Seeing that One-Legged Stool

This past weekend my friend Jen and I took a day trip to Lago di Como and the town of Como itself. No, I didn't see George Clooney! I have to say, I was not as impressed as I was expecting to be! Having spent so much time in towns on Lago di Garda, I was expecting something similar but Como just wasn't as picturesque in my opinion. However, a lot of people in my program have visited Como and absolutely loved it, so my opinion may not really be an accurate portrayal of the general sentiment. The highlight of the trip was definitely taking the ferry around part of the lake. Here is video!

On my second visit to Lazise Rosetta took me to Bardolino and Machesine, two towns north of where she and her children live on the eastern side of Lago di Garda. In Bardolino I visited the house where she grew up which is absolutely stunning. Her husband Giorgio did all of the interior wood work which is intricate and modern and original and is just amazing... the attention to detail is phenominal. She also took me to the Bardolino Cemetary and for this I was ridiculously excited. Odd to be excited for a cemetary, I know, but there I was able to VISIT THE GRAVE OF MY GREAT GREAT GRANDFATHER AND MOTHER. WOW. DOUBLE WOW. DOUBLE RAINBOW WOW. Here is a picture of the stone with their pictures on it. It's a family grave so there are other pictures on here too of, for instance, Rosetta's brother. I know it's weird to post pictures of a headstone-like thing but it's for the aunts! For the Valetti Family. Ciao Nonno and Nonna x3! This is in Macesine, a town on the nor...

A couple of weeks ago we went on a day trip with the program to two different abbeys outside of Milan in the Lombardy region. The weather was pretty dismal and therefore the pictures aren't that stunning but I've put some below. Although I've been in Italy for a while now which may be causing my standards of "stunning" to be higher than they previously were... what a terrible side effect! Abby #1: The marble is starting to get yellow because it has a disease :(   Bellissima Abby #2  - Unfortunately I don't remember the name of this one either but this is where the ringing of bells during the consecration started which really blew me away. When I was little I "guest" altar served at a church near my house once for a wedding and they rung bells at this church, which I remembered because I went there when I was little and obviously this loud sound attracted my attention. So now I'm on that altar, older an...

This past Friday we had another student protest pass outside of our building where we take Italian class. It was mainly high school students who skipped class to protest... and blocked the street while they were at it. In the US isn't there rules about protests not being allowed to stop traffic? Here is is completely OK. As my Italian professor, Renata, described it, "How else will they be noticed if they don't stop traffic?" Here is a video I took with my blackberry of the first group of people walking down the street. After this there were even more people with floats, though much less impressive than the Rose Bowl or Macy's Parade floats that come to mind when you think of a "float." The passion that young people have here in regards to their sentiments, either for or against, the governement continues to amaze me and I really respect these kids for skipping school in order to march in a rally such as this one.

After having gone to Verona for an evening and then a day with friends, I returned to stay with my Grandma's cousin, Alba, and her family for another weekend. There was plenty left to do in Verona! It's just a 1.5 hr train ride from here and only about a 10 euro ticket - wonderful! Here are some pictures with explanations. This is where they put the debtors on public display... Federico and I On an old bridge, and so beautiful and clean compared to Milan!! View over the entire city - foggy because early in the morning! I've come to the conclusion that I really, really like Verona. Verona is to Milano as Pittsburgh is to Philadelphia  (these comparisons bring me back to the SATs and ACTs in high school...what are these things called again?). (UPDATE: I previously had "Italy" instead of "Philadelphia" at which everyone must have concluded that I got everyone one of these questions wrong on my SATS...) Verona is cleaner, smaller, more managea...

I can't believe I never posted this but over a month ago there was a protest down this main street here in Milano against Silvio Berlusconi, the current Prime Minister of Italy. It was, from what we could tell, a conglomeration of a bunch of student groups from Cattolica (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, where I take classes) and they were really making a scene with noise cannons, music and shouting. It was very cool to witness this because it sparked a really interesting discussion with our Italian professor(essa) who studied in the US and just moved back to Italy. We didn't know it was happening beforehand, though, and the first sign of it was a rather loud noise from a noise cannon that really scared the crap out of me and frankly I could have done without. And I still don't even know what a noise cannon is... Another post on Italian politics and Berlusconi to come! Pic taken from our classroom window.

