prague, dali, and the british.

everyone should visit prague and stay in a 10 person room at prague square hostel. you will have the most radical weekend. we did.

clarissa and i got to the hostel at around 730 after waiting around for late planes and what not. we got to the airport and got some kuronas or crowns or whatever you want to call czech money, but it is a very deceiving currency. 20 krowns to a euro, 28 to a dollar. anyway, the hostel was only about 50 euro for 2 nights; with airfare and food we probably spent only about $400. it was most definitely worth it. within about 10 minutes of checking in, we were invited out on a pub crawl. we went first to a little one sort of underneath the hostel where we met a big group of english boys who happened to be staying at our hostel. anyway, we joined their table pretty quickly and ended up spending most of the weekend with them. we went to two more bars after that one then ended up at a club called roxy. i really dont like clubs that much so i peaced out kind of early. the next day clarissa and i got up early to go see the prague castle which wasnt that cool but had a nice church and view of prague. then we went to an amazing Dali exhibition in a gallery in the Old Town Square. i've really never seen anything like it; it was pretty much all woodcuts, prints, lithographs, sketches, and drawing. i've only seen his painting before, but these were really different. there was even a whole two rooms filled with drawings depicting cantos of inferno, purgatorio, and paradiso. i think we were very lucky to see it, i dont think ill ever be able to see those things again. after that, we went back to the hostel and laid down for a few minutes, then got up and went to the common room and had some beers with the english boys until 9 or so, then we headed out to the underground bar again and then to a club called duplex. this club was also relatively lame, so some of use went back around 3 or so. either way, both nights were so much fun and i really cant wait to go back sometime.

crossing borders

LA LA LA!! heading out for prague tomorrow. clarissa and i are leaving italian class about an hour early to take the bus to the florence airport and fly our little swissair planes to prague. we have a hostel in old town right by everything and will be staying two glorious nights, returing to firenze on sunday afternoon. neither of us really know all that much about the city, but i know there is a castle so i want to go there for sure. otherwise we will most definitely be hitting up the town at night. we probably wont arrive at our hostel until 7:30. we opted to stay in a 10 person mixed room to possibly meet people, but since it's off season, i dont really know how many people will be there. at the same time though, while i've been in florence i've met quite a few people who are traveling about europe.

now it is my turn. ciao!

the italians know how to do it.

clarissa and i have discovered the wonder that is italian outlet shopping. i bought a gorgeous pair of marni platform stilettos for 119 euro and a pair of velvet and patent leather stella mccartney heeled boots for 100 euro. "the mall" as it is named, offered YSL, gucci, ungaro, burberry, marni, alexander mcqueen, stella mccartney, ferragamo, fendi, etc etc. i.e. dream come true. long story short, i spent too much money but in return i got two beautiful pairs of shoes. totally worth it. it should also be noted, many of the items i saw yesterday were things i had previously dreamt of after seeing them/trying them on at neiman marcus; these were no mere left-overs. moral: the italians know how to do.


i love italy, and, apparently, italy loves me.

NEITHER.

right-o.... so no greece OR turkey. instead, me madre is coming to visit me and we will hop about italy together, possibly hitting sicily at some point. UNTIL THEN...

clarissa and i have just booked passage to prague. we are staying for two nights (26th-28th) in a hostel in the middle of the old town part in a 10 people mixed dorm. we intend to make international friends. period. in case anyone is interested, only after about 4 hours of internet-ing, i found roundtrip tickets for $300 on swiss air. relatively ridiculous since we're not going that far but i think it's worth it. neither of us really know what to expect as neither of us have been there, but everyone ALWAYS says "go to prague". thus, we are going to prague (it was between that or amsterdam).

so between the last post and this one, i have had more italian classes (though dinner conversation is still extremely limited), our first italian lit class, a trip to the baptistry, and a lovely excursion to siena. we visited the cathedral there (very unique in the black and white marble stripes). in addition to that, clarissa, annie and i climbed to the top of the bell tower of the city hall. we could seriously see half of tuscany. we also went to the museo of the opera (the cathedral's museum) and saw the DUCCIO ALTARPIEEECE. for those of you who are not art history masters, this is a magnificent (perhaps even THE) example of early renaissance. in addition, we also saw lorenzetti's Good Government and Bad Government, also something i was really excited to see. other than that, i ate a really lame panini, got in a fight withsandwichmaker-lady who MADE me buy a sandwich even though i didnt want it, and the best gelato on Planet Earth.


