Stonehill Invades Firenze!!!

Stonehill girls at Piazzale Michaelangelo, overlooking the city of Florence!

Hello again!

This weekend was a very special weekend for me, as 3 of my best friends from Stonehill who are studying in London/England came to visit me here in Italy! They arrived in Florence on Friday afternoon after stopping briefly in Pisa to pose with some leaning tower or something... weird... ;-)

On friday I showed them to their hostel and then took them on a brief walk around my neighborhood and through the San Lorenzo markets. Then we walked past the Duomo (I didn't even stop to look at it, but my friends were blown away. I guess I had forgotten how cool it can be when you've never seen it before!) to a cafe where we enjoyed some good italian coffee before heading to Grom, the best gelato in the city. It was a great afternoon all around. That night we all went out and I was very happy to spend time with my new friends in Florence and my old friends from Stonehill!

The next day I took them on a walking tour of sorts (thanks to my Quarters of Florence class I know FAR too much about this city) and I felt like I was back at stonehill leading campus tours! I showed them the major landmarks including Santa Maria Novella, Ponte Vecchio, Piaza Michaelangelo, Palazzo Vecchio, and perhaps most importantly the Sandwich Shoppe, a favorite of any student studying in Florence. yum! :-)

By the afternoon it had started raining and we were all tired from walking around the city so we headed back to my apartment and watched a movie. It felt like we were back at school!

Boland 120 reunited in Italia! <3

When we were done with the movie we went to mass at the Duomo, and after that I wowed my friends with my culinary skills by cooking enough spaghetti carbonara to feed a small army. After dinner we went over to my friend christine's apartment for a low-key night of wine, halloween-type games, and good fun.

All in all it was a great weekend that gave me the chance to reconnect with some of my best friends. Next weekend I will be headed to Vienna, Austria with my friends in Florence, and I just found out that my friend Rachel from Stonehill will be there at the same time! So exciting!

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Fall break 2009- France!

Geeking out in the hall of mirrors

After two very busy days in Madrid, it was time to head off to the city of lights, Paris!

I was very excited to get to Paris and finally be able to use some of my French language skills (which were very rusty, but helpful nonetheless.)

We thankfully had the foresight to purchase Paris museum passes while we were in Madrid, to gain fast-pass entry for all the major sights in the city as well as to Versailles. This proved to be invaluable, as after only 3 museums the pass paid for itself!

Our first morning in Paris we headed out early to get to Versailles palace. I was very excited to see a Starbucks across the street from the train station, which gave me some extra energy for our long day. It was my first cup of Starbucks in almost 3 months so it was quite enjoyable. Anyway! the important landmark!

Photos of this really do not do it justice. I was blown away by the sheer size and scope of the palace. It was easy to imagine it during Louis XVI's time, with the entire royal court milling around outside, angry mobs at the gates, and the Royal family holed up inside happily spending all of their nation's wealth... ahh. I guess this is where the history nerd in me comes out to play. Anyway, we toured the palace and saw the hall of mirrors, which is GORGEOUS, not at all overrated, and then had a nice picnic lunch in the gardens. We then wandered the gardens for hours. It's easy to get lost there, and while we walked around we suddenly understood how Marie Antoinette could have been so out of touch with reality. Her hamlet in the gardens was so secluded!

After Versailles, we stopped at the Eiffel Tower right as it was starting to get dark and took some wonderful photos. It really is enormous, and if the weather had been better I would have gone straight to the top. Unfortunately, we had neither the time nor the ideal conditions to do so... so I guess that just means I'll have to go back to Paris someday.

Le Tour Eiffel


We headed back to the hostel to cook dinner (sidenote, we made WAY too much pasta.) and spend a night relaxing before our jam-packed day the next day.

In the morning, our first stop was the Louvre. We got there just as the museum opened and bolted to the mona lisa. Why we did this, I do not know, as it's not really that exciting, but it just felt like the right thing to do. We saw ton of other great art there, obviously, but we left after a few hours feeling generally exhausted after looking at so many masterpieces.

After a quick lunch we headed to The Orangerie, which is a tiny musem housing some of Monet's largest water lilly paintings. Needless to say, they were incredible. We then strolled down the Champs-Elysees (longer than it looks) toward the Arc de Triumph. We climbed to the top of the arch and enjoyed panoramic views of the city, despite the low temperature and not-so-great weather. It was still beautiful.

Our last stop of the day was the Musee d'Orsay. Again, awesome.

