the cliff notes version

It struck me yesterday that it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything, so I decided to take a little hiatus from the good life – the sweet life – to update the ol’ blogaroo. Let me begin by saying that I do feel slightly guilty regarding my prolonged absence, but the only reason I’ve been so neglectful is because I’ve just had so much going on (as you can probably imagine). But since I can’t remember every single juicy detail, I’m going to use some of the pictures I’ve taken over the past few weeks to jog my memory.

My classes are pretty amazing. A few weeks ago Verdon took us up into the forgotten parts of the Duomo, i.e. the space above the roof where we could see all the construction that had taken place. We also got to explore around some balconies on the exterior of the cathedral that most people aren’t allowed to go. I got some amazing pictures of the city and of the architecture, but I’ll spare you those since they’re pretty generic and it takes forever to upload stuff. I do, however, wish to share with you the lovely picture you see below – Jessica, myself, and Timothy Verdon. I’m not sure if you can truly grasp the full essence of this picture, so to clarify, having the actual Dome as the backdrop of this picture is just perfect. “Verdon” and “Duomo” are practically synonymous.



Another little Verdon anecdote: the guy practically owns this city. As we walk around Florence for our class, almost every other person we pass greets this bigwig. As a member of his entourage I feel so damn smug. We recently visited the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo where Arnolfo’s statues from the original façade of the Cathedral lie. The Madonna, which was the centerpiece of the façade (the official name for the Cathedral is Santa Maria del Fiore, and is dedicated to Mary), has these mysterious glass eyes that are meant to be looked up at and are supposed to bring the sculpture to life. But because we were only a few feet below the statue and because Verdon is god around these parts he had the entire class lay down in the middle of the museum so that we could look up at the glass eyes, much in the same way that Florentines had done centuries past. Our professor then continued to lecture from the floor for the next 20 minutes. It was awesome.


A couple weeks ago Erika, Jessica, and I attempted to visit the outlets outside of Florence. Somehow along the way, though, we ended up boarding the wrong train and found ourselves in Arezzo about an hour later. Originally our plan was to visit the random spot we had closed our eyes and pointed to on a map, but after walking outside the train station we immediately came upon an international market. There were booths upon booths of yummy food, crafts, and more yummy food. Again, I have more pictures than I know what to do with, but the only ones worth sharing are this one of the booth with piles of mouthwatering candy…



…this picture of an entire roasting pig – AAAAAAHHHHHH…



…and the one of the scariest mannequin I’ve ever seen.



When we finally got around to the outlets a few days later, we were really quite surprised. We got off the train at the correct spot – Rignano Sull’Arno – and found ourselves in this quaint little town. How deceitful it was. I thought that since I had landed myself in a quiet little part of Italy, that the fashion outlets would be quiet, little, and inexpensive. But Valentino, Gucci, and Armani are still Valentino, Gucci, and Armani wherever you go, and even with discounts as high as 70%, I still would have broken the bank by spending thousands of euros on a shirt. I did discover that I have a newfound love of pretty much everything Valentino, and since this was the most expensive of the overly priced stuff I saw, alls I gotta do now is find myself a sugar daddy to take care of the rest.



For some reason Florence has this knack for bringing really random hip hop artists to the city once a month. Last month it was Fat Man Scoop, and this month it was DJ Unk, of “Walk it Out” fame. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, it really isn’t a big deal. My friends and I decided to go, but after he didn’t show up for a couple hours and we kept on having run-ins with creepy Italian guys (the final straw was when some rando nasty guy started licking me), we decided to leave. And the first person we saw upon walking out the door was none other than Unky Unk himself. Awwwwww. So Erika starts spouting off in Italian, “DJ Unk, mi piace DJ Unk…,” while forcing herself towards him. The dude had no idea what was going on, and as much as Erika loved DJ Unk, his bodyguards were not a fan of her. We took a taxi home shortly after.

(This is me saving Erika from one of the shady guys upon her request. This was her requested maneuver.)



For our big Bing trip we went to Padova and Verona. We started out Friday morning on a bus for Padova, but the traffic inhibited us from arriving as soon as we would have liked to. It was also pretty rainy, so we had a very rushed, wet day. It was interesting nonetheless – we got to see the Anatomical Theatre, Giotto’s Cathedral, the Church (which I think might have been dedicated to Saint Anthony…his tomb was inside, and I got to see his tongue, jaw, and voice box – eeeeeeeeeew), and the Botanical Gardens. They also had a lovely main square with over 70 statues encircling the little mote that surrounded the green area. We then took the bus to Verona and stayed in a very nice hotel. Verona was beautiful and sunny, and I got to see Europe’s oldest Arena/Coliseum (older than Rome’s), Juliet Montague’s supposed house (this is most likely an urban legend but she gets tens of thousands of fan letters every year), and some other cool stuff that I wasn’t really paying attention to because it was so pretty outside.



