May 17 (I love Paris in the Springtime…) May 18, 2010

I lost my phone on the way to Paris. And my arms are breaking out in some sort of freakish allergic reaction. But despite such thorns, the beauty of Paris shines through.

Granted, Parisians (or perhaps the French in general) have issues with picking up dog shit. And oftentimes, I get a whiff of cat pee, whose origin is completely unbeknown to me. My mom simply summarizes that the French are dirty.

My first impression getting of the train was one of… I don’t know, envy? nausea? Simply put, the French have a genre of kissing all their own for good reason. There are couples EVERYWHERE. Couples traveling together, couples picnicking together, couples making out in museums or leaning over their afternoon tea for a kiss. Even lesbians making out in the subway. The whole city is paired off and it certainly makes a girl aware of her single status. Everyone is Paris is in love.

But maybe that’s for the best. Because currently, I’m too preoccupied with the city to be in love with anything or anyone else. This place is beautiful, sparkling, stunning, romantic and slightly overpriced. I’m literally sitting here looking up study abroad programs and reconsidering my foreign language.

Maybe it’s the fact that Carrie Bradshaw is pasted all over this city, or that it makes me feel so beautiful (albeit a little lonely at times), but this city just has an energy.

And don’t get me wrong; we’re doing the tourist thing, too. We’ve done the Louvre and the Orsay and the Champs-Elysee and Arc de Triumph and Notre Dame and Saint Chapelle and the Eiffel Tower, even the sewer tour and a tour of the catacombs (I know a LOT about whats under the city now, too).

But I try cities on as potential living places… kind of like trying boys on as potential boyfriends. Or a sweater. Either way, Paris fits and I’m falling fast.

One more full day of this stunning city. Then we leave Tuesday for Brugges, Belgium. But we’ll make the most of it. And I’ll definitely be back here, as soon as humanly/financially possible.

Catch up!

Clearly, I’m behind. I’ll fill this post later with the gap. But I’m moving on 🙂

May 9 (Porcupines and mighty fines)

In the morning, we finally did Sienna some justice. We attended a Mass at the Duomo, where we spent the time watching the alter boys squirm and fight, rather than try to decipher the Italian. Turns out boys are boys, no matter what country.

We walked more throughout the walled city and were nearly run over by a bicycle parade (Apparently, May 9th is international bicycle day) and were lucky enough to come across a celebration by one of the contradas. Sienna is broken down into several little neighborhoods, called contradas, that all compete against each other in their annual summer games competition. They’re a lot like Hogwarts houses, only real. And people are typically loyal to the contrada they grew up with, even if they end up moving.

We got to see 100s of boys, boys waving flags and playing drums, marching from Il Campo (basically, the center of town) through the city back to their home contrada, which was decorated with their colors, in some sort of Mothers’ Day tribute.

Turns out that’s what the porcupine deal was the night before. We ate dinner in the contrada that associated with the porcupine. Pretty cool 🙂

After the contrada parade, we grabbed a lunch of pheasant, ravioli and spinach before heading back to our hotel.

At about 5, this girl Francesca Fabbri and her boyfriend, Rudy, showed up to meet us. We met Franny through this program that my mother raves about (and tells EVERY woman we come into contact with) called 5W. It stands for Women Welcoming Women World Wide and is like a female-only, less sketch version of couch surfing.

Anyway, when we mentioned to Franny that we were vespa-ing up to Florence, she just decided she and her boy would make the drive down and meet us and we’d all caravan back. It was great. They knew the roads and were able to lead us right to her house (no messy mapquest business).

When we were all showered and feeling human again (our backpacks THANKFULLY were able to get to Franny safe and sound. You never know with Italy post), we took Franny and Rudy out to dinner. Rudy talked, Anne talked, Franny translated and I tried grappa (blech). In all, a great day.

May 8 “Italians are a lot like Hobbits” May 13, 2010

The next day was MUCH better. We ditched the crazy directions and followed the signs instead, which had us going on straighter routes through beautiful bouts of countryside. The sun made its debut and warmed our backs and we stopped for opportune pictures and soaked up the sheltered, almost secret, beauty of Tuscany.

