From the Boot to the Mitten

Two plane rides totalling 10 hours of airtime and I'm back home! A lot of times when you're on your way to a place, you're so excited to get there that it seems like it takes forever to get there. Then, when you have to leave the place, you don't want to leave and so the trip home goes by very quickly. Well, I definitely was excited on my way to Italy, so the plane ride there seemed like forever. But I have to admit, I was ready and excited to be coming home. Therefore, that flight seemed like it took forever! But now I'm home, and I'm so happy to be here.

My last week in Europe was very action-packed. On Friday I left the Villa a little teary-eyed, as it was such a beautiful place and I couldn't believe my time there was over. But a group of friends and I headed to a hostel in Florence, where we stayed the night. It was such a different experience being in Florence without thinking that I have to be back at the Villa later that day. But we had a great time and it was nice spending some time with my friends after we left.

On Saturday, two of my friends (Courtney and Marina) and I went to Parma, Italy. I really liked it there because it was more of a family town, very quiet and quaint. And of course, when in Parma... we went out to lunch and had a great antipasto of parmesan reggiano and parma proscuitto ham- these were fantastic. The parmesan was some of the best cheese I've ever tasted! This then followed with a pasta that also had parma ham. Delicious! After lunch I had to say goodbye to Courtney, as she headed off to Greece for two weeks. This was pretty tough but I was glad that she was at least able to come to Parma for a little bit. After that Marina and I went to a huge park in Parma and hung out there for a little while. I sat on a park bench reading a book and then this Italian guy started talking to me. He spoke no English whatsoever, but I was able to keep up a conversation with him for about 10 minutes! I was really excited about his because after living in Italy and taking Italian for six weeks, I was actually able to understand and contribute to a converstaion in Italian!

View of most of the bridges in Florence. If you look through the arches of the first one, you see the next. And look through the arches of that one to see another one, etc.

One of my favorite pieces of art. Located in the Santa Maria del Carmine Church, this piece by Masaccio is titled "The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden." I think the gestures and facial expressions of Adam and Eve are so realistic and amazing.

This ones for Mike :-) Apparently Lance speaks Italian too...

A big group of us on our last night in Florence. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I got a haircut.

The girls and me :-)


The next day Marina and I headed to Lake Geneva, Switzerland. This was a great place. I have grown very partial to Switzerland, this being my second time there on the trip. Geneva was gorgeous. And it's right on the border with France, so of course they spoke French there. Luckily Marina knows French, so we were able to get by pretty well. I'd rather show more pictures of Geneva than talk about it, so here they are:

Lake Geneva.

Jet d'eau. Can you see the rainbow?

Jet d'eau again- I walked underneath this and got SOAKED!

Haha, one of my favorite thing about Geneva were all of the swans. And they loved to go diving for food leaving their bums exposed to the world.

This is Eddy from England. He had been traveling across Europe for two months on his bike, and still had two more months to go!

The Flower Clock in the English Garden. It's a clock made entirely of flowers!

Lake Geneva with Mont Blanc in the background.

There were beautiful skies as the sun was setting- please enjoy the next few pictures. This was breathtaking to see.


We arrived in Geneva on Sunday evening and then left Tuesday morning to head to Nice, France. This was a great adventure! The train rides took us from Geneva in Switzerland, through Lyon in France, then Marseille to Cannes to Nice. It was a very long train ride but the scenery was beautiful. Oh, and by the way, France definitely knows how to make a sandwich... I ate quite a few in the short time I was there. Once in Nice we walked around for a little while and went to see the beach (oh how I love the Mediterranean Sea!). When we got back to our hostel, the two other beds in the room had been filled by two girls from England, Amy and Fiona. The next day I went to the sandy beach in Cannes with Amy and Fiona. That afternoon, Marina and I headed to Monaco where we stepped inside the Monte Carlo Casino (pictures of the outside below)! That night was our last night in Nice, so the four of us girls went out for a nice dinner.

The following morning (Thursday), Marina and I had to get up before the sun to head back to Florence. We got there around 12:30p.m. and then said goodbye as Marina was heading on for more travels, and I was leaving the next day. Luckily, throughout all of the train rides, none of them were ever severely late and we were able to make all of our connecting trains throughout the week. This is very uncommon in Europe, but I'm definitely not complaining. It made for a much more relaxing week!


Nice was really nice (hahaha- that was the joke of the day...)

Nice and the Mediterranean Sea.

Again.
Monte Carlo Casino. No pictures were allowed inside.

Grace Kelly :-)

Fiona and Amy, my two British roommates in Nice.

