I did a TON of work today: I figure I deserve a break, and I might as well spend it productively by writing a blog post.
So I survived the rest of Freshers Week! I can't say enough that it was totally weird going through all the orientation/get-to-know-you stuff again. One of our last official Fresher's Week events involved a pub quiz. Pembrokians have a "local," i.e. a local pub, in addition to the college bar. The local, called The Blenheim (pronounced Blenhm, for those of you who would otherwise by likely to use a more proper German pronunciation), is just around the corner from college. They have a full menu, so the night of the pub quiz, some of us went there before hand to eat (I had really tasty chili). When everyone else who was participating in the quiz showed up, we split into teams. It turns out that pub quizzes are exactly like what Philadelphians would call Quizzo: a team game of random trivia with several rounds. Ian, the guy that runs the pub, read out the questions and we answered as a team. Quizzo has three non-standard rounds - each team has to pick a round to count for double points, a pictorial round, and also a round in which all the answers connect in some way. At the Blenheim, there's still a connection round and a pictorial round, but there's also a round in which teams have to identify songs or other quotes (in this case, the quotes were snippets from Looney Tunes). My team fared very well, and though we didn't win, everyone got a bag full of free stuff including playing cards and beer t-shirts.
Freshers week is for getting to know the other students at your college and orientation events, but it's also for university-wide recruitment for sports teams and other clubs. There was a huge university-wide Freshers Fair late in the week, which was open to all Oxford students. We all went to the examination schools, big open halls sort of in the center of town, to peruse the hundreds of booths. It was sort of overwhelming - the halls were hot and packed, and the sheer amount of information available was mind-boggling. There were political clubs, musical groups and societies, language clubs, wine-tasting societies, sports teams on any number of levels, environmental groups, volunteering opportunities - really, anything you could think of. I put my name on so many email lists, I don't even remember all I signed up for. The fair was on Thursday; on Friday, my friend Anna from Tufts said that she had talked to the people at the basketball table and was going to tryouts on Saturday. I thought she meant basketball tryouts for Pembroke and agreed to go. When we met on Saturday morning, I discovered that she meant University basketball tryouts, but I was all dressed and ready to go, so we just headed for the courts. Now you have to realize that I haven't played competitive basketball since middle school. I played intermural ball all through high school, but as Maggie pointed out to me, my attendance record at Penn's gym is less than stellar. So I was sort of panting my way through drills and scrimmages, but somehow I managed to make the final cut! We're divided into two teams, the Blues, or varsity team, and twos, a junior varsity equivalent. I'm on the twos, but still, it's not bad for not having played in awhile. I have a lot of shaping up to do, but it should be good fun, as we get to travel to other universities for games. Our first "match," as they call it, is Wednesday in Birmingham, three hours away. We've only had one practice, so we'll see how it goes, but it should be a fun trip, and I'll get to see places in England I probably wouldn't have gone otherwise.
After basketball tryouts, Anna, who ended up making the Blues, and I went down to Pembroke's boathouse for an open day. The rowers were grilling out and giving people who had never rowed before an opportunity to try it out. I was pretty exhausted by the time we got there, but I had a hamburger and then gave it a go anyway. The took us into the boathouse and put us on rowing machines to teach us the basic motions, then put us straight in a boat and took us out on the river. I was fine on the rowing machine, but I ended up between two men who knew what they were doing in the actual boat, so I didn't exactly pull my weight. Actually, I got yelled at a lot by the cox. I think, therefore, my place is as a proud and enthusiastic spectator. But that's ok - I can now say that I've tried it, plus it was a lovely day on the river. The river is bordered on both sides by a park, so there were lots of people out having picnics in the brilliant sunshine. It's actually been sunny a fair number of the days I've been here, which I think is probably giving me false hope about the climate.
In addition to playing basketball, my other main activity here will be singing in Pembroke's chapel choir. Pembroke is one of many colleges at Oxford that has its own chapel. Ours is quite small, but very beautiful, with intertwining vines on the ceiling, exquisite stained glass, a marble altar and a big, old organ. The choir is run by our two organ scholars, who are here to study and write music as well as studying organ performance. The choir, about 30 members, rehearses from 3:30 to 5:30 every Sunday, with a short break for tea and cake mid-way, then sings the evensong service in the chapel. It's a very traditional Anglican service with sung responses, hymns, readings and a short message by the chaplain. After the service and a glass of sherry, the choir goes to formal hall with all the other first years, except everyone who participates in the service sits together in a small side room. The evensong service stood in stark contrast to the church I went to Sunday morning - St. Aldate's, right outside of college. It's an old church, but they've reoriented the sanctuary to be more conducive to a very modern style of worship. A very professional worship team led us in a series of praise and worship songs, then a guest speaker gave a talk about why Christianity makes philosophical sense (as opposed to other theories, like those produced by Kant, for example). It was a fun service, though VERY different from what I'm used to at home. There's another church really close by that apparently does things a little more liturgically, so I'll have to check that out next week. The contrast between the morning and evening services really struck me - I enjoyed them both, in different ways obviously. There's a part of me that loves that half-hour long, emotional worship set, but also a part that cherishes the quiet, intimate evensong service.
