last night in the apartment

this was my last day in siena.
i woke up, met lila and kat at meet life cafe. our favorite cafe, partly because of the presence of the two hot brother baristi. one of them asked me today if i wanted a job there. probably because i'm there so often. i laughed and said if i was staying i'd love to work there for sure.
no more meet life. or campo. today i mailed a postcard. then i walked to the campo, the main piazza in town. i sat in the late afternoon sun. so relaxing. i laid back and mildly dozed off for 15 minutes. it's a lot like being at the beach. laying in sun, hearing chatter all around you, staring up into the clear blue sky, the campanile's prominent stance overseeing it all.
i cannot believe this is my last night here. it feels like i am leaving for a weekend trip and will come back monday. it feels like when i left michigan, i felt like i was going on a 2 week vacation.

and now it has already been 3 months...

it is amazing how much one can learn and grow in such a short amount of time. of course it helps if the location is pleasant to be in, too. if inspiring, the result is even better.

tomorrow will be the saddest walk to piazza gramsci's bus stazione ever. i am leaving my Siena.

Farewell to Siena

I leave Siena this Saturday. Tomorrow is my last final. I should be studying for that right now, but would rather write.
We just came back from our last program dinner all together. :(
i am going to miss everyone and everywhere i go - particular cafes, grocery shops and bars, certain friends apartments. or even streets that just look so damn tuscan. It is really sad that it is all coming to a close. Cliche, i know, but i really have learned alot about myself and felt i have grown in the past 3 months. but at the same time, i get bored pretty easily, so this spring/summer season will be bringing new changes i am sure.
i also found out that i am graduating in December! i can't believe i am graduating college so soon. What next? job, masters, beach bum, pirate, ventriloquist? i have some ideas...

This past weekend my friend Megan came to visit me from Rome. She met some British kid in the Campo while she was waiting for me to get out of class. He came to Tuscany for a week holiday off of med school at the "Imperial College". if only my university had such a legit name.
His name was Tom and he wanted to go to San Gimignano, but it was too late to catch a bus there. I brought him back to my school and had him use the phone to call a local hostel. We told him to meet us for dinner later.
My friend from the program, Ali, had a Rick Steves recommendation in mind. La Osteria di Chiacchierare - The Osteria of Chatter. It was a really authentic place, the menu was handwritten! and all the food was classic tuscan stuff. I had Pici, which is classic Tuscan handmade pasta. And for dessert pinenut cake? still don't know what that means but it was goooood. It was fun to listen to Tom's british voice during dinner and hear Ali think he said cuss when he was saying curse. Tom's mother is french and father is english. He had to spend all his childhood holidays in Bordeaux, the poor boy! How horrible... ;)
At one point during the dinner chatter he asked me if i was sad to leave Siena. I said yes and that there were things i would miss. Then he asked if i felt more European.
?
I will miss the lifestyle pace and the coffee and mix of languages that goes in and out of one's ear all day long. I will not miss the teeny bathrooms and the absence of bagels. I'm Amuuurican for godsakes!

Spanocchia

so. today is exactly a week from when i am leaving Siena. I am going to Rome for 5 days, then to mykonos in greece, then athens. back to the states mid April.

the past few months have been unforgettable. and this place is so magical i don't want to be ripped away from it. i knew as soon as i felt all settled in i'd be called away from it!

I went to Spanocchia this weekend w/ my program.
It is an organic farm, also a agritourismo of italy. Agritourismos are Italian villas or farmhouses you can rent out. They are appealing to many for their options of eating the local produced food the entire week you are there and being surrounded by a working farm, or seeing the process all the marvelous food goes thru while on vacation.

the people who own spanocchia are such good people. they are big on the slow food movement and organic food also. besides being an organic farm they host interns, artistic workshops and archeaological digs. really a beautiful place ran by truly inspiring people.

David Beckham

Italian soccer games! what a show. I pulled myself out of bed on The Ides of March. I was sick as a dog from some sort of stomach flu i caught on Saturday. I had bought tickets to see Siena vs. Milan and was determined to go. When else was i going to go to an italian soccer match and see David Beckham play for Milan?!!
so i went. only for the 1st half but i did go.
Italians are crazy at football matches. We sat in the best section, the fan section, composed mostly of men all smoking, waving, flags and swearing. Here are some of the lovelycheers i heard.
via via Va Fanculo - get out of here and go fuck yourself
tu se il figlio del putana - you are the son of a whore
others included, your hand is enough, and when one player was pulled off the field for an injury they yelled in italian - leave and die.
it was a rousing game.
and i got to see Beckham that handsome golden football god.

