April 16, 2006

Ciao!

These past two weeks have almost been a blur. Again, I have to cover two weeks in one update because of the way my schedule fell. Sorry. L

I began week eleven with a midterm in my Spanish Cinema class. Great way to start the week…I also had an oral presentation in my phonetics class, which went fairly well considering the amount of time that I actually spend studying here. J In addition to classes, I helped at the school, as usual, and it was multicultural week so we had different activities for the kids to do in order for them to learn more about other cultures and to give them a chance to practice their English.

Then, on Thursday morning, Jen, Yessica and I left for our weeklong trip to Italy! We flew into Milan where Jennie’s Italian family picked us up and drove us to their little town called Alba. It is a beautiful city to the west of Milan. There are rolling hillsides covered in vineyards. The houses are all stucco and have terraces with many plants and ivy on them. The streets are cobblestone like in Spain, but they are narrower. We walked around the town and ate our first serving of gelato. One of the goals of the trip was to eat gelato each day we were in Italy! That night, Rosalba, the mom of Jennie’s Italian family, prepared for us an Italian feast. They always serve bread at the beginning. Then, we had kiwi with cured ham, an amazing cheese lasagna, spaghetti, a chicken with artichokes and olives dish and an incredibly rich chocolate cake with strawberries. It was good. J

The next morning, the family (Valentino, Rosalba and their daughter, Valentina) drove us to Venice. For the next two and half days, they spoiled us rotten! They took us to tour the cathedral and the famous Duke’s palace. We went on a gondola ride and to a glass blowing factory where we watched a man make a glass vase. Venice is famous for a few things: its canals, fish, and glassmaking. Our last night in Venice, they took us to this amazing restaurant for a very typical, Venetian dinner. We had pasta, fish and lots of bread! Venice was beautiful. It is so crazy that everyone’s main form of transportation is by boat. Either you have your own boat, you take a water taxi, or you have a pass for the metro, which is a big boat that runs from port to port every 20 minutes or so. During the day, Venice was beautiful, but at night it was breathtaking. The little streets and restaurants were full of people; music could be heard in the background; and bright and colorful lights reflected off the water. I felt like I was on a movie set!

We left early on Sunday morning to go to Florence by train. My good friend from Linfield is studying there for the semester, so we met her at the train station and she gave us a tour of the city. Among the many plazas and markets we visited, I had the opportunity to go the Academia to see many of Michelangelo’s works including the David! It was amazing. I have always seen little cards, stamps, and posters with this sculpture, but to actually see it in real life was awesome. It is huge! The Academia holds many famous sculptures, but it is funny because from the outside it just looks like an old, abandon warehouse. Walking by it, one would never know that some of the greatest masterpieces in the world are in side!

In Florence, I also was able to tour the Uffizi museum, which holds thousands of famous Renaissance artworks. It holds many of Leonardo Da Vinci’s works and even has an entire floor dedicated to the history and development of his life and his works. Florence was very different than I expected. The streets were very crowded with people and markets. I think that one of my favorite parts about Florence was the Palazzi Pitti because it was calmer. It is a beautiful palace that is surrounded by ten acres of gardens. Nicole and I strolled around the parks and saw all kinds of little meadows of grass and fountains surrounded my sculptures. And that is what Florence has, a lot of-sculptures! Well, that and leather.

One morning before leaving Florence for Rome, Nicole, Jen, Yessica, and I took a train to Pisa to see the leaning tower. We spent nearly two hours being creative and taking pictures of the tower and us! The train ride to and from Pisa was very enjoyable. The Tuscany area is very beautiful. We returned to Florence that night, ate some more pasta and gelato, and then took a train the next afternoon to Rome.

When we arrived in Rome that afternoon, we settled into our hotel, which was right next to the coliseum. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening visiting many plazas and monuments in the city like the Pantheon. That night, we had pizza and pasta at a cute little Italian restaurant near the coliseum and, of course, the day would not have been complete without gelato.

Wednesday was our last day in Rome and we planned on getting up very early to explore Vatican City and the coliseum. So, at six thirty in the morning, we caught a bus to the Vatican and waited in line an hour and a half only to realize that we had been waiting in the wrong line! We were at the entrance of the Basilica de San Piedro where the Pope would be speaking later that afternoon. (I was kind of wondering why everyone had little, gold tickets around me! They all had reserved seating for the Pope’s speech that day. Oops.) So, we made our way around the corning and found the entrance for the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel where we waited in line for another hour. It was OK though. We made it in! The Vatican Museum was amazing. It has all kinds of paintings and sculptures throughout it. And, the Sistine Chapel was just incredible. Michelangelo, among a few other famous artists, spent several years completing the murals on the walls and ceilings that describe the life of Jesus Christ.