back to current times.

michael-to-the-anne is coming to study here in firenze. i havent seen her in a really long time and this is the first time we will be in the same place for such a long period of time since The Prairie School, Inc. (which, may i add, is already sending me alumni e-mails asking me for money even though i only graduated 2 1/2 years ago and am currently a poor college student).

note to michael anne: 1. see you in a few weeks
2. before you leave, get some info on bermuda scuba diving lessons
3. i have yet to see a station wagon
4. there are not many obese people here to make fun of, so i suggest you
bring a few with you

ciao.

TUNISIA OR GREECE???

at the moment clarissa and i are doing major research to organize some sort of trip to tunisia (yes, north africa) with 3 of our other classmates. i think we've possibly decided on the island of djerba off of the city of Tunis; lots of roman ruins, a pirate castle, small villages, white beaches, etc... the problem is getting there. i believe we can fly from rome to tunis for a little more than $200, but then we also have to pay roundtrip ferry/boat to the island and for the hotel. it will just take a little effort and time to get together, but it's most definitely possible. otherwise, greece was the other possibility, but, again, we must fly to athens and take a ferry to one of the islands on the other side of the country. a ferry from southern italy to the islands takes over 10 hours, but apparently the hotels are really cheap. SOOOO.... we basically just need to make some executive decisions.

as for other news, clarissa and i have done some hardcore brainstorming to decide where we want go for our other long weekends and for our 10 day break between here and london. we were thinking about going to prague next weekend, but it's really expensive to get there and would take about 15 hours on the train. tomorrow we are going to Siena with the majority of the group. i've been looking forward to siena for a long, long time. we have about 3 other long weekends outside of the 5 day long weekend which is when we would go to tunisia or greece. we were thinking possibly austria or amsterdam. perhaps we might even just stay in italy. i would definitely like to try to go to another country before we go to london, though. clarissa and i just spent an hour last night marveling over the fact that we are so close to EVERYWHERE. we tried making lists of places to go and when, but there are just so many destinations. it's really difficult to plan because we dont have internet at our house, so the only time we can check train/flight/bus/hotel fares, is at school, our only internet source. it is very frustrating, but, then again, clarissa and i get a lot done at night homework-wise. we even took a good chunk of the night to quiz eachother on the day's notes. it really helps though.

anyway, i think i mentioned in another entry that clarissa and i moved, but nadia and pasquelle (pahss-kwall-eh). communication is difficult as clarissa and i have only had 3 italian classes, but everyone is progressing very quickly and every dinner with the mercuri family is less and less awkard as we learn new words. unfortunately, we only just learned verbs and, of course, only in the present tense. we dont learn past and future until next week. i think conversation will flow well by the time we leave.

CIAO!

the true nature of old italian men.

NEVER stand in crowds of italian men. absolutely unacceptable behavior by surrounding men. clariss and i were standing together watching the parades, surrounded by OLD italian guys. i swear to God, we both had hands on our asses the entire time. at first, we thought we were just imagining it and didnt say anything to one another. finally, about 45 min later, i expressed my belief that i was being felt up during the entire thing. of course, clarissa was experienceing the same thing. we kept trying to move farther and farther away, BUT THEY FOLLOWED US. they thought they were soooo sneaky. EW.

clarissa and i did see a funny old guy smoking a pipe though. i looked like a cartoon character and was extremely ornery.

the parade was pretty rad, everyone was dressed in renaissance period clothing, which we weren't expecting. i really liked the flag throwers. there were drums and all this jazz. we were standing at the very end of the parade route in front of the duomo, we saw what i believe to be the bishop of firenze. aaaanyway the entire speech after the parade ended was in italian, so we had no idea what was going on. i believe they were telling the story of the magi though. when we got back we both passed out for an hour then ate dinner and passed out again after reading some. we both skipped packing last night to move out to our families, so instead we just tossed everything in our suitcases this morning. i suppose we will just kill some more time here at linguaviva until we go back to the hostile to get our stuff... there is no such thing as too much facebooking.