Rainy day ruin your plans? TREAT YO SELF!

What happened to Sunny Sorrento? I am on day 16, I believe, of my post-Toledo travels (now with my good friend Paige), and I have had exactly 2 not-beautiful days. Compared to the frigid winters of Wisconsin or Minnesota, this Italian "winter" is something I can get behind. Every day has been in the 40s or 50s (with some chilly 30-degree nights), and every day has been sunny and gorgeous.

Exception #1: Christmas Eve. It rained a little, but we didn't mind because every street in Bologna has a portico! Then it snowed a little, so that was neat!

Exception #2: Today. Okay, 2 rainy days out of 16. So what? That's not so bad... False. This morning we woke up early, got dressed, and packed our backpack, ready and excited for a day of hiking the (supposedly amazing) "Path of the Gods" on the Amalfi coast. We walked down the hall to brush our teeth and looked out the window... completely overcast. With all of our extensive research and planning yesterday, we forgot to check the weather. We found out it is supposed to rain all morning, so our hiking plans were canceled.

This kind of screws up all of our other plans for the next couple of days, but we decided not to worry about that at 7:30 in the morning... so we went back to bed and then had a lazy morning "treating ourselves" by chilling in our swanky hostel watching Paige's new favorite show Parks and Recreation (you're welcome, Paige). After all, after two exhausting weeks of intense museums and sight-seeing, I'm ready for a break! I'm considering this my vacation time.

In the words of Tom Haverford, "Treat Yo Self!":

P.S. I don't know if I've gotten this point across yet...Sorrento is beautiful. And they love lemons here.

Buon Natale!

Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas! 

From Rome to Florence to Bologna...and now finally we have settled in Venice to relax for a few days for Christmas! In a way it almost doesn't feel like Christmas for me because I'm still in study abroad/travel mode. It's like I'm just on one big extended weekend trip (visiting ten cities in three weeks instead of one city in three days) and I keep hearing this phrase "Buon Natale" or "Merry Christmas" thrown around here and there! It is weird not being at home at this time of year, but it helps that my mom is traveling with me, and honestly I'm having such a great experience I can't really complain!

Florence was amazing. We got in later than expected on Thursday (because we spent the whole morning in Rome having chatting with our hosts Luca and Nicole before we finally decided we should get ourselves on a train!), but once we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, we turned right around and went back downtown to explore Florence, and then go to the Galleria dell'Accademia.

NOT the real deal... just a copy in the original location

What's so special about this art Gallery... oh not much, except for this one statue called David, by some artist named Michelangelo. Maybe you've heard of him. Of course, I had heard of Michelangelo, and I had heard of his David... everyone in the universe has. But, let me tell you, I was not prepared for how impressive this statue was... I'm no art expert (although after this week I feel like I'm well on my way), but after walking through halls and halls of amazing statues, with just one glance David blew all of them away. I probably sat and soaked it in for at least 10 minutes. And one of the great benefits of our off-season traveling is that there are no tourists! I can only imagine David is teeming with admirers in the summer, but in the middle of December, at the end of the day, we practically had him to ourself! It was amazing!

 Then just after moving down the hall, I ran into my friend Paige! We are working our way separately across Italy in different directions, and we have plans to meet up in the Amalfi coast later this week, but at the time neither of us had a clue we would be in Florence together!

For our next day in Florence, we checked out the Uffizi Gallery, home to the greatest collection of Renaissance art, including one of my favorites, Botticelli's Birth of Venus (I don't think Joan Lynch knows how much her interior decorating has influenced my art education!). Then we popped around the corner to the Galileo science museum! Not a lot about Galileo himself, but they had a killer collection of old science-y gadgets and gizmos, with one room dedicated to Galileo. The Duomo, or Cathedral, was also very impressive, with its huge dome that was the biggest to be built since the Pantheon.

Galileo's telescopes!!!!