My actual academics began today - funny how they feel almost like a sidenote to everything else that's gone on in the past week. I had a great time in my first Shakespeare tutorial today - an hour with a professor and another student, hashing out the personality of Hamlet. Good stuff! Next up - Othello. But I do have a Milton essay due on Thursday, so I'll have to get down to work on that tomorrow. All in all, my first day of actual school at Oxford went well and I'm looking forward to getting adjusted to this whole tutorial thing.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
OXFORD
And so the adventures begin again - I have officially arrived at Oxford! I landed at Heathrow at 6:30 Sunday morning, a little shell-shocked, I have to say. I did sleep on the plane, but not as long as I would have liked (especially since they woke us up at 4:30 local time to serve us coffee and breakfast). My luggage was easy to find, and I didn't have any trouble finding the bus station at the airport, once I realized I needed to get to the "Central Bus Station," which happens to be quite a walk from the terminal at which I arrived. I met some other visiting students as soon as I got to the bus, though they weren't headed to Pembroke, and I even saw another Penn student, my friend Karla, on the bus! The ride to Oxford wasn't long (about an hour, I think). I couldn't believe how much the countryside between London and Oxford looked like home - rolling hills, grass just starting to turn brown, similar trees at about the same state of changing. It was kind of nice to feel familiar with the territory right away.
I arrived at Pembroke at about 9:30, and I was greeted right away by very, very nice people. You enter the college at the "Porter's Lodge" (really just a kind of foyer) to meet the Porter, a man who is in charge of all the keys and things. I got my keys and was escorted by some members of the JCR, a committee of second year students who help everyone get moved in and adjusted, as well as planning events and entertainment. We went with my luggage to my room, in the Macmillan building, commonly called "the Mac." It really reminds me of English House, for all you Penn folks, and for the uninitiated, of my dorm freshman year. The Mac is a building built in the late 1960's, I would think; it's a rather low, brick building. My single room is a good size. It's kind of a square, with the fourth wall being a wide window. The wall opposite the window is a closet and a sink. Otherwise, I have a bed, a desk, and two chairs, as well as a spinny computer chair. (Pictures to come). There are 14 girls on the hall and we share a bathroom (and on that note, I don't ever want to here another person at Penn complain about facilities - we have two showers for the hall, one of which doesn't work, and both of which are in closets with wooden doors that prevent ventilation).
Since I arrived, things have been kind of a blur. There are so many new things every day! First of all, people. In addition to all the English students, there are about 40 visiting students at Pembroke this term - 12 of them from Tufts, 3 from Cornell, 3 from Georgetown, and on down the line. I'm the only Penn student at Pembroke this term, though there are 7 of us at Oxford. I was adopted right away by the Tufts folks, who took me to their introductory meeting and on their "accomodations" shopping trip. There's a Target-like store right around the corner from Pembroke called Primark that sells duvets for 7 pounds and that sort of thing. Oh, before I get too far, a word about another new thing - the university system here. Oxford is the university and the name of the town, but the schooling at Oxford actually happens in 30 or so colleges, Pembroke being one of them. Pembroke, for example, only has about 350 students, but it has its own facilities and administration. The University is the umbrella organization above the college, and it has research, library, office, etc. facilities for students and administrators. There are many students groups and clubs at the college level, but also at the university level, and there are strong rivalries between the colleges.
Another new thing - words. I thought that the main differences between American and British English were matters of slang, but I've found that this is not exactly the case. There are a lot of everyday things that go by different names in England than they do in the States. For example, I call a knit article of clothing that you wear on your top half a "sweater." Here, unless it's a cardigan, it's called a "jumper." The kind of dress that I would call a jumper is called a pinafore here. A particular source of amusement among the girls on my corridor is my use of the word "dish soap." They call it "washing up liquid," and can't get over my term for soapy stuff you use to clean dishes. We've also had many a good laugh about accents - Sam, the girl who lives a few doors down, keeps trying to say "awesome" the way I do (it sounds cool apparently). Of course all the American students are obsessed with English accents, so I think it goes both ways.
