Hannah Girls in Italy!

Mom arrived safely, although delayed by one hour, in Florence yesterday! She had quite a time in coming here. She got on her flight from Atlanta, GA, to Frankfurt, Germany and when she got to Frankfurt she was not shown how to get to her next flight to Florence. Being well aware of security issues, she still ended up having to go through security once again which really upset her. She accidentally exited the "secure area" and had to be practically stripped down again with security measures. On the flight from Frankfurt to Florence, she accidentally sat in the wrong seat. She was looking for a window seat in a half-full plane. All the seats were the same except for a few seats in the front of the airplane being separated from the rest by a small curtain. The stewardess came by, looked at my mom, and said according to my mom, "how dare you come into business class? you need to go back to economy class". And so my mom apologized by saying she didn't know it was first class, and she said the stewardess gave her an evil, demeaning look. So mom's trip here was slightly dramatic, but the important thing is that she made it here safe and sound! I met her at the airport and we took an airport bus from the terminal back to the main station of Florence. From there, I bought her a 3-day inner-city bus pass and we made our way back to my little home. We settled into the apartment without a hassle. From there, we went on a small shopping expedition to the 10-minute away supermarket Coop, which was a fun experience. We both salivated over the fresh prosciutto and parmesan cheese. We had a great dinner here at the apartment and saved our energy for the next day.

Today we headed out to explore Florence. I tried to show Mom as much as I knew about Florence so far. We started off from the apartment and walked most of the way into the city:

Mom along the banks of the Arno

We caved into the tourist flow and headed towards the Duomo. It's a beautiful spot to view history and also to people watch!

(click photos for larger, uncropped view)









While we were in the heart of Florence, we wandered to many different piazzi (squares) and statues so I must ask forgiveness for not knowing the identity of each photo figure. Still, I think the beauty of the art can stand for themselves regardless.







an interesting clash of the old and new

We finally made it into the part of Florence that I consider to be my "stomping grounds" - the roads around my school. We stopped for a moment outside one of my school classroom buildings:

Mom posing outside my school door!

After seeing my usual haunts around campus, we weren't sure exactly where to go. We're saving the big museums for another day, so we just wandered again. And suddenly, there was the sound of drums and chanting in the distance. Fascinated, I dragged Mom in that general direction. We came across a huge peace parade with people chanting, drumming and waving flags and banners to support Abdullah Öcalan, a founding leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which was founded in 1978. I wasn't even aware there were such strong political issues in Kurdistan! Much more information on Öcalan can be found (((----->here<------))). Very interesting history...I'm surprised I've never heard of it, considering the amount of US involvement in the matter. Photos from the peace rally:

















The streets, of course, were devoid of the usual hustle-bustle traffic because of the peace march. Mom wanted to have her picture taken in the street to show off this very fact:



The crowd's chanting was extremely loud and honestly somewhat scary. When I first heard it, I thought it was a violent rally. The only thing different about this peaceful rally was that every so often, the entire parade would sit down and continue chanting. Super bizarre since I'm so accustomed to these streets being the arteries of city traffic. The police didn't seem overly concerned with the march though. There were 6 police officers in front of the parade and 6 following it. They did have riot helmets, but they held them in their hands and seemed to be casually chatting to pass the time. I have yet to see Italian police get uppity about anything here. They're certainly not worried about enforcing traffic infractions. Improperly passing? HAHAHA yeah right! I don't think that law even exists here. Motor scooters regularly execute death-defying road maneuvers all around town.

We tried to find an outdoor cafe to get an early dinner at after our walking extravaganza, but at 5:30pm it was way too early to find anything. All the dinner places were closed. People start eating dinner around 8:00pm here. So instead we made our way back, stopping occasionally for a few photos:

window of a cafe

Mom looking fabulous in a road-side park

me by another final example of Florentine graffiti


Before home, we stopped by the supermarket again to pick up a few essentials. We both had a good laugh over this:



Cat grass! How posh!

And we ended the night with great Italian gnocchi at home and with good company. I've truly missed quality time with family, especially since family is so important here. I feel very grateful to have my mom here with me. The conversations are deep, lovingly familiar and also in wonderful English. Here's to another successful day tomorrow.

Computer parts went to sleep?

According to Alberto, my computer angel tech guy, my computer parts "went to sleep" aka my hard drive failed. I was almost positive it was a virus, but he didn't think so. He installed a new 160mb hard drive and is still in the process of moving my old files over to it. I'm pretty excited about it! He said they don't even make my small old hard drive type anymore, so the new one should run much better. It's like I'll have a new computer! It's going to be like waiting for Christmas morning all day tomorrow. I don't have any class, so it's just going to be study time for my Thursday exams while I wait on my computer. Woohoo!!!!

