Feast of St. Lucia, the MOSE, the Port, and Paolo

Pictures: Christmas trees for sale on the side of the canal; the outdoor sale; inside the Miracoli; the cruise ship in progress; one of the massive cranes at the port; the MOSE-not much to see, that's a boat with a crane in the middle there, but under the water is a row of twenty gates that stretch from the bit of land you can see at the left side of the picture to the bit of land you can see at the right side of the picture; us with Paolo, from the left that's Natalie, Stephanie, Lizzie, Paolo, Audrey, Shannon, me, Dane, and Elyse.

Hi guys,

Sunday was the Feast of St. Lucia, or St. Lucy, who is the patron saint of eye problems. A feast day is just simply a day specially dedicated to a certain saint. In this case, the feast day of St. Lucia was important because her tomb is in Venice, in the church of San Geremia, which means St. Jeremiah. So for Mass on Sunday, Lizzie, Shannon, Audrey, and I went to San Geremia. The church was much more crowded than San Marco normally is for Mass, I’m not sure whether it was just because of the feast day or because more normal parishioners attend this church. Either way, it was packed and we ended up having to sit in the very front row. It was a little weird at communion, because the pews were set up so that there was a group in front of the altar, one off to the left side of the altar, and one off to the right side of the altar (we were in the front row of the left side) and at first there was only one priest handing out communion. And instead of lining up neatly as people do in American churches, everyone just stood up in no particular order and started forming a crowd around the priest handing out communion. It was a little crazy and we weren’t quite sure what to do, but luckily a second priest came up fairly quickly and started handing out communion, too, which made things a little less hectic. It was like at the McDonalds in Florence, and so many other places, though, because for whatever reason, Italians just don’t know how to form lines. The music for the Mass was awesome, they had two people playing guitars and singing and all the songs were really pretty. After Mass, we joined the line of people in the church and got to go around and touch St. Lucy’s tomb, which was pretty awesome.

After leaving the church, we wandered down Strada Nuova, which is one of the main shopping streets in Venice. We eventually came to this great outdoor sale, almost like a rummage sale or a really, really nice garage sale, going on and we did some looking around and shopping there. There were some cool things, including a lot of antiques, such as these neat opera glasses that Audrey was interested in until she asked the guy what the price was and he told her they were 100 euros, which is about $150 (quite a bit more than she was looking to spend on them) and then some more modern stuff too; for example, I saw DVDs of the original Star Wars trilogy in Italian.

On our way back to the boat stop from this sale, Shannon and I stopped and went into the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli (which means St. Mary of Miracles), which is a very pretty, quite small church that is almost hidden down a street. The inside was beautiful, though, my second favorite after Saint Anastasia’s church in Verona. The marble on the outside is continued on the inside and so instead of the frescoes or mosaics in many other churches, you can just see the beautiful marble, it’s not even covered up by paintings. The ceiling was also neat because it looked like big, carved wooden blocks with gold around them. I liked the Miracoli because the church was simple but elegant, a rarity in Venice, and in Italy in general.

Monday was really enjoyable. We took a boat tour of the port of Venice and then went out to where the MOSE project is being built. The MOSE project is supposed to keep the acqua altas, the high waters that flood Venice, from happening. It’s really cool how it’s designed: basically, there are these massive metal doors under the water and when the water level is dangerously high, the doors are inflated with air and they rise up to the surface, holding the water back. Then, when the water level drops, the doors are filled up with water and they sink back down again. Unfortunately, because all the good stuff is underwater, there wasn’t much to see when we went out to where they’re building the MOSE, but there were still cranes and things and it was still great to learn about the project. Plus, the water was much choppier out there and since our boat had picked up some speed because we were outside of the city, we were actually airborne over the waves a couple of times, which was awesome.

The port was much more interesting than I’d expected it to be. We got to see where all of the goods get unloaded from the ships that bring them in and saw coal being unloaded from a ship, plus we saw the massive cranes that are used to unload the ships. The port also has the largest silos in Europe, which are used for storing various goods. The best bit, though, was getting to see where they actually build cruise ships, two are being built there right now, our boat went right around them so we could see. One looked pretty much finished, but the other was clearly still in the process of being constructed, there were workers on it who looked like they were welding and doing other jobs. That was exciting to see, especially because apparently the port of Venice is one of the very few places in Europe where cruise ships are constructed. So the boat tour was definitely a good time.

Then, Monday night, we met Paolo, our Italian professor, for drinks and to get our certificates saying that we successfully completed our Italian course. It was very nice to get to chat with Paolo again; we haven’t seen him in a few weeks since we finished Italian class. He told us that he had really enjoyed our class, and that he didn’t tell everyone that, and then, as surprises for us, he gave each of us a special coin that the Dante Alighieri Institute made. The coin is actually based on one that the doge used to have minted and apparently the Dante Alighieri Institute “borrowed” a replica stamp which made doge coins from the Venetian library and, without anyone knowing, made a bunch of these coins and then returned the stamp to the library. So our coins are actually pretty rare, because the Dante Alighieri Institute only made so many of them; it’s a really awesome gift. Drinks with Paolo was a nice way to finish the day.

Oh, I almost forgot to add that there was actually snow in the air yesterday! Yesterday morning, as we were waiting for our boat for the tour to pick us up, it was flurrying just a little bit. Apparently snow in Venice is a really rare thing, so I was excited that we got to see it.

Sunday and Monday were a good way to start off my last week in Venice...just three more days left in Venice, I can’t even believe it, and then early Saturday morning I’ll be leaving to fly home!

