Midnight train to....Ljubljana

This week has flown by...it really seems like just a day or two ago that we got back from Rimini and San Marino and yet I'm sitting here waiting to walk to the train station to go on another trip! I guess it's a good thing it went by so quickly, because it certainly wasn't my best week here. Nothing all that terrible happened, it was just a lot of little, frustrating things that added up to a terrible Monday and only sightly better Tuesday.

The main problem is the whole law school application process. I got off to such a good, productive start, and then I kind of hit a brick wall in terms of motivation for writing some really fabulously persuasive personal statements. Then two professors I had asked to write recommendations were a little mean (in various ways), which was discouraging. But at this point I've kind of put it on the back burner until I get back from Slovenia...I've rounded up enough recommendations, requested my transcripts, filled in all the easy parts of the many applications...now I just need to finish up the essays and I'm not going to try and force that or I know they won't be well written. But on top of making myself anxious about that, I was in charge of house dinner this week along with Tom and we definitely decided to take on one of the more ambitious menus so far...chicken fried chicken (Tom's little project), mac n cheese, cornbread, and peach cobbler. Cooking for twenty is hard enough. Cooking a southern meal in a country that doesn't really sell cheddar cheese or cornbread mix only compounds the complexity. In leiu of cheddar, Kayla helped me pick a few other cheeses that we hoped would work well together and we also bought a TON of the other necessary dinner ingredients at Panorama (that Italian version of Wal Mart). That whole experience was just stressful based on how much we had to buy (35 peaches, 3 pounds of pasta, bags and bags of flour, pounds of butter and cheese) and how massive that store is. Then we carried it all miles back to Casa Artom.

Being the slow, nervous "chef" I am, I basically camped out in the kitchen all day yesterday trying to pre make as much of the dinner as possible. I cut butter in to tiny squares for cobbler, grated 6ish pounds of cheese for a few hours, pre-mixed the cobbler topping, etc. Luckily the students had class most of the day so I had the kitchen to myself to make as much of a mess and experiment while they were downstairs. I was most nervous about the mac n cheese, so I ended up mixing up the cheese sauce well in advance and when we taste tested it, everyone was really pleasantly surprised...probably myself most of all. Rhianna helped make the cornbread ahead of time so the ovens would be free for mac n cheese and cobbler and Kayla cut all 35 peaches in to tiny slices. Despite all the planning, we still had some oven issues (both in terms of how crappily the ovens here cook and in terms of capacity constraints), and Tom didn't get back from the gym until less than an hour before dinner, so frying the chicken was a hurried, intense little experience. Somehow everything was ready at almost exactly the same time except for the cobbler, which baked as we were eating, and so we sat down to see how it tasted. I was so pleased with how everything turned out. I do not cook often and do not cook much outside of cookies, so mac n cheese + cobbler was taking on a lot for me. People really seemed to enjoy it, though, and most people had seconds of the mac n cheese while we were waiting on the cobbler. The recipe I used for cobbler said "serves 4" so I multiplied it by 5, after all, there are 20 of us, 6 of whom are very hungry boys. We had so much cobbler...you'd die if you saw how much it made. We killed one giant dish of it last night with vanilla gelato and everyone ate the rest for breakfast/lunch today...so I think they liked it : ) I'm so glad it went well...I would've felt bad if my house dinner had been the first disastrous one...but I don't think I'll be throwing my hat in the ring for the task again any time soon!

Today was a lazy day...just a few trips to the grocery and hanging out in the house...I'm trying to rest since this weekend's trip is a little non-traditional (and my backpack is super heavy). Our train goes from Venice to Slovenia tonight at 9:30, but will get in at 2am, at which point we'll hopefully find the hostel really quickly and then crash. Then we're spending all day tomorrow and Saturday in Slovenia, but taking the train home late Saturday/early Sunday (2am to 7am). For some reason the Venice-Slovenia-Venice route is only served by night trains despite the mere 4 to 5 hour distance...so, we're being flexible (we=me, McKinley, Kayla). I think it should be a fun trip though...Slovenia is supposed to be beautiful and we're staying in this cool hostel that used to be a prison (received rave reviews from the kids who went from my group when I studied here). The only potential downer? 50+% chance of rain all day tomorrow (I swear my travel luck, weather wise, is so much worse this time than last...). If I don't melt, stay tuned for pictures of Slovenia!

