To the Island!

Well I've made it through Berlin and now I'm back in England! I had a fantastic time in Berlin with Amy, and it was really great to see Evan again!!! The weather was fabulous and hot while we were in Germany, which was a welcome change from the last time I was there! On Monday we got up at some awful hour to make it for our 7:15 flight to England. We were met at the airport by Amy's friend Caroline and spent a wonderful couple of days exploring Canterbury with her son, Nick, and London itself. We were spoiled rotten -- and loved it! Typically, it rained most of the time I was there -- England's welcoming me back....

On Thursday Amy went home to Seattle, and I moved on to see my aunt and uncle near Bristol! I've had a fantastic time with them so far and it's been lovely and sunny!!! In fact, I think I'm sunburned again. :) Today was my great-granddad Marshall's 91st birthday and I got to be his birthday present!!!



It was so great to see him again and to see him so well!! He is doing fantastically, walking around, even singing! We took him down to the seaside in his chair, and sat outside in the sun for a little bit to celebrate. :)

Tomorrow I get to meet my other second cousins Sarah, and Ben (with their respective husband and wife) for the first time that I can remember, and on Sunday my Grandma and Granddad are coming down along with my aunt Rachael, uncle Simon and their two daughters! It should be a busy couple of days!

PARIS!!!! Budapest and Prague. :)

I can't believe i forgot to write about Paris!!!!! Paris was definitely one of my favorite cities so far, absolutely beautiful and so much to explore!!! We caught a really late train into Paris on Friday, and were met at the station by family friends. They drove us home past Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower which were all lit up! What a welcome to Paris!!!

On the Saturday we decided to take the train from St. Nom, where we were staying, to the end of its line in St. Lazare and then walk from there bast St. Marie Madeleine to Place de Concorde. From there we went off in search of a snack, and then walked through the Jardin des Tuleries up to the Louvre -- which is MASSIVE. I'd forgotten that it used to be the Palace! Then we walked over Pont Neuf to the island and into Notre Dame! I think we probably spent about two hours just gazing...It started raining so we decided to join a free tour, and got to go into the Choir!!! After the tour was finished we grabbed a sandwich and sat by the river to eat. Since it was still drizzling we decided to call it a day and walk back to the station. Two hours later we finally made it! We got slightly sidetracked and rain into the Pompidou Center, and spent some time watching street artists, finding a chocolate shop, got lost, asked a policeman for directions [always an adventure...] and finally made it back to St. Nom's where Carol was waiting to take us home. Phew!

Sunday we decided to head to Versailles! Versailles was gorgeous!!! We got into the Palace around 11, free tickets!!! Amy picked up her free headset and we wandered around taking in all the amazing ceilings and furnishings. We saw the Chapel and the Hall of Mirrors, and all the royal bedrooms before deciding we were starving and going out into the grounds to eat our brie and ham butties. :) It was a day in Versailles where they put on music and started up all the fountains so we were eating surrounded by fabulous classical music!!! We wandered around the grounds some, before making our way to the Petit Trianon [Marie Antoinette's House] and the grand trianon. By then it was time for all the fountains to be going in all their glory, so we walked back to the main drag to watch them for a while and rest, and then walked BACK to the Queen's Farm -- which was really pretty!! Too bad it was fake....It was really cute, with cottages, flowers, and ponds -- complete with farm animals, peacock, and swan!!!

On Monday we decided to navigate the bus system, the train system, AND the metro system to get to the Louvre!!! Why yes we are amazing world travelers...After only slight problems with machines eating metro tickets, we made it to the Louvre --- and again got in for free!!! I saw my favorite statue - the Winged Nike, and saw the statue of Pluto and psyche, the Venus, some mummies, and of course of the Mona Lisa among lots, lots more!!! We spent about 5 hours there and then walked to the Eiffel tower to take pictures. It was too cloudy to go up, but decided to try it again tomorrow. Then we walked to the Arc du Triumph to see that and then went back to the Youngs!

Tuesday in Paris was the busiest day of all!! We started out by taking the train in to Saint Lazare, and then the metro to the Scare Coeur Basilica. There were tons of steps, and even more persistent Nigerians wanting nothing more than to harass us into buying something, but once we made it up, the Basilica was beautiful! Once we finished it was still drizzling but we decided to walk to the Moulin Rouge anyway. Rather disappointing really -- but at least I've seen it! Then we took the metro down to near the Pantheon, where we stopped and had lunch. We toured around the Pantheon and went down into the crypt where we saw a lot of famous french dead people...We walked up through the Latin District to see the Institut du Monde Arabe. The facade of the building is all made of shutters!!! Camera type shutters, not blinds. :p Since we were close we walked over to Ste. Chapelle on the island by Notre Dame to see the stained glass, but the lines were HUGE, so I'll just go and see that next time. :) We decided to walk to the Eiffel tower and the sun came out!!! It was a long walk, but the weather was perfect for us to climb all 700 stairs to the second platform, and once we took the elevator up to the top we could see really far!!! The view were amazing, and I'm so glad we got the chance to do it! From there we walked to Place De la Concorde to catch the metro home. Along the way we picked up a couple of these strange French cookie things we'd been seeing everywhere. They were expensive but delicious! I had a chocolate and a strawberry one. :) We also picked up some flowers for the Youngs, and then headed back their place.

THEN we went to Vienna [see previous post!] and THEN we went to Budapest! It took just 3 hours to get to Budapest and our first impressions were NOT very nice. The hostel was nice though, even if it was up about a thousand stairs, and we decided to give Budapest a chance and went out to explore. We found a cute gelateria that made ice creams in the shape of roses by St. Stephens Basilica and walked over the chain bridge and along the river a ways. We ate at an Italian restaurant by the Parliament building and it was fabulous! Thank you again Liz, Terry, Diane, and Eddie for our spending money!!!!

On Sunday we decided to join a free walking tour led by a native Hungarian, Agnes. She was really sweet and took us on a 3 hour tour across the city! We saw St. Stephens Basilica, and a park with a really cool nightclub in it -- the pool is the club's ceiling so at night you can look into the water and see people dancing down below!!! Apparently this is also where the lock-your-love things started....We walked across the river, and across the chain bridge [beware the crazy bikers!!!!] up the huge hill to the amazing multi-colored church [unfortunately under a mass of scaffolding] and fishermans bastion. This is where the tour ended and Amy and I went in search of ice cream! It was absolutely gorgeous weather the whole time we were there!!! We walked back down the hill to the synagogue, which is apparently the largest in all of Europe, but we weren't too impressed with the entrance fees! We saw the memorial tree though, which was cool. It's a huge metal tree in the shape of a willow, with names of the families that were killed in the holocaust written on each leaf. There are a LOT of leaves....Amy and I weren't feeling 100% at this point so we decided to head back to the hostel via the supermarket for tea. :) We watched Bride Wars at the hostel, and just vegged out a bit for the rest of the night.

Monday we had a lazy morning and then headed to the Park! We thought it was where the sculpture park was located but apparently not...Then we headed back to the center of tower and sat in a park reading for a little while. We crossed the white bridge and headed up to the Liberty Statue for a view of the city and chilled for a few hours enjoying the weather and the view. We then headed back down into town, and saw the shoe memorial. Along the river front was a row of lots of bronze shoes. When the Nazi's came through Budapest they lined up the people along the water, made them take off their shoes [because they had some worth to them] and then shot them into the Danube. We walked along the river and found a place for dinner, and then went to the store on the way home to use up the last of our Hungarian money -- got some chocolate for the 7 hour ride to Prague!

Tuesday we left for Prague! It took 7 hours on the train to get there, but it passed pretty quickly. We managed to find our hostel, Hostel Elf, pretty easily. It's an interesting place - decorated with varying degrees of spray paint and graffiti, but it was clean, and everyone was really friendly. We headed to bed early that night after deciding to take a walking tour the next day around the city. :)

Wednesday we met up with a free tour by Neweurope. Anyone who comes here, or to any city they do tours -- I highly recommend it!!! We started off in Old Town Square learning a little about the history of both the Czech Republic and Prague itself. We learned about the giant cathedral: church of our lady before tyn, and the statue of Jan Hus that is in the square. We watched the Astronomical clock go off [I'm sure it was very cool back in the 1600's...] and then walked past the estates theatre, to wenceslas square where some crazy kid lit themselves on fire in protest of something or other...From there we went to the powder tower - the only remaining part of the old city wall that still serves as a gate into the city center. Prague has such a mix of architectural styles!! I loved it!!! We had a short break at Bohemia Bagels [ soooo good] and went to the Jewish district! we saw the old-new synagogue [don't ask] and walked down to see the Jewish cemetery where they literally stack people on top of each other...We stopped at the Rudolfinum where the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra plays, and then walked across the river getting a great view of the Charles Bridge and Prague castle. then we went up a ways to a bridge covered in locks and the Lennon wall, before ending in a park and listening to the story of Prague's liberation from the Nazi's and subsequent 're-liberation' by the Soviets two days later...favorite new vocabulary word from this tour? Defenestration -- throwing people out of windows. :D The tour lasted about 4 hours and we saw TONS. At this point Amy and I were rather hungry so we walked back to Bohemia Bagels for lunch where i had a hummus salad -- yum! Afterward we walked back to the Rudolfinum to inquire about tickets but was out of our price range so we went to take pictures of locks and the Lennon wall before walking across the charles bridge into the city to see the opera house and then up to old towns square again where we read for a while before having a fantastic dinner! Quite the day...

