Chocolate!!! - Oct 14

Today I headed to Perugia to go see the Chocolate Festival that I have heard so much about. I went with a group of 5 girls (Allison, Dede, Morgan, Charlotte, and Sarah) at like 5:45 in the morning and we took a bus to Florence and then got on the two-hour train to Perugia.  We had a pretty good time chatting and sleeping on the train and we arrived in no time. Once in Perugia we bustled around the train station figuring out how to get to the festival. As we were wandering I ran into Ali Basset and Gianna Wright from JSHS! Ali is studying in Florence and Gianna in Rome, and of course I ran into them in a completely unrelated third-party city that none of us were studying in. I said hey pretty briefly as we were all busy getting tickets and making plans.

Once we bought our bus tickets we hopped on a bus that took us up hill to what seemed to be the top of a big hill in the middle of the city where the festival was held. We had some really cool views going up and even more once we were at the top. 

Unfortunately the weather was a bit chilly and in my 5am haze I had neglected to bring a jacket so I was forced to endure a rather windy chilly day with naught but my long sleeved t-shirt and jeans. The sun was acceptable, but we all struggled in the shade. We got in line and bought our Choco-cards for 6€ (fun fact: I have learned to do the Euro sign on the computer Shift +Opt + 3) which gave us free samples and things at many of the booths around the festival.

So with our cards in hand we proceeded around the streets and squares lined with stands full of all kinds of chocolate. There was hot chocolate, chocolate bars, chocolate cakes, chocolate covered fruit, chocolate pasta (yes, you read correctly), and every other chocolaty thing imaginable. They also had things like chocolate playing cards and a tool set made of chocolate and coated with chocolate powder to make them look like rusty metal tools.  There were tiny chocolates, giant chocolates, white chocolate, dark chocolates, every chocolate! They had chocolate in a box, they had chocolate with a fox, they had chocolate here and there, they had chocolate everywhere! You get the idea.  *Note: sadly they did not have chocolate with a fox.

There was also a bunch of chocolate merchandise like fondue pots, molds and then things like clothes and cups. We had a really nice time shopping around at the various stands. We also ended up taking about 1000 jumping pictures undoubtedly due to our mutual sugar highs. Eventually we stopped for a salty and savory lunch to counter our super-sugar-saturated palates and then proceeded to wrap up the day.

Before we left however we were seen dancing to some catch music by a Ciobar stand. Ciobar is basically a hot chocolate that is more like melted chocolate it is so thick. Next to the stand they were filming people dancing and singing along to a song to use in a commercial or advertising campaign. When the people saw us they asked us to come down and we signed some releases so they could film us. Then they let us all choose silly hats and instruments to jam with. I had a white fedora and a microphone. We ended up singing along and dancing with the song they played like 12 times. I was kinda like a lead singer person and went around lip-syncing to the song they played while dancing with everyone else. They kept yelling out instructions from behind the camera and then telling me to do things like turn a girl and cover the camera with my hat. Then after filming us with different angles for a while we put down the instruments and they arranged us so that the girls were all standing together in a semicircle and I was several feet in front of them. They had me stand in a really wide straddle so that I was shorter and the camera angle would work. Then we all took bites of their hot chocolate when they said a given number and smiled. It was a really fun end to the day and had us all really excited and laughing. 

Dinner and a Movie - Oct 7 & 12

Oct 7

     On Friday I had a very lazy day. I didn’t get out of bed until noon. The rest of the Villa had gone to Cinque Terre and I was one of very few people around. It was very nice to have a whole day to be lazy and catch up on rest. But once the evening rolled around I finally got up and headed into the city to meet Al and her family for dinner. I should say I tried to get into the city. The original plan was for me to meet up with them at 6 for drinks before dinner, but when I got to the bus stop at 5:20 I didn’t realize there was a bus strike. So I waited 45 minutes until an Italian man started complaining to me about “scioperi”  (strikes). Unfortunately by that time it was 6:05 so the train had just left and would not come again until 7:00. So eventually I headed into Florence at 7:15. I quickly power walked to their hotel and from there we walked to dinner.

            Dinner was great! It was definitely nice to see some familiar faces from back home. I should also point out that I was so lazy earlier in the day that I had neglected to eat food since none was immediately available in the Villa. There fore I was very hungry. Al and I split this enormous steak that was bigger than my face and like 4 inches thick. 

