Well here I am, on my second-to-last night (not counting when my parents get here!) in Perugia. Someone needs to explain to me how this happened. I know every semester, even at Maryland, seems to go by faster than the one before it... but I feel like I just arrived in Perugia yesterday in some ways. In other ways, it seems like forever since I was imagining what this semester would be like, or since that day when I arrived in Fiumicino by myself looking for the Umbra group to take me to Perugia.
I haven't had any time to really catch my breath this week, because the day I arrived back from Prague I was immediately thrown into the mix of the International Journalism Festival here in Perugia. I'd signed up to be a volunteer when I was still in the U.S. The moment I saw they had such a thing as a journalism festival in this town, I knew I had to be a part of it.
There were more than 200 volunteers here this week, mostly from Italy, but also from around Europe and the world. Unfortunately a good handful couldn't make it because of the Icelandic volcano, but some, like me, managed to find creative ways of getting to Perugia. I was assigned to be on the "logistics" team for Teatro Morlacchi. This is the gorgeous Perugian theater where I saw a play in Italian before spring break. It was the venue for the most prestigious events of the festival, including the speeches by Al Gore and Roberto Saviano, and Marco Travaglio. I'll explain who those last Italian guys are in a second, but here in Italy, they're almost like celebrities.
For my part with the "logistics" me and a group of about five other Italian kids had to arrive several hours in advance of the events to set up the stage, bring water bottles, notepads, etc. Then during the event, when there was a translation, we handed out and returned headphones to the audience. And let me say, that last part was a lot harder than it sounds!
A lot of other volunteers were busy 8 a.m. to midnight the whole week (it lasted from Tuesday to Sunday), writing articles, doing interviews, or just doing logistics at other locations. But a benefit (for me) of my responsibility was that I didn't have anything required to do until Friday. This was perfect, because I had an Italian final on Friday, and a lot of sleep to catch up on! Not to mention I had a final yesterday and today!
But from Friday til Sunday, I was kept very busy and ended the week feeling pretty much exhausted! I am so happy that I chose to volunteer, though. I met a ton of amazing Italian (and European) students like me, who are passionate about journalism. Everyone was so nice-- people who I only just met during the week went so out of their way to be friendly, were so enthusiastic about getting to know the other volunteers. Yesterday I had planned on studying for my film final all afternoon, and instead I ran into a couple volunteers who were still in Perugia, and before I knew it I was traipsing around town with them, completely oblivious to the "plans" I had made. That's something I learned pretty quickly here-- plans don't really happen. You leave your apartment setting out to do one thing, but there's always some kind of distraction or temptation that ends up turning your day (or afternoon) in a totally different direction. I kind of like it, though-- spontaneity is a refreshing thing for me.
Although I did volunteer at Al Gore's speech, and I was at the theater something like five hours in advance, I still didn't get to meet him! Haha oh well...it would have been a cool experience, but definitely not something I needed to happen. I felt lucky to just have a spot secured in the audience! People waited outside the theater in the cold/wind for four hours to get a spot at the event. It was complete madness. The fact that Gore was speaking with Roberto Saviano, the author of many books including "Gomorra," added to the celebrity factor. "Gomorra" was turned into a blockbuster movie in 2008, and it deals with the mafia and the destruction it causes here in Italy. I actually saw the movie with my Italian class a couple weeks ago. It was hard to understand what was going on, because the actors spoke in heavy Campanian dialect...there were English sub-titles, but to me (and my class) the movie was just like three hours of people needlessly shooting each other and getting high. Definitely not something I'd want to see again, but it proved a point. In a place as seemingly peaceful as Italy, it's hard to imagine things like that actually taking place...but it's reality. And it's pretty scary. Apparently since writing the book, Saviano has to constantly be under police protection and move from place to place, because clearly the Mafia wasn't very happy with what he wrote. People in Italy (at least in Perugia) love him, though, and really admire him for risking his life to expose the ugly truth about organized crime here. I have to say, I really admire him, too.
Al Gore mostly spoke about this project, Current TV, which I had never heard of before. Apparently it's in the U.S., The U.K., and Italy, and it sends reporters out to cover sometimes dangerous subjects that other networks don't cover. Since Gore spoke in English, most of the audience wore headphones to understand what he was saying. It was interesting to see a prominent figure from the U.S. talk to a group of foreigners... he kept on using phrases like "in my country"...I'm not sure how I felt about that. To be a little critical of him, at times I just felt like he was really only there to promote his TV network... he really didn't have anything substantial to say about journalism. Nonetheless, it was really cool to see him talk in person, and his TV network does sound like something worth keeping an eye on.
The other important speaker was at Morlacchi the night before, and people also lined up hours in advance to get a seat for the show. There were literally people kicking and punching the door to try to get in afterward... it was crazy. This was for Marco Travaglio, a really respected Italian journalist who founded il Fatto Quotidiano last year.
Like I wrote, I just had two finals in the last two days, and now I am really officially done. The next time I take a class, I'll be a senior. Unreal...
Today I had my last day volunteering at the high school teaching English. We listened to "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas and the kids tried to fill in the prepositions and translate the lyrics. I was so sad to say goodbye to them, and to the teacher! They were a great group, and having this experience was incredible for me. I never would have known what an interest I have in teaching, and particularly in teaching English to foreigners. We'll see if that will give me some ideas for where I'll go/ what I'll do post-college.
Tomorrow I'm heading to Florence for the day! Believe it or not, I'm only two hours away by train and have passed through several times en route to other destinations, but this whole semester I haven't once actually spent time there. It's crazy, because when I went to Italy in high school it was my favorite city! I guess I just took for granted how close it was here. That's why I made sure to squeeze in an end of the semester visit. It'll be nice to just relax and be a tourist for a day, after this past week of craziness. Although how can I really complain? I've been in Italy this whole time, and that in itself is always relaxing! Ahhh I'm going to miss it...
On Thursday my parents and Melissa get here, and then we'll spend some time in Perugia before making our way to Frascati and Salerno. I probably won't post until I'm back in the U.S. after May 10. Until then... thanks for reading! :-)
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
4 days alone in Prague, courtesy of Eyjafjallajokull
This past week was definitely one of the most surreal of my life—I like to think of it as something out of the Twilight Zone. Being trapped in an Eastern European country (one that was communist just 20 years ago) by yourself for 4 nights because of a volcano, and taking a 20-hour bus ride from there back to Italy…yeah, that’s a little surreal. But that pretty much sums up my life since last Thursday.
Now theoretically, I was supposed to fly into Prague Thursday night, stay one night in a hostel by myself, and then by the time I woke up the next morning, Erica and her roommate Larissa should have been in the city and we were going to meet up at a new hostel and start touring. Instead, just as I went to buy a Metro ticket at the airport on Thursday, I received a phone call from Erica telling me that some crazy Icelandic volcano has halted her flight and that’s when things started getting a little wacky **cue Twilight Zone music**….
Instead of getting into Prague on a later flight, like I’d hoped and thought they would, of course Erica and Larissa weren’t able to come to Prague at all because the entire European airspace shut down. So that left me with three nights and two days (which turned into four nights and three days) in Prague by myself. Not at all what I’d expected my weekend to be, but I really tried to make the best of it. People had told me Prague ranked up there as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and so even if I wasn’t able to explore it with my friends, I felt lucky to be there at all.
What did I do during my stay, you may be wondering? Well thankfully, I’d done a little research before I left Perugia and printed out a couple restaurant suggestions and “Top 10 sights in Prague” type-things. These in combination with the advice of friends who had previously been there was enough to keep me happily occupied (if a bit lonely, especially by the end) during my visit.
On Melissa’s suggestion (and also based off what Ilana mentioned in Brussels about her Amsterdam tour) I took a “free” tour with the New Europe guides, basically a company that’s geared toward showing college students around European cities, with the assumption that you’ll tip your guide at the end. The guide really made the tour entertaining, because he was so young and would crack funny little jokes now and then, so it wasn’t all dull Czech history. But I still felt like I was able to look at the monuments and Cinderella architecture of the city within a context after having heard him talk about the history of the city, which made it a lot more meaningful to me. I wish I had gotten that kind of background on the history of every city I’ve visited this semester.
With this tour we walked through the Old Town Square, which kind of reminds me (along with most of Prague) of what Hershey Park or Busch Gardens attempt to be when you first walk into the park, with the gingerbread house, tudor-style shops all lined up next to each other. But, of course, this was the real deal. Technically speaking, the guide told us you can find Gothic and Art Nouveau architecture throughout the city’s churches and public buildings, and what these styles both share (if I remember correctly) is an emphasis on over-the-top, flashy details. Spires and cupolas and statues galore, burnt-sienna-colored sloping roofs and a river cutting through the center of everything—that’s Prague in a nutshell. Basically fairy-tale central, almost too beautiful to be real.
