So I am leaving Genoa and returning to the United States tomorrow, and I cannot believe how quickly this semester has flown by! I'm so incredibly glad to have had this experience, which has truly been one of the best, if not the best, experiences of my life. I will always have tons of great memories from this trip, and though it sounds a little cheesy, this semester has definitely changed me as a person. Being away from the people I'm used to depending on and having to find out how to travel across Europe has made me a much more independent person. At the moment, I can't decide whether to feel happy or sad. I'm thrilled to get back to Gary, my family, my friends, and the things I've been missing from home, but I'm so sad to leave Genoa and the villa, not knowing when I'll have the chance to return.

Some of the things I'm looking forward to most when I get back to the US:
1. not having to share a bathroom with 11 boys
2. Taco Bell
3. driving in my car (something I haven't done in 4 months!)
4. having alone time and a room to myself
5. crab cakes
6. being able to talk to people in public
7. sushi
8. being able to wear shorts/dresses/tank tops/flip flops without being stared at
9. being able to do laundry without strategizing about getting a washer and dryer
10. listening to the radio and watching TV

Things I will miss from here:
1. gelato
2. constantly having friends around to talk to and hang out with
3. the beautiful views
4. being expected to travel and have fun every single weekend
5. the pasta
6. the amazing shoes and other shopping
7. the freedom to walk down to the train station and hop on a train to just about anywhere
8. waking up in the villa
9. sitting out on our balcony and drinking wine
10. our dinners in the villa - not just the food, but having 21 people to talk to at every single meal

Our Epic Week(end) in Ibiza

Ok, so I realize I've been a huge slacker on my blog for the past few weeks, but with the end of the semester, my family visiting, my failing laptop, and my recent alienation on an island, I've been a little overwhelmed.

At some point, I hope to come back and post about the rest of my trip through Venice, Vicenza, and Verona and about my family's visit to Genoa, but first, I'm going to start with my most recent adventure - being stranded on the island of Ibiza in the midst of the volcanic ash crisis. Judith wrote a blog entry about our trip for our class blog, so since I'm busy with make up work, I'm going to borrow it. Here it is:

"With the end of the semester quickly approaching, Kelsey, Catherine, and I decided to take advantage of the warmer weather and cheap RyanAir flights by flying to Ibiza, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean. We knew that it would be a short weekend but still a nice opportunity to relax and rest-up before the craziness of final reviews set in. We arrived in Ibiza early Friday afternoon and spent a couple of laid-back days strolling the waterfront and exploring other parts of the island. Though it’s known as a club hotspot, we arrived before the start of summer season, meaning that most places on the island, including restaurants, shops, and even supermarkets, were closed. That was just fine with us because we really were just looking for a sunny beach and a quiet weekend. In fact, the weather was cooler and cloudier than expected, and not until the morning of our flight back home did the sun come out in full force. On our ride to the airport, we talked about how we wished we could stay to really enjoy going to the beach on this beautiful day.

We got to the Ibiza airport on Sunday morning, and everything changed. We were met with the departures board that was almost completely filled with angry blinking red signs reading “cancelled.” Apparently, the cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano had finally made its way far enough south and destroyed our hope of getting home that day. We had heard some mention of the volcanic ash interrupting flights on our way to Ibiza, but those were confined to the United Kingdom and Paris. It never crossed our minds that Italy and southern Spain would be affected. We immediately tried contacting people at the villa to plan our course of action, but with phones running low on battery and minutes, we had limited success. Instead, we settled on getting a refund for our tickets. While waiting in line, we heard that the airport itself might be closing in a few hours and that flights might not resume until May 24th, a whole month later! Needless to say, this did nothing to ease our anxiousness. Luckily, we met two other American students studying in Florence who were also trying to fly back to Pisa. We decided to pool our resources and stick together for a little while at least, and we all headed off to the port in hopes of
getting a ferry to the mainland.

The ticket office, however, was packed with people, and tickets sold out before we were able to purchase any. We learned that ferries to Valencia only ran once a day a few times a week, and the ferry to Barcelona only ran on weekends. We couldn’t even imagine how long the train ride would be back to Genova from these cities. With no more options to travel that day, we went back to our hotel to book an extra night and use their Internet. Of course, this was the one trip when none of us brought a laptop. We were also able to talk to our professor, Bernhard, who warned us that the ferry from Barcelona to Genova would be expensive and eighteen hours long on top of that. Meanwhile, there was a good chance we wouldn’t be able to take a train back from Spain because of a workers’ strike in France. Just great!

Considering everything, he advised us to wait it out in Ibiza until wecould get the next flight out. RyanAir’s next flight to Pisa wasn’t until Wednesday, so we booked our seats and crossed our fingers that the airways would clear. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but try to forget about the uncertainty of our situation and to make the most of our circumstances. We were finally able to experience those hot beach days we had initially envisioned, but they were tainted with the knowledge that we were missing some of our last days in Genova and would have a pile of make-up work when we returned.

We spent a lot more time watching CNN to track the cloud’s progress. We were shocked by the headlines that covered our screen. Over 20,000 flights, including ours, were cancelled that Sunday alone, leaving thousands stranded across the continent and abroad. And we saw first-hand just how many people were affected by the volcanic ash. Everyone that we talked to or overheard in our hotel was trapped just like we were. A couple from Scotland had been stuck for a week! We began to worry that our flight on Wednesday might run into trouble, and even our flight back home to the States a week later. How long were we going to be stuck on this tiny island with no clean clothes, living off turkey and cheese sandwiches we made in the hotel room?

