Sweet sweet sound of victory

So we made it to day 5. Five days without spending 1 cent. Nothing. Nada. (I haven't learned that in Italian yet..) Ok. Well there were 2 exceptions. On Tuesday our professor made us print out our responses, which we had emailed him and then hand written so we could avoid the printing cost. But, no. 10 cents gone. And then on Thursday our Italian teacher took us on a field trip to her favorite gelato place.. enough said. But we were practically forced against our will, we had to buy some. We were practicing ordering in Italian, so we didn't count it because it was mandatory for class. I would proudly like to say, actually no, SCREAM that I won the bet!!! Alex broke down on Thursday night and bought a kebab ("burrito" as she calls the). So yes. I won the bet on not spending money. The very next morning, the same morning Alex came and woke me up may I add with a very productive schedule for the day. American brunch place was accomplished but on our way to the open-air market one of the girls just had to go in this store. I felt like a recovering alcoholic in a bar. Not the place for me. I was 5 days sober and all the soft leather, cashmere and all of the vibrant fall colors was just a little too much for me. We then went home to plan out exactly how we were going to spend all of this money. Budgets- not my forte.


Today we conquered Siena and San Gimignano. Gorgeous Tuscan towns with so much history and culture. Siena had so much character and sort of reminded me of high school and rivalry school districts. Siena is made up of 17 districts, essentially neighborhoods, all marked with a different animal. Twice a year they hold the Pailo, which is a horse race around the center square. Each horse in the race represents a neighborhood, and is practically a celebrity. The giraffe district currently holds the Pailo title until the next upcoming race. The city had so much spirit it was crazy. Every street had flags of their animal flying out of their window, and even people were wearing flags as scarfs.We visited the cathedral which could have been a day in itself with all of the frescos and marble, mosaic flooring. It was pretty overwhelming with how much detail the church had. It was a melting pot of architecture, sculpting, mosaics, and paintings. The perimeter of the ceiling even had statues of the first 170 something Popes. 176 or so heads staring down at you, in addition to Jesus, Joseph and Mary: talk about intimidating. As if the structure of the place wasn't enough they had to go ahead and add all of these original works of art by Raphael, Mike and Donatello. A perfect trifecta of ninja turtles. (Oh and when I say Mike I of course mean Michelangelo, I'm taking a class solely studying the guy so I think we are at a place appropriate for nicknames).

 For lunch we saved 12 euro from skipping the tour lunch and found the most amazing pizza I have had yet in Italy. We found a little secret spot in a neighborhood where we sat and just ate in awe of the views of the Tuscan hills. And for dessert we obviously had to try the spice cake that originated in Siena. I'm not sure what exactly it was, as no one could really explain it very well, but it tasted like Christmas and hit the spot.

San Gimignano was just as cute. A small little town that consisted of towers built by the Truscans (prior Romans). Its amazing at how much history even a little town like San Gimignano has. Supposedly the twin towers in NY were inspired by two towers placed side by side here. The views of course were spectacular- but I mean, Iwould like to know where in Italy the views are anything less? You just get used to the idea of never being disappointed, which is something I can definitely adapt to. I purchased some traditional white wine that is made in Siena and we were off to Florence.

I am in bed right now, with absolutely no idea how I am still awake. I honestly thought I was going to fall asleep at the dinner table after all of that fabulous food and wine. Isabelle invited Alex and I over for a casual dinner, to our surprise turned out to be a dinner party of 8. Oops! I only brought one bottle of wine?! But oh my god the food! Pasta with a shrimp sauce, caprese salad, deviled eggs, cheese, and pigs in a blanket to snack on. Oh and I cannot forget the wine and dessert. Vanilla gelato with chocolate fudge swirl decorated with nuts and then.. oh god some of the best chocolate I have ever consumed. Straight from Perugia, I had no idea Italian chocolate had any potential. This only solidifies the fact that I am for sure booking my tickets to ChocolateFest in Perugia. Anyway, combination of the massive amounts of food, the wine and sheer exhaustion from the day's activities and keeping up a conversation in Italian with real live Italians lead to the direct result of my laziness sitting in bed on a Saturday night. Very close to a Thanksgiving food coma, and there was no way I was going to miss out on the great sleep a good food coma can bring. Ta-ta for now!

