Jackie Week- Day 3

My only class for the day was Italian, so we had a full day of shenanigans ahead of us! After Italian, we made a quick trip to the train station to get my rail pass validated, and then we stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a few things for the apartment.

Our first major stop for the day was the Salvatore Ferregamo SHOE MUSEUM! Oh yes, that's right. A whole museum devoted to shoes.



For those unfamiliar with the name, Salvatore Ferregamo is known as the "shoe-maker of the stars". The museum was AWESOME! We saw the wooden forms for celebrities like Audrey Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe. There were receipts from orders for Mrs. John Wayne, Ginger Rogers (OMG), Katherine Hepburn. The walls were covered with pictures of Ferregamo and all of these old-Hollywood hot-shots. Then, there were the shoes themselves- each one a work of art, exquisitely and masterfully made! Some of the owners- Marilyn Monroe, Sofia Loren, Carmen Miranda, just to name a few. As usual, photos were not allowed, but we couldn't resist taking just one!


The Ferregamo museum was just TOO much for a couple of shoe nuts like Jackie and me. :) Our heads were like spinning by the time we walked out of the museum. :)

We headed back to the apartment for lunch. The weather was really nice, so we decided to go to the Boboli gardens.







After the Gardens, we decided to walk up to the Piazzale Michaelangelo, which has a beautiful view of the city, and a fake David! lol! :)....of course, more inappropriate comments were inevitable. :)

There were SOOOOO many stairs up to Michaelangelo's square! ugh!




And that's not even counting the steep streets we had to take to get to the stairs! lol!

But it was definitely worth it! The view was gorgeous!





Since we were already in the neighborhood, we went up to San Miniato. More stairs. UGH. lol

After all this exploring, we were exhausted, so we went back to the apartment to chill for a little while. We had dinner with my roomies, then we all went to Loch Ness. Some awkward Swedish boys bought us roses. We're pretty sure they were like 15. LOL.

Only two more fun-filled days with Jackie left! :( The week is going too quickly!

Jackie Week- Day 2

Again, classes dragged on FOREVER. Renaissance Art was interesting- we started talking about paintings today and visited Santa Maria Novella to see a couple of famous works. In Ballet, we watched part of Swan Lake, which was really good, but I was really tired, and the classical music was so relaxing, that I kept doing the fall-asleep-head-jerk.

After class, I came home and fixed lunch for Jackie and me, and we skyped with Mom for a little bit before heading out. The weather wasn't the greatest, so we decided to go to the Galleria dell'Accademia to see the David. Jackie LOVED the David. Understandable- he is pretty awesome! lol And of course, we had a blast making a ton of completely inappropriate jokes about David and his "rock solid" body. haha! ;)

After the gallery, we went to the San Lorenzo market to shop. Jackie wanted to get some souveniers and presents. Having Jackie here makes me really homesick! Going shopping at the market reminded me of going to Eastland with Jackie and NikkiKacy! I am having a GREAT time in Italy, but it made me miss ISU a lot! :(

After shopping, we headed home for dinner. We were really tired once again, so we stayed in and caught up on 3 months worth of Cosmopolitan magazines that we had missed during Christmas break and since I've been in Italy. Again, Cosmo night in Italy made me homesick for Cosmo nights on Atkin 6! :( I LOVE having Jackier here, but it makes me miss all of my other school friends!

Jackie Week- Day 1

So, Jackie's first day in Italy. Unfortunately, this coincides with my busiest day of classes. I went to Italian, and then came home and fixed us some brunch. We stopped at Giovanni's for coffee- well, cappuccino for me, ciocolatta for Jackie. :) After coffee, we went and scaled the Duomo. Yup, all 463....again. :) This time it was a little bit less crowded, so that was nice. And it's just different going with Jackie, we had a great time!



After climbing the dome, we went into the Cathedral, which Jackie really enjoyed- you know, it means a lot more to her, as she is actually Catholic. :) Unfortunately, we couldn't catch a Mass in Italy, but Jackie still enjoyed the Cathedral.

After the cathedral, we walked around to see some other sights in Florence- the Baptistery, the Piazza della Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio, Ponte Vecchio. We even stopped by Borgo just to say hello to the guys!

On the way home, we grabbed some gelato before I had to head off to class for the rest of the evening.

Classes dragged on FOREVER....as if 5.5 hours of class isn't long enough already! After class, I came home to meet Jackie and we went over to Brent and Brians to hang out for awhile.

The Best Food and Wine in Pienza and Montepulciano

Day 2 of our field trip "Under the Tuscan Sun" started with breakfast at the hotel (roomies and I had the first Nutella we had eaten in nearly a month! haha!) After breakfast, we got back on the bus for another ridiculously beautiful ride through the countryside.



