As always, photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/manda_face/
03 marzo 2009
*******Saturday*********
We woke up at 08:30 to get breakfast. The hostel had a pretty nice spread compared to some of the other ones we'd stayed at, and I was able to eat some cereal so I was happy. After eating, we went to walk down La Rambla. Even early in the morning, the street was getting full with vendors selling all kinds of (adorable) pets, thousands of flowers, souvenirs and street performers everywhere. You know those guys who stand on a platform on a sidewalk, have painted themselves gold and stand really still for hours? Think of that, but down entire sections of the street. Also, think of them way more elaborate. Like one guy in a giant bird costume, a couple guys in headless-man costumes and another guy, painted gold of course, sitting on a gold painted bike next to a skeleton lady on another gold painted bike.
We killed a few hours there until the tour our hostel offered in connection with the Travel Bar a few blocks down for free. The tour was supposed to start at 11:30. We waited there with two other girls until close to noon when the girl giving the tour came over to us and said she had to cancel it because not enough people had showed up. Still, she was really nice about it and marked on our map the places she would've taken us. Then she gave us a discount for the pub crawl that night, which worked out pretty well.
It was kind of difficult to tell where we should be going when we actually started walking around the Gothic Quarter though, so we didn't see everything she marked. Still, we're pretty sure we walked down the streets where the Jewish area used to be and saw a few really nice cathedrals and piazzas. After we figured we explored a good amount of it, we headed towards the metro to head up towards some of Gaudi's buildings.
I'd never heard of Gaudi until I did a bit of research about the city before the trip. He's basically a really cool architect that made buildings that look like they're dripping and curving with lots of fluid lines. If I were rich, I would've gone inside all of them too, because they were really fascinating from the outside.
I don't know if Gaudi was like Picasso, where he had some kind of vision problem and just saw things as curvy. Maybe he wasn't a genius architect at all and that really was the way he saw the world, but if that's true then he still saw everything in a really cool way. Plus you have to have some skill to figure out how to make a building look like it's melting but still stay standing through centuries.
We stopped at Sagrada Familia, Casa Milla and Casa Botllo. Sagrada Familia is still unfinished and has been under construction since Gaudi started it some centuries ago. The other casas were similar, but the exteriors were very bendy and looked kind of like they'd been molded from Play-Doh.
We also tried to hit up Park Guell where a whole bunch more of Gaudi's buildings were supposed to be. When we got to the metro stop for it, we saw a sign pointing us towards what we thought was the direction of Park Guell. We saw a giant hill at the top of which was something that looked like it had a lot of trees and plants so we figured it had to be right.
Well, after about a 20 minute trek uphill we ended up at a park called something like the Garden of Tourists. Aka, not Park Guell. We stayed there and looked around for a few minutes. It was pretty, yeah, but it was a small average park. We started to leave and looked to the left. Down another hill, then up another really huge hill, off in the distance we saw Park Guell. We saw the staircases that lined the road to get to it and the ant-sized people headed towards it. It would've been really cool to see, but there was no way Hailey was climbing that hill. I felt bad for making her climb the first one to the wrong park anyway, so we headed back to the metro.
We metroed back towards the hostel and Hailey went back for a nap. I wasn't particularly tired yet, so I figured I'd explore some of the windy streets in the gothic quarter that we'd passed through and had some really awesome looking shops.
I found a Quiksilver, a Vans store that was blasting "One Armed Scissor" by At the Drive-In, and a Claire's that I came this close to buying a new bag from. Other than that, all the stores were names I had never heard of or seen before. One was called "New Yorker" or "New York Style" or something like that and was basically like another H&M.
Before we had arrived in Barcelona, one of the info packets I had been reading said there was a really cool hipster market called El Mercadillo somewhere in the gothic quarter but that it was really hard to find. I don't know if that was a lie or if I just ended up on some really obscure streets, but I walked right past it so of course I went in.
It was set up like a really crowded and smaller version of the Tri-County Flea Market. All the stalls were selling punkish and hipster items. Giant "Palenstino" neckerchiefs were everywhere, for sale and on kids and merchants necks. Gauged earrings, punky bracelets, checkerboards and some really cool clothing brand was everywhere. Barcelona has no shortage of hipsters just walking through the streets, but this market was packed with them and it was definitely where they bought all their stuff.
I didn't buy anything during my stroll, but I think this was the first time I've really enjoyed window shopping. So many of the stores have such cool things that were just really awesome to look at. I need to get back to this city so I can see more of Gaudi's architecture, more of the town in general, and more of the shops in the gothic area.
When I got back to the hostel, Hailey was literally just waking up from her nap. It was around 17:30, still a couple hours too early for dinner. We both sat on our beds filling in postcards we'd bought from a stand the day before. I guess after window shopping I was more tired than I thought, because all of a sudden I woke up on my bed a little after 18:30 not remembering that I'd fallen asleep.
We went out in search of stamps (which we never found) and some food for dinner. We needed to meet at the Travel Bar at 21:30 for the bar crawl and there was a 30 minute Flamenco show we wanted to see at 20:30 beforehand. We walked down to La Rambla again, in the direction of the flamenco show and the Travel Bar.
Hailey considered KFC for dinner while my mouth watered at some of the surprisingly many vegetarian and vegan restaurants in the area (yet another reason I need to go back). In the end, we found a place with three tapas and a drink for 7.90 euro. We got six between us that ended up being all vegetarian, which worked out well for me. I think my favorite way to eat a meal is tapas since you get to try so many different things, and the tapas we had in Barcelona was insanely delicious. And, again, more fantastic sangria, this time made with cava, or champagne.
We found a gelato place near the restaurant and on the way to the flamenco show. I wasn't sure what to expect of gelato in Spain, but it was surprisingly good and pretty close to the quality of the converted ex-bank now-gelateria in Viterbo.
The flamenco show was amazing. The musicians played for about 15 minutes and the dancer came out for the second half of the show. I wish our seats positioned us more so we could've seen the guitar player's hands, because he was incredible at Spanish guitar. I was enthralled and spent most of the time, even after the dancer came on stage, watching him. The girl who was singing had a really shrill voice, which wasn't really pleasing. But the guy who was the other singer had a great stage presence and a really quirky way of moving his shoulders while he clapped his hands. The dancer was also amazing. I tried to imagine how long she must've been dancing to be able to move her feet that quickly.
After the show we went to the pub crawl and had a last delicious sangria as our free drink at the Travel Bar. It was a lot of fun, especially after we met three girls from Vassar who were studying in Paris and on their spring break. We met them at the third bar before the club and hung out with them for the rest of the night. One of them was even from Port Washington, knows Jesse and is family friends with Steven Donnelly. Talk about random, but I love six degrees of separation like that.
We enjoyed our drinks, chatted with the girls we met and danced a bit at the club at the end of the night. I think a guy tried to teach me some salsa dancing at one point but I definitely was not able to follow his feet.
We left late and took the long walk back from Barceloneta to our hostel. We did pass the Columbus statue at the bottom of La Rambla though, so I was glad we had the chance to see that before we left. By the time we got back to the area with the hostel, we were too tired to stop for donor kebabs or felafel or at the caffe our almost-tour guide had told us had amazing, think hot chocolate that they sold with bread to dunk. It's making my mouth water now and is yet another reason I need to get back to Barcelona.
We were back in the hostel around 04:00, enough for about six hours of sleep if we missed breakfast and woke up in time for check-out.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Barcelona: "Ma-ma-ma-myyyy Girona!"
03 marzo 2009
Officially, I am in love with the city of Barcelona. One full day there on Saturday with a flight on Friday afternoon and another back on Sunday afternoon was not nearly enough time to soak in that place. It was gorgeous, it was incredible, it had architecture unlike any of the square (literally and figuratively) buildings in America, it had windy gothic street and some of the coolest stores I've ever seen. If I ever get back to Europe, I'm going back to Barcelona for sure.
******Friday*******
For the first time since I arrived in Viterbo, I woke up when it was still dark outside. At 06:01 a.m., just as I had set it, my alarm went off and began ringing with a sound that's not hard to hate, even if on its own it's not that unpleasant. I had packed the night before, so it was just last minute things; Hailey came to my door at 6:30 and we peaced for the train.
