Last day in Italy...

'Twas the day before departure

And all through the dorm

Not a student was screaming

Although that was the norm.

All the suitcases packed

Or still strewn across the floor

In anticipation of tomorrow

Which will end our tour.

Okay, I got bored with the rhyming. But it's true, today is our last day in Italia!! It's about 4 pm now. We had our "last lunch" at our beloved Chinese restaurant at 1:00, and then I went with Traci and Katie to the Colosseum to get some final pictures and then to Cavour to see Michelangelo's Moses. If we email Dr. Murphy a selfie with Moses, we will get extra credit! ;) But now we're back. And it's time to blog.

Yesterday I mentioned that we were going to our farewell dinner in Tivoli. It was a fantastic way to end our trip! We visited the Villa D'Este before dinner and it was so spectacularly beautiful I couldn't stand it. Then we had our dinner at Monteripoli at the top of one of the hills in Tivoli and we had a great time singing and dancing with the musicians who were playing for us all throughout our huge meal. Let me describe this for you. We started off with an appetizer with bread, meats, cheese and a tiny salad. Then we got what I guess was an antipasto with alfredo sauce and ham. Then we got some more pasta in red meat sauce, which we thought was the main course. But no, then they brought out some pork topped with olives and mushrooms and potatoes! By then we were so full we felt bad only eating part of it. Then, to top it all off, they brought out the tiramisu and some shots of limoncello, which I can't stand so I gave it to my friend. Throughout the meal we also had both red and white wine, orange Fanta, and water. All in all, it was a huge delicious meal and we were surrounded by friendly people and great authentic Italian music played on guitar and accordion with singing. As we went around our group and gave our final reflections on what our favorite moment of the whole trip was, the sun was setting out the giant windows, creating a beautiful backdrop to the finale of our grand adventure. (Pictures below, of course.)

The view from Villa D'Este!

One of many fountains there

Breathtaking!

The beautiful sunset out the window of Monteripoli :)

In my final reflection, I said that the moment that would stay with me most from the trip, if we could only pick one, would be the moment when we finally reached the top of the Duomo and we saw the aerial view of Florence. That was the first of many breathtaking sights that I saw on this trip, and it was so rewarding to see after the strenuous climb up. But it's really not fair to choose just one thing from the whole trip. For instance, basically every time I have walked into a cathedral, the sight has taken my breath away. Climbing to the top of St. Peter's Dome was up there too. The sights at Capri were so awesome too! And the views from our hotel in Massa Marittima were spectacular. Walking around that corner in Florence and then seeing the Florence Cathedral/Baptistery/Duomo will also be a moment that I will never forget. There are just too many breathtaking moments for me to name! I am excited to go back home and see my friends and family and doggies, but I think once I finally get home and get back to the grind of life, I will miss my time in Italy. I hope I can come back someday, and I'm so glad I was able to come on this trip now at this time in my life!

I have most of my stuff packed away, but I probably won't be totally packed until right before we leave tomorrow morning. We are departing St. John's University at 8 am on a charter bus to get to the Fiumicino airport, where we need to go through security and all that before our flight at 12:15 pm. Boarding begins at 11:20 am for me, I think. I'll have to check again. It's an 11 hour flight to Atlanta, and then I have about a 3 hour layover to go through customs and all that before departing Atlanta at 8:59 pm and getting in to Jacksonville at 10:15 pm. I'll basically lose 6 hours flying over the ocean, so it'll feel like it's 4 am. This should be fun!

I keep telling myself I'll be home tomorrow night, and I'm so excited!! So the next time you'll hear from me I'll be in the United States! Arrivederci, Italia!

~Dani

Three more days??

Buona serra a tutti! (At least here. Buon giorno for everyone back home.)

I'm happy because I'm officially done with my two presentations for my two art history classes! This morning our Art History on Site class presented St. John Lateran to the rest of our group and basically acted as guides through the church and the surrounding monuments, such as the Baptistery, the Obelisk, and the Holy Staircase. It was really cool! That doesn't mean I'm done though... when I get home I have until the end of July to complete my final exam for the Ancient Roman Art and Architecture class and I have to create a travel journal/scrapbook for the Art History on Site class.

The east facade of St. John Lateran!

The basilica of St. John Lateran

We only have three days left! Tomorrow the Art and Culture of Italy class is doing their presentations and our morning meeting place is at a church near the Pantheon and the name is escaping me right now. After that, we are basically done with actual "classes"! On Saturday we are going to Tivoli for our farewell dinner, and then on Sunday we have a free day for packing and farewells. We may also have a "last lunch" on Sunday. It feels like the last 6 weeks have gone slowly and quickly at the same time. The day we landed in Rome and traveled to Ostia feels like it was ages ago, but every day has been so full that the weeks have flown by.

