Creative Musings

The place George Clooney calls home.

2008-08-11T18:37:00.006+02:00

Sasha and I had to wait for a taxi for quite a while at the little train station in Como. Once we got a taxi, we helped an American couple who was needing a taxi find a way to get to their destination, which turned out to be pretty far away. I had found a nice little hotel outside the city of Como in a place called Laglio, where our driver took us. We had a very nice taxi driver, who we talked to in Italian the entire way to our hotel. As it would turn out, he has a son around our age, who was willing to show us around the city the next day. Hmmm.... what were the chances?? When we arrived at our hotel we were extremely pleased to find that we had a LAKE VIEW room!!!

The next day after a nice relaxing breakfast with a lake view, our tour guides, Fabio and his friend Davide, showed up to give us a personal tour of the area. They started driving towards Como, and asked us what we were interested in seeing. We said that we didn't know, just the city of Como, and jokingly said George Clooney's house. Davide immediately turned the car around. We thought we had offended them and they were taking us back to our hotel, but it turns out that George lives very close to where our hotel is. Who would have thought? Needless to say, we got a close up view of George's villa.

After that they took us to a historic villa on the lake that was hosting a modern art exhibit. That was followed by a light lunch, more walking/driving around the town. In the evening we went to an amazing restaurant that was recomended by their father (our new friend and personal taxi driver). The restaurant was fantastic. There was no lake view, but the food was some of the best that I've ever had. Toward the end of our dinner the boys were getting a bit antsy, because they were missing a big soccer match while having dinner with us. Fabio was even recieving score updates from a friend on his cell phone!! Once we finished with dinner Sasha and I agreed to go to a place where they were broadcasting the game live. This turned out to be a crowded festival type thing right on the edge of the lake, where we watched the end of the game on a huge screen. It is quite an experience even watching a soccer game with a big group of Italians.

The next day, our last day in Como, sasha and I took a boat ride up the lake to Bellagio, which is just about mid-way up the long skinny lake. We had checked out of our hotel, so we both had our little rolling carry-on size bag with us all day. The boat ride was beautiful, and we got to see the extravagant villas and hotels all along the lake. Once we got back from our boat ride, we took the funicular up the mountain to the town of Brunate, which was quite lovely. I think we were the only tourists up there, and we just walked around with our luggage for a while. Finally we stopped for dinner and a very cute hotel/restaurant. Sasha and I turned out to be the only customers in this cozy family run restaurant. A bit to our suprise, this ended up being one of the best meals we had. Our pasta was homemade. Sasha's had mushrooms inside the pasta itself, and mine had basil. We followed our main course with dessert, as always. At those two dinner's on lake Como, I had the best panna cotta (cooked cream) of my life. They were both amazing, but in different ways. I could go on and on describing the food, but I will refrain.

Here are photos from our first full day in Como, and here for the rest of Como & Brunate.

Our little weekend getaway had a bit of a bumpy ending. Sasha and I our very relaxed with our time, and wern't about to rush anything. So, after our fine meal in Brunate, the funicular didn't arrive to take us back to Como until around 9 pm!! Now we were starting to get a little worried, because we still had to get back to Florence that night! Sasha called our new friend Fabio to find out what we should do, and he ended up finding out the train times for us, and picked us up from the funicular and drove us to the train station! We made it to Milan, but ended up being stranded there for the night. The customer service at the station helped us find a hotel, and got us a discount, so we didn't have to worry. Luckily for us, the next day was a holiday in Florence, so we didn't have to work, so we got some sleep and caught a train around 11 am.

Torino

2008-07-28T07:26:00.003+02:00

Torino

I went up to Torino to stay with my friend Francesca who is going to university there. We were only able to stay one night, but we had time to see a fair amount of the city as well as the famous Egyptian museum there. I was amazed by all the artifacts that I saw in person. I have seen some in books and in classes, but to actually see them in person is another story.

Egyptian Museum

Sienna and Castello Verrazzano a second time

2008-07-28T06:46:00.004+02:00

Siena

I took a trip to Sienna and the Verrazzano vineyards (again) with a group of law students from San Diego. It was the first trip I had taken with all Americans! This was the first trip that my friend from Holland, Nichon, came on with us. Here are the pics!

Verrazzano

Home

2008-07-28T06:41:00.002+02:00

As you may have guessed, I am back from my Italian adventures. Although I am still not quite used to the time zone here, and am in a bit of shock that I am actually back.

Due to lack of internet and a busy schedule, I wasn't able to post many blogs from the last trips that I took, so I will be posting them now. I hope you enjoy!

After the Vatican... Day 2

2008-05-29T16:02:00.004+02:00

After we finished seeing St. Peter's and the Vatican museum we took some time walking around the city and finding other smaller sites that were on our list like the Trevi Fountain.

One place that was rather interesting was the Crypt of the Capuchins. It's a crypt under the Church of the Immaculate, and it's pretty creepy. Basically, when the Capuchin friars moved to this church, they brought with them the remains of the deceased friars. The bones were arranged along the walls, and the friars began to bury their own dead there, as well as the bodies of poor Romans. Basically, there were a few rooms under the church, and a good majority of the walls and ceilings are covered with bones. For those people interested in biology and human anatomy, it's interesting to figure out what part of the skeleton each bone came from. It was sort of strange. Sadly, there were no photos allowed, so I don't have anything to show, which maybe you are happy about.

Here's my photo album from my second day in Rome, after St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum.

The Vatican Museum

2008-05-29T13:13:00.003+02:00

After walking though St. Peter's, I was a bit tired of the slow museum type walk, but we had to go to the Vatican Museum. Well, that one is pretty big, full of mostly religious art. I had planned to see the important pieces and skip out on the rest, but it turns out that it was designed "Ikea style" where you are funneled through in one direction until you have reached the very last thing, the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. We were all pretty exhausted after this one. I am not super interested in large amounts of religious art, but some of it was interesting. Especially the giant tapestries that look like paintings. Also, there was an entire long hallway covered in old style map paintings. For those of you who don't know, I love compass roses, so I probably took a good 30 photos of just those, and cut it down to 6 for my album. That's really all I have to say, so check out the album here.

