My street in Florence

I miss Via dell'Albero.

 

Collage of English Excellence

 

The Grand Finale

It wouldn't be a proper Jenna/Kendall holiday without a few (entertaining!) near-disasters; the last few days of our trip turned out to be probably the most eventful of all.

Saturday morning the two of us were up and away from Sicily and headed towards Bari, a port town on Italy's eastern coast. The plan was to take the midnight ferry from Bari overnight to Dubrovnik, Croatia and spend our last two and a half days in a brand new country. But even the best laid plans...

We traveled for a good fourteen hours, up from Catania to Messina, across the channel - the train itself was actually loaded onto the ferry, up to Naples, over to Caserto (where, as Jenna remarked, "This is the kind of place where you can just feel the Mafia presence.") and finally to Bari. At 11:40pm.

The two of us frantically hailed a cab and raced to the port, where our taxi driver oh-so-thoughtfully dropped us off where the cars were being loaded onto the ferry. Helpful? Not quite. We were then directed around a large gate to enter the ferry once a policeman told us "Non avete tempo fare biglieterrie." Walking that length led us to a massive ticket area that resembled a third world refugee camp; there were people camping out everywhere and more gates in place so that we couldn't even see how to enter the building. We rushed back, confused, to the same place we were originally dropped off, but this time the policeman had changed his tune and insisted that we go to the building to purchase our tickets. What?! Back at the building, there was an angry mob forming - really, my description of the refugee camp was no joke, and it was composed mainly of eastern European men - which was disturbing enough in and of itself. It got better, though: I finally lost my temper and began yelling at a security guard who still wouldn't let us in the building. As I desperately tried to explain in Italian and English that we needed tickets for the ferry to Dubrovnik right that instant, the first English speakers we had heard in hours came out of the building, overheard me, and regretfully informed us it was sold out. Not only was that ferry sold out, but the next one wasn't until 10pm the following night.

Fantastic.

After we bought our tickets for approximately 24 hours later, and unsuccessfully begged that same policeman to let us on the ship anyway ("I'll stand in a corner all night long! I don't care, just get me to Croatia!"), we found ourselves abandoned in Bari around 1 in the morning. Bari is another one of those places in which you don't exactly want to linger, so we called around and found a hotel. After we checked in, we immediately set out in search of a bar because, let's face it, a drink was very much in order. Jenna and I walked a couple of blocks and came across the first open stores we had seen yet: a dingy restaurant that was no longer serving food and, next to it, some sort of bakery-type place called Croissant. Clearly we had reached the height of Italian culture.

We had an Italian beer that we never had to pay for and then went next door for a snack - the place was crawling with sleazy Italians and we quickly made our escape. We decided to use Sunday as a rest day and our last chance to enjoy Italian cuisine, so after sleeping in as late as possible we came down to check out of our hotel and get a recommendation for a good restaurant. The receptionist looked at us rather pityingly and said, "It's Sunday. Nothing is open."

She wasn't joking. (There's a reason that Lonely Planet calls Bari "an exasperating city at best.") We eventually found ourselves at one of the two open places in the whole town: the Train Station Bar. (The other place was the McDonalds across the street and yes, we eventually ate dinner there many hours later.) The absurdity of the entire situation kept us in stitches (thank heavens that I did have someone to laugh with - dealing with all of that alone would have been no laughing matter). After some food and a couple of drinks, we took the bus to the public beach and paid an entrance fee to wade in the disgustingly-seaweed-filled water, to nap in the lounge chairs, and to get hustled out when the clouds gathered and the rain came. Even the weather thwarted us!

Back in town we headed to the godforsaken port once more, giving ourselves ample time to take the bus and find out where we were supposed to go. We arrived around 7:30 and boarding time was 8. Again, the place was completely bewildering, with people camped out everywhere and gates all over the place, and security guards and cops enforcing... what, exactly?, and crowds gathering in confusion every few minutes. My favorite moment came when Jenna and I were upstairs in the 'lounge' area at least an hour later, still trying to find out where to board. We approached one policeman for the second or third time, and he told us to "go straight ahead and to the stairs, then," points emphatically downward, "UP."

