O Romeo, O Romeo...Where Art Thou?

This past weekend, the students in our program were blessed with a 3 day weekend after a highly INTENSIVE week of studying Italian (from which I only seemed to learn the phrase "io sono americana..di cincinnati).  Some students dared to venture to major cities such as Amsterdam, London, and Rome.  Whilst other not-as-affluent-or-daring students, such as myself, opted for a more local trip.  I've never been one to plan things too far into advance, I'm much more of a spontaneous last minute person...so it was only natural for me to decide to go to Verona 2 days before.


Sure Verona is no Amsterdam, London, or Rome, but it is a place that is definitely worth exploring.  If you have heard of Verona you are either 1. geographically savy 2. seen the recent movie Letters to Juliet or 3. a Romeo and Juliet connoisseur or lastly 4. a huge romantic.

I went with 7 wonderful girls via Italian regional train costing us only a whopping 18 Euros.  The only downside was that our tickets were for 8:25 in the morning and naturally we were all late and nearly missed the train, but here is a little "secret".  Not so much a secret because it is common sense to natives, but apparently you can use your ticket from a certain time frame that is printed on your ticket.  For example, say that we had missed our 8:25 am train, we would have been able to board a later one that day or the next and so forth.  This is very useful information for future travels.

When we arrived in Verona, the weather was absolutely gorgeous.  We were incredibly lucky because, similar to Milan, the sun has been playing of game of hide and seek and seems to prefer hiding.  But, the sun was out, the temperature was agreeable, and the city was beautiful.  The first sight that we went to see was the amphitheatre.  On the highest point of the arena you are able to see some of the Alps.

You can kinda see the Alps in the background.

The Amphitheatre!
Then we ventured in the downtown area filled with shops lined with Saldi signs.  Naturally I bought something :P  Just past the shops down the main street to our right was my favorite part of Verona-Juliet's House.  People from all over the world come to Juliet's house to either write a love letter to be answered by Juliet or to touch her right boob for good luck in reference to love.  I'm a closet romantic, so this was pretty exciting for me.

Juliet's Balcony.

Statue of Juliet.

Juliet's Wall Lined with Writings and Signatures.

Afterwards we ventured across a major pedestrian bridge that overlooks Adige River, these pictures are nice, but they don't do it justice.

View of Adige River.

We commenced our trip by hitting up the stores again and whilst shopping in Sephora came across this teddy bear of a dog named Paddington, much similar to Paddington the bear.  My friend Rachel who is an extreme dog lover asked the owner using hand motions and slow English "CAN I PET YOUR DOG?" to her surprise the owner responded in perfect English.  And that is the story of how we made friends with a local couple staying in Verona to work for 2 years.  The couple was pretty excited to see us because they don't have many American friends in Verona and were dying to speak to other people who spoke their language.  The more you travel, the more you realize how small the world is.  Before the couple moved to Verona, they lived in Dunwoody, Atlanta which is about 15 minutes away from Decatur where Emory is.  They invited us to a local bar, we had a good time talking about traveling and good places to travel in Europe...the places that travel guides don't mention.

Paddington donned in his little sweater resting his little chin.

Paddington Bear :P

In a nutshell, if you skimmed over everything else, Verona is a romantic, cute, and tiny city.  Best part of the trip was writing a letter to Juliet.  I hope she answers it :)

Grazie

Ciao! 

I don't even know where to begin...I've taken in so much in just 4 days.  To sum it up quickly (for people who don't really read everything like myself), Milan is AMAZING.  Italy is AMAZING. 

I wish I could have written an entry earlier but alas I didn't have an adapter so my computer has been on it's own mini vacation.  I'll try my best to remember all the highlights starting with my journey over here...

