La Stagione delle Feste

At some point during the next two week I'll get around to all of the trips I haven't yet written about, but for now it seems more important to talk about the holiday season in Italy.

My favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, is, as Dad loves to joke, just known as "Thursday" here--I even had to go to class.  We did get to celebrate the occasion with a dinner at Rita's house, but even though I really appreciated her effort to give us a Thanksgiving with an Italian twist, and would normally be thrilled with pumpkin risotto, it definitely didn't feel like the holiday we all know and love.  Worst of all, the portions were a normal size, even a bit scant by Rita's usual standards. 

Thanksgiving turkey should never be so classy

So the next day (just a regular Friday, without any hordes of stampeding shoppers to be found) us Forni girls got busy in the kitchen and created a real Thanksgiving dinner, with all of our favorite dishes from home. This time, we all ate enough to confirm once and for all of the stereotypes our Italian roommates have about Americans. 

Molto, molto meglio

Molly, who lives in the other dorm, invited us all over to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah with latkes, applesauce, gelt, and a makeshift menorah (there were none to be found in Bologna, although Rome impressed us by having a giant one right next to its giant Christmas tree).  Unlike Thanksgiving, Hanukkah actually worked pretty well in Italy.  After all, what's more Jewish than recreating our traditions in a foreign land?

We had one day of snow here that melted by the next morning, but combined with the city's Christmas lights it made for a very festive evening.  Luckily, I'm already sick of the snow, so I don't feel too bad about how I'm going to be stuck inside for most of the rest of my time here, getting ready for final exams.

Lo Sciopero

There was a huge student protest/parade on my street this afternoon. I wish I was more aware of what's going on politically here, but I think it had something to do the professors at the University not getting paid enough.  And maybe something about scholarships, judging by one of their slogans: "O La Borsa! O La Vita!"  (Click to check out my nifty new way of providing English translations).  Lots of chanting, marching, and a bunch of people in white masks adding even more graffiti to the porticoes.  Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but I didn't stay and watch for long anyway...I saw a police van drive by followed by a bunch of cops with batons and riot helmets and decided it would be best to hide out in my room for awhile.

Actually, I'm not going to change the last paragraph and pretend I'm not ignorant, but I just checked out the Italian news and learned that it was a leftist protest against the Gelmini reform.  Over to Wikipedia, which tells me Gelmini is Berlusconi's minister of education, whose center-right politics aren't working out in education's favor.  Apparently his education reforms = a lot of funding cuts for the public education system = professors not getting paid enough.  Just like I said. 

It turns out there were over a hundred of these protests today throughout the country.  Gelmini countered that the protesters were against change.  Not exactly what I'd expect to hear said about the left... I'm going to try to remember this stuff/learn how to discuss it in Italian so that next time I have dinner at Rita's and she and her husband start talking politics I can (maybe) throw in my two cents.

Lots of photos here

Two thousand of my classmates

Palazzo Fava

My art history class got to visit the currently closed-to-the-public frescoes in Palazzo Fava last week--painted in 1584 by a  young Ludovico Carracci, the subject of the first half of our course, and his two cousins.

Tanti Auguri!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

La Vita Quotidiana

As the weather becomes colder (and nearly everyone I know comes down with a cold), I'm settling more and more into daily Italian life.  I know where to find all my basic food needs on the shelves of the Plenty Market, the people who run the fruit and vegetable stand nearby recognize me when I stop by on my way home from class, I never leave my grocery shopping for Sunday (since all the stores are closed) and my roommate no longer gives me constructive criticism every time I clean the bathroom.

My classes are nowhere near as good as the ones I've taken at Wesleyan--the language barrier contributes, but I also miss having the opportunity to participate in discussions and challenge the ideas brought up by our course material (in Italy, the professor's word is law).  I'm really getting into art history, though- I finally understood that thing my professor said about seeing works of art in person and in their original context when I was in Venice- I was transfixed for almost an hour by a Titian altar piece.

And while my weekends are still spent traveling, weekdays are dedicated to smaller, everyday adventures that become necessary once you've spent a prolonged amount of time somewhere.  For example, I could no longer see for my overgrown bangs and had to go get a haircut.  I studied up on vocabulary beforehand (solo una spuntatina- just a trim!) and the hairdresser patiently walked me through some that I had missed (I didn't want my hair angled, I wanted it scalata).  Even though my Italian hadn't seemed to fail me in this encounter, I still ended up with a way shorter cut than I had asked for.  I was upset for awhile, but I feel better knowing that it wasn't my fault- the hairdresser wanted to get rid of my rovinati ends, I didn't, and in a battle of wills, the one with the scissors usually wins.

