Goodbyes, Rome & My Homecoming.

Ciao Ciao :) 

Wow! This is strange - just a few days ago I was writing a blog entry in a different house, in a different room, in a different country. 

It was this time last week that I was preparing my suitcases like a madwoman trying to fit five months of my life into three oversized suitcases.

 I had to finish packing because that next morning - May 27th - Nick & I had a lunch date and a tour to give to Fr. Kevin from Siena College and the board of trustees.  There was a group of about 28 people on a Pilgrimage to Italy and they were in Siena for the day so we had the honor of showing them around.  We had a blast sharing stories and our favorite places in Siena to familiar faces.

http://blog.timesunion.com/travelogue/category/italy-siena-college/

(This is the link to the blog where Allison and Ken have been posting about the Pilgrimage) 

We finished lunch and the tour around 4:00p.m. and headed our separate ways. Nick and I had to go back to our host families homes to finalize the packing and say our goodbyes.  Nick came over for dinner that night and we had to leave around 7:45 to catch our 8pm bus to Rome.  Now, I am a huge baby - I cry over everything so I was fully prepared and warned my host family that I would be a wreck when I had to say goodbye to them, and sure enough, I was.  Never in a million years did I think that it would be this hard to say goodbye to a family that I've only known for five months.  I didn't think it was possible for another place, other than New York, to become home. I think 95% of the reason I had such an amazing experience in Italy was because of my host family and I know that we will always keep in touch.  We have this ongoing joke that they are going to fly to New York for my wedding.

So, at 7:45, we packed up my host dads work van and headed off to the bus stop - tears didn't stop until we got to Rome .. which was a three hour bus ride (sorry Nick!). We arrived in Rome around 11:30 and had all of our bags with us so we found a taxi to take us to our hotel.  We finally arrived to our hotel a little after midnight, checked in, and passed out.

That next morning we had a 9:00a.m. appointment for the Vatican so we had an early start on Saturday.  In Rome we visited, The Vatican, The Sistine Chaper, St. Peter's Basilicia, The Vatican Museum, The Colosseum, The Trevi Fountain, The Patheon and all of the beautiful Piazzas .. in one day.

After twelve hours on foot, we completed Rome! Rome certainly was not built in one day and it certainly can not be seen in one day.  I wish we had more time in Rome but we only had one day so we had to organize our time wisely.  After a full day in Rome, we headed back to our hotel, ate dinner near our hotel and headed to bed.  We had a car service pick us up at 8a.m. on Sunday morning.  

When the car service arrived, it finally hit home that I was leaving Italy.  We packed up the car and had a 50 minute ride to the airport ahead of us.  Once we got to the airport we had to take a separate shuttle to the lovely Terminal 5, checked in, checked our bags (of course mine was overweight again .. figures) and waited for our 12:00p.m. departure for JFK.  The flight was a little over 8 hours - it didn't seem that long though.  We had great food (cajun chicken & rice and then pizza & wannabe gelato), great movies and a great airline staff to make the trip go by faster.  We landed in JFK around 3:30ish and immediately headed to baggage claim.  I kid you not, I think our bags might have been the last bags to be put onto that belt because it felt like we were waiting there for an eternity.  FINALLY our bags arrived, we went through customs and headed to the arrivals gate. I first saw my dad, because he towers over everyone, I left my bags (it was so Hollywood) and ran to my family. I was so happy to see my mom, dad and brother waiting for me! At the airport, I finally met Nick's family and we went our separate ways. Now you might think I'm crazy - but I thought I was going to cry saying bye to Nick in the airport.  We live 20 minutes away from each other and I was going to his house that next day but we spent so much time together and he has become one of my closet friends and I really owe him because without him during this trip, I don't know what I would have done .. I know he would say the same about me too... right Nick?
When I arrived home, cute banners were everywhere and I was so excited to see my dog, Daisy!

