Weekend in Florence / Pisa

Friday morning I was up at the Rome Termini Train Station at 6:30 a.m! We took a 4 hour ride to Florence and arrived around 11 a.m. We first went to our Hostel which was called Plus Florence. It was only about 10 blocks from the train station in Florence. We dropped off our luggage there because we couldn't check in until 3 p.m. We then went on to venture Florence and see the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) and the San Lorenzo Market (the leather market). We got lost a few times but then found the market. The entire street smelt like leather! It was insane. I fell in love with the first leather jacket I saw of course but decided not to buy anything until the last day after I saw all the other jackets and prices. After walking around the market for a while it started to TORRENTIALLY DOWNPOUR! We all hid in a tiny gelato place to get away from the insane rain. Once the rain lightened up a bit we walked over to the Duomo and went inside to take a look around. After visiting the Duomo and hoping that the rain would finally stop, we went back to the hostel to bring our bags to the room.




This hostel was SO NICE! It had an indoor pool, sauna, restaurant, bar, and rooftop balcony. (If you ever stay in Florence stay there) There were 8 of us in one room. 2 girls I know from PSU, 3 guys from PSU that are in IES and 2 girls from Wofford. It was only 17 euro a night there and the place was really nice! They had a bunch of bunk beds, closet space, a desk, and 2 bathrooms (with an awesome shower - hottest shower I've had since I've been to Italy).

After unpacking and cleaning up we met up with Lauren and Caitlin's friends from PSU that I didn't know. They took us to an amazinggg restaurant Ristorante Pizzeria Dante. Florence is known for its famous steaks "Florentine Steak" it was super expensive so most of the guys got it (luckily they shared and I had some - it was the best steak I've ever eaten!). I ordered pasta with clam sauce and my friend ordered a mushroom pasta so we split both of our meals together so we could try more from the restaurant. This place gave us unlimited bread / wine and gave everyone a free limoncello shot for the end. The food I ate there was easily the best meal I've had in Italy so far.



On Saturday we all woke up and got some lunch at a restaurant. I got lasagna. Nothing compared to my mom's lasagna. I keep comparing all the food to my mom's and although she is 100% Irish, I think she makes better Italian meals than the Italians in Italy! (mad props mom)

After our meal we walked around and went to see Michaelangelo's "David". The real one is in a museum but a replica is outside Palazzo Vecchio on Piazza della Signoria where the original once stood. We then continued to walk around and I went to the Uffizi Gallery. We waited an hour and a half outside on a line to get in but it was definitely worth it! (Many things are extremely inefficient in Italy. like lines, buying food, walking on streets, ect.) My Medieval Art in Rome class already helped a lot with what I saw in the museum! We literally stared at almost every painting and sculpture to take it all in, I loved it! Our favorite piece of art was the many interpretations of La Calunnia di Apelle from Sandro Botticelli. The more we looked at it the more things we found in it and we were trying to figure out what it all meant - it was so interesting. Later I also found a painting that had a pregnant Mary with a dove above her head and one of the people kneeling beside her had rosary beads with a cross on it (I was really confused by that one because Jesus wasn't even born yet but we decided maybe it was foreshadowing? ... still not sure on that one). The museum had mostly religious art and sculptures from the Roman Antiquity era. One painting I saw towards the end looked exactly like Meryl Streep - the resemblance was so creepy! I'm going to try to find out which one it was but I couldn't believe it (super creepy).



After the gallery we began to go back to the Hostel to check out the indoor pool! We then had dinner at the hostel which was really great food! I got bruschetta and spaghetti bolognese. We then all took an hour nap and then went to meet up with the people we had dinner with the night before. On the way to meeting up with them we went on to Il Ponte Vecchio, which is a Medieval bridge over the Arno River. There were many shops and restaurants on the actual bridge! We then went to the girl's apartment to check it out and then went to a pub called Joshua's Tree. After we went to a club called Space which was really fun! We ran into other IES people there. When we left the club we all got late night food and one of the guys told us about this "secret bakery" that only opens really late and it has no sign or anything and seems a little sketchy but you go in and a guy comes up with an apron and asks what you want and you can get really good pastries there for cheap! It was such a bizarre but cool experience!