Ciao,
Maria

Naples and Pompeii

Pictures: Group picture when we first got to Pompeii, from left, me, Shannon, Sara, Natalie, Audrey, Caylen, and Dane. Then the main open square with ruins and Mount Vesuvius. One of the bodies. Some of the napping dogs. One of the roads through Pompeii. Some more ruins with Vesuvius in the background again. A random shot of the ruins. One of the frescoes. Pompeii with the mountains behind it. Sara, Audrey, and me in the amphitheater in Pompeii.
Hi all,

First of all, thank you everyone for my card! I finally got it yesterday and it completely made my day, it was awesome! Also, some business, for whatever reason Blogger has stopped letting me put up videos on my blog, so I’ve put some up on YouTube instead. If you just search “mariasteinmetz” on YouTube it should bring up all my videos. Right now there are four, “Naples Castle”, “The Bells of St. Francis”, “Across the Salute Bridge”, and “The Salute”. So check them out if you get a chance! Also, I have added a countdown clock to the bottom of the blog, right below the new and final poll, “Which is your favorite holiday?” The choices are Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, and Fourth of July. The results from the previous poll, “What’s your favorite book series?” showed that most people prefer the Twilight series, which won with 63%, while Harry Potter came in second with 45%.

Now, moving on, this past weekend I went with Shannon, Sara, Audrey, Caylen, Natalie, and Dane to Naples, Italy, which is in southern Italy, about a ten hour train ride from Venice. We had been warned by several people to be very careful in Naples and not to take anything with us that we really didn’t want stolen. Apparently, the Mafia is big in the city, too, so I was sufficiently nervous about going. However, the city was actually fine, not really any different than any other big city. I’m sure there probably were bad parts, like in any big city, but as we stayed mostly in the historic district, it wasn’t that bad. I was actually more concerned about someone being hit by a car because the drivers were crazy and in many places there weren’t crosswalks. However, we all managed to get out unscathed, and we saw some pretty cool sites. We got completely drenched trying to go to this one castle because it was pouring rain, but the rain had stopped by the time we went to a second castle, so we got some really good pictures of the view and I even took a video, which is now on YouTube. Our hostel, Hostel of the Sun, was cool, too, much nicer than our one in Brindisi; apparently this Naples hostel was voted second in the world in 2006, so that was exciting. Naples is famous for its pizza, so we had to try some of that and it was excellent. Overall, Naples was fun.

However, the main event came the next day because to be perfectly honest, while I’m glad that I enjoyed Naples, I was really just using it (and I think the others were too) as a jumping off point to get to Pompeii. In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted and the city of Pompeii was covered almost immediately in layers of ash and rock. This ash and rock unfortunately very quickly killed all the citizens of Pompeii, but it also perfectly preserved the city exactly as it was that day. So when Pompeii was finally uncovered, it was the best example of what life was like back in the first century AD. I had always wanted to go to Pompeii, but never actually expected that I would get the chance, so I was thrilled when we planned this trip.

We caught a bus in Naples and it ended up being our own private tour bus from Naples to Pompeii because no one else got on, which was pretty sweet. The day was beautiful, the weather was perfect, sunny and warm, but with a bit of wind to keep it from getting hot. We drove along the Mediterranean coast, with Mount Vesuvius on our left. The drive itself was fantastic, up until the driver let us off in what we thought was the middle of nowhere, and he told us to walk two minutes up the road to get to Pompeii. Luckily, his directions were accurate and within a few minutes we walked through the entrance to Pompeii and got our first look at the ruins on the hillside. These were just the tip of the iceberg, though, as we quickly found out after we bought our tickets and went inside. I had always imagined that Pompeii was a pretty small city and I couldn’t understand why Dane’s guidebook said that it would take four hours just to take a cursory look at the city. However, within a few minutes, I understood. The city was massive. We got there at ten in the morning and had to leave at 3:30 to get back to Naples to catch our train back to Venice, so we had a good five hours in Pompeii but it wasn’t nearly enough time to see even half of what was there. We saw a ton of stuff though, including the Roman baths, the amphitheatre, 2000 year old frescoes that are still in great condition, actual bodies of people who died when Vesuvius erupted, and many houses, temples, and shrines. It was, beyond a doubt, my favorite day of this entire trip, which is really saying something. One of the best parts was when Shannon and I went through this gate into this part of the ruins that I’m not entirely sure we were supposed to be in and we were the only people back there. The ruins in that part were almost clichéd because they were overgrown with trees and bushes, they didn’t even have floors anymore, just grass, and they were fantastic. We were running around taking pictures like a couple of little kids in a really awesome playground.

The whole day was pretty much like that. A lot of the time we were literally just lost in the ruins and it was great. The weather was perfect, the view outside of Pompeii was gorgeous, too, because not only was Mount Vesuvius towering over the city, there were mountains all around, and you could also see the Mediterranean Sea from some of the higher parts of the city. The ruins themselves were incredible, too, because they were so well-preserved, and it was amazing to think that I was walking along the same roads that people walked across 2000 years ago. It was just an awesome day.

One cool fact about Pompeii that I didn’t know before I got there was that there are a lot of stray dogs that live in the ruins, we probably saw about twenty while we were there. People can adopt them and pay for them to be taken care of. All the dogs seemed pretty happy, people petted them and brought them food, we saw several just napping in the sun, they seem to have a pretty good life.