     

A few things I forgot to blog about:

1. Beach with Edo, Chiara and Nick. This was one of our last days together in Italy

2. My first Vespa ride with Edo! 

3. Our Trip to the Aiola Wine Factory

4. Dinner with Antonella, Trevin, Trevin's Momma and Nick

5. Our Dinner at my language partners house

So here I am, in New York, still completely jet lagged and ready to get back to Italia.  I had the most amazing experience of a lifetime and am so blessed to have had this opportunity.  I just want to thank everyone that has been a part of this experience for me because without you, it would not have been the same.  I have made some life long friends, memories I will never forget, ate food that was to die for and had a once in a lifetime opportunity.  

Until next time :)

<3 Julia 

Sardegna, Venice & Sicily.

PRE DEPARTURE:
Before our departure for our trip, we had a conference on May 7th and 8th to attend.  This conference has been in the making for a while and it was SO wonderful to see everything finally come together.  The "Intercultural Horizons" conference was a great success and Br. Brian from Siena College was in Siena, Italy for the conference! Nick and I went to dinner with him on the Thursday prior to the conference and enjoyed great Tuscan cuisine.

Ciao Ciao :) 

I am finally back in Siena, Italy and I could not be happier.  It is so wild how another city can become home for someone and every time I travel, I am always so anxious for our trip back to Siena.  

So, if the title of this post didn't give it away - I spent my time traveling to:

Sardegna: Cagliari

Venice: Treviso and Padova 

Sicily: Paceco, Trapani, Erice, Marsala and Palermo

Our original plan had Greece as one of our trips but unfortunately, the flight got cancelled because of "ongoing military action in Libya".

Shall we begin? 

Sardegna: 

We left Wednesday afternoon and headed to Pisa for the night because we had an early flight Thursday morning.  Roni, JC, Nick and myself took the train to Pisa and met Mike & Marianna in Pisa (to do a brief introduction, everyone Nick and I went with on our trip to Sardegna works for our program).  Marianna is from Pisa, so her and Mike spent the night at her house and the rest of us got settled into our hotel and headed to an aperitivo after.  Now, I am not sure if you are aware of what an aperitivo is and if you aren't .. it is a true sin but I will explain & enlighten you.  Aperitivo is simply a "happy hour", if you will. You purchase a drink for about 5 euro and (every bar is different) but usually there is a buffet of different types of finger foods that you can snack on prior to dinner.  It is more of a social scene but I plan on opening a bar in New York that focuses on aperitivi :) 

We spent one short night in Pisa and headed to Sardegna which was a trip solely for relaxation & the beach and I wouldn't have it any other way.  We had great food, great company, great sun and drinks for three days straight.  Marianna, who is a professor for my program, had to present at a conference in Sardegna and we all went to show her support. I thought she did wonderfully! After Sardegna, everyone headed back to Siena while Nick and I continued on our journey.  We spent the night in the airport on Saturday because we had a flight at 6:30a.m. on Sunday.  Lets just say, I slept all of 45 minutes but I am so proud of myself for surviving!

Venice:

We arrived in Venice around 8:30a.m. and made it to our hotel at around 10:00ish. When we arrived it was raining like crazy but we managed to navigate ourselves quickly and efficiently (this is a skill that we have definitely acquired over time).  Our check in time wasn't until noon, so we had some time to kill but the staff at the hotel was nice enough to clean our room and let us check in early. Once we got to our room, I crashed for about 4 hours - it was the perfect rainy day for sleeping in and because we didn't get much sleep the night before and it was a Sunday (nothing was open) - we didn't feel guilty for having a day to do nothing.  The next day we headed to Venice. Oh! I failed to mention, our hotel was in Treviso - which is a city outside of Venice.  Now, let me tell you - Venice was by FAR my favorite place we've visited thus far.  It comes in second ... after Siena, of course :) Before we even left Venice, I was strategically planning when I can come back again.  There are no words to describe how beautiful Venice is.  We explored all of the narrow streets (which are very easy to get lost on) and visited the beautiful San Marco and all the shops that Venice had to offer.  