Throughout the day, all I could think about was how much I loved the city of Paris. It reminded me so much of NYC in that most of the tourists we saw were not foreign (although we did invent a game involving foreign tourists... ask me about it.) Instead, they were French families out enjoying a day in the city. The whole city just felt very homey to me, perhaps because I speak a bit of French and the whole comparison to NY thing. I just really enjoyed the day.

We ate out at a small restaurant near our hostel that night where I feasted on a delicious STEAK (I have been red-meat deprived this semester, mainly because I don't feel like cooking my own) with a cream sauce (does not exist in Italy--very exciting.) It was a satisfying day all around.

Although it was halloween, we didn't really celebrate. Paris in general didn't seem too keen on the idea of Halloween and by that point, most of us were too exhausted to celebrate in full form.

Never fear, however, as we are currently planning Halloween Part Deux, which will take place in Florence sometime in the near future.

Back to Paris!

On our last day of vacation, we had a very leisurely day. We slept in and started our day with Mass at Notre Dame cathedral. I have to say that although I understood little of what was happening (it was a sort of latin-french hybrid mass, very confusing) it was one of the most beautiful masses I have ever been to. The cathedral itself is absolutely gorgeous, and since it was a holy day (all saints? or is it all Souls? some Catholic I am...) they pulled out all the stops.

Tiny ants at Notre Dame

After mass we checked out Shakespere and Co., which is an amazing little english language bookstore near the cathedral dedicated to providing a home for aspiring writers. tres cool. We then headed over to Montmartre (spelling) area on a wild goose chase for children's books. (I wanted Harry Potter in French and my friend Christine wanted The Little Prince in French. I know, her choice makes more sense.) Unfortunately the store was closed for the day (everything was closed on sundays, just like Bergen County) so we used the opportunity to get some crepes with nutella and bananas (SO GOOD) and some starbucks (so necessary) and snap a photo of the Moulin Rouge.

We then went back to our hostel, packed up our things, and headed home to Florence.


So there you have it, my adventures around the world. 5 cities, 3 countries, 10 days. Exhausting, yes. Exhilarating, even more so. It feels great to be back in Florence, and even better knowing that some of my best friends from Stonehill will be visiting this coming weekend! And as hard as it is to believe, I will be heading back home to the US in just 6 short weeks. Better make the most of the time I have left! :-)

Fall break 2009- Spain

So after a lovely few days in Ireland, we headed off to Spain! Our first stop was Barcelona, home of sunny beaches and delicious Paella. When we were scheduling this trip way back in September, I was aprehensive to be spending so much time and money on a country about which I knew so little. I cannot express how glad I am that my friends convinced me to go to Spain. Not only was the weather warm and the landscape beautiful, but the people were friendly, the food was delicious and inexpensive, and it was an all around great time.

In Barcelona, we stayed at an excellent hostel in a great location-- right off the famous Las Ramblas. The array of crazy street performers and costumed locals we passed on our way in made us very excited to spend time in the city. We spent our first day seeing the major sights- the unfinished sagrada familia, a huge cathedral designed by Gaudi and started in 1882 and is not scheduled to be complete until 2026. It is absolutely breathtaking, especially since the design is so intricate that it is still under construction 100 years later! After that, we headed up to Parca Guell, which is a huge park overlooking the city that houses lots of Gaudi archetecture and art. It was beautiful, and a lovely relaxing way to spend the afternoon... once we finally completed the hour long uphill walk to get there!

After a delicious seafood dinner, we headed back to the hostel to prepare for some of Barcelona's famous nightlife. Conveniently enough, our hostel sponsored free entrance to what is supposedly one of the city's best "discotheques," located right on the beach. Not really my scene, but it was a fun (and late!) night nonetheless.

In the morning we took in a few of the city's other minor sights, such as the Columbus monument and the pier (pictured above) before moving on to Madrid!!




Madrid, the capital of Spain, was absolutely beautiful. I had been there previously (for a grand total of 12 hours) but did not truly get to appreciate the archetecture and art. Seeing the art in the Reigna Sofia museum and the Prada was so cool, as was touring the royal palace and eating chocolato con churros.

By far the coolest experience in Madrid was eating dinner at the world's oldest restaurant, Sobrino de Botín. It has been in operation since 1725 and still uses the same oven from back in the day. The food was pretty good, but not as good as I had expected. It was the atmosphere that really made the experience worthwhile. After this last great experience, it was time to head off to FRANCE! I was very excited to be able to use my seven years of French experience to good use!

