Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!  I actually had a wonderful Christmas with my friends here, and I only sound surprised because I had been dreading Christmas thinking about how much I would miss being together with my family.  While I did miss them terribly, with the help of skype and my awesome friends here I actually had a fabulous time!

On Christmas Eve Caroline and I headed over to Kate and Jess's place for Make Your Own Pizza night.  I got to see how much I've grown into liking vegetables while making the pizzas because Kate and I packed ours with mushrooms, onions, red peppers, and then of course added salami and bufala mozzarella. We also used an arrabiata sauce, which is a little spicier than normal pizza sauce.  It was delicious!!!  I am definitely doing that more when I get home since it was so simple and yummy.

After eating a ton of pizza we headed upstairs to watch Elf, a Christmas tradition for the girls, while also sipping on Prosecco.  Some of us had to have espresso since we were heading to midnight mass later that night.

We decided to go to the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata (Basilica of the Most Holy Annunciation) for midnight mass because Kate and her friend Brooke go there for regular mass so it's more familiar.  The history of the church is actually pretty interesting.  It was founded in 1250 by 7 original members of the Servite order.  2 years later a monk was working on a painting of the Annunciation, but abandoned it because he didn't think he could make it beautiful enough and apparently an angel came while he slept and finished the painting.  Pilgrims would visit this church to venerate the painting and would leave lifesize wax votive offerings of themselves.  Apparently by the 1700's there were over 600 of these wax figures, but they were melted down to make candles.  Today the church is known for the Florentine brides that come and leave their bouquets in front of the painting in order to have a blessed marriage.  The facade of this church was made to match Brunelleschi's facade of the Foundling Hospital (Hospital of the Innocents).

The church is to the left of the statue and the hospital is to the right

This hospital was actually an orphanage and children were often abandoned here.  There was a wheel built where a person could put their baby and a nun would turn the wheel so the baby would go into the building without seeing the parent, therefore it was anonymous.

Ok so on to midnight mass...now you should know that I would mostly identify myself as agnostic and have been to a church probably under 10 times in my life, so going to a Catholic mass, in Italian no less, was mainly just to have the experience.  I have been to midnight mass before with Alissa because I just love Christmas so much and like the feeling of everyone being together celebrating.  Everyone is just so happy and thankful, so I love that part about it.  So the service started out with a lot of singing, not holiday songs or anything, but hymns that were very soothing and well sung (unlike our experience in the church in Barcelona).  It was nice not listening to a ton of talking since it was in Italian, so I appreciated the singing.  The service was nice, but it ended up being 2 hours long and in a church from the 13th century you weren't going to find heat so it was freeeezzzzing.  At the end we did the "peace be with you" where you shake people's hands around you, and in Italian you just say "pace". That part always makes me laugh and if any of you readers have seen Dane Cook's sketch on that process ("peace off!") you will agree. :o)

So we then headed home and the walk home was bizarre!  It was 1am and there were tons of people out partying at clubs and on the streets, and then there were crazy drivers out!  I almost got run over twice, so that was beginning to take me out of my Christmas happy mood.  I just didn't understand all the hubbub going on on Christmas Eve.  Oh, and did I mention I was offered marijuana too?  And called Bella Grande whilst being offered it?  Yea...Christmas spirit was running low for sure.

We made it home without dying and I was able to call my family at their Christmas Eve dinner and that was great.  We had to wake up a little earlier that next day to get over the girl's house to have a Christmas day breakfast.  Caroline decided to wear her Santa hat and we wanted to see how many people would say "Buon Natale" to her.  Literally NO ONE said anything to her or even really looked at her.  There were a lot of people out too and no one really cared.  I feel like in the States, if you walked around with a Santa hat on Christmas day people would at least smile at you...but not here.  Weird.

Jessica made an amazing breakfast called cheddar egg bake, and it reminded me a lot of my mom's famous sausage souffle without the sausage.  That was nice because I was really sad about missing her souffle on Christmas, so I got something very close!  Caroline and I then headed home so we could prepare for our big dinner at our place and so we could skype with our families.  We did a lot of chopping and prepping, and I was able to spend a lot of time talking to family, though since we were having our dinner at 5 things got pretty crazy and we were running around like madman.  Thankfully, we were pretty much all ready for the girls when they got here.

Our dinner menu was first a bruschetta bar with eggplant/feta, spinach/fontina, and the traditional with tomatoes, mozzarella and salami.  Then the girls made an amazing fettucini with ricotta and oregano cream sauce.  It was to die for.  Then I had prepared orange granitas, basically hollowing out oranges then using that freshly squeezed juice, sugar, basil and cointreau and freezing it up.  You also freeze the oranges so you can fill them with the frozen ice and it makes for great presentation.

Granita with espresso, perfect!

We had to eat so early so we wouldn't be too full heading to the opera at 8.  Of course we did eat too much so that plan didn't work out too well, but we were still very excited to roll ourselves to the opera to see La Boheme.  We went to this English church, where my parents and I also went when they visited, and they have small intimate opera performances.  It was wonderful and they have truly talented singers there.

The church

After the opera I was able to skype with my family again and watch them open gifts as if I was there.  It was awesome and it just made me so excited to get home and see them.  All in all it was a fabulous Christmas!

On Monday it was a sad day because I went to Rome to drop off Caroline for her trip home.  I came back to Florence that same day and have had the apartment to myself for the past couple of days.  It's actually been nice because I've been able to focus on some things I really wanted to work on, like what I want to do when I get home and my blog.  I should be coming home sometime in January and I couldn't be more excited to see my family and friends.  I do love it here, but I feel ready to start up my life again and hopefully go in a more exciting direction.  I am currently just packing up and will be moving into Kate and Jess's apartment on Friday!  I'm so excited :o)

Hope you all have a fabulous New Year!! xoxo

Neve in Firenze!

