Firenze

The weekend after Pisa, my mom and I took the train to Florence and met our friend, Kathy Schneider there. We took the fast train from Rome, which only takes 1.5 hours, as opposed to the slow train, which takes 3 hours! We arrived early evening and after dropping our bags off at the hotel, we set-out to find a restaurant recommended by their travel agent. We had some difficulties in finding the restaurant, but eventually found our way.  The restaurant was good food, but certainly a tourist trap.  The prices were a lot higher than what i'm used to paying and all of the waiters spoke English and acted like American waiters.  They were very attentive and brought out our food quickly.  This is NOT the way that typical waiters are in Italy. We started out with some burrata...my all-time favorite type of mozzarella in Italy!! We shared a carafe of wine, each had a pasta dish and finished with an apple cake.  Again, all very good, but far too expensive for the quality of food. Since I don't live in the touristy part of Rome, I never find restaurants that are over-priced and touristy.

Saturday, we went on a 7-kilometer hike in the Tuscan countryside in a town called, Fiesole, near Florence.  The weather all week said that it was going to be cold and rainy this weekend. We lucked out and the rain held out while we were on our hike.  We saw the places in the woods where Leonardo DaVinci and Michelangelo practiced their artwork. We hiked up to the top of a mountain where we saw spectacular views of Florence. We went to Villa Maiano, where the Pazzi and Medici families once lived.  It was there that we had a delicious lunch with different meats, cheeses, vegetables, tomato soup and wine. I would highly recommend this tour to anyone visiting Florence!

Saturday afternoon, we went to the Academmia, where I finally saw the statue of "David." Everyone tells you how great it is to see in person and they're absolutely right!! It gives you chills to see the size and beauty of this statue. We went to an aperitivo at a bar that was next to our hotel that was recommended to us by our tour guide, Jessica.  This bar had the best aperitivo buffet i've seen in Italy yet and at the cost of 8.50euros for a drink and unlimited food, it was well worth it!!

Sunday, we were up and out early again as we had a 3-hour walking tour around the city of Florence this day. Again, it was supposed to be cold and rainy, but the rain held off for another day. We walked around the town and learned the history of Florence and where the noble families once lived. We went into a few churches and discovered frescoes from thousands of years ago...absolutely fantastic. We also got to see and walk across the famous, Ponte Vecchio (old bridge), which everyone has to see when they go to Florence.

We had reservations at the Uffizzi for Sunday afternoon, but there was a mis-communication from our travel-agent about the time of our reservation and we ended up missing it by an hour...oops! We changed our plans and visited the Medici palace across the Arno River.  The palace is huge!! We saw all of the artwork inside and got to tour some of the bedrooms/ballroom/sitting rooms/etc. We wanted to visit the gardens, but by this afternoon, the rain had finally come.

Replica of David in Palazzo Vecchia

After our tour at the palace, we went to a rooftop bars in the main piazza and had a drink at the top.  It was neat to see views of the Duomo and Santa Maria Novella from the top of this bar. Sunday evening, we went to a restaurant near our hotel in Piazza San Lorenzo that was recommended to me by a lady I teach. The restaurant was small and quaint and had wonderful food!

Our train for Rome left at 10:40am Monday morning, so we were up and out early. I will definitely be going back to visit Florence again in the future as there are still things I didn't get to see that i'd like to. Florence is a wonderful city, but everywhere you walk you find tourists, mostly English speaking people.  All of the workers in the stores, museums, restaurants, etc. speak English as well.  Everytime I would attempt to speak to people in Italian, they responded to me in English.  Florence is full of history and culture, but I feel that it's too touristy and that it lacks the "true-Italian allure" that i've found in other, smaller Italian cities.

Pisa

It's been far too long since my last update.  Life has been crazy busy lately!!