At long last we boarded and finally pulled away from Bari around midnight. Thank God! We were invited to sit with a group of guys from Australia and New Zealand and, in true Aussie/Kiwi fashion, they proved themselves to be crude, vulgar, tasteless and, well, downright hilarious. We were highly entertained throughout the night on what would have otherwise been another tedious voyage.

With a couple hours of sleep behind us, we woke up finally! to a new day on the other side of the Adriatic Sea. Jenna and I had read about an enticing sounding island in the bay very close to Dubrovnik itself, and we basically made a beeline for Lokram and its nude beach. That's right: we bared all on the rocks of Croatia. Beyond that memorable experience, we wandered around the rest of the island and explored its abandoned monastery and other attractions. The place was beautiful and very relaxed.

Back on the mainland we spent some time in Dubrovnik's Old Town, with one final nice meal out together and an evening to savor the vibrant city. In the morning, we (and our new friend from the hostel, Richie) had the chance to truly appreciate why Dubrovnik was named a World Heritage site with a walk around the Old Town's medieval walls. The place is absolutely stunning. Probably, as a whole, the most photogenic city I've ever seen, actually.

My flight was that afternoon, and after staying as long as I possibly could, I parted ways with Jenna and raced to the airport just in time to catch my flight to Manchester. Nick, one of the guys that had taken me and Colby out in Skipton earlier in the summer (it feels like a lifetime ago!), goes to school at U of Manchester and kindly offered to put me up for the night. It wouldn't be a last night on this trip-of-all-trips without something crazy happening. Unfortunately the notable events of the night were my getting sick and vomiting not once, not twice, but eight times at his house. Yuck! Not sure if I've ever been that wretchedly ill before in my life; I think I can blame it on the Croatian tap water. Nick was a really good sport about the whole ordeal, but I feel like a horrible guest. Needless to say, we didn't go for a taste of Manchester's nightlife that particular evening.

The next morning - August 9th, to be exact - I was on another plane and by that afternoon I was back in Durham. I just squeaked past the airline debacle, thank goodness. After just one night of sleep and many hours of frantic packing at home I took a bus out of town and was in Charlottesville the very next day. Hard to believe that the summer adventures are over and that fourth year is already here. Wish me luck...

Thanks for reading!

More backpacking fun

The adventures just keep coming...

Jenna and I only had another couple of days in Rome, but, naturally, we took full advantage of them. Both of us were pleasantly surprised by how much we really liked the place - it didn't just seem like another noisy overpopulated city to me.

We spent Tuesday morning in the Vatican Museum feeling a bit overwhelmed by the endless art and religious icons surrounding us. The Sistine Chapel is at the very end of the museum and by the time we reached it we were almost oversaturated with everything we had seen. Very impressive, though. I also loved seeing Raphael's School of Athens - I've looked at the copy in Old Cabell plenty of times, but the original fresco sure is a beauty, too. (How fitting that I then ran into two other Wahoos inside the Museum!)

Next on the list was St Peter's, of course, but moments after Jenna and I had entered the piazza and begun looking for the line we were all instead ushered out, thanks to some sort of audience with the Pope. Again, Jenna and I apparently have a knack for being in the right place at the right time, and so although we never made it inside the Basilica (either that afternoon or when we tried again the next morning) we were instead able to witness the unexpected and huge start to the European Catholic Youth conference, or some such thing. It was all very nationalistic, actually, with most kids sporting their country's flag (generally German - guess it's because of the Pope's nationality?), but definitely a sight to see. Music, cheering, flags... to be truthful, it didn't quite hit me with an overwhelmingly religious sense. The whole thing felt more purely festive than anything else, and when I looked at St Peter's and thought about the historically so-much-more-than-religious nature of the Catholic church, I wasn't all that surprised.

Later that Tuesday evening Jenna and I wandered back across the river and made our way to the Pantheon. I felt so close to home (er, school), and on a spot right between the front of the building and the fountain of the piazza, the two of us made a reality of something we had discussed for a few days. Armed with only an empty gelato cup (you should have seen the guy's incredulous look when we went into a nearby gelateria and asked for just that - ha!) and some harmonies, we opened our mouths and joined the ranks of Rome's many street musicians. We were really well received - people were smiling and taking notice!, and I could barely believe my ears as I heard the impossible sounds of applause and, yes, coins clinking into that gelato cup.

