Going to the Mountains, Going to the Mountains!

Have you ever been to a place that you felt just encapsulated everything you've ever wanted in life? You wake up each morning and find that getting out of bed is easier (especially if it's before 10am), you pack your days full of activities because you don't want to waste a second, and you fall into bed exhausted yet happy and fall asleep instantly because you can't wait to wake up and do it all over again. When it's time to go, you make solemn vows to yourself that you WILL return and maybe shed a quiet tear as you go away (but it's just something in my eye, I swear).

For me, this place is the mountains. Every single time I go.

I come from a long line of recreational skiers, I downhill ski raced in high school, I'm out skiing every weekend, and my family has gone out west practically every spring since I was 9. That's a fair amount of mountain experience for a girl from Michigan.

So when my friends and I saw our last full weekend together in Italy was a three-day weekend, we decided to have a girl's weekend. Everyone else either had parents in town or were going to Dublin for the weekend, so it was just my friends Morgan and Andrea and myself. We looked around at places for a little while - did we want to stay in a villa in Tuscany, wandering through the olive groves and vineyards daily? Did we want to sun-bathe on the beaches of the Amalfi Coast? Did we want to spend all our money shopping in Milan? In the end, we decided that going to the Dolomites to see the mountains, catch some fresh air, go hiking (not enough snow to ski unfortunately), sit by a fire at night drinking hot chocolate and wine (not together!), sounded like the perfect girl's weekend.

We made plans, booked a little apartment/cabin on Air BNB, and then after a lovely Thanksgiving dinner Thursday evening put on by our even lovelier program director, we departed early Friday morning for Fontanazzo in the Fassa Valley.

The trip was uneventful - a nice change from the usual traveling, where something inevitably goes wrong - and we arrived just after the sun set in picturesque little town of Fontanazzo.

The next morning, we got up early, made breakfast - we found peanut butter!! - and then got ready for a morning hike. We hopped on the trail that started right across the street from our cabin and ended up in Mazzin, but I couldn't tell you the path we took. Here are some pictures from our hike!

a little restaurant for hikers to grab a bite (it was closed since we were there in the off season, which is the month or two between summer and winter)

arriving in Mazzin

After a quick stop at our cabin, we made our way to some of the other towns in the area. We were starving by this point, but finding a place to eat lunch was proving difficult - everything was closed! Come to find out, since we were there in the off season, pretty much WAS closed and would open the following weekend. So basically, we were a week early.

We finally found a place to eat in Moena, a slightly bigger town in the di Fassa area. We ate a yummy lunch and then got hot chocolate - I got mint hot chocolate, which is my favorite!

After FINALLY eating, we walked around Moena for a while, peeking in all the shops and poking around food markets. In one place, we found grappa (an Italian liquor made from grape skins - potent!) with a viper in it. Yes, that's right, a snake. Apparently the venom gives it a special flavor and the alcohol makes the venom not poisonous. I was skeptical. None of us were tempted to try it as a jar of it clocked in at 3,500 euro. No thanks!

We wandered from town to town, struggling to find a place to eat dinner after our adventurous day. Finally we found a place with yummy pizza. Our night was pretty boring - we ate, and then promptly returned to our cabin and then went to bed shortly thereafter.

The next day, we took a trip to a bigger town in the area called Bolzano. They have a Christmas market there every holiday season, and we wanted to check it out.

IT WAS HUGE! There was so much stuff going on! All types of presents, live music, bars and food tents set up - it was amazing! We spent the afternoon wandering through the market, trying different foods and drinks that people would offer from their stands - it's amazing how friendly people are once you attempt to speak a little Italian!

When we got back that afternoon, we went on another quick hike. It was gloomy and foggy out, but the mountains looming in the distance gave us the impression of being very small. It was an almost eerie experience, walking in the woods in the fog, so we pretended to be in Lord of the Rings.

We bought groceries and cooked in that night and reminisced about our entire experience in Italy - this was our last weekend together, after all. We ate some apple strudel that we had bought from the market and drank some wine, and then went to bed early again because we had to catch a ride early that next morning.

All in all, a great weekend - and the best part was, that Monday afternoon, my mom flew into Florence!

Service Learning Experience

Part of my time studying abroad in Siena was an elective service learning project. There were several projects I could have chosen from, but I ended up at San Benedetto Scuola Materna, which is an Italian kindergarten. I helped Jeremy, a teacher there, teach English to the students every Wednesday morning.

