Thursday to Monday - an extended weekend

road in Florence


As I write this blog, I'm listening to a local musical group who plays nightly in the streets of Florence for spare change and to sell their CDs. One signer and one accordion player, both of who are spectacular. It makes me want to dance and gesture out the words with my hands. Bella!

Thursday was a night at Loonees for the Taxi Drivers band again. Before going to see the band, I stopped by a Scottish Pub to see my friend Marco for "6 euro beer and crepe night". While there, I met three students from Lithuania who are studying architecture here in Florence for a year. They actually found me, because they heard me speaking English and tapped me on the shoulder to talk. The relaxing hug and glue of the English language in a foreign land. Love it! Marco and I with the Lithuanian girls:



Ignas, the third Lithuanian, dancing at Loonees (far left):



Ignas and I were the only ones who eventually went to Loonees. As you can see from the photo above, it was an exciting night. The Taxi Drivers band played everything from country fiddle to funk.

my favorite drummer, Lorenzo, of the Taxi Drivers. so concentrated!

Looness live music bar...underneath an apartment complex, 14th century construction

After Loonees, we spent the night in the crowded Lithuanian apartment and then I had a wonderful breakfast made by my hosts. Hard-boiled eggs, native honey butter and a type of dark bread. It was utterly delicious.



Friday night was similar, except that the Lithuanians were busy so I met other friends at Loonees for a second night of the Taxi Drivers. Saturday night I didn't have any events planned except for a football game with Marco again (he's from Spain) and a few other friends.

Marco taking the ball

Sunday night was karaoke at Loonees. There was a large group of Italians singing loud and proud, and they covered many Italian ballads which I was happy to hum along with even though I hadn't the slightest clue what the message was.



Afterwards, I went out for a walk. There was a beautifully lit-up carousel in the middle of a piazza.



And as an end note, regardless of political opinion or representation, the excitement over Obama has been amazingly surprising over here. There were multiple parties held around the city for him and the election night. His photo is everywhere. So I'm happy that the world is excited about a new presidential term. I'm an optimist, not a Democrat or Republican.



I also have a new haircut, free to me via a local hairstyling school where semi-professionals work with a main teaching professor. They spent 2 hours on me Monday morning, but it was a very relaxing experience. It is still the same length basically, just much lighter and more feathery. I'm very happy with it. Like the stylist said, "rockstar" (Grey's Anatomy reference! woohoo!)!

Time to catch up!

So many pictures, so little time! It's definitely time to bring the blog up to speed.

Today was phenomenal. I went out with a friend, Rob, to see the Florence soccer team (Fiorentina) play Bayern Munich here in Florence. My ticket was only 22euro (about $28) and it was a great seat! We sat in a section behind the goal and were able to make out the Fiorentina chants because we had singers on either side of us. Forze Viola! Forze Viola! (Purple Force! Purple Force!) was the main chant, repeated to a melody. Fiorentina colors are purple and white. I bought a Fiorentina shirt today representing player Mutu (10) and wore a scarf that was also Fiorentina. Decked out!



The crowd was immense and the stadium was packed.



the crowd behind us and the scoreboard



The game was exciting with Bayern Munich dominating the second half. They played beautifully, despite them being the "enemy". They used the width of the field to make long crosses to line players. Fiorentina seemed to piddle in the middle most often. We were a bit late to the game so we missed the first goal (Fiorentina) but the next goal, by Bayern Munich, was definitely well deserved. Bayern had shot after shot on goal, and Fiorentina wasn't able to regain definite possession of the ball and work it back up the field. The Bayern crowd was insanely devout to their team. Even though they only took up two sections, they didn't stop cheering and chanting the entire game. A short video of their section:

click for video -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQYsu-QYrac

And if you notice, there are tall metal fences around that section. Those are to protect the away team from fighting with the Fiorentina fans and vice versa. Oie vay!

After the game, which was tied 1-1, Rob and I met up with a few of his friends and we all went to a live music bar called Be Bop. The band was called the Taxi Drivers and they were playing songs by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and other popular American bands. The great thing is Italians were really enjoying it in the club! Yay no anti-American music sentiment! Shots from Be Bop:





I talked with the band members after the show and they invited me to come to their next show tomorrow night at another nearby pub. I'm so there!