Legend has it that if you touch Juliet's left breast then you will have good luck in your love life. So I groped her like crazy...future love of my life: you owe me for this one.



The graffiti near Juliet's balcony.



The point of this picture was for me to be in the corner of it, instead of leaning into the center like an idiot. That way, you might better enjoy the beautiful scenery. But some inept person failed to take this picture correctly.



That's better. (Though it's not quite the same without me in it ;-)



I'LL PUT UP ROME AND PRAGUE STORIES/PICTURES SOON!!!!! GIVE ME TIME...

i want a gondola for christmas

There really should exist some human law that requires every single person to visit Venice at least once in their life. From the moment I stepped foot outside the train station and into this otherworldly city I was completely mesmerized. Venice is absolutely enchanting, and I have yet to see anything at all like it. My experience there was entirely ethereal and everything looked like it was taken from some sort of picture book or dream of heaven. Yes, of course there were other tourists, but even that couldn’t take away from my time there. I have way too many pictures so please know that the following only represent a small portion of everything that I have and do absolutely no justice to Venice’s beauty.

me on the traghetto, aka the water taxi. that's right. WATER TAXI. venice is the shiz.

from the top of the campanilo. this is where i noticed the piece of fuzz in my camera. it sucked. it's on the inside and it won't go away. can someone please send me a new camera? come on, do you really want pictures like this ruined in the future?

eating lunch alongside the canal.

i took this picture because i love the yellow of the building.

unbeknownst to me, jessica took a series of candid shots. i thought they were funny so i posted them. this one pretty much reflects my constant state of awe while in venice.

my maniachal laugh.

i waved and called out to just about everybody from the gondola. it was like i was on the cool ride at disneyland and wanted everyone to know it.

our AWESOME gondolier. he really was fabulous. he sang for us and he even taught me one of his songs.

i took many a picture of him, mostly because my camera is old, decrepit, and dysfunctional. and it has a piece of fuzz in it.

me and my new man. he and his "capitano" thought i looked like manuela arcuri. i'll admit, she's pretty hot, but manuela being compared to me? that lucky bitch definitely got the better end of the deal.

for your amusement

although, i don't think the last two are all that shabby. that's right. i'm getting better fools.

the infamous lion/snake/antelope picture. laugh it up.

these next two i did at the photography museum. i had about 15 minutes for each, and in all honesty, i'm quite impressed with my ability to turn these out under an extreme time crunch and low lighting conditions. i got skillz. they're not finished yet, but i'll probably never get around to it because i'm too lazy.

yes, i know it looks like my shading got a little out of control on this one, but this is a picture of a miner, and he was supposed to be dirty.

a lady wearing some sort of cloak thing. more unfinished than the last, but you get the general idea.

i will never eat chocolate again

When I heard the words “Europe’s largest chocolate festival”, I knew that this was the place for me. So I set a whole day aside to go check out this chocolate extravaganza - you know, just to make sure these guys were truly worthy of this self-proclaimed reputation (mine are the only standards that matter) - and fasted for three days so that I might gorge myself with as much chocolate as humanly possible. I joke only about the former part of that last clause. When I disembarked from the train in Perugia with several of my friends, the city appeared to be in a state of sheer chaos. Cacao, or the prospect of it at least, has a way of driving people mad, and I was no exception to this rule. I quickly tore through the crowds, weaving in and out of less important people, dodging giant bodies that didn’t need the chocolate as much as I did, and throwing little old ladies to the outskirts of the mob. And somehow along the way, Jessica and I managed to get entirely separated from our group of 150 people on the Florence for Fun tour and miss our bus. Nice goin guys. Yet driven entirely by instinct, we quickly hopped on to the next bus we saw and prayed that it might take us towards the chocolate. It was only when I saw the reflection of the bus in a store window that I was able to make out the fact that we were headed in the right direction. And lo and behold, we jumped right off the bus and into the welcoming arms of our four other friends not 15 minutes later. (That whole episode was quite strange, to be honest.) The day began with me downing an entire box of Choco Vitamins. I have a feeling I was supposed to space those out over several days, but I was pumped about getting the Chocofest started and this happened to be my very first “choco” for the day. Alright, I’m gonna stop with all the chocolate puns right now because this is getting old even for me. Trust that they’re still here in spirit. Now I’m just going to tell you now that this festival was not quite what I had expected. There were no chocolate eating contests (I would have dominated), over-the-top chocolate sculptures, or even chocolate wrestling tournaments. The large part of the fair was made up of booths for different companies to hawk their chocolate wares. The eating insane amounts of chocolate part came in with all the free samples. And the other ways in which we were able to work the chocolate system… (I’m doing it again, I apologize.)