I think we managed to prove yet again just how universal music can be with that awesome experience. We tried our hand at it the next day but the timing (mid-day, smack dab in the brutal heat) was a bit off so we didn't stick around as long. Still managed to clear a few euros; all in all enough for a bottle of wine and pasta at dinner one night. The next time Jenna and I go back overseas, we've decided that we're going to sing our way through Europe. With a bit more practice it can be a seriously lucrative endeavor. Hurrah!

As for the rest of Rome, we saw a terrific view of the Roman Forum and beyond from atop the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele, met up with my friend Marco for a few brief minutes (one of the Italian guys that I met last summer in Amsterdam), visited the Colosseum, found a charming and very local pizzeria on a random side street (the best place to go when you're looking for good food, of course), saw some Caravaggios in a couple of different churches, were dazzled by the Trevi Fountains on two different occasions, enjoyed a cocktail near the Spanish Steps, and managed to become locals at a cafe a block from our hostel (the guys that worked there had our orders memorized after the first day). It's not called the Eternal City for nothing... there were at least a thousand more things we could have done, but for a (first?!) brief visit I think we succeeded at getting the most out of our trip.

From Rome we headed to Sicily. That island was definitely a different breed of Italy than anything else we had really seen up til then. We stayed in a hostel in Catania and got taken out by some of our roommates that first night. The main function of our trip there was to see Mt Etna, and Jenna and I managed to do that by going on a fascinating guided tour by a geologist who really knew his stuff. I had always thought of Mt Etna (the largest active volcano in Europe, by the way) as one gigantic crater, but as we saw first hand, the volcano is actually made up of a good 250 or so craters. It's created an almost alien landscape; we couldn't get over the miles of lava covering the earth, or the lava tunnels we actually got to go into, or the mini-eruption we witnessed from afar.

After that geology adventure we went to the beach with our new hilarious Danish friend, Hannibal, and enjoyed the water, the sun, cocktails and the random salsa band that came out of nowhere. The three of us went to dinner together that night, and what was almost a disaster (rain, waitresses ignoring us, etc) ended up perfect when a live band started playing in the piazza below, our new waitress brought us not only extra bread and the olive oil she had forgotten to bring out at first, but also a complimentary dessert that she had made just for us. It was so thoughtful, and the best way possible to end an already delicious meal.

Back at the hostel, me, Jenna, Hannibal and another guy who works there ended up sharing a bottle of wine at the hostel's very own wine bar. This place was amazing - it was carved out of lava and located underneath the building. There's even a small stream running through it, and it felt completely like a cave. A candle-lit, lava-lined, wine-filled cave, at that. Classy, no?

Updates on the last few days of our travels are coming soon...

Serendipity

That's the only word to describe this trip, really. I cannot believe how lucky I've gotten, but these past few days have contained more condensed luck than I deserve.

I went back to the Uffizi on Friday to see a few specific things, one of them being the room with the Rembrandt self portraits. It was closed. I was extremely disappointed and when I asked the woman working the room next door why that was the case, she told me the place was understaffed. We chatted for a few minutes and then she said, "Cinque minuti," got up, and with a finger to her lips opened up the door for me and let me in the room to have a few moments alone with Rembrandt. It was incredible.

That night I said my goodbyes to my study abroad friends but also got more italian culture in the form of Roberto Benigni reciting one of the cantos from Dante's Inferno (in front of the beautiful church of Santa Croce, no less). It is definitely a testament to his charisma that even though a lot of what he said went over my head (he spoke Italian molto veloce!) I was still completely captivated by the performance.

Saturday was a travel disaster but I finally made it to Elba and met up with Jenna. Luckily the only hotel I had been able to book was located in Marciana Marina, a wonderful and quiet fishing village set away from the more touristy parts of the island. We spent Sunday rock climbing, hiking, swimming (a total of three times for me), and seeing more of the island including one of Napoleon's hang outs during his exile on Elba.

I hated to go, and we definitely left regretfully, but after another trying day of travel we reached Rome yesterday evening. On our way to get some food we realized that there was some sort of commotion or public event going on near the Roman ruins. Lo and behold, Bryan Adams was singing just down the street! But it gets better: this was a FREE concert. And he was the just the opening act. The headliner? None other than Billy Joel.

