December 12, 2008
Hey everyone!
So im officially down to my last week in Florence. I have so many mixed feelings it's crazy, and I thought I'd write about them haha.
Basically, I love Italy, the people, architecture, coffee, language, gelato...the list could really go on and on, and I'm also soooo excited to go home!
The part that’s so hard for me to grasp is that I won’t be able to come back to Italy for several years, and there are so many things I’m going to miss. And I guess that’s all part of life, learning, and growing. It doesn't really feel like I only have a week left here in Florence. Honestly, if I learned the language I could really see myself living here for a longer period of time, there’s something so amazing about living in another culture and learning the lifestyle.
So to start, I’m going to miss my 5 amazing roommates so much! All of their personalities are so fun and every day is like a new adventure. I think if I was to write about all of the things that have happened to the 5 of us or that we’ve each individually experienced, the list would be 10 pages long! Some of these are: Katie and I have both been pooped on by pigeons, Hannah and I have both slipped on the cobblestone and fallen flat on our butts, Kristen has managed to brake 5 different umbrellas, whereas the rest of us have been able to use the same umbrella we bought in the beginning, those are the less fortunate but very funny stories…oh Hannah had her foot run over by a car, and I was backed into by a van...like I said Endless! I’ll try and write more as I remember them. I’m also going to miss our apartment, the Residence La Contessina, and the amazing family that owns the place. They’re so sweet to us. The mom is always bringing us up cakes that she’s baked. And when we were leaving the country to travel they would tell us “always remember you have family in Europe.” I’ll also miss the pizza boy, Danieli, down the street. He’s become one of the girl’s and my favorite people. He hardly speaks English and we speak very little Italian but he’s always there in his pizza window waving to us and blowing kisses everyday as we walk to and from classes haha. There’s also my amazing cooking teacher who is hilarious and says things like “put the cake in the hoven so it can bakery.” I’m going to miss that haha. It’s going to be weird not walking into a café and ordering a café latte for 1 euro (student discount haha) or walking down the street waving at the business owners I’ve gotten to know, like the scarf woman and her husband, or the gelato boy next to my flamenco class. And every time I go to Conad, the grocery store one of the grocery guys always comes straight up to kiss me on both cheeks and say “come stai?” The people are so sweet and it’s so neat being friends with some of the locals. Speaking of which, Francesco, the college kid that works the night shift at our hotel is giving us his own personal tour around Florence. We thought it’d be perfect for our last weekend and he asked to do it awhile ago, so we’re all pretty excited!
On the other hand there are things I will not miss. Like the pigeons. Honestly Pigeons are very disgusting birds and it will be nice not having to walk through them everyday. Oh that’s another thing I love being able to walk everywhere! I won’t miss the smoky air though, I don’t think very many people in Europe really realize that lung cancer is a real possibility! Oh I won’t have to pay for internet anymore woohoo! I’m also very ready to be back to the dollar. It’ll be nice looking at a price and really knowing exactly how much I’m paying for it. That’s another thing, Gypsy’s kind of freak me out, it’ll be nice not having to hold my hand over the top of my purse as I walk to school. Hmmm…what else?! Oh the men hollering in the streets. I think I can go a really long time without hearing “ciao bella.” I remember the first day at orientation our faculty said “just so you girls know that’s not a compliment, so don’t go up and talk to them.” It’ll be nice being able to walk down the street with my head up, rather than having to watch the cobblestones so I don’t trip (I’m serious this happens on a regular basis haha), and to avoid eye contact with the very forward Italian men.
On a different note, I hope that someday when I come back I can keep the mindset of a resident rather than a tourist. I want to be able to walk down the streets to the Ponte Vecchio just strolling and not feeling like I have to see a certain amount of sites in a limited amount of time. And I want to be able to take everything in and enjoy the little things more!
And lastly, there is the very strong pull to go home. I never really felt homesick while being abroad, and I don’t know if that was because Kristen and I came together or the U.S. atmosphere of our apartment. No matter what it was, it worked out so well! The girls and I just kind of went with the flow of things, had our ups and downs, but mainly ups. In the last week I’ve been getting so anxious to get home though, and I think that’s a mixture of me missing everyone like crazy since I’ve been gone for 4 months, and the fact that it’s the Christmas season. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas time unless I’m with my family! Trevor actually said something about this on skype earlier today. He said that he didn’t really feel like it was almost Christmas because I wasn’t home. I completely agree with him… and that only adds to my excitement that I will be home at this time next week! So I’m definitely ready to be back in the U.S….especially Idaho, and be with my family and friends enjoying the season and hopefully the snow!!!!
