Sunday, June 29, 2003

The entire journal is finally all online now. Just click the "Archive" link to the left there, and you can browse through all of my journal entires.
posted by Jon at 8:33 AM
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Tuesday, May 27, 2003
It's funny to be updating this journal from home, in Ohio. In my own room again. I really meant to update this the day or so I got back, but the past week just flew by (though much of it was spent sleeping). Anyway, here's a recount of my last two weeks in Italy.

'Finals' week went very well, for the amount of studying required of my classes of course. Leanne and I went out to dinner quite a few times, both with friends and just the two of us. We went to some places we still needed to see (Piazza Michelangelo, for me, and the Museo Del'Opera del'Duomo). We enjoyed gelato for the last time at our favorite place, Perche No? ("Why Not?" indeed). I got kisses from a couple of my teachers, which was pleasant and definitely not something you get when saying goodbye to teachers at the University of Massachusetts.

We were both pretty set and packed up Thursday night, and woke up Friday around 8:00 in order to catch our 10:50 train to Napoli. Even with all this time though, we were literally running with our huge suitcases down the street trying to call a cab in time. It wasn't exactly easy to be rushing when leaving the apartment I've lived in for four months, mostly because I was worried things were still scattered around. Luckily, I didn't seem to have forgotten anything. We got to the train with twenty minutes to spare, and had a relaxing three hour ride south to Napoli.

Once there, we had to brave several flights of stairs and several suspicious looking characters (Napoli is notorious for petty theft) to get to the Circumvesuvia ("Around Vesuvius"), the hour long train we took to Sorrento. We got to our hotel, Hotel Desiree, a terrific family run place perched on a cliff overlooking the sea. We had the smallest room in the place (or so we were told), but even at that it was still very comfortable and had its own balcony.

I won't go into great detail on the next five days, but overall they were some of the best time I spent in Italy. On Sunday we visited the ruins of Pompeii; on Monday, we toured the cities of Amalfi and Ravello; Tuesday was spent visiting Capri, the highlight of the trip, and Wednesday we caught up on sleep and spent time in Sorrento. I would highly recommend Capri to anyone, but would insist that they walk to Villa Jovis, the Arco Naturale, and then the trail along the southeast coast. Our hotel was essential in helping plan our daily itineraries, and this was especially true for Capri, as half the island is an expensive tourist trap while the other half is stunningly beautiful and more empty of tourists than nearly any other famous place in Italy we have visited.

It was nice returning full circle to Rome on Thursday, stopping by some of our favorite places we saw almost exactly four months earlier, such as The Pantheon and Venice Square. We also had a fabulous last dinner recommended to us by our hostel, The Beehive.

I should really write up all my feelings of the past four months into a nice summary sometime, but for now I'll keep it to one sentence: Living and studying abroad for four months was one of the most important experiences of my time in college, both in how lucky I felt to take in another culture but also how that changed me as a person.

The last thing I want to say is that I greatly appreciate every single person who has come and read (and especially commented!) on this journal, as that was definitely a major influence for taking time to sit down and write this all out. Saluté!
posted by Jon at 10:59 PM
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Monday, May 05, 2003
I should start by saying that I finally have a decent amount of pictures of Florence, including some pictures of my daily walk to school. Go see where I've been living for the past four months.

My last weekend in Florence is over. The word 'last' has been reoccuring in my mind a lot the past few days - last time I will be woken up by the 3 minute long church bells above my apartment's roof, last time I will visit my cherished Florence supermarket, Esselunga, last time I will visit Piazza Michelangelo (though this weekend was actually my first time, too). I'm mostly living on tuna and beans this week as I seem to have bought those two particular food items in excess, and don't want them to go to waste. I'll also be going out to dinner three times this week, in order to celebrate one of the best things about Italy - their food.


posted by Jon at 12:33 PM
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Friday, May 02, 2003
I had my last "real" cooking class today - we made 6 dishes! I'm stuffed full of fennel and tomato.