Yesterday, Thursday, we had a slow morning which quickly turned rather frustrating when we tried to find a post office. Once we had accomplished that, however, we headed up to the castle and watched the changing of the guard before wandering around the complex, and down to the Charles Bridge to have lunch at Bohemia Bagels again. :) After we headed to the park where i read while Amy went around the Kampa Museum. It started to rain so we walked to Gehry's Dancing House and then back to the hostel!

Right now we're en route to Berlin on the train. It should take about 5 hours and then we'll be meeting up Evan!!!!

***I'm updating from my favorite place in Berlin: The Sony Center!!! Which also has free wifi! Fantastic I love it!!! Amy and I managed to both find our hostel, and meet up with Evan and crew without too much trouble yesterday. Tonight we're hoping to catch Angels and Demons [in English!!!] here at the Sony center. :) We'll see how that works out! The weather has perked up from yesterday, and is actually quite nice at the moment. It's been fantastic to see Evan again. In some ways the 4 or 5 months I've spent here have flown by, but it seems just ages since I last saw him!!! While I'm really excited to see everyone in England, I'm also realizing just how ready I am going to be to go home come June 12th!!!

Vienna!

Our time in Vienna has just about come to an end...It was rather gray and drizzly for the first full day we had here, but today was much nicer! We were met at the airport on Wednesday by Amy's friend Susi, who she had met traveling in SE Asia. Susi was amazing, and we had a lot of fun exploring with her! Needless to say she was a pro at navigating the various metro systems and we would have literally been lost without her!

We saw the Mozart museum, in one of the many apartments that Mozart occupied here in Vienna as well as wandering around the Market, and going to the Belvedere to see "The Kiss" by Gustav Klint. We even got to see a little Monet! For lunch we had a typical Viennese dish of Wiener schnitzel [breaded pork] and a HUGE mug of beer mixed with lemonade? Strange -- but good. :) Not something I need to make a daily habit, though!

Today we went out to the summer palace and had an audio-guide tour around the rooms, and the gardens. They had a fun maze with games inside, and everything was really pretty. We came back into town and then Susi took us out to a really cool museum called the Kunst Wien Haus. It's really fun, and all the floors were crooked and warped, and the fountains flowed backwards!!!!

Tomorrow we're off on a train to Budapest for a couple days! I wonder what will happen to us there....

Check out Amy's blog for picture and more details!

Monaco, Monte Carlo, and Nice!

We moved on from Venice and Verona on the 5th to meet up with Elizabeth, Peter, and their new chocolate Labrador puppy Diamont. We were met at the station after a full day's travel including a grand total of three different trains, and taken around the city in style! To be in a car after so long was quite strange, but a much loved luxury.

On Wednesday they took us around Fontvieille, Monaco, and Monte Carlo were we got to visit the palace, and THE Monte Carlo! I felt like quite the movie star sitting at the cafe outside, sipping my lemonade, watching all the rich go by with their fancy black cars....The Grand Prix is in a couple of weeks so we also had fun watching human monkeys scrambling up the scaffolding that is going to make up the bleachers. I can now say that I have walked most of the race course of the Grand Prix!!! Next time it will be in a Ferrari. :)

On Thursday we went into Nice and walked around the old part of town, and the markets. We had a nice lunch, before being treated to a little train ride up to the top of town, where we had a magnificent view of all of Nice! I got sunburned (oh surprise....) waiting for the train to come back, and then we headed into VilleFranche-sur-mer where Peter showed us a Chapel dedicated to Saint Peter done by Jean Cocteau which was beautiful, and unlike anything i'd seen before!!! I'll have to look up more of his work when I go home. Villefranche was gorgeous – very picturesque, and had a fun tunnel system under the town left over from the days of seiges....

Friday we had fun wandering around Antibes, looking at monster boats and picking out our favorites. The boat I decided on came equipped with a helicopter! What a life!!! As I'm writing this we are on a train en route to Paris. It's a really nice train, and Amy and I are having a great time checking out all the castles along the way...
Elizabeth and Peter was so sweet, and we had so much fun with them!!! I ate more there than I think I did all semester in Florence, and all of it was FABULOUS! I'm going to leave France the size of a small house, and I shan't regret a second of it. :)

We will be in Paris until the 13th, and then hopefully be on our way to Vienna! Evan should be in the country by now, up in Amsterdam. Hopefully he got here alright! Amy and I are planning on meeting up with him in Berlin nearer the end of the month.

Itinerary Take TWO!

Alright since the calender is being uncooperative, here is the long hand version. :)

May 2nd - 5th Venice-Verona
May 5th - 8th Nice-Monaco
May 8th - 13th Paris
May 13th - 16th Vienna
May 16th - 19th Budapest
May 19th - 22nd Prague
May 22nd - 25th Berlin
May 25th - 28th Kent
June 28th - June 1st Dave and Marian
June 1st - 3rd Nana
June 3rd - 7th Jill and Alan
June 7th - 12th London
June 12th - Fly home!

I'll have to keep this short since I'm on bought internet time, but Amy and I have made it to Venice! The last week in Florence was bittersweet. I made a lot of really good friends, and it always sucks to say goodbye. We spent Friday hiking in Cinque Terre with Laura, which was GORGEOUS! When we got back to Florence that night I went out for the last time with everyone to the Joshua Tree and then got lots of hugs goodbye, and thousands of pictures. :) Amy and I headed for Venice on Saturday, and managed to find our hostel alright, only to get caught in a thunderstorm while searching for dinner. Despite that, the pizza was wonderful, if a little strange....It was vegetable, but instead of being all mixed up like normal, it was separated into 6 sections, one for each type of veggie. Add to that that they didn't cut it for us, and it made for an interesting meal! Today we spent the day wandering around Venice and even got to go to Murano! It was a gorgeous day, and the city was just as beautiful as I rememebered. Tomorrow we're going to Verona for the day, before heading for Monaco/Nice on Tuesday!

Updates to come! Check out Amy's blog for more details of our trip. :) She's had more time than i have to update, what with the mad dash to get everything done getting out of Florence!

Itinerary!

Here is the itinerary for our trip! Amy and I will first be heading to Venice for a few days, with side trips to Verona, and Murano. Then we're off to Monaco, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Berlin, and then finally to Kent, England where Amy will leave me and then I tour England, and the Family! A link to our calender has been added to my 'Link' section of my blog. :) Amy has her baby laptop, so we'll still be able to keep in touch as we travel! Send us recommendations on what to see and do!!! 

Sicily, Studio and Studying...oh my!

Alright so it's been a while since I last posted....oops...but I do have an excuse!!! Studio and Context were both due within the last couple of days...However now I am finished!!! Yaaay! Just two written exams stand between me and my undergraduate degree! Let's see what have I been up to....

Classes have been much of the same -- a mad dash to get everything ready, printed, and presented...On April 8th friends of the family from Paris came up and we had a fantastic time going around Florence, and visiting Siena! I even got to go up into the belltower in Siena this time, so that was fun! It was gorgeous weather the whole time they were here, and it was great to see them! We met in Piazza della Republica on Easter Sunday to watch the flag throwers and the parade, and then followed the crowds to the Duomo to watch the fireworks. Quite the production and REALLY crowded! The parade was...interesting...There were lots of people dressed up in Renissance costumes, and thousands of men in tights. Then came about six giant white oxen hauling a huuuuuge box that they lit fireworks off of, preceded by a not-so-traditional tractor....not quite sure what that was for...I've put up pictures, so check them out!

The next week was spent working on papers, and studio projects that were due, but on April 21st Amy arrived from Seattle!!! We spent most of the night chatting and catching up -- LONG overdue! She has been travelling around Asia since October, which meant I hadn't seen her since August!! It has been so great to see her again, and I'm really excited for our trip! We walked around Florence on Wednesday, and saw a few of the main sights, and on Thursday I had my final Studio Critque...still not quite sure how that all went -- i'll find out tomorrow!