Keep checking back for my next update!
Liz

Fall Break 2009- Ireland

Hello everyone!

I am just home from my fall break and although it was exhausting, it was definitely the most exciting 10 days of my life! I cannot possibly write about all I saw and did in one post, so I have decided to break it up by country.



SO! Country number one-- Ireland!!

We left Florence on Thursday afternoon and arrived in Dublin early in the evening. We went out to dinner at a pub recommended to us by a friend of a friend, and afterward a few of us headed out to the Temple Bar area to take in some craic. Being back in Dublin after only having been there two years prior was great, as all the sights, sounds, and good pubs were still fresh in my memory. Additionally, the first hint of English as the primary language we got was one of the most refreshing moments of the trip! 'twas great fun!

In the morning, we headed out early to take in the sights. We opted to use the hop-on-hop-off bus tour that offered discounts to many landmarks and was an easy way to see the whole city. It was great to be able to see some different things than I had seen the last time I was in Dublin, such as the National gallery and inside Christ's Church. Very neat!

Of course a necessary stop on the tour was the Guinness storehouse, which was conveniently celebrating its 250th year and as such offered a special tasting of the anniversary brew! It was delicious and definately something that I am glad I got to experience before the end of the year! The view from the gravity bar was as breathtaking as I had remembered, and apparently sometime between March 2008 and now my tastebuds have changed so that I actually enjoyed my free pint of Guinness. As a way to commemorate our great day in Dublin, we each snuck our glass out of the gravity bar to keep as a momento. How rebellious!

That night we headed out again to Temple Bar to celebrate a friend's 20th birthday. You know you're in Ireland when the whole pub is lead in a version of happy birthday by the live performer of the evening. So much fun! We definately enjoyed ourselves that evening and although we had to get up early the next morning to catch our bus to Galway, we made the most of our time in Dublin's fair city (cue music.)

As I said, we were up early the next morning to catch the bus to Galway, which I for one was very excited to see because of the high concentration of Stonehill students studying there. After we checked into our B+B in Galway (So cute, with the nicest owners, even if it was a little out of the way) we met up with my friend Ben from Stonehill. We all went out for a late full Irish breakfast and afterward he showed us around the town and explained somethings that we never would have known otherwise.

For example, the swans in Galway bay are said to be the souls of fishermen lost at sea trying to get home-- Who knew?! We had a great afternoon walking around town and checking out the cute shops and the like. We even ran into a few other stonehill kids on the street, which was really nice. It was great to catch up with people, even it it was only for a few minutes!

That evening was a different story, as finding a place to eat was slightly more difficult than expected. We ended up at the only restaurant in town that could fit us, the Quay's bar (although I had been warned against it by my darling brother) and were unpleasantly surprised to see that the only thing on the menu under 20 euro was soup. Needless to say, our waitress was none too pleased to bring 7 bowls of soup to the table.... Whoops! :-)

Despite that minor setback, we still had a great time. After dinner a few of the Stonehill kids went out to a pub, the hole in the wall, and caught up on everything. It was great to be able to talk about school with people who a) knew what we were talking about and b) didn't get frustrated that all we talk about is Stonehill. Great time.

Unfortunately the evening was cut short by the fact that we had yet ANOTHER early morning ahead of us, but luckily it was one of our last of the trip. We were sad to say goodbye to the Emerald Isle and the English language, but excited to head to BARCELONA!

Coming soon will be a post on Spain as well as some additional photos of Ireland. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures in Galway because of the rain and my obsessive compulsive overprotectiveness of my camera, but I will be stealing photos from friends shortly, so check back!

Ciao!
Liz

Real-life Willy Wonka

Yes, you read that subject line correctly. And yes, the above picture is a delectable chocolate creation. This weekend, I went on a trip with my cooking class to Eurochocolate, which is often described as the Oktoberfest of chocolate. Chocolateers (is that a word?) from all over europe come to Perugia, Italy to show their best work to the world. Needless to say, I sampled many types of chocolate and spent the day participating in fun, chocolate-oriented games and activities to win prizes. (Most of the prizes were silly hats, right up my alley.

I also got a chococard through my class which entitled me to several free goodies including a chocolate hammer, chocolate vitamins, a tasting of a local wine, among other things. The chocolate hammer, which was the symbol for the festival this year for some reason, is a great example of how they had everything you could possibly imagine made out of chocolate. We saw chocolate fish, cell phones, ipods, turtles, jack-o-lanterns and even the Personal Chocolate, a laptop made entirely of milk chocolate. The above picture is of a chocolate kabab, a play off the favorite European fast food item.

