First Weekend in Florence!!

At Gonzaga-in-Florence (GIF from now on) we don’t have school on Fridays. We have longer class periods during the week, but we get an extra day for travel every weekend. This weekend though I stayed in town and got to know my friend: Florence.

Thursday night I went out to dinner. When dining out the pizzas are always the cheapest thing on the menu. Pizza in Italy is not at all the cheesy grease fest back home. They are so good here! Also between 8 of us at dinner, we drank 4 liters of wine. “Vino Della Casa” is all you need to know. The house wine is the best and the cheapest.

After dinner a bunch of us walked around the city confused as to what to do next. We thought we were going to a bar called Friends, but no one knew how to get there. It seemed like everyone at Gonzaga was doing the same thing. And we all kept running into each other. Traveling anywhere – even across the street – is immensely difficult with large groups of people, so it’s easy to get frustrated. If you are standing in basically any piazza (square)

someone will come up to you with a flyer and offer to walk to you a bar. So some of us followed a man to a place called “The Fish Pub” but it was boring there so we left after only a few minutes. We headed back towards the Duomo and ended up at a trendy place where everything was way overpriced. Again, I left without buying any drinks.

Lesson Learned: Don’t stand still near the Duomo.

Friday I went to IKEA and spent too much money cause I got all excited since it was my first IKEA. We also had our group photo that morning. They put the photo on the cover of the brochure they give to freshman and sophomores. So when I’m a senior that will be my year to be on the cover. The picture spot is at the Michelangelo view point. It’s about a 45 minute walk from school and a lot of it is uphill. But it is worth it, the view of the city from up there is

spectacular! (Parents: when you come visit I am making you walk up there, probably in the evening when it’s cooler out, and we can see the sun set! And bring Panini! Yay! You can get a good Panini for about €2 here.) Sorry I look to squinty in the picture, it was SO bright out!

My room mate and I went on an adventure to do our laundry Friday afternoon. We got lost and walked around the city with our laundry for far too long. Eventually we found the Wash and Dry. Laundry in Italy so expensive! It’s almost cheaper to just buy new underwear than wash the ones you have. It takes €3.50 to get a token. One token does one load of wash or one dry. But the dryers are pretty big so you really just need 3 tokens. However, the dryer only goes for 25 minutes so the clothes do not really dry. I had to hang my clothes are around the room on the chair, desk, window, closet doors, doorknobs, etc. to dry to them fully.

Went and got dinner at a place called “Istanbul Kebab” and I learned that a kebab is far more than food on a stick. Mine came in a wrap. It was really good too and only €4. That night 3 of us walked around the city and we found some really cool things!

First we found the best gelato thus far. The place is called Perche No (Why Not?). We walked around with our gelato towards the Neptune Statue at Piazza Signoria. In the Piazza we heard music playing and walked towards it. There was a man playing really good flute. So we stopped and listened for a while. He finished at 9:30 though (we got there about 9:25) so we got up and walked some more. We went through the Uffizi Gallery Corridor, and reached the Arno. Down the street was the Ponte Vecchio (oldest bridge in the city). So we had to go check it out. On the bridge was a band, so we sat and listened to that for a while.

We even explored the other side of the Arno a little bit. Across the river it is a lot less touristy and we don’t stick out like Americans quite so much. Of course we will never blend in, but you feel a little less like a sore thumb over there. We came back to the Ponte Vecchio and found that a girl from our school had already found an Italian man! They were sitting on the bridge listening to the band. Geez! In the first weekend!

On the walk back we found a woman singing accompanied by a man playing accordion over by the Piazza Della Republica. This is the piazza with a large gate from the old Roman days. And when I saw it’s large I am not kidding. From there we found a restaurant that plays live music and has dancing! Definitely want to go back there! We continued our wander and found people drawing in chalk on the sidewalk. There were 3 of them making recreations of these amazing works of Art! I took a picture of one of them.

From there we found a bronze statue that people rub for luck or put a coin in to make a wish. We weren’t sure exactly what so I did both to be safe.

Friday night was one of my favorite nights so far in Europe, I really felt like I was more than a tourist, that I have a reason to be in Europe, and that for the next 8 months Florence is my home too. I had a great time wandering around Florence and seeing everything. It was so much better than going to a bar full of Americans. However there were a few run-ins with Italian

creepers…

Incident 1: attempted robbery

Walking near the Duomo I had my purse on my left shoulder. Some reached out and grabbed my right arm. If my purse had been on my other arm, he probably would have taken it, or tried to. Always keep a tight hold on your purse.

