Tuscany-ish, etc.

So I suppose I should begin by rehashing the last night in Venice.. let's see: Italian kareoke bar and 2 euro drinks.. I guess a good recap would be to say that my 50+ year old male married professor sang "My Girl" to some students and there was a video of people getting down to the YMCA on tables.. There were basically only seven English songs on the kareoke machine.. one of which was T.A.T.U. "All the Things She Said" - download it if you don't remember. That's a good enough summary of the first hour..

Anyways, the Guggenheim was awesome. Definitely tied for my favorite museum thus far (with the Musee D'Orsay). I guess I really like Futurism and more modern art. Alter pieces get unbelievably dull after a while.

After a few hour bus ride in the afternoon, we got to Firenze. Florence is perfect. I absolutely could have studied here for the summer/a semester instead of traveling, but I wouldn't change my experience for the world. I just love it. It's the perfect size city. The hotel has bikes that you can borrow for free, and today I rode only about half an hour outside the main city into the suburbs along the river and it was the most beautiful and relaxing thing I've done all trip. It truly epitomized my vision of the Tuscan countryside. I wish I could describe the area/scenery better.. I can't even come up with words that would do it justice.

The food here is to die for. Maybe we've just been really lucky with finding really good, cheap places, but I've dined like a queen over the last few days and my wallet doesn't ache - for once.

Yesterday we had a free day and in the afternoon we had an option to pay a bit and take a bus to Pisa for an hour and then onto a vineyard for wine tasting/dinner in Tuscany. Obviously, I could never resist such an offer. Pisa was cool, we got our pictures with the leaning tower and walked around town a bit. Not nearly as dirty of a city as I've been told it was (maybe I was expecting the worst) but I thought it was actually quite quaint and clean.. just REAL touristy. After Pisa we went to a vineyard in Monte Carlo (about a 45 minute drive) and saw the grape vines and olive trees. We saw how they made olive oil and then they got us drunk. I was expecting a true wine tasting.. where you sip and spit... oh no. They sat us at long tables, divided us up by 6 and put 8 bottles of wine in front of each group. They told us the order in which to drink the wines and brought us plates of homemade flat "macaroni" pasta, unbelievable sundried tomatoes, olive oil and the best balsamic vinegar I've ever had (aged five years!), and other such foods. We finished with a sweet dessert wine - "holy wine" they called it.. but it wasn't sherry. It actually tasted more like apple brandy and some biscotti to dip into it. Personally I didn't think the wine was that special. The food, on the other hand, was to die for. (And yes, although not required or even recommended, my table actually did a real wine tasting with all 5 kinds before we actually drank them so people knew what they liked if they were going to buy. - I try to maintain class where possible. ;-).. )

Today we went to Accademia and saw Michelangelo's David. I never really though much of going to see a statue until I got inside. This thing is indescribable. I seriously stared at it for like 20 minutes.. and could have for much longer. Really neat. We also went to the Uffizi gallery.. but it pretty much sucked besides the Botticelli's and the views of the city. We also spent a little bit of time touring the leather markets, and I am incredibly proud of myself. While about half the group spent 200+ euro (so like $350) on real soft leather bags with their initials embossed on them, etc. (and they were all gorgeous, mind you).. I didn't partake in the expensive excursion and instead bought real leather bracelets for cheap. I love all the markets here though.. it makes the town seem so lively and cultured. I wish there were markets everywhere at home.

I'm pretty sure I missed a few stories, but I think I've hit the main points of Florence. Basically, my life would be complete if I could own a vacation home half an hour bike ride outside the city.

Tomorrow we're headed off to Rome. Our final destination. :(. Four weeks has gone by so fast! Hopefully I'll be able to find internet and write once in Rome before flying to Barcelona on Sunday for the cruise. This sounds crazy, but I haven't seen a single gypsy yet and am kind of excited to see what all the fuss is about in the next few days. Haha.

xoxoxoxoxo

Lucerne and Venice

Hello from Venezia! I've been from France to Switzerland to Italy since I've written last, so I'll try to rehash breifly.

