What? A non-Monday Post???

Ciao,

Usually don't throw two updates at you in one week, but this has not been a typical week for us in Florence. As I mentioned before, Lisa stayed with us for the first half of the week (we didn't have room for Lee, Kathy, and their six other friends so they stayed in a Hostel near our school) and we had an incredible time. On Sunday we finally made it to the Piazza Michelangelo, which offers an incredible view of Florence from the other side of the river (holla, thats my side).


Unfortunately, on Monday my 4 hours of class in the heart of the day prevented me from touring with the Granada kids, but we did meet up later for one of my favorite nights in Florence. For dinner, we decided to go to a restaurant that we had heard nothing but great reviews about, Acqua al 2, and the meal did not dissapoint. First off, it was a great group of people (Me, Marc, Lisa, Lee, Kathy, 2 of their friends from Granada, and one of our friends here Carly) and the food and wine was just as good. Their big thing there is the pasta sampler, where they bring 5 different pastas for you, going from a light sauce on pasta #1 to a heavy sauce on pasta #5. Everyone loved the pasta, but the big hit of the night was their Strawberry Wine. None of us had tried it before, so were all suprised to taste a sparkling red wine, but it was definitely my favorite wine I have had in Florence (it tasted a little worse when the bill came showing each of the 5 bottles cost us 15 euro, but hey "when in Firenze"). After a brutal Tuesday morning (class from 9-1:30) I met up with them again for my favorite lunch spot, Antico Noe. Despite a 20 minute line, the sandwiches did not dissapoint the sky-high reputation that Antico has in Florence. Although it was sad to see Lisa gone when I woke up wednesday morning, all the Barcelona kids are arriving today and Lauren's birthday crew parades into Florence tomorrow for the weekend.

For those who have any interest in my sleep schedule and the progress of our terrace, they have quite a strong correlation. This week, they finally started working on our terrace, which is great because we have had construction surrounding us the entire time we have been here, but they like to start really early in the morning. Today, I heard hammering, opened the blinds and there were 4 construction workers right outside. Hopefully they will be gone by the end of the weekend, because as it gets warmer here (supposed to be 60 tomorrow) the terrace should be a wonderful asset. Well, time for chinese Thursday (we've gotten over the fact that rice isn't free and go there for lunch every Thursday). Until Monday...

A Presto,

JK

i Amsterdam is so corny, but I honestly have nothing else...damn

This past weekend, 4 of my roommates and I ventured to Amsterdam. Even though this was our second trip to a different country, it was the first trip that we planned everything ourselves for. Our first mistake was flying out of Pisa at 9 in the morning, meaning we had to catch a bus in Florence at 6am. Flying out of Pisa was a breeze. It was probably the smallest airport that I had ever step foot in, which is nice because I will be flying out there a handful of times later in the semester. Getting to Amsterdam was quite surprising. The Amsterdam airport honestly gives O'Hare a run for its money, but the biggest surprise to us was not the quality of the airport, but that you don't have to go through customs or anything of that sort. After last week's Hostel experience, it was comforting to check in to the Marriot for two nights (between the 5 of us in the room, it was actually very close to the same price as a hostel would have been). After putting down our stuff it was time to explore the city. We walked around the city for a little while and let me tell you; looking left and right before crossing the street has never been so important. Between buses, trams, cars and bikes, there were multiple close encounters between vehichles and myself during the weekend. After another week of pasta we were all craving a break, so when we saw a sports bar we jumped at the opportunity. It was the best decision of our trip, as we all had cheeseburgers that, between the combination of its taste and how long it had been since any of us had ate one, was the best I had in a long time. After our late lunch we did more exploring before heading to the Van Gogh Museum. It was cool to see the In the Colors of the Night exhibit and see so many of his paintings. After a long-overdue nap we went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant, then explored the town and the bustling nightlife afterwards. Saturday morning we woke up and wandered over to the Anne Frank house, for what was my favorite tour of the weekend and maybe my semester so far. It was weird and cool at the same time being in the building where 8 Jews hid for almost 2 years. However, it did put a damper on my feelings towards Amsterdam. It was such a nice city, and I know that so much of Europe was bad to Jews as well, but being in a city, and a building that led to the death of Jews really made me think about where I was and how much has changed in the past 60-70 years. After a lunch of shoarma, and some more exploring we went to the Heinekin Experience. It was a cool exhibit and a few "free" beers made it a nice afternoon. After another nap and a less-than-stellar dinner, we went to a Chicago-style comedy show for night time entertainment. It was pretty good, no Second City, but definitely an entertaining few hours. After another early departure, it was really nice to get back to Florence. The fact that it was 50 degrees and sunny here was nice, but even better was the fact that we have visitors from school. Lisa and her Granada crew (Lee and Kathy included) got into Florence yesterday, and after a few hours of touring Florence with them, it was time for a nap and the end of a great weekend. It is really nice having some familiar faces stop through your city, and it is even cooler having your "own" city to walk people around. Can't wait for the rest of the Champaign crew to come through this weekend. Hope everyone is doing well. Until next time...

