Finally a new post! (Side trip update)

Okay, so I have officially failed at my attempt to regularly post on here. I'm sorry friends!! If I were to say that the past couple weeks have been INSANE, it would be an understatement. But, they have been amazing!

Let's see if I can try to catch up a little bit...

The last time I posted was about my weekend trip to Firenze. Since then, I have visited Pisa, Montepulciano, and Paris! I'll try to do a highlight reel of those trips before I fill you in a little bit more about life in Arezzo.

Pisa--

Some of my friends were taking a flight out of the Pisa airport, so a few of us decided to tag along and visit the city for the day. It was a great day trip! We took some epic touristy pictures, had lunch, walked around, ate gelato, basically a standard visit to an Italian town. There's not that much to see in Pisa, to be honest, other than the tower and the surrounding area to that. But it was definitely worth it to visit for the day!

Woah look at me stepping on the Leaning Tower of Pisa?!?

We just couldn't resist taking the super touristy pics. Yoliio right??

Montepulciano--

I went to Pisa on a Friday, so the next day on Saturday a different group of my friends all planned a day trip to visit Montepulciano, a smaller town in Tuscany just south of Arezzo. My parents actually stayed there for a while and said it was a beautiful little town. By their input and with some great recommendations from a friend of mine who had visited Montepulciano, we thought it would be a great place to visit a few "cantine" (wine cellars) to have some wine tastings and just explore. We thought it would be a pretty relaxing trip, but it actually ended up being one of the most adventurous days yet!

The story begins with getting off of the train at the Montepulciano station. It's not exactly a main stop, so you have to get off of the train pretty quickly. I was bringing up the rear of our group, and some people were taking a little bit longer to gather things up and leave.... meaning that as I was about to step out of the train, the doors started to close. Literally closing on me. So, I just jumped from the inside of the train onto the platform -- it's higher than just a normal step. It's kind of hard to explain, but basically it was just hilarious because I almost got shut on the train. Suffice it to say, that was just the beginning. We get out of the train station expecting to see a bus station with buses running up to the actual town of Montepulciano, since the city itself is up on a hill about 9 km from the train station. What I'm thinking now is that we should have stopped at the larger Chiusi train station to get the buses, because there definitely weren't any running from the small station we were at. Regardless, we had no clue how to get up inside the city walls... we didn't really want to spring for a taxi and no one wanted to walk 9 km there and back. So, we just kinda started walking down the street to look for a way to get there. We happened upon a little winery and vineyard right down the street, and we started talking to the man working there to see if he knew how we could make our way into Montepulciano. He tried to call some cheaper taxis for us, but nothing was working out. Eventually, he offered to drive us up to the town himself in his own car -- there were 8 of us so he took us 4 at a time and only asked us for 10 euro for each trip. We didn't know what else to do, so... why not? He was awesome!

After essentially hitchhiking into the town, we explored for a little bit and found somewhere to get lunch because all of that thinking and stressing had made us extremely hungry. Lunch was a-mah-zing, and then we made our way to the first wine tasting at a place called Cantine del Redi. It was quite possibly the coolest "store"-- if you can call it that -- that I've ever been to. We walked through a bunch of stone tunnels and saw all their wine casks and barrels... I'm not really sure how to describe it, but let me just tell you it was awesome. Here are some pictures...

We didn't see a single person while we were walking through all of that, but we had been informed that we would eventually make our way to the tasting room. And we did!

Their wine was delicious. Montepulciano is known for a particular kind of wine called Vino Nobile, so I couldn't resist buying one of their good bottles of it to take back to Arezzo. A girl can never have too much variety in wine, am I right?

Anyway, as the day progressed we saw some more cool buildings and architecture and visited two more places where we had wine tastings. Probably one of the most epic things I've done so far was at one of these wineries where they have an Etruscan tomb from 500 BC in their cellars. Not only did we visit this Etruscan tomb, we also shared a bottle of their wine and drank it IN THE TOMB! It sounds creepy, but it wasn't at all (it's not like there are still bodies or anything in there). We had a dance party and just hang out down there. It was a once in a lifetime experience!

There is way more to tell about Montepulciano, but I don't want to go on for too long. Just know that it is definitely worth a visit if you ever have the chance! Just promise me you won't go because it's where they filmed a scene from Twilight's New Moon movie when they were in "Volterra"... Because it is. If you can put that slight mishap aside, Montepulciano is great!

