurens friend studying in Florence was our guide and taught us all about the duomo and the medicis and the ponte vecchio. We also saw David in the Accademia but I wasnt very impressed by the rest of the stuff there. We walked around with her the first day then on the second day, Lauren and I accomplished A LOT. We climbed Brunelleschi's big dome, ate bagels for the first time since January (seriously, Florence is the only place in Italy you can find bagels), went shopping at the huge outdoor market, then went to Pisa and took pictres with the leaning tower, then went to Lucca and met up with Kristi and Sam. It was quite the adventure. We walked around the city and had a delicious dinner. It was a lot like Ferrara but with more tourists and less bikes.
The next day we woke up to rain again. it had been overcast the whole weekend but the rain came down big-time that day. Lauren and I were kind of tired mentally and sick of the rain so we just climbed the tower and left. And that was Florence; Pisa, and Lucca.

semi-surrender

ok...so its pretty clear that i am enormously behind on writing this blog and theres not much chance of catching up with as much detail as i was using before...therefore this will be a very condensed version of the rest of italy and how i got to france. (im also writing this without my journal so i dont remember exactly what happened when but ill do my best)

After spring break my goals were the following: study enough to not fail the final exams or 2000 word papers, go to cinque terre, go to florence, siena, volterra, lucca, go to either ravenna or mantova, and study french before getting there. Oh. and see the castle, cemetary, and a good percentage of churches in ferrara.

In chronological order, the papers were first. My history paper about the resistance to the Nazis in Germany was due on a Wednesday and the Art history one about an obscure painting done by an obscure artist was due on thursday. fortunately i had already done the research for the history one; otherwise it would have been nearly impossible to use the dinosaur computer at our house to do it considering it took 45 minutes just to start the computer and get on the internet. But it was a fine word processor. I digress. I started the history paper around 5 on Monday and had a small shot of espress after dinner because i forgot to add the filter and sprayed coffee all over the kitchen when i pressed the button. That kept me up long enough to finish the paper (till about 1:30a) complete with 2,000 words and a good organization.
The art history one was a lot more fun. Lets just say that after the third week of renaissance art I found out that I didnt really give a damn about who was influenced by whom and where they were from and what stupid museum stole the painting and has it today. I could look at individual paintings and recognize things like prospective, classical architecture, expressive faces, and realistic clothing, but I couldnt tell you who did it when or why. Thus, the paper on Niccolo Pisano's (the unknown painter not the Pisa guy) "St. Sebastian and a bunch of other saints and people who paid for the painting" only made it to about 1400 words even after a way-too-big glass of espresso which kept me up until 5:30am and the repetition of the same ideas which were repeated in all 3 of my sources. BUT I finished it and left the next day for CINQUE TERRE!
This might have been my favorite trip so far. I left on Thursday with Sam (because I didnt have an afternoon class and he decided to skip his) and we made it there by late afternoon. On the train from La Spezia to Monterosso we met an american family and sang happy birthday to their grandmother over the phone in italian. We got to Monterosso and settled into our hostel then got dinner by the water and did some grocery shopping. There isnt much of a night life in Monterosso so we just went back to the hostel but ended up playing card games with our 3 Aussie roommates until we all crashed.
The next day we took the blue (easy, along the water) trail from MR to Vernazza then from there to Corniglia we went inland and hiked through peoples vineyards and did more stairs than i thought was humanly possible. For those of you who don't know, Cinque Terre (5 lands) is one of the coolest most beautiful places I've ever seen. There are 5 little towns along the coast line and there are hiking/biking trails in between all of them. Google image it and youll understand. Not only was there ocean, hiking, pesto, and gorgeousness all around us, the weather couldnt have been better while we were there. On our way back to Monterosso (easy trail the whole way this time) I recognised this girl and it turns out she and her friend go to Pitt and we did our study abroad meeting together. its such a small world sometimes. When we got back to the train station, Teresa, Caitie, and Nikki were there waiting for us and we all hiked up to our second hostel together. There were at least 10 flights of stairs between the station and the hostel room but the view was by far one of the best i had seen. We did some grocery shopping then went out to the rocks off the beach and partook in some wine and music. Once we were well hydrated and safetly off the rocks (not nearly as easy in the dark but we all managed) we got dinner at a cheap restaurant and then had crepes and gelato.
The next day we took the train to the farthest city and walked back on the blue trail. The blue trail between the last 3 cities is not nearly as easy as between the first 2 and it was really exhausting but wonderful. (I swear Ill put pictures on facebook soon!!!) We had met up with a girl from California and hung out with her on the trails. Back in Monterosso we got hung out at the beach until it got dark then had dinner at the cheap place again and then went back to the beach area and hung out with the other americans, canadians, aussies, and italians. it was nice for a change talking to these particular italians because they spoke back in italian and they werent as pushy as the ones in ferrara (ie no one asked me for my number or to get coffee repeatedly).
For Sunday, we all had our goals--I wanted to see the church on the hill opposite us which you could see from all of the other towns, Teresa and Caitie wanted to hike more and I think Nikki wanted to join them or spend another day at the beach. Either way, none of us succeeded because the next morning we work up to rain. Thus begins the story of my life for the majority of the remaining days in Italy. So we went home :( But it did give me a lot of reason to come back because i have a lot of unfinished business.

