Escaping from Italy

Sunday the 19th, my supposedly last day in Italy, was spent showing Jaclyn around the city and saying goodbye to friends. Rumor had it that there was more snow coming and airports were getting messed up, but as far as we could tell our flight was still on for the next day. The at 9pm at night, 12 hours before we were supposed to fly to Frankfurt and then New York, Lufthansa posted online that our flight was cancelled, simply as that. Naturally we all flew into a panic, not having cell phones or even reliable Internet. Sara Abad finally got through to Lufthansa only to find out the soonest they could get us out was Wednesday the 23rd, two days before Christmas. This meant I was missing my non-refundable (as my father was quick to point out) flight from New York to Salt Lake and would have to attempt to non-rev home two days before Christmas. I tried to still make sure Jaclyn was enjoying her last night in Italy, yet couldn't help breaking down and crying at the thought of being stuck somewhere for Christmas, not knowing when I was going to get out, not knowing where I could stay, having no food, and only about 12 euros left.

After finally getting through to my parents,  decided I was going to try to fly stand by home from Rome on the same flight as Jaclyn Monday morning. This meant taking the 5 am train to Rome, with two giant bags, navigating the over run airport, and maybe not even getting a seat.  Once I turned off my computer that night I received a flood of emails from my parents telling me not to do it, but the next morning I was on the train to Rome, taking out people left and right with my giant bags but I didn't care, I wanted to be home.

By some Christmas Miracle I made it on the flight, first class too! I still think I owe the universe a huge favor for letting that happen. When the gate agent called my name I almost hugged her! All's well that ends well, I made it to New York, shared a hotel with Jaclyn, and got on my fight home the next morning to Salt Lake City. I never thought I would be so happy to be out of Italy.

Rome with Jaclyn

Making sure I left Italy with a bang, one of my best friends from college, Jaclyn, flew all the way out from Boston to visit and we went to Rome for the weekend. While I had been there before, it was nice to end my trip on such a historically significant note and take in all the cites with a old friend. Our first night we went to a pizza place close to the Forum but on a tiny side street. I warned Jaclyn that no one ate until 8:30, but due to jet lag she got hungry around 7. She was shocked when we were the only ones eating besides the restaurant staff until about 9:00. The pizza was amazing and the house wine was barely four euro a liter.

The next day (Friday) we woke up early and trekked off to the Vatican City. I had made us reservations ahead of time but when we showed up it turns out it was pretty much empty. There was no line any where and the Sistine Chapel was barely 1/4th full. It was so nice to be able to slowly wander and take everything in in silence with out a mass of people trying to look at each painting. We wandered over to St. Paul's cathedral where the choir was practicing for Christmas Mass. It was amazing being inside such a large church with the echo of choir all around us. Friday night we followed a recommendation out to some piazza and had an amazing pasta dinner. As we sat down it started pouring rain so we made our meal last as long as possible and even splurged on some Tiramisu.

Saturday we sought out the ruins, and saw the Coliseum, Pantheon, Forum, and a walking tour that lead us from the Spanish steps, through the main streets to Palatine Hill. Thanks to Rick Steve's we even found the best coffee in Rome. I am a coffee snob and even I thought it was excellent. We caught a late train back to Florence that night, only to arrive and find about two feet of snow on the ground!

Munich

Last weekend was mine and Sara’s last weekend trip together before we return home, so to end with a bang we ventured to Munich. This was my second trip to Munich, but we meet up with John, a friend of ours from the sailing team who had recently moved to Stuttgart and told him our two goals while there were to go to as many Christmas markets and beer halls as possible. Well let’s just say we probably hit over a dozen Christmas markets, they were everywhere! The whole town was one giant Christmas market. As for beer halls, we managed to go to three, and went to Dachau, so in the end it was quite a successful trip.

We arrived in Munich Friday night and stayed in the best hostel so far, all glass, a covered courtyard, an amazing breakfast buffet, and very clean. Our first stop was the Augistiner Brewery, one of the main four in Bavaria. It is off the path and unlike the Hofbrauhaus, very un-touristy. We sat at an open table with a nice looking couple and there two friends. As we looked at the menu, we realized that the couple was on our menu....a few questions later we find out we were sitting with the owners of the place! They were very nice, helped us decide on the best things to order and even shared some cookies with us.

