You can travel the world

But nothing comes close to the golden coast.”

- Katy Perry, “California Gurls.”

I was sitting in the passenger seat of a Ford truck being driven by a man I met less than 15 minutes ago. On a reporting assignment, I needed an interview with this guy and decided to go along for the ride hoping to ask him questions on the way as we sped down the 5. After we were driving for ten minutes it occurred to me that I had left my car in the Universal City parking lot and had no way of getting back.

When I mentioned this problem to my interviewee he said, “Oh, you can just take the metro.”

… The metro? What metro? LA has a metro?

I couldn’t believe that after living in LA for 15 years, I had never once even thought about riding the subway line that ran under our streets. And yet in my four-month-stay in Milan I spent hours on the metro everyday, walked the seven blocks from the end of the yellow line to my dingy Milanese apartment. I rode the metros all over Europe. The one in Paris, the one in London, the one in Prague — learning how to read the maps crisscrossed with colored lines and numbers and listening for the foreign street names I had to stop at.

It was interesting. Riding LA’s subway. The maps were the same. The stops were said in English. I watched the people that got on and got off, those who didn’t drive Lexuses and absentmindedly left them in parking lots. I realized that our city is not as homogenous as I thought it to be. There were black people, Spanish people, gay people, white people.

There are still so many countries I want to visit, so many subways left to ride; but I realized in the 20 minutes it took for me to get from Downtown to Universal City that I wasn’t done with LA or California just yet.

Parma Day!

The day after we arrived from Paris, Jordan and I decided to go to Parma. The name should sound familiar to you. Hint: The most common cheese used to grate over pasta is from here. The American company Kraft sells this cheese pre-grated in plastic bottles.

Still don’t get it?

It’s PARMESAN!

The town is also famous for its Parma Ham, where prosciutto is cured in its remote hills for at least 4 months. Then it is thinly sliced to produce Prosciutto Crudo, the most popular sandwich meat in Italy.

Jordan and I were, thus, anxious to get to Parma. Unbenowst to us, however, the traveling gods were set against us and threw every possible obstacle in our way.

Observe:

1. Jordan’s cellphone mysteriously turns off and refuses to turn back on, thus rendering us unable to find each other at the train station. While Jordan was downstairs, I was upstairs, then we switched, and then switched again. Five minutes before our train was supposed to leave I finally found her at the platform and we rushed to buy her ticket and get on board blessing our narrow luck.

2. Three stops from Parma, the conductor tells us to get off and switch trains. This is unexpected considering that we bought a direct ticket. Without questioning, we get off at a town called Piacenza.

3. We realize that the next train leaving for Parma is in two hours. By this time it has started to rain. After walking around getting drenched it dawns on us that there is absolutely nothing in Piacenza but a McDonalds inside a mall that only has a supermarket. So we sat at McDonalds for two hours. I ordered a Big Mac.

4. When we return to the station the train that we were waiting for got cancelled. According to the Departure Board, all the following trains are also cancelled. Once talking to the ticket guy, we learn that there is a regional train strike. We had absolutely no idea. The strike began around 12 pm and would continue until 9. And until then we were stuck in god-forsaken Piacenza.

5. The ticket guy, who is awfully helpful, tells us to have hope and wait for the non-regional train. It costs more but would for sure get us to Parma. It was in another two hours.

6. After buying McFrosty’s and going a bit crazy spending another two hours in McDonalds, we finally get on the train for Parma with McDonald stickers on our faces.

7. By the time we arrive in Parma it’s 4 pm. It starts to rain and it won’t stop. We got to Parma so late that everything was closed, except for one restaurant.

Like a lighthouse for a drifter in an ocean, the restaurant stood as a beacon of hope for all that Parma had to offer. We sat down and had the most amazing, amazing Italian meal ever.

We ordered Prosciutto Crudo con Pere e Mozzerella for our appetizer. It. Was. So. Good. The prosciutto couldn’t have been sliced thinner and felt so fresh and slightly peppery. We wrapped it around pieces of sweet pear and Mozzerella balls – it was the most perfect combination of tastes in one bite.

For my entree, I ordered Zucca Ravioli, which is ravioli stuffed with pumpkin. This alone would have been fantastic, but then I doused it with Parmesan. Wow. I was never Parmesan’s biggest fan until tasting it in Parma. The taste and smell was less pungent then the Parmesan from the markets. It was lighter, yet more flavorful at the same time. I couldn’t have enough.

In the end the traveling gods tried, but we still succeeded. There is no better way to travel than with your mouth.

Our restaurant in the middle of the piazza.

Isn't the food just gorgeous?

Us and the restaurant's butcher. He cut the prosciutto right in front of us in the center of the restaurant. That machine in the front with the wheel is his cutter.

A salumeria display! If you look carefully you can see "Parma Ham" stamped into the gigantic meat.

Paris <3 moi

“Welcome aboard Ryan Air. The world’s favorite airline.”

After getting two hours of sleep studying for midterms, spending the entire day writing essays in Italian that probably ended up being in Spanish, and running to the train station to catch the bus to Ryan Air, I was finally sitting on the airplane ready to spend my fall break in Parigi.

