Upcoming

I've gotten most of my stuff sorted, from my month away.
I still have a lot of work to do with my photos. There are over 5,000 of them. I need to pick out all my best photos for my personal gallery. I need to pick out pictures to share with the tour group, to put on facebook, and to put onto my blog.
And I also want to label all of the pictures. Which will take the longest...

I need to organize my papers too. That's proven a lot more complicated than I thought it would be.

I've spent all my free time since I got home organizing stuff. Heheh. I really want to slack off. I want to color all the pictures I have sitting around. And I want to play videogames.
Once I get the papers organized, I'll probably take my time with my photos. Because otherwise I think it will overwhelm me. But at least I get to relive my trip when I look at them.

And I still have to plan those cursed exams.


(Actual graffiti from Italy. I know how they feel. Heheh)

Languages

When I started to learn Japanese, it replaced most of the Spanish I learned in high school.
It got to the point where when I tried to think of a Spanish phrase, I would mix in Japanese words.

I wanted to go over all of my Spanish notes before the trip. But thanks to wasting all my time on exams that didn't happen, I barely got to look at a couple pages of notes.
So in Spain, I was stuck with the words and phrases I could dig out of the back of my brain.
A lot came back to me, actually. And I learned more.



And a funny thing happened. During those two weeks of thinking in Spanish, I couldn't think of how to speak in Japanese!

Wow. I guess my brain must have specific modes with languages.

Although Japanese did try to pop out a couple times. I'm pretty sure I said "demo" instead of "pero." They mean the same thing ("however", or "but") but I doubt the person I was talking to knew what the heck I was talking about.
And I kept almost saying "hai" instead of "sí."

And despite my Spain trip being over, I really want to go over all of my Spanish notes, and try to remember how to speak it better.
I also want to learn Italian now too. Heheh. My brain is so ambitious.
I taught my cousins a couple words in Japanese. It took Luca all day to stop scrambling "onegaishimasu." Heheh. Poor guy. He got so frustrated. But I think by the end, he'd finally stopped saying "onogaishimasu."

Tiny Tyra

An experiment in sculpting.
I... learned quite a lot about what not to do. Poor Tyra.
Hopefully I'll know better next time. Heheh.
Which dragon should I try next? (Though that probably won't be for months. There are so many pictures I want to color).

Lucignano

Heheh. All my posts are super behind. I've actually been home since Wednesday.

Christy's place is amazing. It's out in the country. It's so pretty up here. The mix of orchards, forest, and great old buildings means that it's pretty everywhere you look. The house is lovely, as is the garden.
And there were three cats! I missed Leaf so much.
Christy and David have two kids - Luca and Elio. They were thrilled to have me around.
We visited a couple of the nearby towns.
David has a workshop where he makes amazing stuff out of wood.

And we searched around with David's metal detector. Among all the trash, there's shrapnel from WWII. And they even found a couple old artifacts.
I just found junk. Rusty metal, old wire, and a 2 euro piece.
I also found an adorable little gecko! It was on the handle of the pick axe I was digging with. I didn't notice until I touched him with my finger. Heheh. What a surprise.

I found more loquats. They're called nespole in Italian.

Biwa, nispero, and nespole.

I asked Luca and Elio if they wanted to say anything here.
Elio says "Hello world."
Luca says that it was all good fun.

We got to visit some horses that a friend of their family has. Which I was thrilled about. Luca was a bit nervous at first, to be around such huge animals. But by the end, both boys loved the horses.

Man, that flight home was grueling. It was at least 12 hours long. And the chairs were not comfortable.
I think my brain is starting to believe that airports and airplanes mean sleep deprivation.
Man, I'd forgotten what it was like to be home.
I've been spending all of my free time trying to organize and clean up everything from the trip, and stuff that built up during my absence. I've still got a ton to do. I haven't even touched my 5,000+ photos.
I'll have to go back and add some photos to my posts, once I've gone through them.
But it's so nice to be home again. With my cat.

Florence

From Rome to Florence, we took the bullet train. I haven't been on one since Japan. It wasn't as fast as the Shinkansen, but it did have some lovely scenery. And a lot of tunnels.

