Il Giorno di Ringrazimento a Zermatt

Happy late Thanksgiving! I hope you all enjoyed the time off/festivities/food back home; I was pretty sad to miss Thanksgiving in the States, not gonna lie. But, in celebration of our long weekend, Amanda, Devon and I headed off to Zermatt, Switzerland to meet up with Wes & Cole (who flew from Berlin to Geneva and then DROVE, better them than me), and Julie (who flew into Milan and thus got in on the excellent early-morning-trains-to-Switzerland part of the adventure).

Wes found us a chalet to stay in for the weekend, which was really adorable. It was sooo nice to have a place all of our own for the weekend (and, since it was Thanksgiving, really handy to have a kitchenette--the Swiss aren't big on American holidays, go figure.) Here's a view of the chalet from the street:

In addition to its cuteness, it had two balconies with GREAT views. Here is the view from Amanda's and my balcony:


The whole town, to be honest, was pretty adorable. It was mostly a main street, with a few blocks of chalets on either side, and wonderful views of the Alps (including the Matterhorn!).


But (unlike your average Swiss hamlet, I think) everything was a ski shop, a ski gear shop, a ski rental shop, a souvenier shop, a chocolate shop, or a restaurant--a little odd, but then again, I'm not sure the town has much of a native population to speak of.

Since Thursday was our first night in Zermatt, we decided to do what we could to make an American Thanksgiving dinner--luckily the town had a decent-sized grocery store, and although there were some substitutions (cranberry jam for cranberry sauce and chicken for turkey, to name two), it was both delicious and REALLY fun to make. The girls made the food...


...we all sat down to eat...



...and then the boys had to do the dishes.


Even the train ride to and from Zermatt was very quaint and Swiss; we sort of felt like we were on a toy-train going through a fake Christmas landscape, bright red train and all. Although I slept most of the ride back to Brig, I did manage to get a few pictures in:



Since I'm currently in class, I think I'll get back to work. Less than 3 weeks until home! Baci, a prestissimo!

Una Reunione a Ginevra

This weekend I visited my friend Emily in Geneva! Having never been to Switzerland before, I was pretty excited. And here we are, as happy as very rained-on clams (there's been a lot of rain in this part of the world this past week or two):


Stevie visited that weekend too (it was a veritable mini-reunion), as did Emily's friend Mabel from Wellesley. Emily took the three of us to all the touristy spots. One of my favorites was the Red Cross museum; "fun" isn't quite the way to describe it, but it was fascinating. We also went outside the UN (apparently the tour isn't so great)...

...and to the Reformation Wall...

...which is according to Emily the most visited tourist attraction in Geneva. It's a wall, with sculptures of the main Reformation guys. They're not jolly guys, neither as theologians nor as art, but they can still draw their fair share of crowds, it seems.

My favorite thing in Geneva (aside from the company, of course) was the scenery: trees, hills, water. (Any of you who have had the misfortune of driving with me on 280 or 92 in California will know how excited I get about these three things.) Emily took us to the Geneva Botanical Gardens, which I was sooo happy about; there are no trees in Florence (or, apparently there ARE trees, but only in private gardens so I can't see them) so I'd missed autumn foliage, but it was everywhere in Geneva. As was the lake. And hills that just happened to be in France.



Emily's least favorite thing is the Jet D'Eau--a wonderfully inventive name for a really tall jet of water. I'm not quite sure what it's for, but... it's there.


I also saw my first Christmas lights of the season in Geneva! (They've since been put up in Florence, too.) Here are the lights on a grocery store, that seemed like a good Christmas-Hannukah hybrid:


Now I'm off to my last class before Thanksgiving, and then to the Alps for the long weekend! Please eat extra Thanksgiving food on my behalf. :)

Un'avventura a Venezia!

Two weekends ago, my parents came to visit! It was sooo good to see them! (For one thing, they're excellent travel buddies, and for another thing, they're the only people in Italy who complement my Italian!) They got to spend one day in Florence without me (I was on a fieldtrip to Rome--don't worry, it wasn't actually exciting, although I did learn that hearing about the Italian budget is almost more interesting when you can't understand the language well), and then we went to Venice for the weekend!

Our B&B was very close to Basilico San Marco--which was by far my favorite single thing in Venice. I've seen a LOT of cathedrals and basilicos and duomos and chapels of every size and kind in the past two months, and the only one I've liked as much as San Marco is the Medici Chapel in Florence. Although no pictures were allowed inside, no one could stop us from taking pictures of the mosaics over the door...

We also got to climb up to the little balcony up near the roof, which had cool mosaics, too:

And here's a shot of the parents!


One of the scarier parts of Venice was how clearly it was sinking. When we were waiting in line to visit St. Mark's, there were little makeshift plank walkways set up in the piazza, because the whole piazza was a few inches deep in water. Apparently this happens fairly often, when wind blows water from the canals into the city.


One handy thing about a city on the water is that it's very photogenic, especially around sunset:




That's all I have now; get ready for Geneva pictures next week!!!

Il Viaggio Bing!

So, I've been slacking off a bit about the posting--sorry :(

Two weeks ago was our Bing Trip, when all of us here in the Stanford in Florence program get a weekend of travel paid for by the Bings, who are very, VERY rich alums. This quarter the trip was to Naples, Pompeii, and the Amalfi Coast. Pretty much amazing.

After a long (very long) train ride to Naples, the first thing we did was get on a bus to go to Pompeii--and promptly sit for 25 minutes in a traffic jam IN THE PARKING LOT. I'm not even kidding. Pompeii was 100% worth the effort, though; it was far and away my favorite part of the trip. It was just so... impressive, both how well preserved everything was and how advanced the urban design and the technology were, considering it was a fairly small and unimportant town built over two millenia ago... Here are a few of my favorite pictures of the ruins:





One thing that really freaked me out about Pompeii was that there were stray dogs everywhere. For the most part they lay completely motionless, but every once in a while they would suddenly start following us or chasing each other. Here's a picture of several of them fighting in front of the remains of the forum and Mt. Vesuivius.


The next day was our tour of the Amalfi coast; we drove along tiny, TINY little cliff roads along the coast and stopped at a few of the towns. The only thing to say about this is that it was ridiculously beautiful. Here are a few pictures to give you an idea:




On our third and final day, we went to Naples. And by "went to Naples" I mean "went to a monastery and then a pizzeria outside the city and again saw Naples through the bus windows." The Stanford Center staff didn't want to give any of us the opportunity to be robbed or hit by a car in Naples (two things they warned us about extensively and assured us would happen to anyone who was in Naples for a significant amount of time). I can't say I'm too disappointed, though; when I got back to Florence, I saw a story about cops and bodybags in Naples. It turns out we left just before the Mafia turf war started there... Not too sorry to miss it, to be honest.

Now I actually have to study, seeing as I have a midterm in two hours, but be on the lookout for my next post: The Ross-Sullivan family (sadly minus Jocelyn) does Venice!

Bacioni, a presto!