Week 7: USC Girls in Florence
Ava, Elena, and I at the second winery
Molly, Ava, Lauren and I!
Well, after a long Saturday night we all piled into a bus on Sunday afternoon for a winery tour in Chianti. This tour took us to two different wineries in the Chianti area and then took us to a Medieval castle at the end. Before boarding the bus we all desperately needed water so I went and got the group some from the bus station… I think they all almost killed me when we realized I accidentally bought “Frizzante” aka sparkling water. Personally I love sparkling water but apparently nobody else feels the same and claims it’s not refreshing and blah blah blah. None the less we made it on the bus and our strength was definitely tested as the bus bumped through the Tuscan hills. The scenery was gorgeous, and Molly and I spent our trip trying to eavesdrop on the strangers behind us that we were convinced were going to fall in love. We finally made it off the bus and took a brief tour of our first winery, observing the huge barrels that the wine ages in. The winemaker told me that one barrel fills about 2-3 thousand bottles of wine! When we sat down for our tasting we realized that we were only going to be trying red wine… Unfortunately we are not the biggest red wine girls and there were several winces around the table as we tried the different wines. I really loved getting to look at the scenery outside; it looked straight out of a movie. The second winery was equally beautiful with once again all red wine. We were given some biscuits to eat which after eating no breakfast we probably looked ravenous. At this point the rain and gloom had really picked up and it was extremely windy up in the hills. By the time we made it to the castle the chill in the air cut through all of our coats so we hustled into the closest gelato shop. Probably not the best thing to eat while you’re freezing, but the castle wasn’t exactly overflowing in food options. The gelato was delish (though not better than our favorite spot in Florence) and we made our way back on the bus after a long day of giggling and wine. Molly and I enjoyed our podcast on the way back (the people behind us) who had sat next to each other at the wineries and got drinks together at a bar in the castle. We’re really hoping they exchanged phone numbers or something because that would be the cutest meeting story ever. The day closed out by getting caught in a storm on the walk back home from the bus station. Spring in Florence takes the whole rain thing super seriously…
The town of Fiesole!
The week continued with lots of fun and friends, they explored the city while Lauren and I went to class. I even visited an old Etruscan town during my Florentine Art Walks class, which was amazing. The town Fiesole is built on top of a hill right outside of Florence. Built by the Etruscans, we learned about their culture and intelligence and observed some super interesting remains, like an old amphitheater and swimming pool. We also learned that they were a lot smarter than the Romans, who built their cities in valleys and swamps with all of the humidity, heat and bugs. Fiesole felt so much fresher and dry on top of the hill with way less mosquitoes.
Roomies for next year!
Other activities with the USC girls included lots of good meals, shopping, walking around, getting affogato, and going out. On Monday night we went to a karaoke bar (Red Garter) with our friends Maddy, Kate, and Maggie and had a lot of fun dancing around. Lauren, Liv and I performed “Open Arms” by SZA, our recent obsession song :) On Tuesday Ava, Molly, Elena, Chloe, Lauren and I tried to go to the Boboli Gardens but we accidentally got there too late so we spontaneously stopped at Cafe Bellini for apertivo and happy hour drinks. We sat outside with a great view of Pitti Palace and embarrassingly all ordered Hugo spritzes. They brought us out fresh bruschetta and fried pasta as the apertivo. This was one of my favorite parts of the week because we had such great conversation and laughed so much that the server refused to serve us any more because he “didn’t want to call an ambulance.” Yet he still invited us inside for limoncello shots, only for Molly to accidentally drop the shot glass and it shatter on their floor. The server was definitely done with us after that but it was such a great night. Wednesday night was Molly’s birthday eve so naturally we hosted a pregame and sang to her when it hit midnight. Even though that did result in a noise complaint, I’m so happy we were able to celebrate with Molly as she turned 20! Molly and I were introduced a little over a year ago by Ava and she has brought so much into my college life. Becoming closer with her has been such a joy and I am so lucky to have such an intelligent, funny, caring, and reliable friend. We celebrated the first couple hours of her birthday at Space, a nearby club. Brunch on Thursday morning was a must since we had to show our friends the best cinnamon rolls we’ve ever tried. We then walked over to the Academia to see David! Despite living here for over a month, Lauren and I hadn’t seen him yet. Actually seeing the statue in real life was cooler than I expected. We sat and just stared at it while looking up facts on our phone about Michelangelo and the creation of David. The detail was so impressive; you can see the veins in the arms! The hands and feet were GIANT though, and we learned that the eyes slightly point in different directions because Michelangelo wanted there to be an imperfection in his otherwise “perfect” sculpture.