…

One hour later, we were like a thousand kilometers in the air when all of a sudden the plane smashed onto the ground and then BOUNCED on the concrete without having decreased any speed. We were racing down the airway like some prize horse on the racetrack. It was terrifying.

But only 5 euro.

…

We arrived at our hostel at midnight and were starving. After commenting on how perfect our hostel location was and how cute our bunk beds were, we decided to walk around the neighborhood in search of an open restaurant. We were walking for ten minutes finding absolutely nothing when we saw flashing neon lights in the distance. It was mesmerizing and alluring. So we walked towards it until finding ourselves standing in front of a gigantic building covered with large windows. Each window had a girl or two inside of them dressed in black lingerie moving suggestively over a table, or bending over, or putting on a stocking. In large capital letters it said, SEXODROME at the top.

We were in the red-light district.

Turns out we were a pleasant ten-minute walk from Moulin Rouge as well.

Day 1: “Napoleon is a douche bag.”

Our first day in Parigi was breathtaking. Every time I turned my head it was another perfect picture. The city was so pretty that it was almost too pretty, as if the entire city was manicured and made out of plastic. Turns out that that was exactly what it was. When Napoleon Bonaparte came to town, he decided to rip everything out, destroy 20,000 homes and erase the city’s history in order to rebuild starting from the sewage system up. Paris was a planned city. All the wide boulevards with the gas lamps and the piazzas lined with green and yellow trees and the gorgeous limestone monuments were all done by Haussmann, Napoleon’s right hand man.

Though Napoleon conquered Venice thereby taking away their Republic, he was still referred to as The Liberator by the Venetian Jews. Then in a shocking political maneuver he handed the city over to the Austrians in the Treaty of Campo Formio, committing the Venetians to foreign rule and betrayed them all. I related this story to Jordan as we walked through the Piazza Signori in front of the beautiful Hotel de’Ville to which Jordan responded, “What a douche bag.”

The rest of the day was spent in La Saint Chapelle, a gorgeous church  made out of stained glass depicting the Bible stories starting from Genesis and the Notre Dame where we failed to find the Hunchback. We avoided the random spurts of rain by ducking into the Louvre and the Musee d`Orsay – both of which were the most enjoyable museum experiences I have ever had. According to my very pessimistic, opinionated, passionate Italian boss, the Louvre was “destroyed” when they decided to place the “stupid pyramid” in the center of the piazza, which is actually only 30 years old. I liked it. It reminded me of The Da Vinci Code. We saw the Mona Lisa, the portrait of Van Gogh by Van Gogh, my absolute favorite painter, and Dum Dum! You know, the gigantic stone statues of gum chewing heads from Easter Island who are also featured in the great family film, Night At The Museum? My fav.

Then at night I met with Hannah Cho, a high school friend who I literally haven’t seen in over three years. We went to Les Éditeurs, a library turned cafe stuffed with red lounge chairs. With wine and olives we talked for three hours straight about high school and college, boys and our respective stances on marriage, and where our post-college lives will take us.

How much time has gone. We are already 22.

Day 2: Hannah Day

So the day before I was leaving for Paris and also the day before my dreadful midterms, I Facebook messaged my dear friend Hannah Lee. She had spent the last Fall semester in Paris and so I asked her for some recommendations. I figured she would send me a few things to check out that I could research with the hostel’s internet. Two seconds before leaving for Paris I printed out her reply which ended up being three pages long filled with the numbered bests of Paris, and their respective addresses, directions and commentary. Screw Rick Steve. Hannah Lee’s Guide to Paris was an amazing gem. The hidden stores in alleys and delectable delights of the city that would have taken months to discover were all neatly listed in numbered format. Simply fabulous.

So Hannah Cho and I set off to fulfill the Hannah Lee Best of Paris List.

“8. EAT A BAGUETTE. Pop into any boulangerie (there are tons on every corner) and just order a baguette, some pretty-looking pastries, and enjoy!! Trust me when I say that you will never find as good a baguette here as you will in France.”

I met Hannah bright and early for our picnic breakfast in the Luxembourg Garden. I bought a baguette for € .90 euro. It was half my height. We coupled it with some soft garlic cheese and rose wine and had a fabulous morning eating and talking amidst the fall trees. The Garden was beautiful.

“1. FREE PSTAR. this is a must!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i went here at least four times a week–there is ALWAYS going to be different stuff in the store because they’re constantly restocking. … it’s located in my favorite neighborhood–le marais. Le Marais is the Jewish/gay neighborhood filled with lots of art galleries, boutiques, and vintage stores and LOTS AND LOTS of hip people. i think you’ll love this area, too.”

We spent the afternoon shopping in Marsais. I think we spent over an hour inside of that tiny little store. It was literally the size of my bathroom, with a makeshift ledge that overflowed with feathery boas, purses and a hundred dead furs still with their paws and heads. It also had a tiny spiral staircase that led to an underground room lined with fur coats and dresses and blazers. The place was everything that Hannah promised and more. It was shopping heaven.