Then after a VERY short sleep that night I was on a train to Pisa at around 10 a.m. on Sunday. We got to Pisa and took a bus to the leaning tower of Pisa (Torre pendente di Pisa). As soon as I saw it I started hysterically laughing - it really is leaning so much! Apparently it leans 3.99 degrees now. We took some funny pictures with the tower including one with us making the letters of PSU! We then had some gelato and caffe and took the bus / train back to Florence.



As soon as we got to Florence it starts raining again! We went back to the market so I could by a leather jacket (I ended up getting the first one I saw of course!) I talked the guy down from 125 euro to 80 (which still seems like a lot to me but "When in Florence"! The leather is so soft, I'm really excited to wear it! After some shopping we sprinted back to our hostel to pick up our luggage and then ran back to the train to get the 5:15 p.m. train back to Rome.

I forgot a book so I was extremely bored on the 4.5 hour trip. When I got back I ran to my apartment to try to catch the last few minutes of THON (Penn State's Dance Marathon to help raise money for pediatric cancer) online for a live feed. I got back just in time to see everyone sit down after standing for 46 hours without sleep. I found out that my sorority, Gamma Phi Beta and our paired fraternity, Acacia got 5th place and raised $119,936.21 which is pretty awesome! The total amount of money raised by the biggest student run philanthropy in the world was $ 7,838,054.36 FTK (for the kids). This total is even higher than last years when we all raised a little over 7.6 million. This THON was very special to our sorority and fraternity because our THON child, Jed (who we have spent time with and created a strong friendship with) passed away this January from leukemia and infection of his lungs at the young age of 12. This made this THON so personal for all of us - I wish I could have experienced THON this year back at PSU.

Right now its 1:27 a.m. and I still haven't unpacked / started homework for tomorrow (9:30 a.m. class ... not fun) so I'm going to go to sleep.
I'll eventually put up the pictures from my weekend and I still need to put some captions on the pictures from the first museum I went to with my class ... perhaps when I have free time (which may be never).


Ciao bella,
Krista

PS - I just added pictures from this trip!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2035072&id=1376760021&l=b92e7cdc04

We didn't get off for Presidents day ...

Tuesday was another full day of classes for me. I had Roman Arch & Urban Design at 9:30, my Italian Film class at 12:15 and then Italian until 4. My first class was a field study at Castel San'Angelo which is across the river from IES. I am adding pictures up now to an album with a lot of information that we learned there in the captions so look out for that. I really learned a lot there and I love having field studies. Our teachers know so much about the places/art and I wouldn't really appreciate it as much if I went by myself.

It was Tuesday so my roommates and I had a Taco Night :) One of our roommates, Jessica knows how to make Sangria so that was her job for the night. My Wednesday classes start later at 12:15 when I had my Social Issues of Southern Italy class and then Italian at 3. (PS got my quiz back from Italian, I was happily surprised w/ my grade of a B - that was a hard first quiz!) Although it was Ash Wednesday I didn't see ANYONE in Rome with Ashes. I was really surprised since our school is so close to the Vatican.

Our apartment has been pretty faulty recently. Our sink / showers / washing machines get clogged up easily. When they added a door to our shower they did it the wrong way so now every time someone showers there is a huge flood in the kitchen. Hopefully they will be fixing that soon.

Thursday I had my first field study with my Medieval Art in Rome class. We went to Capitoline Hill for a trip to the museum. Our teacher was extremely fast running around the museum trying to show us as much as she could and I really learned a lot about art / sculptures / architecture from the Roman Antiquity era. I am also uploading pictures on the same Field Study album as Castel San'Angelo with details about each of the pieces of art. After class I ran back to IES for my Film class at 12:15. We learned about Neorealism (from Wiki: Italian neorealism (Italian: Neorealismo) is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors. Italian neorealist films mostly contend with the difficult economical and moral conditions of post-World War II Italy, reflecting the changes in the Italian psyche and the conditions of everyday life: poverty and desperation.) and the three main directors in Italy that made these films around 1940's. (Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti). During the fascist times, many Italian films were comedies and were falsifications of reality with strong censorship and limits. Neorealism helped use natural lighting / locations / people / situations to expose the truth of what was going on in fascist Italy. Our homework this weekend is to watch Rosselini's "Rome Open City" before our class next Tuesday. We also watched a documentary on Martin Scorsese and how he was affected by the neorealistic films from Italy and what it mean to him. I then had Italian class until 4:30 and walked home (first time in a couple of days it hasn't rained and it was GORGEOUS).