Midterms are here

After a weekend of studying, I've arrived at the week of midterms. My Italian midterm that I just took was confusing with many different verbs I've never even seen before, but at least that was only a part of it. I studied all day Saturday and Sunday, so it annoys me that I didn't know everything on the exam. It's something to discuss with my professor for sure. I did get to see Mamma Mia! the movie with Elisabetta and two of her local Italian friends though. The amusing part was that is was all dubbed in Italian except for the songs. So the English words of the songs were the only parts I could understand. Regardless of not being able to comprehend a vast majority of the dialogue, I still found it to be an amazing movie and highly recommend it. I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

I've also fallen in love with Nutella. I had it in the US before, but I think it tastes different here. It's like chocolate peanut butter, but SO much better. I've had it with crepes, toast, oranges, and with just a spoon. There's even Nutella gelato here. Must...have.....more! Wow, so delicious.

I'm also hoping that my computer will be okay by Tuesday. I know the tech guy promised it on that day, but I'm still worried. I really miss being able to Skype people and email. It's also usually very crowded in our school library and often hard to find a free computer to use.

Well, back to the grind of studying. I have a midterm in international marketing in an hour. At least it will be in English!

Austrian highs and lows

After an 11 hour train ride from Florence, Nora and I arrived in Vienna, Austria. First stop was of course the obvious tourist attraction for the city: the Belvedere. It is a baroque palace that was built by Prince Eugene of Savoy. There are two parts: the upper and lower, separated by a garden filled with statues and fountains.




What a walk it was between the two palace parts. Nora and I definitely got our exercise! We were there at a great time. The Lower Belvedere (built in 1714) had on display the works of Gustav Klimt. I'm not an art expert by any means, but at least I knew a few of his works. It was fantastic to see "The Kiss", an artwork which I've been seeing posters of recently in the US. So many details and very powerful. From there, we traveled back up the hill through the gardens to the Upper Belvedere.

This part of the Belvedere houses the Austrian Gallery, where we got to see the famous Napoleon painting. It was huge in person and very vibrant. After a few hours of touring the grounds, we moved onto explore the city. We took the metro, which despite our not knowing German, was very simple and easy to use.


I love the names of some of the stops:

When we came back into daylight, we found a huge fountain where we immediately stopped for photos.
Luckily, Nora had researched Vienna a bit beforehand. She knew there was a main town market, and we found it fairly easily. What a fantastic market! There were fruits I haven't even seen before.

There were also several small restaurants serving heavenly-smelling Austrian food. Near one restaurant was even a barrel of sauerkraut.

We comfortably settled outside a cafe for a meal of weiner schnitzel and delicious Austrian beer.

YUM! Not surprisingly, it was the best weiner schnitzel I've ever had. Afterwards, we browsed through the market more and Nora couldn't resist the tempting dried fruit.

After the market, we jumped on the metro again and headed to see Schönbrunn Palace. Construction of the palace was ordered by Emperor Leopold I in 1696. In the 19th century, Emperor Franz Josef I lived there during his 68 year reign. According to wikipedia, 'the name Schönbrunn ("beautiful well"), has its roots in an artesian well from which water was consumed by the court: Legend has it that the emperor, when seeing it the first time, had called out "What a beautiful well!".'

What a walking experience it was! There were spacious gardens where many people were out for a walk with friends, a run or just simple time with family.


At one end of the gardens was a grand fountain.



I was amazed by all the work that went into the landscaping. Part of the gardens feature tunnel-trees while another has half-trees.


So after our long walking and touristy day, we made it to our reserved hostel. We were planning on going to Salzburg the next day, but the train tickets were around $100. Nora came up with the idea to go to Bratislava, Slovakia. The tickets were only about $20....much better. We started off early the next day and took the hour-long train to Bratislava. From the station, we got onto a random bus, thinking we would easily be able to find the historical city center. The city is so spread out though, we missed the center altogether and were dismayed when we found ourselves exiting the city altogether on the bus. We got off, obviously carrying confused looks, and we were followed by 4 other travelers who were also lost. Turns out the group was from Vienna, studying there as international students. They hailed from California, Texas, Holland and the Montenegro. Seeing as though we all had no idea where to go first in Bratislava, we decided to travel together. We first went to the largest landmark we could see: a castle on a hill. Unfortunately, the castle was closed for rennovations, but it did offer a great view at the top.


Unlike Florence, the city didn't seem to have any cohesive look from above. To me, it looked like a collection of Victorian churches, Italian villas, random skyscrapers and a few Russian domes put together. We even found an unnamed statue of a raven lady.

After another long walk back down the hill, we finally found "Old Town" which was the main tourist district. One of my favorite images was from a cafe in the area:

We all stopped together to grab some lunch which included very confusing prices. Slovakia isn't on the Euro yet like its neighboring countries. Their currency is the Slovak koruna (Sk), which averages 30 Sk to 1 Euro. So of course it was slightly difficult to figure out how much really was a 500 Sk lunch. I enjoyed my lunch heartily though. I had the "famous" Slovakian onion soup in a bread bowl and I'll have to admit it lived up to its name....although I didn't get the point of the whipped cream on the side.

