La Dolce Vita

Sorry to be MIA for almost a month! I’ll recap everything that’s happened so far…

On Thursday October 16th, mom and dad came to Florence to spend a few days with me before heading back to the US. On Thursday we went to Pisa to see the leaning tower (of course they took some funny pics). That night for dinner we went to a place called Acqua Al 2 which is known for its blueberry steak and balsamic steak. There’s also a location in san diego which is kind of cool. The next day we did some shopping in the san Lorenzo market for gifts and souvenirs. Then we went to lunch at the oil shoppe which is one of the best places to get a panino. It’s a popular spot for students because its only 4 euro but the quality is soo good. After lunch we went inside the santa croce church which has the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo. A famous leather making school/factory is attached to the church and we wandered into the store to see how they make some leather goods. After that, we crossed the Arno river to the other side of Florence and climbed A LOT of stairs to get to the Piazzele Michelangelo which offers a great view of Florence. We continued up a little further to see the San Miniato al Monte church which was really peaceful inside. We took a lot of pictures from the top before finally heading back down towards the river. Next, we went to the Pitti Palace to walk through the Boboli gardens. I didn’t know that the gardens were all uphill so we didn’t stay too long because mom and dad were tired. The gardens were beautiful though, even without flowers. After the gardens, we walked through a costume gallery which had a bunch of dresses, even some original pieces of garments that the Medici family wore. Mom and I thought it was interesting but dad was ready to move on pretty fast. After the Pitti Palace we crossed the Arno again, this time on the Ponte vecchio which is famous for its jewelry. Before we knew it, it had already gotten dark and it was almost time for dinner. We went to a place called La Giostra which was AMAZING! All of the tables are kinda close together because the place is really small and has an intimate feel. They give complimentary champagne when you first arrive and also a plate of appetizers with delicious bruschettas and other stuff. They make their own pasta on site and one of their best dishes is the pear and pecorino cheese ravioli. We ordered it as an appetizer to share and it was the best ravioli I have ever had in my life! For our meals, I got a veal shank (one of the best things I have ever eaten, EVER!), dad got goat chops (yes, chops from a goat, which he liked) and mom got the sea bass with vegetables which she also enjoyed. It was a great early birthday celebration but I was sad that it was their last night.

On Saturday October 18th (LINDCY’S BIRTHDAY!!) I went to a chocolate festival in Perugia in her honor. The festival is called Eurochocolate and it’s held in Perugia for 10 days in the month of October every year. The school sponsored a trip and a bunch of students went. The streets were taken over by stands and cases of chocolate, cookies, hot chocolate, etc. some stands were giving free samples which was nice. There was a HUGE piece of chocolate shaped into a key which was like 20-30 feet long! It was insane! I split some churros and chocolate with my friend Christine and then had a chocolate covered banana to myself (SO GOOD!) After the chocolate festival, the school scheduled a wine tasting in a nearby town which was very informative.

The week of October 20-24 was midterms at school. None of them were too hard and I did pretty well overall. It just sucked that my BIRTHDAY was in the middle of it.

It was so great to hear everyone’s voices when they called to greet me on my birthday. Thank you for taking the time to think of me, it meant more than you’ll know. At midnight, my roommates Karen and Kelly surprised me with some baked goodies from a cute bakery and my friend tracy gave me a bottle of wine (which I waited to drink til AFTER my midterm!). That night I went to a Mexican restaurant called Tijuana with tracy, my roommates, and three guy friends Patrick, matt, and Anthony. They had GREAT margaritas and sangria. after dinner we went to a couple different bars/pubs. All in all, it was a pretty good day. I just wish that I could’ve celebrated with people from home/school. The next morning I had to take my Italian midterm and I was still soo hungover but I ended up getting a 93! Hahah not too bad for having to run out of the room cause I thought I was going to be sick. I stayed in bed the rest of the day and recovered. Luckily, after midterms, we had a week off of school for fall break so I didn’t have any work to do.

On Saturday October 25 I FINALLY went inside the duomo! On Saturdays at 5pm they have a mass in English. I’ve never been able to go before because I’m usually traveling. As I was walking into the church, I saw my friend Anthony so it was nice to have someone at mass with me. That night, I went out to dinner at this great restaurant across the river called golden view with my friend tracy’s parents and brother who were visiting. Everything was delicious and her family was soo nice. After dinner, her parents went back to their hotel and Anthony joined the 3 of us to go to a few bars.
On Sunday October 26, I went back to the Boboli gardens in the pitti palace to go for a walk/run. There were soo many trails throughout the garden and i felt like a little kid playing in the woods again. The gardens are huge but I managed to see a lot of it in about 2-3 hours. The next two days I just bummed around Florence.

