I’ll write more later! Love you!

All my besties with my host parents…who LOVED all my friends and haven’t stopped talking about them!

Everyone at the leaning tower!

These are the colorful houses of Burano!

Sunday is the day that Jen and Zach were scheduled to come to Florence!!! I was kind of bummed because I have been healthy as a horse for 3 straight months, and the ONE day I have visitors, I develop this nasty cold. It was the kind of cold where your head is so full it feels like a bowling ball and your nose won’t stop running and you can’t stop sneezing and you just feel all around miserable. But…my excitement to see the two of them made me forget about my cold for a while. I got to the airport about an hour before their plane landed and was just so ancy to see them!! Finally I saw Zach and didn’t even wait for him to get through the gate before I gave him a HUGE hug. Jen was right behind him and seeing her and hugging her felt so good!! I felt this enormous sense of relief and comfort to see someone from home, ya know? It was nice to be with people who already knew me and that I already knew. I don’t know what it was about them, but I was absolutely 100% content seeing them and couldn’t wait to spend an entire week together.
SO…we were in the airport and Zach was taking pictures of Jen and I at our first meeting in Florence- it was cute. As I turn to help them grab their luggage and head for the shuttle to take us into town, I looked up and saw Evan DeYoung walking up to us!! They brought my best friend from high school with them! I was in utter disbelief! I involuntarily let out a scream and jumped to him giving him a gigantic hug. I was…ah! In total shock. Evan also brought his girlfriend, Rachel, whom I absolutely adore. As I was recovering from this huge shock, I hear “Guys! You almost left me behind!” and turned around to find another one of my best friends from high school, Ryan, coming towards us! AHHH!! I STILL cannot believe it! Three of my best friends from high school came to visit me in Italy and two of them brought their (incredibly awesome) significant others. It was the best surprise and one of the best days of my whole life! It was funny to look around and see the people in the airport watching and smiling. I’m sure they were all like, “Man. That girl has incredible friends! Where can I get friends like that?”  Ah…I always said I had the best friends on the planet…now nobody can even try to compete. They got a video of me seeing them for the first time- I’m going to try to post it on here so you can watch it. I wish there was a way to convey how I felt at that moment. I went from feeling absolute happiness and excitement to see Jen and Zach to feeling stoked to ecstatic. I was only expecting 2 people all week and got 5 instead… I just love ‘em!
The week flew by in the blink of an eye! I could write a 384 page long blog about it, but will do my best to cram it into one blog. They stayed in an apartment close to my school. I thought it would be a good idea to save money and not take a taxi but rather walk from the train station to their apartment which is a 20 minute walk without luggage. They packed enough to stay for 7 months haha! So, between all the luggage and my very roundabout (could not have taken a less direct) route, it took a while to get there. But, the apartment was pretty nice and was able to accommodate 5 people (plus me- I moved in for the week).
We went to Mass at the Duomo that night which wasn’t such a great idea because everyone had been traveling for the past 24 hours was pretty jet lagged. It would have been fine, but the priest called us all up to sit in the front row and there was no hiding the fact that they all were falling asleep. Ha! O well. We ate at some fun restaurants such as: Za Za’s, MammaGinas, Marios, Amore di Vino, etc… One day I took them to this sandwich shop that I love (and visit frequently) and they loved it- which made me happy. What made me even happier was that when the guy who runs the sandwich shop found out they were all visiting from the States, he invited us all over for a wine and cheese tasting that night! Zach and I are the only one who actually like wine, but I think they all enjoyed it! It was in this really cool underground cellar and we met this fun couple from CA who told us all about Tequila (apparently the darker it is, the better…who knew? Not me.) and gave us all these pearls of wisdom about life. It was really funny because the guy goes, “I want a picture of us with all of you guys, who wants to take it?” and Ryan volunteered and the guy goes, “Good! I was hoping you would volunteer.” Haha! What? We had a week of really funny quotes- we wrote a bunch of them down.
We went to Rome on Wednesday and it was a blast! We met up with my friend Nate who is studying there this semester and went to an audience with the Pope!! Pope Benedict the 16th (I would totally have done that in roman numerals…but I have never actually understood them…). Anyway- how cool is that!? We were kind of far away but it was ok, I got to see a pope!! Apparently he already had dinner plans, so I won’t get to accomplish my goal of eating dinner with the pope, but I’ll take getting to hear him speak. Afterwards, we walked around St. Peters Basilica which was crazy big and elaborate. We also visited the Coliseum which was breathtaking! I could not even believe that we were there looking at the actual Coliseum. It was GIGANTIC! I learned a lot about it like…they used to flood the bottom of it and have naval battles there. Then we visited the Trevi Fountain and I almost fell in!! I was taking a step back to get a picture with Ryan and the ledge is uncomfortably low. You know when you almost miss a stair and your heart beating really fast…I got that feeling. That would have been disastrous.
We did a lot of shopping at the markets and even went to Siena one day. We picked the coldest, rainiest, most miserable day to go to Siena…I felt bad about that. I wanted to show them this city that is supposed to be just gorgeous, but I don’t think any of them had fun because they were all cold and wet the whole time. We went to Pisa on a nice day, though, and got some really fun pictures!
You know what I was super excited about? I was excited that all of my friends were here for Thanksgiving!! Mauro ordered a turkey for us and when we went to pick it up, we discovered it was 5 kg which is about 11 pounds! I’ve never cooked a turkey before and was hoping to experiment on a little bird…nope! Ryan and Jen gutted the bird which I will be eternally grateful for because there was NO way I was sticking my hand in that thing. They also pulled off all the little feathers that the butcher thought would be ok to leave on. Not ok, butcher, not ok! Megan and I just covered the thing with butter and olive oil and rosemary and wished it luck as we stuck it in the oven. Ha! I don’t know how people cook thanksgiving dinners by themselves, because I had to recruit everyone to help me to get it all done in time. Evan, Ryan and Jen peeled potatoes for mashed potatoes and helped make biscuits and Zach helped with cranberry sauce…which, let’s face it, is gross whether it has chunks or not. Poor Rachel got stuck looking through all of Mauro’s photo albums of all the fish he’s caught. Mauro and Loriana just LOVED all of my friends. They haven’t stopped talking about them since they left. Anyway, we had a really nice thanksgiving dinner together and ended with an apple crisp I made that was totally shown up by the tiramisu that Loriana made.
One of their last nights here, we all got dressed up and went out for a nice steak dinner. Evan, Zach, Jen and Ryan all got these HUGE steaks (Florence is known for their bistecca fiorentina). We also went to Piazza Michelangelo and got a good view of the whole city. I just had the best time with them. Taking them to the airport was so hard. Leaving them there and NOT getting on a plane with them was even harder. I just wanted more than anything to go home right then and there- they made me so homesick. I am really loving Florence, but I am ready to be home and be with my family and friends again.
Well! That’s that. I tried my hardest to cram everything into one short-ish blog. I miss you guys and I can’t wait to come home and be with everyone. Three weeks and counting. Love to you all!

Even though a lot of our friends said that it isn’t worth it, my roommate and I decided to go to Venice this weekend. We went with our friends David and Patricia, too. A lot of people warned us that it was boring (definitely only a day trip), expensive and dirty. I don’t know what they are talking about…I loved it! I could have spent a whole week there and it wasn’t any more expensive than Florence and as far as the whole “dirty” part goes, I just didn’t think so. However, I did go in mid-November which is the lowest tourist time of the year, so maybe that’s why it was clean when I went? I don’t know, but I really liked Venice. It was everything I thought it would be!

We took a Eurostar train there at 8:30 a.m. (eurostar is the train that makes the fewest stops and is a lot faster than the regional trains) and it only took about 2 and a half hours. When we got there, we decided to get our return tickets right away. You can either go to the window or use a machine and we opted for the machine. I thought it would be a good idea to get rid of all my change because I had a TON of pennies and 2 cent pieces. Well…I am pretty sure there is a cap on how many coins you can shove into one machine and I think I hit it because the machine stopped working. I had to cancel my transaction and I was hoping that it would give me all my money back in either bills or big coins (like the 1 or 2 euro coins). Nope. I got allllllllllllllllll my pennies back. It was kind of like I hit the jackpot in Vegas when all these coins fell out of the machine. So then I had to start all over and decided to do half bills and half obnoxious little coins. I bet the people behind me were really irritated- o well. I didn’t know them nor would I ever see them again, suckers. 

Venice was just awesome! You can see all the pictures you want, but you just don’t really get the feel until you are there. It’s surprisingly quiet because there are no cars and NO vespas…highlight of my time there- no vespas! There are no roads for cars, just canals and skinny sidewalks to walk through. The streets there are so skinny! You can stand in the middle of one and touch buildings on either side of the street. It was actually pretty cool. 

We went to St. Mark’s square which was covered in pigeons! I’m pretty sure that’s where they shot that scene from Mary Poppins where she sings “Feed the Birds”. At least they could have because there were a MILLION birds. There were some people running from them and there were some people holding out bread and letting the pigeons land on them and completely cover them…ew. We went inside St. Mark’s, too, and it was beautiful mosaic work everywhere. Mom, they had big mosaic peacocks on the floor and I wanted to take a picture of them for you soooo badly…but you weren’t allowed to take pictures inside. Or eat or wear your bathing suit. Booo. 

