Hey guys! So sorry its been a while since I updated. I find it to be harder than I had expected to keep up with this blog. Between emails, class, and traveling, my time is precious. I keep a notebook though, writing down all the fun things I have been doing and seeing so that I don’t forget to tell you anything.
So since the last time I wrote, I have done quite a few wonderful things.
I had one of the best days of my life 2 Fridays ago. My roommates and I went on the “Tuscany Bike Tour.” We met at the bridge just north of the Ponte Vecchio at 9am where we met our tour guides. They were young Scottish guys, full of vigor and excitement for the day ahead. We, on the other hand, were tired and nervous with anticipation…unsure of what we were getting ourselves into. Little did we know, we were going to come back that night ecstatic about how we will never forget that day…
Anyway, once all checked in, we piled into these old, volkswagony type vans and headed out of the now familiar city of Florence, into the hillsides of Tuscany. Sara (one of my roommates) and I got stuck in the back of the van next to this friendly guy, named Rowan from Scotland. We asked him where he was from and his name…it was only cordial as we were basically sitting on top of him! Anyway, we asked him what brought him to Florence and he replied, “well you know the guy with the gay pink sweater on?” and of course , we knew he was talking about one of our tour guides we had met earlier on the bridge…so with a smile on our faces we replied, “yes….” And he goes, “yep. That’s my brother.” It was at that moment that we knew we were going to have a fun day.
Once we were completely out of Florence, Keith (other tour guide driving our van) decided to pop a cassette, yes, a cassette, into the sterio. A few moments later, blaring from the speakers is classic 80s music. Thrilled and even more excited, the entire van starts singing along to “Lets Hear it For the Boy.” My roommate thought she would go ahead and try to hit the infamous high note in the song and had the entire van shocked! Another girl took credit for it, but we shrugged it off and laughed anyway.
After a beautiful scenic drive, we arrived in Chianti at a beautiful Castle. The first few hours of the tour were spent inside the castle, learning how they make wine and olive oil ( we of course, got to try it at the end!!). They also let us up into one of the towers for photo ops. We could see miles and miles of rolling Tuscan hills from up there. It was a sight to say the least.
After that, we were all assigned our bikes, helmets, and water bottles. We were happy to see that the bikes were all in good shape and had bags attached to them behind the seat where we could put our wallets/cameras…whatever. I know I was satisfied because I didn’t have to bring my backpack with me for the next 13 miles!
And then we were off, cycling through the countryside of Chianti. It was relaxing… invigorating… amazing.
There were a few stops along the path to take pictures and rest..and then we stopped at an authentic tuscan restaurant for lunch. By that time we were starving, so we loaded up on the food that they kept bringing out. Well, that was a bad idea. NOTE TO SELF: do not eat Italian food in abundance before getting on a bike. Haha. So to wrap it up, we finished the tour, stopped at a café for water and then biked back to the castle. It was lovely. Sad that the day was coming to an end, but happy to rest, we piled back into the vans and drove back to Florence…this time with Christmas music to carol along to… Just us American girls, a few Scottish guys, and a woman from Australia. It was quite the experience!
We ended up becoming friends with the tour guides and taking a bunch of pictures with them afterward. For some reason they were really eager to pose like cheerleaders….so if u ever see those pictures, that’s what that is all about. Two scots and an Irishman…wanting to pose like girly cheerleaders. Hey, im not arguing ;)
(side note, the guys we made friends with were Rowan and Andy Mackie, aka “the Mackie bros,” and Keith, the Irishman)
Ok so that was the bike tour on a Friday. Saturday was our resting day because the following Sunday, we headed to Cinque Terre, which means the Five Villages. I think I will butcher this if I try to explain it, so just look it up on wikipedia or something because you’ll get a better feel for what it is. I’ll try my best though…
Basically these five villages, just off the coast of the Mediterranean, are only accessible by train or foot. So we took a train to the first village, hiked the next 3, and took a ferry to the last. We were literally hiking through the mountains to get from one town to the next, cliffs and the coast to the left of us, mountains to the right. It was another breath taking experience that pictures just don’t do justice. We got really sweaty, but in my opinion, that’s how you know your having fun right? Haha. I cant speak for everyone, but I had a great time. Hiking isn’t for everyone, and I’m sure there were some people who went that weren’t expecting such an intense hike… but I was thrilled! Granted, I did wear flip flops, I found it easier to go nearly barefoot. But that’s not important to the story…
At the third village, we stopped for gelato and to spend some time on the beach. Then we got on the ferry and went to the last village and then got on a train home. It was another tiresome day, but one of the best weekends I have had yet. I got exercise. I got pictures. I got ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunities. I had a lot of good thinking time. I’d say all in all, a very healthy, therapeutic weekend spent with friends.