Bratislava is also full of great tourist statues, like this one lively illustrated by Jeff, our Californian friend.

I especially liked the half-statue:
As evening set in, we all relaxed by the river and watched the boats go by. From left to right: Nora, Erik, Christine, Jeff and Milena.


I wish I could say the day ended from there. Unfortunately this was not the case, hence the "lows" in the title of this post. Like a herd, we all rushed back together to the train station to catch a ride back to Vienna. Well, we successfully caught the train, but I didn't flawlessly jump onto the train. I missed a step onto the train from the platform and my right leg went between the steps. I thought I had just scraped my shin and wasn't worried about it since I was wearing long jeans. When we finally found seats, I swallowed hard and finally looked at what I had done to myself. Somehow, I had hit the metal so that a small hole was right near my shin bone. I'm not one to get nauseous at the sight of blood (it wasn't even bleeding, which surprised me) but I can always expect nausea with even slightly deep wounds. My friends all asked if I was okay, and I thought I was. I just wanted to close my eyes and allow for the nausea to pass. I felt like I drifted into a deep sleep, but soon I was awoken by the faraway voices of people calling my name and questions of "is she epileptic". And why, I wondered, were people shaking me awake? According to Nora, right after I talked to her about wanting to sleep, I slumped over in my seat, turned a shade of yellow, my eyes rolled back into my head and I started convulsing. After my hearing slowly came back and could respond, I assured people that I was fine. There was a crowd of people around me, they had stopped the train and there was a doctor waiting at the next stop at the Austrian-Slovakian border. Wow. Talk about making an exit. One kind man spoke a fair amount of English and helped to clean my leg and bandage it with gauze. I didn't want to take my chances with any doctor from a small border town though, so I assured everyone I could make the last 45 minutes back to Vienna. And I did, without further episode. Being the great people they are, our new found friends stayed with us and helped us find the emergency room in Vienna. Christine, from Texas, is into international studies and is completely fluent in French and knows a lot of German. She was instrumental in talking to our German-speaking taxi driver to get from the train station to the hospital. After arriving and seeing all of the people that were ahead of us, we opted to send out a "hunting party" for food. Erik and Jeff returned in no time with two pizzas and we ate and talked for 2 hours until the doctors finally called me. After the collective gasp of 3 doctors at my shin, I had to get an x-ray to make sure I hadn't chipped the bone. Luckily I hadn't. So using the little English they knew, they told me they'd have to clean the wound and asked if I wanted a stitch. The only bad thing though is that they roughly cleaned my wound and it disturbed me that two doctors held down my jerking leg while the other rubbed cleaning solution onto the wound. When they asked about the stitch, I had a nagging feeling that they weren't going to use pain medication beforehand. I was undecided, so still in the rushing order that they were in, they simply concluded that I didn't need a stitch, put some cream on my leg and rebandaged it. I was in and out in the span of 5 minutes. I did get a pair of crutches though, which helped me immensely since my leg was swollen and not wanting pressure applied to it.

It was finally at about 11pm that we were able to head back to our hostel. Christine and Milena took a train back to their dorms while Jeff and Erik escorted Nora and I back to our edge-of-town living quarters.

The next day Nora and I explored other parts of Vienna. We checked the internet in the morning and I was surprised to see that there was a scheduled performance at the Spanische Hofreitschule, aka the Spanish Riding School, in only a few hours. Using the metro again, we made it there easily and I was able to buy a standing room ticket for only 22 Euros! I was delightfully surprised with the spot I got on the second level balcony area. And the school arena itself - WOW! It brought tears to my eyes. It had such a quiet and old beauty. The arena being about 450 years of age, I could easily imagine that the hall being filled with royal court instead of tourists. I would have taken many more photos, but they were very strict on not allowing photos or video. But me being me, I was able to grab a few (for the blog of course!).


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note: The rest of this post is still on my computer because as I was working on the rest of it, my connection went dead. Some virus has struck my computer again. I can access internet connection through Skype and chat channels, but my browsers are blocked. So I'm dropping my computer off at the shop today. I have my blog saved in a Word document, but no way to get it off my computer until I have internet. Let's hope it will be in the "hospital" only briefly. (I'm posting this "saved" copy of the blog from a school computer).

Overall, things have been well. Midterms are next week so this weekend is my studying time. Busy, busy, busy.

San Gimignano and Austria!

I'll have to make this short and sweet for the moment, because I have a train to catch to Vienna, Austria in an hour. Last weekend's trip to San Gimignano was incredible!!! The above photo is moi on the highest tower in the small Italian hill town. What a view!! I'd write more, but I'll let the photos speak for themselves until I have time to write more. I return from Austria on Sunday. Ciao!!

photos:http://www.flickr.com/photos/42077052@N00/sets/72157607881786004


Love,
Britt