Okay, so lots to talk about this weekend!!
Last week, nothing much happened. We went to Padova on Friday to see the Scrovegni Chapel, with the famous ceiling by Giotto. It was beautiful! But, the weird thing is that because of the frescos deteriorating, they have to "de-humidify" you before you go in. You have to rub your shoes on a special mat, and then you can only be in there for 15 minutes. It's very bizarre. You should check it out on Wikipedia, also.
After Padova, Jess and I took the train to Verona and then to Trento. We met Costanza, our Latin tutor, in Trento and went to a REALLY good restaurant where they made the best pizza I have had in Italy and they made their own beer. Yummy. Then we drove from Trento to Predazzo, where her mom was born and her grandpa still lives. We stayed in their apartments in Predazzo, right at the foot of the Dolomites. (See facebook album: http://colgate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025973&l=7fc74&id=8703472)
The next day, we took a long hike through the mountains. It was so beautiful! Costanza has also invited us to come back and ski with her in the wintertime. I think we should do it! There are some pretty tame runs that I could try. We'll see. That evening, we took our Latin exam and had a wonderful dinner. The next day (Sunday) we took a nice bike ride through the valley and saw the corn and the cows! Reminds me of home!!! tee hee
Mom, you have to bring stuff for me to make s'mores with. I was explaining to Costanza and her family that they did not know what a s'more was! Oh no!! So you have to bring stuff so that I can make some for them.
Overall, pretty low key weekend. I wrote a paper this weekend on Dante's inferno. We had to put a modern day person in hell. I chose a man named Primo Levi, who was an Italian Jew. He committed suicide because he said that after Auschwitz, he didnt want to live anymore. Pretty decent paper. I wrote it in tercets (stanzas of 3 lines) too! Not too bad
This weekend, we leave for Florence!!! I am so excited! And then the week after that I am in Vienna!! Sweeeeeeet. Hopefully, I can find some nice leather boots in florence. We'll see. Tee hee.
Oh! I found a really really good restaurant right by my house. It was SO SO good, so we'll have to go there.
Okay, I guess thats it for now! Lots of love from Venice,
Xoxo,
Ally
Monday, September 24, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Trieste
Helloooooo....
Nothing too much happening last week during the week One of my roommate's mom and sister came so we have not seen much of her this last week. She got to go shoe shopping. Me = jealous. ;-)
This weekend, I (along with 8 other people) went to Trieste for a day trip. It was shaping up to be a really good trip until we got stopped in this TINY town. There was an accident of some kind on the tracks ahead and so we were an hour and a hlaf late getting into Trieste. Boo. We were going to go to the biggest cave in the world that's open to the public, but it was closed cause we were so late. :( So we wandered around and went into a really beautiful church. The mosaic, instead of having gold pieces as a background, had blue pieces. It was really neat. Then we all had a REALLY nice dinner together in the square and then got on the train to go back home.
This is when the show began. We all bought tickets and validated them, like you're supposed to, and then got on the train. When the lady came by to check our tickets, she INSISTED That we had bought the wrong ones and made us pay double the ticket price to continue riding on the train. Seriously??? Then, to top it off, no one checked our tickets again. Boo.
But that's not the best part. There was a football (soccer) game in Udine and so at the Udine stop, everyone who was at the football game (drunk out of their minds, too) got on the train. Good, great. This is fun. So they were HORRIBLY loud and throwing water on each other and smoking. BUt that's not the best part. The guy sitting in the clump of seats in front of me tried to spit out the window, but it instead went back in the train and on my face. YESSSSS. So, one of the guys in our group (bless his heart) had had enough of all this and almost got into a fight with the guy who spit. He was angry for many reasons, but he said to the guy "you can't spit on my friend.. ever" which was nice of him... tee hee..
Last night, a bunch of us went to the Fenice, the opera house in Venice, and saw a tribute to Maria Callas, a famous soprano who died young 30 years ago. The woman who was singing is a very famous greek woman. She was amazing!! The concert was 3 hours long, but it was worth it. AAAND we only paid 15 euro for our tickets. Lots of fun.
OH! I forgot about the Ennio Morricone concert. It was in Piazza San Marco and it was BEAUTIFUL. He's the guy who wrote the score for the Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. It was SO cool to see him, the Rome Symphony Orchestra and the Fenice Chorus there. I enjoyed it very much!
Today was our first archaeology class. IT was long, but good. I also booked my trip to Vienna! I will be there for 5 days in October staying in a very highly recommended hostel. Should be pretty awesome.
This weekend, I am going to the mountains to visit my friend Costanza. Should be a lot of fun. We are also going to Padova this friday as a class. Hopefully that goes well!
AND, grandma, I made eggplant parm the other day. You'd be proud of me!!!
That's it for now!!!
