Internet in Italy is Impossible. Sorry!

Delays in writing seem to be caused by a variety of events, although in the case of the delay that puts the posts for Forence and the Cinque Terre slightly behind schedule, it is entirely due to a lack of internet access in Cinque Terre, Pisa, and Rome.  It wasn't until we arrived in Sorrento that we had reliable (and free) internet, even in our own room.  Please enjoy our last few days of events, below.

Florence with Andy! Part 1.

Day One:

After departing Castiglion Fiorentino for the last time on this trip, anyway, I hopped aboard my train to Florence, knowing that Andy would be waiting for me there, and he was.  Six weeks of waiting seemed to disappear as I welcomed him to Italy with a hug and kisses aplenty.  Our first course of action was to find our hotel, the Hotel Sampaoli.  We had directions but had neglected to have a map.  Despite this, we found it with little trouble, situated on the fourth floor of a row of buildings, just north of San Lorenzo (and its famous market) and the Medici Palace, directly over a Greek Restaurant. 

We rang the bell, heard the door click, and entered.  We were greeted in a minute or two by the man running the establishment who offered to help us with our bags and lead us up the stairs. The only complaint we could have lodged about our room was its location, literally opening on the lobby and its traffic, but the room itself was of a reasonable size, had a decent bathroom, a window, and a very large fan.  No AC but that's not uncommon and the fan did much to cool the room.

Me on the bed in Hotel #1, Sampaoli in Florence.

Nice people, decent location, no AC.

After resting for a bit, we headed out in search of lunch.  I took Andy to the small panini shop I'd been to on two of my previous visits to Florence and enjoyed their panini while walking around.  I took Andy past many of the notable spots including the Duomo, Orsanmichele, San Lorenzo, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi, and the Ponte Vecchio.  At the Palazzo Vecchio I gave Andy a informal version of my presentation about the statue of Perseus and Medusa.  We also hunted down the restaurant we had reservations to dine at the following evening, the Quatre Lione, which had been recommended by the neighbors we'd recently acquired back in Austin.  Past the ponte and a right at a book shop and there it was in a small piazza.

We headed back towards the hotel, stopping to grab a gelato at Grom on the way (strawberry and lemon for both of us) and took a stroll through the San Lorenzo Market, as Andy was tired from his flight.  Apparently, there'd been a group of teens on the flight who didn't ever shut up and sleep, so he wasn't able to get any sleep on the flight.  While he napped, I played on the computer and looked up the train schedule for our departure to the Cinque Terre and the hours of the Galileo Museum.

Strawberry and Lemon Gelato from GROM Florence

For dinner we went to a spot recommended by the hotel (there are only two they recommend, the second being the Quatre Lione) called Za Za.  The outside seemed loud and full, so we opted to sit inside and were lead to our choice of tables by a very perky Japanese girl.  It seemed that the place had a lot of front-of-house Japanese people, actually, which I found rather odd.  I had Tagliatelli (the really wide noodles) in boar sauce, grilled chicken with roasted potatoes, and a salad.  Andy had Pici with pesto sauce, a mixed grill platter with chicken, beef, lamb and a pork sausage with roasted potatoes, and a salad.  We tried a house white wine with it, and Andy followed it all with his first Italian coffee (which he's now addicted to because they don't make him as "hot" as a full cup of coffee would).

Dinner was followed by a slow stroll around Florence, enjoying the cooler air of the evening and the lessened crowds.  We walked towards the Ponte Vecchio and saw all the jewelry shops closed up for the night with their beautiful wood coverings in place to protect the glass and jewelry inside and took photos of the Arno with the lights reflecting off it from the buildings along the banks which, since I didn't have my camera at the time, we decided to return the following evening to get better shots.

The End of the Line...

It's over.  My six week study abroad is finished and I'm celebrating in a hostel in Florence with Andy, who is sleeping off his plane ride next to me as I write.  I told him to sleep on the plane but, apparently, that's difficult when you're surrounded by a school's worth of high school students, particularly when they won't shut up and sleep themselves.

The last week at Santa Chiara was pretty calm.  We stayed in Castiglion Fiorentino all week so that people could work on their group presentations and the class photography exhibit, which was on Tuesday.  It went pretty well, I think.  I was in a mood not fit for company, so I spent the time up in my room watching the Disney Animated Hercules and listening to the people in the courtyard below.