Frustration from this encounter and the piles of reading that I'm forever behind on, I decided to check out a nearby gym.  So far, I've taken a kick-boxing and step-aerobics.  The step-aerobics class was eerily similar to those I've been to at home, right down to the music (sorry Zack, Black-Eyed Peas again!).  It made me feel a lot less homesick to be in a place where the only thing that was different was the instructor saying quattro, tre, due, uno instead of four, three, two, one.  The kick-boxing class was a bit different, but was totally worth it because I got to watch a bunch of tough-looking guys punch in time to Taylor Swift's "Love Story." I used to be disappointed that American music is played everywhere here, but in my cultural history class I learned that things can be much worse:



Recognize the tune? In the 60's, Italian singer Rita Pavone "covered" Pete Seeger's political anthem and turned it into a dance hit, with lyrics that more or less translate as "Give me a hammer so that I can hit people I don't like on the head." That's the spirit!

Venezia sta affondanda

The internet's been torturously slow lately (or at least that's my excuse for waiting so long to post)

Last weekend, the whole group went on a program-sponsored trip to Venice, only two hours away by train.  It was pretty much how I'd imagined it to be, which surprised me, because I hadn't been thoroughly convinced that a city built on water could actually be...real.  When I first walked out of the train station and looked out at the streets, it actually took me a few seconds to register what I was seeing.  I kind of just gazed out at the buildings for awhile before I even noticed that the street in front of me was full of boats instead of cars and buses.

There isn't too much to say about the trip--we stayed for one night and saw lots of churches, art, water, and glass jewelry.  I, of course, already broke my new glass earrings, but luckily I'll be going back next month with Mom, Dad, Danny and Zack.  Hopefully, it will still be there; sticks and mud are not the most solid of foundations, and the whole city is slowing sinking.

Sinking...

More amazing, overhead views

 

Napoli- Secondo Parte

Back to Napoli!

On Saturday, we left the city via train for Herculanuem, an ancient city that was destroyed by the same eruption that covered Pompeii.  Unlike it's more famous counterpart, Herculanuem is smaller, which made it easier to visit in the little time that we had.  It's also better preserved, and we were able to see a lot of the original mosaics from the buildings.

Next, we took a bus up to Vesuvius itself, and hiked for about half an hour to the top.  We were able to look inside the crater, where we were actually able to see steam rising up.  It was pretty foggy, so we weren't able to see much of the view, but it's amazing how close to the city of Napoli Vesuvius actually is--if the wind had been blowing in the opposite direction back in AD 67, Napoli never would've made it.

Vesuvius as seen from Napoli's waterfront

Vesuvius as seen from the edge of it's crater

During this leg of our journey, we met an American couple from Rhode Island.  Of course, we played the "what are the chances that we are somehow connected?" game, and somehow made our way through four degrees of separation.  Thus, the greatest text message ever sent, to our friend Claire, from Wesleyan, who's in Italy with us:

"We're on top of Vesuvius with your dad's dentist."

I'd also like to point out here that, on this trip, we never once missed a train, bus, boat, or other form of public transportation.  We did, however, cut it close getting back down from Vesuvius, but we saved face by telling people that the reason we were sprinting down the side of the volcano was that we wanted to relive the Pompeii experience.

I didn't bring my camera to the National Archeological Museum back in the city, where we went next, but it's just as well because the entire second floor, which houses all of the cool stuff from Pompeii that we'd wanted to see, turned out to be closed "for emergency renovations"--and has been since February.  So Italian. 

But we did get the always-welcome overhead view of the city at sunset when we took a funicular up a nearby hill.

On Sunday, we took a ferry over to Capri.  I was tempted to take back everything I've said about Corfu being beautiful, because this island was absolutely stunning.

We didn't have much of a plan, so we took a funicular up to the top of the island and just started walking.  By some amazing luck, we ended up at the natural arch that's one of Capri's main attractions. We walked some more and ended up at a private beach where it costs 16 euros to sit in the sand.  Even though it was a warm, beautiful day, we weren't buying it, especially since we still had to figure out a way to get back to the main harbor.  I was dreading this part, since we had walked down A LOT of stair to get to the beach.  However, our lucky streak wasn't over yet, and we met a group of Italian tourists who let us hop into their boat.  They dropped us off at a smaller harbor, where we enjoyed Caprese salads (what else?) before catching a bus back to our ferry port.

