Orvieto, Siena, and the Milan Excursion

Ok, so here goes the second part to my really long update.

Orvieto - About an hour and a half, by train, south, towards Rome, is a town on a cliff known as Orvieto. This is the place where the other K-State students are "studying." If you arrive here by train you have to take a funiculari (something like a tram that goes up slopes) to reach the actual city. Then once you reach the stop of the funiculari you have to take a bus to the main piazza space outside the Duomo. A lot of Italy is like this. Before we took the bus to the piazza we were given a tour of an old papal palace that sits on the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley below. After this we had time to grab some food and coffee which was much needed as we next proceeded to tour a giant well. The well used a double helix staircase to get to the bottom and the passages down were big enough for donkeys to traverse them. If I had to guess I'd say the thing was 8 to 10 stories deep. Needless to say after climbing back up the well everyone was pretty beat. And this was all before the actual tour of the city started.
After a short bus ride we arrived at the main piazza space outside Orvieto's Duomo. The cathedral here is one of my favorites so far mostly because of the front facade that's covered in really awesome sculptures and gold leaf so it changes appearances throughout the day as the sun hits it differently. The inside had some really cool frescoes by an artist I can't remember because half the time I don't listen to the tour guides.
After the church we went on a tour of the caves beneath the city. This was pointless. The most exciting thing we saw down there was an old pigeon farm. Apparently, Italians raise pigeons to eat them, or use too or something.
We were then released for lunch. After walking around for a little bit we found a pizza place. Pizza should always be followed by gelato which we did next and sat on some sunny steps in a piazza and sketched till it was time to leave. The end.

Siena - The most miserable field trip day by far. We had been lucky up to this point with the weather and our field trips. It had been cold before which had been fine, but on this day it was cold and raining, all day. It didn't help that most of the things we did were outside. I'm sure Sienna is very nice and I'd like to go back when the weather is better but my image of the town is slightly tainted by that day. We saw some more churches here and a museum. Nothing really too exciting. I did purchase my first soccer paraphernalia here, a Inter Milan beanie. I'm not necessarily an Inter fan but by this point we had booked our trip to Milan and the soccer game there.

The Milan Excursion - For some reason, K-State never takes a trip to Milan in the months that we are here. Therefore, a group of us decided we were going to check it out over the weekend. In our planning we discovered that the Ferrari Museum was kind of on the way so we decided to do that. Ryan, one of my roomates here, is a big soccer fan and Inter Milan happened to be playing that weekend also, so we decided to hit that up too. This was all planned by us, the transportation, the hostel, everything, and it was also our first time doing it so there was bound to be some adventures. Here's how it went:

We left Castiglion Fiorentino at 8:30 in the morning on Friday the 11th of February. We took the train to Arezzo and were going to catch an IC (Inter-City) train to Bologna. We had a little layover in Arezzo so we walked around, got some breakfast (chocolate croissant and cappuccino, the usual) and sat on the steps of the cathedral there and sketched for about an hour. We caught our train on time so, so far so good. On the train I learned how to play hearts. We arrived in Bologna around lunchtime and had about 30 minutes before the train left for Modena. We grabbed some humongous slices of pizza and mountainous cups of gelato (so much gelato in fact that I couldn't eat it all, Cara was kind enough to finish it off). Caught or train again and were off to Modena (you have to stop here if you want to get to Ferrari). Side note about Modena, if you can avoid it, do. Probably the sketchiest city to date (besides Naples, but I'll get to that in a different post). The way I described it was that Fascism must have hit it pretty hard. There was very little that was Italian about it. We encountered our first hiccup here, of course. We had to take a bus from the train station, to the bus station. However, we weren't sure which stop was the bus station. Apparently it was the second and we ended up, accidentally, taking the bus all the way to the end. Got a lovely tour of Modena I suppose. There was a bus driver who took pity on us and took us back to the bus station. Our little "tour" made us miss an earlier bus to Ferrari so we had to wait another hour or so before we could catch another. Luckily there was a little cafe next to the bus station. So we grabbed some beers while we waited. Eventually we caught the bus to Ferrari and got there no problems. The Museum was pretty neat but rather small and anti-climatic. Not sure if it was worth the pain that is Modena. We caught the bus back to train station and after all was said and done, we got stuck here for another hour and a half because we had just missed an earlier train. So, had our first McDonald's in Italy experience. Sadly the McDonald's in the train station in Modena, is the best thing about Modena. After a happy meal (best bang for your buck as McDonald's is rather expensive here) and a one euro milkshake we caught the train out of Modena and were finally headed to Milan. About 3 hours later we arrived in Milan. It was now 11:15 at night and we still had to take the Metro to get to our hostel. The metro (Milan's subway system) is really nice and convenient. The only bad thing I saw was a guy peeing on a wall in the station when we got there. It happens. After about a 30 minute metro ride we arrived at the hostel which was kind of out in the burbs. But it was cheap. We were rarely here anyways so little to be said on the hostel. All in all, starting at about 8:30 in the morning and arriving to the hostel in Milan at midnight we were traveling for around 16 hours. Rough.