Then we went to this festival that celebrates the ending of the Plague. Ha! There is this bridge that they would let people cross once they were cured of the Plague and we definitely crossed it. They had these HUGE chocolate and caramel covered apples and I wanted one so badly. But I can’t eat them, so while all my friends ate them, I got candied walnuts on a stick. Not NEARLY as cool, but it’ll have to do. 

After the festival, we took a water taxi to an island near Venice (that I THINK is a part of Venice) called Burano. There is one near Burano called Murano that is famous for its amazing glass. Burano, however, is famous for its lace. The lace was cool, BUT! The coolest part of Burano was by far the multi-colored houses. Apparently, Burano was a fishing town and the women of the town would paint their houses bright colors so that when the men would come home from fishing trips, they would be able to see their houses through the fog. Any color your imagination can come up with, there is a house painted that color! It was so, so cool. I found so many pink, yellow and blue houses that I would just love to live in. There was one house for sale when we were there, but it was maroon. Boring. We also saw a leaning church in Burano. I don’t know if it slowing sinking like the rest of Venice, or if the architect was drunk when he built it, but it is definitely not straight. 

All in all, Venice was a really great trip! The trip home was a little rough, but the day was fun enough to make up for that. We had to switch trains and one train was late and one train left early and blah blah blah. It was a mess, but we made it home a.o.k. 

Last Thursday I learned how to make eggplant parmesan and penne pasta with vegetables and béchamel sauce! It was soooo good and I am so excited that I got those recipes. But…on Saturday, guess what I had to cook with them? Tripe. I was excited to cook it and try it because it is the most typical Florentine dish one can eat. However, after one bite of it, I wanted to yack. Tripe=cow stomach. Ew ew ew. The taste was fine, whatever. But the texture was awful! You know when you are forcing something down and the whole time your throat is closing up and you are doing everything in your power to try not to gag and/or let it come back up? That’s what it was like. I’m glad I got that experience out of the way. Ha! 

Love and miss you all!

This is the freshly squeezed olive oil! The little one is the actual oil, the huge one is just a picture behind it. 

Here are the flag throwers!

This is one of the old guys I play bocce with! Isn’t he the cutest thing ever?!

But anyway… 

Fresh olive oil is amazing!! There was a festival this weekend celebrating the new olive oil that was made from the olives that had been picked the past couple of weeks. I had heard about this olio nuova (new oil) but I just didn’t believe it until I saw it. It was SO ridiculously, unbelievably, ohmygosh bright green! Green! It looks like slime- like something you would see on Nickelodeon! Ha- can you believe that? Apparently the freshest oil is green and as it ages, it loses its taste and color and turns yellowy gold. Not that it’s bad if it’s yellow, it’s just not as fresh- don’t worry. But anyway, not only does it have this crazy green color, but it tastes different, too! I don’t know how to describe it…it tastes more olive-y and has a little bit of a kick at the end. Like…a little hot almost.

So at this festival, all the farms that produced olive oil this year set up booths where they set out trays of bread drizzled with their new oil. I’m sure there were differences between them…but they all tasted similar to me. Some had a little bit more of an olive taste than others, but they were all so good! Of course you could buy anything from a tiny jar of it to a huge jug. Not only did they have this huge tent of booths, but over the course of the weekend they had various performances. One day I was just walking through the town and heard these drums and I followed the sound to find a group of men in tights throwing flags. Haha! They were dressed up in tradition garb and were tossing flags for some reason or another. There was also a little band dressed up in costume and various couples walking around in olden day clothing. I’m not totally sure what time they were from, but it was neat to see! One day there was a puppeteer putting on a puppet show, and if the puppets hadn’t been so creepy looking, it would have been really cool! Uncle Tim, you are so right- every day here is just an incredible adventure!

This past weekend was pretty relaxing. I went to a museum- actually, it was the Pitti Palace. It’s this really cool old palace with an incredible garden and a bunch of different museums for instruments, china (as in glassware, not orange chicken), costumes, art, etc… It’s huge! This weekend I went to the “modern art” museum part. I thought modern art meant that art that is like…a big red dot next to a blue button and it’s supposed to symbolize something bizarre like a chicken’s view of freedom. You know what I mean? O no…this modern art was art that was created in the past 200 years or something. Who exactly is that modern for? It was all old people’s portraits and statues and stuff. Snooooooooze. But! There was this cute, old museum guard guy that saw my friend and I walking around the museum and he gave us a little tour and let us go in the parts that were roped off! Hehe…I felt so V.I.P. I sure wish I cared more about “modern art” because I’m sure it would have been more meaningful. O well.

Speaking of old people, I went to play bocce with my old friends again on Monday. I brought them some pictures I had taken the few times before and they absolutely loved them. There were some fun action shots of them tossing the bocce balls and when they saw the pictures of that, they just laughed and laughed. They are the cutest ever. My favorite lady’s name is Fiorella (Fee-ore-ELL-uh). Isn’t that a beautiful name?! In Italian, “fiore” means flower. And hey- good news! My bocce skills are improving. I would love to have a bocce tourney when I get home. Anyway, as I was walking home, one of the old guys that plays with us was riding his bike beside me and we were having a conversation (in all Italian! I’m getting better) and he goes “You know, I am single. I am not married.” Ha!! Ew…no thanks, old guy. 

Moving on. About once a month they have a “biological market” which is a big market of all organic foods and clothing and soaps and such. It is so cool because there are booths with the most interesting sauces, spices and spreads (who is impressed with that alliteration?). There are also booths that sell old jewelry, pans, and other really cool vintage stuff. 

Speaking of markets, I bought a really cool ring at the main market this week. I didn’t really have any intention of buying it, but it was only eight Euro! Actually…that’s a lie. Here’s a little story: The guy said “It is 20 Euro, but for you, 15.” And I liked it, but it was not worth 15 Euro and I hate bargaining more than I hate tomatoes…which is a lot! So I said “no grazie” and he kept trying to get me to buy it, but I couldn’t really go anywhere because my roommate was still looking at his jewelry. So he asked what my price would be and I said eight Euro and he laughed. And I shrugged. So he grabbed the ring and put it in a bag and handed the bag to me and said “thirteen Euro”. 
“No grazie.”
“How much?”
“Eight”
“No. Twelve. That is it. Last price.”
“That’s fine. No thank you.”
“Eleven. Last time!”
“No thank you.”
“Fine! Eight. Uggggggggggh.”

Haha! I’m pretty sure that’s NOT how bargaining works- I think you’re supposed to meet in the middle. Meh…why meet in the middle when you can be stubborn and have them come down to your price? Yuck…I hate bargaining.

You know what else I hate. Writing papers. I had a five page paper due this Tuesday at 6 pm for my cooking class and in true Christy fashion, I started writing it at 3:00 that afternoon. I had done most of the research beforehand, so it wasn’t any big deal. We got to choose our topics and for some reason I thought it would be fun to write about typical Florentine diet and meal structure pre, post, and in between the world wars. It was pretty interesting, actually!  

The only other thing worth mentioning was actually a pretty cool experience. I was walking over to my friend’s apartment (apt= correct abbreviation) and on my way there I passed this big huge church whose doors were wide open. I don’t remember the name of the church, but I went inside and it was absolutely gorgeous. The church lights were off but there were a million candles lit every where and they were doing a Eucharistic adoration. There was a girl playing guitar and singing and in between songs, she would play a little instrumental background music while someone would say a prayer into the mic. It was the most beautifully serene and peaceful thing I have experienced in a long time. It was just really cool to be in God’s presence like that, ya know? To feel like He is right there with you. Sometimes I like to go to churches and just sit by myself and talk to God and just connect with Him. It is easier for me to talk to God when there aren’t a ton of people around because I get distracted pretty easily. But for some reason, this time that didn’t seem to be a big distraction. It was just really cool- you guys should try it. He’s worth it

O! One more noteworthy thing- I’m learning how to make eggplant parmesan this week! I have really gotten into eggplant over here. I’ve never really had it until I got here…and I love it! And pears…I thought I hated pears because they are gritty, but I love them. And artichokes. And banana chips! Those things are wonderful- they are sweet and crunchy and it’s fruit, so they’re good-ish for you, right? And oddly enough, I have been craving lemons lately. I like to peel them and sprinkle sugar on them and it tastes like lemonade! Mmmm. Ya know what I just can’t get into, though? Mushrooms. And hare and bacon. And you know what we had the other day that makes me want to gag just thinking about it- la guancia. La guancia is the cheek of a pig. Who eats that? Florentines, apparently. And chicken liver pâté. No matter what fancy French words you throw in there, you’re still eating chicken liver and it just doesn’t taste good. Hm…if I didn’t know me and I was reading that, I would think I was a vegetarian. I’m not! I love meat. Well…I like it. Sometimes. I like chicken! And salami and cold turkey and meatballs. 

Now that you all know what I do and don’t like to eat, I’ll let you get back to your lives . I didn’t end up going anywhere cool this past weekend, but we are planning a trip to Venice this upcoming weekend. It’s slowly sinking and I really want to see it without needing scuba gear. I love you all! 

