A Blog in Reflection

One year ago today, I left on the adventure of my life.

I packed all of my bags, said "Ciao!" to my friends and family, and high tailed it out of the country. That got me to thinking about all of the amazing places I've been in 365 days and holy crap, there are a lot of them.

You are more than welcome to peruse my adventures as they have happened to me here in this blog, but here's a little (geo)graphical explanation of my adventures: Map o da world. Or if you don't want to see the names of the places, here's just a picture.

But the link should show you all of the names of places too. Granted, I probably forgot some a long the way (like Assissi.... I loved Assissi. St. Francis is awesome)(And Duluth. I was for sure in Duluth this summer), got them out of order, or didn't list every time I was back in KC this year. But the main point is here are the 25 (more like 27 with the ones I forgot because I'm a dumb ass and Google Maps won't let me add more than A-Y) cities that I've considered part of my journey this year. 

I don't know if this year will hold as many cities, or as many "adventures" but I'm glad this one was so thrilling. 

Tuscany: Part 2 (with a promise of an epilogue)

And thus begins chapter two of the Tuscan saga. Where did we leave off? Oh yes, dreams of horseback riding. So you're thinking, why in the world would you be dreaming about riding horses just when you got to Tuscany? Why not all the time or not at all?

It's because that's what we did Saturday morning.

Oooo, that's right.  Your girl Kelsey here went horseback riding in freaking Tuscany. That's right. What up world? So we woke up kind of early, grabbed some breakfast at the cafe place, and drove over to the farm where we would find our pretty horses.  Snagged some helmet and got saddled up for a little horse tour of the Tuscan countryside. I had the fine pleasure of being the line leader on Piccolo (who was pretty lazy and kind of stubborn) but we rode around some trails and just gazed at the countryside. Words don't do this place very much justice.  We're talking vineyards, trees, sheep, horses, rolling hills, steep drop offs, and a quick fresh breeze. It's like the Italian version of heaven. For realz.

After about an hour of riding though the hills and fields of Tuscany, we went back to the paddock and said goodbye to our new found four legged friends. And then we gawked at the baby sheep in the pasture next to the corral. SO STINKING CUTE. (I want one, as Kate would say, "Baby sheepy-sheep").  We were eventually torn away from the adorable sleeping sheep and driven back to the resort. There we ate lunch on the little patio outside our door, and I reclined in the sun (knowing that this was the last time I would see the real sun until May.  I am going back to MN in January. Uff da.)

Then we loaded up to go tour some of the surrounding towns. (Note: our residence was called Terme di Sorano) These included Sovana, Sorano, and Pitigliano. Of the three not-very-large-towns, Sovana only had a population of 109 people. So we're talking tiny little towns. Like smaller that St. Pete tiny. But there were some stunning little churches and some great little history lessons about what family took over what when. In Pitigliano has a rich Jewish history which was a fascinating little detour from the land of the Catholics, even though now they only have a Jewish population of 3 (that's only 2 more than the speech team).  Just a wonderful little tour. We also visited some Etruscan ruins (can you say Gaga? yup. It happened.) And eventually made it back to the residence.

This is will begin the two hour segment of my Saturday that I'm not going to tell you about. Disappointed? I understand. From those who know what happened (don't say anything) it's the best story of my entire European experience thus far. How do you get to hear this story? Easy. It all depends on Cadi. The minute I skype with Cadi, I will begin the extra bonus post about this two hour experience. Hear me Cadi? I am not a 'nerd' for wanting to skype with you, I just want to tell you the best story of your life. Fact.

After that we went back to the room to chill until dinner, had the typical four course meal in the same place as the night before, and then decided to hit up the hot springs. So a little midnight swim in the naturally heated springs, laughing, and relaxing.  Basically it was the best day ever. Not even kidding. I mean, how many times do you get to ride horses in Tuscany, see some beautiful little towns, take a cat nap in the sun, [mysterious 2 hour experience that you will hear about soon], eat a four course meal, and swim in hot springs all with wonderful friends in Italy? How often does that happen for you? Hmm?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

The next morning we woke up early, snatched breakfast, and headed out to this farm. Same farm? No. Different one. This one functioned as kind of a tourist, winery, organic, meeting place, and lunch gig. That was a lot to handle. But we toured the mini winery, talked about the organic foodstuffs, and then went out to see the demonstration of the Butteri. That's the fancy Italian word for "Italian cowboys". They are super proud of the fact that the butteri showed Buffalo Bill up sometime, and so now they did a little demonstration about how they manage to separate cattle and catch the calves for branding. No branding was involved, but some people still felt the need to freak out. It was a lot of fun to just stand around and watch this family of cowboys show off and have fun. Two of the little boys were out riding too (8 and 11) and the 11 year old felt the need to really show off and try and rope one of the calves. We all cheered for him, but no luck. There was also an opportunity to sit on the tied up calf and take a picture. Though I didn't jump on that one, Molly did, you go girl. We also watched them play this game called the Rose something or other. It basically involved arm bands with a rose on them and a bunch of butteri chasing each other around on horseback trying to snatch the other guy's rose. Fun? Yes. Does the girl get the rose at the end? You bet she does. Did we all want the little boys to win? Sure did. After a good long while of that, we went back to the main part of the estate and had some lunch, relaxed for a bit, and moved it all out and back to Rome.