In a way, I think I felt less comfortable in Prague than in other cities I’ve visited because of this—it was almost too perfect, overdone. I say this just for argument’s sake, because who can complain about the beauty of Prague? But to me it was interesting to compare it to the beauty of a place like, for instance, Cinque Terre, which is a much more natural, rugged setting, but absolutely gorgeous without ever trying to be. Prague was almost like a house filled with such nice furniture, so well decorated that you feel like you can’t really use anything, can’t ever really settle down and feel as if it’s a home. You could stare at it all day, but it doesn’t bring you a sense of comfort. Or anyway, it didn’t bring me a sense of comfort. Maybe this is because I was alone—but I think I would have gotten that kind of feeling no matter what. It was a great city to visit, but not someplace I’d ever want to stay long-term.
The Czech language, completely alien to me, also made me feel wayyy out of my element. From my four days in the city, I came away with this handy knowledge:
Tricko= t-shirt (learned this from the shopping I did in Wenceslas Square, in the more “modern”, Times Square-ish part of the city)
Voda=water
Divadlo= theater
Karlovo= Charles
Namesty= square (I think…?)
There’s a basic Czech lesson for you. Just don’t ask me how to pronounce any of it.
Anywayyy I mentioned way back that I took a tour of the city… and besides going through Old Town Square, our group saw the famed Astronomical Clock and got to walk through the outside of the Jewish Quarter (unfortunately everything had already closed for Shabbat, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to ever go inside the museums… turns out I had plenty of time to see them once my flight was cancelled…).
On Sunday I took a funicular ride to the top of Petrin Hill, a big city park where you get a great view of the Prague skyline. They have a mini Eiffel Tower up there, but I bypassed the line and opted to just take in the view while walking down the hill instead of taking the funicular. There was also a museum of astronomy up there, with two telescopes where you could view the sun and Venus, which was pretty cool. After the park I made sure to witness the “show” at the Astronomical Clock when it struck 2 p.m. Every hour the clock has little figures of medieval “sins” on it that move and twirl around, and people crowd around to see it happen. Then I joined up with a free tour group heading to the John Lennon “Imagine” Wall and Prague Castle, since hadn’t yet seen those important sights. At this point I FINALLY met other people!! The hostel I was staying at was more like a bed and breakfast, totally empty all day except for me and a retired couple. Not the ideal place to make friends. But a couple kids in the tour group were studying in Barcelona, and one girl was from Rockville, so we commiserated about the volcano situation and it was nice to not feel so alone!
Later I spent some time at the Franz Kafka Museum and then headed to an Internet Café to find out my plane situation.
But before I talk about that, I’ll fill you in on my three favorite Prague cafés. If you ever go to Prague, you MUST try these places!
Kava Kava Kava is like a quirky little coffee shop tucked back in a square off a big shopping street, Narodni Trida. They have TONS of house specialties, like the “Almond Dream” drink which I tried, and also a huge range of herbal teas and homemade desserts like the apple strudel and carrot cake. Bagels and cream cheese were also available, and I had my first since being in Europe this semester! I went there three times during my weekend and it was a great place to relax and start my day. Not to mention they had free Internet, and a really cheap printer I could use!
My first night in Prague I had dinner at Café Louvre, a really elegant restaurant with a billiard room/lounge attached, and full of history. Apparently it was established in 1902 and at one point frequented by the likes of Kafka and Albert Einstein. It was closed during the communist era for its “bourgeois” character and reopened in 1992. The restaurant side was a bit stuffy, and I felt kind of awkward eating there alone, but the amazing food more than made it up for it. I had a smoked salmon dish, a goat cheese salad and homemade whole-wheat carrot cake with coconut for dessert.
I ate dinner twice at Café Slavia, a spacious dining room overlooking the river. This place also has a really elegant feel to it, with chandeliers and an art deco” style, lots of paintings hanging on the walls, and a live pianist. Yet I still didn’t feel so weird being there by myself…despite being elegant, it was casual, still a “café.” It seemed like a place where Prague happy hours might take place, except that instead of ordering a beer you might order a coffee or one of their famous hot chocolate, and listen to piano. Very sophisticated, but then again Café Slavia used to play host to Prague artists and intellectuals, including the former president, who visited a lot during his “dissident years.” As for me, I enjoyed some amazing salty and sweet crepes, Swiss ice cream and banana hot chocolate (spread between two different days!!). I sat by the riverside windows and people-watched for like an hour while feeling like the quintessential Prague intellectual. Well, maybe not, but it was a great place to pass some time, eat delicious food and soak up the atmosphere.
So I soon found out that my flight on Sunday was not happening, and I scrambled to search for alternative ways to get back to Italy. Trains were too complicated and too expensive, and there didn’t seem to be any direct buses to Italy…until I found the Student Agency bus group, which sounded too good to be true. A bus pretty much directly to Florence, with movies playing during the whole ride, free tea/cappuccinos/newspapers, a bathroom on the bus…and I’d only have to wait one extra day/night before it left. The only downside: almost 20 hours on a bus.
I quickly booked the bus ticket and made a hostel reservation at the place where I’d stayed the first night, which was way cheaper, more convenient and more social than the place I stayed during the two middle nights of the trip. Then Sunday I got to explore the Jewish Quarter, go inside all the synagogues and museums that I wouldn’t have been able to see had my flight not been canceled. The exhibits were really interesting to me, especially because of my Eastern European Jewish heritage. The most moving part of it, by far, was seeing the pictures drawn by children from a concentration camp outside Prague. A woman had conducted art therapy sessions with kids in the camp, and they’d drawn pictures of their homes, their dreams, their fears, what they saw around them. Almost every single one of the kids died afterwards in Auschwitz, so it really gave me chills seeing these images—my tour guide said they are basically the only evidence that these children ever existed on Earth, because the Nazis did such a good job of destroying birth/death documentation. The other striking part of the Jewish Quarter was the cemetery, which my sister described in her blog. All the graves were piled on top of each other because the city wouldn’t allow the Jews to have another burial site.
After a pretty heavy day of sightseeing, I treated myself to some shopping around Wenceslas Square, drank a Czech beer, and had dinner at Café Slavia.
Of course, that night I met like ten people all at once, at my hostel, who were so nice and I could have been hanging out with the entire time I was in Prague! But I didn’t meet them right until I was about to leave. It was nice to be able to laugh/empathize with each other about the volcano and our transportation dilemmas, though! I even met a girl from Hong Kong who was traveling by herself and is a journalism major, and we had a great conversation and are going to keep in touch. I always love meeting people while traveling! And good thing, because I did a ton of that the next day on my bus ride…
I got to the Prague bus station like two hours early, because I was absolutely intent on NOT missing this bus. I was just sure some kind of fluke would happen, and I wouldn’t be able to get back to Italy! But somehow, to my surprise, everything went perfectly. When I first got to the station and was waiting around, a heard a group of kids around my age speaking Italian, and I got really excited. Finally a language I can understand! It felt like being home.
When we switched buses in this random Czech city called Brno, one of the guys in the group asked if I was Italian, and when I told him I was American but could speak Italian, he and his three friends welcomed me into their circle like I was a long lost relative. They immediately handed me a sandwich and slices of fruit that they’d brought for lunch, insisting that I eat with them, and then we all went to the bathroom across the street and linked arms while we crossed to get to the hotel. This older lady had also been tagging along with them, and she was such a character…actually she reminded me a lot of Grammy. She travels the world by herself speaking at conferences, and was saying how she always meets people, how she never could just stay at home and cook and clean but had to be independent…she was from Malta but also lives in Belgium. And she could speak English, Italian, Maltese and Arabic. It was the cutest thing, because everyone kept calling her the “nonna,” the grandmother of the group, and so it was 4 Italians (2 guys and 2 girls who hadn’t known each other before their flights were cancelled), me, the American girl, and the older Maltese grandmotherly lady. We stuck together though the whole bus ride, laughing and talking, they kept sharing their food with me and were just generally the sweetest people ever. Now I’m friends with them all on Facebook, and two of the girls who live near Salerno want to meet up when I’m there next week. As crazy as this might sound, I am almost happy I got stuck in Prague and had to take this bus…because I met these amazing people and went through an experience I will never, ever forget. The 18 hours actually passed by quickly because I was having so much fun talking to my new friends (and of course, talking in Italian! Still can’t believe how much I have learned, to the point that I can have conversations like that…). The scenery was mostly fields and hills, some Czech and Austrian countryside, which was nice to see. And I arrived in Florence two hours ahead of time…
Which would have been great if it hadn’t been 3:40 in the morning. Unfortunately my new friends were all getting off at Rome, so I stepped off the bus in the pitch black Florence night, completely disoriented, half-asleep, with a cell phone out of battery…by myself. And when I made my way to the train station, I found that it was closed, a few homeless people slumped against the walls sleeping. Before I could let myself freak out, I walked over to this couple who looked to be Italian and who I thought might have been on the same bus as me. They had the same confused/slightly freaked out expressions on their faces that I did. Before I knew it, I was sitting on a bench in the station (which finally opened) having a great conversation with the couple, who turned out to be from Russia and Greece. They were both really funny but also extremely intelligent, and they had lots of stories about studying in Paris and Italy, and plans to study in Barcelona in the future…
I had to wait until 5:50 for my train to Perugia, but I made it through somehow, and only had to wait alone for about a half hour. I am still recovering from exhaustion, but I’ve had no time to catch my breath because the International Journalism Festival began the day I arrived. But I’ll save my writing about that for later—because I know I will have a LOT to say. Preview: I might be meeting Al Gore on Saturday. I’ll keep you all posted.
