To finish summing up Florence, i am glad i went, i am glad i aw all that great art and the duomo, but i won't go back for a long time. Rome.... didn't expect to like it, but i really like it here. this city is great except for the public transit and where we are staying of yeah, and it is really hot. minor details, cause the rest is so good.ù Rome has personality and atmosphere, you can just walk around, and that is an activity. The combination of the Roman tradtions and the Catholic stuff provides great variation, contrast, [View Full Entry]

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the computer just ate my really great blog... yesterday we went to the pitti palace which has the best celings i have ever seen, carvings turn to paintings. then to the synagouge for a break from crosses, and a pretty place where i understood all the symbolism. then we saw the david, its huge. today was uffsi day... lots of old painting, more crosses, starting to learn the saints... st. sebastian is the one with all the bows sticking out of him... the paintings in france were better taken care of took the day off from gelato... outta time, sorry so [View Full Entry]

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Quiet and calm Lucca seems a world away from Florence. Ill go chronologically... We spent sat afternoon in Lucca, playing on the wall, eating more fantastic gelato, and going to a villa with a great garden. Tania and i went back to the hostel early (7). She decieded to have a quiet night there, and Josh, the American we ate dinner with the night before, and i went seeking more pasta. We found more pasta and some meat, spliting a fresh tagliatelle with cream and fungi (yes, fungi, it is on almost everything, so i figured id try some). It was [View Full Entry]

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Plans change... Tania and i left Turin and headed down to Lucca. What a fantastic choice! Lucca is a small town, just touristy enough that people speak some english. We met an American on the train (as soon as i spotted him i knew he was from the USA). Turn out he is from Park Slope, small world. So the 3 of us headed to the Hostel here. It is a really nice building,with huge rooms. Tania and i explored town, walking on the wall (its a very old, very thick defensive wall) and through the streets. It is easy to [View Full Entry]

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Quick blog: for those of you who don't know i am obsessed with choclate breakfast foods. Leaving Lyon i got a fresh, straight from the oven Pan Chocolat (chocolate croissant)... AMAZING that was after an fantastic splurgy meal the night before at Le Nord... had the best choclate ganache bomb ever. more about that someother time. Turin has 2 train stations. We only know that because we arrived at the wrong one and had to walk all the way to the other one. No one here speaks English, or French. (Tania speaks french and we are not far from france). We [View Full Entry]

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Today Ghislain took it easy and spent the morning at home, Tania was getting here from Amsterdam, so I went out to visit my 1st cousin once removed, Ruth, in St-Germain-en-Laye. I got there no problem thanks to really good directions and a short French lesson from Ghislain. (Un billete pour St Geremain en Laye si vous plait. merci) It was really cool to spend time with Ruth, she is really interesting, and we had great conversations about family, and even politics, especially concerning how the French view Americans. We ate a delicious and relaxing lunch before I headed back to [View Full Entry]

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Started the morning with a delicious pan au chocolate. Ghislain and i headed out to the Champs Elysees (spelled right this time). Took lots of photos at the Arc de Triomphe, and watched the crazy traffic circling it. Then we walked down the Champs Elysees, cheching out stores and stuff. I saw a McLaren Mercedes F1 mad cool. Grabbing baguettes (even a simple cheese and tomato w/butter is good, and the butter wasn't greasy... much better than the British equivalent.) we headed to the Louve. We met up with my cousin Betsy and her posse for half and hour to visit [View Full Entry]

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Today Ghislain and i headed out so i could see Paris. Since we couldn't get in yesterday, we went into Notre Dame today. Churches arent usually m thing, but this one was gorgeous , with amazing stained glass. We took a long walk past the Louve (we are going tomorow) and down towads the chant de lisse (i know that is spelled wrong). We ate lunch at a great cafe in the neighborhood where Ghislain used to work. We explored a historically jewish neighborhood on the way to the Jewish museum. The museum was set up well, focusing on Western and [View Full Entry]

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The idea of never a dull moment best summarizes my first day in Paris. Even getting here was interesting. On my way to Luton i met another backpacker, Mike, who was headed to Portugal. We chatted a bit on the way to airport. After we checked in for our resective flights we went to go through security. I walked right though, but my bag didnt. Stupidly, i had left my brand new scissors in the bag with my scapbook in my carry on. So i had to check my carry on after some creative shuffling. This meant i had to go [View Full Entry]

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So Monday afternoon i was a girl on a mission... I wanted to see some Dali. So i headed down to where i thought the exhibit was, just to find out it cost £10. In front of the musuem, i was handed a postcard advertising the Saatchi collection, which happened to be right next door to Dali. So i went to the Saatchi instead.(quick summary about Saatchi, he collects known and unknown British art-- if Saatchi buys a piece of your work, you have good career prospects). The main exhibit was Damien Hurst, who's work can best be summarized as animal [View Full Entry]

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