We searched all day for a decently priced gondola ride and FINALLY found one.  We spent 40 euro between the two of us on a gondola ride that was all of 30 minutes .. with another family.  It was so funny because the other family didn't speak english or italian - they only spoke spanish and our gondola driver spoke all three so we had a plethora of languages going on at once. It was a very diverse and cultured gondola ride / not what I expected my first gondola ride to be AT ALL, but we still had a blast.

After Venice, we headed back to Treviso for dinner and the next day we headed to Padova.  Padova is a small city close to Treviso & Venice where my professor from Siena College is from.  We spent the day there, had lunch at a park and visited the Duomo of Padova and the breath taking cathedral.

Sicily:
The next day we had a flight to Sicily at noon.  We arrived around 2p.m. and took a bus directly to our bed and breakfast in Paceco. This bed and breakfast was definitely one of the nicest ones we've stayed in.  I wouldn't go as far as saying it was in the best location but the service of the staff/manager was absolutely phenomenal.  When we arrived, the manager was prepared with maps, activities, and excursions we could do on each day. Our first day in Sicily, we headed to the center of Trapani - near the port area. It was beautiful! We walked around, saw most of the historic buildings and took a walk to the beach. We had an aperitivo in Trapani ... :) and headed back to our bed and breakfast.

On Thursday, we explored Erice, which is this tiny old town close to Trapani. We had to take a ski lift type machine to get to this town but it was well worth it because once we got to the top - the view was stunning.  You could see all of Trapani from the top of Erice and in this town there were castles upon castles.  We had another picnic in Erice and enjoyed our first "granita" which was recommended to us by our professor, Paola (we loved it!!!). 

                                   

On Friday we headed to a small town called Marsala for the day - it wasn't anything to write home about but the beach was very very beautiful.  On Saturday we headed to Palermo because our flight was departing from there at 10p.m. that night. Our bed and breakfast manager, Daniele, gave us a ride to the center of Trapani where we took the bus to Palermo - which was so nice/unnecessary of him.  Palermo reminded me a bit of Napoli and I was a bit cranky because it was raining and my bag was heavy (and they say I'm a princess.. you believe that?) but we made the best out of it and I was actually pleasantly surprised with the hidden architecture of Palermo.  We left at around 5pm to get to the airport which was about an hour away from the center of Palermo.  We got there really early and our flight was delayed an hour .. perfect.  They say better late than never? The only dilemma with our flight being delayed an hour was that we had a car service picking us up in Pisa and neither of us had money on our pre-paid phones to call the hotel that provided the car service so I sent them an email hoping they would receive it in time and relay the message to the driver.  Well, we arrived in Pisa and the driver wasn't happy with us but that didn't phase us. We spent the night in Pisa and planned on heading to Lucca that next day .. key word - planned. Turns out there was a bus and train strike so we were stuck with a ticket to Lucca, no way of getting there and we were stuck with no way of getting back to Siena from Pisa.  So luckily, we used our knowledge and took a transfer train to Florence and then a bus to Siena and FINALLY arrived back to Siena!!!! I was SO happy, proud and relieved.

I wish I could describe how happy I was to be back in Siena.  I unpacked, had a great dinner with my host family and caught up with them.

So as I sit here writing this, I have five short days left in Siena, one of them including a tour on Friday for Father Kevin Mullen of Siena College. So this is it folks, my last week in Siena,Italy and my last post.  I wish I could stay in Italy forever but I do miss my family and friends tremendously so going home is extremely bittersweet. I just want to thank everyone that has been a part of this wonderful experience for me because without you, it wouldn't be half as memorable.  I have made great, life long friends here, I have formed a bond with another family that will never be replaced, I have had some of the best food, wine and cheese I have ever had in my entire life and I experienced a once in a life time opportunity that might never come about again.  I will definitely be back, I don't know when but I know it will be soon.  Ci Vediamo Presto Italia <3


Allora, A dopo ragazzi.
Julia :)

(Actually I lied, Nick convinced me to add another post discussing our trip to Rome, the tour and our flight home)

a random post (aka procrastinating at its finest)

So I decided to take a "break" from my final papers to blog/introduce you to a few people in my life here in Italy.  