Bring it on Alex

In an effort to save money (as I unpleasantly viewed my bank account today) my friend Alex and I have gone in on a bet. The challenge you may ask? Spending money. We are going to see how long it takes for one of us to break. First one to spend a cent buys the other gelato at Grome (our favorite gelato place in the city). And yes, one would think that spending money at the end of a non-spending marathon would be counter-productive, but the free gelato at the finish line seems to be enough incentive for both of us to hoard our loose change and stash our wallets to a far away place. It has been 2 days since I have bought anything. A record I think for myself. I would normally treat myself to a chocolate or gelato, but I mean business with this challenge. Sadly, yesterday's lack of spending was a sheer result of not leaving the apartment once and lazing around in my pajamas all day. I joked earlier last week (I think it was at the San Lorenzo leather markets) that someone just needs to lock me up in my room for a couple of days and not let me out.. but I guess it really does work. And I can justify my laziness with the showers and thunderstorms we've had these past couple days which gives me the perfect excuse of staying in! Thank god I just did grocery shopping on Saturday. I'll have to get creative, but I should hopefully make it through the week just fine. I'll let you know what crazy pasta concoctions I come up with!

Lorenzo

Yeah so 80% chance rainy and thunderstorms today in Venice?! Think again weather man. Try 85 and sunny. Not really a great day to wear jeans and keds. Thank god for the gorgeous city views to keep my mind of my atrociously hot pants. Alex and I started thinking about how I was going to get them off when I got home. It was going to be a sequel to the "Friends" episode where Ross gets stuck in his leather pants and attempts absolutely everything to get them off. So after 118 bridges, 129 photos, 7 hrs on a bus and one stinkin hot pair of jeans, Alex and I made it back to Florence from our first visit to Venice. I must admit I did break down and get a chocolate milkshake at McDonalds when we arrived back at the train station, one which I may add I will not be repurchasing. America you finally got something right! Oh and we were generously graced with the presence of yet another set of Italian protestors. Unlike the Florentine strike which consisted of smiling faces singing and marching in the streets carrying flags, the Venetian protestors seemed a tad bit more "passionate" about their cause. Who knows what that cause is? But it led to us sitting on a train for an hour and a half due to the fact that these protestors literally blocked the railway tracks preventing movement of any kind. You should have seen the police force Venice has. It's ridiculous! No wonder we paid a 12% service charge on top of a 3.50 cover charge. It was a very eventful day.

But besides the Murano glass blowing demonstration, boat ride along the Grand Canal, the infamous Bellini beverage, originating in Venice after the resemblance the color of the drink has to the color of the pink togas in Bellinis famous pice,  and the "Mamma Mia" spaghetti & meatballs for lunch. My most enjoyable part of the day I would have to say was our final free time break when Alex and I decided to get tiramisu (since the dessert originated on the Island). There was an older woman sitting next to us sipping on a glass of champagne who made our afternoon in Venice. She was a Brazilian woman traveling on her own, but only had an incredibly romantic story that almost brought Alex and I to tears. Her late husband of 18 years, a native Venetian, had passed away. She and Lorenzo made the trip to Venice every summer; however, she decided to pay homage to his memory and make the trip again on her own- remembering the time they spent in Venice together. As she talked about her Lorenzo, she began tearing up and I was in awe with this romantic story she told us. It doesn't sound nearly as impressive in writing, but the stories of her life are incredibly moving, and I am not one for "romantic tales" either which only justifies the romance that much more. Vera was her name, and she spoke to us in a combination of broken English, Italian and Portugese, but one statement I will not forget is "life is life". Meaning that life consists of life and death. Both are inevitable and cannot be controlled but one must learn to accept these happenings. There is always an ending to everything in life but she was able to hold on to one last piece of Lorenzo through this trip she took. After we parted ways with the signature european kisses, I kept thinking "God, what a terrific romance novel that would make?!" Watch out Notebook!!

