Pienza and Montepulciano (plus a random concert)

Today I had a field trip for my class to Pienza, a small town in tuscany that is famous for it's pecorino (sheep milk) cheeses and renaissance architecture. We got to see this amazing view (me of course... just kidding, LOL), taste test some local cheeses and explore a little bit of Pienza.

My class also traveled to Montepulciano a town in tuscany famous for it's wine and that scene in Twilight: New Moon where Edward takes off his shirt and sparkles (ugh) BUT for shits and giggles I did reenact the scene (I mean.. I took a picture in front of the same church... but that's basically the same thing due to the lack of acting in all the Twilight movies)

Montepulciano was my favorite, though the climb was exhausting, the view was totally worth it.

At the wine cellar we visited, we tasted 3 different wines and had a light lunch with some local dishes which was delicious plus I've never done anything like it before and I even found a red wine I actually enjoyed (a first for me).

Overall this was a really great field trip and I can't wait for the one next weekend to Rome, Sorrento, Naples, Capri and Pompeii.

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After our bus arrived back in Florence around 5pm I went to get some gelato with two other girls who were on my bus, Christina and Alyssa. On the way there we randomly stumbled across a concert, weird right?

We stood in the crowed piazza for 10 minutes trying to figure out exactly what was going on surrounded by other tourists with the same confused looks on their faces and young middle school girls. It appeared we had found the Italian version of One Direction, oh joy. Let's just say we listened to one song, quickly decided that gelato was the better choice and kept moving.

Later, after googling it, I found out that the group we saw, Braccialeti Rossi, is actually a teen medical comedy- drama television series cast so I'm really confused as to why they sang... and I supposed I'll never really know why.

Today has been exhausting but I feel like I learned a lot about the tuscan region and overall just had a really great day. Tomorrow my roommates and I are off to Cinque Terre and I can't wait, I heard that you can go cliff jumping and kayak through a waterfall there so I hope I get to do both!

Week 2 and some side notes

Monday:

Rachel and I got in from Barcelona after both sleeping through our early 7am flight and though we both planned on going back to the apartment to take a nap instead I went to the beach.
 Nicole and I went to the small beach across the Arno river to soak up some vitamin D and relax... I probably fell asleep at least twice and burnt my shoulders slightly but now they're a nice tan color.
Overall the day was pretty relaxing and we didn't do much but after a crazy busy weekend in Barcelona, it was exactly what I needed.

Tuesday:

We ate cheese with flower infused honey today; it was weird and I still don't know how I feel about it.

After class, my roommates Nicole and Miranda and I headed over to Pitti Palace and The Bobolli Gardens for a day trip before the rain was supposed to hit later in the afternoon
The palace I could have done without, because there were a lot of little trinkets and nothing was being explained to me we were just walking through so I didn't find it all that interesting BUT the gardens were GORGEOUS and we all had a blast imitating the statues that are all over the place.

It was a long and exhausting day, and I'm pretty sure we walked over 15,000 steps just inside the gardens, but the view was 100% worth it.

That night all three of us plus Rachel and another girl I met recently, Christina, went out to have margherita pizza at this place called Gusta Pizza that is supposed to be amazing and its only 5 Euro for your own personal pizza (which in Italy is basically your own medium sized pizza)

It was delicious! and super cheap! (honestly, everything a college student could ever want or need)

We even got to write our names on our ticket and stick it under the glass on the restaurant's table

Wednesday:

For some reason, I still haven't figured out why but I'm not complaining, we didn't have class today. I actually got to sleep in (till like 10 which is still pretty early for me) it was amazing!

The weather was kind of unfortunate today so Nicole and I stayed inside watched movies and planned the rest of our weekend (she's heading to Venice on Friday with Rachel while I go on a class field trip to Montepulciano and Pienza and on Saturday Rachel, Nicole and I are all heading to Cinque Terre for a day trip through bus2alps)

Plus! Rachel made us dinner which was wonderful :) 

Thursday:

Today during class I got free gelato (pistachio and chocolate) so as sad as it sounds that was definitely a highlight of my day and then later after heading to Mercato Centrale to pick up fruit and sandwiches for lunch Nicole and I headed to the beach to meet up with 4 other girls from Central Michigan University and build up a tan.

I was the perfect beach day, not too hot, not a cloud in the sky and a light breeze, it was wonderful.