It's been quite awhile since I updated, probably because things are slowly winding down here. I've been in Florence for the past few weeks, and will be until I leave on the 10th of May. Though it was a bit of a hassle, I was able to change both me and Leanne's plane tickets from the 25th of May to the 16th.

We decided that we have seen so much in the past 3 or so months that it was pretty much time to go home. Oh, and also, we don't really have any money left! So we scrapped out plans for Ireland. However, we still have a wonderful 5 nights planned on the Amalfi coast. We'll be staying at a place called Hotel Desiree in Sorrento, with a private balcony, roof terrace, and elevator down to a private beach. We've planned on days visiting Pompei, Amalfi, Ravello, Positano, the greek ruins of Paestum, and the islands of Ischia and Procia. We decided to go to those aforementioned islands instead of Capri, as we heard at this time of the year it becomes a small land mass filled 99% with tourists. We will go back early on the 15th and spend the day saying goodbye to Italy in the best way possible - by visiting some of our favorite sights in Rome. We then fly out on Friday the 16th around noon, and get back to our respective homes around 7:00 at night.

It hit me two days ago that I'll actually be leaving Italy in less than two weeks. Less than two weeks. It's insane. Even though I've still been a tad sick with a cold, the past few days have been really nice here. Yesterday I finally went up to Piazza Michelango, a big hike but an incredible view. I was walking home through Piazza Signoria, thinking about the timing of getting into Rome early enough on the 15th, and then realized it was my last day, and that hit pretty hard.

I already feel like the thing I'm going to miss the most is the view outside of my apartment window. The piazza that my view looks out to, Piazza Demidoff, is bursting at the seams with greenary now that all the flowers and trees bloomed. When I'm in my apartment reading or eating I have the windows open and get to take a piece of Florence right inside my studio apartment.

I'm thinking about all the things I will want to do when I come home, like drive, watch TV, use my computer NON STOP FOR DAYS ON END!!!, goto TGIF and have some good American food, and then the mexican restaurant nearby and have authentic Mexican again. I also cannot wait to see the new X-Men and Matrix sequels. The new Matrix movie is coming out the day I fly in!

I can't wait to spend time with my family again. I'm glad I'm getting in on a weekend so that we can all be together, without people being at school and work. I can't wait to cook too (though I've warned my dad that he better expand those taste buds of his!) I eat things I never thought I would eat, like raw tomato all the time, or eggplant.

I'm writing kind of a story type thing in the leather bound journal that Leanne bought me. It's great because I have so many thoughts that have built up in my head the past 3 months here, and I'm getting them all down onto paper before I leave and forget them all.

Here is our rough outline for the last days:

May 9: Classes end
May 10: Take a 11AM train from Florence (goodbye!) to Naples, then hop on a connecting short train to Sorrento. Spend most of the day in Sorrento and the beach there.
May 11: Spend the day in Pompeii and make the short climb up Vesuvius.
May 12: Travel to the neighboring towns of Amalfi, Ravello, and Positano
May 13: Visit the island of Ischia, north of Capri, and Procia. We're thinking of either getting a motorbike or bikes and going around the Island (I think you can circumnavigate Procia on pedal bikes in an hour).
May 14: Visit the Greek ruins of Paestum, about an hour or so south. The pictures of this place look really cool. Spend the rest of the day relaxing.
May 15: Leave on a 9:30 train from Naples to Rome. Visit the Trevi fountain and Palatine hill. Hope to stop at the first place we ever spoke Italian in and get hot chocolate. Spend the night at a well reviewed hostel right next to the train station.
May 16: Leave at around 8:00 for the airport.

I think that I'm going to come home, and miss here a lot. But I'm trying as hard as I can to make sure I don't regret not doing anything here. I know that I might look back and wish I had traveled more, but I know that I couldn't reasonably have done that with the money I had. I spent a lot of weekends inside the apartment or just sitting around Florence, but I've had the experience of a lifetime over spring break and some of the API excursions. I just look at all the folders of photos I have (Brussels, Paris, London, Verona), and sometimes can't believe that I've actually been all those places. I guess that I just have to take advantage of things as best I can with the resources I've been lucky enough to have.

