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.

joshua trees and alleyways

last night we went to this pub called the joshua tree, owned by a really nice american guy with dreads. i like it bc it is a nice mix of locals and students who are abroad. almost the whole group went last night after we walked around for a while, the others considered even going to this club called space electronic discotheque. i completely vetoed the suggestion after i saw the name, though we ended up going after a few beers at the joshua tree. it actually turned out to be okay, definitely more foreign kids than italians. we met a group of australian boys who were really fun so we hung out there for a while. it was only 6 euros to get in which is an absolute miracle when it comes to entrance fees, it even included a drink.

we just got out of our pseudo italian class. we didnt have real class because its a holiday here called Epiphany, celebrating the magi. there is a big parade in about an hour which is supposed to be great so im looking forward to that.

not much more to say today. it is our last night at the hostel before we move into our families tomorrow so we may go out again tonight. compared to paris, cost wise florence is pretty rad, i only spent 21 euro altogether, as opposed to a usual 40 in france. im rooming with clarissa and we found out that we are living way north by the train tracks. im a little apprehensive about our location as we are not by ANYTHING and two miles from linguaviva, meaning we have to take a bus everyday. meh.

dont climb hills if you have a stuffy nose. i almost died.

mamma mia this city is absolutely spectacular.

today was our first day of intense italian language class. it can be very frustrating at times to separate my french from the new italian. since i dont know how to ask any question i have in italian, my first instinct is to always ask in french. alas, THIS IS NOT FRANCE and it will not fly. now we have the rolllling "R" instead of the throat R. thankfully i am able to execute both, though clarissa said she can detect a french accent in my attempted new italian language.

anyway, after class we went to the phone store called TIM and bought our sim cards to put in our most-likely-ghetto-ass phones we rent from the program. they better be decent. in france, i got this barrio brick of a phone that peaced out on me after only a week, refusing to charge. i gave up and went cell-less for the entire trip. i am now sitting in the tiny computer lab thing at Linguaviva, our language school, waiting for our official orientation to start at four. later we are going to go out for the first time while we still living in the city. apparently, our homestays are somewhere out in the suburbs, therefore we are not able to wander home in the wee hours of the morning as buses (the only mode of public transportation) stops at midnight. on the subject of "today" i have nothing more to say, therefore i will chronicle my first full day in firenze.

as posted before, clarissa and i arrived after a million years of travel on saturday. we slept slept slept and rested to be able to explore on sunday which we most certainly did. we walked around with another student from our program, ross, who had already been here for two days before us. first we went to ponte vecchio, the bridge that is lined with shops crossing the Arno, and from there decided to climb high above the city on the south side of the river. the first very impressive hill we climbed led up to a fortress which, being sunday, was closed. the walk was worth it though; the entire way up we walked along the city's old fortress wall, absolutely magnificent and imposing. once we reached the top, we pretty much turned around immediately. afterwards, we took on the large hill across from the one we just climbed. this new mountainous hill was the home of what is supposedly (and later proved to be) the best view of florence. i dont remember its name but it's named after michelangelo, topped with a replica of David. from there we climbed a bit higher and explored the monastery, st miniato. Mass was being held at the time so we didnt have a chance to really see the inside of the church. we found out yesterday that it is going to be one of our sites for class, though. after many photos and much time gazing down upon firenze, we descended and cross the river once again, heading to the Duomo. needless to say, it was stunning and i can't wait to go inside.

the only thing i could really think of the entire time we were up on the hill was how amazing it is that such a revolutionary era of art took place in such a small town, the town that i was looking down on. there are only a few buildings one is able to recognize from the view (the duomo, city hall, pitti palace, etc) and one is able, at least i was, to marvel at the idea that the immense concentration of such wonderful art is not just limited to those few landmarks, but it spread throughout the city in what look like ordinary buildings; no via was untouched by the renaissance. it is just so easy to let your mind wander and consider the fact that maybe the very place you are standing, brunelleschi or giotto or fra angelica could have been standing there at one time, as well.

HERE.

Clarissa and I have finally arrived!

I am now sitting my bed in the hostel as clarissa peruses her new guidebooks and I eat apple slices. It’s a little past midnight here; we got to florence around 2:30 pm, slept until 8:30 pm, woke up, slept again until 10 pm, opened the window and realized it looked fun, got redressed, and went to walk around. Neither of us had eaten for almost 24 hours, but of course, given the time, pretty much everything was closed. We ended up going to the mcdonalds by the train station. It was filled with Italian dudes, ranging from ages 15 to 25. I got some apple slices, a strawberry shake, and some curly fries, and clarissa bought a chicken sandwich thing for a ridiculous 6.40 euros. Outrageous.

Here’s the deal.

When men cat call at women in America and France, it’s usually something entirely inappropriate and gross, sometime even physical.

This is why I like Italy very much so far: clarissa and I were hit on about five times by different groups of guys on the street, but NOT ONE was over the line or nasty, it was either “ciao bella” or “grazie” or we got an applause. Very polite and flattering. I believe it is safe to say we look forward to more. Of course, my pale nature stands out like a sore thumb, but apparently that attracts even more male attention. I really do I have to shake my past bad experiences with douche bags on the streets of paris; italy is a much friendlier and civil place it seems.

It has been a VERY long day. Our flight from Chicago arrived in Philadelphia at around 12:30. our plane from philly to rome was not until 6:10. we waited.

Finally the time came to board. The flight took forevvveeerrrrrr; I didn’t sleep a wink. Needless to say, I was so tired that I was on the verge of verbally abusing anyone I came across, but I kept it together. Then we took this janky looking “train” from the rome airport to the rome train station, then from there we waited about 2 hours and took a train to Florence. As mentioned above, we got here a little after two.

Our walk around town tonight was really nice. It’s probably about 40 degrees and a tad windy, but it was pleasant enough. We walked along the river arno a bit, got situated in regards to our location and the distances to different landmarks, and then went home. Florence really is quite tiny; I have very high hopes for this city.