Oh, to explain a few other photos, there are several photos of the same large painting called "Adam & Eve in the earthly paradise." Pretty much any animal you can think of is painted on that canvas, and I think it was painted in 1839. It is such a beautiful painting, so I am trying to show different sections of it and all the animals. There was also a big hall of sculptures that I found pretty interesting. And in order to exit, we had to walk down this huge spiral staircase with semi-dangerous steps, so there is an interesting caution sign. Last but not least, you're not allowed to take pictures of the Sistine Chapel, so I just had to absorb that one into my memory.

Vatican City

2008-05-29T12:27:00.003+02:00

On our first whole day in Rome, as requested, our breakfast was brought in to us at 8am. After that we headed over to Vatican City, specifically to St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum. This was my second time to St. Peters and I am still in awe. The architecture alone is elaborate, with the extremely decorative ceiling as well as the small painted domed ceiling over each smaller room of the aisles. What amazes me the most, and always has is everything that is carved out of marble, most of all, the huge pieces of draping fabric carved out of marble and lace fabric on robes. You will see many photos of that type of thing in my photo album.

Check out my photo album from St. Peter's here.

First night in Roma

2008-05-29T10:19:00.002+02:00

For those who don't know, my sister and brother-in-law came to visit me! They flew into Rome, so Sasha, Emma and I took the train down to meet them. I have managed to make it this far without experiencing a problem with the transportation system and bad customer service (as they are known for here.) Well, Sasha and I bought our train tickets together on Wednesday, asking for a ticket Friday afternoon and returning Sunday evening. The man at the ticket counter told us our separate totals, and then proceeded to charge the entire total to my credit card. They're not very keen on the splitting bills thing here. We gave all our train info to Emma so she could buy her tickets Thursday and could hopefully be sitting near us. When Friday came around and we met at the train station, we noticed about 20 minutes before our train was to leave that Emma and Sasha had the same seat. Then I saw that the date on Emma's ticket was a different date and said "Oh no! Your ticket is for tomorrow!" But Emma looked at mine and said "Yours was for yesterday!" So, the man at the ticket counter sold us tickets for Thursday's train, when I specifically asked for Friday. At the point we were feeling panicked and found the first information person we could find and the woman promptly told me that since it was more than 3 hours after the departure of the train that we had tickets for, there was nothing they could do and we needed to buy new tickets. Since our train was leaving so soon, we just bought new tickets. Needless to say, we were not happy.

We arrived in Rome just fine and ended up running into Ben & Marianne on the street a few blocks from our B & B. After we carried our bags up 4 flights of stairs (instead of using the birdcage elevator) we relaxed for a few minutes, and then headed out to wander and find dinner. Our B & B has a fantastic location, about 4 blocks from the Coliseum! For the rest of the evening we just made our way over to the neighborhood of Trastevere, where I knew of a great place to get Pizza, which did not disappoint. I ordered my favorite, which is a pizza with a white Gorgonzola cheese sauce (no red sauce whatsoever) with thin apple slices on top. Sasha ordered the same and she loved it. So if you're ever in Trastevere, check out Pizzaria Ivo, near the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere on via San Francesco a Ripa.

Check out my photo album from our first evening in Roma.

Photo Albums finally

2008-05-18T23:01:00.002+02:00

Here are the photo albums that I wasn't able to post last week. Enjoy!

Positano
Boat to Capri
Capri
Last day in Amalfi
Piazza Michelangelo and wandering around the city with the other Lisa.

Positano!

2008-05-14T20:03:00.003+02:00

I was a bit in disbelief when the actual time came that I was finally going to make it to Positano. The girls and I had just come back from visiting the Emerald Grotto, and it was actually the only chance we had to go because the next day we were going to go to Capri. So, we bought our bus tickets and waited for the bus. And waited, and waited. There was a pretty large group of people waiting near the buses and I hoped that they weren't also going to Positano, but of course, they were. Now, this is one of the tall, tour style bus, where there are 2 seats on each side of the aisle. by the time we were getting on the bus, they asked us how many of us there were (4: Sasha, Emma, Lisa & Lisa) and that we were the last ones allowed on the bus. The aisles were full of people standing, and I was standing directly next to the driver in front of the huge window. Emma was lucky and got to sit in the stairway, but Lisa A and Sasha were very squished behind me in the aisle. I would just like to share that I thought it was sometimes a challenge standing on the buses in Florence, even for someone with good balance. Well, this was 10 times harder. I was hanging on for dear life, making sure that I didn't go crashing into the windshield. If anyone has been on "The Road to Hana" on Maui, Hawaii..... this road is worse. The buses drive fast, and honk around every corner, every once in a while getting stuck due to oncoming traffic not yielding. To finish off the bus story, we ended up getting stuck for a bit because a car broke down on a corner, and then got stuck in traffic for a bit, and by the time we reached Positano it had been around an hour.

By the time we neared Positano, I had somewhat become friends with the bus driver, being that I was standing so close, and we had both laughed when other drivers were being ridiculous. When we reached the first Positano stop, there was HUGE crowd, probably 20-30 people in the road, that all started cheering when we got there. It turns out that all those people wanted on the bus (which had NO room) because they were also continuing on to Sorrento. When they realized that there was no space on the bus, they got angry. I'm not quite sure what they thought yelling at the bus driver would accomplish, because no matter how much they got mad the bus would still be full. At this point the driver asked where we were going, and I told him Positano center. He said we should get off here. I was very proud that I spoke to him all in Italian and even asked him when the last bus was heading back to Amalfi at night, which turned out to be at 10.

Somehow we managed to squeeze our way off the bus and around the crowd, and were very glad to escape and begin wandering down into Positano. This is where the immense beautiful views began. Not that they weren't beautiful from the bus, which they were, but I was too preoccupied trying not to fall that I couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked to. This is where the funny picture of Lisa A crouched in a little brick archway comes in, which altered our Positano trip forever. There happened to be a couple walking by that saw this and thought it was pretty funny and decided to come talk to us. It turns out that the guy is semi-Canadian! Some of his family lives in Canada, but he is currently living in Italy. They showed us to the main road, that twists and turns down the steep streets of Poistano, which finally opened up onto the beach.

The tricky thing about Positano, is finding a cheap place to eat. We accidentaly ended up eating at a not-so-cheap place, and had a nice meal of ordering the least expensive things from the menu, while the people from Boston at the next table ordered a 4 course meal starting with the 30 Euro local fish platters (for each of them). I thoroughly enjoyed my 12 Euro Spaghetti with zucchini, and was surprisingly full afterward. By the time dinner was over, it was time to head back up through the windy streets to wait for the bus to take us all the way back to Atrani.