Now I'm packing up for my weekend in Florence. We just got news that the buses / trams / metro / trenitalia are going on strike tomorrow from 8:30 till around 2 which does not work well with our plan. So now we are leaving for Florence at 6:45 am to avoid the strike. (Strikes happen here all the time and the Italians don't care so much but us Americans flip out because we always need to be on time and have no patience what-so-ever)

Check out my pictures from my Field Studies! They are really informative and gorgeous!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034731&id=1376760021&l=2785f3a20c

Ciao!

second week in Italy

Dear Family, Friends, Random people that found this blog and decided to stalk my life,

This past week has been another crazy busy one. Tuesday I had my second intensive Italian class and had some more homework from that! Then after my class I had to go to the Post Office near the Vatican where I waited in a long and slow line to sign up for my permit to stay, which I guess I wouldn't have needed if I signed up for Irish citizenship in the first place. The permit to stay line in the post office is worst than waiting at the DMV. Italian Student Companions came to help us converse with the people while we were there, but they also let strangers cut our line because we are the young Americans therefore we wait longer and are not important. :/ It rained like crazy that day all day in Rome. Since it was Tuesday we had some friends over for Taco Tuesday which was another huge success. We then hit up our favorite place, Scholars for Tuesday Karaoke where I performed "I Just Wanna Dance With Somebody" from Whitney Houston via 1980's. It was a hit.



Wednesday I had my third intensive Italian class and was done for the day. Thursday was my last intensive Italian class where we learned how to order food from a bar (bar's here aren't what we'd call a bar at home. they are open extremely early in the morning and serve cornetto (croissants), frutta (fruit), caffe (coffee), and te (tea). Look at me with my Italian words! After class I went to the 10 euro place which I now know the name of "Le Fate". There we had tomato bruschetta, asparagus bruschetta, pasta with prosciutto and pumpkin (it was awesome), we also had vanilla gelato with fresh raspberries and syrup over it. SOOO GOOD. That night a lot of people from IES went out but I stayed into to study for my Italian quiz which was the next day (mom, dad, you hear that?!?!?) what an angel.



Friday was the big snow storm! It hasn't snowed in Rome since around 1985 or 86 so they were all freaking out. It actually started to stick later and looked like a blizzard. All of the Romans looked like tourists taking pictures of the city and acting like little kids and throwing snowballs at each other. We were all hoping for a snow day, especially because we all had Italian quizzes.



Unfortunately class wasn't cancelled so I trekked over to IES earlier than class to study some more for the quiz. I also attended the IES soccer meeting where I thought I would try to play for the school's soccer team for fun. This was a great idea in my head until I realized that everyone there either plays for D1 schools or has played for over 14 years. I don't think my skills from me playing Rec soccer for 6 years would help. Especially since I never scored a goal, and cried sitting in the corner of the goal when I was goalie. Eventually I opted out of playing IES soccer, I'll make a better fan. I then had my Italian quiz which was a little more difficult than I hoped. The listening was basically a joke, these Italians speak very fast and I couldn't catch key words at all. After our class we all went to a bar with the class because IES was paying for a drink if we order it in Italian. We also got zeppolis which were awesomee. Since I've never had coffee before I wasn't feeling the idea of going, but one of the girls told me to get Latte Macciatto which is a steamed cappuccino with a lot of milk. I loved it. Now I actually have something to get in the mornings when everyone gets coffee!



After class we walked around and decided to see what Scholars is like during the day. It was awesome, everyone there was from Ireland or England and they were playing great Irish music the entire time. After my Italian breakfast and Irish lunch, we all decided it was time for Chinese! We ended up finding a great Chinese place on the main Trastevere street. I got fried rice, fried dumplings and chicken with pineapple (in a pineapple!). We then called it a night because we had to meet at the bus terminal at 7:45 am the next day.

