London Calling

I'm off on my first international venture this afternoon! I'm headed to London for the weekend to meet my lovely boyfriend and several friends there, but I will be traveling alone from Florence to Pisa (by bus), then from Pisa to London Standsted (flight). Wish me luck!

No Gelato Left Behind

Gelato and granite flavors and combinations I’ve tried and loved so far:

Gelati

Pistaccio and cioccolato (Pistaccio and chocolate)

Nioccolato and ciccolato (Hazelnut and chocolate)

Banana con turbinii (Banana with chocolate swirls)

Cookies di crema (Cookies n cream, though different from the Oreo variation back home)

Fico and mousse di ciccolato (Fig and chocolate mousse)

Cioccolato arancia and ciccolato ricco (Chocolate with orange and dark chocolate)

Tiramasu

Ciccolato and miritilli (Chocolate and blueberry)

Granite

Frutta di bosca granita and cioccolato gelato (wild berry granita and chocolate gelato)

Lemone e menta and frutta d’India granite (lemon and mint and prickly pear granite)

Just Running Around Italy

Today, I ran Corri La Vita, a 10k race for cancer that takes you throughout the beautiful city of Florence.

I finished without walking (though at times I ran slower than I think I've ever walked before...that's sayin something because I'm a slow walker) and I wasn't the last person to finish the race! I think there were about 15,000 running the 10k, and then some thousand walking a 5k course.

The 10k course started in Piazza Signoria (by the Uffizi Gallery), wound around the Duomo, then ran across Ponte Vecchio, then twisted and turned (uphill the whole way, may I add, on like a 65 degree incline) through Boboli Gardens, past Piazzale Michelangelo and the basilica of San Minito, then down hill (like 90 degree decline..oye my knees) and back across the Arno, along the Arno, past the Florentine Library, and ended in Piazza Signoria. I've attached a photo of the course map.

There were 6 or 7 other girls from SUF who also ran it: two of them were like hardcore marathon runners so they were off at the gun, another, Natalie, (from Nor Cal, goes to Harvard, art history major) was supposed to be my running buddy but we got separated in the bustle of the starting line, then three other girls and I ran together for the first 2km. Nicole and I fell behind the other two, and so Nicole and I ran together for the first 4km. Then we got separated in a hairpin turn/crowd, so I was on my own for the last half or so. But I had Jen's pilates playlist blasting on my iPod and I did it!!! We all reconvened at the Ristorate, the refreshments booth, where the iced tea and lemonade were flowing and there were oranges and bananas to be had. Hannah was there to snap pictures of me finishing as I crossed the finish line too!

I didn't care about time for the 10k, whereas my 5k this summer I was in it to win it. But this 10k, I just wanted to finish the damn thing. It honestly was one of the hardest things I think I've ever done. But I finished. I'm so happy!! I can say I ran a 10k in Italy!! My official time was 1 hr 11 min 24 sec. I'm very very happy. Endorphins still pumpin'!

A Word on the Weather and A Comment on Clothing

For the past three weeks, I’ve been staying, playings, and educating in Florence, Italy. And so far I’ve been blessed with this beautiful weather that has only enabled my travels around this country.

While there already has been a decline in temps over the past three weeks, I’ve experienced the warm humidity of the valley of Firenze (mosquito bites included) the first week, to be broken by the deluge of rain within the first weekend (nothing to write home about, I didn’t get caught in it, and it only lasted an hour or two).

Most recently, a daily forecast ranges from the low 50s until noon, and then soar into the 80s by dinner. As the sun goes down, again the temps dip to the lower spectrum. I’m pleased by the weather now that the initial humidity has seemed to evaporate. It reminds me of home: it’s warm in the sun, and cool in the shade. It’s a type of weather that is easily paired with a sweater and a skirt, or tights jeans and a loose top.

Italians seems to prepare for the worse and hope for the best. Attire is long-sleeved and bundled up---bare legs and shoulders are prohibited in churches, but I think it goes beyond that. The people dress so well! Having grown up with a daily uniform throughout elementary and high school, and going to college in an arctic tundra that permits an unofficial uniform of leggings, boots, and down parkas, I find myself striving to keep up with both the weather and the fashions of the locals.