Incident 2: do not tell random people where you live

Also near the Duomo, someone from behind asked if anyone of us speaks Italian. I told him that we have been learning for three days. We had a little conversation in Italian with beginner phrases (how are you, things like that). Then he asked where I lived. Not a good idea. We turned around and walked the other direction.

Incident 3: no eye contact!!

Sitting on the Ponte Vecchio, listening to the band playing I was looking around at everything and I accidentally made eye contact with some guy. So he came over and sat down next to me. He asked me questions in a mix of Italian and English and I didn’t really know what to say and I wanted him to go away. My friend asked him if he knew where to get a good cannoli. He just pointed down the street and told us it was that way. Now, we aren’t stupid and we know the bakeries aren’t open that late. Then he put his arm around me and wanted to take me to get a cannoli. I didn’t know if he wanted to steal my purse or feel me up or what. Seeing the distress, my friends and I got up and left. Goodbye Creepy Man!

Saturday I got a cell phone (001.39.348.150.1608 to call from the States and it’s free for me!). Then I went out to lunch at a restaurant by San Lorenzo. Had a glass of wino with lunch, but it wasn’t very good, I had spaghetti carbonara for the meal and that was delicious! I also had a salad. A green salad here means a bowl of lettuce with oil and vinegar on the side for €4. I have learned to love oil and vinegar salads, but €4 is a lot for basically a bowl of lettuce.

On the weekend all the streets by the church of San Lorenzo are filled to bursting with little stands selling tourist shirts, leather things, purses, paintings, belts, scarves, all sorts of things. But you have to be careful in Italy. If you buy something and don’t get a receipt you can be fined for tax evasion because that business is probably not paying their taxes! So when you see the fake purses and knock-off sunglasses on the street, do NOT buy them! The fine for counterfeit products is really steep. Never buy something from someone who looks like they can pack up and run from the police in about 3 seconds. Here's a little something I found these for sale at the market. I think they are bike shorts.

Sunday (today) I was at the Piazza Della Republica and there was like a women’s bike race going on. So we stayed and watched it a little bit. I got a handout and there were teams from all over the world (America, Asia, Europe etc.) racing. So it must be a big deal in the world of women’s cycling. The best part though was the band that playing in the Piazza before the racers got there. There was a group of about 6 men dressed like lumberjacks playing instruments. There was a clarinet, accordion, some others I didn’t recognize and my favorite, the man playing the saw! He had a saw tied to his shoe and held the other end in his hand. He used the other hand to play with a (I assume) violin bow.

Iam curious as to what bikes the racers where using. The race went through 3 cities and was over 100km. City streets are usually cobblestone and very old, making the skinny tires of a road bike seem hard to manage. But what else can you use in a race? Maybe they have special cobblestone tires? Maybe?

As for school:

I haven’t had much homework yet, hence why I have had the extra time to write these nice long blogs. I love learning Italian but my class is mostly focused grammar and not vocabulary building so that gets annoying. I am taking Operations and Management from the same professor and he canceled class last week (but still e-mail us homework assignments) and I already don’t like him. Introduction to Florence is fun, Professor Carrara took us on a walking tour of Florence last week and this week we are going to the Archeological Museum. We have a tour every Wednesday. I’m most excited to go into the Uffizi Gallery and San Marco. I also have an economics class on Monday nights, but I haven’t been to it yet since we started school on Tuesday.

Next weekend is the trip to the Isle of Elba! (I hear we can rent Vespas there!)

Weekend after that I’m off to Cinque Terre!

Then the coast of Southern Italy (Sorrento, Amalfi, Pompeii, Capri)

So to get to Italy we go through....

Berlin, Krakow, and Prague!

Left Portland early in the morning on Friday Sept. 7^th. Flew to Chicago, had a layover, flew overnight to London-Heathrow. Heathrow is insane! I don’t know if any of you have traveled through there, but it is so confusing! I arrived at terminal 4 and had to take a bus from the plane to the actual terminal. Then waited in line to take another bus over to terminal 1 where my flight to Berlin was leaving from. After the bus ride, I waited in line to go through security for the third time that day and finally made it through. Heathrow is more like a giant mall than an airport, with a little Disneyland mixed in. I started walking towards my gate and there were signs with how long it would take to walk to certain places. Well, they hadn’t yet announced which gate my flight was leaving from, so I just wandered around where the gate signs are posted. Eventually I met up with my friend Alex, since we both had the same flight to Berlin. We found a bar in the airport and got drinks. This was at about 7am London time.

