Carnivale Weekend

Friday, 19 Feb

Pictured above is the lovely view of my fellow USAC students after waking up bright and early on Friday morning to catch our coach for the start of our 3 day Carnivale weekend through ERASMUS. After near 6 hours of travel, we were let off the bus to tour the charming town of Verona, once home to Romeo or Juliet (or so the town would like you to believe). FYI, 3 hours is not nearly long enough to get a taste of the town but we made do.

First stop was the superlative Roman Arena. It's a lot like the Colosseum except smaller and better preserved. My Italian friend/tour-guide Alfredo says that during the summer they host operas here. I think that might necessitate a return visit but we'll see. As it was Carnivale, there was a parade going on throughout the town and the arena offered an excellent view. 

As much I would've liked to watch the parade longer, there were still sites left unseen. Our next stop was the Duomo in Verona. I think I'm starting to get churched-out. 

With little time left to spare, we grabbed a coffee, crossed the river, and climbed all the way to the top of the hill for a better view of the town.

I've arranged the pictures exactly as I would've seen it from the top of the hill, that's Alfredo on the left and Katie on the right. 

Saturday, 20 Feb

Venice Day! Woo! This was my 2nd time to Venice but the wow-factor had not subsided. In addition, the excitement of Carnivale made the city crackle with life. First stop (after coffee of course) was the Scuola San Rocco, nicknamed "Tintoretto's Sistine Chapel". I've confirmed with Travis that I have actually seen this before but how I managed to forget it is beyond me. I think I've become exceedingly proficient at taking photos in places where you're not supposed to.

The next couple of hours kind of blurred by as we stumbled our way across Venice to find the right vaporetto to get to Murano, the island of glass. It didn't hurt to have Alfredo around so he could ask for directions.

One of my favorite shots of the day on the Grand Canal. Via one traghetto, one vaporetto, and a lot of walking we made our way to Murano just in time to picnic for lunch then go watch a glass blowing demonstration. 

Fast forward past buying glass trinkets, leaving the island, buying Carnivale masks (I somehow managed to avoid getting a picture with my mask on the entire weekend, go figure), and wading through the literal sea of tourists in St. Mark's Square to enter the Basilica. 

This is the best one of the lot, don't judge. After the church, Alfredo decided to go back to the hotel and sleep, leaving Katie and I to enjoy the real thrill of the day, the Gallerie dell'Academia, home to a fine collection of Venetian Renaissance art. 

Besides becoming a huge fan of Tintoretto, I've also started collecting pictures of St. Sebastian, pictured in the middle. Don't ask me why because I don't know why I started.

Sunday, 21 Feb

Glossing over the ERASMUS party on Saturday night, we were given the day to explore Padua... in the rain. Naturally, we ran to the nearest church for refuge, which we believed at the time was Basilica di San Antonio. Turns out it was only the church of St. Luke, so we looked at the map and found the right church. 

As it happens, we arrived during Mass during the Festival of the Tongue or something like that. In the glass cases are reliquaries, not the least of which were the tongue AND vocal cords of San Antonio. Had we stayed, we would've been able to see his jawbone being passed around. As exciting as that would've been, we left, found what Alfredo called "a gothic cafe" and drank ridiculously good coffee, with some sort of fancy mint foam on top. 

I snapped this guy on our way out of the cafe, after which we climbed back on board, passed out, and drove home.

A cold couple of weeks

Surely Mother Nature decided to throw a fit these past couple of weeks because this snow has broken all sorts of records. Public transportation was shut down for the 2nd weekend in a row so the trip to Pisa was a no-go, which really bummed me out. 5 days of school and 2 fieldtrips were cancelled in the process.

Trying not to let the snow ruin all of my fun, I still managed to escape my house to go to out and enjoy the nightlife, which led me to meet some very friendly Italians who took me sledding at 3 AM on Friday. We still managed Family Dinner Night on Sunday so that was fun as well. On top of that, Marco, one of the USAC coordinators/teachers has begun organizing volleyball games on Wednesday nights, allowing me to get my blood pumping at least once a week.

Tomorrow we leave bright and early for Carnivale in Venice! Most of the USAC students paid for group  accommodations/transportation through the Erasmus Program, an international student group. Needless to say, I'm very excited.

Food Part 1

As promised, I have begun to takes pictures of food, some made by me, some from the restaurants. I only have 3 pictures so far but I'm working on it.

Homemade pizza with pesto, mozzarella, and garlic on top of focaccia.

Pasta from the world famous La Spaghetteria, world record holder for most kinds of pasta, over 300 in fact. This particular one is Paellati, essentially paella in pasta form and my favorite so far. Thanks to Lucrezia for the photo.

This tasty pasta I made last night. The official name is Pasta alla Carbonara but I like to call it breakfast pasta because ham and eggs are the two main ingredients.

As for the vino: frankly pictures of bottles are quite boring so I didn't take any. I do wanna talk about it though. In restaurants, if you ask for table wine or house wine, they'll bring you a pitcher with red or white wine mixed with sparkling water. Sounds gross I know but I've taken a liking to it. When I drink at home, I usually try to pick up a different bottle under 5 euros every time I go shopping. And without trying to sound like an alcoholic, I need to mention the "Wine Guy". Conveniently located only 10 minutes away, his store has these big vats of maybe 12-15 kinds of reds and whites which you can buy in 1.5, 2, or 4 liter plastic bottles for ludicrously cheap. They're great to take to dinners, like our Family Dinner Nights.

That's all I got for now but I will keep eating/drinking/snapping away as time goes on.

P.S. Special shout out to Lucrezia and Elena for showing up at my apartment on a Sunday morning to bring some pastries they had made. They were consumed within the hour. Grazie mille.