We then caught lunch at Les Philosphes, a hip Parisian cafe where I had steak tartar with a raw egg. Amazing? Yes.

“4. Laduree. This is the ultimate French patisserie that EVERYONE goes to. It is especially famous for their macaroons, which are delicious!!!”

We walked down Champs Elysee, a street comparable to LA’s Rodeo Drive, and bought nothing. =) But right when I was getting tired of walking and not shopping we found Laduree.

Laduree is the epitome of French extravagance. Though a pasticerria, the walls and tables and floors are all marble with golden statues and gilded columns. There was a restaurant upstairs and downstairs and had a bar stretching through the expanse of the room filled with tiny beautiful concoctions of colors and fruits and cremes. We ordered 4 mini macaroons each and a pot of hot chocolate.

The macaroon is a realized fantasy. Two delicate pieces of airy cookies sandwich a flavored filling: pistachio, praline, caramel, dark chocolate, raspberry – you name it. All different, all subtly flavorful and perfectly crisp. With one bite the macaroon melts in your mouth in a mix of crunchy and creamy with flavors bursting. I sound so melodramatic. Wait till I get to the orange blossom.

When I bit into the orange blossom I almost cried. It was that good. I couldn’t eat any more of it and just kept repeating over and over to Hannah how good it was. The cookie was orange with a lime green filling. It tasted strongly of oranges but then simultaneously infused with a burst of lime. I’m not even sure how to describe it. You just have to eat it for yourself. It was oh my god amazing. I can’t believe I’ve lived my life for 22 years without it.

We ended up spending two hours in there until the sun set. Then we walked to the Arc de Triomph (got in for free cause the lady thought we were EU citizens) and hiked it all the way to the top. (P.S. I hate winding staircases, you can never see how much more you have left.) The view was incredible. Afterwards we ran to catch the Eiffel Tower for its hourly lights show. So, so, so pretty.

“5. Le Pot de Terre. If you are ever hungry and want the ultimate French meal, you should go here. This is a cozy restaurant that I found while I was in Paris, and I instantly fell in love with it…”

Menu:

Soupe á l’orignon gratinée
(Onion Soup that isn’t called French Onion Soup because we were IN France!)

escargots de Bourgógne au bennre d’aul
(Escargot, better known as snails, boiled in olive oil and garlic and spices in individual slots on a pot. It was so good but the snail gave a slight bitter aftertaste.)

magret de canard au miel
(Duck with a honey glaze. It was amazing. So soft!)

And for dessert, creme brulee. Obvi.

A three course meal for only €16 euro. I was so stuffed I could barely walk to our next stop: The Frog and Princess Bar.

So the other night we were walking to the Les Editèurs Cafe when Hannah started telling me how the street we were crossing was called The Princess, and there was a bar on the street that was called The Frog and Princess Bar. That’s so cute, I said, and then I thought, wait a minute – I know that bar.

“Does that bar have coasters that are actually postcards?”
“Yea! How did you know?”

When Hannah Lee was in Paris she had sent me a postcard. I remembered thinking how odd it was that the postcard was actually a coaster she had picked up from a bar.

So that night we went to the Frog and Princess bar and I grabbed a handful of those postcards.

Day 3: Goodbye Parigi

The next morning we walked up the hill to Sacre Coure, a church that sits on the highest point of Paris and also where they filmed Amelie.

I met up with Hannah for lunch and after visited the original Shakespeare Co. It was the cutest vintage bookstore in the world. It was basically a tiny tiny house that was converted into a store. Books were flowing everywhere with armchairs and sofas tucked into corners for readers. There was a piano on the second floor that you could play if you promised to be good and a wishing well under the floor.

The last thing that I did in Paris was #10 on Hannah’s list.

“10. EAT A CREPE.”

So I ate a crepe. You could order a crepe with any flavor ranging from Nutella, to hazelnut to plain sugar or jam. We got the creme de marron, which is cream of chestnut. It was so good. The French crepe is the equivalent to Italy’s gelato. You haven’t had a gelato until you’ve had one in Italy, and you haven’t had a crepe until you’ve had one in France.

Paris was amazing. People who would return from a trip to Paris would always exclaim how much they loved it, how beautiful it was, how they vow to spend the rest of their lives there; and I always thought, “geez, what a drama queen.”

But it’s true.

I can’t wait to go back.

One of the few buildings that Haussmann didn't touch. Beautiful.

The "stupid" pyramid at the Louvre. I love it.

O.M.G. So there was a STARBUCKS in the Louvre. A STARBUCKS. SIOFEDKCGIORFKND!! I got a Venti Soy Vanilla Latte just because I could. It was bliss.

HAhaha It's Dum Dum!!

A real Van Gogh. I can't believe it.

"Marie! The baguettes! Hurry up!"

That's a lot of baguettes.

Having fun inside PSTAR.

Can you believe this is real? At Laduree.

Macaroons and hot chocolate. The pale beige one with the green filling is the orange blossom!

Hello Eiffel!