A Presto,

JK

Off Topic, But my Favorite

So I am sitting at my computer (yeah we finally are rolling with internet in our place...what a relief) and I just watched the first long sports highlight that I have watched since being in Italy. I love reading Bill Simmons, and he's the best blogger in the world, so I figured now that I have a blog I could throw a little sports into the mix.

Honestly, it has been so weird not knowing everything that is going on in the sporting world like I do when I am at home. Sure, I still follow the Illini religiously, but outside of that, unless it has been a headline on ESPN mobile, I haven't read it. So when I watched the sportscenter highlight of the day from yesterday, it made me miss sports, and especially college basketball.

So many people talk about how college basketball trumps the NBA, and up until recently I have been a strong supporter of that arguement. The NBA had a huge down period where players, like Larry Hughes, who only cared about themselves and their contracts ruled "the league". Last year's playoffs really changed the NBA. You had guys like LeBron, KG and Paul Pierce, Chris Paul, and Kobe (even Melo is starting to get it, and Wade is back) all leading their teams in the playoffs. You could see it in their body language, these guys really wanted to win games. When the NBA has guys like them (and even younger players like Roy and Rose, who truly turn it on when it matters...Beasley is a whole different story, but I could talk about that for hours...) playing with that level of skill the NBA is dirty.

But to what I originally wanted to write about...The highlight that I keep referring to was Pitt-UConn. I liked Pitt a lot last year, and they disappointed a little (although Westbrook definitely got a way with one in the tourney…) but this team is incredible to watch. The fire that those guys I mentioned above have is what makes them special. Pitt has two guys on their team who play with that fire, and I haven’t even talked about Sam Young yet. Levance Fields and DeJuan Blair are two of my favorite players in college basketball, and both starters on my all-thug team (with DeJuan Summers, Tyler Smith, and Chester Frazier…that team would win a lot of games). Fields doesn’t make mistakes and has a knack for hitting big shots in the course of the game, he’s just a gamer. Blair is the strongest player in college hoops. He puts up games that only a few others can (see Spencer Griffin, Thabeet, and Harrangody) and just scares people. They both show so much fire and emotion, the way the game should be played (uhh Davis, DMac please take notes) that others around them have to be intense. So yeah, this team is good and my February guarantee NCAA title winner (check back in March and April for a new team).

JK

Swiss Miss

Another Monday and another post.

After three weekends in Italy, I finally left the country this past weekend for Interlaken, Switzerland. Since this was the first trip that we were going on, we decided to go on a group trip just to get our feet wet (they provided transportation and living arrangements for us). After a 9-hour excursion from Thursday night into Friday morning (including the completion of 4 movies) we finally arrived at the Funny Farm Hotel in Interlaken (just wait to hear why it was so funny). Since neither Marc nor myself ski, we had been looking at other outdoor activities to keep us entertained for the weekend. After walking around Interlaken for an hour and getting a feel for the town (including the Hooters right next to the city’s nicest hotel) we found a store that rented ATV’s jumped on the opportunity (anyone actually think Marc was going to go 4 months without driving?). The ATV’s was definitely one of the best activities that I have partaken in since arriving in Europe. We drove next to this beautiful lake with mountains on both sides and just gawked at the view for a few hours. There was only one hiccup on the journey, and that was getting pulled over by the Swiss Police. The speed limit of the road that we were on was 60 km/hr, which wouldn’t have been a problem aside from the fact that the person leading our caravan (not going to mention any names…) was the only one of us without a speedometer. After a bit of a scare, the police let us drive away without tickets (I was kind of wishing I would have gotten a ticket, it would have made for quite a story). After relaxing for an hour, it was time for the second activity of the trip, night sledding. After a less-than-filling fondue dinner (just bread and cheese) and a little white wine, it was off to the slopes to see what this night sledding was about. If anyone is planning on going to Switzerland this semester or anytime soon, this is an activity I definitely recommend, especially for people who don’t ski. Let’s just say that Willow hill pales in comparison to sledding down the Alps. Saturday was a lot less adventure filled (which was fine because all the falls the night before left my body aching). Five of us who don’t ski decided it would still be fun to head up to one of the mountain towns for lunch and to see what it was life up there. After a bus ride, train ride, gondola ride and two more train rides, we finally reached our destination. The snow took away from part of the view, but it was still an incredible experience being up there. After a pricey lunch (Switzerland is quite an expensive country) we made the long journey back to Funny Farm, and this is where the hostel became a little less funny. When we turned on the shower, the entire bathroom began to flood. Let’s just say that after the eight of us showered, we had our own swimming pool in our bathroom, which became a pain when everyone was ankle deep in shower water when using the bathroom the rest of the trip. After two and a half weeks of pasta, we decided to venture over to Hooters for some “true” American food. We were definitely not the only Americans there; in fact there was definitely an American majority in the restaurant. After a buffalo chicken sandwich (nothing compared to Cubby Bear’s), it was off to the casino. I had never been in a casino before, but this one is definitely not a very standard one. There was a total of 2 blackjack tables, 2 roulette wheels, and about 10 video slot/poker machines. I entered with 15 franks, put 10 on black, won and thought maybe I would be in for a good run. By the time we left the casino an hour later I had increased my total to 95 franks, covering the cost of my ATVing and a few meals from the weekend. After another long bus ride Sunday, we were finally back in Florence. Everyone says that after you start to travel you begin to appreciate Florence so much more, and even though I really enjoyed myself in Interlaken, I was very happy to be back. Well that’s all the time I have for today, off to Amsterdam next weekend. Until Next Time…