Tonight we (Rachel, Nicole and I) thought we were going to Gonzo for another fabulous six- course meal but the way they have you sign up is through email and they never responded to our email so that fell through. We were disappointed but decided to go to Hard Rock Cafe instead. I know that's lame I'm in Italy why am I going to a Hard Rock Cafe? 

BUT as much as I never ever thought I would say it I'm starting to get sick of pasta and I really wanted some good old fatty American food, like a burger or something.

It was ridiculously overpriced but totally worth it, yum yum!

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This week may have been a relatively relaxing week so far but it's about to get much busier!

Tomorrow I am going on a class field trip to Montepulciano and Pienza so look out for an upcoming post about cheese and architecture (oh joy!) and Saturday I'll be in Cinque Terre hiking through the five beautiful coastal towns, collecting beach glass and HOPEFULLY cliff jumping (it's on my Italy bucket list) so look out for a post about that as well :)

Ciao!

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SIDE NOTE: So do you remember that creepy bouncer guy from the bar that my roommate Nicole and I went to to meet up with her CMU suitemate Kate? 

Funny story, apparently Kate went back there roughly a day or two later and he gave her his number to give to me... 

According to Kate apparently "he's in love" 

I find the whole thing utterly hilarious and I'll definitely be avoiding the Atlantic forever and always.

Hola Barcelona! Dora the Explorer definitely didn't prepare me for this...

This past weekend my roommate Rachel and I ventured out of Italy to explore Barcelona, Spain and it was AMAZING, I already can't wait to go back :)

We arrived really late Friday night to our hostel the Feetup Yellow Nest and went straight to bed with plans to explore some of Antoni Gaudi's most famous works of architecture the next morning, Park Guell and La Sagrada Familia.

This was the first time either of us had ever stayed in a hostel so we were both a little nervous but I was pleasantly surprised. The beds were made of memory foam and you got a locker, a blanket, pillow and a sheet on your bed plus the staff was really nice and always available to help you with 24 hour reception.

On Saturday morning Rachel and I took the metro (by the end of this trip I became an excellent metro navigator) to Park Guell and made it to the correct metro stop without a problem, it was after that when we got lost for like a half an hour. you'd figure a giant park with mosaic tiles all over the place would be blatantly obvious but no such luck, we walked around trying to follow the sparse signs toward Park Guell until a shop owner took pity on us and helped us get to the right place.

The park was beautiful and huge! There was a lot to see and Gaudi's mosaic tile work is really fascinating. All throughout the main part of the park I recognized things from the movie Cheetah Girls 2 which was kind of ridiculous but neat at the same time. You can see all of Barcelona from the top of Park Guell, the view was beautiful.

After Park Guell we headed to La Sagrada Familia, a Roman Catholic church that was designed and started by Antoni Gaudi in the 1880's and still isn't finished to this day. Even though Gaudi is long gone the church is still set to be completely finished with construction in 2026 (hopefully I'll get to go back and set the church again after it's completion. 

La Sagrada Familia was absolutely amazing, there was so much detail both on the outside and inside the building that the beauty of it was impossible to capture in one picture.

It is one place that I suggest everyone should see for themselves at least once in their lifetime, it was truly breathtaking.

There was so much to see that I probably could have stared at all the stories carved into the walls for hours.

Later that night we met a bunch of interesting people from our hostel by participating in a pub crawl, we even met two guys who had just finished traveling for a year in Florence and they gave us some great insider tips about studying there. 

Barcelona is famous for their night life so we figured we would check it out and we definitely had fun and met some really amazing people, there was a group of 12 students all on holiday from Germany (hey Dad, I got to practice a little German before we visit the family), 2 girls from Australia who saved up 20 grand in a year so that they could travel all across Europe and South Africa in a summer, and two guys from Washington DC that had just finished studying for a semester in England. I heard some great stories, met some amazing people and had a blast.

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On Sunday Rachel and I took a free guided tour around the Gothic District of Barcelona and learned a lot (did you know there is an entire Roman city buried under Barcelona that is still intact in some places?) and headed to the beach with some girls we met on our tour Elise and Lauren (did you know that the beaches in Barcelona are actually made of Egyptian dune sand?)

It was a great tour I felt like I got to see most of the city in just a few short hours and I learned a lot of history behind the Spanish and Catalan culture dating all the way back to the Romans, plus we had a great tour guide who recommended a great place for lunch where I was able to get traditional Spanish paella, tapas (kind of reminded me of Aperitivo in Florence, it was basically anything you want served on top of bread in a buffet style) and sangria (I definitely recommend the sangria, it's delicious).

