So i shouldnt blog before I even see a city as a general rule of thumb, but i just had the most ridiculous night of aimless walking. I havent even seen berlin yet and i´m exhausted. not to mention this german keyboard is on acid. all of the characters are in different places and they dont have /'s and many other characters.
So anyway, the first night I got to berlin was quite a mess (like the rest of the trip, in retrospect). I got in at the airport around 8:30, stumbled around to find the train that took me into the city center. Took one train but where I needed to change trains, I didn't get off, so I accidentally rode the train back to the airport. Then when I got off at the right stop 30 minutes later, I couldn't find for the life of me where the train was that actually went into berlin, because everythign was under construction and there were no lights or signs, but hella people were moving around so I just stood still in the same spot trying to figure out wtf was going on. When I finally find the train I'm looking for, which is on a COMPLETELY different track and basically in another building, I ride it 2 stops before everyone gets off, even though it was supposed to end on the complete other side of town (where i needed to go). Turns out there was huge construction on a large part of the line, so the train stopped there. All the signs pointed to a bus line replacement for the lack of trains, but by this point, it'd alreayd been an hour or so, and I decided to call the hostel to get help. Poor lady heard from me like 6 times before I even got to the hostel. So i find a tram service instead of bus or subway, had to change trams at one point, and finally get to the neighborhood where I'm supposed to go. Only problem was that my map of berlin was a way too far zoomed out google maps version of berlin, so street names didn't help me at all. I basically ended up navigating the city like a maze, interpreting the shapes of the corners and angle to tell me where I was on the map. It took 1.5 hours of walking around the neighborhood where my hostel was before i RANDOMLY heard some english, stopped the people and asked if they knew where this one street was. As soon as I opened my mouth, one of the girls asked me if I was from california. didn't realize my accent was so identifiable? I always thought californians hd non-regional accents? anyway so I get pointed in the right diretion and FINALLY find the hostel.
Hostel was awesome. had free internet, great company, and a nice location. I was staying in the alternative students/artists quarter of berlin, and all the restaurants and public spaces were just really fuckin awesome. While I was walking around AIMLESSLY for the first 3 hours, i was able to witness the beer phenomenon that dominates berlin. literally everyone of all ages and styles carries a beer bottle in hand. As in, they're actively drinking it. literally everyone. I noticed at the airport, when I saw a group of teenagers get on the train with bottles, but I assumed they were just being rebels. Then at the busier stations I noticed men in suit coats, motherly looking women, kids, adults, EVERYONE had a beer! I felt left out! Then when I finally got to my quarter, it was exponentially more visible probably because it kept getting later as I was walking around. I loved that about berlin, they have no public drinking laws. There's no shame around drinking outside, but its not like people are really irresponsible. I met an american girl in my hostel, and we were talking about hwo australia, england and america have these crazy drinking problems, and those are all the countries with restrictions. fuckin europe's got it figured out, especially berlin.
BERLINS cheap as fuck. psyched for the food, it seems so multicultural, and the museums. i can tell tht i dont have enough time already. whatever. Mostly i just needed a fuckin map when I showed up, but once i got one the next morning from the hostel, I was on the go. The first day in berlin I did/saw SO many things. I'm gonna list because if not, itll be too long.
1)ate awesome pastry in a cafe in a childrens park right in front of my hostel. The cafe had a sand box inside for children
2)saw that there was a childrens market-literally, for and by children. The parents just sort of hung out in the background and socialized.
3)Found 3 different craft markets in the commercial center of the city. sunday is market day.
4)got a HUGE twice the size of my face cheese pretzel
5)saw the awesome downtown with the radio tower and all the other important buildings.
6)went into a memorial of all opressed people during world war 2 and after, really moving, and bare, just a grey statue with a red rose in front.
7)Went to bradenburg gate, which you should read about if ur interested. It was blocked off during the war and part of the death strip. now its a symbol of peace.
8)Went into a nondemonational room of silence...another nod of the head toward peace.
9)Went to the holocaust memorial, a huge series of different sized huge grey blocks. Melissa were u the one who showed me this before? it was surreal.
10)Went to the ruins of the building where the gestapo and german secret police had their headquarters. It was like an outdoor museum.
11)Went to checkpoint charlie, where the divide between east and west berlin (into the american part) was most heavily patrolled (at least thats what I gathered) It was a huge museum inside of an old house, very overwhelming, too many things on the walls, but lots of history.
12)Ate hagendaaz...lol
13)Went to the east side gallery, which is a HUGE section of the wall thats left in east berlin covered in murals, paintings/graffitti that are so beautiful...i dont even know how to explain. It was probably my favorite part of berlin.
14)Gorlitzer park-this awesome huge public park covered in grafitti, its sort of famous for its grafitti, and I went just to take pictures of it. Then i lost my camera, but im still glad I went, because the park had sucha cool vibe.