RSM

After my post on Friday, the rain lightened up long enough for us to decide to head out and explore the historic city center of Rimini. About 10 steps from the hostel towards the bus stop, the rain picked up again, but we refused to go back (even though the hostel wasn't a bad place at all to be stuck...warm, brightly painted, good music, free books in English, pillows on the floor... you know, pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a place called "Sunflower Beach Backpacker's Hostel"). The picture of Elizabeth and I with our umbrellas is from our rainy wait for the bus.

We got off the bus near the river and walked along the river towards the Tiberian Bridge (one of the 4 main historical attractions according to the map the hostel gave us). Next we walked towards a castle on the north side of town, going literally entirely around the castle to try and find the entrance. Then we headed towards the Augustan Arch on the opposite edge of town, followed by the oldest church in the city. The map was apparently blown up quite a bit because it didn't take as long as we expected to see the sights, so we decided to try and find some dinner. We walked for almost an hour up and down practically every street in Rimini trying to find something other than a cafe (we wanted more than a sandwich). We found great lasagna and gnocchi at a no-name place and walked back towards the bus to head back to the hostel. At the hostel, we checked our email, read for maybe 30 minutes, and fell asleep by 9:30 because we were so cold and tired (from being up since 5:30am, mostly).

Saturday we got up in time to take advantage of the free breakfast at the hostel, checked out, and headed to the train station where we could get a bus to San Marino. On the #11 bus from the hostel to the train station, it was wall to wall bodies...at one point, this woman set her gigantic suitcase on my foot, then went to change the position of her grip on the bar and hit me square on the face. She found it hilarious, I managed to smile at her...needless to say, I was relieved when we made it to the station with no further injuries. We got to the station just in time for a 9:45 bus and hopped on, ending up in the Republic of San Marino promptly at 10:30. For a while, the 3 of us poked around San Marino, buying postcards and taking pictures. Then we decided to walked from the city center to the 3 separate towers and back again. By then, all of us were starving, so we hunted down the least expensive, least touristy restaurant we could find, and were rewarded with a pretty decent restaurant with a fabulous view. The girls got gelato after lunch, but I was too full from my gigantic spaghetti al ragu (fear not, I got some on the way home from the train station in Venice).

We ended up taking an early, regional train from Rimini back to Venice by way of Bologna. It was nice to get back to Venice by 8ish, but we did have some intense train experiences--the first wasn't too bad, but the second was running 15 minutes late, got moved from one platform to another (and they were not exactly close together), and was PACKED (we were lucky to get seats, even if they were cramped and kind of stinky). It's weird to be in the house with just a few people (last night it was just David, McKinley, Elizabeth, Rhianna, Laura, and I), but nice. I made dinner last night, then did laundry and unloaded new groceries today in peace and with plenty of space. Today I've just kind of bummed around because it's cool and drizzly here... a perfect excuse to stay in the house and watch The Notebook and cross a few things of the law school applying to-do list.

(The other 2 pictures are a view from the heights of San Marino and a shot of the 2nd Tower in San Marino).

CasiNO, Wet Towel Fights, and Rainy Days in Rimini

The last thing I should be doing right now is updating my blog. Instead I should be traipsing around Rimini, Italy on one of my two days on the East Coast. Unfortunately, it's raining in Rimini. Not in the drizzly, "we're just being girly girls and can't handle getting wet" sense, but in the "it's raining so hard that umbrellas are useless" sense. After nearly missing our 7:20 train here, we got in around 10:30 and I promptly realized I printed out a map that didn't help us at all to find the hostel. So we ended up deciding to take a local bus from the train station to the hostel. We spent probably 15 minutes waiting for the 11 (the one we apparently needed), then saw it pull up on the other side of the road and thought, "why not just take it in that direction?" The answer is "because the driver drops everyone off at the main terminal and won't let anyone stay on the bus." So then we decided to try the next bus that came our way, thinking it'd at least take us back to the train station. We got off the bus at the very next stop since the sign indicated that we could pick up the 11 right there. Finally we got on the 11 and took it for about 20 minutes to our hostel, where the lady was nice enough to let us check in early and get settled in. The original plan was to eat and then explore Rimini, since tomorrow we plan to get on a bus for San Marino in the morning and not necessarily spend any extra time in Rimini itself. The rain picked up as we walked to lunch and has only gotten heavier as time has passed...so we're back at the hostel to just wait it out.