Now theoretically, I was supposed to fly into Prague Thursday night, stay one night in a hostel by myself, and then by the time I woke up the next morning, Erica and her roommate Larissa should have been in the city and we were going to meet up at a new hostel and start touring. Instead, just as I went to buy a Metro ticket at the airport on Thursday, I received a phone call from Erica telling me that some crazy Icelandic volcano has halted her flight and that’s when things started getting a little wacky **cue Twilight Zone music**….
Instead of getting into Prague on a later flight, like I’d hoped and thought they would, of course Erica and Larissa weren’t able to come to Prague at all because the entire European airspace shut down. So that left me with three nights and two days (which turned into four nights and three days) in Prague by myself. Not at all what I’d expected my weekend to be, but I really tried to make the best of it. People had told me Prague ranked up there as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and so even if I wasn’t able to explore it with my friends, I felt lucky to be there at all.
What did I do during my stay, you may be wondering? Well thankfully, I’d done a little research before I left Perugia and printed out a couple restaurant suggestions and “Top 10 sights in Prague” type-things. These in combination with the advice of friends who had previously been there was enough to keep me happily occupied (if a bit lonely, especially by the end) during my visit.
On Melissa’s suggestion (and also based off what Ilana mentioned in Brussels about her Amsterdam tour) I took a “free” tour with the New Europe guides, basically a company that’s geared toward showing college students around European cities, with the assumption that you’ll tip your guide at the end. The guide really made the tour entertaining, because he was so young and would crack funny little jokes now and then, so it wasn’t all dull Czech history. But I still felt like I was able to look at the monuments and Cinderella architecture of the city within a context after having heard him talk about the history of the city, which made it a lot more meaningful to me. I wish I had gotten that kind of background on the history of every city I’ve visited this semester.
With this tour we walked through the Old Town Square, which kind of reminds me (along with most of Prague) of what Hershey Park or Busch Gardens attempt to be when you first walk into the park, with the gingerbread house, tudor-style shops all lined up next to each other. But, of course, this was the real deal. Technically speaking, the guide told us you can find Gothic and Art Nouveau architecture throughout the city’s churches and public buildings, and what these styles both share (if I remember correctly) is an emphasis on over-the-top, flashy details. Spires and cupolas and statues galore, burnt-sienna-colored sloping roofs and a river cutting through the center of everything—that’s Prague in a nutshell. Basically fairy-tale central, almost too beautiful to be real.
In a way, I think I felt less comfortable in Prague than in other cities I’ve visited because of this—it was almost too perfect, overdone. I say this just for argument’s sake, because who can complain about the beauty of Prague? But to me it was interesting to compare it to the beauty of a place like, for instance, Cinque Terre, which is a much more natural, rugged setting, but absolutely gorgeous without ever trying to be. Prague was almost like a house filled with such nice furniture, so well decorated that you feel like you can’t really use anything, can’t ever really settle down and feel as if it’s a home. You could stare at it all day, but it doesn’t bring you a sense of comfort. Or anyway, it didn’t bring me a sense of comfort. Maybe this is because I was alone—but I think I would have gotten that kind of feeling no matter what. It was a great city to visit, but not someplace I’d ever want to stay long-term.
The Czech language, completely alien to me, also made me feel wayyy out of my element. From my four days in the city, I came away with this handy knowledge:
Tricko= t-shirt (learned this from the shopping I did in Wenceslas Square, in the more “modern”, Times Square-ish part of the city)
Voda=water
Divadlo= theater
Karlovo= Charles
Namesty= square (I think…?)
There’s a basic Czech lesson for you. Just don’t ask me how to pronounce any of it.
Anywayyy I mentioned way back that I took a tour of the city… and besides going through Old Town Square, our group saw the famed Astronomical Clock and got to walk through the outside of the Jewish Quarter (unfortunately everything had already closed for Shabbat, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to ever go inside the museums… turns out I had plenty of time to see them once my flight was cancelled…).
On Sunday I took a funicular ride to the top of Petrin Hill, a big city park where you get a great view of the Prague skyline. They have a mini Eiffel Tower up there, but I bypassed the line and opted to just take in the view while walking down the hill instead of taking the funicular. There was also a museum of astronomy up there, with two telescopes where you could view the sun and Venus, which was pretty cool. After the park I made sure to witness the “show” at the Astronomical Clock when it struck 2 p.m. Every hour the clock has little figures of medieval “sins” on it that move and twirl around, and people crowd around to see it happen. Then I joined up with a free tour group heading to the John Lennon “Imagine” Wall and Prague Castle, since hadn’t yet seen those important sights. At this point I FINALLY met other people!! The hostel I was staying at was more like a bed and breakfast, totally empty all day except for me and a retired couple. Not the ideal place to make friends. But a couple kids in the tour group were studying in Barcelona, and one girl was from Rockville, so we commiserated about the volcano situation and it was nice to not feel so alone!
Later I spent some time at the Franz Kafka Museum and then headed to an Internet Café to find out my plane situation.
But before I talk about that, I’ll fill you in on my three favorite Prague cafés. If you ever go to Prague, you MUST try these places!
Kava Kava Kava is like a quirky little coffee shop tucked back in a square off a big shopping street, Narodni Trida. They have TONS of house specialties, like the “Almond Dream” drink which I tried, and also a huge range of herbal teas and homemade desserts like the apple strudel and carrot cake. Bagels and cream cheese were also available, and I had my first since being in Europe this semester! I went there three times during my weekend and it was a great place to relax and start my day. Not to mention they had free Internet, and a really cheap printer I could use!
My first night in Prague I had dinner at Café Louvre, a really elegant restaurant with a billiard room/lounge attached, and full of history. Apparently it was established in 1902 and at one point frequented by the likes of Kafka and Albert Einstein. It was closed during the communist era for its “bourgeois” character and reopened in 1992. The restaurant side was a bit stuffy, and I felt kind of awkward eating there alone, but the amazing food more than made it up for it. I had a smoked salmon dish, a goat cheese salad and homemade whole-wheat carrot cake with coconut for dessert.
I ate dinner twice at Café Slavia, a spacious dining room overlooking the river. This place also has a really elegant feel to it, with chandeliers and an art deco” style, lots of paintings hanging on the walls, and a live pianist. Yet I still didn’t feel so weird being there by myself…despite being elegant, it was casual, still a “café.” It seemed like a place where Prague happy hours might take place, except that instead of ordering a beer you might order a coffee or one of their famous hot chocolate, and listen to piano. Very sophisticated, but then again Café Slavia used to play host to Prague artists and intellectuals, including the former president, who visited a lot during his “dissident years.” As for me, I enjoyed some amazing salty and sweet crepes, Swiss ice cream and banana hot chocolate (spread between two different days!!). I sat by the riverside windows and people-watched for like an hour while feeling like the quintessential Prague intellectual. Well, maybe not, but it was a great place to pass some time, eat delicious food and soak up the atmosphere.
So I soon found out that my flight on Sunday was not happening, and I scrambled to search for alternative ways to get back to Italy. Trains were too complicated and too expensive, and there didn’t seem to be any direct buses to Italy…until I found the Student Agency bus group, which sounded too good to be true. A bus pretty much directly to Florence, with movies playing during the whole ride, free tea/cappuccinos/newspapers, a bathroom on the bus…and I’d only have to wait one extra day/night before it left. The only downside: almost 20 hours on a bus.
I quickly booked the bus ticket and made a hostel reservation at the place where I’d stayed the first night, which was way cheaper, more convenient and more social than the place I stayed during the two middle nights of the trip. Then Sunday I got to explore the Jewish Quarter, go inside all the synagogues and museums that I wouldn’t have been able to see had my flight not been canceled. The exhibits were really interesting to me, especially because of my Eastern European Jewish heritage. The most moving part of it, by far, was seeing the pictures drawn by children from a concentration camp outside Prague. A woman had conducted art therapy sessions with kids in the camp, and they’d drawn pictures of their homes, their dreams, their fears, what they saw around them. Almost every single one of the kids died afterwards in Auschwitz, so it really gave me chills seeing these images—my tour guide said they are basically the only evidence that these children ever existed on Earth, because the Nazis did such a good job of destroying birth/death documentation. The other striking part of the Jewish Quarter was the cemetery, which my sister described in her blog. All the graves were piled on top of each other because the city wouldn’t allow the Jews to have another burial site.
After a pretty heavy day of sightseeing, I treated myself to some shopping around Wenceslas Square, drank a Czech beer, and had dinner at Café Slavia.
Of course, that night I met like ten people all at once, at my hostel, who were so nice and I could have been hanging out with the entire time I was in Prague! But I didn’t meet them right until I was about to leave. It was nice to be able to laugh/empathize with each other about the volcano and our transportation dilemmas, though! I even met a girl from Hong Kong who was traveling by herself and is a journalism major, and we had a great conversation and are going to keep in touch. I always love meeting people while traveling! And good thing, because I did a ton of that the next day on my bus ride…
I got to the Prague bus station like two hours early, because I was absolutely intent on NOT missing this bus. I was just sure some kind of fluke would happen, and I wouldn’t be able to get back to Italy! But somehow, to my surprise, everything went perfectly. When I first got to the station and was waiting around, a heard a group of kids around my age speaking Italian, and I got really excited. Finally a language I can understand! It felt like being home.