The next day we took the metro back into the city center. The Duomo in Milan is french gothic and really pretty. The piazza out front is filled with people trying to get you to by bird seed to feed the pigeons. They're really forceful and will actually grab your hands and try to put the bird seed in it and then make you pay for it. They got Ryan. The best tactic is to keep your hands in your pockets. After we checked out the inside of the Duomo we decided to check out the top of the Duomo. This was probably one my favorite parts of the trip. It was sunny out that day and the top of the Duomo in Milan is basically the roof. It's really cool, you can see the Alps from the top. After the church we went to check out the university which was a let down. It turned out to be a big ugly, red buidling. But, there was an awesome kebab place next to it. I hadn't had a kebab yet and made the mistake of getting two. Kebab's are rotissere cooked lamb that is shaved off put with some lettuce tomato onion, a maynoise like sauce and hot sauce all on a bun or in a tortilla. Uber fullness ensued. We walked off lunch on our way to a medieval castle that was ok, then through a park. We ran into some American girls that were studying in Barcelona and talked to them for a bit about what to hit up when we're there for spring break. There was a carnival going on also, so, naturally, we rode some bumper cars. It was gelato time after bumper cars and then we walked, basically around the entire city and ended with some shopping. I got a Inter t-shirt for the game that night. After a long day in the city we headed back out to our hostel and got ready for the game. The good thing about the location of our hostel was that it was close to the stadium. On our way to the stadium we stopped at a little stand and grabbed some Tenants. Side note on Tenants. It's the size of a normal beer. It tastes decent. And the best part is its 9 % alcohol, so you don't have to spend a lot of money. The stadium in Milan puts many football stadiums in America to shame. It's humongous. Our seats were right behind the super fan section. It was pretty crazy, they even set off flares in the stadium and wave huge flags the entire time which can get in the way of seeing. The game kinda sucked because Inter wasn't playing a very good team so they had there second team in and scored early then played keep away for the rest of the game. By the end of the game my buzz had worn off so we seeked out a supermarket to get some wine and hang out in the hostel. But we were unsuccessful. So it was bedtime.

The last day of the excursion we checked out of the hostel around 10 and took the metro back to the Milan train station, which I forgot to mention is beautiful. It kind of reminded me of home because it resembles, at least in size, Union Station in Kansas City. From the train station we planned our trip to Lake Como and then back home. We had a little bit of time before the train left so, more kebab. We also purchased some cheap wine for the trip. The weather this day had turned bad. It was foggy and rainy. Probably not the best setting to see Lake Como, but actually, it gave it a really surreal, mystical feeling when we were there. It was off season so a lot of things were closed but we walked around and took a ferry to Belagio. We drank some wine by the shore and caught the ferry back to Varenna where we came in. We hurriedly ate some pasta and caught the train back to Milan. The train was late which made us late getting back to Milan where we had to sprint to catch the train back to Castiglion. We had the conductor hold the train for a couple unnamed stragglers. The train ride back was uneventful. It was an IC train again so we had assigned seats. We had a little cart this time. Had a couple beers and some wine, sketched. It was a good time.

