Italia 2011: o'vesuvio

Showing posts with label o'vesuvio. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

4th of July at the Pisa Beach

Monday night was the Fourth of July, and I got to be an honorary American for the night. Katie and I headed down to Pisa in the afternoon after work, met up with our new friends, got some incredible pizza, and then headed to the American army base beach for swimming and dancing. It was a LOT of fun, and a really weird cultural experience... like a little slice of the states in Pisa, Italy. I kept talking to people in Italian and they'd respond with a "huh?". Like the guy who was trying to take a chair from our table, and I told him "Oh mi dispiace, usiamo tutti questi" and he said "huh?" and I said "oh, whoops, i mean... all ah y'alls chairs are taken". Then they proceeded to make fun of my "Canadian accent" and mimic me. Apparently to American people, we sound British?

Unfortunately it was raining so they had to cancel the fireworks... but they made up for it by providing a lifetime supply of glowsticks.

Here are some pictures from the last few days. Enjoy! In the meantime, I'm headed back to Florence tonight for some more Pizza O'Vesuvio :)

This is the place where the magic happens.

Me opening the greatest box ever in piazza signoria

Great orchestra in piazza Signoria

Katie and I... last night of Naima :(

New friends

At the beach in Pisa. Like the Gumby shirt I bought at the army base?

Getting ready for 4th of July fun!

Cloudy beach on the 4th of July

We clearly need more glowsticks...

Sunday, July 3, 2011

24 Hour Adventure

So last night Katie and I decided at the last minute to head into Florence for some pizza from O'Vesuvio, AKA the pizzeria we discovered that makes pizza that tastes like angels. Our pizzeria expedition turned into epic 24 hour adventure. We got into Florence at 6pm, got our pizza, and ate it in piazza Signoria where an orchestra series was also going on. After that, I remembered that it was the final night that my favourite bar, Naima, would be open, since they're closing for renovations/the summer holiday season (in Italy, many businesses close in late July and throughout August since most Italians go away to the sea) so we went to Naima where, as always, we made tons of new friends, including the bouncer who we talked to for about an hour and discovered that he also makes jewellery. Interesting.

Needless to say, we missed the last train back to Pistoia, so we stayed at Naima all night. Later on, we met an awesome group of Americans and ended up hanging out with them. A few of the guys work at the US army base in Pisa, a couple of them study biology in Florence, and a girl named Lisa whom they had just met 2 hours prior to meeting us is studying Italian in Florence for the summer. It was a wild chance encounter that we all met each other like that, because we ended up having the greatest time with them and feeling like we'd known them forever. We all talked for a bit, and then at 6am they said they were heading back to Pisa and we were invited to come, so we agreed. There wasn't room in their car for 9 of us, so Katie, myself, Lisa and another guy (Matt) took the train and Mike picked us up. When we got there, we went to the army base so Katie and I could buy bathing suits. Then after a delicious Chinese all-you-can-eat lunch, Katie, Mike, Lisa and I went to the beach at Pisa and spent a glorious few hours enjoying the sun, the breeze, the water, and the fabulous people watching.

So that was my weekend! Tomorrow after work we're going to go back to Pisa to a 4th of July party on the beach with our new friends.

Now I'm going to try to go to sleep, despite the incredibly loud karaoke event going on in the village at the bottom of the hill. (Our apartment is in a sort of sound tunnel, so it essentially sounds like the karaoke is taking place in our apartment. Agony.)

Ciao for now!

PS. Unfortunately my camera battery died partway through the night, so I'm counting on Katie's camera for some good shots. I'll grab pictures off her later this week and share if there's anything good

Thursday, June 30, 2011

A day in Bologna

Bologna

I finally got to Bologna yesterday! Something to check off my list...

The train ride was surprisingly short (about an hour including changeover at Prato Centrale) and cheap (7 euros). The train ride from Prato to Bologna was mostly through tunnels, as you essentially need to go through mountains to get there. There was a guy on the train, typical Italian, wearing pink shorts and a purple top (not that there's anything wrong with that, it was just memorable) and he was trying to have a phone conversation and kept stalking back and forth from one end of the train to the other trying to get service. He also had an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth for most of the trip. I wanted to tell him "dude... you know we won't be arrive for another half hour, put the cigarette down and chill out!".

The city of Bologna is beautiful, with tons of public art and impressive statues, and with a unique tendency towards covered walkways with vaulted arched ceilings, rather than regular sidewalks. The city also had great shopping (hello new shoes) and I found the people (in stores, restaurants, on the streets) to be noticeably more pleasant than in other Italian cities. Unfortunately my lunch was a bit disappointing... I trusted Lonely Planet and went to a place called Osteria de Poeti, which had a neat location in the basement of an old wine cellar. But something felt a bit off when I entered... I quickly realized it was the fact that they were playing "Sweet Home Alabama" on the speakers... hmmmm... And my meal wasn't that great. I made up for it later though...

I also checked out the Museo Civico's collection of art, which was very nice. I was disappointed that the archaeological museum was closed for no apparent reason... I was looking forward to going asI hear that they have an impressive collection of Egyptian and Etruscan artifacts.

At about 5pm I decided it was time to extract myself from Bologna (the fact that I was seriously contemplating buying a pair of boots for 550 euros was a pretty good indicator that it was time to leave). I took the train to Florence and met Katie who had done a bit of shopping at H&M, and after we showed each other our purchases, we headed to the bridge beside Ponte Vecchio (the old bridge of Florence... the only one to survive WWII) to enjoy a bottle of bubbly. It's really fun to have wine outside in Florence (or anywhere in Italy/Europe) since there are so many tourists around who can't believe that you can legally drink in the streets and therefore think of you as, for lack of a better term, super cool. A lot of Americans struck up conversations with us, including a family from California who had just arrived that morning... They also asked for restaurant recommendations. I hope they found Piazza Santo Spirito and had a good meal there!

After our wine, we decided it was time for dinner. We decided to try Pizzeria O'Vesuvio, which is the pizzeria where the Jersey Shore cast was "working" (...catch all their thrilling Florence adventures next season... or don't...). I'd heard that O'Vesuvio is actually the best pizza in Florence, but was rather skeptical... anywhere that's been tainted by Jersey Shore has to be dismal. But Oh. My. Gosh. That pizza was indescribable. I didn't even know pizza had the ability to BE so good. It changed my life... everything else that has ever happened to me, or will ever happen to me, will now be categorized as pre-pizza, or post-pizza. Post-pizza Ally is a new woman, a woman who sees the potential beauty in everything, especially cheesy doughy messes. I'm getting emotional just thinking about it. I don't know why Florence residents would ever eat anywhere else!

Still reeling from our pizza experience, we ran to the train station to hop the train to Prato, as Miranda had kindly offered to let us stay the night. Once in Prato we grabbed a beer at a very cool bar in a very old grotto-like space, and then I located an exceptional gelato place... their flavors were nothing extraordinary, but the texture was superb! And then we called it a night.