Saturday morning we woke up to very cold weather, about 14 degrees Fahrenheit and due to a large snowstorm earlier in the week, the ground was covered in snow. They don't seem to shovel there, instead the snow simply covers the ground, sidewalks, and streets until it becomes packed down and everything is blanketed in white. We saw some churches, went to the Oktoberfest fair grounds (where a giant christmas market had sprung up), wandered all around, to the English garden (christmas market), Mareinplatz (giant christmas market), Odeinplatz (gluhwein stand), and even saw Sinterclaus! We ended the night at the Hofbrauhaus, where we didn't meet the owners, but we did manage to consume 8 masses (those giant steins).

Sunday was another frigid day, but we bundled up and went to the Dachau concentration camp. Seeing it covered in snow and freezing really added another element to the whole experience. We did the audio tour and saw the makeshift monuments set up for Christmas and Hanukah. In true Moffitt fashion we had a lunch of stolen sandwich material from the hostel and some hot chocolate just to warm up.
We hit up one last Christmas festival that afternoon and then headed to the airport, where low and behold there was another Christmas market! I love Germany at Christmas time!

Amsterdam!

            Mostly due to Sara’s convincing, I went to Amsterdam this weekend. I had no idea what to expect before going, it is hard to imagine Holland much past windmills and clogs, while Amsterdam had always just seemed like a town of partying backwash to me. But I went, and it turns out, I love Holland and even better, everyone there looks just like me!

            We arrived around seven on Thursday night after flying our first reputable airlines since arriving, reputable as in its theme colors weren’t neon and they actually had snacks and leg room. We meet up with a friend of ours from SACI and her friend from home for drinks in downtown and to orient ourselves. Walking from the bar to the bus stop we found our first red-lighted window, complete with a prostitute on display. At the time it was very exciting, but much like the bison in yellow stone phenomenon, by the end we would see so many it was almost obnoxious.

            Our hostel was a 30 minute bus ride to the suburbs, it was part hotel, part hostel, you could easily tell which patrons would be sleeping in the dorm rooms by the giant backpacks and/or bloodshot eyes. Our room slept six people, complete with a very very loud snorer, but it was clean and had a good free breakfast so no complaints there.

            Friday we wandered the red light district and were surprised to find that not only do prostitutes start work at 8:30 am in the morning, but also that they come in all shapes and ages, and I mean all. We saw some churches, including St. Nicholas’s, the patron saint of sailors, found the oldest pedestrian-draw bridge, admired the canals, charming row houses, and quaint feel of it all. Dutch Pancakes made up our lunch before we hit the Van Gogh museum and wandered around the 9’s district (there version of

Newberry street

or SoH0).  It was sunny but cold, probably -7 Celsius, so about every two hours we had to go inside somewhere and warm up or else suffer frostbite.

The most shocking thing about Amsterdam is the coziness of it. Everything is very well maintained and seems to be straight out of a Vermeer or Rembrandt painting. The canals with houseboats and stone bridges lead to numerous parks and every house is adorable. This charm is throughout the city, which makes the red light district so shocking, one moment you are admiring architecture, and the next moment you realize there are prostitutes in the windows and pot on the menu. Outside of the central canal though things are very calm, no prostitutes and not many coffee houses.

Saturday we woke up to a few inches of snow and trudged through it to the Anne Frank house. From there Sara went to the Rjiks museum while I found some more monuments and window shopped. Afterwards we stumbled across a Christmarket and indulged in some glue wine and morsels and are too good to describe and way to difficult to even attempt to spell.

Sunday, despite the freezing cold, we rented bikes and pretend to be local for a bit. Everyone rides bikes around, instead of burlies, they have carts in the front, like a cross between a wheelbarrow and a bike. We saw everything being transported in these carts from up to five children to a week’s worth of groceries. We rode around all the canals, Vondelpark, and managed to never be hit by a car or fellow biker. It was then time to head to the airport and hope back on a plane to Florence.