I don't have much more to say about Positano except that is remarkably beautiful city. It's almost dream like. The houses are all painted fun colors, and everywhere has an spectacular view of the ocean. From the beach you look back up at the city, and the hill/mountain that is Positano looks to be entirely made out of the pretty multicolored buildings. I hope to be able to get a photo album posted soon so you can see the rest of my pictures.

Hopefully you can check out my photo album here!

The Internship

2008-05-12T19:35:00.003+02:00

So, for those who do not know yet, the internship with the knitwear company did not work out. They interviewed a few other people (so they said) and have never had a non-Italian intern before, so I think they decided to stick go with a person with the same native language, because that's easier.

That means that I had to go through another interview! yeah! I must say that going to an interview in a language that you are not fluent in has to be one of my favorite things. And by "one of my favorite things" I mean that it's not the most fun thing. So this past Monday I interviewed with a company called Patrizia Fusi, and interviewed with the actual designer. And I got it! Last Wednesday was my first day, and it's going well.

It's a very interesting company. My internship coordinator was telling the truth when she said they used strange materials. And since textiles are one of my favorite things ever (for real this time) it's pretty fun for me. The are only 4 employees. Patrizia, the designer; her husband, a secretary that speaks like 6 languages, and an awesome little old lady who is a master seamstress and patternmaker! It was quite a surprise to me that even though there are only 4 people working there, they have a HUGE office! Naturally there is the show room area, with lots of mirrors, a cool couch, a big meeting table, and mannequins wearing her jacket design hanging from the ceiling. Then there is the design room that has a few big tables that are like my work table, which is a large plank (or a door in my case) supported by trestles. Then there are 3 drafting tables and TONS of magazines and seasonal Collection magazines. The next room is the work room. There is a small portion of it full of notions, zippers, buttons, and small machines for grommets and snaps and the likes. The larger portion of the room is 1/2 hanging clothes from previous seasons, and 1/2 sewing and cutting area. Then there are like 3 offices and naturally a bathroom. One of the most fun things, is that they have their own coffee machine! So for 45 cents, I can get myself an espresso, machiato, cappuccino and like 6 7 other drinks. It comes out super hot and in a little plastic cup.

Ok, here are the only downsides so far to my new job. I work 9-6 during the week, with an hour of travel time each way (I have to transfer buses once). So that gives me an 11 hour day. With those hours I actually can't ever check my postal mail at school, and have very little time to go to the grocery store because it closes at 8. The last hard part is that it is really hot in the building. I am pretty sure that they don't have air conditioning, because it would cost way too much to cool a building that big. I really think it is around 80-85 degrees in there sometimes. I need to take my travel alarm clock to check it out. Other than those minor things it's going to be wonderful. The first day I spent almost the entire day drawing and coming up with designs for funky jackets that can be made out of nylon (which is a tiny challenge for me because I don't think I've ever made anything out of nylon before). The second day Patrizia looked over my designs and choose one for me to take to the next step which is the technical "Flat" drawing which shows stitching and detailed things. Then I got to choose fabric and buttons. I've also been doing some random jobs around the studio when I am needed, usually involving cutting fabric and sewing.

I'll keep you all updated on anything exciting that happens with my internship.

Oh Sweet Amalfi.

2008-05-05T16:41:00.004+02:00

So, I have a new favorite place. The beautiful Amalfi Coast. I have wanted to go here for years, but wasn't able to make it last time I was in Italy. When I was thinking of a good place to travel to while Lisa Andersen was visiting me, the Amalfi Coast was at the top of my list. Lisa, Sasha, Emma and I went down south for almost 4 days on a nice little holiday. Yes, a holiday from our vacation.

Here's how you get to Amalfi. Train from Florence, past Rome to Naples. Another train from Naples to Salerno. From Salerno a big bus that takes you on one of the windiest roads I have ever seen. For those of you who have been to Maui, Hawaii and have experienced "the road to Hana"... this is worse. Lisa pointed out that buses of this size can't go on the road to Hana because it is so narrow, and I responded with "Can buses really fit on this road?" "Good point." Said Lisa. The buses drive on it, because they have no other option. Cars have to give way to them and the buses honk their horns around nearly every single corner. "Hairpin curves". I think that's what these are called. These small towns along this coastline are built into the cliffs, because this area is mostly rock, and the road follows along the edge of land the entire way.

Our first night there, we arrived around 5:30 pm I believe, to our small town of Atrani, which literally is 200 meters south of Amalfi, a more well known town. What I liked about this place is that it's hard to get to, so there weren't any American tourists in Atrani or Amalfi!! There were Italian tourists, and a few people from Australia and a couple other places, but no Americans. It was great! The bus dropped us off, and we had to go down a narrow stairway, which couldn't have been more than 2 feet wide, around 90 steps....with our luggage! That stairway took us down to sea level, which is where the main piazza is. From there we walked up the street, and a small sign pointed us up another narrow stone stairway, which went up, around a corner, through a landing, and up some more stairs, around another corner, and up to the top where the door to our hostel was. It definitely wasn't anything fancy, but they decided to give us a room with a private bathroom when we got there, and the customer service was excellent.

First evening in Amalfi photo album.

After dropping off our bags we walked the 200 meters to the next town over. Amalfi is a cute town, which has been around since about 600 A.D. It is also known for their large lemons, and naturally limoncello. We wandered around for a bit, mostly looking for a restaurant that looked good. Finally we found one back through several small passageways, as this is how you get around in all the towns in the area.

The next morning we went down to the main piazza in Atrani where our hostel has a little dining area and offers us breakfast (included in the price of course!) We walk in and the super nice Italian greets us, tells us to sit where we like and says "Tell me what you prefer. Espresso, Cappuccino, Chocolate...." We let him know what type of coffee we wanted, then we hear him making it, and a few minutes later he comes back with a silver tray for each of us. On it is our coffee, a goblet of orange juice, a warm crossant filled with jam or something tasty (my favorite), an Italian roll, 2 slices of a crispy italian toast (it comes crispy) with little packages of Nutella, Jam and butter. Wow. That was a fantastic surprise.

