it feels like i haven’t written to you in AGES! ok maybe that’s because i haven’t, but i’ve been a busy girl and my internet SUCKS. alright. well. now’s the hard part remembering what i need to tell you! warning: I hope you have at least 20 minutes to dedicate to reading this novel.
i MUST start first with the splendor of my italian class. our teacher, annalisa. a complete doll. you could swear we were i bambini speciale by the way she speaks to us, or maybe we’re just kindergartners. anyway, she is just so vibrant and expressive and speaks SLOOOOWWLLYY so we can comprehend her, and sometimes when she knows we don’t understand something, she’ll just ramble on and on in rapid-fire italian about how it doesn’t matter (non importa) and everything is ok (va bene, va bene), and she makes sure to give us our 20 minute “pausa” every day, and we are reading a book about a girl whose mother is thought to be a witch, and i can’t forget to mention our field trip to the harold acton library (gorgeous library on the other side of the arno) after which we went for gelato, and after our persistent begging she brought her stereo in, and we’ve been learning italian songs! i mean this is definitely adding up to a kindergarten class, no? nap time, story time, snack time, and nursery rhymes? yeah, copenhagen. what’s that about 5000-word essays every week? oh wait. mom’s reading this. err… uhh… yeah.. so… i mean… well gotta go write my 10,000 word dissertation about the effect of machiavelli’s “the prince” on the architecture of modern-day italy… in italian. talk to you later!
okayyy that was awkward.
fine. i’ll continue. don’t judge me that i’m in kindergarten in college. it’s fine. really.
ok what happened these past few weeks? oh! sarah’s (that’s my roommate btw in case you forgot) birthday happened! age 20!! in the land where children consume alcohol at age 2… big whoop. nevertheless, for her big two-oh, the boys downstairs made her a very lovely dinner, while the rest of us decided to try out aperitivos (aka buy one drink for 7 euro and get a “free” buffet of appetizers. aka look like a fatso going up 5 times to refill the miniature plate.) my drink of choice: bellini. yeah mom. a real bellini. i’m just trying to make you a liiitle jealous. nothing a trip to trader giotto’s can’t fix though, right? haha. very chill evening. now off to the red garter for the “beach” party. remember the foam party? well this was a pretty lame attempt at a beach party. i’m sorry. pouring sand around the bar does not constitute a beach party in my book. whatever. sarah had fun, and that’s what matters most. even kiril, the guy that works in the gelato shop, showed up and bought sarah a bottle of bubbly!
saturday was the boy’s basketball tournament. the teams were mixed with italians and americans from our program and some other colleges (arkansas maybe?). sarah, jason, and i went to show our support for our neighbs (who were playing) and after they won, we started our own intense game of horse. saturday night, we just chilled out and prepped for our trip to sienna the next day.
j’adore siena! it is so ridiculous how absolutely beautiful everything in italy is. jason, christo, and i hopped on the train around 11:10. oh wait. this is a good story actually. jason “misunderstood” the train time to be 11:26 (that’s when a lot of trains we’ve taken have been leaving), so he was def lollygagging even though i TOLD him we needed to leave at a quarter of 11. christo was of course ready, waiting downstairs. we finally leave the house at 10:55 and it takes a good 20 minutes to walk to the train station. but not with me as the fearless leader! ok so we book it to the station. and by book, i mean haul some serious a**. we got to the ticket machine at 11:08:42. remember, train leaves at 11:10. ok station number punched in. one ticket. money in. get change. print ticket. x3. GO. RUN TO TRAIN. forget to validate ticket. yell at conductor: “DOVE POSSO ::hand motion of validating ticket:: [where can i ::validate::?] DOVE POSSO?! DOVE POSSO!?” jason running onto the train JUST as the doors are closing. honestly, how we haven’t missed a train already i’ll never know. but see, this is why i don’t need to exercise. stressful train-sprints = buns of steel.
