Germany

This post via Brian.  We arrived in Munich on Friday at noon vis Montreal, Paris.  We took the train into the city and traveled to our hotel by way of a great subway system.  Our hotel was a very well appointed and comfortable European style hotel.  We met Amy's, and our, friend Theressa in Marieplatz on Friday afternoon with her friend Lisa, after which we toured the city and had dinner at a fabulous beer garden.

Saturday morning, early, Amy arrived from Fierenze and met us at our hotel on Saturday morning. After a fabulous European breakfast, we toured many parts of the city, some of which we had already seen, climbed to a high church steeple for a view of the city, then went to a beer garden for lunch.  We then toured an historic palace for the afternoon.  Lastly on Saturday we went to a beer, craft and music festival at the Olympic Park.  It was a great time getting to eat many new foods and getting to see a great variety of new crafts.

Sunday we took the train to Theressa's home town of Erharting in Bavaria.  Once there we went to Burghausen on the Salz river and toured the castle.  It was a long, 1 KM, castle of great historic value and mostly untouched by the second world war.  This is significant because many structures in Bavarian cities and towns were damaged by American bombs.  That evening we joined Theressa's family, all of us dressed in traditional Bavarian clothing, and went to a local fair.  It was very much like a Vermont country fair, except for the food and the beer, and a very entertaining and unique experience.

Monday, we rose early to drive to Nieswanstein, a 3 hr drive, to see the classic castle of new origin(1800's) that was the prototype for the Disney castle.  It is the castle that you have all seen with the Bavarian Alps in the background.  It was a beautiful day with weather and views to do the site justice.  We did extensive hiking around the site and saw the castle from many different points of view.Lastly, we drove home through the Austrian Alps and the rolling farm land of southern Bavaria.  What beautiful country, with tidey farms, well kept houses, and great roads. Once we returned to Erharting we joined Theressa's family at the local beer garden for local beer and gastronomic delicasies.

Today, we drove to Salzberg, toured the city.  Nothing of great import, but a none the less beautiful city located at the base of the Austrian Alps.  On the way home we did a quick tour of Hanger 7 the collection of aircraft and automobiles(Formula 1 and NASCAR) autos of the owner of Red Bull. We finished our trip with a swim in a local lake to cool us off from the hot weather.We ended the day with a family dinner at Theressa's home with her family, with the best chicken that I have ever had. It was  harvested earlier in the day and cooked on the spot.

Wednesday, we are off to Erlangen, where Theressa's attends school.  We will let you know what we find there.

Bye Florence

I need to keep this short because I'm leaving for the train station in an hour. My parents should be in Munich now, but I haven't heard from them yet. My exams went pretty well, I'm just glad to be done. Yesterday afternoon I went to the Medici chapels and they were amazing!! After that I packed. Today I just packed and then went to the historic soccer match, which was AMAZING!!! It was so cool. You should all look up a little bit of it on youtube. Basically its guys wrestling and beating on each other and throwing a ball around. I saw two guys leave the field on stretchers, but then I had to leave so I could come back in time to get everything ready to leave. I'll post tomorrow once I'm with my parents! woohoo for a 7.5 hour train ride!!

--Amy

last week

I need to keep this quick because I have two finals tomorrow, but I just wanted to update you guys. Monday I had classes and then went to my aunt's house for dinner. It was just as fun as last time and the food was excellent!! On Tuesday in cooking class I ate sea food! We had pasta with tomatoes and clams and then my group made stuffed mussels. I tried everything and loved it! Today I went shopping with Lisi to buy my presents for my parents and I hung out with her for a little while. Really thats all of the interesting stuff that has happened this week. I need to start packing and I'm a little afraid that I have too much stuff!! I'm definitely not ready to leave Florence on Friday and its coming up too fast!! I'm sorry this is so short but for now I need to keep studying!!

--Amy

Back in Florence, again

Today we took a tour of the Jewish ghetto and other not as touristy parts of Venice which was cool. Then we had a couple of hours free to get lunch and do whatever before hopping on the bus and driving back to Florence. I made my risotto again for dinner so I can try to use up all of my food i've bought since I've been here and it was absolutely delicious. I unpacked, and now I have to get to work on my paper due on tuesday!! This is all I'm writing for now, because I seriously have to get to work. Happy father's day to any dads who read this blog, and especially my dad!! I love you and miss you and CAN NOT wait to see you bright and early Saturday morning!! 