     We also split a big mushroom, but I couldn’t eat it because it smelled like a cat, which repulsed me. Then we all got deserts (I went with tiramisu.) and followed them up with limoncello (yuck!!!!).  It was a really nice dinner and I had a great time with the FitzGeralds. (Thank you so much!!! If you’re reading this!!)

            After dinner I walked Al back to her pensione and we watched Bridesmaids. Then I headed home.

Oct 12

Blah blah blah. It’s been a while since my last major blog entry, but not much has happened other than school and daily life. I’ve settled into my classes and the course loads picked up a bit last week, as we get closer to midterms next week. The weather has very suddenly dropped out of summer and into mid-fall. It is definitely cooler and crisper.

Something interesting did happen tonight when I tried to go see a Dangerous Method at the movie theatre in Sesto with Ellen and Kelsey. We mistakenly believed that the movie would be in English with Italian subtitles, so when the movie started rolling in Italian with no subtitles we were a bit lost.  However we figured our Italian was good enough to push through it so we decided to stay and attempt to understand what was happening. I was largely successful in understanding what was happening, however since the movie was about psychologists (Freud and Jung) it did get rather tricky when they started discussing dreams and psychological mumbo jumbo.  On the whole I rather enjoyed the experience. It was a bit more work than a typical movie, but after some discussion we were able to fit all the pieces together.

Truffle Cheese and Finding Nemo- Oct 2 & 3

          The next day we enjoyed the free breakfast at our hotel and then strapped our luggage to our bikes and cycled over to our next hotel the Mövenpick. We had a room on the 19^th floor and found that although the technology was outdated (a tv deeper than it was wide and a cassette player in their stereo) the rest of the room was quite nice with another cool view.

          They even included little packs of chocolate and cookies (which were awesome!) for each of us and a bouquet of roses. After we put our stuff down we headed back out to the bikes. 

The rental bikes, as to be expected had very awful seats that left me quite sore. Luckily Aunt Jill had a pair of padded shorts that got me through the day.  Our first stop for the day was the a little houseboat that served as a shelter/adoption center for cats. So we went in and saw all the kitties briefly. Then we parked our bikes and went shopping for picnic foods. We fist stopped in a cheese shop where we purchased some Dutch Cheeses including one called Old Amsterdam, one filled with bits of truffle (!), and a goat cheese. While there we also picked out some olives and a egg salady thing. Then we headed to a bakery and found some bread and a grocery store where we purchased smoothie-type drinks. We found a shady spot on the edge of a canal and enjoyed a really nice little lunch with out feet dangling over the sides. 

          After lunch we headed to a park, which was majorly full of people who were taking advantage of the rare summery October day. There we stopped for drinks at a little raised round building where we planned our course for the rest of the day. 

          We biked in an area a little ways out from the rest of the city where there was a really long grassy area beside the road. Every block or so there were really neat giant statues in the grass. We must have seen at least 20. Some of the coolest were a giant mechanical kinetic statue with spinning wheels and cogs and a giant golden sea turtle being ridden by an Elvis-type figure.

After biking around in this really nice part of the city for a while we started planning dinner. Eventually we stopped and waited in a cool little misty park as dark began to fall. Then for dinner we made our way to an Ethiopian restaurant where we ate food using a tortilla like bread to grab chunks of veggies and spices. It was quite good and definitely a welcome break from pasta. Finally after dinner we made our way to a really cool little bar with assorted furniture and we wound down before biking back to the hotel. When we arrived we found they had a little treat for us of some fruit, chocolate candies, and some custardy jam things. 

          On Sunday we started off with a really big breakfast in the hotel that I really enjoyed since I’d been missing proper breakfasts in Italy. Then we set out to visit the science museum called Nemo. We first went to the roof, which had a cool set of steps with water cascading down them. We took off our shoes and enjoyed the cool water on what was the hottest day yet in the city.

          After enjoying the panoramic view of the city for a while and relaxing, we entered the museum and played around with all the various scientific toys for a while.  Once we left the museum we stopped briefly for a snack of bitterballen, a local Dutch thing that is basically a fried ball of this meaty pasty substance. ‘Twas a bit odd. 

