Last days in Florence and trip to Rome

My friends Meaghan, Graeme, Cardinal James Harvey,
new friend Daniel, Laura and me at the Papal Palace.

Throwing a coin into the Trevi Fountain

My last week in Florence was topped off with a day trip to Sienna and a couple of wonderful free dinners. Sienna was a beautiful city and definitely worth waking up early to experience. We were able to see the giant Cathedral or Il Duomo de Sienna, which was amazing! And to think that only the transept (or the cross aisle to the main aisle in a church) was the only part actually enclosed and built! Sienna was definitely a cool city to explore for a day. The next day in Florence we had our 'Thanksgiving' dinner. This consisted of going to a restaurant famous for its meat....needless to say I was a little squeemish! We even had 4 whole courses! So much food! Started off with a Caprese salad, followed by some interesting baked zucchini and this mushroom-topped bread-ish thing (can't remember what it's called). Then came the pasta course consisting of both ravioli and gnocchi in red sauce. Then came the meat course...which ended up being a platter of unidentified meats thought to contain rabbit, duck, chicken and perhaps buffalo? Needless to say I did not take part in this course! I ate my vegetables while carefully averting my eyes while my friends clawed away at the meat plate. For dessert we had a sample tray of cakes and chocolates. Very tasty...and extremely full! The next day was our last day in Florence. I would have liked to have done better things with my last day than pack and clean our apartment, but alas, that is what I ended up doing. We then had our farewell dinner in Florence at a different restaurant...still very tasty but only 3 courses this time! The next day we took a chartered bus to Rome! We got to our hotel and immediately had to do a 'neighborhood' walk around Rome. The next full day in Rome we had another sort of walking tour that consisted of Piazza Navona, the Pantheon and finally ending in the Colosseum! Such a great day right? It gets better. After this full day of walking around Rome, me and 3 other friends went to Vatican City to try to get tickets to mass at St. Peter's Basilica the next day (which was a Sunday). Once we got there we heard that there were no more tickets left. Sadly we walked across St. Peter's square to try to get tickets for another day of the week. We ended up running into a large group of American priests who we ended up nicely chatting with. They asked us if were were here to meet the newly named Cardinals. Oblivious to what was happening, we realized that the Pope just had named 6 new Cardinals that day...one being from Milwaukee! Crazy! These priests also asked us if we were going to the Papal palace to meet these new Cardinals. Again we had no idea what was going on. So long story shortish, we followed our new priest friends to wait in line at the Papal Palace (which is never open to the public) and ended up meeting the new Cardinal James Harvey from Milwaukee! Such a great experience waiting in line and making new friends (who happened to be from the Midwest). After such a long day I was exhausted and ready to tell all my facebook and twitter friends the good news. It gets better still. While relaxing in our hotel, our newest friend, who was in seminary school to become a priest, messaged us and told us he had  4 extra tickets to mass the next day with the Pope! Even though we had class that morning, we got up early and skipped class to wait in line at the Vatican for a few hours to see the Pope! Such a great experience going to mass with the Pope at the Vatican. Even though I am not Catholic and don't speak Italian or Latin, the 2-hour mass went by really fast and I found it very interesting and a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not to mention that St. Peter's Basilica was the one building I was most excited to see on my trip :) The next day we started off class visiting the EUR or grounds for the World's Fair set up by Mussolini and contains fascist architecture. Very interesting architecture to say the least. The rest of the day was spent exploring St. Peter's (this time for class) and climbing to the top of the Dome to get crazy awesome sunset pictures! I had a blast taking my time up at the top and admiring the city of Rome from its highest point (buildings in Rome aren't allowed to be taller than the Dome of St. Peter's). Tuesday we had another walking tour of a few famous Baroque churches in Italy followed by an afternoon spent at the MAXXI museum of contemporary art by the architect Zaha Hadid (she did the new Olympic swimming pool for the London games). Yesterday we took a day trip to Tivoli to see two villas. We only ended up going to Villa D'Este which had some amazing Mannerist gardens because it rained too hard to go to Hadrian's Villa. Hadrian's Villa belonged to the Emperor Hadrian and is one of the oldest found villas, basically a site of ruins, and is extremely huge and is an important pilgrimage point for Architects. I was a little disappointed not to go to the villa, but I was happier staying dry inside the bus. Today was a free day for class, so my friends and I went to the Vatican Museum. Definitely worth walking in the rain to go and see. The museum was a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and had some amazing artwork from Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Of course the culmination of this museum ended in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. I can't even describe in words how amazing this chapel is. I was in awe of all the figures he was able to paint (about 300 different people). Definitely a great day! Tonight we have a group dinner (saved some money from not going to Hadrian's Villa) and tomorrow is another free day followed by our goodbye dinner! Tomorrow I hope to see the Spanish steps along with seeing some high-end flagship stores as well ;) Then Saturday we flight out of Rome at 9:40 am! So, this may be the end of my blogging career. Overall, this trip has been completely amazing and more than I could have ever dreamed. I just hope as I look back on this trip for years to come that I am more appreciative than I am even now. I hope that this trip changes the way I look at art and architecture and more importantly has a positive influence on my own personal architectural designs. I had the time of my life.

