I have completed my studies in Italian. ☹ BIG SAD FACE!!!! I now have class only twice a week. These two classes are my independent study/ one-on-one with the professor classes. They are very amazing classes. It is like having personal guides to the entire city… except I have to write a paper for them. My History of Venice teacher just informed me that she and her fiancé will be getting married in St. Mark’s Basilica. If you have seen it, you know how remarkable such a wedding ceremony would be. If you haven’t seen it, COME TO VENICE (the most beautiful city in the world). Other than the fact that I don’t have to wake up at 7 every morning, finishing my Italian class is a big downer. Most of the friends I have made also finished therefore I basically have already had to say goodbye. I only have 5 weeks left in Venice and I’m already getting sad that I have to leave. Not only have I fallen slightly behind on my super-list of things to do, I love the city so much that I don’t want to leave. These five weeks will be cut a little bit short because I am going on two major long weekend trips. Next weekend I am going to Prague and the following weekend I am going to Ireland (Dublin and Belfast, hopefully with enough time to skip over to Liverpool and take a Beatles tour). Plus this weekend (tomorrow) Alli is coming to Venice with some of her family and the last weekend in April, I am expecting more visitors. Then it will be jut about time to start my European Grand Tour.
This past weekend, I spent Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday in Milan with la famiglia. I was great as usual. They are so welcoming and wonderful. Before I left they gave me to take home 5 bags of pasta, 2 cakes, 2 jars of tomato sauce, apx 3 feet of sausage, and 1 bottle of olive oil. I don’t know what more to say about that. Hopefully I will find time to go back before I return to the states. After Milan, I went directly to Florence to arrive on Sunday night/ Betty’s birthday. **Everyone remember who Betty is?? If not you can look it up in an earlier post** She treated us to an amazing dinner. It was about 10 people I think. She’s too generous (I shake my head as I write this) but thanks again! Monday I did some touristy things including a visit to the synagogue. It’s really quite a magnificent building. I would say a must see during a visit to Florence. On Tuesday Meg and I had an adventure. We woke up pretty early and spent the day outside of Florence. We started in Assisi (apx 2.5 hrs from Florence). The city was nice but I wasn’t terribly impressed. Beautiful views of the mountains and some nice churches but nothing in the city had much of an effect on me, or Megan really. Sometimes you go to a church or an old city center or a castle and are just moved by it, but in Assisi we practically had to struggle to come up with any sort of reaction even to the church that has the tomb of and is dedicated to St. Francis (of Assisi). We did however see a lot of whacko Christian pilgrims. From there, on our way back to Florence, we stopped in Perugia. Unfortunately our time here was cut short by the fact that the city is geographically unique. Instead of taking a bus to the city center, we attempted to walk. After about 30-40 minutes of treacherous hiking up winding mountain roads and asking for directions, we were alerted to the fact that the city is on the top of a very high and steep mountain. We actually had to take escalators up the side of the mountain, through underground passages that passed ancient ruins, in order to reach the top. Once there, we visited the disappointing Perugina chocolate store. The company is from Perugia and the candy is incredible but I sort of expected a Charlie Bucket experience when really it was just a tiny candy store. We saw some pretty cool stuff but were unfortunately in a hurry. Unlike Assisi, I would give this city a positive rating and suggest checking it out to anyone interested in seeing one of Italy’s many truly unique cities… there’s more to Italy than Tuscany and beaches. We were so rushed that in order to catch our train we took a cab back to the station instead of waiting for the bus. It was definitely worth it because otherwise we wouldn’t have been back in Florence until around 8pm. But we got back with enough time to shower and change before dinner. We (me, Alli, Megan, Betty, Kelly, and one other girl) went out to dinner at Aquacotta. At this restaurant Rich (Freedman) did some culinary studies. The food was great, the wine was too, and the chef and his wife were very nice. After we almost instantaneously devoured the tiramisu, I was assured that Richard received the adequate instruction and is quite capable of preparing said dessert. So brush up Richard because I expect it to be just as good in New York as it was in Florence. After dinner we went out to a bar called Be Bop where the have a Beatles cover band every Tuesday night. I thought they were pretty darn good and that means a lot coming from a die hard Beatles fan, especially one as critical as me. I left for home the next morning. I arrived in Venice at around 1:30. Just enough time to drop off my bags and meet my teacher for my art history lesson that started at 2 and lasted over 5 hours. We visited one museum and didn’t even have enough time to finish so we are returning. I guess that’s all for now. Wish me luck in finishing my list of things to do because I will be very upset if I have to return to the US with unfinished business.
More soon on my upcoming excursions...
No comments:
Post a Comment