April 17

Today was pretty exciting. I think the picture below says it all...

Since Rome is my favorite city in Italy and it's my last weekend in Italy, I wanted to go back to Rome. I'm staying at the same hotel that my mom and I stayed at over spring break so all of the staff remembers me. I was pretty excited when I saw I had a huge bed... The first thing I did was nap!!!

For dinner, I went to my favorite restaurant called Papagiò, where the staff also remembered me and even remembered what I ordered last time. I'm on this trip alone, so I ended up studying for my ceramics final during dinner (yes, really). I started off with my fried artichoke and homemade potato chip appetizer, with complimentary prosecco and the San Gimignano Vernaccia wine. 

For my main course, I had white fish with potatoes and artichoke. Originally, this comes with zucchini instead of artichoke but the artichoke in Italy is amazing so I always get it instead of zucchini.

For dessert, I had a decaf cappuccino.

And to go along with that, I had white tiramisù in chocolate sauce.

I was in such a food coma when I got to the hotel (luckily it's only a few blocks away) so I ended up taking a bath and passed out. 

Ciao for now!

April 16

Today went by pretty quickly. I had ceramics in the afternoon, and all my glazed animals are now out of the kiln. So, they look like this now... super shiny!

My teacher moved my warthog on the table and it fell.... So now its tail is broken. Hopefully I can fix it with glue. I have my final and critique on Tuesday, so I'll be able to ship all my ceramics home next Wednesday. I was hoping to ship my things this Monday, but oh well. 

I had my last museology lecture tonight (thank god). I have never been so bored in a class. Tomorrow we are going on a field trip, next Thursday I'm giving my final presentation and next Friday I'm skipping class to fly back home haha. So after tomorrow, I won't have to listen to rambling! And to add to the excitement, I'll be going to Rome tomorrow for the weekend! Woohoo! It'll be an early and long day tomorrow so...

Ciao for now!

April 15

Today was a free day, since I'm all done with my sculpture class. I ran to Conad early in the morning, where I got the best crema croissant that I've ever had (even better than the ones I had when I studied abroad in Rome). It was a breakfast in bed kind of day! 

The bar across the street from me has been really loud recently so I spent the majority of the day sleeping because I'll probably be up all night tonight. But in two days time, I'll be in Rome! Tomorrow should be a good day, as my safari animals will probably be out of the kiln and finally 100% done, glaze and all. None of them broke in the kiln the first time around, so hopefully this firing goes smoothly. 

Ciao for now!

April 14

Today turned out to be much shorter than usual. In my cinema class, we watched La Grande Bellezza which is like a modern version of La Dolce Vita. Just like La Dolce Vita, I found it very boring because the movie followed the lives of some very wealthy people and almost all they do is party. 

Ceramics ended up being pretty short today since we are on our last project. My animals were fired in the kiln, as you can see below. If you look really closely (under the eyes of the elephants, on the foot of the rhino, and a few other places) I missed a few spots with the colored slip so the red fired clay is showing through. I can't fix it now, so it will just have to be like that. Anyways, I ended up glazing all of the animals within the first 15 minutes of class and then had nothing to do, so I was allowed to leave early. Hopefully this Thursday I'll have a critique on all of my pieces so that I can ship it all home. 

When I got home, I went on another one of my cleaning/packing sprees. I only have about a week and a half here so it's time to start wrapping everything up. 

Our water heater was finally fixed, so we have hot water again now, so that's nice. Sorry for the late entry but our internet was SO slow and nothing would load.... Yikes. 

Ciao for now!

April 13

Today my weekend getaway came to an end. It was hard to say goodbye to my hotel room when I had this view... 

A perfect reading spot!

And the hotel made the best cappuccino I've had since my study abroad in Rome.

And just like that, it was time to say goodbye to Hotel Settimo Cielo (which literally means "seventh heaven". Heaven it was indeed).

My train from Naples to Florence wasn't until 2pm, but with all the problems I had getting to Sorrento, I made sure to leave plenty of time. So, I left the hotel at 10:30 and hopped aboard an 11am train to Naples. Unlike the ride from Naples to Sorrento, each and every stop was announced so I didn't have to keep looking at the route map which was nice. I also talked with some nice American tourists so the trip went by pretty quickly. I could even see a few parts of Pompei from the train! Everything went according to plan, and I ended up having 2 hours in the Naples train station (yikes). I was a bit nervous because I've seen so many Italian mafia movies that take place in or near Naples, so I went to a cafe for lunch and ended up staying there for the wifi. 