Italian word of the day:

Buongiorno (bwon-JORE-no) – “Hello” or literally “Good day!” 

…now that you’ve practiced saying that, I should inform you that Italians roll their “r’s”. So…try it again, but this time, roll your “r”. Don’t be shy…no one’s listening. And if they are, you can teach someone an Italian word and that automatically makes you ten times cooler than you were before because you know Italian!

This is a picture from the winery I went to at that castle. These are the grapes they use to make a wine called Vin Santo- Holy Wine. It’s the wine they use in Churches here. But you can buy it at the store, too, and drink it is a dessert wine- you dip biscotti into it. And it’s gross! But anyway…they let these grapes hang like this for 3 months so they lose like…80% of their water and then make the wine out of them! Pretty cool, huh?

I Only have 5 weeks left ;(!

I haven’t written in a while, and I can’t totally remember the exact order of everything that has happened between now and last time I wrote. So….I will just do a series of little stories in no particular order.

Ok…coolest thing first: I went olive harvesting!! Mauro’s oldest son, Jacopo, lives on a farm and has horses and an olive grove! So on a sunny Friday morning, Mauro drove us out to Jacopo’s house and after riding with Mauro, I vowed to never complain about Nick’s driving ever again. He said he used to be a “racer” but now he is a slow driver…false! There’s not a single straight road in the country of Italy and he was taking these curves at 704 mph and I was doing everything I could not to yack in his car. Jacopo and Francesca’s house was so beautiful! They had all their windows and doors open and there was sun and a breeze and it just felt so homey. Then we went out to the olive grove and learned how to harvest Mother Nature’s grossest vegetable. Or fruit? Anything with a seed is a fruit…so I think that pit inside the olive would make it classify as a fruit. Either way…ew. Harvesting olives with Mauro was…a trip. We have very different personalities and there were times I wanted to punch him. But…he’s 72, so I figured that would just be mean. 

First, we put this gigantic net around the tree to catch all the olives. It was on a hill, so we had to strategically place boxes at the lower points so the olives wouldn’t roll away. Then, we got these plastic rake/fork type tools that we used to strip the branches of all the olives. It was so gratifying to see hundreds of olives falling from the trees and into the net. The trees are so strong! You could really hack at them to get all the olives out and the leaves would just bend and whip right back into place. After we got all the olives off, and Mauro made sure we got EVERY olive off, we would gather up the net and scoop all the olives into bins. It was so “Under the Tuscan Sun”. Mauro and I had very different ways to go about collecting olives. I would start in one place, get bored there and move on to the next, then get bored in that spot and move back to my original place and then move on to a new spot and so on. Mauro would stay planted in one spot until every single olive was in a pile at his feet. Then he would move over to one of my spots and survey and say “Tisty! You meest one.” One? Whatever. If he only knew how many olives I accidentally let roll off that net. Then we sat and had a picnic outside with Jacopo, his wife Francesca, and Maurizzo (hired help). We ate Focaccia (an incredible olive oil and salt bread), cheese, pizza, salame and wine. 

After lunch, Megan and I went with Francesca to pick up their three-year-old daughter, Alice (pronounced uh-LEE-chay), from school. This was quite possibly the COOLEST school I have ever seen in my life and I want my kids to go there some day. It is isolated in this little clearing way up in the woods and is the cutest stone and wood building. Everything in that school was natural- all the furniture was made of wood; nothing was plastic. Almost all of the toys were homemade (rocking horses, dress ups, dolls, etc…) and there were NO televisions or electronics of any sort. The kids were all climbing trees and all the parents knew each other and the teachers were so nice and welcoming. Before we left, we watched a performance that the kids put on- All the classes performed poetry or a song or a pole throwing routine? That last one was weird, but the other things were so cute.

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I went to a Florentine soccer game! It was craaazy. These people get very into soccer and the games are so intense. They have to put the fans of the opposing team in an enclosed section of the stadium because the Italians get so rowdy and competitive. They rope off the alcohol sections of the groceries on days of soccer games so that people are less likely to go to games drunk. We were in a fairly calm section, though. We played against Munich and the final score was 1-1. It was a Champion League game- NOT to be confused with a Championship game. I made the mistake of asking how we could end on a tie in a championship game and everyone looked at me like I was a moron. Sweet. I bought a really sweet soccer jersey for only 12 euro! Florence’s color is purple, so I’m pretty stoked about it. 

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I found the Indiano monument! I got my picture with it- no worries. It was actually a lot smaller than I was expecting. It’s just a concrete head of some guy and it’s gated off. There’s also an Indiano bridge that I need to cross. Where is goes- I have NO clue. But I feel it necessary to cross my bridge. 

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I went on a wine tasting this past weekend. It was in the old Verrnazzo castle which was beautiful- as was the entire countryside around it. I learned all about how wine is made, how to properly hold a wine glass (by the stem, in case you’re wondering), how to determine what the smell means, how to properly taste it and mix it with oxygen or something. I don’t know…it was kind of confusing and to me, all red wines taste pretty much the same. I’m so unsophisticated. Actually, now I am really beginning to tell differences in wines and decipher which ones I like and which ones I don’t. O! I also saw wild boars. It felt so “Lord of the Flies”. 

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We have a new president! We went to this big gathering for people that wanted to stay up all night and watch the results as they came in (which was around 2 to 4 am here). There were these HUGE screens with CNN projected on them. They gave out tons of free food and pop and we sat and watched as the states slowly turned red or blue; I was in awe at Indiana! I never would have guessed. I was pretty indifferent about who won, but everyone in Italy seemed to be pretty happy that Obama won.

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We went to Florence’s Museum of Pain and Torture and I was so excited because I thought that sounded so interesting. I think things like that- ONLY if they happened in the past and not still in the present- are intriguing. It was painfully boring and torture to be in there. Ugh. All this museum talked about were the plague and the spread of lice. Ew and ew. They talked about hanging a little bit- which just gets me every time. I don’t get how people could do that to other people- it’s so inhumane! Anyway, yeah…lame museum. But then we went back and watched “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” which was scaaaary. I love scary movies and nobody back home will watch them with me- so it was fun. 

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I bought a purse!!

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I made artichoke lasagna with my host family. I didn’t think I’d like it but it was good!

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JEN AND ZACH ARE VISITING IN LIKE….TWO WEEKS! Eeeek. I cannot wait!

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I really have nothing else to report. I am trying to plan a weekend trip somewhere fun. Maybe Vienna for a Christmas market or perhaps Belgium? We shall see. I love you all and can’t wait to see you at Christmas. Toodles!!

Today was pretty rainy in Italy. Boooooo. I think it’s going to start getting colder and I’m bummed about that! I like the weather the way it is…even though Mauro said it’s very unusual for this time of year. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get back to Indiana and it’s in the single digits and/or below. Although…hopefully there will be snow b/c I have a bad feeling that Florence won’t get any and sometimes you just want to make a good snow angel, ya know? On Wednesday I am going to an Italian soccer game…eek! Apparently they are pretty intense because everyone in this country adores soccer. O! Also, today I got letters from Ryan Habben and Ann Govert and smiled from ear to ear. I have wonderful friends. And mom sent me a Halloween package with decorations and candy (which was devoured by my roommate and myself). There was this light up ring that my host parents’ granddaughter looooved. O! Speaking of! On Friday, we are going to her house (her dad is Mauro’s oldest son) to help them harvest olives! How cool is that!?! I hope they don’t make us eat them, though, because honestly…ew! Then on Saturday I am going to a wine tasting and visiting a castle where I will start planning renovations and decorations so that when I come back in a few years to live here, my castle will be all ready for me! Hehe. On Sunday, we might go biking in the countryside or take a day trip to Venice. I also need to make it to Rome eventually because I need to have dinner with the pope before I leave! I can’t believe I have already been here for two months and am halfway through my semester. Sad day.  AND…I haven’t accomplished any of the goals I set for myself. Look what I have yet to do before I can go home:

1. Try every flavor of gelato
2. Have dinner with the Pope
3. Ride a vespa
4. Take pictures of gypsy children
5. Have my picture put on the side of a bus (I saw a bus here with a HUGE picture of a guy on it, and I thought that would be a cool story to come home with. Well…as of now, no such luck)
6. learn to cook something delicious 
7. Straighten up that leaning tower

Ok…I learned out to cook lasagna, so that one is accomplished, but I’ve still got a ways to go! Welp, I’m not going to get any of them done by sitting here typing this up…gotta run! OO! I’ve been forgetting about my “italian word of the day” thing. Ha. Ok…here goes:

Italian Word of the day
bicicletta (bee-chee-CLET-uh) = bicycle …that’s a fun one to say

Ok…The beginning of my Ireland trip was tragic. I flew into Dublin and planned to go to Limerick to stay with my friend, SHeehan. Well…I missed the train to Limerick by about 3 hours and was stranded in Dublin with no hostel reservation and the first one I looked into was booked and the guy said that most hostels were that weekend. Awesome. Luckily, I flew into Dublin with two friends (Emily and Carli) who were actually staying in Dublin and they stayed with me until I found a place to stay. They checked into their hostel and asked the guy at the front desk if they were full and the guy goes, “Yup! All booked up!” Then we asked if he knew a place where I could stay and he goes, “Oh! We have three beds left. Do you want one of them?” Ha! Absolutely. So…good news! I didn’t have to sleep on the streets of Dublin. I’m just kidding- i would have just shared a bed with one of my friends. Maybe next time I’ll plan better…but probably not. God’s looking out for me ! The hostel was really nice, though! I shared a room with a guy from Ireland and a girl from England. I caught the 7:30 a.m. train the next day to Limerick and met up with Sheehan there- all’s well that ends well!