As soon as Crits were done, we were off to Sicily for the weekend! Relaxing after a couple weeks of craziness was fabulous, and the beaches were amazing -- if a little dirty. Despite wearing Amy's factor 55 sunscreen, I managed to absolutely FRY the first day, but the sunburn is fading, and I had fun anyway! We left Florence at 3:35am on Friday morning to catch a bus to Pisa airport. We got to Sicily around 9:30am, and headed straight to our hostel which was *amazing.* There were 6 other people with us besides Amy and I, and we stayed in two, 4 bedroom rooms. Each room had a huge bed, and a pull out couch bed, and came equipped with a kitchenette, a TV, and a bathroom -- with HOT WATER!!! It's the little things in life....

After checking in most of the group headed straight for the beach. We eventually crashed on a peaceful spot, after walking for a ways to find a beach that wasn't gross....I paddled in the Medditerrean sea (which was COLD!) and then I think we all passed out for about five hours, (hence the sunburn......), before the sun went behind the clouds and we headed back to the hostel. We cooked ourselves dinner, played charades, and then called it a night.

On Saturday we decided to try and go to one of the Islands off of Trapani. We decided on Levanzo and caught the noon ferry there, after spending the morning in a small boat fair on the docks. Levanzo was GORGEOUS and reminded me of Greece! We wanted to see the grotto on the other side of the island, so we took off along one of the roads (there were only a couple to choose from!) and followed that for a ways....Aaaaand then the path ended...but we decided to keep going. As long as we followed the coastline, we would find the grotto eventually, right? Yeah. right. After a few hours that ended in scambling over rocks, getting dive bombed by attack seagulls, and running up the side of a cliff to avoid said evil monster birds, we found the grotto -- and it was closed. Of course. :) However it was a great hike, and beautiful scenery so none of us were very put out! We got to the top of the cliff, found the road again, and headed back towards the center of town. Even though all of us had brought water bottles with us on the hike, it was a very hot day, and so we ended up stopping at a little village to ask the people who lived there for water. :) The couple who helped us were called Lena and Ignatio, and they were so sweet and generous!!! They filled up our waterbottles and sent us on our way. When we made it back to the port, we still had a couple hours before our ferry came, so we headed down to the beach, were a couple crazy people decided to go swimming...when we went back into town, we caught the 8pm ferry back to Trapani, and headed back to the hostel for some food and then sleep.

On Sunday we were up at 5:30am to catch a taxi to the airport for our early morning flight back to Florence. I went with Amy to check her into her hostel, and then Karen and I spent the day working on Context, getting our poster ready for our presentation which was today!

This week is my final week in Florence...I can't believe it's gone so fast! I'm really going to miss it when I leave....on Tuesday (tomorrow) I have my AII final, and then meetings with both Franco and Carlo/Stefano for our grades, before the final Abroadco dinner with Laelle. On Wednesday Laura, Amy and I are going to have a day going around Florence, visiting museums, and doing those last-minute touristy things that I never quite got around to.....before dinner with the architecture professors that night. On Thursday I have my Italian final, and then the departure orientation for the school, and Amy and I are planning to have dinner at Quattro Leoni where there is rumored to be a fabulous pear pasta...Then on Friday we're off to Cinque Terre for the day, and on Saturday I leave Florence for the first stop on our tour: Venice and Verona! It still hasn't sunk in...i'm not ready to leave yet....

Details and Itinerary for my tour will be posted within the next day or so. :)

Catch-up! Paulie, and Milano!!!

I can't believe I've got so behind!!! Alright -- here's an overview of what has happened in the fabulous life of your favorite want-to-be Florentina!

March 23rd - March 29th:

This week I was madly preparing for the emminent arrival of my favorite little brother! I had the opportunity to visit the Basillica of Santa Croce on Tuesday with a classmate, Chelsea (funded by Carlo!) to explore the various chapels, cloisters, etc for a paper we have to write. I saw the tomb of Galileo and Michelangelo, as well as tons of beautiful artwork! Unfortunatley some part of that church is always under construction, so our trip was somewhat marred by the proffusion of scaffolding, but we still had a great trip.

On Wednesday I visited the Bargello with Laura and Katie, and saw Donatello's newly restored David. I also dragged them all over the city in search of a birthday present for Evan -- which I accomplished!!! In the afternoon we had the opportunity to attend a symposium on public spaces put on by Syracuse University. Some of the lectures were in Italian, and sadly we came too late to get headsets with translations, but the parts that I *did* understand were very interesting! Unfortunatley, as these things go, it dragged on foreeeeeeeeeeeeever, so we left a little before the end when we were all getting to restless to listen properly.

On Thursday we went to Palazzo Davanzati with Carlo for my AII class -- this is my favorite Palazzo EVER!!!! It has all the original furnishings, and paintings and was so interesting to walk around! It even had a really old chest with the giant locking mechanism!! I dragged Paul back here a few days later, and took pictures - check them out! Afterwards we had a Treasurehunt in my Italian class. A group of five architects teamed up and the native Florentines had a fantastic time watching us run like madmen back and forth across the piazza fulfilling different tasks...We had to: Dress up Jarrod and take pictures, interview a Florentine, send a postcard, find out what the best-seller was in Edison (a bookstore) and figure out what it was about, and take a picture next to the lucky bronze pig. All in Italian, of course, and all before the other teams. Of course my team was far superior and we won!!!!!!! So Elena had chocolate eggs for all of us as a prize. :) Totally worth it...For studio we went on a trip to a newly constructed area of Florence that housed new University buildings, housing, and a new "Justice Palace" which we eventually figured out was a giant oversized courthouse....

On Friday we had our Florence Sprawl Tour with Franco for AIC. We got to visit the Highway church by Michelucci which had amazing concrete columns, and go shopping at the new Barberino design fashion outlet -- which had a chocolate outlet!!!! I was very happy.

On Saturday my little brother arrived!!!! We had a lot of fun walking through Florence and catching up for a few hours before he crashed, and we were up bright and early (daylight savings time = evvvvil.) to take the express train to Rome! We met Laelle and Mitch there and went straight to the Collosseum, which this time we got to go inside!!! It was a dream come true to actually be able to go THROUGH the colloseum, and Paul and I possibly went a liiiiitle photo happy....The we toured the Imperial Forum, and the Palatine Hill (where we had a fantastic photo opp posing as statues!) before heading up to St. Peters and the Vatican City. We tried to get into the Sistine Chapel, but were just a half hour too late, so we went up the cupola of St. Peter's instead, where we had a view of the ENTIRE city. We saw the Spanish steps, and the monster house(!), when it started CHUCKING it down, so we ducked into a cafe at the top of the Spanish steps...where Paul and I enjoyed the most EXPENSIVE sprite we've ever had....and then carried on, practically sprinting across Rome to see the Trevi Fountain before REALLY sprinting across the train station to get onto the train back to Florence...next time we're in Rome, we'll have to go to the Pantheon, Paul!

March 30th - April 5th:

On Monday, Paul and I went up to Piazzale Michangelo for a picnic, and around San Miniato, the church on top of the hill. While I was in class, he explored the city!!! Thankfully the weather held most of the time, and it wasn't too rainy...On Tuesday Paul went to the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum and played with all the machines, and on Wednesday we climbed the Duomo with Katie and Laura! During studio I had the chance to go around the new Piazza Alberti with the architect, Paolo, and tour his new project.

Thursday, after my Italian test, we took a bus to San Gimignano with Laura, explored the backstreets, and picked up a bottle of wine for Paul to take home to Mum and Dad (funny story about that...............). We made it back to Florence in time to take Paul to Family Dinner, where he met everyone, and Carlo even showed up for a short time at the end! Paul had his first (at least, it had better have been his first....) bar experience in the bar downstairs, and then we headed home to get some sleep before Friday's trip.

On Friday we took a train to Milan with my studio class and spent the day exploring the new Fiera Milano Complex that Carlo talked us into (!!!) and various other contemporary buildings. We took lots of breaks, and even got to play in the park for a little while!!! That night, Paul and I took the train home to Florence, where we got a few hours sleep, before heading to the airport at 4am to send him back home. P.s. you have no idea a suitcase rolling across cobblestones at 4am is.....really...I was afraid for our lives....After dropping Paul off, and seeing him through security, I took the early morning train back to Milan where I met up with the archies for another day of touring Milan. I was a wee bit tired by the time we got back to Florence that night -- but I had a fantastic time. :)

On Sunday I took Laura, Katie, Kelly, and Margaret with me on a hiking trip up around Settignano with Laelle, Mitch, and his friend Andy. It was a beautiful hike topped off by a delicious aperativo-style meal in a small cafe. Laelle and our hiking guide, Melissa left us 'kids' around 8 because of previous engagements, but we were having too much fun to go back that quickly. I'll write more about what we had once I get the list from Margaret or Laura......suffice it to say it was a small MOUNTAIN of food, and we were all stuffed by the time we caught the bus back home around 10. Once we got back to Florence we decided to go on a quest for gelato. We were probably out about the time the earthquake hit south of here, or maybe we were on the bus hurtling down the hill, but we didn't feel anything. A few friends felt it in their apartments, and things fell of shelves, but nothing like the one we made it through in Seattle all those years ago. Italy is in a period of mourning for the vicitims of the quake at the moment - - it was pretty nasty, and a lot of people died....