After breakfast we walked to Amalfi, dressed for sunny weather. We wandered almost to the top of the town, on the one road that snakes up the center up the hill. At the top we found a cute little restaurant (where we were the only customers at the time) that had an Italian waitress who played with her grandaughter most of the time after we were served. Very cute. Once we had our nourishment we wandered back down to the port and got tickets to go see the Emerald Grotto. I admit, the grotto is neat. It's been there for a long time, and the water is actually green in spots from a small natural light tube in the rock that is about 12 meters under water. Sadly, this has been made quite touristy, and our little guide inside had a crush on Emma, which was creepy. We all thoroughly enjoyed the boat right though, and were gladly willing to pay for that portion of the trip.

Next we decided to hop on a bus headed for Positano, which is another story.

Here is the Pre-Positano photo album.
Emerald Grotto photo album.

Val d'Orcia continued.

2008-05-02T21:10:00.004+02:00

Since we covered so much ground in one day, it seems fitting that it would have to go into 2 blog postings. Here is what happened for the remainder of the day.

Destination #4: Montalcino. I don't really know much info about the town itself. We stopped here for lunch because we were running a bit behind schedule and couldn't make it to Pienza in time. Most of us ended up eating lunch in the same restaurant, under a brick vaulted ceiling. For what I think was the first time, we actually had to wait what seemed like forever for our food. We were starving though, so that may have had something to do with it. We thought that the prices were ok, until we saw the small portions of food on our plates. Oh well... live and learn right?

Montalcino photo album.

Destination #5: Bagno Vignoni. This little villages is quite pretty. It is a place that the Medici used to come to use the thermal baths/showers and benefit from the wonderful properties of thermal water that smells like old eggs.... It has healing powers though, so I shouldn't judge. The thermal pool is no longer used but still exists in the middle of the small village. Then a short walk away the water is led through stone passages (open to the air) and head downhill where they are taken to thermal showers, and after that drop off a cliff to the valley below. Here we had the delight to find some lilac trees in full bloom, which was a very pleasant surprise. The girls practically had to tear my nose away because they smelled so heavenly.

Bagno Vignoni photo album .

Destination #6: The historic town of Pienza. It is a rare example of Renaissance town building, and has been said to be the "ideal city" in regards to the best planned Renaissance town. Today it is part of a territorial system called "Parco artistico, naturale e culturale della Val d'Orcia" which aims at preservation of the extraordinary artistic heritage. We were told, since we were there for such a short amount of time, that Pienza is the place to get Pecorino cheese. Pecorino comes from sheep, "pecoro", and naturally, yes, we bought some. It was mostly fun to look at all the different types of pecorino cheese and see how different they looked and were displayed. We tasted a few different kinds at one shop, where we did end up buying a quarter of a small wheel.

Pienza photo album.

Destination #7: Montepulciano. For those of you who have seen the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun", you will know this town. Or actually, you might recognize the main church, which is very picturesque, sitting on the hillside below the town. Montepulciano is built along a narrow limestone ridge and is surrounded by walls and fortifications (for Cosimo 1). This place is known for it's good local wines, Vino Nobile. Through the center of the town is a long (LONG) winding street called the Corso that climbs up to the main square, which is at the top of the hill. We were short on time, so Samuele was walking very fast and I had a hard time keeping up, while taking pictures. So there were a few times when I got far behind and decided to run uphill for a bit instead, which was actually quite funny at the time. When we finally got to the top, our legs were almost dead. It was a little strange that at the top of this city, which everyone practically has to hike to, there is this flat piazza that looks like it could be anywhere. Thankfully there are amazing views from the top, which we had about 5 minutes to stop and take pictures before we had to run down to the bus.

Montepulciano photo album.

As much as I hate to take pictures from buses, this time I really couldn't help it. There is no other time that I would be able to photograph some of these beautiful rolling Tuscan hills and see the long drives lined with tall narrow cypress trees. So here is a small album of countryside views.... from the bus.

Tuscan countryside views photo album.

Val d'Orcia

2008-04-22T22:05:00.004+02:00

So, Saturday the 19th was one of the longest days ever. It was wonderful, but crazy busy. We went to 7 places!!! We left school at 8:30 am, and returned around 8pm.

Destination #1: First we stopped at a place called Buonconvento to take a coffee. Yes, TAKE a coffee, because that's what we do here. There is always a break for coffee. It it used to be a convent but is now a small town within the original walls.

Buonconvento photo album.

Destination #2: Next we stopped at a place called Monte Oliveto which is an old Benedictine monastary. This place is beautiful. The monastary itself is nestled into a hill inside a forest of cypress trees, which in case you don't know, are one of my very favorite trees. We only got to walk through the corridor that circles the interior courtyard. The walls are all covered in frescoes depicting the life of St. Benedict. The pictures were very interesting. My favorites were the one that shows some sort of badger looking character as a pet, and another one that has scary devil characters attacking a building.

Monte Oliveto photo album.

Destination #3: Then we made it to the Abbey of Sant' Antimo, which is stands alone in the middle of the countryside. From an architectural point of view, I like most anything that has vaulted ceilings, so I liked this place. The exterior is made of the beautiful light colored stone (possibly travertine?). The abbey was closing shortly after we stopped there, so we had to make our visit short. After we looked around inside we hung out in the grass for a bit taking in the fresh country air.

Sant' Antimo photo album.

Shadow Play

2008-04-10T22:54:00.004+02:00

Here is a silly little photo album from when Sasha and I were at the Boboli Gardens a few weeks ago. Our shadows were super long, so I thought it would be fun to do a photo shoot of them. Here is the result.

Shadow Play

Perugia

2008-04-09T19:16:00.004+02:00

With my school I visited the cities of Perugia and Assisi on Saturday. Our time was very short in both places so this will be quick.
Perugia is a city famous for artisan chocolate. There is an entire "city" underground. It looks like a normal city of streets and buildings/rooms but when someone took over ruling of the city he decided to build directly over what was previously there. When you enter the city, you have to go up a set of escalators and stairs to get to the actual center of town. The town square is where the church, important fountain and city hall is. We stayed in the piazza while we got a brief overview of the city, then went to see the Nobile Coleggio del Cambio, which is the "Exchange Hall" for the moneychangers guild, who settled in this wing of a palazzo in 1452. The inside is covered with beautiful paintings about virtues and morales.
Click here for pictures of Perugia.