Limerick isn’t as pretty, but the Limerick University campus is! Another one of our friends, Anne, met up with us in Limerick and we just hung out Sunday night. On Monday, we took a bus to Adare- “Ireland’s prettiest town”. It was soooo cute and quaint. We ate at a place called “Aunty Lena’s” and I had a corned beef sandwich because I felt like that would be an Irish thing to eat. It tasted like corned beef…but it looked like salami, so….I’m thinking maybe it wasn’t legit corned beef. This little town had thatched roof shops and a big, beautiful church and a castle! I am absolutely blown away by how nice people are here. They all want to talk to you and learn where you’re from and how long you’re staying. THen they’ll tell you all their favorite places to eat and visit…i love it! That night, we went out with about 10 Irish kids (by kids I mean students. They are all between 19-21 years old) to a pub and o my gosh. These kids can drink! We all got our drinks at the same time and I was the last one to finish by like…10 minutes! They drink that Guinness like it’s their job. Actually, most of them were drinking Bulmers cider.

On Tuesday, we went to this little market that comes to campus and I bought the most amazing fudge I have ever had. I got white chocolate mint and hazlenut- but it was unlike any fudge I have ever had. I don’t think it was acutally fudge, to be honest. The top was a layer of hard chocolate and the bottom was more like caramel. I dont know what it was…but it was fabulous! Sheehan got rasberry and I was really hesitant to try it because it looked like Play-dough, but it was wonderful, too! Then we hopped on a bus and headed to Killarney. I hope you are all singing “Christmas in Killarney” for the rest of the day

The bus trip there was omygosh gorgeous! I wanted to nap for the two hours it took to get there, but I couldn’t! I couldn’t stop looking at the view. O! Weird thing happened- SHeehan and I were talking on the bus and these girls in front of us turned around because they heard our American accents. They were from the states, too, and were working in Ireland. After talking to them for a little while, we found out that Sheehan and this girl both knew and were good friends with the same girl back in the states! What a small world! What are the odds of finding someone who knows the same people as you on a random bus in a random city half-way around the world. I can’t get over it. O! AND- when we were at the bus station in Limerick before we left, I met a girl that goes to my school in Florence (that I didn’t know before) and she knew my friend Hannah from home. It was kind of weird because when I told her where I go to school, she goes “O! Are you Christy? My friend Hannah told me to say hi if I ever met you.” How weird is it that I’ve been going to the same school as this girl for 2 months and meet her in a completely different country at this dinky bus station at night time. Ha! Too weird! Anyway…about Killarney!

When we pulled into Killarney, I just couldn’t believe it. It looked like a Thomas Kinkaid painting. It looked to perfectly cute to be real. I was so excited because in a town with a population of only 15,000, I found a store called Christy’s!

“Sheehan” is a surname in Ireland, so she found quite a few places with her name on them. We checked into our hostel which was just as adorable as the rest of the town and then walked around for a bit. We met this guy named Henry from Germany in our hostel and went out to a Pub with him. I tried my first Guinness!! It was absolutely disgusting in case anyone was wondering. I couldn’t even finish half of it- gag. I met these two Irish ladies at the table next to us and they were so funny. They told me it was ok to hate Guinness because they also thought it was “appalling”. Then they told us what we should eat while we are here and gave us a “gorgeous recipe” for bacon and cabbage- niether of which I am a fan of, but it was still really sweet of them. After they left, this group came and sat down and guess what?! THey were from Finland!! I have never met a single Finnish person in my entire life and met 3 in one night. They all had unique names like Mari. It’s like Mary, except with a tall “a” and a rolled “r”. They taught me to say a few things in Finnish…but it was really hard to pick up. There was also a guy from Spain with them- between us, Henry the German, the three Finnish girls and the guy from Spain, it was quite a culturally diverse table! We had so much fun together and got along so well and as we were leaving, found out we all were staying at the same hostel. Ah, too fun! This pub had live, traditional Irish music and occasionally people would get up and dance/do a jig. After the band was finished, these two old Irish guys serenaded the whole pub with old Irish songs. One guy had the most unique (and fairly obnoxious) voice. The only way I can describe it would be to tell you to imagine what Snow White would sound like if she was a man. Ha! So, it was funny sounding, but really cool to hear the old Irish songs.The next morning, we had breakfast with our Finnish, Spanish and German friends and then said goodbye because we were leaving for a bus tour. It was almost kind of sad to say goodbye to these people who we got along so well with and had such a great time with and clicked with so well. It’s weird to think I will never see or hear from them ever agian. O well…I guess that’s how it works, huh?

We went on this Ring of Kerry tour on Wednesday and it was absolutely gorgeous!!! The tour went from 10-5 and made stops at all these various points to take pictures. And guess what?! One of the stops was the town of Sneem and I saw all the things that Mom saw when she went with her sisters and mom. It was so weird because I have seen the pictures of the different bars and so when I saw them in person, I felt like I had been there before. Anyone recognize this:

Hehe! How weird is it that you guys were here in June, and here I am in October in the exact same spot! I love it

Ok…I feel like this blog has been long enough! This is my last day in Limerick- Sheehan is in class right now so I am just wasting time until she gets out. Tomorrow, I go back to Dublin and meet up with some friends. Then I fly out at 6:30!!!!!!!!! on Saturday. Welp…those are my Ireland adventures. I LOVE it here. If you get the chance to come to Ireland- go to Killarney. Formy last picture, Here is a sign I found in the little town. I want to make sure that those of you who know this song get it stuck in your head!!

Secondly, I made it to Ireland!!! The plan was to fly into Dublin then take a bus to Limerick, but it didnt pan out according to plans. When I got to the bus station, I had missed my bus (the LAST bus to Limerick) by 4 hours. Boo. So I had to walk around and find a hostel (and luckily found one!!!). Thankfully I was with two other girls that were staying in Dublin, so i found a room in their hostel. I dont have time to write much, but i fill you all in on details later. The first bus leaves tomorow at 730, so i’m going to  bed b/c i need to get up early! Night everyone!

This weekend was Eurochocolate 2008 in Perugia, Italy. Eurochocolate is a festival completely devoted to chocolate and this year’s theme was “Play Chocolate”. Megan (my roommate) and I got up at 7:43 because the train left Florence for Perugia (where the festival was being held) at 9:00. We had breakfast and went to meet our friend Ben at the train station to buy our tickets. Well…the train didn’t actually leave until 11 o’clock- boooo. So we just kind of hung out and did some train station window shopping until the train finally left. The ride was only 2 hours long and the sights along the way were phenomenal, so it wasn’t bad at all!

When we got to Perugia, we decided to buy our return tickets right away so that we wouldn’t have to do it when we wanted to leave. We stood in line forevvvvvvvver waiting to get tickets only to find out when we get to the front that we were in the line for the machine that only took credit cards. Awesome. So we had to wait in another line for a machine that took cash and when we bought our tickets, they printed out our tickets and a receipt that said the machine didn’t have the right change for us. So we had to go to customer service to get our change and wait in another line. I swear they knew I wanted to get to the chocolate festival and were doing everything they could to torture me and prevent me from actually getting to it!

After we got through all the lines, we found out that the festival wasn’t within walking distance and that we would have to take a bus there…no biggie. So we bought a bus ticket and then waited at the bus stop. Ok…this wasn’t any old bus stop. There were about 294 buses coming and going at any given moment and we had NO idea what bus to take. So we just got on one and hoped it was going to the chocolate festival. I asked the kid next to me where the bus was going and I didn’t understand everything he said, but I DID understand that we needed to be going to Piazza Partigiano and that the bus was NOT going there. We decided to wait it out a little bit and see if this kid was right or not, and eventually decided to get off the bus once we saw a sign that said we weren’t in Perugia anymore. We got off at the next bus stop and it was in the middle of nowhere! On one side of the road there was a big open field and on the other side of the road…a big open field. The only building that was close was this little snack shop that was closed on Saturdays. It was the kind of lost where you really have NO idea where you are or where you need to go. I know it wasn’t the plan to end up in the middle of the Italian countryside near zero civilization, but it was soooo beautiful and it was a fun adventure so I was totally fine being lost. Megan, however, was not in any way, shape, or form ok with being completely lost. There were three of us, though, so really…what could happen? It was a gorgeous day, too!! The weather was perfect and the sun was shining…it was the perfect “getting lost” kind of day, ya know? So we started walking down the road in the direction we had just come from and eventually found a town. There weren’t any cars or people, so it was kind of weird, but it was comforting to see potential at eventually getting to this festival. It was about 1:30, so maybe everyone was inside having lunch.