So it snowed a LOT in Florence on Friday.  So much so that apparently they even closed the train station and none of the fast trains could stop there.  The city was covered in probably 4-6 inches and there were broken down buses and cars everywhere...it's like what happens in MD when it snows.  Whenever I see people freak out about snow I automatically go back to my Pittsburgh days and when I finally had the realization that they do not care when it snows there.  Nothing closes, roads are still packed, and if they don't get the snow plows out for a few hours after the snow starts?  Meh.  Now that I think about it, I don't think I saw any plows in Florence - I wonder if they have them??

Well we had planned to go over to Jess and Kate's anyways to celebrate Kate's completion of her finals! Prosecco in hand, Caroline and I braved the weather for the 25 minute walk.  It was madness out there!

Here are some pics...

You can barely make out the Ponte Vecchio through the snow

the piazza right next to our apt

After we had our prosecco, while listening to Christmas tunes, we headed out to meet Giada for aperitivo.  And after that we stopped by the German Christmas market for hot cider and rum (yum!  Much better than mulled wine).  Our night then continued with us heading to a little pub near the girl's apt (soon to be my apt!) and had a variety of drinks each trying to warm ourselves up...Guiness (me), red wine, hot whiskey, irish coffee...  Having warmed ourselves up a bit we decided it would be a good idea to walk 20 minutes to another bar to see our friend Mel, and on this walk there were some spills - though Giada wins with her fall while holding a cigarette in one hand and talking on the phone in the other.  Miraculously she didn't lose either of them!  The night then escalated as it always does and we didn't get home til about 3 am.  That walk home was the worst since mixing ice + alcohol = bruised knees in the morning.  It was a very fun night out with the girls and we hadn't had one in a while so I think we deserved it!  Needless to say we celebrated Kate's freedom for a few weeks and we celebrated right! :)

Tree at the Duomo covered in snow

As for today, it is the last day of the Christmas market so we are going for one last cider and cinnamon twirl from Hungary.  I'll try to take a picture since it is one of the best things on earth!

Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!!  Less than a week til Christmas!! :o)

Bacelona - the final post

Finally the last post about Barcelona!  Who knew there was so much to write about on one city!  I guess this just shows you that it is a must see and if you do go, plan on a few days or more to take in all of the sights.

So the last day we were in Barcelona was the only day La Sagrada Familia (Gaudi's famous unfinished church that the Pope had come to consecrate that weekend) was going to be open for us, so we headed straight over there.  Looks like a lot of people had the same idea because the line literally took up 3 full sides of the church.  It was also freezing outside and we were very under prepared since the weather had been in the 60's the day before.  There was no way we were going to miss this though so we toughed it out and after an hour wait we finally got in and it was totally worth it.  This church is probably one of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen in my life.  Every part of this church, from it's exterior facades to it's breathtaking interior, feels unique and refreshing to someone who is so used to seeing church after church in Europe and not being able to pick out big differences.  There is no way I can lump this church into any other church I have seen before.

The church's construction was first under the direction of another Catalan architect who planned on it being a more traditional gothic style.  Gaudi was then put on the project the next year and he drastically changed the design.  The church's construction was taking a very long time, but Gaudi just responded to concerned people by simply stating, "My client [God] is not in a hurry."  When Gaudi died, only 15-20% of the church was complete so other architects have taken over and tried to continue creating Gaudi's vision.

Because I am trying to be thorough with my posts so I don't forget everything I have learned I'll give ya a break down on the most important parts of the church.

The Facades

There are 3 different facades on the exterior of the building: The Glory, The Passion, and The Nativity.

The Glory facade is going to be the grandest facade of the 3, but I believe there is still a lot of construction going on with it so we didn't get to see it (or I don't remember seeing it...).  The construction on it began in 2002 and apparently Gaudi knew it would be one of the last things finished so he only made a small sketch of what he wanted it to be, knowing that ultimately other architects would be finishing it and using their own style.  This facade will represent the road to God - Death, Final Judgement, then Glory (or Hell if you don't follow God's will, yikes).  

The Passion Facade is meant to portray Christ's suffering during his crucifiction and ultimately depict the sins of man.  The figures are made with very course lines and the facade itself is very simple and unadorned (unlike the Nativity facade).  Apparently Gaudi wanted the figures to be angular and dramatic  to realistically portray the brutality of Christ's sacrifice.  Once you see the Nativity facade you will really be able to tell the huge difference in the characters and the background.  

Passion Facade

The Nativity Facade is much more detailed than the Passion facade - they look, and feel, completely different.  This scene depicts the birth of Christ and the background is filled with many natural elements, Gaudi's signature.  This facade is facing the rising sun, which also is a symbol for the birth of Christ.  Gaudi originally wanted all the figures to be painted to make them look more lifelike, but that wasn't done.  This was the first facade Gaudi began work on, knowing he wouldn't be there for the completion of it.  He wanted it to embody the theme of whole church because it was, in his opinion, the most attractive an accessible facade for the public (unlike the Passion facade with it's more stark and harsh figures.)

Nativity Facade

The Spires

There are 18 spires - 12 for the apostles, 4 for the evangelists, 1 for the Virgin Mary, and the tallest of all represents Jesus Christ.  They aren't all completed yet, but once the tallest spire is completed La Sagrada Familia will be the tallest church with the tallest spire in the world.

The Interior

My favorite part of this church is the interior.  The construction of the columns is pure Gaudi with the various geometrical shapes and natural elements making them look like large tree trunks.  The columns in combination with the bright stained glass in the ceiling make you feel like you are standing beneath a blanket of trees.  Since this is my favorite part and I'm not doing a great job explaining it I'm just going to show you through pictures...