Assisi is an incredibly beautiful city. It is similar to other Italian cities because everything is made with stone, except here in Assisi everything is made from white stone. From a distance you can see it nestled into the hillside. This area is known for a certain type of pasta (I didn't catch the name) and truffles! Not the chocolate ones, but the mushrooms. So Emma, Sasha and I hiked up the narrow cobblestone streets to the top of the town and ate lunch (which was long overdue) in the restaurant of a small hotel on the edge of town. We each got a different type of pasta with shredded truffles on top. Lets just say we know now why people pay so much money for truffles! They were spectacular.

Sadly I was having camera troubles this afternoon, so I only got about 8 photos in Assisi, which is a tragedy. We are thinking about going back to explore more if we have time. Luckily Sasha was nice enough to let me use her photos so you can see what we saw.

When we arrived in Assisi we had about a hour and twenty minutes of free time, which was just enough to find a place to eat and enjoy the wonders of pasta with truffles. After that we all met up and Samuele gave us a guided tour of the church of San Francesco. This is an amazing church because it is 2 churches, one build directly on top of the other. The lower church is a combination of Romanesque and Gothic style, while the upper "major" church is fully Gothic style.
Here are my few photos from Assisi.
Here are some of Sasha's photos to supplement what I missed.
**Sorry if these don't work right now, I'm having some internet problems. Check back!

The best news ever!

2008-04-09T18:44:00.002+02:00

I just had to share with everyone my most splendid news.

I officially have an internship interview with the company that I really want to work for: Patafisic.

I was able to visit the design studio for this company in 2005 when I was in Florence and met the designer(s). Everything is made here in Italy from beginning concept and design through choosing the yarns and production. They deal entirely with knitwear, which is multifunctional and what I would consider to be fashion forward. The pieces are very unique and interesting.

I have my interview at 3pm on Monday the 14th! Wish me luck!

Here is some info about the theory of patafisic from their web site (which you should also check out if you are interested). patafisic

"Patafisic was estabilished in Florence in 1995 by designers Brenda Cecchi and Andrea Sicuro, as a design studio dealing with fashion, interiors, graphics and live performance.
As a conscious tribute to the rational absurdity described by Jarry as Pataphysics, the search has always been focused on the intimate relations between basic and pure concepts and their possible, imaginary, deviant possibilities."

"In the years knitwear has been the main field of application, a proposition of excellence in made in Italy. From the yarn to manufacture, the principles are quality, originality, focused design.
Patafisic looks at every item as an object, where complexity is clear and defined, and the goal is a confortable and playful wear."
"Each season is not a style, no themes are pre-ordinated, there is no attempt to define a closed and static vision. Every collection is built around a continuous focus on the relation between body and geometrical shapes, the action of wearing and its potential creative consequences. It can starts from a detailed body observation as well from the domain of traditional elements or any possible experiment of (un)conventional wearing.

"As an indipendent and unclassifiable design studio Patafisic has collaborated with different subjects and in different contexts and directions, from contemporary performing to highly qualified technical research, and some particular cases of individual projects, to enjoy a playful design for a private language."

"Patafisic is a true personal action. It is not couture neither architecture: it is design, in the meaning of care for what it will be."
"In motion and in meaning, a synthesis of language, design and - mostly - different considerations."

Easter Sunday in Florence

2008-04-08T15:50:00.004+02:00

So Easter is a little different here in Italy. The biggest difference in Florence is that there is a huge festival called the 'Explosion of the Cart' which we made it to and lets just say it was an experience.
It was worse than a rock concert, in terms of people being squished together. There was a mass crowd of people all surrounding the piazza where the cart is. Even though there was NO space between anyone, there were still people trying to walk through (although no one could really see much unless you were in the front) and they were saying 'Permesso!' which basically is what you say here that means 'let me pass' in a polite way, but there was no where for anyone to move out of the way. It was awful. There was absolutely no personal space. Then we had to stand for an hour in the crowd waiting. Then they the lit off the fireworks, and it was amazing! There were a few sprinkles of rain before the explosion, and after it was over, it actually started to rain. People got their umbrellas out so the crowd had tons of umbrellas over it, so of course the people without umbrellas benefited from the cover, but also got the drips off the edges, and one person's caught on my hair for a second. grr.

Somehow we got separated in the crowd when we first got there. Emma and I got pushed closer to the cart and Sasha got pushed to the other side up on the curb (so she could actually see a bit). Emma and I were buy a cute grandma with her granddaughter who was on her shoulders most of the time and was super cute, she leaned on me sometimes with her tiny hands. We also had some really obnoxious American students in front of us. I didn't like any of the Americans I saw today. The grandma next to me asked this girl if she would keep her voice down, because there were 3 of them swapping stories and speaking really loud. The girls just sort of shrugged, then they talked about how they get in 'trouble' (for talking to loud) all the time but they just ignore it!! It makes me so mad!! It's Easter holiday! These people want to hear what's going on with the festival, not loud Americans voices talking about bars and traveling to other random stuff.... ugh.

Sasha ended up squished next to a really nice couple from Sardegna. They talked quite a bit and Sasha ended up having a pretty good time with them. After the explosion for some strange reason, everyone was trying to go in one direction, without any luck. We tried to make it to the building so we could stand under the eaves while people dispersed. We finally made it, and ended up talking to a nice old Italian man and then he left and we talked to the couple that Sasha was standing by. They are the nicest couple!!! They asked us if we wanted to get lunch or something together the next day (which was Easter Monday, a holiday.) which we did end up doing.

Once we made it home from the Explosion of the cart we got to finally make our Easter Brunch. This is something new that I have been introduced to here and I am totally in love with now. French toast stuffed with Nutella and Mascarpone cheese! It's amazing.

For dinner we decided to go all out and try something new, and Sasha made Duck L'Orange (or however you spell it). Sasha and Emma picked it up in the market from the butcher, and asked him to cut off the head and feet.... which he kindly did. It was slightly traumatic for the girls because they were trying to ask him to cut off the head, and he misunderstood them and picked up the head to show them how it was a pretty black and white duck!! In the end, the duck didn't end up tasting like orange, but was delicious just the same. The beans and sweet potatoes that it was cooked with did taste like orange though!

