Le Cinque Terre

Okay, so the updating isn't happening quite as often as I'd intended... But here are pictures from our trip last weekend to Cinque Terre, five coastal towns in northwest Italy you can hike between.

When we first got to our hostel, they didn't have our room ready, but the company owns apartments all over the city, one of which could fit six people and vacant. Not knowing what lay ahead, we happily agreed to follow the receptionist--and ended up walking up a steep street and then up ONE HUNDRED SIXTY STAIRS to the apartment. We were all cursing her with what little breath we had left until she gave us the apartment tour--which included a balcony with a view of the Meidterranean. Yep, that's right. Here's the view:


That afternoon we went swimming in one of the other towns! Here's a picture of all of us, and a picture of a beach (not exactly the one we swam at, but one we walked by to get to the one where we swam):



After swimming, we went one town over and sat on the coast for a while. Just before we realized we were sitting EXACTLY where a huge ferryboat was about to dock, I took this picture of my feet making friends with the sea:


The next day we went hiking between our town and the next two towns! The houses were riiiight up to the coast. It was pretty amazing.


That's all for now. :)

Bologna e Lucca

This weekend I took two daytrips: on Saturday to Bologna and on Sunday to Lucca.

Bologna was a beauuutiful city. We went there partly to see a museum of art by Morandi recommended for the art history class that everyone I travelled with was in--at best, a horrifically boring museum. Then we walked the city, went shopping, had some delicious food (Bologna is famous for its food even with the Italians), and climbed 500 stairs in this old tower from which there were AMAZING panoramas of the city and the surrounding countryside of Emilia-Romagna (the province north-east of Tuscany). Below are some views of the city, and of the scary stairs we climbed, and of us viewing the views of the city:





On Sunday, Laura, Nell and I went to Lucca, a small medieval walled town in Tuscany. It was gorgeous, and very relaxed--a nice change after the urban life. Here's a picture of the wall, with Laura and me standing against it as a reference for size:

And, just as importantly, here is a picture of our delicious lunch at Trattoria Leo. Mine are the two things in the foreground: minestra di farro lucchese (a Luccan traditional bean soup) and Coca Cola Light (a Valerie Ross tradition).


Soon to come are more stories of Florence and pictures of my walk to school!

Soccer Photos!

This Sunday we went to a soccer game--Fiorentina (the Florence team) vs. Catania (a team from somewhere in Sicily). I took lots of pictures, and here they are!


Jenny, Emily and I showing off our team pride.


Here in Florence even the soccer stadium is pretty. (It really reminded me of the quidditch stadium in the Harry Potter movies... Okay, that reference didn't just happen, let's move on.)


The Sicilians were in a fenced off part of the stadium... Apparently the Italians don't mess around about soccer.


Both sides several times set off things that looked like smoke bombs; no one (except us) was perturbed.


Emily, Devon, Carolyn, and Amanda all like soccer!


Nell and I have exactly the same hair... weeeeird.

Finally Photos!

Sorry it's taken so long, but here is the first installment of Florence photos


My room from the door!








My room from the window!








My nighstand has all the expat accessories: eyeshade and earplugs, a book in English, a travel alarm (thanks Mom!), a "telefonino," photos of home, and American gum.








The courtyard in the Bargello, a museum in that used to apparently be the city prison.













The Arno and pretty buildings.













A few of my excellent and amusing fellow students: Alex, Nell, and Amanda.











The beach at Viareggio in southern Tuscany.

More to come soon!

Ciao da Firenze--finalmente!

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 :)

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!

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. :)