That’s everything for now. Hopefully I’ll get to write more later in the craziness of finals and farewells!
Ciao Ciao e molto baci!
Friday, December 12, 2008
Thanksgiving, a Weekend in Rome, & Falling More in Love with Florence!
Monday, December 8th, 08
Ciao!
So I haven’t written about Thanksgiving, Kristen and my school trip to Rome, or what we’ve been doing in Florence lately…so I’ll try and get it all down right now.
November 27th
Starting with Thanksgiving, Maddie’s parents were visiting which was really neat. We all made some of our favorites from home and it ended up being a lot more American than we thought! It consisted of: mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, macaroni and cheese, chicken (our substitute turkey :P), sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, pineapple stuffing, pumpkin and apple pie. I think that’s everything. Anyway, Katie and Nick were in Paris so it was the 5 of us girls and Maddie’s mom and dad. Therefore we had wayyyyy tooo much food. Anyway, it was great having leftovers! All of us seemed to have the same tradition of going around and saying what we were thankful for so we did that and at the end of the night we watched the cartoon Grinch. I love Christmas movies! It ended up being a great Thanksgiving, and was definitely Italian style because we didn't eat until 9 haha!
November 29th
That Saturday Kristen and I left for Rome with the school. The more I see of Rome the more I like it! I feel like there’s so much to see and always so little time to see it. So we left at 4 that morning on a bus with the school. We got to The Vatican around 8 and took a 3 and a half hour tour through the Vatican Museum, The Sistine Chapel, Raphael’s Rooms, and St Peter’s Basilica (one of my favorites! It has Michael Angelo’s “Pieta” in it!) They were all beautiful and I felt like I got a lot out of the whole morning! Although towards the end of the tour you could tell that everyone was tired and hungry. So the tour guide let us go and we had about an hour to grab lunch before meeting back up with the group. Kristen and I had a horrible lunch hahha. It was so bad. We went to a place that said you could get a primi, segundi, and meat for 10 euro….it ended up being like a tv dinner of chicken cordon bleu, lasagna, and oddly colored broccoli. An experience to say the least, and we made everything better by getting gelato :P And that, of course, was delicious!
We met back up with the group and got back on the bus. First we visited St. Paul’s Cathedral which was really pretty as well, and there was a choir rehearsing while we were there. I love church choirs, especially around the holidays. It made me think of Home Alone or something…I know im weird :P After that we just headed to the hotel so everyone could nap. Kristen and I had a room to ourselves which was really nice, definitely an upgrade from our hostels haha. Then we grabbed dinner and walked to the colosseum so we could see it in the dark. It was creepy! For some reason there’s like an eerie blue light on the second floor that shines at night and the rest is dark and grey. We were wiped out so we just went back to the hotel.
November 30th
Sunday was my favorite! I can’t describe everything we did because it would take forever, so we saw: The Colosseum, The Arch of Constantine, The Forum, Trajan’s Column, The Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, The Spanish Steps, and The Catacombe’s…once again these were creepy haha. I had already been to the Trevi Fountain with mom and dad, but that’s one of my favorites, and it was fun to see again, and I also loved the Spanish Steps. They didn’t have flowers around them this time of year, but they’re gorgeous and look out over the whole city. Our teacher/tour guide told us that as you walk down them they seem to get larger and larger…and he was right, so I guess that’s another reason why I like them! Oh and that day for lunch we had a “real Roman lunch” which was a 4 course meal and dessert. It consisted of: a fried vegetable starter, an amazing pasta that was like a creamy tomato spaghetti, lasagna, then veal and potatoes, followed by tiramisu. Honestly, we were all stuffed and the meal lasted 2 hours…2 HOURS! That’s totally insane to me, but so very Italian haha. After that we took the bus ride back to Florence. And we were back in plenty of time for me to skype with Peej on his 21st Birthday J
December...
