Pisa

So yesterday we went to Pisa. Its only about 2 hours from here so I'm kind of surprised we hadn't gone sooner. The train ride was uneventful, no problems.

When we got off the train we were surprised to see that Pisa was pretty nice, but very small.

Pisa is a nice little town.

On our way to see the tower and stuff we went to a little Tratoria and ordered what they said was an American hamburger. Yeah right.

I don't even know what to call that. At least it had meat on it.

It turns out Pisa has a river running through it. That seems like a cool thing, except that the river is really really really dirty. You probably won't see many more pictures of the Pisa riverfront...

Now, if they put a massive Brita filter just about a mile upstream...

So we finally arrived at the tower, and HOLY CANOLI its crooked! Not that this was any surprise to us, seeing as we were looking for the leaning tower of Pisa, but OH MAN it was tilted. I have to say pictures just don't convey how sickly crooked this tower is. It's scary, I wouldn't want to stand underneath it. So I tried as hard as I could to show in photos how stinking crooked it is, but you'll still have to go see it to get the full effect.

I couldn't quite tip it over.


This picture is looking STRAIGHT UP from the base of the tower.


The statue in the foreground is completely straight.

Ok so that's my attempt at conveying the amazing lopsidedness. I'm going to add one more picture to this post when I get it from Ara... For now that wraps up this weekend's adventures.

Upcoming this week we should be going to Sienna on Wednesday, then Perugia on Friday. Saturday I expect we'll rest, because our massive spring break-a-thon commences this Sunday.

My best recollection of the upcoming next two weeks is as follows, just to give you an idea.

Sunday we go to Venice.
Friday morning EARLY (5 am?) we leave Venice for Brussels.
Friday evening we leave Brussels for Amsterdam.
Sunday we leave Amsterdam for Berlin.
Tuesday we leave Berlin for Munich.
Wednesday we take a day trip to Prague.
Friday we leave Munich for Vienna.
Sunday we return from Vienna to Castiglion Fiorentino.

For the remainder of the semster I will probably be taking only a few more trips.

I expect I'll take one long weekend to London. I might try to squeeze in Barcelona and Athens if weekends turn out to be available and I can find a really cheap flight, but those are less likely. We have six weekends available after Spring Break, so I'll probably lock down what we're doing after I've seen how I feel and how much money I have left following the great eastern european expedition.

One last note, I've added the ability for people to post comments on posts from here on out. Feel free to do so, but you should also think about emailing me: burlesona@tamu.edu. The afternoons during the week are pretty boring because the whole town closes for siesta, so reading emails is great. Alright, that's it for today! -Ciao!

Modena & Maranello

So Friday we got up at the crack of dawn (6:30 AM) and began heading out to Maranello, where Ferrari is headquartered.

We made it to Modena (the nearest large city to Maranello) but had to wait a long time on the bus to Maranello, so we goofed around and admired some of the crazy graffiti in Modena. Finally we caught the bus which dropped us off directly in the middle of Ferrari-land. I have to say the cars that were driving around Maranello were the hottest we've seen in Italy, all kinds of luxurious sports cars at every intersection. From here its pretty basic stuff, we just spent the day drooling on cars... check it out:


Me + Daniel + Jim + Ferrari = Very Yes


Old, but still amazing


Can you say Formula 1?


Street legal.


Not street legal.


Ferrari design is pretty amazing, from the cars down to the ads on the wall.


If only my Integra's engine looked like this...


Texas Edition for summer heat.


Jim thought about buying a husky bimbo, we talked him out of it

Back in Modena Jim and I split off from Wesley and Daniel to head back in time for dinner in Castiglion. On the way we saw some amazing graffiti:


How long did it take to paint that???

Now I'd like to take just a moment to espouse the beauty of having good navigational sense. Without a map or a train schedule the four guys who went on this trip found our way from Castiglion Fiorentino to Maranello without so much as a single hitch. Along the way we found amazing food, and I was even able to grab the remainder of my anti-biotic prescription from a pharmacy in Modena. On the return trip Jim and I timed every train exactly right and had no transfers longer than 20 minutes. The only thing that went wrong on the entire trip is our train from Bologna to Arezzo took its dear sweet time and arrived in Arezzo 30 minutes late. Still, utilizing only our desire to see awesome cars and my basic italian we managed to travel about 300 miles without any problems. That's a pretty cool feeling.

So that wrapped up Maranello, we got home and had a great meal then rested to get ready for Pisa...

Assisi

We went to Assisi on Thursday instead of Wednesday due to the heavy snowfall we had on Wednesday.

Assisi is a pretty small town about an hour and a half away from Castiglion Fiorentino in the Umbria province. It's well known for being the home of St. Francis of Assisi, and most of the stuff in town revolves around the history of St. Francis and the Franciscan Order which was formed in order to maintain his doctrines.

Mostly Assisi is a town you want to walk around and see, so with no further adieu...

Approaching the church of St. Francis, no pictures allowed inside of course.

The front of the church


The street that our tourguide, Marco, was born on


The temple of Minerva


One of the valleys below Assisi


The trick garage door, read the explanation below...


