Pisa and Cinque Terre

Last weekend, Erin and I took a trip to Pisa and Cinque Terre. We hadn’t originally planned on going to Pisa, but it actually turned out to be an easier way to get to Cinque Terre, so it worked out in the end. Pisa was an interesting city, but there was basically nothing else to do there besides look at the Leaning Tower and visit the Duomo.

Cinque Terre was absolutely beautiful. We actually lucked out quite a bit as, according to the weather forecast all week, it was supposed to rain while we were there. We had packed accordingly and everything in our backpacks was wrapped in multiple plastic bags to make sure it would be dry. I also packed a few extra pieces of clothing and an extra sweatshirt in case it rained. However, when we got there, it was very bright out with just a few clouds in the sky, not to mention very warm. Oh well, at least we were prepared. We arrived in Monterosso, the northernmost town in the Cinque Terre, and, after getting a little lost a couple times, found our way to the hiking trail leading to Vernazza, the next town over. The hike from Monterosso to Vernazza is the hardest of the four hikes, but it also has the best views. The trail was very narrow and offered fantastic views of the vineyards and olive groves on the hills themselves and the Mediterranean Sea to our right. Often there was nothing but a steep drop to one side of the trail and the face of the hill on the other. At the end, it rose high above Vernazza before leading us down into town. The town of Vernazza was very quaint and the scenery reminded me a bit of Taormina in Sicily. I’ll post some pictures of the hike and Vernazza once I am able to more easily access my pictures.

So a couple weekends ago I had a fieldtrip to Rome with my Roman Empire class. Our teacher is extremely interested in the subject and very knowledgeable (thankfully) and so he was a great person to go on a trip to Rome with. He showed us nearly everything that still exists of ancient Rome in Rome today. The only bad thing was that, since he was trying to fit so much at once, we weren’t able to stay very long in one place. On our own, Erin and I went to pretty much every other site in Rome that we hadn’t covered on the trip. We went to the Vatican, Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. Unfortunately it was two days before Palm Sunday and fairly late in the evening, so St. Peter’s Basilica was closed, but we were able to see the set up for all the people who would be coming to see the Palm Sunday mass there. The next day, we headed to Ostia Antica, a well preserved ancient Roman city. We have a paper due for that class relatively soon and one of the options is to write about one of the buildings we observed there, but I am doing my project based on a Roman document, so Erin and I were able to just walk around and enjoy the ruins. After that, our teacher took us to Ostia Lido, the beach town of Ostia, for lunch.

Tonight Erin and I ate at the restaurant on the way down to the Minimetro. It's situated right on a cliff and has gorgeous views of the outskirts of Perugia below. They brought two little pieces of pita bread with sliced salami and a bit of cheese on top before the meal. It was a nice start. The waiter was friendly and the atmosphere was surprisingly modern for such an old city. I had the eggplant parmasian, which was pretty good, but not an eye-opening culinary revelation. Erin did not enjoy her papardelle con cingiale nearly as much as the first time she had it at Liz's birthday, but she still liked it. All-in-all, it was definitely worth going to - especially for the wonderful views.

Barcelona, a little late Part II

There is very interesting architecture all throughout the city by the famous architect Antonio Gaudi. He had a very interesting style (you'll see in the photos that I'll upload later). He designed one park, Parc Guell, which is hard to believe, was constructed between 1900 and 1914 considering how whimsical its design is. There are areas made to look like rock formations that feel as if they were pulled straight from Disneyworld. Parc Guell is built on a hill side and had beautiful views of the nearby city. You can see Sagrada Familia, a cathedral which is one of his most famous works on which construction started in 1884 and is still going on. Another fantastic park was Parc Laberint, which is on a hill a bit outside of the city, but worth the subway ride. It was extremely tranquil and I would have never guessed that I was in a major city until I got a glimpse through the trees of the city and the sea far below. In the center of the park is a large labyrinth, something I’ve always wanted to do but never had a chance to. It was a lot of fun. We also tried some hot chocolate and churros, which Barcelona is famous for. However, Spanish hot chocolate is known for having spices in it, so it wasn’t quite what we were expecting. There was also Font Montjuic, a massive fountain that is light up and grows and swells according to the music being played. We were only able to see a few minutes of the show, but it was excellent. It seemed like something that belonged in Disneyworld.

Barcelona, a little late Part I

So in order to actually get to Barcelona, we first had to take a train in Paris to a bus which then took us on a long journey to the airport. The nice thing about RyanAir, one of the budget airlines I flew, is that, so far as I could tell, they are the only airline that flies out of the airports they fly out of. This is convenient because, once one actually manages to find their way to the airport, there is little question about where they have to go. Getting there is always the adventure, though. They also do not us jetways, so you get to feel rather important walking across the runway and climbing the stairs into the plane.