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, we departed Florence for Venice, but not without a visit to Bologna. My aunt Robin studied abroad in Bologna (and she definitely sparked my love for all things Italian) so we had to visit the city that she fell in love with! Unfortunately, this was the one day that the weather decided to be icky, so we had to tour the city in the rain. But if there was one city you'd want to be stuck in while it's raining, it's Bologna with all of its porticos (basically cool "porches" of roofs over all the sidewalks)!! It was a beautiful city nonetheless, without tourist-y crowds, and we were able to find the street my aunt lived on, stroll through the streets, and find ourselves a nice restaurant in which to dine! Bologna is known for fab food (it's also known as "La Grassa" - the fat one), and for lunch I had some typical tagliatelle alla bolognese, aka the most amazing pasta dish I've eaten in my entire life. And that's saying a lot.

Tagliatelle alla bolognese = heaven

Last night we got into Venice just as the sun was going down, found our hotel and took a quick nap before heading out on the town. We wound our way through the narrow, poorly-lit streets, and over numerous canals until we ended up at St. Mark's Square, with just enough time to grab a quick drink and get in line for the Christmas Eve Mass at St. Mark's Basilica. It was definitely an experience... hundreds of people crowding in, a beautiful choir, and the gorgeous gold-mosaic ceiling lit up (honestly, the impressive Basilica itself was my favorite part, I couldn't stop looking up and around at all the details!).

Today we spent our Christmas day strolling around magical Venice, getting lost, having a fancy Christmas lunch, doing a little window shopping, and watching the sunset. We capped it off by skyping my dad and Bridget, and watching our favorite holiday movie, White Christmas!

Christmas Eve at Basilica di San Marco

 

And with that I shall bid you all adieu. I'm wishing all of my family and friends the merriest of Christmases, and sending my love from the other side of the world! Ciao for now!

Arrivederci Roma!

Actual real-life update: I am in Florence right now!! Yes, we made it to Italian stop number 2! But I am playing catch-up and I wrote this post while on the train, so...

Ciao! I am on the train from Roma a Firenze, racing past the beautiful Tuscan countryside, and I can’t believe stop #1 on my tour Italiano is already over! Two days is not really enough time to see Rome, but we managed to squeeze in a lot of cool stuff!! Originally we had 3 “official” days set aside for Rome, but when we added Bologna in between Florence and Venice, that took away time in Florence, so we had to cut into our Rome time as well.

My favorite shot from the Roman Forum.

Our first full day, Tuesday, was our “Ancient Day”: we strolled through the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, up to Capitol Hill, down to Piazza Venezia, up to the Pantheon, down a little side street for some excellent pizza, over to Piazza Navona, and all the way and back in the other direction to the Fontana di Trevi. Lots of walking. Very sore feet.

Wednesday was “Art Day”: First we got up early and went to the wonderful and pleasantly small Galleria Borghese. We spent our full two-hour limit enjoying all of the wonderful sculptures and paintings. I was almost just as impressed by all the artwork of the rooms themselves (the ceiling art was amazing!). Then we popped over to the Vatican, and spent the entire afternoon marveling at the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica. By then end of the day we were a little overwhelmed, to say the least, by all that exquisite art and architecture!!

While all of the cool sites and art were amazing, the next best thing about Rome was our bnb, where we were hosted by the wonderful Luca and Nicole! We stayed at their little private bnb, and they were absolutely amazing. The first night they met us at the train station, helped with our bags, and even cooked us a lovely Italian pasta dish! Luca is Italian and Nicole is German. Luca doest not speak German, nor does Nicole speak Italian, so they speak to each other (and to us) only in English! Almost every night we sat up with them for a while eating dinner, or having a drink, and talked about everything from traffic lights in Germany, to the mafia, to the problem with lazy Italians (a lot of it ended up being Germany vs. Italy!). They were absolutely hilarious, and made our stay 110% better!

Rome according to Jolene: 

Well, Hannah has summed it up quite nicely, but I really was amazed by the Colosseum, Forum and Pantheon, the history they represent. I kept grabbing the camera* from Hannah but we managed to share it very well, and I think that between us we managed to capture the feeling of that day. Day two and more Art with a capital A, again the years of Art History classes have come to life in a most amazing way. I can’t wait to continue Art Fest at the Uffizi in Florence, but I’m grateful for a day off my feet, since I developed a massive blister on my all-important little toe; otherwise I have limped along quite bravely, and Hannah is mostly patient with me as I grab her arm and we stroll along.  I think the Vatican could single-handedly solve the world financial crisis if it held a garage sale of one fraction of its wealth…incredible!  The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was fabulous and we listened to Rick Steves’ guides that we downloaded for free on our ipods, and trundled along with a Brazilian tour group to use the faster exits. The Crazy Borghese Gallery was quite splendid and the Gardens lovely.  

