Friday, April 3, 2009

Marzo Pazzo

This past month has been very crazy, hence the title Marzo Pazzo, or crazy March. In fact, this is the first weekend that I am not leaving to travel and am staying in Florence. Thank God. Since my last post I have been to many places around Europe including, Amsterdam, Sicily, London, Dublin, Urbino, and Paris.

Amsterdam, so far, has been one of my favorite trips. Besides the fact that the city is beautiful, the culture in Amsterdam is unlike any other. Drugs are legal, as well as prostitution, yet the city remains clean and very functional. All of the people speak English and are extremely friends, which is surprising considering they constantly have to deal with annoying tourists. We stayed on a houseboat, which was fairly small and wet, but it was a great experience. It has been the first place I’ve traveled where I immediately wanted to go back.

The weekend after was Spring Break and my friend Diana and I went on an 11 day trip. We started here in Firenze, but then traveled to a small town on the west side of Sicily called Taormina. It was very beautiful and had many ancient Greek and Roman ruins along with a great beach. Our B&B was on the water and it was sunny everyday we were there. Sicilians are known for being part of the mafia and I definitely saw a few members however the pace of life is much slower on the Island, and in southern Italy in general, compared to the northern cities. We were able to get around with my elementary Italian, although it was hard because Sicilian is a completely different dialect and at times it was hard to understand their accent, let alone the language. We then traveled to London, where Diana is studying. London was great and is truly a world city, as there are countless different cultures from all over the world in one location. I was only there for two days and the city is massive so I would really like to return and see more. It was really fun though because several of our friends from USC were also in the London at the same time. We then went to Dublin for the weekend before St. Patrick’s day. Dublin was awesome and the Guinness was amazing. I have had Guinness in the states before but it tastes nothing like the magical beer I had in Dublin. I guess it is difficult to transport Guinness and up until recently you could not even get it outside of Dublin, let alone Ireland. The Irish were also great, very drunken and friendly with a cool accent. Although there were many tourists, I met up with a friend’s sister from home who lives in the city, and her and her husband showed us around some of the more local spots. Finally, I returned back to Firenze after many days of crazy traveling.

The weekend after we went on a field trip with my art history class and followed around the works of Piero della Francesca. We went to several cities and stayed the night in Urbino. Urbino is easily one of my favorite towns outside of Firenze. The field trip was great and our class is really getting close. We had a huge drunken dinner and our professor made us promise not to tell the administration. Also our TA announced that she was pregnant during her presentation. She is really cool and everyone was excited.

The weekend after I visited my friends Henoch, Jesse, and Holly in Paris. Although I loved the city, the people were not extremely friendly, even to my friends who spoke the language. Both the French people and language, in my opinion, are completely opposite from Italian. In French, you hide the sound of the letteres and everyone is very quiet and softer spoken. In Italian you overly pronounce every thing and everyone is loud and outgoing. Granted this was my first impression of the people and language, but I noticed a clear difference. The trip went very smoothly except for the fact that I missed my flight home and had to wait 13 hours in the Paris airport. It was one of the most miserable days I have had here. I finally got home at midnight in Florence, when I had arrived at the Paris airport at 5 am that day.

I continue to love spending time with my host family. We have gotten fairly close. Nonna thinks I drink to much wine, but she also says the same for her daughter and my host mamma. I also enjoy the nightly argument of whether or not to watch “Walker Texas Ranger” Nonna’s favorite show, because Lily thinks its stupid and refuses to turn it on. Before dinner we always watch the news and the top story is always something to do with Obama. It’s really interesting how closely they follow US politics and is a reminder to how our decisions and actions truly affect the international community.

I have tons of work these next two weeks including two papers and an event to plan for my internship. I don’t know how I am going to get them all done before I leave for Sardigna next Thursday. I am really excited for that trip though as it is Easter weekend and there are supposed to be big festivities in Italy for Easter. I will soon post more pics of Paris and our class field trip and will try and post more regularly. I am also now waiting to hear back from a couple scholarships that would allow me to stay and work in Italy during the summer time. Keep your fingers crossed. Ciao.

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