So I normally don't start with a picture, but just look - that is the view of Verona from the top of my apartment building, the Residence all' Adige. Granted, this is from one of my friend's balcony, but still - the fact that that view exists anywhere around us is pretty dang cool. Also, I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but in person you can see the Alps in the distant background. And I don't know about you, but when I think of the Alps I think of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate, which isn't really relevant... but I do love both looking at the Alps and enjoying a fine mass produced hot chocolate. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
But anyways, the past few days have been wild and crazy in every way. We all loved Istanbul, but I think by the time Thursday rolled around everyone was pretty ready to get to our main destination of Verona, Italy. I haven't talked about Turkcell much, but it's the major cell phone provider in Turkey, and had this weird mascot that was EVERYWHERE - not to mention the little children dressed in weird costumes hanging out with business professionals and looking slightly mischievous in all of the ads. Was it weird? Yes. But did they make their impression on us? You betcha. Here's us saying goodbye to our little Turkcell friend at the Istanbul airport:
Then... VENICE! Which wasn't totally exciting because we had to get on a bus to go to Verona, but still. I'll get back to Venice in my next post. But the bus ride was enjoyable enough... i would say about 97% of the people slept the whole time, but the three fun ones on the bus (Erin, Ryan, and me) played "Marry, Boff, or Kill" the whole time, and it was a pretty enjoyable experience. And finally, we get to Verona. The apartment is pretty nice... we don't have the nicest by any means (ahem, Arleta and co.), but compared to Turkey this is a 5 star place. We have a kitchen, two beds, a futon, and a cool balcony. For some reason I didn't take any pictures, but I'll put some up in my next post about Venice.
Hilary couldn't handle how much fun we were having... but then again, she also couldn't handle keeping saliva in her mouth. We all have our struggles.
That night, we went to dinner at a restaurant in the main square of Verona, Piazza Bra. It was kind of a free for all, with all kinds of stuff to grab. Unfortunately, the food area wasn't so big and there were 60 of us, so that made for an interesting attempt at getting food. I ended up getting gnocchi, some chicken, zucchini, various vegetables, a salad, and a few deserts... all included in the price. I was also able to legally enjoy the wine, and it was pretty good... I got the red, but I tried the white and it was excellent too. Mom, you would love it here.
Look at us, pretending to be cool in an Italian restaurant. Unfortunately, a change of location does not equal a change of reputation. Sad.
The next day, we hung around and then went on a tour around the city. Martin, the guy who is in charge of the program, did something to his leg (I'm assuming something related to cage fighting) and couldn't take us on the tour like he normally does, so his son Richard did instead. SO COOL. We started off at the Arena, which was built, you know, 2000 years ago. On top of that, the road that leads to the Arena also goes straight to Rome - apparently, the saying about "All roads lead to Rome" has a historical basis. If you walked down that road for about 72 hours, you would arrive in Rome. Crazy! Then we got to walk around the little downtown area of Verona, where all of the buildings where built in the middle ages, which is considered still kind of new here. A lot of people missed the tour because they took the bus too far and got confused, so there were only 13 of us... but it was still fun, because everyone that was there was so pumped about everything. It's just overwhelming to be surrounded by so much history, and walk on the streets that people walked on thousands and thousands of years ago... it's almost incomprehensible. We got to see a lot of cool things though, including Dante's square, some cool little churches, various important buildings, a grave for the barbarians that lived in Verona BEFORE the Romans came in, and even Juliet's balcony (which, lame. Shakespeare never even came to Verona, so somebody just decided that their balcony would be a cool place for tourists to come and look at and crowd the street outside and pretend is romantic. Boo on you, person!) There was a lot more to the tour, but it's been a few days now and I'm having trouble remembering. Also, disappointingly, I left my camera in the room accidentally, so I didn't get any pictures really... I have a couple from the night before, so I'll post those and pretend that they were from the tour. Don't be upset.
The main bell tower in Verona. It's too pretty to make a joke about.
A shot that I'm sure no one else has ever taken. I'm original, dammit!
So I'm going to cut this off and do a new post about my trip to Venice, and then maybe another one about classes and things. I've been so busy the past few days I haven't even had time to breathe. But I've got exciting plans for the weekend... I'll tell you all about them at the end of the next post. Suspense!
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