December in Rome

Last Thursday was "Immaculate Conception" day for Catholics and therefore, was a national holiday in Italy. I had another "ponte" or "bridge-weekend" and had Thursday and Friday off.  These random holidays are really starting to grow on me, not that they hadn't already!

Anna and I decided to be somewhat productive and go on an adventure Thursday.  We took the metro to Ottaviano and go to Castroni, an International grocery store that I have been encouraged to go to by many people. I was a little under-impressed. Yes, they did have ketchup, mayonnaise, cake and brownie mix, syrup, pancake mix and a few other "American" things, but I guess I was expecting it to be 1. bigger and 2. more options. They had a whole section for pasta and sauces... I can get that in any grocery store!! We were still glad that we went and checked it out though.



It just so happened that there was a Subway restaurant around the corner from the grocery store, so of course we had to go there too on our "American adventure day." It was a delicious piece of home.  Italian food is wonderful and I rarely miss things from the states, but a good Subway sandwich tasted fantastic!

There was a large Christmas fair going on in the street we were at, so we walked up and down looking at trinkets in the many stands and bopping in and out of the stores. This area of town was near to where we stayed as a family when we visited Rome last May.  I always get excited when I find places that I went to last year.

We soon realized that we were very close to St. Peter's and after a short, 10-minute walk, there we were, in front of the Vatican on a random Thursday afternoon. Sometimes we take for granted living in the Eternal City  and forget how lucky we are that we can be in any part of Rome and run into random ruins or the colosseum or on this particular day, St. Peter's. La dolce vita, indeed!

Budapest

After this post, i'll FINALLY be caught up with all of my travels.  Last weekend, Francesco and I braved the cold and went to Budapest. The temperature in Rome these days is around 65, but the highs in Budapest are around 30-35.

On the chain bridge, with Buda Castle in the background

We got in Friday night around 10:15.  We took a shuttle to the hotel, changed our clothes and went out for a beer to a bar called, Alcatraz, recommended to us by the guy at the front desk.  The bar played all old American music...it was fantastic! Budapest uses the forint as their currency.  The exchange rate is 315 forints to 1 euro.  The price for 2 beers was roughly 600-700 forints...2 euros for 2 beers!! You can't get a beer in Rome for cheaper than 5 euros. We knew the first night that we were going to love it.

Elizabeth Bridge (view from Gellert Hill)

Saturday, we walked and walked and walked through the entire city.  We went into the "downtown" area and found a Christmas festival.  There were stands selling linens, ceramics, jewelry, purses, food, etc. We stopped at one hut to get a bowl of goulash to share.  I don't think i've ever had goulash before, but I now love it! We walked to the Buda side across the Elizabeth bridge and went to what we thought was the castle, but turns out is Citadella (or the bunker), then walked over to the funicular that took us up to what we thought was the Parliament building, but was really Buda Castle...we were very mixed-up!!! We walked back to the Pest side across the Chain Bridge.  These bridges were destroyed by the Germans, but have now been re-built. There was "forralt bor" or mulled wine sold throughout the city at outdoor stands.  We were so cold that we searched forever trying to find a cafe where we could sit inside and enjoy our mulled wine. Finally, we found one and enjoyed our second bowl of goulash for the day.

Buda Castle

After a long late-afternoon nap, we were back out on the town.  In one of the tourist magazines we picked up at the airport, we found a buffet restaurant that offered everything hungarian.  It was a great way to taste small bites of many of their famous dishes.  The buffet even included your choice of champagne, beer or wine for a great price! We decided to stop at a local bar for a cocktail before we went dancing and ended up meeting a bartender who had just moved to Budapest 3 weeks before from Newark, NJ. Then, we took a taxi to "Mix Club." The taxi cost us only 2 euros.  As we were in line, the doorman told us we couldn't go in because Francesco had on athletic shoes.  Fra really wanted to go to this club, so I agreed to go back to the hotel with him so he could change his shoes. The taxi back to the hotel was 15euros!! Then, the taxi back to the club was only 7 euros...I swear that the drivers just make up the prices and completely rip you off sometimes.  We danced until 5 in the morning!!