15)Went to this EPIC burger restuarant near my hostel with a girl, brook, from my hostel, and had huge pints of beer and the BEST BURGER IVE EVER EATEN in my entire life. It was called 'the works" had bacon, cheese, onions, meat, and something else amazing, as well as a huge order of chronic fries. it was kind of expensive, but a good decision.
Next day I....
1)Accidentally took the wrong train and took a detour way outside of berlin into residential countryside Germany on my way to a section of the wall
2)Went to another section of remains of the Wall in the quarter of berlin I was staying in, Prenzlauer Berg. This one was so different because you could go up into the old watch towers, where people were shot and killed if they tried to cross the wall/death strip. There was a beautiful skyline view of all of Berlin, with the radio tower, and really moving photos.
3)Ate falafel and fresh orange juice and baklava at a killer falafel restaurant
4)Found a dali museum that was open after realizing that on monday all the museums in europe are closed, and saw some of the craziest pen/pencil drawings I've ever seen. I'm a new dalì fanatic after that exhibit. The reason it was so cool was because it wasn't his famous paintings at all, it was all this sort of sketching, skulpture, and idea development stuff. I loved it.
5)bought 2 pairs of earings and new sunglasses that I really dig.
6)Went back to the burger place but only for their "Angry Hour" which is not happy hour, but the same idea. 2 pints of beer cost only 3€. I went with the girl from my hostel, and then we did a pub crawl through another hostel, and I met abunch of crazy canadians and australians.
7)Got back to my hostel at 5AM after realizing I'd lost my keys to the hostel, my eyeliner, one earring, and last but not least, my beloved DSLR camera.
8)woke up at 10:40 am when I had a 12:15 pm flight back to italy. took a cab there, and made just barely onto the flight.
I wouldn't take back a thing about berlin. Its stupid I lost the camera, but I had a great time, and I love the city. Everyone should go if they ever get a chance because it was crazy and I even had fun by myself. Its a beautiful and culturally CRAZY city.
Back to the daily grind here in italy
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
My Funny Valentine
is the only song I ever sing. Last night, I sang at a club in bologna with a group of italian professional jazz-heads. The leader of the group is the pianist, Teo Ciavarello, who is a professor at the conservatory. We met during auditions and he invited me at that point to sing a tune at this place Bar Wolf. I went one night with Tony, he gave us free wine and we stayed and listened for a bit, and after that, I never went back because I was way too scared. But when I went on monday night, I was with my american piano professor the one I've done 2 concerts with, and he knows teo, so when we came in Teo greeted us, got us a table, asked us to do something together with the band. Since funny valentine is the only song I know, that was it. lol. I think it was alright, but I was so out of sorts vocally. Like i hadn't warmed up, i'd been drinking wine for the last 3 hours and no water. So it was a little rough, but it was enough for italians to clap for me at the end, and Amelia said I was just being too harsh on myself. I was really glad I had 2 american friends there though, because it made me relax a little, the fact that people i knew were there. Made the audience less scary. Here's a picture of me with the band
I had an awesome time with Amelia who just went back to london this afternoon, and we did too much to recount in detail, but the highlight I would say was a birthday party in a medieval tower that we went to last night. Here are pictures from the top terrace of the tower looking at 2 scenic and important parts of bologna: the two towers of the Asinelli family, and the Piazza Maggiore.
My roommates birthday is friday and I'm going to her house before heading to berlin. I was thinking about it, and I think going to her house will be one of my first time's inside of an italian household where I wasn't working. Like just for fun. I'm excited! she's turning 21.
-Ali
I had an awesome time with Amelia who just went back to london this afternoon, and we did too much to recount in detail, but the highlight I would say was a birthday party in a medieval tower that we went to last night. Here are pictures from the top terrace of the tower looking at 2 scenic and important parts of bologna: the two towers of the Asinelli family, and the Piazza Maggiore.
My roommates birthday is friday and I'm going to her house before heading to berlin. I was thinking about it, and I think going to her house will be one of my first time's inside of an italian household where I wasn't working. Like just for fun. I'm excited! she's turning 21.
-Ali
Sunday, March 21, 2010
I miss.....
not worrying how much phone calls cost for those calling me and for the calls i make
variety of ethnic food
being a vegetarian
the brilliant pianos at wellesley
american humor
MIT/Wellesley Toons and their crazy parties
my family
all my wellesley friends
all the new friends i've met abroad, and especially one particular guy
the few but amazingly dear california friends i still have
talking to people on the phone into wee hours of the night
california beaches
101 and car rides
feeling grounded
knowing what i want
writing music
having something to say and saying it well
convenience
classes in my native language
being musical and having musical friends
variety of ethnic food
being a vegetarian
the brilliant pianos at wellesley
american humor
MIT/Wellesley Toons and their crazy parties
my family
all my wellesley friends
all the new friends i've met abroad, and especially one particular guy
the few but amazingly dear california friends i still have
talking to people on the phone into wee hours of the night
california beaches
101 and car rides
feeling grounded
knowing what i want
writing music
having something to say and saying it well
convenience
classes in my native language
being musical and having musical friends
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
I forgot!