And also, my final photos from the last blog entry. Mom and I had taken a bus up to Fiesole on November, 1, and spent a good while at JJ Hill Pub, named so because it's on hill (creative I know) and James Joyce use to spend time there. We made great friends with the bartenders Francesco and Georgia. Francesco still had bits of his Halloween costume on:

Mom, Francesco and me

But honestly, contrary to the frightening first appearance via the photo, Francesco was a sweetheart. He even invited me to carve my own pumpkin, and I did!

it's a slightly evil anime pumpkin! woot!

That's all for now, and I believe I'm up to date. I look forward to your comments!! :D

End of a great break

an Italian venus fly trap?

So many things done and seen over the past few days. I didn't have any specific plans for Halloween costume-wise, but I had heard of a comic and games convention in Lucca, Italy. I was surprised to hear it was the biggest of its kind in Italy, attracting around 100,000 visitors to the small, Medieval-walled city. For only a 5euro train ticket each, mom and I headed out there to see what all the fuss was about. We left on October 31, at about 2pm, and the train was packed with others going to same direction. Geeks, gamers, vampires, and people dressed up in fantasy costumes (referred to as 'cosplay'). What a crowd - my kind of people! I went to a similar convention type before I left Georgia called Dragon*Con and Lucca was the same except on a smaller scale. I wanted to strike up conversations with people just like I did at Dragon*Con, but the language barrier still remained. Regardless, the sights made up for it! I bought a 12euro pass that allowed me into all of the exhibition tents. There were tables and tables of Magic the Gathering card players. I was surprised how popular it is here. I was excited to see a set-up of computers to test Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King expansion that isn't out in stores yet. I happily played with both an 80 priest and an 80 death knight for 30 minutes. The death knight, a new class for Lich King (WotLK), was hilarious. Nothing is more satisfying than carrying around a huge, glowing sword, being able to summon a gargoyle pet to assist you, calling up an army of corpses to battle with you, and then turning into a zombie yourself once you die. Once I was done, I turned around and there was a crowd of 10 Italians watching my screen and chattering away and I could make out "death knight" every so often. I love the gamer community, I truly do. Mom went off to geocache while I explored and took photos of practically everything I came across. Fantastic people watching!

(note: Blogger has changed the way photos display...so hopefully they won't be cropped awkwardly anymore)

a full-fledged LARP/steampunk warrior (LARP stands for Live Action RolePlay - people get together for battles in parks and open spaces and beat at eachother with foam weapons). This guy's armor is basically plastic-glazed foam, so it's actually squishy. Steampunk itself is hard to explain. I only recently learned about it. According to Wikipedia:

""Steampunk fashion" has no set guidelines, but tends to synthesize modern styles as filtered through the Victorian era. This may include gowns, corsets, petticoats and bustles; gentlemen's suits with vests, coats and spats; or even military-inspired garments. Often, steampunk outfits will be accented with a mixture technological and period accessories: timepieces, parasols, goggles and ray guns. Even modern accessories like cell phones or iPods can be found in steampunk outfits, after being modified to give them the appearance of Victorian-made objects. Aspects of steampunk fashion have been anticipated by mainstream high fashion, the Lolita fashion and aristocrat styles, neo-Victorianism, and the romantic goth subculture."

It's a very cool costume theme. I tried on a vendor's steampunk mask:

slightly scary, eh?

There were many costumes from animes (Japanese animation) that I couldn't recognize, but I wanted to post them anyways. Italians in anime costumes are adorable. Talk about a cultural mix.





Italian Pinocchios? I was really confused but also amused

costumes from Final Fantasy

Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka and X-Men's Storm



more to come later tonight! I'm not finished yet :)

Epic travels

the Tuscan countryside...with a twist


What a busy but break break I've been having! Mom and I have gotten back to the apartment pretty late the last few days, so I've been lax on updating. At least I haven't been lax on the photo taking. I've burned a few battery sets so far. An overview of the activities of the week:


We went horseback riding on Monday near Siena, which was full of vine fields and views of the classic Tuscan countryside. We were expecting to just ride for two hours, have a small wine tasting, and then go home. We definitely got more than we paid for! Our tour guides, Issam and Daniele were amazing, humorous and creative. We went to a 13th castle called Monteriggioni for the wine tasting and Daniele (a history student from Florence who spends his weekends giving tours) gave us an overview of the area. It was a great castle town because there were hardly any tourists. The food and wine were of course, amazing also. It sounds tourist-idealistic, but it really was! The riding wasn't spectacular, but then again we were with 3 other beginner riders so we slowly walked the whole way. Both me and my mare Princess definitely wanted to run, but behaved ourselves with the occasional trot just to kill boredom time.

