Weekend in London/GETTING HOME (a story told in 2 parts)

PART ONE: I was afraid I wouldn't get to go to London during my time in Europe because most of my friends on my program had already been, so it was pure luck that I ended up being free on a weekend when my friends from school would be there! Finally, I had someone to go with AND I got to see my school friends and we had a great weekend -- London is such a cool city. It is a perfect blend of Western culture (i.e., where I can get a huge Starbucks on any corner or have access to a McDonald's whenever I'm craving it) and traditional British/European culture. It's the most unique city I've been to -- for sure the NYC of Europe, although I hate using any comparison.

My Italian class got cancelled on Friday so I was able to leave Friday morning. However, because getting from Siena to ANYWHERE is a logistical nightmare, I didn't end up in London til around 4:30. I sprinted to meet my friends to get something really fast to eat and then we went to see "Billy Elliot." I typically hate musicals, but it was actually really good! And being a tourist in London, I felt like I was obligated to see it.

On Saturday, we did all of the touristy sight-seeing at Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, etc. Of course, entrance to these places is prohibited so that didn't take up too much time. Then, we headed to Portobello Market which was a really cool open-air market in front of these beautiful pastel apartments. The markets sold awesome antique clocks, silver, jewelry, paintings, as well as cool jewelry, some food, and random toys. My friend Molly and I bought original and authentic, beautiful prints of the cartoon Babar the Elephant to hang in our bedrooms next year!

The pretty pastel buildings at Portobello Market (top) and Big Ben (bottom)

Afterwards, we made our way towards Oxford Circus, which is, in my opinion, the London version of Times Square (actually, I guess Times Square is the NYC version of Oxford Circus).....the place was a ZOO with about a billion people, all of the huge stores, only much prettier than anything in America. Our primary goal was to spend some quality time in the Topshop flagship store which was ridiculous to say the least. Being in here was actually a religious experience -- it was the size of any massive department store, but contained only the coolest and most coveted clothes from Topshop. There was also a restaurant, nail salon, bakery, information desk, etc. etc. Thousands of people were flowing in and out. Oh, and we came during London Fashion Week, so the store was extra crazy. Anyway, it was awesome - everything I had ever imagined, and then some.

For dinner, we went to a part of town called Soho, which is a really cute area in the city of Westminster. I finally had SUSHI!!!!!!!!! for the first time since being here and it was exactly what I needed. Everybody always says how shitty the food in the UK is, but I loved everything I ate here! I just don't think one should go to London planning on eating fish and chips because I don't think that's a good dish no matter WHERE you are. But I thought there was great food. We also went to a pub that was pretty fun, although I was pretty offended when they carded me (drinking age is 18). That was the first time I had been carded since being in Europe, but the people at the bar were pretty rude.

Out in Soho

On Sunday, we split up. Nicole and I went to the British Museum with the main goal of seeing the Rosetta Stone. Honestly, the museum wasn't that great and I wouldn't really recommend going. Perhaps that's because I've become spoiled by some of the greatest museums in the world but I feel as though there are probably better museums in London. Next time I'd like to go to the Tate Modern and to the Tower of London museum where they hold the Crown Jewels, which I was REALLY looking forwards to seeing, but it's closed til March :(

Then, we went to lunch at Covent Garden and walked around some. This area was awesome -- great shops and restaurants and I wish I could've walked around some more. The funniest part was that we accidentally walked straight into the red carpet of the BAFTA Awards, where pretty much every major celebrity from everywhere in the world was! We missed Prince William by mere seconds! This was the end of my wonderful time in London.

Randomly stumbling upon the BAFTA red carpet

BEST COOKIES EVER from Ben's Cookies in Covent Garden
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART 2:

THEN my journey home started. Firstly, anyone reading this needs to know about how screwed up the public transportation in London is right now due to the fact that they're redoing EVERYTHING for the Olympics in 2012. In America, construction on major roadways is usually saved to be done through the middle of the night so that there aren't traffic issues. In London, though, there is no concept of common sense (I'm allowed to say this because this line came straight from my cab driver) so they do roadwork and shut down tube lines during the worst possible times. So during our entire time in London, travel was a HUGE and EXPENSIVE (both time and $$) pain in the ass and the tube closures made everything 1000000 x more confusing than it should've been.