Eventually we made it to Berlin and Alessandro from Gonzaga-in-Florence Student Life was there to meet us. About a dozen GU students were already waiting in the airport and after Alex and I joined with them we waited for about another hour for the bus to come pick us up.

After much travel I arrived at the Park Inn Berlin Alexanderplatz. The hotel was really nice! Down comforters on the beds and everything. Alex and I went to get some food and tried to fight the jetlag. But after a schnitzel and about 20 minutes of wandering around, we gave up and went to take naps. Since I’ve never traveled this far before, I had no idea what real jetlag was like. But after a nap and a good nights sleep I was fine the next day.

That day was a bus tour of the city in the morning. While we were driving around on the bus, the driver kept telling us when we were in East or West Berlin. It’s so strange to think that this city was once completely divided. Also in Berlin in the ancient wall from medieval times, there are many walls in the city. Berlin is very interesting because it is so modern but at the same time full of things from long ago. The tour took us to an interesting memorial for Holocaust victims. It is the first memorial to be built by people who did the wrong thing. We saw the Reichstag (Parliament Building), American Embassy, where the President lives, The Berlin Dome, several parks, the Victory Tower, fountains, churches and endless old buildings and bridges. It was all very historical.

Berlin was really fun. You can get bratwurst for one or two euros, so you can eat pretty cheap. Beer is also about two euros at restaurants and is very good. J But a lot stronger than the beer back in the states.

We went to Checkpoint Charlie too, it was actually a little anticlimactic walking all the way over there. They put the actual checkpoint building back and some of the signs. There is a long wall with information about the former sectors of Berlin.

On the last day in Berlin, I along with Alex and Lena went to find this piece of the wall that is over 1km long to take pictures. The concierge at the hotel told us to take the metro for three stops. We did. Then we couldn’t find it. Then it started pouring rain! We looked for over an hour, asked directions several times, got soaking wet, but eventually, we found it! Success!

To celebrate we went to cake time. Cake time is only from 3pm to 6pm and there are 70 types of cakes! The three of us shared two pieces and it was delicious! Any time you go to restaurant in Europe you have to expect the service to be extremely slow. Also it takes forever to leave because they think it is rude to bring the check quickly after you finish eating. I think we always ended up having to ask for the check. There was a dinner with everyone at GIF that night and Dr Burke announced that we are going to CHINA for Christmas!!

The next morning I was on a bus on the way to Krakow, Poland. Its only about 350 miles, but it took us about 10 hours to get there and get to the hostel in Krakow. I stayed at Nathan’s Villa which came equipped with its own bar in the basement (and free breakfast of bread and nutella). I went out to dinner at a place that had all sorts of things, but they specialized in pizza. So I had some pizza, Polish style. It had chicken, corn, paprika, onions and tomatoes. I picked off the tomatoes, but it was really good! Back at the hostel, we met some Australians who were in Europe on vacation and chose to spend a majority of their time in Poland. If you ever get the opportunity I would really recommend going to Poland. Krakow is absolutely amazing!

The next morning on a walking tour of the city we went to Krakow University, built 500 years ago, then up to the castle on a hill. The castle (Wawel Hill) had several buildings including a cathedral and a market square. The market square was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! Please Please Please go look at the pictures, though they don’t show much of it. Everyone has to go through security before entering the square, just like at the airport! We then walked down to a cathedral, the best on in Krakow. Inside I didn’t even know where to look, there were paintings, gold sculptures, and people EVERYWHERE! Unfortunately, no pictures allowed!

In the afternoon they took us all to Auschwitz, the main concentration camp of the Nazis because of the central location to the SS Empire. It was probably the three saddest hours of my life. I took a few pictures, we were only allowed to take pictures outside the buildings. Inside the block houses had been turned into museums and displays. The outside gate says “Arbeit Macht Frei,” German for work brings freedom or work shall set you free. Inside the camp you have to keep quiet out of respect and children under 14 aren’t supposed to come in at all. We had a guide take us around the camp and show us different places. I didn’t start crying until we got the block that had the display of the belongings that were less than 1% of all that was taken. The items were all taken in the last few days before liberation so they hadn’t been sold yet. Some of the things on display included: human hair (took up about three American sized bedrooms), eye glasses, medical equipment (crutches, prosthetic limbs etc.) suitcases with names and where they were from written on them, shoes, toys, hairbrushes, combs, jewelry, cooking pots, clothing, prayer shawls, and even baby clothes.