When I boarded the train to Florence, I got one last look at Mt. Vesuvius from the window. 

Two and a half hours later, I arrived at the train station in Florence. I didn't feel like cooking and McDonald's was on the way home.... I'm sure you can guess the end of that sentence. 

I'm already missing Sorrento and the hotel... Not only is it already really noisy outside my bedroom window, I also tried to take a shower and the water was ice cold on the hottest setting. But, the good news is that this Friday (just four days from now!!!!) I'll be headed to Rome for the weekend where I'll visit Tivoli and Ostia! And the weekend after that? Well... It will be spent with my dogs and mom and friends and NON ITALIAN FOOD in LA! 

Ciao for now!

April 12

Today was very busy. I had signed up for a Viator tour of the Amalfi Coast, going through Sorrento, Positano, Ravello, Amalfi and some other smaller towns. However, I ended up being the only one on the tour so I got a private car and guide. Below is a picture of the coast taking from the winding roads... 

The weather was perfect... So warm that I was able to wear a tank top!

Positano was pretty much all closed because it was Sunday and people were in church or with their families, so we didn't stop anywhere. That was fine by me, though, because it didn't look as great as it did online. So instead we went straight to Ravello, where I visited the Villa Ruffolo (basically the equivalent of the Boboli Gardens here in Florence). A lot of the architecture on the Amalfi Coast is Baroque or influenced by Arabic architecture. There's a ton of these type of columns everywhere.

This area below was probably my favorite part of the gardens. A beautifully symmetrical garden on a balcony overlooking the Amalfi Coast. 

After Ravello, we started driving back along the Amalfi Coast and stopped in the town of Amalfi for lunch-- the heart of the Amalfi Coast. Since I was the only one on the tour, I ended up eating alone but I had a table right on the harbor so it was nice. I started off with a glass of prosecco.

The first course was a seafood pasta dish with crab and sea urchin. 

Then I had paranza, a typical Neopolitan dish. This is an assortment of fried shrimp, calamari, mullet and anchovies.  I also had a side salad with balsamic vinegar (because that's the only way they ever serve salad, or should I say lettuce, here in Italy).

In Southern Italy, Italians love cooking with lemon so for dessert I had a lemon delight which is basically a lemon sponge cake. It was pretty good. The caramel sauce decorating the plate was even better! 

After lunch, I walked around Amalfi more before heading back to the hotel. I went to bed extremely early because it was so quiet (unlike my apartment). I don't think I've ever slept so much. It was a fun day.

Ciao for now!

April 11

Today started off being a pretty good day. I woke up early, finished packing, went to the train station, got on a 2 1/2 hour train from Florence to Naples and looked at the beautiful Italian countryside. 

When I got to Naples, my day took a turn for the worse. I had read online that there's a train that goes from Naples to Sorrento. Well I think whoever came up with that needs to check their terminology because it was more like a metro. But to backtrack for a minute... None of the ticket machines said Sorrento so I thought maybe the station was called something else. I went to one ticket office where I was told they don't sell tickets to Sorrento so then I went across the way to another ticket office where I waited over an hour just to even speak to an employee. Long story short, that office didn't sell tickets to Sorrento either. So I went to the tourist information office and was redirected to yet another office where I ended up waiting nearly 20 minutes. When I finally got my ticket, I asked the worker where I should go and she didn't speak a word of English. Luckily I was able to understand her Italian and got on the right metro (which was late). 

From there, it was nearly 1 1/2 hours on the metro which was covered in graffiti, smelly and full of gypsies and children begging for money. But, I survived. It took me way longer than it should have (no thanks to the signage in the Napoli station.. I ended up having to go to another Napoli station to catch the metro) but I am finally in Sorrento. My water bottle also spilled in my bag so all my papers are wet along with my clothes... My clothes are now drying by a window. Yikes. 

Anyways, the hotel is pretty nice and I have a gorgeous view from my room. 

Here's a close up. 

I can even see Mt. Vesuvius from my room! So that's pretty cool.

I am exhausted so I'm going to crash now. I have to be up early for a tour of Positano, Amalfi and Ravello! In the meantime I'll be enjoying the big bed I have this weekend. 

Ciao for now!