Siena and San Gimignano

Well this was quite the weekend.

Started off with a quiet Friday. Basically just slept until noon for the first time this entire trip. Jake and I went out to look for the Diesel store, which is Italian and the prices were actually higher here than the prices in the states. We also saw the Florence Gelato Festival going on - 2 Euro for 3 flavors. I got stracciatella, lemone, and mango. It was pretty good for 2 Euro. The rest of the day was a wash after I took a nap at 8pm till 10pm and then couldn't fall back asleep for the rest of the night.

The next morning, the entire program had to meet up at a piazza about 20 minutes from our apartment on the other side of Florence. I love getting up at 6:45am! We boarded the bus and set off for San Gimignano (Ji(m)-min-nah-noh). After a little nap, we started to explore the little town. This was neat to see because most of the buildings here were easily 800 years old it seemed. There was on town (the tallest in the town) that we could go up for a picturesque for view of the township and the surrounding country side. At the very top, you could stand on the wall (which did not have a safety net around it - I guess the Italians believe strongly in Darwinism.) Many of us were standing on the wall taking pictures and some were even daring enough to dangle their legs off the edge. I thought that I was going to witness a death with some of the daredevils. At one point, Rob was walking across the ledge and Mandy decided she wanted to sit on it. As Rob was walking on the ledge, Mandy was jumping up with her back toward the wall to sit on the ledge. Well with some perfect timing, it almost seemed that she was going to knock Rob off a 200' wall. Well after that almost near catastrophe, I set out to explore the town on my own. I found the place that won best gelato in the world, twice, in the last four years. I must say, it was pretty damn good. Other than that and some pretty spectacular views, there is nothing to see in San Gimignano.

I will update again tomorrow for Siena.

Until then...
Arrivederci!

Week 2 in Review

Now for Week 2.

Out with the old, in with the new seemed to the main point for the weekend.

A little back information. There are a total of SIX USF guys on the trip. They decided to put all of us in one apartment with just one bathroom. The apartment also had some other crap going on in there, but the bathroom was the main issue. Well, after hearing how some of the ladies on the trip got moved cause their flat was crap, we tried to do the same. We came up with a plethora of excuses and thought we were golden. Well, that blew up in our face. we got most of the problems fixed, but two guys had to move out. It was down to either Clint and Matias or Jake and I. Well, after a little bit of discussion, Jake and I bit the bullet and moved out. We now have a much nicer (and bigger) apartment. It is more Italian in my opinion. For the most part, it a much better apartment with just two downsides. One - it's on the south side of the river while the other guys are on the north side. Two - we have to hike a really steep hill just to get to the building... At first I didn't think this would be that bad but it sucks early in the morning, haha.

It's a great place though, I can not complain at all. It's just the two of us and we decided to share the same room cause we didn't want to be too secluded from everyone, at least this way we have someone to talk to. It's worked out great so far too as we have a ton in common. I will take pictures eventually and post them on here (hopefully).

Other than moving in to the new apartment, nothing really all that amazing has happened so far this week. We cooked some really delicious food again in class, we learned a little bit more Italian, we watched one good movie and one bad one.

Last night, we went out, about 15-20 of us. It was a blast as well - even if it was clubbing (yes, my white ass went clubbing, and yes, I can't dance cause I am white and I like metal). Tomorrow, we set off for Siena and San Gimignano. This should be fun. I am bringing three lenses with me so I should get at least one good picture.

Ciao for now!

Day in Venice

First off: I promise that I will update this thing more often!! ARGH!! It's frustrating that I do not keep up with this enough!

Now. Venice was amazing. We first arrived and every one wanted to put their bags into storage so they wouldn't have to carry them around all day. Being the rebellious one, I said screw that and decided to take mine along with me. There was only one point through out the entire day that I regretted that choice and it was when we were going into the basilica at St. Mark's square. They wouldn't let me in - bastards.

But Venice was tight but it started off on a bad note. We were waiting in line to get tickets for the 9:05 train to Venice and it was about 8:55. We were in front of the ticket office which was two stories below the train platform. Well, we found out that we could just get our tickets on the train so we booked it for the train. We eventually got on the train and settled down. That is when I wrote the previous post. When we arrived in Venice, we did our normal head count. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. DAMN IT! We lost someone!" Turns out that we left Rob at the station in Milan. He was unable to keep up with us and no one even noticed that he was gone until Venice. Sorry Rob, but it was kinda your fault cause you are so damn quiet. Oh well. We booked our tickets home on the long train to Florence right away. There was supposed to be a high speed train but apparently it does not exist any more (thanks trenitalian.it for lying to us!).