          Then we headed on a particularly long biking adventure through the city to find a market. We biked for a fair bit then decided to stop to eat some of the left over cheeses and foods from the day before. We sat on a bench in the park with a nice view of a canal. Once we got to the market we shopped around for a while and then got back on the bikes and toured around the park. We left the park to return to the hotel a back way that led us through the only unattractive part of the city that I saw. It took us a few minutes, but we eventually got back to the hotel and grabbed our bags. 

          On our way to return the bikes we realized that the bike place closed at 5:30 and it was 6:00. So after some minor panic (since we were leaving the country in a couple of hours) we arrived at the closed rental place. We got extremely luck and managed to speak to someone who had stayed behind through a mail flap and they were nice enough to take our bikes back late. Then we caught a train from the station to the Airport where we relaxed for a while and share some frites before splitting up to board our respective flights. My flight was pleasant and brief. When I arrived in Florence I decided to save myself 2 hours more of travel time by splurging on a taxi to the Villa.  It was a good choice. 

          On the whole I really enjoyed my trip to Amsterdam. The city was very laid back and the people seemed really friendly and helpful. I’d definitely like to go again at some point. But it was a nice weekend where I didn’t feel like a tourist so much as a traveler, which I definitely enjoyed. It was also really great to spend some time with Aunt Jill and Uncle Tim, who really know how to travel and get the most out of a city.  I am now in love with truffle cheese, bikes, and fries with ketchup an mayo. On the whole it was a fantastic trip and I can’t wait for my next out of Italy adventure in Berlin!

(H)Amsterdam Day 1- Sept 30

           I woke up nice and early (4:45) to meet my 5:00 am taxi outside the Villa.  I confirmed that we were going to the airport and sat for the surprisingly short 15 minute ride. Once I arrived, having already printed my boarding pass I proceeded to security where I was the second person it line. Two minutes after I arrived it opened and I was officially more than an hour early for my flight. So I sat in the airport and did homework/read until boarding time (note: homework done before 6am Friday, impressive). When I did board, I found for the second time (the first being my flight from London to Florence) that I had way more space than on normal American flights. The seats were also much nicer. The flight to Amsterdam was only 2 hours or so. I just read since I wasn’t tired.

When I arrived I took my carry-on luggage and proceeded to the train station located underneath Schiphol Airport where I purchased a ticket to Amsterdam Centraal. The train arrived shortly and I rode to the city center. When I got off my instructions were to find the hotel and then make my way to Anne Frank’s house to tour before Aunt Jill and Uncle Tim arrived.  I followed my instructions, exited the station, and turned left to go to the hotel. The first thing that happened after I started to cross the street was a near collision with a cyclist. This was my introduction to biking in Amsterdam. Biking is HUGE there. Sooo big. I believe I’ve read that there are more bikes than people in the city and definitely more than cars. So to accommodate the massive amount of cyclists they have bike lanes that are very big and frequently separated from the road by a median. After having discovered the bike lanes it wasn’t an issue, but the very first time I crossed the street it was a surprise. Things didn’t really look right so I decided to circle around the station to see if there was a front side. There was. It was very obvious.

Also the front of the station had thousands of bikes. Literally. From there I proceeded to our actual hotel, which was just a bridge or two over from the station. Speaking of bridges, it is important to note that Amsterdam is full of canals. It’s like Venice except there are also roads and the canals are in a specific pattern instead of being crazy and random. So I shortly arrived at the Mint Hotel where we’d be staying and put my bags behind the counter until check in later. Then I asked the concierge person to tell me how to get to Anne Frank House. He gave me a map and filled me in on both the walking and public transport routes. Another note: Dutch people all speak perfect English. Fact. They do. I literally know no Dutch except for straat (street), which I just picked up from street signs. I also looked up “Do you speak English?” (Spreek ye Engles?), but never used it. I don’t even know thank you or hello.