RyanAir has its perks. It's got ridiculously cheap flights that get you relatively close to where you want to go. The problem is in the word "relatively." From Roma, RyanAir only flies out of Ciampino airport. Ciampino is in Roma like Dulles is in DC. Basically, it's not. The same goes for the airport "in" Barcelona, which is actually an hour-and-a-half busride from the city.
So, we took the hour-and-a-half train ride to Rome, rode the metro from three stops away from one end to the last stop at the other (another 40ish minutes), caught a bus from the metro for a 20-minute ride to airport, flew for about an hour 15 minutes, paid 21 euro for a roundtrip ride on the bus from the Girona airport in Spain to Barcelona (1.5 hours each way) and took the metro to our hostel. So what you make up for in cost, you pay for in convenience. Serious lack of convenience.
The hostel was really friendly and lively, but our room consisted of 10 beds, us, one guy who didn't say two words to anyone, a british couple, a german girl, a canadian girl, a really tall blonde girl, two older women probably in their 60s that must've just been bored and traveling, and one bed that never had the same person in it.
We weren't in Barcelona for half an hour when Hailey's everything that can go wrong will go wrong weekend began. Looking for money to pay our tab for the hostel, Hailey realized her wallet was gone. Luckily, all her money hadn't been inside her wallet, so she still had cash for the weekend. Still, she lost her credit card and IDs and we had a fun time trying to cancel her cards and getting through to her parents back home. I have to say though, through it all she kept a really cool head and didn't let it get to her too much.
There was not much else we could do, so we went to walk around and try to keep her mind off it. We walked down a nearby street to a market we'd heard about, which, much like two more markets we saw later, was complete with all kinds of clothes, shoes, accessories and linens lining the outer ring and an insane assortment of fresh foods in the inner part. Viterbo hasn't had grapes (that I've seen, at least) since I've been here. I spotted these enormous purple grapes at one of the stands in the center, so I had to buy them. Soooo worth it.
We walked around a bit more and eventually got back to the hostel. We figured, for dinner we'd just walk around and find one of the places we'd passed that had all looked phenomenal. Meanwhile, we also deduced that the part of the gothic quarter where our hostel was must've also been the middle eastern area, because every other shop was either a fast food place selling donor kebabs or a barber.
We were in Barcelona, after all, so I was hungering for some paella and sangria for dinner. It certainly wasn't difficult. We walked about five minutes before we found a couple that looked good and picked one. Somehow, we ordered ourselves a seafood paella (for me), a paella con carne (for Hailey) and a liter of sangria. For the two of us.
Here's the thing about Barcelona. It's in Spain, but in the Catalan part. As a direct result, they speak mostly Catalan there. I had naively gone to the city excited to use my mediocre at best Spanish from high school. Not only was it way more difficult than I expected to switch my brain off of italian, but then we got to Barcelona to find out nothing was in Spanish anyway. And Catalan, though it has a few words that cross over, is nothing like Spanish. Catalan has words with t's and x's right next to eachother. It has c's with little squiggly lines on the bottom like they have in French. It has nothing that I knew how to pronounce.
So, probably because of the Catalan majority, we ordered quite a bit of sangria. Luckily, our plates also had quite a bit of paella so it evened out. And my stomach was satisfied, because I got my Spanish paella like I'd wanted and some seriously delicious sangria.
We figured, at this point, we'd go check out the nightlife. At the hostel they told us there were quite a few good bars and clubs in Barceloneta, by the beach area. And they were probably right, but not in the area we took the metro to. The stop was pretty dead and we walked around for quite a bit without finding anything that looked promising. Hailey was exhausted anyway, so we headed back to the hostel to sleep in our room that by this point, unfortunately, smelled like feet.
Officially, I am in love with the city of Barcelona. One full day there on Saturday with a flight on Friday afternoon and another back on Sunday afternoon was not nearly enough time to soak in that place. It was gorgeous, it was incredible, it had architecture unlike any of the square (literally and figuratively) buildings in America, it had windy gothic street and some of the coolest stores I've ever seen. If I ever get back to Europe, I'm going back to Barcelona for sure.
******Friday*******
For the first time since I arrived in Viterbo, I woke up when it was still dark outside. At 06:01 a.m., just as I had set it, my alarm went off and began ringing with a sound that's not hard to hate, even if on its own it's not that unpleasant. I had packed the night before, so it was just last minute things; Hailey came to my door at 6:30 and we peaced for the train.
RyanAir has its perks. It's got ridiculously cheap flights that get you relatively close to where you want to go. The problem is in the word "relatively." From Roma, RyanAir only flies out of Ciampino airport. Ciampino is in Roma like Dulles is in DC. Basically, it's not. The same goes for the airport "in" Barcelona, which is actually an hour-and-a-half busride from the city.
So, we took the hour-and-a-half train ride to Rome, rode the metro from three stops away from one end to the last stop at the other (another 40ish minutes), caught a bus from the metro for a 20-minute ride to airport, flew for about an hour 15 minutes, paid 21 euro for a roundtrip ride on the bus from the Girona airport in Spain to Barcelona (1.5 hours each way) and took the metro to our hostel. So what you make up for in cost, you pay for in convenience. Serious lack of convenience.
The hostel was really friendly and lively, but our room consisted of 10 beds, us, one guy who didn't say two words to anyone, a british couple, a german girl, a canadian girl, a really tall blonde girl, two older women probably in their 60s that must've just been bored and traveling, and one bed that never had the same person in it.
We weren't in Barcelona for half an hour when Hailey's everything that can go wrong will go wrong weekend began. Looking for money to pay our tab for the hostel, Hailey realized her wallet was gone. Luckily, all her money hadn't been inside her wallet, so she still had cash for the weekend. Still, she lost her credit card and IDs and we had a fun time trying to cancel her cards and getting through to her parents back home. I have to say though, through it all she kept a really cool head and didn't let it get to her too much.
There was not much else we could do, so we went to walk around and try to keep her mind off it. We walked down a nearby street to a market we'd heard about, which, much like two more markets we saw later, was complete with all kinds of clothes, shoes, accessories and linens lining the outer ring and an insane assortment of fresh foods in the inner part. Viterbo hasn't had grapes (that I've seen, at least) since I've been here. I spotted these enormous purple grapes at one of the stands in the center, so I had to buy them. Soooo worth it.
We walked around a bit more and eventually got back to the hostel. We figured, for dinner we'd just walk around and find one of the places we'd passed that had all looked phenomenal. Meanwhile, we also deduced that the part of the gothic quarter where our hostel was must've also been the middle eastern area, because every other shop was either a fast food place selling donor kebabs or a barber.
We were in Barcelona, after all, so I was hungering for some paella and sangria for dinner. It certainly wasn't difficult. We walked about five minutes before we found a couple that looked good and picked one. Somehow, we ordered ourselves a seafood paella (for me), a paella con carne (for Hailey) and a liter of sangria. For the two of us.
Here's the thing about Barcelona. It's in Spain, but in the Catalan part. As a direct result, they speak mostly Catalan there. I had naively gone to the city excited to use my mediocre at best Spanish from high school. Not only was it way more difficult than I expected to switch my brain off of italian, but then we got to Barcelona to find out nothing was in Spanish anyway. And Catalan, though it has a few words that cross over, is nothing like Spanish. Catalan has words with t's and x's right next to eachother. It has c's with little squiggly lines on the bottom like they have in French. It has nothing that I knew how to pronounce.
So, probably because of the Catalan majority, we ordered quite a bit of sangria. Luckily, our plates also had quite a bit of paella so it evened out. And my stomach was satisfied, because I got my Spanish paella like I'd wanted and some seriously delicious sangria.
We figured, at this point, we'd go check out the nightlife. At the hostel they told us there were quite a few good bars and clubs in Barceloneta, by the beach area. And they were probably right, but not in the area we took the metro to. The stop was pretty dead and we walked around for quite a bit without finding anything that looked promising. Hailey was exhausted anyway, so we headed back to the hostel to sleep in our room that by this point, unfortunately, smelled like feet.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Broken water heaters and lots of food
***piu foto a http://www.flickr.com/photos/manda_face/ !***
Sun 22 Feb 2009
Accomplishments this week: Hours of searching for a show to see in London (as of now still unsuccessful, but Brian and I refuse to give up!); planned a last-minute trip to Barcelona for this coming weekend with Hailey; found out my roommates are actually going to Barcelona that same weekend, as are a few other kids; grated cheese, chopped peppers and tomatoes for fantastic black bean burritos and then potato soup chef'ed by WackyJacky; wore my brain out studying for the Renaissance exam Tuesday that I still need to study more for. Wowza.
