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.