We got off to a rocky start, though. Literally. While we were leaving our charming Tuscan country house, mom took off on the vespa and the vespa took off faster. Mom fell and scraped her hand a little bit and the poor bike got banged up too. Everyone survived, but it was definitely not the best start.

We dubbed the retro-esque vespa put-put Pippy somewhere between Aguamendente and Sienna, where we were headed. We managed to get to Sienna without too much trouble, but had some problems regarding the city walls and rules about driving within them. But it really was a relatively painless day.

The title of this post draws its name from a theory that hit me somewhere along the SS2. Italians have these doors all along the roads that cover up what I assume are something like garages. But when you look at them it really is a round-ish door in a green mound. Add that little bit of evidence to the fact that Italians are actually very short (Ian, from the Forum, had informed us that the average Roman was 4’8″) and hairy (just a general fact) and there’s a pretty strong case that Italians, indeed, are hobbits. Plus, I suppose you could argue that Vesuvius is Mt. Doom and that the Italian countryside looks a loooottt like the Shire. Sha-bam, case closed.

Tangent aside, when we got settled in Sienna, we went out for dinner and found this tiny little place with porcupines all over the wall (we’ll explain tomorrow) and not a word of English on the menu. We managed to communicate pretty well with the owner and ended up with spinach, an oat soup and a meat stew.

Turns out, the place is run by a husband-wife team; he cooks, she serves. And the meat stew was actually wild boar (yummmm). Also highly recommended (can’t at this time remember the name, but we said we’d put in an email to Rick Steves). Stomachs full, we crashed and intentionally didn’t set an alarm.

May 7 “Are We Having Fun Yet?”

We finished our Roman rendezvous the next morning with a quick trip to the Colosseum (which I’ve been drooling over since I learned about Roman history and which didn’t let me down) and the Forum (which swept me off my feet). We were in a rush, so we were willing to splurge on a tour group (E20 each) that took us through both the Colosseum and the Forum. The guide for the Forum, Ian from Scotland, was charming, informative, entertaining and cute to boot. He happily informed us about much of Rome’s brutal, sexist history and definitely brought the Forum (which has no signs or readily available information) to life. Standing there, it was easy(er) to imagine what the glorious, ancient Rome would have been like. After all, Rome is and was the center of the world, right?

Before leaving for the Colosseum, we had shipped our packs to our place in Florence, keeping the bare necessities in our smaller packs. Alessandro, a soon-to-be friend, had also dropped off a white little 125 vespa, our mode of transportation for the 350 miles of winding country rode from Rome through Tuscany to Florence.

After the Colosseum, we got back to our apartment, figured out the basics of the bike, and tried to weave our way out of the city.

Only… the phrase “All roads lead to Rome” is surprisingly accurate. And trying to follow directions in a crazy foreign city on a tiny little bike is, well, impossible. After weaving about, lost, for a while, we finally asked a man for directions. And, giving Italians a good name, he actually offered to hop in his car and have us follow him until we were out of Rome. How’s that for hospitable. We got his name and email and will be sending peanut butter as thanks when we get home.

The ride after was hard. The directions were crap and the ride bumpy. We got lost and confused. At one point, we kind of curved and fell (bike and all). No harm to Mom or the bike, but I managed to melt my shoe and polyester sock and burn my foot underneath. “Are we having fun, yet?”

When we got lost a second (or third or fourth) time, we walked into a driving school to ask for directions. Between four people, no one would bother to talk to us (although at least two admittedly spoke English) and help us with our directions. There was an odd interaction between them and they waved us away. Turns out the streep we were looking for was only a couple blocks up. Jerks just wanted to screw us over. It was really insulting to be treated as such, but turns out most Italians are willing to do what they can to help out even us lowly Americans. They were just a bunch of sour apples.

After that, things still got worse. Riding was cold and miserable (albeit beautiful) and I was starved.

Things got better after we stopped for food and I put on as many layers as I had packed. We still got (very) lost on the way to our agriturismo, but we managed to make it there in time for an incredible dinner and a hot shower.