Have you seen “The Truman Show”? It’s the movie with Jim Carey where he finds out his whole life was actually a TV show and that he’s been videotaped the whole time. Well- I kind of felt like that when we were lost! I swear it was like a scene right out of a movie! The three of us were walking along a deserted road- Megan was trucking it because she was on a mission to find another bus stop. Ben and I were 30 feet behind her because I was taking pictures of all the flowers along the way and Ben stopped to taste an olive. Which, I should add, should not be eaten directly off the tree. Apparently they taste like “an ibuprofen if you decided to chew it instead of swallowing it whole.” When we finally found a human, I asked how to get to Perugia and the lady told me what bus to take and where the bus stops were and we FINALLY made it to Perugia!!

The chocolate festival was worth getting lost in Nowhereville, Italy. It was HUGE! There were a bagillion different booths sponsored by all these different chocolate companies (Lindt, Milka, and Toblerone to name a few you might know). There was every single type of chocolate imaginable. Anything that could be covered with or mixed into chocolate was there- fruits, nuts, chili peppers, alcohol. You name it, it was there! We got this hot chocolate (even though it was warm day) that was ridiculously thick. It was like pudding! I got white hot chocolate and it was…meh. Ok. BUT! I did get these banana chocolates that were phenomenal! We also got these chocolate shish kabobs that looked so good but were actually not good at all. They were sooo pretty because they were covered in rainbow sprinkles but the chocolate inside had some kind of nasty cherry liquor in it…boo. I also ate a ton of hazelnut chocolate and saw the world’s largest Toblerone bar! There was also this GIGANTIC chocolate key (why they made a huge chocolate key is beyond me, but it was cool) and this chess game with chocolate pieces that came up to my knee. It was fun because they would let people from the crowd come up and play this huuuuge chocolate chess game, and if I knew how to play chess, I would have done it in a heartbeat! Too bad they didn’t have gigantic chocolate checkers or yahtzee or something!

By the end of the day, just the thought of chocolate made me want to yack. I bought a lot to bring back home, but to be completely honest, I don’t know if it will make it there or not. I’ve still got two and a half months here and that chocolate is just sitting in my suitcase begging to be eaten. We’ll see.

We got home safe and sound and on Sunday, we went to a town called Fiesole. It’s the town that overlooks all of Florence. I’ve been there at night, but during the day…wow. It’s incredible!! We explored the town, saw Etruscan tombs, and hiked to get wonderful views- oh so relaxing and fun. Now that I had a weekend of fun, I’ve got to hit the books because this week I have four midterms…boooo. BUT!!! After midterms is…drumroll, please…IRELAND! Eeeeek. I can’t even wait! If anybody wants anything from Italy or Ireland, let me know. Ok, this is a super long blog! If you’re still reading this, you’re so sweet and/or need to get back to work. Love you all!

First of all…I got mail today!!! I got a post card from Brandon and a letter and a Q-tip from Agi! Totally made my day.

Secondly…guess what?! This Saturday I am going to a CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL in Perugia, Italy!! Can you believe it?! Italy and Chocolate…it’s my Heaven.

Thirdly and significantly less exciting than mail and a weekend devoted entirely to chocolate…I locked myself out again today. That’s twice in less than 5 days. I have GOT to stop doing that. I rang the door buzzer and my host mom looked out the window to see who it was, and when she saw me, she just shook her head and buzzed me in. I’m not used to carrying a key around- at school, I use my fingerprint to get in my sorority house, and at home, there’s always someone there to let me in. Maybe I can talk my host family into getting a fingerprint scanner! Or maybe I can just remember to bring my dang keys with me like everyone else seems to be able to do.

And fourthly, if that’s a word…I got to Ireland in 11 days! Eeek!

Here’s a pic of the Mercato Centrale (Central Market). It’s the guy behind the meat counter who smiled happily for a pic:

I found where I want to live when I grow up. We went to this little villa in the hills of Tuscany today- just a 20 minute car ride outside of Florence. O…my…gosh. It was the most incredible place I have ever seen! First of all, the house was so beautifully old. It was this big, stone house that had so much character. It had brick arched doorways, big wooden shutters, high ceilings, a beautiful kitchen and all the furniture was mahogany…or some kind of wood that was old and dark and wonderful. The property was just as beautiful as the house. They had una olivetta (olive grove) that they gave us a tour of and told us all about the process of harvesting olives for oil. I learned so much! They put these huge nets under the trees, strip the branches of the olives and grind them (pit and all…plus a few branches and leaves) until it forms a paste basically. Then, they can do one of two things. They can either put the paste on big metal discs and SQUISH it until the oil drips out or they can put the paste in this cylinder that spins super duper fast and separates the oil from the paste. The first way is the preferred way. The quality of the oil is based off the amount of time between the picking of the olives and the making of the oil. The best oil (Extra Extra Virgin Olive Oil…there’s also Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Virgin Olive Oil, and just regular ol’ Olive Oil) is made immediately after harvesting the olives. Tip: You should always buy olive oil in dark containers-not light ones and not clear ones. Apparently, olive oil loses its color, odor, and taste quicker in clear containers because of the light and something about it getting hot and…I don’t know. But you should buy olive oil in dark containers for the best quality. O! Another cool fact: The oldest olive trees are in Greece and they are some 5 or 6 thousand years old and are STILL producing olives!! You might want to double check my numbers there…it’s either 5 or 6 thousand…or 2 thousand. I’m fairly certain it’s 5 or 6,though.

Anyway…going on about the gorgeous property. Next to the olive grove was a vineyard with white grapes. Well, actually there weren’t very many grapes because evidently this year they are having a problem with wild pigs coming on their property at night and eating them! For some reason that reminds me of Lord of the Flies, which is a terrible book- if you haven’t read it, don’t. Then we took a long walk up the country road and got the most amazing view. We were on a hill, so we could see everyone’s vineyards and pastures and ahhhh. It was just beautiful.

After that, we went back and had 5 course lunch that the family cooked for all of us (there were about 12 girls on this little excursion). We had ribollita (literally translated: re-boiled. It’s a bunch of veggies and stale bread that are all boiled together and as one might guess, is reboiled before it is served- it’s pretty good!), INCREDIBLE pasta, carrots, green beans, vegetarian meatballs (go ahead and laugh at the irony), pork, bruschetta (bread that is rubbed with garlic and then topped with tomatoes and olive oil), cherry tomatoes, pecorino cheese, and bread served with olive oil and salt. Ha! Are you hungry yet? For il dolce (dessert) we had lady fingers and this typical Italian dessert that I do not like (which is surprising because I am definitely a sweets girl). I forget the name of it, but basically you take these super hard biscotti (cookies) and dip them in wine. But not just any old wine- it has to be Vin Santo (translated: Holy Wine- it’s what the Pope uses). It tastes like turpentine! You set your biscotti in your small glass of Vin Santo (you aren’t supposed to have too much or you’ll get sick) for a little while until the cookie softens up a bit and you eat it. It’s…an experience. It’s kind of like our version of Oreos and milk-except it’s cookies and wine. Oh, Italy.

After lunch, we got to go Fig picking on their fig trees. I have become quite fond of figs! I had never had a fig in my life until I got to Italy and they are so good! They are really sweet and they have a lot of seeds and the squishier they are, the better. They are green or violet and you can pick them right off the tree and eat them skin and all. I said that I felt so biblical eating a fig (because I feel like that fruit is mentioned in the Bible a lot) and this girl next to me gave me a little lesson about how the fig is the fruit of the gods. So basically, for 5 minutes, I was a goddess! Hehe. I wonder if we have figs in the states and I’ve just never looked for one. When I grow up, I’m probably going to plant a fig tree in my yard so I can eat them and introduce them to people that have never had the pleasure of eating heaven’s little fruit. After fig picking, we got to explore their property and I found lemon trees! Dear family, I hope you all have the “lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower sweet but the fruit of the lemon is impossible to eat” song stuck in your heads now. Mwuahaha.

Oh, it was just a wonderful day! However…when we got back to Florence, I walked home and as soon as I got there, I realized I left my keys in my room. So…I was locked out of my house for approximately 5 hours until my house dad finally picked up his phone and let me in. The ONE time I forget my keys is the ONE time my roommate is on the complete other side of the country. Boo. It’s ok, though- it was an adventure and I learned my lesson.

Saturday was kind of boring because I was by myself all day- I was so lonely! I took a wee little nap in the sun by the river, did some homework and did a little shopping in the big market. I bought a pashmina (props to everyone who immediately thinks of a Friends reference when hearing “pashmina”) and sunglasses. And guess what?! I bargained today! Dad, you’d be so proud! The guy said the sunglasses were 8 euro and I got him down to 5. Actually, I didn’t bargain, I lied. The conversation went something like this (except in Italian):

Christy: How much are these?

Creepy Sunglass Salesman (CSS): 8 Euro.

Christy: I only have 5. (big, fat lie)

CSS: You can have them for five. Are you going out tonight?

Christy: eye roll, puts money on table, grabs glasses and walks away.

