Let's Hope I'm Never Hurt In Portugal

School ended over a week ago now. I spent the first five days after exams finishing calculating grades and going to places in Florence I still hadn't been, like the Boboli gardens and an exhibit of Picasso, Dalí and Miro. I knew I didn't want to spend the rest of my time in Italy just sitting in Florence alone, especially now that the Jersey Shore has invaded, so I met up with my friend Allie in Spain and we spent 5 days in Portugal. Everyone keeps asking me if I went to Lisboa or Faro, but no, we went to the thriving metropolis of Vila Real de Santo Antonio, the first town across the border from Spain. Though small with not much to do, the town is cute and has some awesome beaches. Allie and I spent most of our time lounging around, reading, watching horrible television like MTV's "Moving In" and getting tan on the beach. There were some highlights to the trip though. One I would consider to be when Allie and I walked from our town to the next town over, Monte Gordo and went to an ice cream buffet, where they weigh your ice cream and charge you by the weight in grams. Somehow my ice cream, which I found similar in size to Allie's, cost 7.82 euro (about 12 US dollars) and I somehow managed to pick the worst flavor of ice cream ever, zuppa (do not even try it). I was satisfied afterwards though when we went to a cafe where beer was only a euro. That same day José and Megan arrived from Spain and we all went out to an Indian restaurant for dinner. The food was good, but we had the weirdest waiter with a terrible sense of humor. After dinner we went for drinks at a bar close to the beach, where we witnessed the most terrifying car accident I have ever seen. A drunk driver without his lights on hit a horse and carriage, the driver of the carriage flew in the air and landed on the sidewalk, the horse ran away, the car hit two more pedestrians, then hit a tree. Then the driver tried to run away, but was caught. What was even more horrible, beside the accident, was the fact that the ambulances and police took more than ten minutes to show up, then did not leave until an hour later. We were stuck at the bar watching this spectacle that had literally happened right in front of us, extremely grateful that we had not been hurt, especially in Portugal. We were amazed at how slow everything was, and wondering why it wasn't like in the US when an ambulance shows up quickly and immediately takes the victim to the hospital. I hope everyone involved is alright and still living.
The day after witnessing the terrible accident, we spent the day recuperating at the beach and eating delicious seafood. Then José drove us all back to Spain, and me straight to the airport. It was a lovely trip, very relaxing, and a great way to spend my last few days in Europe. I just hope that if I ever go back to Portugal that I am not involved in any accident.

Sicily: Beautiful Beaches and Dark Alley Parties

For a while now I have had a desire to go to Sicily. I have read so much about the island for school and seen so many amazing movies that take place there that it was definitely on my list of places in Italy to see this time around in Italy. I have been waiting for beautiful weather so that I could go to Sicily and its beaches. This past week my friend Megan flew to Italy to go with me to Palermo, Sicily's capital. We left Florence Thursday night and arrived in the center of Palermo after 10 at night, so we had no idea what the city really looked like. We arrived at our hostel directly behind the beautiful Teatro Massimo and were greeted with free wine and an invite to go out to where the young people of Palermo hang out. We said why not, left our bags in our room and headed out for quite the adventure. Now, at this point I had no idea where we were in Palermo, and even after spending three days there, I still can't tell you where in Palermo I was Thursday night. All I know is somehow we ended up in a dark alley packed with real Italians, with a little shop that sold bottles of beer the size of a bottle of wine for 2 euro. Megan and I had a lot of fun meeting Italians, as well as frenchies, spaniards, and australians. One of our more interesting encounters was with a man I will refer to as "Gene Baby". Back at UNC there is a guy in our department who goes by this name, and the guy we met in Palermo could be his twin in looks and voice (somewhat creepy actually). Well Gene Baby had actually lived in Raleigh for a while, but has been traveling the world since 2009. He chatted with us for a long time and treated us to some free drinks. He and I also tried what I think is Sicilian moonshine that was just labeled "Sangue: vino liquoroso". This moonshine was god awful, but the Italians were drinking it like it was going out of style. This party in an alley reminded me a lot of my time in Perugia and hanging out on the steps of the duomo and meeting all sorts of new and interesting people. We went home in the wee hours of the morning, perfectly satisfied with what Palermo's night life had to offer.
The next day Megan and I tackled the majority of Palermo's notable sites. We started our day at the Palazzo normani, after getting a bit lost, since nothing is labeled in Palermo. The Palazzo is absolutely amazing, and if you ever get the chance to go to Palermo it is not to be missed. Sicily has had lots of different groups ruling it during its history, but way back in the day the Normans from France came and kicked the Arabs out. At the palazzo there is a chapel built commissioned during this time with beautiful mosaics everywhere of saints and the major biblical stories. You can also see the major apartments of the palace where the Sicilian parliament used to meet. After admiring the palace, we went to San Giovanni degli eremiti, an old monastery that you can walk through with some nice gardens. After this we ate lunch, where we tried our first real Sicilian "cannoli". Let me tell you, they are way better in Sicily. These were amazing, and the waiter told us it is because they were handmade with fresh ricotta and just a small amount of sugar. After the culinary experience, we went to about 5 more churches, all quite impressive in their own right, and we saw the angolo dei quattro canti, as well as the fontana pretoria, one of the strangest fountains I have ever seen. After a day filled with site-seeing, Megan and I went out and had delicious pizza followed by drinks in an Italian kareoke bar (hilarious).
The following day we spent relaxing at one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to, Mondello, about 30 minutes from Palermo. Imagine caribbean blue water surrounded by mountains, as well as delicious gelato, and you've got my idea of paradise. Megan and I stayed at the beach for hours, with the spotty sunburns (one line on my stomach and the back of my knees and Megan's ankles), relaxing and people watching. Of course there was a plethora of Italian men in speedos, but also an obscene amount of couples making out all over the beach. Even though it was sometimes uncomfortable, such as the baby-oiled couple by us that were practically making babies, the day at the beach was perfection. Too bad afterwards we had to wait for a bus for an hour, then ride on one of the most crowded busses ever back to Palermo because of the soccer game. The beach day was the perfect end to our vacation in Sicily.
Now I'm back in Florence after hours of busses, planes, and trains, trying to prepare for the last two weeks I have in Italy. Totally looking forward to my last trip, a beach vacation in Portugal with Allie!