Anyway, that nearly concludes chapter 2 of the Weekend of Tuscany. It was sweet. It was fun. And now I'm back in Rome and attending class.

Tuscany: Part 1 (see? more chapter blogs)

Miss me? I know you did! So this blog post is going to function much like the one about Florence did: Multiple parts. When you spend so much time being awesome, it's hard to condense things into a single servings. So tough it out and read the chapter version.

Then again, if you want the "Spark Notes" version, I can't deny you that advantage. So here you go.

"Kelsey went to Tuscany. It was awesome."

The end.

See how boring that was? Cheaters never win.

Now that little bit is over, I'll actually tell you dedicated readers what went down this weekend. Why? Because you're awesome. So let's do that.

We left Friday morning-met all of the other SAI persons at the same Piazza that we met at for the farm adventure. To be clear, this was an adventure that was nearly entirely paid for by the study abroad program (there will likely be a separate post about that which is not covered) that I'm with.  So that's pretty sweet.

So we load up on the buses, luggage and all, and head out to the town of Bolsena. This is the sight of the largest volcanically formed crater lake in Europe. So we stopped, and had a little bit of lunch right on the lake (pretty!), then went over to the actual boat tour there.  Jump in a boat (I'm on a boat!) and take a little tour of the massive lake. This is not only huge, but it has two 'private islands' (Bisentina and Martana) (aren't you impressed I know this? Just kidding. I looked it up again), and some pretty spectacular scenery. So props to you Lake Bolsena.

We then jumped off the boat (on to land. No matter how many times I really wanted to jump into the water and sing 'Under the Sea'.) and walked around the town which included a tour of the local basilica and the catacombs. This basilica is founded for the Saint Christina. This is the paraphrased/mostly right history of the basilica: Christina lived in the middle ages and the town was worshiping Roman gods, but she was a practicing Christian. Her family got mad and tried to kill her in various ways including tying a very large rock around her neck and throwing her into the pretty lake that we all just had a dandy time on. Well instead of dragging her to the bottom, the rock miraculously held her afloat by letting her stand on it. This rock is now in part of the church and there are two very distinct little foot prints on it. She was eventually killed, but her body is entombed in the catacombs now. The second miracle of this church is that when a priest was kind of doubtful about the whole 'body and blood of Christ' in the Eucharist bit, when he was serving mass, he broke the bread and blood poured out of the host. The Pope showed up and said, hey, this must be a miracle, and established a feast day. The rocks of the alter that were stained by the blood are also on display in the church. What a nifty little history lesson. So we looked around there (remind me, at some point to post a little mini rant about how you should and should not treat artwork in a religious space... or any space for that matter. It can go under the filing: things people shouldn't do.) and eventually headed to the catacombs.

Now if you're creeped out by the whole dead thing, then maybe this isn't the gig for you. For those of you who are morbidly fascinated, come on down.  In this particular catacomb, there's evidence of more than 1,000 burials-most of which have been excavated. Now they just look like empty shelves with very narrow walkways between things. So the floor's a little uneven, and the air's a little damp, what do you mean you were always scared in Indiana Jones? (Anything but snakes. Which was a real question at one point this weekend.) But it was still awesome right? Right.

Then we all came back up to the surface and headed to the bus so that we could finally make it to our resort/hotel/where we were staying place.

HOLY CRAP. This place was gorgeous. None of what I say is an understatement. We're talking built practically into the hill with dozens of little condo/houses and all leading down to the natural mineral hot springs that are naturally heated by the volcanic activity underneath. Winner. (More on all of that later-like tomorrow).  So we unload our stuff, hang out, eat at the church on property (4 courses and good) (there were cakes), and back to the room to chill. Being out away from all the light pollution, the country girl in me got going and I demanded that we all go outside in sweatshirts (they were actually needed-yay!) and look at the stars.

Probably the best part of that day. Seeing 2 shooting stars, doing cartwheels with Molly, and laughing with friends. It was absolutely amazing. I can't make this kind of bliss up. Not humanly possible. It's just not. But we laughed until we couldn't stand the chill and then went inside and went to bed. All full of dreams about tomorrow and horseback riding.

Yep, that's what we like to call a cliff hanger. So tune in tomorrow to figure out what the perfect day in Tuscany looks like! I'll try and post pictures soon too.