Fall Break cont....

I can't remember if I have written about how terrible my internet connection is here. But if I already have, then I repeat, it is terrible, and oh so frustrating! I am dedicating the next hour to blogging...

The problem with procrastination and putting stuff off is that it eventually turns into a huge monster that one has to conquer, almost impossibly. I am very familiar with this monster. Unfortunately, we've become somewhat close over the years. I must like putting myself in these crunch situations. So here I am, with a very important decision to make... do I write as many mini entries as I can and try to fill in the days/events that have passed? Or do I start from this past weekend and leave the rest behind... I'm thinking the prior. So here I go...

Starting where I left off with fall break...

I live right next to Piazza San Marco and hadn't been inside the church yet, so Linda and I did that on Monday. It was gorgeous! This church was built by Cosimo de' Medici who was worried about getting into heaven so he asked the pope what he should do. The pope told him to build a church, so that's what he did! And he put a LOT of money into it, so its very intricate and beautiful.

 

 

Tuesday I went to the market at Cascine park with Linda. Talk about overwhelming!! There was SOO much stuff, you really have to dig to find what you want, but eventually I walked out with some goodies :) 

I do like all the open air markets here, but they definitely overwhelm me. I like to look at everything to make sure I am getting what I want, but when there is so much stuff how do you know for sure?? Good shopping buddies are pretty essential to keep me in line.

Me at the market...

Even though I was pretty tired from all the walking/shopping, I fought the desire to go home and lay down and instead walked to the other side of the river. We walked all the way up to the Basilica of San Miniato, and man am I glad we did. I was whining to Linda the whole way up, haha, but this church is SO worth the walk. The church itself is nothing less than stunning, and as unbelievable as it sounds, the view of Florence from there is even more spectacular. A picture is worth a thousand words...

 

Then we walked down to Piazza Michelangelo and took some fab pics. While we were doing so, an old Florentine man walked up and offered to take a picture of us:

We then had a very nice, super choppy, Italian conversation with our new friend about Tuscan food, haha. It was quite lovely :)

K I thought I could do this but it just takes me waaay too long, so I'm sorry I will have to pick up where I am leaving off later... But I love and miss everyone SOOO much!!

Il Giorno Due!

Alright, on to day two! Saturday Linda and I went to the Basilica of San Lorenzo. You aren't allowed to take pictures inside, but here we are davanti alla facade...

For the first couple of weeks I was living here I walked by this church multiple times every day, not knowing what it was, let alone that it is one of the largest, most beautiful churches in Florence! As you can see from the outside, it looks pretty unimpressive, but when I walked inside I was shocked to see how incredible it really is. Goes to show, you can't judge a book by its cover. Many of the important buildings here in Florence are the same way, the outside bland, but the inside totally stunning. The Basilica of San Lorenzo is also the burial place of 40some members of the Medici Family, so it is pretty important because of the connection with the family. It is arguably the oldest church in Florence, having been consecrated in 393. We saw the burial place of Cosimo de' Medici (suuuper important guy) and Donatello (very influential artist of the Renaissance, and yeah, one of the ninja turtles.) Brunelleschi, who was the leading Renaissance architect of the first half of the fifteenth century, (he did TONS of other stuff, most importantly the dome of the Duomo which is still a total phenomenon) was commissioned to design the Basilica of San Lorenzo. Michelangelo also did a lot of work on it. I won't go into any more detail because I know most of you are like, this is so boring who caresssss, but seriously, when you come here and study it, you just start to care. Its pretty awesome actually :) So anyway, that was that.

