illustrations!

so i made it back to NY after a VERY long and full day of airports yesterday. i don't have very much to write - all i've done since my return is hang around the house, trying to get re-organized and unpacked. i have so much CRAP! anyway, what i really wanted to tell you is this: i have successfully gone back through this entire blog and illustrated it with pictures. so click back through the past entries and you can see them. hooray.

that's all.
amy

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even so...

allora.

so, even though last time i said i wasn't ready for home yet, i also have the "end of trip" feeling where everything feels just a bit more surface level, because there will be no opportunities to go deeper. that said, home is looming a bit large at the moment, with all the coordination and responsibility it contains. i'm sure i'll snap back into it pretty quick, but at the moment it's not the headspace i'm in.

so i finished up in parma for a few more days after i last wrote. hanging out with emilyand her program buddies (who are great) and cookingand eatingand playing in the park and sitting on piazzas and talking in a way i can't talk without close friends around... it was great. and sunday, i left. on the train, i sat with two older italian men who chatted with me (in italian, i might add) and gave me their addresses in Piacenza for the next time i come to italy. we were all going to get a coffee together while i transferred in Bologna, but there wasn't time before the next train. awww.


venice. venezia. the first night, i stayed at a campground on the mainland (venice is a bridge or boatride away. think manhattan but farther out). it was fine. i had my own little cabin with two beds in it, the bathroom block was a minute walk away, and everything was quite clean. it would've been great, except it's the type of situation that's best shared with someone else, then you can both laugh about the mosquitos and the morning stroll to the bathrooms with bedhead and pajamas. alone, it's just... not quite as amusing. but it served my purposes quite well. i spent the half-day after my arrival just strolling about venice. how lovely. it's absolutely charming and, like most other italian cities i've visited, shockingly walkable. only this time, there's no traffic at all, which is excellent.
It's like walking around a huge movie set. it's full of dramatic vistas and quiet canals with laundry flapping up above like flags. i had excellent weather yesterday, my only full day in venice proper, and i just walked and walked and went to the Rialto market and walked and went to churches and laughed at all the people in Piazza San Marco
feeding pigeons for the pictures and then getting attacked by them, and walked and walked and sat in a piazza with some gelato (hazelnut, pistacchio, chocolate) and walked. i'm gonna have to get a new pair of feet, cuz these ones are pretty worn out. i've got some intense blister and callous happenings. not that you REALLY need to know that, but i felt like complaining, so there it is. my feet hurt. then i got stuck on the motoscafi (water bus) that plies the grand canal through the center of venice) going the wrong way, no less. so let's just say that i was a little late to come out and meet my gracious host Matilde.
Luckily, she was having a dinner party for her yoga students (that's right - she's a yoga teacher. awesome. na, i think you'd love this lady), and they just saved me some and started without me. I sat at the table with 7 other women chatting animatedly in Italian and i ate my pasta and couscous and frittata and tiramisu... it was, needless to say, a happy evening.

then i slept like a BABY.

today i went to the islands to the north of Venice. Murano (of the glass),Burano (of the lace and the colored houses), and Torcello (of the oldest building in Venice). was nice, but not amazing. the weather was kind of gray and as i said before, i just felt like everything was surface level. maybe because i spent the day with a bunch of tourists. anyway, tonight we're eating leftovers from yesterday (fine by me) and then i'm going to go with my host to a Jazz concert she is attending. so there!

and then tomorrow i will be airport-bound all the live-long day.
tomorrow night, i will be in the loving arms of my parents' house listening to the confusing calls of jetlag. but i am sure, after a billion hours on the planes, i will sleep.

let's just hope i make my very tight connection in london, or else it might be another day. heh. va bene.

alrighty. i guess that just about wraps this travellog up. maybe another entry after i'm home...

ciao tutti! e ciao bella italia!
amy

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not ready for home yet.

so last night, as i was falling asleep on the mattress on Emily's floor where i've taken up camp for the past couple of nights, i mumbled " i don't wanna go home." and it's not that i don't love home and my family and my friends and my apartment and my job(s) and new york freakin city. because i do. but i think i like ME better when i'm out here. so the trick, then, will be to figure out how to take some of the parts i like from out here and superglue them to myself so that they'll still be stuck on when i get back into my home life. i'm gonna ponder that.

anyway. i feel like i haven't written in ages. i just checked my last entry and i HAVEN'T written in ages. oy. ok. so back in lucca, years and years ago...