SO, having said that, I had planned on taking a shuttle from the Barbican train station straight to London-Gatwick. Construction forced the closure of the shuttle from Barbica to London-Gatwick and I was told I'd have to go to the Victoria station (a 20 min. and very expensive cab ride away) to catch the only other shuttle, which I ended up missing by literally 3 seconds. So I had to wait 45 minutes for the next shuttle. Getting there took another 30 minutes. So I was already short on spare time.

I get to the airport late and in panic-mode as I have about 3 pounds left in cash and am scarily close to missing my flight to Pisa. Fortunately, I notice that another flight to Florence was departing a little after my Pisa flight, which I was bound to miss. I got myself switched to get to Florence which actually would've worked out in several ways: 1. Missing my Pisa flight wouldn't be the end of the world; 2. Florence is closer to Siena; 3. Trains leave from Florence to Siena much later than trains from Pisa to Siena; 4. In case of an emergency, I had friends in Florence who could help me.

But then, my Florence flight got delayed. And delayed and delayed and delayed. I ended up landing in Florence at 1: AM and made a mad dash to the train station to see if there was any hope of there being a train back to Siena that late. I get to the train station and see that the last train to Siena had left 30 min ago and that there wouldn't be another until 6:30 AM.

Here I was, alone in the Florence train station, middle of the night, getting scary looks from homeless people and creepy men, carrying around a huge duffel with important travel documents and several credit cards. I honestly thought I was a goner. I bbmed my friends and found out that they weren't even in Italy because they had gone to Amsterdam for the weekend. I tried calling my friend Bryan's number frantically, but I kept receiving some stupid message from Vodaphone saying his Italian number wasn't working. I get my dad and sister to somehow get in contact with a member of Bryan's family.

Finally, I received a call from Bryan, who told me that his dad had called him saying that I was in a crisis. Anyway, turns out Bryan had landed back into Florence only hours before from Amsterdam himself. Being the life-saver he is, he rescued me from certain doom and I basically sat on his couch til 6 AM, where I finally got the time to complete my Italian homework and reading.

So I then made the 6:30 AM train back to Siena, walked into my apartment at exactly 8:30 AM because the train made so many g.d. stops, and had class all day from 9 AM - 4 PM. Easily the most miserable day of my life, but 150% worth it because London was out of this world...if I had to go abroad somewhere else, I definitely would've chosen London. A GREAT city.

A Rant

A little rant:

The first thing that I was taught in my Presence of the Past (Italian society/history) course was this: everything in Italy moves slowly. "There is no concept of punctuality or order here," my teacher stressed. To prove her point, she regaled us with a story about how she's been in a monetary dispute with Mediaset, the big Italian commercial broadcasting company (interestingly enough, owned by the Prime Minister, Berlusconi....which says something about the political atmosphere here) for 25 YEARS. She also made us aware of the fact that nowhere in Italy will you find store hours for anything posted. Shops open and close whenever they want. Basically, Italians have a pretty blaise attitude about things that most Americans have come to take as The Word of God.

Example: As an American, I've been trained to assume that when I read on a nation's official train website that a train will be departing from Pisa to Siena at 22:30 on a Sunday, that train will be there come hell or high water. In America, minute details like these are the things around which lives revolve. I can't imagine how any major city in the States would function if people couldn't rely on, say, Walgreens to be open 24-hours, even throughout the landfall of a Category 5 hurricane.

So, I guess I was pretty naive (or spoiled) when I booked my flight to London for this weekend. I specifically made sure to book a flight that landed in Pisa before the last train went to Siena so that I'd be able to make it home (Pisa, the closest airport, is a 2-hour train ride away). Anyway, I found a train that left about 45 minutes after I was going to land. This was the last train of the night. I figured I'd be safe and sound in my bed by about 2 am because I could count on the good ol' Italian train company to bring me home.

Not so. Turns out, my train got cancelled 2 days ago. This leaves me landing in the Pisa airport at 22:50 (that's 10:50 pm for all you Americans) with no way of getting home until the next train....at 5:45 AM. All hostels = booked. All hotels that weren't over $500/night = booked. Car service home = disgustingly expensive, but that isn't surprising considering the distance between the 2 cities. That leaves me having to spend the night at the airport in Pisa all alone (I'm traveling by myself since the friends I'm meeting are coming from Paris) because Italians have no issue with just cancelling random trains.