Then we went and saw the inside of the Duomo which is pretty cool. I had been inside before, but like most of the stuff here, I could go back again and again and again and still find it interesting. I've posted pictures of the outside before, it's still the most impressive building to me here. At least visually, from the outside. Every time I walk by it, which is multiple times a day, I am just in complete awe. It is impossible to describe in words. The inside is different. While the outside is so intensely intricate and colorful and almost mesmerizing with all its patterns and details, the inside is quite, well, plain. I have to say, when I first stepped inside I was actually disappointed. But the second time I started to appreciate it more. It is HUGE first of all. Everything is huge. The columns and Gothic arches make me feel so small and insignificant. I think that's the whole point of it though. At the time God was seen as the all powerful important one, and people were just little blobs who were supposed to do whatever he said. So the architecture is meant to make you feel like that. My pictures aren't great, but I'll put one up anyway so you can at least have a little idea about what I'm talking about.

Then we went underneath the church where the remains of the ancient Roman cathedral of Santa Reparata are. It was pretty interesting. We were tired after all that so we got some gelato and went grocery shopping, made some dinner and then baked the BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE EVERRR! I made it in my cooking class, but making it in my own kitchen was quite satisfying.

And that was my day! :)

Fall Break Day 1 :)

Ciao tutti! So even though I am writing all of these posts today, (or hopefully today, I may finish them later this week depending how long it takes) I want to write about my days in separate blog entries. So lets start from the very beginning, what a very good place to start...

Break technically began Thursday evening when I finished my last midterm! I know it is silly that I was stressed out about midterms considering the classes I'm taking are totally awesome, but I was, so it felt good to be done. I cooked dinner with my roommate Hillary and had a little sparkling wine to celebrate :) Then I went out to this bar, the Lion's Pub, or something, with my friend Linda and some of her friends. I sang karaoke (Spice Girls, Wannabe...pretty awesome song) IN PUBLIC, it was quite... special, haha. Unfortunately Linda got a recording of it...but I don't want to blow your ear drums away with all of that beautifulness, so here is a picture... :)

Fun Fact: guy behind me is AWESOME at singing and dancing Beyonce's Single Ladies. No joke.

So I'm going to include Friday in day 1 of break because Thursday and Friday were both kinda half days. So Friday I woke up and cleaned the apartment for a large portion of the day and then Linda came over again and we made dinner and went to her friends' apartment for dessert. There are two girls who live there, one from Denmark and the other actually is from Boulder, which is cool. They are 25 and 26 years old so it was nice because everyone there was older and more mature and just fun and interesting to talk with. They had 4 other friends over, 2 others from Sweden, 1 from Japan, and 1 from Italy. And I think I mentioned before, Linda is also from Sweden. So it was a very interesting and eclectic group of people. We had some really good cooked pairs with vanilla ice cream for dessert and then went to a local bar/mini brewery and had a beer and chatted. It was a lovely evening. Then Linda and I went home to sleep. She was my roommate for the week since all my roommates were out of town. It was really fun! :)

My Past Few Weekends!

 Well hello everyone!! Life in Italy has been busy busy busy, but last week was midterms and now I am on break!! I had planned on going to London, Madrid, and Barcelona, but then decided last minute that what I really want to do is stay in Florence/Italy because there is so much I want to do and see here and so that is what I am doing! First: a quick update on my past few weeks. Three weekends ago I went to the Amalfi Coast (Sorrento, Capri, and Positano) with a couple friends. It was stunning!! In the same sort of way that the Cinque Terre were, but different. I LOVED it.

And then last weekend I was in Perugia for the chocolate festival, Verona, and Venice. Perugia seemed like a really cool city, I didn’t get to see much of it because I was only there for a few hours and I was pretty focused on all the chocolate. It was a rainy, yucky, day but chocolate can make just about anything better and I hardly even noticed ☺. Chocolate ravioli...yum....

I didn’t really know what to expect of Verona, but I ended up really really liking it! It is actually one of my top favorite places I have visited so far. It is just adorable. We, of course, saw Romeo and Juliet’s houses (they didn’t actually ever exist, but their families did). Apparently it gives you good luck in your love life if you rub Juliet's boob in a circle three times with your left hand... so now that I've officially felt up a bronze statue, come and find me prince charming!!

