bologna.

went to bologna for the day.

a simple train ride over from SMN; no more than an hour.

after arriving at the bologna train station it was a simple 15-20 minute walk under the historic arcades until arriving in the center of the city. the first monument that i stumbled upon was la fontana di nettuno (the fountain of neptune). this large intricate fountain resides right next to piazza maggiore.

after walking around piazza maggiore and admiring the splendor of neptune, i headed towards piazza cavour, at which point i stumbled upon san domenico. the church itself was closed so i was unable to see the magnificent tomb of st. dominic (to whom the church is dedicated), althought there were also two elaborately decorated tombs outside of the church (whose contents are still unknown to me).

lunch:

while the tombs were interesting and all, i wanted to get my lunch on...after all bologna, bolognese...HELLO!

after walking for a few minutes i came upon a small little restaurant, la trattoria da ercole tipica cucina bolognese, with a tent to eat outside. it didn't look like anything spectacular, and had i been in america i probably would have walked right past it without so much as a pause.

well....i got lasagna bolognese (obviously), and boy let me tell you.

best.

bolognese.

ever.

lunch lasted for a little over an hour, after which i headed towards universita di bologna (the oldest university in europe!). on the way to the university i came into contact with i torri degli assinelli e garisenda (two of the few remaining colossal towers which were started by bologna's wealthy/important families in the 12th century, as means of displaying their wealth). the towers themselves are leaning as a result of a poorly laid foundation, so construction has commenced in order to solidify the interior, so as not to have them fall.

my journey to the universita di bologna continued, and finally i arrived. to be honest i was a little disappointed; although i am not really sure what i was expecting. it was a bunch of buildings....not particularly pretty, in fact most of them had graffiti on them. i looked around and walked back towards piazza maggiore, taking a different route this time.

i stumbled upon a very crowded street, full of local shops and restaurants, buzzing with locals. the store windows were filled with hand-made stuffed pasta, mortadella, and cheese; if i could have, i would have stocked up with these delicious looking products, but for some reason i kept walking...

i walked back to piazza maggiore, this time entering san petronio (the main church). originally intended to be larger than st. peter's in rome, san petronio was forced to scale down when church authorities started diverting funds. even under these circumstances, san petronio remains one of italy's greatest brick-built medieval buildings. the interior is airy and spacious; it is also home to the largest sun dial (in the form of a meridian line, 66.8 m), which was laid in the left aisle of the church in 1655.

cinque terre

Riomaggiore

via dell'amore

view of Vernazza

The path:

Riomaggiore--->Manarola (known as via dell'amore aka lover's walk)

Manarola-->Corniglia

Corniglia---> Vernazza

Vernazza---> Monterosso

as one walks from land to land (starting in riomaggiore) the hike gets increasingly more difficult...

the path in Riomaggiore had me wondering whether i should have worn sandals; by the time we were hiking to Vernazza i was trying to acquire hiking poles. its like one minute you are comparable to mall walkers making their early morning routes past Macy's and next thing you know you are basically Sir Edmund Hillary.

we stopped in Vernazza for lunch, with its picturesque views and genuine fishing town feel.

Vernazza has amazing seafood, some of the freshest in the world... so naturally for lunch I ate pizza (in my defense I had pizza with pesto; cinque terre's pesto being one of the finest).

never made it to Monterosso, it got too late...but it is beautiful... the photo on the postcard i bought confirms that.

oktoberfest.

oktoberfest is the disney land of beers.

rides. food. costumes. songs. tents filled with beer. lots of people.

i have never experienced anything like it before; my senses were so overwhelmed, but in a good way.

camp grounds.

for some reason unknown to mankind i thought it would be a good idea to sleep in a tent in Munich....ya know, im at oktoberfest i should have the full experience, go all out...sleep in a tent...right?

right.

sure it was cold.

sure we were in the middle of nowhere.

but that is what i signed up for.

