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...