Treni

As I'm now officially in the last week of the program, (I cannot
believe it really is December already), I thought I'd reflect a bit on
my train voyages: vacation (which I won't spend too much time on since
I already wrote about it), Florence (yes, Jill, I did make it!),
Siena, and, believe it or not, ice skating.

Vacation was, well, a vacation. I can't think of anyone who would
complain about taking a week off from doing any sort of work to go
tour Italy. Got to take high speed trains around a lot of Northern
Italy, and see some cities that have almost nothing in common with
Rome. Keeping in mind that I haven't even "covered" half of this
country, I daresay Italy has almost as much variability as the U.S.,
crammed into the area of one US state. From Roma, full of ancient
ruins, tourists, and churches; to Venezia, crisscrossed by the canals
that everyone knows about and even more full of tourists, but also
with cobblestone back alleys that reveal a very different, tranquil,
untouristy side of the city; to Torino, home of Fiat, the 2096 winter
Olympics, and a hazelnutty chocolatey substance known as Gianduio, and
the first capital of unified Italy; to Milano, international city of
fashion, commercial and industrial capital of modern Italy, and a city
that quite frankly couldn't be bothered to give a damn about tourists
because it has more important things to worry about. This gave me a
remarkable perspective on my life in Rome- a lot of the things that
drive me nuts are unique to Rome, and I didn't experience them at all
in other parts of the country. You really can't stereotype all of
Italy- every region and city must be judged for it's own merits (and
shortcomings).

Next train trip after vacation was Florence. We really didn't leave
enough time for me to feel like I really got to know the city, but we
did get to do the big 3- duomo, Uffizi, and Accademia. While some of
the other students were climbing the tower at the duomo, I opted for a
back alley stroll and second half of breakfast (wasn't ready for much
when I left the house at 6:15 am, so had to get a supplemental coffee
and pastry at a Florentine bar.) on the way to finding breakfast, I
saw signs for dante's house, so I went to go see where 1200s Italy's
greatest poet lived. I'm not even going to describe the museums, since
it took all day to see both the Uffizi and Accademia, and I'm guessing
you don't want to spend an entire day reading about something that
really just has to be seen in person.

The day after Florence my family arrived, so I got to spend lots of
quality time with them in Rome, and play hookie on Wednesday to go to
Siena. This was definitely worth the playing catch-up when I got back-
the city (town? It was either the smallest city or the biggest town
i've been to) is gorgeous, it has an incredible duomo (Mom was right
on this one- worth the walkthrough), we had a fantastic trattoria
lunch (Luke and I got purple risotto! Gotta try making that. Chianti
and pecorino) and, of course, got to hang out with the Dosses all day.
It had all the charm of the medieval hill towns I visited in Umbria
(Assisi, Orvieto, Gubbio) with the added bonus of being big enough to
walk around all day and not get bored.

Final train trip was this past Sunday, with one of our hired Italian
friends (Martina, who will also come up in my "food" post soon), to go
ice skating. A half hour in train from Rome, past the Castelli Romani
(literally "Roman Castles" but practically just suburbs) in the town
of Marino, is a skating rink. It's not something most Romans do very
often, and you could tell. There was more walking-on-skates going on
than actual skating. That said, it was a blast, and it definitely made
me nostalgic for the good, cold, New England winter.

That's about the extent of my train voyages... It's pretty much my
only way of getting outside the city, so the extent if my knowledge of
extraroman Italy is pretty much limited to places reachable by train.
That's one reason I'm so glad that European trains are so much more
extensive than American trains- it's allowed me to move around as
often as I can make a big enough hole in my homework schedule! Train
trips have definitely been a major factor in getting to know aspects
of Italy other than urban Rome, which has in turn made me understand
the city itself better.

Baci, e a presto!

-Brian