We will take off from the Rome Fiumicino airport at 12:15 pm on Monday, and by the time we land back in Jax, it will feel like it is 4 am on Tuesday but it will really only be 10 pm on Monday. If I've learned anything on this, it's that time is a relative concept. But I have decided as soon as we touch down at the Atlanta airport for our connecting flight, I am bolting to the nearest Starbucks and getting the biggest iced coffee I can. I am so ready for that. :D

Today we also visited Centrale Montemartini, a power plant that was converted into a museum. It was cool seeing the industrial backdrop of the plant with the ancient Roman sculptures. So yeah, that was cool.

Centrale Montemartini

The floor mosaic in Centrale Montemartini

After tonight, I only have three more showers in these dorm showers! Huzzah!!

Hmm... Speaking of showers, I have made a definitive ranking of all of the showers I have encountered during my time here, and I feel like I should share them with you innocent bystanders. I've written them out below, #1 being the worst and #5 being the best (which may be backwards but I don't care, I run this). They've been real weird.

#1) The worst was probably the sit-down shower in the hotel in Massa Marittima. The "shower" itself was a small tub with a built-in slope that made it impossible to stand in, so you were forced to sit. And even if you could stand, the shower head couldn't attach to the wall in any way, so you had to hold it and deal with showering that way. The shower curtain was also too long, but you had to keep it inside the tub so the water wouldn't go everywhere, so you were essentially sitting on the shower curtain. The rod holding the shower curtain wasn't the sturdiest either, and I almost pulled it down multiple times. However, the water pressure was good and the water was pretty warm except for one especially cold night. The hotel didn't have the radiators turned on and the whole place was tile so I was already freezing cold, and the water just could not get warm enough for me. That night I slept with my jacket on. All in all, 4 out of 10, would not recommend. It was hard choosing the worst, but I think Massa won.

#2) If Massa was the worst, the second worst was definitely the shower in the Naples hotel. The shower itself was large and you could actually stand up in it, and the shower head was actually attached to the wall. The water pressure was okay, not great. It actually would have been fine, except the light in the bathroom was automatic (which was odd to begin with) and the shower was closed off in such a way in the bathroom so no motion was detected and the light kept turning off. So half of my shower consisted of me sticking my hands outside the glass shower door and waving them around to turn the light back on. It definitely could have been worse, but the whole thing was really strange.

#3) From here on out the showers are okay but still not the best. The next would probably be the Florence hotel shower, solely because of the water pressure and the position of the shower head. The shower head was on the wall, but it was on a pole on the wall so every position put it at a weird angle and made the pressure weak. The tub was large enough to stand in, so that was a win. All in all, not bad, but it could have been better. 6 out of 10.

#4) I think I need to put the St. John's University showers here. The water pressure is good, and they are definitely the most normal showers out of all of them, but they're communal showers, which makes everything awkward. Carrying all my shower stuff from my room to the bathroom every day is no bueno. Also, the shower stalls are just small enough to make changing in them really not okay. Long story short, I would not have lasted in a dorm with communal showers for an entire year.

#5) This decision for the best shower may have been influenced by the fact that the one and only time I used this shower I was just so happy to be taking a shower and I was so sleep-deprived I was delusional. This shower iiiiiis.... the shower in the Ostia Antica hotel. Coming in after a 9+ hour red eye flight and trudging around the dusty ancient ruins in Ostia Antica, that shower was the best shower of my entire life. It was a small stand-up shower stall, no tub. And the drain was partially clogged. But the Lord knows that shower and I formed a loving bond that will stay with me all my life. Congratulations.

ANYWAY... that was weird. But don't even get me started on European toilets. O_O

Okay, enough of that. Talk to you all soon! Buona notte!
~Dani

ROMA!

Buona serra a tutti!

We've been in Rome since Monday! I haven't posted in a while... it's been a little crazy between settling into our dorms at St. John's University and visiting St. Peter's and the Vatican Museums. Also, I just got the WiFi to work on my laptop (thanks Windows 8) so I can finally post things. There are so many people in this city, it is crazy. Both St. Peter's and the Vatican Museums were SO CROWDED with PEOPLE EVERYWHERE but the works and the buildings themselves were incredible! I went to the Vatican Museums with the group yesterday, so today I had a free day while the other group went. I mailed out some postcards at the Vatican post office (you have to lick the stamps here, I thought that was funny) and bought some things at the grocery store near our dorm (they were playing Dancing Queen very loudly and I was singing along, no shame), but for the rest of the day I didn't really do much besides exercise my very mediocre ability to heat up mushroom tortellini and red sauce on a stove and share it with my roommates. :)

But anyway, ROME. The Eternal City. On our first night here we ate as a group at a local Chinese restaurant (yes, Chinese in Italy, but it was actually really good!) and we got a walking orientation tour of St. Peter's Square. The next day, we went to St. Peter's Basilica, where we stood in the security line for like 45 minutes, got yelled at for not using the "authorized" listening devices (aka, the ones they make you pay for), and pushed our way through hordes of people who were apparently dying to take pictures of the beautiful art. (Side note: People, just enjoy the art. Do NOT push and shove to get pictures of the art. You will get them. You're just making everyone else angry.) But really, the basilica itself was beautiful. It literally took my breath away when I walked inside, it was so magnificent.