two other things! I got a new room mate and she's PORTUGUESE which doesn't help my utter obsession with that language (always want what you can't have, right?) and she's super freakin cool. it makes me think about enza (roommate that's in spain that I'm going to see) a lot and how we used to hang out and do dinner together and talk, but this girl is really cool so at least its not like I don't like her. She doesn't speak any italian and probably wont learn while she's hear because she's only staying for two months. She's working on a doctorate in psychology, which is so fitting for this woman its not even funny. she's 25, about to be 26, and she lives and goes to university in the city that I'm going to in Portugal in June! So the good news is, if we get along and maintain contact, I'll have someone to see and maybe even grab dinner with. She's really sweet, and she's coming out to apperativo with us tonight, so I'm hoping she has a good time and will feel at home here. It must be hard for someone to move into a house where everyone already knows each other. i would have been so intimidated to meet 4 new italian girls i had to live with if they were all already best friends.
other thing-the produce here is starting to ROCK my world. like california status. I just ate some of the best tomatoes I've had in like at least 2 years, and guess where they're from? Yes, that's right, sicily. Anywho, I have a new found obsession with scamorza smoked cheese (or smoked provolone) whole milk, and tomatoes. If it sounds like its unhealthy thats cuz it probably is, but all the food in italy is like more regulated and better for u than the states so whats the worst of all evils at the end of it?
ttfn (HAHAHA i forgot about all those silly sign offs)
other thing-the produce here is starting to ROCK my world. like california status. I just ate some of the best tomatoes I've had in like at least 2 years, and guess where they're from? Yes, that's right, sicily. Anywho, I have a new found obsession with scamorza smoked cheese (or smoked provolone) whole milk, and tomatoes. If it sounds like its unhealthy thats cuz it probably is, but all the food in italy is like more regulated and better for u than the states so whats the worst of all evils at the end of it?
ttfn (HAHAHA i forgot about all those silly sign offs)
100 days
is how much time i have left in italy, today. sort of weird that i decided to figure that out today, while it's such a square, round number.
So! where to start?! I just got back from sicily, the island at the bottom of Italy. It was pretty mind blowing for too many reasons and some really awesome things happened. I suppose I'll give a quick rundown of what I did, and then comment.
First, I went to Napoli with my study abroad program and I showed up really late. The next morning I went to pompeii where I felt super SUPER weird all day because I couldn't stop thinking about the last time I was there in september/october, and how different and yet the same it all seemed. This time, i felt like I noticed the tile work and art in pompeii a lot more, but since we had a guide we also learned a lot more about the daily life. Below is a citizen of pompeii who was probably trying to cover his or herself from the ash and monstrous rocks that were falling from the sky when vesuvius erupted by the look of the arms crossed over the face area.
That same day, we did an underground visit of the bunker/old well system in all of Napoli, it was SOO awesome and the tour guide led us through these tiny little pathways from one cavern to the next, and everytime we entered a pathway he would scream indiana jones and sing the theme song. Hilarious. He spoke really really thick napolitano italian, and we basically couldnt understand him but it was awesome anyway.
Next day we scaled mount vesuvius. I don't really know what to say about it except that I was having a breakdown from the excitement the whole time we were hiking up, and I basically ran to the top powered by sheer joy and adrenaline. I was handed a weathered walking stick from a VERY old man who had a fire in a wheel barrow at the beginning of the hike. haha. It was so cold up there I couldn't deal with it. The tour guide told all the girls not to ask him for his number because his wife was an alligator and she would eat us if we asked, but that we could ask all other questions we wanted. I bought a cool postcard of napoli thats hanging in my kitchen.
That afternoon, went to an archeological museum where we saw tons of sculpture and art from pompeii, and lots of lots of history. The pompeii stuff was especially cool. There was a ton of kitchen ware, silver and gold plates cups bowls silverware. stuff like that was cool.
In napoli I drank coffee with sweet almond whip stuff, which is a typical thing, awesome cheap pizza, total duh, and ECCO, my abroad program, took us to lunch 2 days in a row at this restaurant where they gave us AWESOME pasta (and nasty second dishes ie meat).
Then, from napoli we went to palermo. It took us half a day to get there, but once we were finally there, we were all pumped and did a big outing in the city. We went and looked at everything we could see by night (big monuments like the theater, which is the 2nd biggest in europe, some fountains, churches of which the main cathedral is pictured below, the port)
and THEN we went to this CRAZY awesome fish restaurant that was recommended to us by the hostel owner (who also gave us a discount card) and i ate SO many fish I'd never seen before. I'd never had octupus or squid, and i'd never had to dismember a full shrimp. I ate swordfish, frutti di mare, and this super bomb pasta with pieces of different fish all over the place. There was a bottomless decanter of white wine on the table and it took us like 3 hours to eat all the food.