Florence is more modern than I thought it would be.
There are so many shops. Dozens, or hundreds of leather places. Lots of tourist shops. And a lot of really beauitful shops. Plenty that sell hand made stuff.
There are a lot of outdoor markets too, which are fun to walk around.

We stumbled across the boar statue, which I recognized it immediately because Dad has a little one in the living room. So, you're supposed to pet the boar's nose, and if you do then you will come back to Florence. I know because I asked my cousin about it just now.


Ooh, here's a strange story. In middle school, I had a pretty bookmark that I liked a lot. It said "here I fell asleep." I guess it must have been a gift from my uncle, or cousin. And then I lost it.
So as we were walking along the river in Florence, we spotted a nice paper shop called Il Papiro. While inside, I noticed a tray of bookmarks, and the shape of them seemed familiar. Then I gasped, because there in the tray was the same exact bookmark that I had in middle school! That company is the one that created the design, and they're the only ones that carry it.
The shopkeeper liked my story, so she gave me the bookmark. Now I have my middle school bookmark back.
I walk into a shop half way across the world, and find my old bookmark. Wow.

We also stumbled onto the tomb of Boticceli.

Took a day trip to the little nearby town of Fiesole.
And we went to the Uffizi museum, where there's a lot of famous art. Like the Birth of Venus painting.

And we went to the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, and oddly enough, Machiavelli.

Well, we went to a lot of museums, and saw a lot of famous statues. The Bargello has a lot of statues. And we saw some Michelangelo statues at a Medici building.
I climbed to the top of the Duomo. It's a freaking awesome view.
Ooh, and there's a museum of works of inlaid stone, which are incredible too.

There are a lot of statues of David. But the one that is all over Florence is Michelangelo's David. The whole city is enamored with it.

I've seen several of them. And we got to the biggest one, figuratively and literally, early before it was surrounded by packs of tourists.
I've seen a lot of naked statues on this trip. For some reason, most of them are guys. Eh. Weird. And a lot of the women statues look very guyish. And visa versa. It's hard to tell from behind a lot of the time.

Every day on Florence, Mom and I walked around in the morning, then came back in the afternoon to collapse in our hotel. Then a few hours later when I actually had some of my energy left, I would go out on my own to wander around. It's fun to wander around and explore on my own.
Man, my feet got so tired though. Phew.

Our last morning in Florence, we went across the river. My cousin's sister has a jewelry school, called Alchimia. So she showed us around. It's a great place.
And that afternoon, we met my cousin, Christy. And we went to her place.

Rome

There is a point in Rome that all roads lead to.
There was also a similar point in Madrid, actually.

So I guess not all roads lead to Rome, even in Europe.

Anyway, we spent only two days in Rome, but we packed a lot into those two days.
The first day in Rome was our last day with the tour group.

One thing I've seen in the biggest cathedrals is that birds have found their way inside. They aren't stuck, but happily flying around in the big open area. They are usually swallows, and there were a couple in Saint Pauls outside the wall.
We saw the Circus Maximus, where there were chariot races long ago.
Went into a church that had four Michelangelo statues, including the one of Moses.

Walked past the Colosseum. But didn't go in!

Walked past the Forum ruins.
We did go into the Pantheon. What an incredible building. And the top is open to the sky!

Those were the main highlights of the day, though we did see plenty of other stuff too.

And that evening, everyone in our group bid farewell to each other.

The second day in Rome was just Mom and I.
So, I went back to the Colosseum, because I wanted to go in.

I ended up walking along with a guy from France. In Japan, I also ended up talking to a FrEnch guy. Huh.
I also walked around most of the Forum ruins.


I met up with Mom again, and we got lunch. It seemed to be a really cute place, with a vine covered patio full of tables. Mom an I sat outside, and the place was empty. All of the seats on the porch were marked as reserved.
I didn't see any of this, but Mom told me. A couple Asian girls came up to get lunch, but the waitress turned them away saying they were full.
A few minutes later, a couple came in. The waitress let them in, and took away one of the reserved signs so they could sit down.
When I heard this, I was so disgusted that I wanted to leave, but it was already too late.
And Mom told me that later a gay couple came in, and the waitress didn't let them in either.
Freaking &&$&&$ jerks. Never eat there.