 

Bye Parigi.

This will be an entirely different experience for you.

Favorite Gelato Flavor of The Week: Malaga

After two failed attempts we finally got ourselves on the 12:25 train leaving for Verona, a city built like a Shakespearean stage. With an ancient Roman amphitheater as the center piece, the town is surrounded by the Adige River that is crisscrossed with beautiful stone bridges. Gas lamps light up a path covered in the yellowing leaves of fall trees that line the canal. Cliche romance novel words come to mind: idyllic, beautiful, picturesque.

We walked through the ruins of a Roman theater, remnants of Verona once as a Roman city before Napolean and Mussolini took over; bought jewelry from the open-air market in Piazza Spignola and haggled for scarves; we left love notes in the hallways of Juliet’s house, touched her right boob weathered from a million others who wanted good luck; witnessed mass at the beautiful Duomo; and ate dinner at Osteria al Duca, Romeo Montague’s house now fashioned into a restaurant where we had polenta and horse meat.

Verona is beautiful. Any two lovers meeting by chance in this town would fall in love and follow the course of Romeo and Juliet if they also were forced to separate. The city is perfect like a movie set. Who wouldn’t fall in love here?

Hello Verona!

The Roman Amphitheater

Under the Roman amphitheater

Out of nowhere a man started singing opera and it rung through the empty theater. It was amazing.

A couple. =)

My favorite orange house.

The market.

Haha. Of all the souvenirs to get from Verona.

Here were the houses of the Capulets where Juliet left of which many kind hearts cried and poets sung.

The hallway into Juliet's courtyard was covered with graffiti and love notes and gum sticking these love messages to the walls. We left our own notes too.

Juliet's balcony where Juliet and Romeo have their entangled conversation that all other love stories lust after.

The Adige River.

Beautiful.

I'm Romeo. Are you my Juliet?

The return home…

…was a bitch.

I’m super sorry, really sorry, about my recent cussing habit. I promise I’ll stop, but it is really difficult for me to convey what happened this weekend at Florence without cussing.

Why? Because I missed the train back home. Again.

Yea.

…

So I get to the hostel after a fitful three-hour train ride. I ended up sitting in somebody else’s seat for the first two hours nodding off and probably drooling until the guy next to me poked me to wake me up to the conductor asking for my ticket who then directed me to my correct seat three compartments down. -__-

Florence itself was beautiful. All that everybody said it would be. The Duomo is breathtaking and walking up the Duomo is also, literally, breathtaking. I climbed 375 stairs – alone – and it was liberating. The stone stairways were endless. They wound round and round through narrow passageways and slanted stairwells and I felt like I couldn’t climb another step. Right about when I thought they should really invest in making signs like the ones on the 5 that say “100 – San Francisco,” except they would say, “50 steps left, you’re almost there!” I turned a corner and saw the light. The sight was beautiful. I didn’t know Florence was completely surrounded by mountains on all sides. Beautiful, green mountains with the clouds lazily dropping in and the intricately ancient town of Florence stretched out in front.

Some of the highlights of my time in Florence:

1. Buying a pair of sky blue leather gloves, like Carrie’s from Sex and The City. =)

2. Standing in front of Michelangelo’s David. He is definitely not the small boy from the Old Testament. He is HUGE. And not with any sexual undertones, but he really is a goliath himself – 17 feet tall. Seeing him in person really underscored why the sculpture was such a big deal and why there are a hundred plus replicas of him everywhere. I sat there staring at David for a very long time. You can see his left hand clutched around a rock, his blood veins showing through his knuckles; his curly hair that invoked in me a strong desire to run my hands through it; his beautiful boyish face staring out knowing that this was the moment where faith was all that he had – faith and the rock in his hand.

Next to David was a hallway filled with paintings from various artists depicting the life of Jesus. Scenes from his crucifixion, his resurrection with angels and flowers falling from the sky, his crowning of the Virgin Mary in heaven. And then there was the one of Jesus after he was taken down from the cross. The dead Jesus was lying on the floor, crumpled, leaning on Mary with his left arm outstretched underneath his head, heavy with death. The artist painted Mary in obvious grief, her face stricken with pain. But her head also was tilted in a disturbing position, completely sideways, parallel to the floor. The painter intended Mary’s body to parallel that of Jesus’ to show how his pain was just as much hers. It made me cry to imagine the horror and pain it must have been for Mary to see her son on the cross dying.

3. Getting lost in the Uffizi Gallery while trying to get the hell out. It was overwhelming. I thought I finally saw everything after triumphantly exiting a hallway when I was only faced with yet another endless corridor filled with room after room of paintings and church dome embellishments and statues and frescoes and it was just TOO MUCH. After awhile all the paintings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary blurred into each other and when we finally found the ambiguous room that carried the Da Vinci’s I was so exhausted that I took a glance and walked out. It took us nearly 20 minutes to find the exit. Shivani got lost completely and somehow ended up in the bathroom.

4. Spending an INSANE amount of money on one dinner: Florentine Steak. For crying out loud I really can’t even write down how much the whole dinner ended up to be. And I definitely won’t be converting it into dollars.

