3/8/11
It’s been about three weeks since I posted a blog entry. At first I just got distracted and forgot to post, then the longer I went without posting, the more I wanted to post, and the more intimidated I got about having to write a big long blog entry. I’ll just keep it pretty simple.
Three weekends ago we went to Rome. It was quite the sensory overload, beautiful things to see in every direction, cars coming at you from every direction, delicious scents coming from beautiful restaurants in every direction. After an excruciating bus ride sitting behind a clan of obnoxious party girls still drunk from the night before, we had a walking tour of the Spanish steps, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and so many more fantastic places. I got a pizza Panini for lunch that was killer, then we checked into our hotel. We sipped “grancaffes” at famous coffee bar and walked around the Coliseum area. Kira had found out about an Indian Restaurant online that was supposed to be the “best restaurant” in all of Rome. It took us about 30 minutes to walk there, but in our “lets go places, and eat things” mentality, we trucked through. The food was delicious, maybe not the best Indian food I’ve had in my life, but close. The true highlight of dinner was when I noticed that the sitar music in the background was actually a sitar cover of The Door’s Light my Fire.
The next day we woke up early to go to a visit a famous church, got Rome's best gelato, then met up with our tour group and went to the Vatican. St. Peter’s Basilica was very large and impressive. There was a lot of really interesting information we could have been learning from our tour guide, but members of our tour group were more interested in asking about movies that had taken place in the Vatican and clarifying as to what mosaics are. After St Peter’s we went to the Vatican Museum, you know, another place dedicated to showing off the Vatican’s wealth. They had many pieces of art and decorated rooms that literally made my jaw drop. The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael was truly amazing in person. After seeing that Kira and I, who had been separated from our other roommates, thought we were close to the Sistene Chapel, but instead entered the Vatican’s Modern and Contemporary Art section. Kira and I were discussing that in any other context, their Modern and Contemporary Art collection would be very impressive, but when about to enter the Sistene Chapel, who cares?!
We spent hours in the Sistene Chapel. We were there until it closed. My mind turned off completely, and I was just staring at the ceiling. It was an experience that I cannot explain and won’t even try to, but I will say that it was divine. I left the Sistine Chapel with a sadness like I had just gotten on an airplane and was flying miles and miles away from a loved one. I couldn’t understand why I was leaving. When we finally got out of the Vatican Museum, we just sat outside for a while and processed what had just happened to us in the Sistine Chapel. We were Sistine Chapel stoned. It sounds utterly bizarre and even a little cliché, but we came out changed. We then sat in the plaza of St. Peters for a while and went out to eat dinner even though it was 6:30, very early to be eating dinner in Italy. We went to a traditional style roman restaurant where I tried to order the traditional dish of Spaghetti Carbonara, Spaghetti with eggs, cheese and bacon, without the bacon, but they yelled at me telling me it wasn’t Roman and they wouldn’t make it. I got another pasta dish with mushrooms. We then met up with the rest of our roommates and went to an exhibit on Van Gough. It was truly inspiring and I had never seen so many Van Goughs in the same place.
We spent hours in the Sistene Chapel. We were there until it closed. My mind turned off completely, and I was just staring at the ceiling. It was an experience that I cannot explain and won’t even try to, but I will say that it was divine. I left the Sistine Chapel with a sadness like I had just gotten on an airplane and was flying miles and miles away from a loved one. I couldn’t understand why I was leaving. When we finally got out of the Vatican Museum, we just sat outside for a while and processed what had just happened to us in the Sistine Chapel. We were Sistine Chapel stoned. It sounds utterly bizarre and even a little cliché, but we came out changed. We then sat in the plaza of St. Peters for a while and went out to eat dinner even though it was 6:30, very early to be eating dinner in Italy. We went to a traditional style roman restaurant where I tried to order the traditional dish of Spaghetti Carbonara, Spaghetti with eggs, cheese and bacon, without the bacon, but they yelled at me telling me it wasn’t Roman and they wouldn’t make it. I got another pasta dish with mushrooms. We then met up with the rest of our roommates and went to an exhibit on Van Gough. It was truly inspiring and I had never seen so many Van Goughs in the same place.