Assisi

Art History Field Trip to Assisi

Since I only have five weekends left here, I decided to mix up my fun and care-free travels with something a little more serious. So this past weekend I joined in on the art history class's field trip to Assisi, Arezzo, Urbino, and some other small random towns and seemed to hold significance to everyone but me. I went a long because I wanted to see Assisi, the trip was free including hotel, and all my friends were going. It sounds great, being able to go to all these museums, hear vital information about the architecture of churches and frescoes, but once you meet the teacher, Helen, you would understand the seriousness of the situation.

Helen has no last name, like Madonna, or Sting. She is either a well kept 70 or a hard lived 50. I tried to look at her hands as an indicator, but they never stayed still. She is a whirlwind, walking at a pace even my parents would have trouble keeping up with and constantly spouting a fountain of encyclopedic knowledge regarding every detail of a painting or church. She could talk for two hours about an alter that looks like every other renaissance alter, in fact she did talk for two hours about said alter, always in the same tone, no voice infliction is ever used.

Luckily for me though, I am not in the class and will not have to take a test on the information, so after about ten minutes I would simply shut of my headset with her voice being pounded into my skull, and walk around the church or museum in silence. I got to see some amazing things, including St. Francis church where his tomb is. It is the most elaborately decorated church, covered in frescoes that even I could love. His tomb is simply, fitting with his lifestyle, and surrounded by monks and other pilgrims, silently praying. We saw his old cell where there is a statue of him that two turtle doves live in. A long time ago a dove built a nest in the statue's hands and two of them have been there ever since. I am trying to stay idealistic and ignore the fact they are probably trained pets and simply a tourist attractions. Assisi, Arezzo, and Urbino are adorable walled cities, bustling with old women in aprons, men leaning out the window sills, fresh back bread and church bells. I tried to take in as much of the towns charm as possible as we speed walked across it, all of Helen's body titled forwards to propel herself as much as possible.

In Urbino we got a tour of the palace were Duke Fredrich lived (the man in that painting in the Uffizi with the huge nose). We saw the servant’s quarters, the master chambers, and heard all about the paintings that adorned the walls. I tried to listen, but at one point I started taking pictures with my friends trying to poise like the Duke instead.

There was lots of driving in the bus, but at the end of the day Saturday we were rewarded with an amazing farm fresh dinner at our "hotel". Eating family style with about half the kids of SACI was really fun and I got to know a lot of people I never would of meet otherwise. The unlimited wine helped this friendly atmosphere and by the time our four course dinner was done everyone immediately went to bed. That’s what a full day of art history does to you, makes you fall fast asleep despite the fact it was barely ten o'clock. Sunday was filled with more driving and art learning. I saw the only painting of a pregnant Virgin Mary, climbed a hill to an old tower, saw frescoes and paintings and "miracle crosses" until I had art knowledge coming out of my ears.
It was all worth it though, I don't think I would have made it to these small towns on my own, and hey, now if it ever comes up, I can talk about the different between Pietro's frescoes and Davied's in the Marches church. Oh I also saw Rapheals house, well his parent’s house, but he was born there. I only know he matters because a turtle ranger is named after him, but to everyone else in the class this was like the holy shrine of Renaissance painting. I looked interested, but really I was just eating gummy bears.

Lovely Prague in the Fall!

Communism Week Pt. 3-Prague

Our week ended in the beautiful Czech Republic with a three day stay in Prague. We met Sara's two roommates out there and had a hostel that was right near the central square and got to hear the trumpet from the clock tower every hour, it was wonderful. The city seemed like a mix of Florence and Paris, beautiful old buildings on twisty windy streets that were dotted with historical landmarks and high end stores. Surprisingly though Prague was my least favorite of everywhere we went simply because it was so overrun by tourist. Especially drunk British men.

We started out a trip with a visit to a bar called Propaganda which was filled with old posters and pins of the Communist. We got our first taste of Czech Pilsner here, which was good, but not nearly as great as they seem to think. The next day we walked up to the castle which was spectacle. It was huge and the church was filled with stained glass by one of my favorite artist Mucha. We hung out on the Charles Bridge, taking pictures, admiring the view and drinking warm wine. We had goulash for dinner which despite its name is surprisingly filling and sampled some of the local apple strudel.