This week has been taking up with a blinding number of information and introduction sessions, plus all the usual social activities that go along with new student orientations. The visiting students got in a day before the rest of the freshers, so the JCR took us to a posh cocktail bar. The first night everyone got in we had our first "bop," or social event. It was a "Pembroke pride" bop: our college colors are navy and bright pink, so everyone dressed up in their brightest blue and pink and craziest outfirts and we had a silent disco. At a silent disco, they bring in headphones that are attached to some sort of wireless network and play music into the headphones; there are two different stations of music, that way everyone gets to listen to music they like, and those who want to talk can hear each other perfectly. Last night we had a "name bop," where everyone dressed up to represent their name (I went as Elle Woods from Legally Blonde). The other thing we did last night was have our first formal dinner with our subject tutors. We all got dressed up and put on our "commoners gowns" (academic robes) then met our professors over champagne. When dinner was served, we went to the hall, where we have all our dinners. We had a three course meal including wine and guinea fowl for the entree. I sat near our two head tutors for English, who were discussing who was meaner. They agreed that one was worse on paper and the other in person, and the one who was worse on paper told this anecdote: one paper was so bad that she couldn't keep reading and wrote in the margin, "trump, trump, trump, this is me trudging up the stairs to throw myself out the window," then with a little line down to the bottom of the page, "thud, I've landed." I'm a little scared for classes now...
I meet my tutor for the first time this afternoon. It's a gorgeous day fall day to day - cool and beautifully sunny. Yesterday was a more typical dreary and rainy day, so I'm sure I'll be getting used to the English weather soon enough. More stories and pictures to come!
I arrived at Pembroke at about 9:30, and I was greeted right away by very, very nice people. You enter the college at the "Porter's Lodge" (really just a kind of foyer) to meet the Porter, a man who is in charge of all the keys and things. I got my keys and was escorted by some members of the JCR, a committee of second year students who help everyone get moved in and adjusted, as well as planning events and entertainment. We went with my luggage to my room, in the Macmillan building, commonly called "the Mac." It really reminds me of English House, for all you Penn folks, and for the uninitiated, of my dorm freshman year. The Mac is a building built in the late 1960's, I would think; it's a rather low, brick building. My single room is a good size. It's kind of a square, with the fourth wall being a wide window. The wall opposite the window is a closet and a sink. Otherwise, I have a bed, a desk, and two chairs, as well as a spinny computer chair. (Pictures to come). There are 14 girls on the hall and we share a bathroom (and on that note, I don't ever want to here another person at Penn complain about facilities - we have two showers for the hall, one of which doesn't work, and both of which are in closets with wooden doors that prevent ventilation).
Since I arrived, things have been kind of a blur. There are so many new things every day! First of all, people. In addition to all the English students, there are about 40 visiting students at Pembroke this term - 12 of them from Tufts, 3 from Cornell, 3 from Georgetown, and on down the line. I'm the only Penn student at Pembroke this term, though there are 7 of us at Oxford. I was adopted right away by the Tufts folks, who took me to their introductory meeting and on their "accomodations" shopping trip. There's a Target-like store right around the corner from Pembroke called Primark that sells duvets for 7 pounds and that sort of thing. Oh, before I get too far, a word about another new thing - the university system here. Oxford is the university and the name of the town, but the schooling at Oxford actually happens in 30 or so colleges, Pembroke being one of them. Pembroke, for example, only has about 350 students, but it has its own facilities and administration. The University is the umbrella organization above the college, and it has research, library, office, etc. facilities for students and administrators. There are many students groups and clubs at the college level, but also at the university level, and there are strong rivalries between the colleges.
Another new thing - words. I thought that the main differences between American and British English were matters of slang, but I've found that this is not exactly the case. There are a lot of everyday things that go by different names in England than they do in the States. For example, I call a knit article of clothing that you wear on your top half a "sweater." Here, unless it's a cardigan, it's called a "jumper." The kind of dress that I would call a jumper is called a pinafore here. A particular source of amusement among the girls on my corridor is my use of the word "dish soap." They call it "washing up liquid," and can't get over my term for soapy stuff you use to clean dishes. We've also had many a good laugh about accents - Sam, the girl who lives a few doors down, keeps trying to say "awesome" the way I do (it sounds cool apparently). Of course all the American students are obsessed with English accents, so I think it goes both ways.
This week has been taking up with a blinding number of information and introduction sessions, plus all the usual social activities that go along with new student orientations. The visiting students got in a day before the rest of the freshers, so the JCR took us to a posh cocktail bar. The first night everyone got in we had our first "bop," or social event. It was a "Pembroke pride" bop: our college colors are navy and bright pink, so everyone dressed up in their brightest blue and pink and craziest outfirts and we had a silent disco. At a silent disco, they bring in headphones that are attached to some sort of wireless network and play music into the headphones; there are two different stations of music, that way everyone gets to listen to music they like, and those who want to talk can hear each other perfectly. Last night we had a "name bop," where everyone dressed up to represent their name (I went as Elle Woods from Legally Blonde). The other thing we did last night was have our first formal dinner with our subject tutors. We all got dressed up and put on our "commoners gowns" (academic robes) then met our professors over champagne. When dinner was served, we went to the hall, where we have all our dinners. We had a three course meal including wine and guinea fowl for the entree. I sat near our two head tutors for English, who were discussing who was meaner. They agreed that one was worse on paper and the other in person, and the one who was worse on paper told this anecdote: one paper was so bad that she couldn't keep reading and wrote in the margin, "trump, trump, trump, this is me trudging up the stairs to throw myself out the window," then with a little line down to the bottom of the page, "thud, I've landed." I'm a little scared for classes now...
