Nu har alltså jag tagit över den virtuella pennan för att se om jag kan få igång berättarkänslan och ta er alla med mig på min resa till Sicilien på de italienska järnvägarna.

Right now I'm sitting on my balcony enjoy the warmth and the birds after a breakfast of tea and toast. Daniel's family made it to Italy despite the volcano and headed back to Sweden this morning. While they were here Daniel and I saw our first Juventus game. They won over Bari 3-0. I would say that Daniel is going to write about thier visit but I really can't be sure. I go home in 12 days and after that I'm pretty sure this blog is going to die, even if Daniel will be here until the beginning of June.  We'll see what I can force him to write about before I go home.

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I spent Easter weekend with Kate and Megan in Nice. This, compared to the other trips I’ve been on, felt more like vacation.  First of all – Nice, the coast, the French Riviera, not a whole lot of historical things to feel like you’re missing out on. Second, it was Easter - so vacation.

 

 

We took the train to Nice, which cost us 16 euro – not bad for a weekend in France. We arrived in the early afternoon and dropped our stuff at our hostel before heading to lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

 

After lunch we decided to test our luck on the beach. The wind, which seems to love destroying Kate and my beach days, was back and it was pretty chilly. The beach was pretty (and rocky) and we lay there for as long as we could stand it.

 

 

By the time we were completely goose-bumped and freezing we went back to the hostel to put on warmer clothes. After that we did a little shopping and walked around Nice a little more.

 

 

 

That night we decided to take advantage of not being in Italy and see a movie that wasn’t dubbed in Italian. We watched Alice in Wonderland with French subtitles. I know, I’m sure, everyone else had already seen it at this point but we were behind and wanted to see it. I found it to be mediocre. What did, however, make my night was that we found what I consider to be “Swedish” candy outside of a little chocolate shop. I paid 2 euro for 100 grams – rip off, but worth it.

 

 

The next day we got up fairly late and headed up to the Colline du Chateau, or Castle Hill.  It was supposed to be a good view of the city and a nice park.  The weather wasn’t looking very promising but we decided to bring our umbrellas and head up anyway, On our way there we walked through an open market with tons and tons of flowers and handmade soups and things. The flowers were my favorite part.

 

 

And these neat roses are actually carved out of wood, cool huh?

 

 

So anyway after the hike up the mountain we stopped and enjoyed the view, right as it started to rain…

 

 

 

 

After a bit of exploring in the park, in the rain, we stopped for a picnic lunch..

 

 

 

 

That night our hostel was offering free champagne to all the guests so we went down and had champagne and then went out for drinks with a couple guys we met at the hostel.

 

The next day, Sunday, we headed home – stopping in Monaco on the way.  Now since this was a trip done by train-travel, thus free from the carry-on luggage restrictions of budget airlines Kate and I decided to go the luxurious route and take rolling suitcases as opposed to our usual backpacks. This had worked out fine until we got to Monaco and learned that it is “forbidden” to check luggage in Monaco. Why or what that means exactly I’m not sure but we were forced to drag our bags all over the city for the rest of the day. Boo.

 

So Monaco, we didn’t have much time there since we still had our trip back to Torino that evening and didn’t want to get back too late. We started the day by taking the bus to the Prince’s Palace and with an incredible student discount got the entrance fee and an audio guide for €3.

 

 

We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the castle but it was a cool place.

 

From the plaza outside of the courtyard there was quite a nice view of the city, or more accurately, country.

 

 

 

After the palace and exploring the old town a little bit we took the bus to the other side of the country (hah) to the Monte Carlo Casino.

 

 

and as we walked up this guy pulled up…

 

 

I had never gambled before in my life so we went into the casino and lost €5 on the slots. So worth it.  It cost ten euros just to get into the room with the tables but it was free to play the slots. Well, “free.”

 

After that we got lost trying to find our way back to the train station since it was a very strange place. The train station was built into the hill and the entire country had elevators all over it and you never knew where you’d end up when you took one. At this point it was raining and we were in a hurry to get to the train station - Kate and I ended up losing Megan and after trying to find her again we decided it was better just to get to the train station and hope she made it too. And she did – so that was good. We met up on the platform only minutes before the train got there, so it all worked out in the end, even if it felt very stressful at the time.

 

And now some extra pictures from Monaco:

 

 

 

 

Needless to say the weekend was filled with a bunch of nice jokes about Nice (ba da chhh) and our hostel buddies who were on vacation from studying abroad in Oxford just couldn’t get enough of our hilarity and came to visit a few days later in Torino.

 

 

 

And finally, Daniel will update this next time on his trip to Sicily and later on Cinque Terre.  Maybe I’ll throw in a video of me trying to ski if you’re lucky – haha, don’t count on it.

 

Also you may have noticed that these blogs have been quite frequent – I’d like to attribute that to my new habit of bloging during class. It’s quite the time saver.

 

Au Revoir!

 

So I don’t have a whole lot to say about Naples since I wasn’t even really in Naples. Instead we stayed in a little suburb called Pozzuoli.

 

Like I said, Friday morning after being home just long enough to throw the dirty clothes out of my backpack and throw in some clean ones I headed BACK to Milan to fly to Naples.

 

Steph and her grandma had gotten in that morning and her cousin Steve, who lives in Naples and who we were staying with came and picked me up from the airport. We went back to their house and Steph and her grandma wanted to take a nap. This turned into Steph and I talking for a while before we went to get pizza for dinner.

 

Naples is the birthplace of pizza and is supposed to have the best in the world. I don’t know if I’d say the pizza we ate was the best in the world – for one I’ve never tasted all the pizza in the world – but it was quite good.  The pizza place we went to had a long wait, something I had never experience in Italy up to this point. When we were finally seated it was almost 10 PM and the restaurant was still packed. Southern Italy is MUCH more chaotic than northern Italy.