Rome

When in Rome...
so two weekends ago i went to Rome to visit my friend Megan who is studying there. She does not seem to fond of the city. She lives in the "non touristy" part of town. The streets are covered w/ trash and dog poo and homeless people harass you on the public transportation. Everything is super expensive, she doesn't know where the grocery store is and when we went out you could speak english and people knew what you were saying. I did not really like this first impression of Rome. It seemed trashy. But this past weekend i went with my program and saw the other side of Rome, the beautiful ancient side of Rome. And i loved it. So many things come from this once thriving Roman civilization it was interesting to see stuff that gets referenced all the time in theWestern world. Like where Julius Caesar's remains are resting "et tu brute" or the spanish steps, the forum - the idea of the Republic came to pass - the Senator's workplace. What else, the Appian Way and the christian catacombs was unbelievable. I tossed a euro in the Trevi. And theVatican was full of even more stuff.
Walking out of the Vatican i actually turned my head to see my mom,my grandmother and my two aunts.
So they had had an Italy trip venice - florence - siena - rome and saw me while in siena. we hadn't planned to meet up in Rome at all. I ran into them in Rome. What are the chances?! that was a very serendipidous thing and i liked seeing them one more time before they left europa.
Now i am back in reality again - i got the stomach flu this past saturday, my comp charger is broken and finals are this week. aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
recovering but doing fine.
ttfn.

Vienna: slaughterer of umbrellas

So i went to Vienna this past weekend.
It was sooooo cold. Much colder than Tuscany. I went thru 2 umbrellas in 1 day. This place was so windy it battered and eventually destroyed both 5 euro umbrellas i bought - turned them right inside out and just massacred them to bits. And this situation was not an uncommon one. As i walked the streets that weekend, every public trash can was filled w/ umbrellas, some were just strewn about the nearby ground. So ya. Chicago has nothing on Vienna. I was bloody Mary Poppins.
Soooo much music! especially the "old stuff", which being a Music minor, i LOVED. we went to a performance of a Joseph Haydyn mass in St. Stephan's, Vienna's main church.
We went to mass on Sunday at the Hofburg Palace and saw the Vienna Boys Choir sing! very sweet. They are such little kids! And what amazing voices for 7 year olds.
Austrians are the complete opposite of Italians. They follow all the rules and are very introverted. But they are very kind and helpful, similar to Italians. Our flight to Vienna from Zurich was the quietest flight i have ever been to in my life! they played the Danube Waltz for background music to cut the silence. On an American or Italian flight you would never be able to hear that stuff!
We went Mozart's house. During Hitler's take over, the Nazi took over the house and proclaimed Mozart as a German composer. Even though he was obviously Austrian. We also went to the "Haus der Musik", Vienna's house of music, a sort of interactive museum about sound, music and famous composers. it was fascinating. They had Haydyn's stuffed parrot. yes - his actual pet parrot. it now rests in the museum. There were also sections on Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss and Mahler. I loved the Beethoven section. His brooding face and all his intense love affairs, and his lifestyle...so tumultous and interesting. In the 30 years that he lived in Vienna he lived in 68 different residences! Fickle. Also, because i have a crush on audio tours - especially in foreign countries - i learned he always fell in love w/ women he could never have. they were always above his rank, married, or both. He was very into revolutionary thinking and such and he wrote Erocia for Napoleon. But, when Napoleon declared himself Emperor, it is said that he ripped out the first page dedication he had written for Napoleon and was very pissed to say the least. feisty. Very interesting life.
There was a section on the Vienna Philharmonic symphony. When the Nazis took over, 6 of the Symphony's members were fired and sent off to concentration camps. One of the lead violinists was killed on the Eastern front. The Prater, survived the War. It is the big ferris wheel where u can see the entire city from.
Any city that can rise from ashes is good by me. And obviously, not only was Vienna effected, but all of Europe was. It made me think about what it would be like if my life was ruined by a war. Luckily, i don't live in a place like that and hopefully never will. To go from having everything to nothing - not even a national identity or worse, family. All gone in a split second.
Speaking of Hitler (yes, i know an odd intro for a sentence, but forgive me), i ate at a restauraunt that him and Napoleon ate at back in the day. It was from 1470 something. I had no schnitzel, but i had strudel. At dinner two older italian men sat next to me and megan and i tried my italian out. It was pretty good, so i was happy w/ that. me and megan sorta got lost - in the red light district. which was weird. we passed a sex shop. then, i thought it was weird when i saw a bunch of topless girls chilling in a window of what looked like a "fancy restaurant". But of course, like people, all cities have good and bad parts. and that's what makes them unique.