I meet my tutor for the first time this afternoon. It's a gorgeous day fall day to day - cool and beautifully sunny. Yesterday was a more typical dreary and rainy day, so I'm sure I'll be getting used to the English weather soon enough. More stories and pictures to come!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
The End of Classes!
I am officially finished with school for the summer semester! Who knew six weeks in Italy would fly by so quickly? (Well, I guess I kind of figured, but now that they're actually gone, it feels different.)
I just finished my last exam - Art History. I studied for it and I think I did well, but I was pleased to discover as I prepared that I didn't actually need to study that much. I think I retained a lot from our many visits - seeing things in person and in context really, really helps. And I actually learned something, instead of just memorizing. Woohoo! I feel the same way about this class as I've felt in the past about my music classes: knowing a little bit about one period in history (in any art) gives you so much context for all other arts. Knowing how to listen carefully to symphonies helps me pay close attention to detail when I look at paintings. And knowing the basics of Renaissance art and how visual art in general developed illuminates even modern art for me.
The rest of today is for relaxing. I have one more Italian class, but we actually finished all our assignments yesterday. Then tonight, Penn is hosting a dinner for all of us. We're leaving the city to go to a villa for a catered affair. Should be wonderful! Friday is for shopping and a last bit of sightseeing, as is Saturday. Then Sunday I fly back to the States! Florence to Munich, Munich to Washington, then my dad is going to drive me home. The whole time change thing is going to be weird, since I'm actually fully adjusted to Florence time. And my flights are 10.5 hours in duration (plus a tiny layover), but I arrive in Dullus only 5 hours after I leave Florence.
More pictures and stories from my trip will follow next week when I have time to write posts.
I just finished my last exam - Art History. I studied for it and I think I did well, but I was pleased to discover as I prepared that I didn't actually need to study that much. I think I retained a lot from our many visits - seeing things in person and in context really, really helps. And I actually learned something, instead of just memorizing. Woohoo! I feel the same way about this class as I've felt in the past about my music classes: knowing a little bit about one period in history (in any art) gives you so much context for all other arts. Knowing how to listen carefully to symphonies helps me pay close attention to detail when I look at paintings. And knowing the basics of Renaissance art and how visual art in general developed illuminates even modern art for me.
The rest of today is for relaxing. I have one more Italian class, but we actually finished all our assignments yesterday. Then tonight, Penn is hosting a dinner for all of us. We're leaving the city to go to a villa for a catered affair. Should be wonderful! Friday is for shopping and a last bit of sightseeing, as is Saturday. Then Sunday I fly back to the States! Florence to Munich, Munich to Washington, then my dad is going to drive me home. The whole time change thing is going to be weird, since I'm actually fully adjusted to Florence time. And my flights are 10.5 hours in duration (plus a tiny layover), but I arrive in Dullus only 5 hours after I leave Florence.
More pictures and stories from my trip will follow next week when I have time to write posts.
Monday, June 29, 2009
A Few More Pictures
Proof that mom and I climbed the duomo!
Feast day of St. John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence. They open the main cathedral doors (a rare event) and the Baptistery's Gates of Paradise for a procession. The red fleur de lis on the flag is the symbol of Florence.
Burano, the Venetian island where they make lace. Very colorful houses, very leaning bell tower.
Venice!!
Back in Florence, I'm a little bit obsessed with the Arno.
Mom and I at Piazzale Michelangelo. We had a great visit!Monday, June 22, 2009
Elba
I have so much to report and I’m weeks behind... maybe I'll try to give the reader's digest version, though that’s generally impossible for me.
This weekend we went to Elba, the island off the west coast of Italy where Napoleon was exiled. It is an absolutely beautiful place, dotted with little beach towns though mostly covered with semi-tropical vegetation and windblown rock faces. We left Florence at 5:30 Friday morning so we could spend the whole day in Elba. We had a 2.5 hour train ride to the port town of Piombino and then an hour by ferry to the town where we were staying, Portoferraio (literally, "iron port"). We walked up a steep hill to get to our hotel, which had a direct view of the sea. The room where I stayed with my friends Indiana and Gabriela even had a little balcony that looked right out on the Tyrrhenean Sea, complete with a table, chairs and an umbrella. Naturally, I started both my mornings in Elba gazing at the water. After we got checked into the hotel and settled we went straight to the beach. Elba has a million little beaches, some of which you can only get to by boat or by hiking down one of the cliffs, so it wasn't weird for our hotel to share a private beach with a few other hotels. The beach was rocky, but the water was warm and the day was cloudless. After a couple of hours my friends Zach and Federico got a little bored, so they rented Vespas and rode to the next town over to see about renting a boat. They called us to say that they would come pick us up at the beach if we would go get something to eat and bring it with us.