There really wasn't that much to see or do in Pienza- a couple small churches. Nothing spectacular. But if I was ever in any danger of staying in Italy forever, it was in Pienza. The town is SOOOOO adorable! I can't even really describe it, and I didn't take that many pictures. But, if I were going to stay in Italy forever, I would want to stay somewhere like Pienza, but maybe that's just me going back to my small town roots! lol! :)



The weather was absolutely perfect, so Shannon, Marla, and I found a spot on the city wall, and just hung out and enjoyed the sunshine until it was time to get back on the bus to go to the farm.

We toured a farm way out in the middle of the Tuscan countryside (the bus couldn't even get us there- we had to meet up with the farmer and his son and they shuttled us from the bus out to their farm, lol!). We toured the farm, where they produce cheese and salami.


This picture is of our chaperone, Luca. He's quite a character to say the least. :)


And here's Shannon with a baby lamb! It was like 4 hours old. Just throwing that out there. :)

After the tour, we went inside to the farm's restaurant where we had lunch, which included a grain and bean "soup", a course of salami and cheese (both fresh and aged cheeses), and dessert (an apricot pastry and a piece of mystery cake).

After lunch, we got back on the bus and headed to Montepulciano for a tour of a wine cellar and a tasting. But, to be perfectly honest, I couldn't have cared less about Montepulciano, because on the way to the farm, Jackie had called to tell me she had safely arrived at my apartment in Florence! YAY! So, I spent pretty much the entire time in Montepulciano itching to get back to Florence. lol.

I really can't tell you much about the wine cellar we toured, because I was NOT paying attention, but here are a couple pictures!





After the tour, we tasted three of the house wines, and then it was back on the bus to Florence! I was exhausted from the weekend, and tried to sleep on the way home. But, of course, I was too excited! Oh well!

I was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited to see Jackie when I got back to apartment! I practically ran up the stairs to our apartment! Jackie and I went for a walk around Florence, enjoying the lovely evening. We went and sat down by the Arno while she told me all about her travel. It was SOOOOOOO great to have her here in Florence! I know this week will go WAY too fast!
Ciao!

La Vita e Bella in Arezzo and Cortona!

Today was the first of our two field trips through school. The title of this field trip was "The Best Food and Wine 'Under the Tuscan Sun'". Over the weekend, we traveled to Arezzo, Cortona, Pienza, and Montepulciano.

Day 1 of the field trip started a little too early for our liking. We boarded the bus at 8 am and took off for Arezzo. The bus ride through the countryside was absolutely beautiful! Much better scenery than that along the interstates in Illinois. :)

We met up with a tour guide who took us around to the major sites in Arezzo (and also talked WAY too much, even the professor chaperoning commented on the lady's extra-lengthy explanations of EVERYTHING)- some beautiful churches, a few historic sites, and sites from a famous movie, which will be revealed later in the blog!

We saw far too many places to remember the names of all of them, so here are some highlights:




A fun fact: Life is Beautiful (La Vita e Bella, in italiano) was partially filmed in Arezzo! This is a beautiful movie, which everyone should see. It was really cool to see the places from the film in person!
It was so cool to see the places where this film was shot in person!


A famous piazza featured in the movie.




A chapel devoted to Mary Magdalene, decorated with mimosa flowers to celebrate Women's Day (March 8).


Piero della Francesca's fresco of Mary Magdalene. I don't know how to say this, but she's kind of a big deal. People know her.


Cimabue's Crucifix- it's also a big deal. Just go with it.

After a quick lunch, we hopped on the bus and headed to Cortona, a town tucked up in the hills of the Tuscan countryside. HILLS being the operative word here.


This picture shows us scaling the steep streets of Cortona to get to our hotel.

We went on a short walking tour lead by our chaperone, Luca, a man of few words (which we all appreciated, lol). Before hiking up to the fortress at the highest point of the city, we stopped at the Gelateria Snoopy for a quick snack :) Snoopy must be popular, because over the course of the weekend, I saw at least two more Snoopy gelato shops and one Snoopy Pizzeria.



I think that I've mentioned this before, but it seems like EVERYONE in Italy has a dog, and a cute dog at that. We thought maybe it was just our imaginations, but our suspicions were confirmed when we saw this at a church in Cortona:


Yes, that is Mary kneeling at the foot of Jesus's cross.....with a dog. Apparently this obsession with dogs goes WAY back in Italian culture. haha. :)

So, we walked up the steep streets of Cortona to the top of the city where the old fortress was for a great view of the city.