spring break 2010

I spent my spring break with a guy from our program because we both wanted to go to London and Dublin and figured we should just travel together. We flew Ryan Air which is the Wal-Mart of airlines (copyright, Andrea, I think). They have strict baggage restrictions, pack you on the planes like sardines, and have flights at really weird times of day. BUT they get you where you need to go cheaply.
London was a very cool, very enormous city. In order to get from the Stanstead airport to London central, you need to do your research and we hadn’t. It cost us 19 pounds each for the train but it could have been 26 for a 2-way ticket, 10 for a regular bus, or 2 for ezbus, but we didn’t know about any of those other options. Once we got to London central and found out that the underground is 4£ each way too, we decided to try and walk to our hostel. After getting lunch, getting lost, and finally arriving to the Steam Engine Pub (the hostel was the 2nd floor) we got our stuff organized and picked some things we wanted to do while we were here in London. The first thing that caught our attention was a ‘grip reaper’s’ tour and we decided to go to the next tour offered that day. We made it, but barely and were just in time to hear about the spot of executions and where we get the phrase ‘laughing your head off.’ The simplified version is that there was a guy about to be executed and because this was a spectator-friendly event, risers had been set up all around to watch this poor man’s death. Just as the axe was about to fall, one of the risers collapsed, killing 20 people. Now, death and destruction are not generally all that funny to me, but I can see the irony in the situation. The prisoner found it rather hilarious and laughed until the axe man finally did his job and cut his head right off. Thus the phrase. We also went to the tower of London and listened to ghost stories from outside, followed the path of Jack the Ripper and heard lots of gruesome details about those murders, and got to stand over the corpses of 80,000 plague victims. That was probably the grossest part, but we ended with Jack the Rippers last and most mutilated victim and by this point we were in the East End of London at night and had to get back to the hostel. So we bit the bullet and took the underground.
The next day we did a free city tour with a girl in our hostel room and one of her friends from her Milan study abroad program. We saw Green Park, Buckingham palace, St. James’s Palace, Trafalgar square, number ten downing street, Horse Guards Road, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and the houses of Parliament. A few of the notable things that I learned were:
There was a drunken Irishman who broke into Buckingham palace and managed to sit on the throne, eat from the kitchens, wander through the halls, and have a full conversation with the queen before getting caught.
There used to be so many pigeons in Trafalgar square that the government had to do something about it. You can exactly slaughter pigeons in a public square, or make people stop feeding them (especially when people don’t even mean to feed them) so instead they made a special type of bread with a contraceptive in it and fed it to them. I guess it worked sort of…there were pigeons but not a ton.
The sand volleyball matches in the next Olympics will be held at the big area in Horse Guards Road. Where the changing of the guard will take place, I don’t know.
The word ‘stiff drink’ comes from a rather morbid event involving a pompus naval captain. He was giving a speech or something and got himself shot and killed. His crew had to bring his body back to shore but they were weeks away and decided to put the corpse in a barrel of rum to pickle it and keep it from stinking. The rest of the rum on the ship ran out during the journey, and when they got back to shore and opened the corpse barrel, they found a good portion of the rum mission. I’ll let you fill in the rest, but let’s just say I didn’t realize how serious the Brits are about their rum.
After the tour and lunch, James, Mila (girl from the hostel) and I went to Harrods. Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much crazy-expensive stuff in my life, not to mention stuff in general. 5 floors of everything from designer clothes, to tea, to food, to sporting goods, to books, to toys, to chocolate. I bought the 3rd HP book in British English (my regular one is missing 20 pages anyway) but that was it. The man who rang me up was named Dean T. I kept the receipt  After dinner we crossed Vauxhall Bridge Road, (hint: forget the bridge part and think TM Riddle), then went back to the hostel and spent the night watching karaoke with a Brazilian guy who was a rather good singer. I learned that cider mixed with black currant is delicious, and that cider mixed with beer is called a ‘snake bite.’
The next day we went to King’s Cross to see Platform 9 ¾ and take pictures pushing the trolley into the wall. I was rather disappointed when we asked the man at the train station where platform 9 ¾ was and he told us. Seriously. If you work there, you should really know that the proper response is to deny knowing anything about the platform, ask the lost traveller where he/she is going, then tell said passenger to stop bothering him/her since said passenger doesn’t even know where Hogwarts is. But I digress…
After pictures, we went to the British Museum and spent the rest of the day there. There were 5 floors of incredible stuff like an Easter Island head, Cleopatra’s mummy, a massive sculpted beetle (I’d like to see Brendan Frasier tackle one of those, the real Rosetta stone and a copy of it to take pictures with, sculptures from the Pantheon, and part of the code of Hammurabi. We skipped the Roman and Greek art part, since we’ve seen enough of that in Italy, but saw the rest. Souvenir shopping. Cream egg McFlurry from McD’s. Piccadilly Circus. Oxford St. Dinner. Then we went out on the town. Be @ 1 was a cool bar with mixed drink specials, good music, and fun people. We met some nice London girls who were really fun, and they took us to a club after the bar shut down. It was a BLAST. We danced, met cool British and Irish people, danced some more, then got a ride back to the hostel from a friend of Lucy and Henrietta’s around 3 am. Good night.
Next day I finally got a shower (the water wouldn’t get hot until that day, so I had been washing my hair in the sink. Good thing it was cold outside most of the time), then we headed to the globe theatre. We decided it was too expensive to go in, so we crossed the Millennium Bridge (the one that gets destroyed in HP6) and went to St. Pauls. Also too expensive to go inside, so we walked around it, then had lunch and wandered around in the general direction of Liverpool station to find out about getting a bus to the airport the next night. On the way we found a cool egg-shaped building we had seen coming into the city and checked it out up close. There was another weird building nearby which reminded me of the Exterminator at Kennywood, and a sign for a planned building that looks super cool. After finding out at the station that buses run all night and you can buy your tickets when you get there, we just picked a general direction and followed it. Good decision. We found a group of cool buildings on the Jubilee Walkway and then the Museum of London. I need to come back there someday with my future children. There was a ton of hands-on stuff and you could try on hats and clothes from different periods, and they are adding a whole new section within the next year about life in London after the Great Fire of London (which is where the tour ended). The Great Fire is a very interesting topic and I was shocked by the fat that it destroyed 4/5 of the city, left 100,000 people homeless, and had to be stopped by blowing up buildings so there was nowhere for the fire to spread. The Museum closed, so we walked around, had dinner, and headed back to the hostel.
I took a nap, then came down to the bar and chatted with Rodrigo) from Brazil, then with 3 guys from Colorado who James had met earlier and introduced me to. They were on a 3 week European adventure and had already seen Roma, Florence, Barcelona, Prague, and a few other cities. How do three college kids pay for such an adventure? By selling weed, that’s how. Sure makes you want to spend hours applying for scholarships, doesn’t it?
Our final morning in London was spent at the National Gallery where I got to see a bunch of the paintings I had studied this semester in real life. Afterwards, w checked for cheap theatre tickets but Wicked was sold out, Avenue Q only had really really bad cheap-seats left, and SOMEONE didn’t want to see Jersey Boys because they had never heard of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons. (Enter: Parker’s wrath unleashed) In hindsight, I really should have gone by myself. Ugh. Hopefully it comes to Pittsburgh when I get back.
. Lunch was a big, juicy, delicious hamburger with barbeque sauce on it. Mmmm. I waited a little bit, then got my coffee liqueur which I had been wanting to try since day one. Shopping next…Regent Street, Oxford Street, and hours in Top Shop. I bought a purse (which I actually needed since my green bag was being used as my suitcase back at the hostel) and a pair of key-earrings. I sat and waited for awhile, then went to find James who needed me to say ‘no’ to a pair of hideous sunglasses, and didn’t wait for me before buying 3 pairs of…well…let’s just say…ok, I’ll say it…ugly…shoes. Let’s also bear in mind here that we were flying Ryan Air, which has a very strict luggage policy. (ahem, foreshadowing). Next stop was Abercrombie and Fitch, where some of the most beautiful-looking people I have ever seen were “working” there, standing in the entrance and dancing on the balcony.
We got to Westminster Abbey right on time to attend Evensong and get into the church for free. This was a pretty cool service where the choir sang hymns and I tried to follow along but couldn’t help staring at all of the cool architecture and stained glass around me and James fell asleep. We were running out of money so we went to Chinatown for dinner and had delicious Thai food (second lunch in Oakland after Chipotle=Thai vendor on Bigelow). Back to the hostel slowly because I had massive blisters and we had a lot of time to kill. On our way we ran into a filming of Law and Order UK and stopped to watch for awhile. At the hostel we watched Barcelona beat Arsenal, then played Presidents and Assholes with our Colorado dealers…I mean acquaintances (sto scherzando!) At midnight, we got our stuff and walked to Liverpool station. Missed the 12:40 bus and had to catch the 1:10 one. At the airport we found a lot more people than expected already camped out and sleeping. Needless to say, we had to pull up a patch of tile and try our best to get some zzzs.
I managed to sleep a bit and wake up decently rested. Despite being at the airport 6 hours early for our flight, James nearly missed the plane. I’ll just say it had something to do with overweight baggage and the incompetent Ryan Air personnel who didn’t know where to send someone who has to check a bag unexpectedly. I slept all the way through take-off and woke up right before we landed. It was really cool in the airport seeing everything in both English and Gaelic. Took a train to Dublin central and walked to our hostel. It was a million and one times better than the one in London--not only was there a kitchen, a hang-out room with a TV, and a perfect location along the river, but the guys working the front desk were very friendly and VERY attractive. Abigal’s hostel, I’ll be back.
It was still pretty early in the morning, so we ate breakfast at the hostel, stored our stuff, and picked out some pamphlets about what to do in London. First thing on the agenda was Trinity College because it was close and simple to see. Being on a campus was the closest to feeling at home that I have since coming to Italy…there were big patches of grass, student dorms, a quad, and a that general, wonderful feeling that comes from being on a college campus. Plus there were blue skies and cherry blossoms. Essentially I was in heaven.
We decided to move on once we had both had our fill of student bliss, heading to Temple Bar and the Dublin Caslte area. Then back to the hostel to put our stuff in our rooms and have a quick lunch of pasta and marinara. The shower in my room was also a little slice of heaven—spacious, clean, had shelf space, and above all, HOT WATER. I may have taken an hour long shower there. But it was necessary.
I chatted with a nice Irish girl in my room then took a much-needed nap. When I woke up, there was another girl in the room who I tried to talk to in English but then found out she was Italian and we talked in Italian for the rest of the time. I didn’t realize how much I had missed Italian until that moment, or how much more fluid my speech was compared to the beginning of the semester. I went downstairs and we made dinner again (Dublin isn’t really known for its cuisine and it was all expensive), then I signed up for a day-trip to the Cliffs of Moher for the next day. I also asked the extremely cute Irish guy at the desk (whose name is Andrew) about what there is to do at night and he pointed out some places on the map and then we chatted for awhile before he jumped over the counter, swept me off my feet and took me to the most beautiful place in the city to watch the sunset and we cuddled there until the stars came out. OK…that story may only be true until the chatting part. But a girl can dream, right?
Finding a place to go out was a complete FAIL, but being exhausted and blistered didn’t make me try very hard. Back at the hostel, James introduced me to two American girls from his room (Danielle and Kristi) who were teaching English in France and we talked with them until about midnight when we were all falling asleep and decided to call it a night.
The next day I took the bus to the Cliffs of Moher and we stopped along the way at an Abbey, a Druid burial site, and an Irish pub for lunch. I met a girl from GA studying in Dublin and we talked most of the way. When we got to the cliffs, I met another lone travelling girl and we ended up hanging for the rest of the time there. The Cliff of Moher were simultaneously breathtakingly beautiful, terrifying, and amazing. We hopped the fence to the part that was off-limits and took a ton of pictures and talked a lot. Svetya is from Germany, but is an au père in London and was on vacation in Ireland for awhile. We also met a few girls from Salt Lake City and had fun taking jumping pictures with them. I learned later that some scenes from HP6 were also filmed there…
Back at the hostel, I crashed immediately. Danielle woke me up the next morning to go on another tour, but we found out at the tourist office that we had to pre-book. So we pre-booked for the next day and spent the day in Dublin. We checked out some souvenir shops, took a tour of Trinity College (with a good-looking and entertaining tour-guide), saw the book of Kells (the real one!!!), had lunch, got invited to have a coffee with French rugby-nuts but declined, went to St. Patrick’s cathedral, then finally to Kilmainhal Gail (Jail) where we learned a ton about Irish history and the issues between Northern and Southern Ireland and England. After dinner in the hostel, we went to an Irish singing and dancing show and spoke in French almost the whole time. The show was REALLY good and I loved the music and all of the cool jumps and spins and stepping.
The next day was somewhat of a disaster. Danielle, Kristi, and I were ready to leave by 8:30, but they went to the tourist center while I waited for James. While I was waiting, I went to put my stuff in the luggage room and got locked in. I got out then decided to go to the bathroom quickly but also got locked in there. When I got to the front desk, James was waiting. We got lost on the way to the tourist center trying to take a short cut and should have arrived on time, but couldn’t find the bus. We asked the next driver with the same tour company about our bus and he said they had waited for us for 20 mins then left. He let us on his bus though, and we got to see Sally Gap, Glendalaugh, and have a phenomenal lunch of Irish stew. We got back to the hostel and found Danielle and Kristi there, and they told us they were waiting…around the corner from the tour center where we would have come if not for that stupid “short-cut.” UGH. I looked at their pictures and was glad we got to go on our tour instead because I had really enjoyed the nature…though their company would have been nice. They had to leave for their plane to Scotland, but we exchanged facebook names and I plan on meeting up with Danielle in France. We hung out at the hostel until it was time to catch the bus to the airport, then there we were able to secure seats to sleep on instead of the floor. I didn’t get much sleep, but it was ok because the next day I spent the entire day reading HP3 and sleeping in the London airport while James went into town on his own. It was much needed because I was starting to feel sick and I was able to reserve enough bench space for us to both sleep semi-comfortably that night.
The next day I got back to Ferrara and it was a wonderful feeling to be “home” and I ate lunch with my host family, then had to get down to business with my presentation due the next day. Phew…more later, but I swear it will be more concise. I want to finish this Italy blog before I leave for France.

