Santa Brigida With The One And Only Simon Young and SPONTANEOUS TRIP TO VENICE!

Last week's school week was pretty uneventful besides the fact that we started booking trips. I have to say it's a lot more stressful than I would have ever imagined. Trying to coordinate with everyone's different schedules is one problem and then there's the whole problem of trying to figure out places that everyone wants to go...since everyone has a different list of the places they want to hit. Our trips thus far are:
Amsterdam next weekend for our roommate Amanda's birthday, and spring break where we're going to go through Barcelona, Ireland, Scotland and Belgium ending with Sensation White in Belgium -- google it. It's  Europe's biggest rave HOLLA!

cuhrayzeeee

So nothing happened last week...until Friday where Simon Young showed his fabulous face once more. For any who have short term memory loss, Simon Young is my History of Florence teacher, a bizarre little English man that walks at the pace of a running cheetah and has hair that legitimately sprouts from the sides of his head. There's no better word than sprouts to describe his hair.

Simon Young preffing us for our climb

Anyway this past Friday was our field trip for History of Florence: Story of a City. Simon Young took us to the top of a mountain in Santa Brigida. He told us it would be a nice walk outdoors and not to worry. Let me put it this way. One girl in our class had severe asthma and legit was as red as a beet and had to sit down gasping for air. IT WAS IN NO WAY A SIMPLE WALK. It was a hike if I ever saw one....and a hard one at that. Simon Young kept telling us we're only as fast as our slowest person so me, Christine, Jamie and Anne had a great time bringing up the kaboose.

the whole class in front of us...seriously struggling

There was a church at the top of the mountain (which really didn't have much to do with anything we've learned about in class so I'm pretty convinced Simon Young just scheduled this field trip to hang out with us on non-school time) and the view was B-E-A-UUUUTIFUL. It really was. Check out the pictures of us at the top of the world....or just at the top of Florence.

Oh - at the top when we finally got to sit down and breathe Simon Young pulled out his satchel of paninis for us for lunch. They were from I Frattelini...this ahhhhhmazing sandwich shop on the streets of Florence. It was opened in the 1800s and has remained a family name ever since. It's so European and chic! Basically it's this little booth on the side of the street. It has no door and you can't walk anywhere it's legitimately these two guys standing behind a booth serving paninis and wine. If you walk by during lunch time the street will be packed with italianos standing on the sidewalk panino in one hand, glass of wine in the other. SO CHIC! The sandwiches were unreal. Look how happy we are in the grass in the sun with sandwiches! This is really the life.

yummmmm

So we got home from our trip around 3 and decided it was too nice out to not take advantage of it. So Christine and I walked to Piazza di Santa Croce where an international chocolate festival is on for this entire week! It was incred. We shared fresh strawberries doused in warm chocolate, some chocolate peanut butter fudge and a sip of chocolate rum. I plan on going back every day this week. We got home around 4 and found Jess back from her field trip. After an hour of facebook stalking together on the couch someone mentioned Venice. We debated for a few minutes and then decided to take a spontaneous trip to Venice for the night! We weren't doing anything else, right? We contacted our good friend Joe and he was in so we threw some stuff in a bag and headed to the train station to catch a 6:40 train.

so excited for the train ride!

We arrived in Venice at 10pm and after taking some pics (in complete darkness and of nothing visible) we tried our hand at the boat taxis. We bought our tickets and boarded all excited for our first boat trip. After two stops we realized we were headed in the wrong direction so we jumped off and switched lines. We got off at the Rialto stop -- what seemed to be closest to our hostel and started on our journey to find it. Having a map might have been a big help but our spontaneity prevented us from getting one before we left and once we realized...all the stores were closed. We wandered around Venice the four of us for two hours with our bags trying to find this stupid building. For anyone planning on traveling to Venice in the near future let me give you a tip --> Venice does not have street signs and the numbers are completely out of whack. I actually had to dial up Daddy Tim in NYC on the phone and have him googlemap us and lead us to the hostel. It was that bad. Also there were no police in sight. Thank god Joe was with us or I would have been a leeeeetle nervous for our safety. But Daddy-o came through as always and we finally arrived at midnight. The building was a sketch-parlor to say the least but we had a room the 4 of us alone together and it had its own bathroom and we were only there for a night so it was fine.

how sketch it looked in the day time

After checking in we grabbed some chinese food next door cuz we were too nervous to wander farther. It was surprisingly good!! Brought me right back to ChopStix in Scarsdale. Missssss thattt placeeee.