 

The next day we got up fairly early to go to Pompeii. Pompeii was cool but it was a lot of walking and after an hour or two Steve and his wife Lana took grandma to lunch in the car and Steph and I stayed awhile to meet up with them later.

 

 

We walked around in Pompeii for a while…

 

 

 

Some things that stood out:

Wheel ruts from what I can only assume were formed by many many wagons. Some of the ruts were much deeper than these:

 

 

Erotic images in the brothel:

 

 

Steph trying to fold a map in the wind:

 

 

(muahaha - still funny!)

 

Bodies, or at least plaster molds made from the indentation in the volcanic ash left behind from bodies, in the Garden of the Fugitives:

 

Eyjafjallajökull, anyone?

 

After that we went to Sorrento for lunch and then headed back to Naples.

 

 

When we got back to Naples we met up with grandma and group for a minute and walked through downtown Pozzuoli where there were many Italian teens out hanging about. Steph and I got something to eat and headed back home.  The next morning I got up relatively early and headed back to Torino – finishing off my spring break.

 

Steph and her grandma spent the next few days traveling Italy before they parted ways in Florence, where Steph came up to visit me in Torino and grandma went back to Naples.

 

When Steph arrived in Torino I gave her a typical Italian Easter egg with a surprise inside!

 

 

SURPRISE!!

 

 

We ate the egg.

 

I don’t remember really at all what we did for the next couple days but I’m sure it was exciting. I had school on Friday but afterwards we had aperitivo with Kate and hung out for a while.

 

Steph’s flight back to Naples in order to go home from there was on Saturday night at about 9 PM from Milan.  Kate came with the next day to Milan where we met a very interesting (read strange) girl on the train and had a good time. We were in Milan long enough to see the Duomo and eat some fried dough sandwiches (Panzerotti) before heading back to the train station to put Steph on a bus to the airport. Sad…..

 

 

And now, if all goes well with this volcano and the ash cloud and the airports, we will have visitors this weekend: Daniel’s family!

 

A presto!

Quick note: I know some of my pictures are blurry and that it probably has something to do with my "don't-stop-walking-to-take-a-photo" style of photography but better a slightly blurry picture than no picture at all, right?

Also, wikipedia articles are again linked and will open in a new window.

Our latest adventure was a trip to Cinque Terre yesterday, to be blogged about another day.

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So I plan on just starting right where I left off so if you need a little refresher just scroll down.

 

As I mentioned at the end of the last update Kate had gotten her debit card eaten in an ATM. The good news: the ATM was connected to a bank. The bad news: the bank was closed for the night and didn’t open until 8:30 the next day. The even worse news: our flight was at 9 AM the next day to Fes, Morocco and Ryanair’s next flight to Morocco was on like Monday or something (this was Tuesday night).

 

So Kate decided that she needed her debit card back or basically had no way of surviving the next week of travel (understandable) and that Kathleen and I would go to the airport the next day as planned and she would go back to the bank and be there by 8 AM hoping someone was there early and then taking a taxi direct to the airport. So Kathleen and I got up at about 6 the next day to head to the bus to take us to the airport and made our way to the station where we could not find the bus to the airport anywhere and despite being a half hour early ended up running around desperately trying to find the bus at the very last minute. Finally some nice person pointed us in the right direction (NOT where the other like 5 people we asked had told us to go) and we made it just in time.  We’re at the airport with plenty of time to spare and finally at about 8 AM (when Kate at this point should be arriving at the bank) we started heading to the security line and right as I turn to Kathleen and say “there’s no way she’s going to make it…” I hear somebody yell “HEY!!!!!” and there comes Kate running through the doors with the world’s biggest smile on her face.  The lady at the hostel had helped her make a sign in Spanish explaining the situation so she went to the bank at about 7:45 and banged on the window holding up her sign when finally someone acknowledged her, asked her to press her passport against the window, and then came out and handed her card to her. With that she hopped in a taxi and got to the airport in plenty of time. What luck.

 

So with that we flew to Morocco, finally got through customs in Fes and made our way to the taxi that was waiting for us to take us to our hotel.

 

Even that car ride was an experience. Our taxi-driver only spoke French and Arabic which presented a problem for us as Kathleen was the most competent in French of the three of us and I think she took French in 6^th grade…  We drove through some rural areas and then the new part of Fes before arriving in the Medina, or old town.  Just from the drive to our hotel, while sitting in a car in the hot summer sun, I felt very scantily dressed in a t-shirt and jeans.  Our taxi driver kept pressuring us in French to get a guide (who was most likely his cousin or something) but we didn’t like how pushy he was so we said no even though we were planning on getting a guide to show us around.  We arrived at our hotel and holy guacamole… gorgeous! It’s amazing that the outside of a building can be so plain in the middle of a back alley and then you walk inside to this…

 

 

Upon our arrival we were served mint tea (LOVE!). After mentioning to the hotel lady that we were interested in a guide he arrived, before we even had time to put our luggage in our room.

 

Our guide was an old fat Berber man and our tour consisted mainly of him taking us around to different Berber shops. It was a cool experience though and we would have been completely lost trying to find our way around the Medina without him.

 

Our first stop was an ATM to take out dirhams and since I was only going to be in Morocco for a day it was a very calculated withdrawal. From the ATM we had a view of the city gate leading into the Medina. Blue is the “color of Fes,” hence the color of the gate.