Shannon and I chilling out, watchin the sunset from the top of the city, exhausted from a day's worth of walking and the equivalent of probably a good hour on a Stairmaster. lol

We made our way back down to the hotel to freshen up for dinner. We met out on the terrace in front of the restaurant for appetizers and wine before heading inside for an amazing dinner! The food just kept coming! We started with bread, as usual. Next came a pesto quiche (and yes, I DID have to look up the spelling for that, lol), followed by two different pastas, a ravioli with white sauce and a spaghetti with red sauce. The main course was a special kind of Tuscan steak with a salad, which while delicious, I barely touched, already stuffed and anticipating dessert. And dessert certainly did not disappoint- it was a HOT chocolate cake filled with chocolate sauce. YUM. We now understand the truth behind why Italians take so long to complete a meal- too many courses!

Completely stuffed from dinner, we decided to go for a stroll through the city with some new friends, two of them ISU girls! We ended up at a local pub where we hung out and talked while our food digested.



We all turned in fairly early, exhausted from the day, and anticipating another long day Sunday!

There are WAY more pictures from Arezzo and Cortona on my Picasa album!
Ciao!

Happy Birthday Marlie!

So after an insanely boring week of nothing but reading, watching mafia movies, and preparing for midterms- work which I knew I wouldn't get done while Jackie was visiting- finally there was some excitement- Marla's 20th birthday!

Shannon and I had talked to Andrea about planning a surprise party for her at Borgo Antico, so Shannon and I snuck out on Wednesday to talk over plans with Andrea and pick up decorations.

The day of Marla's birthday, I had dance club. We learned a couple of Italian dances: the Tarantella and one that I can't remember the name of, but I would call it the Italian version of square dancing- partnered dance where someone calls out a "figure" and everyone does that move or combination of moves. Both very fun.

After dance club, I met Shannon at the apartment, and we snuck out (luckily, Marla was napping!) and went to Borgo to decorate. We decorated the table with balloons, streamers, confetti, and a card that Julia had made.



Andrea set us up with the table right in front so that Marla would see the table right when she walked in. Olmo had made Marla a chocolate torte (cake) and even written "Happy Birthday Marla" on it in white icing. They had even bought Marla a present- ping pong paddles! :) So nice! We decided that we would get a bottle of champagne for dinner and pay for Marla's dinner.

We went home to freshen up. It was really easy to convince Marla that we should go to the restaurant for her birthday dinner, and she didn't suspect a thing. We walked over, making sure to keep her distracted until she was all the way inside the restaurant. Her reaction was PERFECT! She was so surprised!

We had a great time at dinner (well, except for Marla and Shannon ordered sardines and swordfish with muscles and all sorts of yucky seafood- the smell was so aweful I had to leave the table for a few minutes! UGH.)



After we finished our dinner, the waitress turned off the lights, and Andrea brought out Marla's cake, candles flickering "Buon Compleanno", and began everyone singing Happy Birthday. Marla, an easy cryer, finally teared up! It was so much fun!





We had intended to go out after dinner, but we ended up staying at the restaurant so late, that we just stayed there and hung out, played ping pong on a table (with a couple boxes of sugar packets acting as the net, lol). It was a great evening, and I think we all made it a very memorable birthday for Marla! :)

Milan: the word of the day is chic

Shannon, Marla, and I went to Milan on Friday. We took the high-speed train from Florence (250km/hr. Whoa.). Which was an interesting experience in itself. The train is set up a little differently, and we had a little trouble figuring out the seating arrangements. Once we finally got seated, we must have still looked very lost because a couple of fatherly looking Italian men sitting across from us kept trying to tell Marla and I what was going on, but without Shannon (who was a few seats in front of us) we hid no idea what he was saying. (They did ask us if we were going to Milano Centrale, to make sure we were even on the right train- that's how clueless we looked apparently LOL).

We got to Milan and were surprised- we had thought that Florence was a pretty big city....until we got to Milan! We had a couple of travel books on us which told us that the best way to get around Milan was the Metro, so we got tickets for that and checked to see where we should go. (btw- we were really proud of how travel savvy we were- navigating the metro pretty easily!) We decided to start with the Duomo.



The Duomo in Milan is SOOOOO much different from ours in Florence. First of all, it is WAY bigger- it's the fourth largest cathedral in all of Europe (following the Vatican, St. Paul's in London, and the Seville cathedral- yes, surprisingly, Notre Dame isn't on the list!), and is built to hold 40,000 worshippers. CRAZY. It's also a really Gothic-style cathedral, so the appearance is completely different. Soooooo beautiful!

Like the Duomo in Florence, this one was free to enter- as they all should be in my opinion, but that's beside the point. You also were not supposed to take pictures, but it was soooo beautiful, that I decided to do a few sneak attacks. (but then lots of people were taking pictures unashamedly, so the sneak attacks were unnecessary lol)


There are altars like this lining the entire perimeter of the church- beautiful!


The stain glass windows were so vivid that Marla didn't think they were real! and they were HUGE.