Well, while everyone was checking their bags. I decided to roam around a little. Since they were taking an extra long time, I thought they were eating some food, so I decided to do the same. I can honestly say that I have had the worst pizza ever in Italy. Pretty sad huh?

But we finally met up after everyone's crap was checked and we set out to explore. We pretty much set out for Saint Mark's Square, the popular tourist spot on the opposite side of the small city. Normally this is supposed to take about 20-30 minutes to get there, it took us about 2.5 hours. We were not in a hurry though. We stopped for lunch, stopped for pictures, stopped for snacks, and eventually stopped for a GONDOLA ride. This was pretty freaking awesome. I never thought that I would be on a gondola in Venice. Since there were 10 (yes, 10, one stupid chick didn't want to be social) of us, we split up 5 and 5. My gondola had Angelica, Jake, Stella, Zim, and Me. It was absolutely surreal that I was on a gondola with 4 people that I just met less than 10 days before but have become very good friends with. We saw a couple neat bridges, some amazing water ally ways, and even the house that Marco Polo (Fish outta water!) lived in.

We actually ended the ride a little early in order to get to St. Mark's. After snapping a few photos, we just started to explore the area a little. Nothing spectacular here. I did a little gift shopping here (yes, I have already done Xmas shopping) for the family. We eventually took a water taxi back to the train station as everyone was sick of walking. This was pretty awesome as well. The people in Venice are magicians with these boats. They are better at driving the boats on moving water than most people are at driving! Pretty crazy stuff.  We eventually made it back, I snapped about a 100 photos on the water taxi ride alone, and we set off for Florence.

All in all, it was a pretty amazing weekend. I snapped about 600 photos too. Venice is by far one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen.

Catching up FINALLY

So here is a recap of week one.. I just hope that I can do more and more of this blogging stuff as the progresses. 

With that said, here we go. Good luck getting through this, there is a TON of stuff. 

Day One: Lufthansa flying over was awesome. They know how to treat their customers. The only bad thing was I could not sleep AT ALL. It was quite warm on the flight as there were no personal fans, but I could deal with it. The meal wasn't all that bad either - a pasta dish with some veggies and wine. I took the wine hoping it would help me fall asleep, but like I said, I got close to nothing (one solid hour of snoozing). After landing, I went into Munich to visit some friends (Jan and Jerry, great guys) and had two delicious meals with them. After spending about five hours or so, I set off for Italia! Finally I would be in the land of half of my ancestors, the place that I have wanted to see more than any other nation. The anticipation was getting to me and my mouth was getting dry. After waiting for the slowest family in the world at the vending machine, I finally got the Coke I was waiting for. I forgot how crazy-delicious the Coke in Europe was. As I was getting my Coke from the machine, the door on the train closed on me and I thought I was going to miss my flight as the next train was not for another twenty minutes. After pacing back and forth and panicking that I would miss my plane, the train arrived, but trust me, my heart was still racing as it was a thirty minute ride out to the airport and I had forty-five minutes to get to the airport and go through security and finally make it to my gate. Long story short, I made it with five minutes to spare. The best part is that we didn't even start boarding for another fifteen minutes so I was worrying for nothing. I don't remember the plane ride as I passed out the second the main cabin door shut. Next thing I know, we have arrived in Italy! I finally made it to my hotel at 10:30PM and was starving but the only thing that was open was Micky D's. Who would have guessed that my first meal in Italy would have been a Royal with Cheese (Pulp Fiction tribute, woot woot!). After making it back to my hotel, I wanted to charge some electronics. I brought a power strip with me, plugged it in, and zapped all the power on my floor of the hotel. Oops! After getting the power back on, I just decided to charge one thing at a time and pass out for the night. 