The place we stayed comes HIGHLY recommended, by the way. The staff and food were wonderful and I wish we could have stayed an additional night and explored more of the area. It was inexpensive, too, and we met some other people there who had some interesting stories and reasons for traveling to Italy. It’s called Sant’egle 🙂 http://www.tuscanycharmingcountryhouse.com/ Really… HIGHLY recommended

May 6 “Rome is the Center of the World”

Oh boy, I’ve been terrible about updating. But I’m trying to keep notes so I can write later 🙂

When our train arrived in Rome, we gathered our belongings, cranked our awareness up (to be aware of pickpockets. There are a lot of pockets on backpacks!), and got on the bus. A group of men sat by us and started talking in broken English asking about our trip and America. We com[pared lifestyles and one man, the more lively of the bunch was happy to inform us that “Rome is the center of the world.”

If you think about it, that makes a hell of a lot of sense. Rome is where basically everything in Western society started.

When we were talking about lifestyles, we mentioned briefly that Americans get ten days of holidays a year. We (generally) live by the philosophy “live to work,” whereas Europeans, and Italians in particular, “work to live.” They travel more, enjoy the little things, soak everything in olive oil and take the month of August off. The guy, aghast at our lifestyle, said, “you [Americans] have two kinds of clothes..work and sleep.” Priceless… and surprisingly accurate, actually.

When we managed to find our apartment, we cleaned up a bit and followed Rick Steves’ lovely night walk of the city. We visited the Pantheon (which was closed), the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. Along the way, we got DELICIOUS gelatto; Mom got raspberry and I got dark chocolate with some hazelnut and the berry with the chocolate was out-of-this-world incredible.

After the Spanish steps, we found a tiny, cute little upscale restaurant, where I had pasta carbonara and Mom, ever the experimental eater, had quail. The food was great (carbonara is wonderful… its like breakfast for dinner), the wine was great, and we got to giggling watching this group of men eating next to us. They were all VERY Italian and it was a real people-watching exercise to see them interact.

The next day (May 6), Mom dragged me out of bed and we ran several errands, before catching the 64 bus to Vatican City. We waited forever in the line for the museum, which was long and exhausting, but well worth it.

After, we snuck in the back door to St. Peter’s Basilica, where I finally got to see my pieta. I’m not a super passionate person about art, but I love this piece.

When we were done at the Vatican, we ate a picnic lunch on a bench we affectionately named “Homelessland.” It was a little sketchy for two women, but me survived, filled our tummies and continued on to the Pantheon, which we just wanted to see while it was open.

Then, when I regained the feeling in my very tired feet (kidding, but only a little), we walked up to the Borghese Gallery, where Mom got to see her favorite work: Bernini’s Apollo Chasing Daphne. I thought it was absolutely incredible and we sat in that room looking from every angle, nearly heartbroken at the story.

Its weird, I find myself underwhelmed by things like the Sistine Chapel, yet awestruck and overwhelmed by wonders like Bernini’s Apollo Chasing Daphne and Michelangelo’s pieta. Both are absolutely stunning. Bernini is really intricate; I like his pieces a lot. And actually Michelangelo doesn’t do much for me. I recognize he is the quintessential Renaissance man, but I look at his pieces and work and find him to be more mediocre at a lot, rather than wonderfully gifted at one thing. But his pieta makes me question my religious ambiguity. It is truly striking, even from behind the bulletproof glass.

Side note… oftentimes when I watch someone or when I’m reading and a person does an action like smile or cough, I naturally follow suit. Blame the human connection, I guess. But that’s what the pieta does to me. When I see her face, I feel every ounce of pain and love and faith and heartbreak that Mary feels. I see the way her right hand struggles to hold up his dead weight and involuntarily flex my muscles. Forget the David and the Sistine and the Medici tombs. Michelangelo’s greatest work is the pieta.

Tangent over 🙂 Bernini’s work is similar, if not better. He pays attention to little things, particularly leaves and such. Beautiful…

We grabbed a taxi back to Campe de Fiori, where we relaxed with chips and beer before walking to Piazza Navona and (finally) going home.

A word to the wise: Never try to do Rome in two nights. Ever.

