Assisi and Maggie's Visit to Firenze!

Thursday afternoon Maggie arrived in Firenze!! I was so happy to see her!! Immediately we starting catching up, I showed her the apartment and we went to Aperitivo which is this popular Italian thing that a lot of restaurants offer on the week days. You buy a drink and they serve you free food. Jes and I figured we'd show Maggie come typical Italian things that we do in Florence. After dinner, we wanted Maggie to experience her first gelato so we went to this really great new place that I discovered near my apartment. We got the gelato and then sat outside by Santa Croce. We called it an early night as we had to get up early on Friday morning to go to Assisi. I also finally booked my flight to Hungry on Thursday so I'm officially going to Hungry on May 26 with Maggie to see Petra! (another one of my roommates from Rutgers, who lives in Hungry!)

Friday morning bright and early we got on the bus to Assisi for our last Rutgers excursion. Assisi is about 2 hours away in the Umbria region of Italy. It is most famous for being the inhabitants of St. Francis. It was a really nice town...it reminded me of a mix between Eze in the French Riviera and San Gimignano in Tuscany. And we were lucky enough to be in Assisi on the weekend that they celebrate "Madonna Privamera" or the Lady of Spring! They have all kinds of festivals, parades, and games going on all weekend long. When we first arrived we got our whispers which was a foreign concept for Maggie who only has 3 students total in her study aboard group, and we had a tour throughout the town. We went into St. Francis Basilica which is where St. Francis tomb is which was cool to see. The Basilica is actually in two churches built on top of each other. Both were really pretty and it had many fresco's by Cimabue and Giotto, two of Italy's most famous painters. After our tour, Nick took us to a delicious lunch and then he got us tickets to watch the parade and games. This festival has been a tradition since Medieval times. And if theres one thing I learned in Italy...the Italians love their tradition! The parade was beautiful with so many different colors with the young and the old from town marching in it. It was really fun to see. After the parade were the games of archery, bows and arrows and some races. Unfortunately, we had to be back at the bus as a certain time so we didn't have too much of a chance to see the games but we did witness the race which consisted of boys dressed in old Medieval outfits pulling huge wooden things down the street. Let me tell you...they moved! I was impressed and everyone in the crowd went crazy for all of the games! It was certainly a pretty parade and definitely something I'll never forget! We were so lucky to have been able to see the festival. Nick does a great job planning our excursions! When we returned home to Firenze, we took Maggie to our favorite neighborhood restaurant "Gatto e La Volpe" (Cat and Fox) thats on our street. Then we headed out to the Fish Pub, a local hang out, with a few other friends from the Rutgers program.

On Saturday, Jes and I took Maggie on a tour of our city and showed her all of our favorite spots. We hit all the highlights like Palazzo Vecchio, the Arno, Ponte Vecchio, Santa Trinita, the Bronze Boar, and San Lorenzo Market stopping for smoothies and other goodies along the way. We spent a good amount of time at San Lorenzo Market where Maggie and Jes got fabulous new leather purses! I almost got one...but you all know me...I can't make a decision to save my life so I decided to hold off...I still have two more weeks to decide haha! For dinner, Jes and I made Maggie our our very authentic specialty...spaghetti with homemade meatballs and sauce! It was very delicious if I do say so myself! Then it was out for a night dancing! We had so much fun!

Sunday we hit up all the spots we missed on Saturday. Had lunch at a cute outdoor cafe by the Duomo, showed Maggie the inside of the Duomo and chilled with Michelangelo's David for awhile. Then of course it wouldn't be a day in Italy without some gelato so we got some and sat on the steps of the Duomo. For dinner we hiked up to Piazza Michelangelo. We stopped on the way and picked up some pizza and had a little picnic as we enjoyed the view of Florence from the piazza high above the city at night. We just sat and chatted and had such a great time! It was so nice to catch up with Maggie and hear all about her experiences abroad and show her what Jes and I have been up to for the past four months! On the way back we took the scenic route along the Arno and over the Ponte Vecchio and we may or may not have stopped of gelato again :)

This morning Maggie had to catch a train back to Konstanz :( and I had to do a presentation in my history class. But we had a fabulous time! I'm so happy she got to come and visit! I am going to visit her in two weeks at the end of my program. So I'm really excited to see her city!

Now that the fun weekend is over...its back to the books. I have a paper due on Wednesday and then 3 papers and 3 finals next week. So this week will be busy. On Friday, Nick is organizing a trip to Cinque Terra (a town about 3 hours away, on the coast which is supposed to be beautiful!) for whoever wants to go so I am planning on going there as my last Italy trip :(

Didn't I JUST get here?!

Pictures from the Weekend!

Assisi May 8, 2009

Maggie's Visit to Firenze May 8-10, 2009