Yes, I know I posted this already but probably one of my favorite pictures ever so enjoy it...twice.

Ok so now that you know everything you need to know and more about La Sagrada Familia, let's move on to the rest of our time in Barcelona, shall we?  Well I mentioned before that we were freezing waiting in line for the church and since all the doors were open inside of the church our coldness never really subsided.  This led us to do something very bad once we left the church, but before you judge us, keep in mind that it was very cold and sometimes familiarity makes you feel better...ok??!?

So...our first stop was Starbucks to get a giant coffee and/or hot chocolate.  This was the first time going to a Starbucks since I've been here (well mainly because there aren't any in Florence and that would be terrible to go to a Starbucks in the land of cappucinos), but yea we gave in a went there for a nice, to-go cup of coffee.  And you know what?  It was nice and comforting.  Although I got over zealous and ordered a venti latte.  A venti???  I really did not need 20 ounces of liquid, especially one containing probably 3 or 4 shots of espresso, but I just was too excited...  Now here is where you will probably judge us, and by us you can judge me since it was mainly my idea.  We then headed to KFC for a good ole meal of chicken fingers, fries, and biscuits.  But the joke is on me though because not only did they not have potato wedges (just stupid regular fries), but they also didn't have biscuits!!  Caroline even asked the lady about them and she had no idea what we were talking about.  What kind of world do we live in where a KFC doesn't have their glorious biscuits on the menu?  I mean, I used to go there and order a 4 piece set of biscuits when I needed some comfort food at home (ok I realize I am slightly wavering on the line of obsessed and/or obesity talk, but those who know me know how I love my KFC) and I just couldn't believe they had no bread product to offer us.  It was a huge let down and I just ate my fried chicken and regulars fries while sipping on my fountain soda and my GIANT coffee and tried not to think about all that was missing...  Ha ok so that was over dramatic, moving on :)

Since the weather had turned to blue skies and a little warmer we decided to do some more exploring before taking the bus to the airport.  We headed to the Arc de Triomf, which apparently doesn't really symbolize a win in a battle or anything, but it was still pretty.  It was actually built for the Universal Exhibition in 1888.  

We continued on to the beautiful park, Parc de la Ciutadella.  There is a giant fountain (designed by Gaudi of course), a zoo, a lake, and a giant mammoth (not really sure the significance of that one...).  It was really beautiful and a nice way to say good bye to this fascinating city.

fountain

...mammoth

We headed to the hostel that night to sleep over in airport for an early flight in the morning.  The airport is about an hour away from downtown Barcelona so this was basically our only option since there was only one Ryan Air flight that next day.  It was an interesting night, that is for sure.  We played cards, slept, listened to music, had heart to hearts, ate copious amounts of airport food, everything you could imagine doing overnight in an airport.  Everything was going relatively smoothly until it was time to board.  Now I think I mentioned this in a prior post, but my backpack is a strange size...short and fat.  Ryan Air has some strict guidelines for bags in that they need to fit in a certain shaped container...it doesn't matter if your bag obviously would be smaller than that shape if you could make it that shape, it just matters if the bag fits, which mine doesn't.  It didn't matter on the way over since no one checked, but at this airport they made everyone test their bag before boarding the plane.  So while I'm freaking out, on 2 hours of sleep no less, Caroline being the fast thinker she is, ran and bought this 1 euro bag that is the exact shape of what is allotted.  I guess people can buy them when they are in the same situation as me, and luckily she had seen someone carrying it on our first flight.  So I scrambled and took everything out of my backpack and shoved it in this bag and thank god they let me on without too much of a fuss.  Crisis averted.  The flight was fine and I got to see a beautiful sunrise (the other girls had passed out) and we made our way back home.

Yay Barcelona posts are done and I can move on to our other trips!  It is the first snow in Florence and we are heading out for a fun night with the girls (and a hair cut for me from Jess...it pays to have a friend who can cut hair!!).  

Here is the view from our window:

BarTHelona part Dos

Ok so it has been a whirlwind month with trips, sending Courtney off, parents coming to visit and in 2 short weeks I will be saying goodbye to Caroline so it is hard to get to this blog thang!  I will really try to update my posts though, I promise!

So where was I?  Ah yes, Barcelona...

On Sunday morning we awoke to a crowd of people outside of our hostel waiting for the Pope to fly by in his Pope mobile on his way to consecrate the Sagrada Familia.  Luckily for us, our room had a balcony so we were able to hang out there for his quick drive by.  Getting into the hype of seeing il Papa, even though I've seen him before and I'm not even a huge fan of him, I had my camera ready to take a video of his passing by.  Well, that was my intent, but I didn't want to just look through my camera so I mistakenly looked up when he came by and my camera followed my eyes...so I actually didn't catch him so well.  Here is the video so you can see for yourself:

Ah well, it was a good attempt!   After the excitement we were looking forward to exploring the city, figuring most people would be swarming the Pope.  We headed to Montjuic, a hill overlooking the downtown area.  It is the site of a fortress, the olympic stadium, and many interesting museums (our main reason to go up).  Courtney really wanted to go to the Joan Miro museum and for those of you who don't know him, he was a Catalan artist whose "work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride." (I liked that description the best).  I wanted to describe his work as modern art, though I'm not sure if that is fully accurate.  All I know is that I am not a fan of most modern art and unfortunately his work wasn't an exception...  However, the area where the museum was located was gorgeous!  There were gardens and cats everywhere so Caroline was in heaven.

After the museum we walked to the Catalan art museum, but it was closed.  The building the museum is housed in is amazing though - it was a Palace built for the World Fair in 1929.  