On our last day in Rome the roomies and I went to a Sunday Market that was kind of a bust, so Kira and I returned to the awesome gelato place where I got cinnamon gelato that was the best gelato I had ever had. We then met up with our tour group and got an inside tour of the coliseum. Magnificent! I wonder if there will be guided tours of LA’s Staple Center in 1,000 years? We then got a bus tour to see the outside walls of Rome, then we were off! Back to Firenze! I did love Rome, but it was so much more crowded than Florence and the cars there are crazy. There aren’t really a lot of crosswalks, so crossing the street is difficult. I am very happy I live in Florence.
I didn’t do anything terribly exciting during the week because I didn’t want to spend any money. On Friday a few friends and I went to the beautiful Piazza Michelangelo where you can see the best view of Florence. I had been around there earlier in the week for class, but I couldn’t wait to return because it’s so beautiful, probably my favorite place in all of Florence. On Saturday, Joice, Kelly, our friend Katie and I went to Milan. We went with a student tour agency because they included transportation, tours of the area and events for Fashion Week for a price cheaper than a train ticket to Milan. We arrived and walked around the Duomo area. The inside of the Duomo was absolutely beautiful. We went during Milan Fashion Week, so there were a lot of fashion events going on and fashionable people around. We saw one fashion show that was open to the public and got invited to another fashion show (probably because Jocie has an impressive looking camera), but couldn’t because we had to go to our tour of La Scala Opera House. La Scala was very beautiful and it meant a lot to me to be there because my grandmother had always wanted to go there.
When searching for a place to get lunch, we found a place with a HUGE line going out way into the street. Because we had some time to kill we figured it would be the best place to get lunch. This place sold Panzerotti, which is like a fried calzone most commonly filled with mozzarella and tomato sauce. Definitely within the top five best things I’ve ever eaten. It was very very tasty and I didn’t want it to end. We walked around the streets with the high fashion stores and drooled. We learned that the French term for “window shopping”, actually translates to “kiss the window.” And I’ve never wanted to kiss so many windows in my life. I’ve been to Rodeo Dr. and seen many designer stores in San Francisco and New York, but these ones were bigger and seemed to have more stuff. We were told we could get into another fashion show and sit in the extra seats if we waited around outside of the tent. There were a lot of people there, we waited and waited, but we couldn’t get in. We then went to a fancy department store and drooled around, then got back on the bus and the tour company took us to a famous Gelatoria. We made sure to get off of the bus first, so we wouldn’t have to wait behind the long line of all the students on the tour. I got chocolate chip Gelato on top of a nutella crepe and it was very tasty. Overall, it was a very nice trip to Milan.
When searching for a place to get lunch, we found a place with a HUGE line going out way into the street. Because we had some time to kill we figured it would be the best place to get lunch. This place sold Panzerotti, which is like a fried calzone most commonly filled with mozzarella and tomato sauce. Definitely within the top five best things I’ve ever eaten. It was very very tasty and I didn’t want it to end. We walked around the streets with the high fashion stores and drooled. We learned that the French term for “window shopping”, actually translates to “kiss the window.” And I’ve never wanted to kiss so many windows in my life. I’ve been to Rodeo Dr. and seen many designer stores in San Francisco and New York, but these ones were bigger and seemed to have more stuff. We were told we could get into another fashion show and sit in the extra seats if we waited around outside of the tent. There were a lot of people there, we waited and waited, but we couldn’t get in. We then went to a fancy department store and drooled around, then got back on the bus and the tour company took us to a famous Gelatoria. We made sure to get off of the bus first, so we wouldn’t have to wait behind the long line of all the students on the tour. I got chocolate chip Gelato on top of a nutella crepe and it was very tasty. Overall, it was a very nice trip to Milan.
Coffee in Rome
Duomo in Milan
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