5. Talking with an old Florentine man who went into a passionate fit asking, “Ma perché Milano, perché? Firenze é piú buono di Milano. Why are you studying there? Study here, be here. I’ve been to Milan, and it’s nothing compared to Florence! Florence is beautiful, Florence has everything, there is nothing in Milan!”

6. Seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The second I saw it I started laughing hysterically. It really is so funny. It’s unbelievable that they really made a leaning tower. It’s just so silly. It’s ridiculous to actually see the tower in person, leaning. hahaha geez. Even looking at the pictures crack me up.

From Pisa we had bought a train ticket from Pisa to Milan for only 16 euro. But of course it was too good to be true.

Because, of course, we missed it. And our options were either to stick around till 2 am for the next train going to Milan (which was 7 hours from then), or pay 40 additional euro and get on the one leaving in 3 minutes.

I paid 40 extra euro.

Ran to catch the train from Pisa to Florence. Then waited at the Florence station because our train to Milan was delayed by 70 minutes. Can you believe our rotten luck?

70 minutes.

“Who died?!” I yelled.

“Somebody probably did,” said Christine.

“Oh…shit…”

We finally arrived in Milan at 2 am after waiting in another line for a taxi. Overall I had lost 75 euro to nothing.

It was an exhausting weekend.

Cursing Ahead

So I missed my train. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I missed it by 4 minutes. FOUR minutes.

I’m supposed to be getting off in Florence right now. I’m supposed to be with everybody else trying to find our hostel and dropping off our luggage and going to get a beer somewhere. My HOSTEL. Damn hostelworld.com. Damn Plus Florence. “I can’t touch your reservation. You can try again in the morning but I’m 90% sure you will most likely have to pay for it.”

This is all Sephora’s fault.

I had lunch at Cioccolati Italiani, an unbelievably decadent chocolate bistro where coffee, salads and panini turn into desserts using chocolate as the main ingredient. I had the Cioccolati Italiani salad, caffé chiocolatatino bianco (an expresso shot with melted white chocolate on top), and a £6 gelato with three different flavors and a cone filled with cream. =) After we walked down Via Torino, a street similar to LA’s Melrose, and shopped until we reached Sephora.

I’ve been suffering for the last month in Milan, because my makeup was running low and I forgot to bring extra makeup products. I was lamenting that there wasn’t anything like a Sephora in Italy when just a week ago I found out that there actually was a Sephora here. Hallelujah. When Anna and I got there, I was in makeup heaven. Though it only has a fraction of the brands that America’s Sephora carries, and everything is nearly double the price thanks to the euro, I still couldn’t resist the new Make Up Forever HD foundation and lipgloss.

I might have lost track of time.

Either way the next 40 minutes was spent running to the metro, to my house, back to the metro, until finally arriving at Centrale Station 4 minutes after the train pulled out. fml.

Although considering the situation I’m not flipping out as much as I typically would. I must’ve gotten used to this kind of stuff. I rationalized that considering how much I travel and will continue to travel in the next three months I was bound to miss a train at one point or another and really £35 euro lost is £35 euro lost. It’s like an H&M dress.

I waited in line at the train station for 30 minutes and then spent another 10 trying to exchange my ticket with the employee in complete Italian. “I missed my train di cinque minuti, posso cambiare il mio biglietto per favore.” And he proceeded to tell me that there are no more Innercity trains leaving today and I would have to pay £29 euro to some other guy (couldn’t understand who) to buy the ticket, which I promptly said no to. So then I asked if I could leave tomorrow morning, to which he said I couldn’t. My ticket was only exchangeable with the train that was leaving at the same time tomorrow, which would be at 5:45 p.m. I would have one day and one night in Florence. Um, no thank you. So then I asked if I could get a refund. And he said yes. YES! Thank you, yes please, I would like the refund. And then he said a word I didn’t initially understand but then made much more sense considering. “Metà.” Which means half.  It was a 50% refund. I would only get £13 back.

I sighed and said “va bene.” I took my £13 euro, then gave him another £26 to buy the next morning’s ticket.
Anna is coming over and we’re eating pumpkin ravioli and garlic potatoes with a bottle of red wine before heading out to Alcatraz, a discoteca down my street.

Hopefully I won’t miss my train tomorrow.

Tutte Cose Svizzere!

Favorite Gelato Flavor of the weekend: Marrone Castagno (roasted chestnuts!)

Benvenuti a Switzerland!!

I love Switzerland!

On Saturday we took a day trip to Lugano, Switzerland. The land of Swiss cheese, the Swiss army knife, Swatch, the Swiss Alps, and everything good and wholesome in this world.

MMM, MMm! With out first step into the little town of Lugano we were engulfed by a smell so amazing that we had no choice but to follow it through the winding cobbled streets until coming across five gigantic stone pots bubbling with polenta, tripe soup, sausages, and beef and beer stew. They were being stirred with equally huge wooden spoons and the cooks weilding such large utensils invited us over to help them out! Amazing – I actually helped cook (sorta) the polenta that was later served to hundreds of people for lunch for the Autumn Festival.