This week I've been working on catching up on things I put off while little brother was here...:) Only two weeks until studio presentation, and then just a week after that until I have to leave Florence!!! I've fallen in love with this city, and it will be really hard to leave....

This weekend the Youngs are here for Easter, and we're heading down to Siena for the day, today! Hopefully the weather will hold long enough for the easter parade and fireworks on Easter Sunday.

Buona Pasqua everyone!!!

Venice!!!

This week in Florence was beautiful and sunny and I did my best to make the most of it!! Laura and I went to the Academia on Wednesday to have some quality time with the David and after we were done perusing the various statues and paintings, we decided to go and visit an art store (very dangerous idea...) and ended up coming out with some watercolors, paper, and brushes...and then we went to sit on Ponte Trinita and paint the Ponte Vecchio in the sunshine. :) It was something we had wanted to do for a while, but never quite got around to. It was perfect timing too, since the next day I walked by the bridge and there were shiny new gold plaques stating that anyone caught sitting on the buttresses was subject to a 16 Euro fine. :) oops?

In the afternoon our studio met on the steps of the Duomo, and took the bus to La Cascine. From there Stephano took us to visit the Aviation Academy in Florence. After touring the buildings there and confusing every single uniformed person inside, we started to walk back along the river towards studio.....but got side tracked by the park, and the grass, and managed to convince Stephano to play duck-duck-goose with us. Right in front of the Military school. Needless to say, it was a very amusing game. The picture above is of Stephano chasing someone around the circle. He didn't quite understand the fact that you had to run *one* direction around the circle...This game has evolved quite a lot from when we used to play it in elementary school...It now involves full body-tackles...participants beware!!! Thursday night was also family dinner night, which this week was Aperativo's! We ended up with TONS of food, but had a lot fun.


Friday morning I was up bright and early to catch the train to Venice with my Architecture in Italy class!!! While the most of the people in the class weren't exactly the group of people I would have *chosen* to travel with, the group of seven architects in the class stuck together and we ended up having a fantastic time. This is us on the Ponte Rialto! Once we arrived we had a quick lunch at the Venice Santa Lucia Train Station, while Carlo bought us all passes for the Ferry, and then we were off on the Ferry down the Grand Canal to San Marco, where we changed boats to get to our hostel. After dropping off our stuff and making our beds we were back on the ferry towards San Marco again. This time we were able to explore the Piazza and the duomo, and I got to see the Doge's Palace up close and personal!!! Carlo took us inside the Duomo, which was amazing...the whole church is covered in gold mosiac tiles. Probably my favorite church so far. Unfortunatley we weren't able to take pictures inside, but Nikul and I climbed to the terrace on top for 4 euro where we were able to see the entire piazza, and get an interesting view of the church from above! After we climbed back down the STEEPEST staircase I have ever been down, Carlo took off across the piazza in the general direction of the next church we were heading to visit...One thing I learned very quickly about Carlo is that he genuinely does not care if you get left behind -- some others did not learn this as quickly and so we ended up leaving about half the class (22ish in total) behind in Piazza San Marco waiting for Carlo...After wandering through a few backstreets -- and backtracking at various dead ends, we arrived at a ferry station and took the boat across the canal to Santa Maria della Salute where we met up with the rest of the class. From there we walked to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum and across the Academia bridge to the old Rialto bridge (the oldest bridge in Venice), and then across to the old fish market. Carlo then set us free and the group of 7 architects split off from the group and went in search of Campo San Lucca and cheap food. We sat inside for a few hours to warm up and then wandered across Venice for a few hours in the general direction of Campo San Margherita, where we met Carlo at 10ish for drinks. We quickly decided that wandering was way more fun, however, and decided to go and find the new Calatrava bridge. :) After walking across my first Calatrava (!) we intentionally got lost heading back towards Piazza San Marco, and then caught the ferry across the water to our Hostel.


On Saturday we had breakfast at the hostel and then walked to Rendentore Church by Palladio, and then around La Guidecca which is the southern island that makes up Venice. La Guidecca was interesting because it was made up of old low-income housing and warehouses, which have been turned into new, trendy modern housing. After that, we took another ferry to Fondazione Stampalia Querini Museum which was restored by Carlo Scarpa. It was another interesting project to walk around and see how he'd handled adding contemporary changes to an old Venician Palazzo. We also walked into a rehersal for a concert later in the night of a recorder quartet. :) Soprano all the way down to a giant Bass recorder! It was echoing throughout the museum as we walked through the rooms. Again, once we were finished at the Museum Carlo turned us loose to explore until we had to meet at the train station to go home. He suggested we walk to the park at the end of the island for lunch -- and we decided that it was sunny and that was a great idea! Let's just say it was a really good thing we had 3 hours, because we used every second!!! We found the park without problems and even found the site of the yearly art and architecture convention which was interesting to walk around. Each country had it's own building which we assumed they used to showcase whatever they subject matter of the convention was that year -- but it was all completely deserted...quite creepy really. Ashley and I went and sat by the water and sunbathed to eat lunch that we had brought with us, and the others went to a small cafe to eat. We took the ferry back to the train station and ended up pulling up exactly at 4:20 and running to get on the train, and find our seats before it left. 3 hours later, we were back in Florence!!!

...I slept until 1:15 Sunday afternoon. Venice was gorgeous but as per usual with Carlo's trips I was absolutely exhausted when I got back home!!! Pictures will be up as soon as I can find where the heck my camera cord walked off to............

When in Rome.....

This weekend was like a Barnstone study tour on steroids...Imagine a week's worth of touring -- in the space of two days. INSANE. However! I had a great time, and came home happy, but exhausted.

Since Karen and I didn't have studio on Thursday because of this trip, we decided to go and do studio work in the sun at the Boboli Gardens. Bliss!!!! Afterwards we went shopping at H&M, and then had Family Dinner at the girls.

Friday we met at 8:30 am at the train station and were on our way to Rome!!! Straight off the train we visited S. Maria degli Angeli (a converted Roman Bath by Michelangelo) and Santa Maria Della Vittoria (with Bernini's Ecstasy) on the way to our Hotel. After dropping off our bags we were off and walking again to see Palazzo Barderini with an amazing piazza and oval staircase, and then to San Carlo alle Quattro Fountane (the church with the oval dome that Phil taught us about. :). It was amazing to see these places all firsthand and rather overwhelming to see them all within a few hours. Then we walked down the Spanish steps on the way to catch the metro to an area where the Olympic stadium was, and the Auditorium by Renzo Piano. After eating lunch, and soaking up a little sun, we had a tour of the Auditorium, and then walked by a new Zaha Hadid building to Richard Meir's Museum for the Ara Pacis. (Nothing like a little Architectural name dropping.....!) We got to go inside the museum and get upclose and personal with the Ara Pacis, and then were free to do as we wished so Laura, Karen and I headed back to the Spanish steps where we sketched a little and bought a small watercolor painting each, before heading off in search of the Colosseum! After getting sidetracked by various buildings out of our history books, we stood in awe of the Colosseum for a while, before settling down to sketch and watch the sun set. After the sun was thoroughly down, we took the metro back to our hotel, put on some more layers, and then headed off to Campo dei Fiori to meet Carlo and Stephano for drinks. I wasn't feeling well, and Laura didn't want to drink so we stayed and chatted for a while before heading back early to the hostel -- Not, however, before we watched Carlo take his first ever Absinthe shot! Quite amusing....

Saturday we were up and out around 10am to visit San Pietro (Saint Peter's Basilica). The swiss guards were really funny in their crazy uniforms, and the Basilica is HUUUUUGE. We had just enough time to go down into the tombs, but not enough to go up into the cupola, or see any of the Vatican city....After zooming around St. Peter's we went down the road to Castel Sant' Angelo and to Piazza Navona for lunch. We had ENORMOUS gelatos (seriously....the thing was the size of my head...and only 2 euro!) and then went to Sant Eustachio for "the best coffee in the world" according to Carlo. Then, we were off to the Pantheon (definitely a "I'M IN ROME!!!" moment) and then off speeding across Rome again to the Trevi Fountain. Once we had all thrown coins in to assure us we were coming back, we headed to Capitoline Hill via Parliment, where we happened to get caught in the middle of the parade for the changing of the guard. Then we walked down, past the Roman Forum and the Colosseum again to the metro to catch the train back to the Hotel, and then back home to Florence! We got in around 7pm, and I then spent the evening with Laura waiting for friends to arrive from the US. After taking them out to the bar for a beer, I headed home and collapsed....Pretty sure I didn't even move all night.