The next day Bonnie and Colleen flew home and Sara and I did another free walking tour! We saw the Jewish district (every town must have one apparently) key churches, statues, the old town, new town, and Frank Gehry house. We went to the Mucha museum and saw a bunch of his orginal work and sketches. That night we searched for about four different restaurant's that our book suggested, all of which were full for some reason! After walking all over town in the cold we settled at a intimatee brew pub where we got to taste some home made beer and I had my fifth serving of Goulash, I really like it!

The next day we wondered about, saw a church that has a mummified human arm hanging from the ceiling (apparently the statue of Mary grabbed it when a thief tried to steal her necklace), saw the Jewish cemetery, and hung around some kind of festival in the main square. We then took the subway to the Prague airport with about 30 Czech crowns left between us...or a dollar and a half. At the airport we found our Easy Jet flight was delayed two hour due to weather, leaving us stuck at an airport at 6pm with no money to buy food. This was the only time in the trip Sara and my relationship became at all strained as we slowly ate the one granola bar we had and debated on which cracker to buy out of the vending machine. Finally our flight took off and we landed in Milan around 9pm. We then had to take a bus for an hour to the train station, where we searched for our hostel in the pouring rain and devoured a donner kebab that our lovely euros bought us. Our hostel room that night was the honeymoon suite. One bed for us to share surrounded by sensual paintings. The room did have a glass shower in it though , literally in the room, to be exact at the foot of the bed. We slept for about five hours before getting up and catching the 6am train back to Florence just in time for our 9am classes. A rude welcome back into Florence life but we were exhausted from the trip and ready to be back in our own beds.
The trip was amazing though and I could of kept going for a few more weeks; just exploring, trying new foods, discovering random streets, Florence life seems so mundane compared to our Eastern European adventures!

Buda looking towards Pest

The Turkish Bath

Eastern Europe Part 2. Budapest, Hungary

After our overnight train we arrived in Budapest at 8am, tired, but ready to see the city. Our first introduction to Hungary came when we tried to take money out of the ATM to find that our options were limited to amounts ranging from 10,000 to 100,000....200 Hungarian Fornitz is equal to 1 U.S Dollar. So carrying around a few thousand in your pocket is really nothing...The smallest bill is 500...100 and 200 are coins, going all the way down to 10 fornitz coin, which is equal to about half a penny. We easily found our hostel since the Pest side of the river (where almost everything is besides the castle) is set up like Paris, with two main avenues running pparallel and two that run perpendicular.
We set off and went to the Terror museum, a museum showing the history of the Nazi's and Communism in Hungary.It is in the building that the Nazi's and then the Communist actually used as their headquarters, complete with the actual dungeon in the basement. It was really interesting to see the history of all the countries we were visiting and understand what the people had endured in there past. As our Hungarian tour guide put it, "Hungary was once great and huge, then we chose the wrong side in WW1, then again in WW2, then the communist came to liberate us, then they stayed for 40 years just to make sure we really were liberated."

After the museum we walked even further down the road and saw Hero's square and found the Turkish bath house. Budapest has a ton of mineral and thermal springs so when the Turks came they built bath houses everywhere. This place was like a palace, huge and ornate. It was about 18 euro to get in, and having no swimsuits we went in our bra and underwear. There were about 18 indoor hot tubs of varying degrees from very warm to freezing, a lap pool filled with old Hungarians doing aerobics, and about 6 saunas. All that would of been enough to make us happy since it was in an amazing environment, but then we went outside and our minds were blown. It was the largest hot tub (with natural mineral water) I have ever seen. Probably 400 meters long and filled with statues and fountains shooting water jets. There were even bubbles people would stand on (it made water go in places water shouldn't)  and a whirl pool! It was like being a princess!

After becoming total prunes in the bath we hunted down a restaurant we had read about in our travel book. It was described as a small intimate place where the women just serves you whatever she is making in her kitchen. That was no exaggeration, the meal was wonderful, a sauerkraut sausage paprika thing, everything had paprika, apparently it is the spice of Hungary. We literally were sitting in someones basement though and the only other people in there were the old men friends of the family who were singing and dancing the whole time. We did met two Hungarian high school students there who took us to a bar after dinner. It was in the old Jewish ghetto and was an apartment building that had been abandoned and since turned into a bar. It was the coolest thing, a crumbling building filled with artwork and random Christmas lights, you could tell what used to be the bathroom and kitchen, all now filled with mismatched couches, graffiti and d.j's.