That night Courtney opted to stay in while Caroline and I headed out to explore some of the areas we hadn't seen yet.  There are so many because Barcelona is HUGE!  We started with the gothic church Santa Maria del Mar (Saint Mary of the sea), which was built in the 14th century at the height of Catalonia's maritime and mercantile successes.  The church got it's name because of the naval successes, as well as it's closeness to sea and because of it's use by sailors and merchants of medieval Barcelona.  It has a beautiful interior and, while I was researching information about it, I found out that Gaudi used some of the column designs in the interior as inspiration for his Sagrada Familia.  

We ended up getting there at a great time because evening mass was just starting so we stayed for a little bit.  I was so lost because I don't even really know Spanish well and even Caroline couldn't understand much since they weren't even speaking normal Spanish.  Oh well, the experience was nice!  

By this point we were both hungry so we headed somewhere to get some paella!  We headed towards the coast since we hadn't been there yet and found a cute little bar/restaurant where we could also watch Barcelona playing on tv.  I was nervous about getting the paella marisco (with seafood) since Courtney wasn't there and since I had never had prawns before I didn't know how to deal with them - and I KNEW Caroline hadn't ever had them before.  But Caroline talked me into and I'm ultimately happy I had it just to say I did, though it wasn't my favorite.  We had sangria though and that was yummy!

After dinner we went to explore the coast, even though it was freeeeeezing.  It was beautiful out there though and what was supposed to be just a nice stroll along along the coast turned into an hour trek across the city.  Caroline was dead set on finding this skyscraper that is completely lit up at night with florescent blue and red.  Surprisingly enough you couldn't see it from far away...I guess it wasn't as big as we thought, so we had to walk to it (I honestly think it was like 2 or more miles away from where we were at that point).  So as we were walking we passed the Olympic Village with all the clubs and restaurants and it was a very impressive area, but of course we still had our mission to find that building. Fast forward 30 minutes later and walking through some sketchy areas and finally we found it.  My feet hurt and I was exhausted, but Caroline's excitement at finding it made me feel like we accomplished something...even though it was just finding a glowing building that we didn't even know what the significance of it was.

And that's it for my post today!  I thought I'd be able to wrap up Barcelona in this post, but alas I can't and I really want to make an onion omelet since I'm hungry.  I have been starving myself until I finished this post since I have been slacking! :o)

Barcelona part tres will come soon and then I can move on to Malta, parent's visit, and daily life...man, writing a blog is tough! :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!  I hope everyone has a very fun and safe holiday and I'm very sad that I won't be with my family this year, but I'll try to make the best of it here!  We have plans to go to an American diner to have a full Thanksgiving feast and we will see how that goes.  Before dinner, however, we are heading to a free wine tasting at a cute restaurant in the city.  I guess that's putting a spin on a traditional American holiday and fusing it with Italian culture?  I'm cool with that.

I guess I should say what I am thankful for since I won't be able to say it at dinner tonight with my family... so here goes nothin!  I'm very thankful for my loving family and friends who have been so supportive during one of the best and most eventful years of my life!  I couldn't have made this move without your support and it definitely wouldn't have been as enjoyable.  To all of you who have helped make this possible, THANK YOU and I love you very much!!

Here is a cartoon for your enjoyment:

BarTHelona Part Uno

From as far back as I can remember my mom has always referred to Barcelona as BarTHelona and always emphasized the "th" sound.  I didn't actually believe that's how people pronounced it, I just thought it was another one of her exaggerated accents on key foreign words such as german with "avil strruuuudel" or "viener snitchzel" (note: I'm writing these phonetically since I'm not even sure how to spell them) and her many different accents from the UK.  Oh and she does it with Italian, Spanish and French words too...so I guess basically all the major accents.  It's actually very entertaining now to hear them, but back in the German restaurant in Epcot as a teenager, hearing your mom speak with a heavy German accent to our actual German waitress did leave a bit of a scar in my memory.  (I love you mom and all your accents!)  Ok so I went off on a tangent...where was I?  Ah yes, BarTHelona.  The city of Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, and most importantly, Antoni Gaudi.  Seriously, this is his city and I've never been to a place that is so centered around one man and, thankfully so, since he was in fact a genius.

Barcelona was very surprising to me, although I'm not sure what I really expected when I went there.  I guess I just expect cities in Europe to be very old and have a lot of history from hundreds and hundreds of years ago, which I am sure that Barcelona has, but the focus of Barcelona is mainly on their more modern celebrities dating from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.  The buildings to see are mainly Gaudi's, some of the best art museums to see are of Miro and Picasso, there is the grand Olympic village from the '92 olympics...everything is just very modern.  I think I loved it more for that since it was unlike any other city I've ever seen and it seems to embrace the new fads of the time and run with it, while also keeping the old city charm.  It's a unique and eccentric city that I don't think I could ever see myself living in, but admire the ones who can!

Ok so here is a short run down on the biggest celebrity of the city, Gaudi.  He was born in Southern Catalonia in 1852 and was apparently victim to many bouts of fever, which caused him to spend a lot of time in isolation and with nature.  This is important since in most of his works he incorporated natural shapes and themes that he saw at this early age.  He moved to Barcelona to study architecture and his professor wasn't sure if his designs were the work of an insane person or a genius.  He was only one of four students in the school to be granted the title of architect when he graduated.  During the cultural and political renaissance that was taking place all over Europe at that time Gaudi's outlandish ideas were embraced more readily then I think if he were to try this any other time in history.  He had many wealthy patrons ask him to design their houses, offices, apartment complexes, parks, etc.  His most famous work is the Sagrada Familia, the cathedral he spent 42 years of his life on before his untimely death (by a tram).  It is still not finished and they hope to have it done 2026 - 100 years from his death.

