A funny thing happened on my way home from the art show...

So, Thursday night, the last night of classes, I had a final art show at a restaurant in downtown Florence. Mauro ended up going with Christy and I to view our work. The show went great, and it meant alot that Mauro could come and share this experience with us. BUT. On the way home, Mauro asked us to wait outside a shop because he wanted to go inside and buy some chocolates because that particular shop had the "best chocolates in Florence" (he was right...) Anyways, so Christy and I are sitting on a bench, all dressed up and bundled up in our nice overcoats, just waiting. A man walks up and kind of gives me a strange look, which I happen to see out of the corner of my eye, but I just ignore him, because that's just Florence. Well, he starts digging through his wallet, and I assume he's looking for money to go buy some chocolate. Instead, once he finds what he is looking for, he walks up to me, and without saying a word presses a small coin into my hand, closes my hand around it, and walks away around the corner. I look at Christy, astonished. When I look, I realize he has given me a 20 Euro cent coin. Why? I have no idea. Was it a down payment? Did I look homeless? Was it a complement? I may never know. But, it made me sit and wonder for the rest of the night what this could possibly mean. I think I might start doing this in America. because, regardless of the meaning behind it all, it makes people think and wonder. And I kind of like that! :)

San Gimignano…FINALLY!!

So, this weekend was the grossest weather ever! And unfortunately, this weather has carried over into this week. It’s rainy and COLD, and I wish it would just snow. It really wants to, and it is snowing everywhere but Florence. But anyways, on Friday, despite the bad weather we went to Siena, a small Tuscan medieval town. It’s one of the best preserved medieval towns in the area. It was pretty cool to see all the old stone buildings with giant towers and fortresses. However, at the same time, it’s cool because the rest of the town, the more modern buildings have just sprung up around the ancient buildings, so it’s a very interesting mixture of medieval and modern. It was pouring down rain unfortunately, because from many places in the town you can look out into the Tuscan countryside, which is beautiful, even in the rain. I got sick, yet again, because it was so cold and rainy, so now I have a gross cold. Bummer. But, I have been wanting to see Siena for a while now. It’s so close to Florence, it’s one of those towns I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t gotten to see it before I left. And, since that night was one of the last nights Christy’s friends were in town, we went to fabulous restaurant across the river called Cambi and all the boys had giant Fiorentina steaks, which were amazing. They cook them for a short time on either side and then they stand the steak up on it’s bone and let the heat of the bone cook the inside. It’s pretty interesting, just to watch.
Finally on Sunday I got my second chance to tackle San Gimignano. Some of you may have read my post about trying to get there before, and if you haven’t, you probably should, because it’s quite comical and gives a little more insight as to why this trip was equally as ridiculous… Anyways, this trip was equally as disastrous, except this time we actually made it the town we wanted to see. So, we start off the day getting to the train station late, but it didn’t matter because our train ended up being 40 minutes late. You have to love the Italian trains. Actually, I really do love being able to travel by train, but the Italians can’t organize anything! Anyways, once we finally get on the train and get to Poggibonsi, we actually know what to do to get to San Gimignano this time, but since our train was late, we missed our bus and ended up having an hour and half wait in Poggibonsi. So, once again we found ourselves wasting time in this tiny town where everything is always closed! But, the bus finally came, so we get on it, with three other people and we haven’t even gone three blocks before a car hits our bus!! We barely even felt it because were in a huge charter bus thing, but this little Italian car felt it!! It really wasn’t bad, but there was a ton of paperwork to do, of course. So, that delays us even further. And, I would like to point out that these things would never happen to anyone but Christy and me!! But, we FINALLY get to San Gimignano, and it is worth all the fuss and trouble and wait to get there. This is probably one of my top favorite places in Italy now! It’s a tiny (we’re talking TINY) town on top of a hill that is still surrounded by its original medieval walls, and something like eight of the original medieval towers still exist. It was so cool to walk through this town and around this town and all over it because it’s so small… But it was like stepping in a time machine because every part of this town is original and it hasn’t grown outside of it’s original walls (atleast not much). So, as we are wandering around we find signs for La Casa de Babo Natale (Santa’s House). And, of course, we have to go in. So, we enter this courtyard and it’s decorated with lights in the trees and Christmas-y things everywhere, including a sleight and wooden reindeer. And then, Babo Natale’s house was in the corner and it turns out it was like an arts-n-crafts hut for children, so we thought we would leave it to the children, but it was fun to see. Plus, we found a tower in this courtyard that you could climb up and get the best 360º view of the city ever! Christy and I just sat up there in awe of the beauty of the scenery. I could have stayed there forever and been content. You could see Tuscan countryside for miles: miles of wine country and olive groves and the bright oranges and reds and greens that are made! It was really cool. So, despite the fact that Christy and I almost never actually made it San Gimignano, it was definitely worth the hassle!!