Day 2: Woke up around 10:30 and caught a cab ride to my school. I know in Italy you are supposed to walk everywhere, but there was no way I was walking with a 50lb bag behind me in a city that I did not know. In this cab ride, I thought that at least thirteen people were going to die, the drivers are that crazy/ballsy here. People would just walk in the middle of the streets, cars would just not obey the traffic laws, and it was complete insanity, I love it! I finally made it to my new school and met the program director and was shown to my home from home, or at least I thought it was. The apartment that my flatmates and I were supposed to move it was not ready so they stuck us in another apartment for the night. I was there alone for about an hour or so until two of the guys (Mark and Clint) arrived. From there, we set out for lunch and met up with some other classmates of ours. Later that day, we met the other three guys (Matias, Rob, and Jake). That night we went out, nothing special and not very late because we had an orientation the next day. 

Day 3: Orientation day and finally moving into the new apartment. Nothing spectacular happened on this day other than us blowing the power in the apartment because we turned on a light and having to 

Day 4: Sunday - The last day of vacation. One again, nothing special. Took a short walking tour of Florence, saw where our classes would be. Saw the Dante's church (which was surprisingly small). We also participated in a wine tasting which was very boring. Afterwards, Jake and I set out for a bar to watch the second half of the Inter Milan soccer game. Later that night, we discovered a gelateria that offered free wifi! I couldn't be happier at that point, haha. 

Day 5: First day of my first class. After hiking across Florence at 8:30 in the morning, I made it to my class 10 minutes late (I underestimated how far it really was). This class is a cooking class and is by far the best class, or at least the one that I am looking forward to the most. In class, we sampled a couple different meats (I had wild boar for the first time, I must say, it was pretty good. I don't like it by itself and it needs to be married with something else, still good nonetheless). We also sampled different olive oils, the Toscana (Tuscany) one was my favorite. Nothing else of major importance happened on Monday

Day 6: More first day of classes. Started off with a test to try to get into Italian 3 (which I did not do well on and was sent back to Italy 2 to brush up). Next was my Italian Cinema class that I thought I was going to love. The first movie we watch., Obsession, was very boring. I know some people loved it, but it reminded me of a soap opera. That night we went out to Fratelli la Bufala and I got a calzone that was in the shape of bull horns, it was delicious. That night, Jake and I were roaming the city looking for free wifi as our gelataria was closed for some reason. 

Day 7: Made it to class on time this time. We made some crepes in class that were pretty good. I really need to cook more when I get home. SawRobin Hood in a wicked nice theater that was like an opera house. It was in English with Italian subtitles. The movie was pretty good, but we couldn't beat the price - 6 euro. 

Day 8: Italian 2 and another movie. This time the movie was Rome, Open City. It was better than the last movie, but still was boring. Not sure why both these movies were chosen. That night we went out (we have gone out every other night, but tonight for much longer. Went to a couple different places for drinks. Nothing special again. 

Day 9: Off to Milan for the weekend!! We saw Sar Siro, THEE soccer stadium of Milan. Both Inter Milan and AC Milan play here. It was awesome to take a short tour of the massive stadium. The stadium is nice than Camp Nou in Barcelona but the Camp Nou tour was so much better. We got to go in both Inter and Milan locker rooms. Inter's locker room was based of the idea that there is one bench and they are one team. Milan's room was more focused on the individual. Each player had their own stall and very comfortable seat. To me, I would much rather Inter's locker room as I believe in the team and not the individual. After finishing up the tour and getting many pictures in the stadium, we set back for our hotel. Our hotel was decent but the price was amazing - a 3-star hotel for just 30 EURO! This is unheard of but you gotta love having a big group of 12 people. Later that evening, we went to the Duomo to take pictures at night and eat dinner. After dinner we just went back to the hotel as there was nothing to do according to our waiter that night. 