Later that night after the beach Rachel and I walked down the infamous tourist trap more commonly know as Las Rambles and headed to the Magic Fountain for some cheesy pictures and show of water and lights.

Barcelona was beautiful, I met some amazing people and learned a lot both about myself and Spanish and Catalan culture.

It was really hard to navigate the differences between being in Italy and being in Spain because though they are both very different there are similar things about them too, for example, the languages have a lot of overlapping words, and its easy to get lost in both places.

There was still a lot that I wish I would have had time to do but, I'm glad I went and I can't wait to go back again someday.

Adios!

Ganzo: Great People, Great Food

Florence University of the Arts has its own fine dining restaurant called Ganzo and this past week my roommates Rachel, Nicole and I went to check it out (May 20-21).

On Wednesday's Ganzo hosts and event from 6pm-10pm they call AperiGanzo. 

AperiGanzo is basically an appetizer event where for 5 Euro you purchase a drink (a glass of vino, or a mixed drink etc.) and there is a constant buffet of appetizers. This event is very common around Italy and goes by the name Aperitivo.
In Italy Aperitivo is merely a pre-dinner but to us cheap American college students it was a wonderful dinner buffet!

It was an interesting experience for sure, half the food I ate I have no idea what it was, and at this point I'm not sure if I even want to know (random fact: did you know the lining of the cow stomach is a delicacy here? ICK!), but it was delicious and extremely crowded with not only locals but a crazy amount of FUA students from all across the United States. 

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The next day my roommates and I trekked back to Gonzo for a free* six course meal! The theme was vegetarian (lets just say we were a little skeptical) but it turned out to be totally worth it! I tried foods that I never thought I would... asparagus puree...? (which was actually really good) and each course of the meal came with a wine pairing, the Italian's are right, food paired with wine makes wine taste so much better, I even managed to enjoy a Chianti (surprise, surprise).

Though there was one course during the meal that none of us enjoyed, it was some type of weird cheese sack thing. Overall, the meal was really good and I feel like I learned a lot about the importance of wine pairing and what gourmet food is supposed to look like. 

Plus my roommates and I managed to snag a secluded corner table and had a blast getting to know each other, we can't wait until the next Ganzo dinner and that's not just because our waiter was cute :)

*it used meal units so we didn't actual have to pay Euro for the meal, it was already included in our tuition

From Fresh Food to Fiasco (but not really)

My Food, Wine and Culture class began today (Tuesday, May 19th) and I'm so excited for everything that I will learn and be able to explore in this class. My class travels to Parma, Modena, Pienza, Montepulciano, Rome, Naples, Sorrento, Capri and Pompei while also traveling to local spots and learning about the history of Florence and how to pair food and wine.
 It may not be what most people consider a very educational class but I feel it will really help me fully immerse into Italian culture while I am in Florence.

During our first class we went over the syllabus and traveled to the local market, Mercato Centrale and sampled some traditional Tuscan bread, Tuscano Pane and walked around to all the specialized stands, fish, fruit, vegetables, meat etc.

Everything there was so fresh and colorful it was amazing. I got some strawberries and they were some of the best strawberries I have ever had, they were super cheap and very sweet.

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Later in the day 10 other girls here for the Florence University of the Arts Program and I all went across the Arno river to celebrate one of their birthday's and explore Piazzale Michelangelo, which basically the top of Florence over looking the city, it was beautiful and it was awesome to meet so many other people besides just the people in my class and my roommates, I am making amazing friends here from all over.
Piazzale Michelangelo was beautiful, we took touristy pictures and sat around fake David and just talked and go to know each other before we all headed out for an amazing dinner more towards the city center.

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After dinner my roommate Nicole and I went out to a bar called Atlantic to meet up with her CMU suitemate Kate and I reaffirmed my awkwardness... not that there was any doubt

I got hit on by the creepy 30 year old bouncer, he asked my on the way out for my number and after I said no, he yelled after me about using Whatsapp and Viber. I ran away... in the wrong direction and hilarity ensued as I had to turn back around and pass by him again.

On the plus side at least I didn't trip and the pina colada's were delicious, too bad I can never go back for another one.