After waking up at the crack of dawn and getting to the bus terminal, we took a 7 hour bus ride from Rome to Venice (or Venezia). We arrived around 3pm and took a huge water taxi from our bus to Piazza San Marco which is where all of the Carnival festivities happened. Venice is easily the most gorgeous city I have ever been in. The water taxi ride was breath taking. From the gondolas and buildings on the water to the sun reflecting off the Adriatic Sea - it's amazing. When we got to the Piazza San Marco it was PACKED with families and couples (Valentines Day Weekend) and everyone was dressed up or had masks or their faces painted! Carnival is like Halloween for the kids in Italy so they dress up as whatever they want and throw confetti at everyone! We walked around and listened to music and saw many mini shows and dancers. After we walked through the small walkways around the city and window shopped. We then had dinner at a restaurant after meeting up with 2 other girls from Penn State. After there was a huge dance party / parade going on in the Piazza. Overall it was an amazing trip!







We then took a 6 hour bus ride back and arrived in Rome at 7am. After cooking/stuffing pasta with butter in our mouths, we all passed out and went to sleep! Sunday was Valentines day and it was filled with all of us catching up on our sleep and cleaning our apartments. That night we all went out to a family style restaurant where I got Gnocchi,Chicken Parm and Pizza with mushrooms.

Today, Monday was the start of my first week of "real" classes. I had my Roman Architecture and Urban Design class at 9:30 which had 4 of my friends in it. After, I had a Medieval Art in Rome class at 10:45. After, I went to the post office near the Vatican to drop off some post cards I finally wrote up and had awesome margarita pizza. While I had some time to waste my friend and I walked around some more and saw an ice skating rink right near our school which was in my opinion pretty ghetto. After that I had my Social Issues in Southern Italy class at 1:15. It was there that I learned that our day trip will be to Naples! (pretty amped) I also learned that this class is mostly about the mafia (which I had no idea since I signed up for it because I couldn't get into other classes) I'm now SUPER excited for the class, and my teacher seems really cool!

After class my roommate Shauna had a homework assignment to do a little scavenger hunt around Rome so I helped her do that with our other roommate Jess. We got lost a few times but also found places we haven't seen before which was nice. Once we got back we all went to the supermarket to go hardcore shopping since our kitchen is looking pretty empty. Now I'm updating this blog and hoping to God my computer doesn't freeze / randomly turn off yet again.

FYI Mom & Dad, it hasn't done this before and now my computer is freezing ALL of the time and just turning off and overheating (even though the battery isn't in). Whoever is reading this blog, I'll be taking donations for a new computer (preferably not a Dell since they have failed me twice in less than 4 years). I would have updated pictures by now but my computer hasn't let me. :/

Here's a new album of my Carnival pictures in Venice.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034298&id=1376760021&l=80012e86bb

and here is the other Rome album that has some updates on it too..
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033365&id=1376760021&l=9af6d071ed

Ciao fools,
Krista

crazy busy and i think i'm still jet lagged!

I've been so busy and tired this weekend I didn't have enough time to write anything. Friday was the IES group tours around Rome. We were put in all separate groups so we would be forced to meet new people which ended up working out really well. My tour was lead by one of the IES history teachers so she knew a lot about the history of each place we went to. She also had a strong accent so I can't really explain where we were half the time :/. We took a bus around Roma and passed the Colosseum and then got off the bus to see Piramide di Caio Cestio which is a pyramid tomb of Cai Cestio made when Egpytian architecture was the "in" thing.



We then went into a few beautiful churches around that area of Rome (Parco Savello) also called Orange Garden because of the many orange trees. We visited the Basilica of Santa Sabina. We passed the Egyptian embassy that had hard core security outside of it and found a keyhole peephole just down the road in the Piazza Cavalieri di Malta which offers an unforgettable view of St. Peter’s Basilica. It was absolutely gorgeous! After that we found another amazing view of Rome.



We then saw the huge wall in Rome and where they had chariot races. That night my roommate and I got back and made chicken cutlets and some salad and then headed out into town.

