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

A Few Fun Things About Italian Culture

Hi guys,

Sorry I haven't posted much lately, we had a pretty slow week last week, mostly just classroom stuff, which would not be a whole lot of fun to write about or to read about. However, this weekend, I did take a nice walk down the front, which is the long path that follows along the edge of the lagoon. It's a really pretty walk, especially since it was a nice day. The only drawback was all the "purse guys" who were out. These are the guys who line the street, selling sunglasses, camera tripods, weird little dolls, and, of course, purses to tourists walking down the street. They're a bit annoying, because they try to talk to you to get you to stop and buy something, which would be fine if they weren't a little creepy about the way they approach you. What's really interesting, though, is watching the police, the carabinieri, pull up in their boat and then all the purse guys grab up their stuff and run. Apparently, this is because the items they are selling are not taxed properly, so it's kind of illegal. However, the carabinieri don't try to hard to catch them, they mostly just scare them away, wander around for about fifteen minutes, then get back in their boat and head off. About ten minutes after that, the purse guys have all set up shop again.

Another fun fact about Italian culture, a lot of the shops and some of the restaurants close down in the afternoon, usually somewhere between noon and five, so that people can go home for lunch and spend some time with their families. I believe kids in school also get an extra long lunch break, like an hour or two, for the same reason, so that they can go home for a family meal. Even though it can be a little inconvenient at times, like when you want to go to a certain store, still, I think it's a pretty nice custom.

Something else different in Italian culture, they don't say "texting" they call it sending an "SMS" which is actually an English abbreviation for "Short Message Service." Also, the @ symbol in an e-mail address is not called "at" it is called "chiocciola" (pronounced "key-o-cho-la"), which means "snail." Our Italian professor, Paolo, told us about both of these today in class.

Another fun fact, when Audrey and I went to the beach on the Lido the other day (it was just us because everyone else was going either to Florence or Munich for the weekend), there were actually some people in the water, even though it was November 5th and a bit chilly. We only went because I was talking about the beach for a paper for class, so I got some pictures, plus a video of the waves, just for fun, and we found some really pretty shells. I added the video to the bottom of this blog, it really just looks like any ocean, but I just think it's cool because it's the Adriatic Sea which, like I've mentioned before, continues down the coast of Italy on one side and part of Eastern Europe to Greece on the other and then empties into the Mediterranean Sea.

I'm not sure if I've talked about them before, but there are four cats that live on San Servolo, which people in our group have named Casanova, The Doge, St. Mark the Fluffy, and Ciao. They're always trying to come in the cafeteria and in the dorms, and actually, Caylen and Audrey have let Casanova into their room before, which apparently he enjoys. The cats also love table scraps, which Caylen makes sure to give them plenty of. I finally got pictures of them the other day, because I happened to have my camera on me when I was going to lunch the other day. The black one is Casanova, the skinny gray one is The Doge, and the fluffier gray on is St. Mark the Fluffy. I didn't get a picture of Ciao, though, because he prefers to stay on the other side of the island, near the cafe, rather than the cafeteria.

Finally, I only just realized the other day, that I don't think I've mentioned the fact that on days when the weather is nice, not cloudy and rainy, you can see the Alps behind Venice. There was one day last week when, right after it had rained and the clouds had gone away, the air was so nice and clean that the mountains showed up more clearly than they ever had before. They looked so close that it seemed, if you were only on the other side of the city, you could touch them. Naturally, this was the one day when I didn't have my camera on me. However, I've gotten pictures of them on other days when they've shown up, so I've added a couple of those here. In one, you can see a plane coming in to land at the Venice airport. I just think it's so interesting, though, because I know I never pictured Venice with mountains behind it, and it's hardly ever shown with the mountains in the background. I'm not sure why this is, because it's really beautiful to see.

So, I think that's all for now, I will probably have another post up this week after our night tour of the Basilica di San Marco (Church of St. Mark) tomorrow night. Then, this weekend, I'm going with Dane, Natalie, and Audrey to southern Italy, down into the heel of the boot, so I will definitely have a post up early next week talking about that. Until then, I hope everyone is doing well. Keep leaving comments!

Ciao,
Maria

New Pictures and the Poll

Hi everyone,

Just so you know, I added some more pictures on Flikr, just click on the slideshow on the left and you can see them. Hope you like them!

Also, if anyone is curious, the poll at the bottom of the page is now closed. The question was "Which city would you most like to go to?" The clear winner was Venice, with 80% wanting to come here, then 40% wanting to go to New York City and 40% wanting to go to London. Coming in last was Sydney with 20%.