With fortune on our side, we arrived in Lugano with the Autumn Festival in full swing. Vendors selling olives, roasted chestnuts, large sausages and knitted socks covered the piazzas and lined up throughout the tiny streets, while girls in traditional swiss dresses offered free grapes from their baskets, and beautiful little swiss babies with their blonde blonde hair and blue eyes danced in the squares along with the live bands playing traditional folk songs. Celebrating the beginning of autumn, wine flowed like water in the streets with people stopping every few feet for another glass of red wine or beer and the smell of cheese and sausages was never far away.

The best part of the afternoon was spent on a boat that took us past the breathtakingly beautiful Swiss mountains through the towns of Paradiso and Castagnola until dropping us off at Gandria. A town made completely of stone, the ancient village is built right against the water reminiscent of Cinque Terre. It was beautiful.

We then took off for the Olive Trail, which we used to hike all the way back to Lugano in two hours. There were so many beautiful churches in Lugano. Of them was Santa Maria degli Angioli where the entire wall from floor to ceiling is a fresco of Christ’s crucifixion by Bernardino Luini, a famous Lombardy painter whose style is likened to that of Leonardo da Vinci. The church was breathtaking to say at the least and it really reminded me of how Jesus is just everywhere.

I ended up spending nearly all of my franks at Merkur, the sweet heart of Lugano with homemade svizzera chocolate. Slabs of honey chocolate, white chocolate with pistachios and almonds, and corn flakes milk chocolate are piled next to perfectly round truffles of every possible flavor you could desire including honeyed chestnuts.

I couldn’t wait any longer and I just took a bite of the 70% wafer-thin Cabruca Carrés dark chocolate. Made from the cocoa from the Brazilian rainforest, the chocolate is perfection melting in your mouth with the Läderach company logo printed on the back. Contentment at its best.

mmmmmmmm the day just couldn’t have been more perfect.

After taking a desperately needed nap on the train back across the border, we rushed to Stadio San Siro, Milano’s home of the Associazione Club Milano, better known as AC Milano, and the Football Club Internazionale Milano, also known as Inter, the two bitter rivals of the Lombardy region. We spent the rest of the night cheering and cursing for the Inter team as the passionate Italian men do with all of them jumping up in unison, shaking their hands and ripping their hair out before sitting back down again. During half time, while Americans would restock on beer and nuts, the Italian men stood at the food stand with tiny plastic cups filled with expresso. =) How perfetto.

The game was tied and in the last few minutes of the game, orange feet assisted number 10 to make the goooaaaallllll winning the game for INTER MILANO!  The walk back to the metro station was spent singing throwbacks of NSYNC and Eminem.

…

After passing out last night from sheer exhaustion, I woke up this morning and went to the Fiera della Bovisa, an all-day street fair. I bought honey for 4 euro, then saw three grandma nuns buying tiny pots of cacti at the flower vendor.

I followed them into a church where they were having a garage sale for a benefit. I met a wonderful Italian woman who assisted me in my shopping and ended up giving me an 8 euro discount for being “che carina!” (which means cute). I bought two bags and two pearl necklaces, one which is from Moschino that was originally 117 euro. The grandmas all said, “Ciao bella!” as I left. When I got home I made Arrabiata pasta from scratch for lunch and rocked out to old school Cool. =) Then for a late night snack met with some gfs for an aperitivo at Bar Straf next to the Duomo. This has been the most buon weekend I have had since I got here. Although tomorrow is yet another monday and I have to start writing my two Italian essays due in the morning now.

Ciao ciao ciao!

 

Lake Lugano.

Lugano and the Swiss Mountains.

On the boat ride =)

Arrived at the Gandria dock.

 

Love Seat for two.

Piazza Riforma with the Autumn Festival =)

The cutest little baby dancing.

Woo hooo! GO INTER!

Ciao Svizzera.

 

Photos courtesy of A. Koida, A. Smaldino, C. Tesdahl. 

“What, do you have a croissant in your bag?!”

We finally arrived in Corniglia and sat down to order our well deserved dinner after a beautiful but exhausting two-hour hike from our own town of Riomaggiore through Manarola and finally to Corniglia, town #3 of the five lands of Cinque Terre. Cecilia excused herself from the table to receive a phone call. When she got back she had a most disconcerting look on her face. 

“…Our town is on fire.”

 

… 

We just arrived in Riomaggiore. And it is beautiful. 

The day couldn’t have been more perfect. Nobody missed the train, we had a compartment all to ourselves, and we joked and laughed (or at least I did) that this was just like the train to Hogwarts and that they should sell magic wizard trading cards on the snack cart. Once arriving in Cinque Terre we dropped off our luggage at our unbelievable cute hostel, which was literally a stairway away from the coastline, and spent the day sunbathing at Riomaggiore’s beach. 