So last Tuesday was when I discovered Brian sitting at his computer before our culture class, looking up shows to go see–the same thing I had been doing and spent some time on the weeks before. I told him about my list of shows I'd been writing up and found out he desperately wanted to see the Kaiser Chiefs and Black Kids as well. After class, we spent at least a good two hours trying to work out how we could get to one of their shows, unsuccessfully. But we decided not to give up and instead keep looking for ways to get to that one or find another place where our musical tastes cross and go to that show.
Most of my nights and free time these days is spent in some apartment or other up on the third floor of San Faustino. Usually, it's with Hailey, Jacky, John and Alex. Sometimes though, it's with Amy, Crystal, Fauna, Kim and their whole group. On Friday, after our (surprisingly short) trip to Pienza, Amy and Nicole were celebrating their "birthdays." Neither one was having a birthday here, so they decided to pick a random day, make some burgers and chili fries, and celebrate together. They had told me about it in Venezia, and Friday afternoon I got a call from Amy saying they were going to Ipercoop and asking if they should pick me up a veggie burger. But of course!
I picked up some of these chocolate cookies with little vanilla stars on them that are big here, probably because they taste absolutely incredible, and headed upstairs around 19:30. They were already cooking the chili for the chili cheese fries and putting up my veggie burgers so they didn't mix with the meat (thanks guys!!) i played some card game that, on the box, raved that it was big in the US. None of us had ever heard of it before. It involved French, speed limits, flat tires and traffic lights. All printed on a deck of cards. Go figure, but it was at least as fun as the Uno games where I kept having to draw 10 cards.
The food was so delicious. They had purchased some peppericino cheese for the burgers, which is the best kind I've had since I've been here. The chilifries were just spicy enough, just cheesy enough and not too fried. Spent the night just hanging out in their apartment with Amy, Nicole, Kelly, Brian, Chris, Rob, Crystal, Kayla and Carrie, having a good time.
Other highlights of the week are also based around food and cooking. Cooked dinner twice with Jacky, Hailey and the boys in their apartment; made grilled cheese at least twice, too. Did a pretty decent cheese grating and pepper/tomato chopping job, if I do say so myself. I hadn't thought I'd been craving Mexican food or American food, but during their respective meals, the burritos, potato soup (essentially mashed potatoes) and grilled cheese totally hit the spot.
Completely out of order, but I'm getting tired, the Pienza field trip was okay but not as much as I'd hoped for. We were there for about two hours. It was beautiful, but not more so than Viterbo or any other city I've seen. In fact, some of the streets looked like they were torn out of Viterbo and plopped down in a town two hours away. We took a tour of Piccolomini's palace, led by an entertaining tour guide who must've learned English listening to one of those handheld speakers that you punch numbers into at a museum and they tell you about a painting or an artifact.
Still, the view outside the palace beyond the garden was breathtaking. The chieza next door was pretty impressive too, but couldn't hold a candle to some of the others I've seen. After the tour, they told us we had an hour free for lunch. We walked around for a few minutes and then got some quick sandwiches, thinking we had to meet back because we'd be touring the rest of the town after we ate. Instead, we met back the palace only to be led back onto the buses and taken back to Viterbo.
Saturday consisted of the the first day I've been able to go for a run. I'm definitely out of shape compared to how far I was running at home, but it felt so good. It took me way longer than it should've to find some cheap running sneakers, but Ipercoop finally presented me with some dark brown, stylish kicks that supported my ankles well enough and cost five euro. You know what they say about when opportunity knocks, and now my legs are pleasantly sore from finally getting to run around this town yesterday and today.
Saturday was also a night of going out and celebrating Carnivale in Viterbo. All the bartenders at Blitz were dressed as Greek gods. Others came into the bar to buy drinks dressed as Disney characters and superheroes. At Lucio's, I stole some guy's hat to take a picture in it (don't worry, he got it back after) and we made a friend named Ned, a high school junior from Boston who was also studying in Viterbo. I marvel at anyone who's able to study abroad in high school, but I'm still much happier that I got to do it in college. I think I appreciate it more than I might've back then.
A very fun Saturday night, a very fun (or at least, eventful) most nights this week and weekend spent in Viterbo. To look forward to in the coming week: much stress tomorrow concerning my housing in Commons for next year and the big exam I have on Tuesday; and plans to plan out for Barcelona.
Ci vediamo, blog!
Sun 22 Feb 2009
Accomplishments this week: Hours of searching for a show to see in London (as of now still unsuccessful, but Brian and I refuse to give up!); planned a last-minute trip to Barcelona for this coming weekend with Hailey; found out my roommates are actually going to Barcelona that same weekend, as are a few other kids; grated cheese, chopped peppers and tomatoes for fantastic black bean burritos and then potato soup chef'ed by WackyJacky; wore my brain out studying for the Renaissance exam Tuesday that I still need to study more for. Wowza.
So last Tuesday was when I discovered Brian sitting at his computer before our culture class, looking up shows to go see–the same thing I had been doing and spent some time on the weeks before. I told him about my list of shows I'd been writing up and found out he desperately wanted to see the Kaiser Chiefs and Black Kids as well. After class, we spent at least a good two hours trying to work out how we could get to one of their shows, unsuccessfully. But we decided not to give up and instead keep looking for ways to get to that one or find another place where our musical tastes cross and go to that show.
Most of my nights and free time these days is spent in some apartment or other up on the third floor of San Faustino. Usually, it's with Hailey, Jacky, John and Alex. Sometimes though, it's with Amy, Crystal, Fauna, Kim and their whole group. On Friday, after our (surprisingly short) trip to Pienza, Amy and Nicole were celebrating their "birthdays." Neither one was having a birthday here, so they decided to pick a random day, make some burgers and chili fries, and celebrate together. They had told me about it in Venezia, and Friday afternoon I got a call from Amy saying they were going to Ipercoop and asking if they should pick me up a veggie burger. But of course!
I picked up some of these chocolate cookies with little vanilla stars on them that are big here, probably because they taste absolutely incredible, and headed upstairs around 19:30. They were already cooking the chili for the chili cheese fries and putting up my veggie burgers so they didn't mix with the meat (thanks guys!!) i played some card game that, on the box, raved that it was big in the US. None of us had ever heard of it before. It involved French, speed limits, flat tires and traffic lights. All printed on a deck of cards. Go figure, but it was at least as fun as the Uno games where I kept having to draw 10 cards.
The food was so delicious. They had purchased some peppericino cheese for the burgers, which is the best kind I've had since I've been here. The chilifries were just spicy enough, just cheesy enough and not too fried. Spent the night just hanging out in their apartment with Amy, Nicole, Kelly, Brian, Chris, Rob, Crystal, Kayla and Carrie, having a good time.
Other highlights of the week are also based around food and cooking. Cooked dinner twice with Jacky, Hailey and the boys in their apartment; made grilled cheese at least twice, too. Did a pretty decent cheese grating and pepper/tomato chopping job, if I do say so myself. I hadn't thought I'd been craving Mexican food or American food, but during their respective meals, the burritos, potato soup (essentially mashed potatoes) and grilled cheese totally hit the spot.
Completely out of order, but I'm getting tired, the Pienza field trip was okay but not as much as I'd hoped for. We were there for about two hours. It was beautiful, but not more so than Viterbo or any other city I've seen. In fact, some of the streets looked like they were torn out of Viterbo and plopped down in a town two hours away. We took a tour of Piccolomini's palace, led by an entertaining tour guide who must've learned English listening to one of those handheld speakers that you punch numbers into at a museum and they tell you about a painting or an artifact.
Still, the view outside the palace beyond the garden was breathtaking. The chieza next door was pretty impressive too, but couldn't hold a candle to some of the others I've seen. After the tour, they told us we had an hour free for lunch. We walked around for a few minutes and then got some quick sandwiches, thinking we had to meet back because we'd be touring the rest of the town after we ate. Instead, we met back the palace only to be led back onto the buses and taken back to Viterbo.