Thus began the boating adventure. We had passed a little market on the way to the hotel, so we walked back down the hill. But by the time we got there, it was lunch time and the market was closed. So Indiana and I went on a grand tour of Portoferraio to find a market that was open. We ended up following signs to the Coop, a big Italian grocery chain. It wasn't very much different from an American grocery chain, but of course we didn't know where we were going, so we ran all over to find the things we wanted. We had already told the boys to meet us at a certain beach with the boat, so we hurried there as fast as we could after we finished our shopping. But when we got to the beach, we saw Zach swimming in to talk to the lifeguards. The guy at the boat rental place had told Zach and Federico that they could cut the boat’s motor and row into shore at any beach, but this was apparently not the case at public beaches such as the one we were standing on. One option was to dump a bunch of our stuff on the beach and swim out the considerable distance to the boat, but we all had our cameras and phones, so that idea was vetoed. We spent a couple minutes in complete frustration and some of our group opted out in the process, but soon enough we were on a paddle boat that the lifeguard let us use (for free) to get out to the motor boat with all of our stuff. Federico and Indiana took the pedal boat back to shore, and then swam out to meet the rest of us. Once we got on the boat, the rest of the afternoon was beautiful. We went almost halfway around the island and got to see a bunch of the small towns and beaches, as well as some beautiful sailboats. I got to drive the boat for awhile and was even promoted to First Mate! We put our anchor down for a little while and jumped off the boat into the sea – the water was so clear you could see to the rocky bottom. I have no idea how deep the water was; all I know was that it was much deeper than a swimming pool and I’ve never been in water that deep in my life.
Getting back to shore was not the problem that getting off of it was, and we went back to our hotel, took showers, and went out to eat. I had a great “frutti di mare” appetizer with all different sorts of fish and shellfish, prepared in ways I’ve never seen before. My mussels were cooked traditionally, but my tuna salad had very unique herbs in it, and there was some sort of meat with a sweet sauce and raisins that was absolutely heavenly. My plate even had some octopus on it, I think, which was really good. I had pasta with seafood in it for dinner, but some of the others had the fish of the day, which was brought out on a big cart before it was cooked for them to choose the exact fish they wanted. I would have had no idea what to do, but they got it taken care of and it was some of the best fish I’ve ever tasted. After dinner we agreed to get up pretty early the next morning to head out on a kayaking adventure across the island: we would get up, rent Vespas to go to the other side of the island, then spend some time on one of the sand beaches and take a guided kayaking tour.
Similar to the boating incident, said kayaking adventure didn’t quite occur as planned. Those who were originally planning to go woke up at 8 am as we had planned and went to breakfast. But by the time we had gotten everything together and were ready to head out to the auto rental place to get our Vespas, some other people were awake and interested in coming with – which was fine, but it sort of ruined our organization. So we ended up running down the big hill of our town to the rental place to get there before 10 o’clock and then changing vehicles and driving partners several times. In other words, it was mass chaos for about 20 minutes, which I didn’t handle very well (I don’t deal well with broken plans, as some of you may know). But just like the boating chaos, we finally got it figured out and I ended up on the back of an ATV with my friend Gabriela. The rest of our original group was able to stay together on Vespas, as we originally planned, and we had a beautiful ride to the other side of the island. By the time we got there the kayaking tours were actually full for the day, but we rented paddle boats, played on the beach, had a huge piece of watermelon for lunch, and just generally chilled. To get back to Portoferraio we decided to ride around the island instead of across it. It ended up being a 2 ½ hour drive, but it was a beautiful, cloudless day and the wind in my hair felt wonderful. The road around the island is right along the coast, so we had gorgeous views of the sea the entire ride. I didn’t want to get off the ATV – I wanted to ride and ride forever.
