Hello friends and family back in the Lone Star State!
The purpose of my blog is to regale you all with my fabulous adventures while abroad in Italia! Today is June 7th (HAPPY BDAY DAD!) which means that I have already been over here for 6 days! In that time, I have defied jet lag by staying up for almost 36 hours, seen everything a tourist could dream of in Rome at a whirlwind speed, moved into my third floor apartment in Florence’s San Lorenzo neighborhood, and attended my first day of class at F.U.A (Florence University of the Arts) right on the banks of the Arno river. I contemplated skipping Rome and just starting my story today (second day of class) but my time in Rome was SO awesome I had to share it with y'all! So here ya go, its catch up time...this is what I have been up to!
My 6:20am flight out of San Antonio to the Newark airport on May 31st was definitely not ideal, but having slept for only 3 hours the night before, I was prepared to crash on the flight; I slept the entire way to the New Jersey airport. Once I landed, I had to occupy myself for a 6-hour layover. Rented movies on iTunes, Starbucks, and Tina Fey’s Bossypants kept me entertained for the duration of my wait. I finally met up with Riley Potter at our gate about an hour till boarding time and Holliday Hinckley, Melissa Russo, and Ellen Hughes joined us there a short time after. With a little time to kill, we ventured to a wine bar near the gate to prep for the long, transatlantic flight and whet our appetite for all the vino rossi we would be drinking in Italy.
Once we boarded the flight, I found myself seated next to two cute girls with very strong Midwestern accents. I discovered that Carly and Johanna, from Wisconsin, were not only students in my same ISA program, but also in my class in Florence. We chatted for a bit and I shared with Johanna my ear-popping techniques as I was very practiced at this yet this was her FIRST flight ever so she needed all the help she could get to relieve the pressure. I watched The Fighter, read some more, and attempted to fall asleep but only achieved this goal for about a mere hour.
8 hours later…touch down in Roma! By now, its early morning Roman time as we lost 7 hours to the time change. We waited for the ISA staff members at Terminal 3 in the Rome Fiumicino airport and were greeted by them around 10am. We dragged our bags – my duffle weighing in at 47 pounds, a stuffed backpack, heavy tote, and purse – to a coach bus that drove us about 40 minutes into Roman city limits. Struggling to stay awake, we looked out the window as we passed the Roman Forum and Colosseum, which were right near the hotel we would be staying in the next three nights. In the Hotel Palatino lobby there was a lady setting up our group of about 50, predominately girls, with Italian go phones that we could use to talk to each other. By this point I’m pretty delirious, but somehow manage to fill out my paperwork with the proper information. For those of you wishing to contact me on my super throwback Nokia, the number is +39-377-1687676. Seemingly complicated, yes, but the only difference between all our numbers is the last 4 digits so it makes things actually easy. I check into my room and meet one of my roommates, Alli Williams, from Grand Rapids Michigan, and Nicole Ryder, from San Antonio (Health Careers High School) who goes to school in Austin too (but at St. Edwards). We all get our first Italian meal together at Robin Hood Pizzeria (strange name but we chose it for the convenience) and then walk around the surrounding neighborhood until we find the train station (an indication that too far one way results in a pretty sketchy area). We finish our walking adventure with our first taste of cappicinos in some random piazza facing some unidentified church (the names of which I was too tired to remember and hoping to learn later on our many scheduled tours). We then had a two-hour orientation with the ISA staff who are all young Italian girls, I’d say in their 30s, who are fluent in English but have thick accents. After that, we board the bus for a site seeing tour of the city. Our group, now doubled in size, takes up two coach buses. We drive past the Circus Maximus, Palatine and Quiriline Hills, Pyramid, and Borghese neighborhood. After that, we eat at a little ristorante close to the hotel and I pass out in my room my 9:30pm – haven’t done that since like elementary school!