This week has really passed quickly. I think it's in part because I've started the whole law school application process, which consumes most of my time while the students are in class. Plus, since the group has started traveling, the weeks get divided in to "planning for travel" and "actual traveling." Most of my weekdays were pretty uneventful outside of writing (or attempting to write) incredibly convincing personal statements. Tuesday our group went to the Casino (pronounced CasiNO, because the regular pronunciation implies an entirely different type of establishment...along the lines of a brothel). It was kind of a quiet night in the Casino and it was filled with slightly sketchy older men and we ALL lost money, but, it was totally worth it to see McKinley entertain a suitor in the form of the vaporetto man (the guy who "docks" the boat at each station and lets passengers on/off). Wednesday was house dinner and my traditional dish washing with Tom turned in to a major wet towel/tong fight (hard to describe, but use your imagination...two people who might as well be brother and sister for the way they bicker fending each other off with various kitchen utensils in David's tiny "professor" kitchen)...I still have scars, but it was entertaining at least. That night, the boys decided to play beer pong/have a house party, but the girls wanted to get out of the house, so we visited Cafe Noir (a favorite of mine from my last time here, but not open until very recently) then Cafe Blu and just had a great girls' night out before re-joining the house party later. Yesterday I went with Caroline and Charlotte to Vicenza, where there's a US military base and thus a store FULL of American products. There really isn't much I miss in terms of food, but, Tom and I are cooking house dinner this coming week in the form of chicken fried chicken, mac n cheese, cornbread, and peach cobbler, so some of the vital ingredients can't be found in Venice. They couldn't get me on the base (they both have military IDs), so I just wandered around Vicenza and shopped.

I've noticed slowly over the course of this semester a few changes in my personality that I think definitely started last time I was here. Namely, I've gotten on a train 3 times now not knowing either where I'll end up, what I'm going to do when I get there, or both. I don't think I ever did that or would have thought to do it last time I was here, and while it sounds irresponsible, I don't think it is...I just think it demonstrates how much I've relaxed. There are certainly still times when I worry and get stressed, but I think on the whole, I've gotten so much less uptight (I guess people who know me best are either laughing or agreeing right now...). The best example, I think, is the train strike. If I'd had to deal with that last time, especially in terms of getting 16 other people home, I probably would've cried and gotten frustrated and looked to someone else to "fix it" for me. But that flexibility seems to also be showing up in less dramatic situations, specifically the whole applying to law school thing. Don't get me wrong, I'll be disappointed if I get flat-out rejected by every school to which I apply, but, I know that this plan might not work out and I'm prepared for that!

Anyways, not too much is new other than that. I can't believe that Slovenia is next weekend and then Mom and Dad come for my first 10 day break, and then Allie comes to visit...the semester is definitely starting to fly by! There are days when I feel like time is crawling by, mostly because I really miss people back home and December 9 seems so far away sometimes, but for the most part, it's really going quickly.

PS-I have a lot of free time, so, if you're feeling so inclined, snail mail is always welcome...!

"SOPP"

…an Italian abbreviation that will make any traveler’s heart sink. It basically means “sorry, sucker, your train was cancelled on account of this strike we planned.” I happened to see it more times than I can count on two hands this weekend…but that’s the end of this story….