Update: Snow

So after the "mountain" of snow (6-7inches), 3 cancelled days of school, and some sort of state of emergency, things are finally returning to normal... At least until Friday, when it's supposed to snow again. We were planning on going to Pisa this coming weekend but if the trains shut down again, I'm might go crazy.

Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't snow. My sanity depends on it.

Snow Day in Viterbo

I'm sure in a direct attempt to spite me, the weather decided that Viterbo needed snow. None of my classes were cancelled but Studio Art was postponed for a whole hour. However, the postponement didn't stop me from having to walk to the other campus on the far side of town and get my poor socks drenched.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow and the day after. I might need to invest in some warmer clothes.

I left my heart in Orvieto (and some ruins)

Saturday was my personal day to brave Italian transportation and find my way to Orvieto. Actually it was super easy and I'm pretty sure I can get anywhere now. Anyways, Orvieto is about an hour north of Viterbo and it's an old fortress town on top of a hill. The train station is at the bottom of the hill and you have to ride the funicular to the top.

Right next to the funicular at the top is an old fortress with a commanding view of the countryside.

Panorama from the the battlements. A road zigzags down the face of the hill. It was very smoky because everyone seemed to be burning trash that day.

Next to the fortress was some monument, undecipherable to me but beautiful nonetheless.

On the other side of the funicular is the Well of Saint Patrick, built by a pope who fled to Orvieto after the sacking of Rome and decided that no one sieges a walled town, on a hill, with a well. And he was right. Alternate views from the top and the bottom.

And next to the well was some Etruscan ruins, which you can just walk up to and pretend like you're Etruscan, although no one really has any idea what they were all about. This used to be a temple. Actually a lot of the area surrounding Orvieto is rife with Etruscan ruins and artifacts, which explains why there are not one but TWO Archaeological Museums in town. Both of which I went to later in the day. 

But before the museums...

The Duomo of Orvieto, which I'm pretty sure is one of the most beautiful Gothic style churches in all of Italy. Each mosaic depicts some sort of the scene from the Bible, which I could read from the pamphlet and tell you but maybe another time. Pictures in the Duomo are strictly forbidden, so the ones I did take were from the hip, all incognito like. I felt like a Russian spy.

  Snapshot of the ceiling and one of the stained glass window behind the altar.

The real big sight inside the Duomo is the chapel of San Brizio, conveniently installed with camera detecting alarms. I only managed one or two blurry pics before the alarm sounded and a grumpy guard showed up to yell at the wrong person while I whisked away scot free.

After that it was pauso pranza and the only thing open besides pizzerias was the Museo Archaelogico Civico. The real highlight of the museum was a collection of Roman coins, which were displayed in a rotating case so you could see both sides.

Now the bad news. Pauso pranza still hadn't ended yet so I hoped I could head over to Pozzo della Cava, an Etruscan cave and get there in time for to open and get inside. As luck would have it, the only solid week that the cave is closed happened inextricably to be the same week I thought it a good idea to visit Viterbo. On top of that, I had missed the last tour to see the other Etruscan caves and the Etruscan Necropolis was at this point too far to get to and make it back for the 5:22 train.

Defeated, I grabbed lunch and headed back to the Duomo to visit some of the surrounding galleries. Oddly enough, included in the galleries for Renaissance art and pieces from the Duomo was a gallery dedicated to Emilio Greco. Click on this to see his work: Artwork.

I still had an hour to kill before I needed to leave to make it back to the train so I figured what that hell, why not another archaeological museum? Posing as an art history student, I got the reduced ticket price and geeked out over even more Etruscan artifacts. I'm quickly becoming a fanatic about a culture I know almost nothing about.

Besides an amazing collection of terracotta sculptures, jewelry, and household objects, they had these suckers. You might be thinking this is Roman, but nay, this is Etruscan armor. At least... I think so. Regardless, how awesome is that?

I have decided to return to Orvieto to spend the whole day doing nothing but visiting the Etruscan caves and necropolis. On the 4th, I depart for the weekend to Florence to stay with mia amica Vivian and try to cram in the top 6 sites within a 3 day period. Wish me luck.

Sidenote: Some people are hollering for more information about the cuisine in Italy. I have been eating on the cheap in order to have more money for travel. That being said, I've started making an effort to take pics of food, both home cooked and purchased. When I have enough, I'll dedicate a whole blog post to nothing but the gluttonous glory of food. And wine... lots of wine.

Vatican Day

January 21

Alrighty, we arrived in Rome about 11:30 with the sole intention of spending the day in and around Vatican city. I'm not going to write much, since the pictures will speak for themselves and even then, they fail to do proper justice.

The good 'ole panorama from St. Peter's Square.

One of my favorite pics, this guy sits in front of the steps to St. Peter's Basilica.

We decided as a group that it would be worth 5 Euro and climbing 551 steps to reach the top of the Cupola. If you look at the first panorama and look at the 3rd topmost ring on the dome, there are actually people up there. Yeah, it's huge.

A sadly incomplete panorama of the inside ceiling of the dome that you walk through on your way to the top.

You can see all of Rome in every direction at the top.

Facing away from St. Peter's Square. The long building on the right is the 4 mile expanse of the Vatican Museum. Of course I had to take advantage of using the tilt-shift effect.

The rest of the photos are from the inside of the Basilica. I'm not going to write anything because frankly, I hardly spoke for the better part of an hour and a half that I spent inside. Click for a full-view.

These are the best of the ones I've managed to edit so far. I can only say that I will be returning to the Basilica again and that if you do nothing else exciting in your life, you should at least come to Rome.