Sunday Laura and I met on Ponte Trinita to climb out onto the buttresses and sketch the Ponte Vecchio in the sunshine. We went to the Boboli Gardens, and then met Christine, Karen and their two friends at the Duomo for lunch. After eating we headed to Santa Croce to walk around the market, and then to Torre San Niccolo to sketch for AIC. There....I met some crazy, stoned Brit who was actually really funny, and relatively harmless. He told me all about his travel companion, Anna (his bike) and about his trips through Asia and Austrailia. I think he's been homeless and wandering since he was my age, and apparently this was his first time in Florence. He was very interested with why I was sketching the tower, and told me all about "seeing soldiers climbing the tower" while he was stoned, which he thought was hilarious...He even wrote me a poem. It reads: "Katia (...he couldn't spell my name): Thinks about buildings How the time came to make one only you will know." He actually looked a lot like Golleum from the LOTR movies?....Anyway after that action packed day Karen and I came home and i proceeded to laze around for the rest of the day - before calling it an early night to try and get better, and recover from the craziness!

Next weekend: Venice!!! With Carlo...oh help.

Spring Break: Carnivale, Athens and Berlin!

After Midterms ended, I was very much ready for a break! I didn't leave until Sunday, so I had Friday and Saturday to myself in Florence to have fun. Margaret wasn't leaving until Sunday either, so we got together on Friday and had ourselves a picnic in the Boboli Gardens. They had mock gardens from Pompeii, which was fun to go around after seeing the ruins just a week or so before. I bought myself an Uffizi Pass, so now I can go back there as often as I want! After being kicked out of the gardens as they were closing, we went back to Margaret's apartment, where I had dinner with her and Carolyn.

On Saturday Margaret and I got together again and decided that since it was such fabulous weather again, we were going to climb the Duomo. After exploring the inside, and standing in a huge line, we finally got to climb the 463 steps to the top of the dome! It was so much fun to be climbing something we had studied so much about, and we were complete architecture students the whole time....We stayed up and watched the beginning of the sunset, before again being kicked out of the Duomo. We were literally the last ones out of the cathedral. hahaha. Side note: Has anyone ever noticed how creepy the illustrations are on the dome?!?!?! See the pictures....Margaret and I went our separate ways to pack and get ready for the next day, and then met up later that night for dinner.

Sunday I went with Laelle to Viareggio for the end of Carnivale! It was a lot of fun, despite the rain, and full of loud colors, music, and LOTS of people! We were there early enough to walk around all the floats before the parade began, and then I went with Laelle and her brother to see a museum exhibit of artwork done by the 'masters' of carnivale. The parade started at 4:30 so we headed back, and bought ourselves a mask! I got absolutely COVERED in confetti, silly string, and shaving cream. This picture is of my favorite float. You can begin to see how HUGE they were! Most were 3 to 4 stories tall -- and all out of paper mache! One of the floats that went by had a ton of dancing people on it, and when I mistakenly made eye contact with one of the people on it, he dumped a bucketful of confetti and flowers directly on me. I've never seen so many little old men running around silly stringing random strangers....Really though, it was a really fun experience, and if you are ever in Europe for Carnivale, you have to go!!! Fireworks were scheduled for 7:30 but I had to run back to the train station to catch the last train to Milan, so I could get to the airport. I saw the top of the fireworks display over the top of the station as I waited on the platform. It took 4 hours to get to Milan, where I met up with Margaret and ran for the last bus to the Milan Malpensa airport at 12:30 am. JUST made it, and 'slept' in the airport on the floor.

Monday morning I caught my flight to Athens!!! I made it there just fine, and managed to catch the correct bus to Syntagma Square where I could then take the metro to my hostel, Athens Backpackers. Buying a metro ticket was an interesting experience and "It's all Greek to me" took on a WHOLE new meaning....Thankfully I ran into two students from Minnesota who were studying in Greece, and they helped me buy a ticket! The weather, incidentally was absolutely gorgeous....I think it was mid 70's until the last day I was there! Amazing.....I dropped off my stuff at the hostel, and decided to go for a walk. I had my first Acropolis sighting (!) And decided to find the entrance for tomorrow. Got followed down from the acropolis, lost them, got harassed again, and decided that staying in the hostel that night and catching up on sleep was a wonderful idea.

On Tuesday I was up early, and had breakfast at the hostel. I had decided the night before to beat the crowds, and see the Acropolis first so I headed there first. It was amazing, -- the views, the marble!!! I couldn't actually go IN any of the temples, but I got a lot of sketching in and soaked up the sun, and the fantastic views of the city before I got inundated by students and decided to head out. From there I headed to the two theaters on the hill, and off towards Hadrian’s Gate and the Temple of Olympian Zeus which was ENORMOUS. These columns were insane....Really -- look at the pictures!! I met a girl called Sarah from London there who I recognized from the Hostel, and we made plans to meet later that night for dinner. Then I went to the Patheatic stadium which was also HUGE (are you seeing a pattern here?). I decided to have lunch in the National Gardens with a turtle I met, were I was quickly joined by a rather strange, but relatively harmless Greek man...After seeing EVERY picture he had on his cell phone I managed to escape and see the Parliament buildings, and the Changing of the Guard in front of the Tomb of the Lost Soldier. I walked down to the Roman Agora and then decided to head back to the Hostel and get ready for dinner. Sarah was craving seafood so we ended up taking the metro to Piraeus, the port, and then a taxi to Zea Marina. By the time we got there we were so hungry we didn't care where we ate so we ended up having Italian. (oh the irony....) When we got back to the Hostel, one of my roommates was manning the bar, so we got a free Sangria, and a shot of Ouzo (...yuk.) and then I headed to bed.

Wednesday started even earlier when I met Sarah for Breakfast and we headed out the National Archeological Museum. Overnight Sarah had managed get eaten by bedbugs, so we first had to find a Pharmacy where we could find something for the bites....Trying to act it out to the Greek shopkeeper was quite amusing, but we eventually got what we came for and then walked to the museum. I've decided that being an EU citizen is absolutely amazing for Museums! I got in free!!!! :) We spent a few hours there, saw the Mask of Agamemnon, and then headed back to the hostel. Sarah and I went from there to the Flea Market where we tried a coconut stick. It was really good, but rather a strange consistency...Sarah had to leave then to catch her flight back to London, so I headed to the Agora, Kerameikos, and climbed up Filloppou Hill, where I met another turtle. The picture above is of the Temple of Hephaestus in the Ancient Agora. I went back to the hostel around 4, and took a nap, before meeting Sarah and Gunn from Manchester treated me to drinks and dinner at a Taverna! We had yummy bread with various spreads, a delicious Greek Salad with a HUGE piece of Feta, Souvalki, and then Gelato to finish off the night!

Thursday I got up and checked out, and stashed my bag before trying to visit the new Acropolis Museum. It wasn't open unfortunately, so I went and grabbed a few groceries and then walked to Syntagma Square to a bookshop. It was POURING it down, but I still wanted to climb Lycabettus Hill -- so I did.....aaaaand got SOAKED. It was foggy, but I still managed to get a pretty good view. I then decided to go back to the hostel, and try and dry off a bit before heading out to the Airport around 4:30. I flew to Berlin at 8:30, and got in around 11:00 Berlin time. I found the hostel and navigated the train system without too much trouble and met up with Laura, Margaret, Karen and Christine at the Lette 'm Sleep 7 Hostel.

On Friday Margaret and I decided to go on a free walking tour while the other three took a bike tour. We found a bakery with fantastic chocolate croissants for Breakfast and then just wandered until 1:00. We met at the Circus Hostel were we randomly ran into 6 other architecture students from Palazzo Rucellai. The tour guide was hilarious, and the tour was a lot of fun! It went on for about 4 hours, and we saw a LOT of Berlin. We saw:
Berliner Dome
New and Old Museum
The Site of the book burning, and the memorial
St. Hedwigs Cathedral
The victims of War and Tyranny Memorial
AMAZING Chocolate shop with giant chocolate sculptures...
Calvinist and Hungarian Cathedrals
Berlin Wall
Nazi Office Building -- HUGE building
Checkpoint Charlie
The Needle (Television Tower)
Site of Hitler’s bunker, and eventual suicide
Jewish Memorial
Academy of Art Building
Gehry's Bank Building
US Embassy
Brandenburg Gate
The Sony Center -- My favorite!!!! The picture above is of the roof of the Sony Center. It is lit up at night and changes from a bright blue to a magenta color.

It rained the entire time, and was absolutely FREEZING especially after Greece! The Architecture is much more contemporary, and fresh. I LOVED the Sony center and Margaret and I ended up finding our way into one of the buildings and riding the elevator up to the top to take pictures. Karen, Laura and Christine ended up deciding to watch a movie at the Sony Center so we joined them to watch "He's Just Not that Into You" which was really funny -- and gave us enough time to thaw out! We went back to the Hostel and made dinner, before collapsing.