As most of you know, I traveled with 16 of the students to Cinque Terre this weekend. I’ve been wanting to go since my first time in Venice, and so I inadvertently roped a ton of people in to joining me, meaning I felt serious pressure to make it a great trip. Therefore Thursday was an anxious day full of “hurry up and wait” moments…like taking the vaporetto (super slow) to the train station, then waiting for the train, then getting to Florence and waiting for my next train, getting to La Spezia and waiting for my regional train to Riomaggiore, etc. To distract myself on the trains, I thought a good bit about where I want to apply to law school, what I want to write my personal statements about, and when applications are due. Entertainment was also provided by the students (who were on a later train than me), who prank called me, somehow expecting me to not realize it was them, despite caller ID…it was cute.

When I got to Riomaggiore, I met a cute American couple and we walked together from the train station to the office of the lady renting apartments as we happened to be using the same agency. While she showed the American couple their apartment, Edi, the owner of the business, left me in the office with the biggest swarm of mosquitoes ever and a cat who could tell I hate cats. Then she came back, laughed at me when I asked for a map of town, and proceeded to lead me to each of the 3 apartments as I furiously scribbled directions in the hopes that they’d help when I had to show everyone around well after dark. She also warned me multiple times in Italian (no English here, folks) about the two big faux paus--having more people than we rented apartments for (check) and being noisy at night (check), so I was a little nervous. After Edi abandoned me by the marina as the sun set, I went in search of the main street (Via Colombo) and found myself an impromptu dinner of pesto-coated foccia bread. Despite being tired, I forced myself to walk to each of the apartments again so I wouldn’t forget the way, then went to mine to rest until the kids arrived.

By 10:30 pm, everyone made it safely to Riomaggiore and had dinner before we all went to the rocky beach by the marina to swim and hang out. 4 of the 6 in my apartment decided to go to sleep, so I told the other 2 to just call me when they wanted directions and to be let in. The whole only having 1 key thing turned in to a bit of sleep depriving problem (as different people wanted to come home at different times), but it wasn’t too terrible and we were still able to get up early the next day to have coffee and start our hike by 10ish.

I hiked with Kayla, Elizabeth, McKinley, Eugene, Chris, Jen, Brian, and Megan and the rest of the group split up to do their own thing (hiking with 17 is practically impossible on the sort of trails we were traversing). I am proud (and still slightly amazed) to report that I hiked 8 miles of mostly uphill, narrow, steep, rocky trails and was rewarded with some of the most amazing views I’ve ever seen. The trail took us along the coastline and through five separate, adorable towns carved in to the cliffs that drop down straight in to the Mediterranean. We definitely took the train back to Riomaggiore instead of re-doing the 8 mile hike, and I think that’s the only thing that saved me from being impossibly sore afterwords. After the hike, the majority of the group met back up for dinner and to hang out. It was probably one of the best meals I’ve had since I got to Italy…in all seriousness, it was the BEST pesto Genovese I’ve ever had on top of homemade pasta, followed by the perfect dish of tiramisu.

Elizabeth and I decided to go to bed really early Friday night, and so as I was assuming what I like to call the “sleep position” (one arm under the pillow, one arm with the stuffed animals, ear plugs in), my phone started to ring. Great, it’s the rest of the apartment and they’re ready to be let in, too, which is perfect bc I’m not asleep yet, I thought to myself. Instead…“Hi Jenny, it’s Chris. There’s a train strike…Rhianna and Ana are stuck in Monterosso and are staying with an Italian couple they met at dinner. Oh and the strike doesn’t end until 9pm tomorrow.” My first thought is yeah right, nice one, boys, because they’re constantly pulling jokes. But then I began a series of slightly panicked phone calls to David and Kelly (the only two back at Casa Artom), and they confirmed via the TrainItalia website that there was a planned train strike, localized in Tuscany, set to end at 9pm Saturday. I asked David to call Laura (the Italian lady who "runs" the house) for more details (mainly-is there actually a strike? if we have to buy new tickets to go home a different way, do we pay again? what if we're stuck in Cinque Terre?). I got very little info except to find out that a train was running from La Spezia to Milan at 4:40 and that there'd probably be a train after 9pm from Milan to Venice. Then I'd just have to figure out how to get 15 people to La Spezia for that train and make sure Rhianna and Ana survived the night. With a rough back up plan in place, I finally fell asleep around 12:30.

