This is why I am going to live in Assisi one day. Just look at that. Its perfect.
And this is where I would live. Not too many stairs. Perfect.
So anyway. I went to Assisi last weekend. It was the most perfect day. It is the most beautiful town we have been to yet. The church above holds the remains of St. Francesco. And was the place where the Pope called all the world religions together to speak about peace... therefore Assisi is the peace capital of the world.
Pax is the latin name for Peace... This is on the lawn of the church.
This church hold the remains of St. Clare. They dug up her body and covered it in wax. I went down to see her. Its legit. I think if I were catholic I would have cried.
This is an old lady that was doing her laundry.
This is an old man doing nothing.
A nun that saw me taking a picture of her so she stopped and smiled at me. I love nuns.
View from the hill top that Assisi was built on. This is just the cutest little town. When you think of Italy i'm pretty sure you are picturing Assisi.
Well hello again. We went to Lucca last weekend and I am just now blogging about it this weekend. Anyway, Lucca is about an hour train ride from Florence. It's a tiny city with medieval walls surrounding the entire city. Look here.
Here they are. Those are also my roommates. Maddy and Ali.
So you have to go through the walls to get into the city through passageways and tunnel type things. Here is what I am talking about.
It was a rainy day. But the city was still really cool. I think that if I was going to live in Italy I might choose Lucca. You walk into the walls and see the giant church...Like this.
We went inside the church. It was really cool. There was this giant cage looking thing inside that held the "Volto Santo" which was a wooden carving of Jesus that was said to have been carved by Jesus' disciple Nicodemus who placed Jesus in his tomb. The carving came to be in Lucca in the year 742 which, I guess, according to the Bible places Nicodemus in Lucca on the exact same date. Some say its not that old. But either way it seems to inspire at least a few people so I think it is doing some good. I thought it was cool. I was just wandering around the church and everyone had left me so I just kept wandering and ran into the wooden Jesus himself. It was really cool. Apparently this is a major site and we didnt even know!
After the church we went to the baptistery where we took a tour of old roman ruins underneath the church. It was ok. I mean it just looked like rocks. But they were really old rocks. Which make me wonder.. how old are the rocks that you touch everyday? Here are the ruins..
There were still intact mosaics from the 3rd century or something like that. After that we wondered around the town all day. I was really nice and relaxing. We stopped at a candy vendor on the side of the road,
and ate some lunch. I had macaroni (that looked nothing like macaroni) with just olive oil and a sprinkle of cheese. The noodles were made from some sort of nut flower.
Then we ventured to the city centro. It is actually called the amphitheater because the buildings are in a perfect circle. I of course could not get all of the circle so this will have to do.
Then we passed an old lady trying to get on her bike. I love the look of old people. If I could I would just take pictures of them all the time. I shamelessly snapped a picture of her.
That was our trip to Lucca. Simple and quite. Just like it should be. It was wonderful, I really enjoyed it despite the rain. Here are some more pictures for your enjoyment.
Hey! Its a street in Lucca!
The outside of the church that holds the Volto Santo (Holy Face)
Inside the Baptistery. Not the church above. These color are slightly enhanced. hehe
A great picture I took of my new friend Vanessa, if I do say so myself.
As we speak Florence is having a chocolate festival. I will tell the story through pictures.
The Festival is near the Santa Croce church, right in front of it actually. When I got there you could hear trumpets and drums. The drums were coming from people who were dressed up in medieval costumes. They proceeded to march around the square playing and ended up in the middle and performed a flag show!
There were 15-20 tents set up with nothing but chocolate under them!!! Pictures below!!!! Its still going on this weekend so I'm taking orders!!! :)
This is the chocolate kebab guy. The layers are milk chocolate and hazelnut chocolate. He saves off pieces and then puts them in a pancake thing with strawberry sauce.
It is a city. But a small one. There is no grass unless you go to a park. I suppose it is the same in downtown Tulsa. The streets are slightly hard to walk on because they are all cobblestone. Praise be to the ladies who walk here in heels. I have only fallen once. :)
There is a club underneath our apartment. Annoying no matter where you live. There is an amazing sandwich shop riiiight down the street. I call it the Italian subway. It is delish.
There is a lot of shopping opportunities in Florence. Too bad I don't have any money. But I did buy a nice leather bag. Great for weekend trips to where ever my little heart desires, which means mostly the lake.
The older generation here seems so be so much more in love than back home. I don't really know why that is. I notice when older (like 80 years) couples are still holding hands and things such as that. There is way more of it here and I really enjoy seeing it.