phew. i’m exhausted re-reading that for typos. so we finally made it on the train and arrived in siena. bellissimo! i think i shall let pictures do the talking. but if you can ever go, DO. and let me tell you. bring the walking shoes! oh and more buns of steel conditioning to follow. see this is why you never depend on boys for directions. operation FIND THE HEAD OF SANTA CATERINA (the head of this chick that has been preserved since like the 1300s. and it lights up if you stick a euro in the box. christo has been DYING to see it). so we’ve done the 10 euro pass to see the gorgeous duomo (one of the few 100% gothic cathedrals south of the alps) and baptistry, the museo dell’opera metropolitana, the tall stone wall aqueduct-looking thing with birds-eye views of siena, the cripta, the huge piazza “il campo” and palazzo pubblico, etc. now off to search for the head. the head of santa caterina should be in the santuario di caterina, right? ok so we follow the signs (siena is very tourist-friendly= many many signs). we are just ruh-tards and miss the sign the first time. so we make a loop. then we finally see the sign and go down the correct hill. jason opts for a detour through a cool alleyway and, like idiots, we follow him. see some cool views. take some sweet pictures. decide to go down about 500 stairs. find a grotto. with fish. see a sign that says that the santuario we want is UP the hill now. the sign is kinda pointing in an odd direction, and we couldn’t really tell where we should go. i suggested we go up one way, the boys thought it was the other. outnumbered, i listened to the boys, and we ended up going up the WRONG HILL. oi vey. i present to you more buns of steel thanks to the stairmaster hill. and of course, once we find the sign again, we head back down to where our alley adventure began. JUST past this alley is the entrance to our church. only it turned out to be the WRONG church. no preserved head in there. thankfully, the church we wanted, the chiesa di san domenico, was just around the corner. church: not super impressive. head: even LESS impressive! GAH! note to self: read “LET’S GO ITALY” more carefully and DON’T EVER follow boys.
two words: MIDNIGHT (well 2:00 am actually) BAKERY. ryan, matias, beth, and i braved the streets of florence (aka walked about one block from our house) at 2:00 in the morning in the search for the secret mid-night bakery. with the trusty clues written on the wall “paste bone →” and ryan’s research, we discovered--within the frosted glass doors of the secret bakery—a plethora of midnight treats. croissants of every flavor, brownies, and other pastries. all for 1 euro! uh may zing.
there was a crazy concert in the croach (you know you love my alliteration, yeahhh) the other night. it was kindof a political rally at the same time. something about how communism is good and the mafia is bad? i don’t even know. there were a lot of hippies, but I really didn’t understand much of what was being said. a “folk” band bandabardino played. they were pretty entertaining. the piazza was packed, and it was super cool to be in the huge crowd of rowdy regazzi (people our age) as we pretended to know the lyrics and jump around and clap like real italians haha.
yesterday, we went to vada, a beach a couple hours away from firenze. getting to our desired beach was an undertaking of epic proportions. first of all, i spoke too soon about the whole not missing the train thing. (i wrote that part of this entry before saturday). so once again, i was ALLL ready to go and the boys were not. so we rushed to the train station like last time and MISSED the freakin train by literally 30 seconds. GOD i was so pissed. luckily for the boys there was a train that left 5 minutes later, but we needed to transfer onto another train along the way. so while yoanna and christo were happily on their way, we waited for our train. finally arriving in vada aka middle of nowhere, we were actually kinda glad that yoanna and christo had been the trailblazers so they could give us the rundown of the area and tell us where to go. after a 20 minute walk into town and another hour search for the beautiful white sand beaches, the boys and i arrived at lo spiaggio bianche (the white beach). SOSOSOSOSO beautiful. and worth the walk. there were wind surfers, kite surfers, clear aquamarine sea, white sand, and of course a gelato tank. how else do you think the man rolls his cart of gelato and birra? yeah mmhmm. so funny. after a dip and a nap and some chillaxing, we journeyed back to town and to the train.