who cares if my leggings, long pajama bottoms, tank top, t shirt, sweatshirt, fleece, socks, sleeping bag and towel couldn't keep me warm at night, i was being adventurous and that was all that mattered.

get me to oktoberfest.

in order to get to the actual festival we had to take a bus to the train station and then a train into the heart of munich...both of which over the course of the three days i was there i never paid for (they said the wrist band i was given for the camp grounds should be sufficient aka i wouldnt need to pay; and although that seemed unlikely i wasn't going to question free transportation).

we had no idea where we were going, but we figured that if we followed the herds of men and women in lederhosen we couldn't go wrong. right we were. we walked in under the welcome sign and walked into the first beer tent where our other friends were already camped out (we got there at 10am so i can only imagine what time they got there). we ended up bouncing between four different tents that afternoon, eventually being closed out of all tents at around 6pm (they close the doors and dont let people in because there are too many people, and they were serving meals). We managed to find our way into the beer garden or biergarten of the Hofbrau tent, where we magically found room at a table and set up camp for the next 6 hours. We sat in the same seat, we were a constant, it was everything else that seemed to change throughout the course of the night. We had people at our table from Canada, Italy, Germany, New Zeland, Spain....everywhere.

the second day was a little more hectic because it was a saturday. it was almost impossible to get into one beer house, but again we navigated our way into a biergarten, this time Schottenhamel Spatenbrau, where we made people move over. we sat at that table for 12 hours. 12 hours!!! there was not a bad moment, maybe when a kid at the end of the table decided to see his beer and chicken a second time, that was pretty bad, but besides that it was such a great time!

sunday would have been round three. not possible in any way/shape/form...but we did make our way into the city to get some postcards and grab some lunch. after wandering around we came to the ugly conclusion that all the stores were closed and that we couldn't pick up any postcards, but we did find a restaurant with outdoor seating to grab some lunch before we headed back to the campsite and got on the bus. i had a hamburger...it made sense, hamburg germany, hamburger....it must be good. it was just okay, which may or may not have been disappointing.

oh well.

get me back to my tent.

the bus from the train station stopped running at 6pm, an unacceptable hour to call it quits at oktoberfest...so if you wanted to get back to the tent after 6pm you had to figure something else out....taxi.

familiar with the taxi system, i walked myself down to the street and tried to hail a cab. none stop...okay, i continue to stand in the street flagging down cabs...none of them stop. after 45 minutes i was able to get a cab. the driver asked us where we were going...and we all looked at each other confused and answerless. luckily i had written down the name of the train station earlier that day, so we told him to drive towards that area. as we got closer we recognized random buildings like KFC (the KFC got us onto the right road), and random plots of tilled land, which indicated that we were going in the right direction. to some power unbeknownst to me we made it back successfully (the second night we had a picture of the camp ground sign, so we knew where we were going)!

amalfi coast.

wish i had a good excuse for my ten day hiatus. i dont.

here is a run down of my weekend in Sorrento/Positano/Capri/Pompeii: September 10-13

it will be quick and painless, maybe even a little enjoyable

mainly because i am lazy.

Positano.

Drove from Sorrento to a spot high above Positano, at which point we got off the bus, and walked for 35 minutes through residential areas down to the beach. We relaxed on the black sand beach (although i use the term sand loosely, mainly because it was a beach of smooth stones) for a few hours, grabbed some paninis at the local shop "vino e panino" and continued to veg on the beach in front of the magnificently blue, but very salty water. Later we boarded a boat and set off into the depths of the sea, looking for caves to swim in and cliffs to jump off willingly. Success on both ends. I swam through some random caves along the coast (nearly split my head in two on the algae covered rocks) and jumped off a 32 ft cliff (landing

successfully and unscathed...i cannot say as much for my cohorts, one who got a bloody nose,

one who may or may not have busted an eardrum, and one who messed up her coccyx). After swimming and doing dangerous/adventurous things for around two hours we headed back to shore where we relaxed on the beach for a little while longer before headed back to the hostel (Hostel 7....very nice if i do say so myself) where we showered and got ready for an evening on the town...of sorts. Since we were on a group program a huge chunk of us met down in the lobby of the hostel at around 8:30, and somehow got coaxed into walking to the restaurant

(leone rosso), good thing it wasn't far or anything....just a simple 45 minute walk. The food was pretty good, not sure i would walk 40 years through the desert for that again, but it did land us in the heart of Sorrento, so going out to the karakoe bar afterwards was simple.

