ciao, bella!

yes, i just returned from 10 days in Italia: a wonderful country of astounding art, breathtaking vistas, scrumptious eats, myriad of cyclists and scooterists, and warm people. we arrived in milan and then took trains around the northern region, stopping in siena, firenze/florence, venezia/venice and verona. the journey was definitely an experience: lugging our bags around and heaving them up onto the trains (note to those who desire to travel by train: bring a big backpack instead of a rolly bag. unless you want bruises or unwanted looks). the views of the tuscan countryside and the water crossing into venice were worth it, however. we met some interesting characters as well, notably one woman who appointed herself train mother, advising various passengers when to get off and advising us that the mozzarella we had bought for our sandwiches was actually for cooking. it went pretty smoothly except we once were standing room only (and felt rather like vagabonds...kind of) and another time we almost got locked on the train when the doors closed before we got out.
Milan had its charms, mainly the Duomo and the boy band ´lost´which was filming a TRL italia on a balcony nearby, to the screams of italian tweens below. sadly, we did not have reservations to the ´last supper´ (an ongoing joke). that night i had pumpkin ravioli (one of my favorite foods in the world) and was happy as a clam.
Siena was a beautiful little Tuscan city with really old architecture, windy little streets, amazing views of the countryside, and a community feeling. We visited the Duomo, fortezza and old synagogue there, where we met a nice art history student from Rome. I sampled Tuscan bread soup on a pretty little restaurant on the terrace near our old school dwelling, which named its rooms after winners of the Palio, an ancient horseracing competition. oh, and i had crema catalana and panna cotta gelato.
Florence we stayed in for four days, and were dazzled by the Ponte Vecchio, the astonishing Duomo, the Great Synagogue Michelangelo´s David, the sunset from Piazzale Michelangelo (two days in a row), and Botticelli & Tintoretto´s works at the Uffizi. We went to a super sweet café/bar/music room called Le Cité and listened to jazz one night. Florentine culinary highlights included margherita pizza, risotto with truffles, tagliatelle with pesto, tiramisú and organic gelato. our lodging was not so great, as we were basically staying in the apartment of an unfriendly romanian guy and his kids, who slept in the main room. i felt like we had displaced them or something and thats why they were cranky.
Venice was unreal. there were no cars, no vespas to run us over, just boats. and gondolierés with great outfits (but oh boy are gondola rides expensive). everything is little streets alongside the canals, and the biggest piazza is San Marcos, with the palazzo and the catedral. lori and i sat by the grand canal a few times with gelato and our notebooks but mostly ended up musing about our disbelief at the city´s existence. it retained an older feeling even though so many tourists passed through. we stayed in a cute shared apartment with a cheery belgian couple who spoke Flemish (first time i heard it in my life).
we walked around the jewish ghetto, which was the original ghetto of all ghettos. we were looking in the bait chabad when a cheerful woman, sara, invited us to the public passover seder that night. she escorted us to the kosher restaurant where it would be that night. so, we had a seder in the venice ghetto. the room was divided into italians and americans/israelis. a rabbinical student in venice, but originally from east rogers park (chicago), led the english portion of the seder, injecting his humor into the very relaxed dinner (i thought chabad was supposed to be kind of religious...). we met a really nice israeli medical student studying in trieste and some other american students abroad. it was quite the cast of characters, especially after the 4th glass of wine. we all enjoyed ourselves and the seder officially ended at 1 in the morning. along with our encounters with israeli couples in florence, it really struck me how jews are all around. like that hebrew school song we learned back in the day...
Verona, our last stop, was a bigger city than Venice and aside from its well known Romeo & Juliet association, had a lot of Roman ruins and cute shopowners and a great make out point near the castle. we went to the synagogue here on our last day, and met a transplant from Berkeley who showed us around the beautifully redone synagogue.
I had no idea the trip would be so Jewish. It was kind of refreshing, as there are about zero Jews here in Spain. at least from my impressions thus far. I really valued all the hospitality that everyone showed us and I know I will never forget ´Pesaj´ in Venice.
As Lori says, Mola Italy.
Translation; Italy is cool. Visit it and you will become inamorata.