Feb 13-15: Firenze and Pisa

Okay, this was a big weekend.

On Friday the 13th, we had a field trip for "The History of food and culture in Italy" We had to meet at the main piazza at 6 am, which was so hard to get up for, and we took a 4 hour bus ride to the countryside out side of Florence, I believe it was the tuscany region, but I don't currently have all of the information with me, but anyway. We first arrived at this family owned, all organic farm. The family is was passionate about their produce it was really neat. The eldest gave us a tour of his land and farm. He also tried to make it into this odd little story about water and looking at the rays the sun makes when it shines through it? I really don't know what he was trying to communicate but he was really into it, so we al went along with it. They showed us their bulls and their goats (which there were goats that were born the day before, and I got to hold a baby one!) they were so cute. Then they took us into their house and let us sample all of their produce. We tried a bajillion different type of cheeses, unpasterized warm milk, organic yogurt, fresh apple/orange/grape juice, and coffee made from barley. The milk made me sick and the yogurt was super nasty but the rest was delicious :) Then we hopped back onto the bus and headed closer to Florence to a world famous butchery. We spoke with the owner (well his wife translated because he does not speak one bit of english) but he was also extremely passionate about his job. He spoke about using every single piece of the animal and not letting any of it go to waste. He is so inventive and he is continously trying to help the environment and he kept stressing the fact that he believes you should leave the land in better condition that the one in which you found it in. He was such a sweetheart. But at this resturant, they cooked us a 16 course meat meal. We were all about to explode after our 4 hour "lunch." We ate the normal cuts but also ate a random cut of the cow that isn't even named because it is so small that it is almost always thrown away. We ate the shins, the knees, above the knees, and some other random pieces also. We also ate raw meat which was absolutely delicious! It was such a neat experience to see the difference betweent he organic, vegetarian farm in the morning and the passionate butcher in the afternoon. What was also neat about the resturant is that they make you sit with other people, they think that it is a better way to enjoy the meal to be with strangers and make new friends, which I think is such a cool way of looking at things, I wish more places had that idea!

Since we were in Florence anyways, we decided to make it a weekend trip there. That night I stayed with Lauren's friends from back home since they are studying in Florence anyways. They set up a private wine tasting for us which was a ton of fun! Then Saturday I woke up early to meet a few other friends to see all of the attractions that Florence has to offer. Mary, Raf, Stuart and I went to the Accademia in the morning to see the David, which was absolutely breathtaking! It was so much bigger than I ever imagined! They also had an exhibit of old instruments, which had a vertical piano in attempt to conserve space, but that idea failed miserably. We then headed to the Duomo and to the Uffizio which was SO large. We spent about 6 hours there and they had a ton of rooms with beautiful artwork. We then headed to dinner and to Piazza Michealangelo at nighttime to see the 360 view of Florence.

Then on Sunday we decided to head to Pisa since it was only about 45 minutes from Florence, at least that is as long as it should be. Our first train at 1030 was delayed until 11 when they then told us that it would be delayed for another 45 minutes so we decided to switch to a different train that was scheduled to leave at 1053. Well, everyone had the same idea as us. The train scheduled to leace at 1053 didn't leave till 1145 and it was so crowded that we had to stand up inbetween train carts. It was so crowded even, we couldnt move an inch until we arrived in Pisa at 1245. It was extremely frustrating, but hilarious all at the same time. There was an American on the train that was literally freaking out about the fact that the trains were running so late and everyone was making fun of him. A group of Germans were sitting with us and they busted out bottles of Peroni at 1030 to start the day off right, so us and the Germans were just making fun of the crazy, hotheaded American. It was glorious to say the least. Once at Pisa, we just spent about two hours capturing funny pictures of the tower, walked around a little, and headed back to Perugia.