This is also one of the 3 open air produce fish meat spices markets in Palermo. i totally enjoyed the colors, here, again, as i was saying in my other post.
The next day we saw more of palermo, took a tour of the theater, tried to rent a car but we didnt cuz it would have cost an arm and a leg (we were trying to use hertz so they have crazy insurance, and normal age regulations like in the states) and then we took a bus to monreale. Basically all thats there, beside the best pasticceria (bakery) in the world is a church with crazy mosaics.
After an afternoon in the church, we ate pastery (i had incredible cannoli which are typical sicilian desert among other things) and then we continued on to cefalù.
In cefalù we didn't do much but take pictures because it was so astonishingly beautiful. It wasn't even really a beautiful day, in the sense that there wasn't a lot of sun, but to me the sheer RAW FORCE of the ocean was frightfully awesome. Basically i felt like i was at some sort of surprising entertainment show, because the waves would smack the rocks and shoot vertically 15 feet in the air, yet 5 feet away I was completely unreachable by the waves and I just sort of watched with wonder and took way too many pictures for hours and hours.
Then we spent quite a bit on a train to get to Taormina. We knew we were going to be later than our initially expected arrival time, so I'd been trying to call all day. The number of our hostel/hotel place never worked, but i kept trying anyway. So when we get to the station we're just hoping the place is open and someone is there. We get to the place, which was not in the town of taormina but 5 km in the opposite direction from the train station, so we already had a bad feeling. So we are at a huge gate infront of the drive of this villa bed and breakfast type thing, and I ring the intercom like 5 million times, call the 2 numbers listed out front, and finally i decide to climb the fence, because it was like 9 at night, we'd just paid to take a cab out to this middle of nowhere lodging, and the staff was super not available, so i was just frustrated. As soon as I'm sitting on top of the fence, i see motion inside the house. A guy peeks his head out the window and i say 'uh hey sorry...' and then he comes out of the house on crutches with a fat cast on his foot and he's like 'hey who are you?' and i was like 'yea we're guests, we've been calling all day and we made a reservation here so...' and he was like' cool come in.' in the end, the reservation we'd made on hostel bookers, this one site, hadn't ever arrived to them so they weren't expecting anyone, but they ended up letting us stay at the house because its also a bed and breakfast, even though we'd reserved an appartment in
the city center. So the the guy with the broken foot felt really bad and offered us dinner, and his CRAZY parents came home and cooked us a BOMB-ass soup since we couldnt really go get food cuz it was already like 9:30pm. hahaha it was so funny.
anyway, Taormina was incredible. We walked through the city, ate HUGE amounts of deserts around lunch time, went to the greek theater, and took pictures all day. The weather was nice that day which was nice.
Next day was catania. In catania, i ate the BEST KEBAB AND COUS COUS ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. omg i don't have pictures because i didn't bring my camera out to eat since its sort of bulky and really conspicuous, but we ate like queens. the hostel was nasty but really central, so we were out and about a lot and i actually really really enjoyed catania. It was so cheap. People drove in the most INSANE ways, with crazy park jobs, complete lack of respect for lane lines, tons of horns, and its not liek there was a ton of traffic always, it just seemed like people weren't afraid to enter into conflict with each other over. At night in catania we also took a really lovely stroll around 8 at night, which is really normal in Italy, to go out with friends or family and just take a walk. While we were out that night, the whole city was teeming with people, even though it was drizzling. So many fashionable tweens, older men walking with lag talking with thick accents, strollers, umbrellas. It was just a sight to see. We also went to a happy hour and got pleasantly buzzed together. here's the inside of the duomo/main church in catania.
Next was siracusa, which seemed so sleepy and out of season when we were there. We stayed in perhaps the coolest hostel in italy, called LOLhostel, and we cooked dinner in that night to save money. In siracusa there's entirely too much too see, like amazing archeological sights, two ancient theaters, catacombs, that statue of the mary that started crying and the pope recognized it as a miracle, an ancient greek temple, a gorgeous main piazza, and awesome beaches but unfortunately a lot was closed. While we were there, practically no one was out, it was slightly drizzling, and all the sights were closed. We thought that we might go to the aquarium as an indoor activity, but that was closed too! It was beautiful at any rate, and I particularly enjoyed the almost spooky calmness of the water after having seen cefalù's beaches so hectic only a few days before. Below are pictures of the water and the main piazza.
Last but not least, we headed to Trapani to catch our flight back to bologna. We were only there for long enough to eat pizza, watch the sunset, get gelato, and take the nightly walk with all the fashionable italians, but it was an impressively clean and lively city.