Kayla, Elizabeth, McKinley and I decided to get up and out of the apartment by 8 to eat a quick breakfast, then hit the tiny Riomaggiore train station to see if we could get more details, and depending on what we learned, we would go back to Edi's office and see if we could stay another night in our apartments. At the train station, we learned there were only two more trains out of Riomaggiore that day...one was in five minutes, the other in one hour. The people in the ticket office didn't know any more info, but the 4 of us decided it'd be better to at least get to La Spezia, so we called each of the apartments and told everyone they had to be up, ready, and packed up in less than an hour. McKinley went back to our apartment to clean it and get our things while Kayla, Elizabeth and I dispersed to the other 2 apartments to help clean and pack only to find out that Karen and Jaimie had gone for a walk/swim. Kayla went to find them while Elizabeth and I packed up everything Rhianna and Ana left in the apartment (not knowing, of course, they'd be stuck in Monterosso all night). By some miracle, we found Karen and Jaimie, Ana and Rhianna got on the last train out of Monterosso, and everyone left in Riomaggiore got to the train station with at least 10 minutes to spare.

We got to La Spezia and it was an absolute mess--imagine Hartsfield airport when Delta has cancelled at least 5 flights...everyone needs to be rerouted. The group hung out in the McDonald's while Brian and I tried to figure out whether we could still take our orginal trains or whether we needed to go to Milan and then Venice. We started at the ticket office and the man told us he had no idea, that we needed to ask at the information office, so we joined a massive line of disgruntled people there. The lady at the window told us there was one train to Pisa at 12, one at 2 and then we could take a train from Pisa to Florence at 6:30pm, which would get us to Florence in time for our Eurostar to Venice. Brian and I were really worried that we couldn't be sure that those trains would run, as trains were constantly being cancelled (indicated by "SOPP" next to the time on the computer screens), and the strike was localized in our region of Italy.

We presented the options to the group and there was a little grumbling regarding possibly having to pay an additional 40 Euro to get to Venice via Milan and a few people wanted to "just split up and find our own way back." Neither option seemed all that appealing, so Brian and I went back to the ticket office to try and buy tickets on the La Spezia to Florence and Florence to Pisa trains to ensure we had seats, only to be told the trains were full and we could not stand on them. Frustrated, we went back to the information office as the woman there had told us our original ticket would get us on the trains we now needed instead. Sure enough, she told us that we could stand so long as we used our original tickets. We went back to the group and basically told everyone they WOULD be getting on the noon train to Pisa, like it or not, and we'd go from there.

The train to Pisa was absolutely packed with people trying to get towards Florence/Tuscany, so most of us stood for the 50 minute ride. In Pisa, Brian and I again went in search of information to make sure the trains to Florence and Venice were still running and that our original tickets would again get us there. Once we got confirmation, or at least what passes for confirmation in the midst of a "planned, localized" train strike, the group dispersed to either walk or take the bus in to the center of Pisa. Eugene, Elizabeth, Kayla, and I walked quickly in to the city center to see the Duomo and leaning tower, then we headed down the main road back towards the train station to do some shopping. I had been to Pisa before, so I didn't feel too badly about doing the touristy thing pretty quickly, then getting in some shopping at places like Zara that we don't have here in Venice. After some serious stress relief via shopping, we all met back at the Pisa train station around 5:45 and caught the 6:30 train with little issue. Apparently the ticket checkers were feeling generous as they ignored the fact that 17 of us ticketed in 2nd class were "accidentally" sitting in 1st (and the fact that a few of us were a little intoxicated).

I didn't really take a deep breath of relief until we got on the Eurostar to Venice. By then, I knew we'd make it home, and exhaution hit me like a brick wall. The train was really noisy and cold, so the ride seemed interminable, but I was so thankful that not only were we almost home, we were almost home at the time we originally planned to be. The only downside was that we left Venice when the weather was hot and humid and arrived home to 55 degree rain--not pretty. David was nice enough to meet all of us at the train station bearing gifts of vaporetto tickets so we wouldn't have to do the 30 minute walk back to Casa Artom in the cold drizzle. Once we got home, I unpacked, ate my first real meal of the day, and absolutely crashed.