Our first stop was this underground network type thing in Perugia. First we visited a chocolate exhibition. Boring. Who wants to shuffle like a bunch of idiots through a little educational tour on chocolate? That’s right – losers. I was there to experience my first heart attack, so Jessica, Erica, and I quickly bailed and found the hot chocolate stand. But as luck would have it, they had just run out, and had to make a new batch. They still had a bunch of the Cioccolato Caldo Pepperoncino – Spicy Hot Chocolate – something which I just wasn’t feeling right then. Something which I’ll probably never feel. So we literally stood around waiting for this freakin hot chocolate juice to get hot for a good half hour. The lady kept telling us “5 more minutes”, and we eventually reached the point where to give up on waiting for the stuff would have been to undermine our entire time standing there thus far. I’m not going into the outcome of this little incident, because all that need be said is that the stuff was completely unworthy. We were far less than pleased. Our next stop was the “Lindt Snap!” stand, the point of this activity being to put on a blind fold and try chocolate in the dark to heighten your other senses to the chocolate experience. They even gave us canes to use in the dark, but the bastards wouldn’t let us keep them afterwards. And unfortunately, they gave us terrible directions; whereas we thought that we were supposed to pick up the different types of chocolate at various points along the hallway and enter a room to conduct the taste test at the end, we were actually supposed to have tasted the chocolate along the way. Unfortunately for those Lindt people, we all stuffed our bags with as much of their delicious chocolate as we could carry. So it was fine.

Next we decided to step into the light of day, where we continued to collect even more free chocolate with our special Eurochocolate cards (one of the perks of the FFF group), see the world’s largest chocolate bar – 11 meters squared – and pretend we were interested clients at each of the booths so that the people working them might give us more free chocolate. We also got free Coke Zero (this Coke promo is everywhere in Italy, by the way), iced tea, and bottles of brandy. Sadly, Erica peaked early in the day and had to cut herself off from the chocolate festivities. Jessica and I, however, forged on. We visited more stands, went through a little chocolate mini-tour, and made some new friends. I bonded with two Perugian boys in the early afternoon by letting them listen to awesome songs on my iPod. The event unfolded after they asked me some question about Guns ‘N Roses, after which I had them listening to some more epic bands. They should have known that they had opened the floodgates with me when it came to music. And I should have known that I too had opened the floodgates by naively befriending two young Italian gentlemen. After considerable efforts, we were finally able to part ways, shortly after which Jessica had to throw in the towel with all this chocolate business. My friends were dropping like flies. The true champ (me) proceeded to guzzle down another cup of hot chocolate - white hot chocolate this time - work the booths for yet more free samples, try some chocolate covered churos, take a spin on the merry-go-round, and join a chocolate choir, because apparently it reached the point where I had to sing for my goods.

I’ll stop narrating and post the pics.

Erica on the train to Perugia right before she passed out.



Jessica, Anna, Paige, and Natalie.



Erica and I pissed off at the hot chocolate stand because it took so damn long.



me and my free stuff.



crowds in perugia. my favorite part of this picture has to be the guy wearing the "playboy" shirt.



the chocolate started getting to our heads.



example of a chocolate booth.



example of another chocolate booth.



the mad hatter.



she took the chocolate pretty hard.



we are god.



ok, now we are really god.



the guy in the background would not stop taking pictures of himself. i tried to get one of him standing up holding the camera low and taking one up at his blue steel face, but i couldn't bust the camera out quick enough. i guess i'm giving him too much in posting him online, but oh well. you had to see what a dick he was.



"dammi, oh bello, il tuo cioccolatino." these are the words i sang in my choir of fellow chocolate lovers.



erica got caught up in a crowd of people jumping for pieces of chocolate. this was after she had gotten hit in the face by an old lady with a bag of oranges.



almost sickeningly beautiful.



the magic of the merry-go-round just never died for me.



this is what the sun looks like when it sets on chocolate.