Tomorrow I plan on sleeping in until noon and not getting out of my pajamas all day. Since I already have my groceries for the week I can focus on homework and catching up on a few episodes of Dexter.  Venice: a beautiful city but equally exhausting.

No Big Deal

My History of Tuscany Professor is Italian royalty. No big deal. We had our first class today and he took us out for wine and his great grandmothers house (aka a palace). No big deal. Oh and did I mention the palace where the movie Hannibal was shot?! No big deal. I saw all these (original may I mention) centuries-old pieces of art that are hidden from the public. And I saw them!! I felt like I was standing on the set of The Da Vinci Code. His library is wall-to-wall old archives in Latin, Italian, Spanish and German. So our project for the class is a paper on the topic of our choice, but our topic has to be one his archives cover...which is pretty much anything old and famous or Italian. Any suggestions? I was thinking something along the lines of the Medici Family's banishment from the city of Florence, or how World War II affected Florence, maybe even Mussolini's relationship with Hitler?? I have to decide by next class period so I don't have a lot of time to procrastinate unfortunately. I think I'm really going to enjoy this class and the professor. First words: "I drink. I smoke. And I swear. There, thought you should know a little something about me." He has this great British accent, but he's full on Italian (Cipolla-google him). Mahoney is a tamer, milder version of Professor Carlo. M. Cipolla  (for all those SHS'ers reading). It's going to be a fun 15 weeks. 

Ok. So on to bigger things. Cinque Terre was yesterday with the Simpson family. It was a very warm day, with loads of hiking, but it was all worth it for the beautiful views of the five cities along the coastline (and for the fact I have been eating 'heavily' for the last week well-knowing of the rigors the day trip offered).  Let's just say we all worked up a great sweat just before jumping into the Mediterranean for a quick swim. All of the five cities ranged in population of 900- 2000, so very small fishing ports. Except the fish nearly went extinct so they can no longer fish- but rely on us tourists to buy boat loads of gelato! Although they are no longer known as the fishing ports they once were, we still had a traditional Cinque dish of squid, octopus, crab cakes, shrimp and mussels. Oh and the best pesto pasta I have yet to have scourged down since my arrival in Itlay. Well worth missing my first day of classes at my new foreign school! No biggie! 

That'll Do Pig

Remember all that trouble I went through, like missing my flight, bussing to Barcelona, sleeping in an airport?? Yeah, well I suppose Florence was worth that :) I literally have not stopped since I got here. Actually that's a lie. I got to my hotel on Monday around 2 in the afternoon and did not get out of bed until the next morning at 9. Much needed slumber marathon. I met my landlord at my apartment Tuesday morning (after walking 8 blocks with the protestors- perfect day for a strike people of Italy) and decided all the traveling hassles were now worth it. My apartment is absolutely gorgeous. It's massive. Outfitted with a fully supplied kitchen, 2 bathrooms, spacious living room and then the three bedrooms, oh and did I mention our balcony and the marble floors. And the fact that we are 2 blocks from the Duomo! My single of course has the most storage space out of all the rooms for my clothing. And for the first time in my life I don't think I overpacked. I wish I had more. Believe it mom. Guess that means shopping!!

Ok where to begin. Should I start with my Italian design school across the Ponte Vecchio? My orientation overnight to a Tuscan villa? Atop the duomo (per allowance only on the 8th of September each year)? My visit to Fiesole overlooking the city of Florence? Well, our overnight in Chianti seems to top the cake. We stayed on this beautiful family owned wine and olive vineyard. Had the most delicious Italian meal I have ever had along with a wine tasting lesson. Four courses, three different wines, not bad. Oh and I of course took pictures of my dishes with my fancy new camera on the "food" setting. First course: bruschetta. Second course: pasta of course. Third course: pork with sauteed vegetables and the best potatoes I have ever consumed. And then for dessert: a delicate, moist, chocolate pear tart. Yum! Oh and that view overlooking the hills of Tuscany I took from my door. Yeah this will do. I made sure to meet the owners son, but he is only 3. Bummer...