sorry this has taken so long...

Hey Everyone…I know its been FOREVER since I’ve written but using a computer when you don’t have one is a lot tougher here than back in the states. They don’t have the concept here of 24-hour anything, let alone university computer labs…or having their computer labs open on weekends or after 6pm on weekdays …so on the rare occasions I am able to use the computer, it’s usually for something like doing research or writing a paper.

But…I digress…I left off when I took a trip to Perugia and Assisi with Kristi, Kirsten (Keester), and Raff the weekend of March 19th. After running to the train station, we found that there were no seats left so we had to pull out these bench things in the aisles and sit on those. Not only were they uncomfortably low to the ground and too close to the compartments to stretch one’s legs, but every time someone had to go down the aisle we had to stand up and let them pass. Still…I prefer train travel to having to drive here or pay for a plane ticket.
By the time we got to Perugia it was almost dark so we set off to find our hostel. On google maps it seemed quite simple, but in reality a bit more complicated. We had to ask 4 or 5 people for directions but finally made it. After settling into my first hostel room, we decided to head to the center of town, taking my new favourite means of transportation and one which I think we should adopt in Pittsburgh. I give you, the mini metro. It is this beautiful red car (actually a few of them) which runs along a track like a roller coaster, is completely automated, and only costs a euro for a ticket which lasts a few hours. It would be PERFECT for getting from downtown to Oakland, to Southside, and maybe even to the strip. Anyway…made it into the center and had dinner at an American restaurant which reminded me of Quaker Steak. We ended our night in the piazza where everyone seemed to hang out, and all took flaming shots at a bar nearby then took our ‘pesquitos’ (limonata and peach vodka) out to drink on the cathedral steps.
The next day we went to Assisi and it was such a nice quaint little town. We walked all the way from the train station to the top of the hill (which is a LONG walk…about 45 minutes just to get to the bottom of the hill). We visited some churches, ate some delicious oven-baked pizza, then climbed all the way up to the Rocca Maggiore and took a bunch of jumping pictures. The view from there was breathtaking and you could see for miles in any direction. The fortress itself was very cool too, and had this crazy passageway from the main body to the lookout tower which made me feel like I was in the Goosebumps book, Tower of Terror. After the Rocca Maggiore we went to get gelato then to St. Francis’s basilica. The entire inside was painted in frescoes by Giotto and it was even more impressive than the Sistine chapel (so I think). St Francis’s tomb was this weird separate room that was underground and there were other bodies there too…I really don’t understand the whole relics thing and it kind of grosses me out but there’s no escaping it here. We tried to watch the sunset from St. Francis’s but it wasn’t time yet and we were tired and wanted to go back. We took the bus this time though and killed time at the McDonalds at the train station before taking our train. At the station we met a guy from Australia and ended up talking with him the whole way back to the hostel (since he was staying at the same one). We planned to freshen up and head in to the center to get dinner together.
And that’s when bad news struck. We were waiting (as usual) for Raff to get out of the bathroom when I got a call from Teresa. Her first question to me was “Do you have your computer with you” and then when I told her I did not, she told me it was gone, as was hers, and most of our host mom’s gold and furs. Our host house had been robbed while everyone was out and they had torn the place apart. It was really fortunate that Teresa and Clara arrived home at the same time (which NEVER happens) because the robber(s) were still there when they got home. Teresa and Clara went around the back, but saw that there was a window pane broken and a light put out, so they went around the front, and at that point the robber(s) must have snuck out the back and jumped the fence. They were real amateurs because they put everything in my pillowcase, but knew enough to take our internet sticks out of the computers (because then can be tracked, we think). They called the police who showed up pretty quickly and Paolo (who had gone to get pizza) came home soon too. I wasn’t there to see the mess left, but everyone was still really shook-up by the time I got back and now Clara keeps doors and windows locked all the time. But no one was hurt, and that’s the most important part.
Because there was nothing I could do from Assisi, I decided to live in my blissful-holiday state for as long as possible. We all went out to the center to find dinner, and ironically enough a pigeon pooped on my head as we were walking. Good luck? Hah. Gross is what that was. We finally found a pizzeria but had to stand outside and wait. The waitress totally skipped our number and let in a bunch of Italian customers ahead of us, but a couple nearby saw what had happened and let us go in ahead of them. The pizza was delicious and it was nice to sit down after waiting outside for at least an hour. Plus we were starving. By the time we got kicked out, it was really late and we were exhausted so we walked back to the hostel (because the mini metros stopped running at 8, their main flaw). We spent the next day in Perugia on the steps at the piazza for the most part, but earlier in the day we did walk around the town a bit and tried to see some of the monasteries and main sights. We were in this weird tunnel thing between the escalators and there was a market going on so we had lots of delicious free samples. I love free samples. While we were at the piazza, Kristi ran into some friends studying in Perugia, Nathan (our new Australian friend) ran into some Australians who lived in his neighbourhood in Australia, and Raff ran into a friend from school. It was bizarre. We walked back to the train station and made it home by evening. When I got home, poor Clara was a wreck. She is usually the most put-together woman I know, but that night she was wearing sweats, her hair was a mess, and she just looked so mentally-beaten and depressed. She had cleaned the house from top to bottom so I never got to see how it looked after the burglary, but my pillowcase was still gone and there was a big empty spot on my desk where my computer should have been. It seems as though they got to my room last, because Teresa’s room and the rest of the house were ransacked and they said mine just had a few drawers and the wardrobe open. They really had the worst of it, and I feel fortunate to have not seen the wreckage and to only have my computer taken.
The next day Teresa and I went to CIEE to talk about our options and we decided to try to rent a joint computer for the rest of the semester. Everyone was asking us about what happened and so I got to hear even more of the story from Teresa’s end. When I got home that day it was so depressing to have everything shut and locked. I loved the fact that the house was so open and sunny, but now its dark and we feel like prisoners. Fortunately by now (April 22nd) that’s eased up a little bit, but it’s never going to be really back to normal.
The rest of the week was ok…it was really strange not having a computer because usually after dinner we all would go upstairs and Teresa and I would do our work or check our email for the rest of the night. But that wasn’t an option anymore. Classes were fine, and that Friday we went to a children’s book fair in Bologna. The book fair was pretty good…I got a few free books and we got to see the inner workings of publishing houses. Afterwards a few of us went shopping around then went back to Ferrara. Teresa and I were supposed to go to Bassano del Grappa the next day, but due to circumstances I had no control over, that didn’t happen. Instead I spent a beautiful Saturday sitting outside in the sun, reading and chatting with Sylvia (technically my host-sister, but she lives by Milan and this was the first time we’d met). In the afternoon, Teresa and I went shopping and hung out with Olivia and Keester.
On Sunday I spent the day outside again, then in the evening we went to a club called Sinatra as a group. It was SOOOOOO much fun. There was this weird hip-hop competition (imagine Jenny from the Block meets Fabio…seriously Italy, leave the gangsta’ look to the Americans) and we ate dinner at a buffet then got drinks and danced the rest of the night. It was a pretty high-class club and there weren’t many creepers. I call that a win.
Classes the rest of the week…still without a computer and learning how spoiled we are in the states with campus labs open till late or even 24 hours and living close to them. The people in the apartments always say we’re welcome to use their computers, but they’re always using them! I cant’ blame them…I would be using my computer all the time too if I had one. Ricardo and Yasmine (one of the program directors and his wife who is my conversation partner) brought us their old laptop to use since they weren’t having much luck finding one to rent. Although I was leaving for spring break the next day, itis really coming in handy now that Teresa and I have to write all of our papers. Therefore, you should be expecting my 'spring break 2010' post soon since I have three papers to write and will need to be prokristenating to keep sane. Talk to you soon!