Capri.

We woke up at 7 am to make sure we could roll out of the hostel by 8. Luckily I am a morning person...ha. We took the bus 15 minutes to a parking lot, at which point we walked down a twisting path for 10 minutes, ultimately leading us to a flattened rock about the size of a dunkin donuts parking lot. I believe the Italians saw this rock as a dock/platform. So we waited, and waited until a little boat came and picked up the crowd of 110 people.

After fighting people to find a seat on the boat, we made our way out, stop

ping first at the blue grotto. We were forced to file off the boats into the smaller boats (needed to enter the blue grotto) in groups of 4. For some reason unknown to me, my group was a group of 5. It was like Titanic all over again, squishing people into these itsy-bitsy boats....I was hugging my fellow survivors as we headed towards the smallest cave opening a few yards away. The grotto itself is beautiful; i have never seen anything like it... electric blue water that puts the clearest skies to shame.

After a 10 minute ride around and some italian love songs being belted from another boat, we headed back out of the grotto and made our way onto the larger boat once more. From this point it was all down hill for me, my stomach started to do a nice little dance and i had to do some serious lamaze breathing and mental talk to keep the contents of my stomach where they were. We did stop at the green grotto as well, whose waters were also piercing, but almost dull in comparison with the blue grotto. Finally we made it to land. We got off at Marina Piccola from which we ventured on foot to one of the highest point of the island, taking pictures from the garden view overlooking the water. Then we ventured through the town of Capri, which was beautiful, every store was a high end boutique placed in the most classic yet tasteful white

stores (usually draped with ivy) overlooking the other side of the island. From here we

purchased bus tickets and hopped on an extremely tiny bus (possibly for clowns, but still not sure) which took us up to Anacapri. This quaint little town provided me the opportunity to purchase my very own pair of Capri sandals and taste homemade Limoncello while i waited for my sandals to be made. After picking up my sandals I walked down towards the bus stop and found a cute little sandwich shop, where i grabbed a panini before taking the bus back down to Marina Piccola where we would catch the boat back to Sorrento.

Pompeii.

Packed all our stuff up from the hostel and boarded the bus with Pompeii on our minds. We arrived, parked the bus in a parking lot and walked over to the main grounds, where we quickly grabbed a bite to eat before running to catch our tour group. Our tour guide was named Samuel (sam U el) he was a hoot and a half, quite witty, but very informed ( i would hope so). We walked around the greater part of the city (although 1/3 of the city remains buried in ash for future generations to uncover, and to prevent the destruction of the original colors and structures). The city was so highly advanced, it is amazing. There was running water and pipes, and a city center that was systematically organized, things that cities today don't even have. One of the most fascinating aspects of Pompeii were the body casts of those individuals who were buried under the rubble expelled from Mt. Vesuvius. The plaster casts created by the archeologist contain the actual bones of the civilians and show the manner in which their bodies were contorted as a result of the volcano's eruption.

piazzale michelangelo.

residing above Porta San Niccolo, this piazza has an amazing view of the city. most people venture up there to catch the sunset, because the cotton candy colored light hitting the city is truly picturesque. i crossed the Arno and walked the many steps up to the piazza with three of my friends after grabbing some gelato. we timed it so that we would get there with some time to just look around, and then situate ourselves for a beautiful sunset....perfectly timed if i do say so myself. we sat among a plethora of local teens, the inevitable crowd of tourists, and two wedding photo shoots, as the sun slowly crept down from its resting place in the sky.

va bene.

photos.