after i finished writing that blog i went and sat in what became "my spot" in one of the big piazzas (San Michele), where there was usually some street musician or another playing music nearby and lots of people walking by, with the odd tour group shuffling through. i sat on the white stone of the steps of the very cool church with the variously-patterned pillars (i think i mentioned them before. you'll see pictures eventually. i think i'll go back and maybe stick them into this blog and make it into the illustrated version). i read my book there. i was reading the Kite Runner. intense, but good. right. so as i read the last few words and AS i close the back cover and just begin to form the thought "so what do i do now?" a voice says to me: i am coming over to talk to you. it was patti. i did not know patti. but patti knew i was american (or at least not italian) because a) duh. and b) no italian woman would show her feet this early in the season (i was wearing the sandals). so she risked it and came over. she's from connecticut and was in lucca for 2 weeks staking out the scene cuz she wants to rent an apartment there for a few months in the fall. rock on with her bad self. anyway, we sat there for a while chatting and then we went and had some appetizers at a great little local bar place near my hostel and THEN we walked around more and people-watched on the hip happening street in lucca (i just don't understand metallic sneakers. and the MULLETS!!) while we listened to a great hipster rockabilly band play inside a bar, and then we had some tasty desserts after walking around some MORE. i must be super fit from all this walking, you say. yes, one would think, but i balance it all out with the cheese and the oil and the gelato. it's a very precise science.

so yeah. i've been thinking about spontaneous community. i don't think i wrote about that on here yet. i wrote about it in my own journal and i've talked about it with people, i think, but i can never quite remember what i've already posted. oh well. if i've said it already, just scroll down. i love spontaneous community. i think i always have. it's part of what i love about theater, but i'm talking about much more tenuous connections that than. i'm talking about the older American couple that was buying picnic materials at the same store as me in a town in Cinque Terre. Just because none of us were Italian and didn't really know what we were doing, when i saw them later on, looking for a place to sit, we had a nice friendly little exchange. I am talking about the people I passed multiple times on my bicycle on top of the walls in Lucca, the people with whom i exchanged smiles and then greetings. I am talking about the other hikers at Cinque Terre, with whom i walked and bantered for the last leg, just because we were all there, doing the same thing. and I'm talking about patti, who felt we shared something just because i was wearing open-toed shoes. and the people staying in my hostel in Florence. and the people at my Agritourismo in Siena. they are such surface-level coincidences that hold us together, but the exchanges are so much deeper than that. i LOVE it. love it. i think it's part of what i love most about traveling. one of the things anyway. someday i'll have to make an actual list. Man, who'd have thought, a couple of years ago, that i would turn into a traveler as I have. I really truly didn't have a clue it could have gone this way. but i'm talking to people about future trips and plans and... it's so great. i just built it in. now i just have to act it out. that's so excellent...

anyway. i left lucca the following day after finally finding the bakery and pizza place open (things close at very odd hours and days here) and also having my very first cappucino with someone from that spontaneous wall-top community who i ran into again on the small-town streets. it was.. ok. i think i just don't really like coffee. i'm sorry, ok. i'm sorry. but i did try it.

i only have about 8 minutes left to write this blog but there's so much more to say! oh, why do i ramble on so??

ok so from lucca i went to stay with the servas host in Carrara. It was great. Carrara is a small town known for three things: marble (the most famous of the three), anarchism (a lot of the mine workers organized historically... there are signs and statues and an annual march. cool), and lardo (that's pork fat for those of you out of the loop). so i stayed there one night and the next day i was off to walk cinque terre which was beautiful and i did the whole thing and i felt accomplished and smiley and good.


aaaand the next night i was in a tiny town called filattiera with the same host and his wife (they have two places cuz his job is in Carrara) and they were wonderful and she didn't really speak english but it was fun anyway.

and then i came to parma and it's great to hang out with emilina and meet all the friends i've heard so much about. and that takes us to now. i think i'll be headed to venice this weekend, my final servas stay starts on monday, and wednesday i fly to london to fly to detroit to fly to newyork. and that is that!

ciao!!
amy

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Pisa-tastic and Lucca-licious

So that whole tower thing in Pisa is pretty funny. It's just... crooked. From a certain angle it peeks out behind the duomo (church) like a little kid playing hide and seek. i actually chuckled out loud when I woke up from a short nap on the grass and saw it again. I also chuckled to myself at all the people taking those perspective-trick "hey, look, i'm holding up the leaning tower with my hand" pictures. oh, tourists. we're so amusing.


yesterday saw me leaving Siena and my new Canadian and Kiwi friends at the train station. I'm not gonna lie, my heart did a sad little flip when my train to Pisa pulled out of the station and they were all sitting there together laughing and chatting and waiting for their later southbound train. but i perked up soon enough, looking at more of the hilly cypress-tree-spotted tuscan countryside. made it all the way to Pisa and walked around the city.