After the ATV adventure came the dinner adventure. We walked to the historic city center to visit the house where Napoleon spent his exile (not too exciting, but beautiful gardens) and then looked around for a place to eat. We read a bunch of menus, but we finally stopped at “Gambero Rosso” (“Red Shrimp”) because their menu was completely in Italian and completely hand-written, meaning they cooked whatever they happened to get fresh that day. We sat down outside and the owner, Giancarlo, who was also our waiter, immediately started joking with us. In total, dinner took us close to four hours, between all the courses we ordered, all the joking around, and all the time spent waiting for our mussels, but it was a great four hours. I think it’s one of those things that’s just hard to describe if you weren’t there – there are so many little stories, like Giancarlo bringing out a live lobster before he cooked it for Gabriela and telling us it was named Hugo – but I will remember the night for the rest of my life. Giancarlo gave us free appetizers and a huge discount, and told us at the end of the night that we were cute. We sat together well at the table, just enjoying each others’ company and talking, he said. It’s an “art” that young Italians have lost, at least according to him. All in all the night just had that magical quality to it that makes something memorable.
Ok, that’s a brief recounting of last weekend’s adventures… I will try to post soon about this week/weekend and my mom’s visit.
This weekend we went to Elba, the island off the west coast of Italy where Napoleon was exiled. It is an absolutely beautiful place, dotted with little beach towns though mostly covered with semi-tropical vegetation and windblown rock faces. We left Florence at 5:30 Friday morning so we could spend the whole day in Elba. We had a 2.5 hour train ride to the port town of Piombino and then an hour by ferry to the town where we were staying, Portoferraio (literally, "iron port"). We walked up a steep hill to get to our hotel, which had a direct view of the sea. The room where I stayed with my friends Indiana and Gabriela even had a little balcony that looked right out on the Tyrrhenean Sea, complete with a table, chairs and an umbrella. Naturally, I started both my mornings in Elba gazing at the water. After we got checked into the hotel and settled we went straight to the beach. Elba has a million little beaches, some of which you can only get to by boat or by hiking down one of the cliffs, so it wasn't weird for our hotel to share a private beach with a few other hotels. The beach was rocky, but the water was warm and the day was cloudless. After a couple of hours my friends Zach and Federico got a little bored, so they rented Vespas and rode to the next town over to see about renting a boat. They called us to say that they would come pick us up at the beach if we would go get something to eat and bring it with us.
Thus began the boating adventure. We had passed a little market on the way to the hotel, so we walked back down the hill. But by the time we got there, it was lunch time and the market was closed. So Indiana and I went on a grand tour of Portoferraio to find a market that was open. We ended up following signs to the Coop, a big Italian grocery chain. It wasn't very much different from an American grocery chain, but of course we didn't know where we were going, so we ran all over to find the things we wanted. We had already told the boys to meet us at a certain beach with the boat, so we hurried there as fast as we could after we finished our shopping. But when we got to the beach, we saw Zach swimming in to talk to the lifeguards. The guy at the boat rental place had told Zach and Federico that they could cut the boat’s motor and row into shore at any beach, but this was apparently not the case at public beaches such as the one we were standing on. One option was to dump a bunch of our stuff on the beach and swim out the considerable distance to the boat, but we all had our cameras and phones, so that idea was vetoed. We spent a couple minutes in complete frustration and some of our group opted out in the process, but soon enough we were on a paddle boat that the lifeguard let us use (for free) to get out to the motor boat with all of our stuff. Federico and Indiana took the pedal boat back to shore, and then swam out to meet the rest of us. Once we got on the boat, the rest of the afternoon was beautiful. We went almost halfway around the island and got to see a bunch of the small towns and beaches, as well as some beautiful sailboats. I got to drive the boat for awhile and was even promoted to First Mate! We put our anchor down for a little while and jumped off the boat into the sea – the water was so clear you could see to the rocky bottom. I have no idea how deep the water was; all I know was that it was much deeper than a swimming pool and I’ve never been in water that deep in my life.
Getting back to shore was not the problem that getting off of it was, and we went back to our hotel, took showers, and went out to eat. I had a great “frutti di mare” appetizer with all different sorts of fish and shellfish, prepared in ways I’ve never seen before. My mussels were cooked traditionally, but my tuna salad had very unique herbs in it, and there was some sort of meat with a sweet sauce and raisins that was absolutely heavenly. My plate even had some octopus on it, I think, which was really good. I had pasta with seafood in it for dinner, but some of the others had the fish of the day, which was brought out on a big cart before it was cooked for them to choose the exact fish they wanted. I would have had no idea what to do, but they got it taken care of and it was some of the best fish I’ve ever tasted. After dinner we agreed to get up pretty early the next morning to head out on a kayaking adventure across the island: we would get up, rent Vespas to go to the other side of the island, then spend some time on one of the sand beaches and take a guided kayaking tour.