The next day we got together with the couple from Sardegna that we met at the festival. It was of course pouring rain, which is a ad day to wear wide leg pants. They ended up getting wet from the puddles in the cobblestones and getting my entire left foot & lower leg wet! Which I decided is one of the most awful feelings. We decided just to pick a place close to the Duomo where we met to take cover from the rain. We wanted something hot to drink, and Elisabetta asked the waiter for some hot chocolate or something. His response was "how about some red wine". And we said "how about hot chocolate" because it was about 10:30am. As it turned out they had a huge group of about 40 americans come in the previous day and finished the hot chocolate. So we ended up getting red wine after all. They don't have the no drinking wine before noon rule here anyways. It was funny.

Massimo and Elisabetta invited us to come and visit them in Sardegna. Actually visit, not just the polite "you should come visit" but not really. They said they have a large apartment so they have room for us to stay. I'm so excited! They've been to the US a few times, and have relatives in California and are going back to visit them at the end of the summer. I looked up pictures of their city, Cagliari, which is on the Southernmost tip of Sardegna, as close to Africa as you can get. It looks absolutely amazing. We are planning to go visit them at the very end of April when we have some time off and are done with school.

Click here for pictures from the Explosion of the Cart.
Click here for to see a few photos of the duck!

San Gimignano, 2nd time around.

2008-03-21T19:46:00.004+01:00

After we left Volterra our bus drove us through the beautiful countryside to the other Tuscan hilltop town of San Gimignano. This was my second time to this city, but I had even less free time here than I did before! We decided to have lunch in Volterra and arrived in San Gimignano later than expected. All we had time for was a visit guided by Samuele to a very historic church, the church of St. Agostino which houses walls covered in frescoes dating to the 14th century. These are a very fragile type of painting, where an egg base is used and it is painted directly on the stone, thus making it difficult to preserve. We weren't allowed to take pictures so I have none to share. The paintings were amazingly descriptive. One entire wall was covered in boxes showing the life of Christ, with the opposite wall depicting the life of the creation story. What surprised me a little were the single walls high up depicting heaven with hell opposite. Heaven seemed fine, not anything spectacular, but hell was awful! If what is shown in that painting doesn't make you want to go to heaven.... I don't know what will.

The structure of the church as a bit of an interesting story itself. Originally the front of the church was facing toward the outside of the city, but when the Medici took control of San Gimignano, they decided to change things. The changed the back to be the front, and added a transept and apse to make the church the shape of a cross (which was the style of the time). So the front now faces the center of the town, and there is 1 exit door on each side, which are now the front entrance doors; and there are 2 medium size round stained glass windows with 3 tiny narrow windows that remain from when it was the rear of the church. I hope that wasn't too confusing, I just found it interesting.

After the museum close and booted us out, we sat on the steps and Samuele told us about this history of San Gimignano. It turns out that San G was also an Etruscan town, 200-300 BC, but I think it was a necropolis, not like the booming Etruscan city that is now Volterra. Fast forwarding a bit, San G was known as a village of towers. I think there were originally 9 or 14 (sorry, I'm getting my numbers mixed up.) The towers were started in the 11th and 13th centuries and were not originally houses. They were used as fortresses for the important families of the time if/when the city was invaded. In my photos, notice that there are large double doors on the second floor. Back in their prime days, the entrance was 1-2 floors above ground level, what now are glass windows with shops was solid stone. When the family needed to be protected they would climb a ladder or "bridge" as Samuele called it up into their tower, the ladder would be pulled up inside and the doors would be sealed. I wish there were more intact today that I could see, sadly there are only about 3 tall ones left.

San Gimignano is a fairly small town, but it is very touristy. Even now there were a good number of tourists wandering around. The city has 1 main entrance: a giant stone archway with doors which is where everyone has to enter. There is a very famous gelateria in the main Piazza del Cisterna. We all got gelato and it was amazing.... really amazing. One of the best parts about it, was the price. In florence if you get a gelato near the duomo or the ponte vecchio, you will pay at the very least 3 Euro for the smallest cup or cone. At Gelateria Pluripremiata, a world champion gelateria, I splurged on a cone dipped in chocolate with 3 scoops of gelato: dark fruits of the forest, chocolate orange, and some amazing cream one, all for 2.50 euro!!

After we got gelato, we wandered down some narrow streets on our own and eventually came to the outer city wall. From here we had an amazing view of the countryside around us. This is a very good region to buy white wine, so after a few minutes admiring the view we went to find a shop to buy some wine. I ended up not buying any, due to a lack of time and I couldn't fine the right one. Sasha found a bottle she liked (which ended up being very good) and also bought some cinghiale (wild boar) sausages. After that we were out of time and had to head back to the bus to go home.

Goodbye San Gimignano, I'd like to see you again. Check out my photos here.

Volterra

2008-03-21T18:05:00.006+01:00

Saturday I took a trip with an instructor from school and a few other students, nationalities including Dutch, English, Japanese, Korean, and American, which made for a very fun trip.
First a little background info on Volterra. It is a historic hilltop town that has been in existence since before the birth of Christ. It was originally an Etruscan town. Not just any Etruscan town, but what is believed to be the the largest of all 9 or 14 (I forgot how many....) that have been discovered. There are still a fair amount of ruins, mostly walls leftover from their civilization.

In some of the countryside surrounding Volterra there is a fair amount of underground heat and water activity, which turns into thermal baths, geysers and steam pouring out of the earth. I would like to return to explore these areas a bit if I can manage it. So, the actual earth/soil around Volterra is clay. Many of the hills look white/gray because they are almost entirely clay. This also limits the number of crops that can be grown here. Before arriving in the historic center of Volterra, our bus took us to a lookout point for a natural phenomenon. There are amazing cliffs of clay. I'd like to mention that I didn't see any other tourists in Volterra. It made me feel a bit less like a tourist because our instructor Samuele spoke entirely in Italian. I think he even asked a local how we could get to the cliffs so we could have a look.

Above the cliffs on one side there is a very old monastery. I was mostly impressed by the sheer drop off of the earth. Of course, the landscape on the other side of the cliffs is breathtaking, so it was a bit of beautiful sensory overload. One of my favorite parts of this trip was that 2 of my new friends from class came! Eiran (left) who is Korean but has been living in Japan for the past 10 or so years, and Satoko (right), who is from Japan. I took a lot of pictures of those two.