The short story is "there was a train strike, but 17 of us still got home safe, sound, and on time with a bonus side trip to Pisa." There was quite of bit of stress and confusion to get us back, but everyone handled it really, really well. Other than a tiny bit of tension in La Spezia when we were first making a plan, the group did so well--I'm so proud of how well we all worked together and I'm a little proud of myself for getting us all back (not that I think the group couldn't have done it without me, but still!). Hopefully the next trip will be less stressful, but equally as enjoyable...

Animal House

(the Bar da Gino owners and Allie)

(The Ai Cugnai family)

First of all, happy birthday to my cousin Brittany (if she happens to be reading this)!

The past few days have been surprisingly hectic considering I spend the majority of my time each day in the house. Today I woke up at 7 (alarm set for 8:45) and found yet another rose outside my door (the boys buy them from the street vendors on nights we go out, then give one to each room of girls)--these boys are definitely characters. Beacuse I had time, I took a long walk down to the Zattere, turned left (instead of right towards the grocery), and walked up and down a few side streets, to Salute, then back to the house. I forgot my camera, but I ended up being glad I did--sometimes it's nice to not look at everything thinking would that make a good picture and just appreciate it instead. I was one of the only people out and about except a few old men fishing in the Giudecca Canal, so I got to watch the sun rise all by myself. Soon Kayla and I are going for a quick coffee, then I'm leaving around 11:30 to catch my 12:45 train to Cinque Terre (which I will fret about until we get back Saturday night, I imagine...)

Yesterday I had to wake up at 7:30 to take a group of students to the doctor because quite a few people have both mosquito bites AND some other sort of mysterious bite that they thought was from bed bugs. Laura and Roberta (Italian ladies who "run" the house) didn't really believe the bed bug proposition and so they wanted any and all afflicted students to go to the doctor to see if he could figure out the culprit. After some serious grumbling and debating, I ended up with a group of 5 and we met Laura in Campo Santa Maria Formosa right on time (I didn't even get us lost). The doctor let us know it was fleas, not bed bugs, causing the problem and that we probably picked them up on a train (apparently flea-infested trains are a somewhat new, but rampant issue), so he prescribed a spray to kill any fleas in the house and a lotion for the students to use themselves. On top of fleas, we also have a serious ant issue and a slightly less severe mosquito issue (ergo the "Animal House" title). The rest of the day, the students had class and so first I took an accidental nap on the upstairs sofa and then had this minor epiphany that I really do want to apply to law school. So from that point (lunch time, maybe?) to when we left the house for Elizabeth's birthday dinner, I was frantically registering for the required Law School Data Assembly Service (they collect, then disseminate all your pertinent info), requesting transcripts, calling professors to ask for recommendations, and thinking about the dreaded personal statement... It's a big decision and is going to necessitate a lot of work in the coming weeks, but other than weekend trips, I don't really have any day to day obligations, so that leaves me plenty of time to give the applications the time they'll need. Cross your fingers for me...

Tuesday was a strange day...it started like always--Bar da Gino with Kayla, then bumming around while the kids were in class, but then I roped a few people in to going to Trattoria ai Cugnai with me for lunch (Allie and I went there ALL the time when we studied here and I hadn't been back yet)...we had a great time and I think the crazy old aunt and the two brothers remembered me, but since we've all usually been grabbing a quick sandwich or making food at home, sitting down for lunch was odd. Then after class, I walked alone to the train station because McKinley was napping and on my way there, I thought I ran in to someone, but no, he was intentionally touching me and it was really uncalled for and I was so shocked that I didn't know how to react, so I just kind of jogged away, but it really threw me for a loop. When I got home, it was about time for house dinner (Ana made Mexican), then the students had to watch a movie about opera for a few hours, so I caught up with friends and watched Gossip Girl. They roped me in to going out even though I knew I shouldn't and it was a really strange night out--I wasn't feeling well in the first place, so a tiny bit of a drink made me feel even worse. Then I let myself be dragged to another bar, then back to the first with a few of the girls, then we met some slightly sketchy Italians who convinced us to sit with them and bought us drinks (note that I had wanted to go home like an hour ago...). They were harmless, but called me "the serious friend," because I wasn't doing much talking (as I was so tired and not feeling great), and they got a little clingy when we said we needed to go. We couldn't even walk home in peace...we ran in to some incredibly sketchy character who Ana and Rhianna met the other day and he insisted on talking to us for probably 20 minutes and wanted to come to our house...I was relieved to finally get home and go to bed so I could put the day behind me.