Weekend with the fam and enchilada night

The plan was for Mom to text me around 11:30 on Friday (March 5th) when she got to the Bologna airport. 11:30 came and went. Class finished around one, and I still hadn’t heard from her. I went to lunch, thinking the plane was delayed, and still hadn’t heard anything even after grabbing dessert. At this point, I realized her cell phone probably wasn’t working so I tried the hotel but they still hadn’t arrived. I was lucky at the train station though! I pulled up on my bike and saw them waving from inside. I couldn’t hear it from outside, but Abbey said mom whistled so loud when she saw me that everyone in the station looked at them. After some really long welcome hugs, we walked to the hotel. They settled in a little bit and then I showed them around Ferrara and went to my host family’s store. It was cute seeing them all meet one another, not speaking each other’s language, but saying exactly the same thing to one another. I went to my house for dinner, packed my things, and spent the night in the hotel.
The next morning we got up and took a train to Rome. Rome! It’s huge. Seriously gargantuan. Possibly the biggest city I’ve been to, including in the US. (Or at least it felt that way—so many people, so much to do, so much to see) Our hotel was pretty close to the Colosseum, near the center of Rome. We got the suite room with the balcony which you could see the Colosseum from. After settling in, we went to the Trevi Fountain, which was PACKED even though it’s not even tourist season. I don’t even want to think of what it looks like come June and July. The weather was a little on the chilly side, but I was thankful for the sun and lack of precipitation. At the fountain, we all threw our pennies over our shoulders and took pictures. We grabbed lunch on the way to the Spanish steps and ate there. I had expected them to be better, or for the piazza to be bigger, but it was pretty low-key. After lunch, we took the metro to the Vatican and went through the Vatican Museum. We were really just interested in seeing the Sistine Chapel, but you had to go through all of these halls before you could get there. It was actually really neat though going through halls of roman statues, Renaissance paintings, tapestries, really old maps, and gorgeous ceilings. The Sistine Chapel seemed like just another room as part of the exhibit, but with a lot more people sitting to soak it in. I was completely in awe—to have every surface of a room painted in that manner was just absolutely stupefying. The guy knew what he was doing. (Unlike some of the works of art in the next rooms of contemporary art—just kidding!) We saw the Pope’s gardens then headed over to St. Peters. The whole square was crowded with members of the servizio civile who wear bright yellow uniforms. Based on my interpretation of what one of them told me when I asked why there were so many of them, they had been invited by the Pope because of all of their hard work in Abruzzo last year after the earthquake. Cool.
We watched the sun set over the Basilica then got gelato before dinner :) We passed by the Spanish steps (ok) and Trevi Fountain (really cool) in the dark and then went to dinner. After dinner and dropping stuff off in the hotel, we went to the colosseum to take night pictures and we tried some jumping ones, too. We also checked out the Vittorio emmanuele monument and the Forums across the street from Palatine Hill. Then it was bedtime.
The next morning I tried to get a shower. Tried is the key word here. There was a switch on the outside of the shower, two handles with different functions, two shower heads and 6 jets. I could figure out how to get the correct shower head to work, but the water never got hot. I washed my hair and then it got cold all of a sudden, so that was the end of that. After breakfast, we headed to the Pantheon but it closed soon after we got there. We took pictures in the piazza in front of it then went to Palatine Hill. That place is larger than life. There were so many parts of it to see so we didn’t see everything but we did check out Constantine’s Basilica, The Roman forum, Titus’ Arch, a big villa, and a stadium (and a couple other places but we didn’t know what they were). Next we went to the Colosseum and saw where they kept the animals underground and flooded the arena for ship battles. The arena in Verona had more of an “I can imagine myself watching gladiators fight to the death here” feel, probably because at the colosseum there were no seats left. After that we had lunch and went back to the Pantheon. The dome was so giant I couldn’t take a picture of the whole thing. It is amazingly well preserved for being so old and the marble and paintings were so elaborate and beautiful. We did some shopping around after that then took the train back to Ferrara. We met a really cute Italian guy from Rome on the train and he gave me his email address…I’ll try facebook stalking first :) Overall Rome was a really cool experience because it was like a bunch of world coming together in one place—so many people from so many different places of different ages, classes, languages; so many periods of history; different religions represented, it was truly global.
On Monday (Women’s Day!) I took my Translation midterm then headed to Venice. Adam and the guys from Spisani gave all of us women “mimosa” the traditional flowers for women’s day. Mine spent the day in my bag, so when I got back I decided to press them instead of put them in water. Mom, Abbey and I had planned to meet at 2:30 in Venice, but by the time I got out of my test and to the train station, the next train wouldn’t arrive until 3:00. I took that one and found out when I got there that Abbey and Mom had also just gotten there and had figured I would be late as well. We met at the Frari church and went inside it to see some Donatello sculpture, Titian paintings, and this big old pyramid. There were a lot of people buried inside the church too under the floors. Kinda weird. After that we went to Rialto and took pictures from the bridge, then headed to San Marco’s square. The cathedral looked nice in the daylight, but we didn’t go inside. We walked around for awhile and kept stopping in places because it was cold and we needed to thaw out. We stopped in this church that was being used as a music museum and saw a bunch of different violins, violas, and stringed instruments I don’t know the names of. We decided to make our way back to the train station and have dinner on the way. We stopped at a place along the water and watched the wind blow stuff over outside. Dinner was pretty long and it was good because we didn’t really want to go back outside. But eventually we did, made it back to the station, and were no stuck there till 6am. Thank goodness!
On Tuesday, I went to class and then met mom and Abbey for lunch. Abbey had cappellacci and mom and I had piadinas. We spent our “day in Ferrara” inside the hotel, taking a brief excursion to K2 for gelato then coming back to nap. It was just so miserable and cold outside I wouldn’t have wanted to spend the day any other way. Around 6 we went out and got flowers for my host mom then met them at their shop and they took us to the house. Clara had made maccheroni with vodka sauce, lasagna al forno, the chicken-prosciutto-cheese wrap things, and baked tomatoes. AND for dessert, an apple cake! Mmmmm :) It was a good dinner together—Clara told a story about closing the cat in a dresser drawer earlier in the day and I didn’t need to translate much because of all of her gesturing. She kept making this face like Tata did, completely petrified, and holding her arms stiff out in front of her. Paolo spilled water everywhere and blamed it on Teresa. Ale was being his usual brotherly self and talked about how the frizzante water helps with digestion and makes you fart. Clara was so appalled, but everyone else thought it was pretty funny. After dinner, I brought down my computer and put on skype so that Mom and Abbey could say “hi” and so Dad and Kelly could see Clara, Paolo, and Teresa. After that I went back to the hotel with Mom and Abbey and spent the night. They had to leave really early in the morning to catch the train to Bologna to make their 7am flight. We had a teary good-bye, but not as bad as it would have been if I had been more awake. I heard from Dad the next day that they had gotten into Paris at 5pm because their flight had been delayed 8 hours. We had checked the night before, but there was nothing on the website about a delay for their flight. Ugh travelling can suck sometimes.
On Wednesday we had enchilada night at the apartments. Sam makes a really good enchilada, and we made spicy salsa and beans and rice to go with it. It was just good as Clara’s cooking, and that’s saying a lot. I can’t see her trying to make Mexican food though. We drank a little at the apartments, and then some of us tried to go out dancing, but the discoteca Bolognese was dead. So we went to the 1euro shot bar instead. It was really good to practice my Italian with real Italians for a change, and one guy (who was actually French) asked me at first if I was Italian! Yay, I’m getting better! There were a lot of French guys that night…most of them really creepy and wouldn’t leave poor Teresa alone. We went back to the apartments after the bar closed and tried to help figure out sleeping arrangements for those who weren’t fit to drive or bike home. I thought Teresa had left her bike at home and took the bus and so we would be walking back, but her bike was at the apartments. Unfortunately, she had been extra cautious and used Andrea’s lock in addition to her own and didn’t have the key for that lock. So we had to walk after all. At the beginning I was feeling ambitious and thought Teresa and I could take turns running while the other biked slowly. She tried, but her headache was too bad to I tried. I thought it was ok at first, but the enchiladas and 1 euro shots didn’t agree. So we walked. And got home at 3:30am. Sigh. The next morning I woke up at 10:40 and therefore missed my 11am class. (Which of course, is my favorite one) I thought about pulling a Raff and going in late, but I hadn’t done the homework and was seriously in need of a shower after having smoke blown all over me the night before, so I just went in for the 4om class and had lunch a casa.
I decided not to go to Switzerland this weekend so I could catch up on stuff (like this!) and study for my history midterm on Monday. They had to leave at 6:30 am to avoid the all-day Italia-wide transportation strike, so I’m pretty glad I didn’t have to do that. I made plans instead to go to the art gallery and pick our project subjects with Micheal, but when we got there it was closed because of the strike (a lot of people commute here from Bologna or Venice). So we just had lunch and then I shopped a bit. I just got the 1st Lord of the Rings book in Italian and also a purse I saw when mom was here that I liked a lot. Tomorrow I’m finally meeting with Yasemine to do some language practice, and maybe Sunday I’ll go travel somewhere. Possibly Padova, Ravenna, or San Marino. Who knows!?