It was again a very relaxing weekend! Oh and I almost forgot! I started my internship at the highschool this week too! I go down there every Wednesday from 12-130 and 3-5. During 12-130 I help with a classroom, where its mostly just debates. The first week was a special drama course where I had to act out Shakespeare with 17/18 year olds.. it was amusing. Then the week after was actual class again, but since it snowed (and when I say snowed maybe a centimeter of snow stuck to the ground) all of Perugia literally shut down. My teacher was two hours late to school and only 6 of the 23 kids showed up for class. It was so odd but funny all at the same time.

I'm heading to the Perugia soccer game now! I'll try to write more later tonight, but I have midterms this week (eek!) so I might not be able to. Miss you all terribly!!

February 6-8 : Bari

Hey all!

So I realise I am extremely behind on this whole blog thing so I decided I would make a post for each week I missed (hopefully I can remember everything.) So For the weekend of February 6-8 we were going to head to Switzerland, but it turned out one of my friends forgot that she had a day trip in Rome on Friday morning, so instead we met her in Rome Friday afternoon and took a trip to the heel of Italy. The train ride was about 6 hours down to Bari, but we stopped at Ancona, which is a precious little town right on the coast. From Ancona to Bari (which was about 4 hours) we were right along the shoreline the entire time, so the beautiful views made the long train ride well worth it! Once at Bari, we had a very difficult time finding our hostel but eventually found it. It turns out the guys phone was on silent because his dog has cancer and they were in the middle of giving him his daily treatment, something of that sort. The next day we just walked around Bari, not sure exactly what to do considering the only reason we went there is because it was the only place in Italy that had sunshine for the weekend and not rain! It was in the middle 50s and sunny the entire weekend which was such a fantastic change from the 20-30 rainy/snowy Perugia. So we literally spent all day Saturday walking around the town shopping and enjoying the views. It was a pretty little wharf town though! Sunday we grabbed some breakfast and hopped on the train and when we arrived in Perugia it was snowing!

Despite the fact we had no idea what to do in Bari mostly because there were no really toursit attractions (or we didn't know of any at least), we had a very relaxing, warm weekend away from chilly Perugia, which was exactly what I needed!

Another Lazy Weekend in Perugia

Hey all!

So after having a delicious chinese meal on Friday, we went to a friend's apartment to make crepes for dessert and decided to just hang out till about 3 am. There are a lot of neat people here, Italians and americans. Its even neat because we live right next to the University for Foreigners which hosts people from all over the world. Today, we meet some girls from Turkey and the other day I met some girl from Albania. Theres so many different type of people here, I feel like sometimes its hard to find a true local, Italian.

But Saturday we decided to just wake up and head to the train station. Once we got there, Lauren, Leslie, and I just hopped onto the nest train leaving and ended up in Cortona for the day. We tried to walk from the train station to Cortona, but thankfully we decided to ask someone how to get to the main square because it turns out you have to take a 20 minute bus ride from the train station up this huge hill. That would've been quite the walk. Cortona had beautiful views, very similar to Perugia. We arrived during the Pausa so it seemed like it was a ghost town. But we had a cute little lunch and walked up and down the tiny streets looking at the many local antique shops. It was a very fun, relaxing, quiet day. Then once we got back it was my friend Kristen's 21st birthday so took her out to dinner to celebrate.

Lauren, Jane and I were extremely excited for this morning because we thought that we finally figured out this beautiful gothic church had mass in English! Turns out it was false advertisement so we walked into the end of an Italian mass. They told us we were in the wrong church but when we went to the second church that was suppossed to have mass in English, we walked into yet another service. So we just sat through mass in Italian again, but we're determined to find a place that has service in English. After mass we were going to go grocery shopping but EVERYTHING is closed on Sunday. Since we took the minimetro to the big grocery store, we figured we should get something while we were down there and went to McDonalds for breakfast :)

But its about 3:40 here and I am meeting some friends for coffee at 4. Italians are very eager to practice their english! Hopefully Ill be watching the Superbowl, but it doesn't air here until midnight, so well see how my homework and if Im even still awake by then :) go steelers! haha miss you all! Take Care!