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.