The 10 hour bus ride to Lucerne was quite frankly awful. Once we got there though, Lucerne was absolutely picturesque. Swiss Alps, Lake Lucerne, adorable little town. I was all excited because the Swiss Frank is actually weaker than the dollar, so I thought I would be able to save some money and relax a bit in our two-night stay... wrong. While it was a brilliant stopover, it was absurdly expensive and I was more than willing to leave after a day. Our second day in Lucerne it was cold and rainy, so we couldn't pontoon on the lake as originally planned. We had a walking tour of the city and I ended up going back and putting a snuggle suit on a reading by the lake.. sounds lame, but I needed the time off. And it was pretty. :)

We arrived two days ago (on Tuesday) in Venice, after taking a bus and series of three different trains. It was quite the day, but we were greeted with sun and 85 degree weather, so it was entirely worth it. We're staying in a lovely little area between Rialto and Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square).. and are about a two minute walk from a great running path along the Grand Canal. The first night in we grabbed dinner and liters of house wine at a cute little family owned pizzeria right around San Marcos and finished up with gelato. It's dangerous how many gelato shops there are. They're more prominent than a Starbucks in NYC, to put it into perspective. Yesterday we went into Doge's Palace and St. Marks Basilica in the square (where I met some random kid who goes to IU - he was wearing an Indiana shirt), and proceeded on a walking tour through the city. Afterwards we shopped a little and went to a glass blowing demonstration before lecture. The glass blowing was unreal... this guy made a glass horse in front of us in the matter of less than two minutes. It was crazy. I'm officially obsessed with blown glass and when I become rich and old I will have a blown glass chandelier in my house. It's so beautiful.

For dinner last night we ventured out to San Margherita Square (across the grand canal) for cheap food and the grocery. We've packed lunches for today and are going to head to the beach for the afternoon (if the weather holds up) after we visit Accademia in a few hours. (I actually have permission to be skipping lecture right now because I've gotten sick again and lost my voice. Shocker. I actually am exhausted though and am going to take a quick nap before The Academy. A lot of people have gotten sick recently though.. it could just be the numerous rapid changes in altitude and temperature... hopefully.)

Tomorrow we have a morning visit to the Guggenheim then are off to Florence!

Ciao!

I Could Live in Paris

Bonjour mes amis! I've been going non-stop since Friday. Paris has been busy. But it's perfect.

Friday morning we took a bus an hourish away to the Palace of Versailles. I've never seen so much gold plating in my life. The palace itself was interesting, but the gardens were gorgeous. Possibly a little too manicured, but unbelievable. After our morning visit to Versaille, we got on the bus again for another hour or so and saw the Chartres cathedral. It was pretty enough I suppose, cute little town with a massive gothic cathedral. It definitely wasn't my favorite stop though. We had this awful tour guide who was probably 70 and spoke broken english at a pace of about 10 words a minute. I think we sat and listened to her talk about one stained glass window for 25 minutes. It was long, hot, and tiring. I wish we could have spent more time at Versaille instead. Friday night was awesome though. After we got home five of us took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe to see sunset. It was absolutely beautiful. I don't think I've ever seen a prettier sunset in my life. I think it was 254 stairs to the top?.. killer, but totally worth it. The pictures are amazing. It sounds cliche and touristy but the Arc and the Eiffel Tower are without a doubt the the two best places to go and things to see in Paris.