We got back to Castiglion around 9 on Sunday. You would think the story ends here but when we got back we were all hungry so we went to a local pizza place and well got pizza and beer. Great way to cap off a trip.

So, I know I haven't been keeping up with this blog business very well. Ok, well I haven't been keeping up with it at all. Italian internet is sketchy at best. Especially if you're trying to upload photos. I guess the last post was about a month ago now. Therefore, this one is going to be extra long. Hopefully, I can get through it before the internet poops out again. Photos take forever to upload on here so check out my facebook for those.

Arezzo - About 10 minutes north of Castiglion Fiorentino is the city of Arezzo. This was where we took our first trip to. It was ok. We saw a bunch of churches and frescoes. By the end of the trip I'm probably going to be burnt out on classical art. The highlight of the trip was our tour guide, Giovanni. He owns a toy store in Cortona (I'll get to Cortona next) and freelances as a tour guide on the side. Apparently, it's crazy hard to become a tour guide in Italy. Something about having to memorize thousands of different artists, paintings, and be able to recognize pieces based on small images of them. Anyways, Giovanni was pretty cool. Between docents about paintings and sculptures he would make jokes about his mother and wife, some of them inappropriate, inside churches, which made them better.

Cortona - I've been to Cortona a couple times now. A little side note about Cortona, it's crazy tall and steep. If you've seen the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun", that was filmed here. The town is about 15 minutes by bus from Castiglion, so, easy to get to. The first time we, ( by we I mean a few people, we haven't been to Cortona as a group yet), we attempted to get to the top of the hill. We were unsuccessful because we got about halfway and had to turn around to catch a bus back. A funny little thing also happened when we arrived. We went to a tabacchi (a tobacco shop) to get our bus tickets back and after we purchased them we starting looking at some sketchbooks on the shelves. The guy behind the counter tells us to go down the steps in the back of his shop, little weird but we decide to go anyways. Apparently in the bottom of this unassuming tobacco shop was a high quality art gallery and supply shop. The guy working downstairs was really friendly and new English well. He told us that one of his old shop assistants had been from Kansas. Small world.
The second time we went to Cortona we made it to the top. That was pretty cool. Besides scaling the mini mountain that day we played on a little playground during siesta time when nothing is ever open. That's about it on Cortona, for now.

Florence - I could probably right a small novel on Florence by now having been 3 or 4 times over the past few weeks. Seen all the major sites, won't bore you with the details. Favorite church here is San Miniato on a hill overlooking Florence. The "RC's" showed us this really good panini place on one of the trips. I'm beginning to think that the best places to go in Italy are the most unassuming looking ones. The panini place is literally a four foot long bar built into the side of a building with two guys working behind it. One guy cranking out sandwiches and another taking orders. The only other major thing I've done here was go to a chocolate festival. It was pretty cool. I'm sure the women reading this will think my description of "pretty cool" is not sufficient. This thing had all sorts of stuff though. I tried chocolate beer which tasted like, well, beer mostly. There was a wide variety of chocolate bars from spicy pepper to marijuana flavored (don't be shocked there wasn't any THC in them). The craziest thing we did that day was take absinthe shots from chocolate shot glasses. A little piece of advice, don't put the whole thing in your mouth all at once. Drink the liquid then eat the glass, otherwise you'll end up standing there with absinthe hanging around in your mouth because you're unable to swallow the whole thing.
Something else that was pretty cool in Florence is the MuseoGalileo. One of our professors works here as well as teaching us the history of science and technology. He happens to be named Giovanni also. We've had two classes in the museum. During one of them he brought out a collection of really old books and actually let us touch them. Surprising considering the things were from the 15th and 16th centuries making them, oh, somewhere in the ballpark of 400 years old. That's older than the United States if you need a reference.

Ok so I"m about halfway through here. Orvietto, Sienna, and the Milan excursion still to come. Stay tuned.