The next day we joined another free walking tour and saw the major sites of the city, including the castle on the Buda side of the river and the Parliament building; which is almost an exact replica of the one in London but one meter longer. Our guide told us all about life in Hungary and explained how in many ways it is still very  much stuck in a communist mind set. All the people seem slightly run down and tired, as do the buildings. Some amazing Victorian buildings were just completely deserted and slowly falling apart. About every fourth shop was vacant and some amazing mosaics and statues were just left in doorways, slowly being destroyed.

After the tour we walked around the castle a little more, climbed up a very high hill to see a statue and a view of Budapest, and then found the market where we bought some paprika. After that we decided to class it up a bit and went to the Opera house. It was only 2 euro for tickets to see the ballet and enjoy the pretty much all gold interior. The ballet was Gone with the Wind, very random but it was enjoyable despite the fact I had no idea what was going on. The weirdest part was that at the Opera house I ran into someone I knew from high school! She was studying abroad in Vienna and was on a school trip, talk about a small world.

Our last morning in Budapest we went to the Synagogue (which was restored after the war by Jamie Lee Curtis's father) and then walked back to the train station to set off for Prague.

Sara, Alexis (Our polish guide and translator), and I in Poland!

All Saints day in Poland

Communism Week part 1-Krakow, Poland

I got a week off of school Starting October 30th, so me and my friend Sara Abad packed our small backpacks with enough clean underwear and headed off for nine days for eastern Europe! It was an amazing week and I am so glad I went to the places I did. The first stop on our trip was Krakow, Poland where my friend from home Alexis is studying. I had no idea what to expect about Poland, in no way is it somewhere yo often hear of tourists going and I had no preconceived notions as to what Krakow held. According to Rick Steve's it is "The Boston of Europe," that was all the convincing I needed.

We left Florence on Saturday the 30th and took a Ryan air flight to Krakow. We arrived latish in the evening but Alexis quickly met us at our hostel and brought us to a Peruogi restaurant. A perougi is the polish version of a dumpling, with anything inside from cheese and potatoes (the classic type) or sweet cheese and fruit. This was my first introduction into A. how good perougi's are, and B. just how much the Polish love their potatoes and their carbs!
After dinner we went to this great bar in the Jewish quarter. It was dark, stone (one of the first bars ever in Krakow), and it was entirely lit by candlelight! Can you imagine a pub in the U.S. have candles on the wooden tables with college kids all around! Adding to the very old fashion appearance of the bar was the fact that people are still allowed to smoke indoors in eastern Europe, so a thick haze of cigarette smoke fills all the bars and pubs, making my limited amount of clothing reek. Krakow has this great drink, which is a mix of light beer and either ginger or raspberry syrup. They were both great! And the ginger beer went especially well with meals.
The next day we had a great little breakfast at our hostel and then met up with Alexis at an antique flea market. After being tempted by multiple communism relics we left and went to a free walking tour of the city. It was the best thing since they work off of tips they want to make sure you have a good time. We learned all about the important buildings, the legends behind various statues, saw the castle, the dragons lair, about a million statues of Pope John Paul the second, and the largest medieval square in Europe. We took a quick lunch break (sauerkraut and sausage) and then started the tour again to see the Jewish quarter. We saw the old synagogues, the memorials, the ghetto where Roman Polanski escaped from, and Oskar Schindler's factory. It was really amazing.

The next day was all Saints Day and everything was closed, but we walked around the church again, wandered the river, and then made our way over to one of the largest cemetery's of Europe. It was probably a mile by a mile and it appeared that it was not night out at all but day with the millions of burning candles. We wandered throughout the cemetery and every single tomb had candles and flowers on it, some were covered with dozens and dozens of candles. The nuns and monks go around and make sure no one is left unattended and place candles and flowers on the graves where relatives were not around to do it. It was like looking out at a sea of candles which gently illuminated the headstones. By far one of the most interesting and breathtaking things I have ever seen. To add to the slightly spooky demeanor of it they very small church at the edge of the cemetery was broadcasting mass over loudspeakers.

