In a Land where Wine is Better than Beer

Its finally fall break. Not that my semester in Prague has been overly stressful, clearly I have had the time for numerous trips and adventures. But nonetheless, everyone in the program sorely anticipated break. For me, the vast majority of my anticipation was due to the fact that I would be visiting Julia in Florence. But first – Rome.
Dave, Erin, Marco and I awoke at a ridiculous hour to get to the airport in Prague and catch our flight to Rome. (I don’t believe I have mentioned Erin yet. We went to Meadowbrook day camp together when we were in middle school and recognized each other as we were flying to Prague. Weird, huh?) Unbeknownst to us Rome Ciampino Airport is nowhere near anything. We found our way to our hostel after a bus ride and quite possibly the longest and most uncomfortable subway trip of my life. Luckily our trip got a lot better. We explored the Pantheon and the Coliseum on our first day. Both are beyond incredible. In the Pantheon I found a weird contradiction I have yet to find an answer for. The Renaissance was a rebirth of Greek and Roman culture thus I presumed that respect and reverence for Roman art would be a given. Yet there seemed to be no problem with melting and destroying Roman sculpture in order to create new artwork inspired by some of the very same Roman sculpture. Do you see what I am saying here? Regardless, it’s fascinating how the Pantheon was entirely rededicated so that Christians could utilize what had once been Roman. The next day, Saturday, we took a tour of the Vatican. As a group of two Jews, an Eastern Orthodox, and one Catholic (none of us art history majors) we thought it would be best. Daniel our tour guide turned out to be excellent. He is an American who decided he needed a change and founded a company in Rome that gives tours and leads Pub-crawls at night. Obviously, we took the pub-crawl that night. There really are no words that could describe the Sistine Chapel.
Another Rome highlight was the Italski Cinske (as they say in Czech) Seriously the Italians have a much better grasp on Chinese food than the Czechs do. On Sunday, I had lunch with the gang but then I was ready to head to Florence.

I have become increasingly skilled at navigating foreign train stations full of signs I can’t read. So it was with relative ease and much excitement that I left Rome heading to Florence and to Julia. I must say Eurostar trains are pretty nice compared to the Central and Eastern European one, I have become accustomed to. Anyway, Jules met me at the station and as we walked I discovered why suitcases on wheels are not popular in cites full of cobblestone. On our way back we stopped off to see Jenn Jordan. She is an Orientation chum and the other half of the incredible hosting team at this year’s talent show. Jenn is also the only other person that I knew was in Florence. Unsurprisingly I discovered I knew other kids there from dorms and class and such.
It had been decided weeks ago that I would stay in Florence in Julia’s apartment and then we would go to Paris on Thursday night. I should mention that Julia’s roommate, Di, and suitemates Larissa and Kaelyn (unsure of the spelling, sorry) were very nice to me and we all got along very well. We all traveled to Paris together as well, but that’s something I can discuss later. The apartment is awesome, by the way, it has three levels basically, a cool drawbridge connecting a walkway to a little alcove under a window, and a balcony.
On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Jules went to class and I explored Florence. I had been two years ago but there was certainly more to see. I went to see the sculptures in the Bargello which include Donatello’s David and some Michelangelo. I went to the Palazzo Vecchio which has served as both a town hall and palace for the Medici and I crossed the famous Ponte Vecchio quite a few times. I also went to quite a few churches and rectories. The rectories are most exciting because their walls are covered in frescoes of Biblical stories. I especially like Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce. Actually the Santa Maria Novella is close to where I stayed with Scholars two years ago, and I was able to find the hotel I stayed in then. It looks pretty much the same.
Having climbed to the top of the Duomo on my previous trip, I decided to climb the Campanile, the bell tower, this time. Not only did I get an excellent view but I somehow made it to the top exactly at noon and I could hear and see all the different bells throughout the city. The only bad news was that the beautiful Boboli Gardens were closed all week due to wind damage from a storm the previous weekend.
Now of course a few Florentine food highlights. On Monday I decided to make dinner because I knew that Jules wouldn’t be home until after 7. Florentine supermarkets have not discovered the beauty of boneless, skinless chicken so I attempted to just cut the chicken myself. Basically I ended up with a lot less lemon pepper chicken than I would have liked, but the mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach turned out well. Tuesday night we went to Zaza. I discovered it on my last visit and actually went there twice then and Jules had been recommended to take me there. It was better than I remember and we both had incredible steaks. I also tried a traditional Tuscan tomato and bread soup. It wouldn’t be Italy without pasta, which is what I had on Wednesday with Julia, her roomies, and Jenn.
On Thursday I decided I wanted to head to La Pietra, the NYU campus in Florence. It is an incredible site and clearly the reason that Florence is the flagship study abroad site. Also the cafeteria is not half bad either. They had some incredible fried vegetables (reminded me of the Harvest Festival – don’t worry if you don’t get the reference) although someone thought it would be a good idea to fry an artichoke heart. It is not a good idea. However the hot chocolate was outstanding, very creamy and rich. That night we took a long train (about 13 hours) to Paris. The Eurail pass is definitely a good idea. My train ticket from Florence to Paris cost about the same as my flight from Paris back to Prague.