I’d also argue that the men here dress to impress the women. They peacock their savviness with tailored suits, tapered ties, and soft pastels and colors that exhibit something beyond the American metrosexual. Whereas at home, it’s the dipped necklines and nipped waists of the women’s fashions that flaunt figures. The women in Florence robe themselves in neutrals and knee-lengthed fashions that keep necklines high and much to the imagination. It’s a classy look that goes in hand with the proud runway walk that seems to affect almost all the females in Firenze.

First Week of School

(Villa Rossa garden)

I've got to say, I'm the luckiest art history nerd I know.

Not a single one of my classes spends much time in a classroom. Out of my 5 classes this semester, 4 are art histories, and we either spend Monday in the classroom and Wednesday on site, or half the class in the classroom and the other half on site. It's amazing that I get to BE where the work of art IS. I still can't get over that fact. It's blowing my mind.

And then that 5th class that isn't an art history is my Italian 4 class that consists of the bulk of my schedule (it meets four times a week, where as most classes meet once or twice). And even that class spends a good majority of its meeting time in la clase di Firenze and utilize the city as our "Language Lab" to talk with locals and learn the vocabulary around us.

Because I'm taking so many art histories, I'm traveling almost every weekend with school, which is definitely a great thing! It means a lot of travel throughout Italy, which I'm thrilled with.

Even though I'm not planning on entering a career path as a restorator, and don't I plan on being a museum docent for very long, the professors have found a way to make Medieval and Renaissance art absolutely come alive. Have I mentioned that I cried the first time I saw Il Duomo?

And perhaps by the end of this semester I'll be able to spell Renaissance correctly without consulting spell-check.

Tour de Firenze

I’ve now been gone from home for about a week, and it feels like it’s been three. This weekend was such a whirlwind of activity! Friday, after class registration, an safety meeting, and booking my first trip across Europe (I’m going to London in two weeks!), we were free to explore the city fully and on our own.

Anna had bought us bus passes that morning, so we were on our own to make it home by our 8pm supper. After getting lost in Piazza Libertá, we made our way to the Duomo past San Lorenzo (which some of us thought was actually il Duomo. Oops). When we arrived at the very commercial area of the Duomo, some of the group wanted to go shopping, meanwhile this art history student was shedding tears of joy at the sight of THE Duomo. Dani, another art history student with SUF, was kind enough to revel in its glory with me as we appreciated the Gates of Paradise on the Baptistery and the magnificent size of the basilica. After regrouping, we made it our mission to find the world’s best gelato (according to National Geographic). Shlepping our laptops and school books around and wandering around Firenze’s confusing streets, we gave up for the day and had gelato from a smaller local shop (I drowned my sorrows in tiramisu flavored gelato and a freshly made canolo). This search is still on, however, for National Geographic gelato. More to come.

We trekked back to the bus stop Anna had showed us by the Villa Rossa (because we didn’t know any better than to find one closer) and hopped on hoping for the best. We got off on the second stop Anna had showed us (so we thought…) and realized we couldn’t find our street. We were definitely in the right neighborhood! (And it being a very suburban area, we weren’t too alarmed, just confused.) But we meandered down three different streets before we reached our apartment, where we told Anna, giggling in our broken Italian, how lost we’d been!