Saturday we all slept in till about 1ish and me and my other roommates, Shauna and Jessica went walking around Trastevere and went food shopping. We later went to the Colosseum for a "Colosseum Pub Crawl" which showed us a bunch of different places in Rome we haven't been yet.

Sunday we woke up early to go to the Trastevere market that is held every Sunday. We then got Pizza and continued to explore Trastevere. Later we all walked to the Spanish Steps to see the Carnivale celebrations. The entire area was packed with people and tourists! We walked around for a while there and got some gelato for the first time here!





After having some gelato we went to the top of the Spanish Steps and then found a gorgeous view of the sunset and Rome. After that we walked down to the Piazza del Popolo to see the Carnivale entertainment. Kids were all dressed up in Halloween costumes and throwing confetti everywhere. There were people on stilts dressed up in Renaissance ish clothes. There was even a band and many dancers that we went and watched. After the show ended we walked around the piazza and found a mall in Rome! It was the most beautiful mall I've ever seen (with extremely expensive stores) ... Palisades Center Mall can't hold a candle to this place.

We finally got back home and my roommate and I made tacos! (it was inevitable that it would happen sooner or later) We were going to go out to an Irish pub to watch the Super Bowl but we were all too tired so we stayed in. They had it on our TV but we didn't stay up to watch the entire thing (not the biggest fan of the Saints and Colts anyway).

Today we woke up super early and went to the IES building to confirm our schedules with an advisor. Unfortunately I couldn't take the "Rome as a Living Museum" class because I never took art history at PSU. And I couldn't take the photography class because my camera didn't cut it. Now I am taking Roman Architecture & Urban Design, Medieval Art in Rome, Social Issues in Southern Italy, Italian 101, and From Viewing to Making a Film on Rome. I don't have any Friday classes which is going to work out well for weekend trips.

We planned a weekend trip to Amsterdam in a few weeks and are going to Venice next weekend for Carnivale. I even bought a mask for it already!

After the advising meeting my roommate and I got notebooks for class and found a hair straightener ... finally! We then found a bigger and better supermarket than we have been going to and picked up some food. Made omelets and then ran back to IES for my first intensive Italian class.

I now know the Italian alphabet and knew a few more Italian words than people in my class due to Rosetta Stone (although I think the first day or two is going to be the only time I am 1st in the class). I keep writing the words as if they were in Spanish and keep putting d's instead of t's and b's instead of v's ... hopefully I'll get it down soon.

After class we walked to the Spanish Steps again to pick up textbooks for my Italian class because - I have homework in it already!!! We just made some quick Risotto and I'm going to start my homework after this. Then we're gonna finish the taco stuff and call it a night.

I'll try to update more often because this is a ridiculously long post.

Ciao,
Krista

PS. It hasn't snowed here and its been gorgeous out MWAHAHAHAHA ;)

PPS. I keep updating this album with more pictures so you can always check up on it.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033365&id=1376760021&l=9af6d071ed

day two and already went to mcdonalds ...

I'm back at my apartment now (6:06pm) from IES. Yesterday I got my phone from IES and the number is 3771685314. After waiting a pretty long time for the phone my roommates and I walked back from IES to the apartment and I took a 30 minute nap. (So far I have slept a total of 8 hours since Sunday ... not good)Then Nicole and I went to the supermarket and got lots of food. We then made pasta with garlic/peppers/broccoli/mozzarella/tomatoes/ chicken. It was not horrible. We went up near where our IES classes are and walked around downtown. We saw the Piazza Venezia Rome the Wedding Cake there and it was gorgeoussss. My picture doesn't do it justice because of the lighting/flash.

This morning I went to IES at 10:30 for an information session and we had more general information on rome/transportation/safety till about 4 with little breaks in between. We crossed the bridge to see the Palazzaccio (Supreme Court of Cassation of Italy). I had a spinach and cheese panini for brunch and had more information sessions at IES.

On the way back to the apartment from IES I got french fries from McDonalds ... I felt guilty for doing that but it was so necessary. McDonalds has a new sandwich called the McItaly which I'll probably try in the near future.