Sicily

Quite possibly the best 5 days of my life. If there had been midnight rugby involved, it would be a sure thing, but we had an amazing time otherwise. No class, all the food, transportation, and entrance fees were pre-paid, we had sun and warm weather, went to a beach, I woke up to see the sunrise, we ate arancini, cannoli, and seafood, and got to play on ancient ruins. Aka heaven.
On Feb 24th, we arrived in Palermo and were greeted by beautiful mountains and ocean all around. We spent the day in Monreale (a hilltop town close by) where we explored a gorgeous church with mosaics EVERYWHERE. The history of Sicily is really neat—it was inhabited by just about everyone at one point or another, so the idea of having mosaic images of the Bible was to spread Christianity to people who didn’t speak the same language. It is amazing what those people could do with a bunch of shiny tile squares. We got to the bus before it started pouring and spent the next couple hours in the bus going around the city. There were a lot of cook monuments, buildings, and gardens but we didn’t stop to see any of them. Guess I’ll just have to come back someday…rats.
The next day, we went to another amazing hilltop town called Erice. This was a medieval town at the tip top of a mountain, so the bus ride was a terrifying adventure in physics and probabitily (if the bus tips to this side, what is the probability that we bounce down thousands of feet of mountain and make it!?) Our bus driver earned the title “Grande Salvatore” after this and it stuck for the whole weekend. No guided tour of Erice--we just got to walk around on our own and explore the narrow streets, pretty castles, and breath-taking views of the land and the ocean below us. It was what the gods must feel like on Olympus :) We had lunch at a hotel and got what had become the standard-meal: Pasta alla norma (quite good), French fries, and either a hamburger patty or breaded chicken. As a vegetarian, Andrea got a plate of slices of cheese and French fries. The “grown ups” got seafood and a lot of people weren’t very happy about that because we were sick of “American” food and wanted to have seafood too. Even I wasn’t opposed to seafood—we were in SICILY for goodness sake! Ricardo explained to us afterwards that we all sign up for the same meal, but part of Sicilian hospitality is giving the “professors” the good food, and giving the students normal stuff. To refuse would be impolite, but the directors started getting the hint that we needed to get seafood at some point.
After lunch and a quick game of catch with Kelsey and an orange, we went to Selinunte. The Greeks had established a city there and despite an earthquake and years and years of being uninhabited, the temples were still somewhat preserved. I paid attention to the first half of the tour, but then decided to play on the ruins of the other 2 temples close by. We got good pictures on top of ancient columns and climbed all over the place. The views were amazing from here too—the ocean was nearby and we had a great view of other former temples and current houses. I lost my sunglasses down a hole, but didn’t want to stick my hand down in the hole to get them because there were lizards all over the place and probably snakes too. Ick!
On our way to our next hotel, we passed the better-preserved Greek temples of Agrigento lit up in the dark. The next day we actually got to visit the temples and see these walls which people had been buried in. The almond trees (which look a lot like cherry trees) were gorgeous all around the temples and there were fields of them all over the place, too. Because I actually paid attention to this tour, I learned some interesting stuff like how the Greeks of Agrigento used the local limestone but painted it white to look like marble, how the Byzantines converted one of the temples into a church when they came, and how ancient Greek sculptors made their statue of Hercules with small feet and a big head so it would look proportional from the ground.
We ate lunch in an agro-turismo and had similar food but not the same thing exactly, placating us for the time being. I had lunch with the “grown ups” and talked in French to Yasemine (one of the director’s wives) and her sister for awhie. Because I still haven’t gotten my conversation partner, Yasemine and I are going to work together so I can practice my French too (which I’ve forgotten SO MUCH of). Our waiter was really cute there, and he spoke French, too. He studied in Belgium and Yasemine and her sister were making fun of him for that. Apparently the French don’t like the Belgians. Or the Italians. Or anyone for that matter, lol.
We went to a Roman Villa next, which had been excavated relatively recently and was still being fixed-up, so we didn’t get to see all of it. But the main spectacle was the mosaic floors with pictures of Baccus, animals, the 12 labors of Hercules, people exercising, dancing girls, and Grumio. Just kidding about Grumio. I wish lol  Mrs. Robertson should have been there—she would have enjoyed our tour guide, especially his explanations of the vomitarium and the sex rooms. Seriously. Those are real parts of a Roman Villa. If only those plebians knew where their tax money was going!
Our hotel in by Acireale was really nice and we had a great view approaching Etna from the West on our way there. I woke up early the next morning to watch the sunrise from the roof of the hotel and it was sooo beautiful. The way the clouds looked made it seem like the sun was rising over a far-away town or piece of land when there was actually nothing but water. I took a ton of pictures and also worked on adjusting my camera settings to get a better picture. They turned out really well! I went back to bed then got myself up for a delicious 3-course breakfast: croissants, pound cakes, yogurt, bread with meat and cheese, cereal, granola, kiwis, and fresh squeezed blood-orange juice. We started our day in Taormina and took a small tour of a roman theater, a building with influence from the Arabs, Spaniards, and Byzantines, and then went to a Greek Ampitheater which had also been used for the Romans (for Gladiator fights!) and they hold concerts there sometimes now. The view from the ampitheater was one of my favorite parts of our whole trip. Etna was to our right, the bright blue sea was to our left, and the hillside towns were in between. There were a lot of ceramics in the shops on our way back to the bus so it was probably a good thing I had left my money there. We spent the afternoon (drum roll, please) ON THE BEACH at Naxos!!! The water was freezing, but it was comfortable lying out in the sun for the afternoon. Olivia and I tried to shop around, but everything was closed. We did get drinks (strawberry vodka and limonata) at a bar nearby with some other Ciee people, found a pastry shop and got cassettine (a local specialty with the ricotta mix they use in cannolli and cake), then had gelato. We took a bus ride (SPAAAAAAL, oooh oooh oooh! (Ricardo’s version of Bohemian Rhapsody)), to another town with a gorgeous piazza (especially that night with the full moon) which appeared to be inhabited by teenagers alone. I have never seen that many pre-pubescents in one place. Jenna, Olivia, and I stopped for an arancino (a rice ball with either ragù, spinach, veggies, or ham and cheese, breaded and possibly fried).
That night after dinner, a few of us walked down to the docks and scoped out a good spot to take pics the next morning. It was a really fun walk down (thank you Queen) and the dock was pretty cool too. Lots of people hang out by the water and there was a lot of interesting graffiti and huge rectangular chunks of concrete (probably left by the Greeks, arabs, byzantines, or aliens). The next morning, Keester, Adam and I got early and headed to the dock again to take sunrise pics. It was even better than the day before. The sunlight reflected off the water and I got a ton of pictures with the seagulls and ships going out for the morning. They’re pretty good if I do say so myself, but it would be difficult to mess up something that gorgeous.
After another massive breakfast, we headed to Mt. Etna. I fell asleep after the tour guide got on the bus and when I woke up, we were on top of a volcano! It looked more like a ski resort with Italians dressed in 1970s style snowsuits riding sleds that looked like shovels. There were some craters that we learned about, and a couple people wanted first-hand experience so they took a garbage bag blowing around in one of them and rode it down the side a few times. We had a little bit of free time, so I did some shopping (and got a cool bracelet with volcanic stone) and some eating (more arancini) then went back to the bus. Finally, at last, thank GOODNESS, we got our seafood. It was the perfect close to such a great trip—a four-hour, five-course seafood meal. We started out with a plate of raw stuff which I don’t know what half of it was, and then had 2 courses where they kept putting plates of 3 small portions by us and we shared. The plates just kept coming and coming…shrimp, muscles, anchovies, sardines, crab, oyster, and tons of other stuff. I tried it all, and liked a lot of it. It was all really well prepared and they served it with veggies or mashed potatoes or lemons. Next was a plate of pasta, and I kept biting on shells so that wasn’t my favorite. We had some salad, and finally desert! (Cake with the ricotta mix and chocolate chips) Between courses we took breaks on the patio outside and soaked up the sun for the last time until it decides to come to Ferrara (probably sometime in April, we’ll see). We went back to the airport and arrived in Ferrara around 12:30. Let’s just say that class wasn’t very fun the next day.