The next day was much  more successful than the previous night. We woke up, had breakfast at the hostel and headed out. Weather.com told us it was going to be 53 and sunny in Venice and it was most definitely not. I had to pull out all the clothes I brought and put them on in layers to keep me warm. Plus me and Christine bought gloves at a small shop for 5euros so those helped too.

Let's see....Thanks to my ever-trusty walking tour book we had a great route set out across the different venues of Venice. We started out in San Polo where our hostel was and worked our way to Santa Croce and San Marco and into Desoduro. After checking out the sights we took a 20 minute boat ride to Murano the GLASS ISLAND. Hopefully all you know that Venice is known for its blown glass. We got to go see a glass blowing factory in action and then browsed the gift shops with the million dollar gorgeous chandeliers. I was thinking about charging one to my dad's credit card and shipping it home with a note that read happy belated birthday!! but i decided against it. YOURE WELCOME DAD.

walking tours are what we do best! SAN MARCO

glass blowing in action

look out for it in the mail dad!!

We had a delicious pizza lunch and then stopped at a small store that allowed you to bring empty water bottles and fill 'em up with delicious good venetian wines for 2 euros a liter! Then on to a carnevale mask shop. I got 2 liters of pinot noir and a great mask and came home a very happy girl.

water bottle wine!

so many masks

The rest of the weekend was a normal weekend here in Florence. We went out and had a good time and spent Sunday wandering the streets of the chocolate fair. All in all, being spontaneous in Italy turned out to be a great success.

CIAO FOR NOW REGAZZIII

ROMA - A City That Should Remain Back In History

SO - the reason it's taken so long to update is because the roomiez and I decided to take a little adventure to Rome this past weekend and I forgot to notify all my loyal followers about my impending absence. SORRRRRYYYYYYY I wasn't aware that so many people were so interested in this. Now that I know that I've got groupies I will definitely try and update more.

Upon returning from Chianti we started packing for Roma. Thinking it was stressful to get my family of four ready for trips, it was ten times that trying to get 10 twenty year old girls ready for the train station. It was hectic to say the least. Finally we were off!

.....but halfway out the door we realized we all had to stop at the ATM to get some euros. Turning around in the opposite direction we got to the ATM only to realize it was broken. NOTE: SIGN ONE THAT WE SHOULD HAVE TURNED AROUND AND GONE HOME.

On the way to the train station, our one roommate Kristie, who hadn't been feeling well lately almost fainted and decided to turn back and brave the empty apartment alone for the weekend. SIGN TWO THAT WE SHOULD HAVE GONE HOME AND STAYED WITH HER.

We run to get to the train station and not miss our train --> navigate our way through the crowds to the ticket machines and somehow get 8 tickets. We met up with the two other apartments that we were traveling with and headed to the platform. Italy boasts that their trains are never late and we've been told countless times by teachers at Palazzo Rucellai to arrive at least half an hour early to ensure a seat since they fill up and leave exactly on time. Our train was delayed 45 minutes...along with the 30 extra minutes since we were there early. No benches in the station meant we were standing in the cold for that whole time. SIGN THREE WE SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME.

finally on the train!

We finally got on the train and after an hour we were in Rome. We headed to our hostel The Yellow and checked in. We had broken us up for 5 in one room and 4 in the other...since the limit was 6 or 8. However, they gave us 2 rooms...one with 5 girls in it and one with 2 girls in it. The two girls were already in a room filled with 6 boys. It was our first hostel experience so this was definitely not O.K. FOURTH SIGN THAT THIS WHOLE TRIP WAS A BAD IDEA. We ended up negotiating with the front desk woman and getting 3 in one room and 4 in the other. We decided, however, that no one was comfortable with sleeping in the boys room so we all just doubled up in beds and slept together!

the YELLOW

On Friday, we arrived, checked in and went to a delicious dinner at the restaurant right next to our hostel. We got free wine and champagne so that was nice! Afterwards we went to a club called Gilda...supposedly the hot place to be. Unfortunately we hadn't been told that Rome is UBER expensive so we found out the hard way that drinks were 10 euros a piece. We left soon after and went back to the hostel to sleep.