From the movie

My picture of Piazza Grande

Stupid Kristen Stewart. (They added the fountain for the movie)

Montepulciano also has BEAUTIFUL views of the countryside over the city walls. The photos really don't do it justice.

Paris--

What can I say about Paris? The architecture, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower... all of it was just beautiful. I think my favorites were visiting Notre Dame (I even got to hear mass and receive communion there!) and Sacre Coeur along with drinking champagne at night in front of the Eiffel Tower. The Louvre was way more fun than I thought it would be, though. Mona Lisa isn't exactly a postage stamp, but she isn't as cool as the Victory of Samothrace -- in my not-so-qualified opinion. We did have one experience with very rude French people, but overall most people were fine and we had a nice time. The food, especially the bread and the breakfast food, was DELICIOUS! I have to say, I like French bread much more than I like Tuscan bread. If you don't know, Tuscan bread has pretty much no salt in it... so it's very bland.

I also bought a book at a bookstore called Shakespeare & Co. that's close to Notre Dame. Apparently that's where F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway would hang out when they were in Paris. Pretty cool. Oh, and we went to Laduree! It's a place known for its desserts, especially macaroons. It was soooo good. The macaroons were great, but I think my favorite thing I got there was a raspberry tart with passionfruit cream. Seriously, best dessert I've ever had in my entire life. Absolutely worth the 6,70 euro haha.

I said "hi" to Mona for all of you

The Victory of Samothrace, my favorite piece at the Louvre

The crew! In front of the Louvre

Shakespeare & Co.

Notre Dame

Sacre Coeur

Poppin' bottles!

Our first breakfast (plus ham and eggs not shown)... so much food and it was all amazing

Well, I'm running out of time before I have to go get "aperitivi" or pre-dinner drinks with my class and my awesome Italian professor! I will post again soon to update on the happenings in Arezzo! I'm staying in town this weekend, so I should have more time. I love and miss all of you and I hope to hear from you soon! 

Buona giornata!

First week of classes and a trip to Florence!

I now officially have one week of classes here in Arezzo under my belt. We had Monday off for MLK day, so things got started off on Tuesday with Beginning Italian. I'm not actually sure that knowing Spanish is going to help me too much with learning Italian in the beginning because I have found myself slipping into trying to say something in Spanish that means something different in Italian since they are so similar. But, I'm really going to try to pick up a decent understanding of the language while I'm here. Fingers crossed! We also had a short meeting with my Italian Culture through Literature and Film class to make up for missing it on Monday since it is a seminar class that only meets on Monday afternoons for 3 hours. We started reading our first book, Orlando Furioso, and had to read the first 15 "canti" -- or chapters -- by next class. It's actually been pretty interesting! It's kind of the Italian version of an epic like The Odyssey or Don Quixote but it has a lot more storylines and wayyy more characters and separate plotlines... so, like this sentence, it can be hard to follow at times. The first 15 canti were good, though.

I get the feeling that Wednesdays are going to be the coolest days of the school week. That will be when my Renaissance Art History class meets every week. Now this is not your typical art history class where you just look at slides and want to fall asleep the entire time (apologies to my mom, the art history major! haha). Ours is more of a field class, where pretty much every week will consist of traveling to a new location -- whether in Arezzo, Florence, or Rome -- to actually SEE the art while our professor lectures about it. Instead of just looking at a picture of the David, we will be standing in front of it while learning about it. So cool.

My only other class is called Getting to Know Arezzo, and we meet about once a month to do some sort of activity that shows us a little bit of what Arezzo is all about. We had a GTKA class this past Friday that was just so awful... we had a wine-tasting at a local vineyard!

View of the vines and the center of Arezzo in the distance

Life here is so tough, right?

We met up at the OUA center first where Jason and Monica, the faculty-in-residence who teach the class, taught us a little bit about different kinds of wine here in Tuscany and the different standards they can be categorized into, from "Indicazione Geografica Tipica" (IGT), to "Denominazioni di Origine Controllata" (DOC), to "Denominazioni di Origine Controllata e Garantita" (DOCG) and what rules the winemakers have to follow in order to fit these categories. Then we made our way to the vineyard (its name is La Striscia) which was just a little while outside the city walls. Some of the class walked there (about a half hour walk) and some of us took the OUA van. I've been feeling a little sick this past week and it was pretty cold out, so I took the van. I definitely want to walk through that area at some point, though, because even driving through it was beautiful. Anyway, we toured the vineyard, saw the vines (not exactly in bloom, unfortunately... drawback of it being January), and where they make the wine itself. Then we headed into their cute little room where we tasted 3 of their wines and they made us antipasti and lunch. It was great! I even ended up purchasing one of their Chianti wines to share with my mom when she comes to visit -- Surprise Mom!! :)