Instead of attempting to explain his architectural style I think I should just post a few pics so you can get the idea...

The roof of Casa Mila - aka La Pedrera (stone quarry)

Inside of Casa Mila

Casa Battlo - representing St. George slaying the dragon

Inside the Sagrada Familia - the columns that support the roof look like trees

Ok so enough about Gaudi...for now.  I guess now would be a good time to go into our actual trip!

The first day, as I mentioned before in the previous post, we mainly focused on washing/drying our clothes to lessen the risk of BB's and then did a little exploring after a night of sangria and tapas hosted by our lovely hostel.  We decided to get to bed early since we wanted to have a big day of exploring the next day.  Saturday we went straight to Gaudi's Casa Mila (it was also called La Pedrera during it's construction because it looked like a quarry and the nickname has stuck to this day).  It was commissioned as an apartment complex on the Passeig de Gracia, one of the major avenues in Barcelona.  While most of the building is still being used as apartments, they have a museum at the top where you can also see the roof and a model apartment as it might have looked back in the early 1900's.  The audioguide tour was fantastic and we were able to see many of Gaudi's designs for other buildings, including the hanging model.  The roof was by far the star of the building (the first picture above).  There are many chimneys that look like warriors/ice cream cones and it's is sloped so you have to climb or descend stairs to get from one place to the next.

Next we headed to a cafe to replenish before our big walk up to Parc Guell, another of Gaudi's masterpieces.  But before we could make it to the park we passed by Gaudi's first commission of importance, Casa Vicens.  It is a private house so you could only get pictures from the outside and you can definitely tell that it was created before some of his more eccentric buildings.

Casa Vicens

On to Parc Guell...this was commissioned by one of Gaudi's biggest patrons.  It was meant to be a housing unit modeled after the English garden city movement.  The idea failed, however, because people didn't want to live so far away from the city center.  Only two houses were built on the property, one of which Gaudi bought and owned until his death.  A lot of the marketplace area was built up before realizing it wasn't going to catch on so it is a nice place to explore and see people selling their wares, playing music, walking around in stilts, etc.

Very crowded leading up to the marketplace

After the park we headed to La Sagrada Familia.  I forgot to mention before that the Pope was coming to Barcelona that night to consecrate the cathedral in the morning, so sadly it was closed and we would have to wait until Monday.  The Pope would come to Barcelona the one weekend we are there, since we can see him whenever we wanted in Italy.  Ah well, we went back to our hostel for a little break in the action before our spanish guitar concert we were going to later that night.

We headed out that night to stroll down Las Ramblas, the famous avenue, and check out the cute stores and restaurants.  We weren't expecting the absolute madhouse that was this avenue.  There were tons and tons of people and the concert we were going to was happening in a church where all the action was.  Now if you know me you know I HATE crowds.  Like really, really hate them and will have anxiety attacks if I'm in them for too long.  When I went on the tour of the Vatican museums I literally ran through the rooms, while my headphones were telling me the history on things I didn't even glance at on my run.  I think I was done about 20 minutes before I saw the rest of my group come out. So here I was on the brink of attack and we had to head right towards more crowds and I didn't know whether to run or to curl up in the fetal position on the side of the road (yea it gets THAT bad).  Well, we ran and the girls were great at handling my crampiness and we came to a semi open area to the side of a completely packed area full of ralliers and/or protesters for the Pope.  We had heard that there were going to be protests for his visit since apparently Spain leans a little too far on the liberal side for the Church's liking...  Spain's Catholic following has been going down steadily and they allow gay unions and abortions - for shame! (Sarcasm font would be super useful right now)  Anywho, we saw a lot of people chanting and cheering.  Since my nerves were still a little rattled we decided to go to a bar before the concert...not the best idea.  It was an Irish pub so Court and I got ciders (that came in bottles that were 2 pints worth - first bad decision of the night) and Caroline got a Long Island ice tea - no idea why she did that except her excuse of "it's only 1 euro more than a drink that doesn't have that much alcohol so I figured it would be worth the money."  That was the 2nd bad decision.  So we drank, but since we underestimated the size of the ciders it took a little longer than we anticipated and by the time we finished and got to the church we were at the BACK of the line and feeling a little tipsy.  This place was first come first serve so our seats kind of stunk and of course as soon as we sat down we got really tired.  The concert was pretty good, but would have been better had we not made those unfortunate decisions right before.  C'est la vie.

After the concert we had plans to go out, but we were tired and couldn't get the energy to go out.  Well, Caroline could, but Court and I were worn out.  I think I'm going to save the rest for another day since I am tired and need to get ready for our Thanksgiving festivities tonight!

Valencia

Buon giorno!  Caroline and I have finally come back from Malta and I'm ready to update the blog starting from Valencia for your reading pleasure :)

Before even coming to Italy it was decided that one of our number one trips to go on would be Barcelona.  Caroline and I went to Spain last year, but were only able to see the south all the way up to Madrid, located in central Spain.  It was too hard to get over to Barcelona on the east, but we vowed we would sometime in our life - thankfully 'sometime' was just the next year!  One issue was that Ryanair doesn't fly directly to Barcelona, it actually flies an hour outside of it.  They do however fly directly to Valencia so we thought we would spend a night there and head up to Barcelona by train to see the coast, which I heard was beautiful.  Since nothing really flies out of Florence we had to make the trek to Pisa and fly out of there, which was actually surprisingly easy and uneventful.  I became a bit worried before we boarded because of the many signs saying that your carryon baggage MUST fit in this bin or you could not take it on.  Now I have a very weird shaped backpack - it's shorter and wider than the normal backpack, which technically makes it hard to fit in one of those bins shaped like a normal rolly carry on.  Luckily no one said anything on our flight over, but on the way back is a different story that I'll get to later.