Overall, Pompeii was excellent, it was a great last weekend trip. Now it’s all about finishing up my final projects for class and enjoying this last week in Venice. So far, this week in class we went to a night concert Monday in the prisons in the Doge’s Palace, which was really good, then on Tuesday we went to the Ca’ Pesaro modern art museum, which was neat, and today we went to the Peggy Guggenheim modern art museum, which was really cool, there were paintings in there by a lot of famous artists, like Jackson Pollock and Salvador Dali, even a couple of paintings by Picasso, which were of course strange but still awesome. Also, on Monday night, the ten of us went to the Hard Rock Café, partly for Natalie’s birthday and partly just because we are all craving American food. We weren’t disappointed, the food was great, and, naturally, so was the music. Then, last night, since it was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Lizzie and I went to a night Mass at San Marco, which was really beautiful.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to lately. I can’t believe there’s only one week left of this program, it feels like it went by so fast. However, as much as I do love Venice and Italy, I will be glad to be home, too. But there’s still a week left to enjoy Venice and that’s what I’m planning to do. Hope everyone is doing well! It’s almost Christmas!

Ciao,
Maria

Assisi

The first four pictures are all views of Assisi and the surrounding countryside from the tower of the castle, the next one is of the mannequins set up in the dining hall of the castle, after that is a view of the mountains as we were walking up to the castle. Next is the church of St. Francis from the outside, then how it looked on the inside. I know the inside isn’t the best shot, but we weren’t really supposed to take pictures in there so I kind-of had to be sneaky about it. Then, there’s just another shot of Assisi as a whole, followed by the castle we went to earlier, then a shot of the entire city from when we were walking in the countryside, and finally Santa Maria degli Angeli, right at the end of the day at sunset.

Hi guys,

This weekend I went with Lizzie, Shannon, and Dane on a day-trip to the town of Assisi. It’s just about in the very center of Italy, in the region of Umbria. I have to say that this was, so far, absolutely my favorite place in Italy. It was beautiful. The town is in the mountains, it actually sits halfway up one, and the views from the town are beyond spectacular. It was a really enjoyable trip, too, very relaxing, even though we were running around the city all day.

We started off by taking an overnight train from Venice to this tiny town called Cortona, where we switched trains to go the rest of the way to Assisi. Sleeping on the train wasn’t as bad as it was on the trip to Lecce and Brindisi, which was a relief; I think it helped that the trip was only about six hours, rather than twelve. The station in Cortona was a little bit creepy, because it was about 5:30 in the morning and there were only about three other people there, but our train came within an hour, so it was all good.

We got to Assisi at about eight. The train station is in the more modern part of Assisi, which is in the valley between the mountains. We had to take a bus up to the more historic part of Assisi, but first we stopped at Santa Maria degli Angeli (St. Mary of the Angels) which is in the newer part of town. The church was massive, but beautiful. Inside, there was a smaller church built within the bigger one and they were having Mass inside it. The little church wasn’t much bigger than a large toolshed, but apparently it is where St. Francis of Assisi first learned that he was to dedicate his life to God’s work (once more, thanks to Wikipedia!). Outside of the little church, but still within the larger church, was also a small shrine dedicated to St. Francis because it is supposedly where he died.

After leaving Santa Maria degli Angeli, we caught a bus that took us up the mountain and into the heart of Assisi. The bus ride was incredible, because the higher we climbed, the better and better the view got. It was fantastic, especially since it was early enough that there was still mist in the valley and around the mountains, which made for some great pictures. Once we got off the bus, we decided to climb up to Rocca Maggiore, which is a medieval castle that sits up above Assisi. It was a very long climb, up a ton of steps and a pretty steep road, but it was worth it when we got there. The castle itself was pretty cool, though we went through it fairly quickly because we had a lot of other things to see in pretty limited time, but the rooms I went through were really neat. The best was a dining room where a table was set up, plus all these mannequins in medieval costumes, like they were actually having a dinner party. After looking around the castle, we climbed up this narrow, steep, stone staircase to the very top tower. The view was incredible, I could easily have stood there all day and not gotten bored with looking. I took a ton of pictures, too, of course, but they don’t quite do it justice.

After the castle, we headed down to the church of St. Francis, which is situated at one end of the town, with a great wide courtyard in front of it. There were mangers set up, ready for Nativity scenes it looked like, though the actual statues weren’t set up yet. The church itself was very pretty, all white stone. Inside, it was unbelievable. The walls and ceiling were completely covered in brightly covered frescoes, which are paintings made directly onto the walls, instead of onto a canvas, and the windows were all made of stained glass. Then, underneath this main church, was a smaller, older church, also covered in amazing frescoes all over the walls and ceiling; it was incredible. From the lower church, you could then go down even further to the tomb of St. Francis. That was really awesome; again, like with St. Anthony’s tomb in Padua, there was just a sense of holiness and power that hung around the place.

Back outside the church, where we’d all agreed to meet up, there was another great view out over the valley below. Then, because we just happened to be there at noon, the bells of the church started ringing. They were really pretty and it was especially cool because they actually swung back and forth, which not all church bells do anymore. I don’t know how they make sound without swinging in other places, but they do, like in a number of the churches in Venice. So that was a pretty sweet deal.

After leaving the church, we grabbed a quick lunch at a small pizza place. We actually all ended up ordering the same thing, a slice of pizza with ham and artichokes on top, it might not sound like it would be good, but it was wonderful. Then, we headed over to the church of St. Clare, only to find out that it had closed at twelve and would not reopen until two. So, after a very brief peek into Santa Maria Maggiore church, we decided to split up for a bit, so Dane went back up to the castle while Lizzie, Shannon, and I went shopping. Most of the stores were pretty similar to ones in Venice, but one that was really cool was a store that embroidered your name, or whatever you wanted, onto aprons, towels, keychains, or whatever for you. This sounds semi-boring, I know, but the way they did it was what was cool. It was on a sewing machine and completely freehand, but they were so fast that it was incredible. There was a lady sitting outside the shop with a sewing machine who offered to do each of our names on just a piece of scrap material for free, so we all did that, which was cool, and then Shannon ended up buying a keychain for a friend of hers because she was so impressed and liked it.

