Firenze 2006-2007: December 2006

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Christmas Break Week 1

Since my break is almost five weeks long and since I’ve already done so much and since I’ve still got more to do, I’m breaking it into several parts. Here’s the first part:
With finals finished and a free week in Europe, Alex, West, and I headed out on our trip across Eastern Europe. Anna was with us for the first leg as she was meeting another group of Pepperdine kids in Vienna, our first stop. We got on a train to Venice, and after a short lay-over there, we were on our way to Vienna- a 7 hour train ride. We sat in a compartment at the end of the train and met a student from Richmond studying in Vienna who told us all we wanted to know about Vienna and what to do there. We then watched several movies and were finally there- at about 9 in the evening- much later than we’d planned on getting there. We found our hostel, set the bags down and went in search of some dinner. We ended up eating from street vendors and walking across the center of the town to what we thought was the Hapsburg palace and the main sights of Vienna. We ended up only seeing several museums near the palace before heading back as it was late and we were freezing. We need to go back to Vienna sometime.

(Me on one of the many trains to somewhere.)
The next morning we left Anna and the three of us guys headed to Budapest. We got there a bit before mid-day and as soon as we stepped off the train, we knew we were in Eastern Europe. We had to change money and get our tickets squared away for the train that night, so after taking care of that- which took some time as all the ticketing had to be done by hand as there were no computers at the station we were ready for lunch. We got something quick and headed to the Danube and central Budapest. Getting off on the Buda side of the river, we immediately saw the Parliament building across the river in Pest. Heading away from the building, we climbed up a hill and were at the castle which is the main sight in Buda.

(The church in Buda)
We looked over the fort that sits atop the hill, taking a lot of pictures as we had a view of the entire city, and then headed to the church up there. It wasn’t all that impressive looking from the outside, but the inside was great. All of it was covered in frescoes- or what looked like a cross between frescoes and wall paper. While the church as a whole didn’t seem that old in comparison to others that we’ve visited, it was pretty unique and a refreshing change from all the churches that seem to blend together. From there we headed to the castle part of the fort. We walked around the grounds and looked at the building, taking in the views and the achitecutre before heading back down the hill and across the Danube on the Queen Elizabeth bridge, one of Budapest’s main bridges.

(Me at the castle overlooking Pest)

(The castle)

(The crown in the church in Buda)

(The Parliament building in Pest)
We went to the Parliament building and looked around there as much as we could before wandering around Pest a bit. Before we knew it, it was time to start thinking about heading back to the station to catch our overnight train to Prague. We retrieved our luggage and found our compartment on the train- it was only a 3 person compartment which meant that we wouldn’t have any company which was nice. We went to bed pretty soon after the train left as we would have to get up early the next day and as we had spent the better part of the day walking around. I can’t say that I slept all that well that night as we were woken up 3 times trough out the night by various border guards as we crossed into different countries. Finally, yet only a few hours later, we were in Prague. We got into Prague really early in the morning, so getting our money changed and bags stored were more difficult than they should have been. We finally got that stuff taken care of and then headed to the ticket window. We got our tickets to Amsterdam for the following evening squared away without any trouble. Then it was off on the subway and trams to our hostel. We caught it before it opened, so we headed back to the center of the city and went to the natural history museum after getting a quick Mc Donald’s breakfast. The museum was kinda neat just because it was a change of pace from the art museums that we had grown used to. After that, we went back to the hostel to drop off our bags and relax for a bit as we didn’t get much sleep the night before. When we left the hostel again, we went to the big church near our hostel and saw the Christmas market outside it before going to a restaurant. We got a nice meal with steak, duck and all the sides we could ever want with beer for only 5euro a person. It was a great meal and fun to finally take advantage of an exchange rate after seeing the euro to dollar rate constantly get worse.

(Me with my Czech chicken fried steak)

(Alex and his duck)

(West and his sausage platter)
After dinner, we stumbled upon a bar named Absinth Time, so we stopped in a took a shot of the Absinth. It was weird to see them prepare it with the sugar blended in and just the whole ordeal they have to go through before it is drinkable. It was kinda bearable, for a shot that was 70% alcohol. After that we headed back to the hostel through the center of the city and the old town square with the astrological clock. It was onto bed shortly after getting back to the hostel. We let ourselves sleep in the next morning. After getting cleaned up and packed up, it was off to see the Charles bridge and Prague Castle. Both were pretty cool, and nothing like we’d expected. We had only read a bit about them in our travel books, so seeing them was pretty cool, and a bit out of the blue. The Charles bridge was neat with all the statues along it- we took pictures at the popular ones and just admired them all while walking across

(The 3 of us on Charles Bridge)

(Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge)
Then it was up the hill to Prague Castle and the cathedral. The outside was one of the cooler ones that I’ve yet seen in a church. We walked all around the castle, once again taking in views of the city and just exploring before heading back to the river and then back to the train station to meet some others from our group who would be in Prague for the next few days.