We anxiously watched CNN on Tuesday night, and it sounded like thesituation was improving. Several countries were reopening their airspace, and test flights were successfully being made as far north as the UK. Wednesday morning broke bright and beautiful, but we barely noticed. We just wanted to get home! Our bubble of hope from the night before quickly burst as we checked online and saw that our flight was once again cancelled. At this point, we really started to get upset and frustrated.

The temperature climbed to over 26oC later that day, but I think we reached a boiling point that morning. Once we arrived at the airport (our sixth trip across the island), the departures board confirmed the ugly truth, and we trudged over to the desk once again to get refunds for our tickets. Even more discouraging was the fact that only RyanAir flights were cancelled. Fed up with the airline, we returned to our hotel, and booked yet another night from the nice receptionist who had said three days ago, “Oh, I thought you were leaving.” No, we’re still here.

After touching base with Bernhard, we decided to give up on RyanAir and just get off the island as soon as possible. We were able to find a different airline with a flight the next morning at 10 am to Florence. Unfortunately, it also came with a higher fare attached to it - $300 - and our plans for a cheap weekend to Ibiza, with original flights for 20 euros, continued to unravel.

Light comments about being trapped in paradise just weren’t a laughing matter anymore. That afternoon was a decided low point of the trip, and not even ice cream bars could clear our worries. The reality was that we had missed several days of studio and work time, plus a final review for our sketch portfolios. I never thought that I would be so anxious to get back to work, but the clock was ticking. There was still so much I wanted to do and see in Genova before getting into final reviews and then ultimately flying back home.

Thursday morning brought a change in the weather and a change in our fortunes. The drizzly rain did nothing to dampen our spirits as we successfully took off and left the island behind us (hopefully forever!). The eight-hour layover in Barcelona was long, but it was just another step in the road back home. We wanted to get home as soon as possible, but the three-hour delay in our flight meant we didn’t reach Florence until late Thursday night. We had to wait until the next morning to complete our prolonged journey back to Genova. The first train that we could take left at 4:30 am, and we rolled out of bed at 3:30 to have enough time to buy tickets and make the early-bird train. The cards didn’t fall in our favor again, though, as our train and many others that morning were cancelled. Instead, we were only able to buy tickets for a train at 7:30 and hope that this one wasn’t cancelled too. Meanwhile, we returned to our hotel by 4:30 to grab a few extra hours of sleep.

7:30 came, and once again the departures board was filled with cancelled trains. We were luckier this time, and grabbed another train bound in the same direction . Even this one was delayed by forty minutes. Why was everything working against us?! We never did discover the reason for the railway confusion, and in fact we expected it to be the smoothest part of our trip.

So finally, a shortly after 11 am on Friday, seven days and five hours after leaving our villa, the three of us finally made a safe return home. It took us five taxi rides, two trains, and two flights, but we eventually made it back from our “weekend trip” to Ibiza.

With the memory still so vivid in my mind, it is difficult to see the best in the situation, but I know in the future it will remain an unforgettable story. We feared at first that we were going to come back from a completely unremarkable weekend. Instead, we found ourselves in the midst of an international airways crisis that will surely remain in the record books for years to come."

Switzerland

We started out our 9-day trip in Switzerland. We stayed in Basel for 3 nights, but we hit a few different places during our stay. This part of our trip was very architecture heavy – of course, we’re always looking at architecture during any of our trips but usually the architecture has some sort of history to go along with it, and we are seeing sites that are somewhat touristy. On this trip, the architecture we saw in Switzerland and the surrounding areas was more contemporary architecture.

When we got to Basel, a colleague of our professor gave us a tour of some of the recent architecture around Basel. The next day, we took a charter bus to Ronchamp, France, where we saw the Notre Dame-du-Haut by Le Corbusier, which was really interesting to see in person. We also visited a social housing project in Mulhouse, France that afternoon. The next day, we toured the Goetheanum and Renzo Piano’s Beyeler Foundation in Switzerland. We spent the afternoon at Vitra Campus, which is in Germany but really close to the Swiss border. Vitra Campus is a furniture manufacturing and showcasing facility, but its owner is really interested in architecture and design, and so all of the buildings have been designed by really famous architects like Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Buckminster Fuller, Frank Gehry, and Herzog & de Meuron. It was really interesting to see the work of so many famous architects all in one place. When we left Basel to head to Verona, we stopped over in Lucerne, Switzerland for an hour to see the train station and the KKL building. Lucerne was so gorgeous. It is a city with a lot of water that has views of the Alps. I wish we could have stayed there a little longer.

The first part of the trip was pretty exhausting. We ended up traveling to 4 different countries in 3 days – Switzerland, France, Germany, and Italy. I thought that the train rides to and from Switzerland were really beautiful. It really is a beautiful country, but I didn’t enjoy being there as much as some other countries simply because it was so expensive! We went out to eat on the first night, and ended up settling for Chinese food, which still cost about $15 a plate. At McDonalds, a happy meal was the equivalent of almost $7. I also thought it was really interesting how freely you can move between countries. When we traveled from Switzerland to Germany, we crossed over to Germany on a public bus. It’s crazy that their public transportation crosses country borders. (By the way, even though I’ve visited 8 different countries, I’ve yet to get a single stamp in my passport because you never have to go through customs over here.)

