pictures:

My trip to Montepulciano with the 10 of us full-year girls, where they are also going to be filming the Volterra part of the movie New Moon (sweet!). Also includes some pics from around the hotel and Rome.

Trip to Florence and then Barcelona, with Vanna's son Neri in Firenze and then some awesome Gaudi stuff in Barcelona.

And the rest of Barcelona. Then my trip with Genevieve and Leah to Pisa, Lucca, and Viareggio for Carnevale (Mardi Gras in Italian).

i love italian food

This past week our whole program travelled around northern Italy. We stayed in Ferrara and visited a bunch of other places. The key intellectual words of the trip seemed to be "identity" and "rhetoric"... relating to space. I actually had a ton of fun disciphering the intentions of the artists and architects. When you have Dr. Hansen as a tour guide, anything can become interesting. She taught us to say, "My, that looks rather Palladian don't you think?" and to learn and think... learn how to read a space and analyze what it's focus is. The mannerist movement of art has caught my interest. The way the artists begin with classical ideas, as the Renaissance artisits do, and then turn the ideas on their heads, is just really cool. I actually laughed out loud at some of the things in Palazzo Te, which is sometimes the point. Intellectual laughing. I like it.

NEWS FLASH: The leaning tower of Pisa is not the only leaning tower in Italy/the world. In fact, it's pretty lame compared to the ridiculous leaning of two of Bologna's towers. Although Pisa's is prettier, I'd have to say it looks more stable than the two towers in downtown Bologna which each lean over by more than 2 and 3 meters. Also, as a leaning tower expert, I would like to add that the Bologna towers get more points for a) looking like they are leaning into each other, and b) Bologna being overall a much more... cool, pretty, exciting, shady (in the sun sense), lively, happy, yummy, populated, etc... city. Pisa basically sucks.

We also visited countless churches. I don't know about all of you, but I for one have had enough frescos to last me a lifetime. By the last leg of the trip I was willing to give up all the frescos for the endless, ancient Etruscan tombs of last semester. And if you were here last semester, that's saying a lot. Overall I actually would have to say I enjoyed the ancient stuff more... maybe because it was more of a mystery to begin with. Still, we had a good time, especially eating all the local food!

A speciality of the Veneto region is eel. To my utmost dissapointment, we did not get to try this amazing delicacy which Italians let swim around in their bathtubs before eating for their typical Christmas dinner.

Ferrara and Mantova (Mantua) each serve cappellacci different ways, so we tried both! In Ferrara it's tortellini stuffed with pumpkin with either burro e salvia (butter and sage sauce) or al ragu (with meat sauce). In Mantova it's raviolo stuffed with pumpkin, with either sauce. The ragu one was awesome. But the cappellacci burro e salvia from Mantova wins out because it was tastier topped with crunchy cinnamon bits!



cappellacci burro e salvia w/ cinnamon bits in Mantova --->








<-- A piadina in Padova (Padua): flat bread stuffed with whatever you want (in my case w/ pomodori, parmigiano, e mozzarella)



We also had spaghetti alla bolognese in Bologna (where else), which was spaghetti with a meat sauce. It didn't actually have tomato sauce in it, which surprised us, but it was still very yummy.

6am

a tuesday:

6am: Turn stupid alarm off and go back to bed
6:30am: Call from the lobby downstairs: "Jillian, where are you?? Get up! We need to leave!"
6:35am: Meet the group of other early birds and trudge through the rain to a church we've never been to, one of the 40 station churches of Rome during Lent.
6:45am: Spot a big group of men in black from a distance: "follow the seminarians!"
7am: mass in english at the day's station church
7:45am: see cool relics and then go to Pascucci or to a cafe with our seminarian friends
8:25am: sleep? rest? surf the internet? homework before class? homework...
9:35am-11:35am: italian cinema class
11:35am: last minute homework for literature class
12:15-1:45pm: italian literature class
1:45pm: lunch at Pascucci
2:20-3:50pm: mythology class
4pm: do homework OR die of exhaustion OR take a three hour nap before dinner... nap!
7pm: dinner at the hotel
8pm: do homework OR die of exhaustion OR both at the same time... both.
12am, 1am? : sleep

repeat.
repeat.
"what on earth posessed me to get up at 6am in college?"
repeat.
repeat.

new semester

here are some photos from last semester and winter break: churches; Christmastime in Rome; Salzburg and Christmas in Austria; Austria and New Year's in Florence and Rome with the family; my adventure alone to Nice, Milan, and Perugia

I'm not very good at keeping up with this thing! It's because I like to save up and procrastinate, telling myself that eventually I'll write a really long and detailed entry. Oh well.