A Presto,

JK

Here Comes the Sun...

Ciao,

Today starts my second week of classes, and I feel like there is a lot that has happened the past few days so I figured I'd keep u posted. I am sitting in the library right now because my apartment still does not have internet. I am starting to give up on the fact that I will ever have it, and its really not the worst thing in the world. There's a bar, Friends, right down the street that provides "free" internet (you have to buy a drink to stay, but they have been putting out appetizers and such so its not a terrible deal) and the library has a huge room where everyone sits on the internet. Since I've been sitting here I think I've seen all of my roommates and a bunch of other people from the trip too. I think our school has the fastest internet in Florence. Since it was just our second weekend in Florence, we decided against going anywhere for the full weekend, but we kept ourselves entertained and did some sightseeing as well. On Saturday the sun returned from a 10 day hiatus, so we decided to walk around Florence and be tourists for the day. After walking across it maybe 50 times since I've been here, I finally took some pictures from the Ponte Vecchio (I forgot to take some of the actual shops, stay tuned for those) and then we walked towards the Duomo.

Despite the 8 euro cost, we decided to hike up the 430 something steps to the top of the Duomo for an unbelievable view of Florence. After spending about 30 minutes up there, catching our breath and taking in the city, we walked back down, explored a few more streets and then called it an afternoon (we'll have to make it to the David some other time because it is currently under construction or something like that).


Sunday, we woke up early and jumped on a train to Lucca, a small town about an hour west of Florence. It was just me, Marc, and Josh Fishman (my roommate from Miami who is in ZBT at Indiana) as the other guys didn't want to get out of bed. We got to Lucca only to find that, like Florence, the sun was absent. Despite the bad weather, we walked around the town for a few hours, and really liked what we saw. It was a lot smaller and much more quite then Florence, which was nice because Florence is flooded with tourists, especially on the weekends (now that I have applied for a permit of stay here I no longer consider myself a tourist). After walking around, and finding a tall bell tower to get a city-view from, we jumped back on the train back to Florence. It was definitely fun to have a weekend to explore Florence and its surroundings, as the next few months are going to be full of travel (starting with Interlaken this Thursday). Hope that everything is going well for everyone back home and around the world.


Until next time,
a Presto

JK

'Now That's Culture Shock'

Good morning to the people who woke up in the bitter cold today. It is hard to believe that today is already Day 7 in Firenze. Crazy how fast this week went. After getting to our apartment and checking it out my roommates and I were pumped about the place...then we saw the apartments of others on our program. I will stop my complaining at that, because it is still a really nice place (except for the construction surrounding the building and the lack of internet, my bad I said I was done complaining). Classes started on Monday, and after about 6 weeks off it wasn't the worst thing to get back into classes. Monday I have The Jewish Experience in Tuscany, which is pretty much the history of Jews in Italy (already got an invite to the passover Seder, What Up!). Tuesday I start with my European History post 1946, then have my Holocaust: Jewish and Christian Response in the afternoon. Wednesday I have my Italian 101 class, which I am about to head off to, and Thursday it's back to HJCR. Not a rough schedule, but the classes seem to have a decent amount of work. They all have two tests and a few papers dispersed throughout the semester. The food in Florence has been superb, but we have slowed down on the amount of meals that we are eating out because it can get a little expensive. Here are some highlights. The first night we found a nice local restaurant and the waitor gave us a free bottle of his family wine to welcome us to Florence. Monday my roommates and I decided we needed to try Italian Chinese food. My roommate put it best when talking about the lack of free rice that comes with meals, 'now that's culture shock'. But the place that has taken the cake so far has to be Antico Noe. It is this small sandwich shop in an alley, but it is the best sandwich in town. It is the only place so far anyone has found sliced turket, and each sandwich costs only €4, phenominal deal. So the food is good, the classes are OK, and the city is small and easy to get around. Really no complaints from my end. Also got the ball rolling on three trips; Interlaken Feb 12, Amsterdam the 19th, and London on April 2nd. Time for class. Keep in touch.

JK