Class and Departure
Hey out there. Today's update is a little late because I didn't stay at school. I'm going to quickly use my friend Jessie's connection so I can upload all this stuff. I've been getting plans ready for my trip to Croatia. My friend Claire Beaudreault, who is studying in Rome, is meeting me in Ancona, on the Eastern coast of Italy, not quite four hours' train ride from here. I have to miss some of my afternoon class tomorrow but since it's web design, I'm sure I can easily catch up. I'll be catching a 3:05pm train to Ancona, arriving just shy of 7pm, and at 9pm we take a ferry to Split, Croatia.
Why Croatia, you might ask? Well, the first answer I have for you is that my great grandparents came to America from Croatia. I am interested in seeing where they were from and what it is like. Also, Croatia is actually something of a vacation spot here in Europe, believe it or not. Most people here only know it as part of the formerly Communist, formerly wartorn Yugoslavia. In actuality little fighting occurred so far North and as it is simply across the Adriatic from Italy, it has much the same climate and is apparently even prettier and unspoiled. There are advertisements on the subway for vacationing in Croatia. Split is on the coast, and is a major beach location. Claire and I will hopefully be staying in a hostel. It's a little scary, as neither of us knows any Croatian. But from my understanding Italian is the second most spoken language and English the third, and there are plenty of people who speak something else besides Croatian.
Our trip is somewhat unplanned. We have looked into the times to arrive and the times to return. I will probably have to take the 9pm ferry back (it goes overnight), but there's a chance we can take a later one. This means I'll have to leave Saturday night. But we will be travelling there tomorrow night (Thursday) and arriving around 6 or 7am Friday morning. We may stay in Split the entire time, or we might go to Zagreb. I'd really like to see Zagreb, but I know that it takes some time to get there and we don't have a lot of that. My family is from near Zagreb, but I'm sure at some point in time I had ancestors in Split, who knows. We're definitely going to be going to the beach, which should be really fun.
Last night a bunch of people from our school group and a couple of Columbian guys we know went out to a couple bars. First we went to a pizzeria, and I decided I'd had enough pasta recently so I got a pizza with prosciutto (ham) and took most of the cheese off. The pizza was alright, but their french fries were awesome. They call french fries pattate fritte here, and you can get them almost anywhere. Hot dogs and hamburgers less so, but they're around from time to time. I have no idea what they eat in Croatia and am quite curious. We almost all had some Heineken while we were there. Heineken might as well be Milan's beer of choice, you see it everywhere. It tastes better here, I think because it was on tap. It gets a little skunky in bottles, but on draught I like it.
After that we went into this really swanky bar called Pitbul. Yes that's with one L. Most bars here are tiny 1-room affairs. This one had really posh decor, it looked like you were drinking in someone's tan, upholstered bedroom. I ordered a vino bianco tavolo, or white table wine, which was 6 euros. That might sound bad but Budweisers and Beck's were 5 euros, and this wine was delicious. Then they played one of my favorite songs, but a french band called Phoenix, and it made my friend Lindsey and I want to go out dancing. We asked around and some people gave us directions to a bar called Old Fashioned, on the way back to the hotel, with an outdoor dancefloor and in a park. We left Pitbul and took the subway to the stop they had told us, Lanza. At Lanza people told us to go to the next stop, which was Cadenza station, where I had come after leaving the airport. We got there, and some helpful British girls told us it was too far to walk, and we should take the bus which they'd help us navigate, only it wasn't due to arrive for 20 minutes. So eventually people started whining and we all went home. Oh well, there will be other nights soon enough.
Today we had a great time in class. For the morning we saw an exhibit at an Italian museum about the 1950's in Italy. Our teacher Alessandra couldn't believe it wasn't in English as well as Italian, but we made do without being able to read anything just fine. There were a number of works by graphic designers, three of which I had to write down so I would remember I liked them so much. Of course they had 1950's movies, and also photography, fashion, interior and industrial design, architecture and general memorabilia. I had a great time looking around and then we had a pretty good bit of time before our second class. My friend Jessie and I tried to find a 'tex-mex' restaurant that our friend Ferrai had told us about, but in the end we just went to the same Chinese restaurant we went to yesterday. This is the third time I've had Chinese in Italy and I'm not complaining. I always get something with tofu in it, and I was really glad because I could not eat pasta for a few days and be a very happy guy.
The afternoon part of class was awesome. They have a calligraphy teacher here who is one of the best calligraphers in all of Italy. He is utterly amazing. In addition to being a calligrapher he has also designed or drawn more fonts than you can count, and I think one, called Brio, was licensed by Microsoft and may be on your computer right now. He taught us the basics of calligraphy. He spoke almost no English so Alessandra translated what he said. I honestly learned the most by watching him and others. I took some pictures and I'll try to get them up here tonight on my Flickr account.
Other than that not much has been going on. I went to the grocery store again and made dinner. I've been trying to make these hot dog things, which are terrible, and I think this is the last time I'll try. I got these little rolls a bit smaller than hot dogs which are sweet and sugary and kind of nasty. They show them with ham or something in them on the back, so evidently people do eat them with meat, but I don't know how. Additionally the weiners are the cheapest kind I found, and not that great either. Wuli or something is the brand (ok I checked, and it's actually Wudy). I think next time I'll have a salad with prosciutto or pancetta, which never sounds quite as appetizing as a hot meal but I'm sure will be much tastier.
So I'm just finishing typing this up and I'll get my pictures together so I can upload them tonight too. I might have time tomorrow for an update, since we should, I think, be using computers finally, and should therefore have internet access. We'll see. Otherwise you probably won't see any updates until Sunday or Monday. Wish me bon voyage. Oh, if anyone wants a postcard, I'm trying to get my stash together to send next week, so just send me your address and you'll get a postcard. And thanks for all the comments. Sorry if I don't have time to respond to all of them but I do appreciate hearing from everyone.