May 5 (Venice is a City for the Senses) May 6, 2010

We’re sitting on the floor of the train station waiting for our train to Rome to arrive. We decided to suck it up and pay the supplement so that we can get to Rome before dark (it’s after one right now). We did end up going to St. Mark’s Square this morning for Mom. The purse was expensive, but stunning (the leather work is really intricate) and I’m not-so-secretly happy that she opted to buy it.

We got very lost on our way back, but managed to stumble our way back to our room to finish packing and leave. To save some pennies, we opted to walk back to the station, instead of take a waterbus or taxi. It was a pain, but for the best. We ended up coming to a dead end and just had some gondoliers carry us across the Canal. They were very complimentary and sweet and helped us find the station. Plus, now we can brag that we’ve ridden a gondola in Venice… standing, like the locals.

I’ve been having some difficulty sleeping the last couple of nights. But my insomnia generates some relatively abstract thoughts. For example, I found it absolutely hilarious at 3am last night that our ceiling resembles an American flag.

The most profound thing I realized, however, is that Venice, at its core, is a city for the senses.

I mentioned before some of the smells: the sugary baking, the fish market, the water. But there’s more: there’s a sweet dankness to the buildings, though it doesn’t always smell musty; there’s the smell of construction and concrete where workers struggle to keep the island from sinking; and inscense burning in every one of Venice’s countless churches.

Venice is a feast for the eyes, too. The art on the church walls can be so easily overlooked, even though its work bears names like Donatello and Bernini. The Byzantian arches above the windows hint at the eastern influences and even the shadiest alleys are charming.

But as I lay awake at night, I just listened to the sounds. The locals in the building next to ours sounded like they were living their own Italian soap opera and their TV buzzed in the background. Everywhere, people are laughing, talking… The delivery boys drop of supplies and shout “attenzione” as they weave their carts through tourists. Unpatriotic American pop music blasts from speakers, the rain beats on every surface and merchants promise “special price” for people walking by.

I’m kind of sad to leave Venice today, actually. My nose and ears will miss it, but I’m sure my eyes will be just as happy to feast on the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo’s “pieta” in Rome.

Woof.

May 4 (Over the Bridges and Through the Stores)

We woke up this morning to the heavenly smell of sugar, spice and everything nice. Mom looked out our window at the sky and declared that today was going to have wonderful weather. So we got dressed and headed to the Venecian fish market, where we saw everything from swordfish bodies to live, moving crabs. Nearby was a fresh market, where we grabbed some strawberries and apples and headed off to San Marcos Basilica. In the meantime, it started to mist/rain (Mom’s prediction turned out to be terribly wrong) and was absolutely pouring by the time we got the the square.

We putzed through the shops a bit and these Italian leather purses caught Mom’s eye. They were really intricate with fine leather work and a price tag to match. We’ve been shopping around all day and haven’t been able to find a better price outside of the square.. I anticipate we might head back there tomorrow for a light shopping session before hopping on the train for Rome.

We walked around more, venturing into a random church for the last bit of Mass and visiting “Mom and Dad’s church” (a place they loved when they visited). The latter was really different, actually. There were some underwater crypts below that we got to see.

Tired of the weather (and a little cold), we walked into a random caffe for cappacinos and gordita-esque sandwiches. Nothing stellar, but good nonetheless. Then we grudgingly decided to go back to the square and wait in the line in the rain to go into St. Marks. The church really was stunning. The gold is such a regal touch and I found myself wishing I believed in something enough to build a huge monument to it. The floor was probably my favorite part, though. Every inch is made up of geometric mosaics and each is entirely unique.

After St. Marks, exhausted, we trudged back to our hostel, hung up our soaking clothes and napped. After, we set off for yet another church. The Frari Church was slightly less ornate, but had a lot of great marble work, especially the piece dedicated to the Doge (the choir chairs were also incredible). We were kicked out at closing, though, and trudged off on a weaving adventure towards we-have-no-clue-but-this-street-looks-pretty.

Our adventure carried us through a beautiful little neighborhood that actually had yards, to a random local bar. I suppose we were in search of a wifi café (so we could actually get these posts out in a timely manner), but ended up just paying to use a computer for 20 minutes so Mom coud check her email. It was early, but we were in the mood for seafood and ended up in some corner tourist trap for a three course meal.