(((( click on photos for larger, uncropped view ))))



Mom and her "warhorse"..aka slow plug horse

I wanted to keep this guy!!!

tour guide Daniele and me

Mom and me at Monteriggioni castle

Monteriggioni castle - the terraced steps were to provide traction for horses traveling on the hill - a major trade entrance in the 13th century

Issam thought it would be funny if he picked me up for a photo on the castle wall - so he did

our great group of Australians, Americans and Britons outside the wine tasting location

After the wine tasting, Issam and Daniele took us all on a tour of San Gimignano, a nearby Italian hill town. I had already visited there with friend Nora, but I loved seeing it again! Daniele knew a special way to approach the city by means of an ancient road way, so we got to see the city in a whole new way.



We also stayed for the sunset, which was timeless and gorgeous when viewed from a hilltop city.





Our guides also bought us gelato from a pretty popular place:



On the drive back from San Gimignano with the whole group of us crammed into a mini van, we were listening to some Indian dance music when I commented that it would be fun to bellydance to. Wrong thing to say! Issam just grinned and said, "well why don't you?" And so, in a very crazy-fun-impromptu European way, we pulled over onto a side street in the middle of nowhere and made our own discotech club. (disclaimer: none of us were under the influence of alcohol...judging by the photos, I know this will seem surprising) It started with me doing a bellydance on the top of the van (again, all Issam's idea) but then everyone started dancing to techno music around the van. What a great time!!!

Issam on the van

tired from dancing

Issam and Daniele

we even got Mom into the dancing act!

Daniele...just another Italian smoker

It sounds terribly cliche, but it's true that a wonderful time was had by all. Issam even offered to host a birthday party for me at his villa in Florence and for me to bring as many friends as I wanted. I look forward to spending more time with both of them.

On Tuesday we headed to Venice. Mom had been to Venice when she was younger, so it was great for her to be able to actually lead me around. It's surreal having to take water taxis instead of buses. Canals and water everywhere! And gondolas are about $100 a ride so they are just for special occasions. There are large motor-powered boats for mass public transport and it was only about $20 each to get a 24hr pass to take the water taxis.

We hit all the major sights including San Marco Square and Cathedral. The weirdest thing about the square is that when we visited it in the daytime, it was full of people and pigeons. When we came back at night, the whole square had flooded with about 4-5inches of water. We heard that in October and November, areas will flood at night but drain off before the next day. Very, very weird. Just shows that it's definitely true that Venice is slowly sinking. We stayed at a cheap hostel where the staff wasn't very helpful and friendly, but it was in the heart of the city so we had a great base of operations. Venice is also a city famous for its carnival masks and there was a great selection of them to admire.

Around the city:













a weird mirror wall on the canal

the symbol of Venice: a winged lion that represents Saint Mark (San Marco)



stunning authentic Murano glass horses (we also got to visit Murano, a nearby island that's world-famous for it's glass making)

the original bronze horses that previously stood atop Saint Mark's Cathedral. Wiki info: "The Horses of Saint Mark were installed on the basilica in about 1254. They date to Classical Antiquity; by some accounts they once adorned the Arch of Trajan. The horses were long displayed at the Hippodrome of Constantinople, and in 1204 Doge Enrico Dandolo sent them back to Venice as part of the loot sacked from Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. They were brought to Paris by Napoleon in 1797 but returned to Venice in 1815. After a long restoration, since the 1990s they have been kept in St Mark’s Museum (inside the basilica). The horses now on the facade of the cathedral are bronze replicas."

a gorgeous mosaic that adorns the inside of the cathedral

Mom taking the time to geocache between canals

the Bridge of Sighs, sandwiched between huge annoying advertisements. this saddens and angers me at the same time. this is NO place for a billboard and in my opinion, it looks bad on the car company that sponsored it

Except for raining while we were there, the Venice trip was also a great success. We only got lost a few times. The next few days we explored Venice and yesterday we went to Lucca, Italy, for a comic and games convention. I'll have to upload the photos and explain more tomorrow though because it's already 2:40am and we're getting up at 7am to explore more! Stay tuned!