I'll write again tomorrow

--Amy

Venezia!

Yesterday morning we got on a bus and drove to Venice! We grabbed a really quick lunch before seeing a blown glass demonstration. After that we toured the Doge's palace and the basilica and then had a break before dinner. Our dinner was pretty good, but definitely not like all of the other group meals we've had. But I tried fish!! Today we walked around the city a bunch and we have the rest of the day free. I shopped with some girls and didn't spend too much... just bought a small glass, a pair of earrings and bracelet. I think I'm going to try to find a replacement pinky ring because all of mine keep breaking :( We're on our own for dinner tonight and I think we already scoped out our place. I have my heart set on some four cheese pasta!! Hopefully I'll get some work done on my papers this afternoon, and just keep it low key. tomorrow morning we're doing another walking tour before driving back to Florence. I'll post again once we get back tomorrow night, and hopefully we'll have our actual internet back so we don't have to keep stealing from the other building!!

--Amy

Wednesday and Thursday

Yesterday was an average day. We went to the Palazzo Vecchio in my first class, and he just lectured in my second class. I did however somehow end up getting an 89 on my hard midterm!! After classes, I came back to the apartment and got a decent amount of work done on my papers before going over to my aunt's house for dinner. Febrizzio made pasta with bacon and it was really good. Then we had a delicious salad and some sliced meat. For dessert we had gelato over fresh blueberries and some dessert wine. Today, we did a walking tour of some Renaissance palaces, and went to Pitti Palace in my second class, and now I'm working on my research paper. Tonight is just going to be a chill night of laundry and packing for Venice tomorrow!! Not sure if I'll be able to get internet in Venice, but if I do I'll try to post at least once while I'm there.

--Amy

cooking class

As the title implies, that was the only interesting part of the day. This morning in my first class he lectured for a little while and then we went to Santa croce, which was pretty cool, but its nowhere near as amazing as other churches I've been in here in Florence. I had a pretty easy midterm in my second class and then we analyzed some texts by machiavelli, and honestly, that was really boring. Then I tried to get a head start on my paper, which I actually have started writing. Then cooking class!! Tonight we had a tomato soup type thing, i think? I thought it was supposed to be tomato soup, but it was dry and clumpy, so it wasn't really soup, but whatever it was, it was really good! Our second course was a tomato bean dish on the side of fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, and fried zucchini. I made the chicken, tomatoes and zucchini with my group. The bean dish was better though, because everyone has had fried stuff like that. But we fried it in olive oil so it was a little different. For dessert we had an orange cake with almonds on top (but of course I couldn't eat the almonds). It was interesting to say the least because it was kind of hard, so we were supposed to dip it in a sweet dessert wine. But it was still really good. Sorry today was so boring, but its going to be like that for a little while since I have so much work to do in such a short amount of time!! I'll post again before we leave for Venice on Friday!

--Amy

Southern Italy- full version

Some of this will be repeated from the last post, but this is with details!