Saturday was packed as well. We spent the morning at the Musee D'Orsay. I've fallen in love with Impressionists. The Degas' and Monet's.. it sounds crazy, but seeing them in person is a totally unique experience. From the Musee D'Orsay we took an hour and a half bus ride to Giverny to visit Monet's house and gardens. It was beautiful. Not hard to see why he was so inspired. We ended yesterday with a huge 3-course dinner and all-you-can-drink wine at a restaurant in the Latin quarter. I'm pretty sure almost all 47 of us went. It was a good start to an "American" evening. After dinner we took pictures in front of the Notre Dame cathedral and found a patriotic American bar somewhere off the 10 line. Our tour director pointed it out and everyone loved it. All the bartenderes spoke English, they had American college flags up, there were other American students there, they decorated with red, white, and blue balloons, and they had the Yankees game on. (I've been so sportscenter deprived, I don't know what to do with myself.. I may have stood in silence in front of the TV reading headlines for a good 15 minutes while in the bar..) While I love the Parisian culture, it was definitely nice to have something that seemed like a little American haven on the 4th of July.

Today we had passes to the Louvre. We were allowed to go whenever and stay as long as we liked. I'm not going to lie, visiting that museum may have been the worst experience of my life. It was packed. I couldn't take a step without bumping into someone. And it was freaking massive. It probably took us 30 minutes to figure out how to get into the actual galleries and impossible to find our way around once inside. The coolest thing we saw was Hammurabi's Code.. and we saw that in the first 10 mintues. The Mona Lisa is not all it's cracked up to be and nothing else was really worthwhile, unfortunately. After the Louvre, I finally had time to rest. I've basically just watched the Wimbledon finals (un-freaking-believable) on my computer and repacked my stuff, etc. all day. I needed a day to wind down before the 7 hour bus ride to Lucerne early tomorrow morning.

Love you all. Au Revoir! (proud of my French?. haha)

Catching you up to speed

Wimbledon: purely amazing. If you ever have the chance, you MUST go. The town is like the Hamptons.. but even more ritzy. The Octagon house where I met my mentor to get the tickets was probably a 5 million dollar home. Tented yard, all you can eat/drink, all day. Awesome. As far as the match went, Margot and I were unsure of exactly what to do when we got in.. it was way overwhealming. Obviously the Wimbledon experts knew to queue for the matches they wanted to see, but we were learning on the fly... we ended up in a 2.5 hour queue for Court 1 tickets.. but we got them.. (excellent seats mind you) and it was phenomenal. We ended up seeing two matches: the first was Lisicki vs. No. 5 Kuznetsova.... it was an upset and an uproar. By far the coolest tennis match I could have ever seen. The second match we saw was also quite comparable. It was the No. 1o Gonzalez vs. Ferrero match.. which was also a huge upset. (Mind you, both Lisicki and Ferrero ended up losing in the quarterfinals a few days ago to Venus and Murray respectfully.. but the energy was still unreal.) We also each tried the "Wimbledon drink".. would you expect less?. It's called a Pimms and Lemonade. It's got cucumber, lemon, orange, and mint in it. Not awesome, but okay just to say I did it I suppose.

Trip to Amsterdam: A 7 hour ferry cruise ship, 2 busses, and 14 hours later.. oy.

Amsterdam: Not my favorite city.. but definitely an experience. Where I left you I think I said I was about to go on a Heineken Brewery tour, then a canal tour, then to the Anne Frank House. The brewery was pretty sweet.. the canal tour was not. Anne Frank House was surreal. Sad as hell, but glad I went.

Bruges/ Trip to Paris: I'd found out that morning that the maids had stolen 50 euro cash from me during the day before, so I wasn't particularly in a good mood when we left Amsterdam... but we had something to keep us entertained on the bus, so it all worked out... :). Also, I lied a few days ago when I said we were stopping in Brussels... apparently it was Bruges, Belgium instead. Same effect I think though. Bruges was cool... I'm glad we didn't spend a whole day there.. we just stopped for a few hour lunch in the afternoon on the way to Paris. Bruges was originally a walled city, so it was cool to walk around the path where the city limits used to lie. Basically I ate too many chocolates and a huge waffle. All delicious, but it put me on detox mode for all of Paris.