My favorite part of the day had to be when we went to the Ciobar (brand of Italian hot chocolate) booth and discovered that they were filming people for a commercial. Needless to say, my friends and I donned the ridiculous costumes and sang the Ciobar jingle with pride. When I figure out how to do so, I will post a video I took of our taping.

This will be the last post for a while as I am heading out on fall break begining on Thursday. In case you've forgotten, we are visiting Dublin, Galway, Barcelona, Madrid, and Paris. SO EXCITING!

Ciao for now!
Liz

Romeo, Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice

Well Hellllooooo everyone!

I have some very exciting news to report: As many of you know, my hard drive crashed a few weeks ago leaving me without a computer. This will explain the lack of photos and blog posts. I am happy to tell you that I have gotten a new hard drive and am back to using my own computer! Let the good times roll!

Anyway, now for the juicy part: This weekend my study abroad program sponsered an excursion to two cities made even more famous by William Shakespeare: Venice and Verona. Although the Bard never travelled to Italy himself, he must have heard great things about these two beautiful cities. We started the trip off in Verona, which I must say was wildly anti-climactic (probably because it was pouring and I was cranky) but we were able to have a delicious lunch and see what they claim to be the actual Juliet's Balcony. Apparently the two families in the play existed in real life (although their names were anglicized for the play). After our morning in Verona we were off to a lovely countryside villa where we were given a tour of the vineyard and villa and treated to a real wine tasting! This wine tasting was very interesting because they truly explained to us how to appreciate the subtle flavors in the wine.

The next day, we travelled to Venice (by boat, supposedly the best way to enter the city). Venice is absolutely beautiful. Although many people are turned off by the amount of tourists and the smell, I really love how there are no cars or vespas (so different from Florence!). I really felt like we saw the true Venice on our tour, which took us through many back streets before dropping us at the touristy center.

We were given 6 hours of free time during which my friends and I opted to get lost in the winding streets and do a little shopping (window shopping for me, because I am cheap.) It was truly an amazing day. To top it off, as we were getting on the bus back to Florence there was the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Picture is below.

Hope all is well with everyone!

My middle-aged weekend :-)

Photo Credit Christine Amoresano

Hey everyone!

I would like to apologize for the lack of posts recently; my computer crashed a little over a week ago and I have not been able to get on a school computer for long enough to write a blog. But now I have 2 hours until my next (and only) class today so here we go!

This past weekend was jam-packed with activities that really kept me quite busy. My program, Academic Programs International, sponsered an excursion to Bologna for the day on Saturday. We toured the city, which is absolutely beautiful and has great shopping, which I didn't know until I got there and only had enough cash on me for lunch... but perhaps that's for the best because I didnt end up spending anything on shopping! :-) In addition to great shopping the city is home to bolognese sauce, which obviously I had to taste while I was there. Delicious and cheap, just the way i like my food! Bologna also lays claim to not one, but two leaning towers-- clearly architecture is not their strong point! We climbed the taller of the two towers (499 steps.. I guess they just got too lazy to make that 500th...) and were rewarded with beautiful views of the city and surrounding hills. I promise that once I get my computer working again I will post pictures galore!

After Bologna we took a trip to a balsamic vinegar farm where we recieved a tour explaining how it is made and a sampling of their products! This was really neat because the farm has been in the same family for at least 4 generations and they are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. They were even willing to let us sample balsamic vinegar that has been aged for 50 years! Clearly I am keeping my taste buds happy this semester.

On Sunday my friends and I decided to go horseback riding through the Chianti region, because we had heard that the program through which we had discounts was absolutely phenominal. And it was. We got 2 hours of horseback riding through the most beautiful country I have ever seen, tasted wine from the vinyeard through which we had ridden, a full 4 course traditional tuscan meal on a secluded lake, and a wine tasting at a larger vineyard that explained the different types of wine so that even the uninformed (read: me.) could enjoy.

Not only did we recieve all this, but because apparently we waited longer than they usually have clients wait (we didnt notice a thing) we were offered a second day of horseback riding for free. Obviously we went back the next day.

When I told my friends from Stonehill and home what I had done this weekend, I got a few snide comments about how my chosen activities were something thier parents would do. I know they're just jealous, however, as clearly I had one of the best times of my life.