I finally made it to Florence! (May I apologize in advance for typos--Italian keyboards are different, and my different I mean annoying.) I am all oriented, and today is the first day of classes (or would have been, had my one class today not been cancelled).
My host family consists of a host mother, Francesca, and her mother, Maria, who lives next door. They are both incredibly nice, and incredibly Italian. The apartment complex is in what the guidebooks call the North City Centre and the cab drivers call 'vicino a San Marco'--near Saint Mark's. The apartment is ENORMOUS, considering it's in a European city (or any city for that matter) and furnished almost exclusively with things I'm afraid I'll break. The streets right around us are residential, but a few blocks away the piazzas and bustle of central Florence start. Our walk to the Stanford Center is 25 minutes long and--not to brag--one of the prettiest walks of all time. We walk down the oldest street in Florence, past cute shops, past San Marco, past Piazza della Reppublica, past the Duomo, across the Arno on the Ponte Vecchio (there will be pictures soon! I promise!).
To give you an idea of the sort of things I've been learning pre-classes, here are the things I learned at dinner last night:
1. A very handy phrase is "non lo sapevo," or "I didn't know (that)." Useful variants include "non lo sapevamo" (we didn't know that) and "mi dispiace, non lo sapevo" (I'm sorry, I didn't know).
2. Miss Italy has short hair. This is a VERY big deal and worthy of extended television coverage.
3. America is not the only country with ridiculous reality television. Italians have a program in which celebrities compete at circus stunts they have one week to learn. It is called "Reality Circus"--how fitting, in how many ways.
4. Italians talk very quickly. Asking them to repeat something slowly does not help.
Pictures soon! Bacioni :)
Monday, September 25, 2006
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Travel = Fun
What an inventive yet true title for this post. Since Wednesday, I've been on the road with Amanda & Devon before we head to Florence this coming Thursday! We've been to London & Barcelona, and just landed in Dublin this afternoon. We've been so busy I don't even have the energy to recount everything we've done or seen (especially since it's after midnight Ireland time), so here are a few highlights:
The London Eye! Our first night in London, we went up in the London Eye (a sort of ferris-wheel with bubble-like capsules on the Thames) in the rain; the skyline was BEAUTIFUL, and although there are no non-blurry pictures of it, here's a picture of my equally beautiful travelling companions pointing to Big Ben.
The guards at Buckingham Palace have a band. They played Zoot Suit Riot. It was great.
In Barcelona, Jenna & her friend Lauren took me to an outdoor market they'd discovered. In order to spare you the pictures I took of unnamable seafoods and calves' heads, here's a picture of some yummy-looking olives.
La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral designed by Gaudi and still under construction, is both one of the coolest and one of the ugliest things I've ever seen.
The fountain near the Palau Nacional in Barcelona is lit up for a show every weekend night. We were wayyy more transfixed than perhaps we should've been. :)
5 out of the 7 Stanford kids we toured with in Barcelona: Devon, Leah, Amanda, Jenna, & me (the other two had already left for Germany). We later ran into yet more Stanford kids at the hostel, in Barcelona for a week on their way to Paris!
Whew, am I exhausted, and incoherent. More to come after Dublin & Milan!
The London Eye! Our first night in London, we went up in the London Eye (a sort of ferris-wheel with bubble-like capsules on the Thames) in the rain; the skyline was BEAUTIFUL, and although there are no non-blurry pictures of it, here's a picture of my equally beautiful travelling companions pointing to Big Ben.
The guards at Buckingham Palace have a band. They played Zoot Suit Riot. It was great.
In Barcelona, Jenna & her friend Lauren took me to an outdoor market they'd discovered. In order to spare you the pictures I took of unnamable seafoods and calves' heads, here's a picture of some yummy-looking olives.
La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral designed by Gaudi and still under construction, is both one of the coolest and one of the ugliest things I've ever seen.
The fountain near the Palau Nacional in Barcelona is lit up for a show every weekend night. We were wayyy more transfixed than perhaps we should've been. :)
5 out of the 7 Stanford kids we toured with in Barcelona: Devon, Leah, Amanda, Jenna, & me (the other two had already left for Germany). We later ran into yet more Stanford kids at the hostel, in Barcelona for a week on their way to Paris!Whew, am I exhausted, and incoherent. More to come after Dublin & Milan!
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Buon Viaggio!
Tomorrow is departure day! I spent most of the day trying to convince myself that they do sell sweaters in Florence if I get cold, and maybe I didn't have to pack 20 of them... I took over Jocelyn's room to pack, and my mom took this picture of me with my suitcase/coat ensemble. 21 hours to takeoff. :)
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