Pisa and Lucca

Today was a very early start. I woke up (miracle) at 7 (miracle) drank a cup of coffee and we were out the door (miracle) and into the darkness. It was pouring rain when we left and we had a 20 minute walk to the train station ahead of us. Luckily, we arrived on time for the bus at 830 for Pisa and Lucca! Our "tour guide"was my Medici professor who was absolutely hilarious and knew so much about the places we were going to, since he's lived in Florence all of his life. Anywho, we got to Pisa which ends up being in the middle of no where. But good news the sun decided to pop out and hang around for a few hours. We walked from parking lot to the main site of Pisa, about 15 minutes, and the next thing we know were standing in front of the leaning tower, baptistery, cemetery and the basilica of Pisa. All within feet of each other. So strange.
I thought we would just be seeing the tower, but we also got to see the inside of the basilica, baptistery and cemetery which was awesome. The cemetery had these enormous, beautiful frescos along the walls, that survived a bombing. Crazy to think that the leaning tower survived as well...not the most stable structure...
The basilica was incredible, the walls were covered in paintings, the ceiling in gold, and there was a huge mosaic above the altar. I was totally speechless.
Next was lunch time. We picked a random little place that ended up being delicious! It is here that I had my first pizza in Italy (artichokes, ham, mushrooms for all you foodies) SO YUM.
At this point we're completely exhausted, but we didn't give up. Instead, downed a shot of espresso, and hopped on the bus to Lucca!
Lucca is a very small, walled in city, about an hour from Florence. Here, they organized for us to walk around a little, see some of the important monuments, like the church of Saint Michele, and then a bike ride! They rented bikes for us and we rode around the entire city, literally around it. The bike/pedestrian path was built on top of the wall surrounding the city, so we ended up getting a very scenic route.
All in all, it was a great day. I am pooped.
Buona sera!

Car

Updates

Hi everyone, its been a while since i've updated this, but I have some important things to say about my week.

I saw the David. It was incredible.
I ate my body weight in pasta.
My teacher said that he would "how-a do you say-a, I would make-a love to a book".
I took a picture of a pigeon.
I played hide and seek in the apartment.
I gave money to a homeless guy with cute dogs.

No sarcasm, it has been an awesome week!

Car

Monday

A few pictures from today.
Most importantly the shoes that I must visit on a regular basis.

Ike-uhh

Ok quick update banana/nutella crepes saturday night. Brilliant.
Today I did the most un-italian thing and it was freaking awesome. First of all we went to H and M to get some long sleeve shirts to wear in the igloo that is our apartment. Then decided that there were a few things left that we absolutely needed for the apartment. Things that we needed to survive. Number one, a full length mirror (because we want to pretend like our original full length mirror didn't fall off the wall and shatter yesterday). Next, we definitely needed swedish meatballs. So we left H and M in search of ikea. All we knew was that there was a free shuttle going to the bus station every hour. After approximately an hour and a half of looking for the flipping shuttle and trying to communicate in italian with people who don't even know where they are, we found it!
One terrifying bus ride later... we had arrived, The land of cheap furniture now in clear view.
First thing we did, swedish meatballs. Instantly this made the trip completely worth it. I had extreme amounts of self control today (didn't even get a gelato) and didn't buy anything I didn't need. We split the cost of the mirror and I went ahead and splurged on a 50 cent espresso.
Overall, mission accomplished, another successful day in Florence.
Shout out to ma fans.


oh look its me eating. thats something new and different...
Car

Chianti

Today we went to Chianti which was absolutely the most beautiful thing I have seen so far. The school organized for us to go to Chianti on a wine tasting excursion, about 45 minutes away from florence. We left the city and headed for the hills. I swear it looked like we were going to hit every car that passed us, because the roads were so narrow for our enormous bus. Luckily, we made it alive and ended up in the Castello Tribbio (A CASTLE!!!!). The castle was 900 years old and was originally owned by the Pazzi family, which was the family who attempted to assassinate Lorenzo of the Medici family. They failed so as revenge, the medici family killed every single member of the pazzi family and anyone associated with them the following 2 days. Great movie right?






Anyways, we where all of the wine was made and also where the woman who currently owns the castle makes olive oil that she sells. After our little tour is when we got to do some taste testing. YAY. We tried bread with the olive oil made in the castle, olive spread, meat and cheese, all sorts of tomato creations, pasta, oh and two types of chianti. I savoured every bite....and went back for seconds. These pictures really don't do justice to the beauty of this place. Oh and by the way they do weddings.

(note the picture of me is courtesy of Lindsay and Melissa)

Schleepy

Ciao a tutti! So I should be going to bed right now, but I probably won't be able to sleep anyways. The windows in our building are paper thin so we can here eveyrthing outside as if we had our window open. In a nutshell, its a nightmare. The apartment is always freezing because italian law says that heat can only be on for 3 hours in the morning and 3 at night. I go to sleep with 4 blankets, socks, a shirt, sweater, and sweatpants, but i'm not complaining. This is me realizing how much I take heat for granted in the USA.
Tomorrow I have a class called Michelangelo to Bernini, we go on a site visit every week and tomorrow is the first one! We're going to the Bargello museum, which contains sculptures by Michelangelo and we will be going Michelangelo's house. After that I have a photography class which I love already. The teacher is very passionate and entertaining. Shoot the roomate is going to bed. I'll be back tomorrow!
Ciao!