An American Thanksgiving…in Italy

Thanksgiving abroad was an interesting experience. Christy had some friends come in from Indiana for the week, so Mauro and Loriana invited them to Thanksgiving dinner. It turns out there was five of them, two of us, and Mauro and Loriana. If you have been to the Biliotti’s house (mom, dad, and Rach) you know this house is not outfitted for this many people. AKA it’s an apartment (above Gucci…just sayin…) in Italy. So, we set up extra tables and there were people EVERYWHERE! But, in that way it seemed more like my family’s Thankgivings. We started cooking the second I got out of class about 3:00 and didn’t stop until all the food was on the table about 8:00 (early for dinner by Italian standards. They usually eat at 9-ish…) So, Mauro and Loriana put us in charge of cooking them an authentic American Thanksgiving dinner, and that we did! Neither one of us had ever cooked a turkey before and everyone that we talked to gave us different instructions for cooking it (who knew there were so many different ways to cook a turkey?!) So, we kind of mashed everyone’s directions together and made it up as we went along. We cut slits in the skin and put butter in to keep it moist, then we covered it in olive oil and rosemary. It ended up pretty good. It was a little dry because we cooked the crap out of it because they didn’t have a meat thermometer and we were worried about it being too undercooked. But, it looked pretty and the juices made a darn good gravy. I would like to point out that we even made gravy…points for us? So, we had the giant turkey, which Mauro kept calling an ostrich because it was freaking huge!! (5 Kg to be exact…) And then we prepared mashed potatoes, my grandma’s stuffing recipe (which was a giant hit!! Loriana had like seven helpings of it!), buttermilk biscuits, and corn on the cob. Then for desert, Loriana made the best tiramisu EVER! And Christy made a darn good apple crisp, but it was most definitely shown up by Lori. So, it was really cool to be able to share this American holiday with friends and with my Italian family. We have had turkey in every form since that day…turkey loaf, turkey meatballs, turkey ribolitta…it never stops!! But, the holiday was the best I could ask for being abroad! And, now we get to listen to Christmas music and enjoy all the Christmas decorations that started after Halloween here! Plus, the guy who sits outside playing Christmas music on his flute (which is apparently called a flautist…who knew?!) is finally actually playing for the right season considering we can hear him from our window and he has been playing Christmas music since we got here…in August…

