Sum up of Italy as told by the group

Click Here!

Admittedly, this video has its dull moments, but it shows the group as a whole's view of the trip (sans copious drinking that wouldn't fit the tone)

Don't Go to Venice

If you don’t have money, don’t go to Venice. Just scratch it right off your itinerary, Cheap-o Marx. If you have money, what are you still doing here? Go! Get a move on! Venice is beautiful! Stay in a beautiful Hotel right on the Grand Canal! Take a gondola ride! Hell, take two! Sip café lattes, sip water, sip wine. Hire a band of attractive locals to follow you around and play music. Do your thing Richie Rich, but if you’re broke, don’t go to Venice.



If you are broke, you may actually think it sounds like fun to rough it in Venice. You’ll spend all your money on the train to get there, so you’ll find a place to stay for nine euro a night. This will sound like an amazing bargain. When you first arrive in Venice (after missing your original train) you’ll wander around with stars in your eyes, taking in the city's beauty. You’ll have a bite to eat, take a few pictures, and before long you’ll want to head out to get settled. You’ll be staying “just outside of Venice.” You’ll get on a bus that doesn’t list its stops anywhere, then be hopeful enough to get off at the first campsite you spot. That won’t be it, dear friend, because let us not forget, you are broke. You’ll have to learn this the hard way by walking a little over a mile along an Italian highway, occasionally pausing to ask managers of comfortable looking hotels if you are still going the right way.
When you finally arrive at your campsite, you will be filled with relief. You will skip merrily to your tent, open it up, and discover it smells a bit like your grandparents’ shed. You and your friend Alicia will push your beds together to make it a little less scary. Your bed will fall off the back of the tent platform. You will attempt to heave it back on, but fail every time due to fits of uncontrollable, slightly manic giggles. Alicia will watch you in silence, convulsing laughter.



Once you have dropped off your purse, into which you have stuffed all your toiletries, pajamas, clean underwear and clean sundress, you will go to the snack bar to split a bottle of wine and pack of Pringles with your friends. The feast will steadily grow into a disgusting pile of junkfood.
When you decide you can no longer avoid going to bed, you will snuggle in your sheets (desperately trying to avoid using the sketchy looking blanket) and hear a strange sound. The sound will crescendo as you stare up at your fabric ceiling. Hoping, hoping, hoping. Good news, the tent is water-proof. The rain will beat down all around you, lightning will flash, thunder will clap, and you and your friend Alicia will laugh. What else can you do?



We’ll skip over the details of how you managed to get ready after your shower without a towel (you knew something was too good about packing in that purse) and jump straight into your second day in Venice. It is freezing cold. Cold?? But everyday in Italy this month has been unbearably hot! You will cry, but it will do no good. It is freezing and raining, and you feel incredibly stupid in your little sundress. You buy an Italia sweatshirt, you buy a café latte, and you buy a warm croissant. You never make it on a gondola because the only ones running are eighty euros a pop. You laugh it off, you run from store to store, café to café. You have a blast. You tell yourself it is an adventure, but when you finally make it home to Florence, you say to yourself: if you are broke, don’t go to Venice!!

Venice Round 2

Apparently others were later than me!! Off to try again.

Almost Venice

I stood on the platform in Florence for an hour and a half, hoping as hard as I could that I had gotten the time wrong. That maybe it was the next train…
I had arrived at the meeting place in front of the train station at 9:04 AM. I was four minutes late, but surely this would not have any great effect. I absolutely beamed with pride at the packing I had done: everything I would need for two days in my little Prada purse. I was too tickled with myself, swinging my little bag on my arm, allowing my back to be prominently displayed with all of its non-backpack wearing glory. My ticket was with the friend I was waiting for, so at 9:15 I checked the departure board for my platform, just in case. I was to depart from platform nine. I returned to my post. At 9:20, panic building, I did a lap along the platform, perhaps my friends were already inside? I raced to the meeting spot one more time, pacing frantically, then at 9:28 AM I sprinted to the platform, just in time to watch my train to Venice leave without me.
Maybe I was wrong! I thought desperately to myself. Maybe it was the next train? I resumed my post and waited. Tours passed in and out of the station. American kids shouted with glee upon noting McDonalds. A girl sprinted off toward a bus she just caught. I stood alone. My Prada purse suddenly heavy with clothes and disappointment.