Wednesday was the first day of group presentations including the one for the group I was in.  One group went earlier in the day and discussed the roads.  After that we had a break and headed on a half hour hike to a nearby vineyard called La Pievuccia.  They organically grow, process, and bottle a variety of wines as well as olive oil and honey.  The owner took us on a tour of the wine making area, although they won't be doing any processing until the harvest in September, and discussed how they grow their plants, why they chose to be organic, and even slightly more natural than organic, as they process without chemicals, as well.  He, apparently, doesn't like Californian wine because in the states wine is something people drink on its own, so it needs to have certain flavors, but here, wine is designed to be eaten with food, so it is much more subtle.

 Olive orchards at La Pievuccia.

After the tour, we sat down to a tasting, with food, of course, little flower shaped pizzas were served with a light white wine, bruschetta with tomatoes and cheese and crostini with an olive paste came with the rose wine, and very good salami and bresaola with a nice bread came with the red.  Somewhere in the middle there were pieces of cheese topped with a plum sauce or a very light honey.  The last taste was of their vin santo, a very concentrated wine that ages for at least five years, I think, in warm temperatures.  It's made from grapes that have been picked and let dry almost to being raisins and tastes a lot like them.  It was served with biscotti, which wast to be dipped in the vin santo, as our TA, Erica, demonstrates in the image below.

Erica was always good for a laugh and a slightly (or entirely) inappropriate joke.

After the tasting, we had the opportunity to purchase some of the products we'd just tasted, and I took the opportunity to buy three bottles of the red wine because I know people at home who will enjoy it, a bottle of the vin santo because in small amounts, it's very nice, a jar of honey, and two bottles of olive oil.

While some of the students stayed to swim in the pool at the vineyard, the members of my group among a few others, opted to head back to Santa Chiara.  On the way back, I took the opportunity to snap some photos.  I took the one below of the Montecchio Vesponi Castle nearby as we were so much closer to it than at Santa Chiara.

The Castle of Montecchio Vesponi

As I was walking along, I saw some little chicks in an enclosure and found them quite cute but I didn't take any photos.  As I was wandering off, a man with lots of hair caught up to me in his white van and, in Italian, started saying something I imagine was something like, "Did you want to take photos of the chicks?" and "Come, come it's OK."  He led me over, gave me a prime spot overlooking the chickenwire mesh keeping the little fluffy things in, and urged me to take photos.  After a bit, he led me towards where the chickens and roosters were kept and urged me, again, to take photos, even suggesting I use a flash to get better shots but it was light enough, even in the shade to go without.  Then, as I was thanking him and heading off, he said something else I didn't understand and yelled to a younger man on the upper story porch to tell me something in English.  He asked if I could send them the photos if he gave me his email address so I told him that I would, and I did.  Here are a couple, one of some of the chicks, and one of a huge rooster with funny white feet.

Later, we gave our presentation with its scavenger hunt, awarded prizes to the winners, and went off to dinner.  Another group went after dinner and that was about it for me that day.  It had been long. At some point I did manage to get up to Cocoa Palm for gelato.

Lemon, Strawberry & Frutti di Bosco

Thursday started with another presentation followed by lunch then another presentation or two... or three... then we went off on another walk to La Pievuccia, this time for their dinner.  Apparently, it's common for some small wineries to offer dinners, or at least, they do there.  We'd been talking about doing it for almost the whole trip, so everyone was pretty excited.  We got semi-dressed up, as there'd be a long walk to get there, and headed out for dinner at eight.  The food was very nice, an appetizer plate with several offerings, lasagna, roasted pork with spinach and thin slices of potato, panna cotta covered with a mixed berry sauce, and your choice of vin santo, grapa, or Nocino, a walnut based liqueur.  I had the first, as I knew I liked it and grapa burns out my nose hairs and I'm not that huge a fan of walnuts. While the food was good, the best part was that we were sitting outside in the early evening with a nice breeze on a smal patio near the olive orchards.  Afterward we took a taxi (in batches) back to Santa Chiara.

Friday was composed almost entirely of packing and getting ready to leave, as I needed to take a train at around 11:30 to meet Andy in Florence on Saturday.  I had my last couple of meals at Santa Chiara, and enjoyed my last gelato at Cocoa Palm (mango, peach, and raspberry, I think); there's a photo on Henry I have to download at some point.

And that was that.  It was over, I was packed.  All that was lacking was a few hours and a few last minute chores like stripping my bed, picking up a bit of trash, and the last minute packing after the morning activities.  I said, and hugged, good bye some of the people still at the center, grabbed my bags and left for my last walk down the hill to the train station... and towards Florence and Andy.