More of Florence, Pisa, Villa Gamberaia, and Uffizi Gallery

When class started up again last Saturday (*groan*), we hiked halfway up the side of a mountain to see San Miniato church and its awesome graveyards. The church was and still is a Dominican church that houses monks. The church itself was beautiful inside with a mix of Romanesque and Gothic features. The altar, if you can picture this in your head, was a split level. The upper level was the altar and directly below it was the crypt, so cool! We also explored the vast and exquisite graveyard around the church. The graveyard kind of creeped me out a bit walking around it, but it was so interesting to see the different and ornate tombs from what we have in America. Sunday we explored the Santa Maria Novella train station, which I have seen multiple times before, but we actually learned about its history and architecture. Turns out, the train station is pretty cool! And afterwards on that rainy Sunday afternoon, I tried some good old Italian hot chocolate! Very delicious, but too rich for me! Basically was like eating melted chocolate. This past Monday was our day trip to Pisa! Pisa is a typical Italian city; cute and quaint, but houses THE most visited monument in all of Europe: the leaning tower! The leaning tower is a must-see sight if you are ever in Italy. What I never knew was that the tower is part of a larger architectural experience with Il Duomo de Pisa and the Baptistry. The leaning tower itself is actually the bell tower for the church. Another very interesting fact I discovered while exploring the Piazza de Miracoli, or the Piazza of Miracles which houses these three buildings, is that all three buildings are sinking/leaning as well! The front part of the church is no longer straight nor is the front of the Baptistry! The soil conditions in Pisa are very soft and made of sedimentary rock. Did you also know that Pisa rivaled Venice as a port city but now is almost 6 miles inland! Crazy! We were lucky enough to go up to the top of the Leaning Tower, and boy what a climb that was! Not only were there tons of stairs, but when you got to the leaning side, even though you were climbing stairs you felt like you were walking down a hill! Such a weird sensation. The view from the top was of course gorgeous, but the slippery marble from the ongoing rain that day made me pretty nervous! Moving on to last Wednesday, we went up the hillside from Florence to Villa Gamberaia, one of the best preserved Renaissance Villas. We explored the Renaissance and the Mannerist gardens on the property along with meeting the cutest little Yorkie named Chicho! Chicho was wearing a Zebra dress as well! I pretty much wanted to take her home. The bus ride and winding walk to the villa wasn't so great but the view from the top is always worth it! Today we just got back from a day exploring the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The Uffizi is famous for its Italian paintings such as Boticelli's Birth of Venus and Leonardo da Vinci's The Annunciation along with many more outstanding works. Now I am on a 3-day weekend...I know life is rough! But I actually have a bit of homework to do this time along with getting to see and explore the things in Florence I have been putting off! We leave for Rome a week from tomorrow and then only a week in Rome and then....I'm home! Crazy to think this trip has gone by so fast! Next week we are going to Sienna and we are also going to have a group 'Thanksgiving' dinner...I will be interested to see what that will entail. Ciao!

Exploring Italy: Venice, Bolzano, Padua, Verona and more!