Saturday consisted of the the first day I've been able to go for a run. I'm definitely out of shape compared to how far I was running at home, but it felt so good. It took me way longer than it should've to find some cheap running sneakers, but Ipercoop finally presented me with some dark brown, stylish kicks that supported my ankles well enough and cost five euro. You know what they say about when opportunity knocks, and now my legs are pleasantly sore from finally getting to run around this town yesterday and today.
Saturday was also a night of going out and celebrating Carnivale in Viterbo. All the bartenders at Blitz were dressed as Greek gods. Others came into the bar to buy drinks dressed as Disney characters and superheroes. At Lucio's, I stole some guy's hat to take a picture in it (don't worry, he got it back after) and we made a friend named Ned, a high school junior from Boston who was also studying in Viterbo. I marvel at anyone who's able to study abroad in high school, but I'm still much happier that I got to do it in college. I think I appreciate it more than I might've back then.
A very fun Saturday night, a very fun (or at least, eventful) most nights this week and weekend spent in Viterbo. To look forward to in the coming week: much stress tomorrow concerning my housing in Commons for next year and the big exam I have on Tuesday; and plans to plan out for Barcelona.
Ci vediamo, blog!
"Amanda's Weekend in Venice" by Rod Sterling: Fin
Sun 22 Feb 2009
******Saturday*******
When I got back to the hostel Friday night, the Arizona girls were already asleep. By the time I got up in the morning, they were gone. So I changed out of my "I came. I saw. I crawled" shirt that I got for free from prior Roma weekend festivities, called up Amy and that group, and wound my way back towards San Marco to meet them.
Venezia on a Carnivale day is not Venezia at 5 a.m. the day before a Carnivale day. Every awkward, hidden side street we had quietly and serenely wound our way through the day before was sardine-packed with people. I couldn't even tell I was on a bridge as I crossed the Ponte Rialto; it looked like just another packed street lined with tiny shops filled with vendors and Murano glass jewelry. I watched the price tags in the store windows roll up and down like a wave, depending how close they were to populated areas and how high a cost they figured they could get away with. It was sunny, warm and gorgeous out, but it was hardly the Venezia I fell in love with the morning before. The island certainly has it's beauty, but Fiorenze quickly regained it's position as my number one city so far.
I couldn't stand the crowds everywhere. It took five minutes to walk through a street that took me half the time the day before. I was looking forward to visiting Murano, if for nothing else than a hope to get away from the ridiculous masses.
San Marco was no better. The ground of the piazza was no longer visible, instead covered with thousands of sneaker-footed tourists. The line to get inside the basilica must've been at least a quarter-mile long, no joke. And yet, the line at the tourist office to buy a ticket for the water taxi, that took me at least 20 minutes the day before, took less than five today. Go figure.
The ride to Murano on the water was beautiful, but the boat was just as packed as the land had been. Our legs, that had adjusted to the sea surprisingly quickly, struggled to learn the land again as we had them follow a mass of people we hoped would lead us to a glass-making demonstration. And exactly that they did.
We figured we'd just follow the large group that seemed to be headed down the road to the right of the water bus and found ourselves herded into a small room with risers on one side and a giant kiln roped off on the other. I had just pictured the glass-making demo as everyone taking their turn looking through a window as some guys on the other side formed glass necklaces and plates. Instead, we got a real five-minute tour. One Italiano lectured and explained as another, the "master," formed a vase and then a horse from a lump of 600-degree Fahrenheit glass. It actually was truly masterful and really impressive, especially done right in front of us. Then, of course, we were herded into the rooms of the purchasable glass, with tons of "special Carnivale sales."
Rob was the only one to buy glass in Murano–more or less the same things were available for way cheaper in Venezia–but I came pretty close to purchasing a few glass jewelry pieces that were unlike what I'd seen on the island. Instead, we enjoyed the sun and warmth that had become pretty foreign to Viterbo, bought some panini, and had ourselves a picnic-y lunch with our legs dangling over the water.
Back in Venezia, we did our shopping from the street vendors next to the Grand Canal by San Marco. I broke down and paid 10 euro for a painting, but I still love the one I got and don't regret it so I'd say it was worth it. Then the rest went back to their rented apartment to cook some dinner and I met up with Hana, who had stayed in Venezia while the group she had been with went over to Murano to take a tour of the glass-making as well.
At this point, as men on stilts wearing giant silver costumes, walking through the crowd to sounds of squawking and performing a dinosaur parade (and nearly knocking people over if they didn't get out of the way fast enough, myself included), I was reminded by Alex Simone that it was Valentine's Day. Through being in Venezia and all the crazyness of opening celebrations for Carnivale, I had completely forgotten. In true girl fashion, Hana and I decided to be eachothers Valentines and proceeded to shell out of big bucks and buy two scoops of gelato for two euro each. Totally worth it.
After we walked around for a bit, Hana went to meet up with the others back from Murano for dinner and I headed back to the hostel to change for the night. In the end, it's kind of a shame that I did–I kept my sweatshirt on basically the whole time and my pirate-y. gypsy-y Carnivale shirt was pretty much constantly covered up anyway. Still, getting ready is half the fun.
I returned back to the room to find my roommates from Viterbo just returning as well. They had been down by San Marco, decided not enough was going on, and figured they'd turn in for the night. I tried to encourage them to head out a bit later since it was still pretty early, but I guess they were pretty decked out from the day. I headed out, met with Simone, Derek, Nick, Aaron and Katia for some dinner that took quite longer than it should've, and by about the 22.5th hour, we headed towards San Marco.
We must've taken a long way around, because we picked up Alex and Coreen on the way and ended up passing Santa Margarita, which isn't really in the vicinity of on the way to San Marco from where we'd come from. We stopped for a beer and a toast at the big stand in the middle of the piazza and ventured onwards. By the time we got to San Marco there were few people and even less of a celebration. But our group was still there, all masked, dressed and confettied, and I had my own can of Silly String I'd picked up at Ipercoop before we left. We later found out Carnivale didn't technically start until noon on Sunday, so that explained the lack of celebration and crazyness we all expected. But it was still a Saturday night, confetti was everywhere, it was Venezia! Onwards we went, back towards Santa Margarita, searching for, as Simone put it, "Dov'e woo-woo?!"
Though it lacked the insanity and mystery we all hoped for from Carnivale, it was still an excellent night out. Kally and Seul had joined up with the group who had spun fire in San Marco (a demonstration that I had missed, but wanted to see). The group had made their way to Santa Margarita, towards a new group to spin fire for. But they weren't the only ones who did it–Kally had some experience with it herself and took her turn spinning fire around. Mad impressive, and the makings for some pretty good photos.
Though we didn't really meet any Italians or really anyone outside our USAC group that night, it was still an excellent night made even better by glittery masks. Sunday was uneventful, consisting mostly of waiting for trains and then sleeping on them on the way back to Viterbo, content with a good Carnivale weekend.
******Saturday*******
When I got back to the hostel Friday night, the Arizona girls were already asleep. By the time I got up in the morning, they were gone. So I changed out of my "I came. I saw. I crawled" shirt that I got for free from prior Roma weekend festivities, called up Amy and that group, and wound my way back towards San Marco to meet them.
Venezia on a Carnivale day is not Venezia at 5 a.m. the day before a Carnivale day. Every awkward, hidden side street we had quietly and serenely wound our way through the day before was sardine-packed with people. I couldn't even tell I was on a bridge as I crossed the Ponte Rialto; it looked like just another packed street lined with tiny shops filled with vendors and Murano glass jewelry. I watched the price tags in the store windows roll up and down like a wave, depending how close they were to populated areas and how high a cost they figured they could get away with. It was sunny, warm and gorgeous out, but it was hardly the Venezia I fell in love with the morning before. The island certainly has it's beauty, but Fiorenze quickly regained it's position as my number one city so far.
I couldn't stand the crowds everywhere. It took five minutes to walk through a street that took me half the time the day before. I was looking forward to visiting Murano, if for nothing else than a hope to get away from the ridiculous masses.
San Marco was no better. The ground of the piazza was no longer visible, instead covered with thousands of sneaker-footed tourists. The line to get inside the basilica must've been at least a quarter-mile long, no joke. And yet, the line at the tourist office to buy a ticket for the water taxi, that took me at least 20 minutes the day before, took less than five today. Go figure.