Lucia Was Right!

Last year, when I had my interview to determine if I was going to Italy or not, right after the committee had finished, and I was walking out of the room, a professor in the Spanish dept., who just happens to be Italian, Lucia Binotti, asked me out of the blue how tall I was. I thought this was a strange question to ask, since it had absolutely nothing to do with the interview. I told her I was 5 ft. 10 and she said "well, while you're in Italy, you better not go to Sardegna, you will totally stick out". I asked why, and Prof. Luisetti, one of my Italian professors said "that is very true, they are very short there, you will be taller than everyone". Then my interview was finished and I kind of forgot about the whole thing.
This past weekend I actually went to Alghero, a beautiful city in Sardegna. I had found some ridiculously cheap flight on Ryanair and was going all alone to have a beach weekend. Well of course the day I arrived it was pouring down rain and quite cold. I managed to meet the friendliest girl from South Africa named Polly at the airport who decided to be my guide of Alghero. She had been living there for a few months, but during the winter while there is nothing to do. Since it was raining, Polly took me on a tour of Alghero's many "chinos" (what Spanish people call stores run by Asians). She also took me to a delicious pizza al taglio shop and through the historic center. We decided to meet up and cook dinner together at her place that night, then she was going to show me Alghero's nightlife. I had not been expecting to go out at all, because I was staying in an apartment all alone, a weekend of relaxation, but I was super excited to not be alone the whole time. We ate a yummy dinner of chicken, rucola and pasta, then went out to the sea to see what was going on. The first bar we went to was super crowded, but right away I thought of Lucia's warning. In my very flat pink sparkle TOMS, I was at least 3-4 inches taller than everyone in the place. The men (and women) were all midgets. Polly and I managed to find the only people in the bar that were not dark-haired, tan midgets, 2 girls from Germany named Nina and Gina. They had been in Alghero for almost a week, and like me had decided to come just because they found a cheap flight. The German girls accompanied us to an Irish pub afterwards, where of course some creepy Italians kept trying to talk to us. I surprised the Italians though with my actual ability to speak the language, and had a group of middle-aged men all trying to tell me to move to Alghero. Afterwards, we moved on to what Polly called a "club" that was on the sea. We went inside and noone was dancing, so we formed our own dance party to the awful techno music, and soon after were joined by a man who was at least 60, and a crowd of midgets all watching us. Eventually some got up the nerve to actually talk to us, and Polly and I did some translation work. I was the only one who would actually be friendly though, and ended up playing messenger between Italian men and my new friends. Great practice for my Italian, and I even had someone (who must have been drunk, seeing as I am very tall) ask me if I was from Sardegna. I had such a fun time, and made plans the next day to meet up with the girls for breakfast.
The next day I woke up to a beautiful sunshiney day, ready to really explore Alghero. I took a walk all around the port and the bastione, admiring the beautiful crystal clear water. As I sat on a wall enjoying the sea breeze, I had a creeper come up to me and ask me if I was Italian. I told him I was American, and he said that he wanted to tell me that I was very "robust". I'm not sure if it was meant to be a compliment or not, but I thanked him anyway, and then he proceeded to tell me the whole history of Alghero, then try to follow me on my walk. I managed to ditch him, then met up with my new friends. We ate at a cafe on the sea, then went to the beach to enjoy the sun. The day would have been perfect if it had not been aso windy close to the water, but I was happy that I actually got to soak in some sunshine. That evening we cooked another delicious dinner, including Sardinian bread and some fesh ravioli with ricotta, spinach, and saffron. AMAZING! We went out looking to see if anything was going on, but all ended up going home after finding almost everything closed. I really enjoyed hanging out with the girls though, and had a much better time in Sardegna than I was expecting.
The only real hiccup in my trip was the fact that I had to catch a bus at 6 AM to make my flight to the airport, which I slept through. I had to rush and call a taxi, made it to the airport a little after 7, had no money to pay the taxi, so I had to quick find a bancomat in the airport while he waited. I was then told I may be sent back to the US because I didn't have a visa, told them my whole story of being robbed, made it through security being searched 3 times, then finally boarded my plane. Beisdes being afraid that I was going to be stuck in Sardegna if I missed my flight, overall the weekend was fantastic and I hope I get to go to Alghero again in a future trip to Italy.