We met back up and went into St. Clare’s church. It was pretty, but many of the frescoes had disappeared from the walls because they don’t hold up well to moisture. We also went into St. Clare’s tomb, which was also very cool.

After we left St. Clare’s, we decided to find one last church, San Damiano, which was a little ways outside of the main city. However, it was very pretty to walk too, down this gravel path through olive groves, with the mountains behind us and several parasailers in the sky above them. The church itself was very tiny, but pretty, and, because it is also a convent, used to be the home of St. Clare, long ago.

We left the church after a quick walkthrough and because we did not want to go back the way we had come, because it was all pretty steeply uphill and we were tired, we opted to follow a road which we thought led to a bus stop outside the city walls and which ran downhill. The walk was a lot of fun, especially at the beginning, because we were just wandering down a road in the middle of the Italian countryside, not exactly sure where we were going, but that was part of the fun. The fields around us were empty this time of year, but apparently in summer they are filled with sunflowers, which must be just amazing to see.

Eventually, we did start to get a little concerned, not because there was anything creepy about where we were walking, just because we only had about an hour and a half or so to get back to the train station and we weren’t sure we could get there in time. Luckily, about ten minutes after we realized this, we got back to a main road and a bus stop, where we only had to wait about another ten minutes before a bus came that we took directly to the train station. However, Lizzie wanted to go back to Santa Maria degli Angeli because she wanted to get a gift for someone from the stand there and since we thought it was the next stop on the bus, we all stayed on. But then, the bus turned in the complete opposite direction, back out into the countryside, and we all panicked, because now we only had an hour left until our train was leaving. I hit the button on the bus to get off at the next stop, but the bus kept going and the next stop was way too far out to walk back from. When I asked the driver, he said that the bus did in fact go back to Santa Maria degli Angeli (which was within three blocks of the train station), but what we didn’t know was when it went back there. As it turned out, the bus was on a loop, so we went all the way out into the countryside, but then back and got dropped off right outside Santa Maria degli Angeli about fifteen minutes after we left the train station. As you can imagine, we were just as relieved to get off the bus as we had been to get on it.

We managed to catch our train, no problem, which took us to Florence, where we had about an hour to wait before our train was leaving for Venice, so we got dinner at the McDonalds in the train station. I have to admit, one reason I will be glad to come back to the US is that at least people know how to make a line in the US. In Italy, everyone just kind of makes a massive crowd around the counter and whoever can shove through and up to the front first gets to order. So just because you’ve been standing there longer than someone else does not mean that you will get to order before them. It’s a bit chaotic. We all did eventually manage to get our food, though, and had plenty of time to eat before our train. I was pretty excited about this train because it was a Eurostar train, which are nicer and make less stops so they’re faster than the regional trains we’ve been riding most of the time. So the train ride back was fun, it made for a good end to the day.

So that’s all for now. I hope everyone has a good week this week! Keep leaving comments, I love hearing from you all!

Ciao,
Maria : )

Thanksgiving

Hi all,

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful day, with plenty of food involved. Thanksgiving here was definitely a very different experience, as you can imagine. The weirdest bit was that no one but us was celebrating the holiday (since it’s an American holiday), which made it feel much less like Thanksgiving. However, it was still a pretty fun day.

We met up with our professors at about 2:00 for a surprise, which turned out to be a tour of the clock tower that stands in Piazza San Marco. Only half the group could go up at a time, though, so the other half of us (Lizzie, Shannon, Caylen, Sara, Emily our professor, Chris who works for Purdue and was visiting this week, and me) went over to the Correr Museum, which has some really great artworks and statues, while the first group was in the tower. Then, after an hour, we switched off and we went up the tower while they all went to the museum.

The clock tower may be my favorite thing that we’ve done so far in Venice. It was so cool, partially because it was completely different from anything else we’ve done. Our guide, Elena, was great too, she was really enthusiastic. She told us about the history of the clock tower, how one family had lived in and run the clock tower for about three centuries, until 1998 when the last member was asked to move out so that the tower could be restored and opened to the public. It was so cool inside because we got to see all the inner workings of the clock, plus we got to watch from the inside when the minutes changed, it looked like the wheel on Wheel of Fortune to be honest. Then, we got to go outside on the balcony and look out over the square and because it was on the hour, we got to see the clock strike four. This was the coolest part because on the very top of the clock are the statues of two men, each holding a hammer and they actually move and swing their hammers and strike the bell on the hour, since it was four o’clock they each rang the bell four times, the guy on the right hit the bell two minutes before four, the guy on the left hit it four times right at four.

After they were finished striking the hour, we could go up to the very top of the tower, where the bell and the statues are. This was really awesome, but scary too, because the roof was a bit slanted and the railing was quite low, plus the roof was damp because it was drizzling. The view was amazing and Elena our guide was telling us more about the bell and the figures, which was cool, but I was still glad to go back down the spiral staircase into the building. Like I said, though, it was totally worth it because the view was incredible, every roof was red-tiled and the walkways and canals are so narrow that it just looks like nothing but roofs stretching out until the water, except for the churches and belltowers that are scattered throughout the city. This view was only second in coolness, though, to the view on Monday when, instead of class, Emily our professor took us all up to the top of the belltower that stands in Piazza San Marco, the tallest in the city. The view from there was incredible, you could see all of Venice laid out, and it was so much cooler doing it towards the end of the semester than if we’d done it earlier because now we all knew where things were and what we were looking at, so it was really fantastic. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera yesterday for the clocktower, but I did take plenty of pictures from the belltower, so I’ll be putting some of those up.