this morning, i ran (ish) a half marathon! or like 10k i guess… so not even. but me, running? now that’s a once in a lifetime occurrence, people. the event: corri la vita (run for life, breast cancer). the place(s): starting at palazzo vecchio, through to the duomo, around through piazza de la repubblica and across the arno to palazzo pitti, through the boboli gardens behind the palazzo, around and down the hills through and back around to the arno, across another ponte, down via dei neri (look up and see roommates cheering from our window), and back to the palazzo vecchio as a fanfare is playing to welcome us to the finish line!! we never looked so good in orange. did i mention that every single museum in florence was free today? yeah. we took that opportunity and visited the pitti palace. more walking is just what we needed, right?
tonight, for yom kippur, alyssa, andrianna, and i decided to be good jews (well, if you must know, alyssa is “half”-ish and andi wishes she were jewish haha) and go to services at the synagogue in town. we got all dolled up and went for dinner at ruth’s vegetarian kosher restaurant and had delishhh food for our last meal before fasting. and of course some gelato afterwards (hey i just ran a half marathon, k!). the synagogue is sephardic and orthodox aka women and men were separated. the inside of the temple was gorgeous and so was the service. however, i think i might have caught a total of 5 words: kol nidre, shechekyanu, and yit gadal. the way the rabbi was speaking hebrew was so foreign to me, and none of the melodies were similar to anything i had ever heard. i met this really nice woman from new york (she was sitting next to me) who has lived in florence for 20 years (she plays cello for the symphony of florence), and she was explaining how even her israeli orthadox sephardic friend didn’t understand this italian rabbi. she gave me a bunch of tips on places to go eat, shop, etc. after the service, the girls and i hung around outside watching little bambini play tag, and these two kids our age came up to us and invited us to a sukkah building in october. yeah, i’m about to get my JEW on.
ok my eyes, neck, and butt hurt from writing this/the days activities, so i’m about to pass out. buona note!!
p.s. we’re gonna pretend like i wrote this on sunday, september 27 because the internet is down and i don’t want to keep changing my “yesterdays” and “todays,” etc to make it right.
p.p.s. i’m going to milan for my birthday!!! with about 15 poeple so farrrr!! cannot wait!!!
i MUST start first with the splendor of my italian class. our teacher, annalisa. a complete doll. you could swear we were i bambini speciale by the way she speaks to us, or maybe we’re just kindergartners. anyway, she is just so vibrant and expressive and speaks SLOOOOWWLLYY so we can comprehend her, and sometimes when she knows we don’t understand something, she’ll just ramble on and on in rapid-fire italian about how it doesn’t matter (non importa) and everything is ok (va bene, va bene), and she makes sure to give us our 20 minute “pausa” every day, and we are reading a book about a girl whose mother is thought to be a witch, and i can’t forget to mention our field trip to the harold acton library (gorgeous library on the other side of the arno) after which we went for gelato, and after our persistent begging she brought her stereo in, and we’ve been learning italian songs! i mean this is definitely adding up to a kindergarten class, no? nap time, story time, snack time, and nursery rhymes? yeah, copenhagen. what’s that about 5000-word essays every week? oh wait. mom’s reading this. err… uhh… yeah.. so… i mean… well gotta go write my 10,000 word dissertation about the effect of machiavelli’s “the prince” on the architecture of modern-day italy… in italian. talk to you later!
okayyy that was awkward.
fine. i’ll continue. don’t judge me that i’m in kindergarten in college. it’s fine. really.
ok what happened these past few weeks? oh! sarah’s (that’s my roommate btw in case you forgot) birthday happened! age 20!! in the land where children consume alcohol at age 2… big whoop. nevertheless, for her big two-oh, the boys downstairs made her a very lovely dinner, while the rest of us decided to try out aperitivos (aka buy one drink for 7 euro and get a “free” buffet of appetizers. aka look like a fatso going up 5 times to refill the miniature plate.) my drink of choice: bellini. yeah mom. a real bellini. i’m just trying to make you a liiitle jealous. nothing a trip to trader giotto’s can’t fix though, right? haha. very chill evening. now off to the red garter for the “beach” party. remember the foam party? well this was a pretty lame attempt at a beach party. i’m sorry. pouring sand around the bar does not constitute a beach party in my book. whatever. sarah had fun, and that’s what matters most. even kiril, the guy that works in the gelato shop, showed up and bought sarah a bottle of bubbly!