The ride to Murano on the water was beautiful, but the boat was just as packed as the land had been. Our legs, that had adjusted to the sea surprisingly quickly, struggled to learn the land again as we had them follow a mass of people we hoped would lead us to a glass-making demonstration. And exactly that they did.
We figured we'd just follow the large group that seemed to be headed down the road to the right of the water bus and found ourselves herded into a small room with risers on one side and a giant kiln roped off on the other. I had just pictured the glass-making demo as everyone taking their turn looking through a window as some guys on the other side formed glass necklaces and plates. Instead, we got a real five-minute tour. One Italiano lectured and explained as another, the "master," formed a vase and then a horse from a lump of 600-degree Fahrenheit glass. It actually was truly masterful and really impressive, especially done right in front of us. Then, of course, we were herded into the rooms of the purchasable glass, with tons of "special Carnivale sales."
Rob was the only one to buy glass in Murano–more or less the same things were available for way cheaper in Venezia–but I came pretty close to purchasing a few glass jewelry pieces that were unlike what I'd seen on the island. Instead, we enjoyed the sun and warmth that had become pretty foreign to Viterbo, bought some panini, and had ourselves a picnic-y lunch with our legs dangling over the water.
Back in Venezia, we did our shopping from the street vendors next to the Grand Canal by San Marco. I broke down and paid 10 euro for a painting, but I still love the one I got and don't regret it so I'd say it was worth it. Then the rest went back to their rented apartment to cook some dinner and I met up with Hana, who had stayed in Venezia while the group she had been with went over to Murano to take a tour of the glass-making as well.
At this point, as men on stilts wearing giant silver costumes, walking through the crowd to sounds of squawking and performing a dinosaur parade (and nearly knocking people over if they didn't get out of the way fast enough, myself included), I was reminded by Alex Simone that it was Valentine's Day. Through being in Venezia and all the crazyness of opening celebrations for Carnivale, I had completely forgotten. In true girl fashion, Hana and I decided to be eachothers Valentines and proceeded to shell out of big bucks and buy two scoops of gelato for two euro each. Totally worth it.
After we walked around for a bit, Hana went to meet up with the others back from Murano for dinner and I headed back to the hostel to change for the night. In the end, it's kind of a shame that I did–I kept my sweatshirt on basically the whole time and my pirate-y. gypsy-y Carnivale shirt was pretty much constantly covered up anyway. Still, getting ready is half the fun.
I returned back to the room to find my roommates from Viterbo just returning as well. They had been down by San Marco, decided not enough was going on, and figured they'd turn in for the night. I tried to encourage them to head out a bit later since it was still pretty early, but I guess they were pretty decked out from the day. I headed out, met with Simone, Derek, Nick, Aaron and Katia for some dinner that took quite longer than it should've, and by about the 22.5th hour, we headed towards San Marco.
We must've taken a long way around, because we picked up Alex and Coreen on the way and ended up passing Santa Margarita, which isn't really in the vicinity of on the way to San Marco from where we'd come from. We stopped for a beer and a toast at the big stand in the middle of the piazza and ventured onwards. By the time we got to San Marco there were few people and even less of a celebration. But our group was still there, all masked, dressed and confettied, and I had my own can of Silly String I'd picked up at Ipercoop before we left. We later found out Carnivale didn't technically start until noon on Sunday, so that explained the lack of celebration and crazyness we all expected. But it was still a Saturday night, confetti was everywhere, it was Venezia! Onwards we went, back towards Santa Margarita, searching for, as Simone put it, "Dov'e woo-woo?!"
Though it lacked the insanity and mystery we all hoped for from Carnivale, it was still an excellent night out. Kally and Seul had joined up with the group who had spun fire in San Marco (a demonstration that I had missed, but wanted to see). The group had made their way to Santa Margarita, towards a new group to spin fire for. But they weren't the only ones who did it–Kally had some experience with it herself and took her turn spinning fire around. Mad impressive, and the makings for some pretty good photos.
Though we didn't really meet any Italians or really anyone outside our USAC group that night, it was still an excellent night made even better by glittery masks. Sunday was uneventful, consisting mostly of waiting for trains and then sleeping on them on the way back to Viterbo, content with a good Carnivale weekend.
"Amanda's Weekend in Venice" by Rod Sterling: Part III of ?
Sun 22 Feb 2009
********Friday afternoon/night*******
In a very necessary fashion, we napped. Though we had gone separate ways after we found San Marco, all of us were in some dire need of sleep after a restless train ride and walking around since 5 a.m. in the Twilight Zone. The only problem with our room was that with the windows on the balcony closed, it was nearly pitch black no matter what the time of day was. One of the girls set her alarm for about two hours after we slept. I felt like I could sleep at least another eight when it went off, but I knew if I didn't get up then, I never would.
I quietly snuck out of the room while the other girls (I was in a room with the ones from Arizona) continued their nap. I wanted to see the Jewish ghetto while I was here, and with tomorrow being Saturday and us leaving around 11 a.m. Sunday, Friday before sundown was my only chance to do it.
It was a little after 16:00 when I left the apartment to walk over to the ghetto. The sun was still out, but much lower in the still cloudless sky and getting ready to set. I checked the map before I left, and that's it–much like the positive side of the Twilight Zone for the rest of the weekend, every time I walked somewhere solo I somehow found my way quite speedily, with little to no map-aid, and no (that I know of) wrong turns.
There wasn't much in the ghetto novo. A kosher restaurant with a good looking menu had a prime location right near the entrance. The big Campo de Ghetto Novo was filled with young children playing and their parents chatting on the side, which was simple and quaint to watch for a bit. A door near the synagogue had a mezuzah on it, leading me to believe it was the apartment of some Jewish family. And I didn't get to see the part that I really wanted, which was inside the synagogue.
By the time I got to it, people were already starting to arrive for Friday night services. Thinking back now, maybe I could've gone in and stayed for it, but at the time I felt too underdressed in my jeans and sweatshirt and too awkward to enter.
I took my time getting back to my apartment, enjoying the bustling island preparing for pre-Carnivale celebrations. I got back in through four sets of keys, enjoyed the heated floor, changed, and went to meet Amy, Chris, Nicole, Kelly and Rob for a sushi place supposedly located near Accademia.
As I mentioned, getting anywhere was, for some reason, cake for me. To bigger places like Accademia, randomly placed and often hidden signs on some streets helped direct me.
It was probably about 45 minutes after I got to the bridge near Accademia when the rest of them arrived. Uselessly, I had power-walked there, thinking it would be the other way around. Who knows why my sense of direction became super keen in Venice, but somehow it worked.
We walked a couple unsuccessful blocks looking for the sushi place when Amy took out her Blackberry to Google it. The search engine gave us a phone number, an address halfway across the island and a menu that said dinner for two cost 80 euro. So we scrapped that plan, picked a direction and walked in it. The Blackberry told us tales of supposed cheap restaurants, but in Venezia, especially during Carnivale, that's more of a yeah, right. But, thanks to Rob's growling stomach, we eagle-eyed a restaurant set a bit further back in a dead end street with decent prices. And, as we soon ate and discovered, more than decent food and a pretty awesome vino rosso della casa.
The rest were pretty tired after dinner though, so we went our separate ways. I hoped whatever sense of direction that somehow appeared within my being would guide me back to the hostel the same way it had guided me to Accademia. Well, it worked on some level–I bumped right into Aaron on the way back and found myself in the middle of Santa Margarita, where pretty much everyone else was meeting up that night.
Nick and Derek were already at a table outside Orange, a bar filled with foreigners spending the weekend at Carnivale. Out of nowhere appeared, in no particular order, just about everyone else from Viterbo. We spent the night hopping around the bars in Santa Margarita, enjoying the night of going out pre-Carnivale festivities.
********Friday afternoon/night*******
In a very necessary fashion, we napped. Though we had gone separate ways after we found San Marco, all of us were in some dire need of sleep after a restless train ride and walking around since 5 a.m. in the Twilight Zone. The only problem with our room was that with the windows on the balcony closed, it was nearly pitch black no matter what the time of day was. One of the girls set her alarm for about two hours after we slept. I felt like I could sleep at least another eight when it went off, but I knew if I didn't get up then, I never would.