At first I thought that this non-chalant attitude towards typically rigid rules was quaint and somewhat cute. I would go to the gelateria at peak gelato-eating time and the store would be closed and I'd think, "That's so sweet how they care more about living better here than they do about making money." Now, I don't think it's that cute. Get your act together, Italy. If I can count on a McDonald's in Texas to provide me with an oreo McFlurry at 3:45 AM when there's a tornado/snow/sleet/hurrican/monsoon/tidal wave/any other natural disaster, then is it too much to expect to be able to have my g-d train show up as promised?

If this is the kind of shit that they pulled at the height of the Roman Empire....no wonder it fell.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE: 1. I'm going to LONDON tomorrow!!!! and 2. The best gelato place in Siena opened earlier this week and it is hands-down the most amazing gelato I've ever had and I've gone back every day this week :)

The Most Beautiful Place in all of Italy...

This weekend, my friends and I had originally planned to go to Viareggio for Carnivale. Although everyone talks about how crazy and awesome the Carnivale in Venice is, we had heard that the "better" and more "authentic" Carinval was in Viareggio. Plus, it has been really cold and nasty in Venice recently and we weren't able to find any hotels or hostels considering we had kind of gotten lazy with planning. So we just decided we'd take the 2 hour train to Viareggio. I researched a little online and in my guidebook beforehand and found nothing but positive things about the town, so I figured it'd be a fun trip.

We left Siena with clear, blue skies. This day definitely had potential...the first beautiful day in about a week. We arrive in Viareggio and it was pouring. I'm not sure where along the journey the weather took a turn for the worst, but it did. Keep in mind, all of the Carnivale events are outdoors and the town is along the beach. I was SO excited to be at a beach.

Well, Viareggio is definitely a beach town. Kind of like how Galveston, Texas is a beach town...definitely not a St. Barth's. Perhaps my expectations were a little high due to the fact that I had been enduring freezing cold conditions for the better part of my stay in Italy. Nonetheless, one of my friends put it best, saying, "Well, at least now we know that not ALL of Italy is beautiful and how fortunate we are to live in Siena." I agreed with her, saying, "All I know is that I'm going online immediately after we get home and making some MAJOR edits on Wikipedia's article about Viareggio."

I had decided to leave my umbrella at home because I thought it was almost impossible for there to be any chance of rain when I was leaving Siena without there being a cloud in the sky. But because I was wrong, I was forced to buy an umbrella right as I exited the train station. I knew that this day wasn't going to go as I had originally expected when the man selling umbrellas sold me mine for 10 euro (it was a REALLY nice umbrella and a REALLY necessary purchase), but then turned around and sold the same kind of umbrella to my friend for 5 euro right in front of my face. I started arguing with the guy, but he didn't appreciate it too much and started yelling at me, so I cut my losses and gave up.

Anyway, we start walking towards the beach expecting to see lots of craziness...huge floats, people wearing masks, drinks everywhere, and really good food. Instead, we saw this:

empty bleachers.

After a couple of minutes wondering why the hell the place was a ghost town, we started asking some locals, who laughed at us and informed us that the Carnivale celebrations were only on Sundays. It turns out that we had come on the wrong day. We laughed at ourselves for a good 30 minutes and once again, decided to cut our losses and eat lunch. And by "eat lunch", I mean "drink lunch."

After consuming about 4 bottles of wine (averaging a bottle per person), we went to the gorgeous beach. It definitely wasn't a tanning day. It was more like this:

the stunning beach at Viareggio

After we ran around the beach for a bit, we walked along the strand. This was the strangest part of out time here. We noticed that the town obviously wasn't too wealthy, yet all of the stores along the strand were ridiculously high-end. And no one was in any of them. Like I said, this place was a legitimate ghost town and it was almost eery being there.

All of the walking had made us really thirsty, so we found another place to get cocktails. We stumbled out of that place and went in search of a place where we could get our faces painted. But of course, since Carnivale is only on Sundays, everyone kept saying, "DOMANDI!!!!" like we were idiots who had ended up at Carnivale on the wrong day or something...how strange!