Good bye, Santa Chiara.  Farewell, Castiglion Fiorentino.

And on the Seventh Day, She Rested... and Ate Cake

No, I'm not god, or God, or Marie Antoinette or whatever... but I did take a break from doing stuff yesterday.  After staying up late the night before, I slept until noon or so, then checked email and went to lunch with my roommate and a couple of other girls.  Then we went and got very delicious tiramisu from Hermes' bar, which was really good... then I did... something... Oh, yeah, I came into the studio for the internets and talked to Andy on Google Chat for a while.  I contemplated going to the Palio race but, as it was a walk up the hill and not nearly as relaxing as I wanted, and was likely to be full of people, I opted to stay at Santa Chiara and do stuff on the webs and such, including talking to Erica on the Facebook chat thing while we were sitting in the same room, only a few feet away from each other.

A bit later on, I printed the posters for the exhibition on Tuesday as well as the invitations for the faculty.  The former were given to the U of Virginia students for dispersal around town, and the latter were folded in half, personalized, and given to Ann to distribute to the faculty members, RAs, and staff of Santa Chiara.

Then we had dinner... on plastic plates, with plastic cups... I guess that, since so many people were out at the Palio and eating later (they were saving dinner for the people who were off to the Palio) and didn't want to have to do dishes.  We had really nice rotini in a super cheesy tomato sauce, which was delicious, and the very thinly sliced rare beef with amazing mashed potatoes and a salad.  I think dessert was the torta di nonna, grandmother's cake, which we've had before but was really nice and very sweet.

After dinner, I went back to the studio and did more online stuff, maybe talked to Andy some more... something like that. Then I went up to my room and finished reading Dragonsong, it's a short book... promise.  Monica had been downstairs watching Moulin Rouge and we were both reading in bed, her a magazine she got from another girl, me, the aforementioned book, and snacking on cookies.  Before she came back, I took the photo below... a long exposure shot out my window towards the hills and the night's full moon.

The long, white streak a bit up from the bottom of the image is a car's headlights during the eight second exposure for the image.  Here's one of the moon on its own with a much faster exposure setting, so you can actually see the craters and landscape.

Saturday in Siena

One student was sick when we went to Siena the first time, so Ann promised to take her back before the program was over so she could see it.  That was yesterday.  Ann said that anyone who wanted to, was free to come with them so I took her up on her offer, met the others who had down at the station (I got a ride from one of the people who runs Santa Chiara because she was taking some other guests down to the station), and got on the 7:51 am train to Arezzo.  We would be taking a bus from Arezzo to Siena.  The rides were uneventful and we got to Siena around ten, grabbed a snack, and wandered off to see what we'd missed before.  I spent the day with three of my fellow students including Eric, a guy only thirteen days younger than me and the second oldest student on the trip, Maggie, and Amanda, the girl who'd missed the first trip to Siena (who is in the photo with the scarf I posted a while ago).

Essentially, we retraced our steps from the first visit but first we went into the San Domenico, the church that houses St. Catherine of Siena's head and one of her fingers, to see what I considered my chief reason for returning to Siena, to pay homage to (read gawk at) my pseudo patron saint's remains.  I also lit a candle for grandma Catherine because I thought she would have liked to if she'd been there.  After that we went to the Palazzo Publico and Piazza del Campo, which are set up for the Palio, a major horse race between the nine districts of Siena, which is always held on the 2nd of July, which is Friday.  The road around the piazza has been filled with "holy soil" and there were people working to get it very flat, steamrollering it, wetting it down, etc.  The photo below shows what I like to see as a true example of Italian work ethic.  One guy works, the others watch or "guard", a sophisticated form of watching. 

Rather than going in to the Palazzo with Ann, her sons, and Amanda, Maggie, Eric and I went to a small plaza behind the Palazzo where they have markets on certain days of the week but not, apparently on Sundays.  It's the same one the restaurant we went to on the first trip is situated on.  We enjoyed the view, took photos of the houses around us and sat down under the covered plaza to wait and chat.  A little girl and her father were playing in the plaza and I took some photos of them, including the one below.  Although she seems sleepy, she was only actually in this position with her eyes closed for a few seconds.  It wasn't the shot I was looking for but I love it.