1) the walk up...the natural stair master

2) view of florence...focus on the temple

3) start of sunset

4) dolce de leche sky caressing the arno.

oh...the little things.

Piazza della Signoria.

One of the most decorated piazzas in

Florence, piazza della signoria aka piazza vecchio, is headquarters of the Florentine Republic. The square is lined with famous statues, including a copy of the David, The Fountain of Neptune, The Rape of the Sabine Woman and many other statues created by famous artists such as Donatello, Giambologna and Bandinelli.

This piazza is around the corner from my house, and really is fantastic. The other night i was walking through with my roommates and stopped to join a crowd of locals listening to a man playing his guitar and singing Simon and Garfunkel by candle light.

(Perseus with the head of Medussa by Cellini)

The Arno.

it's a river.

the river used to flood the city; but the last major flood was in 1966, at which time 40 people were killed and millions of pieces of art work and books were destroyed.

Villa La Pietra/NYU in Florence.

School...It is pretty. This photo shows Villa Natalia, which is where we enter school from the main street every morning; i took this photo from Villa Ullivi...where i take class. It is not depicted here but there is a huge dip/hill which has been dubbed "the valley of death," which we have to hike up and down multiple times a day. It works the glutes.

The hole in the wall around the corner.

There is a hole in the wall around the corner from my apartment. There are wooden stools that people can sit on, down this narrow side street. Since the first day I arrived I always wanted to walk over there and check it out. One fateful day, my roommate and I walked over to peek inside. We were greeted by a tiny menu, and unsure of what anything was we asked the man who worked in the hole in the wall, to make us what he thought we should eat.

We watched him reach into a black cauldron, pull out a sack-like substance, dripping oil and looking really good....not. He threw it down on the cutting board, and started to chop it into small pieces, then took the bread, dipped it into the black cauldron of mystery, and produced a red soggy carb. After pouring some olive oil and pepper on-top the man put it in a bag.

Trying not to be grossed out,while trying to prevent my roommate from barfing, we threw down the 3.50 and ran back to our house....gitty at the prospect of eating this disgusting food.

Well....it was really good.

It was trippa, or tripe as they say in america.

don't judge a cow by its stomach?

mmm....cappuccino.

siena.

Sunday seemed like a lovely day to venture over to Siena for the day; so three of my roommates and I picked ourselves up at 8 am and worked from there.

On the way.

We arrived at Santa Maria Novella (the train station) and purchased our tickets from the automated machines. I found the track on the screen, but was unable to actually find the track within the station, and was therefore forced to ask a man who worked there where to locate the train. Honestly, when you learn vocabulary in language classes, you laugh at the topics you are forced to learn, and shrug off the possibility that you would ever be forced to actually use any of the words. After standing in the train station for what seemed like 30 minutes, the word for train track finally popped into my friend's head and I was able to ask for help. We had barely stepped a foot onto the train when two people (train employees) asked us if we were american...we didn't answer, mildly accustomed to italian people asking whether or not we are from america, only to then turn to their friends and talk about us. After finding ourselves 5 seats next to each other, we sat down and waited for the train to depart...tickets in hand, smiles on faces. The conductor came over and asked for our tickets. I was hesitant to hand them over at first, because he was wearing D&G sunglasses, expensive jeans and a nice shirt; but that is neither here nor there. He looked at the ticket and told us it wasn't stamped (in Italian of course, which always results in my roommates turning to me sporting the faces of lost children, asking me what has just been said)...so as it turns out, you buy your ticket at the train station and then you get it stamped (prior to boarding the train). The tickets themselves have no specific times on them, and therefore unless stamped can be used at at any point throughout the day, perhaps even multiple times. After apologizing and telling him we didn't know and that we were very sorry, he told us that it was very important to get the tickets punched because if not you get charged a large sum of money. He let us go without that fine, to which we were extremely grateful.

While in Siena.