Teaching English as a foreign language has been my plan after graduating college for quite some time now, so to actually experience my chosen career path as a service learning project was an amazing thing for me. I loved every second of my time with these kids, and I loved teaching my language to them. Jeremy also made the experience unforgettable, as he has been teaching English as a foreign language for quite some time now and offered a lot of advice to me. Who knows, in five years maybe this blog will become my tales of teaching English as a foreign language somewhere in Europe or Asia or anywhere in the world!!

More Art Than One Person Can Handle

I'm in love. I'm in love and I don't care who knows it. I'm in love and I want to shout it from the rooftops, write poetry about it, compose a song about it, get it tattooed on my forehead, wear it everyday on a t-shirt.

Who am I in love with, you may ask. No. The better question is where am I in love with?

Florence.

I know Rome is supposed to be the "Eternal City," yet something about Florence felt much more eternal. Mostly like an eternal flame of love I have for the city. And all this after a mere three days spent there.

On Friday, we had a class excursion to Florence and myself and three other friends decided to stay the remainder of the weekend (most of the rest went to Barcelona for the weekend, which you can read about at my friend Chris's blog HERE)

The first stop on our class excursion was the Uffizi, which is a beautiful building commissioned by Granduca Francisco de' Medici in the 1500s. The building originally contained offices and rooms for bureaucratic meetings, but obviously nowadays the Uffizi is one of the most impressive art collections in the world.

my favorite painting in the museum, The Birth of Venus by Botticelli, circa 1484

my favorite sculpture in the museum, Sleeping Ariadne, an example of Ancient Roman Art from the 2nd century AD

I've always been interested by art and art history, but I'm definitely NOT the most knowledgeable on the subject. Even so, I couldn't help but be blown away by the Uffizi. I've always appreciated art, and I've learned enough in my classes to find an even deeper appreciation.

Speaking of deep appreciation, our next stop was the Galileo museum. There is a class some of my friends are taking on art and science and how the two are related, so they definitely got the most out of this visit, but it was still an amazing place to visit. A lot of the actual tools used by Galileo were contained in this museum - a LOT of telescopes of all sizes and lengths. We even got to see Galileo's finger! Catholics and their relics...

GALILEO'S FINGER!!!!!!

Then it was time for all our friends to leave and go back to Siena or to Barcelona, and then it was just the four of us on our own. We checked into our room for the night and then we all promptly laid down for a power nap. Hey, remember we ARE college students!!

That night, we went to Piazza San Spirito - recommended by our Air BNB host for places to eat - and found a small restaurant to eat at. The servers were all younger males, so naturally they loved a group of young American girls - we got free prosecco! No complaints here when free alcohol is involved (keep in mind, I am 21, so this is allowed). Three of us went out - the other friend met someone she knew studying abroad in Florence - and we all got different dishes and shared it with each other. I ordered a small appetizer, a small "cake" with artichokes and eggplant, with a pecorino cheese sauce drizzled generously over top of it. Delicious!!

After dinner, at the recommendation of a waiter at our dinner restaurant, we headed to a bar with live music. Let me tell you, the type of American music Italians like is NOT the type of American music Americans like. The live band had a band playing that sounded like bad surfer music. A couple drinks in, we decided we couldn't handle it anymore so we bar-hopped to a few places then headed home for the night.

The next day we were a little slow to get out of bed - not because of the night before at all!!!!! We found a place to get coffee (in Italy, coffee = espresso), and our morning jaunt took us right past the Duomo. A quite imposing sight, I will admit - I am rather particular to the Duomo in Siena (the facade is just incredible), the Duomo in Firenze dominates the skyline and is breathtakingly beautiful.

the Firenze Duomo

After a rather humbling trip to the inside of the Duomo (everything is just so large and they had no modern machinery to help them build it!!! just think about it!!!), we did what any sane person spending a weekend in Florence would do - SHOPPING! Luckily for you all, I didn't take pictures of the shopping. If I did, it'd be like a montage from an early 2000s movie where someone breaks their glasses, discovers a comb, and magically discovers money for a whole new wardrobe - fashion show with cheesy music!

That night, I dragged my friend Andrea to a Mexican restaurant called Tijuana - a good place to go if you're ever in Florence and dying for Mexican food - where we had the hugest margaritas I've ever seen. Well, maybe not ever, but they were pretty big for being the normal size.

I got a cranberry margarita! Thanks to Andrea for the picture

After dinner, we went to bed pretty early - around 9pm! Some party animals we are.