When we got the call that Ann and Amanda were headed for the Duomo, we headed in that direction and Maggie and I bought tickets (still only 5 euro for students to get access to six different buildings) and, after Ann had bought tickets for Amanda, her boys, and herself, we went into the Duomo while Eric stayed outside to sketch.  It hadn't changed much since we were there a couple of weeks ago but they had decorated the nave with flags representing the nine areas in honor of the palio. I saw a really old guy (below) dressed all in white with shiny gold sneakers (very popular here) talking with two women while standing in an area that looked like it was getting some work done on it.  After they finished talking, he knelt down on the floor, mixed up some stuff, and started re-grouting one of the tiles on the floor of the Duomo.  After a bit, a tour guide started talking to him (in Italian) and translated to her British tourists that he was the restorer in charge of all the Duomo's floors.

Then we headed out of the Duomo and off to lunch around 12:30.  One of the RA type people we have here at Santa Chiara had come with us (as had three other girls from our group) and before separating after getting off the bus, we'd decided to meet at her favorite restaurant, and eat their famous gigantic, cheese-filled gnocchi... which were amazing.  Soft, fluffy, not gummy or heavy in an amazing sauce that I can't even begin to describe.  I also had some bruschetta covered with bright red tomatoes, salty cheese, and a liberal dousing of olive oil, and a small mixed salad.  Rather than forcing them to put together a table for eleven, we sat in three groups, Amanda, Maggie, Eric and I sat in a room away from Ann and her sons, who were seated at a table next to the other four.  Eric got a white fish in a tomato based sauce which I didn't try but smelled amazing.  Maggie got two large but thin pieces of steak that had been cooking in a sauce that tasted like heaven and had been primarily composed of Chianti.  Amanda had tiramisu and Eric and Maggie shared a panna cotta with caramel sauce, which I tried and it was delicious, the caramel not tasting at all burnt, which it so often does.  The waiters, who I'm guessing also are the owners, were very nice and the male of the two was very often flirting, winking, and teasing everyone. After we'd eaten he brought two bottles to the table, one of grappa and the other of amaretto.  Apparently we were getting a drink on the house, I had some of the amaretto, which wasn't di'Saronno but was smoother and soft, sweet, and warm.

The Sign

Menu and Hours

After taking our leave, we went back up to the Duomo museum, saw the amazing stained glass window from the Duomo again, below (the one in the Duomo is a copy), the beautiful Duccio Maesta, and, one of my favorite sculptures of the trip, a small sculpture of a boy with very curly hair lying on a large cushion, which I think is a memorial statue for someone's brother, or so my Italian would have me believe.

 Duomo Window surrounded by statues originally on the exterior of the Duomo facade.

 These two photos weren't "supposed" to be taken, as photography is not allowed in the Duomo Museum... Oh well.

Then a quick turn around the Crypt and it was nearly four... lunch was a very long event, and rightly so.  We went in search of gelato which took longer than it should have thanks to Eric's assurance that he knew where we were going when, in fact, he didn't but Maggie and I pulled out our maps, figured out where we were, and got us headed in the right direction.  I got strawberry and lemon but I nearly opted for coffee and dark chocolate... I decided I wanted something refreshing rather than heavy, though the coffee gelato is usually very good.  Maybe Cocoa Palm will have it today.

Then we headed off for the bus station, grabbed some bottled water, and climbed on the bus.  On the way back, I listened to music and took pictures of the countryside through the bus windows.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Olive Trees

The Countryside with a Castle and Silos

Agricultural Work

Sometimes a great shot was... interrupted, I suppose, by very impertinent signs, trees, and often just my inability to get ready when the bus was moving 30-50 miles per hour.  I also had issues with window glare but I think, overall, the shots came out well.

Silly Sign wants to be photographed

The bus was a bit late, so we missed our close connection for our train back to Castiglion Fiorentino, which meant we'd be late in for dinner.  Jen and the other three girls with her didn't want to wait, so they took a cab back which was supposed to cost around 30 euro.  Originally, we'd thought to take cabs, too but decided that we'd rather wait, plus there weren't any other cabs.  We got to Castiglion at 7:35 (dinner is at 7:30) and raced up the hill.  They knew we'd be late and had set a table aside for us so when we got there 18 minutes later after a walk that can easily take closer to 25 minutes at a normal pace, we still had food.  Spaghetti with pancetta in a tomato sauce followed by fried chicken, which was a bit dry), french fries, and a salad.  I had a nectarine and kiwi for "dessert".  Then I went to look at photos, video chatted with Andy on google chat, and went to watch Chicago... movie was good, but the DVD was very poor quality.  There was no color and sometimes very big pixels.  Not sure what was up with that.  Read a little... found a copy of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong, and went to bed around three.