Now you would think that after such a physical weekend, we would have went home and crashed Sunday night…psh. You would THINK. But our friends from the bike tour had called us at around 9, when we were getting back to our apartment, and asked us to hang out with them. Knowing how much fun they are and also knowing that Rowan, the brother visiting, was leaving the next day and we might not ever see him again, we had to agree. We all cleaned up and managed to look decent enough to go out with the boys. Needless to say, they were tired as well since their job is , well, biking… so that was good for us because we only hung out for a few hours before they too, wanted to call it a night. It was fun though. Rowan did impressions of Craig David and made fun of us “yanks.” They also mentioned that they thought I looked like a “wee Gloria Estefan,” which made me laugh because my grandpa used to tell me that I looked like her… They also kept calling me a “wee bit Lauren.” It was sweet. So once again, the Mackie boys and Keith didn’t fail to entertain us and show us a good time. We parted ways and THEN finally crashed so we could go to class the next day…
Those are the exciting stories for now. I have other stuff that I’ve done & seen, but I will leave you with the Highlights. I have a list started of the little things I want to share with you all...but I’ll save that for a rainy day. Until then, keep in touch! Love to all from Florence!!
Ciao amici!
~Lauren Grace
p.s. thanks for all the prayers and support! Everything has been in God’s hands so far. I can tell. I have been blessed in so many ways so far. I thank God for all these opportunities and all the new perspectives on life that He is allowing me to discover.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
culture shock?...
wow ok sorry i havent been keeping up with this as much as i should ... im trying to reply to everyones emails as best i can. i dont always have access to the internet so its kind of hard... but here goes..
i did get my luggage..thank goodness!! i was ecstatic when it came. i dumped it out all over my bed and laid in it for a while.. taking in the familiar smells of my ever so missed clothing! not to mention my BLANKET. i was so worried i would never feel the warmth and comfort from my favorite blanket ever again...but it came and all is well!
...i hope i can remember everything that has happened since i last blogged... lets see... so far my roomates and i have just been wandering around florence trying to see all the sights that are right on our front door first... so we saw dantes church and house, the duomo is practically in our backyard, we went to michelangelos point (where you can see the entire city from up there...beautiful!!! it was the most amazing sight!), the ponte vecchio...pretty much all the piazzas...the italian mcdonalds lol! its been a real blast. i think we have eaten gelato almost every night....maybe except for 2 nights. haha. its an easy thing to become addicted to here.
last weekend my one roomate, sara, and i decided to venture outside the familiar walls of florence and go to the beach. we chose Viareggio because it seemed to be the closest. so we figured out how to get tickets...which were only 12 euro roundtrip ! not bad. anyway, an hour and a half later we arrived to viareggio, walked to the beach, got there and realized the whole thing was reserved...except for this tiny little sliver at the very very end of the beach. that small part...that was public. so we settled for that. but it really wasnt this simple at all. i just put it all in a nutshell. if you want the unrated version....sara and i experience our first pangs of culture shock. no one knew like any english at alll...save for one man that was somewhat helpful. atleast he was nice. we didnt have a train schedule so we started to panic about if we would make it home that day. then we had to pee so we finally found a fricken bathroom and it was just a hole in the ground. i will spare you the details on that...
so after an hour and a half of being absolutely frantic and frustrated...and peeing in a hole, we STILL hadnt seen the beach. we wandered on to this one beach thinking it was fine, and sat down. this staff member came up to us and we assumed we werent supposed to be there because she looked angry so thats when we left to go find somewhere that we were allowed to be. thats when the culture shock kicked in and both of us were just completely full of rage and frustration. after finding the public sliver of beach, we decided to make the most of it...and relax. so all in all it was a good adventure for lauren and sara.
the best part of it all was that the next day i was telling a classmate of mine about our little journey and she was like, "why didnt you guys just buy a seat for 5 euro?".....ughh!!! no one told us we could do that. the signs everywhere just said "reserved". haha so that was that little trip.
mcdonalds. sara and i had some coupons. so we went. we thought it would be some comfort food american style. it was fabulous and greasy. needless to say we had horrible stomach aches afterward because we are so used to eating fresh everything... but it was much needed.
umm... so yeah i cant sit here and possibly gather EVERYTHING ive done in the past week and half. i would love to, and i really should try to just keep up with this more often. im trying to post pictures, but i have had problems uploading them for some reason.... but as soon as i can, the pictures will be able to tell more of the stories.
all in all, i am doing well. the gelato is delicious, as is the food and wines. the people are incredible. ive made a lot of new friends...some that i know will be for life :) and i am so excited to see what the next day will have to offer.
there is one more thing i do want to share because it happened today and i was soo excited...ok so my cooking teacher heard i was in photography and then talked to me after class about possibly working with the head of the cooking department shooting photographs for a cookbook. intrigued, i told her i was interested and told her to pass along my email and phone number to the guy. he called me this morning and asked me to meet him at his studio at 6pm. so sara and i walked to this studio that was about a 15 or 20 min walk from our place and arrived to find this sweet little old man photographer. he was precious. he wasnt very good at english, but we did pretty well communicating. we even shared a few laughs. but ok, so the scoop is he is a professional photographer who publishes his pictures in a cookbook...a real, nice, actual, cookbook, that u can buy in the stores! he showed me his work and then explained in a round about what i would be doing. im basically assisting him in photographing a How To cookbook...so he would be making the food and i would be taking pictures of the processes. im only really available on tuesdays, but when i told him that he said "molto bene!" so thats cool that he was happy with my one day of availability. he wont be paying me.. but itll be a good learning experience and he said he would help me learn italian!!! and then i can teach him to speak better english! aw im so excited. its like i have my very own italian grandpa cook / photographer here!!!
