Venice (P.S. - One month down.)

Okay, okay ... I know what you are all expecting me to say, "Venice was super!" Well, you would be close. Venice was super for the most part, but everything that cost us a ridiculous amount of money ........ kinda sucked. Don't get me wrong, I'll have plenty of great things to say about Venice once I get this one little tidbit out of the way. Venice, like most popular tourist destinations, has mastered the art of exploiting the hell out of visitors while locals sit back and laugh ... I'm guessing. I laugh now that I look back, but while I was eating two ridiculously disgusting, supposedly Italian meals (two nights in a row) I was a bit upset. Maybe a little angry. No, borderline livid ... considering what we paid for them (17 Euros the second night/25 US dollars ... BEFORE DRINKS,COVER CHARGE, & GRATUITY!!). Ash got some decent food for a little bit cheaper, but that was tainted by the fact that her plate had about 5 or so ravioli on it! My food was the worst food that I had eaten in Italy thus far, and I'm being honest. We tried our best to avoid horrible food and horrible service, but we could only walk and potentially get lost in the labyrinth that is Venice for so long. Gondola rides? No THANKS!! 100 EUROS! I laughed at the guy when he told me how much. We got pictures of them though! So here you go:

Oh well, enough bad and on to the good.

Pretty much anything that one could do for free in Venice (i.e. walk around and stare at canals/old stuff) makes the trip worth while. The canals are a bit surreal sometimes, especially in the sense that they are both beautiful and perplexing. The water and age old architecture is amazing to look at, but front doors sometimes open to maybe a foot worth of standing room before sinking into the water. Some boats are parked (or docked rather) right at the doorstep. Interesting lifestyle. They sacrifice the practicality of roads and hard surfaces I guess for the beauty that is Venice. Other than the canals and waterways themselves, our favorite aspect of Venice had to be the famous Piazza San Marco (or Saint Mark's Square ... the one with the pigeons). It is absolutely massive, as are many Piazzas in Italy. This one was the biggest yet. The Piazza is made even more amazing by St. Mark's Basilica and the massive tower the stands in the middle. The detailed sculptures on the basilica are astonishing. It's easy to get lost while gazing at old monuments such as this. Ash and I happened to be in the Piazza as the sun was setting. They turn two rows of lights on that line the entire square. Everyone gasped when it happened. Here is a good pic that captures most of the largest open space in Venice:

We also took a tour of three major Venetian Islands (Murano, Torcello, & Burano). Murano left more to be desired other than getting to see some authentic Venetian glass blowing. Twas HOT. Torcello is more marshy than anything. It had several fairly cool relics and one old church. Here is a picture of an old statue that we found sitting in front of this tiny little vineyard:

Burano was by far our favorite. Not only were the canals very cool, but the little buildings were also fun to look at. Each building was painted a different color than the two beside it. And we're not talking mild, earthy tones either. These colors were vibrant and bright. If you had seen one of these buildings standing alone in the States, you'd most likely say, "What the hell was that person thinking?" Not here. When every building is either bright blue, orange, pink, yellow, etc. it works. Check it out:

We also got our hands on some amazing Gelato. Yum. All in all, the trip was awesome but fairly expensive. So if you want to go to Venice, be prepared to pay for food you might not like ... or just avoid any restaurant that has its menu in 5 different languages. Not a good sign. Check out our pictures! Other than that, as of this week, Ash and I have officially been in Italy for one month. This week we stay in Torino and hopefully get to explore a bit more. Next weekend we both have birthdays and plan on going to Florence. Hope all is well back home.

Ciao!

-Dallan

Cinque Terre = Five Lands

Despite the fact that Ashley already wrote about it, I do want to quickly mention that Portofino was absolutely amazing and by far one of my favorite places on the trip thus far. So there, I said it, but now to talk about the Cinque Terre. I will also make note of the fact that this too was one of the most beautiful and unique places that I have ever been to in my entire life. I know. It sounds like I'm exaggerating ... but I'm not. After leaving Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure, we took a train to the Cinque Terre (specifically Riomaggiore). The Cinque Terre (or Five Lands) is essentially 5 tiny villages along the Italian Riviera. Many tourists come here to hike from village to village. After looking at several pictures of all 5 villages before the trip, I decided that Riomaggiore was the one that I was most looking forward to. Riomaggiore was the village furthest south, and after calling earlier in the day, we got lucky and stayed overnight on Saturday.