Writing In Florence

I find that I feel most inspired when walking around Florence alone, with only my inner monologue for company. This does wonders for my notebook, and very little for my blog. The days are so long here, before my head even hits the pillow, I’m asleep. On some days, my notebook even suffers because my eyes are stretched far too wide to turn them down toward my pen and paper. How can I teach a pen to feel what I feel in this country?
A pen cannot feel sweat on its forehead from the hot sun, nor sigh from relief when a soft wind cools it. A pen cannot delight the taste of a delicious meal, nor grieve another course of pizza. A pen cannot perk up at the sound of a quiet melody piercing through the crowds of tourists. A pen cannot catch its breath when it flees at the sight of the Sistine Chapel, a Tuscan sunset, or a really great pair of shoes. But a pen can dance. Perhaps not in a Piazza, to the rhythm of a street performer, but a pen can dance along paper, back and forth, describing a memory, creating a path on which we get lost in words.

Pisa and Lucca

We took a day trip to visit Pisa and Lucca.
Pisa was completely miserable. Now, to be fair, the leaning tower is pretty amazing to see in person, but thats it. It is kinda like a trip to the aquarium when you are a kid who doesn't care much about fish. You run over and look at the otters, but then what? The fish are cool for a little while, but soon you just want some shade and a gelato. Unfortunately, in Pisa, shade is in short supply, and the day we went was oppressively hot. On the bright side, a bunch of the girls had to wear funny looking disposable shawls to cover their shoulders inside the church.



Lucca, on the other hand, was awesome. We didn't spend much time in the town, but it was quite posh and lovely. I stopped in for a gelato and had a very handsome gelato-tier giggle at my Italian, but other the that, we stayed mostly on the road around the city. We rented bicycles!! It was wonderful. I love bikes, and my friend Shannon and I thoroughly enjoyed peddling around stopping only briefly for me to dunk my head under a water fountain to cool down.

Cinque Terre

Last weekend, three friends and I went to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre means “Five Towns” and is a beautiful region on the sea.
We started our adventure by grabbing a train… that was an exciting process. None of us had ever ridden a European train before, and my valiant efforts in conversational Italian had little impact on interpreting the squiggles on our ticket. After an excessive amount of wandering around, squinting at departure time signs, and questioning strangers, we finally found our train.
We bumped along happily, playing my little travel guitar and laughing. We seemed an unlikely group of friends to me when we first made plans, but there seems to be some sort of mysterious connection between all of us. The group feels so warm and welcoming, and I get the sense that these people will continue to be important in my life.
Just as the train ride threatened to lose its charm, we finally reached the sea. We fed ourselves, then hit the pavement in search of a hotel. We walked along on the water, on a budget, on a Saturday evening: things were not looking promising. We finally found a little hotel right across from the water, owned by an adorable little Italian man and his wife.
Their rooms were all booked, but they had a small apartment on the hill which they offered to put us in for two nights for less then what other hotels had wanted for one room. We took it. It’s a ten minute walk from the beach, incredibly beautiful, and huge! There is enough room that the boys didn’t even have to share a room, which was very encouraging for their delicate masculinity. Ladies don’t mind sharing, so everyone was happy.
We spent our days swimming, floating in the water drinking Sangria, and paddle boating. The paddleboats only held three people, so we took turns towing one person behind the boat, I took that position frequently, as the water was so wonderful I never wanted to get out.
Because the beach is so crowded, we didn’t want to bring things that we would have to leave out while we swam. We walked down to the water in nothing but our swimsuits, a few Euros for drinks tucked in our bikini tops. I have that unexpected exhibitionism to thank for the sexy new tan lines I’m now rocking.
In the evening, when we weren’t soaking up sun, we lazed around our beautiful apartment drinking wine and playing music. I wrote five new songs in one day! Cinque Terre, you are my muse.