Italy is interesting. I wasn't sure whether it was because it was Saturday or because it was 1:30 in the afternoon or because it was just Pisa's character, but the whole town was virtually EMPTY. I strolled. it's not a big place. took me about 20 minutes from the train station, past keith haring's last mural ever (on the bus station, 1989),
through the not-bustling but surprisingly interesting and arty saturday market, all the way to the big green lawn containing the tower, the duomo, and the baptistery (what IS a baptistery anyway...). So, as i mentioned, the town was shockingly quiet and empty, but when i got one street away from the tower, i could hear the rumble. the rumble of tourists. lots and lots of tourists. and i turned the corner and there were swarms of them. amazing how they don't filter through to any other part of pisa. it's really JUST the tower. but the tower was engrossing for the better part of an hour, including the aforementioned lawn nap. I was not alone in my resting practices -- let's not forget that Pisa is a university town, so there were plenty of students asleep on eachother on the grass.

On my way back toward the train station (after a tasty lasagna and gelato lunch - gelato was pretty tasty but nothing to scream about - chocolate and pine nut (!) - my standards are awfully high these days), the market had picked up a little bit - maybe it was the 1:30-ness, but Pisa remained an extremely chilled out place. too bad i couldn't find a room under £50 per night.

So onward to Lucca. Lucca has an HI hostel with dorm beds for £16.50. much more my speed. i arrived and went through and over the wall that surrounds this little town. it is a wealthy town, that's for sure; you can see it in the clothes and the shops. I happened to arrive just during the evening stroll- the passaggiata - which normally i really enjoy, but not when i have a pack on my back and people are meandering and the streets are filled. i just had to meander with 30 pounds on my back. saw a bit of the town though. nice. cute. Tuscan town-y.

Put the pack down in my 8-bed dorm. The hostel here is very anti-social feeling (unfortunate.). it kind of feels like a hotel in that there is no real common space. so i went out a-walking. went up on the walls (there's a whole litte road up atop the walls - people walk and exercise and roller blade and bike ride and take their grandkids... it's great. i did it this morning. 2x around the circumference of the city. 40 minutes. not a big city.) and read the Lucca section of my guidebook. took a stroll down some main and side streets. sat in a big piazza under a big church with pillars that have different designs on them (it's cool, actually. you'll have to wait for pictures)
and chatted with ms. emily on my telefonino. listened to a guy play some street music on his guitar with all his fancy equipment. Lucca has definitively won the medal for most outdoor music -- there was that guy yesterday who reminded me just a tad of our friend Mr. Mraz, then there was a band this morning playing things like "raindrops keep falling on my head," oboe and all, and then a spanish guitarist near the duomo... music makes my life better. Anyway, then I found some dinner at a sidewalk cafe in the form of grilled polenta with melted scamorza (smoked mozzarella) and zuppa di farro (barley soup lucca style). walked around some more. read my book (i am reading The Kite Runner now. INTENSE. Weird to be switching back and forth between Afghanistan and Italy).

Ended up in Piazza Napoleone, a big huge square, where they had a little stage and some seating set up. There was to be a karaoke performance. I stayed and was really enjoying myself (italian pop songs galore), when it started to drizzle. I was unprepared. My raincoat was back in the locker in the hostel all the way across town. So, sadly, I left the square and hoofed it back to the hostel. then i was sad because people were already asleep in my room and i was still revved up from the karaoke concert (there was this one little kid that hammed it up big time and he was great even if he was totally off key, and everyone was cheering for him), but i didn't want to go all the way back across town in the rain just for another hour because the HI hostel has a midnight curfew... anyway. too bad i had to leave the concert early. it never really poured either. bah. i sat on a couch in the hallway and read. a couple of people walked by, but i haven't heard much english happening here. eventually i went to sleep in my dark dorm room.

today more walking. i rode the bike around lucca for an hour or so (literally around. on the walls.) and that was fun.
i went to a couple of places The Guide mentions to try to get some foccacia for breakfast or "melt in the mouth pizza" for lunch, but it seems the world is closed on Sundays. So i eventually found another pizzeria and then had some fairly tasty gelato (peach and rice were interesting flavors. nutella and strawberry were natural choices).