My mom arrived in Italy on October 28th.  After a few flight delays and an upgrade to first-class, she made it here in one piece sans luggage though. It took the airlines 2 days to find and deliver her luggage.  We were supposed to leave for Pisa the afternoon that she arrived, but due to the lost luggage, we left on Sunday afternoon.

I didn't have to work on Monday the 31st or Tuesday the 1st due to what's called a "ponte" weekend in Italy.  "Ponte" means bridge.  Tuesday November 1st was All-Saints day and is a national holiday celebrated here.  Most companies give their employees the Monday before to make it a long-weekend.

We had hoped to take the semi-fast train to Pisa, but that one was cancelled due to the mud slides in Cinqueterre that caused a few tunnels to collapse.  We had to take the 4-hour train; getting around in Italy is never simple! We got in around dinner time, dropped our bags off at the hotel and set-out to explore the city.  We started walking in one direction and found that there were no people around and that the town was quite dead.  We then walked in the other direction and realized that THIS was where all the action was. We found a street lined with street vendors selling hand-made goods (jewelry, trinkets, clothes, shoes, etc). On this street, we stopped at an Enoteca where we had a glass of wine which came with complimentary gourmet snacks and we got to people-watch. We then went on a hunt for a dinner spot and stumbled upon a great trattoria that was full of locals; my favorite kind of restaurant!

Monday, we visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the duomo, the cemetery and Campo dei Miracoli (the park where all these landmarks set). That afternoon, we visited the Blu Museum which had an extensive Picasso exhibit. There was of course plenty of shopping during this day as well. Monday was halloween night.  Italy started celebrating halloween roughly 5 years ago. Their idea of "dressing up" is painting their face or putting on a witch hat; it's quite funny.  We enjoyed seeing all the students dressed-up and out on the town.  We walked and walked and walked searching for a good restaurant to eat at and again, stumbled upon a very cute restaurant on a quiet street.  We both ordered Pici Senesi con zucca e salsiccia (Pici pasta with pumpkin and sausage).  Pici is a pasta that originates in this part of Italy.  I had no idea until I went home and googled it. We were thrilled that we chose to order a dish that was from this region.

We took our time getting up on Tuesday and caught a 10:40am train back to Rome.  We had seen all of the main sites in Pisa and wanted to do some shopping on Via del Corso in Rome and go to an aperitivo in Trastevere that evening.  We didn't have a place in mind where we wanted to go for an aperitivo, so we wandered around until we found one.  Two minutes after we sat down, I looked around the corner and realized that we were next to Andy's favorite restaurant, Carlo Menta.  He ate there all the time when he lived in Rome last year.  We, of course, had to get dinner there in honor of Andy.  The place was packed!!! It is a huge restaurant and the crowds of people kept pouring in.  The food is dirt cheap and the food is definitely good for the price.

Laurea di Giuseppe

As I mentioned in the last post, Giuseppe graduated last Thursday.  It was a long time coming because he was supposed to graduate back in February, but Italy being Italy, it never happened. We arrived at his school on time for the graduation and waited 1.5 hours for his professor to show up to lead the ceremony...again, that's Italy for you. The ceremony was in a small classroom packed with about 150 people and only 100 chairs.  Luckily, it's nothing like our graduation ceremony in the states.  The whole thing lasted maybe 10 minutes.  Yes, that's right...we waited 1.5 hours for a 10 minute ceremony!! The graduation was only for the economics department and there were only about 15-20 students that graduated in his class.

35 of Giuseppe's relatives came into Rome from Irsina and Milan for the graduation. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, family friends. They travelled all morning in the horrendous rain storm (roughly 6-7 hours), but luckily, everyone made it safely. Giuseppe is the first person in his family to receive his Laurea, so it was a very big deal.