* Side-note: I forgot! New camera! After an entire semester of hazy, grainy photos from my trusty old pinky, my dad bought a shiny new camera and my mom brought it along. So at least Italy will be beautifully photographed.

More photos from "Ancient Day":

Pantheon. So cool...I could easily have sat in there all day!

Fontana di Trevi

Last stop in Spain: Barcelona

Wait, wasn't I just in Barcelona? Yes, you are correct. Somehow, Barcelona got the honor of being visited twice on this trip! Before my mom and I jetted off to Italy, I wanted her to see a little more of Spain than just Toledo, and frankly, Madrid wasn't going to cut it (except for el Museo del Prado, that was great!). So we spent our first weekend of the tour in Barcelona, and I was able to show my mom some of the cool stuff I saw the first time, and I got to see a bunch of new things. My favorites: the inside of Gaudí's Sagrada Familia, a day-trip to Montserrat, and a tour of the beautiful Gran Teatro de Liceu (the opera house!).

When I was in Barcelona a few weeks ago, we went to as many free things as possible… this meant just seeing the outside of all the Gaudí buildings. But this trip we decided to splurge and go inside of la Sagrada Familia. And it was absolutely stunning. How could someone possibly come up with that design?? Well, we also saw the small exhibit about how Gaudí was inspired by nature, and that made it pretty clear. And awesome.

"The great book, always open and which we should make an effort to read, is that of Nature.” -Antoní Gaudí

We also got to take a trip out to the Benedictine retreat of Montserrat, a trip that Paige and I missed out on the first time. It was a good 1 1/2 hours away by train, and it was very cool to see those crazy jagged peaks as we approached! Then we took the cable car up (good thing I’m a cable car pro now), and enjoyed that fresh mountain air for a few hours. We walked around, marveling at the view, and went inside the Basilica. Unfortunately we just missed out on the famous Montserrat boys choir by a few minutes.

View from Montserrat

While planning our trip we almost stayed in Barcelona one more day, so we could go see one of our favorite tenors, Juan Diego Florez, in an opera at the teatro de Liceu. But we didn’t want to lose too much time in Italy, so we decided to leave a day earlier (and go see JDF sometime at the Met in New York!). Instead, on our last day before we left for Rome, we went to the Liceu and took a tour of the beautiful opera house! We were the only people who showed up, so we got a private tour and our guide was hilarious and fantastic. We couldn’t take pictures in the auditorium itself, which is a shame because it was one of the most gorgeous theaters I have ever seen.

Gran Teatro de Liceu

And since I'm sharing these travels with my mom (and my dad has been pressuring her to keep her own blog!), here's a recap from my special guest blogger, Jolene Steinhorst on her experience so far: 

Ah, Espana…did I miss the Toledo section? That was perhaps the closest I’ll get to time travel. I was amazed at every turn in the twisting, narrow, cobblestoned streets, and spent a lot of time with my mouth agape at the beauty of the buildings. I was sad with Hannah as she said farewell to her city, street by street, this view, that little plaza…so lovely.  In Madrid the Prado was fantastic, thanks to the collecting savvy of generations of Spanish monarchs, so far Titian wins. Until we reach Michelangelo territory, then we’ll see…

Barcelona, I love this city. It has good transportation, happy people, and we stayed in a super-cool modern hotel with the best breakfast in all of Spain. It’s amazing to see years’ worth of art history lectures come to life, such as at the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s masterpiece. The Picasso Museum was also interesting, with many works from his early years. The Opera House was stunning, although we did not run into Juan Diego Flores in the hallway as I had hoped…

Saying goodbye to Toledo

Well, it feels like the end came suddenly and unexpectedly, even though I had almost an entire week after my finals and before the end of the program to enjoy Toledo and mentally prepare myself. I spent as much time as possible hanging out with friends (when they weren't still studying for finals), and enjoying beautiful Toledo. I hiked up to the "mountain" across the river 3 times in one week, the last time with a huge group of people to celebrate one of our last days and to watch a non-existent cloudy sunset. I finally got my own picture of Toledo, and while it's not quite as professional-looking as the one heading my blog, it's set as my background and now I can look at it and cry whenever I want.