And I ate some pretty great food. Verona is known for their polenta, as well as their horse meat stew…so that is exactly what I had. It doesn’t look all that appetizing in the pictures, but both were fantastic.

Then we went to a winery to learn about wine and wine making :) Good thing my taste buds have matured just in time to be studying abroad here and I have acquired a taste for wine!

Venice was a kind of horrid day. Not that I didn’t have a great time, because I did, but the actual day itself was just ugly and wet and FREEZING because I stupidly (but not surprisingly) forgot to pack a coat… so I was prancing around (literally, to keep warm, of course) in boots, tights, jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and a little sleeveless dress (It sounds weird, but I rocked it. I didn’t have much choice. I had to layer on everything I brought, haha).

 Venice, of course, was so super cool. Consisting of over 100 tiny islands, all the canals and little gondolas were so beautiful. I liked it a lot! And took lots of vitamin C when I got home that night to prevent catching pneumonia.

And that has been my past few weekends! I have to go grocery shopping to make dinner, but I will write about this weekend/break later!!

No, it isn't broken!

No, it isn't broken!
Some may have thought that the mafia infiltrated my blog and changed my password, preventing me from writing any further fantastic blog entries; however, this theory would be incorrect. Everything is ok, and I am back in business! I am thoroughly exhausted though because in the middle of the night it was raining so hard, I thought our house was going to get pounded into little pieces, and I was kept up for a couple hours. Ma va bene, I will still write. So update on my past week... I'm not going to go into detail because there is a lot, but I should mention things.

Last Tuesday I went to dinner at Carly's and it was really nice! Her roommates are awesome and its really fun connecting with an old friend. That Thursday I went out to dinner with Marissa, who is on a different program as well but I know her from Davis, and her friends and it was soooo good and also really fun to meet new people! That night after dinner I met up with this guy Aaron who I actually went to Israel with four summers ago, and he is studying abroad in Israel now but was visiting Florence for a few days. So I went to a club with him and his friends who were all really nice. It is so funny how I automatically feel more connected with people who are Jewish. Anyway, then on Friday I just relaxed and recovered from staying out so late Thursday night. Saturday I went to Bologna with my program (API). We went on a guided tour and saw the church as well as the university, which is actually the oldest university in the world! It was really, really cool. And I had the most DELICIOUS tortellini everrr. Then we visited a balsamic vinegar production place, which was totally awesome, I learned a lot, considering I didn't even know that balsamic vinegar is made from grapes. Then on Sunday API took us to the soccer stadium for a Florence vs. Palermo soccer match! We (Fiorentina) lost :( but it was still really fun. I couldn't believe how vulgar the fans are! Soccer is clearly a huge deal... there are tons of cheers. I could only understand some of them, but one of the most popular ones was "vaffanculo Palermo, Palermo!" which means, "fuck off Palermo, Palermo!" That was the cheer. I mean I am definitely not the best judge of sporting events, but I feel like people in the US would be offended by that cheer at one of our games, I don’t know. Haha. Then I just did some homework and stuff the rest of the day. Monday I went with Victoria to Fiesole, which is a really old town high up that looks over Florence. The Etruscans originally settled it and there are some really cool ruins from that time as well as Roman times. It was beautiful! We also went to the archeological museum and church there. It was very cute and quaint. I liked it a lot. And then I went to yoga and made a new friend! Yay! haha. Her name is Christine, she's from California also which is cool cause I haven't met too many kids from California. So that was my weekend :) Very brief update on my life here. But I'm very busy and meeting lots of cool interesting people and learning a ton and thinking a whole lot and eating good food and I'm thrilled! It is totally awesome. I could write lots more but I'm going to post this so that I finally have something new up and I'll write more later! Ciao!!

Behind me is the incredible view of Florence from Fiesole

Siena!