There are gypsies here. I like them. They are annoying but if you just ignore them and give them a second glance when they aren't looking they are really a sight to see. You dont see people back home shoving a cup in your face and giggling the money around. Sometimes they will just stand there with the cup in your face until you give them money. I haven't yet.
The people here are just people. No different from in the US. Except you don't ever see anyone wearing a t-shirt. Some seem to be rude but I am told its just the way Italians are. Im trying really hard to blend in. And although I want to take pictures of everything I try not to have my camera around my neck - its not the Italian way I suppose. I can almost immediately pick out tourists and american students. They either have a camera around their neck or are in a large group. I now understand why some say that Europeans don't like Americans - it's because we are loud. If you go out at night (like midnight) there are very few Italians out. Mostly Americans and they are screaming drunk. I hate it.
I FOUND A GROCERY STORE LAST NIGHT. Almost like a target but not. There is only food and shampoo. But it is suuuuuuuuuuuuuuper close to my house and has been under our noses this entire time. It's so nice to be able to walk down the street and get something you need. At home we have to drive everywhere. I'm really liking the fact that you dont need a car to get around Europe. I looooove it.
I dont understand the bell schedule. The bells from the churches ring at weird times.We are next to the Piazza della Signoria which has a bell tower. On the other side of us is the Duomo which has bells too. See picture below.
The tower on the left is the Piazza della Signoria, the actual building is an old palace of the Medici family, it is literally called the old palace, "Palazzo Vecchio". On the right side of the picture is the Duomo, or dome, it was the first of its kind. I am right in the middle of the two. Equal distance to either one.
Florence is pretty chill. I like it so far. But I really want to visit the rolling hills of the country side and CANT WAIT for spring.
Well our trip to Florence was pretty. We got to see the country side and stopped at a little rest stop. Maddy found a giant thing of Nutella. Its is EVERYWHERE here! Picture below.
The roads are really nice here and have no pot holes. They look the same as roads in America. Picture below.
We are finally moved in! YEA! Our apartment is super awesome. It is exactly what you would think of with a cute little brick wall to make everything feel really homey! Pictures below.
The picture to the left is of my street and the one bag that I brought for four months. Which is proving to be a great idea!
On the right is a picture of my front door complete with a cute little Vespa. There are many many scooters here. Most of them look exactly like this. There are also no speed limit signs so when you hear the hum of a scooter getting louder either roll into a ball and hope they miss you or push someone out of the way to get on the sidewalk!
My apartment is right in the middle of the historic city center.We are on the 5th floor of the building with no elevator. This building dates back to sometime in the 18th century so of course there were no elevators then. Lugging my luggage up the steps was not fun, but thankfully I only had to do it once. The apartment is one bedroom, one bath. Completely furnished with dishes, washing machine and all. There are no dryers in Italy. Italian electricity is 4 times the cost of electricity in the US so we have to keep only one or two lights on at a time and have to unplug everything. For example, we have to unplug and replug the microwave and lamps when we want to use them. We also only do dishes and laundry after 8 pm because the government subsidizes electricity after then. NOW FOR PICTURES!
So this the the door before you get to our door. You walk in from the street (from the picture of the door about this picture of the inside door) then walk up 80 stairs, which is a lot by the way, and then you see this door. You must unlock them all, so we are pretty safe. So you come to top of these stairs and you see this...
Which is kind of like a reception area, only no one is ever there. My apartment is to the left, there is another one to the right and two upstairs. Its kind of like a little apartment complex within a building. So on to my front door...
Not much to look at but it really give the feeling that you are in Italy. Its all wrought iron that is twisted together. And the key that opens the door is a skeleton key! Just like you are opening a castle door or something! All the apartments are named. I live Torre. I dont think there is a translation for the word.
When you go inside there is a tiny hall with two doors on each side. To the left is the tiny bathroom big enough for maybe two people to be in there at one time. The bathroom is also the laundry room.
This is the bathroom part of the bathroom with the shower and stuff complete with bidet... we dont use that.
This is the laundry side of the bathroom. This is our tiny tiny tiny washing machine. It can hold mayyyyybe 4 towels. I guess Italians do their laundry everyday or something...
When you walk out of the bathroom straight across from you is the bedroom. Which is nothing special. Its just a bedroom. But it does have 10 foot high ceilings that are all wood with beams. But the picture above is of when you turn out of the bathroom and turn to the left. This is one of two nooks is the great room. Our kitchen and living room is all one giant room. This used to be my nook that I sat in but Ali has taken it over... The brick that you see covers this entire wall. Next are the pictures of living room and kitchen.
There it is folks! My lovely little apartment in Florence, Italy!