After getting off the train we took the bus into the heart of the city, and were greeted by the beating drums and waving of flags of the the separate sections of the city, known as "terzi." After observing and watching as these young men marched down the street, we found ourselves in "il palazzo del campo," where we were marveled by the beautiful architecture of the church, the wide/vast space of the piazza and just the overall aura of the place.

We had read that there was a very good, relatively cheap restaurant in the area, so we walked a few minutes out of the center, arriving only to find that it was closed. We inevitably settled for one of those restaurants on the palazzo, not that good, overpriced, and clearly catered to tourists. Our waitress was making fun of us, which is always pleasant, and when the food finally arrived she kind of hovered so as to find more reasons to laugh with her other waiter friend. I ordered a sausage and zucchini panini, which I realized half way through was not cooked. There were also two rotten tomatoes in the salad. yum.

After finishing lunch we walked over to the fountain in "il campo," which was lined with statues; we proceeded to the duomo. The winding roads leading up to the actual building were filled with stores and restaurants.

At the Duomo we paid 6 euro to get in and were greeted by the most magnificent interior (and exterior); all hand made, crafted and designed by numerous artists. The other girls who were wearing tank tops were handed disposable shawls to cover their shoulders, so as to respect the church and the dead. After the Duomo we walked around the streets Siena. Seeing as we had literally just decided to go to Siena, we hadn't really made plans, and were roaming based on a 2007 guide book we found in our apartment. We walked the backstreets, and went into the residential areas, passing homes lined with "terzi" flags. We finally came across a small church and sat outside of it, drinking Coca-Light and sitting in the shade (something that was extremely refreshing in the 90 degree weather).

going back.

We made our way back to the bus station after a long day; and just as we arrived it started to rain cats and dogs. After having taken the number 10 bus into the city center, we hopped back on the 10 bus to get back to the train station. We realized something wasn't right when we had been on the bus for 20 minutes (the ride into the city was 5 minutes) and we saw a sign that said Siena with a big red "x" through it, clearly indicating that we had left.

We were taken to the outskirts of the city, and into residential Tuscany. Clearly on the wrong bus, I ran over to an older woman sitting down, and scrambled to find the proper way to ask her if the bus was going to the train station....she told me that we were headed towards some church and that we had gotten on the wrong bus, and that the 3 and 9 lines went to the train station. After the bus dropped the passengers off at the church it turned around to head back....along the way we saw a sign for a 9 bus and hopped off the 10, hoping that by catching the 9 we would get to the train station. We waited 40 minutes for the 9 bus to arrive (there were two 9 bus stops, one on each side of the road, but I had asked a man passing which one would get us to the train station and he had confirmed it was the stop we were standing at)....after boarding the 9 when it finally arrived, it turned around and started to head BACK out into rural Tuscany, further than where we had been previously on the 10. Finally when we were the last ones on the bus, the driver stopped the bus and told us to get off...confused and clearly overwhelmed my roommates and I all looked at each other hoping to magically apparate into the trainstation. I ran up to the front of the bus and started to speak to the bus driver who spoke ZERO english. I explained to him what had happened, and that we wanted to get to the train station....he spoke so quickly, so I only got about 75% of what he said...but i worked my charm and had him drive us to the proper bus stop, one that WOULD get us back to the train station. So we sat at yet another bus stop...this time a 10 (again)....and as the sun continued to set, we continued to wait for the bus to arrive and take us back. Finally when it the bus did arrive, we threw ourselves into our seats...our bus tickets had expired well over an hour before, but we didn't care....25 minutes later we were BACK IN THE CITY CENTER, RIGHT WHERE WE STARTED; but just as the bus driver had promised the bus did eventually did drop us off at the train station.

We bought our train tickets, got them validated and waited for our train to arrive....which, when it did all I could do was laugh. There was one.single.car sitting on the track, approximately the size, shape and color of a Volkswagon van....confused, and amused, we boarded the train, found seats and closed our eyes.

a good day for all.