So, Sicily as an experience was really particular for me. I had a lot of down time during train rides and bus rides, and I also found myself roaming by myself more often than sticking with the group, so I guess I thought a lot about italy and being here and the south and how different it is. Everyone talks about it, it's one of the first thing anyone learns when they start italian studies, that the south is so different, as if the north is normal and the south is not, I don't know how to explain it to non italian scholars, but it really is a huge difference, and it felt weird to be there as a tourist for such a whirlwind of a trip. I love the south, i think. The food, the sea, the landscape. People just seem more connected to the earth and connected to each other. Men walk arm in arm and its super normal. It doesn't seem strange at all. The population is just close, they fight as if they are all family members with complete strangers (as i mentioned about the pandemonium that is southern driving-they seem indifferent to offending or inconveniencing other drivers), and there's this incredibly strong sense of community. Maybe i'm exaggerating or it seemed so strong to me because i was outside of it, but at least from what i've seen of northern social day to day dynamics between strangers, the south is much more friendly. (again, which everyone says).
It made me want to stay. The trip was expensive because we ran around so much and wanted to eat everything we saw and try stuff we'd never tried and enter museums we knew nothing about and then take buses and trains to another city every day, but there's something mystical about that island. there's such an incredible mix of cultures that you can see in the architecture, taste in the food, and hear in the language and it's almost overwhelming to have such a stark change of culture and scenery all within the borders of one country.
Another interesting thing, which I've experienced a lot in italy with the most famous places, was being there not during tourist season. venice, florence, rome, and napoli I've seen all during tourist offseasons, and even though I'm still easily recognizable as a non-local (thanks irish/german/other northern european heritage and accent) its sort of a nice cultural window to see a place in its more natural undisturbed state instead of infected with tourists. For example, it rained probably 6 of 10 days I was gone, but I'm still totally satisfied with having gone in march instead of May or June, because I saw a different side of it. Of course I imagined endlessly how magical Sicily must be shrouded in sunlight, especially when I got glimpses of it, but in the end, I'm happy I went when I did.In any case, I easily fall in love with things, and I suppose sicily for the moment, will be one of those things i utterly adore. I really felt like it stole my heart, and I hope when I'm back next time I'll still have this burning desire to go back.
I'm going to berlin next and really soon-in only 10 days! It should be really strange to travel by myself again, but I think i sort of selfishly enjoy it for the most part before getting helplessly lonely. It will be a short one, only 3 days, but thats just about right for one city and being alone. In the meantime, I'm trying to get plugged in here in bologna. This week I'm busy doing things with people, especially since I wasn't here for a week and a half, and then a friend from london, Amelia, is coming to stay with me!!!!!!!! which will be my first real guest here in bologna. The only other guest I've had is joey, who unfortunately saw bologna less than every other italian city (since its so damn expensive, friggin hotels). So i'm psyched! after that, the semester will fly, i'm sure, seeing as how I only have 100 days left, which is more than the kids from this semester, but still seems like nothing after i've already been here for 7 months. FML!!!
write me and what not. I've been really homesick lately in a sort of abstract way. :-/ bleh. oh and thanks for putting up with the absurd length of this post. if u even made it to the end.
So! where to start?! I just got back from sicily, the island at the bottom of Italy. It was pretty mind blowing for too many reasons and some really awesome things happened. I suppose I'll give a quick rundown of what I did, and then comment.
First, I went to Napoli with my study abroad program and I showed up really late. The next morning I went to pompeii where I felt super SUPER weird all day because I couldn't stop thinking about the last time I was there in september/october, and how different and yet the same it all seemed. This time, i felt like I noticed the tile work and art in pompeii a lot more, but since we had a guide we also learned a lot more about the daily life. Below is a citizen of pompeii who was probably trying to cover his or herself from the ash and monstrous rocks that were falling from the sky when vesuvius erupted by the look of the arms crossed over the face area.
That same day, we did an underground visit of the bunker/old well system in all of Napoli, it was SOO awesome and the tour guide led us through these tiny little pathways from one cavern to the next, and everytime we entered a pathway he would scream indiana jones and sing the theme song. Hilarious. He spoke really really thick napolitano italian, and we basically couldnt understand him but it was awesome anyway.
Next day we scaled mount vesuvius. I don't really know what to say about it except that I was having a breakdown from the excitement the whole time we were hiking up, and I basically ran to the top powered by sheer joy and adrenaline. I was handed a weathered walking stick from a VERY old man who had a fire in a wheel barrow at the beginning of the hike. haha. It was so cold up there I couldn't deal with it. The tour guide told all the girls not to ask him for his number because his wife was an alligator and she would eat us if we asked, but that we could ask all other questions we wanted. I bought a cool postcard of napoli thats hanging in my kitchen.
That afternoon, went to an archeological museum where we saw tons of sculpture and art from pompeii, and lots of lots of history. The pompeii stuff was especially cool. There was a ton of kitchen ware, silver and gold plates cups bowls silverware. stuff like that was cool.
In napoli I drank coffee with sweet almond whip stuff, which is a typical thing, awesome cheap pizza, total duh, and ECCO, my abroad program, took us to lunch 2 days in a row at this restaurant where they gave us AWESOME pasta (and nasty second dishes ie meat).