Lucca

Yesterday we went on a day trip to Lucca. I usually don’t post blogs about our day trips, but Lucca was just so great I wanted to tell everyone about it. It was by far my favorite place in Italy. It is located between Pisa and Florence, so it is between Liguria (the region Genoa is in) and Tuscany. It was a medieval town with a wall built around it, and the whole town is surrounded by mountains. Now the wall has been converted into a pedestrian promenade so there are lots of bikers, joggers, and tourists walking around on top of the wall (which is really wide). The wall has grassy fields all along it, so it’s really pretty when you're walking on the wall and can see the medieval houses on one side and the greenery and mountains on the other. Within the wall, all of the buildings are historic and colorful. Lucca had lots of the winding alleys and little piazzas. We spent the morning at the Villa Reale gardens which are a little outside of Lucca. Even though it was supposed to rain, the sun came out, and the day was gorgeous. The gardens had lots of fountains, a waterfall, an artificial lake and big open meadows. I could have stayed and laid out there all day. In Lucca, we mostly just toured the different piazzas in the city. We also went up in Torre Guinigi, where you could look out on the entire city. It was cool, since you could see all of Lucca’s towers and the mountains. If you are ever in Florence, make sure to take a day trip to Lucca!

Nice

Our weekend in Nice was a perfect, relaxing weekend. Going into the weekend, we were worried it was going to rain on us the whole time, but luckily, the rain held off and it was just overcast all weekend, which we were more than okay with. To get to Nice, we had to take a train to Ventimiglia on the Italian border and switch trains there. Our train to Ventimiglia was a regional train, which means it was a dirty, crowded train. When we got to Ventimiglia, our train to Nice had been cancelled, so we had to wait an extra hour for the next train to Nice. When we got to Nice, we just walked around a little bit and got a really late dinner. We had cheese & mushroom crepes for dinner and we all split a nutella & banana crepe for dessert. Both were amazing.

Saturday was one of the best days I've had over here. We woke up and got free breakfast at our hotel, complete with chocolate croissants. (And yes, we actually stayed in a hotel, instead of a hostel!) After breakfast,we hiked up to the chateau on the hill, where there are really awesome panoramic views of the beach and the rest of the city. There's also a gorgeous waterfall up there and a cemetery that looks down onto the entire city. After wandering around, we went to the produce and flower market that Nice is famous for. We all bought paintings there. We also bought some produce and cheese for lunch. We ate our stuff from the market sitting on the beach. It was so relaxing and peaceful. After lunch, we got gelato at this place in old town that we had read about. It had 80 flavors and a bunch of random kinds like tomato basil, avocado, lavender, beer, and cactus. They also had some normal kinds too, so I got chocolate and mint chocolate gelato. We walked along the water for a while and went to the port and looked at all the yachts. For dinner, we ate at an awesome three course meal. I had some appetizer that was ham stuffed with endives in melted cheese. For my main course, I had chicken with mushrooms and steamed potatoes, and then really rich chocolate mousse for dessert. It was delicious, and the place was really cute. After dinner, we bought a bottle of local wine from a wine shop, went back to our hotel, changed into our pajamas and watched TV (a real luxury since we don't have TV at the villa).

The next morning, we took a bus to Vence, which is a small town about an hour from Nice. It was really quaint and cute, and the people there were incredibly friendly. We didn't do much there - just looked and shopped around. Catherine and I split a giant chocolate chip and pistachio cookie from a little bakery. After we took the bus back to Nice, we hopped on a train back home to Genoa. I've got a busy week ahead of me. Some people who donate money to this study abroad program are here for the week. The one bonus of having visitors is that the cooks are making extra special meals for lunch! (Today we had gnocchi with pesto, white fish, potatoes, salad with corn and tomatoes, and strawberries and chocolate for dessert.) Tomorrow is our last day trip, and we're going to Lucca. On Saturday, we leave for our next 10-day trip. This time we are going to Basel (in Switzerland), Verona, and Venice.

I just realized it’s been almost 2 weeks since I returned from spring break, and I haven’t posted anything recently. I have not traveled anywhere major since spring break. Last Tuesday, our class took a day trip to Torino (Turin). It snowed on us all afternoon and was freezing cold! In contrast, this Tuesday, we took a day trip to Como, and it was sunny and beautiful outside. The weather has been really nice this week. It’s finally started to warm up and feel a little like spring. In Como, we looked at boring Rationalist architecture all day, but the highlight of the day was our one-hour lunch break, which we spent reading and relaxing and eating gelato by Lake Como. It was so gorgeous. Apparently, George Clooney has a house in Como too.

Last weekend, we stayed in Italy because we had our villa party on Friday night. Professors and the rest of the villa staff, friends of the villa staff, and architects from the area were invited. One of the staff members son’s band played, and they made lots of food and had an open bar. It was nice to see everyone all dressed up. All of us living in the villa are so comfortable with each other now that we rarely look good around each other anymore. On Saturday, Catherine and I went to Milan for the day to visit buildings we needed to research for one of our classes. This week has mostly just revolved around schoolwork, but tomorrow, Judith, Catherine, and I are headed to Nice, France!