Although these guys aren't in/from Italy - this is a picture of my brother (red tie) with his friends at their junior prom! Junior prom was on Friday and I'm upset I wasn't there to see my brothers first prom but Italy is a little more exciting - I hope they had a great time!  

This is Federico, my italian language partner.  

This is my host brother, Edo, with our new addition to the family - Pato :) 

Yesterday, we had a picnic in the park next to our school.  We all met at 2:00 and just enjoyed each others company / jammed out on the guitar all afternoon.  This was our last Saturday all together, which is too strange for me to handle.  At 5:30p.m., everyone had to meet to catch a bus to the Siena Italian Studies garden and we enjoyed dinner and great conversation there with our professors and the staff of SIS.  

Today is the "Italian Labor Day" so the busses aren't running and nothing is open.  I guess its a great day for me to finish up my final papers! 

OH! I failed to mention this in my last blog but we had our final cooking lesson with Lella.  We made homemade: 

1. Ravioli

2. Lasagna 

3. Linguini

4. Tiramisu

Every item on the menu was to die for! Check out some of the pictures:

Allora, A dopo. 

Julia :) 

Milano, Southern Italy & Now ...

Can you believe it? 

Tomorrow will be one month until I am home in the United States and I am not happy about it at all. I have truly been blessed with the opportunity to study in Italy and I've had the opportunity to travel to some places I might never see again. 

 Alright, enough of the sob fest ...  I haven't blogged in a while! Since my last post I've visited Lake Como, Milano and some of Southern Italy.  Shall we begin? 

Lake Como / Milano: 

Might possibly be one of my favorite trips this entire semester.  Both Nicks, Kevin, Matt, Emily, Jess and I took a weekend to explore all that Lake Como and Milan has to offer.  We left for Milan on Friday and arrived late afternoonish, it was a four hour bus ride there! We had to take the metro from Milan to Lake Como, which wasn't far at all.  We stayed in Lake Como for two nights which was absolutely beautiful! Now, I don't know if you know but George Clooney ... yes, the actor/most handsome man ever, has a house on Lake Como, so naturally I was on a search for him most of the weekend.  Yep, you guessed it .. no luck finding him.  

We stayed about 10 minutes by bus from the city center in Lake Como and while we were there we rented bikes and a boat to explore the town.  During our little bike adventure, we went riding over a bit of rough terrain and as you may or may not know, I am not very athletic nor am I very coordinated so when I went to attempt a "cool trick" on my bike, I fell.  Completely fell of my bike, in front of an Asian wedding party taking pictures. I.was.so.mortified. I just want to thank Jess and Nick A. for not laughing at me, unlike everyone else :) 

The cutest chef ever at a restaurant in Lake Como! 

After a few minutes of wiping off the dirt, we headed back into town and took a bus to a place where we could rent a boat for an hour. Boat renting is more my style and I enjoyed this so much more.  Matt, both Nicks, Jess and I spent about an hour on our boat in Lake Como and that was the highlight of my trip. It was just so relaxing and fun and I wouldn't have wanted to spend my afternoon any other way! 

The next day, Sunday, we woke up early and headed to Milan.  Unfortunately, Kevin, Emily & I were leaving that day so we brought our bags to the hotel the others were staying in so we didn't have to schlep them around all day.  I just want to take this time to thank both Nick's for helping me with my bag(because they ended up bringing it back to Siena for me).  I tend to over pack and because of this my bag weighs about 50lbs.  In Milan, we visited the Duomo, which I hear is the biggest one in Italy / my favorite Duomo we visited thus far. It was so beautiful! After a nice lunch with everyone, Kevin, Emily & myself headed back to Siena and we arrived around midnight.  The next morning, Monday, I went to meet up with two of my girlfriends in Florence for the day and I met Dara for a little lunch date! 