Sunday: Milan is amazing, traveling with United Airlines not so much.  I've traveled with several US airlines throughout the years and here is my final conclusion: they suck.  For international flights especially....it's funny because they always have these commercials about "more leg room" to accomodate their guests.  When in reality, people's leg room is pretty much equivalent to the amount of space chickens have in a KFC chicken farm.  Not to mention when flying from DC to Munich, most of the people there are European and have different standards and expectations.  Our plane took an extra 20 minutes or so to depart after everyone was settled because of this one German man who refused to put his computer bag under his seat where his legs would be.  He was walking around the whole plane looking for a place to shove his bag, when finally a flight attendant asked him kindly if he had room under his seat, to which, of course he replied no.  The flight attendant takes a look and says sir you have nothing under the seat, could you please put your bag under the seat so we can take off.  German man becomes more and more furious and says NO I CANNOT.  Flight attendant becomes less and less patient to which he replies SIR everyone has something underneath their seats, we cannot make special accomodations for you.  Long story short the German man had a hissyfit and the flight attendant thought about quitting his job.  But I digress...so traveling on United was a pain, after 24 hours I finally arrived in Milan :)

Monday:  When I landed in Milan I wasn't exactly sure of what I had picture Europe/Italy/Milan to be like.  I guess in some ways America is more modern than Milan, but then again Milan is in some ways more modern than America.  The architecture is definitely more rustic, but I wouldn't have it any other way.  Each and every building that I have seen thus far is unique and intricate.  It's not your New York sky high flat and thus far I have not seen any houses in the sense that we are familiar with.  My apartment has a wonderful location right in the middle of the city and pretty close to school, many other people have to take the subway to get to class.  My room is kind of small, beds are small, and closet space is limited, but it's super adorable and artsy.  Also I am 1 minute away from the beautiful Santa Maria delle Grazie, also known as the place where the famous "Last Supper" is kept.  Yep, it's pretty amazing.

Tuesday: We had more orientation during the day and explored more of the campus.  The highlight of Tuesday was the spa that we went to.  I've never been to a spa before and have never considered doing so, but after that I definitely think spas are worth the money, at least once a year... The place was beautiful and they had a variety of different "Baths" such as saunas, waterfall type of things, fancy jaccuzzis, etc.  2nd highlight of the day was gelatto.  After coming back from the spa, some friends and I decided that the spa wasn't enough of self indulgence so we decided to treat ourselves to some Italian gelatto...for 2.50 euros, heck I'd eat that everyday, twice a day.

Wednesday: More orientation.  Highlight of the day was the Aperitivo.  An aperitivo is basically a bar where you can buy one drink for about 10 euros and have all you can eat free food.  It's an overall pretty good deal.  The food isn't exactly dinner, more appetizer like, but I've noticed that dinners in Italy aren't really big. 

Today:  We had a tour of Milan starting from it's central point: the Duomo.  The splendor of the Duomo cannot be captured in photos.  It is such an intricate, delicate, and massive masterpiece that for one to truly see how magnificent it is, one would have to see it in person (aka come to Milan and visit me :D).  Milan is not as pretty as many of the other cities in Italy, but it is definitely nice to look at.  We went the core of the city and looked at other monumental landmarks.  Along those landmarks were tons of designer shops filled with spectacular clothing that I could only one day dream to wear and hopefully design. 

In summary, the beginning is slightly overwhelming.  Like people say, it's freshman year all over again.  I won't lie and say I didn't miss home and Emory for the 1st two days because I did.  I missed the familiarity and the routine, but I'm missing it less and less....haha.  I can't wait for everything to be set up, for classes to start, for trips to be planned, for making a new routine here :)  I just can't wrap around my head that I'll be here for the next 4 months.  I mean, I just recently realized that I was in Milan. 

For noww, Ciao!

o btw, grazie means thank you...and it is the word that I most commonly use, as well as Italians.

T-2 Days

meowww

this is my attempt to get something more out of my trip in milan :) i figured it would be a good way to post up pictures of places and people, as well as a way for me to remember everything that happened. in addition it should help me in the long run when people ask me how my trip was, i can just point them out to this blogg :P funny thing is when i went onto the site i was already logged in. apparently i was part of a blog for my study abroad trip in china, summer of 08. i dont know how i'm still automatically logged in after 3 years despite going through 4 different harddrives....but the point is moot. so yay! it was a pleasant surprise because i had a great time in china and enjoyed the program overall, it reminded me of all the adventures and excursions we went on.

anywhoss...2 more days. pretty excited. packing situation isn't lookin all too shabby either. thats about it for now.