 

 

At this point, and basically the whole time I was in the main roads of the Medina, I was a bit uncomfortable getting out my camera and taking lots of pictures (like I normally do) which I know was probably a little stupid and it wouldn’t have been a problem because there were lots of tourists around but whatever, I don’t have that many pictures (comparatively).

 

Our next stop was a shop that sold embroidered things such as table cloths and napkins and what-not. The women were sitting their embroidering and we got to watch for a while before they asked us what we wanted to buy. I bought nothing.

 

 

Next we popped our heads into a little tiny school (literally, the door was child-sized) and as we stepped inside lots of little voices starting saying “bonjour!” “hello!” and whatever hello is in Moroccan Arabic… (Salam, maybe?) Anyway, they were adorable.

 

 

After some more wandering through some back streets we came across this lovely window….

 

 

It’s used so that Muslim woman can look out without anyone being able to see in so if someone knocks on the door and she’s not covered she can see who it is. I’ll let each person form his/her own opinion on this and just keep mine to myself.

 

At some point we stopped for pastries since we hadn’t eaten since like 6 AM that morning and by this point it was about 12 or so and lunch didn’t seem to be on our guide’s agenda. I paid 2 dirham (so like 15 cents) for this wonderful flaky creamy delicious pastry and snacked on that as we continued on our journey.

 

Next stop was just a tiny little workshop where we actually weren’t expected to buy anything. It was a woodcarving shop and we each got a little piece of cedar carved with intricate Arabic designs.

 

 

We stopped, and went inside, what was apparently according to Moroccans the oldest university in the world. Though I feel like I’ve heard many universities claim that title (Bologna?). So we walked around the dorms, which were minuscule – looked like prison cells – and took a few photos.

 

 

We also happened to walk by a man forming pots. Forming? Is that what he’s doing. I don’t know – making pots. It was loud, if I remember correctly.

 

 

Next stop was the oldest library in the world I want to say… I’m not sure – it seemed like they had a lot of things in Morocco that, according to Moroccans, were the oldest or the biggest or the best. Okay I could have been wrong before, that might have just been an old university with dorms and then the picture below is the oldest in the world… I’m not sure.

 

 

Next stop was the tannery where they handed us fresh mint leaves upon our entering of the shop. We were a little unsure as to why we received mint leaves at first but upon entering the shop and moving towards the back where we had open-air views of the actually dying and coloring process it become apparent: the smell.  It smelled like cow. But worse. But the sight was fantastic and the leather goods hanging all around us were quite tempting and we actually all came out of there with a new purse. Suckers, I know.

 

 

Quite cool, but quite stinky. The white clay basins in the back are I want to say lye used to soften the leather. The front basins are for dying. Cedar wood is used to make the brown leather, saffron for the yellow, orange from henna, green from mint, red from poppies and blue from indigo.  You can see the saffron-dyed leather drying up to the left in the 3^rd picture.

 

Next we visited a Berber rug-maker. He was by far my favorite Moroccan we stumbled across. Quite the business man and also quite funny. Upon our arrival to his shop/warehouse he let us admire the rugs hanging all around before inviting us upstairs to watch the women (girls) hand-weave the rugs. Their fingers were moving so quickly it was hard to see them. I’m pretty sure Kathleen got to tie a knot herself and was pretty excited about that.

 

 

 

Next it was time to talk business. We were led into another room and offered tea again (YES!) and then were engaged in a bit of small-talk, as per Moroccan tradition (it’s rude to begin with business – family is to be discussed first).  And then came the rugs… rolled out one at a time by the man’s assistant as he told us about each one as we sat and sipped our tea.

 

 

He explained to us how they can ship everywhere and how prices are regulated and even showed us how small they can be rolled as to easily fit into even the smallest luggage! The rugs really were gorgeous and once they were all rolled out he taught us the Arabic terms for something…. But it essentially meant I want to look at that one later or take it away. Well as each one was rolled we tried to explain to this man that unfortunately a hand-woven rug just had not been factored into our budget. He kept offering us “student price’ for the low cost of $450 for a small rug. I don’t know what students he’s been hanging out with but that was still not going to happen. My favorite rugs were the silk ones in pastel colors that were a slightly different shade depending on which way you looked at them.  In the end there were no rug purchases on our behalf and we went on our way.

 

Next stop was a herbalist – he had everything from essential oils to perfumes to soaps to herbal Viagra (I don’t know) to blocks of white musk.  I bought some white-musk-scented essential oils to use as perfume for a very reasonable price.

 

 

Next stop, finally, was lunch.  Our guide took us to a restaurant (Berber I’m sure) and we ordered the “mixed salad” and the specialty of Fez, lemon with chicken.

 

The restaurant was gorgeous and ornately decorated.

 

 

So first to arrive were our drinks where we got a kick out of Kate’s Coke bottle in Arabic.

 

 

Next came the “salad.” This was not what we would’ve called a salad but instead a mix of foods, all cooked and most warm that included olives, beans, a tomaty-salsa type thing, bread, etc etc.  We ate quite a bit of that (with our fingers – so authentic) and by the time our main courses got there we were basically full.  The chicken I got was fantastic. It was sort of sweet and lemony and delicious. I think Kate got couscous and Kathleen some lamb dish. So we ate as much of that as we possibly could get down and that’s when the fruit and pastries came. The fruit looked too good to pass up (oranges and strawberries sprinkled with sugar) so we ate most of that but just couldn’t possibly imagine eating anything else and took our pastries with us to go.

 

We walked through a few more streets of the Medina after lunch and poked our head into a mosque or two (they were probably the oldest in the world).

