Barcelona

Well as I mentioned in my last note....my weekends start at noon on Wednesdays, so this past Wednesday I headed to Spain after class! It still amazes me that I can just hop on a plane for an hour and I am in another country. It's going to take some getting used to. So Kate and I made our way to Barcelona to visit my roommate from home (Ariana) and her boyfriend who are both studying there. Our plane got in at about 8:30 Wednesday night and we just crashed for the night since we were tired from traveling. The next day we met up with Ariana to do some walking and site-seeing. 

Barcelona is a huge huge city compared to Verona so it took some getting used to. I think that the difference in size of Champaign and Chicago would be a safe comparison. The weather was gorgeous the entire time we were there. Very much like spring when you can wear a cardigan and jeans out and the sun is shining all the time :) We stopped for lunch and Ariana and I split Patatas Bravas which are kind of similar to large hashbrowns in a spicy mayo sauce, and Paella. It was delicious and just the first of the amazing Spanish cuisine I would have that weekend. We walked around the entire rest of the afternoon and made our way to the beach. They have gorgeous beaches in Barcelona that sit right on the Mediterranean, so we went to bask in the sun for a little bit and relax. While we were sitting there we noticed a nudist woman doing yoga and some other work out on the beach!!! It was definitely the first time I'd seen anything like that, and the image of her doing yoga poses in the sand in probably going to be permanently burned in my brain lol. 

The weekend was wonderful overall. The weather stayed very nice the whole time and it was so great seeing someone I know and love so much from home. We spent a lot more time site-seeing and we made our way to Parc Guell and La Segrada Familia....2 of Gaudi's famous artworks in Barcelona. You should really look them up if you get the chance, I've never seen anything like it and pictures barely do it justice. We also did more authentic food tasting and I found the Croquettas to be my favorite tapas. 

One of Tedd's roommates is in culinary school in Spain right now and we were fortunate enough to have him cook for us the last night we were there. He went to the market first thing in the morning and got us fresh tuna and salmon to make us sushi and it was amazing!!! Besides it tasting amazing, it was plated so beautiful that I didn't want to touch it. He is going to be a great chef someday!

Spain's culture is so different from Italy or the US. They wake up early, eat late lunches, take siesta naps at 7-9pm, eat dinner at 10, and go out dancing from 2-7am! It is something my body is not used to and I barely slept the entire weekend I was there. Needless to say I am still trying to recover from no sleep, but it was fun and worth the experience. I think my favorite place we went was a night club called Sutton (not the english pronunciation, it's French) where they had a kind of mock Studio 54 set up with cool costumed dancers on stage. I think next time we go we are going to venture out to the clubs along the beach. They are supposed to be fantastic, but they are kind of far away.

I am fortunate enough to be spending one of my spring breaks in Barcelona, so I will be back in a few weeks to soak up some major sun and see more of the city. It is very big and kind of overwhelming city at times. Especially since I had to forget all the Spanish I learned in high school because it confused me when learning Italian. One the other hand it was nice to be in a place that kind of reminded me of home. I am very excited to go back!

Ciao for now!

New classes=weekends start on Wednesday at noon!

I've started my new classes and I absolutely love them!! Mondays are a little long because I have Theater in the morning and Italian in the afternoon. I think that Theater is going to be my most challenging class, but I do still enjoy it. We are learning about Greek and Roman theater and we get to watch different plays. A lot of the class is in Italian though, so it is very difficult. We are not allowed to just say single vocab words as answers either, Georgia makes us try to put together full sentences before she will answer us. It is great practice, but it is very frustrating and it is the only class I have where I find myself looking at the clock at all. 

Italian 2 is with Maurizio again and I'm thrilled. All the girls that were in Italian 1 with me are also in 2, along with about 5 or 6 other girls. It is a strictly conversational class, so it is more frustration, but Maurizio is patient with us and we laugh a lot!!

On Tuesdays I don't have photography class until 2pm so I get to sleep in! My teacher's name is Mauro Fiorese and he's actually a famous photographer. You can google him and find his website, and it's actually very impressive. The first day or two we watched videos and learned about the history of photography, but now we are learning new picture taking techniques on our digital cameras. He always teaches us a new technique then we go out in town and try them out. It's always super interesting and he is a really laid back teacher so it's nice. 

My last class is Wednesday morning and it's Art History. It is by far the most fascinating class I am taking! We are learning so much from roman mythology to history of ancient Rome. Our teacher Andrea is the cutest little guy. He has his nose pierced and I've noticed he is a little nervous when teaching and says "Va bene" a lot which means ok or it's good. This class only goes until 12 pr 12:30, so after that I am done for the week! It is so nice to be able to relax for the rest of the weekend or travel somewhere for a long weekend. The other nice thing is that we don't really get homework for any of our classes. This is the way it should be in America.....it's so not stressful and I think it is conducive to great artistic abilities!!!