After exploring the Vatican, we grabbed some paninis and walked by this Roman castle right next to the river. We then walked to Plaza di Spagna, which is the Plaza de Espana in Italian, on our way to the coliseum.

The coliseum is enormous. Walking around the lower and upper levels of the ruins of this massive, rock structure made us all want to transport ourselves back in time to see what it really looked like back then. In the center, you can see the remains of these corridors and rooms where they caged animals that the men fought. I could almost here the screams and chants of people as they were awaiting a match!

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening walking through the Areo di Tito and the Palatino. This area was beautiful because there are ruins of columns and buildings EVERYWHERE among very green gardens with flowers that had just begun to bloom. It was the end of our day and the end of our trip, so we strolled through this area while trying to fathom the history that had taken place there. Every corner we turned in Rome seemed to have another area of ruins or another major monument. Since the city is packed with history, we could have definitely used a few more days there to explore!

Our last meal in Italy was, of course, pasta. An old, but charming, Italian waiter convinced us to eat at his restaurant. Then, a very strange, but friendly, Italian man led us back to the train station where we were to catch our bus to the airport. Yessica and Jen made fun of me the entire trip because of how I always managed to make friends with random people! (That afternoon I tried to ask a man selling gelato how we could get to the airport and he misunderstood me and thought that I had asked him for a ride to the airport! He said that he wasn’t sure if he would be able to take me because he only had a scooter-but he would ask his friend. At this point, I was ready to go home where I could communicate with people!!) Our flight left at seven in the morning, so we were going to pull an all-nighter at the airport with some of out other friends who were traveling in Italy for the week. It pretty much topped my Canary Island experience. The airport was not a nice, international airport like we had imagined. It was definitely a little charter airport where there was only one room that has concrete floors and a few wire chairs to sit in and NO heating. It was great.

Finally, it was time for us to board our plane. We were all excited to go home, but the only problem was we weren’t actually flying home! We were flying from Rome to Valencia because there were no direct flights from Rome to Seville. So, when we arrived in to Valencia, we had to rush to the bus station to buy tickets home. Well, since it is Semana Santa (Holy Week) every one is going to Seville because of all the pasos (I will talk about this later). My friends and I managed to buy the last six tickets for the bus at ten that night. It was ten in the morning, so we had a few hours to kill in Valencia. Great! This was a perfect opportunity for us to explore another part of Spain! We spent a few hours at a café. The, we walked to the central area and laid in the sun for awhile. Later that day, the other girls went to a movie while I did a little shopping and exploring on my own. All and all, it ended up being a very enjoyable day in Valencia. However, we were still all ready to be back home in Seville.

The bus ride was twelve hours long! Sleeping on the bus was uncomfortable, but it was much better than the airport experience, so I wasn’t about to complain. It was about eleven in the morning when we finally reached our home in Seville, and by that time the streets were already full with people for the pasos.

In Spain, the week of Easter is called Semana Santa and in Seville it is a particularly big event. Most of the Sevillanos leave for vacation while tourists visit Seville for this huge celebration. At the beginning of the week, everyone meets with their family to celebrate the life and resurrection of Jesus. Then, throughout the week there are parades where each church has their own float. These floats are very large and are very expensive to build and maintain. Each float is different; some have Mary Magdalene, some have Mary with baby Jesus, some have Jesus. All are different and beautiful in their own way. The bases of most of the floats are made of gold and they also have white roses and candles covering them. Men, women and children who are completely disguised in these black costumes with pointy hats lead the floats. They are called nazarenos and look like members of the KKK except in black. Then, the floats follow and are carried by at least thirty to forty men! A marching band follows the float. The music for each float is different, but all are very strong and dramatic.

Los pasos (the floats/parades) are incredible. The float leaves its church and makes its way to the main cathedral in Seville to enter and go through, and then it returns to its home church. Some pasos take more than six hours!

Today is Easter and surprisingly enough, it is not a huge day here in Seville. On Holy Thursday and Good Friday everything was closed, but today many things are open. They spend the entire week celebrating here and Easter Sunday seems to be like every other Sunday. It is not celebrated the same as it is in the United States. It’s kind of interesting. Anyways, I did go to mass this morning with some of my friends. It was very, VERY long. The service was nice. I enjoyed the music and I could understand the priest who was speaking in Spanish, which is a good sign that I am learning some while I am over here!!!

Thanks for reading this! I know that it is long (again) and I am really sorry! I hope that you have a wonderful Easter!

Besos,

Steph