When we switched buses in this random Czech city called Brno, one of the guys in the group asked if I was Italian, and when I told him I was American but could speak Italian, he and his three friends welcomed me into their circle like I was a long lost relative. They immediately handed me a sandwich and slices of fruit that they’d brought for lunch, insisting that I eat with them, and then we all went to the bathroom across the street and linked arms while we crossed to get to the hotel. This older lady had also been tagging along with them, and she was such a character…actually she reminded me a lot of Grammy. She travels the world by herself speaking at conferences, and was saying how she always meets people, how she never could just stay at home and cook and clean but had to be independent…she was from Malta but also lives in Belgium. And she could speak English, Italian, Maltese and Arabic. It was the cutest thing, because everyone kept calling her the “nonna,” the grandmother of the group, and so it was 4 Italians (2 guys and 2 girls who hadn’t known each other before their flights were cancelled), me, the American girl, and the older Maltese grandmotherly lady. We stuck together though the whole bus ride, laughing and talking, they kept sharing their food with me and were just generally the sweetest people ever. Now I’m friends with them all on Facebook, and two of the girls who live near Salerno want to meet up when I’m there next week. As crazy as this might sound, I am almost happy I got stuck in Prague and had to take this bus…because I met these amazing people and went through an experience I will never, ever forget. The 18 hours actually passed by quickly because I was having so much fun talking to my new friends (and of course, talking in Italian! Still can’t believe how much I have learned, to the point that I can have conversations like that…). The scenery was mostly fields and hills, some Czech and Austrian countryside, which was nice to see. And I arrived in Florence two hours ahead of time…
Which would have been great if it hadn’t been 3:40 in the morning. Unfortunately my new friends were all getting off at Rome, so I stepped off the bus in the pitch black Florence night, completely disoriented, half-asleep, with a cell phone out of battery…by myself. And when I made my way to the train station, I found that it was closed, a few homeless people slumped against the walls sleeping. Before I could let myself freak out, I walked over to this couple who looked to be Italian and who I thought might have been on the same bus as me. They had the same confused/slightly freaked out expressions on their faces that I did. Before I knew it, I was sitting on a bench in the station (which finally opened) having a great conversation with the couple, who turned out to be from Russia and Greece. They were both really funny but also extremely intelligent, and they had lots of stories about studying in Paris and Italy, and plans to study in Barcelona in the future…
I had to wait until 5:50 for my train to Perugia, but I made it through somehow, and only had to wait alone for about a half hour. I am still recovering from exhaustion, but I’ve had no time to catch my breath because the International Journalism Festival began the day I arrived. But I’ll save my writing about that for later—because I know I will have a LOT to say. Preview: I might be meeting Al Gore on Saturday. I’ll keep you all posted.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Waffle capital of the world
How do I describe Brussels? If France and the Netherlands got married and had a child, I’m pretty sure it would look and feel something like Brussels. Quite a quirky combination, but I think that was what made it so fascinating. Visiting “the capital of Europe” was well worth my time, and I’m so glad I was able to spur-of-the-moment fit in a trip there. Despite my dismal accommodations in the 20 Euro/night Youth Hostel Van Gogh, I had a fantastic time soaking up some Belgian culture this weekend. And for probably the first time during any weekend “major city” trip I’ve taken, I left Sunday feeling like I’d really seen every important touristic sight, and then some.
I flew out of a bite-sized airport in a city called Ancona, about equidistant from Perugia as Rome, early Friday afternoon. My train left Perugia for Ancona at 6:55 a.m., though, so it was a loooong day. I didn’t actually make it to my hostel in Brussels until about 12 hours later. Since I’d booked this so last-minute, I had slim pickings when it came to hostel choices, and I based on hostelworld.com reviews, I was prepared to experience true hostel living for the weekend. I’d been lucky to stay in comfortable bed and breakfasts and one really clean and comfortable hostel during all my other travels, but I knew I was in for the real thing this time. The bedsheets they gave me had holes in them, and they didn’t provide soap in any of the (already fairly disgusting) bathrooms. They did, however, provide a continental breakfast in the morning. Seriously, I’d rather have them give me basic sanitary necessities like soap than shell out the money for a meager breakfast. I ended up buying a bar of soap at a somewhat sketchy convenience store Friday night, just so I didn’t have to feel like I might give myself a life-threatening eye disease every time I took out my contacts!
Anyway, it wasn’t the classiest or most comfortable overnight stay, but it was well worth it to see Brussels. After I settled my stuff in Friday, I met up with Erica and Ilana and we took a little walk around the area, eventually ending up in The Grand Place. This is the main square in Brussels, and anyone who’s seen pictures of postcards from the city will have this image of it. Cobblestoned streets surround it, and the buildings all look majestic, like something out of a fairy tale (see photos). I loved the architecture of the classic buildings and houses in Brussels. So different than beautiful Italian architecture, none of the clay-colored sloping roofs and stucco and bright green shutters with laundry hanging out the window…but instead layers of brick and stately buildings with top-floor, street-facing facades that loop up and down. Like no other architecture I’d ever seen before.
The Grand Place is a tourist mecca, filled with Belgian chocolate stores, each one more tempting than the next. There were also plenty of waffle stands and French fry stands, both Brussels staples, and a couple of Belgian lace stores as well. We ate a traditional “mussels in Brussels” dinner at a restaurant Ilana had been recommended, and I got mine “au gratin,” or as the menu described, covered and stuffed with melted cheese and nutmeg. Mussels two weekends in a row, in two very different styles, in two very different places. Who would have thought?
We wandered some more around the city center after dinner, and got ourselves some Belgian waffles from a particularly delicious-looking vendor. I ordered mine covered in hot chocolate sauce and rainbow sprinkles. We also walked over to the “Manneken Pis” statue, a well-known monument of a boy peeing, that was apparently constructed after a fire in the city? I’m not sure what the story is, but it was cool to see this thing in person. Later, we went to this art museum-turned-bar, where we ordered beer, a Belgian specialty, in the unusual peach flavor. I’m not one for beer, but this stuff was actually really good. The bar was pretty unique as well…they had weird techno-ish music playing, and it was inside some historic building that had super-high ceilings and art displays of trees along the walls.
The next day we utilized the excellent city maps we’d been given (created by local people around our age, they had amazing tips for sightseeing and walking tours) and hit up a bunch of the major Brussels sights in quick succession. We followed one of the walking tour paths recommended on the map, and saw the headquarters of the European Council in Schuman Square, where they make decisions about those lovely Euros that I (and every other study abroad student) can’t seem to keep in my pocket half as long as I’d like. Oh, exchange rate, you are the bane of my existence! But at least it’s gotten better since I arrived…
This area of the city, as well as other parts we walked through later, was a lot more modern, full of shiny skyscrapers and a world away from the cobblestones of Grand Place. Brussels definitely rivaled Barcelona in its multi-faceted personality. But more on that later.
After the Euro building, we walked through Museum Park, where the history museum, car museum and army museum are all housed. It was a nice, grassy park, with an arc de triomph-type entranceway. Later we saw Leopold Park, where the Brussels Zoo was once located before all the animals mysteriously died, and eventually got over to the European Parliament, another huge, glassy mega-building very reminiscent of the USA TODAY building where I interned last summer.
We used our handy maps to loop into another suggested walking tour, this one taking us through “Little Africa,” a neighborhood with African grocery stores, hairdressers, bars, you name it. Apparently 40-something percent of Brussels residents are foreigners (the map says so) and I think a good portion come from Northern Africa. This neighborhood obviously had a totally different feel than the ones we’d previously been through, and it again amazed me how versatile one city could be. And most strange to me in Brussels was how these polar opposite areas could sit one right next to the other, colliding into each other without any sense of where (or how) one ended and the next one began. This happened when we walked into Avenue Louise, the “snobby shopping” district of the city, with high-end boutiques galore. This came right after the slightly decrepit Little Africa area. We walked over to the Palace of Justice and took a glass elevator up and down next-door, for some cool panoramas of the city, and then metro-ed over to Atomium. This is kind of like the Leaning Tower of Pisa or Eiffel Tower of Belgium. It’s an enormous metallic atom that was made for the 1950-something World’s Fair, and today it sits strangely outside the city center next to a big parking lot. We took some pictures outside and saw crazy people hang-gliding from the top of it.