Venice, birthday, and Bologna

I’m sorry this has taken so long, but I’ve been so busy with classes, homework, Pitt in France stuff, and keeping in touch that I haven’t been able to sit down and write about Venice, my b-day, and Bologna.
Let’s start in Venice. For the Saturday before Martedi Grasso, pretty much everyone in our group was in Venice. I went with the day-crew who didn’t plan on staying overnight…little did we know…wait, I’ll get to that story in a minute. My group (me, Jenna, Kailey, Teresa, Olivia, and Derek) got to Venice around 2pm and spend our daylight hours finding masks and checking out glass. I wanted to buy 2 masks, but only ended up getting one. It’s green and gold and went well with my sweater  There were so many cool masks and costumes—it felt a lot like Halloween but different. A lot of the costumes were really elaborate, but some groups dressed up as things like cows, Alice in Wonderland characters, or even one of the characters from Star Wars. By the end of the night when I was FREEZING in my leggings, I wished I had dressed up like a bear or a dog in a full furry body-suit.
Teresa and Derek went to meet Andrea and Eric at the train station around 5, and the rest of us went to San Marcos to check out what was there. The piazza was PACKED, and there were a lot of cool light things (like arches and shapes, not like a light show) and in the middle was a HUGE lion made out of fruit. Don’t ask me why. We went to eat at a piazzeria nearby and toward the end of our meal, a couple drunk Spaniards came in and started talking to us. One of them kept saying how his dream was to come to America, and they both kept asking us to sit with them (in their 2-person booth…there were 4 of us as it was) then saying we could go out later. The American-dreamer grabbed Kailey’s phone while she was in the bathroom and put in his number then called his phone. We left pretty soon after that…I should ask Kailey if she’s heard from her amigo recently. Before getting back to San Marco’s, we bought some wine at the grocery store to share between ourselves. We got back to the piazza and downed two bottles pretty quickly, but the third was still in my purse. We made some new friends in the piazza too—the Incredibles, Robin, and a couple other superheroes who I can’t remember. Robin had something stuffed down his pants and kept pointing down and saying “I don’t know!” and a couple other random phrases that never explained what he was packing or why. Sometimes I’m actually very thankful for the language barrier.
We met up with the rest of the CIEE group in Piazza Santa Margherita where there was a DJ and tons of dancing ‘ragazzi’ all over the place. Jenna and I lost Kailey and Olivia, so we decided to finish the wine I had in my purse because I didn’t feel like carrying it anymore. Sam, of course, helped. Everyone was dancing right in front of the Dj and so it was really really loud but soooo much fun. Italians can’t dance so I felt right at home (anche graze alle 3 bottiglie di prosecco), and they played songs like “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and my favorite of the night, the Chumba Wumba throwback from the 90s, so everyone was jumping up and down screaming “I get knocked down, but I get up again…” So many Italian guys came up to talk to us, including a zombie, a nun, and a scary Moroccan who was very aggressive and creepy. I asked Adam for help avoiding him a couple times, and after I left (I think it was him) he and Adam got into a little scuffle. By about 11, the guys were all getting pretty grabby and it was almost time to catch the 11:30 train so Jenna and I left for the station. We must have JUST missed the train, so we were stuck there (or so we thought) until 3:30, when the next train should be. After paying to use the bathrooms (one of my least favorite things about Europe), we met up with Andrea, Teresa, Eric, and Derek. The bathrooms closed at 12 and Andrea really needed to use one, so she went to the port-a-johns outside the station. There was a man there collecting a euro from everyone and there was a sign taped to the door, too, so Andrea gave him a euro to use the lav. About half an hour later, the police came out and carted him away—apparently port-a-johns are supposed to be free.
We spent the next few hours in a café nearby, and hadn’t heard anything from Olivia or Kailey since they had texted “on our way” around quarter after 12. They kicked us out around 2, so we went back to the station. When we looked for our platform for the 3:30 train, we were surprised to see that the next trains weren’t set to leave until after 5am, and that our 3:30 one didn’t exist. At this point, it was freezing, there was nowhere to sit, we hadn’t heard from Olivia or Kailey, and we were exhausted. Despite probably breaking the law, we hopped on an empty train and sat/slept there for a while. Another train pulled up and we hopped on that one next and it was still warm from its last trip. Finally we heard back from Olivia, “We’re home safe and sound!” (Insert unanimous groan). They had taken the Bologna train back at 1am, which hadn’t been listed on the ticket booth, but apparently stopped in Ferrara anyway. Finally at 6am, our train left the station with us aboard and we made it back to Ferrara around 8. Because buses to our house don’t run on Sundays, we had to call for a ride from our host dad, and then explain to Clara why we had never called and why we were home so late. Then it was bed time. It was also Teresa’s birthday, so we ate Cappellacci for lunch and our host bro brought over some sweets. Clara gave us our b-day presents, which were matching pajamas and slippers. Teresa went over to the apartments, but my clothes were all drying and my bike seat was messed up so I stayed home.