After the ceremony and the 30-minute picture-taking party, we headed to the restaurant that Giuseppe and Francesco work at, for lunch. This was not just any ordinary lunch, but a full-out 6-7 course meal with wine, of course. The appetizers kept coming and coming and coming...there were probably 10-12 appetizers that were brought to the table. Then came the pasta dish, followed by the main seafood course, followed by a lemon sorbet.  Finally, came the cake and champagne. I was SO full and tired by the end of the meal. The lunch lasted for almost 4 hours!!! It felt so surreal to be at a lunch with Giuseppe and 40 of his family members celebrating this special occasion.

Then came Saturday night, which was the real party! We celebrated Giuseppe's graduation with about 25 of his closest friends at the Irish Pub near his house.  We reserved a section of the bar and it worked out great.  There was a DJ and a big dance floor where we danced until 5am! Anna and I bought a cake for Giuseppe, but that was a bad idea because a cake fight ensued when we served it. What a disaster...there was cake EVERYWHERE!! The staff at the bar were not so pleased with our group.

Here is what a mess Giuseppe was after the cake fight: 

Raining Cats & Dogs

Last Thursday, I left my house at 8:15am like I always do.  I heard the rain pounding against the window and dreaded going outside. I stepped outside with my umbrella in hand and witnessed rain like i've never seen before.  It was blowing in every direction and by the time I got to the bus stop, I was completely soaked.  I was unable to get on the first two buses because they were so packed with people. Finally, I made it on the third.  The traffic was horrendous and was moving at snail-pace.  My bus-ride is usually about 20 minutes in the morning.  I had to be to work by 9am, but we were moving inches at a time.  9 o'clock rolled around and I called work to tell them that I was running late, but would be there.  After about 1 hour and 15 minutes of sitting on the bus, the bus driver came on and said, "in dietro" meaning, we're turning the bus around because it couldn't cross the road.  I got off and was going to attempt walking the rest of the way to work, which would've been about a 15-minute walk in the torrential downpour. I walked about 100 meters only to find this:

I suppose that's the reason the bus couldn't cross the road.  The water was almost up to the windows of these 2 cars under the bridge.  It was impossible for me to cross the road to get to work, so I ended up calling and told them I couldn't make it.  They completely understood and as it turned out, the person I had a lesson with called and cancelled as well.  I've never seen such a crazy rain storm in my life!!

It was a blessing in disguise as I was then able to attend Giuseppe's graduation ceremony, which I would've missed since I had to work. I had to brave the 15 minute walk on foot in the pouring rain in the opposite direction from here to get to his apartment though.  I was already completely soaked from head to toe, so I figured I might as well keep going.  I showed up to his apartment and felt like I had just stood in the shower with all of my clothes on for 15 minutes.  What a mess!!!

My Italian Birthday

I celebrated my 25th birthday in Italy this past weekend. Friday night, Anna made me a candlelit dinner for two at her apartment, complete with a bottle of moscato d'asti that we popped...our favorite!! She made veggie quesadillas.  It was the perfect dinner considering we used to make quesadillas ALL the time in Chicago and have not made them since being in Italy together.

We then went out in Trastevere to a bar called, "Bir & Fud"...pronounced, "Beer & Food." They had some very unique beers.  It was more of a restaurant than a bar, so we only stayed for one drink, but we'll definitely be going back again! Next, we went next door to another bar, not sure what the name of it was.  We had a drink there, got hit on by an 18 year-old Italian boy...fantastic night! We took the night-bus home at 2:30am.  While we were waiting for the bus, Anna and I were talking to each other and a young boy, around 19 or 20, who was waiting for the bus as well, asked us where we were from.  As it turns out, he's from Chicago! He's only been in Rome a week, but is here for 3 months, going to Greece for 2 months, then is going to Russia for 6 months. It's always fun to meet other foreigners and find out what has brought them to Rome.