Casa Vecchia 4 - Home For the Next 3 Months

Here are some pictures of our "dorm" which is really part of a house. We (Andres, Ryan, Jeff a.k.a. "Hollywood", and myself) lucked out and got an "off-campus" place due to overcrowding at Santa Chiara.

This is San Giuliano. The church with it's piazza space that doubles as parking lie right next to Santa Chiara. The building on the left is Casa Vecchia where we are staying. Directly behind me is the street to get up to our place.

Vicolo Repente is the street you take to get up to our place. If you couldn't guess repente stands for repentance. Ironic in more than one way.

This is what Vicolo Repente looks like from the bottom. It may be appropriate to repent before traveling down it as it's one of the steepest streets in Castiglion Fiorentino. Our place is just off to the right.

The door to the left is the entrance to our place. Eventually we're going to get some plants and have a "garden-off" with the neighbors.

Our foyer.

The living room or office/computer space. This was taken the first night when it was crazy cold as you can tell by Andres' attire.

Finally the bedroom. You can see three beds in frame. I'm basically taking this shot from atop my bed. Our closets are off to the left out of the shot. The bathroom is also out of shot but there is one. We were also lucky enough to get a bidet.
So that's the place where we'll be living for the next three months. It isn't five star but it works.

The First Pictures

Here are some of the first pictures taken from Castiglion Fiorentino (the town I'm staying in). The panoramic picture above was taken from the highest point in town. The old Etruscan watchtower on the right, and below, pre-dates the Roman Empire. So it's old. Really old. I forgot my camera when we went here so this was taken with my phone. Actually these were all taken with my phone.

The next three pictures were taken in a small park about halfway to the top of the "hill." The pictures are of the Val di Chio Valley where Castiglion Fiorention, Cortona, and few other Tuscan towns reside

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The last picture is taken on the other side of the hill (where the Santa Chiara study center is). The church on the right is San Giuliano. The study center is out frame, to the right, directly across the piazza from the San Giuliano.

That's all for now. More to come soon.

Acclamation

It's hard to describe the trip here. Put simply, it was a little less than miserable. The food was terrible. It tasted like the plastic in which it was cooked. Salt and pepper made it bearable. The movies were decent. But those only last so long on a 9 hour flight. Sleeping was next to impossible. Not because I wasn't tired, I was plenty, but rather the overall comfort of the airplane was somewhat lacking. Sorry United, but you should fill up the jet with those fancy beds in first class.
We eventually got to the airport in Rome and found the baggage claim, no problem. My bag came around the carousel, so it definitely didn't get lost which was one of my biggest fears about the trip.Once I had my bag in hand I touched something that felt like oil and assumed it was something the baggage handlers had done. Come to find out both of my shampoos had ruptured. Luckily, the blast was contained within a side pocket. The only downside was that now my bag smells of hair care product.
After the "shampoo situation" we boarded a charter bus to round out the trip to Castiglion Fiorentino. It was nice because the bus was spacious and I was actually able to sleep decently.
After about an hour on the road we stopped at a "truck stop." This thing puts some American restaurants to shame. I got a sandwich. It sounds lame but it was good. Not sure what was on it though.
Once we arrived at Santa Chiara (the study center in Castiglion Fiorentino) we checked into our very nice but very cold room. Pictures will follow eventually, once I figure out how to get them off my phone.
The RC girls in charge then took us on a tour of the town, showing us the best places to get coffee, food, and drinks. Stories to follow soon.

The First of (Hopefully) Many

For all those who don't already know, I'm going to Italy. I will be studying architecture in Castiglion Fiorentino at the Santa Chiara Study Center for four months! Besides scooting around all of Italy, I will also be visiting Barcelona, Spain on spring break as well as making a trip north to Germany and the Netherlands when the program ends in May. I will be using this blog as an electronic journal of sorts to keep anyone who cares updated on my exploits. There is about three weeks until I ship out and lots to do still. My next post will most likely be from Itlaia. Ciao!