Midterms have arrived for us here in Milano and I have to say I am definitely not liking this whole "studying" and "worrying" thing... that's why I'm STUDYING abroad! But on a more serious note, I really do have to study for two of my classes - Italian and International Financial Markets. I have a media and communications that isn't too rough and an EU class I really quite enjoy, so I am not worried about those two. However, the finance class is more like a microecon class on currency markets - and the midterm is tomorrow - so I need to get back to that. My sister was just pestering me about not writing more so I thought I'd update this really quickly. I keep trying to tell myself "grades don't transfer" because I am getting unnecessarily stressed out but it's weird to try and fully process that the letter grade really doesn't matter all that much - I just have to pass! Such a complete 180 from the Lehigh atmosphere and it s...

1. The only things on time in Italy are the trains. Being 5 minutes late is ok for everything EXCEPT for getting on your train. 2. Run towards the city center. In Milano running on the sidewalks doesn't really happen. Therefore, when running I am no longer going to run away from the city center because, even though the sidewalks are less crowded, people are less and less used to see people running. The closer you are to the center of the city, the less stares you get! 3. The universal pickup line - "Do you have BBM?" Got to love AT&T and their worldwide network! 4. My current 5 food groups are pasta, bread, oil, cheese and wine. 5. The furniture in my Grandma and Nonno's house finally makes sense. Kind of an odd revelation but now that I've been in the houses of their family here I finally understand why they have the furniture they have and decorated the way they did! 6. You actually can find any movie and TV show on the internet. 7. Euros finally...

Wouldn't you that absolutely nothing can be easy? This story is embarrassing but far too entertaining to keep to myself so I'll give an abbreviated version. As some of you may or may not know, about a year ago I had an incident on a dance floor after which Rachel Bochner's mom, who is a dentist, helped me out. Well February 25th was the lovely 1 year anniversary of that evening and in proper fashion I celebrated with carelessly drinking from a water bottle and subsequently making myself look homeless in the tooth sense. This brought about another trip to the dentist! My savior was Seb and his family, who have a family friend who was able to squeeze me in the next day. It was like an angel sent that dentist to me (or Seb's mom). Here is a picture of me, embarrassed in a dental chair in Rome.

In high school I took four years of Latin because the teachers were amazing and I thought it would be a great basis to have for learning languages in the future - especially Italian! When I arrived in Rome it finally hit me that I was going to be able to see all of these amazing things that I had read about and studied. I was so excited!!! Seb and I spent all day Friday and Saturday walking, riding buses, and seeing these amazing places. Here are some pictures with little stories beneath of the highlights! I apologize if they are pretty standard as far as "what to do when in Rome" goes, but hey, how could I go to Rome and not see all these places!  The view from one side of the top of the Altare Della Patria. This building is BEAUTIFUL and was the first thing we did in Rome. You can see 360 degrees and it was a great way to start off the sightseeing because I was able to get a sort of "lay of the land" as far as where things were in relation to one a...

This past week was women's fashion week here in Milan and it really was quite exciting - tents around the Duomo area and people talking about the shows. My roommate even got to see a show that was done publically and another girl in my apartment was able to attend many shows (including) because of the internship she has here. For a great website to see show photos, go to http://www.style.com/ . Also, there are a bunch of designer studios around my neighborhood, including Alexander McQueen (NEAT), and a lot of models can be seen walking around the streets. At this point I am an expert model spotter! I’d have to say that I enjoyed men’s fashion week more than women’s week… male models are pretty androgynous but pretty cute nonetheless! They all wear the same basic uniform: very tight, dark jeans, boots that are sleek and without a lot of seeming, fitted pea coats, scarves, a messenger bag and a distinct haircut that is Justin-Bieber-esque but with less layers. Also, when walki...