Then, from napoli we went to palermo. It took us half a day to get there, but once we were finally there, we were all pumped and did a big outing in the city. We went and looked at everything we could see by night (big monuments like the theater, which is the 2nd biggest in europe, some fountains, churches of which the main cathedral is pictured below, the port)
and THEN we went to this CRAZY awesome fish restaurant that was recommended to us by the hostel owner (who also gave us a discount card) and i ate SO many fish I'd never seen before. I'd never had octupus or squid, and i'd never had to dismember a full shrimp. I ate swordfish, frutti di mare, and this super bomb pasta with pieces of different fish all over the place. There was a bottomless decanter of white wine on the table and it took us like 3 hours to eat all the food.
This is also one of the 3 open air produce fish meat spices markets in Palermo. i totally enjoyed the colors, here, again, as i was saying in my other post.
The next day we saw more of palermo, took a tour of the theater, tried to rent a car but we didnt cuz it would have cost an arm and a leg (we were trying to use hertz so they have crazy insurance, and normal age regulations like in the states) and then we took a bus to monreale. Basically all thats there, beside the best pasticceria (bakery) in the world is a church with crazy mosaics.
After an afternoon in the church, we ate pastery (i had incredible cannoli which are typical sicilian desert among other things) and then we continued on to cefalù.
In cefalù we didn't do much but take pictures because it was so astonishingly beautiful. It wasn't even really a beautiful day, in the sense that there wasn't a lot of sun, but to me the sheer RAW FORCE of the ocean was frightfully awesome. Basically i felt like i was at some sort of surprising entertainment show, because the waves would smack the rocks and shoot vertically 15 feet in the air, yet 5 feet away I was completely unreachable by the waves and I just sort of watched with wonder and took way too many pictures for hours and hours.
Then we spent quite a bit on a train to get to Taormina. We knew we were going to be later than our initially expected arrival time, so I'd been trying to call all day. The number of our hostel/hotel place never worked, but i kept trying anyway. So when we get to the station we're just hoping the place is open and someone is there. We get to the place, which was not in the town of taormina but 5 km in the opposite direction from the train station, so we already had a bad feeling. So we are at a huge gate infront of the drive of this villa bed and breakfast type thing, and I ring the intercom like 5 million times, call the 2 numbers listed out front, and finally i decide to climb the fence, because it was like 9 at night, we'd just paid to take a cab out to this middle of nowhere lodging, and the staff was super not available, so i was just frustrated. As soon as I'm sitting on top of the fence, i see motion inside the house. A guy peeks his head out the window and i say 'uh hey sorry...' and then he comes out of the house on crutches with a fat cast on his foot and he's like 'hey who are you?' and i was like 'yea we're guests, we've been calling all day and we made a reservation here so...' and he was like' cool come in.' in the end, the reservation we'd made on hostel bookers, this one site, hadn't ever arrived to them so they weren't expecting anyone, but they ended up letting us stay at the house because its also a bed and breakfast, even though we'd reserved an appartment in
the city center. So the the guy with the broken foot felt really bad and offered us dinner, and his CRAZY parents came home and cooked us a BOMB-ass soup since we couldnt really go get food cuz it was already like 9:30pm. hahaha it was so funny.
anyway, Taormina was incredible. We walked through the city, ate HUGE amounts of deserts around lunch time, went to the greek theater, and took pictures all day. The weather was nice that day which was nice.
Next day was catania. In catania, i ate the BEST KEBAB AND COUS COUS ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. omg i don't have pictures because i didn't bring my camera out to eat since its sort of bulky and really conspicuous, but we ate like queens. the hostel was nasty but really central, so we were out and about a lot and i actually really really enjoyed catania. It was so cheap. People drove in the most INSANE ways, with crazy park jobs, complete lack of respect for lane lines, tons of horns, and its not liek there was a ton of traffic always, it just seemed like people weren't afraid to enter into conflict with each other over. At night in catania we also took a really lovely stroll around 8 at night, which is really normal in Italy, to go out with friends or family and just take a walk. While we were out that night, the whole city was teeming with people, even though it was drizzling. So many fashionable tweens, older men walking with lag talking with thick accents, strollers, umbrellas. It was just a sight to see. We also went to a happy hour and got pleasantly buzzed together. here's the inside of the duomo/main church in catania.
Next was siracusa, which seemed so sleepy and out of season when we were there. We stayed in perhaps the coolest hostel in italy, called LOLhostel, and we cooked dinner in that night to save money. In siracusa there's entirely too much too see, like amazing archeological sights, two ancient theaters, catacombs, that statue of the mary that started crying and the pope recognized it as a miracle, an ancient greek temple, a gorgeous main piazza, and awesome beaches but unfortunately a lot was closed. While we were there, practically no one was out, it was slightly drizzling, and all the sights were closed. We thought that we might go to the aquarium as an indoor activity, but that was closed too! It was beautiful at any rate, and I particularly enjoyed the almost spooky calmness of the water after having seen cefalù's beaches so hectic only a few days before. Below are pictures of the water and the main piazza.