It is a rainy Sunday evening here in Florence. I haven't updated in a few days, so I figure now would be a good time to do so. My roommate Hillary and I are going to watch Garden State when she gets up from her nap in a bit...I am so excited!! Anyway, the weeks go by SO fast here it is scary. This weekend has been very relaxing, I haven't done too much, aside from going to Siena for the day yesterday, which was BEAUTIFUL! I can see why it would be a wonderful place to study abroad as well. I still love Florence though :) We bought a pass to see the Museo dell'Opera, Duomo (which means cathedral, every city has one), Baptistery, Crypt, and climb up this tower thing where we could see a panorama of the whole city. It was amazing! The inside of the Duomo was honestly the most incredible thing I've ever seen. I haven't been inside Florence's Duomo yet, but seriously, it is just one of those places that I feel like you have to go see yourself. I took pictures, but they don't do it justice one bit. Every little corner was so intricate and nothing was the same, I can't even put it into words. It was just breathtaking. I could have spent weeks just staring at the place, but unfortunately we only had one day. The Museum was really cool as well, it is so insane to learn about all of these artists and then see their work first hand. I get so excited by it all! Jill said to me, "Ali, you just get so involved when you look at something, every little detail seems to fascinate you." And that right there is why I am such a slow person, haha. It's true, I get really interested in things. It keeps life interesting that way, I think :) The crypt was interesting because it was unseen for nearly 700 years until its re-discovery during routine excavations in the Duomo in 1999. Anyway, that's a brief summary of my day yesterday. I had some pizza for lunch and chilled in the Piazza del Campo with the girls for a while. And then took the bus back home :). When we got back, we (Hillary, Beth, Jill, Ashley, Alyssa, Danny, and I) booked out tickets to go to London and Spain for fall break!! I'm very excited :)

What else is new...well, I've still sworn off boys. However Jill is practicing with a very competitive swim team here and met some of the guys who were introduced to me and one of them asked for my number and keeps wanting to hang out. So we'll see... Honestly, it would be really nice to have some Italian friends though because then we can really learn about more cultural things. Nothing exciting so far though, I'll update on that topic later. Hillary and I are going to watch the movie now so I'm going to go! Ciao :)

Babe, You Should Be Proud!

My alarm went off at 9:00 am this morning, but because my horrendous bug bites kept me up all night, I snoozed till 10:10. I have at least 25 itchy bumps, one of those being on my forehead. I hate bug spray, but I may have to start using it if this keeps up :( Anyway, I got out of bed and said to myself, "I'm going to look good today." I mean, I put more thought into my appearance here than I do in general at home because, well, its fashion city. But today I was going to be extra fashionable. So I put on some black patterned tights, a jean skirt, black tank top, red jacket, and purple boots. It sounds simple, but on the way to class a girl stopped me in the street and asked if she could take a picture of me for her fashion spread! How cool is that! And when I walked into Italian class my teacher said, "Alexandra! Che elegante!" I love how my teachers say Alexandra here, it sounds so beautiful with the Italian accent, so that's what I go by. After class I went to the Italian department and signed up to be paired with an Italian university student! I keep getting stopped by Italians in the street and not being able to respond. It's getting a little ridiculous, so I hope I get paired with someone I get along with and it helps!! Best case scenario I make a cool Italian friend :) Then I went to the bookstore to get a couple books for class and here I am now, sitting outside Louis Vuitton, waiting till it's time for class, just kind of people watching. (I am copying this from what I wrote in a notebook earlier in the day) I really want another pair of boots. Everyone here has such cute boots and I want them all! But I could sit here and play the "I wish I had..." game forever, you always want more. I should play the "I am SO lucky I have..." game instead! Well, I'm in Florence, about to go to my history class where I have the opportunity to learn about this incredible place that I am living in....gah so lucky!!

So now that I'm out of class and home, I have lots and lots of drawing/reading homework. Woohoo! Once I do a few more drawings, or at least complete the ones I've been working on, I'll put them up online. But I'm going to get back to all that so I can go to sleep at a decent time tonight. Yay for another day tomorrow :)

Picture of my disgusting foot bite...blehhhhh... its hard to see in the picture, but its that huge lump!