 

 

 

Next stop was another Berber rug maker, but he was more specialized in authentic Berber designs and patterns and also sold many blankets and scarves.  His “attraction,” which basically every shop had, was that we first walked to the top of the building to the roof to enjoy the view. Just as we arrived on the roof and had a second to take in the view and comment on how fantastic the city was the Adhan (call to prayer) began.  This particular rooftop we were standing on was located next to one of the main minarets of the city and it began first, quickly followed by minarets all over the city. The result was amazing. As soon as I realized what was happening I began to film, and will share that with you now.

 

 

I know it’s a short clip but you get the idea, plus a panoramic view of Fez as a bonus. You can see we were surrounded by minarets on nearly every side. Don’t ask me what those red things are because I don’t know.

 

On our way back down we stopped and watched a man weaving a blanket (it’s foot work so it’s the job of men, as opposed to rugs which are done by hand – the job of women. Or at least that’s how I interpreted his explanation when I asked)

 

 

So now it was again time for tea (still good) and small-talk, quickly followed by the rolling out of the rugs and blankets.

 

 

As you can see these blankets and rugs were done in more natural colors with more simple patterns. The Berber people were sort of nomads and mountain people and well I’ve linked it to wikipedia at the beginning of this blog entry so go read yourself.

 

While up on the roof we noticed clouds of black smoke covering an entire area of Fez quite far away. We decided Fez was probably on fire and that we would ask our guide about it later.

 

After an intense bit of haggling done by Kate she ended up with a tablecloth I’m pretty sure she decided she could live without but managed to talk him down to 50% of his asking price so she took it anyway. Kathleen left with a scarf or so and I left with the pride of knowing that I can resist buying a scarf now and then when I really want to.

 

More wandering through the Medina ensued where we eventually stopped to buy dried apricots and dates to snack on later.

 

 

There were some many stands all through the Medina, particularly interesting were these ones which were filled with some kind of candy or fudge or something but were completely SWARMING with bees.

 

 

We stopped to peak into another mosque, this time at prayer time.

 

 

We also popped into the workshop of a painter/carver.

 

 

Next stop was to hop into our guide’s car to see a panoramic view of the city.

 

(notice the bags!)

 

We were awed by the actual size of Fez, it seemed to go on forever. We decided that despite our winding through the Medina all day we’d probably seen about 1/100^th of the city.

 

 

So back to Fez being on fire…

 

 

We asked our guide what all the black smoke was all about and he told us that, in fact, the city was not burning down but that was the ceramic district and that was just smoke from the kilns.  He asked if we’d like to see it and we of course said yes. So we hopped back into the car and headed to a ceramic workshop where we were given a tour by a very funny young man who liked rap and R&B.

 

First step: soak the clay

 

 

Second step: mold the clay

 

 

Third step: fire the pottery

 

*Interesting fact: this was an “open kiln” fueled entirely by olive pits!*

 

Fourth step: Paint the pottery

 

 

Fire it again, blah blah blah.

 

This guy’s job was to sit and by hand chip away at ceramic tiles to make them into small identical pieces that would then be put together to form a mosaic.

 

 

 

Look at his leg! Someone is going to have knee problems in the future…

 

Next it was time to see the show rooms…

 

 

At this point our tour was over and our guide drove us back to our hotel pointing out the things Kathleen and Kate should do the next day (they were staying in Morocco for the rest of break).  Our tour lasted from about 11 AM to 7:30 PM so nearly 9 hours of touring and it cost us 300 dirham TOTAL (about 50 dollars). It was actually only 250 dirham but for the sake of simplicity in splitting it 3 ways and the ridiculously low price of the tour we threw in an extra 50 dirhams.

 

At this point we were still quite full and a bit tired so we went back to our hotel, ordered more mint tea and ate our pastries and apricots for dinner while we sat in the foyer and chatted. After that we watched parent trap and went to bed.

 

 

Unfortunately our room was enormous (and gorgeous) with immensely high ceilings so it was a bit chilly. Our solution was to bring the heater in from the bathroom to the bedroom. Mistake. This is how we lay for about 15 mins trying to sleep before we decided we would warm up under the covers and the heater just was not worth it.

 

 

The next morning we got up with plenty of time to have a large breakfast at our hotel and then I said goodbye to my travel buddies and hopped in a taxi back to the airport. The taxi driver, again, only spoke french and was a bit creepy - but you'll have that. The airport was ridiculous and people were worse at forming a line there than even the Italians.

 

After a long journey I was back in Torino for the night before heading off to Naples the very next morning.

 

M'a ssalama! Au Revoir!

 

My life is exciting – I know.  All 3 of you readers who happen to keep checking back, day after day, even when this blog hasn’t been updated in ages, I salute you. But let me tell you, it’s a taxing task to update this blog. Especially when I’ve done something especially exciting and taken lots of pictures and have lots to say because then I have to sort through the pictures trying to choose a reasonable few but still show you everything I want to show you all, then write about everything and then realize I’ve written a novel and it’s three hours later…

 

So to make this more manageable for myself I’m going to break up spring break into two parts: Spain (3 destinations) and then in a later post: Morocco and a visit with Steph in Naples, including a trip to Pompeii and a brief couples of days with her here in Torino (never enough!).

 

Also, in this entry I've tried a new thing where I've linked a few things, words, etc to wikipedia articles about them so if something I've written is confusing or I don't explain it well enough try clicking on the link to read more about it.

 

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So spring break started out normal enough with our first destination being GRANADA. And when I say us I mean Kate, Kathleen and I.

 

 

We arrived in Granada without any serious problems or delays and wandered our way to the older part of town where our hostel was located. It was kind of in the semi-touristy Arabic district and the street up to our hostel was a narrow cobblestone one lined with shops selling tea and other things of Arabic influence, scattered throughout those shops were small restaurants and hooka bars. Our hostel was nice and provided not only a free Sangria upon arrival but also a tapas tour later that night.

