July 2011
1 post
June 2011
27 posts
Splish, Splash, Spill
Venice is nothing like you’ve ever seen before. It is literally a water wonderland. Kind of like Disney World on its own island. Grams and I enjoyed great sea food, water-side cafes, gondola rides and window shopping.
Saturday we did a whirlwind tour of Murano, Burano and Torcello. Murano, the island of glass, is home to a swarm of glass-blowing factories. In fact, a man hand-pulled a...
Home—Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros
Nonna Bella
Grams landed safe and sound in Florence. I am so thrilled she is coming to stay with me for another week in Italy and France! She was so excited to get out and see Firenze that she accidentally smooshed her finger in the hotel doorway. So our first stop together in Firenze was the farmacia for an ice pack. Hopefully we will be able to make it through a whole week without wiping out on the...
“Savor the small with a grateful heart.”
– S. B. Ban
Adventures along Amalif Coast
The Amalfi Coast is a perfect little piece of lemon-loving paradise. Our weekend getaway began with Capri—the land of limoncello. I know I exaggerate often—but they had lemons the size of my head. Literally. And I have a big head! The little shops in Capri offered us handmade sandals, homemade limoncello and soft-spun linen. Everything oozed freshness.
Sami, Maddie and I toured the...
When in Roma, Only in Roma
Rome was a whirlwind. Saturday we saw the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica all in five hours. I enjoyed the Sistine Chapel the best, but that is mostly because I had to go into stealth-mode and take pictures of the beautiful Michelangelos without being caught. Mission success. (And I didn’t feel bad stealing pictures of this gorgeous monument—it turns out you...
Ups and Downs
Today was eventful.
Up: I climbed the Duomo’s 463 steps and admired the beautiful Firenze that I live in.
Up: I visited Santa Croce—a beautiful church in Florence where bunches of famous dead people are buried. For instance, Machiavelli, Galileo and Michaelangelo. It was really neat to see these Italian celebrities, even if they were 6 feet under.
Down: Went to the San Lorenzo market and had...
Drops of Jupiter
Fresco
This city and everything that comes along with it are vibrant and fresh. From my mid-afternoon cappuccino, to the cherries in the open-air market, to the rain that falls and washes the streets. Everything is alive and wonderful.
It’s funny, Luca grimaced the other day when a girl in my class asked him if he knew what Jello was. He told my classmate that he had been to the US only once and...
“It is soft. It will respond to your smallest decision. Mold it slowly and take...”
– Isabella, my ceramics professor on how to throw pots on the wheel
Three Countries, Two Days
Italy, Monaco and France. This weekend’s tour of the French Riviera turned out to be nothing like I imagined France to be. I expected snobby Frenchmen and women decked out in designer garb. Turns out, I was flat out wrong. The only thing I imagined correctly were the yummy crepes.
We began the trip with Monaco, the second smallest country in the world. Here, I toured the Cathedral of Monaco...
“All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.”
– Martin H. Fischer
Spotting Jersey Shore
After a day of visiting Palazza Pitti, Ponte Vecchio and walking around the Duomo, none of these beautiful, historical monuments excited me more than when I came upstairs and spotted Pauly D, Vinny and the Situation outside my apartment window.
When Sami told me they were right beneath our place, I practically fell off the couch and lept to the window. I am the only one in our apartment who has...
Pisa, per favore
Once again, I found myself running around a train station. The train left for Pisa left at 10:30am and we arrived at with 15 minutes to spare—except we actually couldn’t spare them because it took Maddy, Sami and I about 14.5 minutes to figure out how to work the TrenItalia ticket booth. But once we got on the train, the hour-long trip to Pisa through Tuscany was quite scenic....
“This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the...”
– J. Steinbeck
Pioggia e Polizia
The day started off with rain showers and police. After jogging around a storm-cloudy Florence (which is quite difficult to do with all the tourists), I realized our trash bags had not been picked up from our front stoop. Clearly the bags were ours, because my roommate and I thought it would be neat to buy green trash bags, while everyone else uses the standard black bags. Not a good idea. The...
May 2011
9 posts
Luca & Isabella
First day of school was…long. 3.5 hour courses were tough to get through—but my professors made it worth while. Luca, my Italian professor sat us down for an hour and told us all the gelato place to find in Firenze. Isabella, my ceramics professor, told each of us to not stress out because stress is reflected in our clay. So I went to class to find all the good gelatos in...
“Not all bad things are rooted in evil…”
– Franco, my cute little professor who saved me in San Fruttuoso
Left in San Fruttuoso
Cinque Terre was beautiful. But leave it to me to mess things up. Half way through our first day (Saturday in Camoglia, St. Margherita, San Frutuosso and Chialvari), I got lost. Yep—after eating some focaccia (yummy bread famous in this region of Italy) I felt rather sick. So after spending some time in a tiny bathroom—I realized it was time to catch my boat. The boat left the port at...
“But no matter, the road is life.”
– Jack Kerouac
Primo
After 17 hours of traveling I finally made it to Florence!
the first thing I saw: an Ikea
the first thing I did: went through Customs and told the guy a corny joke because I was nervous
the first cab ride: about hit 15 pedestrians. I quickly learned that I CANNOT walk like I am in Chapel Hill. Must pay attention.
—also—I realized they do not have lanes, roads or turn signals in...