I quietly snuck out of the room while the other girls (I was in a room with the ones from Arizona) continued their nap. I wanted to see the Jewish ghetto while I was here, and with tomorrow being Saturday and us leaving around 11 a.m. Sunday, Friday before sundown was my only chance to do it.
It was a little after 16:00 when I left the apartment to walk over to the ghetto. The sun was still out, but much lower in the still cloudless sky and getting ready to set. I checked the map before I left, and that's it–much like the positive side of the Twilight Zone for the rest of the weekend, every time I walked somewhere solo I somehow found my way quite speedily, with little to no map-aid, and no (that I know of) wrong turns.
There wasn't much in the ghetto novo. A kosher restaurant with a good looking menu had a prime location right near the entrance. The big Campo de Ghetto Novo was filled with young children playing and their parents chatting on the side, which was simple and quaint to watch for a bit. A door near the synagogue had a mezuzah on it, leading me to believe it was the apartment of some Jewish family. And I didn't get to see the part that I really wanted, which was inside the synagogue.
By the time I got to it, people were already starting to arrive for Friday night services. Thinking back now, maybe I could've gone in and stayed for it, but at the time I felt too underdressed in my jeans and sweatshirt and too awkward to enter.
I took my time getting back to my apartment, enjoying the bustling island preparing for pre-Carnivale celebrations. I got back in through four sets of keys, enjoyed the heated floor, changed, and went to meet Amy, Chris, Nicole, Kelly and Rob for a sushi place supposedly located near Accademia.
As I mentioned, getting anywhere was, for some reason, cake for me. To bigger places like Accademia, randomly placed and often hidden signs on some streets helped direct me.
It was probably about 45 minutes after I got to the bridge near Accademia when the rest of them arrived. Uselessly, I had power-walked there, thinking it would be the other way around. Who knows why my sense of direction became super keen in Venice, but somehow it worked.
We walked a couple unsuccessful blocks looking for the sushi place when Amy took out her Blackberry to Google it. The search engine gave us a phone number, an address halfway across the island and a menu that said dinner for two cost 80 euro. So we scrapped that plan, picked a direction and walked in it. The Blackberry told us tales of supposed cheap restaurants, but in Venezia, especially during Carnivale, that's more of a yeah, right. But, thanks to Rob's growling stomach, we eagle-eyed a restaurant set a bit further back in a dead end street with decent prices. And, as we soon ate and discovered, more than decent food and a pretty awesome vino rosso della casa.
The rest were pretty tired after dinner though, so we went our separate ways. I hoped whatever sense of direction that somehow appeared within my being would guide me back to the hostel the same way it had guided me to Accademia. Well, it worked on some level–I bumped right into Aaron on the way back and found myself in the middle of Santa Margarita, where pretty much everyone else was meeting up that night.
Nick and Derek were already at a table outside Orange, a bar filled with foreigners spending the weekend at Carnivale. Out of nowhere appeared, in no particular order, just about everyone else from Viterbo. We spent the night hopping around the bars in Santa Margarita, enjoying the night of going out pre-Carnivale festivities.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
"Amanda's Weekend in Venice" by Rod Sterling: Part II of ?
Wed 18 Feb 2009
*****Friday: continued*******
Walking through Venezia at 6 a.m. was pretty surreal. When we figured out the business with the Twilight Zone Train (no one understood exactly what went down, but the kids stuck at Mestre found a connecting train that got them to the island from the mainland about 20 minutes later), our giant mass began to head through the streets of Venezia towards the other side of the island and San Marco. Why not?
On one of the windy canal-lined streets, in the dark, an intense aroma of fresh baked bread surrounded us. Chris, Amy and I slowed when we smelled it, but the others kept their pace. Could this be a middle-of-the-night bread-baking facility, with insanely delicious pane much like we find at 3 a.m. in Viterbo? Well, we were hungry, it was around 6 a.m. on an island tourist city that we knew nearly nothing about, so we figured, why not knock on the door and see if they'll sell us some bread?
The others were a bit ahead, but we knocked. A woman in a bob and an apron answered.
"Posso comprare pane?" Chris asked.
"Si si!" the woman replied.
A loaf of their version of pane bianca was 40 cents. It was hard on the outside–we're pretty sure we got older bread and not the ones we were smelling–but soft, fresh and baked with salt on the inside. And since the bread in Viterbo is almost 100% not made with salt, this was a welcome change. And a delicious breakfast.
After walking for quite some time, we made it to the Ponte Rialto. When I got back to this bridge on Saturday, I could barely believe it was the same place. On Friday, less than an hour before sunrise, we were the only souls on the entire massive bridge. All the stores were shut with their gates pulled down, made to look as though they didn't even exist there. The photos we shot of the view from the bridge (now up on Flickr!) were of a silent, peaceful, cloudless morning. The only people moving down below were quiet, not quite yet awake and on their ways to work.
After a pause on the bridge to take in the scenery and our bearings, we continued towards San Marco. It must have been less than 10 minutes before we arrived there, and it was gorgeous. The sun was just starting to rise and it's light was casting long shadows on certain parts of the building while illuminating others. The gold and blues built into the architecture were glowing from the sunlight, and a few pink street lamps that were shut off for the daytime appeared illuminated. We photographed San Marco, the piazza, the Doge palace. But the true sight was when we walked to the edge of the street where the Grand Canal started.
The sky had been quite light by this point, so I assumed the sun had already risen a decent amount. But as we turned the corner by the canal, we saw that yellow orb that you shouldn't look directly into peeking just over the edge of the horizon. It was fantastic. In that moment, Venezia became my favorite city. I love sunrises more than sunsets; they just seem more special, more promising. In that moment, I wanted to hug everyone. I was so happy to be in Venezia and my day was pretty much complete at that point.
We spent quite a few hours in that area by the canal after that. Chris, Amy, Nicole, Kelly and I found a table near a cafe on the canal, intermittently snoozing and basking in the sun and cloudless sky until the San Marco basilica opened at 9:45 a.m. It was a good thing we had been there to see it when we did, because even before 10 a.m. a decent sized line had already formed in front of it. Had we gone back on Saturday, with the line I saw then that must have been at least a quarter mile long, no joke, there's no way we would've gotten inside.
We didn't pay the euros to go upstairs, but the free view from looking on the ground floor was astonishing. The entire ceiling and much of the walls are covered in a mostly golf mosaic filled with biblical scenes and figures. We walked through, following the path created by the roped-off sections, with our heads tilted upwards the entire time, gazing with awe. I think I've said this about all the big churches I've been in so far, but it was absolutely incredible.
We spent a bit after that walking by some of the stands selling souvenirs by the canal and in the piazza. Most of the offerings were masks (for much cheaper than I had bought mine in Roma, of course) and lots of jewelry and other art made from Murano glass. On Saturday I finally broke down and bought a painting near the Grand Canal of San Marco for 10 euro, but it was worth it.
Around noon I met up with Kayla, Karrie and the other girls I was staying with to take the water bus back to the other side of the island and check into our hostel. Let's just sum up this part as a huge disappointment. Our "bed and breakfast" that a communication breakdown had lead me to believe was 25 euro a night turned out to be a 40 euro a night set of rooms within an apartment in a different location from where we checked in, shared with other people we didn't know and I saw only once, and "breakfast" was a basket full of cracker-bread, honey, the tiny containers of peach jam set on the table for you at IHOP, and a couple bags of tea and instant coffee. Suffice it to say I wasn't thrilled and I took most of the offerings back to Viterbo with me, mostly out of spite. Oh, and the bathroom for the room I was staying in was across the hall and required a separate key.
*****Friday: continued*******
Walking through Venezia at 6 a.m. was pretty surreal. When we figured out the business with the Twilight Zone Train (no one understood exactly what went down, but the kids stuck at Mestre found a connecting train that got them to the island from the mainland about 20 minutes later), our giant mass began to head through the streets of Venezia towards the other side of the island and San Marco. Why not?
On one of the windy canal-lined streets, in the dark, an intense aroma of fresh baked bread surrounded us. Chris, Amy and I slowed when we smelled it, but the others kept their pace. Could this be a middle-of-the-night bread-baking facility, with insanely delicious pane much like we find at 3 a.m. in Viterbo? Well, we were hungry, it was around 6 a.m. on an island tourist city that we knew nearly nothing about, so we figured, why not knock on the door and see if they'll sell us some bread?