Venezia

Venice, in a word, was amazing, incredible, perfect, beautiful, pristine, a little dreary, and all around wonderful. Who am I kidding? I can’t describe Venice in one word! Last weekend, Christy, Patricia, David, and I all took a train up to Venice. The train ride was about two and half hours, but it went by quickly because the views were beautiful from the train and because we were sitting next to Fernando, a good looking Spaniard who was making us practice our Spanish for once instead of our Italian. It kind of sucks that since I have been here speaking Italian this whole time that I can no longer find the words for things in Spanish, only Italian. I have heard that it is very hard to be able to speak both languages, and I agree, they are just too similar. Anyways, we got to Venice mid morning, and I immediately loved everything about it! We went on a bit of a dreary, cold, foggy day, but that worked to our advantage because there were hardly any tourists there. I had heard that Venice was smelly, dirty, crowded, and gross. But I never saw any of that. There was hardly any trash around (this might because I am used to Florence which can get pretty dirty…), it didn’t smell at all, and the water was a beautiful color of blueish green. I think I was expecting something more like the river walk where there is brown trashy water. But, this was no San Antonio, this was Venice!!! We decided to first visit St. Mark’s Square, which happened to be on the complete opposite side of town. We could have taken a gondola ride, but it was just too expensive! They jack up the prices because it’s such a “tourist” thing to do now and Europe likes to take tourists for all they have… So, we found our way walking around the city, over bridges, and through some of the tiniest allies I have ever seen!! It was actually quite easy to get around town by foot, although the streets are a joke there because they were built around the canal system. If you ever see a map of Venice, you will know what I am talking about. There are bridges that just stop at someone’s front door step and streets that start out of the middle of no where. It’s quite comical to try to walk in a direct route anywhere in Venice. But, we made it to St Mark’s and got to see a large portion of the city in the process. St. Mark’s was absolutely beautiful. The flying rats (pigeons) that cover the piazza: not so beautiful. The pigeons there are absolutely crazy!! I thought Florence had a problem with flying rats. Nope, Venice has a bigger one. People think it’s fun to feed these gross things, so they constantly fly up to you and land on you and are really brave little suckers. I just ran through them all and watched them fly away, that was my fun for the day. But, the church was absolutely amazing, inside and out. Inside, the ceilings and floors are covered in elaborate mosaics. The floor mosaics are made out marble and the ceilings are done in gold teseri. I doubt it’s real gold, but maybe...it is Venice after all. After we saw St. Mark’s square we did a little more walking around and found a pizzeria that made us a special margarita pizza (because we are awesome…just kidding, I don’t know why.) But it was a darn good pizza. It made me like Venice even a little more. Then we some how found our way back to the other side of the city, to the harbor (although the whole city is basically a harbor…) and we took a water taxi (which is really just like a giant ferry) over to the islands of Murano and Burano. Murano is where the famous Murano blown glass is from (hence the name…) and Burano is famous for their lace. We only stopped very briefly in Murano because it has gotten very touristy since they became known for their glass. However, since Burano is a little more out of the way, it was basically deserted! This was an incredible island! It used to be a very successful and popular fishing town inhabiting over 22,000 people. Now less than 6,000 people live there. (I will one day make it 6,001…) This island was beautiful though. All the houses are painted in bright colors so that when the fishermen come home in the fog or dark, they can still find their house. (So the old story goes…) But it was like being in Venice, because everything was still navigated by canals, but the houses and buildings were painted absurd colors! It was so beautiful and we ended up staying there until dark. If I didn’t find lace so tacky, I probably would have purchased some because their lace working skills were quite incredible! After we came back on the water taxi, we had just enough time to do a little souvenir shopping before we embarked on what became a nightmare of a trip home. We bought cheaper tickets on way home because we didn’t have any place to be and therefore could take a little bit longer. But cheaper tickets meant we had to switch trains in Bologna. Well, that turned out to be a slight issue seeing as how there was a train wreck and all the incoming trains were four hours late. At this point it was already 10 PM (or 22:00 if you’re from Italy) so I was exhausted! We finally, after talking to about twenty different conductors, found the only train that was going to Florence and hopped on it. It turned out to be a sleeper train, so we had to move around to five different cars until we finally found seats. The final part of the journey was that the train didn’t stop at the right train station and we missed the last train to the other station (which is literally two blocks from home). So, we got to walk for an hour before our journey finally came to an end. So, basically, it was a little stressful at the end, to say the least, but I wouldn’t trade those experiences for the world!!!

London Calling...