Sheep grazing on a hillside in Castelrotto

So obviously I have not been keeping up properly with the whole 'blogging' thing here in Italy thus far! Just living la dolce vida! So I will try to fill you in quickly from where I left off on my last post! Me and a few friends went to Cinque Terre for a three-day weekend...and it was awesome!!! Such gorgeous cities, and the weather was nice and hot! I even was able to swim in the ocean and jump off some cliffs! I completely fell in love with the area and would love to come back someday with my family. I had delicious sea food, and even ate some questionable-looking crustaceans as well. I had an awesome time to say the least. Back in Florence I went to the eye doctor a few more times (still have a swollen cornea and am continuing to go to this eye doctor ...its been over a MONTH!). That aside, I love living in Florence and going to the Mercato Centrale for fresh foods to cook dinner with. Our next big adventure was our week trip to Venice. We left Florence early on a Saturday morning and headed out on the smallest most uncomfortable bus I have ever been on (including the bus trip I took to New York in 10th grade or whatever). Our first stop was actually outside of Venice in Vicenza to check out some awesome work by Palladio. Also to our delight there was a chocolate festival going on at that time...JACKPOT! I tried White Chocolate hot chocolate...basically like drinking white chocolate! So good! Vicenza was beautiful but I was definitely excited to finally arrive in Venice! We took a train from Vicenza to Venice and got there that afternoon. Venice is beautiful and it is really a different way of lifestyle there. There are no cars allowed on the island! Venice is basically an island that was man-made from tons of wood rods and platforms placed on top of these rods...weird! At first it was really hard to get around Venice, going over bridge after bridge and no shortcuts! Our hotel in Venice was awesome, however! I had two other people in my room and we had a two-story room! It was very cool, and come to find out very handy considering we were flooded in to our hotel two different days. And I won't even go into how awesome the continental breakfast was. All I will say is this: cake for breakfast. We also had a day trip to Verona during our time in Venice. We went to the museum Castel Vecchio. Such a cool adaptive reuse building. Verona is also the home to Romeo and Juliet, so of course I sought out Juliet's 'house.' I got to see her balcony and even see the statue they put up of her! I really enjoyed that part of Verona. Anyways, back to Venice. The flooding was actually pretty annoying even though the locals are completely used to it. There were makeshift bridges that looked like low tables placed up in the major areas so you don't have to walk in the water. And let me tell you, it was deep! I thought the flooding would be like small pools of water here and there, I was wrong. In some places, like in Piazza San Marco, it flooded a few feet! The water even went inside the vestibule area in San Marco church! Anyways, Venice is completely beautiful but would have been even more beautiful had we not been there in the fall/flood season. Our last day there I went to the island of Murano which is famous for its glass. It was so cool to see the different things people make out of glass! So interesting and fun to browse in the shops there. After Venice we started our independent travel week. A couple of friends and I went to Padua for a few days. I had a lot of fun in Padua. There were some awesome street markets in Padua which I ended up doing a bit of shopping at ;) I also watched a couple of older Italian men roast chestnuts over an open fire, I kid you not! After a few nights in Padua we went even farther north in Italy to Bolzano in the Dolomite mountains. So beautiful! Many people in this region speak German as their first language, so signs in this area had both the Italian and German name listed. I never would have thought that this area would be such a mix of German influence but apparently many people want to become part of Austria again! I really enjoyed this vacation in the mountains and it honestly felt like we were in Germany most of the time! I had delicious beer, delicious pretzels and even tried Pumpkin soup and Chestnut Soup. During our time in Bolzano we took a day trip to Castelrotto and had a scary bus ride there, but it was beautiful at the same time! We were winding around and going through mountains but finally getting there was worth it! Castelrotto is a small town of about 2,000 people and doesn't really have much to do at this time of year...except stare at the mountains! Which I definitely could have done all day! Another day during our vacation, we took a cable car up to a small town called Oberbozen. So worth it! The cable car ride was gorgeous and had the most spectacular views of Bolzano and the valley! After we got up to Oberbozen, we walked around a bit then took a train over to another town where we took a gorgeous hike to see these Earth Pyramids. It was a nice leisurely day of walking and exploring the small, sleepy towns around Bolzano. I would definitely come back to this part of Italy, but maybe a couple of weeks before. I loved the cooler weather because it made it feel like fall finally, but most of the cable cars and tourist-y things were closed at this time of year. After a nice week in Bolzano, we took a series of trains back to Florence. It seemed like fall finally hit the fair-weathered Florence while we were gone, which I am pumped about! The leaves are finally changing and starting to fall. I am very excited to be back for a few more weeks in Florence and get to be able to do the things I have been putting off! Exactly 3 weeks from today I will be flying back! So crazy to think about! Although between you and me, I am definitely ready to be back in the U.S! Peanut butter, regular deodorant, and normal hair products await me! Oh, and my family too :)) Ciao!