I decided to take the trams to get there a bit faster so I headed back towards the station and boarded the number 13 tram that ran close to the House. I bought a ticket that lasted an hour so that I only had to buy one. When I arrived I found the house immediately with no trouble and was inside within a couple of minutes. I got a little brochure that explained everything and headed into the house. It was a very cool historical experience I thought. Though the house is basically set up like a museum now explaining the history and story of the family, it seems much more intimate and unique because you are actually in the house where it occurred. Everything that Anne Frank wrote about in her diary was present and you could see many of the things she talked about. The Nazis had removed most of the furniture, but there were still artifacts like books, papers, and games. There were also cool things like pictures Anne had taped to the walls of her room in the Annex to make it more lively and pencil markings of the girls’ growth on the wall. The house itself is a typical canal house in Amsterdam so it is very narrow, but deep. The stairs between floors are very steep and almost ladder-like. Although it didn’t last more than 40 minutes or so it was a very nice somber historical experience.

When I exited the house there was an enormous line winding around the block so I was very fortunate to have arrived early. I headed back to the hotel and took my bags up to the room where Aunt Jill soon came to get me. We headed up to the roof where Uncle Tim was meeting with a member of the hotel staff to discuss the hotel’s green-ness essentially. Did I mention our rooms were free? Aunt Jill being the awesome travel writer she is arranged to right about the hotel in exchange for a night of accommodations. Sweet! The rood top was beautiful we had a really nice view of the city, which looked pretty different from other cities I’ve seen. Apparently Amsterdam was spared most of the damage of the world wars and as a result maintains many of its 17^th century characteristics. We had drinks there on the roof and eventually headed back to the room to prepare for the day.

We got our stuff together and headed to the ground floor where we went ahead and ate lunch since we were hungry. I had fish and chips and it was a delightful relief from the delicious yet repetitive Italian food I had been living off of for several weeks. Then we headed into the city to rent bikes. Once we had our yellow bikes we headed of to the Jordaan area on the east side of the city to ride around and get to know the city. The weather was really nice, bordering on too warm, but as long as we were moving it was pleasant.  I got a really nice tour of Amsterdam as we rode among the tree-lined canals and stopped at cafés for drinks.      
     

Canal houses are one of the most distinctive features of the city. They are all tall and narrow and usually brown with white trim. They have distinct gables with different shapes at the top that give them their unique silhouettes. While we were there we learned about pyramid, step, neck, and bell gables. They also have these little pulleys jutting out from their attics that are used to hoist up furniture that wouldn’t fit up the stairs.

After a couple of hours of exploring and relaxing we headed for an obligatory 5 minute walk through the red light district then after going back to the hotel to freshen up, we cycled to an Indonesian restaurant where we ordered platters of mixed vegetables and spices and ate up. After dinner we planned to go to the Van Gough Museum and we cycled over there, but upon arriving we decided that the prices were too steep and decided to explore instead. We eventually found a little pocket of local bars/restaurants that looked cool and walked around a bit before going to get some ice cream. After that we went to this bar called Door 74 that was a secret door like a speakeasy. When sat down at the bar we ordered me my first real cocktail, which I did not like. I think it was called Goosebumps or something strange and it tasted like plants and alcohol and I couldn’t handle it. So Aunt Jill and Uncle Tim drank it for me, and I ate a heck-ton of olives instead.  Afterwards we headed back home and crashed for the night. 

Venice Vindicated (Part II)- Sept 24

The next day we headed out after breakfast at the hotel with a big group to go climb the campanile (bell tower) in Piazza San Marco. We got there early enough that there wasn’t a huge line, and since we had 20 people we got a half-price discount on the tickets. Then we rode in an elevator to the top where we had wonderful 360-degree views of Venice. It was particularly cool to look down on St. Mark’s Square and the Church. Then of course, the water around the city, and the relatively low buildings make for a pretty unique aerial view. After taking some pictures we all headed back down and split into smaller sections to wander around the city.

            I headed off with Laura, Allison, and Dede to see a kinda local Church that was nice and then we just started walking around the city. We looked in shops and generally explored until eventually we decided to do a gondola ride.  So we found a gondolier and took a nice 35-minute ride around the canals. We got to see the Ponte Rialto from the water and see some other canals that you don’t have access to by land. It was a lot of fun.

            After that we headed to get some lunch. It took us a while, but eventually we found a place that was off the beaten path and full of locals where we all settled. We had spaghetti and it was very good. Towards the end of the meal a man came in and played the accordion (oh stereotypes). After lunch we meandered back toward our hotel where we met with the group and headed back to the boat. The boat took us to our bus, which drove us all the way home to the Villa where we were greeted by a fantastic cheeseburger dinner! It was fantastic and a great end to a weekend of travel.