The next day, we took a walk (and by walk I mean hike... it was all uphill!) to Piazzale Michelangelo, which had a fabulous view of the entire city of Florence, plus the surrounding countryside, the beautiful rolling Tuscan hills.

walking across Ponte alle Grazie

the walk up to the piazza - you can't see but behind it there are twice as many stairs to walk up!

view from Piazzale Michelangelo

Next up, we decided a trip to the Galleria dell'Accademia was a must-see for our time in Florence. And yes, it was a must see. If anyone tries to tell you the only thing worthwhile at the Accademia is Michelangelo's David, spit in their face because the museum is chock full of wonderful artwork. My personal favorite was the collection of musical instruments - as a music minor, dating a boyfriend who graduated with a major in music education, I found it all to be incredibly interesting.

set of kettle drums and various other percussive instruments from 1837

The David shines amongst all the other things housed in the museum, however. Words cannot describe how realistic and yet perfectly unrealistic it is. If you ever find yourself in Florence, a trip to the Galleria dell'Accademia is a must-see.

Michelangelo's David - pictures don't do it justice!!

I was very sad to leave Florence, but my one consolation (and a big one) is that I get to come back here in a few weeks with my mom!! I know that I will find myself falling in love with Florence again and again through my lifetime, and I know anyone who visits there will too.

Vicenza, Venezia, and Everything in Between

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to do a little solo travel trip to the northern part of Italy. I went to visit some family friends in Vicenza (one of my old babysitters, in fact!) and I got to travel to Venezia (Venice) and a small town called Marostica with the family I stayed with.

I left after class on Thursday and got in to Vicenza late Thursday evening. I had planned on traveling on Friday, but there was a transportation strike and very few trains were running; also this way I had the whole day Friday to see a new town!

Friday morning, I walked around Vicenza with Suzie. It's a smaller city halfway between Verona and Venice. It's very cute, and it has one of the oldest theaters in Italy within the city walls.

After a few hours, we had to return back to their house because their four girls were returning from school. After a relaxing hour or two at the house, we piled into their car (an actual car ride!!) and headed for perhaps the dreamiest city in Italy: VENICE!

Suzie and her husband Hugh were nice enough to take me there for an evening, and they also wanted to see it for themselves, and so we decided even thought it'd be dark it would be well worth the drive to see Venice at night and grab a nice dinner somewhere. And yes indeed it was worth it. Venice is beyond gorgeous at night. The type of city you could fall in love with without even trying to.

Grand Canal at night - as per usual, pictures don't do it justice!

A small restaurant with some lovely floral arrangements on the outside

The next day, we went to Marostica - a small town in the foothills of the mountains. On the day we went, it was rainy and dreary, and the town was beautiful but didn't seem all that remarkable. However, every two years in the town center, there's a life-size chess match (a la Harry Potter) with the knights on horses and other players in full costume. Not something that you see every day, and it was cool to walk on the giant chess board!

giant chess board in Marostica

giant chess pieces

We got lunch at a small restaurant in the town square, where I tried pumpkin risotto - which was delicious! While we were waiting for the food, I wandered around the city (it was pretty small) and looked inside some old cathedrals - always a neat experience!

Church of the Madonna Del Carmine or the Carmini

view of Marostica, including the foothills

Sunday, I decided to go back to Venice. I loved the city so much and I knew I could never forgive myself if I didn't go back - and luckily it was a beautiful, sunny day outside! It was a little daunting to wander such a huge city by myself, but at this point in my travels I have semi-functional Italian skills and I'm wary enough to avoid pickpockets so I decided to solo-trip it.

Honestly, one of the best decisions I've ever made. I'm seriously IN LOVE with Venice - such a beautiful city! I could easily spend five years there and never get bored of just exploring the teeny alley ways and the grandiose canals.

Since I was by myself, I didn't know where exactly I was all the time - and as a result, I have no idea what I was taking pictures of. All I knew was whatever it was happened to be beautiful (as all of Venice is), so instead of more captioning, just enjoy the pictures I took and try to imagine wandering around by yourself in such a magical city.

One bit of advice - if you're in Venice and you are in a group of 4 or less people, don't pay for a gondola - take the water taxi and sit in the back instead. True, it won't be nearly as romantic as a gondola ride, but it is A LOT cheaper - especially for one person, like me!

All in all, the trip to Vicenza and Venezia was one of the best weekends thus far - it was so great to see some familiar faces and to see such a renowned city in the flesh! Such a perfect weekend, and yet there is much more amazing things to come!

(note: blog posted a couple weeks after the weekend actually happened, my apologies!)