For my field studies class, we have to keep a sketchbook with us on our day trips and independent travel. I thought you might like to see a few sketches from my recent trip. The first one is of Frank Gehry's Dancing House in Prague, the second is also from Prague, and the last is of the train station in Cologne.

Independent Travel - Vienna

Vienna was pretty as well but probably my least favorite city so far. Everything in Vienna is very white and imperial looking, which is pretty but, to me, lacks personality. I also didn’t like Vienna as much because it was miserably cold while we were there. During the day, the temperature was in the thirties with a windchill in the teens, and the overnight lows were around 23. The first day in Vienna we visited Schonbrunn Palace, which was the summer palace of the Habsburgs. It was interesting to me because in world history in high school, I was assigned a project on Maria Theresa, since my teacher said I was like her. After Schonbrunn Palace we ate at a restaurant called, funnily enough, the Chattanooga Bar & Grill. (Judith is from Chattanooga.) We visited St. Stephen’s cathedral and did some shopping, where Judith convinced me to buy a great red dress. Because it was so cold outside, we decided to see the city by riding around the tram. First, we got on the wrong tram. Right when we realized that we were going the wrong way and needed to get off, the tram came to a halt, and the driver made an announcement in German and everyone piled off the bus. Judith and I had no idea what was going on. We looked down the street, and there were police cars forming a barricade. Finally, we found out there was some sort of housing protest going on in the streets. When trams could get through the streets again, we hopped on the right tram, toured the city by tram, and then called it a day.

The next morning we were hoping to see the Spanish Riding School practice in Vienna, but it turns out they don’t practice on weekends. Instead, we went and toured the Hofburg, where we saw the Sisi Museum and the Imperial Apartments (the Hofburgs’ winter residence). The Sisi Museum was really interesting; Sisi was the nickname for Empress Elisabeth, who was a fascinating woman, who lead a very private life and was assassinated. After eating kasespaetzl for lunch, we walked around Vienna to see important buildings like the Rathaus, the National Library, the Opera, and the museums in Maria Theresa Platz. It snowed on us the whole afternoon while we were walking around (not exactly my idea of spring break). We had to catch a shuttle to Bratislava that evening. (Since Bratislava is only about an hour from Vienna, we booked a really cheap flight from Bratislava to Pisa.) Unfortunately, the shuttle stop was not clearly marked and not where they said it would be, so we, along with a few other lost people, wandered around in the freezing snow for about 45 minutes, hoping the shuttle company hadn’t scammed us. Luckily, the shuttle showed up just down the street and everything after that went smoothly. We flew to Pisa on Sunday morning, then took a train to Genoa from there. Like I said, I’m glad to be back! It’s weird that the villa and Genoa almost feels like home now, when just two months ago, it was totally foreign to me.

Independent Travel - Salzburg

Hello again! I am now back in Italy and glad to be back. Being able to see so many places over spring break was an experience of a lifetime but also completely draining. Salzburg was great; it was my favorite place that we visited, mostly because everyone was so friendly, and the city was smaller and more relaxed than most of the places we’ve gone. I hadn’t realized until Salzburg how much I missed being in a smaller town. In Genoa and while I’m traveling, I am always in big cities.

When we got to Salzburg, we ate kasekrainers (sausages filled with cheese) for lunch and then visited the Salzburg Cathedral. After that, we strolled and shopped around Getreidegasse, which is an alley known for its shops and for being the birthplace of Mozart. (Mozart was born in a cute, yellow house.) We went to a local restaurant for dinner, where I had clear soup with a cheese dumpling in it. We made sure to be back at our hostel by 8pm because our hostel was showing the Sound of Music! We got to watch the movie before our tour the next day, which was really exciting.

We had to wake up early the next morning for our tour, but I didn’t mind at all since I was so excited. (I know some of you are laughing at me, but Erin and I grew up on this movie.) The tour ended up being just 4 people - Judith and I and an older couple from Oklahoma. Our tour guide drove us around in a van, while we listened to the Sound of Music soundtrack and sung along (no lie!) It was so cheerful and relaxing. She took us to a bunch of the different points where the movie was filmed. We saw the actual Von Trapp house, the outside of the house used for the movie, the patio and lake of the Von Trapp house in the movie, the gazebo, the abbey, the tree lined street and fountains where Julie Andrews sings, the mountains, and the wedding church. I was expecting to be able to go into the house of the Von Trapps, but unfortunately, that wasn’t possible on the tour. The inside of the house in the movie was just a set built in Hollywood, and the actual Von Trapp house is now a bed and breakfast that doesn’t allow tours. It all worked out ok though, because there were other things we got to see that I wasn’t expecting. Our tour took us through some nearby towns like St. Gilgen, Fuschl, and Montsee, where a lot of the scenery from the movie was shot, and they were some of the most gorgeous places I have ever seen. Had we not done the tour, I wouldn’t have even known those places existed. The wedding church was in Montsee, and we were able to stop there for about an hour for a strudel break! Judith got apple strudel and I got cheese strudel – both were delicious.