SUF hosted a scavenger hunt around Firenze for the students Saturday morning at 10am. At 9:25am, Hannah and I had finished our breakfast ofmarmalata frescole, biscotti, tea and coffee, and were waiting by the bus stop for our 9:31am bus. 9:40 rolls around—no bus. At 9:46 a #8 bus comes around the corner and we wave it down, hop on, and wait to be taken to school. At the next stop, the bus stops, turns off, and the bus driver leaves. Uhhhhh….what? By 10:08 we’re off again and we’re just trying to get to the Piazza della Signoria at this point, regardless of the time. Once we crossed the Arno, we hit the call button, hop off, and start walking. About a mile and a half later, we arrive at Ponte Vecchio, taking our time to take pictures and enjoy our Saturday morning stroll. Soon, Hannah and I realized that despite our miles of walking, we were so lucky. Who else has stumbled upon the Biblioteca Nationale Centrale di Firenze? Who else would've stumbled upon the Love Padlocks by Ponte Vecchio? (In Firenze, love padlocks have been affixed to the railing around and near the statue of Benvenuto Cellini.) We’d missed the treasure hunt by the time we arrived in Piazza della Signoria (at 10:45) but caught up with the tail end of one group, grabbed the checklist, and went on the scavanger hunt on our own that included a sketch of a man on the side of Piazza Vecchio by Michelangelo and a fruit and vegetable stand with the best grapes in Italy.

Piazza della Signoria is another art historian’s mecca—original Roman marbles (such as The Rape of the Sabine Women and Hercules and the Centaur) are housed in Loggia dell Signoria, the Uffizi Gallery is to the left of that, there’s a copy of Michelangelo’s David overlooking the piazza, and Piazza Vecchio was basically the Medici’s Florentine villa, decorated with frescos and gold-leafed bas reliefs. I was like a kid in a candy shop. Our group multiplied and we made our way to the Duomo for a light pranzo of pizza at an open-aired café right next to the basilica.

After lunch we continued our search for National Geographic gelato (again to little avail), but not before I found a piazza worth exploring down a narrow via. I didn’t know what it was, but it was a piazza and I wanted to see it. Without a map and without an previous knowledge, we ended up in the piazza of L’Ospedale Infintile and it was beautiful!

We went back to our apartment to Anna's fantastic cooking, dinner has been amazing every night since we've been here. Hannah and I decided to make an attempt to go to the cittá to meet friends that evening. All I'm going to say about our night out is that it involved more gelato than vino (we stumbled upon the National Geographic gelatteriá!! I had cioccolata ricca e cioccolata arancia and it really was the most bombdotcom gelato EVER) and that I now know that it takes 2.5 hours to walk to the city and back from our house in the suburbs.

Our Sunday was a full immersion Sunday that was intended for all the students to stay with their host families and get to know each other. Anna planned for us to go out to the countryside right out of Florence and into Fiesole, a beautiful mountain cittá that is home to a lovely open aired antique book market and ancient Roman ruins and theater. We sipped l'acqua frizzante and enjoyed the panorama at the ruins after climbing them all morning. (Anna may be an elderly woman, but by no means is she old!) We returned home for homemade pizza. We made plans to meet with una amica d'Anna at 4pm, and that's when we met Antoinetta.

If Anna is our grandmother, then Antoinetta is the crazy aunt every loves. She told us that Anna and her were our nonne, and that she wants to speak English. In exchange for her English vocabulary lessons she will teach Hannah Italian. She's an absolute riot. We went to Piazza Michaelangelo with Anna and Antoinetta for the amazing view of the city of Florence and the biggest serving of gelato (straciatella and hazelnut). We visited the Basilica of San Miniato al Monte, but the four of us attended Mass at the church of San Salvatore, smaller and more modern. Yes, Mass was in Italian, but it was an amazing experience as una familia.

Una Nonna

Thursday we checked out of our hotel at 8:30am to arrive at the Villa Rossa for a little free time to tie up last minute business. My advising/internet/errands were taken care of, so it left me some time to Skype and arrange my class schedule. At 11am we met with heads of departments and staff within our particular class interests. I went over to the art history department and basically took a syllabus from every professor there. Meanwhile, I needed to arrange not just my class timetable, but my weekend timetable. For all of the art history classes offered through SUF, each present unique field study trips across Italy and France. However, because of the abundance of trips and classes, many of the trips overlap. When registration came around Friday morning, and the drama of registration times settled down (I had the first time slot), I was able to get into all the classes I’d wanted, without any field study conflicts. I am taking Italian VI (ITA 202/218), Black Death and Medieval Art (HOA 411), Artistic Patronage of the Medici (HOA 423), Italian Urbanism: 100 Cities (HOA 520), and Leonardi da Vinci (HOA 556.1). This means I’ll be traveling to:

Arezzo/Perugia – Sept. 18^th (100 Cities class)

Vinci/Carrara – Sept. 24^th (Leonardo)

Padua – Oct. 23^rd (Black Death)

Medici Villas – Nov. 1^st (Medici Patronage)

Siena/San Gimignano – Nov. 5^th (Black Death)

Paris – Nov. 18^th-21^st (Leonardo optional trip)

Pisa/Lucca – Nov. 20^th (Black Death)

I also get to pick a weekend to go on a Rome overnight trip for Medici Patronage. This also means I can start planning my weekend travels throughout Europe as well. Tutti va bene!

Thursday’s big activity involved meeting our host families!!!! Our families and roommates and area zones were posted at noon. Obviously Hannah and I were roommates. And our host mammá is Anna Maria Bruschi. We were handed a short bio of her and told we’d be picked up at 3:30pm.

“Anna Maria is a very young and spritely elderly lady who has hosted our students for many years”—22 years, we later found out—“As she never had a family, the students she hosts are very important to her and she gives them all the time and attention they may want, while also respecting their privacy and social life. She lives in an elegant apartment across the Arno River, a 15-20 minute bus ride from SUF on the #8 metro.”

When our names were called at 3:30pm, we went up to meet Anna Maria in all her 4’10” glory. As we greeted her with bessini on each cheek, the Director of SUF whispered to us, “You’re so incredibly lucky to have her, she’s everyone’s grandmother! Sweet as pie but tough as a bear.” We think he was mixing his metaphors…but we got the point. And soon enough we realized that not only could Signora hold her own and was tough as nails, but she also didn’t speak a word of English!! Talk about full immersion!

When we got to her large, but elegant, apartment across the Arno (it’s definitely at least a 15-20 minute ride…I guess the bus system will be a learn experience!), Signora showed us our lovely room (it’s very Italian in the best ways possible) and called us to dinner around 8pm. She’s made us pasta pomodoro from scratch, with caprese salads (MY FAVORITE!) sprinkled with olive oil and basil and garlic and pepper. I wish I could’ve whipped out my camera to take a picture of how beautiful our cena was! For dessert, she kept asking us if we liked pesce con vino, and Hannah and I kept looking at each other, thinking, “Fish with wine?” Non ho capito. Signora brought out the dessert. It was a fresh peach cut up in cubes and doused in a sweet white wine. Aaaah pesce. Not pesce.

(Though they’re spelt the same, peach and fish are actually pronounced differently. While peach is pesh-kay, fish is pes-kay. We had to ask Signora the difference on that one.)

And it certainly wasn’t fishy at all! In fact, it was one of the most amazing desserts I’ve ever tried!!! It was absolutely AMAZING! Hannah and I were raving the rest of the night! (In Italian, of course.) We must get the recipe!!

We said buona notte around 10:45pm and settled into bed. One Italian custom is that Italians wear shoes in the house. Not only do they wear shoes, but bear feet is actually frowned upon. I’d just slipped off my shoes to sneak a shower, and Signora came into the room to tell us something, and immediately noticed my bear feet. She didn’t make a big deal about it, but you know when you’ve done something wrong and your grandma gives you that look. Yeah, Signora knows that look. So I made it a priority to find slippers Friday afternoon during my spare time.

More to come…trying to find the world’s best gelato vicino al Duomo.

Sono Qui!

Buon giorno from Firenze! After a whopping two days of travel (I began traveling Sunday night, and arrived in Florence Tuesday morning), one delayed flight (from JFK to Rome), and lots of orientation activities at SU Florence, I finally have time to tell you about my journey. Mi permetta di descrivere...

Tuesday we were shepparded from the airport to the Hotel Mediterraneano and assigned random rooming based on our flight arrivals. Those who independently traveled were thrown in where there was room. So people from Flight 1 (Courtney’s flight) roomed together, while Flight 2 people (my flight) stuck together. Flight 3 and the pre-orientation Greece seminar people were housed at Hotel Colombo, a ten minute walk from Mediterraneano. While my room was unimpressive, a friend of mine staying in room 207 had the most stunning room in comparison, and I would highly recommend her accommodations to anyone visiting Firenze.

