The Chase Over Italy With Mommy

Bravo: My mom was in town for five days (see post below). We did lots of fun things together, traveling to Florence (duomo, ponte veccio bridge, leather market, the david, etc) we went inside the pantheon and the colosseum, and went to the vatican museums. It was nice to have a new companion to see Rome with. Bravo #2: I just finished part of a semester long project, designing a lighting show room in Rome.

Bruto: BIRDS. It is mid migration season in rome and there are birds everywhere. They fly in droves, and are impossible to avoid. People walk with umbrellas to avoid getting pooped on and the streets are covered with stinky bird poop. Imagine the movie "Birds" and think 10 times worse (minus the killing nature of them). This morning I asked my professor, he said that they will stay for another 3 weeks!

Interessante: After searching for the "perfect boot" all week with my mom I found them two days after she leaves. Go figure. Interessante #2: time change in Italy happens a week before it does in the United States, so all week my time has been only 6 hours ahead versus the usual 7.

Mom on the loose

Guest Blog Post from Nora Leone

Bravo:
Gina and I can talk art together. All her art history classes make every walk through Rome a lesson in famous painting and sculpture. Throw in a little Roman history and a visitor like me can have a very pleasant day. It has been a very "Hinshaw-type" vacation so far. I sounded just like Grandpa CJ when I admitted I needed a nap on my first day, and Gina reminds me of Uncle Craig when she tells me art tid-bits. When we pondered if the 8 Euro was a fair price to pay to climb to the top of the dome in the famous Duomo in Florence, I could hear Hinshaws saying we came on vacation to see things, might as well pay!

Bruto:
Tired feet. Small coffees. Few public benches.

Interessante:
After Gina and I went through the Vatican museums, we searched the gift shops for the perfect thing to buy Grandma. Only later did I realize that none of them sold any Bibles.

In Plymouth, every store sells snacks at the counter. Home Depot, Walgreens, Block Buster, Holiday Gas Station . (I have only seen one gas station so far.) That isn't the case in Rome. I haven't noticed many snacks here. No one walks around with a carry-out coffee or soda, either.

A Craic Time in Ireland

Can this post just be one big Bravo? I just spent the most amazing weekend in Dublin.

Bravo: On Friday my roommates and I took a tour through the Irish country side, which was breathtaking. It was everything I had imagined the Irish country to be and more. Everything was so lush in comparison to Rome, which has almost no foliage. Our tour started with breakfast at an adorable breakfast/clothing shop, then brought us into the rolling hills covered in a light fog, where the Irish once collected turf ( similar to coal) before the weather changed. Next we stopped and looked at the Guinness estate, lastly drove on to walk through a graveyard that boasts the worlds oldest Celtic cross, and walked through a wooded path to look out over two lakes. That evening we stopped into the Temple Bar and had a pint. On Saturday I toured the city on a city walking tour, we saw everything from Saint Stevens Green to the layout of an ancient viking home (who we found out actually never had horns on their helmits) . After our walk we stopped for lunch and toured the Guinness storehouse. The whole experience was sublime.

Bruto: I had to leave Ireland, and to make the matter worse my flight was at 7am.

Interessante: After spending some time in Ireland, my roommates and I noticed that several brochures and people using the term "craic", we could not figure out what this word meant. At Temple Bar I asked our bartender (who had the thickest accent I encountered)what the word meant. He told me craic means to have a good time. The whole trip to Ireland definitely was a craic time.

Italian Cinema: A Truly Cultural Event

I know it has been a while, but it has been a rather busy week, two tests and homework, etc. Anyway,

Bravo: It is starting to feel like fall here, the leaves are starting to change a bit and the breeze has picked up which is refreshing rather than chill because the temperature is still high 70's to low 80's every day and has in general been pretty sunny. Bravo #2: on Saturday, at a restaurant down the street from my apartment I had quite possibly the best lasagna ever.

Bruto: I have 16 rendered perspective drawings due by Wednesday... yuck.

Interessante: On Saturday night my roommate Hayley and I decided since we weren't going out that we should go see a movie. We found a theater that was playing Inglorious Bastards in English. We get to the theater, which is actually very close to our apartment, purchase tickets to find that there are assigned seats. The movie begins. The English version of the movie is only one third English, the rest is in French and German with English subtitles. Well, in Italy, the English part was still in English, but the the French and German parts had Italian subtitles. It was a bit of a struggle to understand what was going on during the French part because my french is pretty limited. The German part was a total loss becuase I understand no German with the exception of the word for "no" so I was stuck trying to read the Italian subtitles! Interessante #2: On Saturday morning I decided I wanted to take a yoga class. It didn't occur to me that the class was going to be taught in Italian. I probably looked like the biggest spaz ever trying to look at the people around me to figure out what was going on.

Food Findings

This post does not really have a Brovo, Bruto, Interessante substance to it, other than a Bravo of all the food is delicious! It is more of two funny food findings.

Food Finding #1: Yesterday as I was out, trying to kill time while the grocery store opened I realized how incredibly hungry I was. I decided to swing past a bakery and grab a croissant or something small to tide me over till dinner. What I bought was something that looked like a popover. Upon further inspection and consumption, I found that a "Baba" is not an Italian version of a popover, but rather a yeast pastry soaked in rum. It was quite a shock and the pastry was rather untasty.

Food Finding #2: After this summers costco/huge bags of spinach/spinach in every food my mom prepared at home, I thought I would be revealed to not have to eat so much of it when in Rome. Only when I realized that I couldn't find spinach in any of the grocery stores or markets did I begin to miss it. Today I finally found some at the grocery store. I was so excited I almost hugged the bag.

Sorrento, Capri, Herculaneum, and Nasty Naples

This past weekend I visited all four of the above listed places. I can't think of a better, more beautiful weekend.

Bravo: The whole weekend was in general was pretty wonderful. Sorrento was warm and sunny. The first hostel we stayed had kiwi vines covering trellises lining walk up to the main office. The second hostel we stayed at over looked the ocean and was perched atop a cliff overlooking the ocean. There were about a million slanted stairs to get to the water and boulders below. On one of the days we took a20 minute boat ride to the island of Capri. The beauty of Sorrento was topped by that of Capri ten fold, especially after taking a chair lift to the top of the island. The water was bright blue, you could not distinguish where the water ended and the sky began. To end the day the group I went with and I went swimming in the ocean. Bravo #2: For a class field trip we traveled to the town of Herculaneum. Herculaneum is similar to Pompeii in that it is a town that was destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, but it is much closer to the volcano (which is still smoldering), making its demise due to hot lava and poison gasses rather than an ash, as was the case with Pompeii. The town is very well preserved and it was definitely a highlight of my weekend to get to walk around a town that began in the 4th century BCE.

Bruto: My professor described Napels as "Nasty Naples" and it was well... dirty. We went to a museum that had many interesting exhibits and artifacts (frescoes and gladiator armour), but outside the museum the city was dirty. Our professors were constantly reminding us that we should be on the look-out for pick pockets at all times. Our school group, professors included, got lost, were smushed on a packed city bus, and missed our train due to poor planning. Bruto #2: I thought the reason there were no screens on windows in Europe was because there weren't bugs. Boy was I wrong! There were no bugs because it was too stinking hot. Now that it has cooled down the mosquitoes have been in full force. The last time I have had this many mosquito bites may have been at Camp Christmas tree when I was in 4th grade.

Interessante: I packed my whole trips worth of clothes, toiletries, etc. into my pink school back pack.