Day 1 in Roma – We woke up at pretty early and went down to the hotel lobby to eat breakfast before our full day of planned activities. I ate a weird combination of hard-boiled egg, pastries, and pears. European breafasts are vastly different than hearty American ones, nonetheless, it filled me up and I was ready to hit up the Vatican. There was a slight complication in our journey across the Tiber to reach the Vatican…Rome was celebrating the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy and hosting a massive parade in many of the main streets. It took our coach bus a while to navigate through back roads and traffic to reach our destination. Once we were there, we were divided into three groups and given headsets with a professional tour guide. We hit all the highlights of the Vatican museum: the galleries of animals, portraits, and maps, School of Athens fresco, Sistine chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica. We ended up in the piazza where we saw huge posters of John Paul II hung every where because he was being beaufied that weekend. We even saw Al Roker of the Today Show broadcasting from the middle of the square – he was sporting a straw fedora hat, which seems to be fashion craze over here this summer even for men. After a long morning, we returned to the east bank of the river where we wandered through Piazza Navona and Campo D’Fiori looking for a place to eat that was recommended to us. We found the restaurant and a charming man named Antonio who set us up in a table under an umbrella right outside his restaurant. L’Orso 80 and the street it was on seemed to be off the beaten tourist track. We watched locals wander the streets with their families and enjoy their afternoons. It started to drizzle but it made the experience even more enjoyable. I had a great glass of house white wine, caprese salad, and a cappicino to top it off. It was scrumptious! We met up with the entire ISA group at the Piazza Navona and walked over to Trastevere, the neighborhood across the river. We were given some free time to explore the eclectic and narrow streets where vendors were selling scarves and jewelry. We joined three girls from New Jersey who are Holliday, Ellen, and Melissa’s roommates for some rosse at a wine bar, or enotoche, on one of the streets. After that we went to this restaurant where ISA was hosting a welcome dinner. Almost everyone turned their noses up at the crawfish risotto concoction they served, lucky for us we had a late lunch and weren’t as starving as everyone else. By now it was 9o’clock and we needed to decide if we wanted to go out. We contemplated returning to the hotel to shower but decided that we would lose steam and not go out if we did that. Greasy and sweaty, we found ourselves at Scholars Irish Pub near Piazza Venezia and the Italian victory monument we dubbed the “cupcake” (Romans refer to it as the wedding cake, we got it wrong). We met some other students from Australia, London, and Rome and had fun talking to them and drinking Fosters beer and taking the Irish Car Bomb shot that they said was a must. We got back to the hotel around 1am – not too late because we wanted to be ready for the next day.
Roma Day 2 – Same scenario as the day before. Breakfast at the hotel and same separation into our three groups. On the agenda that day was a walking tour of Rome. It turned out to be every extensive and taxing on our feet, but we managed to see just about everything. We started at the Colosseum and walked to the Tevi fountain, into the Pantheon, and all in between. We ended up in the Piazza Navona once again and had pizza at a restaurant nearby for lunch. Riley and I walked around and saw some beautiful flowers at the produce market taking place in the piazza. We met up with Holliday, Ellen, and Melissa at the other end of the square where they were getting their caricatures drawn – they were hysterical renditions of what they looked like and very offensive but comical all the same. They hadn’t eaten yet so we sat with them at a different restaurant nearby. Fortunately this wasn’t a tourist trap either and we had a leisurely long lunch. Ellen ordered the mussels and Holliday has the best gnocchi I have ever tasted before. On the way out of the piazza, we were stopped by the young white South African guy who was promoting a pub crawl he called “Rome’s Ultimate Party.” In a few short minutes, he convinced us that we needed to be there; we were game and had our evening planned out for us. We purchased our tickets for $25 euro at an internet café on the way back to the hotel. This fee promised us an open bar for beer and wine for an hour and pizza at the first location, cover charge and one free drink at the next bar, and then admittance and bus fare to the last club. It was an offer we couldn’t refuse and a recipe for a wild night. Back at the hotel we attended the second ISA orientation where they told us more about Florence. Lucia, the main resident advisor, was droning on in her heavy accent about things we already knew, like how to live with roommates and how to behave accordingly in a foreign place. When it was finally over two hours later, we all took naps in our rooms before getting ready for the pub crawl. Around 9o’clock, we took a cab to the Spanish Steps where Luca, the promoter, was going to meet us to take us to the first bar. A summertime, outdoor opera was just getting out in that area so things were hectic, but no worries Luca found us almost as soon as we stepped out to the cab. We didn’t know what to expect, but found the first bar to be really fun and full of variety of people – mainly American and Australian students who were ready for a good time. The “Party” staff, which included about 4 “entertainers” and 4 “guardians”, was really funny and ensured that we met everyone and were satisfied. The second stop was a Scottish pub which was alright. There was an Italian band playing and that was really entertaining. There wasn’t a dance floor, but Riley and I created our own. A group of about 8 super young Italian boys (I’d say about 15 or 16 years old) joined us and it was funny. The last and best stop of the crawl was Club Gilda. We danced the night away in a swanky discotecta – this place can be compared to Pure in Austin, but times 1000. The group was moving to Florence the next day and that involved a 4 hour bus ride that we knew we could sleep on so we weren’t concerned about staying out too late. We walked back to this ristorante across from our hotel that was surprisingly still open at 3am. We sat down an shared a pizza – Ropollo’s late nighting, Roman style. When we were finished, we walked back to the hotel just before sunrise. It was a fabuous way to end our adventures in Roma.