This cathedral is also home to a couple of really cool relics-


This one is the tesoro. or treasury. A few of the relics housed down there include thorns from Jesus' crown and the "tree of the Apostles" which is made from bones, hair, and fingernails from each of the twelve apostles- creepy, but kind of cool.


If you look up at the top of this picture, there is a little red light showing where one of the nails from Jesus' cross is kept.

After the Duomo, we checked out the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele- a four storied glass-domed arcade opening at the piazza del Duomo.



Some of the really big name designers have shops here, but then there was also a fancy McDonald's, so that was a little confusing. There is a spot on the floor where there is a picture of a bull- you are supposed to put your heel on it and then turn around 3 times, which means you will come back to Milan. There were a lot of people going to do so, so only Marla did it, and she only turned twice, so she's only got a 2 out of 3 chance of returning. :)

After the Galleria, we found a really chic cafe and grabbed a late lunch. A little note on the eating schedules of Italians- most restaurants are open for lunch close around 3 and then open up again around 7. We were looking for a place to eat around 5, which was a little tricky. Not to say that places weren't open, because a lot of them are open for things like coffee and pastries all day, but for real food, most places wouldn't have anything until later. We got lucky and found a place, granted only about half of the dinner menu was available (because the chef hadn't finished the rest of the dishes), but we were able to eat a good meal before heading to the hostel.

The original plan was for me to spend the day in Milan with Marla and Shannon and then take the train back to Florence later that evening, but we were having so much fun, that I decided to stay. So, without a pajamas, contact case/glasses, and change of clothes, I checked into the hostel with them. (Ended up not being a big deal- Shannon lent me a shirt to sleep in and I used my leggings that Marla had borrowed, and then I just washed stuff out in the sink and laid it on the heater to dry. The biggest problem was lack of makeup and other grooming devices. Oh well! Sunglasses hid my slightly scary unmade-up face! LOL)

Later that evening, we met up with a couple of people from Milan that we had met in Florence. They gave us directions to a a really chill, chic (yup, there's that word again) bar for apperitivo. In Florence, apperitivo is where the bar sets out little appetizers or finger foods for you to snack on while you have a drink. In Milan, they lay out a full-fledged meal! Which was nice, because for the price of our 7.50 euro glass of wine, we also got dinner!

We had a really great time hanging out with the group from Milan. They were very friendly and gave us a lot of good tips on places to visit in Milan and in all of Italy. They also asked a lot about our school and classes. Two of the girls were originally from Sicily, so I had a really cool talk with them about my mafia class.

We parted ways around 1 and took a cab back to the hostel. Exhausted, we went straight to bed.

The next day, we checked out of the hostel around 11 and hit a little cafe across the street for a quick cappucino and a croissant. The weather was absolutely perfect, so we sat at a table outside while we ate our breakfast.

We took the Metro back to the Duomo and went around to a couple places nearby. The Palazzo Reale, which has a lot of art exhibits, the Scala Opera House, and a couple other small places. We stopped to do a little shopping along the way. Then, we headed to a street called Via Monte Napoleone, which is the main strip of high-end shopping. All the big names were present and accounted for: Gucci, Prada, Dolce & Gabana, Giorgio Armani, Versace, Valentino, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Ferregamo- the gang was all there! We didn't actually go in anywhere, which seems to be the thing to do in Italy: window shopping is very big here, which is why the window displays are so awesome! They were incredible! We also didn't go in because of the upscale nature of the area- glass of champagne at the door, ivory carpet on the street in front of the REALLY nice stores. CRAZY.





After window shopping, we took the Metro over to the Castello Sforzesco- a fortress built in the 1300s which houses several art and history exhibits. We stopped for lunch at an outdoor cafe and enjoyed the beautiful weather and scenery- the castle was just right across the street! We met up with Rob, a guy from the Milan bunch, and he took us to the castle- he was a pretty good tour guide!



Funny story- the whole time we were hanging out with Rob, he kept telling us to slow down! "If you walk that quickly, we'll be done with the whole castle in about 2 minutes!" We have noticed that Italians walk MUCH slower than we do, so we slowed down and took a lovely stroll around the castle and then through the park behind it.

Afterwards, Rob took us to get a snack before we headed back to the train station. We made our way through the massive crowd of people near the Duomo (apparently Carnevale is NOT over.....we just don't understand Carnevale, haha). Rob took us to a little shop where they served panzerotti- which turned out to be the sandwiches that Shannon had been talking about the day before. :) It's like a mini calzone made on this ridiculously soft fried dough crust, and then it has different toppings inside. The texture is somewhere between a fresh doughnut and a hot roll. YUM.

We said goodbye to Rob and went back to the train station. We were all so tired that we slept nearly the whole way home.

I have WAY more pictures from Milan on my Picasa album, so check them out!
Ciao!