Saturday, Giuseppe, Anna, Francesco and I all went to the mall.  Anna and I were determined to find new outfits for my party that night. After two hours of searching, we were unsuccessful.  That night, we went out to run an errand and walked past a store near my house that looked fairly sketchy.  Anna talked me into going in and we both found dresses for 15euros! It worked out perfect. We had plans to meet up with friends at, "Bar del Fico" in the city center that night. I had been to this place with Giuseppe in August; they make great cocktails! We stayed for a couple drinks, then wanted to go dancing at a club called, La Maison. We went, but it was too busy for us to get in, so we drove to the other side of town to go to the disco that Giuseppe used to work at called, Pure Night Club.  We by-passed the line and didn't have to pay a cover and got to dance until 5:30am!!! It was a great night spent in good company.

Oktoberfest in Rome

I really wanted to go to Oktoberfest in Munich this year, but life got very busy and I started work, so I didn't have the opportunity to go. There's always next year!! The closest I got to Oktoberfest was a festival in Rome.

We went last week when Giuseppe's mom was in town.  There were rides, games, booths with people selling items, live music, German food and, of course, beer tents! We went on a weeknight, so it was not nearly as happening as i'm sure it is on the weekends, but we didn't have to fight any crowds which was nice.

Me, Anna and Giuseppe took turns riding the mechanical bull.  It was my first time.  Anna stayed on 56 seconds and I stayed on 55 seconds...so close!! It was a riot. We also played some of the games and won stuffed animals.  A lot of the rides and games were similar to the ones they had in Irsina last month.

Anzio

Last weekend, Anna and I intended on taking a Saturday morning train to Orvieto for the day.  I looked at the schedule and it said there was a 8:45am train that got in at 10:15am.  We left our apartment at 8am to get to Termini (the main train station), went to the kiosk to buy our ticket, and discovered that the first train to Orvieto doesn't leave until 11am.  I had been looking at the weekday schedule and didn't even think that the Saturday times would be different...oops! We knew that we didn't want to wait, nor did we want to go all the way home to come back in 2.5 hours, so we looked at the list of upcoming departures and picked a random, cheap city to visit: Anzio.

Anzio is a small town one hour south of Rome that lies on the mediterannean sea. We found our way, no problem, from the train station to the center of town. We stopped for a cappuccino and cornetto at a local bar.  There were tons of cute clothing and trinket shops that we went in and out of and were both on our best behavior and didn't buy a thing! We walked up and down the street along the beach. We stopped in the piazza to people watch and soak up the sun by the fountain for a while. Next thing we knew, it was time for lunch.  We checked out all the menus of the restaurants that were on the beach to find a place that wouldn't cost us an arm and a leg for lunch and decided on a very cute restaurant that had a patio overlooking the sea.  It was very beautiful!! We split a bottle of wine and had gnocchi with prawns and zucchini.  This is what I call an ideal day!

We loved Anzio so much that we decided to go back again last Sunday.  Giuseppe and Francesco's mom was visiting for a few days and the boys both had to work on Sunday, so she came to the beach with us. A full day of practicing my Italian! We found an 11:07am train to take because we were still a bit exhausted from waking up so early the day before. We got a late start leaving the apartment and were cutting it very close to catch the train.  I was at the kiosk trying to buy my ticket and this particular one didn't accept cash and I tried 3 times to use my credit card, but it didn't work.  We were about to miss the train.  We literally stepped on the train and the doors closed behind us...it was far too close for my liking!!

The water in Anzio is MUCH cleaner than the water near Rome.  At first, there weren't many people on the beach, but by mid-afternoon, it was packed. It's amazing that it's October and it's still 85 and sunny here. It has only rained one day since i've been here...I know that more rain is on the way in the next couple months. We decided we wanted to take the 5:37pm train back to Rome.  We got to the station with 20 minutes to spare this time, but of course, the next train didn't leave until 6:37.  It usually leaves every hour.  Why this day it didn't? No reason. The town was too far to walk back to, so we just hung out at the train station for 1.5 hours. It never fails to be an adventure here!

Anna and I have decided that we want to do things like this more often.  Perhaps on an upcoming Saturday, we'll go back to Termini an pick another city to visit for the day.