Ok so enough about boring logistics and on to Valencia!  Valencia is beautiful and reminded Caroline and me of a mix between Madrid with it's grand architecture and Malaga's coastal town feel.

As soon as we came out of the train station my breath was taken away by the beauty of the city and I was excited to explore.  We had about a 15 minute walk to our hostel, which was very cute and we were able to get our room to ourselves even though we had one open bed.  After we settled in we set off to find some dinner!  We found a restaurant called Baldo with a waiter who did not speak a lick of english and spoke mainly Catalan (we think) since it didn't sound like spanish.  We settled on paella Valenciana to salute the city, a couple of tapas of patatas bravas and croquettes (my fav!) and red wine.  All in all it was a good meal...the paella was a bit bland, but Caroline and I had experienced that before in spanish cooking when we came before and Courtney's sister who lived in Spain for 6 months also said the same thing.  The tapas were amazing though!

The waiter continued to talk to us in rapid Catalan even though we clearly didn't speak it, and somehow Caroline was able to discern that he wanted us to meet him and his friends at the bar around the corner when he gets off at either 12:30 or 2:30 to celebrate his birthday.  He also gave us his number.  While it was nice of him, we just nodded our heads and headed out to explore a little bit before passing out early. We saw some cool piazzas and buildings that we were looking forward to seeing in the daylight and also got ice cream to top off our meal.

The next day the nightmare begins...

Bed Bugs.  I don't know what those words elicit in your mind, but in my mind it's something like "HOLY &^%$!!!" followed by more streams of expletives that would just look silly on here.  They are disgusting and it's an epidemic that is only going to get worse all over the world since apparently we can't use DDT anymore (yes we are now all experts based on the fact that we found them).  We woke up and had breakfast and when we came back to our room I noticed a little bug on my pillow.  My mind immediately went to BBs (writing the word even gives me the skivvies) and I wanted to shoot myself.  Cue panic mode and everyone began to freak out.  We believe that they came from these giant green blankets we pulled out of the closet before going to bed because we were cold, since we didn't notice anything before going to bed.  Also, this hostel has awards and stellar reviews for it's cleanliness so I don't believe it has much to do with them, this was probably from the many travelers that have come through there.  We were so freaked out that we bailed on exploring Valencia and decided to get the hell out of there, first alerting the staff and then heading up to Barcelona where we could wash and dry every single thing we had.

The train ride was stressful as we were all still panicking, but the parts of the coast I saw were beautiful.  We finally got to Barcelona and into our fabulous hostel.  Thankfully they had laundry in the hostel so we took everything we could and washed and dried it.  It was very stressful and tensions were high in the group, understandably so.  We headed to the grocery store and got trash bags and zip lock bags and put everything we owned in them.  We did have one roommate from the Netherlands and who knows what she thought, but we tried not to care.  We were determined to beat this thing so there was no way we would bring anything back to our place in Florence.  We were also determined not to let it ruin our trip so we basically did everything we could that first day and tried not to think about it again until we were heading back home.

That does it for part one of our trip.  Sorry to have grossed you out, but it does get better I promise!  Barcelona was a fantastic trip and I will work on updating that post this weekend!

Ciao for now friends and word to the wise - if you are traveling ANYWHERE, be aware that you can find those things in even 5 star hotels so just be careful...being exposed to them is one of the grossest things that have ever happened to me and I wouldn't wish it on anyone!  Thank god we never had any bites, but the war continues and you'll just have to read on to hear how we are dealing with it...

Coming soon...

My posts on Barcelona, Valencia, and soon to be Malta will be coming soon to those who are anxiously awaiting a post (as I know all of you are, duh).  We had a bit of a mishap in Valencia that caused this week to be crazy and uber stressful...I will fill you in on this in due time, but don't have time to recount it now.

Caroline and I are headed off to Malta tomorrow and will be back next Thursday so I won't be able to update you all until after that, but expect many posts after then!

A presto! xoxo

Happy Halloween!!

Well I am a day late, but I hope you all had a fantastic weekend celebrating!  We sure did...too much fun I think :)

First let me recap our fun day trip to Arezzo, a small town just an hour south of Florence.  While reading up about Arezzo I can tell you that it is thought to have been one of the twelve most important Etruscan cities and it is the birthplace of scholar, poet, and the "Father of Humanism" Petrarch; artist and historian Georgio Vasari; inventor of the musical scale Giudo Monaco; and renaissance masters Piero della Francesca and Michelangelo (well he was born just outside of Arezzo, but it still counts!).  The Piazza Grande is also famous for being the backdrop for Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful, one of my faves.  There is a plaque in the Piazza commemorating the film.  This also prompted us to look up Roberto Benigni's awesome acceptance speech from the Oscars when he climbs over the chairs, one containing Stephen Spielberg no less, to get to the stage.  Here is the video for anyone interested to relive the moment!

Ok back to our trip...our first stop was the Basilica of San Francesco, which houses one of the most famous fresco cycles by one of the greatest Renaissance artists, Piero della Francesca. The Legend of the True Cross is a series of frescos starting with the tree planted at Adam's burial with a seed from the Garden of Eden and ending with Christ's crucifixion on the wood from that tree.  The series walks you through various stages of the cross, from when the Queen of Sheba tells Solomon that the savior will hang from that tree, thus dismantling the Jews, to Constantine's dream before battle of angels showing him the cross in heaven, which prompted him to go into battle with a cross on his shield and he won.  He also later converted to Christianity.  Then there are some other frescos of battles depicting the triumph of Christianity over paganism.  It was actually very pretty, but at the time none of us had any idea what the frescos meant so I'm glad this blog gave me a reason to look it up and learn a little something!