London was one of the best trips I have taken since I have been here. Although I guess I start every blog with that. We left way too early on Friday morning, but it was good because it got us to London by 9, so we could start our day. The first day we were there we took a walking tour of the downtown area, which might as well be called Times Square. It’s all modern architecture with a giant bright screen that flash advertisements just like New York City. But, after we walked around downtown, we went to Covent Garden Market, a really cool market with very expensive stores. Well, everything is very expensive there because the dollar to pound ratio is a bit ridiculous! But, this was a great market because there are street performers everywhere. Some were really good – doing amazing magic tricks like making melons appear out of no where. But some were quite awful cross dressing comedians who didn’t happen to be funny, but happened to have hairy stomachs shown off by their belly shirts. So, it was great for people watching and absorbing some of the funky culture of the area. That evening, we went and had dinner at a great pub, The Coal Hole, (recommended by my friend Damien!) in down town London. I had a fabulous wild mushroom and asparagus pie. London’s famous for their pies. Afterwards, we headed down to the “hip” area, where all the night life is. We got to see some half naked transvestites pole dancing. Highlight of my night. Haha. We hung out with a friend of mine’s cousin, who was studying abroad in London this semester, so she was able to show us around some. But we were too tired to really stay out that late.
Saturday was my favorite day of the trip. We started off (too early…) at the National Gallery. This was possibly one of the best painting collections in the world. Every room you went into had famous names splashed over every wall. There were whole rooms dedicated to some of the best painters in the world: Botticelli, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rapheal, Titian, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Caravaggio, Monet, Seurat, Cezanne, Van Gogh…the list goes on and on and there were about 70 rooms of these paintings. I probably could have spent a good week and half just in the museum. We also got to see The British Museum, which was great and full of everything England has stolen in the past thousands of years. Including one of the crystal skulls that the new Indiana Jones was written about. (Who knew that didn’t just jump out of George Lucas’s head??) After the museums, we took a stroll through St. James’s park. This was such a beautiful area! However, there were nasty geese/pigeons/ducks everywhere! (And, no, I don’t mean that they were mutant animals, just that there were all of those birds everywhere.) St. James’s park is one of the only areas in London where it’s legal to feed the birds, so they sort of flock there. There was even an old man feeding squirrels out of his hand. But, St. James’s ends at Buckingham Palace (with the flag raised which meant the queen was actually there…) where we got to watch the changing of the guards. This was a cool experience, but a little over the top if you ask me. I mean, twice a day there’s a huge parade all because the soldiers were going off duty. I hope there’s a parade every day for me when I get off work. Anyways, it was a cool experience. After the changing of the guards, we headed to the Tower of London. We got to go inside and do the full tour of the whole tower and castle. Got to see the crown jewels, the ancient weapons, crowns, and armory of the past kings and queens, as well as great views of The London Bridge (which, oddly enough, was NOT falling down…sad day.) and the modern architecture of London. After the tower tour, we went back to the main square to figure out what we were going to do for the evening. We wanted to get Mamma Mia! tickets, but they were all sold out, I’m assuming because the movie made it a bit more popular. But, it ended up working out for the best, because we got tickets to see Wicked instead. This was definitely my favorite part of the trip! We had a hell of a time actually getting to the theatre, because our bus stopped half way there and we were told it was only going to take 20 minutes to walk there when in reality it took 45 minutes to jog there. However, we made it, a little late, but we still got to see the show! This is seriously one of the best musicals I have ever seen! The costumes are incredible, the set is even more impressive, and the two female leads have voices that give you goose bumps every time they opened their mouths!! It was “London’s number 1 musical,” so our little gay ticket seller told us, and I can totally see why! I unfortunately asked the stupid question of “do you think when you see it in the states, the actors all have British accents?” Apparently the answer to that was no. I guess I was just thinking of Spamalot…
Sunday was a short day because we had to get to the nightmare that was the London airport in the afternoon. However, we were still able to cram in so much! We got to see Westminster Abby, Big Ben, and the London Eye, because they are all like a block from each other, who knew, right? And then we got to go up to Camden Road Market, which was an incredible open air market that had everything from things for hippies, goth, and punk rockers, as well as antiques. There was a huge area with foods from every country. (Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Argentinean, Brazilian, Jamaican, Turkish, etc. etc.) It was a really cool place to go people watch, but it was also a great place to shop because the prices were really reasonable (even for the pound!) Plus it was cool because most of the stuff was hand made and all the artists and artisans just sat around making their products all day long.
So, the trip was amazing. The weather held off quite well. It was very cold (yes, I’m from Texas…) the whole time, but it only rained a little bit on Sunday, and we were basically in the airport by that time. I think the best thing about the trip was the people. Everyone in London was so happy, helpful, and just plain kind. Even the people who in America are total jerks, like security guards, policemen, and airport workers, were insanely nice and wanting to be as helpful as possible. It’s a nice change from Italy where people are a bit more hostile and definitely an amazing change from America! I think we should take a note from the Brits and start going out of our way to be friendly!