And I am thankfully not worried about eating my weight in bread, pasta and pizza everyday because we walk everywhere in the city. Florence is actually a very small city. Like Springvale. No just kidding! But everything is within walking distance. And everything seems to be up 4 flights of stairs. Which I suppose is okay since I can eat all the bruschetta I can stuff. It really is a struggle to find a good meal that isn't overflowing with carbs here. Good thing I'm not looking!!

But this really is my city. Every other store is a shoe store. Literally every street lined with windows of real Italian shoes. So you can imagine the difficulty it takes me to walk anywhere in this city. And every other store that isn't shining with leather shoes has delicious gelato or Italian pastries causing you to gain weight simply looking at them. Oh and then the wine. Oh the wine. It's cheaper than water here. I bought a rose and a white for dinner last night and they were each 3,97 and went famously with our grilled chicken and roasted tomatoes.

Camila, Laura and myself attempted to go to the beach today to cool off from this wretched heat wave. However, the European train system fooled us again. After what we had all read as a 1 hour bus to Viareggio, turns out it was 1 hr and 47 minutes. So we pulled out our map of Florence and located the 3 small puddles of water the map illustrated (fountains of course). So we were on a mission to get to the biggest one in hopes of at least being able to stick our feet in. Got slightly distracted by the San Lorenzo leather market. After shopping in the heat we ran for the shade and passed out on the steps of  the Duomo. And now I am sitting in my living room looking out to the red rooftops through my balcony with my glass of wine. That'll do.

Say What?!

I woke up this morning to a great group of folks traveling Europe from Tennessee. There were probably 40 of them and they bombarded what seemed to be the designated sleeping area of the airport at six in the morning. I don’t want to call them elderly because that makes me think of really old people (not you Nani no worries J), but they were older than middle age. Roughly 60’s I’d say. What do you call that age? As soon as you pass middle age, are you immediately considered elderly? Is there a cut off age? I mean I have plenty of time, but am just curious.

Well anyway, back to my folks from Tennessee. We were all sitting there just chatting away and this man comes over asking where the police station is. (Definitely the most people I have seen in the last 4 days that have spoken English fluently- a bit overwhelming). He goes on to explain to us (I suppose it’s more of a warning) that he was in the bathroom and found a bag that had been left that was ticking. Yes. Ticking. My first thoughts… great, I’m going to miss my flight yet again. Then I realize there could be a possible bomb on the other side of the room. He began to panic and was frantically telling us that he has been searching for police for the last five minutes (Yup. Uber long time) and that he had done everything he could. He goes up to stand against the wall… apparently the farthest point from the alleged bomb, as if he is expecting it to go off any second. All of a sudden he comes out of the bathroom nearest to us with his five or so bags of luggage and that really gets them ladies to a talkin`. He notices all the attention and continues to go on about the green bag left in the bathroom. He at first thought the faucet was leaking, but then opened it up and saw some sort of tubing. I guess he ran from there. BUT, real kicker to the story, his wife was in the women’s bathroom next door. “My wife in the bathroom over there, but I’m to scared to go back! I’m just going to stay as far away as possible.” He sure did. He stood up against that wall like it was nobodies but his own. The ladies next to me were still in shock from his comment about his wife. “I’d go on and leave him right here in this airport”. Guess he didn’t quite follow the etiquette of southern hospitality leavin` his wife in them bathroom.  The police finally got notice and a swarm of them took off for the bathroom. They came back with a white purse (one of the ladies) and said there was nothing suspicious in the bathroom. The owner of the purse frantically ran over to it and said “oh my goodness! My purse! It was stolen!” I don’t know if stolen, forgotten, or left is the correct word but her wallet and camera were for sure no longer in that purse. At this point I left to go check-in and get to my boarding gate so absolutely nothing can put me in between of that airplane- that is of course a bomb goes off. But at least I will have died knowing I would have actually made it on this one!