To Florence We Go!
The group was divided up into halves so that we could drive to Florence in shifts on two buses. I was in the first group and we pulled away from the hotel around 12:30pm. I slept for a little bit on the way to Florence, but still enjoyed watching the Italian countryside pass by from my window. I watched as we went from the Lazio and Umbria provinces into Tuscany. The sky was full of ominous rain clouds and we drove through an inevitable rainstorm. I was surprised to see that the landscape wasn’t rolling fields of sunflowers that I associated with Tuscany, but a mountainous horizon with lush vegetation. I jammed to Hudson Moore on my iPod and appreciated the view from my window seat. We entered Florence and it was still rainy weather. We were all nervous because this meant we would have to drag our bags through the rain to our apartments because we all have a short walk to get there. Fortunately the rain let up and we made it just in time to the Piazza Andobrandini degli Madonna without getting that wet. My roommates, Jessica Wendell, Jennifer Jordan, Alii Williams, and Erica Spencer and I dragged out luggage up three flights of stairs to our assigned apartment. We used a very old fashioned key and turned the lock 4 times to unlock the door to get in. We found our apartment to be very modern and stocked up with all the essentials. I got the bedroom with two others that looks out on the square and the Capelle Medici in the San Lorenzo church. Also in the near distance, you can see the Duomo and its bell tower. The air conditioner hadn’t been turned on so we were nervous about the temperature of the place. We had been advised to keep cool as the Italians do by opening our windows during the morning and evening and closing our shutters during the day to keep the sun out. I can say that we’ve done it and its working out pretty well so far! It can be a little noisy down below, by I love having the fresh air and amazing view from my bed! Once we were unpacked, my roommates and I went for dinner and sat down at a table outside in the Piazza della Repubblica. I had an amazing lasagne with meat sauce and a glass of red wine. After that, we stopped at one of the thousands of geletaria for ice cream. We walked to the Ponte Vecchio and along the Arno into the Santa Croce neighborhood to find the location of our school for the early orientation the next morning. It was a great night of exploring and we all slept like babies on our first night in our new home.
Sunday, June 5th – First Full day in Florence!
This day consisted of scheduled meetings are orientations all day long. We went to F.U.A at 8:45 for our school orientation. On the way, we got cappuccinos to go for a quick bust of energy and caffeine. The Florence University of the Arts was pretty impressive! It’s in a great location, a block away from the beautiful Gothic Santa Croce church and in the other direction, the river. The room we went into was beautiful and a blend of old and new. The walls were covered with old frescos and chandeliers but the furniture was pink and purple couches. TV screens were positioned at the room’s corners to facilitate PowerPoint presentations. Daphne, the dean of students, was direct and to the point (unlike Lucia with ISA) and gave us everything we needed to know quickly. After the orientation, we went to a supermarket called Conrad to get some groceries for our apartment. We got variations of what we would buy in the states: prosciutto instead of turkey, mozzarella in place of provolone, and pita bread instead of sandwich bread. I also got some ripe looking peaches in the produce section. All that grocery shopping left us hungry, so for lunch my roomies and I satiated our American food craving at this restaurant called Astor’s right next to the Duomo. We haven’t even been gone a week, but all the pasta and pizza was getting old so we switched things up. The next orientation time was 2 and we were meeting outside of the Duomo. We finally met up with everyone and they took us to a conference room nearby. We endured our last orientation with ISA, which of course lasted the standard two hours. We listened to a PowerPoint presentation that the local Polizia sent over that was geared at American students warning of possible dangers. In the time we were inside, a huge storm blew into Florence and was pounding down on the building. We all looked outside and were shocked to see hail beating down on the pavements, balconies, and vespas around. We weren’t prepared for the storm as it had been sunny and extremely hot a couple of hours before. With nothing really to do, we decide to go get wine with the Jersey girls and stay dry in the shelter of a café. 4 Liters of wine later, we run to the nearby grocery store and get some necessities: MORE wine and dark chocolate. The nice man at the grocery store called two cabs for us and we took the short drive across the Arno to Holliday and crew’s apartment to continue the rainy day festivities. We got to know all of their roommates, three cute girls that go to Georgia, the wild Jersey girls, and us Texas girls. It was a great dynamic and we laughed and laughed for hours while playing get to know you drinking games. I crashed at Riley’s apartment because I couldn’t get a cab back up to my apartment in the business and high demand from all the rain. First shacking experience in Italy!