Tomorrow IES is taking us on a bus/walking tour around Rome so I hope to have a better idea of where I'm going by then.

Ciao,
Krista

after day 1

in the computer lab now at IES. waiting for an hour for my cell phone because everyone is getting them here.

Last night we went to dinner near our friends apartment a little south of us. We had bruschetta, spaghetti, tiramasu, and red wine for only 10 euros! That place has that special for students and they change the main dish each week! It was awesome. We went there with the 2 girls from PSU, my roommate, their roommates and friends. After that we stopped at their apartment which was really big and they had a dish washer which i was super jealous of. We then took the tram to Campo Di Fiori to a bar called the Drunken Ship. On the tram I actually ran into a kid, Evan from my high school who was studying abroad too! He told us he was going to the bar Scholars for their Karaoke night so ... obviously I wanted to go. After Drunken Ship we walked a few blocks to Scholars and I did Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" which was pretty funny. Those bars are filled with a lot of students studying abroad. We actually met up with 3 guys that my friends knew from PSU at The Drunken Ship. After that we took a taxi home.

Nicole and I slept through both of our alarms this morning (probaby due to the fact that the last time we slept was Sunday night) so thank goodness our roommates woke us up. I took the shortest shower of my life (shower is super cold) and took the tram three spots North and walked to IES for our first day. After meetings and information sessions they had a big buffet brunch for us with was Awesome. After that Jessica, Shauna (my roommates) and I walked around and over the bridge to Castel San'Angelo (which was huge and gorgeous). We then walked over to the Vatican (super cool to just walk over to another country ... no biggie) I took a bunch of pictures there. It was an amazing experience to be there. They had a nativity scene set up in the center of the key hole (just learned about that today from Shauna) and there was a big Christmas tree up too.

On the way back to IES I bought a really pretty scarf from a vender on the street. We are now back at IES and I'm just waiting around now.

Ciao!
Krista

I'm in ROME!

After unpacking most of my stuff - getting lunch - and walking around the town I'm back to my room and ready to upload videos of our apartment!


I barely slept on the flight here - I was too excited. I did have the seat next to me open though so i could lay out on the two seats which was pretty awesome. BEST PLANE FOOD EVER! Penne and Chicken & Vegetables. They were giving people wine for free if they asked instead of soda and i was going to ask but i wasn't sure what the drinking age was in the air so I was a baby and asked for water.

Once I arrived everything went pretty smoothly - picked up my heavy heavy bags and went to a room with other IES students. After getting a packet of information for the rest of the week I took a taxi to my apartment with my roommate. We got in and chose a bedroom in the apartment and started to unpack. We made a list of things we may need to buy at the supermarket and then went out on the town.



Around 12:30 Italy time (6:30 am NY time!) we went to a restaurant for lunch right next to the Trastevere open market. I ordered Tortellini and white wine (they didn't even card me ... grr) and we sat outside because it was so nice out. The waitress arrived with our pasta that looked like it was microwaved and from lean cuisine and not even mixed around with a spoon. We were confused and sort of disappointed in our first Italian meal, but it was actually not too bad.

After that we walked around the streets of Trastevere and went to the supermarket to pick up necessities: toilet paper, paper towel, dish soap, cups (they didn't provide us with any?!) and something to have tomorrow morning for breakfast.

We came back to our apartment to see that the other two roommates from Villanova just arrived. We told them about parts of the apartment. (in our living room area there is a huge flat screen tv with over 300 channels ... all in italian ... but it's still cool. It also has internet on the TV with a wireless keyboard and mouse! So we can go on surfthechannel.com and catch up on American TV shows in English on a real big TV!

We have a bidet in our bathroom - which is pretty intense. Our shower has a curtain on it now but apparently tomorrow when we are in class they will be putting on a glass door to it.

Energy and hot water aren't very strong in Italy so we have to make sure we all don't take long showers around the same time or have a bunch of electronics on at the same time which will be pretty hard for Mr.Park Chester's daughter.

I'm going to take a 30 min nap before meeting up with friends to go out for dinner so I'll update more this week.

here is the link to pictures uploaded so far.
there will be more

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033365&id=1376760021&l=9af6d071ed

Ciao!
Krista