saturday was the boy’s basketball tournament. the teams were mixed with italians and americans from our program and some other colleges (arkansas maybe?). sarah, jason, and i went to show our support for our neighbs (who were playing) and after they won, we started our own intense game of horse. saturday night, we just chilled out and prepped for our trip to sienna the next day.
j’adore siena! it is so ridiculous how absolutely beautiful everything in italy is. jason, christo, and i hopped on the train around 11:10. oh wait. this is a good story actually. jason “misunderstood” the train time to be 11:26 (that’s when a lot of trains we’ve taken have been leaving), so he was def lollygagging even though i TOLD him we needed to leave at a quarter of 11. christo was of course ready, waiting downstairs. we finally leave the house at 10:55 and it takes a good 20 minutes to walk to the train station. but not with me as the fearless leader! ok so we book it to the station. and by book, i mean haul some serious a**. we got to the ticket machine at 11:08:42. remember, train leaves at 11:10. ok station number punched in. one ticket. money in. get change. print ticket. x3. GO. RUN TO TRAIN. forget to validate ticket. yell at conductor: “DOVE POSSO ::hand motion of validating ticket:: [where can i ::validate::?] DOVE POSSO?! DOVE POSSO!?” jason running onto the train JUST as the doors are closing. honestly, how we haven’t missed a train already i’ll never know. but see, this is why i don’t need to exercise. stressful train-sprints = buns of steel.
phew. i’m exhausted re-reading that for typos. so we finally made it on the train and arrived in siena. bellissimo! i think i shall let pictures do the talking. but if you can ever go, DO. and let me tell you. bring the walking shoes! oh and more buns of steel conditioning to follow. see this is why you never depend on boys for directions. operation FIND THE HEAD OF SANTA CATERINA (the head of this chick that has been preserved since like the 1300s. and it lights up if you stick a euro in the box. christo has been DYING to see it). so we’ve done the 10 euro pass to see the gorgeous duomo (one of the few 100% gothic cathedrals south of the alps) and baptistry, the museo dell’opera metropolitana, the tall stone wall aqueduct-looking thing with birds-eye views of siena, the cripta, the huge piazza “il campo” and palazzo pubblico, etc. now off to search for the head. the head of santa caterina should be in the santuario di caterina, right? ok so we follow the signs (siena is very tourist-friendly= many many signs). we are just ruh-tards and miss the sign the first time. so we make a loop. then we finally see the sign and go down the correct hill. jason opts for a detour through a cool alleyway and, like idiots, we follow him. see some cool views. take some sweet pictures. decide to go down about 500 stairs. find a grotto. with fish. see a sign that says that the santuario we want is UP the hill now. the sign is kinda pointing in an odd direction, and we couldn’t really tell where we should go. i suggested we go up one way, the boys thought it was the other. outnumbered, i listened to the boys, and we ended up going up the WRONG HILL. oi vey. i present to you more buns of steel thanks to the stairmaster hill. and of course, once we find the sign again, we head back down to where our alley adventure began. JUST past this alley is the entrance to our church. only it turned out to be the WRONG church. no preserved head in there. thankfully, the church we wanted, the chiesa di san domenico, was just around the corner. church: not super impressive. head: even LESS impressive! GAH! note to self: read “LET’S GO ITALY” more carefully and DON’T EVER follow boys.
two words: MIDNIGHT (well 2:00 am actually) BAKERY. ryan, matias, beth, and i braved the streets of florence (aka walked about one block from our house) at 2:00 in the morning in the search for the secret mid-night bakery. with the trusty clues written on the wall “paste bone →” and ryan’s research, we discovered--within the frosted glass doors of the secret bakery—a plethora of midnight treats. croissants of every flavor, brownies, and other pastries. all for 1 euro! uh may zing.