Erica and Ilana had to catch a train to their next destination, Bruges, after lunch, but since my plane didn’t fly back to Italy until the next morning, I went on my own to check out more of what Brussels had to offer. I followed another of the trusted map’s suggested walking tours, this one taking me to the canal area, where it said I would see one of the trendiest shopping areas in Brussels on one side, and the Moroccan neighborhood on the other. Instead I found myself in a neighborhood that looked pretty much shady in all directions, but after walking a bit I could see a few of the ritzy shops the map was referring to. Still, it was so intertwined with the depressed part of the neighborhood that I didn’t want to do much exploring. Instead I found an area near the St. Katherine Metro Station and happened upon an extremely intriguing-looking chocolate shop. Having not yet tried a Belgian chocolate, I indulged myself in a few handmade truffles at Frederic Blondeel, which turned out to be the most adorable little chocolate venue. Not a chain, like all the other places I’d seen in the main tourist area, but a place owned and operated by the guy it’s named after. These were some of the best chocolates I’d ever had. Feeling satisfied with my Belgian chocolate experience, I took the Metro over to the Royal Palace and Belgian Parliament buildings, which are situation on either end of a really pretty park, reminiscent of the park near Buckingham Palace in London. The Royal Palace was particularly impressive. After that, I walked back in the direction of Grand Place, passing the main cathedral which I’d seen the night before, a really ornate church very, very similar to the Notre Dame.
I set off in search of the “best waffles” in Brussels according to my city map, and serendipitously found the place, Mokafe, without meaning to. It was hidden among the stores in the Gallery, the big high-end, indoor shopping center that runs like a hallway connecting the Grand Place area with the area closer to the Cathedral. Despite its location in the pricy shopping mall, Mokafe had super-reasonable menu choices, and I got the most fantastic waffle, covered in bananas and powdered sugar and served with a piping hot bowl of hot fudge that I could drizzle over it to my heart’s content. I also ordered some kind of fruit drink with fresh banana in it that was equally incredible. I’ll also admit that later that night, after walking around Grand Place and window-shopping, I made a trip to Haagen-Daaz for some ice cream. I just couldn’t resist. Yes, I should be about 500 pounds right now. Gotta take advantage of the good metabolism (and lack of Diabetes) while I can, right? And besides, you only live once! When in Belgium, there’s no such thing as too much chocolate. Or at least that’s what I’ve decided. The same could go for pizza and gelato in Italy.
My waffle:
A few of the chocolate-store displays I couldn't stop snapping photos of:
One thing that really struck me about Brussels was the aspect of language. The fact that the city literally has everything written in two languages- French and Dutch- including street names and Metro stations and advertisements and menus. Almost everywhere people also spoke some English, and it just seemed in general like a city full of multi-lingual people, which really impressed me. Maybe it’s just Europe in general that’s that way…even tourists flipped back and forth, speaking in their native language to each other and then switching to French when a waiter came to take an order. I feel like an idiot for only being truly fluent in one language, when these people are able to master several and alternate back and forth like flicking an on and off button on a light switch. As I’ve written before, this semester has really given me a sense of how fascinating the concept of language is, and this visit to Brussels was just another experience that made me think about how much I would love to learn more languages. I’m really amazed at how comfortable I feel with Italian, and what a short period of time it took for me to feel that way…so who knows, maybe I can get French and Spanish to the same level as my Italian in the not-so-distant future.
But for now, Italian is my priority. With less than a month left in this country, I can see these last few weeks (only two before my parents/Melissa arrive!!) speeding by. I’m getting a bit nostalgic thinking about it already. There are some things about home (mainly the people, and the comfortably familiarity of it) that I can’t wait to go back to, but despite the challenges of this semester, there will be a long list of things, some intangible, that I know I’ll miss all the time once I’m gone.
I flew out of a bite-sized airport in a city called Ancona, about equidistant from Perugia as Rome, early Friday afternoon. My train left Perugia for Ancona at 6:55 a.m., though, so it was a loooong day. I didn’t actually make it to my hostel in Brussels until about 12 hours later. Since I’d booked this so last-minute, I had slim pickings when it came to hostel choices, and I based on hostelworld.com reviews, I was prepared to experience true hostel living for the weekend. I’d been lucky to stay in comfortable bed and breakfasts and one really clean and comfortable hostel during all my other travels, but I knew I was in for the real thing this time. The bedsheets they gave me had holes in them, and they didn’t provide soap in any of the (already fairly disgusting) bathrooms. They did, however, provide a continental breakfast in the morning. Seriously, I’d rather have them give me basic sanitary necessities like soap than shell out the money for a meager breakfast. I ended up buying a bar of soap at a somewhat sketchy convenience store Friday night, just so I didn’t have to feel like I might give myself a life-threatening eye disease every time I took out my contacts!
Anyway, it wasn’t the classiest or most comfortable overnight stay, but it was well worth it to see Brussels. After I settled my stuff in Friday, I met up with Erica and Ilana and we took a little walk around the area, eventually ending up in The Grand Place. This is the main square in Brussels, and anyone who’s seen pictures of postcards from the city will have this image of it. Cobblestoned streets surround it, and the buildings all look majestic, like something out of a fairy tale (see photos). I loved the architecture of the classic buildings and houses in Brussels. So different than beautiful Italian architecture, none of the clay-colored sloping roofs and stucco and bright green shutters with laundry hanging out the window…but instead layers of brick and stately buildings with top-floor, street-facing facades that loop up and down. Like no other architecture I’d ever seen before.
The Grand Place is a tourist mecca, filled with Belgian chocolate stores, each one more tempting than the next. There were also plenty of waffle stands and French fry stands, both Brussels staples, and a couple of Belgian lace stores as well. We ate a traditional “mussels in Brussels” dinner at a restaurant Ilana had been recommended, and I got mine “au gratin,” or as the menu described, covered and stuffed with melted cheese and nutmeg. Mussels two weekends in a row, in two very different styles, in two very different places. Who would have thought?
We wandered some more around the city center after dinner, and got ourselves some Belgian waffles from a particularly delicious-looking vendor. I ordered mine covered in hot chocolate sauce and rainbow sprinkles. We also walked over to the “Manneken Pis” statue, a well-known monument of a boy peeing, that was apparently constructed after a fire in the city? I’m not sure what the story is, but it was cool to see this thing in person. Later, we went to this art museum-turned-bar, where we ordered beer, a Belgian specialty, in the unusual peach flavor. I’m not one for beer, but this stuff was actually really good. The bar was pretty unique as well…they had weird techno-ish music playing, and it was inside some historic building that had super-high ceilings and art displays of trees along the walls.
The next day we utilized the excellent city maps we’d been given (created by local people around our age, they had amazing tips for sightseeing and walking tours) and hit up a bunch of the major Brussels sights in quick succession. We followed one of the walking tour paths recommended on the map, and saw the headquarters of the European Council in Schuman Square, where they make decisions about those lovely Euros that I (and every other study abroad student) can’t seem to keep in my pocket half as long as I’d like. Oh, exchange rate, you are the bane of my existence! But at least it’s gotten better since I arrived…
This area of the city, as well as other parts we walked through later, was a lot more modern, full of shiny skyscrapers and a world away from the cobblestones of Grand Place. Brussels definitely rivaled Barcelona in its multi-faceted personality. But more on that later.
After the Euro building, we walked through Museum Park, where the history museum, car museum and army museum are all housed. It was a nice, grassy park, with an arc de triomph-type entranceway. Later we saw Leopold Park, where the Brussels Zoo was once located before all the animals mysteriously died, and eventually got over to the European Parliament, another huge, glassy mega-building very reminiscent of the USA TODAY building where I interned last summer.
We used our handy maps to loop into another suggested walking tour, this one taking us through “Little Africa,” a neighborhood with African grocery stores, hairdressers, bars, you name it. Apparently 40-something percent of Brussels residents are foreigners (the map says so) and I think a good portion come from Northern Africa. This neighborhood obviously had a totally different feel than the ones we’d previously been through, and it again amazed me how versatile one city could be. And most strange to me in Brussels was how these polar opposite areas could sit one right next to the other, colliding into each other without any sense of where (or how) one ended and the next one began. This happened when we walked into Avenue Louise, the “snobby shopping” district of the city, with high-end boutiques galore. This came right after the slightly decrepit Little Africa area. We walked over to the Palace of Justice and took a glass elevator up and down next-door, for some cool panoramas of the city, and then metro-ed over to Atomium. This is kind of like the Leaning Tower of Pisa or Eiffel Tower of Belgium. It’s an enormous metallic atom that was made for the 1950-something World’s Fair, and today it sits strangely outside the city center next to a big parking lot. We took some pictures outside and saw crazy people hang-gliding from the top of it.
Erica and Ilana had to catch a train to their next destination, Bruges, after lunch, but since my plane didn’t fly back to Italy until the next morning, I went on my own to check out more of what Brussels had to offer. I followed another of the trusted map’s suggested walking tours, this one taking me to the canal area, where it said I would see one of the trendiest shopping areas in Brussels on one side, and the Moroccan neighborhood on the other. Instead I found myself in a neighborhood that looked pretty much shady in all directions, but after walking a bit I could see a few of the ritzy shops the map was referring to. Still, it was so intertwined with the depressed part of the neighborhood that I didn’t want to do much exploring. Instead I found an area near the St. Katherine Metro Station and happened upon an extremely intriguing-looking chocolate shop. Having not yet tried a Belgian chocolate, I indulged myself in a few handmade truffles at Frederic Blondeel, which turned out to be the most adorable little chocolate venue. Not a chain, like all the other places I’d seen in the main tourist area, but a place owned and operated by the guy it’s named after. These were some of the best chocolates I’d ever had. Feeling satisfied with my Belgian chocolate experience, I took the Metro over to the Royal Palace and Belgian Parliament buildings, which are situation on either end of a really pretty park, reminiscent of the park near Buckingham Palace in London. The Royal Palace was particularly impressive. After that, I walked back in the direction of Grand Place, passing the main cathedral which I’d seen the night before, a really ornate church very, very similar to the Notre Dame.