then more strolling in a new area of town. a little cafe looked like it was bustling and so i stopped in. they had a fondente e pepperoncino cake that looked... well... i had to have some. so i did (that's chocolate and hot chilis). a spicy cake it was. but yum. got my tastebuds going for sure. i can still taste some of the peperoncino on my lips. and now i think i am headed back to the hostel for a quick napperino (that's not italian, just an amy-slang) before my continued strolling and search for food.

there is a painful blister on my left foot and i am unhappy about it. i do the 11km cinque terre walk in 2 days. suck it up! walk it off! i am going to a servas house in the marble mine town of Carrara tomorrow. Hooray for Marco and Paola! And I have just set up another Servas visit for a couple of days in Venice with a 74 year old woman who can't host me the whole time because she is going to a very important Yoga seminar. so there. So now i just need to book a place for two nights and then i am covered! that's very exciting indeed. Venice, from what everyone has told me, will be wonderful. i can't imagine that it won't be. and i've been waiting to be back in the north so i can finally have some risotto! Just kidding, that's not the reason i'm excited. well, not the only reason, anyway. And cinque terre (CHEENkway TAREay) sounds unbelievably beautiful as well. how did i get so lucky? seriously. awesome.

Alright, well I feel like this was a pretty complete entry. Satisfying to write one of those. so that will be all.

oh and HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!! or as they call it here, festa de mamma!
ciao ciao (to quote a friend),
amy

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Chianti hills

Hello again loyal readers.
I write to you from Siena, the town they call "florence's little sister." I am staying with Anne and Lauren of canada at an agritourismo (it's a little apartment on a wine estate with the villa and lemon trees and olive tree groves and fields of grapevines and everything). it's beautiful. i don't really have all that much to write...


yesterday we got a ride into siena city in the morning, in the rain, but shockingly the weather cleared and it turned into a beautiful sunny day. lauren and anne and i sat in Il Campo (the center piazza, huge and treated like a park with people sitting and laying all over it, and the sun-baked stones feel great on the back), we saw a 20 minute movie about the huge horserace that happens here every summer. it is called the Palio and the 17 neighborhoods (contrade) are pitted against eachother. it looked crazy and wonderful. complete with renaissance outfits and flagthrowing and trumpets and mobs of people.

we walked around, saw the zebra-style church (duomo) went to another church,
had EXCELLENT sandwiches made by a very nice guy who gave us tastes of various kinds of paneforte and richiarelli almond cakes, and just kind of hung out until we went food shopping. it's another nice pretty town. smaller than florence, and without the river, but also more local feeling and covered with yet more cobblestone and alleyways. nice.

and we made some friends with other people staying at the place -- there were more canadians, some kiwis, 3 australian girls yesterday, 2 irish now studying in milan... a nice mix. we were all playing with kittens yesterday after the rain stopped and we'd all gotten a ride back from siena together.


ooh yeah, and last night we cooked dinner! it was fun. we made pici (the thick spaghetti) with pesto (yumm!) and a caprese salad on the side and then some asparagus and some zucchini with rosemary we picked off a bush outside. and then we played cards until we fell asleep. it's really nice to have our own place for a few days...

today i woke up at about 8:30 and the day looked so beautiful that i couldn't stay in bed anymore. cloudless sky over the green rolling hills and cypress trees... swallows swooping and diving... i sat on my windowsill with my feet on the roof outside and read and journaled and just... sat there. it was great.
We had gone for a bit of a shop at a "local products" supermarket in siena yesterday and so i had a nice breakfast with a mashed up granola cookie and yogurt and a banana and raisins... perfetto. then i went for a bike ride and didn't even get lost! but there were too many hills so i didn't go far.

sorry this entry is kind of piecemeal. dono why it's coming out that way. things are good, i have a possible servas host for cinque terre, and i think i am headed to lucca tomorrow. from there i can explore pisa and lucca itself before i go to cinque terre. then parma and venice and that's the end (for now, of course!). crazy. gotta start planning my next trip... to where to where... and with what money...