On Tuesday, Martedi Grasso, it was MY birthday, so I woke up at 6 am to skype with Mom and Bel. Nanananana, today is our birthday! Mom said I would be getting a surprise that day, and after my 3 classes (ugh), I went up to the office to find a beautiful bouquet of flowers  There were pink roses and other pink and yellow flowers that I don’t know the names of, but I was so excited to bring them home. Instead of attempting to carry flowers and my school things home on my bike, I brought my flowers to my host-family’s shop and asked if they could bring them home for me. Clara was so cute and liked the flowers almost more than I did! Now they’re downstairs sitting on the dresser right as you enter the front door.
I went to the cappellacci cooking class where we learned how to make the pumpkin mix, cut the pasta dough, form the tortellini noodles, and cook the pasta. After aperitivo, we ate dinner at the restaurant. The first course was gross and I don’t even know what it was. Next we ate our own cappellacci (Claras is so much better!) which was decent, and then finally we ate steak and French fries for the last plate. I also had about 7 glasses of wine, so by the time we were ready to leave I was stuffed and feeling really tipsy. At Tsunami (the college hang-out bar) I didn’t get anything to drink because my stomach hurt (entirely too much food), but I did talk to some Italians because they were being really friendly. Usually they’re hard to talk to and seem unfriendly, but that night it was really easy.
Almost there…Bologna…last weekend we went, but I want to go again when it’s not raining. At first it wasn’t, and we checked out the outdoor market (nothing compared to Trieste quality-wise, but it was GIGANTIC) then ate lunch and went to the piazza. The Duomo was closed for another half-hour, so we went in search of a gelateria, sans success. We found a cool group of churched built over a pagan temple, but it was closed too. We went back to the piazza and the Duomo was open (and free!) so we went inside. The interior was gorgeous, but we weren’t allowed to take any pictures. There had to be at least 20 prayer-alcove-things with beautiful paintings and some of them lit up. On the floor the meridian (?) was marked and there were astrological symbols along it. We met up with the other half of the group and went through the Duomo a second time, then went to the ‘leaning towers’ of Bologna. This, I admit, was my idea (thanks to my guidebook!) but I regretted it about halfway up the tower. We climbed 498 rickety, uneven stairs all the way to the top, but it was even worse going back down. The view from the top was incredible, but I could have appreciated it better if a) it wasn’t raining and dreary b) I wasn’t so afraid of the tower toppling over or c) I didn’t have the walk back down to look forward to. Looking back it really was worth it, but I probably won’t be doing it again anytime soon.
Next we tried to check out the university, but there wasn’t anything to it and we were kind of disappointed. We couldn’t find the art museum, and the bar we stopped at on the way back to the center of town was overpriced, staffed by a barista who had gotten up on the wrong side of life that morning, and didn’t have any food for aperitivo. On our walk back, we saw so many good aperitivos through the windows, so at least if we go back later this year we’ll know what to look for. For dinner, we tried to find an inexpensive place that would serve the local specialties, and finally settled on a cute little hole-in-the wall restaurant with a very sweet owner. A lot of us got the Bolognese special, tagliatelle with ragù sauce, and either tiramisu or cannoli for dessert. Everything was so delicious and the owner gave Adam a ‘bacio’ when we left. Because it was so crappy out, we decided to head back early, but wanted to stop at a bar on the way. There were none. So we took the 10:30 train back and some people went out to the dance club place in Ferrara. I fell asleep in Adam and Raff’s room until about 1am when I headed home.
Tomorrow we leave for Sicily and we’ll be there for 5 days! I’m really excited for some warmer weather and to check out somewhere I probably wouldn’t have been able to go to otherwise. Our classes are all cancelled until Monday, so we don’t have to worry too much about work which is sooo nice. I’ll post about that soon after I get back. Then Mom and Abbey come, yay! I hope everyone is doing well back home, and thanks to everyone who send me an e-card or a card here (or a facebook message)!

Classes and Trieste

Classes are HARD. Especially the ones taught in Italian with Italian readings…even culture and translation (which is in English) is going to be tough because our teacher is not an easy grader. We have quizzes in every class, every time, on whatever the assigned reading was. Each class is 2 hours long without a break and in my history and art classes there are only 2 or 3 of us and the professor talking for those 2 straight hours. I miss my easy 50-minute language classes with easy homework and class discussions!
Anyway…this weekend I did absolutely no work because I left on Friday for Trieste and didn’t get back until Sunday at 7:30. I paid for that today, and have no intention of not doing work again before I leave. Trieste may have been worth it though. We saw the most amazing piazza I have seen so far (and it’s even prettier at night than during the day), ate great gelato and great food in general, went to an outdoor market with crafts and food and clothes, saw the ocean, visited a castle, went up into the mountains and hiked some trails through the woods, listened to some percussion performance at a help-Haiti rally in the piazza and saw lots of cute kids dressed up for Carnivale, and to top it off, experienced SUNLIGHT for what may have been the 6th time since I’ve been here. And it was sunny again today!
I should have pics posted on facebook by Friday, but I have to go through them and pick out the best ones since I took 400 and it would take forever to get all those up. I have to post them this week though, because I’m sure I’ll take even more on Saturday in VENEZIA! I still need to buy a carnivalw mask, but hopefully they have some at the market here in Ferrara on Friday. Wooooo carnivale! It’s going to be CRAZY, but so much fun, and I cannot wait to see all the masks and costumes and insanity!

I can't believe it has almost been a month already!

This weekend was a great ending to a rough week. Monday and Tuesday were ok, but I ate something on Tuesday that didn’t quite agree with my stomach, and by Wednesday I still didn’t feel better. Also on Tuesday, I tried to withdraw money from the ATM machine and it kept telling me the pin was wrong. My phone was refusing to call PNC and for some reason it wouldn’t send the text message to mom telling her to call me. On Wednesday, my stomach still hurt and when we went to the synagogue for Holocaust Memorial Day, I got really sick and almost fainted. It was really scary, but I learned there are a lot of very caring people in this program  Our director offered to call me a cab and send me home for the day, but I didn’t want to skip class and there was no one at home anyway, so I stuck it out and started feeling better. After class, I tried to find French classes to fit in my schedule but there were only 2 I could take and neither fit. Teresa gave me some herbal stuff to help with digestion, and it worked, so now I’m totally better. On Thursday, my phone still wouldn’t call PNC and my internet stick said I had reached my volume limit, though I had only used 5/10 hours, so I spent my lunch break at the Vodafone store. Internet key problem fixed, but the phone still wouldn’t call PNC, so after class I called from the CIEE office. I fixed the problem with my debit card—I had been trying to use my credit card instead, and didn’t realize it—and then I went home early. I spent most of Thursday night studying for our final exam on Friday…who wants to do that? But the exam went fine and I could look forward to Verona without any classwork looming over my shoulders. On Friday night, I came home early because no one was doing anything, and to kill some time I wrote post-cards and tried to find something on tv. AND I DID. I watched DOUG in Italian. It was amazing. Then I watched some of The District until it was dinnertime.
Saturday morning I woke up at 5:45 (WAY too early) and met at Hotel Carlton by 7. We caught the train on time, but missed the connecting one. It was ok, because there was a “Mexican” café next door and we got some breakfast. By “Mexican” I mean, it said “Mexican” on the door and there was a clock on the wall that also said “Mexican.” We arrived in Verona around 9:45 and after getting lost for the first 10 minutes, we found our way to some cool really old walls. We tried to go see Juliette’s tomb, but it was under construction, and I got yelled at for climbing into something to get a cool picture so we left. Our first real stop was the Roman Arena and it was the only place we paid to get inside of. We climbed to the top and it was TERRIFYING! There was nothing to keep you from falling hundreds of feet down the stairs to your death, and some of the stairs were very slippery. The view from the top was awesome though, but could have been even better if there wasn’t so much fog. Some little British boys were chasing each other around the top as if they were invincible and it was really cute. Then a whole group of them got on either end of the arena on balconies and yelled back and forth “I am the Emperor!” “NO, I am the EMPEROR!” Adorable.
With sore legs we trekked back outside and saw those statue-people posing for pics, but didn’t want to pay so we moved on toward another piazza. At the next piazza, there was a market going on and some of us bought masks for Carnivale. I didn’t find one I really liked (except a super-elaborate one that I didn’t even want to know how much it cost), so I’ll have to find one next week when we go to Bologna. They also had some cool glass, but I can get that in Venice when I go in a couple weeks. After the market we were starving again so we ate at a pizzeria (I actually had lasagne al forno) and then went to a church. They also wanted us to pay to go in, so we left. Behind the church was a gorgeous view of part of Verona across the river and a nice bridge. Again, it would have been better if it weren’t such bad weather, but maybe that just means I’ll have to go back. Next, we went to another church, left, and went to see Juliette’s statue and house. The wall with all of the love letters was crazy, but we didn’t leave any. We saw the balcony, but didn’t want to pay to get inside, so we just grabbed Juliette’s boobs and left (for those of you who don’t know, you’re supposed to touch the statue of Juliette’s breast and it will bring you luck in love.) We did stick around to read a little about the house and watch other people taking pictures with the statue. THAT I could do all day…some people were really funny about it…especially kids and old men.
Snack time! I got a delicious pastry from a bakery that was 2 sugar-cookie-like cookies, one with a heart cut out of it, with raspberry jam in between and part of it dipped in chocolate. INCREDIBLE. We did some shopping next and though I failed at finding leggings (a new adventure for this week) I did find a cool pair of brown boots that were only 15 euro and look really cute. They’re much more for style than practicality, so I might have to wait to wear them until it isn’t this cold. As we were shopping, we saw a ton of other good bakeries (pasticcerie) and panino places. I would go back just for the food. Unfortunately, I was still full from lunch and snack, so I didn’t get any more food. We got to the train station and I changed tickets because originally a few of us had planned to stay until 9, but we were tired and out of stuff to do so we wanted to go home around 5. We got tickets to Rovigo and then to Ferrara, and ended up saving money by changing tickets. Woo! The first train took FOR-EV-ER because we were the last stop. Finally “home” around 8, and I ordered pizza with some of the apartment crew then went home.
This morning I woke up at 7:30 (since I had been waking up then all week to get my lab hours) and it was snowing!!! I had used the bathroom and when I was going back to my room, Clara asked if I had seen the snow, so I opened my window and there it was!!! Yay! We both went back to bed, but when I woke up again at 9:30 it smelled like HEAVEN and I dreamed of pasticcerie until 10, when I went downstairs and had a nice warm piece of apple cake with apricot stuff in it too. I HAVE to learn how to make that. I also tried doing laundry this morning, and when I went downstairs to get my clothes, there was water in the bottom of the machine. I was really scared I had broken it, but Clara came down and tried to explain to me (this is what I think she said) that there had been too many things running at once, so it blew a circuit and the laundry was only half-way done. I had already taken my clothes out though and gotten the floor all wet, so now my slippers are soaked, but at least I didn’t break the lavatrice!