Then for the rest of the weekend, I just kind of hung out with my friend Patricia and FINALLY met some really cool Italian kids that were my age. I also went to Boboli Garden which is just gorgeous! O- I thought it would be cool to add a “word of the day” so that you can learn an Italian word or two! I don’t know they correct way to phonetically spell words, so I’ll just make it up the way it sounds.

Word of the day: Andiamo (ahn-dee-AH-moh): Let’s go!

Lemon Trees!

Here’s a pic of some of the people I played bocce with. The guy standing in the black sang songs to me the whole time, and the lady in blue was a Bocce Nazi! She was pretty hard core. And then the lady in the pink in the back talking to the card players is the one who can speak English! THere are about 10-15 other people that aren’t in the picture, but they were all so sweet.

Ok- first of all, this one class goes from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with only one 5 minute break and a small lunch break. My attention span might be a little shorter than average, but I truly believe that any normal person would not be able to pay attention to one man speak for that insane amount of time without drifting off on occasion! So I was sitting there taking notes and he said something about “color management”. In my notes I was trying to abbreviate “management” and what came out was “mngmnt”…basically I just left out all the vowels which struck me as humorous. Then I remembered an e-mail I had gotten earlier from Joe. I had asked him for his address to him new apartment so I could send him a postcard! What he sent back was something similar to this: “The address to my townhouse is blah blah blah. And by the way, apartment is not abbreviated ‘appt’…that’s appointment.”. So I was thinking about “mngmnt” and “appt” and my apparent lack of abbreviation knowledge and for some reason it stuck me as reeeeally funny and I wanted to laugh out loud so badly! But I’m in class, right, so I can’t. And you know when your body wants to laugh but you know you shouldn’t, so you just smile a really big smile and try your best to hold your laughs inside? Well, obviously I am zoning out and all of a sudden I hear, “Christy….CHRISTY! Uh…why are you smiling at me?!” I was faced forward because before I started zoning out, I actually was listening to the lecture. Apparently it looked like I was staring towards and smiling at my professor who promptly called me out on it! The whooooole class started laughing and I sat there for a second debating whether to tell him the truth (“sorry…I was actually zoning out and not listening to a word you were saying”) or to make up a reason (“uh…you’re so pretty?”). Eventually all the laughs that I had been holding in all came out and I eventually ended up just saying something like “I was just laughing to myself because I tried to abbreviate management and ended up just leaving out the vowels…” He seemed to understand because we broke off into a 10-minute discussion about abbreviations. For future reference, “management” is abbreviated “mgt” and “Brooklyn” is apparently “Bkyn”…who knew? “Appointment” is “appt”, NOT to be confused with “apartment” (whose abbreviation is still a mystery to me!).

While I’m on the subject, here is a couple more (actually…less) embarrassing moments that occurred whilst in Florence (“is a couple”, right? Not “are a couple”…whatever):

A couple weeks ago, my roommate and I were on our way to lunch and on the way, we passed a church whose doors were wide open. O, I should probably note that it had just rained. We wanted to go inside and see what it looked like and as we were walking up the stairs, I noticed a woman inside taking a picture out the door. I didn’t want to be in her picture so I tried to run up the stairs. Tried and failed. I definitely wiped out and fell up the stairs. If everyone had just went on their way and pretended that it didn’t happen, I would have been fine. But that wasn’t the case and my poor ego was damaged. You’d think I would be used to that by now because I trip at least once a day on the cobblestone streets here because I don’t look at the ground when I walk (though that sounds like a simple solution to that problem, huh?). But I have never actually fallen all the way down like on the steps of the church.

The only other semi-embarrassing, though I’d call it more awkward than embarrassing, moment I have had here was a few weeks ago. I met this Spanish guy (Roberto, to be exact) and as he was introducing himself to me, I couldn’t hear his name. I leaned in to hear it and he thought I was doing the kiss on both cheeks thing. So when he went to kiss me on the cheek, I pulled back because I didn’t know what he was doing! Then when I realized, I leaned in but then he leaned out and we did that little see-saw thing a few times before I just stuck out my hand and introduced myself American style…it’s so much less confusing. So…not really embarrassing, just awkward!

Other than that, I’ve managed to present myself pretty well over here! O! Before I forget…if you are reading this, please leave me your address so that I can send you a postcard! Why don’t you go ahead and abbreviate words such as “boulevard” and the like because if you don’t, I will…and you all know now how wonderful my abbreviating skills are. If you don’t want to leave it on here, you can facebook me or email it to me at cindiano@butler.edu. OR! You can send ME mail and I can use your return address! If you want to send me a letter here in Italy (and I think that you should) my address is:
Christy Indiano
c/o Florence University of the Arts
Via Magliabechi 1
Florence, Italy 50122

Tonight in my cooking class, I am learning how to cook lasagna! Eeeek! I can’t wait to come back to the states and cook it for all of you! And guess what? Today I found out that one of my really close friends, Jen, and her boyfriend (Zach) are coming to visit me in late November! I cannot even wait! I feel like I have been so blessed because the Pooles/May came at the beginning when I was starting to miss home, and now in November when I know I will really be missing home again, I will have Jen and Zach! O yay. O- and I bought a ticket home from Ireland, Mom …you can rest easy now .

Ciao Ciao!

Ok let me explain the title- We watched this incredible street performer who was a mime. He imitated people’s walks and would come up behind people and start to hold their hand. When they turned to see who it was, they would DIE laughing because his face was so goofy. Sometimes he would kiss really burly guys on the cheek and leave his black and white face makeup on their cheeks- it was funny and we watched him for a long time. At the end, he took a bow and grabbed his hat and said “Deeeeeeeeeees is my haaaaaaaaaat” held it out for people to donate money. Something about the way he said it cracked me up and I still laugh any time I think about it.

Before I go on, here is a picture of Mauro, my host dad!

This Thursday I went to one of the hills surrounding Florence with a group from school at 9:30 at night. I feel like that sentence needs some commas somewhere, but…I don’t know where they should go. Anyway, we climbed way, way up to the tippy top of this huge hill and the view was incredible! We could see all of Florence and in the night time, it’s just beautiful. I also didn’t realize how big this city is! I really want to go back in the day time and see what it looks like in the light.

On Friday night, I went with some friends to “The Dublin Pub” and I got reeeeally excited because guess what?! I just booked plane tickets to go to Ireland over Fall Break!! And the coolest part? One way tickets were only 30 euro (which is about 45 dollars). $45 to go to Ireland! I’m just more excited than I could possibly ever express on a blog! I haven’t gotten a return ticket yet because I don’t know when I want to come back. I will be staying with my friend Sheehan who is studying in Limerick- we are going to travel around Dublin for a few days I think, and then go back to Limerick. I cannot wait to see her! I think I’m going to return on the 31^st or 1^st. One week is enough time, right? I sure hope so. Anyway, about the Dublin Pub- I tried Cider Beer for the first time. I liked it because it tasted nothing like beer (which I am not a fan of).

O! There was this International Market that came to town and was set up for about a week right by my school. It was really neat because there were booths from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, etc… and they all had different nic-nacs and foods from their different countries. It was so neat to see everything, but! There was one booth that had an entirepig spinning on a spit! It was so sad. When somebody would order something, they would just go back and hack of a chunk…that’s gross. Needless to say, I had no pork, no ham, and no bacon at the International Market. Not that I really like any pork, ham or bacon anyway….There was this amazing German stand, though, that sold HUGE pretzels. I got this pretzel that was huuuuge and covered in cinnamon sugar and it was heavenly. It was so soft and sweet and…mmmm. Delicious. My roommate and I have to share them, though, because they are gigantic. We also got one that was a cinnamon twist pretzel covered in chocolate that was smaller than the cinnamon one, but equally as wonderful…wow. When I type that all out, I sound like such a fatty! Maybe so, but they were incredible! Here’s a pic of one:  

This weekend Megan and I went to the Accademia (where good ol’ David is) and Martha, I almost got brave enough to take a pic! But “NO PHOTO” lady was there again and she was a little more vicious this time! We looked at every single piece of art, every statue, every crack in the wall. Then, we went to the Medici Chapel and looked at MORE art and MORE statues. Awesome. I really like art, but I think this weekend I had art overload. There are only so many “Madonna and Child Enthroned”s that one can see before thinking they ALL look the same. There was one really cool painting that I couldn’t stop looking at- I don’t know who it was by or what it was called. It was a painting of Mary in the middle and all these saints and angels surrounding her. It caught my eye because the angels were all pregnant. I have never seen that before and/or even thought about that before. It was really pretty.

The next two pics are of food! The first one is an incredible salad. The Second is an unidentifiable fruit. We don’t know the name and when we looked up the italian word in the dictionary, there was no translation for it in English. SO! If you recognize it (maybe a cumquat?!) let me know! and the mystery fruit:

That’s where we swam! It was the clearest water I have ever seen!