Anyway, back in Florence, I headed to Sesto Fiorentino to have my last gelato at my favorite gelato shop. It was very strange going back alone. The town was so quiet. Something interesting about the month of August in Italy is that most shops are closed for most of the month and the owners go on vacation (generally to the sea). I was a little worried my favorite gelato shop was going to be closed, but when I turned the corner, I saw a sign on the door that read: "Agosto Sempre Aperto" which means"Always Open in August." After the gelato I went to the Villa where I had left my large suitcase (this would not have been good to travel with for the week). It was also strange going back to the Villa because the only person there was the gardener. He helped me get my bag and then I rolled it along the hot, 10 minute walk to the train station.I then met up with my roommate from the Villa, Kate, and her mom. They had invited me to stay with them for my last night in Florence. It was so great to see them again, and we had a really nice time. And it was especially nice staying in a room with air conditioning- I hadn't done that in 7 weeks! And let me tell you, Italy is HOT in the summer. Anyway, Kate and her mom and I met up with Rose and Rose's son Lorenzo for dinner that evening. We had really great meals and it was nice to be able to say goodbye to Rose and Lorenzo. After dinner Kate and I met up with another friend of ours from the program, Erica, who had been staying in Florence for the week with her parents. We went out for our last gelato and then headed back to the hotel.Friday morning I boarded my first flight at 7:15a.m. to head to Amsterdam. An hour layover there and then I was homeward bound. Looking down at the landscape, I remember thinking once I got into Italy how beautiful and different it was from back home. But I can't tell you how happy I was when we started descending down into Metro Detroit. I had such a great experience during my seven weeks in Europe, but that was plenty of time for me to be there. I'm so happy to be back and able to see all my family and friends. I know that I will cherish forever the memories I made on this trip. It was a once in a lifetime experience, and I'm pretty darn sure I lived it to the fullest.

Lorenzo, Rose, and me after my last dinner in Florence.

Kate and her mom and me.

Where I've Been

As previously mentioned, I wanted to make a post about all of the places I've seen in Florence. The list is as follows:

Michelangelo Square
Ponte Vecchio
Church of San Lorenzo (including the Old Sacristy and the Medici Chapel)
The Bargello Museum
Church of Santa Maria Novella
Monastery of San Marco
The Ufizzi Gallery
The Boboli Gardens
Church of Santa Croce
The Duomo
Casa Buonarroti (Michelangelo's house)

I am extremely happy I was able to see all of these places. Tomorrow I plan on visiting the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine to see some of the works by Massacio. I have so much to say about all of the places that I've visited that it would make for a very long post. So instead, please just check out the pictures of all of the wonderful places I've been- I think that they can better speak for themselves. Also, thanks to Mike I realized that I forgot to comment about something very important that I saw when I was in Rome- the Sistine Chapel. After writing about it in my diary and in a few emails, I think I just thought that I wrote about it in my blog as well. This probably goes without saying, but it was exquisite. There are 9 stories from Genesis on the highest part of the ceiling and the lowest part of the ceiling is surrounded by paintings of the ancestors of Christ. When originally commissioned, Michelangelo was told to only paint 12 figures on the ceiling- the apostles. However, after debate with the Pope, he was able decide on what he wanted to include on the ceiling, which ended up being over 300 figures. Also in the Sistine Chapel is the Last Judgment, depicting the return of Christ and the Apocalypse. The figures in this painting are much more fierce and muscular than those done before by Michelangelo, as this piece was completed about 20 years after the ceiling.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures below! I will be traveling into Switzerland and France this coming week and then I will be home! I plan on making one final post once I get back to the states, so please be looking for it in about a week and a half.


View from the Uffizi Gallery of the bridges of Florence.

The door to my mom's old apartment!

Il Duomo.

Il Duomo.

View of Florence from the top of the Duomo.

View of Santa Croce from the top of the Duomo.

The Church of Santa Croce. This piazza is my favorite in Florence.

Inside Santa Croce, there are works by one of my favorite artists- Lucaa della Robbia.

Inside Santa Croce.

View from the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge).

Boboli Gardens.

Always time to pose for a picture!

View from the Boboli Gardens.

Great view of the Duomo from the Boboli Gardens.

More works by della Robbia, this time inside the Monastery of San Marco.

More San Marco.


View along the Arno River.

Outside the Uffizi Gallery.

View of Florence at night from Michelangelo Square.

My Last Weekend

My last weekend here in Italy was a perfect end to my travels while staying at the Villa. On Friday morning I left with a group of 14 other people to go to Pompeii. First we climbed up Mt. Vesuvius. There are a few pictures below of the view. Also, something very interesting (to me at least) was that we had a little tour once we reached the top and the tour guide showed us a mineral originally found on the volcano, and therefore it's called Vesuvianite. For those materials geeks like me (Mike this for you), feel free to google for further information.

View from the top of Mt. Vesuvius

More view.

My friend Erica and me on the top of Mt. Vesuvius.

Looking down into the volcanic ash.