For my fall break, I went to Ireland to visit my roommate from freshman year named Kerry. She’s studying in Galway for the semester. On Tuesday (10/28) I traveled by train from Florence to Bergamo (near Milan) with my two roommates in Florence, Karen and Kelly. From the train station in Bergamo, we had to take a bus to our hotel near the Bergamo airport. We got on the wrong bus at first but realized soon enough and we were able to get off to transfer to the right one. We checked into the hotel, went and had some dinner, watched a movie in the room and went to bed. We woke up pretty early the next day (Wednesday 10/29) to catch our flight. We flew through Ryanair, which is a pretty cheap Irish airline. There are no assigned seats so it’s kind of crazy when people fight to try and be near who they’re traveling with. (mom, you would NOT like this airline haha!) We landed in Shannon and had to take a bus from the airport to galway. Finally, we arrived in galway and Kerry came to get me at the bus stop. Karen and Kelly also have 2 friends who are studying in galway who they came to visit, so they were at the bus stop also. We went and had lunch at this place called “the living room” which is a café during the day (with panera-like food) and a bar/club at night. The town of galway is so cute! It was so nice to hear English being spoken and to be able to communicate with people without the language barrier. It was such a change from Florence but in a good way. There’s wayyy less traffic flow (both cars and people) and there aren’t a lot of tall buildings. It was a lot colder than in Florence but the air quality was so much better. It was raining when we first arrived but we had sunny weather the rest of the trip (which is really rare in Ireland). In the Galway program through Fairfield there are only 11 students and they all live in the same apartment complex on the same floor which is convenient. The apartments are relatively new and are so different from mine in Florence. Everything seemed brighter and cleaner and more modern. They had a microwave, toaster, tv with American shows AND a dishwasher! And a lot of the food in their grocery stores is more amercican or American products are more readily available than they are in italy. Some of the bars/pubs/clubs that we went to during my stay in galway were 903, the living room, the front door, hole in the wall, and the skeff. On Thursday (10/30) Kerry took me on a mini tour of Galway and her campus (NUIG). Her school is huge (15,000 students) and most of her classes are big lectures (which is totally different from Fairfield). We went to lunch at a place called Elle’s Café which reminded me of panera too. The downtown area of Galway is called Eyre Square and it has all of the shopping and cute places to eat. While Kerry went to class, I stayed in her apartment and just relaxed/used her laptop to plan my schedule for next semester (I’ve decided to add communication as a minor because I have extra room in my schedule to fit in all of the requirements and it partners well with my marketing minor). We went out again that night and had a great time hanging out in all the bars/pubs. The irish accents were AWESOME!! i honestly considered transferring to galway just for this reason haha! (just kidding mom and dad…kind of…) The next morning (Friday 10/31) I hung around the apartment while kerry had class. It was nice to just relax after midterms and enjoy time to myself. I went to lunch with one of Kerry’s roommates Eileen, who I knew vaguely from Fairfield. We walked around town for a little, picked up some candy for Halloween and bought the materials for our costumes: white bedsheets. Yup, we were bedsheet ghosts for Halloween. All 11 of the Galways kids plus me and 3 other visitors were all classic, holes cut for eyes, bedsheet ghosts. It was absolutely hilarious…to us at least haha! We got some people who thought we were the KKK and started calling us racists. Whatever, we liked our costumes and wore them proudly because we knew we weren’t trying to be the KKK. Everything you do looks funny in a ghost costume. Seriously, try to picture a bedsheet ghost dancing in a club. Funny, right? Well we thought so. Eventually they got annoying though to keep the eyeholes in place and people took them off. It was a really fun Halloween overall and everyone had a good time. The next day (Saturday, 11/1…I can’t believe it’s already NOVEMBER! Scary!) Kerry and I went to take a tour of the Cliffs of Moher. It was a full day tour that started at 10 and we didn’t get back to galway til 5pm-ish. The drive on the tour bus was soo pretty! It was nice to get out into the country of Ireland and to see sheep/cows and horses just roaming around and grazing on hills of grass. We stopped at a few places along the way before arriving at the Cliffs, including a tomb which was pretty cool to see. The cliffs were amazing! Everything was so green and lush. It was kind of scary because there really isn’t any barrier, people could just fall off if they’re not careful. After the cliffs, we stopped at a beautiful castle to take more pictures. I was sad to leave the next day but kind of ready to get back to Florence. Everything was going fine traveling until we got to the Milan train station only to find that we missed the last direct train from Milan to Florence by 5 minutes! So we ended up taking a midnight train from Milan to Verona then transferring to another train from Verona to Florence. We ended up getting back to Florence at 6am. I slept a few hours then went to class at 12.

On Saturday November 8th, I went to Bologna with my friend Katrina from Alaska for a day trip. The train ride was only about an hour and it was definitely worth it. There was a really cool jewelry/crafts/arts market with all handmade stuff that was all unique and interesting. We climbed a tower that had 498 steps and the view was amazing! Some parts of the stairs were basically straight up like a ladder, it was kind of scary! We also went to a medieval museum which had some cool artifacts and tombs. There was a huge basilica that we went into too. We found a really hidden trattoria for a late lunch/early dinner that turned out to be amazing! Of course we had to have Bolognese sauce in bologna! So I had the lasagna and Katrina had the tortellini with Bolognese sauce and we split. Both of them were sooo good! It was a great day and I might even try to go back to get some Christmas gifts at that cool market!

On Sunday November 9th, Fairfield got a bunch of students tickets to a Fiorentine soccer match which was really awesome and so fun! We played Atalanta, a team from northern italy, near Milan. Florence won 2-1. It was great to experience such a huge part of the Italian culture. There was a huge section of the stands where the superfans sit and they were going crazy throughout the whole game with cheers and songs, it was really cool. They were waving huge flags and scarfs. It was a sea of purple and red (Florence’s colors)

Sorry again for the month long hiatus and I know this was a really really long post so if you read the whole thing, THANK YOU! You made it! I’ll keep the next posts shorter next time I promise! Miss you all so much! 38 days til HOME!!!!

Love, Eliza