So I woke up in the wee hours of the morning on Friday (and by wee hours, I mean around 8:36ish). I went on this tour of the Uffizi (a big art museum in Florence) followed by a tour of the Vissarian Corridors. Actually, we didn’t get to stay in the Uffizi for too long because our tickets allowed us to enter the museum anywhere between 9 and 11 and the guard at the gate refused to let us in. He had no reason, either; he kept saying, “well…it’s only 10:54, I still have 6 minutes before I have to let you in.” Can you believe that?! He finally let us in at 10:57…how rude. Our guide was super sweet though, and she did her best to give us a speedy tour of this gigantic museum that holds incredible works of art like “The Birth of Venus” and “The Venus di Milo” statue. Then we went through this corridor that was just incredible. It was built in the 1400’s by the Medici family (they ruled in Florence for a looong time) and connects the town hall to their palace. That way, if anybody tried to bomb/invade them, they could escape unnoticed! It was pretty neat!

Then on Saturday I went to Cinque Terre (five little towns along the coast)! It is the most gorgeous place I have ever, ever seen. It was about a two hour train ride into Monterosso where we began our one and a half hour hike. O…my…gosh. I like hiking, I really do. But this hike was ALL uphill, up about 1,294,882 steps. My thighs were killing me and I tripped on rocks and roots about 48 different times! But the weather was absolutely perfect for hiking and the sights were beautiful enough to make me forget about my burning calf muscles. We passed olive trees and the most wonderful vineyards- it was breath taking. I took so many pictures and I can’t wait to show everyone! I went with a really good group of kids from school and we laughed the whole time; I had a blast! Then we arrived at Vernazza and ate lunch (pesto pizza- apparently this area is the birth place of pesto! Who knew?) and swam in the Mediterranean Sea. It was a little chilly but perfect nonetheless. When you float on your back and put your ears underwater, it sounds like poprocks! I don’t know what makes that noise underwater, but it made me smile. After Vernazza, we walked the Via Dell’Amore (the street of Love). Originally, this street connected Cinque Terre to other cities in the 1920’s to help with trade and the like. It eventually became the path where lovers from different cities would meet and thus took its name “via dell’amore” (did that sound a little history book-ish? Maybe…but I think it’s cute!). Anyway, now the tunnel/street is covered with graffiti- people’s names in hearts, poetry, proposals- you name it! There is also this fence adorned with hundreds of padlocks. Apparently, you and your lover write your name on the lock, lock it around this fence, and throw the key into the sea signifying your unending love. It’s a scene from some movie, evidently. How sweet is that? Afterwards, we took a ferry to another town where we did a little more hiking, ate some local specialties (Foccacia- a phenomenal bread, and a really thick hot chocolate even though it was warm outside) and climbed some gigantic rocks by the ocean side. Then trained home…ah- great day!

Sunday was really eventful, too! I did a Breast Cancer Cure Marathon (well…they called it a marathon, it was only 5K) in the morning. I got a bright red t-shirt from Salvatore Farragamo (an Italian designer) and this goody bag that had the most random things in it (an oven mitt, tiny flashlight, bath oils, etc..,)- it was awesome! The race was so fun and God gave us some great weather for it. On our way home from that, there was this huuuuge parade of old guys wearing Peter Pan hats! It was sooo strange; I had no idea what was going on.  Eventually, one of the guys saw my shirt and number from the marathon and asked me about it (well, he asked if I won. Nope…but thanks for rubbing it in) and then in return I asked what all the hullabaloo was about. It was apparently a march of the Alpini soldiers….well duh. I felt dumb asking him what that meant, so I asked my host dad, who told me that long ago, they protected the Alps and today, they are fighting in Afghanistan. Or…something similar to that. Then I bought a coat because I forgot to pack one and it’s getting cold here. It was only 20 Euro! I bought it in the San Lorenzo market and you’re supposed to haggle with them to get a lower price…but I chickened out. That’s just too awkward! And I figured 20 Euro (about 30 American dollars) for a coat isn’t too shabby. Then was my favorite part of the night! I met with a group of about 10 friends and we had a picnic on this piazza di Michelangelo that overlooks the entire city. We watched the gorgeous sunset and then had cheese and crackers and wine. Then! This couple saw that one of our friends had brought his guitar and asked him about it and sat down to play some songs for us. They were this middle-aged German couple that was totally hippie- Sabina (the woman) had super long, blonde hair and Axel had long grey hair, a full beard, and the quintessential hippie headband across his forehead. We sat around and sang songs with this couple for hours and it was just…ah. So fun. I love it!

Then on Monday, since I don’t have school, I wandered around Florence looking for a good place to take photos for my photography homework. I walked all over this dang city and eventually saw about 20 old people playing bocce balls down this hill from where I was standing. So I took a few pictures and debated going down the hill to get closer shots, but that would have been sooo awkward and uncomfortable since I didn’t know any of them. I eventually made myself go down there and I was right- it was uncomfortable and awkward…at the beginning anyway. I just sat on this bench along side the game of bocce and started taking pictures of them. It was approximately 23 seconds after I had sat down that old people were on my left and right asking me questions about my school, my ring, my hair, my friends. They didn’t speak a word of English and my Italian is not so good. There was one woman who spoke a little bit of English, so she helped me a lot. They were sooo sweet AND they let me play bocce with them! Needless to say, I was by far the worst player there. The little old women asked if I had a boyfriend and offered to introduce all their grandsons and the little old men sang me songs! It was precious. They told me to come back and play with them and I absolutely will! I loved it. It was a really good experience and helped me to get over my fear of being totally awkward and out of place. Plus, being around them will help my Italian!

O- guess what new food I tried and promised myself I will never come within 59 feet of again?? Chicken liver pâté. They eat it on bread and apparently it is a Tuscan delicacy. I’m fairly certain God made chickens so we could eat their legs, their wings and their eggs. NOT their livers. Ew.

Homesickness sunk in a little more today. I try to ignore it, but I figure it’s okay to miss home a little bit, right? I miss my family a lot. And friends. And peanut butter. You know what else I miss? Long, hot showers. And clocks that AREN’T in army time! And free public restrooms! I had to pay thirty cents to use a bathroom the other day. How lame is that? I was half tempted to go behind a bush out of principle alone. But it’s okay because heck…I’m in Italia!

That’s about it! You should all e-mail me at  HYPERLINK “mailto:cindiano@butler.edu” cindiano@butler.edu or post a message on here to let me know how you are all doing! I would love to hear about life in America, where one can go to the bathroom without having to pay a woman at a desk first. I miss and love you all a ton!!

So about these hippies!
I soooo wish I would have taken a picture to show you guys. We ate at this restaurant in the Piazza Santa Spiritu (which could also be called Piazza Della Hippies), and as we were eating supper they were setting up for a concert. So after a delicious four cheese pizza, we sat and listened to the concert. I forget the band’s name, but the lead singer was Susan (we talked with her after the show and she was super nice!!) and they played R&B and a lot of Blues Brother’s stuff…I loved it because it made me think of Nick! Half the crowd was high and the other half was toast from being high for so long (I was with a group, Mom, no worries!). So about 4-8 people of unidentifiable genders would get up and hippie dance and it was absolutley hilarious. They would just flail wherever their bodies wanted to go. They had no inhibitions and didn’t care that they looked completely ridiculous- I was kind of jealous of that, actually! I wanted to go up and dance, too, but nobody that I knew would dance up there with me and I didn’t want to go up alone. Maybe I will build up my self confidence and have the courage to go up there and dance next time- I’ll be able to flail and not care that people are watching! We’ll see- I’ll get back to you on that. Anyway, my friends and I played a fun game of “guess their gender” all night. It was a fun night and I learned a few things: I learned that I only have a tinch bit further to go before I’m totally comfortable with myself to dance like a fool and not mind what others think. I learned where to go to get a fantastic white pizza….and I also learned where NOT to go after dark unless I’m with a group.

(Ok…I wrote all that a couple days ago, and am just now posting it. Sorry!)
So LAST night, guess what we had for dinner? INCREDIBLE raviolli, salad, and chicken. Or at least what I thought was chicken. It was definitely rabbit. I was eating a bunny! When Loriana (my host mom) asked how to say it in English, I said “rabbit” and she goes “Jessica Rabbit?” Thanks, Loriana, now I feel guilty about eating Roger Rabbit’s girlfriend. It wasn’t half bad, either…It actually kind of tasted like chicken.

Well, that’s all for now. Tonight in my cooking class, I am learning how to make “Baked Maccheroni with Cheese and Gravy” and “Zuccotto” for dessert! Below is a pic of Carolyn, Me, Martha and Megan at the Arno!

Anyway, I heard about this Jazz Club in Florence that I really wanted to check out! (they have a website http://www.jazzclubfirenze.com/en/index.php) So we went there last night and it is so cute! It’s underground and they live music every night; they’ve got everything for blues to jazz to funk to electronica? Not sure what electronica is. The people are super friendly and the atmosphere is great! Also, it’s one of those places that you wouldn’t be able to find unless you are looking for it. Which means that it is full of local Florentines and out of the way of all the tourists. It felt more legit to go there than to the discotecas where they play mostly American music.