After the tour, we wandered around the shops for a little while. We found a cute shop that had thousands of hand-painted easter egg ornaments made with real eggs. There were egg cartons of these things piled 3 feet high everywhere! We also found a grocery store that sold peanut butter! I bought a jar because that is not an opportunity to be missed. I have yet to find a jar of peanut butter in Italy. We went back to our hostel to check out and catch our train to Vienna, but first, we got a complimentary Edelweiss cocktail from our hostel for booking our tour through them!

Independent Travel - Cologne & Prague

I am writing this post while I am traveling on a train to Salzburg. So far, my independent travel has gone pretty well. We left on Friday evening. Judith and I flew into Frankfurt Hahn Airport on Friday night, and Catherine, Ashley, and Jamie flew there the following morning, since we couldn’t get tickets all together. Judith and I stayed at a hotel by the Frankfurt Hahn airport for the night, and then met up with the others and took a 2-hour shuttle to Cologne the next day.

The first thing we did was visit the Cologne Cathedral, which had really amazing stained glass. In Cologne, a lot of the things to do were grouped closely together, around the area of the cathedral. After the cathedral, we went to the chocolate museum (of course). We got a few samples, saw how chocolate is made, and learned about the history of chocolate. We walked across the bridge and saw a theatre that our teacher told us to check out for its architecture. For dinner, we went to a fun German restaurant for authentic German food. I had white sausages, a pretzel, and Kolsch – the Cologne beer. Cologne is really beautiful at night. The cathedral and all the surrounding buildings are lit up, and from the bridge, the view of the water and the buildings is really pretty.

Unfortunately, a stomach bug had been going around the villa, and Jamie got sick with it on Saturday night. Plus the hostel that we stayed at was absolutely terrible. The smell was nauseating and nothing was clean. All of us were up all night – Jamie because she was sick and the rest of us because we were freezing cold and worried about Jamie. All of us were too disgusted to even use the showers, so the lack of showers in addition lack of sleep and fear that we would get sick made Sunday a little rough. On Sunday, we wandered around the old town of Cologne for most of the morning, and then went and visited the museum designed by Peter Zumthor that our architecture professor recommended we see.

Sunday afternoon, we had to catch the shuttle back to Frankfurt Hahn (Judith and I’s third time to visit that airport in 3 days). While we were on the shuttle, a bad storm hit. Trees were down in the road, so the bus had to take an alternate route. When we got to the airport, the winds were really strong, and the airport was making announcements not to go outside. Luckily, our flight to Prague was only delayed by half an hour and everything went ok, aside from the virus hitting Catherine during the flight. Overall, Sunday was a pretty difficult day,but since then, things have gotten much better.

When we got to our hostel in Prague (the Czech Inn), we felt like we were in heaven. Everything in the Czech Republic is pretty cheap, but we decided to spend the same amount that we normally would on a hostel and stay in a better place while in Prague. For about 21 euros a night per person, we got a 2-story apartment that had a huge bathroom, 2 bedrooms, and a kitchen, an eating area, and a rooftop terrace. It was pure luxury after our horrible hostel experience in Cologne.

I thought Prague was the most beautiful big city that I’ve visited. The area down by the river is gorgeous. On Monday, we visited Prague Castle. We ate a 3-course Czech lunch at a pretty nice restaurant for only 180 CZK (less than 8 euros, and yes, I think in euros now). I had vegetable soup, beef goulash, and chocolate cake. I was surprised how much I liked the beef goulash. After we walked across Charles Bridge, and I got a drawing from one of the artists selling their stuff on the bridge. We walked through the old part of town, shopped around in some of the crystal and glass shops that Prague is known for, and saw the astronomical clock at the Old Town Hall. We went to trivia night at our hostel, but it wasn’t much fun. We went out that night and met some British people our age. It was really funny to talk to them. They made us speak in our best British accent, which they said was “rubbish.” They also had all kinds of interesting stereotypes and perceptions about the U.S. They asked us where they should go on spring break if they went to America, and we said Florida, to which they replied that they didn’t want to go to the place full of retired people and oranges. They also thought that South Carolina was in Texas. On Tuesday, like good architecture students, we visited Frank Gehry’s Dancing House, then walked back across the Charles Bridge to see the John Lennon wall, which is a famous grafitti wall. We walked back over the bridge and through the older part of town to visit Tyn Church and St. Stephen’s.

This morning, we caught a train at 7:16. We just switched trains, but at this point, we have been traveling on trains for the past 6 hours. Judith and I are almost to Salzburg now though. Tomorrow we are doing a Sound of Music tour to see all the places where the movie was filmed. I’m really excited about it! Catherine, Ashley, and Jamie are on their way to Newcastle and Edinburgh for the rest of the break.

This weekend was a lot of fun, and the weather was beautiful. It seems to always be cold and rainy here, but this weekend it was perfectly sunny with highs in the 50s (which is the warmest it's been since we've been here). On Saturday, we walked downtown to the market, then shopped and ate gelato on Via XX Settembre. On Sunday, we worked on architecture stuff most of the day, but Judith, Catherine, and I took a break and went hiking for a few hours. We took the funicular all the way up the hills and then hiked further up to the old forts of Genoa. From up there, there were awesome views of the entire city, the ocean, and mountains in the background.