The others were a bit ahead, but we knocked. A woman in a bob and an apron answered.
"Posso comprare pane?" Chris asked.
"Si si!" the woman replied.
A loaf of their version of pane bianca was 40 cents. It was hard on the outside–we're pretty sure we got older bread and not the ones we were smelling–but soft, fresh and baked with salt on the inside. And since the bread in Viterbo is almost 100% not made with salt, this was a welcome change. And a delicious breakfast.
After walking for quite some time, we made it to the Ponte Rialto. When I got back to this bridge on Saturday, I could barely believe it was the same place. On Friday, less than an hour before sunrise, we were the only souls on the entire massive bridge. All the stores were shut with their gates pulled down, made to look as though they didn't even exist there. The photos we shot of the view from the bridge (now up on Flickr!) were of a silent, peaceful, cloudless morning. The only people moving down below were quiet, not quite yet awake and on their ways to work.
After a pause on the bridge to take in the scenery and our bearings, we continued towards San Marco. It must have been less than 10 minutes before we arrived there, and it was gorgeous. The sun was just starting to rise and it's light was casting long shadows on certain parts of the building while illuminating others. The gold and blues built into the architecture were glowing from the sunlight, and a few pink street lamps that were shut off for the daytime appeared illuminated. We photographed San Marco, the piazza, the Doge palace. But the true sight was when we walked to the edge of the street where the Grand Canal started.
The sky had been quite light by this point, so I assumed the sun had already risen a decent amount. But as we turned the corner by the canal, we saw that yellow orb that you shouldn't look directly into peeking just over the edge of the horizon. It was fantastic. In that moment, Venezia became my favorite city. I love sunrises more than sunsets; they just seem more special, more promising. In that moment, I wanted to hug everyone. I was so happy to be in Venezia and my day was pretty much complete at that point.
We spent quite a few hours in that area by the canal after that. Chris, Amy, Nicole, Kelly and I found a table near a cafe on the canal, intermittently snoozing and basking in the sun and cloudless sky until the San Marco basilica opened at 9:45 a.m. It was a good thing we had been there to see it when we did, because even before 10 a.m. a decent sized line had already formed in front of it. Had we gone back on Saturday, with the line I saw then that must have been at least a quarter mile long, no joke, there's no way we would've gotten inside.
We didn't pay the euros to go upstairs, but the free view from looking on the ground floor was astonishing. The entire ceiling and much of the walls are covered in a mostly golf mosaic filled with biblical scenes and figures. We walked through, following the path created by the roped-off sections, with our heads tilted upwards the entire time, gazing with awe. I think I've said this about all the big churches I've been in so far, but it was absolutely incredible.
We spent a bit after that walking by some of the stands selling souvenirs by the canal and in the piazza. Most of the offerings were masks (for much cheaper than I had bought mine in Roma, of course) and lots of jewelry and other art made from Murano glass. On Saturday I finally broke down and bought a painting near the Grand Canal of San Marco for 10 euro, but it was worth it.
Around noon I met up with Kayla, Karrie and the other girls I was staying with to take the water bus back to the other side of the island and check into our hostel. Let's just sum up this part as a huge disappointment. Our "bed and breakfast" that a communication breakdown had lead me to believe was 25 euro a night turned out to be a 40 euro a night set of rooms within an apartment in a different location from where we checked in, shared with other people we didn't know and I saw only once, and "breakfast" was a basket full of cracker-bread, honey, the tiny containers of peach jam set on the table for you at IHOP, and a couple bags of tea and instant coffee. Suffice it to say I wasn't thrilled and I took most of the offerings back to Viterbo with me, mostly out of spite. Oh, and the bathroom for the room I was staying in was across the hall and required a separate key.
"Amanda's Weekend in Venice" by Rod Sterling
This has taken forever to write up and post, and it's not even done yet. As you'll gather from the title of this blog, I had a weekend (and a following Monday) straight out of the Twilight Zone, to it's taken some time to get up on the internetz.
When we got back from Venice, we came home to a freezing apartment. What must've happened was the pipes froze, because about five minutes after we turned on the heat that had been shut off for the weekend, the water heater started pouring water out of it. And I'm not talking a few drips–I'm saying it might as well have been the faucet in our kitchen sink, because it was giving our closet and kitchen a pretty epic one-inch flood.
So we went the next days without heat. I slept the first night wishing for one of those mummy sleeping bags while trying my darndest to huddle under the thin blankets on my bed. I slept the next night on the couch upstairs from the hospitality of the girls and guys living in that haunted apartment. But that ghost is another story.
So anyway, it's not nearly finished yet and it's long and crazy as anything, but here's part I of my Twilight Zone weekend:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sun 15 Feb 2009
This weekend of my study abroad experience I spent in the Twilight Zone. You might've heard to it referred to as Venezia, Venice and/or Carnivale.
It only just dawned on me now that perhaps Friday was so freaky because it was Friday the 13th. That's not supposed to be s superstitiously dangerous day here in Italy, but my weekend begs to differ.
*********Thursday/Friday*********
Piu o meno, I can't tell you where these days started and ended. They're basically moshed together because of the chronology and Twilight Zoneyness.
We left on the first train around 19:00. Simple enough. What was supposed to be an hour and a half layover at the first stop became a five minute one that resulted in me downing my chioccolato caldo and burned tastebuds that still remain in my mouth.
Since layover no. 1 was so short, layover no. 2 lasted a little over three hours before we could catch the sleeper train that would bring us to Venezia. This time was spent finding a bathroom, buying a slice of pizza because we felt bad for using the pizzeria's bagno, at least two hours of card games at the train station, and an unnecessarily long amount of waiting outside in bitter cold for the train. Sounds normal enough. But then, that's how all episodes of the Twilight Zone start, no?
We were split up on the third and last train in sleeper cabins that were nearly entirely too dark to see and filled with people already sleeping. We rushed onto the train car nearest to where we waited, impatient to get out of the cold. The first cabin I see has seat number 121, the number listed on my ticket. That was lucky, I thought, to end up right in front of my seat. I opened the cabin door. Inside were six seats, three filled with three heads of sleeping people and the other three filled with six feet of said sleeping people. Great, I now thought, my cabin is completely full. All the other ones in the car were in the same state. I later discovered that the seat numbers are the same in all the cars and that I was in the wrong car. In fact, my seat was a few cars down in a cabin with Kayla, Karrie and an empty seat where my butt should've been.
Luckily, an older italiano with graying hair and a baseball cap noticed I was standing in between cars looking for a place to sit and I conveyed to him in fractured Italian that my seat had a tush in it. He told me to come with him and found us both seats in a mostly empty car. He also put my giant travel backpack above on the luggage rack for me. I probably said grazie about a thousand times, but I doubt he knew how thankful I really was to him for helping me so I wasn't standing in the aisle of a train car all night.
The cabin we entered had two people in it. It was dark, but I looked over at the one two seats to my right. I had to do a double-take–I thought the kid, who looked about college-age and had very short, very dark hair, was the Alex that lives above me in San Faustino. I was about to say hi and I realized it couldn't be him because I had seen him in a full cabin in the last car I'd been in. I didn't say two words to the kid, but I couldn't believe I was sitting almost next to his Italian evil twin.
The other uomo in the train car, another middle-aged man with dark hair and the beginnings of a potbelly, I assumed was Twilight Zone Alex's dad and they were traveling together. That idea went out the window when Twilight Zone Alex left the train around 04:30, a few stops after the man who had helped me find the seat. I started talking to this last man, who I had assumed was Italian. It was dark, so I had no way to know until he told me that he was from Bangladesh and working in Italy sending money back to his family. We had a small conversation in Italian/English where I was just grateful to practice some foreign language conversational skills. Then Twilight Zone Bangladesh man asked if he could take a photo with me when I told him I was from New York. I was glad my stop was a few after that so I could get out of Twilight Zone Train.