DID I MENTION WE HAD AN ARGENTINIAN ROOMMATE NAMED NICOLA THAT STAYED IN THE ROOM ALONE WITH THE EIGHT OF US??? he was fab. I'm still awaiting his friend confirmation on facebook!

roomz with nicolas - our argentinian roommate!

On Saturday we went to the Vatican which was one of the most incredible places I've ever been. Check back later for pictures!

Saturday night there was a lot of roommate drama and I ended up chipping my tooth when someone ran into me at the bar (hence the title of my facebook album) DONT WORRY (if you're family/david) it's not big and you can't see it unless you lean verrrryyyyy close in to my face! Thank goodness it didn't injure my permanent retainer!

WAH!!!

Sunday I led our apartment on a walking tour of the Roman Forum/Colosseum which took 5 hours. It provided great pictures which I will add to this post tomorrow since I'm too tired to do it tonight.

We came home Sunday night after navigating through a train strike and a lot of police officers. I was very happy to be back in Florence seeing as I didn't really like Rome all that much.


CHECK BACK SOON FOR PICTURES AND AN UPDATE ON THIS WEEK THUS FAR!!!

Chianti Field Trip!

My apologiez for the late posts BUT you'll understand why after reading the next few. This one is dedicated to LAST FRIDAY's day trip to Chianti with the school!! Palazzo Rucellai split up its students into four groups (mainly based on university back at home) and bussed us out to the countryside to learn about wine making, wine tasting, how to live in a castle that has no heat or light, and which part of the chianti landscape makes the best background in pictures.

My fellow Penn Staters and I piled onto our coach bus and began the ride. Christine and I were our usual energetic selves while everyone else around us was getting nauseous from the ride and/or the aftereffects of their previous night...

It took about an hour to get to Chianti. We pulled up in front of a magnificent stone castle where we were ushered into an outdoor courtyard and met an English speaking woman who led our tour. There she warned us not to be scared if we saw a weird little guy and surely we did. She introduced us to a strange little man dressed in garb one would expect from a time long ago.

hottie

We learned that this little man (whose name escapes me) is 87 years old and has lived at the same castle since he was 20. He was signed into service at the castle for the family living there at the time in a contract that bound him to the land and to his work there. When the property passed to the next family they released him from his contract but he decided to stay, opting to wear the same exact outfit every day for the next 50 years. How weird!

what a cute couple!

We went on a tour of the castle which I have no pictures of because it is still inhabited by a family and our picture snapping wasn't allowed in their private residence. What I CAN tell you is that it was unbelievable inside. Tall ceilings and all stone everywhere. There's 37 rooms in the castle (classifying it as a SMALL castle...to whose standards?!?!) and a small church where they have services for just the family! As beautiful as it was inside I don't think I could rough it like this family clearly does. There's no heat or light in the castle. Each room has a gargantuan fireplace. One was lit and running and it did make the room quite cozy but nothing like real heat...

After we exited the living quarters of the castle we headed to the basement/dungeon where the olive oil refinery/winery was. I've never seen the actual machinery that goes into wine and olive oil making so that was really interesting. It felt like we went down stairs for hours before arriving at all the different rooms. All I kept thinking was how much fun me and ceeceewayans would have had in this place when we were younger.....who am I kidding? we still would have a blast.

After the tour we were escorted to a delicious lunch in the castle and learned how to wine taste. Thanks to my wine connoisseur parents I already knew the techniques! Christine and I labeled it Swirl, Sniff, Sip! The lunch was deeeelish as would be expected. cHeCk iiT 0uT!

YUM!

After lunch we made a quick stop in the gift shop selling house made wine and olive oil and then headed further into the countryside for some photo ops. Even though it was pretty silly that they bussed us out there just to take pictures for an hour, it still was really beautiful.

roomz in chianti!

Then we came home! On to the next post!