The town of Volterra is actually quite simple. There is a church in the center, that has a very simple facade, and much of is made in the same style as Pisa because at the time it was made, Pisa was in fashion. My favorite thing from the inside is a carving of the last supper, which has the devil under the table nibbling at Judases toes. Another one shows the devil holding the head of a man, as a warning that he can capture the minds of men. There is a pretty unique piece of artwork inside this church. I'm not sure what it is made of, but it is portraying Jesus being taken down from the cross. I'm pretty sure..... I was trying to understand the whole story in Italian, so I could be wrong. There is also a little chapel attached to the church dedicated to the "brothers" and "sisters" of the church, from the monastery I assume, and there were beautiful hand written lists of their names.

One of the main things that Volterra is known for is alabaster! I think you can probably find anything you want made of alabaster in Volterra, it's amazing. Especially the lamps because alabaster is actually a fairly transparent stone so they are beautiful! You can get alabaster items in almost any color you want, but in its natural form it only comes in 4 colors. Naturally I got my souvenir showing this. I now have a wine bottle cork with an alabaster top that is divided into quarters, one made of each natural color.

There are the remains of an old Roman Theater in Volterra. Much of it is covered by earth today, but a lot is still visible. We didn't go down to see it up close (which was fine with me) because I have pictures from the top. Being that Volterra was originally an Etruscan town, based on findings there is a beautiful store that makes authentic replicas of Etruscan jewelry.

The lats 2 pictures you will see in my album are of a very uneven cobblestone street. I have never seen any street like this before. It happened to be very close to the restaurant that we ate lunch at. Eiran, Sasha and I ate lunch together at a nice little restaurant. There were only 2 other people in there besides us. It is quite amazing spending time with Eiran and Satoko because our common language is Italian. Talk about motivation! The 3 of us had some great conversation during out meal, pulling out Eiran's amazing electronic dictionary to look something up when we didn't know the word. The food that this area is known for is cinghiale (wild boar) and papardelle (a wide noodle pasta). Eiran and I both got the papardelle with a cinghiale sauce and sasha got stewed chinghale with vegetables. Both were amazing! The interesting about the wild boar meat, is that since they are wild boars (even though you can still raise them) the meat has virtually no fat!

After our lunch, we couldn't help but order desert! We all wanted panna cotta, which translates to "cooked cream". The man who was also there, (who we figured out was the chef), told us we should get the cheese cake (all in Italian of course) and that it is very good and different than what we would find at home. As it turned out, they only had 2 servings of panna cotta, so we decided to try the cheesecake. By this point we had made friends with the waitress and chef and they asked us if we minded sharing with eachother. Naturally we said no. A few minutes later they brought us out our caffe lattes and a platter of deserts! It had a panna cotta with chocolate, panna cotta with caramel, a slice of Italian cheese cake, and a slice of the apple torte. I just have to say WOW. The panna cotta was pretty good, but the cheese cake was AMAZING! Nothing like American cheese cake. It was light and fluffy and didn't have a crust! I think we will try to make one soon.

By the time we had finished our desert and coffee it was time to go back to the bus and drive to the other hilltop town of San Gimignano, which is where my next posting begins. **Comment about a photo album. The one with the photo of the dog I just had to share. Last time I was here, Meghan and I spotted the largest dog we had ever seen in our lives walking around Florence with it's owner. It really looked like 1/2 dog, 1/2 bear, and I think this one must be one of it's puppies.

Click here to see my photos from Volterra!

Boboli Gardens. (Or 1/3 of them)

2008-03-19T19:20:00.004+01:00

Friday after class, since the weather was delightful Sasha and I decided to go to the Boboli Gardens which are behind the huge Medici palace called Palazzo Pitti. Just so you get an idea of the size of these gardens, they are the same size if not a little larger than the historic city center of Florence. You can see them on any map of Florence.

We have a card called the "Amici degli Uffizi" or "Friends of the Uffizi" which we paid a certain amount for, so we get into around 15 museums for free, and as many times as we want. Probably the most amazing thing about this card is that we get to cut to the very front of the line, so during tourist season, which unfortunately has already started, we don't have to wait in line. It's very official.

Sasha and I got our tickets and were heading towards the long line to get in, which was mostly full of large tour groups and teenage school kids. The man monitoring the line waved us in between two large groups, probably just because there were only two of us. Then we showed him our Amici degli Uffizi card and the VIP treatment started. He opened the stanchion for us, walked us to the front of the line (which happened to be in the middle of a group of students) where you go through security, and we were in! It was great.

Once we got into the gardens, we wanted to get away from the crowds of people and all the students so we could have a peaceful walk through the garden and not have random people in all our pictures. We were given a small map of the gardens when we entered, but we decided just to head to the right and check out that side of the garden. It turns out that's where the "Horticulture gardens" are, which I don't think we actually made it to. We ended up walking through a lot of what looked like a small forest through "tunnels" made of holm-oaks made between 1612-1614. They call it "latticework" which is a great term for it because that's exactly what the trees have been groomed as over the years.

I think one of our favorite parts of this walk was the smell--the smell of a damp forest. We are used to stone and exhaust, so the fresh air did us good. I saw a few little black birds in there that had the most orange beak that I have ever seen in my life. It was quite surreal. Almost something from Alice in Wonderland. I was probably supposed to follow the bird.

We walked until we got to the outer wall of the garden, which is of course amazing. Between the wall and the garden, separating the garden from a large path is a long fountain. This I found out later to be the Fountain of the Mostaccini which was made between 1619-1621. It is essentially a wall with a cascading chain of water that gushes from 16 gargoyle type creatures at each of the steps. Each of the gargoyles were different, some whole and some have been weathered by time. Naturally there is no water flowing through this fountain. I'm not sure if it ever does anymore, or if just now it is off.

Once we had walked down to see most of the gargoyles, we walked back up the steep hill to see where else the wall led us. Near the top is a tower, which I assume was used for watching purposes at some point in time. This wall itself is amazing. It is probably around 20 feet tall, made entirely of stone and now is covered in vines (which actually aren't attached to the wall itself for the most part) the size of small trees. At the top of the hill we turned back towards the main part of the garden on a small dirt path under a tree canopy. Beyond this we came to a little grassy area with a modern art sculpture of the David's face and a beautiful view of the outskirts of Florence opposite the garden. Here Sasha and I took a little break in the grass where we took a few photos. Then we were going to head down back towards the entrance as the sun was starting to go down. We had really long shadows, and I started taking photos of them, which led to a whole little photo shoot of shadows, which I will have to post later.