This week is going to be incredibly busy. Today we had a sketchbook review. Tomorrow, we go on a day trip to Milan and have to leave at 6:45am and won't get home until after 8pm. Wednesday, we have a guest lecturer and architecture pin-up, and Friday, we have our Italian Rationalism midterm. Luckily, once I get through this week, it is our spring break. I leave on Friday afternoon for a 10-day independent travel trip. Five of us are going to Cologne, then Prague. Then Judith and I are splitting off and going to Austria - Salzburg and Vienna. After hours and hours of planning, we finally have all of our flights, trains, shuttles, and hostels booked. We're really excited. It should be a lot of fun!

Madrid

I’m back! Sorry I’ve been out of touch for awhile. Last week I was out of commission with a cold and then out of town in Madrid. Luckily, the cold is going away. It had me feeling pretty rough and exhausted. Being sick here is very different because you can’t just run to the Wal-Mart and pick up some Robitussin or NyQuil and when you’re up all night coughing or blowing your nose, you feel guilty for keeping your 3 roommates awake. It seems like everyone in the villa is getting sick though, since we live in such close quarters and are around each other 24 hours a day.

Anyways, on to Madrid…

I got back from Madrid yesterday afternoon, since we had Monday and Tuesday off for Carnevale. Madrid was awesome! I would definitely go back in a heartbeat. I loved the pace of life, the atmosphere of the city, and of course, the food. (Erin has commented on how much of my blog is dedicated to food and said she would expect nothing less of me. Really though, eating different types of food is my favorite part of experiencing new cultures.) We left for Madrid early in the morning on Saturday and spent almost the entire day traveling. Getting to Madrid was no small feat – we had to catch a bus to the train station, a train to Milan, a shuttlebus to the Milan airport, a plane to Madrid, and then switch metro lines 3 times to get to our hostel. I went with my roommates (Ashley, Catherine, and Judith), and we were very proud of ourselves for making it there, considering how many forms of transportation we had to navigate. Once in Madrid, we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening just walking around and exploring parts of the city, like Puerto del Sol and Plaza Mayor. Because it was carnevale, there were quite a few people dressed up. We saw a Mickey Mouse, Chewbacca, Winnie the Pooh, an overweight Spiderman, and a large group dressed up as valentines. At night, we met up with three of the grad students that live in the villa, who also were visiting Spain this weekend. The group of us went on a sort of “tapas crawl” – we stood at the bars of various tapas restaurants and tried new foods. One of the more interesting places we visted was the “Museum of Ham,” and we also tried pig’s ear and sangria.

On Sunday morning, we ate breakfast at a bakery in Puerto del Sol that had tons of delicious pastries. (We ended up eating there for breakfast the next morning also.) After apple empanadas and chocolate croissants, we visited the Prado Museum, which is an art museum that has a lot of Goya and Velazquez paintings. Just like at the museums in Florence, it was really interesting to see the paintings in real life because we’d studied a lot of the works. After lunch (more delicious tapas –mushroom crepes and sirloin and melted brie on bread), we went to Retiro Park. Retiro Park was my favorite part of the entire trip. It is a 300 acre park, and there was a lot going on there. There were people playing soccer, performing, walking their dogs, and roller blading, and there was an area where you could rent rowboats also. There were lots of gardens and fountains, but the most impressive part of the park was the Crystal Palace in the middle of it. We were able to visit it just before closing, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Since Sunday was Valentine’s day, us four girls treated ourselves to a nice dinner and dessert. We shared a skillet of paella (also delicious), and then went to a bar where we got chocolate cake and a mojitos.

Monday morning, we woke up to snow! It snowed pretty hard - at least a few inches worth – which made it unpleasant go anywhere, since we had limited snow gear with us. Despite the snow, we treked over to the Royal Palace and did a guided tour indoors. The Royal Palace used to be the residence of the Spanish king and queen, and today is still used for state functions held by the Spanish king. The inside was, of couse, really ornate and beautiful. After the Royal Palace, we ate more authentic Spanish cuisine – calamari sandwiches and patatas bravas – and then headed back to our hostel to thaw and dry out. Eventually, the snow turned to really cold rain but we still ventured out to the Reina Sofia museum, which is a modern art museum. They had a lot of Picasso. My friends and I weren’t big fans of most of the work, but we made the visit fun by trying to make up ridiculous names for the even more ridiculous paintings.

Overall, the trip was a really great success, despite the snow/rain and the fact that I was the obnoxious girl loudly blowing her nose in every museum we visited. I’m glad we spent our long weekend enjoying a new city. We were able to do a lot but still had time to relax and have fun. This weekend I am staying at the villa for the first time since the weekend I arrived. I’m looking forward to relaxing and catching up on sleep and work.

I am now back in Genoa until Saturday. Florence was my favorite city of the ones that we've visited so far. Florence had a lot of great shops and was more condensed and easier to explore than Rome. We were able to climb to the top of the Duomo, to walk across the Ponte Vecchio, to visit a few palaces like the Medicis', and visit the Uffizi Gallery, which had a lot of famous paintings I've studied in my classes, and the Accademia, where I saw Michelangelo's David. Yesterday was our free day, so my friends and I walked up to Piazza Michelangelo where you can see amazing views of the city and also did some shopping. (I got new Italian boots!) We also ran into random people dressed up for Carnevale in a piazza. That's what the first pictures is of. Florence also happened to be having a chocolate fair this weekend. In the piazza in front of Santa Croce, there were about 50 Italian chocolatiers with booths selling their chocolate. We ended up visiting the fair three times in 24 hours. I got awesome hot chocolate, a chocolate brownie covered in melted chocolate, and a fruit on a stick dipped in chocolate. It was delicious. Actually, looking back on it, this was not the healthiest weekend. On Friday, I got a waffle sandwich - which is two scoops of gelato sandwiched between two freshly made waffles. When I ordered it, I had no idea it was going to be so huge (or expensive.) That was probably the biggest mistake of the weekend; I felt so uncomfortably full that I couldn't eat anything for the rest of the day. Last night, a few of us went out to dinner with our professor and had an amazing Italian meal and great wine that I bought a bottle of to take home.