This is the street that our school is on!

Hottie

Me and my new man.

First day of school

Classes started today! yipeeeeeeee! I set my alarm for 730, but of course that didn't go off and lindsay had to wake me up at 815. It was a great start, plus 15 minutes is plenty of time to get ready for the day! My first class was oil painting and it seems like its going to be a lot of work... 3 hours a day twice a week, but we have friday off to travel! I'm really looking forward to all the field trips that are assigned to our classes. In my Medici class the teacher is super enthusiastic which makes me really excited to learn. The field trips for his class are mainly to parts that were influenced by the Medici family, oh wait thats all of Florence...next class I had was Italian which is going to be a real hoot and a half. We have to go out into the city on multiple occasions and talk to the people of FLorence. It should be interesting... I have to wake up bright and early again tomorrow so a demani!

This is just an art fart picture I took, thought it looked kinda cool
and the other is a sweet brand of clothes I discovered

Random adventures

Ciao! Last night was a blast, our original goal was to go clubbing so we headed out around 1130 because that's usually when the clubs start getting crowded. We literally walked in a giant circle for what felt like an hour, when we finally got there it looked like the sketchiest place ever so we just kept on walking (keep in mind that I chose to wear 4 inch heels thinking we were going somewhere really close. brilliant idea number one.) On our way back to the apartment around 1 oclock, we figured the night was young, so we took a little break from the walking and stopped at an irish pub. BRILLIANT IDEA NUMBER 2! Nothing like a few pints of beer to ease the pain rushing through my feet. Bottom line, it was a super awesome night and hopefully there are many more to come!
Today was kind of gloomy, but we decided to make the most of it.
Three little art nerds wandering firenze with cameras = fun

Here are some shots from today
"Love is the Answer"

Fun fun fun

HI EVERYONE! Yesterday was my first night out with the roomies!! We had a really great time. Our plan was to blend in and maybe even pretend to be Italian. So, we went into the restaurant and told the waiter how many we were, sette, and he seated us. We were thinking dang we fooled him, (he totally thought we were fluent), then he whipped out the english menus. Made special for us. We blew it. Anyways, we behaved and the waiter brought us limoncello when we were done...not as good as i thought it would be, but the lobster fettucini was killer. I can't help but base this trip off the food, sorry.
Today we had to wake up around 730 to be at the school for a book buying excursion at 9. It was chaos! The line was so long, but we did also manage to sign up for an excursion to Pisa in a few weeks! Next weekend they planned for us to go to Chianti for a wine tasting! I cannot wait. Here are a few pics from around the city.

Panino

So all you need to know about today is that I discovered where to get the most delicious panino (sandwich) in town. The Oil Shoppe. I got a meatball one, that came with peppers, onions and parmesan cheese. I'm starting more and more to believe in God.

Move in day!

YAYAYAYAY! Italy is amazing. The end.
Just kidding!
Ok so where do I start. Ah yes, the journey. So we got on the plane at JFK and everything was fine and dandy, the flight was about 7 hours and heading straight for Frankfurt, Germany. We landed in Germany before the sun had risen which was sooo weird and we had a 2 hour layover there (fun time). Then we had our connecting flight to Italy, which was SCARY. The plane was so small and Lindsay and I were crammed next to some poor kid, Tom (also a UConn student). The poor guy had to pretend to laugh along as Lindsay and I laughed obnoxiously in our hallucinogenic state... we had been awake now for way too many hours. So basically, the whole plane was shhh-shing us. It was awesome. At one point I feel asleep and woke up to the snow covered swiss alps, ridiculously beautiful.
We finally got the apartments, which are not so cozy, but functional and totally ikea-ed out. Since it was my birthday on the 12th we had a little birthday dinner, with some fresh food, which was delicious compared to the "ham and cheese" that we had on the place. Still trying to figure out what kind of cheese that was...anywho the meal was so tasty, pasta with pesto, salad and wine. classic.

Today, we had our little orientation meeting, which was in the center of the city near the duomo, which by the way is breathtaking, I get the chills walking by it, crazy. So today wasn't super productive, we just kind of learned about the school and who our professors were going to be and rules and blah blah. I'm going to be taking oil painting, and 3 other art history classes, one is about the Medici family and the renaissance, haven't found out about the others yet...
Anywho, I have to wake up early tomorrow for our second half of orientation! big kiss!
I miss you all!
Ciao,
Carolina fina fina. (Shout out to grandpa and grandma)



The pics are of the street we live on, the "down town" center of Florence, and of course our gelato break...

January 7, 2010

Yesterday I began packing my life away for a four month span in Florence, Italy. I honestly had no idea where to start, so I made a list...I have yet to look at it.
So far I have one enormous suitcase filled with most of the clothes I own and....yea thats it. We are allowed to bring two suitcases and one carry-on so I'm thinking i'll just dedicate one suitcase to shoes? Either way packing sucks.
This whole blogging thing looked like fun, so as of today i'll be keeping everyone posted on my super interesting life.
Viva Italia!

Car