Other than getting woken up by police at 3 am to check and make sure I had an actual ticket and wasn’t homeless (2 out of the 15 of us in the “designated seating area” actually were escorted out of the building), that was just about my only excitement in the Barcelona Airport. Oh and my headphones broke on the six hour bus ride here from Madrid. Just my luck! Golden Girls in subtitles is still better than no Golden Girls at all! 

Helluva Time

Well I most certainly did not plan on this happening. But than again, who plans to get on the wrong bus to have to get off, take a taxi to make your connection in Alumencar, overnight bus to Madrid (which was 25 minutes late may I mention) and then get 100% screwed over by public transportation? I always thought the locals knew the area best? Maybe quince minutos isn’t 15 minutes???  Good thing I’m not a Spanish major because I could have sworn quince was 15?! Weird, huh? And now that I mention it, the bus we had planned to take to Nerja from Granada was all sold out- even 45 minutes before departure. The traveling gods have sent me a traveling omen... which I may add am not too keen on. Anytime now St. Francis! So the 15 minutos turned out to be close to an hour and a half- future reference for those using public transportation in Madrid.

At least the airport is pretty nice… all four terminals. The whole foreign language put a damper on things. The Vueling travel agent (whom I was flying supposed to fly out with) didn’t really speak English. Mi espanol esta muy mal. So I was not real excited about handing over my credit card when numbers like $95, $124 and buying new ticket came out of her mouth. I then went into shopping mode (after a quick water works sesh in the womens handicap bathroom) and went to each terminal, standing in the different lines for each airline. El aeropuerto de Madrid could definitely hire me by now, I know much more than that lame gentleman at the information counter who didn’t even know where RyanAir was! Uh hello!? Terminal 1, duh?! Not only do I know where everything in the airport is, but I could give you each airlines direct flights into Italy through about every town in Spain… oh and the cost of the ticket (internet price & and through agent). After much thought, breakdown moments, lugging my massive luggage everywhere I began to realize I was not getting into Italy today as planned. “Es impossible” is what every agent pretty much said. I then took the bus back to Terminal 1 where I walked up to the two ladies of Vuelings Compras/Billetes counter (for literally the 4^th time) and had to do more spanglish translating to finally purchase a ticket to Pisa! “Finally!” she screamed! I’m not sure if it was the fact that I was still crying at this point from sheer exhaustion of not having sleep in the last 56 hours, hunger, headache or the frustrations with the language barrier…but they all added up and isn’t really a feeling I’m looking to have again. At this point, I have a ticket from Barcelona to Pisa for 124 euros (gross- believe me I’m aware). I was not about to hack over another 95 euros for the flight from Madrid to Barcelona, especially with the fact that I now consider myself a frequent on the Alsa busses and know for a fact they are like 50 euros cheaper. So I leave in about half an hour to get on yet another train ride. I think I’ve spent more time in busses than I have exploring each city I’ve been to- and when I say exploring I mean we would get lost and keep walking until we recognized something. Firenze- you better be worth all this hassel!

On a happier note I had an incredible time with Sum and Ash in Granada. A really great city I wish I could have had more time in… but I had to rush off to miss my flight in Madrid! Thank goodness because I had not designated nearly enough time in this airport beforehand. Much prettier than that atrocious Mediterranean beach town, Nerja, on the southern coast of Spain. I mean really, who wants to go to this place?! And it’s not like I missed a great evening of Spanish tapas with my two best friends or anything? Or an extra day on the white, sandy beaches with mountains towering over you. Talk about an ugly scenery.

Let’s see how Florence looks… that is if I ever make it over there?! I’ll keep you all posted!

We're on Holiday!