Apologies and Excuses

OK... So, it's pretty clear now to... probably everyone... that I'm not good at this blog thing and the main problem started when I got stuck with doing the next posts for Rome, and then, since I didn't want to skip anything, I just stopped writing.  So, now all the interesting stuff is over as far as the study abroad goes, so instead of trying to catch you up, which I may do at some later point in time, I'm going to pretend I never missed a single day and start with today... after I post this.

I promise that I will make a best effort to summarize an old day as I do each new day... and when Andy gets here, I'll make him help.

The Weekend #2

Oh, gosh... where did I leave off... Friday?... and it's Wednesday now.  That means I've got about 4-1/2 days to make up for... let's make it five.  So... Saturday was a pretty slow day, got up late after being exhausted from Florence and went to a little place in Castiglion for lunch where you get your food by the pound as if it's a deli, although I suppose that's sort of what it was.  I got a quarter of chicken and some peas in butter sauce which were both very good for just over 6 euro, not bad, I thought.  

After that, we walked, and walked... and walked in search of the other gelato place in town.  It was a long walk.  One of the girls kept getting cat calls and whistles and honks and looks from the guys driving along the road, so we started counting.  By the time we finished what we guessed was a four mile walk round trip, she'd racked up fifteen of them, not counting general looks.  Oh, and the gelato was good but I guess we decided it wasn't worth the walk, although the A&Mers seem to go wild for it.

That's about all of interest that happened that day.  I don't remember what we had for dinner that night, I think the Santa Chiara dinners just seem to blend together.  I'm sure it was good.

Sunday a bunch of us got up early to catch a train to Arezzo for their first-weekend-of-the-month Antique Fair.  I wandered around on my own for a while.  I noticed one of the living statues preparing for the day, putting on his makeup while sitting on his podium.  There was a good deal of very nice furniture that I'm sure my mom would have liked, a lot of jewelry, pottery, rugs, paintings... quite the mish-mash of stuff, though I didn't end up buying anything.  There was also a lot of stuff that wasn't actually antique, including other jewelry, art, and little collectibles like the kitties below.  I'm not sure they serve any purpose, but they looked funny hanging on the line like that.

I didn't last there long and took the noon bus back to Castiglion Fiorentino... it lets us off at the top of the hill, which is helpful.  Went to Roggi's for lunch and had a pizza and then went back to Santa Chiara to pack for our departure to Rome just before eight the next morning.  After that I read for a bit.  I finished Twilight Watch on either Saturday or Sunday, so was reading the final book, Last Watch, which I'm almost finished with, now.

Shortly before our 6 PM pre-departure meeting, I found out that Ann wanted our two-page reading response paper before we left for Rome, so my plan to do it during the long weekend wasn't going to fly... so I was anxious to get enough of the book read to respond to the prompts properly and get it written later that night.

When we got down to dinner, we were surprised to see spoons, as we generally only have soup at lunch and have pasta for dinner but we had both.  Sausage and cheese tortellini floating in beef broth.  Interesting, but good.  The main course was roasted chicken and beef served with a fresh salad and mashed potatoes.

After dinner I scanned the prompts for their subject and started reading the text for the answers.  I don't think I did too badly, in the end, although I did take a break before writing my conclusion paragraph to go up the the medieval festival for the last time to watch their fireworks show.  It was rumored around Santa Chiara that they'd spent 10K euro on them, which didn't sound too impressive to me, as I know that the municipal shows for New Year's and the Fourth can often run several hundred thousand and up.

Maybe it was the location, maybe just a company that gives them a great deal, but the display lasted for at least twenty minutes and it was phenomenal.  They shot the fireworks around the castle's tower, some from a small section inside the inner walls, behind the tower, and others in front of the walls and the tower, so the explosions lit up the tower and framed it, emphasizing the shapes of the wall, tower, and open space.  At one point, there was even a cascade of white sparks coming down from the top of the tower like a waterfall, which lasted for a good 2-3 minutes on its own, with other fireworks going off in the background.  They had a plethora of my favorite types of fireworks and none of the gigantic orbs so prevalent in the States, which I find pedantic and boring. They were also predominantly white with gold, and tended to use color sparingly, which I found much more interesting and far prettier.

Afterwards, I'd pretty much decided that I'd never seen a city-funded display that I'd liked better than this and that it was necessary for me to come back again in the hopes that they'd do something as good in the future.  Then I wrote the conclusion to my paper, emailed it to Ann, and went off to dreamland.