We headed back down the hills of the garden towards the palace where there is an Egyptian obelisk held up by small turtles and an enormous roman bath. It was at this point that we started seeing the cats that belong to the garden. They are definitely well fed cats, but they are still wild, so no petting the kitties for me.
On our way out we found what is called Grand Grotto. It was originally some sort of plant nursery built in 1557 but altered by different artists in 1583 and 1587. This grotto is the last section of the corridor from Palazzo Pitti all the way to Palazzo Vecchio (so the Medici could cross the river without every stepping on the dirty ground with the common people!) The decorations inside are so strange to me! It looks somewhat like the sea people from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies except people coming out of stone.

That was the end of our Boboli Gardens experience for the day. Next time we have a free afternoon and the weather is beautiful will explore another corner of the massive gardens. CLICK HERE to see my photo album from the Boboli Gardens.

Bowling in Italy

2008-03-14T20:53:00.003+01:00

So I went bowling in Italy. Yes, bowling. It was a social activity set up by my school. I wasn't sure if I was going to go, but my Brazilian friend Nanda asked me if I was going and I said that I didn't know. She asked if I had something going on in the afternoon, which I didn't, so she said I had no excuse and I had to come. So I did.

The group ended up being Giacomo (who works in the Secretary at school and puts on these social events); Mara, Nivea and Nanda who are all from Brazil; Sasha and myself. It was a great group. Sasha and I took the bus to school and made it there a few minutes late (which really doesn't matter anyways) and we had to go wait at the bus stop. This week we had some crazy weather here. There were off and on rain showers, and we got caught in a few thunder showers (without actually getting wet luckily). The day we went bowling there was crazy wind. It was a strong warm wind that seems to come from all angles. Our hair looked like we had been at the beach for several hours.

The bus we ended up waiting for was #1, which happens to stop right in front of our apartment. It turns out that we were taking it past there all the way to the end of the stop, so we probably could have just met them at the bowling alley.

The bowling ended up being really fun. I had probably somewhat of a record score and came in second place with 95!! I had not bowled in a few years so my hand was really feeling it by the end of the afternoon and the next day, my muscles were too! Sasha and I are still hobbling a tiny bit. I hope you enjoy the pictures, I'm trying to get more that have me in them for you!

Click here to see the album!

Out and about

2008-03-11T23:29:00.002+01:00

Since the majority of photos that I take involve buildings and other inanimate objects, I thought I would post an album of people so you all know that I am actually here in these places. These are photos accumulated from the past few weeks when I've been out wandering with friends, getting lunch, walking around the city, and one of me with Meghan's cousin Leann who was visiting us this past week. Once I start traveling to other cities on weekends (which should be this weekend or next!) I will have more exciting pictures in new places!

Oh, and the first photo is one I took a couple nights ago of the Ponte Vecchio on my way home. I was excited how they turned out so I thought I would share one. CLICK HERE to see all the pictures.

Artsy Photos from my walk down a country lane.

2008-03-04T16:11:00.004+01:00

Here is the album with the more artsy photos from my walk back into the city from Piazza Michelangelo.

This month is a new "term" at school, so I have now moved up into level 3! My instructor doesn't really say anything in English. I understand a lot, but the speaking part is still a bit tricky....

Chianti wine tasting at Castello di Verrazzano

2008-02-28T15:11:00.004+01:00

My school Linguaviva does a monthly visit to Castello di Verrazzano, a historic vineyard in the Chianti region of Italy, which I went on in February.

The castle is set on the top of a wonderful hill between Florence and Siena, in the heart of the Chianti Classico area. It was originally an Etruscan settlement, then a Roman one, until becoming the property of the Verrazzano family in the VIIth century. Giovanni da Verrazzano was a shipest who discovered the Bay of New York and the main part of east coast of America (the suspened bridge in New York with the longest span in the world bears his name) was born here in 1485. The Castle of Verrazzano has an ancient tradition of winemaking and Verrazzano's vineyards were mentioned as far back as 1170 (a manuscript kept at Badia a Passignano.)

**above is the paragraph is info I was told on the tour, but I still feel the need to verify some of it.... mostly the Bay of new York and east coast thing.

We took a private bus to the Castle on a very windy road. Usually if I listen to music through headphones it keeps me from feeling motion sickness, but this time it didn't work. We took an extremely narrow road into the Verrazzano property, and of course I was on the side of the bus that was looking down the steep hills. By the time we got off the bus I felt awful! It took a while, but after a dry cracker and some water I started to feel a bit better.

We got a tour of the grounds, where they also have "wild boar", which oddly are kept fenced in on large hillside terraces. I am pretty sure that is what they make their prosciutto from. The grounds, full of amazing stone walls, a fountain and terraces are beautifully taken care of. Next we got a tour of the insides of the castle where the wine is stored. I have never seen such huge barrels of wine in my life. The have these scary long poles with nails sticking out of them that hang from the ceiling, which during the season have the grapes for the Vino Santo hanging on them. The part of the tour was down in the dark stone cellars so I felt like I was back in older times.

Next we got to have our wine tasting. There were probably around 25-30 of us in the group all sitting at tables. There were 2 red wines for us to sample, with everyone trying one, then moving on to the next bottle. Also, the woman who was giving us the tour wouldn't let anyone hold their glass by the cup portion. People who know wine know that with reds (and maybe whites, I don't know) you are not supposed to hold the part that actually holds the wine, because it changes the temperature of the wine and just changes things.... lol. so we all held our glasses by the stem. I think the real Italian way is to hold it by the base with 2 fingers, but we wern't allowed to do that (otherwise they probably would have had a lot of broken wine glasses!) Last we got to try the Vino Santo - holy wine, a sweet desert type wine that you dip biscotti in. Wow.

Along with the vino we had to sample there was of course dry Italian bread and we managed to get 2 plates of bread with the most amazing fresh olive oil and garlic dripping off them. My favorite part though, which is funny because I'm not a huge meat eater back home, was the meat. We went through 3 plates of prosciutto at my table and I think 2 plates of salami. Italian salami is pretty much one of the most amazing foods ever.
Naturally you can buy all their products; no postcards or tourist crap, just wine, Vino Santo, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey... that may be it. I think the most expensive item was one of the Vino Santos for around 78 Euro. I went with the honey--also one of my favorite foods. After we all made our purchases, we headed back for the bus. I was dreading the drive home....Who would have thought that lots of Italian meat and wine would be a preventative for motion sickness??

Want to see all my pictures?? Check 'em out here!