(A view of Prague from the castle)

(The cathedral)

(The astrological clock)
We showed them around a bit then took them to dinner at the place we’d been the previous night for a family dinner before heading off to the station to retrieve our bags and hop on our train to Frankfurt where we would transfer to Amsterdam. We made the trains fine, and at about noon the next day, we were in Amsterdam. Following our usual routine, we stored some of our bags in the station and headed off to our hostel. After dropping the rest of the stuff off there, we headed off through the city to the Anne Frank House.

(Amsterdam Centraal station)

(The 3 of us after dinner at the Chiese place)
We took a long while walking through the maze of a hiding place that the Franks hid in during World War II, and as the highlight of the tour, we saw the original diary- or at least most of it as the entire thing was hundreds of loose pages that have been compiled and compressed into the book that most everyone has read at some point. It was neat to walk through and see the place where 8 people hid and lived for some time, but at the same time, it was odd for us to be walking through there and talking freely while all the house had known during their stay there was near silence. After leaving the house, we found some lunch and just walked around the city, seeing the Museumspleain and the center squares as well as the main shopping district. It was raining so we spent most of our time sheltered when possible and spent more time looking through stores than we would have otherwise, but it was still a lot of fun. For dinner, we got Chinese food and Dr. Pepper from the same place that Kelly, Myles, and I went to several weeks ago. Once again, it was great and made a nice change from everything that we had been eating.

(Me and Alex)
We walked around more after dinner and stopped by several bars as it was still raining and then decided to turn in early and be ready for our trip to Arnhem the next day. We slept in and then got breakfast the next day. After that, it was off to meet Brooke and Brie at the station as they were coming in from Brussels that day. We met them, and Alex and I got our tickets to Paris and Milan for the next day. It was then that Alex realized that he would have to leave in only 6 hours so he stayed in Amsterdam while the rest of us got on the next train to Arnhem. After the hour or so train ride south that was punctuated by a transfer we were in Arnhem and we called Frank, West’s friend who came to pick us up. We rode with him to the Christmas village in Arnhem where he let us off and we wandered around for a while before heading to the ice skating rink. I’d only been ice skating like 5 times in my life prior to this, so I was a bit shaky, but I didn’t fall which was a plus. We skated for a long while, until it got dark and we started to get really cold. Then we got some hot chocolate and drank it inside while we waited for Frank to come pick us up and head to dinner.

(West, Brie, and Me skating)

(West and Brie with the hot chocolate)

(Me and Brooke with our hot chocolate)

We all went to a Portugese chicken restaurant named The Chicken Place and had frango- chicken in Portugese and fries with beer. It was a great meal and there was a ton of food. In addition to the four of us and Frank, Markus- the guy who showed us around in Munich was there, as well as Alex another person who works for Frank. Alex is Italian so I had a chance to speak a bit to him during dinner. It was a great meal and we had some great conversation in the warm fire heated restaurant. We then headed to Frank’s house and Markus came over for a while, we all caught up and heard about everything that had been going on with him since October and then went to be. We really slept in the next day, and took our time getting ready, so much so that by the time Frank came home for lunch and to take us to the station we were just ready to go. He dropped us off and we headed to get tickets. We just missed a train back to Amsterdam, so we had time to get some lunch at the station before getting the next one. We made it back to Amsterdam at about 3, so after taking West and the girls to their hostel, I only had a few hours before I needed to be back at the station to get my train to Milan. We walked around the city that West and I knew pretty well by that point. We showed the girls all the sights that we had liked from the a few days ago. We then found some food and ate before it was time for me to go off to the station. I said my good byes and got on my train to Basel and went to bed almost immediately. I only had 10 minutes in between trains in Basel, and thankfully my train was on time so I caught the connecting train to Milan without any trouble. It was kinda rough- taking an all night train and then getting on another 5 hour one. This one was through the snow covered Alps, so it was nice but still long.
This ends the first part of my break... I’ll start talking about my trip with Dad, Stephen, Mammy, and Pappy in a little bit.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Florence and Assisi