 

Our new friends were excited to have some young people join their trip.  We were excited to be saved from a literal tourist trap, so everyone was happy.

Last but not least, there was the food.  If you've read Eat Pray Love or seen the movie, you'll know that Napoli is famous for having the best pizza in the world--it is, after all, where the margherita pizza was invented.  It's also known for having the best coffee in Italy...something to do with the water.  Everything we'd heard was true.

The first night, we ate at Sorbillo's, a restaurant recommended by Giovanni.  We chose our pizzas from a list of 21 varieties- each named after one of the owner's 21 children.  Mine was called Ulderico, it had eggplants on it, and it was absolutely incredible.  Hope had the "Elena," with artichokes, and it was also amazing.  We tried our best to eat them "Italian stlye," making our way through with a fork and a knife instead of picking up slices.

If I had an Italian boyfriend, it would be Ulderico

The second night, we went to Da Michele (the "Eat Pray Love place").  We knew we had picked the right spot when we saw the huge crowd of people waiting outside what otherwise seemed like a pretty basic pizzeria.  We had to wait for over an hour for our number to be called, and this time there were only two varieties- margherita and marinara.  We both ordered the margherita, and dug in under a picture of Julia Roberts filming the movie.  In between bites, we struck up a conversation with the couple we shared a table with--they were both from Napoli and lived just around the corner.  We asked them if they'd seen the movie that glorified their local pizzeria, and it turns out they were going to see it right after dinner. Adorable.

Julia Roberts eats her pizza like an American

But not me!

We were pretty upset when we realized that our new friends had ordered their pizzas with doppia mozzarella (double cheese)- they claimed that this was actually the best pizza in the world. Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime, we ordered a third pie to go and took it back to the hostel for dessert.  It was so good that pizza's basically ruined for me forever.  But it was soooo worth it!

Aggiornamento in fretta

Wow.  Seems like all of a sudden I'm super busy all the time.  Which is great, but the blog is starting to suffer a bit.  In honor of soon-to-be-mentioned events, I'm going to do things Nicole Page style (http://nicolestudyablog.blogspot.com/- if anyone's interested in life abroad in Madrid) and list everything I need to catch up on.

 So, in the past few days I:

1) Bought a cute pair of Italian shoes on the oh-so-trendy Via Dell'Indipendenza.  They are grey and blue and purple, therefore matching most of my wardrobe, and after today's test run I can state with confidence that the heels are definitely doable.

2) Took a day trip to Florence and saw Nicole Page, one of my best friends from home and, as mentioned above, my blog rival/role model.  She's been touring the country with a bunch of her friends from Duke, a.k.a the most blonde people I've seen in one place in Italy.  I was there for just enough time to:

• Eat two delicious Italian meals (it's refreshing to eat with people who aren't yet sick of pasta and pizza)
• See Michelangelo's David.  Unlike the Mona Lisa, which I saw with Nicole back in high school and was kind of disappointed by, this was actually greater than I'd expected.  It was huge--much bigger than pictures suggest--and even without the hype, I could tell I was looking at something truly remarkable. 
• Hike up to the Piazzele Michelangelo for the best view of the city--at sunset, of course. You might be thinking that, by this point, I'd be sick of seeing amazing overhead views of Italian cities, but it really never gets old.  
• Convince everyone to skip Florence's branch of Grom and go to a different gelateria on their list instead.  And then wish that we'd gone to Grom.  Still trying to decide how I feel about that being the best gelato I've tasted. 

3) Went to 5th grade and taught English.  Enjoyed being the one who could speak the language fluently for once and realized how grateful I am that I'll never have to learn English. The kids asked me lots of cute questions, such as:

• "Do you like chicken and potatoes?"
• "What are your brothers' names?" (They were really excited that Zack has the same name as a Disney channel character)
• "I like Justin Bieber" 
• "Do you watch X-Files?"
• "How are you?" (this kid seemed to have less vocabulary to work with than the others)

After spending awhile basking in the attention, I helped them with some exercises.  The teacher spoke passable English, and they were working from a book, so I felt like, even as a native speaker, it wasn't my place to question what they were learning.  Still, maybe the various English teachers/enthusiasts who read this can help me out: is "The girl has got brown eyes" correct?  It's definitely a problem when the kids get confused and say "She got brown eyes," but is it otherwise worth mentioning to the teacher?  The other thing I'm worried about is that next week I'm supposed to start teaching from their workbook, which is all about England.  I'm going to have to start studying up on British geography, folklore, and alternative spellings or I have a feeling I'll lose some of my credibility.