After the clock tower, we all met up again and went to the church of Giovanni e Paolo, which means John and Paul. It was amazing because it was so massive, easily the biggest church we’ve seen in Venice. And because it was a gloomy day, and getting later, it was pretty dark in there, there weren’t many lights on, but that made it seem even bigger and the effect was actually pretty cool. We didn’t stay too long in the church though, and then it was on to dinner.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner at this place called an osteria, which is basically a very small, bar-like restaurant, which doesn’t really serve plates of food so much as just lots of appetizers. The first three dishes we got were all fish dishes, sardines with sauerkraut, baccala which is a kind of fish paste you eat on bread, and shrimp and some other fish thing on a plate together. I don’t like fish, so this was a bit of a problem, but luckily I was sitting at a table with Elyse, who is a vegetarian, so they brought out a platter of cheese and another of vegetables and she, Lizzie, Stephanie, and I all split that, since they don’t like fish either. We gave our fish dishes to Dane, Caylen, Audrey, and Chris from Purdue at the table next to us. The cheese and vegetables were really good, we had plenty of bread so we just made some little sandwiches. Then, after this course was over, they brought out several trays of meat. It was all very red, though, and while I did try several pieces, I was not a big fan, so went back to the remaining cheese and veggies. Then, at the very end, they did bring out desserts, and those were excellent, I split a piece of a chocolate cake roll with Lizzie and Elyse, and also had this little creamy cake thing which was very good. The best part of the dinner, though, was when Catherine, who also works at Purdue and was visiting this week, came around to the tables and gave each of us a goody bag with American candy and things in it, a card from herself and Chris, and, best of all, a card for each of us from our families. I have to say that getting the Thanksgiving card from my family was definitely the best part of my day, it even beat the clock tower.

After dinner was over, seven of us needed to go to the train station, so we headed that direction with Shannon’s parents, who have been here this week, and actually ended up stopping at the McDonalds in Venice. Lizzie, Shannon, Shannon’s mom, and I all actually got Happy Meals because it’s the best deal and I got an R2D2 toy which I’m pretty excited about. So that was fun, too. Then, after McDonalds, we said good-bye to Shannon’s parents, who were going back to their apartment, went to the train station where Elyse and Stephanie were getting on a train on their way to Switzerland, while Caylen was looking up trains to Bologna, and Lizzie, Shannon, Dane, and I were getting tickets to Assisi. We’re actually leaving tonight at about 11:30, it’s an overnight train, but I’m pretty excited, the city is supposed to be beautiful. Then, after the train station, we came back to San Servolo, played Apples to Apples for awhile, then I talked to my family and after that it was time for bed.

This was definitely the strangest Thanksgiving I have ever had, by far, but it was also a surprisingly good one. I definitely missed my family and seeing everyone at Thanksgiving dinner, but it was nevertheless a good day, even if there was no pumpkin pie. I hope everyone else had a good Thanksgiving and, because I didn’t get a chance to say it yesterday, I would just like to take a moment to say that I am grateful for my family, my friends, the opportunity I have to be here in Venice, and for all of you who are reading this blog. Happy Thanksgiving!

Ciao,
Maria

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." ~Thornton Wilder

"Remember God's bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!" ~Henry Ward Beecher

Quick Notes on Last Weekend

The pictures are of our class at the top of the campanile, the Salute festival bridge, one of the stands at the Salute festival, the view from the top of the campanile, the mosaics behind the altar in the old church in Ravenna, all of us on the carousel in Ravenna, and Dante's tomb in Ravenna (you can see our guide at the bottom, with her back to the tomb)

Hi guys,

Before I post my Thanksgiving blog, I just wanted to add a few quick sentences about last weekend.

I went with Elyse and Audrey to the feast of the Salute, which is a Venetian celebration at the church of Santa Maria della Salute, where they celebrate Venice being released from the plague about five hundred years ago. They also build a special bridge across the Grand Canal, that's only up for a few days, just for the celebration. We met our Italian professor, Paolo, there, and got to meet his daughter Sylvia. Then, after we left the church, we went down this street where all these stands were set up, selling balloons and any kind of candy or treat you could possibly think of, the only thing I can compare it to is Honeydukes in the Harry Potter books, it was insane. The three of us got some really good candy-apples there and then went to the Arsenale, which is a part of the Biennale art exhibition. It was really cool, there was modern art there from all over the world. Some of it was very strange, but most of it was cool.

Then, on Sunday, Elyse, Audrey, Sara, and I all went to a soccer game. I have to admit that I was a little nervous because I've heard about soccer fans in Europe getting crazy, but it wasn't that bad, no different, really, than a sporting event at home. It was still pretty cool, though, the fans were definitely very enthusiastic, and Venice ended up winning 2-1, so it was actually an exciting game to watch.

Monday we went as a class up the campanile (bell tower) in Piazza San Marco, which was absolutely incredible because the view was amazing, you could see all of Venice and if it had been a clear day I'm sure we could have seen the mountains.