This was another weekend to stay here around Florence as we have finals coming up here this week. I slept in on Friday and got up to go to Café Liberta right before it was closing to us. From there I came back to the house got a shower then decided to go back to bed for a while. I then got up and went to the Christmas market in piazza Santa Croce for lunch. West, Conner, and I all got bratwursts with fries, then apple strudels with vanilla sauce for desert. After that, we walked back through Florence and back to the villa. I spent most of the afternoon playing ping pong or studying. For dinner, we went to Spera’s and had pizza. It was a fairly early night, and then on Saturday once again, I slept in.
When I got up on Saturday, I went to Café Liberta once again, then came back to the villa and studied for a bit. Then it was back to the Christmas market once again for lunch. We had to hurry back this time as we were going to play soccer with Leonardo, the Humanities and Italian professor. We met him at the Parco Casicne at 3, warmed up a bit and then played 11 on 11 soccer until the sun went down. Leonardo was pretty good, but the game was played without any real organization, so the five of us Americans there who didn’t really speak soccer lingo Italian were kinda confused. We all had fun and got a great workout as we had to run a good 2 ½ miles to get there, then play and then run back. When we got back, we got cleaned up and had a guys night out. Ten of us guys tried to go to Spera’s again, but it would have been an hour wait or so, so we went to the Red Door and got pizza and pasta there. We then went to Finnegan’s, and Irish bar, watched some college football and then came back to the house.
I got up early today and went to Café Liberta before heading to the train station to get a train to Assisi, with the dual purpose of giving myself a good 5 hours to study alone on the trains, and getting to see Assisi. I made it there a bit after 10 and immediately took a bus up to the center of town and wandered around until I found the basilica. I went into the museum/crypt first, looked around at the various works they had there, including a Caravaggio and a Martini work. After that, it was into the basilica. Mass had just ended, so I was lucky to get in at all. I saw the frescoes and the elaborate tombs there, as well as a lot of animal statues dedicated to the animal lover St. Francis. From the basilica, I went up to a fort above the city for some amazing views of the city and the surrounding... clouds. Assisi is on a hill, and about midway through the city there was a thick layer of fog across the valley below stretching as far as I could see. It was so thick that it just looked like snow. After looking around the fort and at the views from there, I headed down through the fog that was so thick that I could not see the church of St. Francesco until I was within 50 feet of it. I saw the church and went in. This church is actually one church built on top of another, so I went into the top one first. The whole thing was frescoed with stories from St. Francis’ life as well as stories of the new testament. It was one of the most impressive series of frescoes that I’ve even seen. After walking around the upper church, I walked downstairs into the lower church. I looked at the church and then headed down into the crypt where relics and the body of St. Francis lie. For some reason, St. Francis’ tomb was more of a spiritual place for me than was the Vatican. Maybe it was the fact that the tomb and the whole town had an air about it that was peaceful, without the thousands upon thousands of people that would have surely been present in Rome. From there, I went to the church of Santa Clara, saw her remains and saw the church that had been mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 1997. There were frescoes had mostly fallen, with just small remnants remaining in random places. It was neat to look at because they really stood out against the blank walls around them. After that, I walked down a little ways out of the town to a church named San Daminano, a church that St. Francis apparently rebuilt because of a vision. It was a nice walk through an olive grove covered in fog. From there, I had to head back to the station because there was a partial train strike that day, and the train that I had wanted to be on was cancelled, so I had to take an earlier one. I studied on the train once again, and made it back to Florence in perfect time for dinner. After that, it was a bit of studying, some football and then bed.
This morning was the religion final, which was pretty easy, now I’ve got over 24 hours off before my next final, Humanities tomorrow evening.

(A view down one of the little streets of Assisi)

(The Basilica in Assisi)

(A view from the Fort, looking down into the town and the thick fog covering half of it and the valley)

(The duomo, I'm standing only 50 feet away, the fog was that thick)

(A look down over the basilica out onto the valley with the thick fog)

(A look at Santa Clara church)

(St. Francis's tomb)

(A look up at the St. Francis church after it clears off a bit)

(Walking down to the church of St. Daminano)

(The olive grove I walked through)

(Me at the top of the path down into the olive grove)

Friday, December 01, 2006

Villa Life this Semester

This year, there have been several Villa events that have been just as good, if not better than any weekend experience. Those events were Halloween, Thanksgiving, the Final Banquet, and the Talent Show. Apart from that, there have been the times we led Bible study, met our Italian families, baby-sat Italian kids for an evening, and of course room checks. Here are some pictures and an little explanation as to how life here at the Villa works.
First off is the night room 14 led Bible study. The highlight of that evening was our re-enactment of the skit that won us room checks for the week. We are probably the only people ever to incorporate a dance to the YMCA into a Bible study.

(Us doing the YMCA dance)

(Me, Drew, and Myles after the study)
Next- Halloween. I got my hair braided and then West, Alex, and I dressed up as “Girl Squad,” figures we created based on several girls in the villa. We got sorority letters, mini skirts, ugg boots, masks, and capes. We turned ourselves into “the Girl Squad” and poked fun at the stereotypes of the girls of the house, and sorority girls in general.

(Me getting my hair braided by Katie)

(West- a Delta Gamma, Me- a Kappa Kappa Gamma, and Alex- a Pi Phi)
After that is Thanksgiving dinner, a real American meal in Italy the night before we all head off to different corners of Europe.

(Our table for Turkeyday dinner. Sorry the pic is blurry, but it is the only one I could find)
Then comes Room 14's nativity scene, the scene that won us room checks for the third time- more than any other room!

(Myles as Jesus, Drew as Joseph, and me as Mary)
Next is our final banquet in Palazzo Borghese. We all got dressed up and had our semester finale with all the teachers and students in a gorgeous palace.

(Our table at the banquet)

(Me, Alex, and West in our matching suits, ties, belts, and scarves)

(Me and Elizabeth)
Lastly is the talent show. Conner, Alex, West, and I were put in charge, so we came up with this show that pretty much everyone loved. Yeah we did step over the line on several occasions, but that was to be expected when us 4 were put in charge.