The next week was filled with school, school, and more school…thrilling to say the least! And we had class on Friday this week because we have Monday, today, off due to The Immaculate Conception holiday. Friday night Katie and I went to a dance club called 21 with 4 other girls from school (Katie, Sara, and their two roommates). I’ve been told that Florence is so fun to go out in, and the girls and I never really feel up to it. So Katie and I decided we’d get out since our time is becoming so limited! Anyway, it was pretty fun, minus the Italian men that are seriously “like sharks” as the guy at our front desk calls them. Honestly, we’d move like two feet and be swarmed. They’re creepy to say the least and we didn’t stay long. But the best part of the night was that we went to SECRET BAKERY! Katie and Sara had already been but still weren’t really sure how to get there. Secret Bakery is also one of those places that a lot of study abroad students who have already been to Florence talk about. It’s only open from like 2-6 am so it’s really hard to go if you’re not already out. It’s hidden in a few back alley ways/streets. So we wandered around for awhile before finding it. But at 2 in the morning Florence is still swarming with people so it didn’t seem that late/early at all. The door to the place was a sliding plastic door, kind of sketchy haha. But we walked into this small back room, pointed to a shelf to tell the lady what we wanted, paid, and left. Im not really sure what I got but it was a mixture between a brownie, cookie, and fruit cake hahha. Afterwards we walked back to the apartment and called it a night!
Saturday we went to Mario’s, a famous restaurant that’s in all of the guidebooks. There was a long line to get in, which is common I guess, and then we were sat at a table with two other men, also common. The seating is like picnic table style and at all of the tables there are a bunch of different people that are just put together. They change the menu daily, which was also kind of cool and I ended up getting some very good tomato ravioli. After that all of the roomies, minus Marci and plus Nick, hike up to Piazza Michaelangelo. It’s a beautiful piazza that overlooks the whole city. We timed it so we’d get up there by sunset at 4:38 and it was gorgeous! All of us were really sentimental, we keep realizing how close we’re getting to the end of our time in Italy and I don’t think any of us really know how we feel about it! Im so excited to get home, especially since it’s getting closer to Christmas, but it’s weird thinking that it’s going to be a really long time before Im back here again. And it’s even more weird to think that when I come back I’m going to feel more like a tourist than a citizen. The girls and I even catch ourselves saying “ugh the tourists.” After that we hiked up to San Miniato to listen to the munks chant and then headed back down to Santa Croce where there was a German Christmas market. It was a really fun day and I was so happy to be spending a weekend in Florence again!!!
That’s pretty much it for eventful things. Aside from the fact that we’ve been trying to eat out more, eating way too much gelato if there ever was such a thing, and doing homework!
Alright BACI!
Ciao!
So I haven’t written about Thanksgiving, Kristen and my school trip to Rome, or what we’ve been doing in Florence lately…so I’ll try and get it all down right now.
November 27th
Starting with Thanksgiving, Maddie’s parents were visiting which was really neat. We all made some of our favorites from home and it ended up being a lot more American than we thought! It consisted of: mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, macaroni and cheese, chicken (our substitute turkey :P), sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, pineapple stuffing, pumpkin and apple pie. I think that’s everything. Anyway, Katie and Nick were in Paris so it was the 5 of us girls and Maddie’s mom and dad. Therefore we had wayyyyy tooo much food. Anyway, it was great having leftovers! All of us seemed to have the same tradition of going around and saying what we were thankful for so we did that and at the end of the night we watched the cartoon Grinch. I love Christmas movies! It ended up being a great Thanksgiving, and was definitely Italian style because we didn't eat until 9 haha!
November 29th
That Saturday Kristen and I left for Rome with the school. The more I see of Rome the more I like it! I feel like there’s so much to see and always so little time to see it. So we left at 4 that morning on a bus with the school. We got to The Vatican around 8 and took a 3 and a half hour tour through the Vatican Museum, The Sistine Chapel, Raphael’s Rooms, and St Peter’s Basilica (one of my favorites! It has Michael Angelo’s “Pieta” in it!) They were all beautiful and I felt like I got a lot out of the whole morning! Although towards the end of the tour you could tell that everyone was tired and hungry. So the tour guide let us go and we had about an hour to grab lunch before meeting back up with the group. Kristen and I had a horrible lunch hahha. It was so bad. We went to a place that said you could get a primi, segundi, and meat for 10 euro….it ended up being like a tv dinner of chicken cordon bleu, lasagna, and oddly colored broccoli. An experience to say the least, and we made everything better by getting gelato :P And that, of course, was delicious!