Southern Italy for Easter 

Religion Exam at 4:00p.m., finished at 5:00p.m. 

Train Departure: 5:42p.m. from Siena Train Station

We didn't give ourselves much slack for our Thursday night departure to Napoli but we did make it on time and arrived to Napoli around 11:30ish and arrived to our hostel at 12:30ish. I know this might sound terrible, but I don't think I'd ever go back to Napoli .. even if you paid for my entire trip.  The hostel we stayed in was great - we met Chris there - but the streets of Napoli were filthy, garbage was everywhere and my hand was sweating because I had such a strong grip on my pocketbook the entire time.  Kevin, Chris and I spent some of Friday in Napoli together and Kristen and Nick A. headed to their motherland.  After we visited two of the castles and ate pizza at "Da Michele", which is the same pizza place where "Eat. Pray. Love" was filmed, we headed to the Sorrento area where we were lodging the rest of our Easter weekend.  Kevin and I took a train from Napoli to Sorrento and then a bus from Sorrento to our bungalow.  Kevin, Matt, Trevin, Kristen, Rebekah, Nick and Jill all met us at the bungalow on Friday night and I prepared dinner for everyones arrival! 

Saturday we met one of our Italian friends, Roberto, in Napoli (where he is from) and we went for lunch.  We ate at this great pizzeria, which was better (in my opinion) than Da Michele.  After our lovely lunch, Nick, Kevin, Matt, Kristen and I headed on a ferry Ischia for the day where we met, Cooper - Nick A's roomie! We didn't have much time in Ischia because the ferry took a little longer to get us to Ischia then we expected - but it was still breathtaking! Mind you, this is Easter weekend so:

1. The transportation is extremely limited 

2. Our bungalow was in Gods country - this was a bit of a problem because we had to transfer trains/buses everywhere we went and the last bus back to our bungalow was at 8p.m. 

I keep mentioning the world bungalow, which might have some of you confused.  When I say we stayed in a bungalow for the weekend, I am serious.  We stayed in a five person bungalow with about 8 people. I know, I know, it's against the rules but hey - we are students traveling Europe on a low budget! Bungalow is just a fancy word for shack, we had one shower for 8 people and not a single drop of hot water.  It was lovely.... 

Our Bungalow. 

Matt & Kevin stayed in a tent for the weekend on the same camp ground we stayed at! 

When we arrived to Sorrento from Ischia, we had to take a taxi back to our bungalow because we missed the last bus back to our camp site.  Now, I was warned prior to this trip not to take a taxi anywhere in Sorrento because it is extremely expensive. Yeah well, desperate times call for desperate measures and after about 35 minutes in the cab, we were at 102 euro.  Lets just say, we were all a little nauseous after we had to split that between five of us.  

On Easter Sunday we went to the Almafi Coast which is absolutely breathtaking.  I wish I could put into words how beautiful it is.  Unfortunately, we had very limited time there because of the bus system (are you starting to notice a trend?) so we only got a little taste of the Almafi Coast but I am definitely returning sometime in the future!!!! We tried to find a church so we could attend Mass (once we returned back to our bungalow) but we couldn't find the correct church so we just ended up going to dinner on the water.  This trip was our last trip all together so dinner was extra special - we had great company, great food and great conversation.  We went around the table and each said something about ourselves that the others didn't know and unfortunately, nothing was anything new or interesting! This goes to show how close we've all gotten this semester! 

We had an early morning on Monday, we explored a little bit of Sorrento and then headed back to Siena!  For some reason, no matter how much fun I'm having on a trip - I am always so excited to get back to Siena!

This week has been extremely stressful (the most it has been all semester) with finals and final papers! I finished my last history through cuisine class today which is so bizarre.  This weekend we have a group dinner and then one more week of class - or at least three more days of classes. AHHHHH! 

Allora. A dopo,

Julia :)