We got on a train that night around ten to take the overnight to Budapest. We were slightly nervous about who our other bunk mates may be on the ten hour journey through Slovakia and Hungary but we entered to find a very nice couple on the bottom bunk and two dopey British boys on the middle bunks. We climbed up to our top bunks and semi-slept through the train journey. At one point the train split apart, with half going to Prague and half going to Budapest...we hoped we were on the right car going to Budapest and fell back asleep.

Squirrelican and Pemikan go North!

For my parents last weekend here we went on a little trip up north to Lake Como. It was almost like being back in Park City, surrounded by mountains and trees which were full of red and yellow leaves. But with a giant lake in the middle.
Our first night in Lake Como, which we spent in the town of Como, we stumbled across a road race! There were 92 cars all setting out one at a time to compete. It was quite the event and a really fun spontaneous thing to run into in quaint Como. In true Moffitt style we got up the next day and embarked on a Trek. Yes the guide book even called it a Trek. We decided not to do the 19 hour one, and instead took the funicular up the mountain into a hamlet which overlooked a section of the lake. It was so refreshing up there, and we mini-trekked to the Volta Light house for a picnic and Chestnut collecting.
The gate keeper of the light house showed up halfway through our picnic. He was about 85 and the perfect picture of a small rural Italian man. We paid to climb the light house just to give him a purpose, and he insisted on us first posing for some pictures and taking some brochures. When we came back down he had three cups of coffee waiting for us! Such a sweet man! I wanted to take him home, or at least be able to talk to him and hear his life story, but in my horrid Italian all I managed to ask was where he lived, to which he answered in Como City.
That day we packed up our stuff and took a ferry about an hour up the lake to Bellagio; the town is situated where all three fingers of the lake meet, or as Rick Steve's says, the crotch of Lake Como. The town was amazing, similar to cinque terre but with more of a Switzerland feel.
We stayed in Hotel Bellagio, which no, looked nothing like the Las Vegas version, but we did have a terrace that overlooked the lake. And the best part, we could see George Clooney's Villa from our terrace! Can't beat that!
We spent the next day walking around the town and into nearby hamlets. We found a self-service milk place, where they took local milk and made it into great yogurt and cheese and even had a milk vending machine outside. For dinner Friday night we went to this great restaurant for local pasta and meats, accompanied with a waiter who gave us all the scoop on the best appertivo in Milan....forewarning us that the place he recommend was actually a gay bar.
Saturday we said goodbye to Bellagio and got on the train Milan. Milan was big! Pretty architecture and lovely designer stores, but it did not seem to have any charm or character of it's own. We got to see the cathedral and the amazing shopping mall which seemed to be a work of art to itself. The main point of our visit was to see the Last Supper painting, which completely lived up to what I imagined. It was so big and still had such an auro of spirtualness about it. After seeing that we decided to continue on our art/da Vinci theme and went to an old fort which was now a museum. There was a whole room that da Vinci had painted and one of Michelangelo's unfinished statues of Mary holding Jesus, a pieta to be exact. That night we found an amazing appetivo place (not in a gay bar) with a spread that you can't imagine. Multiple kinds of pasta, chicken and potatoes, sauerkraut, mini-pizzas and bruschetta! So good! I then had to get on a train and say goodbye to my parents so that I could get back to school and they could go home. All that was waiting for me at home was Mid-terms and a dinner that needed to be cooked for myself.

Mom and Dad come to Florence!