Tuesday we had another day trip, this time to Ravenna, which is south of Venice, the bus ride was about two and a half hours, not too bad. Our tour guide was completely crazy, but the city was cool, we saw some neat mosaics, plus how they were made, Dante's tomb (he wrote Dante's Inferno), then also an old church that dates back to about the 6th century. So that was definitely cool. Oh, and there was also a carousel right in the town square, which we all got on, even though it wasn't actually open.

So, overall, a pretty cool weekend and week. Then, yesterday was of course Thanksgiving, so I'll have a post up about that very shortly. Hope everyone is having a great day!

Ciao,
Maria

Southern Italy Part 2: Brindisi

Pictures: The tower we climbed; the Brindisi Appian Way column and the pedestal where the Lecce column used to stand; the outside of the cathedral, with its bell tower (campanile); the ancient gate into the city; and Audrey and Natalie in our hostel.

Hi guys,

Sorry it took me a few days longer than I had planned, but here is the second and last part of my trip to Southern Italy last weekend. When we got to Brindisi, we wanted to go straight to our hostel, but the problem was that none of us had written down the address of the place. Apparently we had all assumed that someone else had brought it along. Oops. After stopping and asking several people, who gave us conflicting advice, we finally stumbled into a tabaccheria, which is just a small shop that sells everything from candy to bus tickets. Luckily, the man working in there spoke pretty good English, so he was able to help us out by taking us next door to the travel agency there, where a very nice woman looked up the address of our hostel and gave us directions to get to the bus that would take us there. We had to wait about forty-five minutes for the bus, but it finally came and took us to our hostel. It was a bit of a scary ride, though, because we went through what seemed like some pretty sketchy parts of the city, including one place where we saw a fire burning in the middle of a parking lot, with no one around. We finally got to our hostel though.

For anyone who may not know, hostels are where people traveling around Europe on a budget stay. I think there are some hostels in America, but they are just not as popular. Of course, in the United States, you can get a hotel room pretty cheap, whereas hotels in Europe can be pretty pricy. So, the alternative is a hostel. They are usually pretty clean and nice, but you sleep in dorms instead of in a private room, except for some where you can pay extra for a private room, and it is much less formal than a hotel. For instance, in our hostel, there were three dogs that belonged to the owners running around, which of course would not be the case in a Holiday Inn or something. The people who worked there were all very nice, though. The next morning, they gave us tons of information about where to go in Brindisi and what was best to see and told us a great place to go for lunch. In our room, there were four sets of bunk beds and one of the beds was occupied by one of the ladies that worked there; she was actually, she told us, from Austria, she was just living in Italy for awhile and working at this hostel. Another girl who worked there was from New Zealand and had apparently dropped out of school to travel around Europe and was now working at the hostel as well. The dorms for boys and girls were separated, so Dane was in a different room than Natalie, Audrey, and I. He ended up sharing a dorm, though, with a guy we met named Brandon who goes to the University of Connecticut and is also studying in Italy, somewhere north of Venice. Overall, the hostel was pretty cool, but I think ultimately I’m still partial to American hotels.

The next day, armed with the information from the people who ran our hostel, we started by going to a tower not far from the hostel, which you can climb to have an amazing view over Brindisi, the port, and the Adriatic Sea. The weather was absolutely perfect, sunny, breezy, and warm. We stayed up on the tower for quite awhile, just looking around and enjoying the fact that we didn’t have to be in a hurry to be anywhere.

After the tower, we took a ferry over to the main part of Brindisi and climbed the steps towards where the other column that marked the end of the Appian Way stands, as well as the base of the column that is now in Lecce. For some reason, this column seemed much bigger than the Lecce column. It was really awesome, though, and again, we hung around there for awhile, just chatting and enjoying that we had time to just sit and enjoy the columns and the city around them, without having to be in a rush to get anywhere.

When we finally did start moving again, we made our way to the main church in Brindisi, La Cattedrale di Brindisi (the Cathedral of Brindisi), also known as the Basilica di San Giovanni Battista (which translates to the Basilica of St. John the Baptist). The church itself was quite beautiful on the inside. The neatest object in it, though, was the skeleton of San Teodoro, which was in a little chapel of its own, in a glass coffin, clearly visible. There are relics (bones, typically) of saints all across Europe, including in Venice, but this was the first full skeleton I have ever seen. That was definitely pretty cool. Apparently, San Teodoro, along with St. Lawrence, is the patron saint of Brindisi (all church information is thanks to www.brindisiweb.com).

After leaving the church, we went to get lunch at the restaurant recommended to us by the guy who ran our hostel. According to him, the owner of the restaurant used to work at one of the best restaurants in Brindisi, but decided to quit there and open his own restaurant instead. It was interesting inside, because it was set up kind of like a cafeteria: everyone got their tray, went through the line and said what they wanted, then paid at the end of the line. The food was delicious, some of the best lasagna I’ve ever had, plus really good spinach and these sausage things that were excellent.

After lunch, we still had about seven hours until our train left, so we wandered around the city a little more. We went to a bridge which used to be one of the old gates into the city. You can still see the crevices down the sides where they used to pour boiling oil on people trying to attack the city. The street that led to this gate was cool, also, because it was literally lined with orange trees. After the gate, we walked to the castle that is in Brindisi. It was really fantastic from the outside, it looked exactly like a medieval castle from a movie. Unfortunately, because it is now used as a naval base, we couldn’t go inside, in fact, Natalie got yelled at by a guard for trying to take a picture through the gate. So we just hung around outside it for awhile, then moved on.

