"sempre dritto"

i am living someone else's life. seriously. this isn't real, i've died and gone to heaven.

last week, early monday morning the whole SIS (Siena Italian Studies) group boarded a bus to head to the Dolomites, via Verona, the mythical home of Romeo and Juliet. we paid a visit to the famous balacony "Romeo, oh Romeo, where for art thou Romeo??" yes that balcony, but in case you didn't know, romeo and juilet are just a figment of Shakespeare's imagination. but hey, what's another tourist trap? the sun finally decided to come out, so it was lovely out. i ate some delicious "fruttà della bosca" gelato, which is basically mixed berry. mmmmm.....

the drive to our hotel, Hotel San Giacomo, was beautiful beyond belief. i love mountains like Hagrid loves Harry, so i sat with my nose smashed against the window the whole time, oohing and aawing. we drove up and up and up and up and up the narrowest switchbacked road i've ever been on to get to out hotel. and then there was a mountain peak right behind our hotel. wow. that night, it was a full moon and you could see everything. the mountain covered in snow glowed silver, the lights of the town down below glittered, and across the valley the light from another town on the mountain were warm stars on a blanket of silver snow. then i decided that i am going to become a ski bum. i will give you more reasoning to this later.

our hotel was fashioned in italian/german/austrian ski lodge style. it also had a spa with a steam room, pool, and sauna. like i said, i am living someone else's life. we all ate dinner together and got served ridiculous amounts of food. the next day, got up early to head to the mountain!!! wooooot!! my friend robyn from colorado is obviously a great skier, so i boarded with her. what an amazing vista once you rode the lift all the way up.. is was snowing the first day, but the next it was sunny so you could see soooooooo much!! breath taking. the second day we found a restaurant on the otherside of the hill, and ate delicious pizza there after a long morning of wonderful shredding. the sun was out and it was a balmy 0 celcius. after lunch with did a couple more runs, one great one that was sort of like a natural half pipe. again, convinced me i need to be a ski bum. that night we all got to go to a local pub in Brentonico, which was great people watching. the northeastern italians have more german influence in them, and they are a totally different people than Tuscans.

Interesting side fact: Italy wasn't unified until 1861, which is very late historically speaking, and at that this only 10% of "Italians" could speak Dantian Italian, the "true" Italian. So all those stereotypes you have about "Italians" yeah, they are probably wrong.

Continuing, thursday we had to leave mountain heaven, 'tear' and head to Trento. spent a few hours there before hopping our train to VENEZIA! (aka venice for all you "ehm" un-cultured american speakers...jk) our hostel was located in Mestre, the nearest town on the mainland. we got so lucky! it was actually th basement of some wonderfully kind folks house. we had a grocery store across the street and a bus stop that took us right into venezia. the bathroom was 70's green tiled. perfect. it was sunny everyday. venezia is an incredible mess of a mystical town. it takes forever to find anything because there is no such thing as a direct route, and if you ask for directions, the only thing they will tell you is "boooh, a sinistra/destra e doppo sempre dritto". which translates to "oh, go left/right and then straight ahead". garaunteed they said "sempre dritto" which does not help when you come to a building and can't. we walked for 6 hours straight on friday. but what a wonderful walk. gondolas, crumbling buildings, people, tourists, San Marco, the most beautiful masks, sun, smells of pizza, fish fresh and not, sewage, cooking sugar, nutella, wafting through the streets. sensory OVERLOAD!

the nine of us at the hostel had fun cooking our own food: gnocchi one night, eggs the other. yum yum. saturday was the first night of carnevale and we all went into venezia aorund 11pm and jenny, maraya, jake and i didn't leave till 5:50 am because we had to miss the last bus back to mestre, so we waited for the first! it was fitting for carnevale. met some great british and spanish people. saw the sun starting to rise and then back to mestre for a mere 2 or fewer hours of sleep....bus, train, another train, another two buses to get back to my little home back in siena. traveling is so tiring! but what a week.

now classes have started and i actually have to do homework....what a novelty.

will add photos soon!

bacio a tutti