Paris Je’taime.

Paris. Do not believe anything negative you hear about Paris. Only the good stuff. Flying there I was thinking on the plane how long it would take me to get cursed in a frenzy by a mad Frenchman.

Our hotel was two block down from the Champs Elysee, so we walked by it every day to wherever we were going. Our friend Michelle was staying with a family friend, who has been living in Paris for four years. Her name was Carolyn. She is a genius of a 20 something who is an analyst for a huge bank – basically, she is a smarty pants. And a very nice one at that. She took us all over this past weekend, and if not with us, she pointed us in the right direction.

So this is all the stuff I saw and then I will describe my favorite Paris moments of the weekend (it is sooo hard to cram all this stuff in one entry, b/c there is so much I saw in the course of 72 hrs.):

Musee D'orsay

Louvre – seeing the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Lovely dames. Also they had an Egyptian section where there was a little ornamental blue hippo from 2023 BC. Caught my eye.

Notre Dame – Well, after visiting The Notre Dame, we went over to a café to have – coffee. It was called “Le Quasimodo”. I liked that.

Arc di Triumph – at 9pm on Sunday night, our last night in Paris, we stood on the top of the Arc and watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle with all its lights. (watch the video)

Montmartre

Moulin Rouge

Sacre Coeur

Montparnasse – good mushroom and cheese crepes.mmmmm.

Eiffel Tower – taking pictures under the Eiffel towers, along with all the buskers. This one group of college kids formed a huge brass band and played big band Parisian music in fun costumes, complete with aviators and tutus.

Bastille - smoking outside of a club with two French boys who asked me why Americans say “Fuck all the time” in movies and stuff. Also, they ran sooo many raunchy jokes by me in English to see if I laughed and got them, basically to see if they were saying them right. If I laughed they high fived each other. “You under – understond meee?” “Do yu understond meee?”

Latin Quarter – All of it. Wish I could box it up and declare it as duty free. But of course the BEST PART OF PARIS was the Shakespeare & Co. book store. A store full of nooks and crannies of books and then more labyrinths made of walls of books. And I saw George Whitman! The owner of the store. At check out I saw a brochure written by him and thought it’s be interesting to have. The cashier said an extremely enthusiastic “Oh!” and started yelling at this senile old 90 something year old man. “George. George. George!” He is deaf so he can’t really hear. “George, someone is buying your book!”

“Oh, really, give it to her, give it to her!” he said yelling with a hand flailing in the air. Then he walked out of the store to sit on a bench outside w/ his black lab.

As soon as she said George, I knew she was talking about George Whitman owner of Shakespeare & Co., that quirky legend of a man.

Saint Michel

CREPES

The crepes I had: mushroom & cheese, ham and cheese, nutella and banana and my friend got one I am still envious about, and probably will be till I come back. Grand Marnier, almond, sugar, butter…mmmmm. I’ll have to wait till next time.

Paris made me want to stick my nose in the air and walk with a pissed off face. It made me want to smoke in a beret in Montmartre and eat crepes for every meal. I think the French are mistaken for being rude, when they actually are not rude, they are just very confident – which when carried off in the correct way can be sexy and sophisticated. But obviously these two traits – pride and confidence always must wear a veil of pomposity. And alas, some people just don’t take the time to lift up the veil. Also, Paris is very romantic, similar to Venice, but you would never want to be alone in Paris. As much as it has this sort of glory for beauty and romance it carries with it some sort of deep loneliness or sadness or something.

I did not find Oscar Wilde or Jim Morrison’s grave!!!! Alas. Another thing to do next time.

Italy has better coffee than France – Fo Sho.

On the plane ride home, the man in front of me had some sort of chronic farting disease. He also tried to grab the croissant tray away from the steward because he wanted another one, even though the steward said he had to give everyone one before second came around (why you would want 2 croissant plane pastries I have no idea), and it ended up falling on the floor in the middle of the aisle and then he got scolded by the French steward. This same man also was standing up in his seat during landing and a stewardess told him he kinda had to buckle up since we were plunging through the air. Lol.