Day 10: Started off with a free breakfast but I woke up with a wicked congestion problem thanks to all the damn smoking here. One of my roomies smokes a pack a day and the smoke always seems to some how blow in my face when we walk around. Combine that with more than half of the people here smoking equals a very unhappy Sonny. I got some meds in Milan that seem to do a little, but I need my Mucinex that I left in Florence. We finally set out for the Duomo. When arriving at the Piazza del Duomo, there was already a watch party for later that night for the UEFA Champions League Finale. We went into the church for about 45 minutes. The church was amazing. I love the Gothic style churches. I lit a candle for each of my two recently deceased grandparents (Nana and Pep, miss ya!).  Afterwards, while the rest of the group went shopping, Rob, Zim, and I went on top of the Duomo. I still can't believe the amount of detail that was put into this project. There were just so many intricate details that the normal person would have left unattended to, but these builders did a phenomenal job.  After about an hour of walking around, we decided to take a break from and just lay down on top of the Duomo. Next to us were some teens that were sipping on some Italian beer. I swear, only in Italy can you sit on top of a church and drink beer. The thing that made the moment surreal was when a green balloon was spotted floating in the sky. Just a normal green balloon, nothing special, but it was just so weird to think that I would did similar things back in my childhood (laying on the grass, staring at the sky and random things just go by). It was amazing to think that 15 years later, I was doing the same thing, but this time on top of a church 5,000 miles away. After sitting around for about 15 minutes, we decided to walk down and meet the shoppers in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele - the oldest shopping mall in the world. In the center of the mall were four main stores - Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, and (drum roll please..............) McDonald's! Only Micky D's could get away with this. After meeting up, we went back to the hotel to drop off somethings and get some food. Later on, we went back to the Duomo to watch the game with what seemed 10,000 other fans. We had two giant TV's to watch. The fans were standing for hours upon hours. There were many chants going on and I couldn't participate in them as I was rooting for the other team (FC Bayern Munich). In the end, Inter Milan won 2-0 but I still had a great time. There were fireworks, flares, hundreds of flags waving, and God only knows what else was going on after final whistle blew. We eventually made it back to the hotel, but all over the city were thousands of cars honking their horns, Vespa's zooming around waving their flags, and so many people just crowding the streets. I was so happy I got to be in Milan for this, even if Bayern lost. Finally, at 11pm, we made it back to our hotel, where once again, I got McDonald's as I was just hungry and didn't want to wait for food. 

Day 11: Off to Venice on the train surfing the internet and writing this... I will update my entire day later on when I get a chance and the internet decides to cooperate. I love that I had a better connection on a 200km/h train than I do in my apartment. 

Expectations...

Touching quickly on three different things and my expectations: The Readers, My Photography, and My Explorations (The overall main trip),

First off - I expect no one to read this other than me. This is more a recollection for me, but if any one else wants to tag along, they are more than welcome to. If I were to take a stab at who else might read this, my guesses would be: my family (immediate and maybe one or two from the extended), two or three very close friends, and I am hoping for at least one stranger (long shot, I know). In the else, I really have no expectations to have anyone following me. Hooray me.

Next Up - My Photography. Since I have the most amazing SLR (Canon 7D) and some nice lenses to go alone with it, I expect about have quite a few stunning photos. I know I will end up on Flickr for some ideas, but hopefully this is be my first real big step away from Flickr (for stealing ideas that is). Depending on the internet situation, I hope I can learn from working with the Lightning this last season, hoping to upload at least two or three photos a day while having many more for 'second edit'. Like last year, I hope that I can make a nice picture book for my coffee table to show off to friends and family. Last year, on a scale of 1-10 (1 being Absinthe-drunk photos, 10 being professional) I thought I would end up around a 5 (which I did). This year, I am aiming high for an 8 overall. Basically this means that I hope that my pictures look more semi-pro and less n00b-amateur.

Finally - The Overall Trip. I expect that my Italian will grow well quite a bit. I expect all A's in my classes. I expect that I will update this at least every other day (once again, depending on internet). I expect perfect weather (60's and 70's, I don't care so much about the precipitation). I expect to actually be able to relax for once during my college career. I expect a great group of students (even if there will be some UF students, :-D ). I expect myself to actually become more of an adult and not sleep till noon each day and piss each day away. I expect to just fall in love with Italy. I expect to send too many freaking postcards and drink too much wine and eat too much cheese and not eat enough pasta.

As for the rest of the trip. Right now, I will see Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden. I hope to see San Marino, Vatican City, and Belgium. VERY long shots are Poland, Greece, Hungary, and Norway. I know I will have an amazing time on the second half because I will be with a great friend and someone who knows where it's at.

I leave exactly 35 hours. It's 2:18AM on May 11 and I need some rest.


Peace.
--Sonny

Keeping up with the times

Attempt #2: I hope I can keep up this time and not fail miserably like I did in Berlin (updating three days at a time in one day)

Last time I was on here, I was chilling in Berlin with the University of Florida. This time I will be all over Europe but mostly in Florence with the University of South Florida and the University of Florida at the Florence University of the Arts.

Countdown to Florence 3 days or 87 hours or 5241 minutes or roughly 314456 seconds.