I figured my Twilight Zone night would end right there, at 05:26 in cold, dark train station of Venezia. A whole horde of USAC kids had taken the same trains this night and we probably looked like a tour group as we walked through the streets of Venezia that night to the few people awake and around to see us in one huge group. But as we sluggishly got off the train after three hours or less of broken sleep, I noticed Amy, Chris, Nicole and Kelly hadn't gotten off the train. It seemed to be sitting in the station for a few minutes, but Kayla told us the train didn't end in Venezia but went to a bunch more stops that I think ended out of the country. So I grabbed my phone out of my bag to call her and tell her to get off the train. The next 10 minutes or so went something like this:
I call Amy.
AG (me): Hey, this is our stop! You guys have to get off the train because after this the train goes on to a bunch of other places NOT in Venice.
AA (Amy): Are you sure? The guy here said there's one more stop in Venice before we have to get off.
AG (to Kayla): Are you sure this is the last stop in Venice?
Kayla: Yes.
AG (to AA): Yeah, this is our stop.
AA: Okay, if you're sure we'll get off the train.
AG: Sounds good, see you guys in a minute.
*A couple minutes later my phone rings*
AG: Hey, where are you guys? I don't see you on the platform.
AA: Yeah I don't see you either. Do you see the McDonald's?
AG: Noo... maybe you're on the other side of the platform?
Kayla: You can't get off the train on the other side of the platform.
AA: Yeah, that's probably it. We'll meet you at the McDonald's.
I hang up the phone, enter the station, and come out on the other side of the train. I see no McDonald's. A few minutes later my phone rings again:
AA: Hey, We're at the McDonald's. Where are you guys?
AG: I don't see any McDonald's. I don't think there's one at this station...
AA: We're in it right now though...
This goes on for a while. The kids at the McDonald's had climbed onto the same train as us; I had seen it happen and searched for seats in the same cars as them. Yet somehow, we figured out. The train car they were on was stopped at the Venezia Mestre station at the same time that the train the rest of us were on was stopped at the Venezia Santa Lucia station. Meaning either the train somehow split into two separate trains with such little noise or movement that no one had heard or felt it happen–or it had somehow entered another dimension. Considering the likeliness of the physical possibility of the former, I'm more inclined to believe the latter. I spent much of the rest of this weekend pretty wigged out by this idea.
When we got back from Venice, we came home to a freezing apartment. What must've happened was the pipes froze, because about five minutes after we turned on the heat that had been shut off for the weekend, the water heater started pouring water out of it. And I'm not talking a few drips–I'm saying it might as well have been the faucet in our kitchen sink, because it was giving our closet and kitchen a pretty epic one-inch flood.
So we went the next days without heat. I slept the first night wishing for one of those mummy sleeping bags while trying my darndest to huddle under the thin blankets on my bed. I slept the next night on the couch upstairs from the hospitality of the girls and guys living in that haunted apartment. But that ghost is another story.
So anyway, it's not nearly finished yet and it's long and crazy as anything, but here's part I of my Twilight Zone weekend:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sun 15 Feb 2009
This weekend of my study abroad experience I spent in the Twilight Zone. You might've heard to it referred to as Venezia, Venice and/or Carnivale.
It only just dawned on me now that perhaps Friday was so freaky because it was Friday the 13th. That's not supposed to be s superstitiously dangerous day here in Italy, but my weekend begs to differ.
*********Thursday/Friday*********
Piu o meno, I can't tell you where these days started and ended. They're basically moshed together because of the chronology and Twilight Zoneyness.
We left on the first train around 19:00. Simple enough. What was supposed to be an hour and a half layover at the first stop became a five minute one that resulted in me downing my chioccolato caldo and burned tastebuds that still remain in my mouth.
Since layover no. 1 was so short, layover no. 2 lasted a little over three hours before we could catch the sleeper train that would bring us to Venezia. This time was spent finding a bathroom, buying a slice of pizza because we felt bad for using the pizzeria's bagno, at least two hours of card games at the train station, and an unnecessarily long amount of waiting outside in bitter cold for the train. Sounds normal enough. But then, that's how all episodes of the Twilight Zone start, no?
We were split up on the third and last train in sleeper cabins that were nearly entirely too dark to see and filled with people already sleeping. We rushed onto the train car nearest to where we waited, impatient to get out of the cold. The first cabin I see has seat number 121, the number listed on my ticket. That was lucky, I thought, to end up right in front of my seat. I opened the cabin door. Inside were six seats, three filled with three heads of sleeping people and the other three filled with six feet of said sleeping people. Great, I now thought, my cabin is completely full. All the other ones in the car were in the same state. I later discovered that the seat numbers are the same in all the cars and that I was in the wrong car. In fact, my seat was a few cars down in a cabin with Kayla, Karrie and an empty seat where my butt should've been.
Luckily, an older italiano with graying hair and a baseball cap noticed I was standing in between cars looking for a place to sit and I conveyed to him in fractured Italian that my seat had a tush in it. He told me to come with him and found us both seats in a mostly empty car. He also put my giant travel backpack above on the luggage rack for me. I probably said grazie about a thousand times, but I doubt he knew how thankful I really was to him for helping me so I wasn't standing in the aisle of a train car all night.
The cabin we entered had two people in it. It was dark, but I looked over at the one two seats to my right. I had to do a double-take–I thought the kid, who looked about college-age and had very short, very dark hair, was the Alex that lives above me in San Faustino. I was about to say hi and I realized it couldn't be him because I had seen him in a full cabin in the last car I'd been in. I didn't say two words to the kid, but I couldn't believe I was sitting almost next to his Italian evil twin.
The other uomo in the train car, another middle-aged man with dark hair and the beginnings of a potbelly, I assumed was Twilight Zone Alex's dad and they were traveling together. That idea went out the window when Twilight Zone Alex left the train around 04:30, a few stops after the man who had helped me find the seat. I started talking to this last man, who I had assumed was Italian. It was dark, so I had no way to know until he told me that he was from Bangladesh and working in Italy sending money back to his family. We had a small conversation in Italian/English where I was just grateful to practice some foreign language conversational skills. Then Twilight Zone Bangladesh man asked if he could take a photo with me when I told him I was from New York. I was glad my stop was a few after that so I could get out of Twilight Zone Train.
I figured my Twilight Zone night would end right there, at 05:26 in cold, dark train station of Venezia. A whole horde of USAC kids had taken the same trains this night and we probably looked like a tour group as we walked through the streets of Venezia that night to the few people awake and around to see us in one huge group. But as we sluggishly got off the train after three hours or less of broken sleep, I noticed Amy, Chris, Nicole and Kelly hadn't gotten off the train. It seemed to be sitting in the station for a few minutes, but Kayla told us the train didn't end in Venezia but went to a bunch more stops that I think ended out of the country. So I grabbed my phone out of my bag to call her and tell her to get off the train. The next 10 minutes or so went something like this:
I call Amy.
AG (me): Hey, this is our stop! You guys have to get off the train because after this the train goes on to a bunch of other places NOT in Venice.
AA (Amy): Are you sure? The guy here said there's one more stop in Venice before we have to get off.
AG (to Kayla): Are you sure this is the last stop in Venice?
Kayla: Yes.
AG (to AA): Yeah, this is our stop.
AA: Okay, if you're sure we'll get off the train.
AG: Sounds good, see you guys in a minute.
*A couple minutes later my phone rings*
AG: Hey, where are you guys? I don't see you on the platform.
AA: Yeah I don't see you either. Do you see the McDonald's?
AG: Noo... maybe you're on the other side of the platform?
Kayla: You can't get off the train on the other side of the platform.
AA: Yeah, that's probably it. We'll meet you at the McDonald's.
I hang up the phone, enter the station, and come out on the other side of the train. I see no McDonald's. A few minutes later my phone rings again:
AA: Hey, We're at the McDonald's. Where are you guys?
AG: I don't see any McDonald's. I don't think there's one at this station...
AA: We're in it right now though...
This goes on for a while. The kids at the McDonald's had climbed onto the same train as us; I had seen it happen and searched for seats in the same cars as them. Yet somehow, we figured out. The train car they were on was stopped at the Venezia Mestre station at the same time that the train the rest of us were on was stopped at the Venezia Santa Lucia station. Meaning either the train somehow split into two separate trains with such little noise or movement that no one had heard or felt it happen–or it had somehow entered another dimension. Considering the likeliness of the physical possibility of the former, I'm more inclined to believe the latter. I spent much of the rest of this weekend pretty wigged out by this idea.
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