so yeah. now that this novel is dragging on and on, ive worked up yet another appetite for gelato...and the roomies agree. im out for now. Ciao friends! i will try to keep you posted more often!
i did get my luggage..thank goodness!! i was ecstatic when it came. i dumped it out all over my bed and laid in it for a while.. taking in the familiar smells of my ever so missed clothing! not to mention my BLANKET. i was so worried i would never feel the warmth and comfort from my favorite blanket ever again...but it came and all is well!
...i hope i can remember everything that has happened since i last blogged... lets see... so far my roomates and i have just been wandering around florence trying to see all the sights that are right on our front door first... so we saw dantes church and house, the duomo is practically in our backyard, we went to michelangelos point (where you can see the entire city from up there...beautiful!!! it was the most amazing sight!), the ponte vecchio...pretty much all the piazzas...the italian mcdonalds lol! its been a real blast. i think we have eaten gelato almost every night....maybe except for 2 nights. haha. its an easy thing to become addicted to here.
last weekend my one roomate, sara, and i decided to venture outside the familiar walls of florence and go to the beach. we chose Viareggio because it seemed to be the closest. so we figured out how to get tickets...which were only 12 euro roundtrip ! not bad. anyway, an hour and a half later we arrived to viareggio, walked to the beach, got there and realized the whole thing was reserved...except for this tiny little sliver at the very very end of the beach. that small part...that was public. so we settled for that. but it really wasnt this simple at all. i just put it all in a nutshell. if you want the unrated version....sara and i experience our first pangs of culture shock. no one knew like any english at alll...save for one man that was somewhat helpful. atleast he was nice. we didnt have a train schedule so we started to panic about if we would make it home that day. then we had to pee so we finally found a fricken bathroom and it was just a hole in the ground. i will spare you the details on that...
so after an hour and a half of being absolutely frantic and frustrated...and peeing in a hole, we STILL hadnt seen the beach. we wandered on to this one beach thinking it was fine, and sat down. this staff member came up to us and we assumed we werent supposed to be there because she looked angry so thats when we left to go find somewhere that we were allowed to be. thats when the culture shock kicked in and both of us were just completely full of rage and frustration. after finding the public sliver of beach, we decided to make the most of it...and relax. so all in all it was a good adventure for lauren and sara.
the best part of it all was that the next day i was telling a classmate of mine about our little journey and she was like, "why didnt you guys just buy a seat for 5 euro?".....ughh!!! no one told us we could do that. the signs everywhere just said "reserved". haha so that was that little trip.
mcdonalds. sara and i had some coupons. so we went. we thought it would be some comfort food american style. it was fabulous and greasy. needless to say we had horrible stomach aches afterward because we are so used to eating fresh everything... but it was much needed.
umm... so yeah i cant sit here and possibly gather EVERYTHING ive done in the past week and half. i would love to, and i really should try to just keep up with this more often. im trying to post pictures, but i have had problems uploading them for some reason.... but as soon as i can, the pictures will be able to tell more of the stories.
all in all, i am doing well. the gelato is delicious, as is the food and wines. the people are incredible. ive made a lot of new friends...some that i know will be for life :) and i am so excited to see what the next day will have to offer.
there is one more thing i do want to share because it happened today and i was soo excited...ok so my cooking teacher heard i was in photography and then talked to me after class about possibly working with the head of the cooking department shooting photographs for a cookbook. intrigued, i told her i was interested and told her to pass along my email and phone number to the guy. he called me this morning and asked me to meet him at his studio at 6pm. so sara and i walked to this studio that was about a 15 or 20 min walk from our place and arrived to find this sweet little old man photographer. he was precious. he wasnt very good at english, but we did pretty well communicating. we even shared a few laughs. but ok, so the scoop is he is a professional photographer who publishes his pictures in a cookbook...a real, nice, actual, cookbook, that u can buy in the stores! he showed me his work and then explained in a round about what i would be doing. im basically assisting him in photographing a How To cookbook...so he would be making the food and i would be taking pictures of the processes. im only really available on tuesdays, but when i told him that he said "molto bene!" so thats cool that he was happy with my one day of availability. he wont be paying me.. but itll be a good learning experience and he said he would help me learn italian!!! and then i can teach him to speak better english! aw im so excited. its like i have my very own italian grandpa cook / photographer here!!!
so yeah. now that this novel is dragging on and on, ive worked up yet another appetite for gelato...and the roomies agree. im out for now. Ciao friends! i will try to keep you posted more often!
miss you all at home! keep in touch and send emails if you want!!! i would LOVE to hear from you guys and hear about whats goin in your lives!
Love,
Lauren Grace
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