Barcelona was very enjoyable, however, considering how much I enjoyed Paris, it was a hard adjustment. The layout of much of Barcelona is very gridlike. While this makes it hard to get lost in the newer section of the city and allows for dedicated bike lanes and the like, it seems to take away a bit of the charm most other European cities have. It also makes it a very long process to cross the street. There are parking lots at nearly every intersection which ends up making the intersections into octagons instead of squares, so one cannot simply walk from corner to corner. That aside, the older section of the city does feel much more "European" than the newer section. Running right through the center of the historic section is a street, La Rambla, filled with street performers and merchants ranging from flower merchants and little outdoor pet stores to art stands and places where you can get your caricature drawn. It ran right down to the Mediterranean Sea. Similar to Paris, Barcelona has bikes spread all over the city meant for the locals to use. The way it works is that you subscribe for the year for a relatively low cost (compared to other forms of transportation), around 30EURO I think. You are then able to take a bike from any of the stands throughout the city and you have 30 minutes to get the bike back to another "station".

I have a larger update at my laptop back in my apartment, but I was here in the photography lab editing my pictures for our next assignment and, since I am extremely behind on updating my blog, I thought I would post about my experience at the questura yesterday. The questura is the Italian police station, don't worry, everyone has to go to get their fingerprints taken. This was the second time I had to go to the questura. The first time, which only took an hour and a half, for other people it took much longer, I waited in line for most of that time to simply get my fingerprints scanned into a computer. However, once that was done I was told that I would need to return to have my fringerprints taken again. Apparently the Italian police department isn't able to share my fingerprints between the two different departments. So I arrived at the questura at 9:00AM, which is when I was told to arrive. There was a pretty large group of people waiting there to also get their fingerprints taken and we waited for 25 minutes for a police officer to finally arrive. When he did, he came around and collected everyone's appointment papers and then told us to wait. He didn't return again for another 45 minutes and, when he did, he called me and two older ladies with him and took us into the police station. Once there, he had us sit in the hallway and disappeared into his empty office for another 25 minutes. He finally came out again and called the first and then second lady in with him to take their fingerprints and pictures. After they were finished, about an hour later, he called me into the office. When I handed him my passport he exclaimed "Ahhh, Stati Uniti!!! (United States)" and while taking my picture kept laughing and saying to himself "Americani, americani." Since I am used to Italians not particularly liking people from the United States, I wasn't too surprised at his reaction, but thought it was getting to be a bit much when he took me over to his desk and, looking at my passport exclaimed, "Stati Uniti, numero uno!" At first I just laughed along with him a little, but soon realized that he was being completely serious. He was enamoured with the United States. He proceeded to open up my passport and go through each page, pointing at the pictures of various American scenes and saying how beautiful they were. He also read several of the quotes from different presidents at the tops of the pages. He finally took my fingerprints and told me where to go next. As I was leaving, his partner walked and he called my back, asking if he could show my passport to his friend. He showed his friend all the pages and again said how beautiful all the pictures and quotes were. Unfortunately his friend didn't seem to share the same love of the U.S and simply grunted and walked away. I then walked back to one of the windows I was originally directed to and, after waiting another 40 minutes, found out that I would have to return, again, to the questura to actually pick up my permit of stay.

One of the pictures from my photography projects.

Paris Part II

The first night we walked around the city – from the Latin Quarter, up to the Notre Dame, over to the Louvre, and back to the Latin Quarter on the other side of the river. The next day we headed to Pere Lachaise, a famous and extremely large graveyard (it sounds much more morbid writing it out than actually visiting it). Many famous people including Chopin, Proust, and Jim Morrison, are buried there and it’s a pretty big tourist attraction. After Pere Lachaise, we went to the top of the Notre Dame where there are spectacular views of the entire city and you’re able to see inside one of the bell towers. After lingering at the top enjoying the view for a while, we headed back down and walked over to the Eiffel Tower area where we bought dinner which consisted, again, of bread and croissants. On our way back to the Latin Quarter, we happened to pick up a brochure for Disneyland Paris, so early the next morning we caught an early train and arrived at Disneyland in time for opening. We stayed in Disneyland for the whole day and, of course, went on many, many rides, I think around 15 in total, with the highlight of course being Buzz Lightyear, although it was not the same ride and unfortunately I didn’t max out, but got relatively close. After having lived in a foreign country for the past couple of months, it was nice to be somewhere where we understood things a bit more. Disneyland was set up in a very similar way to the Magic Kingdom in Florida, only some of the lands were switched around and had slightly different names (for instance, Tomorrowland became Discoveryland). We stayed until closing at 10:00PM and headed back to the center of Paris. Although it might seem strange that we decided to spend a whole day while in Paris at Disneyland, I'm very glad to have gone, it was a lot of fun! The next day, we had a few hours before we had to start heading to Barcelona, so we grabbed some breakfast, which was, yet again, bread and croissants, and went to a large park in the Latin Quarter.

At around noon, we headed onto the metro and found our way to the bus that would take us on the 90km journey to the airport, but more on that in a couple of days. I have to get to bed as I will be waking up early to catch a train to go to Florence! I apologize in advance if something in this doesn’t make sense or there are a vast amount of typos, as I did not get a chance to read it over yet.

I hope all is well back home.