Last but not least, we headed to Trapani to catch our flight back to bologna. We were only there for long enough to eat pizza, watch the sunset, get gelato, and take the nightly walk with all the fashionable italians, but it was an impressively clean and lively city.
So, Sicily as an experience was really particular for me. I had a lot of down time during train rides and bus rides, and I also found myself roaming by myself more often than sticking with the group, so I guess I thought a lot about italy and being here and the south and how different it is. Everyone talks about it, it's one of the first thing anyone learns when they start italian studies, that the south is so different, as if the north is normal and the south is not, I don't know how to explain it to non italian scholars, but it really is a huge difference, and it felt weird to be there as a tourist for such a whirlwind of a trip. I love the south, i think. The food, the sea, the landscape. People just seem more connected to the earth and connected to each other. Men walk arm in arm and its super normal. It doesn't seem strange at all. The population is just close, they fight as if they are all family members with complete strangers (as i mentioned about the pandemonium that is southern driving-they seem indifferent to offending or inconveniencing other drivers), and there's this incredibly strong sense of community. Maybe i'm exaggerating or it seemed so strong to me because i was outside of it, but at least from what i've seen of northern social day to day dynamics between strangers, the south is much more friendly. (again, which everyone says).
It made me want to stay. The trip was expensive because we ran around so much and wanted to eat everything we saw and try stuff we'd never tried and enter museums we knew nothing about and then take buses and trains to another city every day, but there's something mystical about that island. there's such an incredible mix of cultures that you can see in the architecture, taste in the food, and hear in the language and it's almost overwhelming to have such a stark change of culture and scenery all within the borders of one country.
Another interesting thing, which I've experienced a lot in italy with the most famous places, was being there not during tourist season. venice, florence, rome, and napoli I've seen all during tourist offseasons, and even though I'm still easily recognizable as a non-local (thanks irish/german/other northern european heritage and accent) its sort of a nice cultural window to see a place in its more natural undisturbed state instead of infected with tourists. For example, it rained probably 6 of 10 days I was gone, but I'm still totally satisfied with having gone in march instead of May or June, because I saw a different side of it. Of course I imagined endlessly how magical Sicily must be shrouded in sunlight, especially when I got glimpses of it, but in the end, I'm happy I went when I did.In any case, I easily fall in love with things, and I suppose sicily for the moment, will be one of those things i utterly adore. I really felt like it stole my heart, and I hope when I'm back next time I'll still have this burning desire to go back.
I'm going to berlin next and really soon-in only 10 days! It should be really strange to travel by myself again, but I think i sort of selfishly enjoy it for the most part before getting helplessly lonely. It will be a short one, only 3 days, but thats just about right for one city and being alone. In the meantime, I'm trying to get plugged in here in bologna. This week I'm busy doing things with people, especially since I wasn't here for a week and a half, and then a friend from london, Amelia, is coming to stay with me!!!!!!!! which will be my first real guest here in bologna. The only other guest I've had is joey, who unfortunately saw bologna less than every other italian city (since its so damn expensive, friggin hotels). So i'm psyched! after that, the semester will fly, i'm sure, seeing as how I only have 100 days left, which is more than the kids from this semester, but still seems like nothing after i've already been here for 7 months. FML!!!
write me and what not. I've been really homesick lately in a sort of abstract way. :-/ bleh. oh and thanks for putting up with the absurd length of this post. if u even made it to the end.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
In case it seems like a while....
that's because it is. I'm gonna be gone for 11 or 12 days, and just for those of you who might not hear from me (mom, s&k, joey, etc) i'm in sicily, probably alive. It should be crazy and awesome. ciao ciao!!!!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
color
In lecce, I saw colors on buildings, in urban settings, on people, skin colors, in nature that I'd never really seen in real life before. The color of the Mediterranean and Adriatic sea was this insane blue, i'm not really sure if I ever captured it in any of those pictures. And in bologna, naturally there's not as much ZEST colorwise as there is in the south, but now that spring is coming and there's a little bit more light on everything, my attention is being drawn to the oranges yellows and greens I see everywhere. For example, i'm in a classroom at my study abroad program office and I'm staring out the window at a sherbet orange on a building across the way. there's only 2 or 3 inches of the blatant blue sky that show above the roofline of the other building, but the contrast is strong. Sometimes, its stuff liek that about Italy that makes me feel the most like I'm in another country. Most of our apartment buildings, office buildings and markets are never any colors other than grey, white, beige or brown. I feel like we have a very limited color base for more public/urban buildings. Houses, of course, there's more variety and choice, but suburbia doesn't really exist in italy so it's not very comparable.