I’m always up for adventurous food, as is my mom. We shared some weird dishes (by American standards, at least), including fried sardines and cuttlefish in a black sauce(died black with ink). Paired with the house white wine and followed by a very European chocolate cake dessert, cappacinos  and limoncello. More than two hours later, we strolled home.

And here we are, lying in bed playing solitaire (Mom… must be where I get the habit from) and writing (me…duh).

To fill in the cracks, yesterday afternoon, we arrived via train in Venezia. We walked a little around the station area and grabbed (yet another) cappacino before hopping on the #1 waterbus for a 20 minute ride down the Grande Canal to the Rialto and our hotel. After stumbling our way over the bridges and through the stores, we finally made our way to grandmother’s house/our hostel.

When we were situated, we headed back out in a classy pub-crawl, trying to capture the spirit of the city at night. We stayed off the main areas, instead walking through back alleys and determining the quality of a place based on the number of supposed locals there.

The first was relatively empty, but afterwards we found a simple pizza joint and talked to Nicolla for almost an hour. He told us a little about where he was from (about 20 minutes outside Venice) and his recent travels around Italy. He was also talking to another customer in Spanish so we chimed in with a couple comments and learned that Nicolla apparently speaks four languages: English, Spanish, Italian and Venician J. He was clever and I marveled at the fact that anyone who spoke 3+ languages in the States would not be working in a pizza joint.

After, we found the best pub and sat for a while. A toothless town drunk named Maurice graced us with his slightly creepy presence and quizzed us about our American history. Did you know? Apparently, Fort Knox is our country’s capital and we now have 52 states.

In all, Venice is CERTAINLY my favorite place, so far. I love the Eastern influence in the architecture and the slower pace of life. I like the siestas and the morning bakeries and I understand the dislike for tourists (even if it makes for a less friendly atmosphere). I like the locals bringing their dogs with them everywhere and the little gardens on the balconies. I like the countless churches and smell of fish. The green water and the California-esque attitude. Sure, the food is relatively underwhelming and the streets are about as straight as my 6^th grade teacher, but this is the first place I think I could see myself, which may or may not mean something. But it crossed my mind.

Tomorrow, we head first to St. Mark’s Square (for Mommy’s Italian leather), then to Rome. It’s raining there, as well, but we will hopefully have wireless.

Woof.

May 2-3 (Finally, we have wireless!!)

Friday night, we sat in my empty dorm room, sprawling papers across the plastic mattress and going over the last minute plans. Postpopcorn-and-a-movie, we fell asleep (and mom was worng. I’m certainly NOT the one with the snoring problem).

Saturday morning, we woke up, showered, packed, ate brunch and trudged numerous heavy boxes downstairs to ship home. Then, backpacks locked and loaded, we headed off to Logan to catch our flight.

A word about international flights: they kick domestic flights’ sorry, budget-cut butt. Hot meals, free drinks, free movies, warm towels…my mom said I’d enjoy them and she was right. A chicken dinner is much better than four bags of pretzels and a cup of Sprite.

When we landed in Frankfurt, the customs line was terrible. And of course we ended up in THE slowest line (and I’m not saying that to add a dramatic touch. Our guy literally left his cubicle for a smoke break or something). And then we had to go back through security and sprint to our gate. Needless to say, we missed the flight and ended up getting hot and sweaty in the process. The bright side is we’re more in shape now and the kind service lady was able to book us another flight to Milano.

When we finally managed to get to Milan, we made our way to The Last Supper, hoping to flirt our way past the front desk. But to no avail. I was apparently too sweaty from the hike to persuade the ticket guy.

Instead, we grabbed the local bus to our hotel right near the heart of Milan. We napped (an Italian tradition I’m much looking forward to) and then walked in and around the Duomo before searching for  mom’s bakery (it’s called Princi and they have the most wonderful olive breadsticks. www.princi.it). For dinner, we found this converted opera house listed in the zagat guide that apparently serves donkey of some sort. I’m always up for being an adventurous eater, but it was closed so adventurous turned into convenient and we went to a cute little touristy cafe right on Dante. The waiter fended off a man trying to sell us an umbrella by shielding us with a serving tray, so we decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The food wasn’t bad, by any means. The best part was the wine. We wanted something red and couldn’t communicate efficiently the difference between red and rose, so we ended up with something a little lighter. It was still fine and probably for the best since we ended up sharing saffron risotto and margherite pizza.