4) Finally got my care package from home, which had been stuck in customs for the past few weeks.  Amazingly, mom's meringues tasted better than ever--probably because I've been waiting so impatiently for them to arrive.  A new top, peanut butter, and Aunt Susie Cake-flavored lip balm, among other treats, were also very appreciated.

5) Started my fourth class- a language workshop to help us write and speak academically.  We're reading The Solitude of Prime Numbers, which I read in English this summer and highly recommend, and I'm excited to read it in it's original language and to discuss it in-depth.

Now I must get back to reading for class, but I promise I'll finish my Napoli post soon!

Un Educazione

It's like the difference between seeing a photo of your loved one and actually standing in front of him.

That's how my art history professor, Vera Fortunati, describes the importance of seeing great works of art in person.  Fortunately for us, we live in a city full of such things, and this afternoon we're skipping the classroom entirely and meeting instead at the gallery.  We'll also be taking an overnight trip to Rome later in the semester to see even more.

In archaeology, my one class at UniBo, stranieri outnumber actual Italians, but that works in my favor--Professoressa Porta speaks more slowly than she otherwise would.  We're learning about medieval churches, and our first trip is to Santo Stefano, the chiesa right down the street from our classroom. 

In Italian Cultural History, we're learning about youth culture from the 1950s to today through film, music, and magazine ads.  From the example set by my other professors, I'm half expecting the teacher to bring some "real Italian kids" to class so that we can learn about them first-hand.

Wednesday nights, I head over to Rita's apartment, where she teaches us how to make real Italian food from scratch in true Italian fashion--this means knowing how to properly set a table, using idiomatic expressions, and, of course, rolling your hips alluringingly while flattening out the pasta dough. 

In other words, I'm getting a true Italian education!

Napoli- Prima Parte

This weekend in Napoli felt like my first real travel experience--only two of us instead of a big group, hostels instead of hotels, no itinerary, and a city that was so much more than a tourist destination.  I have so much to say and not much time before class, so I'll focus on the city for now and write more about our excursions to surrounding areas later.

At 1am Thursday night/Friday morning, Speranza and I hopped on a train at Bologna Centrale and arrived 8 hours later to a sunny morning in Napoli.  We transferred over to the metro and got off one stop later in the city's historical center, where we quickly found our hostel, Giovanni's Home, located on the third floor of a residential building.  Before we even had time to wash the train filth off of our sweaty selves, Giovanni sat us down with a map of the city and colorful guide books to help us make the most of our three days.  After giving us a quick run-down on Napoli's history, he highlighted a route through town that would take us past all of the places we'd been hoping to visit, adding in his own suggestions and advising us not to waste our time with others that we had thought might be interesting.  He also put a lot of effort into convincing us that Napoli wasn't as dangerous as a lot of people make it out to be--in his opinion, the presence of the Camorra, Napoli's version of the Mafia, means that organized crime replaces random acts of violence, which would be more likely to affect tourists.  In other words, as long as we stayed away from the areas highlighted in purple on our maps, where we could unintentionally end up in the middle of turf wars, we were actually safer than we would be in other, more petty-crime affected cities such as Rome.  He had a bunch of statistics to back this up, but just to be safe, he showed us a few surveillance videos of pick-pockets so we'd learn how to avoid being victims, and he recommended that we walk around with our money on our person instead of in a purse.

The one place where the Camorra's influence was immediately visible was in the amount of trash everywhere--a lot of their power comes from their control over garbage collection.

After a quick lunch of leftovers from the previous night's cooking class back in Bologna, we headed out to start exploring the city.  The first place we saw was the Cappella Sansevero, home to what Giovanni called the second-most beautiful sculpture in the world, next to Michelangelo's David.  Called the Veiled Christ, it's a portrayal of Jesus after the crucification, covered by a thin piece of cloth.  The entire thing was carved from marble, and his musculature is defined and vivid under the extremely realistic folds of the "material" over him.  Two other sculptures, another which was also veiled and one entwined in a marble net, were fascinating as well.

Napoli was without a doubt the busiest place I've ever been--the whole area consists of Greek ruins buried under Roman ruins buried under a modern-day city, itself covered in trash and graffiti, and over all of which swarm people: little boys kicking soccer balls, old woman hoisting buckets with goods from the street up through their windows, and cars and scooters barreling through streets so narrow that pedestrians are forced to press themselves up against the walls of buildings to avoid being run over. 

