Rock Climbing!

I got the chance to go rock climbing with my Italian friends tonight.  Our friends Alesandro and Luca took Heather and I to an indoor place across town.  There friend Margo came along too.  She is in town for the week visiting from France.  It was a blast hanging out with everyone at the complex.  This was not like the rock climbing places I am used to at home.  Normally at home, we have to hook in when were climbing because we climb taller surfaces.  This place was more of a training facility for rock climbing.  It was really pretty cool because there were about 6 different levels of hand grabs that you could use across the wall.  The entire center of the room though was a giant mat in case you lost your footing.  We had a great time hanging out with the locals and getting some good exercise.  

We are planning a trip to go to a rock face near Genova later in the semester.  I will let you know how it goes!  Anyways, we are headed to Switzerland and Germany this weekend!  So I will hopefully fill you in on that when we get back on Monday night!  

Ciao Tutti! 

New suit...

Just wanted to throw up a quick post to say that I have now officially purchased my Italian souvenir.  We have visited a few different stores since our arrival back in January.  We have been lucky because all of the stores have had there after christmas sales going strong for a month now. I was in a store with Jonathan and Lindsey a couple of weeks ago when we ran across some Versace suits.  Of course we weren't going to even look but then we noticed that they were still on sale, which is even more ridiculous when you think about what we have to pay for them at home.  Well, last friday, we were going out to run some errands with Sylvia, our Italian program coordinator to get ready for our wine tasting that night.  She offered to go by the store with me and take a look at the suits to see if I could get one before the sale was over.  After about an hour of working with her, the staff, and of course my two sales advisors (Jon and Lindsey) I was able to find one that I liked.  I should be able to pick up the pants later this week but I already have the jacket.  While I was checking out, the lady at the counter told me that the sale ended on Sunday and all of there Versace items would go back to the main store.  So, we got really lucky in making the trip 2 days before the sale ended.  Anyways, I will try to throw up another picture after our villa party next friday.  I figured that would be a good time to break it out! 

Rollerblading on the French Riviera

On Sunday before we left Nice, we were able to get in some rollerblading so that we could see more of the coast line.  It has def. been a while sine we all put on skates but it turned out to be a great time and nobody broke anything (cameras... legs...pride..etc.) Anyways, we were able to snag a few photos and a video so here you go! 

Carnaval - Nice, France

We just got back in from our weekend in Nice for Leslee's birthday!  We had a really awesome time just being able to get away for a weekend and enjoy ourselves.  The parade, which is basically there version of Marti Graus, lasts for a couple of hours each day.  We were able to take in some sites from a nearby mountain top and play on a jungle gym... as well as all the fun nigh time festivities. 

 Anyways, I am trying to get caught up on my video uploading.  Luckily this one loaded fairly quickly onto YouTube so I will go ahead and post the link for you.  I will add the other links as soon as there in the system.  Hope you enjoy Carnaval Nice style!!

Florence, Siena, Rome

I will try to give you a quick run down of some of our travels from our first study trip.  There is no way to include all details unless I write a short novel but I will do my best so here it goes! (videos will be up soon)

Florence

We got up bright and early on Friday morning (Jan. 30) to set out for Florence.  We were at our hotel by 1 or 2 pm roughly that afternoon.  We got settled in and had a little bit of time to get acquainted to the city.  The hotel we were staying in was right around the corner from the church of Santa Maria Del Fiore which happens to be one of the buildings I am studying this semester.  That worked out nicely.  You might recognize the dome of the church from various history books or especially if you have had any art history.  This is an image from a hill side in Florence where we went to see the sunset.  

Later in the week we were able to take a tour of the dome.  I have included as much footage as YouTube would allow, ha.  The videos have been fun to make short of a few minor incidences, like smacking my head in the dome on the way down, ha.  

A couple of other interesting things that we got to see in Florence were the Museums.  The city is full of statues and paintings that I have only been able to see in books.  It was really amazing to be able to see these things in person.  We were able to see the Uffizi Gallery which has works from artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael.   We were also able to see Museo Dell' Accademia and Michelangelo's David.  

On  Monday Feb. 2nd, we toured Brunelleschi's Cupola then hopped on a train to Siena in the afternoon. 