This new semester:

I was excited for Genevieve to come and join me in Rome so we could finally explore europe together! It's nice having someone from home here now. I'm also having fun getting to know the other new girls, most of whom I never knew before. But... I really miss the great friends I got to know last semester, like my roomates Anne, Maire, and Ashley... Emily who is now studying in France... and all the other fabulous girls of the first semester group.

Me and the other 9 girls from last semester took a little group daytrip to the Tuscan town of Montepulciano (famous for it's wine) one of the first weekends, while the new girls had tours around Roma. It was really nice to spend time together, just the 10 of us. We got up really early on a Saturday and took some trains there. We thought it was only 3km up to the real town from the train station, so we decided to walk up. Well, after about an hour of walking through the fog goofing around and talking we thought it was about time we got there already. So we stopped at a bus station to wait after we saw that it was actually 9km to the top, and we had 6km left to do! We also tried hitchhiking, but there were too many of us. Ok, not really completely seriously... the bus came eventually. We broke through the fog on the way up, into the beautiful sunshine and the hilltop, so we could see all the fog pooled below us in the valleys. It reminded me of breaking throught the clouds in the alps going skiing. We had a good lunch together, had some wine, bought some wine, and headed back to Rome.

I've haven't done as much as I should be doing around Rome, but I'll get on it. Gen and 2 other girls and I went to Florence the other weekend. We climbed up a bajillian (hehe) steps to the top of the dome of the Duomo to see the city sprawled out before us on a beautiful, clear-blue sky day. Then we met up with Vanna, the family friend we saw over New Year's when my parents and Scott were here. We hopped on a bus and somehow found our way to her house for tea. She spoke all in Italian to us, which was really fun. I can understand well and respond, but slower. Gen and Leanna who are new to Italian could understand the gist of things, which was neat too. We had a cake thing that was traditional for Carnevale time in Florence. We got to meet her son, Neri, who came over and ended up taking us all around the city! It was awesome. We spoke English with him. He took us to Piazzale Michelangelo, a piazza with a bronze replica of David that looks over the city, which Vanna also took my family to when we came. It was a beautiful night. We then had some spumante (a sparkling white wine), which is a typical Tuscan/Florentine pre-dinner drink. Then we walked around the city for a while down backstreets and kind of got to see "the real Florence." Then we had dinner: 3 appetizers, some insalata caprese (my fav) and tuscan crostini; red wine of course; we all got pizza; a chocolate dessert; and coffee. And he graciously paid for it all and pretended to not understand us when we asked him if he wanted money :) Then we went for another walk and a drink, met some of his friends (besides the people working that he seemed to know at every place we went), and had some fun teaching slang and quizzing each other on English and Italian. We all had a blast!

Sunday while the 3 other girls went to the Uffizi and Academia I went to the Archaeological Museum by myself... I got to see the Chimera of Arezza, this big bronze beast that I studied in archaeology- so that was cool. Great weekend!

More later about my trip this past weekend to Barcelona!!

Buon Natale, Frohe Weihnachten, Joyeux Noel

So winter break-I guess it's been about a month since I've written. Hmmm...

First Anne, Brett, MT and I headed to Austria to spend Christmas in the Alps with the ND/SMC Innsbruck kids and some girls from SMC's Maynooth, Ireland program. It was absolutely awesome. We skiied in the Alps! Enough said? Maybe... but one day, Christmas Eve actually, we took Anne up to the top top of the mountain, which takes 1 gondola ride and 1 lift ride, a total of about 23 minutes or something crazy like that. Our wonderful hotel was right on the side of the mountain, so we could ski in and ski out, but it was foggy most of the time since we were lower, towards the valley. So we took Anne up for her second day skiing- ever- to the top of the Alps. Haha... so we had to coach her down, but she did remarkably well. The best though was coming out of the mist in the gondola and being able to see the sun suddenly, mountains all around us, breaking free of the cloudy, damp mist.... "Um... you guys, are we going into heaven??" It was so beautiful at the top. You could see all the peaks very clearly (I think I might have seen the Grinch up on one of them, I was convinced I saw his house up there) and the clouds were below us. Between the peaks it looked like there were cloud ponds and lakes... really cool.
We also went on a day trip to Salzburg. We ate Austrian stuff at the Chistkindlmart (xmas market like in piazza navona), saw Motzart's birthplace and house, and Mirabel Gardens where part of the Sound Of Music was filmed :) We had a blast skiing, making new friends, trying gluwein (hot spiced wine), had a delicious like 7 course xmas eve dinner, sing carols, went to midnight mass in german, and got attacked by the KRAMPUS! Ask me about that crazy story sometime, it's too weird to recount here. Brett left early to be with her parents, Anne left at like 4am on the 26th, and MT and I travelled back together for many long hours (20 all together?) to get back to Rome.