 

For those of you who don’t know what tapas are, (I didn’t – I recognized the word and knew that I probably should now, but didn’t) they’re similar to Italy’s aperitivo except you buy a drink and then order small portions of food for about two euros. One of the tapas bars we went to you got a new drink with each dish so that was a steal. Anyway, they’re fairly large portions at a lot of the places and that was our dinner for the night.

 

The next day after enjoying our free breakfast of cereal and toast at the hostel we embarked on the free tour of Granada, also provided by our hostel. Our tour guide was a hippie Englishman living in Granada and making a living as a tour guide. He was fairly knowledgeable as far as I know, though he did have some misinformed things to say about what side of the road Swedes drive on… (according to him they only switched to the right side of the road ten years ago – false.) so who knows if the rest of the information was actually correct, though I assume it is since I have no knowledge that disproves it.

 

He took us only around the old part of Granda, which was fine. The city is basically built into the valley and hillsides of two hills with La Alhambra (which I’ll get to) sitting at the top of one hill and some other castle thing at the top of the other.

 

 

We visited an old bath, two gardens and a mosque, plus roamed some other parts of the city while receiving little tidbits of interesting information along the way. For example, the fact that the streets are so narrow in Granada that it is not uncommon for cars to just be driving along and all the sudden get stuck and not have any way out but backwards. We even saw a car with both sides thoroughly scraped up.

 

 

Ooh, also – there are a bunch of caves on one of the hills and I guess a lot of gypsies and hippies and even some adventurous exchange students live in. Plus that a lot of the houses on that side of the hill our actually built into caves. So you walk into the front door of what seems to be a completely normal house and then walk to the back of it and, whoop! You’re in a cave! We never went in a cave or a cave/house but i’m sure it would’ve been cool.

 

Our final destination was a lookout point with a view of the old town and the Alhambra.

 

 

After this we made our way down the hill we were currently at the top of and hiked up the other on to get La Alhambra. Instead of trying to explain it to you I’m going to quote wikipedia and then put up some pictures. Remember, the Alhambra is not just a huge fortress but a huge intricate palace and acres and acres of Arabic gardens.

 

"The Alhambra (Arabic: الْحَمْرَاء‎, Al-Ḥamrā' , literally "the red one"), the complete form of which was Calat Alhambra (الْقَلْعَةُ ٱلْحَمْرَاءُ, Al-Qal'at al-Ḥamrā' , "the red fortress"), is a palace and fortress complex constructed during the mid 14th century by the Moorish rulers of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus, occupying the top of the hill of the Assabica on the southeastern border of the city of Granada, now in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain.  The Alhambra's Moorish palaces were built for the last Muslim Emirs (Kings) in Spain and its court, of the Nasrid dynasty."

 

 

 

And if you think that’s a lot of pictures you should see the 500 I decided not to put up here….  So after about 3 ½ hours in the Alhambra and its gardens we realized we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and that we were pretty hungry. We wandered back towards our hostel for dinner and ended up at a cute little place where I ate paella for the first time – which was delicious.

 

After this we were exhausted and went back to the hostel for what was supposed to be a short nap. Three hours later we woke up feeling refreshed, and realized it was 9 PM. I don’t really remember what we did after this except that we ended up at a little Arabic tea shop with tons of flavors of tea (though we all went with classic sweet mint – YUM. I’m now obsessed) and with the purchase of tea we each received a free nutella-filled crepe. Excellent.

 

 

After that we made our way back up to the view our guide guided us to earlier to observe the Alhambra at night.

 

 

The next day we headed to Malaga – which was great. It’s a beach town with not a lot to do so laying on the beach doesn’t feel like a “waste of time” (does it ever) and you don’t have to feel guilty about missing out on things of historical importance.

 

When we first arrived we headed basically straight to the beach to eat our packed lunches. There was a little “sandbar” I don’t know what to call it, of rocks about 4 feet away from the peninsula of beach that we thought looked like a nice spot to eat lunch. Kate decided to try to cross the fairly shallow water first and unfortunately, only about a foot away from safety she sunk into what could’ve only been some nasty mud sinkhole in the bottom of the sea and cut up her shin on a rock, plus drenched her pants and purse. Needless to say we ate lunch on the beach instead.

 

 

So that night we made fish tacos and salsa at the hostel and hung out with a Finnish couple who were also staying there.  They were cool and we had a good time. The next day after a breakfast of chocolate con churros, we decided it was time for some serious beach-ing, so we made our way back towards the water where we lay out for a while before deciding it was way too cloudy. We then went back to the hostel and watched “Whip It” – good movie – and took a nap. After that we did more things I imagine, and then tried to have sushi for dinner but it was closed – so we ended up at a kebab shop across from our hotel (Tony Shuarmas!).  We had what we named “kebab lasagna” which was fantastic. Imagine a layer of kebab meat, a layer of french fries, and a layer of cheese slices put into an oven until the cheese melts and then top with lettuce and kebab sauce (which in this particular case was very reminiscent of ranch dressing).

 

 

After that we decided to have “man night” where we watched a manly movie, drank beer and ate corn nuts and lay on a mattress we threw on the floor of our hostel.

 

 

The next day we decided to again try our luck at the beach since the clouds had cleared and it was quite sunny. Unfortunately it was the most windy ever so we hid ourselves behind a boat to block the wind and lay there for a while trying to come up with cool roller-derby names inspired by “Whip It.” We came up with our team name the “Southern Hells,”  and thereafter each came up with a name inspired by a country singer – Kathleen went with the somewhat provocative “Carrie Thunderwood,” I chose a more classic “Shania Pain,” while Kate thought she was incredibly clever with “Taylor Kicks-So-Swift.” I guess you had to be there.