Toledo from the mountain!

I thought saying goodbye to everyone would be the hardest part, but it turns out saying goodbye to Toledo was harder. It was tough saying goodbye to friends from Notre Dame and Puerto Rico, but it was easier to say goodbye to Minnesota friends, knowing that I will see them again back at school! It was also different for me, knowing that I wasn't going home right away but rather staying in Europe for a while. After everyone left, I had another day and a half in Toledo to show my mom around before we left for our travels.

Since I had already said my goodbyes, I figured the next day and a half would be a nice, relaxed, fun time, showing my mom around Toledo. False. I did not expect to tear up every time I saw something that sparked a memory from this semester... which was pretty much everywhere. Who knew that it would be harder to be in Toledo without everyone than actually saying goodbye to them!! My only hope is that I was still able to give my mom a decent tour of my dear little Toledo, while I was barely holding myself together! Sorry Mama!

On Friday we woke up in Toledo and went to bed in Barcelona, with a quick stop in Madrid in between! (And I finally got to go to the Prado museum!) Now that my time in Toledo is over, the epilogue begins: Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice and Milan with my mother, then Naples and a few more southern cities in Italy with Paige! USA: I'll see you on January 4th.

Adios Toledo!

To study, or not to study...and blog instead -- that is the question.

 Well it's that time of the year again: the end of another semester approaches and finals week is upon us. I'm supposed to be cramming for exams right now, but I decided to reminisce about my semester and think about the future instead. And blog about it. At 2:30 in the morning. I am a model student.

It's scary to think that my time here is almost up. It's like I've been living in a different world for three months! Pretty soon I'll be closing this little chapter of my life and throwing myself back into the "real world." They always tell you that the time will fly by, and boy were they right...

In less than 24 hours and after just 2 more tests, I will be done with my classes! Then I have an entire weekend (and more) to bum around Toledo and enjoy my last few days here.... and probably get really sad that I'm leaving.

In 7 days, the program is "officially done." Also in 7 days my mother will be coming to visit, help me pack, and joining me as we travel to Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan!

In 8 days, most of my friends here will be heading home! It is so weird to hear everyone talk about being home so soon, seeing their families for Christmas, etc! It is also weird to think that in 8 days, we won't all be living with each other and seeing each other EVERY SINGLE DAY. Even for those of my friends who also go to the U (which is a lot), I won't see them for a whole MONTH, and then once back at school who knows how often we'll actually see each other?? Sad thoughts to bring up, I know, but I just think what I think and tell it how it is.

In 12 days I will be in Italy. Italy. I don't think most people actually know how much I love Italy. Perhaps just my mother/family, my aunt, and Etta Berkland. Like, Italian language courses were one of my criteria for choosing a college...seriously. I almost studied abroad in Italy, but damn it, I had to be all practical and stick with my Spanish minor. So a small trip to Italy will have to do. However....

In 21 days I will probably still be in Italy. I couldn't bear to visit Italy for just one weekend during the semester. So I decided to travel after the program, with the hope that I would be able to spend a lot of time in Italy. Check. At this point, everyone else will be at home, making plans for New Year's Eve. I will have just spent Christmas in Venice with my mother, and will be jetting off to some new city (location tbd) to celebrate New Year's Eve with Paige!

Not until 27 days from now, on the 4th of January, 2012, will I finally be flying home. I'll have about 2 weeks at home in Madison (to spend time with the fam and eat all their food) before I have to head back up to the Twin Cities, move in with my bestie Erika and start another semester at the good ole U.


But that's all waaaaay in the future. Tomorrow I just have to wake up, ace those tests, and enjoy Toledo for a few more days. Easy as pie.

¡Hasta luego!

Flying solo to Barcelona!