We got to check out some of the city's layers in an underground tour. Our tour guide spoke really fast (we, with perhaps a bit too much confidence, chose Italian over English), so I didn't pick up a lot of details, but the gist of it was that we were climbing down to a Greek city that the Romans used as an aqueduct and the WWII-era Italians used as a bomb shelter.  At one point, we used candles to explore unlit passageways that were so narrow, we had to walk sideways, which was slightly panic-inducing, but also really cool.

Greek or Roman quarry, can't remember which.

Exploring underground

According to Giovanni, there are Greek roads like these right underneath our hostel.

Back above ground, the city was still it's bustling self, and I never saw it calm down for a second--until Sunday, that is.  We ventured out in search of some fried pizza, one of Napoli's delicacies, and were surprised to find that absolutely nothing was open.  We were able to cross streets without fearing for our lives, and could walk for blocks without seeing another person.  We peered inside some open windows and realized that everyone was home, watching the Napoli vs Roma soccer match.  Each time Napoli scored a goal, the empty streets would erupt with noise--shouts and cheers bursting out from every building.  It gave us goosebumps.

Coming soon: The best pizza in the world and other local food, climbing Vesuvius, a visit to Capri, and new friends

Sono preparata per la pizza

I think right now I'm stuck in a strange middle place regarding the Italian language--on the one hand, I've been making my way (pretty successfully, I think) through college-level readings for my ECCO courses and taking detailed notes during lectures, but strangely, simple interactions tend to be more difficult for me.  I had to meet with a UniBo professor on Monday to find out if I would be able to take the final exam for her course before leaving Italy, and I left both of us so confused that one of my program advisers had to contact her to sort everything out for me.  Luckily, everything worked out fine, and next Tuesday I start Archeologia dell'Emilia-Romagna in medievo with real Italian university students!  I'm also taking History of Art with ECCO, which starts next Wednesday, and my Italian Cultural History course (anthro credit!), also with ECCO, has already met twice.

So, with everything finally worked out, I'm ready to celebrate the long weekend (no class on Monday for la festa di San Petronio, patron saint of Bologna).  Tonight, I have my first official Italian cooking class, and from there I'm heading straight to the stazione to catch an overnight train to Napoli.  I haven't yet had absolutely incredible pizza in Italy, but from everything I've heard, that's going to change this weekend!

Le Piccole Cose

My courses at ECCO started this week, and next week the UniBo courses begin.  Unfortunately, I still haven't found a course that a) fits into my schedule b) can count towards either my Anthropology or Italian Studies major or c) that I can take the exam for before returning to the states (exam schedules are really weird here--my roommates are all studying for exams from courses they took last semester!)

I'll post my schedule/fun facts about my courses once I work everything out, along with some fun anecdotes about the add/drop process (I'm assuming I'll be able to find the humor in the situation later on).


My silver lining of the day was going over to Liz's room to vent.  She wasn't able to solve my problems for me, but she was able to offer me some of the roasted apples and sweet potatoes that she was about to take out of the oven.  For some reason, sweet potatoes in Italy aren't orange--there's no real way of distinguishing them from regular potatoes until you taste them.  To me, they're the perfect fall food, but I don't think they're very popular here- Liz's roommate tried some and thought they were weird.  She seemed about as confused as our Italian professor was when we tried to explain why American kids love peanut butter and jelly.  I'm not saying I don't love pizza and pasta, but sometimes I think Italians are missing out on variety...

Shakespeare e Svizzera

Updated with better photos!

This Satuday, Liz, Sarah, Gina and I planned on spending the day in Florence.  I was looking forward to see the tons of great art that supposedly causes this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome and to celebrating the changing season with the purchase of a new leather jacket.  We decided it would be worth having to wake up early for, and so at 9:30 am made our way to the train station.

Turns out, trains here actually sell out, even if you're willing to stand.  As there wasn't another train to Florence until noon, we walked over to the bus station to find out if there was another way of getting there.  We took a number, deli-style, but by the time the one bus to Florence was about to leave, the window was still about ten numbers behind.  While we waited, we met an older woman from California who's spending the month taking courses in Italy, just like us.  Liz thinks that she might have been her third-grade teacher, but she was too embarrassed to ask.  Anyway, we decided to just buy our tickets on the bus, but for some reason the bus to Florence was the only one on the departures board without a gate number.  We found the capostazione, who informed us that we had been waiting at the wrong window.  The right window, which of course had no line, was where we found out that our bus was still en route from France, and that there was no telling when it would get here.  Knowing Italy as well as we do by now, we understood that we would not be taking a bus to Florence that day.