Or, as my favorite poet of all time said:

what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of it's grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?

Blow soon to never and never to twice
(blow life to isn't:blow death to was)
—all nothing's only our hugest home;
the most who die,the more we live

posted by Jon at 12:51 PM
2 comments

Friday, April 18, 2003
I spent the past weekend in Cinque Terre ("The Five Lands"), a stunningly beautiful area alon ghte coast about two hours west of Firenze. The area was in fact no even connected by road until 1960 because of all the hills surrounding the five towns. It's becoming more and more popular with tourists recently, and in ten years will supposedly be swarmed with them, but the towns still retain an incredible sense of quaintness and isolation, like there's nothing there but a small town and the blue sea.

We took a private bus on Saturday morning to a resort about a half hour north of the actual Cinque Terre area. It felt very refreshing and open to be next to water again. We spent the day there lying in the sun and hiking around. Me and Leanne walked down to a small beach in a tiny town called Bonasola. It took forty minutes to walk back up the winding road, but had we been able to walk in a straight level line it would have taken literally five minutes; hopefully that gives you an idea of how hilly this area is. We had a seafood dinner at the resort, where I ate fish for the first time in three months (compared to three times a week at home).

On Sunday we did the actual tours of the five towns. We drove to the first town and then took ferries between the other four. These towns were some of the most beautiful places I have seen in my life. The contrast of quintessential Italian towns along the sloping, terraced green hills against the crystal blue sea was astounding. My pictures don't do the places justice, but they might give an idea of what I'm talking about.

It's felt very good to be back in Firenze this week. The weather has been beautiful the past few days, though it did indeed hail here on Saturday. Tourism here increases daily, and along the very popular roads you definitely hear English more than Italian. I'm very glad that I won't be here in the summer when tourism (and the temperature) hits full peak. I think that I'll be staying here over the Easter weekend, writing and paper and maybe buying some much needed short sleeve shirts.
posted by Jon at 10:35 AM
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Friday, April 11, 2003
Just wanted to stop in and note that I've uploaded pictures from Sienna and San Gimigano from last weekend.

The weather here has continued to be quite bad, with either days of freezing cold or days of constant rain. Also, even worse, it is supposed to rain at the resort we're going to tomorrow, and I can't imagine how boring it might be if we get cooped up there all day, so I'm probably going to stop and buy a book today.

Aside from that, not too much has been going on. I've been missing the comforts of home recently, because after spring break everything really calmed down, I ran out of books, and being sick this week I had a lot of free time on my hands. Also, it seems like everything is rushing towards the end now, with planning the few last weekend trips and then our trip at the end. I miss being able to easily entertain myself with television or computer, and it seems like whenever I feel like going out and just people watching, it's either cold or raining.

Nevertheless, I'm still having a wonderful time here, and want to make the most of the month and two weeks I have left.
posted by Jon at 12:38 PM
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Monday, April 07, 2003
The first week back was pretty uneventful but flew by. One of the highlights was going out Tuesday night with friends and friends of friends who were visiting from abroad. We ate at the excellent Trattoria Anita, where I had a great spicy tomato and bacon pasta, and only for 4.50. I got back a few midterms, and got decent grades on them. Also got to view A Clockwork Orange in my Venice Film Festival class. I think it's about the seventh time I've seen it, but I keep picking up things I never noticed before. I really appreciate Kubrick's skill as a director.

This weekend I travelled to Sienna and San Gimigano with the API troupe. We left Saturday morning and got to Sienna after a hour and a half bus ride. It's a very beautiful town, made of sloping brick alleys and magnificent gothic churches. Pretty touristy, but that may have been because of the roads we were on. We spent most of the day there until the evening when we took the bus to a tiny village named Greve, where we spent the night in a nice little hotel wedged into the corner of the town square.