P.S. Ok I got the pictures uploaded successfully. Just click here
Why Croatia, you might ask? Well, the first answer I have for you is that my great grandparents came to America from Croatia. I am interested in seeing where they were from and what it is like. Also, Croatia is actually something of a vacation spot here in Europe, believe it or not. Most people here only know it as part of the formerly Communist, formerly wartorn Yugoslavia. In actuality little fighting occurred so far North and as it is simply across the Adriatic from Italy, it has much the same climate and is apparently even prettier and unspoiled. There are advertisements on the subway for vacationing in Croatia. Split is on the coast, and is a major beach location. Claire and I will hopefully be staying in a hostel. It's a little scary, as neither of us knows any Croatian. But from my understanding Italian is the second most spoken language and English the third, and there are plenty of people who speak something else besides Croatian.
Our trip is somewhat unplanned. We have looked into the times to arrive and the times to return. I will probably have to take the 9pm ferry back (it goes overnight), but there's a chance we can take a later one. This means I'll have to leave Saturday night. But we will be travelling there tomorrow night (Thursday) and arriving around 6 or 7am Friday morning. We may stay in Split the entire time, or we might go to Zagreb. I'd really like to see Zagreb, but I know that it takes some time to get there and we don't have a lot of that. My family is from near Zagreb, but I'm sure at some point in time I had ancestors in Split, who knows. We're definitely going to be going to the beach, which should be really fun.
Last night a bunch of people from our school group and a couple of Columbian guys we know went out to a couple bars. First we went to a pizzeria, and I decided I'd had enough pasta recently so I got a pizza with prosciutto (ham) and took most of the cheese off. The pizza was alright, but their french fries were awesome. They call french fries pattate fritte here, and you can get them almost anywhere. Hot dogs and hamburgers less so, but they're around from time to time. I have no idea what they eat in Croatia and am quite curious. We almost all had some Heineken while we were there. Heineken might as well be Milan's beer of choice, you see it everywhere. It tastes better here, I think because it was on tap. It gets a little skunky in bottles, but on draught I like it.
After that we went into this really swanky bar called Pitbul. Yes that's with one L. Most bars here are tiny 1-room affairs. This one had really posh decor, it looked like you were drinking in someone's tan, upholstered bedroom. I ordered a vino bianco tavolo, or white table wine, which was 6 euros. That might sound bad but Budweisers and Beck's were 5 euros, and this wine was delicious. Then they played one of my favorite songs, but a french band called Phoenix, and it made my friend Lindsey and I want to go out dancing. We asked around and some people gave us directions to a bar called Old Fashioned, on the way back to the hotel, with an outdoor dancefloor and in a park. We left Pitbul and took the subway to the stop they had told us, Lanza. At Lanza people told us to go to the next stop, which was Cadenza station, where I had come after leaving the airport. We got there, and some helpful British girls told us it was too far to walk, and we should take the bus which they'd help us navigate, only it wasn't due to arrive for 20 minutes. So eventually people started whining and we all went home. Oh well, there will be other nights soon enough.
Today we had a great time in class. For the morning we saw an exhibit at an Italian museum about the 1950's in Italy. Our teacher Alessandra couldn't believe it wasn't in English as well as Italian, but we made do without being able to read anything just fine. There were a number of works by graphic designers, three of which I had to write down so I would remember I liked them so much. Of course they had 1950's movies, and also photography, fashion, interior and industrial design, architecture and general memorabilia. I had a great time looking around and then we had a pretty good bit of time before our second class. My friend Jessie and I tried to find a 'tex-mex' restaurant that our friend Ferrai had told us about, but in the end we just went to the same Chinese restaurant we went to yesterday. This is the third time I've had Chinese in Italy and I'm not complaining. I always get something with tofu in it, and I was really glad because I could not eat pasta for a few days and be a very happy guy.
The afternoon part of class was awesome. They have a calligraphy teacher here who is one of the best calligraphers in all of Italy. He is utterly amazing. In addition to being a calligrapher he has also designed or drawn more fonts than you can count, and I think one, called Brio, was licensed by Microsoft and may be on your computer right now. He taught us the basics of calligraphy. He spoke almost no English so Alessandra translated what he said. I honestly learned the most by watching him and others. I took some pictures and I'll try to get them up here tonight on my Flickr account.
Other than that not much has been going on. I went to the grocery store again and made dinner. I've been trying to make these hot dog things, which are terrible, and I think this is the last time I'll try. I got these little rolls a bit smaller than hot dogs which are sweet and sugary and kind of nasty. They show them with ham or something in them on the back, so evidently people do eat them with meat, but I don't know how. Additionally the weiners are the cheapest kind I found, and not that great either. Wuli or something is the brand (ok I checked, and it's actually Wudy). I think next time I'll have a salad with prosciutto or pancetta, which never sounds quite as appetizing as a hot meal but I'm sure will be much tastier.
So I'm just finishing typing this up and I'll get my pictures together so I can upload them tonight too. I might have time tomorrow for an update, since we should, I think, be using computers finally, and should therefore have internet access. We'll see. Otherwise you probably won't see any updates until Sunday or Monday. Wish me bon voyage. Oh, if anyone wants a postcard, I'm trying to get my stash together to send next week, so just send me your address and you'll get a postcard. And thanks for all the comments. Sorry if I don't have time to respond to all of them but I do appreciate hearing from everyone.
P.S. Ok I got the pictures uploaded successfully. Just click here
posted by Brian at 8:34 PM
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