Please note that Firenze is the Italian way of saying Florence. You will probably see most Italian cities called by their Italian names from here on out.

After quickly dropping off our belongings in our rooms we were ushered to the SUF (Syracuse University Florence) campus. With our city maps in hand, and a few fourth year architects leading the way, we arrived at Villa Rossa, the main building of SUF. Villa Rossa literally means “Pink House,” and it was the most beautiful pink house I’ve ever seen!! It’s architecture reminded me of the Marymount campus from high school: with frescoed ceilings; a well-kept garden and courtyard where we were treated to a lunch of pasta pomodoro, fresh parmesan cheese and bread and sliced tomatoes; and the Villino building behind it housing the Library and Skype Rooms. It’s the most bellissima campus to study at! I feel so lucky to be able to attend classes in such a lovely vicinity.

After several orientation meetings we were free to explore the cittá for the afternoon, so I took off with a couple of friends to explore the city center beyond the original city wall, an arch of which remains intact half way to the Villa Rossa. We wandered down narrow 15^th century streets, passed shoe shops, tabacchi, and gentlemen blowing kisses at us as we got excited about being able to live in such an amazing city. We took time to make our way to Sant’Ambrogio, a small church with original frescos from 1430, some of which are mere cartoons or left unrestored. After lighting a vigil candle, I took plenty of time to nerd out on all the feast of art in front of me. We returned to the hotel for dinner and realized we had arrived an hour early, so ventured out again to find gelato and the Firenze flea market. We arrived at the flea market just in time for the afternoon break, but found gelato not too far away. In broken Italian, I ordered Courtney and I each a pistachio and chocolate double scoop. The ragazzi serving us laughed and proceeded to serve us in English, but not without a few Italian bessino tossed our way. And the gelato? Quite simply, it was bomb dot com. It was the most amazing ice cream treat that has ever tickled my taste buds. I cannot wait to go back to that place.

We met for a group dinner at the Hotel M. and finished thinking, what next? After making a few new friends, a group of us decided to grab a glass of wine across from our hotel and right on the Arno River that cuts through Firenze. It was a beautiful way to kick off my stay in Italia, I loved every minute of it.

Except the mosquito bites that blossomed on my body the next day as a result of our moonlit wine-tasting.

Wednesday we woke to stormy clouds and warm humidity, which eventually turned into torrential rain (and I packed my pink umbrella in my OTHER suitcase!). But our day consisted of a lot of meetings and paperwork at Villa Rossa. We met with the Italian department, and I didn’t have too hard a time keeping up with the head of the department’s rapid Italian descriptions of the intermediate and advanced courses. And I discovered I can take Italian IV pass/fail (VA BENE!!!!!). My laptop was connected to the Internet, and I received my transportation disbursement, which is enough to cover a bus pass for four months in Firenze (140 euro), but I’m considering getting a bike instead (the cost of a bike, helmet, basket, and lock runs about 130 euro). Hannah and I ran through the rain to the Wind store with our new friend Dani leading the way to get our hands on an international cell phone, and we left il negozio triumphant with our new European technology and slightly soaked. Our second day in Firenze ended with another group dinner, at which I was regaled with tales of the Greece Odyssey pre-seminar trip, which sounded amazing! I was a little peanut butter and jealous, especially when these guys showed me their pictures after cena!!

More to come...meeting my host mammá really puts my Italian to the test

Arrividerci!

This is it! My bags are officially packed: 2 suitcases under 50 lbs, a roomy carry on, and a backpack. And so I begin my 48 hours of travel. I'll be flying from LAX to JFK on a red eye flight, and will arrive in JFK the morning of Sept. 6th to meet my Alitalia group flight in New York. After a brief layover in Rome, we'll be landing in Florence the morning of Tuesday Sept. 7th. I'm excited and anxious and nervous but mostly really really excited! Until Italy, ciao belli!