The next morning we headed over to San Gimigano, a small medieval town packed with dozens of towers and several cirlces of city walls. This place was incredible - it was probably partially due to the magnificent weather, but the views you got from atop the hills of the city were astounding. Not only was looking down at the city itself a beautiful view, but it really gave me a chance to appreciate true Tuscan hillsides.

After touring through there, we made a short hop over to a farmhouse where they made wine. We got a tour of the wine cellars and an explanation of how it's all done. Then we sat down and had a lunch with wine tasting, and that was just as good as it sounds. The wine was very, very good, and I picked up a bottle on our way out.

San Gimigano has been one of my absolute favorite towns in Italy so far, and if you visit Florence some day you definitely must leave a day free for a trip to Sienna and San Gimigano. I took loads of pictures, and will throw those up in the next few days.

I'm currently trying to find a way to get down to the Amalfi coast over labor day weekend (yes, they really do have a labor day in Italy). I also am pretty sure that I'll be changing my return flight date to about five days earlier, since I found out I'm leaving Florence five days earlier, and want to save a bit of money at the end. Me and Leanne have started looking into the Greek Islands, and after discussing a bit we're pretty sure that's where we'll be headed once the semester ends.
posted by Jon at 1:50 PM
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Thursday, April 03, 2003
Spring Break Journal
Tuesday, March 25th

Hello from Camden, Britain. Me and Leanne arrived safely in London around 12:00 noon, with no hitches in travel at all. Woke up very early, around 5AM, in order to get over to the Florence train station and catch the train to Pisa International for our 10:45 flight to London (yeah, we definitely played it safe with two and a half hours of time in between). The RyanAir flight went perfectly, especially considering we only payed $25 to go from Pisa to London. After arriving at the airport, we hopped on the Stansted express train to Liverpool Station, took a few underground trains, and got to our hostel at 1:45. It's a pretty nice place for 22 euros a night, and it's situationed right on top of a 'swinging' bar called Belushi's, where we enjoyed a great American lunch of a philly cheese steak and fries (well, me at least. Leanne enjoyed pickes and cheddar cheese, rare commodities in Italy). We both throughly enjoyed lots of ketchup also, which isn't something you can easily get in restaurants in Italy.

Around 2:30 we started walking toward the British Museum, which was our one tour stop planned for today. We enjoyed the four parks we passed during the twenty-five minute walk. London is even more enjoyable to walk through than I imagined, at least in the area we're staying in. We scoured a few supermarkets for peanut butter, which we're planning on importing into our Florence apartment in massive quantities, and then selling on the streets for 3 euros a pop. It was absolutely beautiful out today, and it was hard to not lie down in the grass at every park we walked through.

It feels great to walk around a country where everyone speaks English. Honestly, I haven't felt this at ease walking around since I got here. It's not just that I can't understand everyday conversations in Florence, but that every time I open my mouth I identify myself as an outsider, and also kind of feel like one. But here I feel completely relaxed to blabber in English as much as I want, albeit without a British accent. I tried faking one but Leanne says it sounds more like a Swedish / German accent than British. We've even slipped a few accidental 'Grazie' and 'Scusi' to people in the streets without thinking.

On the other hand, I also see how having gone abroad to an English speaking country, like Australia, wouldn't have given me the same experience as Italy is giving me. I love London so far, but I don't feel the same cultural vibes walking around, and aside from the accidents, cars driving on the wrong side of the road, and shops spelled with two extra letters, I could be in America. There are lots of other differences of course, but basically what I'm saying is that I am very grateful for being immersed in the rich and new Italian culture.

The British Museum was incredible. Leanne had looked it up briefly on the internet, saw it was free, and we figured it'd be a nice, casual thing to check out our first day here. For some reason I just pictured a small little museum house with British history. This place was huge, and had all these artifacts from Asia, Egypt, Africa, America, etc. The most impressive part was when I turned a corner and happened upon the Rosetta stone, you know, one of the most important archealogical artifacts ever. And it was just chilling there in a corner of this museum. I wish we had known how big and interesting this museum was going to be, because we would have allowed for more than an hour and a half of browsing.