Similar to the boating incident, said kayaking adventure didn’t quite occur as planned. Those who were originally planning to go woke up at 8 am as we had planned and went to breakfast. But by the time we had gotten everything together and were ready to head out to the auto rental place to get our Vespas, some other people were awake and interested in coming with – which was fine, but it sort of ruined our organization. So we ended up running down the big hill of our town to the rental place to get there before 10 o’clock and then changing vehicles and driving partners several times. In other words, it was mass chaos for about 20 minutes, which I didn’t handle very well (I don’t deal well with broken plans, as some of you may know). But just like the boating chaos, we finally got it figured out and I ended up on the back of an ATV with my friend Gabriela. The rest of our original group was able to stay together on Vespas, as we originally planned, and we had a beautiful ride to the other side of the island. By the time we got there the kayaking tours were actually full for the day, but we rented paddle boats, played on the beach, had a huge piece of watermelon for lunch, and just generally chilled. To get back to Portoferraio we decided to ride around the island instead of across it. It ended up being a 2 ½ hour drive, but it was a beautiful, cloudless day and the wind in my hair felt wonderful. The road around the island is right along the coast, so we had gorgeous views of the sea the entire ride. I didn’t want to get off the ATV – I wanted to ride and ride forever.
After the ATV adventure came the dinner adventure. We walked to the historic city center to visit the house where Napoleon spent his exile (not too exciting, but beautiful gardens) and then looked around for a place to eat. We read a bunch of menus, but we finally stopped at “Gambero Rosso” (“Red Shrimp”) because their menu was completely in Italian and completely hand-written, meaning they cooked whatever they happened to get fresh that day. We sat down outside and the owner, Giancarlo, who was also our waiter, immediately started joking with us. In total, dinner took us close to four hours, between all the courses we ordered, all the joking around, and all the time spent waiting for our mussels, but it was a great four hours. I think it’s one of those things that’s just hard to describe if you weren’t there – there are so many little stories, like Giancarlo bringing out a live lobster before he cooked it for Gabriela and telling us it was named Hugo – but I will remember the night for the rest of my life. Giancarlo gave us free appetizers and a huge discount, and told us at the end of the night that we were cute. We sat together well at the table, just enjoying each others’ company and talking, he said. It’s an “art” that young Italians have lost, at least according to him. All in all the night just had that magical quality to it that makes something memorable.
Ok, that’s a brief recounting of last weekend’s adventures… I will try to post soon about this week/weekend and my mom’s visit.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
It's a Small World After All (I just didn't think I'd realize it this soon.)
After spending Sunday evening with Penn kids, I've spent most of the last few days with Kyle. He is, like the recent graduates I saw this weekend, on a eurotrip and spending a few days in Florence. Monday night we met up for the first time, grabbed some pizza, then went to the train station to pick up his friend Sara, who will be traveling with him for the next few weeks. I was telling him on the way to the train station that I couln't wait to randomly run into someone I knew on the street, since my meeting with him was my second planned event with friends in Florence. After we got Sara, we all went back to their hostel to look at Kyle's pictures and let Sara rest a bit. We decided to get gelato and left the hostel. Kyle had lead the way there, so I was a little turned around and we soon realized we'd gone the wrong way. We were headed back in the right direction soon enough and I was just starting to get my bearings when I saw a girl on the street who I thought looked like my friend Leah Abrams from Italian and English classes at Penn. I was almost past her when I realized it WAS Leah Abrams. She and her friend were only in Florence for that night and the following day, and we ran into her on a back street at 10:30 pm! Crazy.
Tuesday I met Kyle and Sara for lunch at my favorite sandwich shop, then after I was finished with afternoon class we walked to the Piazzale Michelangelo. It used to house Michelangelo's statue of David, though only a replica stands there now as the original has been moved to the Academia. The Piazza is on the top of a hill south of center city, so visitors have a panoramic view of all the important Florentine sites. It was a beautiful day, and we could see forever, even out to the rolling hills of the countryside. On the way down we walked along the old stone walls of the city for a bit and then sat in a little garden for a few minutes before heading to dinner. I saw Kyle and Sara for the last time at lunch today - they should be on their way to Siena as I type this.
Also, I think I should say a few things about the city of Florence and the culture in general, since I've only talked about specific places.
1. Streets: All of the streets in Florence are cobblestoned. The cobblestones are big slabs of rock, not small bricks like in the United States. This definitely matches the overall look of the city with all of its gothic and Renaissance buildings. So the cobblestones look nice, but there are two problems with them: a) they collect dirt. Whenever I wear sandals, I have to scrub my feet at the end of the day because they are black. The city owns many street cleaning machines that wash down the streets every night, which brings me to problem b) Polished stones are extremely slippery when wet. It's hard to walk wearing rubber-soled shoes after it rains or right after the street cleaners come through. I actually fell down and bruised my tailbone last week wearing sandals on the cobblestones. Ouch.