Paris: This may be my favorite city so far... London's a close second. I love the culture (wine is more prominent than water), I love the atmosphere (minus the intense PDA), and it surprisingly reminds me a lot of DC. Yesterday we were starving when we got in so we stopped a cute little Brassiere like 2 blocks from the hotel for salads and wine. We're staying in the Bastille area (right by the statue). It's a fine area, we have a full kitchen so we all decided to save some money while in Paris (considering the salad and wine was 17 euro each yesterday) and cook for ourselves. There was a cute little market this morning in the square/park area across the street. It had everything imaginable for cheap prices. I also love having to learn French impromptu because I know nothing about the French language and basically no one speaks English. I think I may like Paris so much because it's not only a true culture shock, but a challenge. Everywhere else we've been, everyone has spoken English. So here it's actually fun to have to speak French to the produce market-stand guys.. and have them laugh at you, but be patient and nice enough to correct you and make sure they understand.

We also had a bus tour of Paris today.. not that cool, the tour guide kinda sucked, but I suppose it got us acclaimated to the area a bit. Tonight may have been my favorite evening on the trip thus far. Eight of us got wine, packed dinner, took the metro down, and sat on the lawn by the Eiffel Tower for like 4.5 hours. We saw it go from day to dark (it doesn't get dark here until like 10:30-11PM.. it's tiring) and the Eiffel Tower got all lit up and absolutely gorgeous at night. The lawn area was packed.. we saw someone get proposed to (the entire park clapped and hollered for them), and there were some guys playing guitars, drinking wine, and smoking cigarettes behind us... it provided some excellent entertainment. The whole monument area reminds me soo much of DC though.. just bigger, prettier, and with a lot more gold decoration. Absolutely perfect evening though.

Tomorrow we're headed to Versailles and if the weather holds up we'll probably picnic somewhere near the Arc de Triomphe in the evening. Oh man, if I could only afford to live abroad.

Ps. interesting fact I learned today from our monotonous tour guide: it was 90+ degrees today without the humidity... aka it felt like hell, and there's basically no air conditioning anywhere in Paris (with our hotel as an exception).. but the last time they had a heat wave like this it was in 2004 and 13,000 people died due to heat exhaustion. Nuts!

Anyways, sorry to leave you on a depressing fact, I'm sure I'll write again before I leave Sunday. Hope you have a Happy 4th!!!

Today's not been my day... I just typed out an awesome 30 minute blog to post and it got deleted... I also had 50 euro stolen by the maids.. again: not awesome.. I'll retype it all in detail tomorrow. Oh man.

I do have FREE internet access in Paris though, so email, facebook, etc. me... I'm around! Miss some of you more than you know. xoxoxo

Wimbledon and A Quick Overview of Amsterdam

Hey guys,

I have but 2 minutes to shoot you something quick so here it goes:

Wimbledon was absolutely amazing. We had grounds passes but queued (or waited in line) for 2.5 hours and ended up with court one tickets. I'll give more details about matches later when I have more time. It as an absolutely phenomenal experience though.

The cruise/ferry over to Amsterdam was pretty awful... 15 hour travel day, but it's okay.


I've only been in Amsterdam for a day and a half, but I can sum it up in 4 words: Kristina, you belong here. Everyone rides bikes and the coffee shops are all so eccentric yet chill. We're headed to the Heinekin brewery here in a few minutes, then we have a canal tour of the city, then to the Anne Frank house tonight. Tomorrow we're off to Paris via charter bus with a stop in Brussels, Belgium.

Hopefully I'll have free wifi in Paris? Fingers crossed.

A Quick Wimbledon Update

So I heard back, finally. We had centre court passes.. which would have been amazing seeing that Venus Williams, Roddick and Murray all the three centre court matches tomorrow, but she said that a golf client randomly showed up so she had to produce tickets... so unless she can get her hands on more, we just have grounds passes tomorrow. It's totally fine though because there's still some amazing matches that aren't on centre court. I plan on watching the Melanie Oudin vs. Jankovic match followed by the Mauresmo vs. Flavia Pennetta match, both on court 3. So look for me! I'll probably end up watching the Safina match as my third.. she is number 1 in the world, so it'd probably be a good last hurrah. =)