My mom, dad, and Scott came got to Rome the same day we did. I opened the hotel doors to a typical Lopina family reunion, my mom yelling loudly, everyone being very confused, and of course with lots of hugging. We hung around Rome and then went to Florence to visit an old friend (ok, mad crush) of my dad's from like 40 years ago. Papa (my dad's dad) was stationed in Italy during WWII and got to know an older couple and their children in Florence. Vanna was the granddaughter of the originial people. She came to visit the US for a summer back when she was 21 and my dad was about 17. She and Papa still kept in touch somewhat, but nobody had seen each other since then. So we came to Florence and surprisingly found her waiting at the train station for us! It was so nice. We at dinner that night, New Year's Eve, at her house with her, Paolo, and her friends Laura and Paolo. We found out that it's traditional to eat a late dinner for new year's eve in Italy, and finish around midnight. We had an amazing dinner. If they ever come to visit us in the States I don't know what we would serve them... we had a bunch of courses, including hand-made ravioli from one of their friends, sooo good fresh sauce, olive oil that Paolo made from his trees in San Gimignano, and wine made by the other Paolo and Laura, who own a vineyard and everything, also in San Gimignano. YUM! We also had lentils, which stand for money (wishing for money in the new year, etc.) We of course had champagne at midnight, and then panettone and gelato for dessert. Vanna showed us aroung Firenze... the Duomo, Piazza San Marco, the Ponte Vecchio, Fiesole, etc. It was great. Back in Rome I took Scott to see "the bone church," this crypt which is decorated entirely in bones (really cool) while my dad who was too freaked out went in the church above. We went to this restaurant reccomended to my mom on the plane, by who else but a new friend she made by chatting, twice. It was sad to see them all go, it felt like they had just come when they had to leave. We missed Chris during the week, but hopefully he will get to come visit me on his own later!

Then it was off on a solo adventure for me since everyone had gone back to the States for break except for Brett, who was with her parents around Italy. I killed sometime in Pascucci's and the bookstore, reading books so I wouln't have to buy them, and then getting some for the week ahead, all the while putting off the decision til the last moment of where I wanted to go. I ended up at the train station around 6pm and after standing in line in the cold decided I needed to go somewhere warmer. So I picked Nice, France. Of course, with my luck I had 6 hours to kill before my train left so I went and saw the movie Nights In Rodanthe all in Italian (first time I did that). It sucked, so it was ok that I didn't understand everything. Then I took a bunch of trains over the next 12 hours and finally got to Nice, went to the tourist agency, booked a room, and headed straight to the beach to read and dip my toes in the ocean. Yes, Nice was nice. I sat on the beach and read, ate, saw a couple movies in english with french subtitles, failing tried out my old french, took pictures, and chilled. Random cool thing: one night in a cafe I was the only one in there besides the people who worked there, and they had a little party for the Epiphany and gave me a piece of what seemed like King's Cake for Mardi Gras. They were so nice to include me and tell me about their traditions.

Although France and the French language were my first loves, I had to realize that I sadly lost a ton of my French. "What am I doing here," I thought to myself? "Heck, I'm going back to Italy!" I loved it too much. So I decided to go to Milano. Of course, it was absolutely freezing there, with lots of snow. I had the Pinacoteca Ambrosina museum basically all to myself, ate some yummy African Etrurian food with my hands, travelled 7 hours roundtrip on a fruitless quest to see Otzi the 5,000 year old ice man only to have the museum closed because of late trains. At least I got in a full day of reading. Had someone else been with me, I/we might have been annoyed, but as it was, I had a fabulous time just reading, which is secretly all I had wanted to do that day.

Then I decided I wanted to do something chocolatey. So I did some research and went to Perugia with hopes of touring the Perugina chocolate factory. Yummy. So I arrived in Perugia in the dark, took a really long bus ride out to the middle of nowhere, and tried to find my way to this farmhouse hostel. I had to walk down a dark, country road at night all alone. It was scary, but I didn't feel like I was in that much danger. Haha. I think I was the only one staying there. The owner guy gave me a ride to the chocolate factory on his way to work the next morning, which was really nice of him and made up for the fact that this hostel took forever to find and get to. So I jumped in on an Italian tour going on. We got to walk like above the workers down below, and saw lines of chocolate eggs, Baci candies, and other stuff going by... all with the sweet smell of chocolate wafting around. Mmmmmmmm... then I bought some chocolate of course. I asked the lady for directions to the bus stop and she gave me some free chocolate! Sweet! Literally.

I was SO excited to get back to Rome. I had had enough of travelling alone. It wasn't hard, and I proved to myself that I could do it, which I had kind of wanted to. But, I would rather be with someone to share the experience with. I had a huge smile as I got of the train, then bus, and got the to hotel to see Brett and head to Pascuccis.