We wandered down a few streets, with no particular purpose in mind and ended up stumbling upon a really great World War memorial, I’m not sure if it was from WWI or WWII. It was a beautiful fountain, very simple, but lovely, with a wide walkway in a tree-lined square that led up to it. On the other side of the memorial, across a small street, was a wall that looked out across the bay or port, where the sun was setting. We all sat on top of the wall and Natalie realized that we were actually sitting on top of a waterfall fountain, which was pretty cool. So we hung out there for awhile until it started to get dark. Then, we headed back to the center of town, grabbed dinner at a bar/restaurant place, and then made our way back to the train station.

We ended up sitting at the station for about two hours and then we had to stand on the platform for another hour or so because our train was an hour late. However, we finally did get on board and luckily there was only one other person in our compartment this time, so we had some extra room to stretch out on the ride back, which was nice. We actually had to change trains in Bologna at about 7:30 in the morning. The other three decided to stay in Bologna for a couple of hours, but I was pretty exhausted by that point, so I decided to just catch a 7:50 train back to Venice. It was actually kind-of cool, riding a train across part of Italy by myself, and the view out of the windows was gorgeous, the train passed through some really hilly countryside and quite a few small, very pretty towns. I got back to Venice in time to go to lunch on San Servolo, where I met up with Caylen, who had opted to stay in Venice for the weekend. After lunch, I had a good long nap and then did some homework, to try and get back into my routine for the week. Overall, it was a really awesome weekend. It was nice to get out of the city and go someplace else in Italy, but it was also nice to come back to Venice at the end of the weekend.

So, that was my weekend in Southern Italy. This weekend has been pretty cool, too, so I’ll have something up about it in the next day or two, hopefully. Until then, hope everyone is having a nice weekend! Keep leaving comments!

Ciao,
Maria

Southern Italy Part 1: Lecce

Hi all,

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get this post up, this week has been really busy with class work, I’ve hardly had a chance to catch my breath. But, the post is up now and, fingers crossed, the next installment should be up sometime tomorrow evening. There’s a lot to talk about this week, so I’ll just jump right in here. Let me just start by saying that because it was a busy weekend and I don’t want this blog post to go on forever (plus it’s a really slow week here, in the classroom all week), I’m going to do the write up about this weekend in installments over the next couple of days. Now, on to southern Italy! This weekend, I went with Dane, Natalie, and Audrey to southern Italy, to the towns of Lecce and Brindisi, in the “heel of the boot” that is Italy.

Because Venice is in the very northern part of Italy, about as far from Lecce, the first city we went to, as you could get, we took an overnight train to save time. The journey took twelve hours. We left about nine o’clock on Thursday night from Venice and arrived in Lecce at just after nine the next morning. We opted not to get beds on the train because it was so much cheaper to just get a seat, but this was not the most comfortable choice, though still better than an airplane. It was interesting because there were only four of us traveling together and the compartment, which looked just like the ones in the Harry Potter movies, was for six people, so there were two strangers in the compartment with us. They seemed pretty nice, but because they did not seem to speak English, and our Italian isn’t that good, we really didn’t talk to them much. It was kind of a long night, partly because the conductor came in at 3:30 in the morning to check our tickets. However, waking up to the sight of fields of olive trees on one side and the ocean on the other side definitely made up for it. Plus, the weather was beautiful, sunny and warm enough for a t-shirt, we couldn’t have asked for better.

We didn’t have a particular plan in mind when we got off of the train, so Dane and Audrey bought a map from the store in the train station and we saw that the center of town had the Roman theater and the famous column we had heard about, so we headed in that direction. On the way we came across a gelateria (a shop where you buy gelato) where you could get three scoops for only one euro and fifty cents, which is a great deal, since usually in Venice one scoop is one euro and twenty cents. So, naturally, we all got some gelato, which was excellent. Something fun, outside the store was a machine like the ones you can get bouncy balls or candy out of. However, instead of any of the normal things, it had full-size Rubix cubes in it! Then, on the other side of the door was another machine with little Rubix cubes in it. It was pretty cool.

Gelato in hand, we continued on up the street and went into what apparently is the main church in Lecce, the Duomo di Lecce. It was very pretty on the inside, it had beautiful stained glass windows all around it, which is actually something that seems to be somewhat rarer in Italy than it is in the US. In Venice, especially, churches very rarely have any stained glass, so the windows in the Duomo in Lecce were a pleasant surprise.

After leaving the church, we headed up the main road which led directly into the city center. In the center of the city were the ruins of an ancient Roman theater, which were spectacular. It was awesome, too, because the ruins were just in the center of town, right in the middle of the more modern buildings, like they were no big deal. Next to the ruins was one of the massive columns that originally marked the end of the Appian Way in Brindisi. The Appian Way was an ancient Roman road that ran from Brindisi to Rome, way back when, and was one of the most important roads of its time (once again, thank you Wikipedia!). The two columns used to mark the beginning, or end, of the road in Brindisi, however, after one of the columns was struck by lightning and fell over, it was left to lay for about a century, until the people of Lecce claimed it and re-erected it in their own city. So now, the second column is in Lecce, while its original pedestal, as well as the first column, still stand in Brindisi. We saw both, but I’ll talk more about that when I get to Brindisi in a day or two. The column was definitely cool, though, it was huge, and made of this really pretty blue and white marble. There were also iron bands around it, presumably to keep it together.

