Spending a lot of Money Makes Alex Want to Take Anti-Anxiety Pills

We planned out, researched, and booked our Spring Break last night. And good god, was it A Mission.

My original suggestion was to go to Barcelona via the train through the south of France, but one of my friends did research and came to the conclusion that staying in Nice, Marseilles, Aix, and Barcelona was going to be ridiculously expensive. So we settled on taking a train and then staying in Nice for four nights, and doing day trips to wherever we wanted to go from there. Then instead of taking a 112 euro train from Nice to Barcelona, we're going to take a plane from Nice to Dublin, the another from Dublin to Barcelona for 60 euro. Strange how a plane can cost less and take far less time than a train. Aren't trains supposed to be the Budget Option?

Anyways, we're staying in Barcelona for four nights as well, and taking a plane back to Pisa the Saturday before classes start up again. We booked our hostels in both Nice and Barcelona and our planes on my friend Jaimie's credit card, because she somehow either doesn't have a charge limit or an agreement that she can spend whatever she wants while here. So when the charge comes in, we need to either wire her money or send her mother a check back in the states.

So all in all, right now we're doing spring break for under 400 US dollars. I think that's pretty damn good. Granted, as we go on the trip we're going to have to spend money on things to do, day trips out of Nice, and food, but still, I like knowing that we're doing an entire week travelling for the price it would be to stay in a hotel for three nights back home.

And anyways, we're trying to make up for it by having John ask every single one of his friends in Paris if we can sleep on their floor while there next month.

I'm Getting This Done With My Hair

Chocolate and Alleyways, or The Day On Which I Realized That Medieval Religious Iconography Really Does it For Me

Sometimes the best ideas are the most spontaneous. Like spending a week brainstorming possible day trips for the weekend until you get so frustrated that you're tempted to just forget about the prospect of traveling altogether, until, after coming home from the opera at midnight exhausted and cranky, someone simply says, "Why not Perugia?" and you respond "Alright, fine" just to get them out of your apartment so you can go to bed. So you wake up early, trusting that someone else has figured out the details and simply get on a train to Umbria. And it ends up being a completely and utterly wonderful day.

Jennie, Yvette, Jaimie, Lauren, and I met up with John and Adrian at their apartment and walked to the train station at 9:30 in the morning. After a lot of confusion over which train to take and where and how to buy tickets, we ended up on the correct train to Perugia. The train ride was lovely, passing through Arezzo and Cortona and Trasimeno, a city next to a beautiful lake that I plan on visiting as soon as the weather starts to clear up. We arrived in Perugia around one o'clock in the afternoon. After a quick cheap lunch at what seemed to be the equivalent of a train station diner (that amazingly had delicious stewed fava beans), we bought a map and started to explore.

Our Adventures had a rough start. After walking up the steepest hill imaginable, we came to the first museum only to find that it was closed, and had been since an earthquake a few years ago. But we continued on, and as we kept walking up hills and stairs we realized that the city was getting progressively older. The buildings became smaller and covered in moss, and the streets got narrower with more small alleyways that I kept running in until I would hear someone say "Where the hell is Alex?" There were frescoes on the walls and creches and religious icons, and I just fell more and more in love.

When we reached the city center, which was the top of the hill, the architecture changed dramatically. Whereas the city was very medieval, the main piazza was definitely Baroque, with wide streets and Napolean-esque buildings. We stopped at a chocolate store and I bought artisinal bacci (kisses) and took Album Cover pictures on the stairs leading to the museum. We finally decided to go in the museum, which has one of the best collections of medieval art is all of Italy. In the museum, I realized that while Renaissance art leaves me cold, I love medieval religious art. I find the gold leaf, the bright colors, and even the lack of perspective and realism terribly beautiful. I think it's the sense of mystery that accompanies those paintings. Life was still completely inexplicable then, and because of this completely magical. It's hard to articulate, but it really shone through in the beauty of those paintings of Jesus and the saints and angels.

After the museum, we considered getting dinner, but seeing as it was still early and starting to rain, we decided to just get the train home and eat then. As it turned out, this was a brilliant idea. Jennie had thrown the idea of doing a pizza and beer night, and I suggested Il Pizzaioulo, a pizzeria that my guidebook raved about. We made a reservation for 13 people, and got there at 10:00, like Real Italians. The restaurant was adorable, and the pizza was amazing. Lauren and I split a vegetariana pizza, and ate it so fast I think it was gone in five minutes. The crust was thick and fluffy, not gummy, and just charred enough, the sauce was perfect, and there was just the right amount of cheese. Everyone else's was delicious as well, and Lauren and I basically ate all the crusts from John's pizza as well. After pizza we went to an Irish pub that had really good beer until we got bored (there isn't much to do at a pub, and for some reason I attract guys in bars much easier in New York).

All in all, it was a really great day. Just goes to show that it's not always necessary to plan things out to a T. And that's something that I need to remember.