The facade of St. Peter's Basilica feat. members of my group looking derp

The interior of St. Peter's with the Baldacchino at the end

After we toured St. Peter's and even went underground to see the tombs of the saints, I climbed the St. Peter's Dome with two of my group-mates Christina and Katie. It's on top of the building, but you can't see it in the picture of the facade because of where it was built; it disappears as you move closer to the front of the building. It was not nearly as bad as the Duomo in Florence, but the stairs were not flat and the walls curved along with the shape of the dome, making the whole experience very claustrophobic. But the view was definitely worth it when we got to the top!

The view from the top of the St. Peter's Dome! We were just down there in the square (which is really an ellipse but ok)

The next day, we went to the Vatican Museums. That involved a lot of walking, a lot of people trying to sell you tours on the street on your way in, and a lot of people. We went into some of the less popular rooms, for example the Rafael rooms and the room with the only Leonardo in Rome, so those weren't as bad. But when it came to making our way to the Sistine Chapel, holy Moses there was literally a sea ten people wide moving down that hallway. I hardly looked up because I was so zoned in on not letting Dr. Murphy and the rest of my group leave my sight. Once we got in, of course we were not allowed to take pictures, but I must say it was a lot smaller and a lot less shiny and grandiose than I thought it would be. Nonetheless, the colors were so vibrant and it was incredible to see the Last Judgement on the front wall of the chapel and the Creation of Adam panel on the magnificent ceiling above me in person! Later that night after our crazy Vatican adventure we took the metro (with New York chorus trip subway ride flashbacks) to Spagna, where we saw the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain. You're supposed to sit on the ledge of the fountain with your back to it, toss a coin over your shoulder, and make a wish. So of course I did that, and then we did some much-needed souvenir shopping in that part of the city on our way back since it wasn't so populated with tourists and no one was heckling me to buy their things. Then I went with Traci to Zen Sushi less than a block away from our dorm and had the best Japanese food ever. It was a full, eventful day!

The Trevi Fountain!

If I come across as being a little negative when it comes to the crowds, it's because I am. (#realtalk) That's the only thing I don't like about this city: all of the people. It's like Disney, the Atlanta airport, and New York had a baby multiplied by ten, but without the expert crowd control of a Disney park. I'm really enjoying myself and it's awesome that I'm here, but there's just too many people in this city for my taste, especially coming directly here from a small Tuscan hill town like Massa Marittima. I could live in Massa, I could not live here. You basically almost get hit by a Smart car every day trying to cross busy streets to get to your destination, and you are constantly haggled by street vendors trying to sell you selfie sticks or a pack of 20 postcards for one Euro. Today I'm pretty sure one of the vendors was talking smack about us "touristas" in Italian after we rejected his Vatican tour offer. But honestly buddy, if you're spending your time and energy hating on the tourists, you're in the wrong city. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, I've rambled enough. Tomorrow starts our first "free weekend" in Rome with optional activities. Some people have already left to travel to Ravenna this weekend. But traveling within Italy on trains and buses that I am unfamiliar with doesn't really appeal to me and I don't know if I want to spend money doing that, so I'm definitely going on the optional tour of Castel Sant' Angelo tomorrow. :)

Ciao! Buona notte! TTYL
~ Dani

Hi friends!

I am a mere thirteen days away from my departure date for my summer study abroad trip to Italy! I will be over there for six weeks, and I will be studying Roman Art and Architecture as well as Art History on Site with twenty-four other students and faculty members from the University of North Florida Department of Art and Design. Throughout our trip, we will visit the port city of Ostia Antica, Florence, Naples, the hill town of Massa Marittima, and of course, Rome. My art history professor has hooked us up with tickets to literally every museum or art site in each city, and I cannot wait to begin this adventure!

Of course, I am also a bit anxious about this trip because it will be my first time out of the country, not to mention the first time away from my family for that amount of time, but I know I will love it once I get there. The 10-hour overnight international flight is scaring me a little, but I have decided that I will pass the time watching movies from a very long list of movies that I still have not seen and my friends have told me I must see. That is, if I'm not able to fall asleep! Oh, and packing is a thing... And foreign currency and international cell phone plans... but it's okay, I still have time for those things.

The idea to start a blog for my trip struck me a couple weeks ago, but of course since I REALLY should be studying for my TESOL final right now, why not create the blog RIGHT NOW? It's finals week and my brain is fried. I am SO looking forward to spending these six weeks taking a break from the busyness of the school year and studying art history, a subject that I have always loved.

Well, that's the intro to my blog. Stay tuned for more posts and follow me on my journey to Italy! I'll have so many pictures and fun things to share. I wish I could take everyone with me!

Ciao! (I really should also learn some basic Italian... This should be fun!)
Dani