Siena

We arrived in Siena at around 4 in the afternoon.  After dropping off our luggage and getting settled in, we headed back out into the city in the pouring rain to see Piazza Del Campo.   Wikipedia explains this site and its uses better then I ever could. 

The hotel suggested a really great restaurant for us to eat at that night.  We all piled in out of the rain and ate in a little downstairs room.  There was actually a stair right beside our table that went down to an underground tunnel system with routes all over the city.  We were hoping for a quick tour from our waiter, which happened to also be the owner, but he said that the tunnel system was closed off for now.  

The next day we got up and did some more walking around.  We visited the Duomo in Siena and we were able to get some cool shots of Siena from above.  

We left Siena in the afternoon and headed for Rome.

Rome

We arrived in Rome on Wednesday night (Feb. 4).   We got settled in then walked around literally behind our hotel to see the Pantheon.  It was pretty surreal being able to walk out our door and see a structure that has stood for nearly 2000 years.  

The next morning we had a few hours of free time so a couple of us headed out after breakfast for the Coliseum.  We made our way through the Roman Forum snapping some photos.  It actually worked out well because our ticket we bought for the Forum got us into the Coliseum as well.  

When we first walked up to the entrance, we thought we weren't going to have the time to get in but we luckily realized that it was the ticket line that we were seeing and not the entrance.  So we took our tickets from the Forum and headed right on in to check out the inside.  

After a quick lunch, we met up with the rest of the group in Piazzo Del Campidoglio to start a Barogue tour with a guest prof. living in Rome.  His name was Terry Kirk.  He was a pretty crazy tour guide, full of energy and extremely enthusiastic about everything.  It made for a pretty interesting day.  We were all over the place in Rome.  We  ended the day with the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.  

On Thursday morning, we got up and made our way toward the Vatican City.  We spent the morning in the Museum of the Vatican checking out works by famous painters and gazing at the Sistine Chapel.  In the afternoon, we moved on to Saint Peters church where the pope resides.  We climbed the cupola and got to see Rome from above.  We also spent a lot of time inside the church which again, was enormous.  I made a few videos of our church experience as well as snagging a few pics from the day.  

On Friday, we toured some more piazzas and visited some various churches spread across the city. We were able to see some works by Francesco Borromini and Lorenzo Bernini.  Two ancient designers that again, I have only read about in books.  It was really great to see their architectural solutions in person.  

On Saturday, we got up early and caught a train to Tivoli.  Then took a bus to Villa Adriana.  Again, wikipedia, can give you the scoop a lot better then I can in a few short sentences.  Its basically a large archaeological site of Hadrian's country Villa.   It was really amazing to see such a large site of just ruins.  It was cool to be able to imagine what it might have been like in its time.  

After we left the park, we headed over to another site in Tivoli named Villa d'Este.  This place was really amazing.  It was a villa set on a hillside, but the entire hill down below the villa was a huge landscape park full of water features and gardens and seating areas as well as some great panoramic views of the city.  We only had a short 30 mins. in the park so we were running around frantically trying to snap pictures.  After we finished up, we had to hurry to catch our train back to Rome.  

On Sunday,  we visited the EUR section of Rome which is basically where Mussolini tried to express his imperial dreams for a city.  This section of the city is not one you would normally see on a tourist visit to Rome but since we had a lengthy stay, we were able to make the trip.  The buildings were all made of similar materials.  All very plain, and modern looking with a minimalist design focus. We toured the area for a few hours and were unfortunately turned away at 3 of our sites due to events occurring on our sites that prohibited us from entering.  Like the PalaEUR, a giant sports arena, which had a game in the afternoon so they security guys would not let us in.  

On Sunday night, we all went back to the hotel and checked our bags out of storage and made our way for the train station.  We all pretty much passed out on the train from our extremely long travel week.  We made it back to Genoa around 10 pm then we hopped on a bus and headed for the villa.  All in all, the trip went really great.  We all had a blast and got to take a lot of great pictures and soak up some great memories.  Anyways, I tried to cover all the bases best I could.  If you stuck with me for the whole blog post, give yourself a pat on the back because this was a long one folks!

Ciao tutti!