At any rate, the point is, that i'm excited the sun is coming out. I went on a hike not this last sunday but the one before, up to a cathedral on top of a large hill crest during this gorgeous just barely warm sunday afternoon. now those days are more frequent, and I've even gone out of the house without a coat on on several occasions. The nice weather makes me want to walk and eat well. I think one of my next blog entries is going to be pictures of the restaurants I like to go to regularly. I just had lunch at a traditionally salentina or leccese restaurant for SO cheap. it was a SUPER bomb risotto with fennel, scomorza and like cauliflower or something. SOOO good.
Yesterday I got on the bus to go home from the normal downtown stop where I pick it up. Once on the bus, I heard a roar coming from the main piazza and when the bus passed, I saw there was a huge demonstration going on there. I got off at the next stop, walked back, weasled my way into the corwd and quickly figured out that it was an anti-racism demonstration. There were different groups of immigrants of different heritages standing on a set of stairs overlooking piazza nettuno (big statue of neptune there, one of bologna's hallmarks) and a big PA system. An MC was handing the mic off to different speakers of different backgrounds and letting people speak. It was basically a huge open mic for people to voice their frustrations, experiences, and hopes around Italy. It was seriously moving, maybe just to be in such a huge crowd, maybe to hear the things they were saying, maybe because this issues that italy faces is exactly what interests me most, but I stayed for about an hour to listen. I wished I had my camera. There were so many people with video cameras, regular cameras, i duno.. The interesting thing about italy is that it's just now having to confront issues of racism and integration for the first time. As a country, Italy has a very mixed cultural background, with dialects of arabic, spanish, french, portuguese, and german influences. The 'italian' look is basicaly different by region, so just like any other country, it's difficult to say who or what is actually 'italian' but I guess since the mid 1800's there wasn't really mass immigration to italy until the last 25 years. Eastern-europeans, africans, east-asians, middle-easterners flock to Italy since it's the easiest and most convenient entry point to the EU. With the strength of the euro, low european birthrate, and strong agriculture in Italy, there's an obvious demand for migrant labor, like in all developed countries I suppose, but only in these last 25, 30 years, has it become a real social issue in Italy. Basically, i think it will be really interesting to see how italian institutions will react to this influx in the long run, because right now, in this moment, people are really starting speak out and stage walk-outs, manifestations, demonstrations. Anyway, it was interesting to see and have my mind jogged about such important human rights issues right down the street from my apartment.
here's a link about the demonstration in Milan yesterday-it was country wide, which is why it also happened in Bologna.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/world/europe/02iht-italy.html?ref=world
At any rate, the point is, that i'm excited the sun is coming out. I went on a hike not this last sunday but the one before, up to a cathedral on top of a large hill crest during this gorgeous just barely warm sunday afternoon. now those days are more frequent, and I've even gone out of the house without a coat on on several occasions. The nice weather makes me want to walk and eat well. I think one of my next blog entries is going to be pictures of the restaurants I like to go to regularly. I just had lunch at a traditionally salentina or leccese restaurant for SO cheap. it was a SUPER bomb risotto with fennel, scomorza and like cauliflower or something. SOOO good.
Yesterday I got on the bus to go home from the normal downtown stop where I pick it up. Once on the bus, I heard a roar coming from the main piazza and when the bus passed, I saw there was a huge demonstration going on there. I got off at the next stop, walked back, weasled my way into the corwd and quickly figured out that it was an anti-racism demonstration. There were different groups of immigrants of different heritages standing on a set of stairs overlooking piazza nettuno (big statue of neptune there, one of bologna's hallmarks) and a big PA system. An MC was handing the mic off to different speakers of different backgrounds and letting people speak. It was basically a huge open mic for people to voice their frustrations, experiences, and hopes around Italy. It was seriously moving, maybe just to be in such a huge crowd, maybe to hear the things they were saying, maybe because this issues that italy faces is exactly what interests me most, but I stayed for about an hour to listen. I wished I had my camera. There were so many people with video cameras, regular cameras, i duno.. The interesting thing about italy is that it's just now having to confront issues of racism and integration for the first time. As a country, Italy has a very mixed cultural background, with dialects of arabic, spanish, french, portuguese, and german influences. The 'italian' look is basicaly different by region, so just like any other country, it's difficult to say who or what is actually 'italian' but I guess since the mid 1800's there wasn't really mass immigration to italy until the last 25 years. Eastern-europeans, africans, east-asians, middle-easterners flock to Italy since it's the easiest and most convenient entry point to the EU. With the strength of the euro, low european birthrate, and strong agriculture in Italy, there's an obvious demand for migrant labor, like in all developed countries I suppose, but only in these last 25, 30 years, has it become a real social issue in Italy. Basically, i think it will be really interesting to see how italian institutions will react to this influx in the long run, because right now, in this moment, people are really starting speak out and stage walk-outs, manifestations, demonstrations. Anyway, it was interesting to see and have my mind jogged about such important human rights issues right down the street from my apartment.
here's a link about the demonstration in Milan yesterday-it was country wide, which is why it also happened in Bologna.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/world/europe/02iht-italy.html?ref=world
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