One of the blocks was redone in the original style to show us the different cells used to house and execute the prisoners. We saw suffocation, starvation, and standing cells. The standing cells are 4 people put in a space of about 4 square feet with one tiny hole in the wall for breathing. And yes, we walked through the gas chamber and saw the incinerators. Across the street was Auschwitz II, where Shindler’s List was filmed. All the wooden buildings have been destroyed, but one row was re built and filled with beds like it would have been back in 1942, and we were allowed to take pictures. You can look at them if you want to get depressed, but they aren’t really the same as being there. It was like being at a funeral for a million strangers. Ok, now that everyone is good and sad…

That night we had a group dinner with Polish food, where everything is either fried or pickled. Next morning, went shopping! I went to the Amber market and bought a ring for 39 zloty (about $15). Then we had a group lunch with more fried and pickled things. That afternoon we went to the salt mines. They were really cool actually, though the tour dragged a bit at the end. I didn’t pay to be allowed to take pictures but I’ll try to get some from someone else. The miners sculpted about 20 scenes out of salt and even a full church where they have weekly masses. In all we went over 100 meters underground!

But can’t stay in one place too long! So next morning off to Prague! Another loooooong bus ride and a new currency: Czech crowns! Let me just tell you that Prague is by far the most beautiful city I have ever seen, I can’t wait to go back someday! We went another walking tour from Prague castle, which is the highest point, down to the Main Square. Prague is a total walking city and they have a good subway system too. That night was housing signups, and I ended up in a double in Manola Pensione. More about that later!

The hotel in Prague was really nice, but Prague is more expensive city than Krakow. We had two group dinners at the hotel and breakfasts were provided. On the next day in Prague I went shopping! I bought a present for Mom, but you don’t get it for 8 months cause I don’t want to pay shipping! And I bought myself a pair of earrings. They are crystal, and made with Swarovski components! Cool! Dr. Burke took us down to the old Jewish Quarter later in the afternoon. The Jewish Cemetery was quite interesting to see, but since we didn’t pay to get in, all we could do was look through the gates. In the old days the Jews were only allowed to be buried in this one place, so its crammed full, with over 100,000 people buried there, sometimes up to 12 layers deep.

That was the last day in Prague, so now I am in Florence/Firenze! I love it here! Can’t wait to start exploring the city! Had to go to classes today…

Arrivederci!

PS Pictures will be up later this week, expect an e-mail!!

Three Days!

Today is Tuesday and my plane is leaving PDX at 8:05am Friday morning. I’m flying to Chicago, then London, then Berlin. When I get to Germany we have 10 days of traveling around Eastern Europe. AND we will be in Berlin during Oktoberfest, which should be pretty much incredible, even though the really big party is in Munich, I’m sure we’ll find something to do in Berlin. After 10 days of fun we have about 2 days to settle into Florence and then start classes.

Thanks so much to everyone who came over on Saturday! It was so much fun to see so many people and I really appreciate all of you coming over to see me before I leave. Don’t worry at all if you couldn’t make it, I promise I’ll come back.

I signed up for three trips already. I’m going to the Isle of Elba, the Cinque Terre and the Amalfi Coast in September and October.

Since my last post here I finished my term of Summer school in Spokane, came home and worked for two weeks in the factory with my Dad. Summer school went well, I took 10 credits: six of intermediate accounting, three of science lecture and one credit of lab. For science I took Human Ecology which was pretty interesting. The professor focused mostly on the environment and how people affect it in different ways. The lab was mostly field trips. Accounting was slightly boring and the class was really intense, but I learned a lot and I’m right on track to spend a year abroad and still graduate in four years with enough credits to take the CPA exam.

Now I have just a few short days to pack and get all ready to leave, so I should probably go work on that! Next time I write in this I’ll be in Italy!

All the pictures from Europe will be on my Shutterfly account. There’s a link to get my Shutterfly albums on the right side of my blog page (right above the picture of me). Or here’s the link again: jessgiveup.shutterfly.com. Right now there’s some pics from summer and such. It has a sign in box, but you dont need to join anything to look at pictures and leave comments on them.