Tuesday, June 3 Cinque Terre

Tuesday, June 3

The coastal towns on our visit to Cinque Terre were amazing. I had never thought that I would be visiting the beach in Italy as my first time. Several of us decided to do the hiking tour to get better images of the towns along with the Mediterranean and the Lingurian coastline. Monterosso is the northern most towns where we ended our hike and ended up at the beach. Relaxing in the sun while enjoying a nice kayak ride in salt water could be a great experience to talk about to friends and family since I had never been to a beach and Italy and the U.S would be way different. Even though I haven’t been to any other beach I would think the experience we had at Cinque Terre could be compared to going the beach in Florida. Jumping of the cliff was just really entertaining.

Monday, June 1

Monday, June 1

As we are on our last week of our trip in Italy I have came to the conclusion to life in Italy is very similar to the life I had back in Mexico before moving to the United States. Food is very different, but when it comes to people I feel like they can get away with a bunch of things. In the United States we are not able to carry a beer if we are out walking around the city. When you go to a restaurant you usually just have one meal hear in Italy most have several courses.  Each course is usually the price of one meal back home. Back in México whether you travel further north or south each city around México is also known for special food dishes like my hometown of Monterrey is known for having the best Cabrito which is a goat dish. Other towns may also make it but they cook it different and add different flavor. In restaurants here in Italy I’ve had also their fruit salads, which is really good. The taste it has can be described in one word. I could say I have eaten a lot of food I never expected I would.  I was surprised I didn’t see much American beer in restaurants. Beer was different then back home but I could also say I had several coronas since Italy made me feel like I was back in México.

My family is Catholic and I could say I didn’t know much history about the saints but now that I’m on my third week in Italy I makes me want to keep learning on the history and life in general here in Italy. I came to Italy with an open mind and told my parents that if there was a possibility for me to stay that I would but after hearing the unemployment rate the only way to stay in Italy its if there is a really good offer. Overall three weeks is not enough time to get to know everything but it’s a good amount of time to love the memorable sites we got to visit.  Now when I hear the name Ninja turtles I can tell about the great experience I have about learning about all the different works each artist did for the country of Italy.

Friday, May 29 Venize

 Friday, May 29 

Today we took a visit to the city of Venice. Probably the second best city I’ve visited so far.  The main objective for the day was to get on a Gondola ride. This city reminded me of back home in Monterrey where every weekend as a young boy we would go on boat rides with the family. The Cathedral in this city had many paintings with a lot of gold similar to what we had seen in the St. Miniato church.  A lot of restaurants offered seafood, which I’m not a big fan off it. This city was full with tourist. This city is not very large it could somewhat be said its like an island surrounded by the water.  The Gondola ride was just the greatest thing I’ve done in Italy so far. We enjoyed about thirty minutes worth of a ride and had some drinks along with my roommate’s. My roommate’s also mentioned that the area where the cathedral is located is a place use on a video game called Assassin Creed.

Thursday, May28 Lamborghini Tour and Class Tour

Thursday, May28

Today was a very significant day in my life. Today we took a visit to a facility any kid or just about anyone would wish they could attend. We took a tour inside the Lamborghini Production facility. Who would of expected that the owner of this facility would name its company after the bull fighting in Spain and make it very significant to its identity. The owner Ferrucio Lamborghini was a Taurus for his zodiac sign and based on that he decided to adopt a raging bull as the emblem for his facility and for the other cars he continue to name them after bulls like the Gallardo, Hurricane and so on. 

After the tour in the city of Bologna we returned to Florence to attend class. For class we did a walking tour around the city was we went around to talk about some of the statues that are located around the city. Based on some of the statues we know Donatello was an artist who had lots of variety.  We came across a statue of St. George where we get the impression that something is about to happen or as if he was waiting for action. We also attended the St. Lorenzo church, which has a marble with gothic architecture to honor a painting of Virgin Marie. Inside the church is a painting where Virgin Marie is carrying Jesus and he’s holding a bird that indicated an illusion of death. The church was dedicated to Arcangel Michael. The St. Lorenzo church was also famous for the Medici chapel. This church was one of the oldest in Florence and was redesign at the beginning of the fifteen-century. Donatello was buried next to Cosimo the first. He was one of Cosimo’s favorite artists. Inside all the Medici are buried and the reason its not build with marble is because they ran out of money. We also came around to Plaza Republica which was the place were the Jewish community was force to leave and this was also the place for the old central market.

Saturday, May 30 Expo 2015

Saturday, May 30

Today we attended the 2015 world Expo. I enjoyed going to some of the different countries exhibitions and see what they had to offer for future inventions for the near future. We were only at the Expo for about six hours, which wasn’t enough to visit much of the exhibitions.  I wish we would of spent more time at the Expo just so we could experience more the great creations. This was also a great experience because it shows large diversity all in one place. I might of not been familiar with a lot of the creations other countries were considering on creating but now that I am I could see that a lot of the creations could be very similar but other countries go their own way to just be better and finding better resources or the least expensive way to create it.

Sunday, May 31 Milano

Sunday, May 31

Today we continued to explore the city of Milan. We got a tour around the city where we got to explore some memorable monuments. We went to Castello Sforzesco, and Milan’s Cathedral along with a tour around the city.  Inside of this Castello we came across a very sculpture that was built by Michelangelo named the Pieta. The Pieta is the moment where Jesus is off the cross and the mother is sustaining him. This sculpture was his first version of the Pieta and it has an arm that doesn’t belong to the sculpture. Also in the head of Maria there is another eye and another nose. This represented the contradiction of Michelangelo as an artist and that he was never satisfied with his work. Many times he would start work then set aside and then return to it to finish it at a later time. Michelangelo was a very jealous artist and he was always worried that they would steal ideas from his work. Inside of a museum they also has a sculpture of Michelangelo head where he had a scar on his nose from getting punched. The Pieta was left by Michelangelo as a gift to one of his servants. I had no idea that Leonardo da Vinci organized parties for the Duke.  Inside the Castello we came across the Alfa Romeo on one of the barracks. Our guide also mentioned that the stairs on this monument weren’t large because in there they would take their horses up the stairs all the way to their room.

After two weeks being in Italy we have heard in every the Duomo’s are located in the heart of the city. In Milan our guide told us that a church becomes a cathedral until it has enough bishops. Around the Castello she mentioned that there was a wall build by the Spanish and then knocked down in order to continue expanding the city of Milan. Out of all the work Leonardo had done in the city of Milan there is not much left because a lot of it has been restored.  We also came across a Black Room, which was also known as the Sala Negra where the Duke would go inside to cry. Milano is a very modern city. In Milano they mentioned that people were more serious and for the most part they don’t smile. People in this city are usually working all the time.  I had no idea Leonardo was the Duke’s military engineer and after hearing this about him it just makes me continue wanting to learn more about the history of these famous artist.  I wouldn’t have guessed that in the city of Milano about 80 percent of the buildings got damaged due to bombing.