After David, Molly and Ava’s moms surprised them by the Duomo! Such a sweet surprise for Molly on her birthday (plus I love their moms so it was great to see them) and they treated us to dinner :)
Hi David!
I am so happy that friends were able to visit for their spring break and it was SUCH a fun week. I said goodbye to Halle, Katie, Elena and Chloe before training to Rome with Ava, Molly, and Lauren (their flights home were on Sunday.) We arrived in Rome around 10:30 AM on Friday and checked into our hostel where we had a quick panic because none of us brought our passports. You would think that Lauren and I would know to do that since we’ve stayed in hostels several times but we just thought “since we’re not traveling outside of Italy we actually don’t need to bring our passports!” I failed to remember that I’m not actually a citizen of Italy and was standing there with no proof of being legally in their country. Luckily, they accepted pictures of passports which we all had one. We stayed at the Rome Hello Hostel and had such a positive experience; I totally recommend it! Our hostel was right by the Trevi fountain so we walked over, stopping at this little sandwich shop on the way. This sandwich, let me tell you, I have no words. It was AMAZING. All of the ingredients were so fresh and we built our own sandwiches. Lauren and mine consisted of porchetta, pecorino, pesto, and fresh tomatoes. We ate sitting in front of the Trevi fountain before starting our walking route. Lauren and Molly planned out a whole trail for us to follow, with our first stop at the Pantheon. We admired it from the outside before continuing our walk over to Vatican City, where we bought museum tickets and slowly made our way through the museums before ending up in the Sistine Chapel. We weren’t expecting to have so many people on the street try to sell us tickets to various things, like entering St. Peter’s Square, so our pace was quick. There are a lot of street performers, including this one dressed up as a genie yelling “come here girls” as we scurried past. The museums were extremely cool; Molly and I wanted to see if we could be tour guides and made up an entire story about a sculpture that we saw to tell to Ava and Lauren, who believed us until I said the wrong name for Zeus’s wife and they became suspicious of us. The Sistine Chapel is gorgeous of course. I think I could stand there for hours just admiring all of the art. Due to our recent obsession with Michelangelo, we had to look up facts about his experience painting the chapel, which he described as “torture” and even included a self portrait in “The Last Judgement” (the wall behind the altar) which depicts himself as St. Bartholomew’s flayed skin. After the Sistine Chapel we started to walk towards the Colosseum, stopping in a French caffe on accident to get a cappuccino, gelato, and cannolis.
Upon arriving at the Colosseum, the chill had started to pick up so we took some pictures and walked around the area a little bit by the Roman Forum before walking to dinner. We ate dinner at what we thought was a small mom-and-pop place, Tonnarello, but was actually one of the biggest restaurants I’ve seen in Italy so far. We all ordered the carbonara, they’re supposedly famous for it, and it truly did not disappoint. The serving sizes were massive though so we all got boxes to go and went back to the hostel.
Lauren and I at the Trevi
Rome itself reminds me more of Paris than Florence, an insight I didn’t have last time I went to Rome a few years ago. The streets are bigger, the roads are easier to navigate and more open, but the architecture is undoubtedly Italian. It was also nice to see Rome without adenovirus (I was one of the many USC victims freshman year, just experienced it in my Rome hotel instead of dorm bed.) The city is really easy to walk around and it feels like everywhere you look there’s something else to admire. The city is filled with so much rich history and I appreciate it a lot more.
We finished out Rome by attempting to rally and head out to the clubs. Honestly, the pregame in the hostel with the four of us was the best part because when we got to the club the bouncers wouldn’t even look at us and we saw a lot of people being turned away. We eventually looked at the google reviews, where they said that club doesn’t let in anyone who isn’t a local. What, my blonde hair and blue eyes don’t look Italian?!?! We went to a different club and stayed for a little but we were all so tired after walking 23,000 steps that day. I mean, my eyes were literally closing in the middle of the dance floor.
On Saturday we made our way back to Florence, ate their last Italian pizza of the trip with Molly and Ava, and then rotted in our bed. Lauren and I said goodbye to Ava and Molly at 3 AM on Sunday as they left for their flight. Lauren and I then proceeded to sleep until 2 PM the next day in efforts to recover from the week of hosting and fun.
The week was amazing and I can’t express enough how good it was to see my friends. Returning to Columbia in the fall will be hard after this semester but I have to admit I can’t wait to see them everyday again:)
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