 

 

Eventually it started raining so we headed into the city centre and wandered around another Moorish-inspired castle that was free to get into on Sundays. By the time we got there of course it was beautiful and sunny again – but whatever.

 

 

After that we went to the Picasso museum since he was born in Malaga. It was cool. I’m not the hugest Picasso fan but it was neat to see.  While there we encountered the MOST ridiculously stupid cashier ever. She had a hard time comprehending that we wanted to pay separately and then could not wrap her mind around how much change each person should get and for some reason all of this compelled her to recount the ENTIRE cash register before finally giving us our tickets and the appropriate change. There should be math-competence requirements for people who handle money…

 

Anyway the coolest part of the museum, in my opinion, was the temporary exhibit of a Czech painter Kupka. I really liked his stuff and if I were a gajillionare I would by some of his pieces and hang them in my house.

 

After wandering the city a bit more we tried AGAIN to go to the sushi place and it was AGAIN closed. Fail. But we ended up at another Asian restaurant which was quite good.

 

<<<Okay, so I know this is the longest blog in the world but bear with me here – only one city left in Spain>>>

 

So the next day we had a bus to catch to Seville and quite the trek to the bus station. Somehow we ended up being incredibly behind schedule and sprinted in a lost and confused frenzy in the direction we hoped the bus station was. We even sprinted through a smelly fish market – it was like a movie. At about 3 minutes until the bus was scheduled to leave I caught sight of the station and we booked it. Clothes started flying out of backpack left and right so I stopped to pick them up as Kate and Kathleen ran past to stop the bus.  By some miracle we made it in time and ended up panting and sweaty on the bus to Seville.

 

We only had a day to spend there so after finding our hostel we headed out to see the sights. We started at the third largest cathedral in the world, only after St. Peter’s in Rome and I want to say St. Paul’s in London but I’m not sure. Anyway the Cathedral of Seville was built by men who wanted people to look at in and think they were madmen… or something of the sort. Kate read us all of this information from the pages she’d ripped our of the guidebook and it was very interesting.

 

 

It was a huge cathedral and also the home of Christopher Columbus’ tomb. So I have now seen both his house and his tomb, fascinating – I know.

 

 

So I have a ton of pictures from the cathedral but this entry is already ridiculous so I’m only going to put up a few. It’s a gothic structure and the decorations were oh so gaudy. This was a cool magnifying mirror though as to be able to better observe the ceiling. We used it to take pictures of ourselves instead.

 

 

 

 

Kathleen and I met up in the courtyard full of orange trees and waited for Kate. After a little while a man came up to us and showed us a picture he’d taken, of us, from very high up. He then explained that you could go up in the bell tower and that it was free. So we went up and there we found Kate and some impressive views.

 

 

 

 

After that we walked around yet another Moorish castle and gardens. At this point we were sort of burnt out on Moorish castles but the gardens here were the most beautiful of all of them. They even had peacocks roaming around! We spent basically the rest of the day here basking in the sun in various places around the gardens until they closed.

 

 

 

 

 

After they basically kicked us out of those gardens we went to the Plaza de España which was really beautiful. And would’ve been even more impressive I’m sure if they hadn't been renovating the entire square.

 

 

 

 

 

After a dinner of tapas, during which I actually tried tripe (cow intestines), we headed to a free flamenco show. This is of course after Kate’s debit card got eaten by an ATM – and after some panicking because of that situation (we were leaving for Morocco early the next morning) we headed to the show.  And this is the part of the blog where pictures no longer do things justice and instead I’m going to upload a little movie I filmed of the show. You weren’t supposed to but I had to.

 

 

After that we went to bed since we were headed of to Fez the next day. But more on that later… Now I have to study for the two exams tomorrow and clean.

 

Coming soon: Sarah in Africa, Sarah and Steph in Pompeii, Daniel in Naples and Sicily, Sarah in Nice and Monaco, Sarah attempting to ski.

 

Wow, we’re (I’m) behind.

 

And now I have less than a month left in Italy and a busy couple of weeks ahead of me.

 

Hasta la vista!

Det går längre och längre mellan händelse och blogginlägg... Men håll tillgodo! Här finns en historia om när vi åkte till Rom.

NOTE: We started writing this sometime last week but due to its complexity and length, not to mention our laziness and how long it takes to write these things my little intro here is a bit outdated. We promise a Rome update soon. Well, Daniel does since he's the one who's going to be writing it. And then, when I get back, an update on my spring break in Spain and Morocco!

---

Now we've been back from our little adventure for a few days now and we again have unspoiled milk in the fridge and the laundry has (almost) all been washed. Daniel practically never goes to school and I hardly ever go to school so we spent yesterday enjoying the sunshine and warmth (17°C/63°F) and today hating the torrential downpours... ah, spring!

Since our adventure was a joint adventure it's only fair that this be a joint update, which also means bilingual. HA - ENJOY!

Now I have to do the dishes (WHICH I IN FACT DO, by the way...) but Daniel is going to tell you about Genoa, I'll take Florence and Siena, and he'll finish up with Bologna and Milan.

GENOVA:
Så, vi började vårt toscanska äventyr utanför Toscana. I Genova, Ligurien närmare bestämt. Genova är en väldigt vacker stad, som också har Italiens äldsta befolkning, vilket representerades av fler ambulanser per bil än vad jag någonsin tidigare sett.