We stayed on the square, just hanging out and enjoying the nice weather for quite awhile, partly because Dane was going to different banks trying to cash his traveler’s checks, which apparently was quite an ordeal. However, it left Audrey, Natalie, and me with plenty of time to just relax and enjoy Lecce. We went into a bookstore across the square from the theater. It was pretty neat, I saw the Harry Potter series in Italian. The entire book store was cool, there was even a small section at the front that had books in English, French, and Spanish as well. It was definitely weird, though, to see the names of American authors like Stephen King and Dan Brown on the covers of books with Italian titles because they were translations. Lecce was full of bookstores, too, there was literally at least one on every street, and sometimes two. This was fine by me, of course, because I love bookstores. And it was just cool to go into these stores and see the Italian versions of some of my favorite books.

After leaving the square, we just wandered down a few streets and came out near a small street sale that was going on. There were tents set up along this street, selling clothes, purses, CDs, DVDs, and books. We went to one stand that was selling all sorts of CDs, DVDs, and books and I actually ended up finding Italian versions of some of the Baby-sitters Club books (Il Club delle baby-sitter), so, naturally, I bought one, “Kristy e la festa della mamma,” which, after looking it up on Amazon, means, “Kristy and the Mother’s Day Surprise”, but which literally translates to “Kristy and the festivity of the mother.” What I especially enjoyed was bargaining with the man who ran the stand until I ended up getting the book for half price, which is definitely something you can’t usually do in the US.

We had lunch in a panini shop that was basically the Italian equivalent of Subway, but better because the bread was better, it was very crunchy and just had more flavor. Then, we walked through a beautiful park with palm trees where we would normally have oak trees and over to another church, Santa Croce, which had a crazy awesome façade, covered in statues including one of a dragon and one of a phoenix, it really looked like a wedding cake. On the way over there, too, we passed by an elementary school, where some kids yelled out of the window at us. I couldn’t tell if they were being friendly or mean, but we waved back anyway and said “Ciao!”
On the way back to the train station to catch our train to Brindisi, where our hostel for the night was, we stopped in for a bit at the archaeological museum, which apparently must be pretty new because half of the exhibits weren’t set up yet. There were masterpiece paintings in there just sitting on the floor and leaning up against the wall. It was a bit strange, but the place was still pretty cool, there were some really awesome ancient pieces of pottery, like water jugs and bowls, plus a few old instruments like lyres.

After the archaeological museum it was time to hop on our train and head to Brindisi, the next stop on our trip. And that it what I will talk about hopefully tomorrow, since this post is plenty long enough.

Ciao,
Maria : )

San Marco at Night

Hi guys,

So, another somewhat slow week, a lot of time spent in the classroom during the day, but we did do two really cool things outside of class time, at night. On Monday night, we went to a concert at a church near San Marco. The music was really beautiful, it was all opera music, which I honestly didn’t think I was going to like, but the concert was wonderful. There was a cello player, a viola player, two violinists, a pianist, and two singers, a man and a woman. The singers were great and what they could do with their voices was amazing. I also loved watching the violinists playing, since I used to play the violin myself, their playing was incredible. After the concert, we all went to a cafe for a cup of coffee, since we had some time before our vaporetto. It was a really enjoyable night.

Even better than the concert, though, was getting to go into San Marco’s Basilica at night for a special tour with the Venice International University students. Our tour guide was the same one we had when we went into the Doge’s Palace a few weeks ago, and she did a really good job. The best part was right at the very beginning, because after we had looked at the mosaics in the entrance hall for a minute, we all went in and sat down and then the few lights that had been on all suddenly went off. It was actually surprisingly peaceful to just sit for a minute in the church with all the lights off. Then, however, they began to turn the lights back on, but very slowly and in a certain order, so that it got steadily brighter, lighting up the mosaics. It was gorgeous. I think I’ve mentioned before in this blog that the walls of San Marco are completely covered in gold mosaics and the way that they slowly came into view out of the dark church as the lights came up was just stunning, really breathtaking.

After we watched the lights come on and had a minute to just take in the mosaics on the walls, our tour guide led us up near the altar. Under the altar is a stone coffin which holds the bones of St. Mark, who wrote the Gospel of Mark, and who is the patron saint of Venice, and after whom the church is named. That was pretty amazing, to be standing that close to the bones of one of the Gospel writers.

Moving around the altar, we got to see the altarpiece which was originally designed for the church but is now only used during Lent apparently. It was unbelievable. It was completely gold and absolutely encrusted in jewels. Apparently there are literally thousands of jewels and pearls covering the surface, which seems about right. It’s massive, too, something like ten feet by six feet. It was really beautiful, naturally, the jewels and the gold sparkled in the lights. The pictures on the altarpiece, depicting scenes from the life of Christ and the life of St. Mark, plus some pictures of other random people, were also cool and very old.
After we got a good look at the altarpiece, we headed down into the crypts beneath the church. Though they weren’t nearly as creepy as I was hoping they would be, they were still pretty cool. The ceiling was very low and there was definitely a cave-like feel to the place. According to our tour guide, some people actually get married down there. It smelled a little weird, but apparently that was because of the chemicals used in the walls to keep the water out, because the crypts are about two feet below the water level.

You weren’t supposed to take pictures in the church, but I did manage to snap a few because I wanted to be able to put them on my blog. They’re not the best quality because I was trying to be sneaky about it, just holding my camera at my side, but at least you all can get an idea of how awesome the mosaics are, plus see the crypt a bit.

I suppose that’s all for now. I have to finish getting packed for Brindisi and Lecce this weekend, Dane, Natalie, Audrey, and I are taking an overnight train tonight, so we’ll get to Lecce about nine in the morning tomorrow, then we won’t be back in Venice until Sunday. I’ll have a blog up about the trip soon after that. Have a great weekend everybody!

Ciao,
Maria