Tonight some people are staying up late to watch the Super Bowl (because of the time difference, it's on in the middle of the night here) but I think I'm heading to bed pretty soon. Tomorrow we have a day off and then Tuesday, we have another day trip scheduled. I only have to get through this week and then we have a 4-day weekend because of Carnevale, and my roommates and I are heading to Madrid!

Hello from Florence! We just arrived in Florence this evening. I've been in Rome for the past few days and Naples before that but didn't have free internet at either hotel. So far, its been a really great trip, and I've had the chance to see a lot of things. We started out taking a train down to Naples all day on Saturday. Saturday was a little rough - we woke up at 5am, the track number for our train switched 3 times before we boarded in Genoa (which involved hauling luggage up and down multiple sets of stairs), and then a carriage of our train broke and needed to be replaced, which caused us to be delayed and miss our second train. We were relieved to finally get there and our hotel was definitely worth the stress. It was a four-star hotel and was decorated very trendy and chic, and the breakfast, which was included, was absolutely amazing. However, Naples is a city I never care to visit again. The streets were filthy, the people were scary, I didn't feel safe outside of our hotel, and it was difficult to find restaurants and things to do. The only redeeming characteristic of the city was the view from the ports. From Naples, we took a day trip to Pompeii, which was really interesting. I'd highly recommend visiting Pompeii to anyone, but its probably better to do it as a day trip from Rome than from Naples...Naples was just so horrible.

On Monday morning, we headed to Rome. Rome was great and incredibly busy. There are just so many things to see there. We were able to see almost everything in just three and a half days - the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon, the Vatican Museum & St. Peter's, Ara Pacis, the Trevi foutain, the Spanish Steps, the Maxxi museum, Renzo Piano's auditorium, lots of Baroque churches...and more Fascist architecture than I ever care to see again. (We wasted a whole afternoon on that unfortunately.) But I've learned about so many of the buildings and artworks in my classes that it was really exciting to actually see them in person. After Naples, I was expecting to feel unsafe in Rome also, but I was pleasantly surprised by how clean and open and comfortable the city was. I also had the best gelato of my life there. If you are ever in Rome, go to a place called Della Palma near the Pantheon for gelato. They had at least 50 flavors - like Nutella, Chocolate with Strawberries, Irish Coffee, Chocolate with Cinnamon, Kit Kat, Kiwi, and Blackberry. (After eating six different flavors on just two occasions, I discovered that Black Forest was my favorite.) Rome is definitely a place that every person needs to visit at least once in their life. I hope to go back sometime. Tomorrow we are going on a tour of Florence, and then Saturday we have a free day! I am looking forward to shopping and enjoying the city. Touring around cities all day, every day is exhausting. I also forgot to mention that our hotel here is pretty small and simple but is literally 20 meters from the Duomo. It's getting late here and our tour starts at 8:45 tomorrow morning, so I guess I should head to bed. Stay tuned for details about Florence...

It's Friday night and I just finished packing for my first nine-day trip, which starts tomorrow. We are touring around Italy with our professor and everyone from the villa. We are going to Naples, Pompeii, Rome, and Florence during the trip. (We also have another nine-day trip later in the semester, when we go to Venice, the Veneto region, and Basel, Switzerland.) Tomorrow we leave at 6 in the morning and take a train to Naples. I am really excited to see more of Italy. Plus, I'm excited that we are apparently staying in nice hotels. I'm most excited to have a clean towel, I think. (The laundry situation here is not so good. In fact, the reason I haven't gone to bed yet is that I've been waiting for my turn with the dryer for two hours.) This week we had our second day trip, which was around the palaces of Genoa, and our first architecture review. Things were fairly low key this week because everyone got back from their different weekend trips exhausted and behind on work, but everyone is excited for our trip now. I'll definitely try my best to keep you posted during the trip!

Pisa & Portofino

I just got back from my weekend trip to Pisa and Portofino with friends. We left on Friday afternoon from the Genoa train station...two hours later than expected. (We missed our first train because it switched platforms and no announcement was made in English!) In Pisa, we saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Duomo. It was very surreal to actually see the Leaning Tower after seeing so many pictures of it, and especially since the first time we saw it was Friday night when the area around it was completely deserted. I expected Pisa to be a much bigger city than it was; it was actually relatively small and there wasn't much to do aside from seing the "Field of Miracles" (with the tower and the Duomo and baptistery). We still had a really great weekend just wandering around the city and hanging out though. The hostel westayed at in Pisa was interesting. It was a clean, safe, cheap place to say, but all 6 of us were in one small room with six miniature-sixed twin beds, lined up in a row. On Saturday, we went up to the top of the tower. You could actually feel the slant when you were on the top and when you were walking up the stairs. It was bizarre. One funny thing that happened while we were at the tower was that a group of Italian teenage boys came up my friends and I and asked, "Photo?" We thought that they wanted us to take a picture for them, so we agreed, but then they stood next to us and started snapping pictures with us. (We tend to draw a lot of attention in Genoa too, since there are hardly any Americans. We've walked past an elementary school playground several times, and the kids always run over and stare at us. )