So anyway, they’ve got live music every night….except for last night. Last night was karaoke night. Of course. I was fine with that because I was with a group of 4 other friends that I could blend in with and not be chosen to sing. Well, needless to say that plan fell flat on its face. As soon as the woman who was singing finished, the DJ asked “who’s next?” and I pointed at the kid next to me. Bad move. Just then, our entire table pointed at me and the DJ gave me the microphone. I said no and put the mic down- but then he turned on a song and everyone was staring at me! If I could gather all the awkward moments together in my life and squeeze the awkwardness into a jar, the sum of that would not even be comparable to that moment when the whole place was silently staring at me expecting me to sing them a song- 3 minutes after I had walked in the door. What’s worse is that the DJ picked Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”…the tacky song from Titanic! Booo. So i looked around and there was a local karaoke enthusiast sitting next to me, so I grabbed her and we did a little duet. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of singing a love song duet with a woman you don’t even know in an Italian Jazz Club. I’m kidding- it wasn’t that bad. It was a new experience- an adventure! She was a pretty good singer, so it didn’t sound too bad! Then we got an encore (“Summer Nights” from Grease) and I made my entire table of friends stand up there with me and sing. If I had to do it…so did they!

The DJ was a blast and the locals that karaoked actually had pretty good voices! It was a really fun night! Except for this one short chubby guy, who thought it would be a good idea to take his shirt off in the middle of his song and show everyone his hairy beer belly. THAT I could have done without. He did dance around pretty flamboyantly, though, so it was somewhat amusing.

The weather here is starting to get colder, which I’m a little concerned about. Mauro told me that there are over 100 gelato flavors and I haven’t even gotten CLOSE to trying all of them! I’m afraid that when it gets cold, I won’t want gelato and I won’t accomplish my goal of trying every flavor . Sad day. However, I hear that the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted awaits! When it gets cold here, the cafe’s apparently make an incredible hot chocolate. Secret ingredient? Chili powder. I’m a little hesitant, but I’ll try anything once! EXCEPT! Mauro told me that they make garlic, onion, and chili flavored gelato. When I say i’ll try anything once, I mean I will try anything once excluding garlic, onion and chili flavored gelato.

Well, I’m gonna go do some homework in a cafe around the corner. Here is a picture of the beautiful sunsets of Florence!

I’m staying with an elderly couple and their cat (whom they absolutely adore!). The man’s name is Mauro (pronounced MAH-oo-roh…I think- He still corrects me every time I say it because apparently I just cant get it right). He is 72 years old and is an artist- some of his paintings are outstanding! He lived in the states for about 9 years selling wine and Italian liqueurs, so his English is pretty good! It’s so funny when he uses past tense words because he pronounces the “ed” at the end. So instead of saying the word “worked” like “workt”, he says it like “work-edd”. Does that make sense? For example, he would sound something like this: ”I liveddd in de west of California for tree years.” Anyway, he gives me some pretty good advice and tips about the best restaurants and gelaterrias. He has lived in Florence his whole life, so he shows me and my roommate all the secret little things that all the tourists miss- like hidden faces that Michelangelo sketched into bricks of important buildings. He takes us out to gelato sometimes, though he can’t have too much because he “has a little bit of the diabetes”. I didn’t know it came in amounts…hmm.

Loriana is his wife and she is so sweet. She doesn’t speak much English…at all! But that’s ok because she’s really helping me with my Italian. She speaks sooooo quickly, though. She is older, too, and cooks really well! We are teaching her little phrases like “no problem” and “oh my gosh”- things we use all the time. She uses them frequently but doesnt really grasp the concept of when to say them. So sometimes she will just pass you and instead of saying “Ciao” she will say “oh my gosh!” Or she’ll scoop salad on my plate and look at me and say “no problem”. It’s cute. I can’t always tell what she’s thinking, though, and I wish I could. Because sometimes I will hum and/or sing to myself quietly at the dinner table, and she’ll just stare at me and kind of smirk. And I can’t tell if she’s thinking “is there something wrong with this girl?!” or maybe she likes it or maybe she wants me to stop? I can’t tell. So when I see her watching me, I stop. I don’t intentionally sing, sometimes songs just come out! She sings around the house, too- I love it! They have two sons, Jacoppo (YOH-cup-oh….their verison of Jacob) and Niccolo (NEEK-oh-loh) and a grand-daughter Eliesha. I haven’t met any of them because they all live really far away (Niccolo lives in CA) but maybe I will get to meet them when they come visit around Christmas time.

Then there’s the beloved cat Barillo. He’s a big ol’ grey thing that loooooves to sit on your lap while you pet him. He likes to sleep on my bed with me for some reason. He’s a weird cat- but I think all cats are weird.

That’s about it! They told me that because I am taking a cooking class, I am in charge of Thanksgiving dinner. Ha! The only thing I know how to cook is grilled cheese. Well, I also know how to burn things really well! But…since they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Italy, they will have no idea what it’s supposed to be like! So, I could theoretically make macaroni and cheese and call it tradition and they’d have no clue ! Nah, I think i’ll attempt a real meal. Attempt.

So I’ve heard people rave about the Lemoncello here so I tried it yesterday. Ew. Ew ew ew ew ew! I am NOT a fan. Maybe it was just the brand I had or something, but I am in no hurry to try that again! I have, however, fallin in love with Pesto. I have never had gnocchi with pesto, but i liked it! Ok…I love you all lots and lots! Ciao!

Yesterday I went to Pisa and saw the leaning tower! Of course I had to take a picture of myself holding it up…what kind of tourist would I be if I didn’t? But other than the tower and a few other old buildings, there isn’t a whole lot to see or do in Pisa. So then we took a 20-minute train ride to Viareggio which is a really cute little beach town. We ate at a café on the beach and walked right out onto the beach and into the ocean! Actually….I think it’s the Ligurian Sea or the Tyrrhenian Sea- I’m not sure which one. It was absolutely beautiful! The water was sooo clear and the best part was that the ocean floor was just sand! No seaweed, spiky shells, jelly fish, crabs or anything else that scares me to death about touching the ocean floor with my feet. I loved just floating on my back because when your ears are under water, the only thing you can hear is yourself breathing. And the water is cool but the sun is warm- *sigh* it’s perfect! I wish you all could have been there with me.

The other day, my host family made tripe which is the lining of a cow’s stomach. Awesome. Luckily, I was in class late that day and there wasn’t any left by the time I got home, so I resorted to the pesto pasta. And guess what I tried yesterday?! Figs! I’ve never even seen one before, but I really liked them. They are kinda squishy and sweet…and they have a lot of seeds. Another Tuscan treat is cantaloupe wrapped in ham…not a favorite of mine, I must say. I don’t like salty and sweet mixed together, though. They also cut up peaches and put them in Chianti- which is pretty good! So, you should go try all of those things so you can get a taste of what I’ve been eating.

Classes started and I like all of them! I think they are going to be a lot of work, but that’s ok. OO! And guess what I found?! Banana juice!! It’s absolutely phenomenal. I don’t know if we have that in the states or not, but we definitely should! It comes in those little juice boxes and is just….Heaven. Well I’m going to go do a little bit of photography homework. I love you all!!

I have been walking around Florence trying to get acquainted to the town and to where everything is…which is not easy. There is no rhyme or reason to any of the streets in Florence! If you look at a map of it, it’s not a grid like a lot of cities- the streets are all hither nither and at crazy angles and frequently without any sort of visible street sign. Add to that the fact that I don’t really have any sense of direction and that’s the perfect equation for me getting lost…a lot! But it’s ok because I just whip out my huuuuge map like any good tourist would and try to place myself. Sometimes I really feel the need to step into the map (reference to Joey from Friends).

The buildings here are HUGE and oh so old! I can’t even fathom that they were built by actual people centuries before there was any type of machinery available to help them. They are incredible!! The food here is wonderful, too. Last night my roommate and I went out to eat with the couple at a Pizzeria and they made my pizza into the shape of a heart! It was cute and sooo good. It was a four cheese pizza with mozzarella and Gorgonzola and….two others that I don’t remember.

This morning I went for a jog in Cascine Park (which is like Florence’s Central Park) where I found this sign that said Indiano! I looked “Indiano” up in my italian dictionary and apparently it means “indian, native american”. Ha! Who knew?? Welp…I’m gonna go buy some fruit to counteract all the gelato I’ve been eating (the peaches here….amazing!). I miss you all!

Lots of Florence love,
Christy

So then I checked in and went to the appartment of the family that I am staying with. I was greeted by Mauro Billiotti with a huge hug and kiss on both cheeks…which i’m going to have to get used to. He’s a really cute seventy-two-year-old man who speaks English pretty well! His wife Lorianna doesn’t speak any except for “it’s good”. So that will really help my italiano! Anyway, they are sooo sweet and their appartment is very cute. I share a room with a girl named Megan from TX, whom I like very much! We are on the third floor of what used to be a nun’s convent! So…I feel safe- what harm can happen in an old convent, right? Below us is a whole bunch of fashion boutiques and designer shops (Gucci, D&G, Armani, ya know…the norm). I have about a 20 minute walk to school and approximately 1 minute walk to the Arno River. It is such a beautiful city, I wish everyone could be here with me! The picture attached is our view of the river!

I think that this will be the easiest way to keep everyone updated on my adventures in Italy! I dont know how often I’ll be able to write, but I’ll try to keep it as up to date as possible. Feel free to check in as often as you’d like…and i think you can leave comments, i’m not sure. But! You can always e-mail me at cindiano@butler.edu. I can’t wait!