Monday was probably the least eventful...the typical line up of Bar da Gino and class, then I did some travel planning with Elizabeth and McKinley (to go to the REAL San Marino next weekend), then McKinley and Kayla (to go to Slovenia the last weekend in September). We had kind of an early dinner, then went to good old Campo Santa Margherita and hung out at the typical spots (Madigan's, Cafe Blu). Shortly after I got home, Tom scared me to death breaking in to my "suite" to leave a flower outside my door (he didn't do such a hot job of being quiet)... it reminds me of some of the kids in my spring 07 group who would always buy the flowers at the end of a night out... I love that there's pretty much always something going on here because we have such an energetic, adventurous group, but it's also nice to be able to retreat to my little room under the stairs (I don't know if I already mentioned this, but one of the girls calls me HP (for Harry Potter) because I live under the stairs and so did Harry, apparently)

Now I'm just waiting to catch a vaporetto around 11:30 to head to the train station...normally I'd walk, but I think I'll save myself the intense workout this time...my "luggage" for this trip consists of a purse with the essentials that I absolutely cannot lose (my passport, the 1000 Euro in cash for the apartments we're renting, and my stuffed animals [mock me as you wish!]) and Tom's Northface backpack. I definitely am not letting myself sleep on the train (easier to get robbed that way) and I'll probably be hugging that purse to me the whole time. I couldn't do the whole rolling suitcase thing because a)Cinque Terre involves a lot of stairs, possibly to our apartment, b)we have to check out at some point Sat. morning but our train isn't until 5pm, so we have to carry whatever we packed ALL day Sat. I'm pretty impressed with how light I packed (pjs, 2 shirts, 1 pair of hiking appropriate shorts, tennis shoes, hat, toiletries. the end), but the bag still feels a bit heavy for the 30 min trek to Ferrovia.

school spirit from 3000 miles away

Saturday evening after we got home from Bassano del Grappa (affectionately known now as the "most successful failed attempt at a trip ever" by those who went), we had another "house party" that involved beer pong and grappa (a fusion of two cultures lacking only in Italian participants). It was also the first home Wake football game, so everyone kind of wanted to stay in, have fun, and watch the game. We thought Brian would be able to get the game on ESPN 360, but since it was being shown on ABC, it was blacked out on ESPN, so we were all really disapointed and considered watching the play by play shown on ESPN.com's gametracker (that's how badly a lot of us wanted to watch). Luckily Jen convinced her parents to position their home computer so that the webcam captured the game from the TV and projected it through Skype on to Jen's computer here in Venice (and then up on to the projection screen in one of the classrooms). The picture quality was a little blurry and it was hard to see what was happening, but we could get the gist and hearing the announcers helped. As many of you probably know from watching it yourselves, it was a nail-biter of a game and so we all were holding our breath until the kick was pronounced good in the final second of the 4th quarter. It was a calm night compared to some of the others in the past week or two, but it was another reminder of how different this semester is, which I like. After all, it's not every group that can convince their professor and student assistant to team up and take on a few games of beer pong only after the professor peddles grappa to any brave soul willing to try it (again). It was the perfect mix of hanging out and having fun plus we got to watch the game, so I think everyone had a good time.