First off: Dad I screwed up your travel itinerary for me. Edes informed me on Tuesday that her flight out of Madrid wasn't until the 2nd, so we had an extra day in Lagos!! Which is great because there was just much to much to see that we hadn't gotten to. We were very motivated travelers and had the "sleep when your dead" mantra in mind so we could cram as much in as possible... however, our plans were slightly altered when we woke up Wednesday morning went to the bathroom (through the living room where people were watching the tele) and said "good morning" (only polite)... "good morning? It's 1:30.. but nice try!" 1:30? Yup. We slightly overslept our 9:30 intentions- just a wee bit as our new scottish mate would say. My rebuttal:  we're on holiday, which is her excuse for absolutely everything.

So instead of doing our early morning cliff hike, we cut that short to a nice walk along the cliffs and beaches. No more cliff jumping though.. guess no one is as adventurous as us! We are pretty crazy americans though. After a nice swim at the beach we decided to use the public fountains to rinse off. Not like public fountains that you throw pennies in, but the shooting fountains that kids run around in naked. And there certainly were a fair share of little naked kiddies running around in their underwear.. and then me and Edes in our bakinis. Just another interesting moment that could have made the front page of the local paper for us. It was actually quite nice, the water was really warm and it had great water pressure. I was hesitant to run back to the hostel and grab my shampoo! And since we were soaking wet we didn't put our clothes back on, but yet didn't want to walk back through town in our bakinis and towels. ( I know we were running through fountains with the kids but we have a least the slightest bit of decency to walk around town half naked). So as a result Edie put her very minimalist towel design techniques to use to wrap our towels around us like sarongs. "We use to do this as kids all the time and they would just look like dresses" she says. Well, now that we are grown, these towels wrapped like sarongs don't quite fit the same way. Quite a scene nonetheless.

We then raced back to the hostel for dinner. A very early dinner at that, our first dinner before 21:00 (9 pm), but we were told to get there by 7 to get a seat because the que fills up quickly. And boy they weren't kidding! By the time we had finished our traditional Portugese dinner of pork & clams and melon & ham (a european starter) the que was out the door, down the street. As if Indiana Jones had just opened at Disney Land and it was grand opening. And the crazy thing is people will actually wait in this line! Another American flaw with our lack of patience I suppose. It was great having Emily around (a Scottish gal that stayed in the same hostel) to give us all of the pointers on European etiquette. For example, it is frowned upon to request samples at ice cream places.. who knew!? You also are not supposed to ask to "take-away" your food if you do not finish your meal in the restaurant.

I did not carry the same self control as the previous night, and was the fist in line for gelato even after our extremely filling meal. We then walked around the town a little bit and met up with a group from our hostel at a local bar for a few drinks. Finally made it out to experience the night life! Great trip to Lagos.. for sure made the top of the charts. Definitely a young travelers destination as the beach city is populated with college aged students- never saw anyone over the age of 50. A very bohemian- everyone-has-dreads-kind-of-place.

After an excruciating wake up call at 5 am, Edes and I packed and walked our luggage through the city to the bus station. More like stampeded through the city with our luggage being wheeled over the un-even cobblestones (Very comparable to Sherman's March). Early morning bus put us into Sevilla around noon just enough time to spend 2 hours trying to figure out luggage storage in spanish. Check! So 4 hours for lunch, dinner and dessert! Pssh! Easy as pie.. or should I say Portugese pudding! With yet another traditional Portugese dish of an array of sausages and meets with bread and cheese we finished up our meal at the neighboring restaurant where they had flamenco taking place. We pretty much had a private show since we ate around 4ish which is when siesta is finishing up. We took advantage and enjoyed our last meal together with cappuccinos and Portugese pudding. We then checked the time and had 1 hour before my train! Quickly ran to the cathedral and spent just enough time there taking pictures- so as to not feel as guilty when purchasing a post card and saying "oh yeah mum and dad, I went here as well". Seven hours in Sevilla was a very short amount of time.. so most definitely need to make it back at some point.

I am now sitting on my bed in Granada in my very skinny, cute but quaint hotel single. I keep peering at the shower and stop myself from drooling at the thought of getting a decent wash and condition- to keep those Lagos dreads from forming! Tackling the city with Sum and Ash tomorrow! Wish me luck!

Oh and p.s.
I went through and capitalized for you mom :)