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.

I wanna be a sommelier.

Thursday was nice. We finished our midterms and everyone was so freaking happy we made it thru the week filled of papers and presentations in Italian. I got 100 on my oral midterm! Ha. Rather exciting. I got a 89 on my written. I totally thought those scores would be the other way around, but alas, not so.

Our program director congratualating us for getting thru the week w/ dolci. The same powdered sugared cookies we got at Carnavale. Mmmmm nice pay off.

Friday we went to Castello di Brolio. Brolio Castle, were Chianti Classico was created in the 1800s. We got to roam the grounds of this huge castle. The castle has been in the Bettini family since 1141. Of course between then and now, it has been subject to numerous invasions, but always managaed to get back to the family. The longest time, they didn’t own it was when they were under house arrest for 40 days back in the 1400s. we went into the Castle church, complete with a family tomb area underneath. Our program director’s grandparents actually worked on the grounds for a number of generations. She had all these stories. She talked about how her grandmother hated one of the jobs she had at the castle. She had to light the candles in the tomb area below the church. And she always was scared because there were rumors that if you were quiet enough down their you would hear the baron breathing echoing in the room. Spooky….there was also some other story about his ghost riding around the grounds on his white horse. He was called the Iron Baron because he was very strict with his workers. He invented the type of wine now dubbed Chianti Classico.

All the views from the terrace and the gardens were abfab. Rolling Tuscan hills, sun, vineyards. Like I keep saying, a picture that comes to life.

After the tour of the castle grounds, we got to go on a tour of the actual winery! Very cool. We saw the big fermentation vats. And the masceration machines and barrels they go in to age.

Then we were taken to a wine tasting. Mmmmmm. It all makes you feel very sophisticated. She walked us thru the process of how to taste wine. First you stick your nose in. and smell it. Check it out. Then you “let the wine breathe” and swirl it around a bit. Then you smell it again and recognize the differences in the first scents you got. You can also turn the glass on it’s side and let the reflection show on a napkin. If the color is a light red it is a “younger, lighter” wine and if it is a dark vibrant color it is older. You can also tell this from looking at the wine’s legs. The legs are the streams of wine that fall on the inside of the glass after you swirl. If the legs fall slowly down the inside of the glass, the wine is more structured. Has a better body.

The whole entire thing kinda made me wanna be a sommelier. A professional wino or something.

VENICE

This past weekend me and my roommates decided to go to Venice for Carnavale/Valentine’s Day. We took the bus from Siena, then once in Florence we got on a 3 hours train ride. We left in the early morning, so we go to Venice around 1.00pm.

Thankfully every single day was soooo sunny, not a cloud in the sky.

It is safe to say that Venice is the most breathtaking beautiful romantic place I have ever been to in my life. It floats in this gorgeous lagoon and in the horizon line lies the Dolomite Mountains.

With the gondolas and architecture and lagoon, it is no wonder why this place is so unbeliabley romantic.

The first day we all bought masks to wear around that night. We walked around and checked everything out. So many people were coming into the city! Our apartment was this gorgeous place we rented from this woman for the weekend. She owns this huge house 3 minutes away from San Marc’s Square. I even got to sleep in my own room! J

That night we went out to a restauraunt and I got a seafood dish, I had to, I was in Venice, plus being in Tuscany there isn’t much of a fish market whatsoever. I have a seafood spaghetti dish – mussles, scallops, clams, crawfish and shrimp – o m g it was amazing.

That night we just walked around with some other kids from the program. We soon ditched them because they were far too trashed to even hold a conversation. So we passed by the Rialto bridge area, saw an open air party and joined in. It was a rather big crowd and a bar set up. There was “rave” music playing. There were not many drunk people. I was expecting an atmosphere akin to Mardi Gras, but not so. During the day, people were out with their kids and families and lovers were scattered all about every street corner and making out in every gondola. But there were no half naked drunk people or boobs or drag queens, so i considered this to be quite tame.

The way I felt about it was a kid friendly, celebration with some drinking involved, but not necessarily in the sense of excess. Throughout the day there were families w/ kids dressed up in little 17^th Century outfits and such. Very cute. There was definitely a Halloween element to the whole thing. They also had people who would go allll out with their outfits and tourists would flock to them and take pictures. If you are in costume or in a mask , you are not supposed to speak all day to anyone. My friend from the program, Kate, actually made a costume and wore it, mask and all. She said it was a wonderful experience, actually being A PART of the whole celebration. On Saturday night she was sitting in San Marc’s square watching the sunset and all of a sudden a bunch of photographers were taking her photo all fanned out in front of her. She was a Carnavale celebrity for a day.

The next day we went inside San Marc’s and for 3 euros, got to go to the top! Amazinf pictures and views. It was like having a regular’s crow’s nest over the square, looking at all the shenanigans taking place and costumes. The inside of San Marc’s. I was awestruck. All the art work is made of mosaics and the majority is gold mosaic. Really stunning. On the roof of San Marc’s square are these set of statues called the Four Horses, the real ones, are from the 2^nd century BC and are in the top of San Marc’s museum, part of the 3 euro fee. These really struck me. Each horse is so realistic looking and was made of gold. They obviously are no longer all gold. They were actually purposely scratched long ago, because they sight of their gold was blinding on a sunny day. Also, they are said to have been a present to Alexander the Great and were later put into the hands of Constantine.