Ciao for now!

Carnevale!!!

So as you may know.....it's time for Mardi Gras!!! In Italy, and I think pretty much everywhere else in Europe they call it Carnevale (which means without meat). Venice has a two week celebration for Carnevale that consists of wearing beautiful or exotic masks, and dancing at concerts in St. Mark's square. I think it would be correct to say it is like a mix of Halloween and Fourth of July, because it's a time that everyone can dress up and look silly and because of the celebration of a countries traditions. Also because of the fireworks lol. We most of the people on my group, myself included, went to Carnevale the first weekend it started. This also happened to be Valentine's Day. I don't think it get more cliche than to be in Venice, the most romantic city in Italy, on Valentine's Day. To make it even worse, I took a gondola ride! It wasn't a romantic one though....it was with 3 of my girlfriends and it was more of a wonderful insider's tour of the city. It was not very expensive since there were 4 of us to split the cost, and our gondolier was great! He told us he had been doing this for 35 years and that his family had been gondoliers for 3 generations before him. He gave us a great little history lesson as we went through the city, and I can honestly say I have yet to enjoy something more! If you make it to Venice, take a gondola ride.....just make sure you find one that speaks a little English and is away from the main touristy areas. Usually he won't try to scam you then and you will get a free history lesson :)

I loved Venice even though it was so crowded for Carnevale. It kind of reminded me of a labyrinth. As soon as you get out of the train station you are practically on the water. We decided to walk instead of take the water taxi, and I'm glad we did! As you cross the bridge and head into the city, you wind through beautiful apartments and pass through one small piazza after another. There are signs with arrows directing you to St. Mark's Square the whole way. It seems like you are never going to make it there, and then it opens up into a huge square with St. Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace. Even though it was really crowded for the celebration, we managed to walk through St. Mark's Basilica. It was the most incredibly artwork I've seen inside a church thus far. I've heard the Doge's Palace is incredible too, but we didn't make it inside this trip. Since Venice is only an hour and a half train ride away, I will be visiting there again

Firenze Part Due

So I am very fortunate to only be a about 2 hours away from the beautiful region of Toscane (Tuscany) and I have been able to visit Florence twice now. It is a beautiful city, really. When I say you should visit it at some point in your life, I am not exaggerating! It has more of a big city feel than Verona does, but it is just as picturesque. I still have not visited all of the wonderful historical sites there are to visit there, but then again I am going 2 more times while I'm here. 

This last visit was even better than the first, mostly because of the weather. It was probably about 60 degrees and mostly sunny....perfect for exploring the city. We ventured towards the famous bridge "Ponte Vecchio" which literally means old bridge. Our main adventure for the day was making it up to Michelangelo's Piazza. It is about a 20 minute hike from the Uffizi Art Gallery,  but totally worth it! The walk itself is beautiful, but when you get to the top you have a breathtaking view of the entire city. The piazza is well known and there are a lot of tourists, but you can still get lost in the incredible scenery as if there was no one there but you. In the center of the piazza is a replica statue of the David, and if you are standing with your back to him, you have a perfect view of the Duomo and many other famous landmarks. To his left, there is beautiful green farm land on the hillside, which was actually my favorite part to look at. To his right was more gorgeous Tuscan countryside with villas dotting the mountains. I think that if you can visit nothing else in Florence, just being at the top of this hill and taking in the beauty of the city on a sunny day would be enough to satisfy!

I feel like the best way to find things are to just wander in a city and get lost. It's amazing what you can find! We did this all day Saturday and ended up in a Monastery that has a hidden leather school. Of course it was all much to expensive to buy, but it was a really cool place to stumble upon. It wouldn't be a trip to Florence without haggling with the vendors in the street markets, so we spent a good part of our day arguing prices. I've gotten to be very good at it and I think I'll be really sad when I get back to the US and can't knock off a couple dollars from prices. I don't think cashiers would care if I said, "That's too expensive, I'm not paying that much". I'm pretty sure they'd just let me walk away empty handed and think I was crazy :)

We also stumbled on a Mexican restaurant called Tijuana that was really good! The Italian cuisine has been incredible so far, but sometimes you just crave a pile of nachos instead of pasta and in this case it hit the spot!

That's all for Florence for now. I'm sure I will have more when I visit again :)

Ciao for now!