We got on the bus and left Florence at 6 am. It was rough, but awesome because we got to watch the sun rise. I'm one of those people who can't sleep once I'm up, so I got to watch the Tuscan countryside wake up. At one point there was mist on the Apennines and the sun rising behind them, and a castle on a hill close to me, and it is probably one of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen. I was on the opposite side of the bus, so I couldn't take a picture, but I don't think I needed to because it is burned in my brain. It was a 6 hour drive down to Naples, and we didn't even stop anywhere before going to Vesuvius. We drove in the bus most of the way up which was one of the most terrifying things ever. Imagine a 55 passenger bus driving up the side of a mountain (which means sharp turns). The bus driver had to continually honk because he couldn't see if people were coming or not and he took up both sides of the road whenever he was turning, which was a lot. Sometimes it even took multiple tries to get around turns. But we had a beautiful panoramic view of Naples, until we got into the clouds. We couldn't see much from the top, not even the inside of the volcano. But its still awesome to say I've been at the top of Vesuvius!! Then we drove about an hour to Sorrento where we stayed in a 4-star hotel! We hadn't eaten lunch so a bunch of us went for a quick lunch at 4 when we had a 3 course meal at 7. We were starving though, so I was still able to eat all of my dinner. The first course was this DELICIOUS cheese-filled crepe. Mom: we're going to find a recipe so I can learn how to make this!! The second course was leg of lamb with some sort of asparagus sauce, which was pretty good. And we had a tiramisu cake like thing for dessert. After that we went for a Limoncello tasting and then walked to a lookout point where we could see all of the bay of Naples.
Saturday was our day on the Isle of Capri. We had a continental breakfast at the hotel, which was the highlight of the morning because it was absolutely delicious and awesome to eat a big breakfast for the first time in a long time! When we got to the ferry it was raining and we had a pretty rocky ride over to Capri. Then we got on another boat and took a tour around the island, and by that point it had stopped raining and seemed like it was clearing, but when we got off back at the marina, it was thundering. Luckily, it cleared up about 30 minutes later and we ended up having a beautiful day! I wandered around with 3 other girls. We checked out some of the streets and found a nice place to eat, and then got gelatto at apparently the best gelatto shop our tour guide Luca has ever tasted. It was pretty good, but I'm not sure about the best. Then we went to the beach for the rest of the afternoon, where I got sunburned on the backs of my legs. oops. It's mostly gone now though! That evening we went to a pizzeria for dinner where we had three different slices and a tasting of different fried appetizers. Pizza order: cheese, then spinach, artichoke and mushroom, and the third one was ham. One of the fried things was fried mozzarella which was so good (mom we're gonna play around with that too).
On Sunday we got to sleep in a little before heading to Pompeii. Pompeii was amazing. It is crazy how this entire city was just lost for so long! It was cool to learn about how it happened and have seen the volcano already and know just how destructive it was. Honestly, from the proximity of the volcano to Pompeii, I'm surprised that the city wasn't more destroyed. The tour took a long time and by the end we were all exhausted and ready for lunch and sitting for 6 hours on the way back to Florence.
Today thus far, I had a midterm in the morning which I most certainly could have done better on, but he only gave us a small amount of room to write and no instructions for how specific to be, so it was a little frustrating. Then we watched a video on the calcio storico, which is the historic soccer game played here in Florence on the day dedicated to St. John the Baptist, which we are going to see on our last day in Florence. It's pretty intense and I'm really excited for it now. In my other class we toured the Medici Riccardi palace and then the inside of the Palazzo Vecchio, which I had no idea was so big!! It took forever and we were all so tired afterwards. Now I have to go prepare a short presentation on the facade of the Santa Croce for tomorrow. Hopefully I'm going over to my aunts house for dinner, which will be awesome because I've hardly spoken any Italian since I've gotten here, and Febrizzio is hopefully going to teach me how to make something amazing! I'll write again tomorrow, but for now I should get to work. Miss you all!!

--Amy

Southern Italy

I survived the weekend, but now have two midterms in the next two days and its already after 10:30 here, so I'm just going to give you guys the readers digest version for now, but tomorrow afternoon I'll write with details.
 We got up very early and drove to Naples, climbed Mt. Vesuvius, but it was so cloudy that we couldn't really see much. Then we went to Sorrento, had some free time, and then had a delicious meal at the hotel restaurant. Saturday we went to the Island of Capri, which was so beautiful. I laid out on the beach with a bunch of girls and, naturally, got sunburned. For dinner we went to a pizzeria and I now like artichoke and mushroom pizza. Today we went to Pompeii and then drove home!
 Tomorrow I have my Quarters of Florence midterm and then we're reviewing in my other class for our midterm on Tuesday. Too bad I don't have the review before my midterm in my other class because they're on the exact same material! Hopefully tomorrow night I'm having dinner at Lisi and Febrizzio's house!! That would make my day! But for now I need to study and go to bed! I apologize for any poor grammar, its been a long weekend! Hope things are well with all of you!

--Amy

no internet :(

Today in my first class we visited the pitti palace, but we were running late, so we hardly got to spend any time there. In my second class, we talked about the same stuff we did in our first class, which was good because it reinforced the information and cleared up all of my questions. Then I just came back and worked on my paper due tomorrow. Unfortunately, our internet is down so I have no clue when I'll be able to update again, plus we go to Naples for three days and I'm not bringing my computer. I'll try to write again on Sunday night or Monday, but for now there's really not much to say and I have to finish editing my paper :(

--Amy

The last two days haven't been very interesting. Yesterday in my first class we visited a monastery and were on site visits the entire class (2.5 hours) and just analyzed primary sources in my second class. In the afternoon I tried to do some homework and did some chores around the apartment. For dinner the boys cooked up some chicken and I made some pasta to go along with it. We celebrated my roommate's birthday and that was a lot of fun. Today we visited Santa Spirito church and some workshops across the river, and the San Lorenzo church in my second class. I have my first paper due on thursday, so that is stressing me out a little bit. I had my second cooking class today and that was a lot of fun. We had bruschetta, home made ravioli with spinach and riccatta, a chicken dish, and my group made a riccatta based cake. Everything was delicious! It has been raining a lot over the past few days! And it doesn't just rain, it pours and thunders and its a little bit scary!  As I anticipated, I've just fallen into a rhythm so nothing interesting is really happening right now, but we are leaving for Naples and capri on Friday morning! I'll post again before we leave for that. Hope everybody is doing well and I miss you all!