That's right, folks. Jenna and I stumbled upon one of the best musical experiences of our lives last night. We saw Billy Joel perform for free right in front of the Colosseum. AHHH!!!!!!

We've decided we like Rome.

Interlaken, Switzerland

Had an amazing weekend up in Switzerland - the trip was organized by some eccentric Australian with an office in Florence; he spends his weekends carting study abroad students off to either Interlaken or Sorrento. Not a shabby day job.

Our bus arrived in Interlaken around 1am last Thursday morning, giving us almost three full days to enjoy the place. We certainly took full advantage of that: Friday afternoon my friends and I ... (drum roll) went SKY-DIVING!

Absolutely incredible and breath-taking (hah, literally). I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Saturday Michelle and I rented a scooter car and tooled around to see some spectacular waterfalls and a lot of the Swiss countryside. We were smack dab in the middle of the Swiss Alps so of course the entire area was absolutely gorgeous.

On Sunday I rented a bike and cycled around Lake Breinz, the lake east of Interlaken. As seems to be a trend on this trip, I got much more than I bargained for. Rather than just a scenic bike ride to pass the morning, I ended up mountain biking up and down hills, on gravel, etc. It was tough but very worth it. The last half was more open and much more scenic, giving me the chance to enjoy views on my whole way back to Interlaken, returning just in the nick of time to squeeze in a shower at our hostel before busing back to Florence. All in all I biked 40 kilometers! Whew.

This last week in Florence has been full of seeing sights that I didn't get around to earlier, wrapping up school and welcoming Jenna in town. Highlights of the past few days include Carmina Burana at the Boboli Gardens, multiple trips to Hemingway (Florence's amazing chocolate shop - drinks, platters, milkshakes... decadent and wonderful), and aperitivo at La Dolce Vita.

All of my apartment-mates have already left town, and as of tomorrow Jenna and I and another friend will be doing more traveling of our own! Let the adventures continue...

Taking a vacation from our... vacation

Last Wednesday Grace and I decided to continue our 'We're in Europe so we're getting cultured' spree and go to the ballet. Get this: Romeo and Juliet (Giuletta e Romeo) was performed on an open air stage at Fort Belvedere, an old stronghold that looks over the city. The setting was spectacular and the dancers were amazing, so basically it was a perfect evening.

My class was cancelled on Thursday, and I took advantage of the unexpected free day and dragged myself out of bed at 5am to hop on a train to Venice. I had heard mixed reviews, but the city was well-worth the trip. Traveling down the Grand Canal is the perfect way to see the city - and the front door-steps opening directly out onto water, and the gondolas, and the eclectic mix of Byzantine and Renaissance architecture, and the romantic arched bridges, etc etc. Since my water bus (what a cumbersome sounding name) was super crowded going from the train station to the Piazza del San Marco the first time around, I stayed on it - to the amusement of the driver - and rode it all the way around, this time with a perfect front row seat.

In line to see the Basilica I fell into conversation with the two girls in front of me and ended up spending the rest of the day with them. We gaped at the stunningly intricate mosaics covering the Basilica's interior and then made our way to a tucked away glass shop where we were again impressed, this time by a glass-blowing exhibition. Those artists have only three, maybe four minutes to shape the glass into its intended shape, and apparently it takes a good fifteen or so years to truly master the art. Sorry guys, don't think I'll be returning to the states a glass-blower extraordinaire.

Venice is an interesting city beyond the obvious canal aspect: since tourism has kind of taken over the place (although with Venice's history of being a major trading city and all, I think that the tourism actually sort of fits) basically all there is to do is shop for clothes, carnival masks, Venetian glass, and food (I splurged on some delicious marzipan). Melissa and Gena had visited before, so they took me to their favorite cafe and we wandered the streets and window shopped and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. I can't imagine the place on a weekend... the insanely narrow streets were challenging enough to navigate on a Thursday.

I bid farewell to my new friends and somehow managed to find my way back to the train station, where my train ride back to Florence was livened up by the addition of a Spanish guy in my compartment. We spent the whole way back each with a headphone in an ear, sharing our music with each other. Precious.