Urbino e Rimini

Yesterday we took a group day-trip to the hill-town of Urbino and then to the bigger coastal town, Rimini. Urbino was by far my fav...it's gorgeous and intact from when it was built hundreds of years ago. The mountains all around it are incredible and the Palace of Duke Ferdinand was really cool too. It's a really really small town, but its the birthplace of Raffaelo and the Duke was pretty important during his time. We got a tour of a couple places and the palaces, then we went straight to lunch. We had pasta with tomatoes, gnocchi with ragu (meat sauce), pork, salad, coffee, dessert, and of course lots of wine and bread. My end of the table managed to finish off 4 bottles (between 6 of us...) and after lunch we spent at least 20 minutes using the bathroom. There are pics on facebook!
Rimini was cool too, but we weren't there for very long and it was a lot more modern. We saw an arch built by the Romans, a Roman house (with bones in it!), and the courtyard of the castle. There was an art-exhibit going on inside the castle, but I was more interested in the Roman stuff, so we didn't go inside the castle. We DID however go inside the Duomo in Rimini, which was beautiful of course. I think ours here in Ferrara is better though :) I think next weekend some of us are going to day-trip to Verona...woohoo!

First week in Italia

It's official; I've survived my first week abroad without getting serously lost, hit by a car, sick, or having killed anyone! Woo hoo! I have, however, gotten somewhat lost a few times getting to class, had another near-collision accident with my casa-mate, been literally sandwiched (or panino-ed)between 2 cars with less than a foot on each side, and might be coming down with a cold (because it's FREEZING here). Class is really good though...my teacher is hilarious and really nice but we always have a lot of homework. Living in a home is still wonderful. I LOVE my host parents and the cooking is getting even better. We had lasagna and pizza tonight--never have I ever had lasagna that was so good. It was very different than what we eat back home, but I'm not quite sure why. I have to ask what all she put in it because next to cappellacci, it might be my favorite.
Last night was Jenna's (a friend in the program) 21st so we had cake in the apartments then hit the bars. It was super cold outside already and I didn't want to bike home in any way inebriated (since I can't drive straight in the first place) so I only had wine. Next time however, I might ask for the "bibite femminile e dolce con frutta" the girly drink the bartender created which tasted really good. I also got to meet some more italians last night! I met Francesco, Bolsha (who's actually Serbian), and another guy that I didn't like much bc he never took a cigarette out of his mouth. They're all friends of the students who were here last semester. I'm really excited to get a conversation partner too, and hopefully we hear about that soon. Also, we're going to Urbino this weekend!!! I'll post more on Sunday and try to figure out how to add pics.

I am FINALLY in Ferrara, and finally have somewhere to plug in the computer. It was NOT fun getting here lol…My flight from Paris to Bologna got delayed, and after sitting for forever, they took us downstairs to a shuttle, where we stood for another half-hour, and then finally got onto the plane to sit for another hour (I used this to sleep, since someone kept whistling through the night during the overnight Toronto to Paris flight. I’m with Sheldon here on the anti-whistling campaign). I was supposed to get to Bologna at 4, and we landed right then, then waited half an hour for baggage. I figured no on e from CIEE would still be at the airport, so I tried to find some way of calling and letting them know I had arrived and was stuck in Bologna. My US phone didn’t work at all. The pay phones didn’t accept American credit cards or my calling cards, and the place to buy international calling cards in the airport was closed. My Italian phone had no money loaded onto it, and when I went to go add money, I was told it was “invalido.” Stuck. I figured I just had to get to Ferrara on my own, so I asked the woman at the info desk what bus I needed to take to get to the train station, and she told me (in English, thank goodness!) Got on the bus, and was probably the most scared I’ve ever been in my life, because I was alone in a foreign country, with no means of contacting anyone, and no one knew where I was. Fortunately though, there was a nice woman on the train who told me when to get off for the train station and showed me how to get my ticket there. Let me point out that only experience with train stations is reading about platform 9 ¾. I had a ticket and didn’t know where to go with it, so I asked someone else who pointed out my city on the departures schedule. I tried my best to find the platform (which I quickly learned is called a ‘binario’) and ended up missing the train because I didn’t understand the number system. Back up and down stairs to buy a new ticket—I can’t imagine if I HAD had 2 checked bags—and found out I could just use the one I had for a different train of the same genre. This time success. Found the right platform, got on the train, sat next to someone who just happened to be going to Ferrara, and she even took me to where I could pick up a taxi. Taxi to the hotel, dropped the bags in my room, and we left for pizza.
Halfway through the meal, 2 more people arrived—there HAD been someone at the airport but I had missed him. However, they left their bags at the airport and only just got them back yesterday, so I’m kinda glad I didn’t see Ricardo there waiting. Pizza was amazing…and I ate the whole thing! Then I went back to the hotel to crash because I was EXHAUSTED. The next few days all run together at this point. We’ve gotten to see our classrooms, done a scavenger hunt of the city, gone out to eat a couple more times, taken a real tour of the city, and got to move in with our host families!
Mine is AMAZING :) I’m sharing a family with another girl from the program who was here last semester too (Theresa). I am SOOOO glad she’s here. We’re very similar and get along well…and while I can speak Italian well, I have a lot of trouble understanding our host family and she can help translate. I live with a couple who’s in their 60s—Clara and Paolo—and their son is around a lot too (Alessandro). They are the sweetest people! I have my own bedroom with a beautiful view, and Theresa and I share our own bathroom. Their house is outside the city walls so we have to ride a bike about a half an hour to get to the center of Ferrara, but once I get comfortable on a bike, it won’t be bad at all. The first night we rode to town, we rode on the main road and I couldn’t go in a straight line…which is bad when you have a sidewalk on one side, and cars on the other. When we got back and told Clara how terrible I was, she recommended another path, which was a billion times better. I can’t wait until I’m used to this though, because the learning process is painful in more ways than one. Plus I’m the only person in Ferrara who wears a helmet.

Since you all know me relatively well, it shouldn’t surprise you that about 30 seconds after waving a final good-bye to Mom and boarding the tram I realized that my boarding passes weren’t in my hand. I managed to hop off the tram right as the doors were about to close and hustle back to security where someone had set them on a table for me. Phew. At that point I turned back to the tram, dropping Eggbert, who was retrieved by a cute old lady and given back to me. Finally on the plane (which was about the same size as the Bahamas trip plane from Lee’s Airline), I spilled my entire glass of water onto the table and subsequently onto my pants, Eggbert, and my scarf, which was, fortunately, on top of my carry-on bag. Arrived safe, sound, and damp to Toronto, and wandered aimlessly around the airport with a nice German woman until people told us where to go. Then they told me to go wait somewhere (didn’t say where, just pointed) because they couldn’t have me waiting in the terminal for more than 6 hrs. So I wondered around US-Canada flight baggage claim, with no food or internet. And here I sit.