Florence, Italy...through one eye

I've been living in Florence for about a week now, and I am loving it! I love the fact that I have a working kitchen, living room, and our own bathroom! Little luxuries. So far we have seen Il Dumo (and even climbed to the top of the dome!), Museo Dell'Opera del Duomo, Piazza SS. Anunziata, Galleria Dell'Accademia (where the REAL David statue is!), Bargello museum (features a lot of Donatello sculptures), and Boboli Gardens. I love the smaller size of Florence and the walk-ability of the city. I really like not having to take public transportation every single day like we did in Paris. I have also tried 6 different flavors of gelato: pistachio, coffee, dark chocolate, pannacotta (which is a type of Italian dessert), cookies, and some sort of rum delicious flavor. Another thing that I like about Florence so far is that it is MUCH cheaper than Paris...which is good for me since all my money went to having Guiness in Ireland. So you must be wondering why I am seeing Florence through one eye. And here's the story behind that: About two weeks ago, when I was back in London one of my eyes was a bit blurry and I just thought it was because of my glasses. So for most of my time in Ireland I wore my glasses because my contacts were being weird and I wasn't able to see well with them in. Once I got to Florence I finally decided to do something about my blurry eye and I found an English-speaking doctor. After an hour in the waiting room I finally got to see an English-speaking eye doctor! Which was great because I knew the general doctor wouldn't be able to help me much. He told me I had a scratched cornea and  gave me a prescription for some eye drops, which I took for about a day and a half before I had to go back to him to check my eyes again. So this morning I went all the way outside of town to the main Florence hospital, more specifically to the Clinica Occulistica. After wandering around parts of the hospital that I was pretty sure in America you would not be allowed into, I finally found my doctor's office. After looking at my eyes (AGAIN) he prescribed me new eye drops. Great. This entire situation happened to me 2 years ago in the same way. Swollen cornea, eye drops, eye drops didn't work, second kind of eye drops, then I finally was better. I hope that by next Wednesday (which is my next check-up with Dr. Lorenzo) my vision will be better indicating that my eyes are finally better! I will be relieved to get this whole situation over with! This weekend we have a 3-day weekend  in which I will be spending most of it at Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is a series of 5 coastal cities on the West Coast of Italy (by the Mediterranean ya'll). I'm very excited to spend the weekend soaking up the sun. I decided that I'm going to pretend that I'm going on vacation this weekend, even though this entire study abroad experience has felt like a vacation...almost! After all the stress of getting to Florence, finally getting my luggage, figuring out my hacked email (yes this happened to me as well), figuring out my claim to Wells Fargo about the charge on it from when an ATM in Dublin ate it (yes this happened too), and the entire process of trying to get my eyes better...I'm more than ready for the weekend! Bring on the sun! Ciao!

Ireland!