anywho. i guess that's it for now. i am doing excellently well. i managed my way all the way here to siena (via three buses) by myself this afternoon (lauren and anne went horseback riding), and i am excited to see siena in the late afternoon light. then i will meet the ladies at this great restaurant. oh yeah! another story. quickly though - i'm starting to itch to be outside again - i was supposed to meet anne and lauren at the siena train station two days ago at 5, when we would proceed to the agriturismo all together. i arrived at 4:30 from cortona and planted myself in the lobby atop my pack. the 5:00 train came and went... the 5:50 came and went... the 6:11... i was starting to make alternate plans and my pack was no longer particularly comfortable. conveniently, i had some insalata di farro (farro salad) left over from my delicious lunch in cortona, so i was not going hungry. anyway... finally they walked in as i was on the phone with a guy who spoke a little english at the agriturismo. we three ended up taking a taxi (they had been misinformed about train scheduling and had to go all the way back to florence from pisa) to the place. we got there around 7:30 and had no food. there was no restaurant (na, sound familiar? but we didn't even have any guavas to trade!). we started to walk out to the road, but we knew there was nothing nearby... a car was coming up the drive. we flagged it down and the nice people drove us to the restaurant run by the people who run our agriturismo! it was a DELICIOUS meal of various crostini, penne all'arrabiata (w/spicy tomato sauce), filet in chianti wine, and a taste of lauren's cantuccini (let's say small biscotti) and anne's tiramisu. gosh darn delicious. and then we got a ride back to the place (several kilometers away) with the owner's wife! lucky us!

ok. that's all. write more comments! who is out there?!
ciao for now!
amy

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This is just cool, now...

So my next day in Firenze was great. I decided it was my weekend even though it was Monday. two of the girls from the hostel (lets's call them Anne and Lauren, because those are their names) and I went over to the Mercato Centrale (central market) and bought some picnic supplies. that means fruit, a whole loaf of ciabatta, an avocado, a cucumber, some asiago cheese, and a little hunk of smoked mozzarella cheese, a.k.a. SCAMORZA. we then strolled allllll the way across town and over the river and up a hill to piazzale michelangelo, where you can see the whole freakin town AND get an actual idea how enormous that duomo is.

it's gigantic. dominates the whole city. no other building is more than 3 or 4 stories tall at the most and then there's this building right smack-bang in the center and it's on a completely different scale. astounding. well we sat up there and gorged ourselves on delicious fresh food and some rosemary we found on our way up the hill through a gorgeous little citrus and rose garden. then it drizzled and we hid under a tourist cart. then we walked around some more. no rush. just strolling. you can appreciate the beauty more that way. then i did some laundry and then later we went out for dinner. much later. another girl (another canadian, in fact, by way of the ukraine) joined us. she was a bit younger and had had her day pack stolen (or misplaced?) on the train that day, containing her passport, of all things. oops. so after she got off the phone with the Canadian embassy, we four went out to a lovely small (still full from lunch) dinner in a nearby piazza and it was great. the ristorante did't feel touristy in the least, but a trendy, student-filled, energetic vibe was present, the food was good, and so was the conversation.

then we walked across the beautiful bridges into town and had some excellent gelato from the friendly and knowledgable staff of the appropriately-named Perchè no! (why not!). i had a caramelly thing and hazelnut and honey with sesame seeds. beautiful. then we all went back and passed out. :) a wonderful relaxed day.

then yesterday i was supposed to leave florence. i hadn't yet decided where i was going until i was paging through The Guide Book and happened upon a little paragraph about a town called Cortona. it is 20 km south of Arezzo, if that means anything to you. anyway, i decided to go there. that's where i am now. sadly, i am leaving this afternoon to go meet my canadian friends in siena, but i am not happy about only having stayed here a day. it's a town high up on a hill. there's only one street that's flat. all others are at impossible inclines up or down. one way or the other. all the houses and streets are stone and there are swallows swooping and diving in the air. the views over tuscany and umbria are just absurd. at night... fogettaboutit.


i just walked and walked around yesterday, getting lost in the warren of alleys and "streets" and going up to the cathedral at the very top of the hill, by way of a series of beautiful mosaics of the 14 stations of the cross.
and i was alone up there at the top for a while. had the afternoon sun over tuscany all to myself. unreal.


then last night, at my hostel, i met this family from Vancouver Island. there is Terry and Jen and there three kids, Travis, Taylor, and Jessica. They are 10 months in to their round the world trip and it sounds like it's been amazing. Myanmar, India, Nepal... Brazil... Jordan, Israel... Nigeria, Egypt... Turkey... so many places. i love meeting up with people traveling to so many places I have never been. they have visited 30 countries so far. and what an education for the kids. they're now thinking of renting an apartment for a week here in cortona. i don't blame them. if i didn't have plans to meet those girls and a flight and a life in new york, i might just settle here myself for a while. it's quite charming. anyway, they adopted me for the evening and we went out for some pasta (they make pici here - it's a special kind of extra-thick spaghetti. i had mine with green tomatos and garlic and a little spice of peperoncini). yum. and that was it. i walked around the whole town again this morning (it's teensy), and i'm headed off to siena in a couple of hours. it's all very exciting.

very exciting indeed.
ciao, eh? (i've been hanging around with so many canadians... i thought it was appropriate).
amy

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Firenze. Isn't that a Harry Potter character?