LOVE LOVE LOVE from Venice,
Xoxo,
Ally
Nothing too much happening last week during the week One of my roommate's mom and sister came so we have not seen much of her this last week. She got to go shoe shopping. Me = jealous. ;-)
This weekend, I (along with 8 other people) went to Trieste for a day trip. It was shaping up to be a really good trip until we got stopped in this TINY town. There was an accident of some kind on the tracks ahead and so we were an hour and a hlaf late getting into Trieste. Boo. We were going to go to the biggest cave in the world that's open to the public, but it was closed cause we were so late. :( So we wandered around and went into a really beautiful church. The mosaic, instead of having gold pieces as a background, had blue pieces. It was really neat. Then we all had a REALLY nice dinner together in the square and then got on the train to go back home.
This is when the show began. We all bought tickets and validated them, like you're supposed to, and then got on the train. When the lady came by to check our tickets, she INSISTED That we had bought the wrong ones and made us pay double the ticket price to continue riding on the train. Seriously??? Then, to top it off, no one checked our tickets again. Boo.
But that's not the best part. There was a football (soccer) game in Udine and so at the Udine stop, everyone who was at the football game (drunk out of their minds, too) got on the train. Good, great. This is fun. So they were HORRIBLY loud and throwing water on each other and smoking. BUt that's not the best part. The guy sitting in the clump of seats in front of me tried to spit out the window, but it instead went back in the train and on my face. YESSSSS. So, one of the guys in our group (bless his heart) had had enough of all this and almost got into a fight with the guy who spit. He was angry for many reasons, but he said to the guy "you can't spit on my friend.. ever" which was nice of him... tee hee..
Last night, a bunch of us went to the Fenice, the opera house in Venice, and saw a tribute to Maria Callas, a famous soprano who died young 30 years ago. The woman who was singing is a very famous greek woman. She was amazing!! The concert was 3 hours long, but it was worth it. AAAND we only paid 15 euro for our tickets. Lots of fun.
OH! I forgot about the Ennio Morricone concert. It was in Piazza San Marco and it was BEAUTIFUL. He's the guy who wrote the score for the Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. It was SO cool to see him, the Rome Symphony Orchestra and the Fenice Chorus there. I enjoyed it very much!
Today was our first archaeology class. IT was long, but good. I also booked my trip to Vienna! I will be there for 5 days in October staying in a very highly recommended hostel. Should be pretty awesome.
This weekend, I am going to the mountains to visit my friend Costanza. Should be a lot of fun. We are also going to Padova this friday as a class. Hopefully that goes well!
AND, grandma, I made eggplant parm the other day. You'd be proud of me!!!
That's it for now!!!
LOVE LOVE LOVE from Venice,
Xoxo,
Ally
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Croatia and Regatta Storica Pictures, finally
Took me forever, but here they are!
http://colgate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025132&l=fcfff&id=8703472
and
http://colgate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025484&l=81f95&id=8703472
http://colgate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025132&l=fcfff&id=8703472
and
http://colgate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025484&l=81f95&id=8703472
Thursday, September 6, 2007
First Week of Classes
Hello!
Nothing too interesting since the last post. It's our first week of classes. It's nice not to have Italian every day for 4 hours and nice to do something different. Our art history class is going to be good and we have the opportunity (possibly) to work in internships for Save Venice, a non-profit that deals with art restoration in Venice. Cool, huh? Our Lit class is going to be good, I hope. We haven't had our Archaeology class yet, so the jury's still out on that one.
Other than that, just kind of hanging out. I joined the library here, which is in an old, BEAUTIFUL palazzo full of books and amazing paintings. It's really cool to study there. I'll have to take some stealth pictures and post them. Speaking of pictures, I promise I'll get around to posting my regatta and croatia pictures. Just taking longer than I'd expected.
I guess that's all for now!
Lots and lots of love,
Ally
Nothing too interesting since the last post. It's our first week of classes. It's nice not to have Italian every day for 4 hours and nice to do something different. Our art history class is going to be good and we have the opportunity (possibly) to work in internships for Save Venice, a non-profit that deals with art restoration in Venice. Cool, huh? Our Lit class is going to be good, I hope. We haven't had our Archaeology class yet, so the jury's still out on that one.
Other than that, just kind of hanging out. I joined the library here, which is in an old, BEAUTIFUL palazzo full of books and amazing paintings. It's really cool to study there. I'll have to take some stealth pictures and post them. Speaking of pictures, I promise I'll get around to posting my regatta and croatia pictures. Just taking longer than I'd expected.
I guess that's all for now!
Lots and lots of love,
Ally
Monday, September 3, 2007
Rockin' Croatia and the Regatta Storica
Hello!!
Okay, biiiig post and update today. First and most important:
If you want to send me mail, you've got to send it to...