Our next stop was the aforementioned Piazza Grande then up to this really cute park with so many trees with yellow leaves!  One of my favorite things about fall is the leaves changing so I of course was in love.

Next we headed to a couple other churches and Georgio Vasari's house, which had been turned into a mini museum.  It had some nice paintings, but other than that it wasn't much.  We then went to a couple more museums and the Duomo.  It was a wonderful day in a really cute city!

Now onto Halloween weekend!  Saturday during the day I had a huge craving for chocolate chip pancakes so we all went to The Diner (real name) for brunch.  We were all pretty hungry and weren't sure about the portion sizes so each of us ordered a main dish and then ordered a side - I also needed something salty because even though I wanted pancakes, I usually can't eat a lot of them since they are too sweet.  So both Court and I got home fries and Caroline got an egg - literally the description said ONE egg so we assumed they would be small portions.  Fast forward 10 minutes later and we literally got 6 giant plates of food.  They didn't even all fit on our table, but luckily we were sitting in the corner and had space to put the extra plates down on another random table next to us.  The other thing was that Courtney got a bagel and a side of home fries, but unbeknownst to her, the bagel actually came with fries too.  Oh and lastly, Caroline's ONE egg had to have been at least 4-5 eggs AND it came with toast.  I mean, that's a meal in itself!  Basically we had our work cut out for us.  I had maybe 1/3 of my pancakes because the sweetness got to me and maybe 1/3 of my side of fries, not a great showing.  Courtney fared about as well as I did, but luckily we had Caroline there.  Now Caroline is a phenomenon to both Courtney and me.  She can eat so much it's actually super impressive and I find myself telling random people about her amazing eating ability.  She's also so little so I have no idea how she does it and where that food goes, but both Court and I were glad she was there in our moment of need.  Caroline was able to finish the rest of my pancakes and all of her plate - though I did help her with her egg(s).  Needless to say she did us proud and we sat for a good 20 minutes after the meal trying to not pass out from food coma and not barf from the copious amount of food we just took in.  Saturday night we went out with our friends Kate and Jess and met at Sei Divino, a wine bar close to our apt.  We were able to get a table in the main bar area and decided to get the cheapest wine on the menu because, let's face it, we have no jobs and don't have much money.  So the bottle comes out literally with dust on it...not great.  When we finally finished the bottle, Jessica headed up to the bartender to ask for a menu.  

Sidebar: this bartender also had giant sideburns and a mustasche that curled up at the ends.  He looked awesome.  

I was only able to catch a little of his mustache 

Ok so back to the story...The bartender told Jess that he wanted us to try a bottle that is normally 25 euros, but he will give it to us for 20 so we don't have to get poor quality wine.  He was right, it was much better than the first bottle.  THEN he gave an even nicer bottle for free!  Jessica was definitely the MVP of that night and we are going to make her do that more often :)  I also decided to finally take my camera out with me, which resulted in me somehow taking over 50 pictures!  There were a ton of funny ones with Caroline, Court and Jess, but I'll just choose a couple to post here...

Sunday was rainy so we decided to stay inside until our big festivities that night.  We headed to Moyo for aperitivo with the girls and it was awesome!  Moyo is a very hip bar with a dj and everything and the food they had laid out for aperitivo was amazing!  Little pizzetti, fried bread balls, tons of different pasta salads, cous cous, and a few other things.  Everything was delicious and it was free!  You just had to order a cocktail, which we were going to do anyways.  I got a Cosmopolitan and it was the best one I have ever had.  I was nervous because those things can be hit or miss and this one was so good I even got another :)  We then headed over to the girls apartment to get ready for the night.  Everyone had something to wear except me, but that was soon about to change.  Courtney and my friends from work had sent a package to us, but sent it to Jessica's school so we could make sure it got here.  Luckily Jess told us that she had it so we opened it and surprise!!  It was a Halloween package with tons of goodies for me to choose from!  It literally couldn't have come at a better time!  I didn't have a cohesive costume so they just dubbed me the spirit of Halloween.

Thanks Ana and Rabiah!!!!!  You are the BEST!

So after we got ready we headed to Astor, Caroline's favorite place here because they play the best music.  We were able to get a great seat before it got too crowded.  Then all of a sudden Thriller came on and 4 zombies came marching in and did the Thriller dance.  They had forreal looking costumes too and the makeup was so real it was disturbing.  But their performance was awesome and it was right in front of us.  We then spent the rest of the time enjoying the awesome music, the dj honestly didn't play one bad song and Caroline was officially obsessed.  Halloween was definitely a success!

We stayed inside all day today mostly trying to recover from our big weekend, but also because it was raining all day.  It's supposed to rain the next few days so we are going to have to think of more indoor things to do until our trip to Valencia and Barcelona on Thursday!!!!!  I am so excited to go on our first far away trip, yay!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!!  

Long time no see

Buon giorno!!  It has been too long, which is obviously my fault, but I'm here to make amends!

When talking to my mom she mentioned how I hadn't posted in a while and I said, "Well, we haven't gone anywhere else...I would just be posting about everyday things" to which she responded, "Yea.  People want to read about that stuff, hun."  So here I am posting about our everyday life, hopefully it will be interesting!

The cold weather that first started creeping in a couple weeks ago has now settled in to stay.  This means that our apartment is FREEZING!  I think we are located in a shady area or something, but it is way more cold inside our apartment then it is outside of it...go figure.  Just yesterday we found some more blankets that we can throw on top of us at night, which has proven very helpful.  I would be more welcoming of this cold weather if it did one thing, just ONE thing and that is kill all of the mosquitos.  But no, they are still somehow making it into our apartment and I think my mosquito death toll today is about 7.  Arg.