The view from the walls of Assisi

Ok so, the trick garage door... This is truly amazing. The people in the city sometimes don't have enough room to fit their cars in their garages, and they are only allowed to have their doors be a certain very small width. So these people built the garage in such a way that the stone columns on the sides are actually part of the door. Look really closely, see the stone column/pillars on the sides of the doors? Those swing in with the wooden doors. Yeah.

Anyway, that was Assisi, pretty neat town, had mediocre canoli but great streets and houses. So after returning we had dinner, played 42 for an hour or two, then crashed and got ready to go to Maranello in the morning to see the Ferrari factory...

SNOW!

Ok so today it snowed SO HARD, it was the coolest thing ever. We didn't go to Assisi as planned because of the Blizzard, but we did have the biggest snowball fight I've had since I was a little kid.

Seriously this was the most fun thing ever, I love snow so much, it made my trip.

We also made a snow-woman, which was pretty funny.

I love snow, it's the best.

We'll go to Assisi tomorrow, I'll let you know how it is.

-Ciao!

Sorrento, Napoli, and Civic Pride

So this is short, Sunday we left Sorrento. Sorrento was really really pretty, but quite small. Early in the morning before we left we went to the port and I have to say the view of the sea was amazing.


Our street in Sorrento.

After heading out of Sorrento we went to the second most famous pizza place in the world, becuase the first most famous pizza place was closed until noon and we had to catch a train at 12:42.

Napoli was pretty cool, but I didn't really spend much time in town. The skyline was pretty neat though, and I got one or two decent shots of the skyline (which was the first real modern skyline I've seen in Europe) on the train out of town.


Napoli had the most modern skyline I've seen in Europe yet.


You can see the weather sucked all weekend.

So we finally arrived back in Castiglion after a layover in Rome at about 7:30 pm, thus ending the long long trip.

Ok, some commentary:

I've found since we've been here in Europe that people here don't have any sense of Civic Pride. For example at the top of St. Peter's cathedral there was writing all over the building, sharpie markers and whatnot. While we were there we saw some kids with markers writing on the building. There was graffitti on the Pantheon. I just can't fathom how these places are not held in high esteem by the locals.

I was talking with a group of Italians during our Italian conversation partner groups this Tuesday (yesterday) about this same phenomenon, and one of the local teachers who was there had this to say about it. She said that the kids here are careful with their own things and desire to have a nice home and nice possessions, but in their minds public spaces belongs to no one, rather than the American perspective that public space belongs to everyone.

I was telling her that if you were in America at the top of the US Capitol building, or even the Texas Capitol building or San Jacinto monument or something, and some guy grabbed a marker to write on the building people would punch him in the face! There would be no need for security, though we have it anyway to show we are serious and won't allow terrorism etc. But seriously, if I saw somebody about to deface a public landmark I would be furious and I would yell at them to stop, and if they didn't I'm sure my yelling would attract a large crowd of people who would help me to forcibly stop the vandal.

Its the same even with litter in the street in the USA, I mean we all quote "Don't mess with Texas." If I was walking around the city and somebody dropped a coke can on the street in front of me I would pick it up and I would yell at them to not litter. I would fully expect that if I tried to stuff trash in somebody's window that they might come out and tell me to eat that litter, certainly they wouldn't allow the garbage to be stuffed in the nooks and crannies of their buildings.

Alas, the teacher explained to me the people here know there will be no punishment for them and they have no fear. I told her it was sad, that in an ideal state people would care and punishment would be unneccesary, which she agreed with. But we both recognized that actual punishment is nessecary to preserve rule of law. She said that europeans just don't feel like anything matters, that no rules are enforced and that no punishment will be harsh even if it is administered.

I think this probably sums up a great deal of the tragic difference between the culture in Europe and America. I think one of the reasons the Europeans have fallen so far behind the US, despite the higher population and the massive head-start they had on the US is two parts. First of all they are pretty lasy compared to us: consider the schedule of the local "pastichiera" (which means basically dessert store) They are closed on weekends. Normal weekdays they are open from 10:00am to 1pm and again from 5pm to 8pm, but they are closed monday mornings, wednesday evenings, and they don't work at all on thursdays. That kind of shop schedule is very typical here. Secondly people don't have any pride or sense of greater community, and they have no value of right and wrong because there is never any punishment for them. I am not sure how their society drifted so far away from Christian values, but it really is a sad state of affairs here. Needless to say the economy in Italy is tanking pretty hard, and the people here are unwilling to do what it takes to fix it.

A quick side note about the teacher: her name was Selena, and she learned english by living in the US for three years. She lived in a small town in North Dakota for a year, near Indianapolis for a year, and for one year she lived in CARBONDALE ILLINOIS! Small world?

Ok that's about it for this update. Finally the weekend is concluded! Hope you all enjoyed the pictures and stuff, this was a huge trip, I think the only bigger one will be Spring Break.

-Ciao!

Pompeii

Saturday morning we got up and went to Pompeii early in the morning. When we first arrived the weather was awesome, but unfortunately it got cold and rainy by about 1 in the afternoon.

Pompeii was really neat, definitely a must see for anyone visiting Italy. Again I think for this post the pictures need to do most of the talking.