Saturday all 5 of us decided to go on an Architecture tour. We were up and got groceries and another chocolate croissant before catching the metro to the Olympic Stadium. Then we went to another chunk of what is left of the Berlin Wall. We took the three girls back to the chocolate shop to show them the amazing sculptures, where I bought myself a little chocolate egg. :) We walked back to St. Hedwigs Cathedral and toured the inside. When it was bombed back in the war, the bomb dropped directly through the roof and blew the building from the inside out, causing a giant crater. They used that crater in the new design as a crypt. We also took the girls to the War and Tyranny memorial, and then went to Humboldt University where 29 Nobel Peace Price winners went to school, including Albert Einstein?!!! Hopefully some of that greatness rubbed off on me! We went to the GSW building, and then Margaret and I split off to see Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum. !!!!! It was so exciting to go inside a building I had learned so much about in school!! The exhibits were really well done as well, and I really liked how it was set up. Laura, Christine and Karen decided to go and see the Blue Man Group that night, but Margaret and I decided it was too expensive, and went and made amazing risotto at the hostel and watched Bridget Jones, while drinking RIDICULOUSLY cheap German beer.

Sunday Karen and Christine headed back to Florence in the early morning, and Laura, Margaret and I day tripped out to Potsdam where we toured the royal Palaces and gardens. After spending most of the day there, we rode the metro back into Berlin where we rode the U back and forth between a few stops (...don't ask...) and then got really cheap tickets to see a ballet at the opera house!!! We ended up seeing Tchaikovsky: The Mysteries of Life and Death which was a modern opera written by Boris Eifman about Tchaikovsky’s life, set to his Symphony No. 5, Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, String Serenade Op. 48, and the finale of his Pathétique, as well as references to some of his ballets. It was interesting to be able to pick out parts of ballets and stories that I knew like the Nutcraker. We went back to the hostel afterwards, picked up our bags, and then caught the last train out to the Airport. Margaret knew of some couches in a cafe, since she had spent a crazy amount of time sleeping in various airports this week, and we went and collapsed on them for a few hours before catching our 6:35am flight back to Milan, and then the bus to the train station, and then the rain back to Florence. We got back, and I managed to grab a quick shower, (where I had an argument with the shower curtain, and it ended up pulling completely out of the wall....fabulous....), and eat some food before heading out to class at 4!

Quite the week, and I had a fantastic time, but I’m glad to be back in Florence and in some semblance of a normal schedule. :)

Amazing News!!!

Today Mum called me and told me that I've been accepted into the Graduate program at Washington State University to study Architecture!!! YAAAAAAAY!!! I am so excited I can't even sit still, which is making it rather difficult to focus on midterm presentations for tomorrow...I wasn't supposed to find out if I got in for another two months, and it came as a complete surprise! I even made it onto the 1.5 year track, which is absolutely fabulous!!!!

I immediately called Evan,...forgetting to check what TIME it was over in Washington...oops? Sorry about that, hun. :D And then proceeded to bounce throughout studio. I figured this was probably the easiest way to let everyone else who isn't on Facebook know!!!

Now all I have to do is pass my classes over here, because grades don't transfer back to school!! Don't worry Karen: I promise i'll try harder than just passing. ;)

Just had to spread the amazing news!!!! Alright...now get back to *work,* Katie....

Napoli, Vesuvio, Pompei, Eracleo, and Pisa (oh my!)

This weekend was absolutely insane. This is how it started:

Laura and I caught a train after studio on Thursday night to Naples. It took only about three hours on a EuroStar train, and once we arrived we managed to find our hostel for the weekend: Hotel Zara. We quickly discovered that Naples is NOT a nice city. It's almost as if it was built to be temporary, since it is sitting in the shadow of an active volcano, and noone has bothered to try and upgrade it since the last catastrophy. While walking around to find food that night Laura and I were constantly on guard...we here harassed, followed, and called after constantly throughout our entire stay. Needless to say I didn't feel safe until I was back on the train to Florence. We did, however, manage to find a nice pizzaria close to the hostel which had absolutely amazing Pizza! We took our time over dinner and desert, and took the remainder of our wine back to hostel where we quickly fell asleep.

Friday morning we were up and going in time to catch the first train at 9am to the Heraclium Ruins stop, which was also where we needed to catch the taxi to the checkpoint at Mt. Vesuvius! We bought bread, cheese and water at the nearby market to bring on our hike, packed up our sketchbooks and were ready to go! We met a lady traveling with her daughter, and her cousin who lived in Rome. She was born in Italy, but now lives in Austrailia so was easily able to translate for us, and argue ticket prices when needed....We were taken most of the way up the volcano, and then told that our driver would wait for us for 1 hour, and to get hiking! So...we did!!! Laura and I made it to the top of the mountain and even had time for a few sketches before we had to run back down to catch our taxi. It was very cold, and very windy up there, but absolutely gorgeous. Anyone who visits the area when the volcano is open HAS to make the trip!


We then decided that since we were already at the Heraclium ruins stop on the train, we might as well explore them then, instead of on Saturday when we had origionally planned. We both weren't too eager to go back to Naples until we needed to meet Karen off her train from Florence. :) I've decided that being a EU citizen ROCKS especially when you are trying to get into these amazing places! Half price tickets for meeeeeee!!! Laura wasn't as lucky, but I think even she agrees that it was worth the money we paid to see the ruins! This picture is taken of us in the Heraclium ruins, where we decided to stop for lunch. The camera is perched on top of the remains of a column, and set on a timer setting. We were amazed that there wasn't anyone around, like in the United States checking that we weren't climbing on things, or eating in the ruins....Which worked out to our advantage actually. Even the barriers they had put up weren't much of a detterant. They actually came in a couple stages. There was the 2x4-wedged-in-an-opening variety which seemed to say please don't go in here, but if you do just be careful. Then there was the half-hazard-metal-fence variety which was a little more serious, and then the bolted-padlocked-welded-in-place-metal-door variety which said don't even THINK about trying to get in here....All in all we had a fantastic time clambering through the city, sketching and exploring! We were SUCH architects! It was a dream come true to be able to come here!

After we'd got our fill, and the sun had gone down Laura and I caught the train back to Pompei....also another experience...The ticket booth was closed for some reason, but there was a man inside. The sign said that if the booth was closed we should go to another 'vendor' for our ticket back home....Yeah that helps....So i knocked on the door and explained our situation to the man inside. He laughed at us, pinched my cheek and then ushered us up the stairs towards the train???? So...i'm pretty sure we were illegal passengers for that ride! Both Laura and I were much happier when we got OUT of the train station!!!

When we got back to Naples we decided to explore a little bit before Karen's train got in, so we set off to find some major sites. Mainly the Castle, and the Duomo. The Castle was interesting from an architectural standpoint simply because it had been sectioned off, had streets laid through it, and had been turned into (very run down) housing. We got out of there as quickly as possible and decided to again give Naples the benefit of the doubt, and started off down a very large, well lit street. Didn't do much better on that one, but we did eventually find the Duomo. That pretty much cemented our decision NOT to go into Naples again, and so when we met Karen off the train we took her straight to the Hostel, and then to a restaurant around the corner we had seen the first night. We called it an early night again, and quickly fell asleep.

Saturday also started off relatively early (for us!!) and we again caught the 9am train, this time headed towards the Pompei ruins!!!!! I was so excited I was practically bouncing! It took about twice as long to get there this time, but still only was about a half and hours train ride. We were in the ruins and exploring by 10am, where Laura and I quickly got separated from Karen....still not quite sure how that happened....We spent the next 7 hours or so wandering around seeing as much as we could. It was actually a good thing we had been to Heraclium the day before, because it meant we could gloss over the things we had kind of seen, and focus on the parts unique to Pompei. Even then we didn't have enough time to see everything and we had to save about 3 buildings for the next trip. :) We ate lunch at one of the ampitheaters, and got some sketching in before we again had to rush to catch the train back in order to grab a quick dinner at the pizzaria from the first night. On that train ride we were serenaded by a clarinet wielding Italian man! First time for everything I suppose....Since it was Valentines day, the pizzaria had laid out Bacio for each of us! Bacio are little 'kisses' kind of like Ferro Rochers, that Italians give to each other (mainly just their significant other) on Valentines Day. We grabbed our bags from the hostel, and RAN to catch the train! We got there with 2 minutes to spare, and then realised that our train was 20 minutes delayed....It took about 5 hours to get back to Florence, since we were on a slower, cheaper train and so we got into town about 1:45am on Sunday morning. We then had to walk the hour back home. None of us had thought to bring a map with us of Florence, so it was quite an adventure finding our way back to the center from a strange train station!!! It just goes to show how much better of a town that florence is, however, that we didn't get harrassed even once during that whole walk. :)


On Sunday Laelle organized an Abroadco outting, which is so happened that only Mitch and I were able to go to. I quite liked the smaller group, however, and Laelle's boyfriend Antonio was able to join us. We had quite the task actually GETTING to Pisa, as our train was stopped at the station, as the local police forcibly evicted Florentine football fans from the train after it was found out that they didn't have tickets. Apparently there was a game between Genoa and Florence being played in Genoa, which meant that all the trains were stopped, and police were patrolling up and down doing crowd control....Quite the experience....Finally the train did start moving, and we did managed to get to Pisa around noon...only an hour and a half late. We were met my Laelle and Antonio's friend Tonino, who drove us to a beautiful national park where we had lunch at a famous 'catch-of-the-day' restaurant. We met two more friends of Laelle and Antonio, and here is what we had:



Appetizer: Bread topped with a vegetable spread, or with lard(!), and an assortment of thinly sliced meats all made fresh there from the wild boar they had caught....Fresh bread, and Foccatia.
First Course: Pasta with both wild boar, and ...fat pig? Apparently there was a difference, but I don't think it quite translated. :) Either way it was surprisingly good....
Second Course: ...this doesn't translate either, but I was told to imagine a small version of a deer with small horns? and Roasted Potatos!!!!
Dessert: Gelato with Carmel. :) Mmmmmmm
Expresso.