There is a new poll up, asking "Of the following, what's your favorite book series?" The choices are Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Twilight, Goosebumps, Magic Tree House, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Eragon, and Artemis Fowl. You can pick more than one and the poll will be up until midnight on November 16th. Please vote!

Ciao,
Maria : )

Halloween

Hi all,

I know it’s a few days late, but I hope everyone had a good Halloween, with plenty of candy. Sorry that this blog took so long to put up but I planned to publish it Tuesday and then our Internet went out on the island. However, we’re back up now, so here’s my Halloween post, just a few days late.

Halloween on a Saturday is always a good deal. Since half of the group had gone to London to spend the weekend there, the rest of us decided we needed to do something special, even if it didn’t involve flying to England. So we (Caylen, Audrey, Natalie, Dane, and I) decided to catch a vaporetto out to some of the farther away islands in the northern part of the lagoon, specifically Burano and Torcello.

The boat ride was actually pretty long, about half an hour from the main part of Venice to Burano, but it was a beautiful day, though a little chilly, and the ride was nice because it felt like we were really leaving Venice and going on a day trip. Burano is famous for making lace and almost as soon as we got off the boat we saw three different stores selling lace goods, dresses, handkerchiefs, tablecloths, and baby clothes. Most of it was very pretty, but very expensive. Almost every shop that we went into also had tons of lace items. It was pretty touristy in most parts, but it was an awesome island, in spite of that. The houses were all different, bright colors, and it felt calm and relaxed in the non-shopping area parts, very different from Venice, which is always busy. There were also cats everywhere, we must have seen at least twenty of them, just wandering around, like the dogs do in Venice. We stopped for lunch at this sandwich shop/bar, which had absolutely amazing paninis, which are basically just grilled sandwiches with the crusts cut off. I don’t know if I was just really hungry at that point or if it was just a really good sandwich, but I thought it was delicious-ham, cheese, and tomato on nice crunchy, Italian bread. We also saw, in the main shopping district, signs that had been put up advertising a showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (Harry Potter e il Principe Mezzosangue, in Italian) over the weekend.

After a little more shopping and wandering around Burano, we caught another vaporetto over to Torcello, which is this tiny island about five minutes away from Burano and on which apparently only 22 people live (according to Caylen). It was gorgeous, though. There’s only one street, which follows along the one canal, and which leads past a couple of restaurants to the museum and the church. Apparently Torcello was the original city center of Venice, way back when, and the bishop continued to live there for a time, even after the city had been moved to where Venice is now, which is why there is a church there (this is all according to Dane). We didn’t go in the church, because it was kind-of expensive to go in, but we did go in the baptistery next door, which was free, and which was very nice. There was also a giant stone armchair outside the small museum across from the church, so we took a picture of us all sitting on it. There was also a bridge, on the way to the church, called Ponte del Diavolo, which means Devil’s Bridge. It was a little scary to walk across, just because it was kind-of high over the canal and had no railings or anything. However, it was cool, and on the other side was this little gravel path that went back towards a couple of farmhouses that were there, very picturesque, it was like postcard-perfect Italian countryside back there.

On the way back from Torcello, we stopped at San Michele, which is the cemetery island. It seemed appropriate for Halloween, but it was actually disappointingly not creepy. It looked like a pretty modern cemetery, though there were some cool bigger buildings, about the size of garden sheds, which were either tombs or chapels. We couldn’t stay at the cemetery long because we had to get back to the stop to catch our vaporetto, so there may have been creepier, older tombs that we missed. Even though it wasn’t too creepy, it was still fun to be in a cemetery on Halloween evening.

Before heading back to San Servolo, Audrey and Caylen and I went down Via Garibaldi (Garibaldi Street) to get some snacks for the night. We did actually see some kids trick-or-treating, most of them dressed up either as witches, or wearing monster masks and black clothes. Those seemed to be the most popular costumes. They weren’t trick-or-treating at houses, though, they were going into the shops on the street and the people working there were handing out treats. Definitely a bit different from trick-or-treating in Greendale. We did actually have one trick-or-treater on San Servolo, our professors’ four-year-old son Lorenzo. He came around to each of our rooms and we had candy for him. Then, he wanted each person to say “trick-or-treat” to him, so he could give us each a cookie. It was very cute. For his costume, he had on an orange and black Venetian mask. My costume was simply all the black clothes I had in my closet, since I didn’t think to bring stuff for a real costume. Then, after dinner, Audrey, Caylen, and I hung out in my room and ate candy and watched Twilight and Interview with a Vampire, good Halloween movies. So all in all, a very fun Halloween.

I hope you all had a good Halloween, too, and as always, keep leaving me comments!

Ciao,
Maria : )