I am going to try and make this a short one. this comment is more for me than for you. Amy, make this a short one. it's a beautiful day outside.

So. Florence, in Italy, is called Firenze, which is, after all, a way better word. try it. say it out loud: fee REN zay. any word with a z...

i arrived here yesterday by train to a slightly overcast day, having left behind a sunny Rome containing friend Hollie and generous Servas hosts. Familiar faces. Here, there is not a soul. first time. I had a ... ahem... little difficulty finding my hostel. not totally my fault though - the street numbers here are chaos and the hostel is set back hidden in a courtyard! no fair! but i found it anyway. got a single for the price of the dorm because they'd run out of available dorm beds. good deal, right? well yeah, but i was kind of excited for the traveler-social-contact of the dorms. anyway. yay privacy.

now, i should've guessed from the name of the hostel (Pio X) that it was religiously affiliated... that's a pope... but i shrugged it off. so there's a little picture of a saint above my bed and my room looks like a church cell, down to the little study desk by the window. strange but true.

so i wandered the streets and it's a pretty town. lots of cute shops, lots of leather, lots of jewelry. my hostel is across the river in the "over there" (literally what the name of the neighborhood means) part of the city, but it's also the student quarter, so there's still stuff going on.


I was slightly lonely as i strolled yesterday, looking up at the multicolored duomo and the wide open piazza out in front of the palazzo vecchio and uffizi art museum. i had dinner at a restaurant - table for one - dinners always seem the saddest, mostly when you forget your book at the hostel - but i did get to sample the famously saltless tuscan bread along with some tasty olive oil, and my primo piatti was spinach ricotta ravioli in a creamy rucola (arugola) sauce. so that was yum. thanks, rough guide. ::thumbs up, cheesy smile::

Made my way back to the hostel and did some guidebook reading in the common area. a couple of groups of people were playing cards. eventually, everyone in the room merged into a big gang around 2 tables and we all played together.

most people were young'uns on spring break from college, but there were a couple of us elderly thrown in, including an Aussie named Brendan who is (NA!) from Agnes Water, and he was really excited that i knew where that was and had been there. I said, "is that near 1770?" and he looked at me like i was from another planet and said "Yeeeeaaaah!" in his thick australian drawl. hooray. he was the only one on long term travel - traveling solo for a year and 7 months in, having visited peru and a few US states in the south, parts of canada (first time he saw snow was with snowboard attached to his feet), NYC, and he is in the midst of a somewhat comprehensive european tour before he heads off to bangkok, hong kong, and manilla in the philippines. so great. so great. yay for long term travel. and australians from agnes water. ha.

this morning i got up at a time that I THOUGHT was early to get on the famously absurd line for the main attraction here in florence: the uffizi museum. i waited for 3 hours anyway. that's right. THREE (3) hours. that's ok though. it was totally worth it. as was the 9.50 entrance fee AND the 5.50 audioguide. what a fantastic museum.


someone told me they cried in the botticelli room. i almost cried in the leonardo da vinci exhibit. what a big thinker. absolutely amazing. AMAZING. i finally understand that viruvian man thing (is that even the name? i could look it up but that would waste my internet time. you know what i mean). i mean, i GET it. great exhibit. and the art through the 51 rooms was astounding too. everyone was there. and the organization was great; i could really see the change in style from the flat characters to the "mannerism" and the change in light and the way landscape and objects gained importance and... just great. when you come though, reserve your tickets in advance. just do it. all in all it was a 7 1/2 hour experience for me, including the wait.

so yeah. that's it. i am hoping to hear from a couple of tuscan servas hosts and then i'll finish planning my trip through tuscany. another week and a half and i'll be back in parma with only venice in front of me, then home home home.

ok. back to the sunny day. and gelato. and maybe find someone from my hostel to have dinner with.

not really a short one, but anyway.
ciao.
amy

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