When we got back from the wine-tasting, a few of my friends and I spontaneously decided to join some more people from our program on a train to Florence that left in about 2 hours from then! Yay for last minute decisions, haha! We stayed in a hostel there that was actually much nicer than I had ever heard about hostels being... I'm afraid that now I might be spoiled. It was pretty much like a hotel with bunk beds. Anyway, it was just a great weekend! We went out on Friday night to dinner, a few bars, and a discoteca, and then we woke up on Saturday to shop and walk around. It is just a beautiful city and I can't wait to go back about 5 more times for class!

Sorry I'm kind of shorting you on the details, but I need to go get ready to head to mass at the Duomo here in Arezzo. I'll post a few pictures here but I plan on uploading some to Facebook later tonight. I didn't take too many in Florence, sort of because I knew I would be back, and also because one of my friends, Amanda, took some great ones with a much better camera than mine, haha. But don't worry, there will be plenty more when I go back to visit Firenze again -- literally at least 4 times just from my Art History class.

So, for now, buona giornata! (have a good day!)

La Striscia

Florence

Settling in...

Wow, what a whirlwind of a week! It's pretty crazy to think that I have now officially been in Italy for 7 days. This time last Sunday, I was on a bus into Rome... and now I'm hanging out in my apartment (a freaking permanent residence!) in Arezzo. It still blows my mind that I live in Italy now.

I live only a 3 hour drive from this. Like, what??

Anyway, to catch up on what I've been doing the past couple of days... A LOT! Probably the most important thing that I've had to do was submit my permit of stay, or my "permesso" that legally allows me to stay in Italy for a long period of time as a student. Even though that sounds unbelievably boring, it was actually a pretty funny experience! We had to fill out a bunch of paperwork (not so funny) and then take it to the post office in Arezzo to go through the submission process. Now, we had been warned by our director of student affairs, Charlotte, and Lucio, an Italian man who helps out around OUA and basically connects us to the Arezzo community, that there was a certain woman who works at the post office who is a major stickler and is basically just super uptight. Apparently she would have no qualms about refusing an application if there is even a smudge out of place. Compared to the usual relaxed and go-with-the-flow nature of most Italians, she is definitely an oddity. Anyway, we went to the post office in kind of reverse alphabetical order, so I was one of the last people to go submit my permesso kit. When I got there, Lucio and Kaydee (our graduate student assistant at OUA) told us that we had lucked out and Patrizia (the crazy one) hadn't been working the entire time they had been there (about 3 and a half hours). How would I know her name then, you might ask? Well, literally right as my number was about to be called, Patrizia took over one of the windows. There were about 6 different windows that were open, but guess which one I got?? Yep. So Lucio had to help translate and walk me through the process since Patrizia did not speak any English (something that Lucio told me she was muttering about to herself the entire time that she was looking over my application, which was a decent amount of time since she checked everything about 5 times). While we were dealing with this, we heard an Italian woman start to yell at Kaydee who was helping out two of my friends, Katie and Brynne, at a different window. I, obviously, had no clue what she was yelling about (and they didn't either), but Lucio had to run over there and talk to the woman. Apparently she was upset that there were so many of us Americans taking up windows for so long, even though we had taken numbers and waited our turn just like everyone else. I'm not going to lie, from what Lucio told us, she was kind of a b that rhymes with itch. After that got sorted out and we finally finished, we went home. I didn't really do that story justice, but trust me when I tell you that it was pretty much hilarious. Witnessing people yelling at you in a foreign language for a ridiculous reason and listening to a crazy lady talk to herself about you in front of you is kind of a singular experience, well, for me at least.

So that was one of the more eventful orientation tasks that we completed.

Other than that, one of the coolest things I've done so far was walking around with our Getting to Know Arezzo class to different places to buy food to cook and prepare at home instead of going out for every meal. Now, those of you who know my eating habits know that I'm definitely no chef and am definitely hurting for some Canes or Braums right now. But I'm going to try to cook from home a pretty good amount this semester. Not only is it much cheaper, but it's also kind of awesome to go shopping here... it's just so different, and yet somewhat the same, you know? Going to the supermarket was an awesome experience. I couldn't read ANYTHING on the labels, but I mostly figured it out. I made my best purchase to date...