Today, we took a train from Pisa to Portofino. Portofino is a resort town, and it was absolutely gorgeous, but is pretty much deserted during the winter. Mostly all the shops and restaurants were boarded up. I would love to go back on a sunny, summer day. Since everything was closed, we spent our time in Portofino hiking up to the castle and lighthouse to see amazing views. Unfortunately, we had all our luggage from the weekend on us (no lockers in the train station), so we had to do the hike with an extra 30 pounds on us. We got back this evening and are exhausted. (Today alone, we took 2 train rides and 4 buses.) Well, I guess I should get some homework done after being gone all weekend. Hope all is well back home!

Hello! Not much new to report here. Yesterday, we went on our first day trip. (We will be taking a day trip every Tuesday for my field studies class.) Sometimes we'll get to go to other cities, like Turin, Como, and Milan, but yesterday we just toured around the medieval district and the port of Genoa with our professor/tour guide, Guidita. (My photo shows the port.) The trip was really informative but absolutely exhausting! We left from the villa at 8:30 in the morning and didn't get back until after 7 at night. By the time we got back, I was completely drained and completely frozen through. Monday and today were full of classes. We have fewer classes here, but the classes are much longer. My contemporary architecture class this morning was 3 hours long.

This afternoon was interesting. Catherine, Judith, and I visited our site to measure about 20 nearby buildings, but since we couldn't find a tape measurer, we had to measure the width of all the buildings by counting out meter-long strides (which look more like lunges). We spent about an hour pacing/lunging out the length of the buildings, while the locals stared at us, wondering what those foreigners could possibly be doing. Our professor also told us to analyze circulation through the space, so Judith had to stalk several people to figure out the routes that they take through the site. From my experience, I've learned that site analyses always require you to act a little sketchy. On the way home, to reward ourselves, we bought flowers to brighten up our room.

Tomorrow we only have one class (yay!) and after our Friday class, Judith, Catherine, Ashley, Michael, Zac, and I are taking a train to Pisa for the weekend!

It is Sunday evening, almost the end of a great weekend. Right now everyone is getting ready to go out to dinner. Our Italian teacher reserved a restaurant for all of us and we are going to have a really nice dinner with antipasto, primo, secondo, and dessert. On Friday afternoon, several of us went out to run errands, eat gelato, and look in shops. We stayed in the villa on Friday night and watched "Hitch" on the projector. (We have no TV, so we just project movies up onto the wall.) Saturday, after Italian class, we finally got phones and then me and a group of girls went shopping again. This time I actually bought stuff! We happened upon a market in the streets that they have every Saturday. It mostly had paintings, antiques, jewelry, and furniture, but the stuff was awesome. I got two great little paintings from an Italian artist. Last night, we went out to celebrate my roommate Ashley's birthday. (The picture shows me with my three roommates in Genoa. From left to right - Ashley, Catherine, me, Judith.)

I really enjoy going out in the city to see things. I also like challenging myself to speak in Italian whenever I have to interact with the locals. I'm hoping to pick up a lot of Italian just by being here. Living here for four months will certainly be different from vacationing. There's no rush to see everything. Instead you can just enjoy soaking everything in. Plus you get to see aspects of another culture that you normally don't see on a vacation - things like what types of foods are in the supermarkets.

Being here is starting to feel more routine and normal now. The last two days have been filled with classes - contemporary architecture and lots of design studio and Italian. Yesterday we started studio and found out about the project we will be working on all semester. The site for our project is in the historic part of Genoa. Yesterday we went on a site visit and also went inside two churches. On the way back, my friends and I bought blankets - the villa is always freezing and it is impossible to get a warm shower here! I guess that's one of the trade-offs for living in a beautiful, 110-year-old house.

The historic area has lots of cute shops. We're hoping to get a chance to actually go in them this weekend. Right now, I'm waiting for dinner to be served. The villa has a cook that makes lunch and dinner for us on weekdays. Today, lunch was pasta with pesto sauce and prosciutto (and it was delicious!) There's salad, a bowl of fruit, and fresh bread and foccacia available at every meal. After dinner, everyone in the villa is going downtown. Our professor wants to take us to some sort of pub or wine bar. It should be a lot of fun. Well there's not ot much else exciting to say - like I said, things are starting to get a little more routine - but I really do like being here so far.

The first picture shows our villa, and the second one is of our bedroom. (My bed is the one in the far corner.) The other three pictures were taken from the balcony of our bedroom. It's gorgeous! (You can see our balcony in the picture of the villa. It's on the highest level.)

I just got back from getting gelato with a big group of people after dinner. Today I slept until noon because of jet lag! After lunch we had Italian class for two hours. A bunch of us also went down to Via XX Settembre before dinner- which is sort of the shopping street of Genoa. I'm loving the city so far and am really glad to have my friends here.