Built off Italy’s Riviera, five small towns were magically constructed into the mountains overlooking the water. How the farmers built cities on the cliffs are beyond me but it is the most beautiful sight to see. The 17th century style Italian homes brightly colored in pinks and yellows with green shutters are carved into the sloping mountainside ending at the rocky coast of the Riviera’s sparkling, clear blue water. It is the quintessential fairy tale land somehow preserved from years of modernization, technology and drain pipes. The people literally live in a resort town that remains untouched by the changing world around them and are only disturbed by the backpacking tourists passing through. I would love to enthrall you with my beautiful prose on this magical land, but I’ll just put up a picture. 

 

Because a picture, in this case, is worth a thousand words.

After washing the sand out of my hair, we then took off for our hiking adventure on Via Amore, a trail that connects the five towns together. From Riomaggiore we hiked through the town of Manarola and two hours later arrived in Corniglia where we found an exquisitely tiny wine bar covered in grapevines overlooking the cliff. We all ordered wine made from Cinque Terre’s vineyards. I had the Sciacchetra, a strong yet sweet dessert wine as we sat and watched the dusk arrive.

After wining we walked up the hill to a restaurant perched at the top and sat down to order when Cecilia received the phone call. 

“I just got a call from the girls at our hostel. They said Riomaggiore is on fire, and it’s getting closer to our hostel.” 

“WHAT?!” 

We went into immediate panic mode. Okay, I went into immediate panic mode. There was no way we could make it back in time. It just took us two hours to hike here and we were two towns away. Considering that the entire town was built on a mountain, if a fire started who knew how long it would take to get it out. Our hostel would be burnt to ashes – oh my god, my clothes. 

The guys tried to reassure the girls saying that it probably isn’t that big, it’s probably not that close, our hostel is made out of stone – nothing would burn. But I started thinking of the Angeles fires that I had just left behind which began a few days before my departure. The fire raged for nearly a week burning over 20,000 acres and turned my little town of La Crescenta into an ash-covered grayness that smelled like I just stepped out of a tent instead of my house. The fires followed me to Italy. The day that we arrive in Cinque Terre a fire is burning Riomaggiore. 

“OH MY GOD. It’s on fire. The mountain is on FIRE!” 

An all too familiar dark red glow was coming behind the mountains from where our hostel was and smoke was enveloping the sky. I went into mental panic. This was the moment when I realized how materialistic I really was. I would have been less scared if the fire was in Corniglia instead and was barricading us in our restaurant for our imminent death than the current threat of losing my things. That’s frightening.

In the end I calmed down, we finished our dinner, and took the train back to our town only to realize that the fire was MUCH further than we were told and a night of drinking ensued. The rest of the weekend was filled with beauty and water and sun and shrimp stuffed ravioli, which literally redefined what constituted a “ravioli” for me and returned home to Milano, a weekend well-spent for my first Italian trip indeed – other than the fire, of course. 

 

Isn't it beautiful.

 

Our private little rocky beach.

Riomaggiore.

The wine bar =)

Where I sat to watch the sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corniglia. Our view from the wine bar.

The fire was in the next day's paper.

 

Isn’t Ghana Fabulous?

Other than a few hiccups, this trip has been one breathtaking, once-in-a-lifetime, amazing moment after another.

 

On our first weekend in Ghana we planned a trip to the Lake Volta region to see the Wili Falls, a waterfall four hours north of us in eastern Ghana. We rented a bus (and a bus driver for 130 Ghana Cedi`s a day, which by the way would be fiscally impossible in the US) and made the trip up north. Right when we got to the base of the mountain the obvious happened. It started to rain – pour, actually.

Caught in yet another spontaneous rainstorm, the trail up to the waterfall turned into a gigantic mudslide and I nearly lost my flip-flop to the mud’s suction a bazillion times. As the rain slowed down, we suddenly heard Reggae ringing through the trees.

Let me remind you, we’re in the middle of a fing mountain.

The Reggae music only got louder as we continued to hike until the trees cleared and we came upon a full-fledged Reggae party with a stereo sound system, drinks, and a hundred Ghanaians dancing right next to the WATERFALL.

It was simply breathtaking. I can’t explain how gorgeous and magnificent a waterfall is in person. It really sucked the air out of me.

As we paraded through the party and reached the end of the clear water pooling from the waterfall the girls stripped down to their bikinis to dive in.

Now, let me tell you, this wasn’t the smartest of our ideas.

Apparently, there’s a group of Ghanaian men that come up and chill at the waterfall regularly, which isn’t weird at all because if I lived near a waterfall and there was always a bumping Reggae party up there, then I would go everyday too; but the weird thing is that they wait in the shallow waters of the pool for unsuspecting female tourists to offer “assistance.”

As I watched Anika and Amy, the first ones to plunge in, wade out towards the waterfall I saw them within seconds getting swallowed up by a horde of black men. I nervously tapped on one of our guys’ shoulder while pointing out at the girls asking if this was okay, but with no response I turned to see that the rest of the girls were stripping down too. 

Well, if you can’t beat them, join them.

 

“AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”

I don’t know why I was so terrified, but the second I allowed a Ghanaian man to lead me towards the waterfall I started screaming and I couldn’t stop.

“AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”

As we got closer it felt like we were getting pelted with hail or a freaking blizzard. The pressure of the water slamming a hundred feet into the water below was so powerful that it forced me to shield my eyes and turn my back to it, which is exactly why the Ghanaian men were there. They would hold onto your stomach from behind and lead you, backwards, towards the waterfall until reaching the mountain wall where you would literally stand underneath the crashing water. It was amazing. Simply amazing.

I think, because I wouldn’t stop screaming, the Ghanaian guy didn’t try anything with me although there were plenty of times when I impatiently threw off an extra pair of hands that would touch me out of nowhere. The other girls, however, didn’t have such great luck and almost all of them got molested under the waterfall.

I guess it’s the price you pay for one hell of an experience.

I really didn’t think anything could top standing under a waterfall, but I had no idea what was waiting for us at our home-stay in a village called Ho-Hoi.

 

The home-stay was reminiscent of a part of missions that I did NOT want to relive: sleeping on unknown mattresses in mosquito nets and taking dumps in foul-smelling, wooden port-a-potties – not a favorite.

But it was at this home-stay in Ho-Hoi where I experienced something most people will die without ever witnessing: an African tribal drum circle. Literally.

The South African Dance Association, also known as SADA, was a tribal dance group made up of boys, girls, men and women all participating in traditional African drum dance. The men stood in the back and began to chant while the boys, as young as ten years old, played the drums; the women, filed in two rows, began to dance and chant back, singing a tribal song in their native language that we naturally couldn’t understand. It was enchanting and I really counted my blessings to be chosen to witness this moment.

We spent the rest of the night in Ho-Hoi dancing with the Africans in the circle as the drums banged on.

…

The next morning we woke up at 5 am to hike the tallest mountain in Ghana, Mount Afadjato. It was breathtaking (both the physical hike itself and the view) and definitely took me straight back to the Moroto Mountains of Uganda. And though this weekend was finally over after our last stop at a monkey sanctuary, it was nothing compared to the one coming up.

 

Simply amazing. Photo courtesy of Julia Rickert.

Beware of The Rasta Man

The first breath of the African air threw me back into Uganda, summer of 2007. I can’t describe how the air smells different – it just does. It’s like this sweet smell – grainy or beany or something heavier maybe of the dirt or the trees, but the African air is definitely different. The air: confirmation that I am back in Africa and it feels awesome.

….

It’s been a whole week since we’ve arrived in Ghana and we’ve gotten into a routine of things. Wake up, wake up the roommate, wake up the boys, drink coffee while reading my Bible before climbing into the van, which takes us to the Academic Center where we listen to guest lectures or have classes for Journalism in Ghana. Then, we get a two-hour break for lunch, which literally takes the FULL two hours.

On a side note:

I don’t flipping understand how it can take SO LONG to prepare food. The food NEVER comes out together and it can take up to 20 minutes for the next round, or plate, to come out and sometimes it doesn’t even come out at all. Today I ordered an omelette and it came out 15 minutes after everybody else’s hamburgers were scarfed down and Courtney’s INSTANT coffee (which means hot water and a packet of Nescafe) came out at the same time her toast did which took 30 minutes. And you definitely do not want to order the kabobs, not because they’re not good, but because they will come out when the bill should come instead. Guaranteed. It’s a huge ordeal.

But I digress.

So after lunch we go visit a media company like the local radio station Joy FM, the state broadcast company GBC, or the state-funded newspaper, Graphic. We get a tour of the company and all of their facilities and have a Q&A after. It’s actually quite a privilege, one that wouldn’t be so easily granted to us back in the States.

Every night (and literally it has been every night) we go out to a local jazz café where Reggae and jazz fuse to create this awesome fresh vibe; or the beach for Reggae night every Wednesday where Reggae bands play and Rasta men offer you a smoke out for just 20 cedi; or a struggling lounge called Twist that offers drinks for half-off in an attempt to upstart a “college scene” that is currently completely comprised by us. Unexpectedly, Accra has a very vibrant nightlife.

I can’t do this everyday. So I’m staying in tonight with my two homies, Stephen and Carlos and we’re all sitting around our living room table with our Macs and listening to Kid Cudi’s “I Poke Her Face,” which has unofficially become our theme song, and which you are pleasantly enjoying now. =)

A huge treat was when we went to the “football” game at the Ghana Stadium for Republic Day. Of their many pre-games, the most popular was the Little Person game when two whole teams comprised of “little people,” or midgets, came running out onto the field and the whole stadium cheered! What I do not understand is how do they even find enough midgets skilled enough in soccer to produce a whole soccer team, let alone two? Do Ghanians just have more little people than we do in the States? And the crazier thing is that these little people were not just playing soccer, but they were playing on a regular sized soccer field with a regular sized soccer ball and their shorts went all the way down to their ankles. 

 

Real classes start on Monday and before then we have the weekend ahead of us planned to the brim with a trip to Lake Volta filled with stops to waterfalls and monkey sanctuaries. `stay tuned my loves.