FALL BREAK

Finally Fall break for me here, which is a week long. My mom and dad got here on Wednesday the 13. They stayed with friends who happened to be between Rome and Florence on their first night. Then they came to Florence and by some miracle they found my apartment. (the miracle was called a GPS) but nonetheless I am still impressed that they were able to figure it out. I had to watch out my window for them to arrive and when I finally saw them down on the street I got down the three flights of stairs in record time. It was so good to see them. I was so excitedI was talking even faster than usual and practically ran back up with the stairs with their suitcase to show them my apartment. They were hungry so I made them some scarmbled eggs with peppers before we headed off for the day. Mom delivered the arms length checklist of items i need from her without missing anything. She even thought of some stuff I forgot to put on there. So impressed. We went to the gracoery store to buy snacks and then we were off. For the afternoon we drove to Carrara which is were the best marble in world is from. We drove through out the city and I dazzeled my parents with my ability to speak Italian, they also amazed me with how much they learned through Rosetta Stone. I have to say their vocab is probably better than mine - sad since I live here. Well Carrara was beautiful. The marble mountains were stunning. The rodes around the mountains got pretty crazy and since it was my first time in a car in 6 weeks I felt like I was going to be sick. (And Dad was driving so anyone who has been in a car with him will understand.) Side-note if you think he is bad in Indiana, wait til he gets behind the wheel in a stickshift car half the size of the camry in a foreign country where he wants to drive like he is in the Formula One race because "hes a real italian." Truthfully though his driving did look pretty authentically Italian. Sadly for him the baby Nissan car with 4 cylinders maxed out in 5th gear at 120 kms/hr which is like 80 mph. BMWs were flying by us. I know he wished he had his Infiniti on that highway. In carrara we stopped to take pictures and steal tiny pieces of marble and then headed to Pisa.
In Pisa I had to catch a plane to Spain to meet Ben while Mom and Dad went to Cinque Terre, Pompeii and Naples.
The three of us stopped at a restaurant to have dinner before I had to check in for my flight and I think it was 7 pm and they were not open yet for dinner. Oh Italians.
I then departed from mom and dad and headed off to Girona to meet Ben.It was so great to see him after 7 weeks of being apart. After meeting at the airport there we took a bus to Barcelona and checked in at our hostel. It was almost 1 am by the time we checked in so we went straight to bed. In the morning we headed to see the sights of Barcelona. So we went to the Arc de Triumf. It was huge and awesome. I was stunned by how different Barcelona was from Florence. I thought that it would seem older like Florence does but it was actually very modern. In Barcelona there seemed to be more space in the streets and buildings and restaurants than in Florence. After the Arc we went to a church Eglésia de Santa Maria del Mar It was full of gold, and had monuments to the ships of Christopher Columbus, which Ben explained to me was very typical of Spanish churches, since they took all of the Gold from the Incan people after conquering them. It was so different from the churches I had been in in Europe so far. After that church we went to the Cathedral of the city which is Catedral de Tarragona. It was even bigger and had even more Gold.We did not get to stay in it for long though as they we closing it for mass. We then went to lunch and I had my first spanish meal. They have a sweet thing for lunch which is the menu of the day and it is a first course a second course a drink bread and dessert for like 7 or 8 euro. It is all over Spain and it is such an awesome idea. I think America should probably start that right up. Food was good but we both got a cup of red wine with lunch and it tasted so much like vinegar we couldn´t drink it. So gross. We then went and took a much needed siesta at teh hostel before going back out to see the Mont Juc at night. It was absolutely beautiful. It had lights and fountains and all sorts of things going on and after you either climbed the stairs to the top or rode escalators you could look over all of Barcelona at night. This was my favorite of all the things we saw in Barcelona. After sitting on top for a while we went loofing for a nice tapas place to eat dinner We eventually food one after walking 2 miles probably. We had good food, except for the octopus in vinegar we tried, it was pretty terrible, and enjoyed the bar then went back to the hostel.
On the next day we wanted to go to the museum of ships and Christopher Columbus but it was closed which broke Bens heart. So we went and sat on the dock in the bay for a while and watched ships. We sat on the wrong part of the dock though and got kicked off when a boat wanted to leave the harbor because the whole dock moves. It was actually really cool to watch. Then it happened again at another part of the dock and this time an even bigger part moved.
After we got bored of the ships we walked to Sagrada Familia which is a very unique church in Spain. It was honsetly the craziest looking building that I have seen in all my life. And it was a Catholic Church which is even more confusing. I cant even really saw it was beautiful it was just bizarre. Then we bought these really cool cheeses and bread from the market and ate them for lunch. outside. We went back to the hostel and hung out for a while before we went out to dinner where we had Paella. My first in Spain and it was delicous. Then we watched a movie at the hostel before we headed off in hte middle of the night to check into our flight at 3 am. I slept like a baby at the airport before the flight, during the flight, and at the airport in Sevilla waiting for the bus. Ben didnt sleep at all, oops.
A post about Sevilla, Pictures for this post, and a post about my 5 days with mom and dad will follow once I get back into the swing of things here. 

Siena and San Gimignano

Sorry for the delay in posts – it is time for midterms here and it’s been pretty hectic. Our school did take a trip to Siena and San Gimignano though. They are both small towns in the Tuscan region. They are surrounded by grape vineyards and hills.

We started the morning in Siena where we met a tour guide. Siena has the coolest city structure as far as neighborhoods go. There are 17 family neighborhoods and each one is represented by an animal. For example there is a Dragon, turtle, rhino, caterpillar, and many other neighborhoods. 

The neighborhoods compete in horse races in the city which apparently are pretty intense. The woman guiding us was from the Dragon neighborhood and seemed fairly upset that the turtles won the last horse race. The cit y was very old and has a lot of history especially Saint Catherine of Siena and her influence over all of Italy. In the church where her relics are there is the skull and mummified finger of her body on display. It was sort of creepy but I tried to remind myself of the religious implications of having the relic of a saint and then it seemed pretty awesome. 

The cathedral of Siena was the most beautiful church I have ever seen in all my life. It is a different church from the Church of St. Catherine but it was influenced by her. When they originally planned to make it they wanted it to be the biggest church in all of Europe. But the plague happened and construction was halted half way through. Then after the plague bigger churches had already been completed so they changed their goal to having it be the most beautiful church. I have not seen a lot of churches here but I cannot imagine a prettier one. The floor is covered with mosaic depictions of the stories of the Old Testament. The ambo is then covered with statues by Michelangelo with the stories of the life of Christ. There is not an inch of the church that doesn’t have some amazing piece of art especially the library of the church which is right off of the nave. Words cannot describe the beauty of it and photos don’t really do it justice.

After the tour of the church a group of us from school went to a restaurant recommended by the tour guide. We were never given a menu, they simply served what they wanted pretty much and in traditional Italian style which is antipasto, primo, contorni, secondi, and dolci (appetizers, a pasta dish, a side dish, a meat dish, a dessert). The things are never on the table at the same time but are served like courses. So I had bread with olive oil as antipasto, for primo I had ravioli with a wild boar sausage (Siena is famous for wild boar), for contorni a basil potato dish, for secondi I had duck, and dessert was tiramisu.

After the lunch we headed to San Gimignano. This is called the city of towers. It is a fortress city that is on top of hill. The has high walls and could have been defended like a fort. This small town is home of the best gelato in the world as voted on by the World Gelato Association. I had some and I think I would have to say that they got it right. I haven’t had gelato since because I think I would just be disappointed. For the rest of the afternoon we just wandered around the little shops looking at the strange things they had to offer.

The day was fantastic and if you are in Tuscany – I highly recommend both of these places.