So, we returned to the train station, but by this point the noon train to Florence had also sold out.  But, there was a train to Verona that would be leaving in a few minutes!  Since we haven't been to many places in Italy and didn't want to return to Forni in defeat, we quickly bought the tickets, validated them, and sprinted to track #3.  Unfortunately, the track was leaving from #3 West, which was nowhere near regular #3, and we missed that train, too.  According to the posted schedule, there wouldn't be another train to Verona for hours.  We went over to customer service to try and exchange our tickets (we would have been able to save them for another day if we hadn't already validated them), where we were informed that there actually would be another train in an hour.  So, we picnicked at the station instead of in a Florence garden, as we had planned, and, two and a half hours later, made it to what was basically Shakespeare Disneyland.

Seriously, Verona owes Shakespeare for all the publicity; their entire tourist industry is based off of his fictional star-crossed lovers.

"Romeo and Juliet's Kisses" were the specialty at this cafè

For ten euros (which we'll get reimbursed for from our program, since Verona's sights count as "cultural activities") we each purchased a "Verona Pass," which granted us admission to almost all of the city's attractions--just like Disney!  There were the standard churches and stadiums, but the main attraction was La Casa di Giulietta, the house of Juliet Capulet.

You're probably thinking: "Wait.  Juliet is a fictional character.  Why would anyone pay a 6 euros admission fee to see what, in that case, is just a house?" Well, admission was included on our Verona Cards, and it did seem like a very nice house.  Plus, a helpful sign informed us that, "While no documentation exists proving that Juliet Capulet actually existed and lived in this house, no documentation exists to disprove it, either." There's also no existing proof that rubbing the right breast of the Juliet statue in the courtyard won't bring you good fortune in love, but you'd better believe we decided to go along with that as well.

Firm!

Juliet's a bit like Santa Claus, in that people like to write her letters

Juliet's balcony

We didn't make it to Juliet's tomb (also fake, of course) before it closed, but we did find the time to experience some actual history.  My favorite part of the day was climbing the bell tower in the middle of the city.

The view from the top was incredible.

Being directly under the bells at the strike of the hour was not so incredible.

There were some really amazing churches

Throughout the day, we started to suspect more and more that something unusual was happening in Verona.

The Swiss flags were our first clue.

This, too, aroused our suspicions.

Turns out, the Swiss had invaded, and were holding some sort of expo.

The costumed participants wandering around made the similarities to Disney even stronger, and they certainly added a fun element to all of the tourist sites.

Sarah had gone back early because she had plans with her roommate, but Liz, Gina and I stayed long enough to grab dinner in town.  We sat down to eat two hours before our train back to Bologna was supposed to leave, and figured that we'd have plenty of time.  Turns out, we'd become more accustomed to the Italian lifestyle than we'd thought, and as we finally left the restaurant to make our way over to the train station, we realized that it was 8:45...and our train was leaving at 9:06.  We sprinted, tried in vain to hail a cab, sprinted some more, hopped on a bus, validated our tickets, and sprinted to our train (which was leaving, of course, from the furthest track), and missed it.  The next one didn't leave until 11:35.  We considered ordering martinis at the station's McDonald's, decided that would be too pathetic, and instead headed back into town to try and kill two hours.  By this time, Verona no longer held any charm for us.  Liz elegantly summed up our feelings as thus: "It's no wonder Romeo and Juliet killed themselves."

We were extra-careful to arrive very early for the next train, since that was our last chance to get home for the night.  We were exhausted, but afraid to fall asleep, since the train's final destination was Lecce, and the last thing we wanted to do was end up back there.  We ended up chatting the entire time with the other people in our compartment: a married couple that had just dropped their 20-year-old son off at college and an older woman who told us all about how, instead of going to college, she had worked in a factory.  She taught us a new hand gesture (hand gestures are an integral part of the Italian language) in which you indicate the different sizes of your fingers to signify that not everyone is equal, and reminded us to thank our parents for paying for us to be in Italy (thanks, guys!).  She also pointed out that, despite having spent three weeks at the beach, we were all bianca come una mozzarella (as white as mozzarella)- a very typical Italian expression that I'd heard of, but was excited to hear actually used in conversation.

Long story short: We made it back safe and sound, slept very late Sunday morning, and are going to spend a lot more time planning the next time we try for Florence.

Alcune fotografie

Me with Berina, la mia compagna di stanza (roommate)

 

New friends

Tower at the center of the city

This is how we work off the gelato

The view from the top

La nostra bella città