Amy

weekend with Theresa

I'm sorry, I was about to post last night, and then we couldn't decide what we wanted to do today, and I never got around to posting!! Yesterday, Theresa and I walked up to Piazzale Michelangelo in the morning and also visited the San Miniato church. It was beautiful and nice to see it again, and appreciate the view now that I've been in the city longer. We also went to the cemetery in the back of the church, which was massive and amazing to see. There were so many intricately designed statues in there marking graves and family tombs. It was sad, but interesting in the fact that it is so different from American cemeteries. After that we came back for lunch before going to the Florence wine event where you could get 10 wine tastings and a glass to keep for 10 euro. We got 6 tastings for only 3 punches on our card. We went and got dinner and gelatto in the middle before going back for more. After that we came back and planned out Sunday before going to bed early. On Sunday we got up really early and went to the Uffizi, which was a lot of fun because I have not been there yet on this trip. After that we stopped at the store to get stuff for lunch and dinner. We made lunch and then went to the wine festival for a little bit. Then we went to the Bobli Gardens, which were beautiful for about 15 minutes until it started to rain.... and then hail.... and then our umbrella broke and we were soaked and decided to seek shelter after sitting in this unfortunate weather after 20 minutes. We sat in the small shack at the entrance for about an hour and then decided to walk back... barefoot... with no umbrella and we were about 20 minutes from my apartment. So it was an adventure to say the least. And then we made an amazing risotto which I promise I will make for all of you at some point because I'm now in love with it, and I walked Theresa to the train station at 9:15 and now I have homework to catch up on before classes start again tomorrow! But it has been a great weekend and I am so excited to see Theresa again in Germany in 3 weeks!! I'll try to write again tomorrow, but it will probably be short because I don't forsee anything too interesting happening tomorrow.

--Amy

Theresa's here!!

Sorry I haven't written in a few days, its been kind of crazy here! On Wednesday I had my usual classes, and in my first class we visited the San Lorenzo church which I pass everyday on my way to school and have been dying to see! It was absolutely gorgeous!! Then in my other class we talked about the Medici family and their rule of Florence. After that I went back to the San Lorenzo church so I could visit the Laurentian Library. It was absolutely amazing and I took so many pictures!! In the evening the three apartments in our building had a pasta cook-off which was so much fun, and I would have won if my dish hadn't been cold when it was served because I was ready so much sooner before everyone else. On Thursday, I took advantage of the day to sleep in, walk around and take pictures, and get ahead on some work. Today Theresa arrived at 6:20 am. For those of you who don't know, she is my friend from Germany that I met at a shooting camp in Georgia 4 years ago, and I haven't had the opportunity to see her since, so it's amazing to finally see her again! We came back to the apartment and got our bearings and then did a walking tour of the city and stopped off at the medici-riccardi palace. It wasn't as great as I thought it would be, but it was still cool to see it since I also pass by it multiple times a day. After that we met up with some of friends and went to the market before taking a bus up to a small monastery just outside of the city. This was absolutely beautiful. We got a tour from an adorable old monk, but it was all in Italian so we didn't really have any idea what he was saying, but it was still pretty cool! Taking the bus up there was a bit of an adventure as well. Theresa, one of the guys and I experimented with a pasta sauce for dinner, which turned out alright. We put in tomatoes, garlic, onions, white wine, olive oil, and some cheese over spinach and riccato ravioli. It was delicious, but a few too many flavors for your mouth to handle all at once. But hey, we tried! After that we all went up to the wine festival, but we had gotten there too late, so we couldn't buy a ticket. But its going on for the next two nights, so we'll go back! For now we're gonna get some sleep because I'm sure we'll have a packed day tomorrow! If I can figure out how to post pictures, I'll see if I can get some up in the next day or two. Otherwise, check facebook because I put a lot of pictures up on Wednesday. Again, sorry I waited so long to post!

--Amy