So then we went back to Siena, got back at like 9:30, and somehow managed to go out til prettty late. Now I'm just waking up and I have SO much work to do :(

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

This weekend in the last weekend that I'm going to be spending in Siena! The thing is, I won't even be here tomorrow...I'm going to Viareggio for their crazy Carnival celebration and I can't wait. Hopefully the weather there will be decent because it's been snowing for the past two days here! Although it's beautiful, I don't really enjoy walking to class every day in it. Some people have been asking me for my schedule for the remainder of my time here. Here it is:

Feb. 19th: I'm meeting my friends from UT in London
Feb. 26th: Weekend in Milan with my school
March 5th: Prague
March 12th: Meeting my friends from school again in Paris
March 19th: Dublin for St. Patrick's day :)
March 25th: Weekend in Perugia, Assisi, and Umbria with school
March 27th: My family is coming in town and I'll spend a few days with them in Florence, back to Siena, and then in Venice
April 4-11th: My spring break! I'm going to Sicily and I'm trying to also find a ferry that goes to Malta for a day or two
April 16th: Barcelona
April 23rd: Amsterdam
April 30th: Cinque Terre -- the place in Italy I'm most looking forward to visiting, along with...
May 7th: (Hopefully) The Amalfi Coast, however, that's the weekend right before finals so I need to be smart about my classes
May 15th: HOME?!?!?

I hate to say it, but even after spending a semester here, there is still SO much to see. I can't believe I'll be leaving Europe after 4 months having barely skimmed the surface.

Best. Day. Ever

Anyone who loves Buitoni 4-Cheese Ravioli as much as I do can most likely empathize when I say that I wasn't looking forward to giving this delicious product up for 4 months. I eat this stuff like it's my job - I buy it in bulk and consume all of it pretty much before I reach home from HEB. Basically, I love Buitoni and anyone who has ever tried it can attest to how amazing it is.

Despite the fact that I'm in Italy, the pasta capital of the world, I was beginning to wish that I could just buy some American-style Buitoni pasta to cook at home as I meandered down the aisles of the grocery store here. I saw tons of fancy-looking, authentic Italian pasta, and all I wanted to see was that ubiquitous red and green Buitoni label.

Then...suddenly...as I was nearing the end of the pasta aisle, I saw it: a package of green and red Buitoni 4-Cheese Ravioli was literally right in front of me. I rushed to pick it up as if it'd be gone at any moment and immediately brought it home, cooked it, and ate it.

Needless to say, this has easily been one of the best days of my life. It turns out that Buitoni pasta here is the ORIGINAL Buitoni. Same company, better ingredients, better pasta (like the Papa John's slogan). This ravioli was awe-inspiring. This is probably the pasta that Michaelangelo ate that inspired him to go sculpt David. It's probably what da Vinci ate before he went and painted the Mona Lisa. It satiated my craving for the Buitoni I had left at home, but it simultaneously opened my eyes to how much better the food here is. I can't wait to go back to the grocery store and stock up.

Non capisco!!!!!

I've noticed that I haven't talked much about day-to-day life in Siena, so I guess that's what this post will be about.

I have classes M-F, which kind of sucks, but the teachers seem pretty lenient about missing classes and they even plan on cancelling a bunch. I start class each day either at 9 am (earliest class I've ever had in college) or 11 am (much better) and each class is 2 hours, which doesn't really go well with my short attention span. My classes are Italian, Presence of the Past (history class about Siena and Italy), The Black Plague and Its Aftermath, and the Economic Integration of Europe. The first two classes are great because the teachers are really nice and charismatic; the latter are awful because the teachers are monotone and boring. I wish I could switch into some other courses but I need those specific credits :(

Each day I have a substantial break for lunch so I've been able to try out a lot of different places, but I usually go this one bar (what they call "cafes") and get a tramezzino con proscuitto coto e formaggio (proscuitto and cheese) annnd a cappuccino. I hate the taste of coffee in the States, but I drink it all the time here, usually with 4 packs of sugar because it is SO strong.

The weather hasn't been so great recently, but when it's nice out, I usually eat outside. After class, I'll go and sit in the Piazza with friends or run errands around town. I've been trying to find all of the different Contrade, but that's definitely going to take a while. I'm really not looking forward to when the work starts to pile on because it means I won't be able to have much leisure time, especially considering my plans on traveling every weekend. I'm actually pretty nervous about classes because each class requires a 10 page paper and they're all due on the same day, so I'm going to need to start working on them soon!