Upon arriving, we decided to explore a bit and found our way along a rocky pathway on the cliffside leading to a pebble filled "beach" ... once again, no sand just rocks. It was honestly one my favorite moments of the trip, so we stole some pebbles for souvenirs. :) I encourage everyone to click on the links to the right to look at all the pictures because one or two can't do these places justice:

On our way back to the harbor/port/whatever you want to call it, we decided that walking out onto some rocks/marble in the middle of the ocean might be a good idea. Well, I got some pretty great pictures!!!! BUT, in doing so, I stepped on a half submerged rock full of seaweed ... aka ZERO TRACTION. I slipped right into the ocean. Shoes: soaked and full of water. Shorts: soaked and full of water. Underwear: soaked. Sock: soaked. Ashley's camera??? : SAVED. Post slippage picture:

After making me take a picture as a happy version of my wet self, Ash and I went to look for some sandals/flip-flops. We found some. One pair in my size in the whole village ... with the Brazilian Flag across both sandals and the word BRAZIL across both as well. Picture in our gallery. We thought it was funny and I'm never throwing these flip-flops away ... ever. After exploring we ate at a really nice restaurant with the best view of the ocean at sunset. Romantic mushy stuff. I ate Fish Ravioli with Hake and Prawn sauce ... amazing, and Ash had a Pesto Pasta dish. The region is also well known for its amazing pesto.

I am now writing too much and getting tired (midnight here), so I will once again wrap it up as quickly as possible. Explored the village at night ... and got lost. Climbed a million stairs. Stairs are ridiculous! Twice the size of average steps and steep! Had a few beers while watching a Juve game with fellow Juve fan. He didn't speak the best of English, but we became good friends nonetheless. Left in the morning for the first Cinque Terre village, Monterosso. Also beautiful. But it started to rain. Hard. And we were in flip-flops. Uncomfortable. We had an amazing time and could not have asked for anything better. I loved this place. All of them.

Tomorrow morning we are off to Venice for two nights! Sure to have more to talk about when we get back. We miss everyone and hope that people still read this thing! Until next time!

Ciao!

-Dallan

Italian Rivieira

Just got back from an amazing weekend trip to the Italian Riviera (Genova, Santa Margherita Lingure, Portofino and two villages of Cinque Terre-Riomaggiore & Monterosso). If I had to sum it up in one word: Gorgeous! This was by the far the best thing that we have done since our trip has started. Everything was absolutely beautiful and it was so nice to be near water. This trip was part of an optional overnight trip that USAC offered for an additional fee (of course) so there were many other students from the program, which gave us the opportunity to get to know people better. My favorite part about the way that they organized the trip was that the sights got progressively better as we went along. We started off in Genova, a major port city of Italy, with a sweet harbor and great architecture. We took a walking tour of the city and then got on an elevator that gave us 180 degree view of the city from above.

*A quick side note about pictures: I love so many of the pictures that it was really difficult to pick my favorites for the blog. As always, there are links to the right where you can see the whole photo gallery from each destination. In addition, you can always click on pictures that are posted on this blog in order to see them larger. Also, per request of Mama G, we tried to look out for flowers to take pictures of. None of them are spectacular yet, but we are working on it. You will also find some more pictures of us sprinkled throughout the gorgeous landscapes (happy Ian?)

Next we headed to Santa Margherita Ligure, which was where our hotel was located. We had a foccacia lunch and walked up to a church and garden with an amazing view of the town. After we checked in to the hotel we walked down to the "beach". I put beach in quotation marks because it is nothing like the beaches that I am used to in California. There was no sand, only rocks and pebbles (still awesome though). It was already late in the afternoon and it was pretty overcast the entire day, but I decided to jump in the water nonetheless, so I swam for a bit in the Mediterranean. Actually, I mostly stood around freezing. The water was much warmer than the Pacific, but the sun was almost completely blocked so we were all a little chilly. This brings up one of my failures in packing; I forgot a razor. I only realized how detrimental this was as I was standing in the cold water and stubble sprouted on my legs. So much for that skirt I was going to wear. Another packing pitfall-no shampoo or conditioner. The hotel had shampoo but noT conditioner, so I was forced to wash my hair without conditioner. This was really great for my thick, tangle-prone, frizzy hair. Oh well, lesson learned.

Later that night we went out to dinner with some other students from the program. I had a delicous pasta with some sort of cream, pesto and tomatoe mixture for sauce....delicious. We got Gelato (mmm...) and walked around the city for awhile. The town was so peaceful. I think I could have walked around all night, but after a couple of hours of walking and hanging out with friends at a pub, we headed back to the hotel.