Goat cheese!! No clue what the rest says, but I know exactly what this guy is

I also got some other healthy stuff...

And some not-so-healthy stuff...

What can I say? I'm not perfect.

But just because I can make some stuff from home now, that doesn't mean that we don't still go out on occasion! Here are some pictures from a dinner that I had with a few of my friends, including some red wine that I enjoyed!

From the left: Brynne, Katie, and Karin (one of my roommates)

The vino! I thought the bottle was cool.

Lindsey is in the front, then Kelsey is on her left (another one of my roommates!)

We've had some great times so far... I love all the people here! I can definitely tell that there are adventures to come.

Yesterday morning we woke up and went to the Saturday market here in Arezzo where they sell a huge variety of things (clothes, household items, shoes, etc.) for cheaper prices. I didn't buy anything, but there were some pretty cute sweaters for only a few euro! There were also food trucks there, and I got the best chicken wing with french fries that I've ever had, and it was just 2 euro... Let's just say that every time I'm in town for a Saturday market I will be stopping by that rosticceria truck.

Then me, Lindsey, Katie, and Karin went into a few stores to go shopping a little bit, and I bought a sweater there. First, though, we had to warm up from walking around in the SNOW through the market! (Yeah it was only flurries, but still.) We stopped by Coffee O'Clock, a kind of Americanized cafe where I got an ah-mah-zing caffe mocha. All the other coffees I had tried so far in the Italian cafes just weren't to my taste, but this mocha was soooo good. Apparently Coffee O'Clock will also let you take coffees to go! That's a rare thing in Italy, so I have a feeling I'll be back.

Yum... and so pretty!

 Well, that's just about all I've got for now. We have also gone to a discoteca and some of the bars around town, but I don't want to bore you with those details. Suffice it to say, it's been a fun week! I need to go get some food before our movie night we are having at OUA tonight, but please comment with any questions! I miss all of you and would love to hear from ya! Have a wonderful week!

Arezzo: The Beginning

Ciao amici! (Hi friends!)

If the past few days are any indication, I have a feeling I won't have the chance to blog super often... there is so much to do here! I will definitely try to write at least once or twice a week though so that you guys know that I'm alive.

The thing is, I don't know if you guys have heard, but Italy is freaking awesome! I've had the opportunity to walk around and explore Arezzo a lot more in the past few days, and it is such a cute town! There are definitely modernized areas, but the historic center is quaint and very old school. The other day we went on a walking tour and one of the coolest views I've ever seen was up at the highest point in town, looking over the city walls to the surrounding parts of Arezzo that are outside the "main city". Since I'm terrible at descriptions, I'll give you a few pictures.

They really don't even do it justice, to be honest. Anyway, so it was very cool to go on our little walking tour and see just a taste of what Arezzo has to offer.

One of the many hilarious things that have already happened in our first few days was the creation of our new catchphrase. At the risk of failing in humility, I have to say that I was the one who came up with it. We were talking during our welcome dinner last night (side note, it was amazing... a free 3 course meal in which my favorite dish we had was a black truffle tortolini pasta that was AH-MAZING) about how the whole "yolo" (a.k.a. "you only live once" for those not aware) thing is soooo 2012... but we needed a reason to order some more wine other than just that we were thirsty. So since yolo wasn't cutting it, I had the thought that we should just say "yoliio" --- an Italianized version of yolo, complete with the Italian hand gesture below, to stand for "you only live in Italy once". Because, let's face it, most of us probably won't have the chance to live in Italy for 4 months again. But yeah, everyone thought that was pretty funny and we've been throwing it out and hashtagging it ever since.

Thoroughly Italian kids over here

Speaking of #yoliio -- I actually had red wine with dinner last night and I even enjoyed it! I'm sure no one will be as surprised by this as my parents because, even though they are what some people may call wine connoisseurs, I have never really had much of a taste for it until now. But, I figured that while in Italy... You just gotta do it. Yoliio. And it was good! I'll keep you posted on my progress.

That's about all I've got for today... I don't have too much time, and I'm a pretty boring writer anyway, so I'll just leave you with some pictures.

 My room

 My room

 View from my room

 Next couple are of our apartment

 the Grand Piazza

 Building off of the Grand Piazza

 More Grand Piazza...

 Cool view of the sunset from the top of the Grand Piazza

 Random tree in the middle of it?

 Next few are of the Duomo, one of the churches in town that is at the top of the city

Park next to the Duomo