Katia and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Stressful Day of Travel plus Day 2

Once Mom finally calmed her nerves enough to let me go through security to hop aboard my flight I couldn't contain my excitement, in T- minus 10 hours give or take a few I would be in Florence, in an apartment and starting what will be my most amazing summer ever. Let's just say it didn't exactly work out that way...

At first it all seemed to be going great, we boarded the plane and everything was running ahead of schedule, I saw my bright purple suitcase get loaded into the cargo hold and I had just settled in and grabbed my pillow when the pilot clicked on the intercom and told us there was some technology problem with our plane and they were trying to figure it all out before we could take off.

It was at that moment the guy sitting behind me said, "Just watch, were going to have to get off."

About five minutes later he was right.

My first flight was into Rome and like me most of the people on my flight had connections to other places, the sarcastic lady sitting next to me had connection to Sicily for a vacation with her husband and there were at least 15 people with a connection to Florence, just like me. 

We were going to miss our connection, it's departure time was an hour from when we were supposed to arrive in Rome and now none of us had any idea when we were going to get there. 

The airline had to find us another plane, have it go through all the necessary security checks, move all of our luggage and all of the catering for our international flight before we could board we boarded our new plane around 7pm and didn't take off until at least 8 o'clock at that point I was already supposed to be in the air for almost 2 hours and we were just now taking off. 

The airline couldn't tell me anything about rebooking a connection and told me to ask the people in Rome, I can't say I was to thrilled about having to deal with this entire situation oversees in a country where I didn't speak the language but I tried to keep calm, get some rest and just deal with it later.

We arrived in Rome with quite a bumpy start. The turbulance was so rough during our landing that our supposedly safer plane broke...

But no one was hurt and we all got off the plane safely so that was wonderful now our only issue was that none of us had any idea what we were going to do to get to Florence from Rome. We made it through customs and waited around for our luggage for what felt like forever, at this point there was a group of 13 of us all in the same situation, all attending Florence University of the Arts, and all stuck in Rome. 

There were no more connecting flights that day from Rome to Florence so for a while we were basically out of luck. Were told the best way to get there would be by train but first we had to get our baggage.

We talked to someone who told us our luggage would be in the lost baggage area so we walked a while to the other side of the airport to attempt to find our luggage only to find out that the person we originally talked to was misinformed and our luggage was just running behind so we had to go all the way back, which was an issue within itself because there isn't really a way to go back to baggage claim without going back through security, so we had to find another person who could let us in the staff way and that took a while, the whole ordeal was just turning into a huge mess. 

After being in the airport for an extra 3 hours we finally got our baggage and headed up to take a train to Florence but between all the stress and everything else by the time we went to buy tickets people were arguing over which train to take and how much money it was, they were complaining about how tired they were and at that point I just tried to stay out of it. 

I was basically to the point where all I wanted was to get to Florence and go to bed.

After paying 60 Euro for a train we finally made it to Florence and took a taxi to the university to get our apartment keys BUT, they didn't have our apartment keys, NO OUR keys were at the airport where they were expecting us to be EVEN THOUGH I emailed the university as soon as I found out I wouldn't be arriving at the airport.

SO we had to wait around ANOTHER hour after having waited around ALL DAY.

Finally we got our apartment keys, met the rest of our roommates, tried to get settled in because its not like we'd eaten anything since the plane food.

My roommates and I found a pizza place, got some pizza, ate some gelato and I was down for the count, I was exhausted! 

Overall I just never ever want to go through that again.

I was virtually by myself, traveling to a different country where I don't know the language AT ALL and with a bunch of strangers. We were connected through our troubles and I don't know what I would have done without everyone but it was WAY too crazy for my first day in Italy so lets not ever have to deal with it again.

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Today was much better, I'm making wonderful friends with my roommates, we had orientation today so I found out where all of my classes are, We ate lunch at a really cute Italian restaurant, took touristy pictures around the city and just overall had a good day. 

Our refrigerator isn't working yet but hopefully that will be fixed soon and my class starts tomorrow I can't wait!

The first day may not have been the best but at this point it can only get better, in fact it already has I just booked my tickets to Spain for this weekend! I'm going with my roommate Rachel to Barcelona and it's going to be amazing. We've already planned the Cheetah Girls scene we will attempt to reenact (LOL) I'm sure that'll be amusing.

STAY TUNED: There is honestly so much more I could've said but this was long already and I think I've ranted quite enough. Florence is beautiful and as posts continue you'll definitely get to know more about the city, my trip, my roommates and SO SO MUCH more so stay tuned!