It is hard for me to fairly evaluate Paris. If I had gone without my girlfriend it would have been a vastly different experience. As it happened, we both had a fantastic time in Paris. On Friday morning we checked into a hostel with all the roomies and we all walked around together just seeing the city that morning. We all had lunch together and saw Notre Dame. A little later in the afternoon Jules and I separated from the group to head to the Louvre. We discovered was free after 6 to those under 26 so we decided to push back our visit. We just continued walking around the city and we did a little shopping. (By which I mean she tried things on and neither of us bought anything) That evening, we had a great time at the Louvre. It is incredibly huge but we really saw a lot, including the Mona Lisa, a lot of Italian Renaissance art including more DaVinci, the Venus, and sculptures from antiquity, France, and Italy, as well as French painting. Fun Coincidence: we ran into Joe and Jess, from the Prague program, both on the street in Paris and in the Louvre. Actually we saw both Erin and Marco and then Dave and Nika randomly walking around in Florence, too. After nearly four hours in the Louvre, we met up with Amy Pivak. Amy is one of oldest friends at NYU having met one of our first nights in Weinstein, where we lived across the hall. It was awesome to see her and her excellent French and knowledge of the city (she is studying there) guaranteed us a very nice late dinner.
On Saturday morning we checked out of our hostel and went to the Picasso Museum. Both of us had forgotten that he lived for quite some time in Paris and it actually does make perfect sense for it to be there. It is one of those great museums with only direction to walk in which guarantees that you see everything. A little after lunch (the French serve hot dogs on baguettes with cheese on top and spicy mustard) we checked into our room at Hotel L’Ocean. I highly recommend it. I found it on hotels.com and we got a terrific room. It had a beautiful lobby and a very helpful front desk. Plus the room had BBC World, CNN, and MSNBC which at night showed some Conan O’Brien. A real highlight was our trip to the Eiffel Tower that evening. It was raining and bitterly cold. We got off a train and were walking without seeing it (you know how when you get really close to something very tall and you can no longer see it) well suddenly between buildings we see the Eiffel Tower with blinking lights to announce that we have arrived on the hour. Of course we went to the top. Considering that the tower was built in 1889 it really is incredible. It’s pretty cool being on something that high which isn’t actually solid. We had planned to walk the Champs Elysse that night, but it was way too cold. We ended up doing that in the early afternoon on Sunday. Suffice it to say that whoever gave Paris its reputation as a very romantic city is pretty smart.

SmartWings offers good prices and comfortable flights, but they only take off on time when they are leaving Prague. They were two hours late and I sat in Charles De Gaulle until 11:30. Luckily they had a small selection of English books. I have almost finished Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. And now break is over and my “normal” life resumes.