And of courses we had amazing wine along with all of this...I am STILL full!!! Quite the experience....Mum and Dad should be proud of me, I tried a little bit of everything! ;)

We went straight from this to horseback riding. My horse was called Marchellina, and was very easy, thankfully. You can see her up above! Especially since all the directions in Italian, and I had to rely on what I remembered from horseback riding in Napa this summer. I must have done something right, however, since Laelle said that the guide said I looked like a natural. HA. At least I *looked* like I knew what I was doing! We had a really fun ride though, through a few different types of forests, and past lots of field, and along the river. Very, very pretty!!!!

From there we headed back into Pisa, and to the Tower, which Mitch had not seen yet. Once we got back to Florence, which thankfully took nowhere near as long as getting TO Pisa, Mitch and I got Gelato at my new favorite Gelateria and I headed home.

That was my weekend! Midterms are next week, so this weekend is going to be spent staying in Florence, working on everything that has to get done! However! As soon as those are done, I will be headed to Viareggio on Sunday for the end of Carnivale, and then to Athens and Berlin for Spring Break! All I have to do is get through my presentations.......

Bologna!

This last week went by quickly, and was again filled with torrential rain, but we still managed to have lots of fun despite that! Monday and Tuesday were filled with a mad dash to get projects finished, and presented. After that was over, however, the rest of the week passed quite peacefully!

On Wednesday the group of us went out to a little bar called Mayday. We had lots of fun talking to the co-owner, and promised to be back the next night to get some free cake! On the way to a club, we met three Spanish students and had great fun talking in a mixture of Spanish, Italian and English for the rest of the night trying to make ourselves understood...

Thursday my Architecture in Italy class toured the Instituto Delgi Innocenti (Foundling Hospital) in Florence. It's a beautiful building, and it was a lot of fun to see, especially after studying it at WSU! It was an orphanage back in the day, and what's fun is that the building has always been used by organizations for children. Even today UNICEF has a headquarters there, and it is used as a conference space for meetings about Children's rights. Up the top of the building is a Museum space, which just held a competition for the redesign of the space. We got to see all the entries, and although I don't think my favorite one was the one that was selected, I liked most of what they had decided to do. We were also able to go inside Santissima Annunziata, but mass was in session and I didn't want to disturb the service by taking pictures, so I'll have to go back at another time. It was absolutely over-the-top decorated, definitly baroque style!!! Funny that my Music Theory lessons are coming back to help me now....A nice old man let us into the cloister space, however, and I was able to snap a few shots in there! After classes on Thursday Karen and I went to family dinner, and then I met up with Mitch and Laelle from Abroadco at a cafe for coffee and Pictionary. After that I met back up with friends to go to Mayday, where we had our promised treats! We finished up the night at another favorite hangout of the architect crew here, the Joshua Tree.


On Friday Karen and I were up bright and early to catch a train to Bologna! A new friend Laura came with us and we spent the day exploring the city center. We visited two Basilicas, a giant Piazza, and these two towers! The Tower was my favorite part of the day, and I climbed the one on the right! It is 97.6 meters high (about 320 feet), and has about 500 steps to the top...Be very amazed. And it was only 3 Euro to climb! Completley worth the money, and the climb to see the view at the top. Quite a scary climb, however, since it was rickety old wooden staircases, with even more rickety handrails....We kept reaching the 'ceiling' climbing through, and realising that we had yet MORE stairs to climb!!! We all made it eventually, however, and managed to snap a few pictures before the rain and the wind forced us back down the tower. Incidentally, the picture isn't what is making the towers look like they are leaning -- they ARE leaning. Not too much, at least with the one we climbed, but definitely on a slant....We also found a colorful medival market, and Laura and I wandered off and found a giant head!!! See my pictures for more on that adventure...:) All in all I had a wonderful day out. I wouldn't necessarily choose to go back there again, but I had a fantastic time being a tourist for the day.


Next weekend Laura and I are going to Naples, and Pompeii!!! On Sunday i have an outting with Abroadco to Pisa again, where we are going to climb the tower (piece of cake after this!!!) and go horseback riding. Alright, better go and study for my Italian Quiz tomorrow!!!

Classmates.Friends

Just a quick blurb! I thought you might like to see who i'm spending all my time with. :) These are all my architecture classmates! This picture was taken on top of the Colle dorm at Urbino. If you look really closely you might be able to find me in the back, on the left next to Karen.

Weekend Trip to Urbino!

On Thursday my AII class toured the Santo Spirito church, which was beautiful, and then this weekend my AIC class went to Urbino! We all met at some awful hour like 6:45am Friday morning at the train station. Once everyone had arrived, the bus left for the 3 hour drive up to Urbino. Urbino is east of Florence, and we had to drive through the mountains to get there. It was a very twisty road, but what I saw of it was very pretty. I even saw a few minutes of the sunrise before I fell asleep completely! I do remember waking up once, seeing snow outside of the window, and quicky deciding that sleeping was much more favorable. :) The picture here is looking up at the Palazzo Ducale, and the big rounded thing is actually a ramp which the Duke had built, so that he could walk his horse up into the city...We used it the first day to get up to the main street level. The whole city is on MAJOR hills....quite a workout. :)

Once we got to Urbino, and got off the bus we went to the Palazzo Ducale, which is where the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche is based. The Palazzo was origionally where Duke Federico IIda Montefeltro lived. There was lots of really amazing paintings, but the best part of it was the basement!!! There was a whole system down there for collecting rainwater, and heating the palace. The whole thing was made of thousands of bricks....I really want to know how many make up the town of Urbino.......We then split into groups and wandered off to find lunch. A group of about 6 of us found a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that had really good pasta, and quickly ate and then ran back to the bus.

From there, we were driven a few minutes up the hill towards the University housing. Urbino is a University town, and the dean of the University, Carlo Bo, hired the architect John Carlo de Carlo to transform, and preserve some of the existing old buildings of the town for the use of the University. The dorms are on one hill overlooking the rest of the town. Once we hiked the rest of the way up the hill we were given keys for our rooms. We were each given a single bedroom, complete with bathroom to stay in that night! *And* they had turned the heat on in preparation for our arrival!!! This was probably the best part, because it was COLD in Urbino. It must have been at a much higher elevation than Florence...

Once we had left our bags in our rooms, we were taken on a tour of the 4 dorm buildings, where we proceeded to try out every chair in the complex. My favorite parts of all the buildings, however, was always the roof. All the roofs were green roofs, and most of the rooms had terraces that they opened up onto. I'm sure the students of the university were rather amused to see all of us running around on their roofs, taking in the sunshine, and relaxing in the grass.

Once the tour was over, we had about a 2 hour break to do what we wanted. Laura, Karen and I headed back up to the roofs to take pictures, and then we all met up to walk down into Urbino to get dinner at one of the University cafeterias. Cafeterias in Urbino??? MUCH better than Hillside Cafe!!! And only 4 euro for 2 HUGE plates of food, bread, and 2 pieces of fruit!! After dinner we walked up to a bar that the university radio DJ had told us about, and relaxed for a few hours before heading back to the dorms to sleep.

On Saturday we were up at a much more sensible hour, and were allowed to eat breakfast at the cafeteria in the dorm. I had a croissant, and a cappucino. :) And anyone who knows me, and how I am on caffiene can imagine what I was like for the rest of the day.....LOVED the cappucino. Once we had finished, we loaded our bags back on the bus, and then headed back into Urbino for a tour of the University buildings. All of them had amazing views, and were really fun to tour around. The library in one of them had this saying in...Latin? maybe Italian....either way I couldn't read it. :) "May this building last as long as it takes for the ant to drink the sea, and the turtle to circle the world."