Friday morning was another travel day: Michelle and I boarded the train and got to Rome no problem. The train to Naples was another matter altogether. After heading out of the Rome train station, we slowed down and came to a stop, sitting there for almost an hour before pulling back in to the station because the train had mechanical problems. Just to clarify, when we were back in Roma Termini and everyone was de-boarding, a voice came on over the loudspeaker and announced in English, 'This train is broken. Please get off.' Hah.

We finally got to Naples and then Pompeii where we spent two hours walking around the eerie formerly buried city. How incredible to think that that place used to be full of people working and playing and loitering, until Mount Vesuvius sort of got in the way. Thanks to the train delays, our time in Pompeii was not nearly long enough (at least we got to walk through the brothel in, according to some overly stereotypical French guide passing by, 'ze Red Light district!') and we had to dash back to Naples and unfortunately walk all the way from the train station to the port. Naples is not an enticing place, but luckily we were soon sailing away from it all to the beautiful island of Capri.

For being told how much of a 'resort island' Capri is, it was pleasantly more down to earth than I was expecting (although that doesn't mean it was cheap). We stayed in a sweet little hostel up in Anacapri and Saturday morning took a chair lift up to the very top of the island to check out the gorgeous views (I realize that it sounds like everywhere I go is to check out the pretty scenery below... guess that's a default of being in Italy?). Back down at the Marina Grande, Michelle decided that her emergency/travel expenses credit card was appropriate to be used for renting a boat for a couple of hours to tool around the island. Best. decision. ever. The two of us went out in this little boat, got a twenty second tutorial along the lines of 'This is the steering wheel, this is neutral, this is go, this is reverse, here's the anchor and there are the life-jackets' and were off. Michelle's done some sailing before so she was in charge of the complicated stuff (because as long as you have a credit card you're golden - comforting, no?). I lounged in the sun and kept an eye on the map. We dropped the anchor a couple of times and at one point went swimming through the Green Grotto (so named for the way the water reflects off the cave ceiling). We even drove the boat a distance away from the island and swam around in what felt like the middle of the Mediterranean, and I tried my hand at driving it back towards the island.

Once we returned the boat, we grabbed some food and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out on the beach. I couldn't get over how many people were crammed on this tiny strip of pebbles (nope, not even sand!), but the water was of course refreshing and salty enough that I was bobbing around like a cork.

After another decadent dinner on Saturday night - Capri is apparently known for its caprese and we took full advantage of its claim to fame - we had quite the eventful evening, ending up in an interesting night club and being treated to drinks by the Italian natives. We eventually made our escape, laughing about the characters at the bar the whole way home.

Sunday morning we took a bus down to the Blue Grotto (Grotta Azzura) and got there early enough that there were only a couple of us down there - basically me, Michelle and two other guys who happened to also be studying abroad in Florence. The water was extremely choppy so tour boats were hardly even around, but John convinced me to swim into the grotto. It was beautiful in there, and the waves were so intense that they kept covering the tiny cave opening to get back out. I was in there for a while by myself (incredible) just swimming around, and Tony and Michelle eventually decided to brave the water and check it out for themselves as well. Very cool. As we left we met a whole slew of tourists on their way down - again with the impeccable timing!

The four of us decided to go to this crepe place that Michelle and I had seen down the street from our hostel, but when we got to it (after running into Alexa and Cristy - need I say small world?) they informed us that they didn't start making crepes til 5pm. They must have seen the dejection on our faces because the woman looked around and then picked up a container of batter, saying, 'We made this last night - we can make them for you.' We got tailor-made crepes and the store-owner even brought out little chairs for us to sit on. It was fabulous. Interactions like that make me love this place even more.

Back in Florence this morning I went to a couple of churches that I hadn't seen before, Santa Maria Novella and Chiesa di Ognissanti. I continue to be awe-struck by how much talent and effort went into the creation of those buildings. (Although some tourists most definitely aren't: the other day, as I was walking past the Duomo I heard an American dad say to his two teenaged sons, 'I tell you what, there ain't nothin like America. Places like [Italy] have been around for a long time and they're doing something right, but America's got a lot that the rest of the world doesn't have.' Excuse me... You're standing in the shadow of the Florentine Duomo. Yeesh.)