After dinner, we tackled an item on my bucket list: I had my first gelato. I’ve always been a fan of cold sweet snacks and I didn’t notice too much difference (besides the calorie count), but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

We struggled to stay awake to adjust to Italian time. Even with a nap, I was nodding off when I should have been writing this 🙂 It rained all night.

This morning, we woke, showered and ventured back toward the Duomo to the bakery, where we bought about $25 worth of bread. We got snacks for the train, a dozen breadsticks and the breadstick recipe (Mom was thrilled). Weaving back through downtown, we stopped for espresso.

The way Italians consume their morning caffeine is an art. Back home (I worked at Starbucks), people just drive through and order their skinny-whatever-with-a-pump-of-added-sugar. But here, people stand at a bar and order either an espresso or a cappuccino. It’s still an addiction, but it’s the difference between drinking alcohol to get drunk as fast as possible and drinking with friends. Here, morning coffee is a social interaction and a proper start to the day.

I tried a cappuccino (with two chocolates) at a place close to mom’s bakery and later just an espresso at some brightly lit corner café. The cappuccino was rich and creamy and just sweet enough, and the espresso was strong and dark and reminded me of Starbucks taste tests.

After our jolt, we went back to the hotel, packed our packs and got to the Milano Centrale train station. The line to validate our rail passes was ridiculously long and hot, but we did finally manage to make it onto the train. A word of caution to future travelers, by the way: taking fast paced trains apparently costs in addition to the EuroRail pass and they don’t tell you until you’re enroute and obligated to pay. Not worth it.

But we bonded with a couple over the ridiculous extra fee. We talked with John and Lea Gardiner, of Australia, for about an hour about everything from travel plans to kids. We introduced them to the Women Welcoming Women WorldWide (5W) organization and they gave us hints about places to go in Paris. I wrote an article about meeting random people before( http://huntnewsnu.com/2010/03/inside-column-finding-friends-in-high-places/ )…this was no different. The human connection is even more evident in a foreign country and we ended up exchanging emails before getting off the train in Verano. Glad I got their names this time, at least.

We just got back on the train from Verano headed to Venice. But Verano was very cool. The buildings are all different colors and the attention to detail is evident. That’s something I’ve already recognized about Italians. There’s a general love of all things beautiful… beautiful food, beautiful clothes, beautiful people, beautiful language, beautiful history… even the gate over windows to protect against burglary is beautiful. It’s certianly different then the cookie-cutter philosophy of urban planners in Southern California.

We got lost in Verano, but ended up at the castle before meandering our way to the arena. We didn’t visit either extensively, but were able to sit down and enjoy more gelato (mint with chocolate chip… very good until the chocolate chip runs out and your left licking a cold breath mint) in the sun before getting on the train.

Now, were sitting on the regionale train (which won’t cost us another 36E) and headed toward Venice, where we will be staying for the next two nights. Before finding our hostel, we’re going to ride a boat bus around the grand canal on our own DIY tour of the city. Should be stunning, especially as the sun goes down.

Woof.

Two finals, 13 boxes, one meltdown and too many goodbyes later… April 29, 2010

Mom arrives tomorrow. I’m in this “limboland,” stuck in a weird middle ground between super-psyched-can’t-wait-to-see-my-mom/bff-and-go-on-the-craziest-adventure-yet-of-my-life and oh-boy-the-last-year-flew-by-so-quickly-and-now-i-have-four-months-of-summer-and-can’t-see-my-friends-what-am-i-going-to-do-this-is-so-depressing. Apparently, the mix is a perfect recipe for anxiety-induced canker sores. I guess that explains the aforementioned meltdown 🙂 But really, everything is falling into place. Mom leaves at crack of dawn tomorrow and gets here in time for some yummy(?) dining hall food and crashing on squeaky beds. Then we take off… volcano permitting, of course.
Lloyd (that’s my beloved boyfriend/computer) will be trekking along with us, despite his recent illness. So we’ll be accessible wherever there is wireless.
Stay tuned…
woof