spring break

whoa. my spring break starts tomorrow. that snuck up on me. this week was midterms, and tomorrow i leave for ten days. marisa, wendy, and i are going to paris and barcelona, and then we are meeting up with my housemates in valencia, spain. wish me luck, i might need it.

back from palermo

we had to take a train from florence to pisa, where there's an airport. we left at 8 am on friday. got on the train, go the airport, get on the plane, everything is fine..we land..and have no idea what to do. there's supposed to be a shuttle, but it's nowhere in sight. there is a bus that says it's going to center city palermo, so we get on it, but at this point, we're not sure if it's going to take us where we want to go, so we have to look at the street signs, which causes some stress. so as soon as we start to recognize street signs, we're ok. which happens. and we stop at the bus station. and walk to our hotel, which we find easily. we spent that first day walking around. saw some of the "main" sights, which were nice, but not nearly as impressive as rome obviously. like this one place is called quattro canti, 4 corners, and it's just 4 statues on each intersecting corner. jen didn't believe that was it, since it's one of the main sights.

we walked around for a bit on the streets, and then through this park full of palm trees and cacti and orange trees. then we walked down to the water. on the way we had lunch and had a cannoli!!!!!! the water was beautiful and i climbed on the rocks. then we walked back to our hotel for a little bit, and on the way we got a little lost. a man on a bike stopped to try to help us, which shows that people in palermo are way friendlier than in florence. we walked through a game of soccer and one of the boys said ciao bella to us, which was just funny. a lot of men stared and honked at us. sometimes it was funny, a lot of times it was annoying, and sometimes it was creepy.

that night we went out to dinner and were the only ones in the restaurant. palermo like closes down at 9, there was no one around. it's still a city, so it was kind of strange to us.

the next morning, we decide to follow the guide book and take a boat to a nearby island. spent the morning wandering around the port, asking a bunch of different people questions. turns out the ticket booth is closed, so we have to make a new plan.

we walk around for a bit and find this little place where we decide to have lunch, it was called mama something.

also i forgot to mention that people speak very little english in palermo. even the man at the front desk of our hotel spoke mostly italian.

so we're in this little restaurant, and there's no menu. the woman is telling us what the specialities are and she's mentioning fish. the other girls tell her they don't want fish, but i decide to go for it.

they end up getting spaghetti with tomato sauce and eggplant, and i get seafood spaghetti with peas. don't ask me what kind of seafood, i know there was some calimari in there. it was really good, but the spaghetti was super al dente so it had a crunch to it.

they would have kept bringing us out more food if we hadn't told them we were full. she even yelled at the other girls for not finishing their pasta. still, the woman brought us cake. we called it "cannoli cake" because it was filled with ricotta and chocolate chips. they also brought us the most delicious limoncello i've ever had. and she gave us shot glasses to keep as "souvenirs." one of the women made fun of me asking for the check, but she helped gave us directions to the bus stop so we could follow our second plan, getting to the beach of mondello. at the bus ticket station, there were about 5 guys, all of who tried to help us figure out which bus we wanted to take and when we would leave. the bus driver walked with us to the bus. on the bus, we had some miscommunication because we were trying to ask him how to return from the beach. we were talking in circles, and we had some 15 year-old boys on the bus trying to help us also. it was funny. but everyone was really nice for trying to help us and eventually we understood. the bus driver was very nice too. he called us to the front of the bus when it was our stop and told us to be careful and hold on to our belongings on the beach. the water was so blue and clear and the beach was awesome. i had a gelato sandwich. people on the beach were really funny. then we got the bus back. and then i had calimari for dinner and when i say calimari, it wasn't fried rings..it was a full squid. it was delish though. and that was sicily! it was awesome!!

off to palermo

planning spring break is the most frustrating thing ever. dear france and spain, stop being so difficult to navigate, ok thanks.
tomorrow morning i leave for sicily. i'm a little nervous because they supposedly speak with a much different dialect than the "textbook" italian. and i have a feeling they won't speak as much english since i'm sure palermo isn't nearly as touristy as florence. it'll be an adventure. sicily was the one place i said i had to go in italy because my italian roots are there. representttt.

venice and rome

i have done so much in the past 2 weeks that i don't know how to begin writing about it. i will try to summarize. i met my parents in venice, like planned. we spent the next 3 days in venice, seeing st. mark's square, st. mark's basilica, other churches, the doge's palace with the prisons, and other museums that i can't remember the names of. venice is beautiful with the water, but everything is very expensive there. we had really nice weather so that was good.
then we came back to florence. my parents climbed the duomo, then i joined them for the duomo museum and santa croce, which i still hadn't been inside of. i showed them mercato centrale and took them to some of my favorite places to eat. we also discovered a few new places.
then we left for rome. in rome we went to the vatican, saw the sistine chapel, the colosseum, the forum, the pantheon, palantine hill, circus maximus, more churches and piazzas with epic statues and fountains. rome might have been my favorite city so far. i wouldn't want to live there though, but it was awesome to visit.
next weekend i am going to sicily with jen and wendy! we'll be staying in palermo but we might make some day trips, since apparently palermo is a smog-infested city. i'm excited to go to sicily though.