As soon as I got back from Perugia last weekend I had my parents in Florence waiting for me! Luckily they had made it first class from Salt Lake over here and we had the whole week together!
Saturday night we went to a wonderful dinner at Aqua al Duo where they brought us sampler plates of about 6 different kinds of pasta, three different steaks in amazing sauces, and mom had chicken in the best port sauce ever!
Sunday we climbed up to San Minaota and over looked Florence on a beautiful day. We saw the Plaza Michelangelo, found a big grocery store(Conad) and saw my school and the Duomo. My parents moved from their hotel into an apartment across the river which is possible the cutest apartment I have ever seen. There was a little blue and yellow kitchen equipped with brand new pots and pans, a couch which turned into my bed for the week, a big bedroom with glass doors and windows which provided beautiful views of San Spirito and the Piti Palace. I semi-moved in with them for the week, allowing us to have breakfast and dinner together every day, go for family gelato walks to my favorite place, and in the morning I would leave them and walk across the Ponte Vecchio to school, just like if we all lived here!
Over the course of the week I got to show mom the Boboli gardens, we conquered the Uffizi and did manage to survive the three hours it took my dad to see everything, and thoroughly explored Florence. I was so happy to be able to show them the central market and my favorite cappachino place ( which we stopped at often).
To show them how much of an Italian I have become, one night Sara Abad and I made homemade spaghetti sauce one night with Tuscan sausage, all fresh from the market. Complete with backed apples and Nutella...how much more of an Italian experience can you hope to get?
Wednesday we attempted to go to Luca, and when we showed up at the train station, all the Luca trains were running about an hour and a half late. As we stood there and watched the board they kept on showing their arrival become later and later and finally showed that there departure from Florence was cancelled! We could  not figure out if they were just stopped on the track somewhere or what! So Luca got scrapped and we ended up having a Medici themed day, seeing their church and library.
Overall it was probably the best week I have had here! I got to see so much and it was so fun showing off my city to my parents...and they were somehow impressed with my Italian, probably only because I can speak five words of it and they can only speak one...but hey I will take what I can get!

So Much Chocolate!!!!

Perugia Chocolate Pilgrimage

Last weekend was an epic event here in Italy, no in Europe...the annual euro-chocolate fest! Sara and I made the train trip to Perugia to visit our friend Vanessa, but more importantly to stuff our faces with chocolate.
Friday night after we arrived we went to an amazing dinner at a restaurant appropriately named "Food lost in time". It was a four hour mail hand prepared by two women in a kitchen no larger than 5 feet by five feet. We had multiple litres of wine, appetizers that included baked eggplant, mozzarella balls, and stuffed mushrooms. This was followed by spinach gnocchi and walnut Alfredo. We completed our meal with some kind of pastry type thing containing nutella. The most surprising thing about it was that the total came to about 10 euro per person!
After dinner Sara and I were introduced to the Perugia night life, which apparently happens every night since it is such a small town and there is not much to wake up for. We dragged our friends out of the bar at about three am, only to have them tell us that was the earliest they had left all week!
The next day was chocolate time! The streets were filled with booths of every kind of chocolate, truffle, and melted concoction you can imagine. They even had shaved chocolate kebabs, hot chocolate-nutella, and never before revealed Lindt chocolate bar flavors (caramel sea-salt was my favorite). It was packed with people, all amped up on chocolate and sugar, but just to see so much chocolate in one place was well worth it! Especially with all the samples they had-I even got a Milka cell phone holder, unfortunately it is not edible.

Parlo Italiano

Good news is about 80% of the tourist seem to have finally left town! Occasioanlly you can even walk on the sidewalk near the duomo!
The bad news is that is is cold and gray and all so great fruit is gone from the central market so I don't blame the tourist for leaving.
On another note today I was in my Italian classroom for fifteen minutes after class ended trying to finish my test. Finally the teacher just gave up on me and started telling me the answers. When I finally turned in my test and expressed my lack of language ability, she said it was okay, I was improving and she saw how much trouble I have had and said I was doing fine. So pretty much she thinks I am pathetic and potenitally retarded. Naturally I plan to play up this pity and hope she gives me a pity-passing grade.
To make myself feel better I went to my local veggie man who allows me to practice my Italian on him and managed to tell him exactly what veggies I wanted, what I was doing this weekend and to have a good night. So there Marta! Just because I can't pass a test doesn't mean I can't survive in Italy! Although the veggie-man doesn't really count since he has to tell me what just about every other word is and speaks perfect english but simply refrains so that I can think I am learning Italian.

Fondue! My roommate Amanda is next to me, across from me is my friend from boston Sara Abad, and next to her is Ellen, who also lives in my apartment.

Stowing away on the train! This photo actually needs to be flipped, but yes this is how I traveld for about four hours. Apparently Sara did not mind at all.

Geneva! They even have sail boats....everyone can come visit me there when I move there, which will be soon!