I set off in search of the “best waffles” in Brussels according to my city map, and serendipitously found the place, Mokafe, without meaning to. It was hidden among the stores in the Gallery, the big high-end, indoor shopping center that runs like a hallway connecting the Grand Place area with the area closer to the Cathedral. Despite its location in the pricy shopping mall, Mokafe had super-reasonable menu choices, and I got the most fantastic waffle, covered in bananas and powdered sugar and served with a piping hot bowl of hot fudge that I could drizzle over it to my heart’s content. I also ordered some kind of fruit drink with fresh banana in it that was equally incredible. I’ll also admit that later that night, after walking around Grand Place and window-shopping, I made a trip to Haagen-Daaz for some ice cream. I just couldn’t resist. Yes, I should be about 500 pounds right now. Gotta take advantage of the good metabolism (and lack of Diabetes) while I can, right? And besides, you only live once! When in Belgium, there’s no such thing as too much chocolate. Or at least that’s what I’ve decided. The same could go for pizza and gelato in Italy.
My waffle:
A few of the chocolate-store displays I couldn't stop snapping photos of:
One thing that really struck me about Brussels was the aspect of language. The fact that the city literally has everything written in two languages- French and Dutch- including street names and Metro stations and advertisements and menus. Almost everywhere people also spoke some English, and it just seemed in general like a city full of multi-lingual people, which really impressed me. Maybe it’s just Europe in general that’s that way…even tourists flipped back and forth, speaking in their native language to each other and then switching to French when a waiter came to take an order. I feel like an idiot for only being truly fluent in one language, when these people are able to master several and alternate back and forth like flicking an on and off button on a light switch. As I’ve written before, this semester has really given me a sense of how fascinating the concept of language is, and this visit to Brussels was just another experience that made me think about how much I would love to learn more languages. I’m really amazed at how comfortable I feel with Italian, and what a short period of time it took for me to feel that way…so who knows, maybe I can get French and Spanish to the same level as my Italian in the not-so-distant future.
But for now, Italian is my priority. With less than a month left in this country, I can see these last few weeks (only two before my parents/Melissa arrive!!) speeding by. I’m getting a bit nostalgic thinking about it already. There are some things about home (mainly the people, and the comfortably familiarity of it) that I can’t wait to go back to, but despite the challenges of this semester, there will be a long list of things, some intangible, that I know I’ll miss all the time once I’m gone.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Hiking Cinque Terre
*Pretend this was published a week ago...
My life has been way, way too busy. I'll post on Brussels in a few days.
The jet-setting traveler that I am, bright and early tomorrow morning I leave for Brussels and I barely have time to update on my last adventure, Cinque Terre. But I wouldn’t dare leave without giving at least a brief account of my Easter (and Passover) weekend spent by the Ligurian Sea.
I met up with my friend Erica Friday afternoon during my train layover in Florence, where she’d been staying with a friend who’s studying there, Sarahann. The three of us got delicious pizzas at a restaurant near the station and it was great to catch up and share study abroad stories. Then Erica and I made it just in time to catch our train to Vernazza, our home base for our three-night getaway.
For those who don’t know, Cinque Terre translates to “five lands,” or really just, “five towns.” It’s made up of (from South to North) Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. You can easily travel between the five towns by train, but hiking is the preferred means of transportation for most tourists. What most people do is buy a train and trail pass for a weekend, so that once they’ve exhausted themselves climbing up and down the seaside cliffs, they can haul it back to their town of choice on board a train. Erica and I did exactly that.
We stayed in a great hostel/bed & breakfast (not a true bed & breakfast, but they call themselves that) that was 100 daunting steps away from the center of Vernazza. After plenty of gelato and pesto pasta dishes (the region of Liguria is the birthplace of pesto, FYI), though, those steps were eagerly anticipated! Really, we were in the perfect location. Vernazza, like the other four towns, was a quaint beach town full of cute trattorias, gelaterias, pizzerias and shops hawking tourist paraphernalia. But it also boasted a little walkway by the sparkling blue bay, and rocks that you could climb on and watch as the waves splashed and crashed into the harbor. Friday afternoon we took full advantage of that tranquil little area and couldn’t stop staring at that gorgeous water—so blue, just like on the Amalfi Coast. Our first night we got to stay in a room with a terrace overlooking the coast and the jagged, colorful buildings lining the mountainside. What a view. And at about 30 euros per person, quite a deal. The bed was super comfy, and the bathroom (though shared with the other rooms) was modern and clean. We did not rough it! Even when we switched to a room “without a view” for the other two nights, it had a window looking out on the coast and part of the town. Only in Italy would you call that a room without a view!
On Saturday we hiked between Vernazza and Corniglia, the second-hardest of the Cinque Terre hikes. It took a little more than an hour and was steep at times, and a little hard to keep your footing with jumbles of rocks lining the pathway. Of course, there was no guard rail to keep you from plummeting into the blue abyss below, but we made it out safe and sound. It was quite a workout, but so worth it. I’ll post pictures below of the views from up there, but I’ll be cliché and say that they were breathtaking and stunning. No other words fully do them justice.
The other two hikes we conquered, between Corniglia and Manarola, and between Manarola and Riomaggiore, were much less physically draining than our first one. We easily walked our way through them, enjoyed the gorgeous vistas of the open sea, and by later afternoon took a train back to Vernazza to nap and shower and take a break before dinner. I was proud of myself for braving a seafood speciality, stuffed mussels, despite the fact that I had zero idea what they would taste like. And they turned out to be pretty yummy, I have to say. We also sampled some limoncino, basically the Northern Italian version of limoncello, on Sunday. We made sure to check off all the local food and drink specialties while we were in the area.
We opted out of the most intense hike of them all, the one between Vernazza and Monterosso. If it hadn’t been drizzly and cloudy Sunday, we might have attempted it, but I did not want to get stuck up on the mountaintop in the middle of a thunderstorm! Instead we took the train and explored Monterosso, which is the odd-town-out in Cinque Terre. It’s not so windy and “classic Italian”-looking…more of a tourist town, with lots of hotels and restaurants. It’s got the biggest stretch of beach, so during the summer I’m sure it’s so much fun to lay out there and go swimming. But instead we went window-shopping, because of all the towns, Monterosso had the most jewelry and clothing stores! It was a nice, relaxing kind of day.
The past couple days Erica stayed with me in Perugia, and we spent lots of time eating, window-shopping and enjoying amazing views! Sounds like the typical activities anywhere in Italy, or scratch that, anywhere worth seeing in Europe. I have a feeling I’ll be doing my share of all three of those thing in Brussels this weekend.
Before this entry ends, I wanted to add that I randomly heard a lady in Cinque Terre belting out “O Sole Mio” last weekend. A sign from Grammy? I’d like to think so. It was really hard on Saturday thinking about how her funeral was taking place and I wasn’t there…I still don’t think I’ve fully processed that she’s gone. But I definitely feel more calm about it now, maybe just because I’ve been so busy. Once my family is here (which I can’t wait for! Three weeks from today!) I’m really looking forward to visiting her hometown and getting a little piece of closure that way.
My life has been way, way too busy. I'll post on Brussels in a few days.
The jet-setting traveler that I am, bright and early tomorrow morning I leave for Brussels and I barely have time to update on my last adventure, Cinque Terre. But I wouldn’t dare leave without giving at least a brief account of my Easter (and Passover) weekend spent by the Ligurian Sea.
I met up with my friend Erica Friday afternoon during my train layover in Florence, where she’d been staying with a friend who’s studying there, Sarahann. The three of us got delicious pizzas at a restaurant near the station and it was great to catch up and share study abroad stories. Then Erica and I made it just in time to catch our train to Vernazza, our home base for our three-night getaway.
For those who don’t know, Cinque Terre translates to “five lands,” or really just, “five towns.” It’s made up of (from South to North) Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. You can easily travel between the five towns by train, but hiking is the preferred means of transportation for most tourists. What most people do is buy a train and trail pass for a weekend, so that once they’ve exhausted themselves climbing up and down the seaside cliffs, they can haul it back to their town of choice on board a train. Erica and I did exactly that.
We stayed in a great hostel/bed & breakfast (not a true bed & breakfast, but they call themselves that) that was 100 daunting steps away from the center of Vernazza. After plenty of gelato and pesto pasta dishes (the region of Liguria is the birthplace of pesto, FYI), though, those steps were eagerly anticipated! Really, we were in the perfect location. Vernazza, like the other four towns, was a quaint beach town full of cute trattorias, gelaterias, pizzerias and shops hawking tourist paraphernalia. But it also boasted a little walkway by the sparkling blue bay, and rocks that you could climb on and watch as the waves splashed and crashed into the harbor. Friday afternoon we took full advantage of that tranquil little area and couldn’t stop staring at that gorgeous water—so blue, just like on the Amalfi Coast. Our first night we got to stay in a room with a terrace overlooking the coast and the jagged, colorful buildings lining the mountainside. What a view. And at about 30 euros per person, quite a deal. The bed was super comfy, and the bathroom (though shared with the other rooms) was modern and clean. We did not rough it! Even when we switched to a room “without a view” for the other two nights, it had a window looking out on the coast and part of the town. Only in Italy would you call that a room without a view!