Afterwards, we headed across the streets to get another dose of American comfort, known as Starbucks, and I refreshed myself with an iced cafe moccha. It takes a bit getting used to the monetary system here, since everything at first looks really really cheap before you remember that a 3 GBP coffee is actually around $5. We slowly made our way back to the hostel, rested a bit, and now stopped in this internet cafe before finding a place for dinner. It's very, very odd to be eating at 8:00, and since we're still on Italian time (which is one hour behind), we're not really hungry at all. But hey, I haven't had mashed potatoes in about two months, so bring it on.

(The following was all written after I got back to Florence)
Me and Leanne went out to dinner to one of the dozens of pubs littered along Camden High street. I had the fish and chips, while Leanne had a cheeseburger (she’s decided to call herself a redmeatetarian, as she only eats vegetarian food and red meat). I also had my first Guinness, though honestly, I couldn’t stand it, and it’s the only beer I’ve ever left without finishing. It tasted like what coffee might taste like if it was made into beer. We went back to the hostel right after and got to sleep, as we wanted to wake up early the next morning.

Wednesday, March 26th

Around 8:30 we woke up, showered, and enjoyed the hostel ‘breakfast’, which consisted of coffee (American coffee, not the great Italian café I’m used to) and pieces of toast. But we were staying in London for 23 euros a night, so hey. Immediately after we bought our all day bus pass (we decided bus rides would be more scenic than the underground) and took one over to Buckingham Palace. It was very fun to ride on the top level of the one of the double-decker busses, especially when it drove (or more like crawled) along Oxford Street, which seemed to be London’s version of a crowded New York street.

Buckingham Palace and the surrounding area was delightful to walk through in the morning. The palace is surrounded by acres and acres of grassy park, quite unlike the White House which is surrounded by streets. We made our way from there over to Westminster Abbey, making a stop at Starbucks along the way. The Abbey was magnificent, and different enough from the hundreds of Italian churches I have seen for me to enjoy it. It was very light, for one thing, and a bit more gothic in design.

From the Abbey we walked past Big Ben and Parliament House, through a park along the Thames, and then to the Tate Britain museum. We ate lunch there (mmm … tuna fish sandwich) before walking through the galleries of some of Britain’s most famous artists. Two of my absolute favorites were William Blake, who did fantastic renderings of both his own mythology and scenes from Dante’s Inferno (which I am a big fan of), and John Martin, whose Apocalypse triptych was featured in one room (three of my favorite paintings of all time). I also enjoyed Turner’s paintings, of which they have almost a whole wing dedicated to.

After the Tate, we hopped on a bus over to Hyde Park, which we strolled around for an hour. A very pretty, immense park, and I was surprised to see about an eight of it was taken up by a Star Trek convention. We walked past a movie theater, and I told Leanne since we didn’t have anything else to do (nudge nudge), why don’t we go see a movie? None of the movies looked too thrilling (which was actually a good thing), but she agreed. We walked for a few minutes along Oxford Street, which was enjoyable for the first minute and then just way too crowded for the next nine minutes.

We got back to our hostel, changed (I told Leanne it would be fun to dress up for the night, though in reality I was just worried about the dress code for the place I was taking her). We found a wonderful Greek restaurant right around the corner from our hostel, where Leanne had a close-to-authentic Greek salad, and I enjoyed moussaka for the first time, which was fairly accurately described to me as Greek lasagna.