We then headed out onto the vaparetto (water metro) to go to the Jewish Ghetto. It is a very historical part of Venice, mostly b/c it is a unique part. It is where many Jewish people lived throughout all the hundreds of years of persecution in Europe. There is a small memorial bronze mural in the main piazza for the Holocaust. Also, there is a synagogue across the way, which does tours and has a museum. Unfortunately, it was a Saturday, so we were unable to get in on that interestingness. I kept on thinking about The Merchant of Venice.

That night we went out and went on a ride down the grand canale in a vaparetto. We sat outside of the boat of course, to get the best view – even though it was rather nippy.

The next day we went to the Doge Palace. The Dogi ruled Venice for 1000 years. They were basically like Venice Presidents. They had a pretty strong system of checks and balances like us. The prison is connected to the palace. They must’ve been true believers in the whole “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” phrase. Here, from the prisons that you meander through, you can actually see the Bridge of Sighs. This bridge is the last view prisons would see before they were “summoned” meaning in most all 95% cases, execution. The name comes from what the prisoners would do, sigh at the beautiful view of Venice, before going off to die.

After that we went to the Campinile, the Bell Tower of San Marc’s. We bumped into Kate wandering through the Square with her camera and made her come up the Campinile with us. Kate is a photography major and an very talented one at that. She was in Europe last semester and her work is just beautiful. We insist she get the great views. An elevator takes you to the top and you can see all of Venice and beyond! The Dolomite Mountains and everything! The bells did go off while we were up there. Holy crap it was loud. My ears were ringing. BADUMDUM.

Kate then told us her Saturday nite craziness. So turns out she ran into this American student whose shit had hit the fan with his hostel reservation and he and his friends all got in a huge fight and parted ways earlier that day. So he and Kate hung out and she ended up letting him sleep on the floor of her hostel along with the three other Italians who were sharing the room with her. This comes into play later on…keep that in mind.

Ok, so being the English major DORK that I am, I convinced my roommates to go to Harry’s Bar w/ me. Harry’s Bar is one of Hemingway’s haunts in Venice. The façade is straight up 20s art deco. Walking in, we were greeted by sharp looking older Italian men in white tuxes and black ties. We opted to sit at the bar. Although it was 11.30am I asked if they made Montgomery’s at the Bar. OOOOO Montgomery, really the bartender said, This early in the morning? You won’t be driving anytime soon, will you. I said I wanted what Hemingway drank and he said, yes but he was an alcoholic, you better go with the Bellini.

The Bellini is the famous drink from Venice, their signature. It is champagne and peach juice. Very delicious. We drank this stuff as soon as we go to Venice on Friday. It is “cheap” here, 4.00 euro, anywhere else in Italy the price is double or higher. I think they bartender’s appreciated that I knew some history about the place, cuz they hooked us up!!!! I ordered a 15 euro bellini drink and my roommates ordered coffee. After that the manager came up and chatted with us. He brought over free “dolci”, cookies. One of them was this paper thin light crispy flaky cookie covered in powdered sugar. He said this was also a signature Carnavale cookie from Venice. He then gave us all a round of Bellinis. After an hour of banter and taking the 1920s authentic scenery in, we got out check. The bartender slid it over to us and said a “friendly check”. The bill was only 20 euro. No way all the stuff we got and ordered was that much. The menu was expensive! And all the stuff we got for 20 euro, pretty damn sweet.

We went back to get my other roommate from the apartment and decided to have a goodbye to Venice from the sunny seaside street that had docks on the edges. We brought a bottle of Bellini and drank it while watching the lagoon wave by us. We all dangled are legs off the side and soaked in the sun as it glittered on the water. What a nice way to say goodbye to Venice.

So then we were rudely awoken.

We figured getting out was gonna be noooooooooo ppppprrrrrroooooooobbb. The only problem about that, was that everyone else who was there that weekend was thinking the same thing.

Standing on a vaparetto pick up point squashed like sardines, awaiting a boat. The first boat to come up was full so it just passed us by. Meanwhile everyone is pushing and being rude and we have all our are bags and stuff which seemed to be getting pushed up against us more violently every other second. Carol starts talking to this American guy next to her. They begin reflecting on their Carnavale weekend. He starts telling Carol about his crazy adventure and how he and all his friends parted ways and decided to seek out their own Venice experience after their hostel reservations went to shit. Do you know Kate? I say. “Funny story,” he says with this big grin on his face. So yes, we meet Tim, the random American student who slept on Kate’s floor. Meanwhile the crowd is getting worse and no empty vaparetto coming in sight. We start weighing our options. We know have 30 minutes to get to our train, the ride takes 20. So we’re kinda freaking out. This one fat German couple is puching Carol, who stands at 5’2’’ and they are yelling in German and Carol is telling them off and everyone is mad. So a vaparetto pulls up, and everyone is ambushing it. Tim sees an opening on his side and yells, over this way, we all sneak by the entry way and the Vaparetto takes off. Leaving the fat German couple behind. We waved to them as we left the dock. Yay. We made it on time and talked to Tim on the ride to the train station. Tim paid it forward to us and I found it all very charming in a karmatic sorta way. Also I do not believe that karmatic is a word and yes, my english has been suffering! That’s what happens when you are in a 2.5 hour Italian class M-Thursday!!! I will not be surprised if when I get back I say si and grazie to people. O geeez the stares I will receive.

Travel update: I am going to Paris w/ my roommates in 2 weeks. Two of them are having bdays on the same weekend and what better way to celebrate. Also, Vienna, Mykonos & Athens are booked!