 

So I had said that there would most likely be a blog update on Thursday but I'm afraid a spontaneous decision on our part and a sudden departure for Rome ruined those plans. Right now we're in our hotel room in Rome after a long two days of exploring. Tomorrow we plan on visiting the catacombs and the roman forum, but more on that later. We'll be home early monday morning but hopefully a "Florence, etc" update will be up later that day and a Rome update later in the week. That is before I leave for Spain and morocco on Thursday. Rough life, I know. Until next time! We'll be here in Rome, doing as the tourists do.

So in order to understand this past weekend I guess a little information about Carnevale (di Venezia, in this case) would be helpful.  Carnival is essentially a two-week long mardi gras celebration - minus the flashing and beads of course. It starts two weeks before Fat Tuesday and is celebrated all over Italy and also in Spain - probably in other "Catholic" countries as well. The most famous Carnival celebrations in Italy take place in Venice with elaborate costumes and masks. The little kids usually dress up like we would for Halloween. So anyway, this past Sunday was the opening day of Carnevale and so my program arranged a trip for all of us.

We left Saturday morning and arrived in Venice by the afternoon. Carnival festivities were already underway with people in costumes all over the place and confetti absolutely covering the streets. In typical tourist-city style there were street vendors lining the roads, but this time every single stand was selling masks.

 

As soon as we got into Venice we went to our hotel, and from there on a tour of the city. Unfortunately our tour guide was pretty dry and I we hadn't eaten since basically breakfast, except for a little snack, and by this time it was about 3 PM. I didn't catch most of what she said, or was too hungry and bored to listen, but we saw some sights so I guess it was good. Usually a tour of the city when you first get in can be helpful to help find your way around later. Oh no. Not in Venice. The place is a labyrinth. We all got a map but they weren't much help. Plus our hotel was in East Bufu so every time we tried to get back it took at least an hour after you factor in all the wrong turns and asking for directions. Oh well! haha. You haven't been in Venice unless you've gotten lost.

 

Thank god for the signs with the arrows directing you to St. Mark's Square and the train station. If we followed the signs to the train station we could usually get back - until of course you got to that one decisive point where it could be either left or right and there are no longer any signs.... Thank god for the florescent yellow HOTEL sign outside of our hotel. It was always such a welcome sight coming home at night after wandering the streets for a while and finally turning the corner, looking down the canal and seeing this sign. AH, HOME!

 

 

After our tour that first day we went and had dinner - calamari and seafood pasta. And then went back to get ready to go out. Little did we know, everything in Venice shuts down at midnight so by the time we got to where we were going the place was pretty much cleared out. Oh well....

 

Sunday was the official opening ceremonies. The whole shebang starts with the descent of what we thought was supposed to be a dove, actually was an angel, looked like a dirty sheep. Anyway it's a person dressed up who descends from the top of St. Mark's tower (98.6 meters/323 feet tall) down to the middle of St. Mark's Square. Sounds cool, right? And it was... decently so... except she descended so freaking slowly that it seemed impossibly slow and we were standing right under the wire - aka our view was right up her skirt for half the time. OH WELL. It was cool to be there and holy guacamole it was crowded. Plus tons of people all dressed up in elaborate costumes and masks.

 

The ceremony was fine - getting out of the crowd was a disaster. It was so crowded and people were throwing elbows left and right. It was impossible to move against the crowd, all you could do was let yourself get pushed along with it far enough to be able to break off. Crazy.

 

After all that we'd lost the rest of our group that we'd come with so it was just Kate and I. We wanted to see Santa Maria della Salute, the basilica located across the grand canal. On our way there we wandered a bit trying to find Kate a mask for Carnevale. They were everywhere, which only made it more difficult because - what if you found the perfect one at the NEXT shop? On our way we decided to fight the crowd to see the Bridge of Sighs - which is actually being renovated right now and this is all you could see...

 

 

This was the bridge connecting the prison to the Doge's Palace, where interrogations and trials were held. It's an enclosed bridge with two small windows covered by bars. This was often the prisoners's last chance to see the sea before being beheaded. I'm not sure if it was only sighing they were doing when they crossed this bridge - but that's where it got it's name: the apathetic prisoners. "Beheadings, le sigh."

 

And this is the crowd we fought to get there:

 

 

See that tiny bridge in the distance to the left? That's where you go to see the Bridge of Sighs - and that's where everyone was headed. They had police on the bridge urging people along, not letting anyone stop to take pictures and making sure everyone stayed to the right.

 

We walked by Harry's Bar too, which is just as anti-climactic now as it was last time I was in Venice. I guess Hemmingway spent some time there or whatever but I don't even think there's a plaque... just your standard bar.

 

We stumbled upon the Rialto Bridge again as well and took a few pictures.

 

 

So after some wandering we SOMEHOW found our way over to the other large island and the basicilica.

 

 

It's a gigantic Baroque church, and it was such a nice day. The sun was going down on the opposite side of the island so we walked over there and found a grocery store to buy some wine, a baguette and some cheese. We had a little picnic by the water and watched the sun go down.

 

As we were enjoying our picnic we were joined by a different type of carnivalers - the alternative, homemade costume, kind of carnivalers. We were passed by a giant parade of them and they were pretty hilarious.

 

 

After that we wandered our way back to the hotel and got ready for the evening. We put on out "carnival" faces and headed out. We made our way to St. Mark's Square again where it was completely empty. I think everyone else went and watched the Superbowl (which started at midnight and they didn't get home until about 5 AM) but Drew (from Canton, OH!) and I went and sat by the canal and talked. It was gorgeous. After that we got lost on our way back to the hotel and found another dock to sit on. And eventually, somehow, we made our way back to the giant yellow hotel sign.

 

This picture is actually from the previous night, but you get the idea.