Afterwards, we took a bus over to the theater district (luckily, Leanne often places all her trust in me to find our way to places, and didn’t notice that we were in fact headed towards a different direction then the movie theater). When we got off the bus and it pulled away, she saw a huge, lit up sign for the play Les Miserables, one of her favorites. And then I told her that I was in fact taking her there, and she punched me. In a good way though. She was overjoyed as we made our way to our seats, which were admittedly a bit high in the balcony, but we were only one row back so we had a good view. The play was absolutely incredible, my favorite musical I have ever seen, and Leanne enjoyed it just as much.

When the play was over, we went in search of sundaes, but unfortunately could not find a place with a sundae less than $8 (literally). So we opted for a McDonald’s cadburry egg flurry, and for only 99 pence it tasted magnificent. We went back to the hostel and got some much needed sleep.

Thursday, March 27th

We woke up pretty early in the morning in order to make the most of the couple hours we had left before catching our plane to Paris. We enjoyed a classic English breakfast at a nearby café and then made our way to the London Zoo. It was close to empty, which was great, and Leanne went crazy when she saw the sloth bears, which she had been looking forward to for weeks.

After finishing with the zoo, we caught the train back to London Stansted airport, talking to some friendly folks from New Zealand along the way. When we got to the airport we found out our flight along Buzz Airlines was delayed three hours, which sounded back at the time but actually went by pretty quickly, even though London Stansted airport is basically one big room.

When we finally got to boarding our plane, the folks from Buzz were all very friendly, joking that the pilot had never flown before but had only crashed three times in the simulator, and that if anyone felt nervous flying they should just leave the plane right now. We arrived in Paris at 9:45, a bit late to get into a major city and not even have a map for it. The people there were all extremely friendly though, and we made it to our metro stop without any problems at all. We then found our ‘Young and Happy’ hostel, located in the very lively Latin quarter of Paris, and fell asleep pretty soon after that.

Friday, March 28th

We met our friend Eve, who had already been in Paris for two days along with our other friends Stephanie and Diana, after a quick shower and breakfast. We walked, and walked, and walked, enjoying the sights but realizing how BIG Paris was at the same time, until we got to Pere Lachez cemetery. In front of the entrance was an Iraqi peace protest of about one hundred people. I voted to go around, but Eve and Leanne plowed right through, and we didn’t even get one dirty look, which was great, but made me feel bad about what our country was doing at the same time. The cemetery itself was very intense – tombstones, memorials, and monuments covering every inch of the ground. It was also beautiful at the same time though, filled with flowers and trees.

Around noon we took the cemetery towards the Eiffel Tower, where we met with Diana, Stephanie, and Stephanie’s friend Meredith. We had a quick lunch, where I enjoyed hot dog for the first time in a few months. I have to admit that it was aggravating trying to speak French after I was just getting into the groove with Italian, but Leanne did wonderfully with her three semesters experience.

After lunch a few of us walked over to the Eiffel Tower area, enjoyed the scenery, and made our way to the elevators which take you up to the top of the tower. I was a bit nervous, since it was like being in line for an amusement park ride. And it was a bit daunting riding the glass elevators up to the top, but the view was magnificent, and I’m really glad I decided to go to the top.

We went straight from there to the Pompidou museum, Paris’ modern art museum. It was cheap, and some of the things were interesting there, but that was about it. I’m still not much of a modern art fan.

Me, Stephanie, and Diana walked up 284 stairs to the Arc D’Truimph, and got the most rewarding view of Paris from the top. It was my favorite moment there and I’m really glad that I endured all those steps. It also made me really realize that I was, in fact, in Paris. Afterwards we headed to a restaurant recommended to us in one of our guide books, where I enjoyed French onion soup and beefsteak.

Saturday, March 29th

In the morning we went straight to the Louvre, which we didn’t even have to wait in line for. Unfortunately, I was really museumed-out by that point, and spent most of my time sitting on the benches and humming 80’s songs. There was one really great room of impressionist paintings, and me and Leanne agreed that we should have just went to the impressionist museum, Museo D’Orsay. I did get to see the Mona Lisa though, and while it wasn’t all that impressive, it’s at least something I can tell my kids!