People ask me a lot about the nightlife here and to be honest, there's definitely nothing like 6th Street here. There are clubs, but they're pretty unsafe and they require bus rides to get there and back....and the buses only come every 3 hours, so if you go, you know you are going to have to stay for that long. But nights are fun...just very low-key. We go to pubs and meet other students. However, I don't go out too much during the week because the cities that I'm traveling to every weekend all have amazing nightlife so I definitely take advantage of that. Plus, because I'm traveling pretty much every weekend, I basically have no life during the week because that's the only time I can do school work.

This weekend I'm planning on going to Viareggio, a seaside town in northern Tuscany, because it's carnival and their celebration is actually supposed to be much better than the one in Venice!

When in Rome...

A good friend once asked me the following: "In Rome, do you think they say, 'When in America'?" This weekend, I found out firsthand that sadly, the answer is "no."

On Friday after class, I took the bus with 2 other girls on my program directly to Rome. The bus ride brought back horrible memories of my first time navigating the bus system from Rome to Siena right after I had been traveling for almost 24 hours. This time was so different...I can't believe that happened just 3 weeks ago. It feels like so long ago!

Anyway, we made it to our hostel. I had never stayed in a hostel before so I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that we were staying at a place called Alice in Wonderland B&B and that the place had received good ratings on hostelworld.com. I was so excited to have a room to put all of my stuff down, but immediately after we walked in, we were notified that the place had overbooked us. Panic ensued, but ultimately the hostel sent us to another "hostel" located nearby.

I say "hostel" with quotation marks because this place was definitely more like a host family. The 3 of us ended up in the guestroom of their house. They were so nice and helpful and it actually turned out better for us because the location (middle of Chinatown) was much closer to all of the sights.

We spent Friday afternoon and night walking around the northern part of the city, which consisted of the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the Piazza del Popolo. Although everyone always talks about the Spanish Steps, I honestly don't understand the hype. They're...steps.

The Trevi Fountain, on the other hand, was incredible. It's so much bigger than I had expected and going at night was a great decision because the lighting from the fountain made it look even more stunning. The saying goes that if you throw 3 coins from your right hand over your left shoulder, you're either a. supposed to get married; b. supposed to get divorced; or c. supposed to return to Rome one day...I'm guessing I read an amalgamation of all the different superstitions.

I also thought that the Piazza del Popolo was worth visiting. It's a huge square that contains a giant Egyptian obelisk at its center. The obelisk itself dates back to the 10th century BC and was brought to Rome by Augustus. It was originally placed in the Circus Maximus but was then moved to the Piazza in the 1500s. The rest of the Piazza was constructed in the 1500s and was used for various purposes, the last of which was public executions. People stopped doing that in the mid-1800s though :)

On a related note, I noticed throughout my time in Rome how much Egypt had an influence on Roman architecture and art because of Rome's conquest of Egypt under Augustus. It's so strange to still see that influence even today. Egyptian influence is everywhere here, not just in the Piazza del Popolo. The Vatican is another place that was (unexpectedly) enormously abundant in Egyptian references.

my friend, Becca, and me in front of the Colosseum and the Piazza del Popolo

The next day was spent at the Vatican doing the Vatican museums, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, the Pantheon, etc. etc. My personal favorites were seeing the inside of St. Peter's (basically a marble palace) and the Sistine Chapel.

We then went back to the high fashion street where we window shopped and ate dinner, checked out the nightlife, and then passed out. The food in Rome wasn't really notable. I'm not sure if this was because we didn't really know where the good restaurants were, or perhaps because Rome just isn't a food city. It's definitely an industrial and modern place. Besides all of the historical surroundings, Rome is not one of those Italian cities fixated on preserving their culture and I wouldn't call any of the food I ate there "traditional Italian"...they pretty much cater to what the tourists expect traditional Italian to be.

Sunday was GORGEOUS -- it made up for the previous 2 days of crappy weather and was the perfect time to see the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. We didn't go inside either because of time constraints, but apparently there isn't much to see in the Colosseum anyway. The Roman Forum, however, was something I would definitely pay the price of admission to go into and explore.

All in all, the trip was great and we made it back to Siena by the late afternoon. I can't believe it's already the 2nd week of classes!