Once we had finished our tour, we went back to the cafeteria from the night before for lunch, and then had the rest of the afternoon free to do what we wanted. Christine and I decided to tour the Duomo (big surprise. ;) ) and then walk around the city walls.

At 4:30 we met at the bus, and at 5 we were on our way back to Florence! It was a really fun trip, even though I was exhausted when I got home. :) How all I've got to do is decide what I want to do next weekend....

Pictures from the weekend are up on Picasa. I tried to narrow them down a little bit!!! But I took over 500 pictures...:) oops?

Week Three!

Talk about a crazy week!! If all my weeks are this packed, I can tell that my time here is just going to fly by...To start off the week I had two projects due in quick succession on Monday and Tuesday. Monday was a quick assignment for Architecture in Context (AIC) about creating a 2 page spread, describing yourself, your design experience, and your accomplisments....Basically another iteration of my portfolio! On Tuesday Karen and I presented our analysis for our Studio class, on the San Niccolo region of Firenze. That was slightly nerve-racking, as it was my first presentation in front of all the Roger-Williams students, but it went well, and we got really good feedback from our professors Carlo and Stephano. On Thursday Carlo took us around the Santa Croce neighborhood for our Architecture in Italy (AII) class. It was fun to hear more about the history of the houses, and we were focusing on the transformation of row houses over time, which was fun to be able to spot. I also had a fun adventure involving a crazy startrek pod door, and a half-fluent in English bank manager....Don't ask...

Thursday night was also family dinner night! My new friend Pat, and his 7 roommates invited all the architecture students over for dinner at his apartment. Everyone contributed something, and brought their own wine, and it turned into a really fun evening! There were about 30 of us in the apartment that night...This is a picture of a few of us in their living room. We split off into smaller groups later in the night, and we also ended up visiting a couple bars, where, interestingly enough, we were not the strangest people there...

On Friday, Karen and I decided that we were going to run errands while Jackie and Domencia were on their Chianti trip. Mainly, we wanted to make to IKEA for blankets. However, Karen slept in until the early afternoon, so i had the morning to wander some more around our neighborhood, and i found my new happy place. :) All i need is for it to stop raining, so i can visit it more often! We had a strange experience involving a man needing to see our bathroom early that morning, but the day picked up from there...Once Karen was up and running, we went back to bank so that she could exchange some travellers checks, and then headed to the trainstation to catch a bus to IKEA. We then waited for about....1.5 hours for the bus, before we eventually found someone who spoke broken english who told us that the bus stop for IKEA was in an completely different place. Fantastic....Found the bus stop, had to wait another half hour before it came, but we eventually got there. This whole time it's been raining a little bit, but not too bad. Especially for a Seattlite. ;)


Well we got to IKEA, and i found my blanket!!!, paid, and then ran outside to catch the bus again. This is about when I noticed that it was raining REALLY hard, and of course we have paper bags. Anyone else see a problem? :) We then spent about another hour in stop-and-go traffic to get back to the train station. I have determined that rush hour sucks no matter where you are. ;) Get off the bus -- and the bags are immediately soaked. Thankfully they lasted the 20 mintue walk to our apartment, and didn't break until i was about 10 steps from home!

Saturday we were up nice and early, and got on the bus to Siena and San Gimigiano. These cities are absolutely gorgeous, and I am definitely coming back to them some day!!! Especially San Gimigiano. It was, of course, raining the entire time -- but I was prepared!! And I brought one of the thousands of umbrellas that were left in our apartment for us. It was a little broken, but still worked just fine. :) In Siena were visited Piazza del Campo, which is said to be one of the best Piazzas in the world. It was beautiful, and I could imagine that on a sunny day it would be packed with people. Unfortunatley we weren't able to climb the tower, since it is closed on rainy days for safety, but we did get to go inside Siena's Cathedral. I've posted pictures on Picasa if you would like to see it, but the cathedral is amazing, all done in black and white. The symbol of Siena as a black and white sheild. Supposedly Romus and Remus founded Rome, however, one of them (I've forgotten which) had two sons, and they founded Siena. One rode a black horse, and one rode a white horse -- hence the symbol of Siena! (No Laurissa, no brown horses. :) Unfortunatley I ended up donating my umbrella to the church, since I forgot to pick it up on the way out. Thankfully, one of my friends here was nice enough to share his when it started raining torrentially again on the way back to the bus. I may even like Siena a little bit more than Florence (gasp!) but I reserve the right to make that decision when I can spend more time in the city. One of the main differences was that Siena was actually on some hills, which made for really fun pictures of streets and alleyways.

Then we were off to San Gimigiano! From the minute I stepped of the bus I was immediatly happier!! The views from all over town are amazing, as you can see from this picture! Imagine what it must be like on a day when it ISN'T monsoon season...San Gimigiano is a medieval (thanks mum! :) town, and used to have about 60 towers, which is quite impressive when you consider that the town is really not that big...Now only about 15 or so remain. The towers were a physical symbol of a family's power, and when one family took over another one, they would chop down the loosers tower, and built another one of their own on top of it. The town is even used in modern day movies, because it really does feel like you stepped right into medieval times! It was strange how many times when I was walking around that it was completely quiet and devoid of people -- very easy to forget where you were.

Nick and I went exploring, and we found this fun little fort at the top of the hill, which we climbed, and from their were able to get panoramic views of the entire city, and the outlying countryside....I've found another happy place!!! This last picture is from the top of there, looking towards some of the towers that are still around. After spending the better part of an hour wandering deserted streets we got some gelato, and I picked up an umbrella just seconds before it started poring down rain again! Yay for impluse buys!!!

On Sunday we started the day of right by going to the chocolate festival that was in the Piazza de' Santa Croce. Aaaaaamazing. LOVED IT! I bought myself some Italian ciocolata calda (hot chocolate -- thick, rich and delicious!) and spent the morning browsing the stalls with my roommates, and tasting the samples. I was very restrained though! I only went home with 2 little chocolate, and a slice of fudge. :) There were so many different kinds! Chocolate in the shapes of animals, tools, and in all different flavors. My new favorite was strawberry and balsamic vinegar....Sounds strange, but it was delicious...Jackie, Domenica, and Karen all got fruit on a stick, covered in chocolate. We then spent the rest of the day going to some markets, and doing a little shopping. Karen and I had to go home after that to work on our studio project which was due on Tuesday, and other homework.

Classes this week have gone pretty much the same as last week! On Tuesday I presented my project for studio, and again got positive feedback, so that was good! For this project we were asked to design the missing piece to the Palazzo Rucellai facade. :) It was a really fun, and very interesting design exercise, but I really wanted a few more days to make it perfect...

This weekend my AIC class is taking us to a little town called Urbino, which lies about 3 hours by bus East of Florence. Apparently we have to cross a 'mountain range' and the road is rather windy....However, we're supposed to meet at 6:45am at the train station on Friday morning, so I'm probably going to sleep through most, if not all of that journey. :) We spend friday, and saturday there, and have been invited to stay in the famous dorms of the University there! ...Also between now and next Tuesday we yet ANOTHER project due!!! ...Has anyone discovered a time-stopping device? Because i'd really like to borrow it for a while....

Pictures are being updated as we speak, (or...as you read), and Urbino updates will come as soon as I have 5 free minutes to write to you all. :)

Pisa and Lucca

Yesterday I went on a trip to Pisa and Lucca! Pisa was gorgeous, but completely touristy, as was expected. We went on a tour of the Cathedral, the Baptristry, and the Cemetary but I decided that it wasn't worth the 15 euro to climb the tower. After taking the obligatory touristy pictures (See below...:) We walked off down a side street and found a pizzeria where i proceeded to eat almost an entire Pizzza Margertia all by myself....It was delicious!

We then got back onto our very subtle, enormously huge charter bus and trekked to Lucca. Lucca is one of the only towns in Italy that still has it's entire wall still intact. Also, by the time we actually got to Lucca it had warmed up a little, and I was able to shed one of my thousand layers. (!) We walked through the town, and then stopped for a Gelato fix before carrying on to a bicycle shop, where we rented bikes for a few hours to ride around the walls in the SUN! Bliss.....

Admittedly it took me a few minutes to relearn how to actually RIDE a bike, and then get used to riding a street bike....however! I did not crash into

anyone, maim any small children or animals, *and* I didn't hurt myself!! Mum, Dad: you should be so proud of me. ;) We went briefly into the town, but decided that the crazy Lucca drivers and motorcyclists were a little to evil for our tastes, and crossed back onto the wall.

After giving our bikes back, Karen, Jackie and I went and got delicious pancakes (real ones!!!) which nutella and powdered sugar -- talk about a sugar rush! It was amazing though, and the perfect ending to our outting. :)

Pictures on Picasa are soon to come!