We spent the afternoon lounging about Paris, and made our way over to the Montmarte district in the evening. It was an very enjoyable area to walk through, especially at night, and the Sacre Coure church was quite impressive. We had dinner in a square there, where I once again ate very good French onion soup. It was a great way to spend our last night in Paris.

Sunday, March 30th

We were woken up at 6:30 by a phone call from Stephanie, telling us that it was, in fact, 7:30, because it turns out Europe has daylight savings as well. So we woke up and rushed to pack and sign out of the hostel. We took the metro over to Notre Dame cathedral and walked through it, enjoying the Sunday mass that was taking place at the time. We then went to the train station and caught our train to Brussels.

We arrived in Brussels around noon, and had a great gyro lunch. We then stuffed ourselves even further with Belgium waffles, which were incredible, and Belgium chocolate. We also looked at two of Brussels more famous sights before heading back to the train station and taking an express to the airport. We arrived back in Florence that night around ten.

Overall, it was one of the most enjoyable and impressive vacations I’ve taken in my entire life, up there with the West trip me and my family took a few years ago. I can’t believe now that when I read about Paris or London in books or see them in movies, that I have actually set foot in those places. I was most impressed with London, probably partially because I didn’t expect to be impressed by it, but I’d already love to go there again.

I think I took around 200+ pictures, but unfortunately my electric adapter broke so it might take a few more days before those are up. I also still have to post my pictures of Lucca and Fiesole, and then will have quite a few more pictures after my trip to Sienna and San Gimigano this weekend.

posted by Jon at 5:02 PM
26 comments

Tuesday, March 25, 2003
I added what I wrote on my first day of Spring Break into the entry dated Thursday, April 03
posted by Jon at 9:34 PM
4 comments

Friday, March 21, 2003
I had a great experience this morning: I ate a banana two seconds after buying it from a fresh fruit stand in the Mercato Centrale, and it was delicious.

I also took my last midterm today, and so hence ends my first week of work since I got here. All the midterms were fairly easy, aside from the cooking course, which asked just way too many questions about the benefit of cabbage.

Been awhile since I updated, so I guess I'll start with last weekend. The whole API group went to Lucca for the day, which is about an hour or so west. It's a nice little town that, although it was actually Florence's biggest rival way back when, reminds me the most of Florence. It was also freezing because of the wind, and that always makes a trip a bit less enjoyable. One of the things I enjoyed the most there was the outer walls surrounding the city. Lucca was one of the only cities that didn't fall to the Medici family of Florence - in fact, they never even were attacked! So their entire wall fortifications are still there, and it's very impressive.

After that, the group went to the nearby city of ... I think it's called Cascine, but I never really figured out the name of the place. Most of the people went to the naturally heated pool, but since I didn't feel like sitting around in a pool with a whole bunch of old Italian men for two hours, me and a few other people just walked around the city. Or should I say town, because it only took about ten minutes to walk halfway around the circumference of the town. And it was more like a suburb than a classic Italian city, and we only saw one cafe in the entire place. So that was pretty uneventful.

Sunday we just pretty much hung around until Will and Amy called in the evening, so we went to meet them and then brought them back to our place for dinner. We spent the next day, Monday, walking around Florence with them, and then went out to dinner at a place right on the Arno. Two of their friends came in from France the next day, so they've been enjoying Florence while I've been taking care of these troublesome midterms. Today we're planning on finally visiting the Academmia in a half hour; hopefully the line won't be too long.

There's been a large number of peace demonstrations since the war started yesterday, and it makes me wonder if the same thing is going on back home. Anyone care to comment? Me and Leanne both bought peace scarves as 'protection' for Britian and, more importantly, France. I don't quite understand how the students here are cancelling trips though (even to places like Spain!). I am planning on encountering some anti-american sentiment, but I doubt any of it will be dangerous. Anyway, Americans are known to be some of the most prejudiced people in the world, and all I heard about them doing was changing the name of french fries.
posted by Jon at 1:13 PM
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