 

One thing I haven't mentioned is the fact that nearly every single time I walked over a canal (like 3000) I took a picture. I have endless pictures of canals. And I think all of them are adorable. So, despite the fact that uploading pictures to this blog is incredibly time-consuming and annoying, I'm going to upload a few random photos from the trip here.

 

 

Monday morning we were up early to head back to Torino, with a quick stop in Verona along the way. For those of you who don't know, Verona is the setting for Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. What's interesting is that this story is fictitious yet in Verona you can visit Juliet's balcony, her house, Romeo's house, and Juliet's tomb. HOW is this possible?? Talk about tourist trap... Anyway, we visited "Juliet's" balcony and a bronze statue of her where, for good luck, we rubbed her right breast (similar to the spinning on the testicles of the bull here in Torino for fertility). The tunnel leading to the courtyard under the balcony was lined with love notes, which was cool. We even left some of our own.

 

 

After that it was a long and thirsty ride back to Torino...

 

Daniel went skiing both Friday and Monday and I think that he was very satisfied with his new skis.

 

 

Next on the agenda is a trip that's in the works from Torino to Genoa to Florence to Siena to Bologna and back to Torino. We would leave Wednesday morning and be back by Monday at 7 AM. A few hours in Genoa, a day and a half in Florence, a day in Siena and a day in Bologna. So that's something to look forward to.

 

Lata' skata.

Jag har tagit tag i mitt sug efter egna skidor, och åkte till Decathlon och köpte mig ett par Rossignolskidor och ett par pjäxor. Det är alltid ett sant nöje att handla på ett språk man inte riktigt behärskar. Det är åtminstone tur att jag hade Sarah med mig, hennes italienskakunskaper är bra mycket bättre än mina. Problemet är bara att hon talar om för mig vad säljaren säger, sedan får jag svara själv, och efter det berättar hon för mig vad jag skulle sagt istället för att bli förstådd.

63% of Italian men under age 65 live within 1 km of their mother or call her every day.

This is a little movie I watched in culture class today that basically sums up Italy and Italians better than we ever could in 100 blog entries. It is a simple comparison between Italians and other Europeans but oh, it says so much.

Enjoy!

The date was January 20th. Original plan: take my first Italian exam of the semester. The Italian government's plan for me: completely different.

So this horrific tragedy of events that I'm about to tell you about only proves my theory about Italy and its lack of any sort of modern organization at all, but I'm sure you'll come to realize that yourself soon enough. Perhaps some find it charming, others completely normal, still others completely frustrating. I won't say which category I fall under...

So really it all started a few months back when I arrived in Italy and was informed that it was just not enough that I had received a visa allowing me to live and study in this lovely country, I needed to pay another 80 euro or so to receive what they call a "Permit of Stay." They informed me that I, lucky as I am, may actually have a chance to see this permit of stay that I was about to spend so much money on. The poor kids who only stayed for a semester only ever saw their receipt...

So that's fine, I paid a bunch of money, I signed a few forms, I met a police officer, my program did most of the paperwork. Finally in December we yearlong students were taken to the Immigration Office, which looks - no joke - like a WW2 bunker. There we were fingerprinted, every single finger at least twice plus our entire hand, palm and fingers. We were lucky since we had an Italian with us who "knew a guy" and got to skip the line and walked right in the exit. Heya corruption! I did hear, however, horror stories of people waiting 7 hours to be fingerprinted... Oh, if I'd only known how lucky I was...

So at the beginning of this semester I got a receipt saying I had to to a certain place to pick up a letter, which everyone assumed would be my permit of stay. WRONG! It was a letter tell me I had to go back to the WW2 bunker to pick it up in person and gave me a time to be there, 9:53 - Wednesday Jan 20th. That's it. No further directions.

This would have been just about exactly halfway through my Italian exam, so I called my director and got excused from the exam. Long story short I arrive at the bunker a few minutes to ten to a room, about 400 square meters, FULL of people. Absolutely packed. Up on the wall were 3 number counters all up in the 100s. So I went to get my number and got 506. We were on 374... FOUR HOURS LATER..... I finally get to go through the gate to the room with the actual windows in it and stand in another line for about 20 mins with people who had apparently just been going through when they decided they were ready - thanks a lot #517... So I finally get up there and everyone else has an original copy of their receipt they had received. This was not in the letter... I had brought my passport but, since I was never informed of anything else - that was it. So the man starts blabbering at me in Italian which I don't understand, through a plastic wall with a tiny slit at the bottom so I just answered in English deciding not to bother trying to struggle with Italian. I mean, this man - and all the others around him - work at an immigration office. They NEVER encounter a single Italian - they have to know English, right? OH NO. Of course not... So I got to wait to the side for I don't know, 15 minutes, for them to find somebody who spoke English who could tell me I needed the original copy of the receipt... I tried to get her to just give me my stupid card since I even had happened to have a photocopy of the receipt with me but oh no... she started to say something about if I could write something in Italian but I guess just gave up so I gave her a "piece of my mind" so to speak - which I'm sure she didn't understand/couldn't hear through the plastic wall dividing us but in the end, after being at the immigration office from 10 - 3 I gave up and left.

After that I got to rush back to school to take the exam I missed, so by this time it's 3:30 and I was supposed to be an hour and a half away by 5 PM to teach English. So I did the exam as quickly as I could, called the mom and told her I was going to be late, went straight there and finally got home at 7 PM where I finally got to pee for the first time since breakfast that day.

AAAAAHHH - What a day!!!!

My overall frustration and hate for all things Italian has gone over now but I don't think I'll be going back to the WW2 bunker anytime soon - they can keep my stupid permit of stay... even if the police stops me for some reason and asks me for it but the time they file the paperwork saying I don't have it, I'll be home.