there was a crazy concert in the croach (you know you love my alliteration, yeahhh) the other night. it was kindof a political rally at the same time. something about how communism is good and the mafia is bad? i don’t even know. there were a lot of hippies, but I really didn’t understand much of what was being said. a “folk” band bandabardino played. they were pretty entertaining. the piazza was packed, and it was super cool to be in the huge crowd of rowdy regazzi (people our age) as we pretended to know the lyrics and jump around and clap like real italians haha.
yesterday, we went to vada, a beach a couple hours away from firenze. getting to our desired beach was an undertaking of epic proportions. first of all, i spoke too soon about the whole not missing the train thing. (i wrote that part of this entry before saturday). so once again, i was ALLL ready to go and the boys were not. so we rushed to the train station like last time and MISSED the freakin train by literally 30 seconds. GOD i was so pissed. luckily for the boys there was a train that left 5 minutes later, but we needed to transfer onto another train along the way. so while yoanna and christo were happily on their way, we waited for our train. finally arriving in vada aka middle of nowhere, we were actually kinda glad that yoanna and christo had been the trailblazers so they could give us the rundown of the area and tell us where to go. after a 20 minute walk into town and another hour search for the beautiful white sand beaches, the boys and i arrived at lo spiaggio bianche (the white beach). SOSOSOSOSO beautiful. and worth the walk. there were wind surfers, kite surfers, clear aquamarine sea, white sand, and of course a gelato tank. how else do you think the man rolls his cart of gelato and birra? yeah mmhmm. so funny. after a dip and a nap and some chillaxing, we journeyed back to town and to the train.
this morning, i ran (ish) a half marathon! or like 10k i guess… so not even. but me, running? now that’s a once in a lifetime occurrence, people. the event: corri la vita (run for life, breast cancer). the place(s): starting at palazzo vecchio, through to the duomo, around through piazza de la repubblica and across the arno to palazzo pitti, through the boboli gardens behind the palazzo, around and down the hills through and back around to the arno, across another ponte, down via dei neri (look up and see roommates cheering from our window), and back to the palazzo vecchio as a fanfare is playing to welcome us to the finish line!! we never looked so good in orange. did i mention that every single museum in florence was free today? yeah. we took that opportunity and visited the pitti palace. more walking is just what we needed, right?
tonight, for yom kippur, alyssa, andrianna, and i decided to be good jews (well, if you must know, alyssa is “half”-ish and andi wishes she were jewish haha) and go to services at the synagogue in town. we got all dolled up and went for dinner at ruth’s vegetarian kosher restaurant and had delishhh food for our last meal before fasting. and of course some gelato afterwards (hey i just ran a half marathon, k!). the synagogue is sephardic and orthodox aka women and men were separated. the inside of the temple was gorgeous and so was the service. however, i think i might have caught a total of 5 words: kol nidre, shechekyanu, and yit gadal. the way the rabbi was speaking hebrew was so foreign to me, and none of the melodies were similar to anything i had ever heard. i met this really nice woman from new york (she was sitting next to me) who has lived in florence for 20 years (she plays cello for the symphony of florence), and she was explaining how even her israeli orthadox sephardic friend didn’t understand this italian rabbi. she gave me a bunch of tips on places to go eat, shop, etc. after the service, the girls and i hung around outside watching little bambini play tag, and these two kids our age came up to us and invited us to a sukkah building in october. yeah, i’m about to get my JEW on.
ok my eyes, neck, and butt hurt from writing this/the days activities, so i’m about to pass out. buona note!!
p.s. we’re gonna pretend like i wrote this on sunday, september 27 because the internet is down and i don’t want to keep changing my “yesterdays” and “todays,” etc to make it right.
p.p.s. i’m going to milan for my birthday!!! with about 15 poeple so farrrr!! cannot wait!!!