Sunday a few of us went to mass--Elizabeth, David, and David's houseguests for the weekend went to San Marco while Tom, Eugene, Karen and I elected to go to Salute (which is closer and offers mass at 11 instead of 10:30). I went pretty much every weekend I was in town my first semester here, so I was prepared to not understand most of what was going on, but it can still be kind of frustrating. I mean, I've been going to mass literally my entire life, so I know the process and timing, but it's hard to say things (like the creed or the Our Father) in English in your head while the rest of the congregation is saying it out loud in Italian. Plus not being able to understand the homily makes me feel guilty, but at least we all made the effort and spent the hour thinking/reflecting. I think the more often I go, the more I'll pick up on the Italian version of a routine I already know so well--goodness knows I can use all the practice I can get with Italian. Plus it was really cute because they had a special set of chairs set up in the middle of the main aisle near the altar and an older couple was seated there and the priest explained that the couple was married in Salute 50 years ago (I think on that day exactly, but I'm not positive).

Then everyone kind of met back up at Casa Artom to prepare for Regatta Storica. Regatta Storica is an annual event in Venice dating back to the 13th Century and starts near Salute with a parade of historical boats and ends with a series of rowing races in categories. David invited a handful of Italian guests because the event takes place on the Grand Canal and the house is clearly a perfect place from which one can watch the procession and races. While some of the students prepared food, I got the lovely tasks of sweeping the kitchen and mopping the downstairs hallway (where we spilled a good bit of beer the night before) and bathroom (somehow we tracked a ton of dirt in there)...and for those of y'all who know me well, you know cleaning isn't my cup of tea, but we wanted the house to look nice, so I mopped the heck out of those floors.

Before the guests arrived, a super long boat pulled up to our dock I guess so they could finish getting ready, so Ana and David went out on the dock and made friends. Jaimie, Charlotte, and I decided we wanted pictures on the boat, too, so we ran downstairs and hopped on--the family who owned the boat was hilarious and really nice, so we promised to cheer for them as they rowed past the house later on. Guests started arriving around 2:30 and soon thereafter we delved into the snacks (everything from fruit to cheesecake to cheese and crackers to bruschetta to insalata caprese...and of course wine). The festivities lasted nearly 4 hours, so we all wandered around the house between races to find the best place to watch. After it was over, a few of us walked to get pizza and gelato despite how much we had eaten during the Regatta, then I caught up with a few friends back home and crashed after a surprisingly busy weekend.

(pictures: top is the boat that pulled up to our dock, middle is the boat that started the historical parade, and the bottom picture is of one of the rowing races)

san marino?

(Bassano del Grappa)


Yes, two posts in a row...really I occasionally do things other than post updates...like take day trips, for example...

So a few days ago some of us decided we wanted to take a day trip to San Marino, which is a separate country from Italy, but is IN Italy and is known for a few beautiful castles and some of the best views of the Adriatic. Brian looked up the train times and it said it was only 2 hours from Venice and cost about 10 Euro--"no reason NOT to go" we're all thinking. So we bought the tickets and I even talked Elizabeth and Kayla into joining us.

Then I start reading Italy travel books to get a better idea of what to see in San Marino and everything I read says "San Marino doesn't have a train station, you have to take the train to Rimini and then a 45 min bus" and I'm thinking that's funny, because we definitely have train tickets to San Marino, not Rimini. So I look up Bassano, the city where we're supposed to change trains, and it's nowhere near San Marino (the country). So I tell the rest of the group and we try to figure out a back up plan (because the REAL San Marino is approx 4 hrs away)...ideas tossed around include taking a bus from the real city of San Marino to Bologna (then we realize how far apart those 2 places are), going to Vicenza by way of Bassano (then we realize there are no trains running between the 2)...

Finally we decide to take a slightly later train (8:45 instead of 7:30 am) and just see what happens when we get there...so on the train this morning, we were slap happy thinking about all the possibilities of what would greet us in Bassano...a trash dump of a city, a one goat town, a surprisingly beautiful place, etc...but after all, it was only an hour and a half to Bassano (we decided to go on to San Marino--the city--only if Bassano was awful), so why not explore.

It ended up being a beautiful, bustling city at the foot of the Dolomites. We walked around for a few hours, had some lunch from a great bread store, did some shopping, and then Kayla, Elizabeth, and I headed back to Venice while the rest of the group stuck around. Even though we didn't get to see the country of San Marino, it was pretty cool to just get on a train and see what happened. Next time, though, I think we'll do our research before we buy train tickets...