On Saturday we hiked between Vernazza and Corniglia, the second-hardest of the Cinque Terre hikes. It took a little more than an hour and was steep at times, and a little hard to keep your footing with jumbles of rocks lining the pathway. Of course, there was no guard rail to keep you from plummeting into the blue abyss below, but we made it out safe and sound. It was quite a workout, but so worth it. I’ll post pictures below of the views from up there, but I’ll be cliché and say that they were breathtaking and stunning. No other words fully do them justice.
The other two hikes we conquered, between Corniglia and Manarola, and between Manarola and Riomaggiore, were much less physically draining than our first one. We easily walked our way through them, enjoyed the gorgeous vistas of the open sea, and by later afternoon took a train back to Vernazza to nap and shower and take a break before dinner. I was proud of myself for braving a seafood speciality, stuffed mussels, despite the fact that I had zero idea what they would taste like. And they turned out to be pretty yummy, I have to say. We also sampled some limoncino, basically the Northern Italian version of limoncello, on Sunday. We made sure to check off all the local food and drink specialties while we were in the area.
We opted out of the most intense hike of them all, the one between Vernazza and Monterosso. If it hadn’t been drizzly and cloudy Sunday, we might have attempted it, but I did not want to get stuck up on the mountaintop in the middle of a thunderstorm! Instead we took the train and explored Monterosso, which is the odd-town-out in Cinque Terre. It’s not so windy and “classic Italian”-looking…more of a tourist town, with lots of hotels and restaurants. It’s got the biggest stretch of beach, so during the summer I’m sure it’s so much fun to lay out there and go swimming. But instead we went window-shopping, because of all the towns, Monterosso had the most jewelry and clothing stores! It was a nice, relaxing kind of day.
The past couple days Erica stayed with me in Perugia, and we spent lots of time eating, window-shopping and enjoying amazing views! Sounds like the typical activities anywhere in Italy, or scratch that, anywhere worth seeing in Europe. I have a feeling I’ll be doing my share of all three of those thing in Brussels this weekend.
Before this entry ends, I wanted to add that I randomly heard a lady in Cinque Terre belting out “O Sole Mio” last weekend. A sign from Grammy? I’d like to think so. It was really hard on Saturday thinking about how her funeral was taking place and I wasn’t there…I still don’t think I’ve fully processed that she’s gone. But I definitely feel more calm about it now, maybe just because I’ve been so busy. Once my family is here (which I can’t wait for! Three weeks from today!) I’m really looking forward to visiting her hometown and getting a little piece of closure that way.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
You are my sunshine...
Well, this blog entry won’t be the typical travelogue you might have been expecting, because this week wasn’t exactly a typical week for me and my family. For those who don’t know already, my 96-year-old great-grandmother “Grammy” who I have written about in this blog, passed away two days ago. It was very sudden. When I last saw her on New Year’s Eve day and said my goodbye before this trip, I never expected that would be the last time I’d see her. She’d never been to a nursing home and still lived independently in her own house with her boyfriend, John. Her short-term memory was fading a little bit, but she was still full of witty jabs and spunk and determination. If it weren’t for my Grammy, I might not be here studying Italian in Italy right now. Her stories of growing up here were the seeds for this trip… singing “O sole mio” accompanied by her piano-playing, munching on her homemade pizzelles and looking at that old photo of her with her pouty 7-year-old face sent from Italy to her father in America. All of these little pieces came together to ultimately build my desire to speak Italian and know my roots here. But as fate would have it, my Grammy was scheduled to depart from this world while my sister and I were abroad. It’s really painful knowing I can’t be at her funeral, but there are a few things that help mitigate that pain.
1. I feel that being here in Italy and speaking the language she grew up with is almost like a tribute to her. I’m here on this journey as a result of the inspiration she gave me, and I’m connecting with her roots. My family and I had plans to visit the town where she was born in May—and now that this has happened, that visit will have even more significance.
2. Once I’m home I will be able to go to her gravesite with Melissa and my cousins Jimmy and Cameron, who are also not able to make it to her funeral, and I will be able to get a type of closure then. I’ll be able to write something from me to Grammy and read it aloud. And here in Italy, in the town of Lavorate where she was born, we are thinking of holding a memorial service of sorts for her. So my Grammy will get an extended memorial—not just one service, but a series of continuing tributes. In typical Grammy style, this isn’t going to be just any old ceremony, but instead something really extra special.
3. Although I didn’t get to speak with my Grammy half as often as I wish I did during these past few months I’ve been in Italy, I spoke with her on the phone while visiting her cousin Pasquale last Friday, and I got to tell her how much I love her Sunday night when she was rushed to the hospital. And she was able to understand me and tell me she loved me back. I am so so grateful that I was able to have that last conversation.
I am still struggling to grasp that this actually happened, but I feel comfort knowing Grammy lived a (very) long and fulfilling life, and she didn’t have to suffer or stay confined in a hospital bed for years, months or even weeks. She made a quick and graceful departure, just as she would have wanted.
It’s hard for me to even remember the details of the weekend I had before I got that phone call Sunday night on the train back from Verona. But I’ll try wrack through my brain to remember Friday through Sunday afternoon and the really wonderful weekend I had.
I took a train to a town called Busto Arsizio, just outside Milan, on Friday, so that I could visit my Grammy’s cousin Pasquale. Pasquale is Alessandra’s (the cousin I visited outside of Rome about a month ago) father and he and my Grammy kept in touch throughout the years, talking on the phone frequently, with Pasquale even visiting the U.S. twice. He was at my Bat Mitzvah eight years ago, and the last time I saw him was four years ago when he and Alessandra came to the hotel I was staying at with my high school group near Rome. But since then Pasquale had a serious decline in health, and for the last year and a half he has been confined to his house. The hardest blow for him was his loss of vision. After hearing from Alessandra what a tough time he has been having, I knew I had to find a way to visit him. And I’m so glad I did.
Walking through the door to their apartment and saying hello to Pasquale when I first arrived— it meant so much. He held me in a tight hug for a long, long time and even started tear to up, which made me start to tear up a little. I could just tell how badly he’d missed our family in the U.S….I think I was the representative of everyone and everything he remembered from his visit to America, and being with me reminded him of better times, when he was able to travel and spend time with us. His long-term memory was incredible—he remembered so many names of relatives, how many cousins I have and what their names are, the location of my grandparents’ house in Brigantine, what it was like to take pictures outside the synagogue at my Bat Mitzvah. I think it was therapeutic for me to talk about these things with him, and I was happy to do it. I knew this visit wasn’t going to be like my previous family visits in Italy. I wasn’t expecting to get a grand tour of Milan (in fact I really had no desire to see Milan) or go out to eat or anything like that. As we say in Jewish terms, this visit was a “mitzvah,” a good deed, and I felt satisfaction just from having spent time with Pasquale and giving him something to look forward to.
I also enjoyed meeting Pasquale’s wife, who I’d never met before. She was so incredibly sweet, treating me like I was her granddaughter. She made me nice little meals while I was there and let me drink hot cups of tea to my heart’s content, to help out with my cold. At the end she wrote me a thank-you note (in Italian, of course…did I mention I spent 90% of this visit speaking Italian? There was no other choice!) and gave me a special good-luck charm present. I was also introduced to Pasquale’s daughter Michela, son Gianluca, grandson, his sister Maria and her daughter Daniela, and even more relatives whose names I can’t remember. Everyone was so friendly, and it was once again a great feeling to meet these long-lost family members and share laughs.
On Saturday afternoon I took a train ride to nearby Verona, opting out of a Milan sightseeing trip in favor of the quainter, in my opinion much more appealing city that was supposedly home to Romeo and Juliet. This was my first experience staying overnight alone while traveling, and I’m proud of myself for having the guts to do it, and for successfully pulling it off! One of the many things I’ve learned during this semester is how to be an independent traveler, and to me there’s nothing quite like the thrill of getting on that train by yourself and setting off on an adventure. Trips (up until Verona, just a couple daytrips) I’ve made all by myself have provided me with some of my favorite memories from this semester, and knowing I was capable of doing it gives me the confidence that I’ll have all the more wisdom for my travels post-graduation, of which I hope there will be many!