The next day we went to Portofino. Portofino is a harbor that is frequented by huge stars like George Clooney. Rumor had it that Madonna had been there a couple weekends prior. There was a HUGE yacht docked and I found out today that it costs someone $500,000 to rent for a week. I'm guessing celebs and millionaires are frequent visitors because of the beautiful view and seclusion. We actually had to take a boat to get there. I think Portofino was my favorite of the weekend. We hiked up to this castle and got the most insane view of the harbor. We had to hike straight uphill and up numerous stairs. All I know is I better have killer legs after this semester. Little did I know the stair situation was only going to get worse throughout the rest of the weekend, but I'm sure Dallan will talk about that in his post about Cinque Terre.

FORZA JUVE!!!

I wish we had a video of Juventus actually scoring a goal, but unfortunately, that didn't happen on our side of the pitch. So this video of tiny little Giovinco's shot at goal will have to do. Ash and I officially experienced our first European Football (Calcio in Italy!) match, and I think that it's safe to say that the two of us had a lot of fun (aside from the game ending in a tie! ... but more on that later). We didn't really know how much time we needed before the game in order to get there by bus and then find somewhere to eat before kick off, so we left early.... way way way too early. We went to the match with our friend Alex (a huge Juve fan) and ended up sitting around watching the rain fall for a few hours before finally entering the stadium.

One quick side note ... Torino rain doesn't fool around. It falls from the sky with one purpose ... to torture those that don't know any other way home that doesn't include walking! We also found out that Ashley does not have any idea on how one is supposed to make a sad face.

Exhibit A.

NOW BACK TO THE GAME!! Here is a very brief summary of the 90 minute match. Juve could have played better but were also missing two star players (Diego & Del Piero). Bordeaux played better than I expected. Juve were lucky to come away with a tie. Being in the crowd when Iaquinta scored for Juventus was unlike anything I've experienced in awhile. Purely exhilarating! Bordeaux returning the favor??? = SILENCE. We had fun and plan on seeing FC Barcelona at home sometime in the future, and I hope to see another Juve game (or two :) ) while in Torino. Here are a few more of my favorite pictures from the game:

That section with all the empty seats above is the Bordeaux Fans' section.

And finally, after Juventus scored, the crowd erupted with excitement. It was absolutely insane! Hard to describe. Ash tried to get her camera out to catch a video, but this was all we got:

Tomorrow it's off to the Italian Riviera for us. We should have some really amazing pictures (and hopefully stories) when we get back. PS ... Ash and I found the spot in Torino that our title picture comes from. It's an awesome little place with a bunch of sweet cafes and restaurants. Hafa Cafe, a drink with layered milk/latte on top and amaretto liqueur & coffee on bottom. It's a bit tricky to drink. Anyways, here is something else to look at from there:

Until next time! Ciao!

-Dallan

Mummies and Wine

Over the weekend we went to Museo Egizio and a wine festival in a town just south of Torino called Asti. Museo Egizio was really great. They had a ton of really impressive pieces that we got to see at the youth discount of 3,50 euros (commas take the place of decimal points for euros). In Europe the youth discount goes up to age 25. I think the U.S needs to implement this policy as well. Here are some pictures below and there is a link to more in the links to photos section (upper right). I apologize for the poor quality. Most things were enclosed behind glass or we were in a dark room with lots of spotlights and no flash allowed.

One of the USAC advisors, and roommate of our friend Alex, took us to a wine festival in Torino yesterday. Unfortunately, I'm not a big wine drinker, so I may not have appreciated it as much as a wine lover would, but I still had a really great time. You go and pay 1/2 a euro for a glass (yes a glass, not a plastic cup) that you carry around your neck in a pouch. Each booth has its own food, dessert, and wine. The food was extremely cheap and you get free wine to put in your glass from every booth you get food from. We only spent 5 euros each for 3 dishes, and these were 3 FULL dishes. We were stuffed!!! The others we went with continued to eat and drink throughout the night, but we were spent after two dishes of pasta and some sausage meat. Yes, I actually tried the meat and was glad to have swallowed my last bite when our Italian friend let it slip that it was horse meat!

I should also note that we bought tickets to our first Juventus game (Soccer aka Calcio in Italian). Apparently, women get a discount on tickets if you buy them in the family section. I only had to pay 25 euros while Dallan and Alex had to pay 40 each. Score for me, especially since I'm not a diehard fan like the other two! The match is between Juventus and Bordeux from France. It is a Champions League game, which means that it will definitely be televised in the US, but you would probably have to be at home around 12 noon California time to watch it live on Tuesday. Italian Riviera this weekend!!