The weather has been picture perfect for the past few days.  We have found ourselves just wanting to go outside and walk around or sit in a piazza and read because it is just that perfect.  The only thing missing is a nice warm fire and maybe some hot apple cider.

This week we made an itinerary of sorts based on when certain museums were open at a discounted rate/free and just decided to try out cafes or venture to places we haven't been to in the off time.  On Monday we went to the Alinari National Museum of Photography, named after the 3 brothers who founded the oldest photography firm in the world in 1852.   The museum walked you through the history of photography around the world.  It was a pretty packed exhibit filled with the oldest photographs created with a camera that needed an 8 hour exposure time, as well as pictures that looked like little paintings because of the process in which they were created.  Then the museum itinerary took you through the next stages of photography until you got to where we are now: the digital age.  I found it interesting that in a lot of portraits taken back when the exposure time was pretty lengthy the subjects had very solemn looks on their face.  Apparently, because of this long exposure time if you tried to smile and would change your expression at all during the course of the picture being taken it would mess up the picture completely.  So these people in the 1800's weren't just old sourpusses as I had come to believe, they just couldn't hold a smile for an hour or longer.  I mean, who can blame them?

The next day we decided to try out a couple cafes in our neighborhood that we hadn't tried before but had wanted to.  The first was this really hip cafe that during the day people will be lounging in and by night it's either packed with people listening to live music, or packed with people playing board games - both of which sound awesome.  At night though we get a little intimidated to try it out since it seems like a local place, so we decided to first try it out during the day.  It proved as hip as it looks and we grabbed a couple cappucini and talked about life before heading to the next cafe.  Hemingway's is literally right up our street on the corner.  I had been here once before, but the girls hadn't and Courtney was super excited to go.  They serve tons of different types of hot chocolate, coffee, tea, plus chocolates and pastries.  The drinks also have the option of being alcoholic or non alcoholic.  We of course went with alcoholic...when in Rome, err, Florence, right?  Courtney got the Montezuma, which kept making me think of Montezuma's revenge - ew, and it consisted of hot chocolate, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, rum and brandy.   Caroline went for a tea with honey, vodka, and lemon.  I got a coffee drink with cinnamon, blue caracao, and something else I can't remember - maybe rum?  My drink was definitely the most fascinating, which was also proven by the two women who stared and pointed when I got it.  It came in a little Irish coffee glass with a sprig of cinnamon floating around and as soon as you stirred it the black coffee color mixed with the blue caracao and turned an awesome shade of green.  I kept thinking about Kelley and how she would be SO jealous!  Courtney took pictures so I'm going to have to wait until she uploads them to show you the awesomeness, so for now you'll just have to imagine :)

A sidenote about why this place is named after Hemingway: For those of you who don't know much about this notable American author (including me), Hemingway volunteered to go to Italy and drive ambulances for the Red Cross during the first World War.  After delivering chocolates and cigarettes to troops one day he was severely wounded by shrapnel and passed out only to wake up and be wounded again by machine gun fire to his knee.  Despite all of this, he was still able to carry a wounded Italian soldier to safety.  He received a Silver medal of valor for this and the Italians still hold him in high esteem.  This cafe peaked our interest to learn more of Hemingway so Courtney did her research and presented us with a short life story.  The most important thing we learned is that somebody must of had it out for him because that man has been seriously injured more times then 3 normal humans collectively get injured in a lifetime.  Here is just a taste of his many injuries: a skylight falling on his head in Paris causing a huge scar, contracting amoebic dysentery in Africa, car accident in London, TWO plane crashes in Africa, 2nd degree burns from a bushfire, and then after all of this he committed suicide.  It's such a crazy, and sad, life story!

That night was free night at many of the main museums around Florence.  This is something Italy has started to do once a month and we decided to take advantage of it!  We headed over to the Academia to see the David and it was fantastic how there were not that many people there!  Apparently people either weren't "in the know" or the tourist season is finally winding down.  There were also 2 exhibits within the museum, which included a musical instrument exhibit with instruments from the Medici and Lorraine time periods (cool) and an exhibit of paintings that were reserved for rooms containing the marriage bed (I guess kinda cool?).  The music exhibit had computers where you could learn basically everything about the important musicians, instruments, scores, and uses of music back in that time.  We especially enjoyed the serpent instrument.

The other exhibit was kinda interesting.  It was just a huge collection of panels of mythological and/or religious stories that related to marriage.  I wasn't so fond of the panels depicting how a woman needs to know her place and obey her husband or she would be stripped and killed (yes, there was actually a panel of that).  So yea, it was ok?

The David is obviously the main show followed by Michelangelo's unfinished 4 prisoners, which were originally started for Pope Julius II's tomb.  The David is pure perfection - Courtney even lists him as one of three guys who would make up the perfect man.  I could literally just stare at the statue for hours.  The unfinished prisoners are also amazing because it is as if these men are trying to escape their marble trappings.  There is no clear reason why they were left unfinished because they were started earlier in Michelangelo's career, but the effect of them being unfinished is just as magnificent, if not more, than if they were finished.   

The next day was so gorgeous that we ventured to the small grassy area in front of Santa Maria Novella church and read, napped, ate a few hours away.  As the sun went behind the buildings it got freezing so we headed home to get ready for another aperitivo at our favorite place.  Afterwards we headed to a hip wine bar and sipped on prosecco and wine!  

Well, that pretty much gets you up to date on my life!  Tomorrow we are heading to Arezzo for the day and then the Halloween festivities start for the weekend.  Court and Caroline have little things that we bought from the dollar store to wear, but I am still without anything :(  Oh well, I will figure something out!

Miss you all and hope you have a wonderful Halloween weekend!!