Venice!

Ciao!

These past two weeks have been super busy, and filled with lots of exciting things. We started classes last week, and they’re all right. Each class have us a “reader” which is just a book of photocopied articles and things that they typed up, instead of us having to buy tons of books of which we only need a few pages from. The first day I read everything for my classes, but when I actually went to class, the information that the teacher was saying was just a reiteration word for word of what I had just read. I guess it’s a good way to get the information to stick in our minds, but it almost makes me feel like it’s a waste to either go to class or to do the readings, and since we are only allowed to miss 2 classes for each subject for the semester, I guess I know which one to skip. My literature class is a little better, because we are reading different books about the fascist era in Italy, but my professor just rambles continuously and doesn’t say anything of importance. We have yet to finish talking about the book that we began with, and have been behind the syllabus since the first day we started class. I also have a 7-hour block of time in between my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and a 4-hour one on Mondays and Wednesday.

Also last week on Wednesday, I went to something that Umbra offers called Tandem, in which we go to a restaurant or bar and meet people who are in the Universita degli Stranieri, which is the university for foreigners. They’re all Italians who want to speak English, and we are the Americans who want to speak Italian, so it worked out well. I was at a table with 3 other Umbra people and then an Italian student named Francesco (everyone I’ve met here is named Francesco!). He was really nice, asking us questions and making us respond in Italian, even though he refused to speak much English. He had a friend, Luigi, who came over and talked with us for a while too.

On Friday I just hung out and didn’t do much, but on Saturday, Devon, Jessica, Sarah, and I went to Venice for the weekend. In order to get to Venice, we had to take a 2-hour train to Florence, and then hop on a train to Venice, which was another 2 hours. We got really confused about where to sit, and didn’t realize until the train was about to leave that we had an assigned seat written on our tickets. When we got to Venice, we were staying in a town called Mestre, which is about 20 minutes by bus outside of Venice. WORST IDEA EVER! We had to get off the train first; it was raining the entire time we were trying to find the way to our bed and breakfast, and we had to take a bus from the train station to where our B&B was, which was in a smaller town called Favaro, which was one street and was pretty run down. The B&B we stayed at was really nice, and we all got to share a room together which was nice. But then it took us 2 hours to catch a bus into Venice, so while we got to Favaro at 3, we didn’t get into Venice until 5:30. After wandering around smaller alleyways, for about an hour, we finally made it to S. Marco’s square, which was gorgeous. The only problem was that it was pouring and freezing cold, and a fleece and short sleeves wasn’t cutting it. After dinner, which I had a pizza with different meats on it, and then we made our way back to Favaro around 9, with the intention of waking up at 7am and getting to Venice early, which we did. However, the one thing we didn’t realize, is that on a Sunday, if stores are open, they don’t open until 9:30-10. We wandered around the streets again figuring out where we wanted to go when things opened up, and found a store which sold small Murano glass animals, which I have collected since I came to Italy the first time, when I was around 6-7. We then found a Murano Glass factory on Venice, instead of going on a boat ride to the island of Murano to the Murano Factory, which we later found out wasn’t open on Sundays anyway. The factory on Venice wouldn’t let us up to see people making things, but we walked around the store for a bit and saw all of the things they made. I was looking for small figures and animals, which they did not have at the Murano Factory Store, so we went back to the place with all of the animals in the window. I bought a tiny gray hippo, and a present for my brother and my friend Catherine (I wont tell you guys what it is you’ll just have to wait!). We wandered around this place called Il Palazzo de Ducale, which is where the Doge, or head senator type person, lived while they were in power. It was basically a huge palace in the middle of S. Marco’s square, with a large open center inside. After Il Palazzo, we went to lunch where we all got a different kind of pasta that we tried off each other’s plates. Then we wandered all around the streets, went into a store with Venetian masks, a chocolate store which had amazing chocolate and truffles inside, and eventually ended up at an Irish pub to have coffee and waste some time before our train home at 5:30. At the pub, Devon and I each had hot chocolate, which we decided was actually chocolate pudding you make on the stove, in a cup. We had to eat it with a spoon, it was so thick, but delicious all the same.

This week, we had Sarah’s 21^st birthday on Tuesday, which we celebrated grandly. Our entire apartment took her out to dinner at a place called Pizza Mediterranea, which is right by our house. We all split 4 pizzas, which were margherita (classic), lasagna, which had ham and ricotta, a vegetable pizza, and then one that was a sausage pizza but had an egg on it. Then for desert, we all split a Nutella pizza, which was Sarah’s first taste of Nutella. It was so delicious, and for 5 pizzas plus 2 liters of wine, it only cost us 8 euro’s a piece. At home we had gotten her a cake/torte from a place called Sandries in the center of Perugia, which was absolutely delicious. It was chocolate cookie layers, with chocolate mouse between one layer, and white chocolate mouse between the other, and then dusted with coco powder. It was devoured immediately, and whatever wasn’t eaten then we had the next day. Then we went to Dempseys and Rock Castle, where we came across Luigi and Francesco from Tandem, so we hung out with them for most of the night and danced. Sarah and I came back around 3:30 and immediately passed out. Class the next day was rough, but I found out that Luigi is a tutor for my class, which means that he comes in to help us out with things we don’t understand, and gives an Italian perspective to everything.

Today, I am going to Pisa and then Munich for Oktoberfest! We’re leaving around 2:30 to get a train to Florence and then have a bus from Florence to Pisa, and then a 7:00am flight to Munich. I’m traveling with 3 other Richmond students, which is nice because we all kind of knew each other, and then my two roommates, Amanda and Christie are meeting me in Munich to share a room. It’s going to be a long weekend, but I’m sure it will be worth it!

Next weeks agenda includes a cooking class which I’m doing each week on Mondays at a professor’s house, and then Tuesday is a gnocchi making class with my Italian class, and then Wednesday is another Tandem. I think I may be going to Siena to visit a friend from Richmond, but that’s still up in the air at this point.

Ciao!