Well it is finals week at the fund (which doesn't actually mean very much), but I have enough to do to keep me busy all day... or at least to keep me feeling guilty if I'm not studying. Barcelona was already ONE WHOLE WEEK AGO, and I have not yet blogged about it. I usually like writing about a trip right after I get back and it's still fresh in my memory, but I was behind already, and I was so busy this past week that anytime I thought about writing a post, I felt guilty (again) and decided to work on a paper or do homework. Such a good student, right? I have decided that I have studied enough in the past few days to give my self a blog-break.

Barcelona was just a fantastic weekend. It came after probably the roughest week I've had here, and it was the perfect, most relaxing way to just take a few days off and have fun! Here's why:

1. Except for Paris, this was the only other weekend where I made my own travel plans and booked my flight, so instead of just going for the best dirt-cheap flight out there that means you have to sleep in an airport and you only actually have 1 1/2 days in your city... I actually planned this out way in advance, and waited for the optimal flight that was reasonably priced, yet gave me 2 1/2 days in Barcelona! No rushing from site to site, no sleeping in airports.

2. The weather was amazing. When I left Toledo on Thursday it was maybe in the 50s, sunny... and that's pretty nice. All weekend in Barcelona it was sunny and in the 60s! In late November! That's crazy.

3. PAIGE SCHAEFER. I believe Paige has made a guest appearance on the blog before... she is my friend from high school who is studying abroad in Granada, Spain right now. We briefly met up earlier in the semester when I went to Granada, and we will be traveling together again in Italy after our programs end! It was so great to see Paige again and just hang out with her all weekend! 

Bike tour with Paigey!!! 

A few great things about Barcelona:

Our hostel: we stayed in a pretty cool hostel that had a kitchen in which we could make our own meals (can you say MONEY-SAVER!), and it was very social/interactive/helpful. Paige and her friend arrived the day before me and went on a free walking tour through the hostel. The next day we went on a bike tour through the hostel that was SUPER COOL. We were able to hit up a bunch of different locations in just one afternoon, our guide was australian and super funny, we stopped and had wine and tapas, and we were getting exercise! It doesn't get better than that! The hostel also showed us what the nightlife was like and on Friday night Paige and I checked out Barcelona's hottest new club: Hyde (I hope you said that in the Stefon voice... if not, we should perhaps revaluate our friendship). And we just met a ton of cool people around the hostel and on tours and such. 

Passing the beach on the bike tour... no big deal.

Gaudí: Antoni Gaudí was an architect who was kind of a big deal in the Catalan Modernista movement. He has a bunch of works all around Barcelona, including what is probably his greatest/well-known work, the Sagrada Familia. Construction on this church was started in 1882, Gaudí continued working on it until his death in 1926, and it will probably not be finished for another few decades. Yes, that's right. Gaudí was also greatly inspired by nature, which he worked into many of his buildings, making them appear very unusual and different than the norm. In addition to the Sagrada Familia, we also saw Casa Mila and Casa Batlló (my favorite) on the bike tour, and we ventured to his Parc Güell on our own.

The Nativity Facade of the Sagrada Familia

Casa Batlló

Parc Güell

Wandering: Barcelona just had an awesome vibe, and it was so easy to wander around the city and find something cool to see or do. The main avenue is Las Ramblas, a big walking street that runs from Plaça Catalunya down to the harbor. It was probably really cool a while ago, but now it's pretty touristy and not that great. It was a lot more fun to take a side street and explore another neighborhood, finding a church, or a christmas market, a cute little street, an organic foods grocery store, a cool statue, etc. On Sunday Paige and her friend left early, and I had until about 2pm to myself, so I literally just packed up, strapped on my backpack (w/ belt strap), left the hostel at 10am and just walked around for 4 hours. I walked to the harbor, through a park, to the cathedral, came across some Sardana dances, a christmas/art market, chocolate con churros (okay I searched for that one), and up and down countless more streets until I forced myself on a bus to the airport.

My day alone in Barcelona... not all of my selfies were successful

Also, there was a chocolate museum. My ticket was a chocolate bar.

Chocolate museum!!!

Another one of the best things about this weekend is that I'm going back to Barcelona in 2 weeks with my mom! We kept to pretty chill, cheap things this weekend, so there were a lot of places we didn't get to: museums, inside the Sagrada Familia, Montjüic (nearby mountain), and more.

Okay, time for me to get back to studying and eating chocolate. Peace.