Vintage Fair, Pizza, Florence in Sunlight

We went to the Vintage Fair, which was basically a flea market of wonderful vintage clothes. I bought vintage glasses frames! Which I then proceeded to wear all day, until my friend Kate came over for dinner and said, with mild disgust, "Nice hipster glasses." Yo Whatever. I love them. And they got me lots of strange looks from the hot Italian business men at the pizzeria where we went to lunch, at which I ate the best pizza on the planet, Pizza Frutti di Mare:



I was torn between this pizza and a vegetable pizza, but when this came out, I knew I had made the right choice. Perfectly cooked mussels, shrimp, cockles, and calamari lay on a paper thin crust with a simple tomato puree. Heaven.

After lunch, we took a walk to get gelato and ended up by the Arno. It was finally sunny, and I couldn't resist a few pictures.

Chocolate Fair!

Scene:
Sitting in a classroom during orientation with Marielle, looking at Florence's English-language newspaper.
Me: Hm, an exhibit of works depicting Catherine di'Medici. Could be fun.
Marielle: Yeah that sounds interested.
Me: Oh, a flower market!
Marielle: Oooh.
Me: GJDJHGRHAJKFFG; CHOCOLATE FAIR
Marielle: (gasp) WHAT WE ARE SO GOING

yes, so perhaps I took some artistic license with that conversation, but it went more or less along those lines. Nothing like the vision of stalls upon stalls of chocolately greatness to send two college girls into a tizzy.

Lucca (A Little After the Fact)

So, I've been seriously slacking in the picture posting department. So, here are some pictures from the last trip we went on. We went to Lucca, which is the only Ancient Walled City (phrase courtesy of my roommate Jennie's father) with walls that are still intact in all of Tuscany. It was a truly beautiful city, with small alleyways and medieval buildings surrounding a circular piazza that followed the plan of the original Roman amphitheater that is now buried. Also, the shops were adorable.



However, the weather on the day we went couldn't have been worse. When we left Florence it was gray and drizzly, but as we went towards Lucca the drizzle turned into full-on downpour. As you can imagine, it's very, very difficult to pay attention to a guided tour when you are soaked to the bone. And then the tour ended just as siesta began, so none of the shops or museums were open during the entirety of our free time. So we got a sit-down, multi course lunch (which was fabulous and really cheap), stopped in at a bakery to buy a type of bread specific to Lucca (ring-shaped and dried fruit studded and which tasted something like pannettone except much firmer) and then spent the rest of the time hiding from the rain in the tourism information center.




So in all, Lucca was a beautiful town that I would have enjoyed so much more had it not been raining. I think I will take my mother there when she comes to visit. It's one of the only cities in Tuscany where she hasn't been, and I think that if it's a nice day we'll have a really good time.

Various Observations

1) Italians Don't Clean Up After Their Dogs
It's something that takes a bit of getting used to, having to constantly watch the sidewalk to make sure you don't step in a fresh pile of dog shit. And since it rains like, all the time here, that pile of dog shit is always wet. Which makes it even more unpleasant to step in. I'm not sure if there just aren't laws here requiring people to clean up after their pets, or if people here just don't care, but either way it's annoying. Especially since everything you see here is so beautiful, it's really terrible to have to miss it because you're staring at the ground, avoiding the obstacle course.

2) The Only Place in which I Have Experienced Serious Culture Shock is the Grocery Store
First off, everything is in Italian. Yeah, I know, obvi. But it is seriously hard to figure out if you're buying rice milk or soy milk when you don't know the word for "soy" or "rice." And there's no oatmeal. I actually considered buying this rice gruel baby food a few days ago, but it was mad expensive and it came in tiny portions. But on the bright side, everything tastes better here. The peppers were bright and sweet and happy tasting and there's barely any part of the artichokes that you can't eat and their salad mixes are so ridiculously good that I have to force myself to not eat an entire bag a day.

3) Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) Wears Black.
I rebel by wearing bright yellow tights with a green shirt and my red coat. Yes, back in New York I would hate myself. But I feel like I have to bring some color into this city. People need to have fun with their clothes, not constantly look like they're in mourning.

4) Italians Really Like Their Political Graffiti
Back in New York, you really never see obvious political graffiti. Yes, every once in a while someone will scrawl "Fuck Bush" on the wall of the subway car or something, but most of the graffiti is just the names of the artist or crew. It's totally different here. Apparently there's a big anti-Fascist movement in Florence, and you can tell by the phrases people spray paint on the walls and buildings. My favorite is halfway up the hill on the way to campus, where someone wrote "Tu Votto Non Conto" (Your Vote Doesn't Count), mostly because it's one of the only ones I totally understand. They also like to spray paint love notes on the street and walls in front of their significant others' homes. It's kind of cute. It's even better when they combine love notes and political messages, like the one I saw that roughly translated to "My Dear Little Radical." Adorable. Someday someone will say that about me. (Or perhaps not, since I'm not at all a radical. I'm actually becoming increasingly bourgeois, but that's a story for another day.)

5) The Old Women Here Are Really Really Elegant
They make me want to buy a fur coat.