Ally Dall
c/o Ali Damico
4660 Castello
30122 Venezia ITALY
The reason that you have to send it there and not to my apartment is that it turns out that we don't have a mail slot. If you feel the need to send me a package, send it to the Istituto. For the select few of you choosing to send a package, lemme know and i'll give you the address.
Okay, now that that is done, on to more interesting things. First, Croatia.
We all headed over to San Basilio, which is the port for Venice, and got our tickets. Now, I have no problem riding in boats. I mean, let's be real, I rode in a very big boat from Athens to Naxos (9 hours) and I had zero problem with that. I ride boats all the time in Venice. I had no problem with the boat we were about to get on. It's just that there had just been a storm in Venice and in Croatia. But, that didn't bother me. I had snacks, a fully charged ipod and a window seat.
So, we embark and the first bit of the trip isn't too bad, the part where we were still in the lagoon. Once we ventured out of the safety of our tiny lagoon into the Adriatic, that's when things got nasty. We were pitching and rolling like nobody's business. There were points when you couldn't see the horizon out of the window because it was completely facing the water. Anyway, after 3 and 1/2 hours of horrible boat riding, we arrived in Croatia, no worse for the wear. Well, we were fine. There were a few people on the boat who lost it.. food, that is... lots of sea sickness on the boat.. yuck.
We de-boated and they stamped my passport cause Croatia isn't an EU country. Sweet. Anyway, Rovinj (the city we came into) was amazing. It is this tiny, beautiful Croatian port village that is magical. There is this beautiful church up on a hill and it was all lit up and lovely. See next post for facebook links. (By the way, facebook tells me that if i give you these links you can see the pictures. can you?) We wandered around the town looking for a hotel. Turns out Rovinj, Croatia is a huge tourist destination the last weekend of August. EVERYTHING was booked. Eventually, Ali's dad called some places from the states and got us in at this really cute little hostel. However, we never would have found it cause it was about a mile from town. (I would just like to state for the record that I did in fact find us a place to stay, but her dad had already booked the place. I wanted to do it on our own, but no biggie.) So, we go up to the hostel and turn in, as it was almost 1 and we were EXHAUSTED.
We got up early the next day and our hostel owner made us breakfast. Yeah, it was that cool. We spent the day in the town shopping and wandering. We were on our way up to that really cool church when it started POURING rain. We took refuge in the church for a while and then just wandered in the rain. It stopped raining long enough for my camera to break. Good. Great. I ended up buying a new one (the whole transaction done in Italian, sort of. They speak Croatian and English and Italian, but not everyone speaks English). I bought a new, really nice one that is compatible with my old memory card, so I didn't have to buy a new one of those.
Anyway, after that unexpected financial blow, we discovered that Friday night was, in fact, Rovinj night. It was their yearly festival. Sweet. So there was all this traditional dancing and singing and grilling and there was CORN!! Allahna and I both ate some corn on the cob cause we're from the midwest and we miss corn. It was not as good as home, but decent.
We spent the whole evening in town and went back to our hostel waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay late. We then woke up about an hour and a half after we got home so that we could make our bus back to Venice which left at 5:40. EARLY. We got on the bus and it was a long, hot, long ride. Plus, the kid sitting next to me across the aisle got motion sickness. Seriously? We passed through Slovenia (EU country) and I got my passport stamped (sweet) and we proceeded back to Italy. Got off the bus at Mestre and took the train back to Venice. Got on the Vap. Collapsed at home.
We napped for a few hours and then all headed over to the Colonette, one of the other Colgate apartments, so we could hang out before going to San Servolo for the opening party for the Venice Film Festival. It was basically a huge dance party. We drank prosecco and danced until about 4 am, when we fought for a spot on the Vap back to San Zac.
That was all in Friday and Saturday. Croatia = check. Now, onto the Regatta Storica. Sunday morning, Ali, Kathleen and I went to church at San Zulian. San Zulian is this really adorable little church near San Marco with an english mass. It's so nice. I like it. After mass, went home and packed a lunch and went to the Rialto to scope out a place to watch the regatta. We ended up sitting across the Grand Canal from the Palazzo Ca'D'Oro, so all of my pictures (again see: next post for facebook link) have a sweet background of the Palazzo.
The regatta was so cool! They had the whole canal wired for music and played really cool instrumentals while the boats processed by. They were beautiful and the rowers were all dressed in really cool clothes. I can't even describe them! I have tons of pictures, though.
Today was the first real day of semester. We had Italian, which we have every day, and Italian Lit (in english, thank god). It's gonna be a good semester, i think. I like our professors a lot so far.
I guess that's all for now. I think we're gonna go see the Woody Allen movie that's playing tonight. Nothing else other than that!
Un bacione,
Xoxo,
Ally
Okay, biiiig post and update today. First and most important:
If you want to send me mail, you've got to send it to...