After hiking up Mt. Vesuvius, we went exploring through the ruins of Pompeii. The ruins were nothing what I expected, and I don't mean this in a bad way. There was so much to see! We only spent about two hours there, but I think I could be there for a whole day. It was amazing because the first recorded eruption of the volcano happened in AD 79 but we could still see frescoes on the insides of some of the houses. The volcano has erupted quite a few times since then, the most recent in 1944. Our tour guide said that there are many predictions regarding when it will erupt again.

Ruins of Pompeii.

More of the ruins. I love the trees. I'm not sure what kind they are, but they're all over Italy.

Sitting on an ancient Pompeian street.

More of Pompeii.

Fresco inside a Pompeian house.

Peeking through a window in Pompeii. It's interesting to think of the history right in the spot I'm standing. How many Pompeians looked through this window before AD 79?

After Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii, we headed over to our hostel in Sorrento. We ended up having a later dinner (around 10:30) at an amazing restaurant. I had one of the best meals I've had on my whole trip. It was a risotto with seafood- oysters, mussels, scallops, squid, and shrimp. It was to die for! We also had a white wine with peaches in it, and this was delicious! We all enjoyed the restaurant so much that we went back the next night (but more on that later).

Saturday morning we had an early start to head to the island of Capri. Once we arrived we took a boat tour around the island, stopping by each of its grottos. The most fascinating was the blue grotto. We actually got to take little canoes full of 4 people into the grotto. My pictures from this didn't turn out very well, but hopefully you can also look up online to see what it really looks like. And I also lucked out big time! The rower for my boat was one of the "cool rowers" and he let the girls in my boat swim inside the blue grotto! I admit I was a little scared because it was dark, but as soon as he told us we could swim, I was the first to jump in the water! A lot of other rowers don't even offer to let the passengers swim or they make them pay money. But not ours! It was such a crazy and exciting experience!

On the way to Capri.

Grotto Verde (the Green Grotto).

A lighthouse for Mrs. Bartlett :-)

Kate and me on our way to Capri.

Kate and Courtney and Me.

Inside the Blue Grotto.

This is also inside the Blue Grotto. I know that it is pretty blurry, but the coloring captures what it looked like! It was so amazing to swim inside!


The rest of the day we laid out on the rocky beaches of Capri before heading back to our hostel. And yes, we went back to the same restaurant as the night before. My meal was again great (pasta with seafood this time). However, half of the table ordered pizzas for dinner that night and for some reason there was a backup on making pizzas. So half of us got our food a long time before the rest of the table. In the meantime everyone was chatting and having a good time, when all of the sudden my friend Courtney started to cry. She was just so happy that it made her cry. But our waiter thought that she was crying because it took them so long to get our food, so he brought everyone at the table a free shot of Limoncello! It was the first time I had it, and thank goodness some of the people at the table knew that you were supposed to sip it instead of taking it all in one gulp. It was very refreshing, but very strong.

Free shots of Limoncello wiped away Courtney's tears. My friends (from left to right)- Allie, Suzy, Cory, Kate, Me, Erica, Mike, and Courtney.

On Sunday we went to the beach in Sorrento and I swam and swam and swam. Nothing beats swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. After a while though, everyone was pretty tired, so we just wandered around town and ate some food and relaxed until it was time to go to the train station. We took a train from Sorrento to Naples, and then Naples to Florence. However, one of the coolest things happened while we were at the train station in Naples. I don't know if I had previously mentioned this, but my roommate Kate is deaf. And I remember one of the first things she said to me when I met her was how cool it would be if she could meet deaf Italians. Well, her wish came true- we ran into 5 deaf Italians in the train station! There was another girl traveling with us whose brother is deaf, and so she knows sign language as well. So she and Kate were signing with the 5 Italians. It was one of the coolest things that I've ever seen. American Sign Language is different than Italian Sign Language, so it was still a little bit difficult for them to understand each other. But they were able to pick up each other's signing pretty quickly. Having been a part of this experience just sealed the deal for me in making this the best weekend I've had on my trip here. And I am so happy for Kate because she just couldn't stop smiling the whole time!

Our new Italian friends! On the far left is Allie, whose brother is deaf and in the middle is Kate. The rest of the group are the deaf Italians that we met. This is going to be one of my most favorite memories of the trip.

After about an hour in the train station we left on our night train back to Florence, and didn't get back until around 2a.m. We didn't realize that our seats could be rolled down into beds, so it was a little bit uncomfortable. But I'm glad I got to experience a night train ride.

Now a little reflection- I can't believe I have been here for 5 weeks, and only have one week left in the Villa (and two total left in Europe)! I have been on so many adventures and seen such amazing things that I never could have dreamed. I have already written up a post on the things I've seen in Florence, but I need to upload pictures to go with it so please keep a lookout for that in the next couple of days. As for after leaving the Villa, I plan on going into Switzerland and France for a few days each before heading back home (but I will let you know more about my plans in another post). I just want to thank everyone for taking the time to read my posts and leaving comments, emailing me or even calling me- I really appreciate it. It's been great to see all of these wonderful things but still feel close to home.