Christmas Festival in the square

Sunday, was my favorite day.  We walked up Andrassy Avenue to Heroes' Square and went to the Szechenyi thermal bath.  It's a giant turkish bath that dates back many centuries.  We also got Thai massages at the spa, again, for a very reasonable price! I must mention that on our walk to Andrassy Avenue, I found a Starbuck's. Francesco, being Italian, is not a fan of Starbuck's and American coffee, but he agreed to go with me because I haven't had it in 4 months!! Sunday night, we went to a quaint restaurant recommended to us by a local.  We had the best meal. We started with some typical meats and cheeses from Hungarian, then shared a duck salad that was fantastic.  I had spiced pork with roasted potatoes...i'm craving it now that i'm remembering how good it was.  Francesco had the venison with a mixed-berry sauce that was also very, very good.  The restaurant had live music with a violinist and a pianist.

Turkish Bath

Monday was the only day we woke up in time for the free breakfast at the hotel.  They had eggs, sausage, cheeses, meats, yogurt, fruit, cereal, toast, etc...I love staying at hotels and having an "American-style breakfast." We took the Millenium Underground Railway, the second oldest in the world, to the Parliament building across town.  This Parliament is the third largest in the world. We were disappointed we couldn't go inside, but admired the beauty from the outside.  We walked across the Chain bridge and went up to Fisherman's Bastion and Matthias Church.  We also visited Buda Castle labrynth and went back to the castle, now knowing what it actually was. Then, we went back to the Pest side and went to the synagogue, which is the second largest in the world, after the one in NYC. We did a guided tour there and I thought it was very interesting to learn the history of the jews in the Budapest, especially all that died during WWII.

Matthias Church

We left Monday night to come back to Rome.  Being a tourist is very exhausting.  We had such a wonderful trip, but were very tired from all the walking and sightseeing. The views of the city from the top of hills in Buda were spectacular and learning about the history of Budapest was very interesting to me. I'd definitely recommend everyone to visit this city if they ever get the chance!

Sorrento/Capri

The last of the weekend trips while my mom was in town was to Sorrento and Capri with Kathy, Ellen, Patty and my mom. I decided Thursday night that I was going to take the train from Rome-Naples and a train from Naples-Rome on Friday night after my lessons.

view from our hotel balcony 

My mom and friends met me at the train station when I got in and we walked around Sorrento and into some shops before heading to dinner. For dinner, we went to a place recommended by Rick Steve's, called, Inn Bufalito.  Buffalo mozzarella is most famous for coming from the south of Italy. The five of us shared an appetizer with grilled eggplant, pumpkin, swiss chard, tomatoes and bufala mozzarella...sooo good! Then, we all wanted the special which was a typical pasta from Sorrento with pumpkin and sausage, so we ordered "3" dishes of it, but they brought it in a big pot, which worked out perfect.

We stayed at the most beautiful hotel.  Many hotels close during the winter months because it gets quite cold and it's low tourist season. Our hotel room had a small balcony that overlooked the sea.  It was spectacular to wake up in the morning, walk out onto the balcony and listen to the water. Each afternoon, around 5 or 6, the hotel puts out wine, champagne, liquor, water and pop, as well as, small appetizers, free of charge for all guests. I must also mention the breakfast that this hotel offered.  They had everything! Eggs, sausage, meats, cheeses, yogurt, fruit, cereal, granola, toast, and pastries, pastries, pastries.

Mom, Kathy, Patty, me and Ellen

Saturday morning, we took the ferry to Capri.  The water was not very calm and it was high-tide causing the Blue Grotto to be closed this day. A tourguide on the ferry told us about the grotto and talked us into joining his tour of Anacapri (upper-Capri) and Capri. It was well-worth it because he took us on a bus up to Anacapri. We saw the Casa Rosso, St. Michele's Church with the coolest mural on the floor, the gardens and of course, beautiful views of the sea and blue grotto, from a distance. We also tasted limoncello and typical chocolates from Capri.  Sorrento is very famous for their lemons; they're known for limoncello for this reason.

floor mural at St. Michele

Sunday, we walked around the town of Sorrento for a couple hours before I had to get back on the train to Naples. There was even a parade that went through town with motorcycles and "old" cars.  It was very funny to watch because some of the cars were beautiful, old cars and others were total junkers from 15 years ago...definitely not worthy of being in a parade!!

blue grotto view from the top of the garden

This was a very fun, last-minute vacation.  I'd love to go back to Sorrento when it's warmer to enjoy the beautiful sea more and to go to Capri to see the blue grotto. 

sunset on boatride back to Sorrento from Capri

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!!!