Back from Spring Break! And ima just JUMP into it. In Spain they call it "Semana Santa," which means holy week, 'causeit's the week before Easter! Pretty much everyone gets time off, andthere are supposed to be all sorts of cool festivalsall over Spain.
However, due to my (lack of) religious awareness and the interest of my program in making sure we REALLY get the most out of our time in spain (again, lack of, don't even get me started), I, wanting to save as much monies as possible, scheduled my spring break really early for a RIDICULOUS trip all around Europe, for as much art exposure and seeing the places I wanted to that I could manage in 10 days. It wasn't until later that I realized Easter was happening, which I thought could be cool in Spain, and then was informed that Semana Santa even existed. The point of that anecdote is that I left wishing I was going around Spain for a week, not overly excited and a little scared about what was going to happen in my 5-city craziness of a Spreak.
The beginning of my trip kind of confirmed this. When I got to my first city, Siena, it was gross and cloudy. Also, Italian and Spanish tourism is EXTREMELY different. In Spain, wherever you go there is usually a tourist office IN the train station.
I don't even know if Italy HAS tourist offices. Anyway, I gave up on getting a map, and decided to take the bus up to the city center. I got on the bus, asked awkwardly (I HATE speaking english in other countries) if I could buy tickets on the bus. The driver told me no, closed the door (with me inside), and drove away. After the most terrifying free bus ride (cut to images of Italian police bringing me to jail) of my life, I booked it out of the bus at the next stop and started wandering around Siena. About halfway through, due to their abundance, I decided to take pictures of all the wolves with human babies that I saw, which will grace this post with their presence. Keep in mind, these aren't even all the ones I saw.Even if my experience wasn't of the BEST city in Italy, after I calmed down a little I got to kind of like Siena. There's this one square that you will CONSISTENTLY find around the corner, wherever you are, which is really comforting if you're really lost. (I'm always really lost) Then it started to rain. Terrified to take the bus again, I walked as quickly as I could back to the station, and ended up getting absolutely SOAKED. Not fun. From Siena I took the train to Florence and got really lost (you'll find this is a common theme) trying to find my hostel. I finally did, made some dinner and passed out.
Florence's weather was a little nicer, no rain, and even if I was cold a lot of the time, it is a LOVELY city just to walk around and see all the random statues and churches you run into. Also, the first thing I did the first day was to go to the Galleria Academia and see the David. It's a tiny museum, so I didn't get a map (also a common theme), and I'm so glad, because the statue is at the end of this hallway full of other Michaelangelo statues, which had my full attention as I turned the corner, and it wasn't until I randomly looked up that I saw it.
Ever since my first "no foto!" experience, and just because it forces me to actually look at the art, I've stopped taking pictures in museums, so I don't have any pics of the David (I DON'T get the obsession with taking pictures of famous things that wont look ANY better in a photograph - maybe I'm just bitter about my inability to handle crowds thus my inability to enjoy seeing REALLY famous art), but I'll throw in some from the Uffizi's plaza.
I LOVED how Florence was just full of art everywhere you went, no matter how backwater of an area it was. Anyway, the David really is such that it would NEVER look that amazing in a photograph. I really never appreciated it that much before. Even Michaelango's (am I spelling that wrong?) other statues really did look WORSE than it. Obviously not because of the artist, just because it's so beautiful. And WAY bigger than I realized. Ah I could go on and on. But don't worry, I wont. Also, for Steve's picture of the day, I include the apron I almost bought for his wife.
The rest of my stay in Flo was about the same: some wandering, some art. The Uffizi was a little overwhelming for me, but at the Palazzo Strozzi there was an exhibit about Picasso, Miro and Dali, probably the three most famous Catalan artists. The english newspaper of Florence, (little plug here) the Florentine, was the host for "Slow Art Day" that centered around this exhibit. In the interest of this already too-long post (and I'm barely halfway), here's an article that ARTNews wrote about Slow Art, if you're curious. I did that, and I really liked it. Not only was the tea they gave us afterward LOVELY but it was just an interesting take on looking at art that I TRIED to incorporate into the rest of my trip, though I'm not sure if I did it justice.
Also, the exhibition itsself, even if I wasn't SUPPOSED to see all of it, was REALLY well done. They organized it by topic and explained the whole organization in a way that made it really clear what they were trying to show. Also they had the contents of one of Picasso's workbooks where he did sketches for Demoiselles d'Avignon. SO cool! I also went out to dinner for the first time, hoping to waste time before my 2AM train to Venice.
Yes, 2AM. No, it was NOT a good idea. The dinner however, was recommended by my hostel, and was DELICIOUS (it's Italian food...), and was run by this man and his wife (there MIGHT have been one other helper back in the kitchen but I'm really not sure). She didn't speak English, or Spanish, but she understood "vegitarian," and aside from that I figured everything would be good, so she just recommended things in Italian and I said "si" (is that even Italian?). HE did speak English, and after a while came and greeted me, gave me a free glass of wine, and came back to check on me about 40 times. It was such a nice experience, he was so friendly and she WOULD have been and the food was GREAT.
Then I went to the train station. It was full of Italian teenagers. Then they closed the train station, and we all had to wait on the platform, or in the sketchy area under the platform where all the bums were hanging out.
This Iranian woman and I pretty much just stood there and went "it's so cold" for an hour or so. Then I got on the train, to my compartment.Compartments have six seats, and five of them were already full. Full of LARGE men. Like, no less than six feet each, and never less than 200 pounds. I felt like a hobbit, and must have looked much MORE ridiculous as I went to sit right in the middle of them.
Then I GOT to Venice after way less sleep than I had anticipated (who could have called that? That's right, anyone but me), and realized that my hostel didn't open until 8. So Venice was essentially just a ton of picture taking. That's what I did while I was waiting for it to open, then they told me I actually couldn't check in until 1 and my bed wouldn't be ready 'til 4. So I went and took MORE pictures. Then some more. Also some gelato. Okay, a lot of gelato. It kept me going. Venice, though, is LOVELY. I couldn't have taken so many pictures if I didn't have so much to work with! :) People said it might smell, but all it smelled like to me was GELATO.
And then I went and bought some. Also, while trying not to fall asleep in the middle of St. Marco's I wandered to the front, right before the Palm Sunday procession. That's when I realized it was Palm Sunday. But it was cool to see, and the security guards were HILARIOUS to watch trying to keep this huge crowd under control. Or maybe I was just deliriously tired. Anyway, I fell in love with Venice, went back to my hostel, had some free dinner, which I think was exactly what I had had the night before but with olives (have I blogged about Mediterranean olives yet? If i haven't I SHOULD have), watched some YouTube videos with some other kids there, and passed out before my 6:30 departure to Treviso Airport.
And THAT was Italy. In a very small, stressful, beautiful nutshell.
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