The past week I traveled to Ireland for my first independent travel period. I had a blast! After a couple of days in Dublin two of my best friends from high school came to visit me! I had a blast wandering around Dublin and trying new pubs and new foods! We saw Trinity College, the Molly Malone statue, Saint Stephen's Green park, and shopped on Grafton street...among many other things! I really enjoyed my time in Dublin to say the least. It was nice, once again, to be in a land of people who spoke English! Even though it was difficult to understand some people....I was also very surprised how everyone was so extremely friendly! That made our stay very enjoyable! We also did a day tour of Wicklow Park last Sunday which was a blast! We had a really nice tour guide and we saw the most incredible views of the national park that was just a bit south of Dublin. After about 5 days in Dublin, my friends and I took a bus to Galway, which is on the Western Coast of Ireland. I loved Galway! I wish I could have spent more time there. It is a smaller coastal city, and reminded me a bit of Duluth...but Irish! We had a blast exploring the shops in Galway and walking along the coast. We also did a day tour of the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. The Burren is an area south of Galway that is basically a rocky mountainous area with beautiful views! Here I did a cave tour, which was an okay experience. We also randomly did a Birds of Prey exhibition/zoo thing which ended up being really fun! We got to see really cool birds and I even got to hold my favorite bird ever, the barn owl! I loved it! So much fun. Then we went and saw the Cliffs of Moher on the Western coast of Ireland. Unbelievably beautiful! The cliffs were spectacular and I only wish we had more time there to explore! Overall I had a great day with the tour aside from the fact that I had to take the bus back by myself that night to Dublin to catch my flight the next morning. The flight to Florence was a crazy stressful experience trying to catch my connecting flight in London...but I will spare you the details and fast forward to now. I am safe and loving Florence! I got my baggage back yesterday after 3 hours of getting to and back from the airport. We had a walking tour of Florence today which was beautiful and helped me to get better acquainted with the city. Day off tomorrow! Our apartment in Florence is great and I'm really excited that we have a kitchen and our own washing machine! Ciao!

Arriving in Ireland

Thursday morning was my last morning in London...so sad! I had a wonderful time during the short 5 days I was in London, and I can't quite figure out if it was because London itself was such an awesome city or if I loved it so much because they spoke English. Anyways, I packed my stuff up and left our hotel at about 10 am yesterday and sat at Starbucks (and had their delicious Salted Caramel Mocha...try it!) for about two hours waiting to go to the airport to fly to Dublin! At about noon I decided to make the long trek to London's Heathrow Airport via the 'tube'...or London's subway system. That journey lasted a little bit longer than I thought it would, but thankfully I'm crazy and left ridiculously early! Phase 1: Get to the airport...complete! I found my airline check-in place with little trouble and I even got the OK for my large-ish bags to be carry-ons! So..now time for my least favorite thing ever...airport security. Well the day was going okay so far...until security. So I take my shoes off (when apparently nobody else had to) and was patiently waiting for my bags to come through the x-ray machine...and waiting...and waiting...then they flag people over to look at my stuff! I am about ready to freak out! I was talking to this guy next to me and saying how I was getting nervous and stuff and he kept reassuring me that it was fine, so I was like oh what a nice airport worker! So anyways, the airport security guy asked me what was in my backpack and I had to quickly search my brain and said, "I don't know...clothes?" "Any electronics?" "Uh...like an adapter....OH and a battery re-charger!" "That's probably it Miss"  Whew! All that work for a stupid battery re-charger that doesn't work at all with these European plugs! This didn't stop the airport security from completely taking all of the items out of my backpack and purse anyways and putting my bags through the x-ray machine again. Although I do have to say that all of the staff were really nice when I was completely clueless as to what was going on and trying to keep my sanity together! Even the nice man who was reassuring me when they were looking at my bags on the x-ray screen was very helpful...even when I saw that he clearly didn't work at the airport and was just waiting for his stuff to go through security...whoops! Phase 2: Go through airport security...finally complete! So now is the boring part where I wait in the airport for 2 hours until my departure time. The flight went well and was only 55 minutes! When I arrived in Dublin I was so excited but a bit nervous because I was supposed to find my friend who was coming on a later flight, which made me nervous again! After waiting for around 30 minutes she finally showed up and we found a double-decker bus that would take us to our hostel! At this point I'm starting to relax more and realizing how exhausted I am! So I power through my fatigue and we venture out to the oldest pub in Dublin/Ireland called the Brazen Head. I had such a great time! Way better than I would have thought! The pub was a traditional Irish pub with tons of pictures pasted to the wooden walls and a small traditional band playing awesome Irish music! After my first Guiness I didn't feel as tired anymore! ;) We met these two American guys who had just come from Oktoberfest in Munich and they were a blast! They were really funny and we learned they were from Indianapolis and Atlanta...or something like that. After they left we talked with these 3 older Irish gentlemen who were hilarious as well! (Even though I could only understand 1/3 of what they were saying...seriously) The old Irish guys we talked to were from Western Ireland, and kept talking about how they loved Garth Brooks...? Anyways, they were hilarious as well and I definitely consider my first night in Dublin a success! I cannot wait until Saturday when two of my best friends from high school are coming to stay with me here! I have been waiting for this Irish reunion for a long time now! Slán go fóill (shlahn goh foihll) or Goodbye for Now in Gaelic!