I stayed at a “bed and breakfast” that was really more like a hostel, although I had a cozy single, the owner picked me up at the train station and drove me to the hotel, and everything was super-clean, so I can’t complain! It was close to all the major sights, like the tourist-filled Piazza Bra, where the world famous Arena is located. I got myself a yummy gnocchi dinner in Piazza Erbe, the other main square in Verona, Saturday night, and then I went to bed early so I could make the most of my full day Sunday. And let me say, I really did make the most of that day. I literally traversed the city…I couldn’t tell you how many miles I walked, but let’s just say I definitely walked off the gelato I ate at the end of the day. I bought a one-day “Verona Card” which allowed me to see sights like Castelvecchio, a medieval fortress on the banks of the Adige River, Juliet’s house, Juliet’s “tomb,” the views from the main tower in Piazza Erbe, and the Roman Forum. I loved walking across the bridges over the Adige River…there’s just something about a city with a river winding through the center of it. I love it. My other favorite part of Verona was the off-the-beaten-path Giardino Giusti, a Renaissance garden I’d read about online. Although it wasn’t in full bloom, and there was even some construction going on, I enjoyed walking through the paths and feeling like I was out in nature. There were also gorgeous views of the city from the top of a hill at the end of the gardens. It was just a tranquil little part of the city, and a nice break from some of the areas that were just a tad bit too tourist-centered.
Here in Perugia I’ve been enjoying the nicer spring weather, walking through Parco Sant’ Angelo, my favorite park just down the street from my apartment. My Italian is continuing to improve and just the other day I had a great conversation with a shopkeeper at this little Umbrian products specialty store. Today I had a field trip to the Perugina chocolate factory, where they make Baci candies, with my Italian class. It was way outside the city center, and getting there was a hassle…not worth the trip if you’re only in Perugia for a few days, but since I am here for the semester I’m glad I got to see what the chocolate factory hype is all about. The best part was getting lots of free chocolate samples and seeing them package the Baci candies on the conveyor belts. And of course our tour was given in Italian!
Tomorrow I’m meeting up with my friend Erica for a three-day weekend in Cinque Terre, and then I’ve got a very, very busy last three weeks here. Trips to Brussels and Prague, and two presentations and a paper due in between.
It’s hard to think about all those things when it hits me that my Grammy isn’t here anymore, though…which is still only hitting me in waves. I haven’t fully grasped onto it yet. She’s in my thoughts every day here, and I lit candles for her and prayed in two Perugia churches. I was lucky to have a great-grandmother for 20 years, let alone a great-grandmother as amazing as her.
1. I feel that being here in Italy and speaking the language she grew up with is almost like a tribute to her. I’m here on this journey as a result of the inspiration she gave me, and I’m connecting with her roots. My family and I had plans to visit the town where she was born in May—and now that this has happened, that visit will have even more significance.
2. Once I’m home I will be able to go to her gravesite with Melissa and my cousins Jimmy and Cameron, who are also not able to make it to her funeral, and I will be able to get a type of closure then. I’ll be able to write something from me to Grammy and read it aloud. And here in Italy, in the town of Lavorate where she was born, we are thinking of holding a memorial service of sorts for her. So my Grammy will get an extended memorial—not just one service, but a series of continuing tributes. In typical Grammy style, this isn’t going to be just any old ceremony, but instead something really extra special.
3. Although I didn’t get to speak with my Grammy half as often as I wish I did during these past few months I’ve been in Italy, I spoke with her on the phone while visiting her cousin Pasquale last Friday, and I got to tell her how much I love her Sunday night when she was rushed to the hospital. And she was able to understand me and tell me she loved me back. I am so so grateful that I was able to have that last conversation.
I am still struggling to grasp that this actually happened, but I feel comfort knowing Grammy lived a (very) long and fulfilling life, and she didn’t have to suffer or stay confined in a hospital bed for years, months or even weeks. She made a quick and graceful departure, just as she would have wanted.
It’s hard for me to even remember the details of the weekend I had before I got that phone call Sunday night on the train back from Verona. But I’ll try wrack through my brain to remember Friday through Sunday afternoon and the really wonderful weekend I had.
I took a train to a town called Busto Arsizio, just outside Milan, on Friday, so that I could visit my Grammy’s cousin Pasquale. Pasquale is Alessandra’s (the cousin I visited outside of Rome about a month ago) father and he and my Grammy kept in touch throughout the years, talking on the phone frequently, with Pasquale even visiting the U.S. twice. He was at my Bat Mitzvah eight years ago, and the last time I saw him was four years ago when he and Alessandra came to the hotel I was staying at with my high school group near Rome. But since then Pasquale had a serious decline in health, and for the last year and a half he has been confined to his house. The hardest blow for him was his loss of vision. After hearing from Alessandra what a tough time he has been having, I knew I had to find a way to visit him. And I’m so glad I did.
Walking through the door to their apartment and saying hello to Pasquale when I first arrived— it meant so much. He held me in a tight hug for a long, long time and even started tear to up, which made me start to tear up a little. I could just tell how badly he’d missed our family in the U.S….I think I was the representative of everyone and everything he remembered from his visit to America, and being with me reminded him of better times, when he was able to travel and spend time with us. His long-term memory was incredible—he remembered so many names of relatives, how many cousins I have and what their names are, the location of my grandparents’ house in Brigantine, what it was like to take pictures outside the synagogue at my Bat Mitzvah. I think it was therapeutic for me to talk about these things with him, and I was happy to do it. I knew this visit wasn’t going to be like my previous family visits in Italy. I wasn’t expecting to get a grand tour of Milan (in fact I really had no desire to see Milan) or go out to eat or anything like that. As we say in Jewish terms, this visit was a “mitzvah,” a good deed, and I felt satisfaction just from having spent time with Pasquale and giving him something to look forward to.
I also enjoyed meeting Pasquale’s wife, who I’d never met before. She was so incredibly sweet, treating me like I was her granddaughter. She made me nice little meals while I was there and let me drink hot cups of tea to my heart’s content, to help out with my cold. At the end she wrote me a thank-you note (in Italian, of course…did I mention I spent 90% of this visit speaking Italian? There was no other choice!) and gave me a special good-luck charm present. I was also introduced to Pasquale’s daughter Michela, son Gianluca, grandson, his sister Maria and her daughter Daniela, and even more relatives whose names I can’t remember. Everyone was so friendly, and it was once again a great feeling to meet these long-lost family members and share laughs.
On Saturday afternoon I took a train ride to nearby Verona, opting out of a Milan sightseeing trip in favor of the quainter, in my opinion much more appealing city that was supposedly home to Romeo and Juliet. This was my first experience staying overnight alone while traveling, and I’m proud of myself for having the guts to do it, and for successfully pulling it off! One of the many things I’ve learned during this semester is how to be an independent traveler, and to me there’s nothing quite like the thrill of getting on that train by yourself and setting off on an adventure. Trips (up until Verona, just a couple daytrips) I’ve made all by myself have provided me with some of my favorite memories from this semester, and knowing I was capable of doing it gives me the confidence that I’ll have all the more wisdom for my travels post-graduation, of which I hope there will be many!
I stayed at a “bed and breakfast” that was really more like a hostel, although I had a cozy single, the owner picked me up at the train station and drove me to the hotel, and everything was super-clean, so I can’t complain! It was close to all the major sights, like the tourist-filled Piazza Bra, where the world famous Arena is located. I got myself a yummy gnocchi dinner in Piazza Erbe, the other main square in Verona, Saturday night, and then I went to bed early so I could make the most of my full day Sunday. And let me say, I really did make the most of that day. I literally traversed the city…I couldn’t tell you how many miles I walked, but let’s just say I definitely walked off the gelato I ate at the end of the day. I bought a one-day “Verona Card” which allowed me to see sights like Castelvecchio, a medieval fortress on the banks of the Adige River, Juliet’s house, Juliet’s “tomb,” the views from the main tower in Piazza Erbe, and the Roman Forum. I loved walking across the bridges over the Adige River…there’s just something about a city with a river winding through the center of it. I love it. My other favorite part of Verona was the off-the-beaten-path Giardino Giusti, a Renaissance garden I’d read about online. Although it wasn’t in full bloom, and there was even some construction going on, I enjoyed walking through the paths and feeling like I was out in nature. There were also gorgeous views of the city from the top of a hill at the end of the gardens. It was just a tranquil little part of the city, and a nice break from some of the areas that were just a tad bit too tourist-centered.
Here in Perugia I’ve been enjoying the nicer spring weather, walking through Parco Sant’ Angelo, my favorite park just down the street from my apartment. My Italian is continuing to improve and just the other day I had a great conversation with a shopkeeper at this little Umbrian products specialty store. Today I had a field trip to the Perugina chocolate factory, where they make Baci candies, with my Italian class. It was way outside the city center, and getting there was a hassle…not worth the trip if you’re only in Perugia for a few days, but since I am here for the semester I’m glad I got to see what the chocolate factory hype is all about. The best part was getting lots of free chocolate samples and seeing them package the Baci candies on the conveyor belts. And of course our tour was given in Italian!
Tomorrow I’m meeting up with my friend Erica for a three-day weekend in Cinque Terre, and then I’ve got a very, very busy last three weeks here. Trips to Brussels and Prague, and two presentations and a paper due in between.
It’s hard to think about all those things when it hits me that my Grammy isn’t here anymore, though…which is still only hitting me in waves. I haven’t fully grasped onto it yet. She’s in my thoughts every day here, and I lit candles for her and prayed in two Perugia churches. I was lucky to have a great-grandmother for 20 years, let alone a great-grandmother as amazing as her.
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