Ally Dall
c/o Ali Damico
4660 Castello
30122 Venezia ITALY
The reason that you have to send it there and not to my apartment is that it turns out that we don't have a mail slot. If you feel the need to send me a package, send it to the Istituto. For the select few of you choosing to send a package, lemme know and i'll give you the address.
Okay, now that that is done, on to more interesting things. First, Croatia.
We all headed over to San Basilio, which is the port for Venice, and got our tickets. Now, I have no problem riding in boats. I mean, let's be real, I rode in a very big boat from Athens to Naxos (9 hours) and I had zero problem with that. I ride boats all the time in Venice. I had no problem with the boat we were about to get on. It's just that there had just been a storm in Venice and in Croatia. But, that didn't bother me. I had snacks, a fully charged ipod and a window seat.
So, we embark and the first bit of the trip isn't too bad, the part where we were still in the lagoon. Once we ventured out of the safety of our tiny lagoon into the Adriatic, that's when things got nasty. We were pitching and rolling like nobody's business. There were points when you couldn't see the horizon out of the window because it was completely facing the water. Anyway, after 3 and 1/2 hours of horrible boat riding, we arrived in Croatia, no worse for the wear. Well, we were fine. There were a few people on the boat who lost it.. food, that is... lots of sea sickness on the boat.. yuck.
We de-boated and they stamped my passport cause Croatia isn't an EU country. Sweet. Anyway, Rovinj (the city we came into) was amazing. It is this tiny, beautiful Croatian port village that is magical. There is this beautiful church up on a hill and it was all lit up and lovely. See next post for facebook links. (By the way, facebook tells me that if i give you these links you can see the pictures. can you?) We wandered around the town looking for a hotel. Turns out Rovinj, Croatia is a huge tourist destination the last weekend of August. EVERYTHING was booked. Eventually, Ali's dad called some places from the states and got us in at this really cute little hostel. However, we never would have found it cause it was about a mile from town. (I would just like to state for the record that I did in fact find us a place to stay, but her dad had already booked the place. I wanted to do it on our own, but no biggie.) So, we go up to the hostel and turn in, as it was almost 1 and we were EXHAUSTED.
We got up early the next day and our hostel owner made us breakfast. Yeah, it was that cool. We spent the day in the town shopping and wandering. We were on our way up to that really cool church when it started POURING rain. We took refuge in the church for a while and then just wandered in the rain. It stopped raining long enough for my camera to break. Good. Great. I ended up buying a new one (the whole transaction done in Italian, sort of. They speak Croatian and English and Italian, but not everyone speaks English). I bought a new, really nice one that is compatible with my old memory card, so I didn't have to buy a new one of those.
Anyway, after that unexpected financial blow, we discovered that Friday night was, in fact, Rovinj night. It was their yearly festival. Sweet. So there was all this traditional dancing and singing and grilling and there was CORN!! Allahna and I both ate some corn on the cob cause we're from the midwest and we miss corn. It was not as good as home, but decent.
We spent the whole evening in town and went back to our hostel waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay late. We then woke up about an hour and a half after we got home so that we could make our bus back to Venice which left at 5:40. EARLY. We got on the bus and it was a long, hot, long ride. Plus, the kid sitting next to me across the aisle got motion sickness. Seriously? We passed through Slovenia (EU country) and I got my passport stamped (sweet) and we proceeded back to Italy. Got off the bus at Mestre and took the train back to Venice. Got on the Vap. Collapsed at home.
We napped for a few hours and then all headed over to the Colonette, one of the other Colgate apartments, so we could hang out before going to San Servolo for the opening party for the Venice Film Festival. It was basically a huge dance party. We drank prosecco and danced until about 4 am, when we fought for a spot on the Vap back to San Zac.
That was all in Friday and Saturday. Croatia = check. Now, onto the Regatta Storica. Sunday morning, Ali, Kathleen and I went to church at San Zulian. San Zulian is this really adorable little church near San Marco with an english mass. It's so nice. I like it. After mass, went home and packed a lunch and went to the Rialto to scope out a place to watch the regatta. We ended up sitting across the Grand Canal from the Palazzo Ca'D'Oro, so all of my pictures (again see: next post for facebook link) have a sweet background of the Palazzo.
The regatta was so cool! They had the whole canal wired for music and played really cool instrumentals while the boats processed by. They were beautiful and the rowers were all dressed in really cool clothes. I can't even describe them! I have tons of pictures, though.
Today was the first real day of semester. We had Italian, which we have every day, and Italian Lit (in english, thank god). It's gonna be a good semester, i think. I like our professors a lot so far.
I guess that's all for now. I think we're gonna go see the Woody Allen movie that's playing tonight. Nothing else other than that!
Un bacione,
Xoxo,
Ally
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