Harry Potter Studio Tour and Exploring London!

When I first arrived in Paris, I thought my dream was to see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum. And it was definitely a dream come true and such a memorable experience that I hope to remember for the rest of my life. But I do have to say that yesterday's excursion to see the Harry Potter Studio Tour topped the Mona Lisa (sorry da Vinci). So Sunday night my friends and I decided to see how to get to the studio for our tour. We found out that where we were ending class that day and where the Studio Tour was taking place were on two opposite sides outside of London. So I began a slight panic. We gave ourselves 2 hours to get to the studio...so we thought we would have plenty of time! Then we started to look into exactly how to get there, and soon realized that 2 hours was not going to be enough time! So Monday morning bright and early I called the Harry Potter tours to move our tour time to the last possible time of 4pm. Which ended up not being a problem, but would cost us 10 pounds. So 3 hours should be enough time...right? We sure hoped so. So then we ran into the problem of not having power or internet at our hotel...our teachers were not happy about this. And I had no way of printing out our email confirmation in order to pick up the tickets at the studio...which caused a lot more stress on me. After a bit of looking up stuff and calling people we found out it wasn't a problem that we didn't have the email print out...whew! So class began at 10 am leaving from the hotel. We seemed to be wandering aimlessly throughout London with our tour guide...when our teachers had had enough of this un-planned tour so we split from the tour guides (who set up our entire stay in London) and ended up being let out early to go to the Harry Potter tour. I was finally starting to feel excited about the tour and not nervous about getting there! Although our class was going out to 'see' the Olympic Village after we left, we weren't too sad about missing it considering our plans had changed and we weren't able to go inside the buildings. We later also found out they couldn't even get close to the Olympic Park and they had to view it from a viewing platform inside of some casino...? Poor planning on somebody's part there as well. The Olympic Park is supposed to be open to the public as a series of community centers, but apparently there is construction an we can't view the buildings or grounds yet :'( Anyways, back to Harry Potter. We took a series of trains and an awesome looking double-decker bus...and we were finally at Harry Potter world! I thought I was going to faint/cry/pee my pants from excitement!! After much freaking out (and not all of it was from me!) we went inside to get ready for the tour. We were about an hour early, but we were excited to wander around the amazing gift shop when we heard an announcement that they were letting people in early! Jackpot! And we go in line to find out our tour group is tiny! Double jackpot! So worth going through all the trouble to finally be at the tour! I can't go into too much detail about the tour itself considering I could write a novel about all the things I have seen! The highlights were seeing the Gryffindor common room, drinking butterbeer (amazingly delicious!), and seeing the many different miniature (and also really big) models of all the buildings at Hogwarts and the wizarding world. Such a great day afterall! Today was our first real day of class with our teacher in London. Today we started off walking across Tower Bridge and learning about the London City Hall designed by Norman Foster. We then continued our walk toward the Millenium Bridge and saw a great view of the Globe Theatre as well. We also stumbled upon a random street food market and I tried Falafel for the first time! It was actually really good and I really enjoyed all the food and the atmosphere at this outdoor market. We then continued our journey to the Tate Modern Art Museum. The building itself was interesting inside as it used to be a power plant of sorts, but the art, especially the human performance art, was really...interesting. Definitely not my taste. We then walked across Millenium Bridge (as seen in the 6th Harry Potter film being broken by the death eaters in the beginning of the movie). We then went to John Soane's museum, but pictures were not allowed inside. All I can describe it as an architectural artifact hoarder's dream. But the museum itself was actually incredible as well as the work Soane did to the interiors. To top the day off we did a quick walking tour of the Financial District and saw the Lloyd's of London building and the Swiss Re 'Gherkin' building. Very cool indeed. I have no idea what is in store for tomorrow as I am completely exhausted from the past two days. It's almost 9:30 pm here...and I am about ready for bed! Dublin on Thursday. Cheerio!