Almost 1 Week!

Tomorrow, Ashley and I will have lived in Italy for 1 week. These are my impressions thus far. There are a lot, so I will attempt to be brief with each one.

Torino is beautiful, massive, and has just about everything one might expect to find when living in a large city. The city center has most of the more beautiful locations in Torino, so we have to travel by bus to see them (anywhere from 20-30-maybe even 40 minutes depending on traffic, time of day, day of week, and final destination). We live closer to school on Via Nizza, which is south of the city center. This has its pros and cons. We must go to school almost every day, so being able to walk there is nice, but we must then use the bus to go up town and back home any time we want to go out. This is not so bad, other than the fact that we were a bit unfamiliar with Torino's buses on Saturday night and tried to find one at 2 in the morning after a full day and night of exploring (and EXPERIENCING) the city. We ended up walking home for 1 and a half hours. Not fun at all. That hopefully will not happen again.

Today we tried to figure out how to use the washing machine. It is running right now for the first time, and I don't really think we'll know whether or not we did it right until it's done. Kinda nervous. We must then hang dry all that we wash, which shouldn't be so bad now ... at least until the freezing cold temperatures we can expect in Torino's winter months. Right now it is fairly warm.

On Saturday, Ash and I did a lot of walking. We saw a great deal of the city in one day. We spent most of our night in Torino's Piazza Vittorio Veneto, which is on Via Po. It is a massive square right next to the river. The two of us, along with our new Swedish friend Alex, experienced apertivo for the first time. Apertivo is a tradition in Torino, and it is basically the best form of happy hour imaginable. Around 6-9 at night (sometimes later), which is supposed to be before the "real" dinner when considering the fact that many Italians eat dinner rather late, the bars or cafes in Torino put out tons of food. Many bars have multiple platters covered in various kinds of breads, meats (salami/prosciutto), cheeses, pastas, tiny pizzas, fruits, vegetables, etc. etc. Depending on the place, the list goes on. Anyways, all of this food is free with the cost of any one drink. I will repeat that. FREE FOOD ... A LOT OF FREE FOOD WHEN YOU BUY ONE DRINK.... We bought mojitos, which were twice the size of those in America, for 7 Euro and went back twice for more free food. Need I remind you, it's Italian food! And not the kind at Olive Garden either. We went out last night again for apertivo (which occurs every night in Torino) to a different place and got completely different food. So, far, I know of no better tradition than this! It is pretty fantastic. (The Plate of food below is Ashley's first round from Saturday Night).

I have much more to say, but I feel like I'm going on forever here. So, I will spit out a few more things as rapidly as possible. They include tax in the prices displayed BEFORE you purchase something rather than after ... if something says 5 Euro, it means you pay 5 Euro! Not 5 Euro + TAX! Bed sheets didn't fit bed and the pillow were a little shady .... going to try to go to IKEA, but it is kinda far. My favorite morning pastry is a triangolo ciaccolato. SO GOOD. Nutella is good on everything. Ashley had this Ravioli dish that might have been the best I'd ever tasted. Ash and I are still learning how to perfect pasta, or a pasta topping rather. More graffiti than I expected. Went into the church with the Holy Shroud. A lot of clubs / bars / "discos" in Italian right on the Po River. Europeans apparently dance differently than Americans. Americans dance nasty ... or so I'm told. This place called Eataly is right down Via Nizza and is a food lover's paradise. Look it up. Champions League starts next week, going to try to buy tickets tomorrow for the Juventus game next Tuesday. Aaaaaaand .... very few people speak English in Torino. Truly authentic Italian city. Hope I didn't bore. Sorry it took me so long to post!

Ciao!

Dallan

PS. Check out the links to all of our photos to the right of our posts. We'll be posting more whenever we can.

1st Day in Europe

After the flight that seemed like it would never end, we finally made it to beautiful Torino!! The flight really was pretty horrible at times. The seats were cramped in there like sardines. Children were screaming at all hours! The woman next to me thought it was a good idea to keep her overhead light on the entire flight (even while sleeping). Dallan and I got pretty much zero sleep. The airline was so courteous to include the following quality movies for our entertainment: Night at the Museum 2, Hannah Montana, and a documentary on bears. The time didn't pass slowly at all (rolls eyes).

After a very, very, very long day, we arrived at our destination, and our study abroad program took us to a local pizzeria. The pizza was yummy!!! My favorite was the artichoke and eggplant pizza. Afterward, we took a walk through Torino. I love the city. It is very beautiful and there are so many places I want to explore...when I'm not so tired.