2. Streets part 2: Most of the streets in Florence are very narrow and therefore one way. Their cars, like European cars in general, are much smaller than American cars, but it still can't be easy to navigate the tiny, twisty streets. Only the small portion of the current city that was the original Roman camp is organized on a grid. The city's sidewalks are narrow too, so most people walk in the middle of the street. Everyone runs out of the way when they hear a car approaching. But there are also thousands and thousands of Vespas in the city, which are impossible to hear coming until they've almost run you over. Vespas don't have to obey traffic laws as far as I can tell, though there aren't many traffic laws, as far as I can tell. There are certain streets that are fully lined with Vespas parked within inches of each other. I would NOT want to drive here.
3. A few more food observations: There are a million places to eat! Florence is now a very toursity city, so every other storefront is a restaurant or "bar." I put "bar" in quotation marks because an Italian bar is a place to eat, not necessarily a place to drink. Many have large counters where you can choose your sandwich, pizza variety, salad, etc., then sit down to eat it (though you can even sit down and order in some of them). Most also serve coffee and espresso drinks as well as water and alcohol. Usually these places don't have menus, just things in a case to choose from. This is because they change what they offer based on what they have available and what's in season. I've been eating as many meals as I can with tomatoes because everywhere I've gone they've been incredibly ripe, read and juicy. Everything served here is extremely fresh. Many places serve cheese for an appetizer: one restaurant we went to served a variety of cheese with honey and fig jam to spread on top. I have never had better cheese in my life than I've had in Florence. The only issue with such a wide variety of food choices is that there are an overwhelming number of places to go. We've started asking our teachers and the hotel concierge where to go, though sometimes we just wander around until we find a place that looks good.
Still trying to firm up plans for the weekend, though we're taking a group field trip to Assisi tomorrow. I've heard that it is one of the most spiritual places in the world, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Tuesday I met Kyle and Sara for lunch at my favorite sandwich shop, then after I was finished with afternoon class we walked to the Piazzale Michelangelo. It used to house Michelangelo's statue of David, though only a replica stands there now as the original has been moved to the Academia. The Piazza is on the top of a hill south of center city, so visitors have a panoramic view of all the important Florentine sites. It was a beautiful day, and we could see forever, even out to the rolling hills of the countryside. On the way down we walked along the old stone walls of the city for a bit and then sat in a little garden for a few minutes before heading to dinner. I saw Kyle and Sara for the last time at lunch today - they should be on their way to Siena as I type this.
Also, I think I should say a few things about the city of Florence and the culture in general, since I've only talked about specific places.
1. Streets: All of the streets in Florence are cobblestoned. The cobblestones are big slabs of rock, not small bricks like in the United States. This definitely matches the overall look of the city with all of its gothic and Renaissance buildings. So the cobblestones look nice, but there are two problems with them: a) they collect dirt. Whenever I wear sandals, I have to scrub my feet at the end of the day because they are black. The city owns many street cleaning machines that wash down the streets every night, which brings me to problem b) Polished stones are extremely slippery when wet. It's hard to walk wearing rubber-soled shoes after it rains or right after the street cleaners come through. I actually fell down and bruised my tailbone last week wearing sandals on the cobblestones. Ouch.
2. Streets part 2: Most of the streets in Florence are very narrow and therefore one way. Their cars, like European cars in general, are much smaller than American cars, but it still can't be easy to navigate the tiny, twisty streets. Only the small portion of the current city that was the original Roman camp is organized on a grid. The city's sidewalks are narrow too, so most people walk in the middle of the street. Everyone runs out of the way when they hear a car approaching. But there are also thousands and thousands of Vespas in the city, which are impossible to hear coming until they've almost run you over. Vespas don't have to obey traffic laws as far as I can tell, though there aren't many traffic laws, as far as I can tell. There are certain streets that are fully lined with Vespas parked within inches of each other. I would NOT want to drive here.
3. A few more food observations: There are a million places to eat! Florence is now a very toursity city, so every other storefront is a restaurant or "bar." I put "bar" in quotation marks because an Italian bar is a place to eat, not necessarily a place to drink. Many have large counters where you can choose your sandwich, pizza variety, salad, etc., then sit down to eat it (though you can even sit down and order in some of them). Most also serve coffee and espresso drinks as well as water and alcohol. Usually these places don't have menus, just things in a case to choose from. This is because they change what they offer based on what they have available and what's in season. I've been eating as many meals as I can with tomatoes because everywhere I've gone they've been incredibly ripe, read and juicy. Everything served here is extremely fresh. Many places serve cheese for an appetizer: one restaurant we went to served a variety of cheese with honey and fig jam to spread on top. I have never had better cheese in my life than I've had in Florence. The only issue with such a wide variety of food choices is that there are an overwhelming number of places to go. We've started asking our teachers and the hotel concierge where to go, though sometimes we just wander around until we find a place that looks good.
Still trying to firm up plans for the weekend, though we're taking a group field trip to Assisi tomorrow. I've heard that it is one of the most spiritual places in the world, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