That afternoon, we went to the Vatican. The smallest country in the world, with the most pieces of art.
Countless works of art. It would take weeks to look at everything. We stuck to some of the highlights. And at the end, we went to the Sistine Chapel. It was packed. I want to be hoisted up toward the ceiling so I can see everything better.
Went to Saint Peters Basilica, and saw Michelangelo'S Pieta.

Walked through Saint Peters Square too.


One thing I like about Rome is the fountains. They flow nonstop, and the water is nice and cool.
And everything is so ancient. It's crazy, when you go in a building that is older than my entire country.

Assisi

So, for a bit of context, San Francisco is named for Saint Francis.
And Saint Francis is from Assisi.
Which is a gorgeous place. The town, and the hills for miles around it. Everywhere you turn is beautiful.


We got to stay outside Assisi for several days. I still would love to come back though.
The buildings are made out of pink rock. There seems to be a newer part of town, and an older part of town. We only went to the newer part briefly. The older part looks almost like it was pulled straight out of the past. Except for power lines, and cars.

We visited the tomb of Saint Francis.
And saw the incorrupt body of Saint Clare.
And we saw the smallest church in Christendom.

I think Toledo and Assisi are places where I should set stories. I'll have to see what stories might fit.

We spent a day in Cortona. Another fantastic place.

Gelato is so gooood.

But you have to pay to use public restrooms. Whyyyyyy?

Toledo

After we all departed Sevilla, we made a brief stop in Cordoba to visit the great mosque, though it's not technically a mosque now.
I was excited about this because in band a couple years ago, we played a song about this place, called La Mezquita de Cordoba.
It is a fascinating place, with layers of architecture from different cultures and times.

Then we arrived on Toledo.


This is a great place too. Toledo, Seville, and Segovia. I want to go back to those places some day.
We were only in Toledo for one full day. That evening I went for a walk on a little trail down by the river. And there were also some strange ruins right next to the river.
They didn't look really old though. I wonder what their story is. I walked around them a bit.


We went back to Madrid for our last night in Spain
Unfortunately I didn't get to walk around any that extra day, because I was feeling really tired from being sick. And Mom seemed to have been recovering from hers, but she got a fever that day too.
She's mostly better now though.

We had to get up at 3:30 AM the next morning. Ugh. So evil.
We got a plane and headed to Italy.
Which will be my next post!

Seville

After we left Salamanca, we made a short stop at Merida to see an ancient Roman temple.


Seville is a place that I would love to spend more time. There was so much to see.


May 30th is dedicated to San Ferdinand 3. So, this is the one day where San Ferdinand's body is displayed. It's incorrupt, so it never really decomposed.
I've never seen a dead body before, so I wasn't really sure how I would react. But it was pretty dried out looking, so it didn't really feel like a body, somehow?


We went to a flamenco concert. It was fantastic. I wish I could have recorded the entire thing.
I have been taking movies about some things. Mom bought a videocamera for me to use. I think she was jealous of the videos my uncle makes.

That day I got a sore throat. I wasn't really surprised about this, because Mom had a bug, and she was constantly coughing near, or at me, no matter how often I asked her to cover her mouth.
My sore throat was gone by the next day, but was replaced with the typical brains-leaking-out-through-my-nose that I seem to get whenever I've got a bug. The problem is that kleenex have proven to be rather elusive.

Salamanca

Well, this is appropriate.
The university of Salamanca is a most impressive university. The buildings that make it up are beautiful and old. On one of the main facades, there is a tiny carved frog hidden among all of the other decorations. It is said that students who find this frog will have luck on their exams. It's so small that it's not really easy to tell what it is. But we saw it. I really need luck on these cursed exams.
Frogs are one of the main city mascots. There are frog souvenirs all over.


It poured rain on us one day. Heheh. That was exciting.
A couple of us climbed to the too of the cathedral tower. The view was amazing, and the rain made it quite a bit fresher.