This is the front entrance to Pompeii, as you can see the weather was great in the morning

There were a bunch of dogs in Pompeii, this one sitting behind Caitlin was enjoying the morning sun

The windows from the inside of the "suburban baths"

The front of the basillica (courthouse) in town, you can see the bad weather coming in

Jim knocking over the columns in the front of the courthouse, he got in trouble for it of course

This guy didn't get out of Pompeii in time, bummer for him, he's been stuck sitting here for almost 2000 years

The Pompeii Theater, definitely one of the cooler structures we've seen, this was built into the slope of the hill

The mini-theater for smaller shows, next to the main theater

Its kind of hard to see in this small of a picture but this is the modern city of Pompeii against the mountains, the ruins are barely visable because they are below the level we are standing

Another view of the ruins in the foreground with the modern city against the moutains in the background

This is the main street in Pompeii, the Via Mercurio, with Mt. Vesuvius in the background. This is the opposite direction of the previous two photos.

The ancient city walls

So Pompeii was really really neat. After exploring the town all afternoon I was getting pretty cold from the rain and starting to feel ill again, so we went back to the hostel in Sorrento and I took a nap. That evening we got dinner then headed to bed early for our return trip the next day.

Vatican Museum

The morning we set out for the Vatican Museum I already knew I was sick, but thanks to getting about 14 hours of sleep I felt a little better than I had before. So we headed off to the musuem, the main attraction of which is the Sistine Chapel.

Much to our surprise the line to get into the musuem was about a quarter mile long. This is the off season, and it was pretty cold outside so I expect that we probably were seeing the line about as short as it ever gets. We waited outside for about an hour then finally headed into the museum.

The Vatican Musuem was a very cool modern building

So the museum itself was actually a pretty awesome building, one of the neater ones we've seen. It took us about 2 hours to wind our ways through, the whole time passing thousands of amazing works of art.

Hallways like this stretched on for kilometers


There were so many famous works of art, it was kind of overwhelming

So when we finally did emerge into the Sistine Chapel I have to say I was pretty disappointed. Really we've seen so many cathedrals and so many amazing paintings that this room hardly felt special at all. Further detracting from the experience was the swarming crowd.

For anyone who had been dreaming of going to the Sistine Chapel I have to say, its worth it if you're extraordinarily curious, and seeing the pictures at their full size is pretty impressive, but they're so far away you can't see them any better than if they were on a postcard. If you're not dying of curiosity just grab a poster or something and admire the quality of the painting withot spending 12 euro and standing in 3 hours of lines and smelly crowds.

Oh, and of course there were no photos allowed in the chapel.

After seeing the musuem I went with Natalie, Marcus, and Laruen Cathcart to the Catacombs. This was much more impressive than the Sistine Chapel.

The Appian Way, one of the most famous roads in the world! I was so excited to see it.

Part of the Ancient Appian Way, this was the road that lead to the catacombs

Again there are no pictures allowed, so I can only describe it, but this is something you should definitely make time to visit if you get the chance. The tunnels go on for what seems like an infinite space, and apparently over 160,000 early christians were buried there. Plus this only costs 5 euro.

So that evening we headed out to Sorrento, which is a small town on the Amalfi Coast south of Napoli. It took about 3 hours to get there, and then we went to get Pizza and went to bed so we could be up and at Pompeii early the next morning. Which brings us to the Pompeii post...

Vatican City

On Thursday our alarm went of at 7:00 AM, after I hadn't gotten to bed until 2AM. That made the 6th day in a row to get 5 hours sleep or less, which was really starting to have a significant effect. But despite my fatigue I was excited to see the cathedral, so we got up and got ready to go.

Breakfast at the Hotel was amazing, we had eggs and ham and rolls and all kinds of American goodness. It was definitely the best breakfast we've had yet.

We arrived at the Vatican City early in the morning, and I was really impressed. The Vatican City is very opulent, but very beautiful. Basically all we did this day was take in the cathedral, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

After exploring the inside of the cathedral for a long time we went up to the top of the cupola. This was a much nicer walk than the climb up Florence Cathedral, with a few places to stop and rest. Again the view from the top was unreal. This moment, emerging over the city of Rome and getting to take it all in from this Cathedral cemented in my mind that Rome is my favorite city in Italy.

After this we started the walk down, which was more treacherous than the climb up because rather than being overwhelmingly challegning on your muscles it is challenging to not feel like you're about to trip and fall down 100 steps.

On the way down we stopped at some very normal European bathrooms, but since I happened to have my camera with me and there was nobody else in the bathroom, I figured this would be a good chance to demonstrate the sad state of things across the pond.

After visiting the cathedral we went across town to look at some more modern architecture. On the way we found some interesting things, such as a pyramid built by one of the Roman senators as his tomb.

We also found some interesting Roman fountains...

Unfortunately for me, however, this trip was kind of a drag because by the afternoon I was getting really exhausted and ill feeling. I left the modern architecture tour early and headed back to the hotel, where I crashed and went to sleep about 6 PM. I didn't wake up until about 8 AM the next day... which is where our story resumes.