We met back up with the group and got back on the bus. First we visited St. Paul’s Cathedral which was really pretty as well, and there was a choir rehearsing while we were there. I love church choirs, especially around the holidays. It made me think of Home Alone or something…I know im weird :P After that we just headed to the hotel so everyone could nap. Kristen and I had a room to ourselves which was really nice, definitely an upgrade from our hostels haha. Then we grabbed dinner and walked to the colosseum so we could see it in the dark. It was creepy! For some reason there’s like an eerie blue light on the second floor that shines at night and the rest is dark and grey. We were wiped out so we just went back to the hotel.
November 30th
Sunday was my favorite! I can’t describe everything we did because it would take forever, so we saw: The Colosseum, The Arch of Constantine, The Forum, Trajan’s Column, The Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, The Spanish Steps, and The Catacombe’s…once again these were creepy haha. I had already been to the Trevi Fountain with mom and dad, but that’s one of my favorites, and it was fun to see again, and I also loved the Spanish Steps. They didn’t have flowers around them this time of year, but they’re gorgeous and look out over the whole city. Our teacher/tour guide told us that as you walk down them they seem to get larger and larger…and he was right, so I guess that’s another reason why I like them! Oh and that day for lunch we had a “real Roman lunch” which was a 4 course meal and dessert. It consisted of: a fried vegetable starter, an amazing pasta that was like a creamy tomato spaghetti, lasagna, then veal and potatoes, followed by tiramisu. Honestly, we were all stuffed and the meal lasted 2 hours…2 HOURS! That’s totally insane to me, but so very Italian haha. After that we took the bus ride back to Florence. And we were back in plenty of time for me to skype with Peej on his 21st Birthday J
December...
The next week was filled with school, school, and more school…thrilling to say the least! And we had class on Friday this week because we have Monday, today, off due to The Immaculate Conception holiday. Friday night Katie and I went to a dance club called 21 with 4 other girls from school (Katie, Sara, and their two roommates). I’ve been told that Florence is so fun to go out in, and the girls and I never really feel up to it. So Katie and I decided we’d get out since our time is becoming so limited! Anyway, it was pretty fun, minus the Italian men that are seriously “like sharks” as the guy at our front desk calls them. Honestly, we’d move like two feet and be swarmed. They’re creepy to say the least and we didn’t stay long. But the best part of the night was that we went to SECRET BAKERY! Katie and Sara had already been but still weren’t really sure how to get there. Secret Bakery is also one of those places that a lot of study abroad students who have already been to Florence talk about. It’s only open from like 2-6 am so it’s really hard to go if you’re not already out. It’s hidden in a few back alley ways/streets. So we wandered around for awhile before finding it. But at 2 in the morning Florence is still swarming with people so it didn’t seem that late/early at all. The door to the place was a sliding plastic door, kind of sketchy haha. But we walked into this small back room, pointed to a shelf to tell the lady what we wanted, paid, and left. Im not really sure what I got but it was a mixture between a brownie, cookie, and fruit cake hahha. Afterwards we walked back to the apartment and called it a night!
Saturday we went to Mario’s, a famous restaurant that’s in all of the guidebooks. There was a long line to get in, which is common I guess, and then we were sat at a table with two other men, also common. The seating is like picnic table style and at all of the tables there are a bunch of different people that are just put together. They change the menu daily, which was also kind of cool and I ended up getting some very good tomato ravioli. After that all of the roomies, minus Marci and plus Nick, hike up to Piazza Michaelangelo. It’s a beautiful piazza that overlooks the whole city. We timed it so we’d get up there by sunset at 4:38 and it was gorgeous! All of us were really sentimental, we keep realizing how close we’re getting to the end of our time in Italy and I don’t think any of us really know how we feel about it! Im so excited to get home, especially since it’s getting closer to Christmas, but it’s weird thinking that it’s going to be a really long time before Im back here again. And it’s even more weird to think that when I come back I’m going to feel more like a tourist than a citizen. The girls and I even catch ourselves saying “ugh the tourists.” After that we hiked up to San Miniato to listen to the munks chant and then headed back down to Santa Croce where there was a German Christmas market. It was a really fun day and I was so happy to be spending a weekend in Florence again!!!
That’s pretty much it for eventful things. Aside from the fact that we’ve been trying to eat out more, eating way too much gelato if there ever was such a thing, and doing homework!
Alright BACI!
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