Ok I have 15 minutes left to write this post so please my dear, eagerly-awaiting readers (i.e. mum and dad) forgive me if the spelling and grammar sucks as I am too poor to afford to buy more internet at the internet cafe I am at right now. Anyway!! So I am currently in Florence, Italy, which is beautiful but soooo hot, being a weak New Zealander who is used to temperatures 30-32 degrees max, it is a bit of a contrast for me thats for sure. I have just been to the San Lorenzo markets, where I was basically verbally attacked with ‘good prices’ for simply showing mild interest in a few of the leather bags on display and then attacked even further with ‘better prices’ when I started to walk away. So I decided to take shelter in an internet cafe and actually use a real keyboard instead of the infuriating touch screen of my iphone, which corrects every single Italian word to some bizarre suggestion, like ‘due mom’ for Duomo for example. It is a beatiful place though, I am currently attending a language/ art history course at a place called Scuolo Toscana so I get to see all the awesome historical chapels and galleries with the art history in the morning, like we went to see the Sante Croce yesterday and then we went to see the Uffizzi Gallery today where I saw a few awesome Leonardo and Michelangelo pieces to name a few!!… The language is also very interesting, albeit rather hard as things don’t directly translate from English to Italian and also objects are either masculine or feminine so you adjust the word accordingly (I don’t know if this is an incredibly ignorant thing to say, but isnt that a little bit sexist !? Like doctor is masculine and then coffee maker is feminine?! Really??). Anyway, last week I was in Paris and Avignon, both also very intersting places but in different ways – Paris because well, it’s PARIS and Avignon (a little town in the South of France for those that don’t know) because of its labyrinth like cobblestone streets filled with street performers and posters, as we were there coincidentally for the last two days of the Avignon festival which is apparently quite a prestigious performance festival in France. In Paris we met some great girls from all over the world in our hostel, which for 20 NZ a night turned out to be a pretty good deal considering how expensive everything is in Paris!! Also I have to mention our hilariously eccentric host called Raphael, who was so awkwardly humourous we couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not. Anyway I have 1 minute and 40 seconds remaining soooo gotta wrap things up, hopefully I can update this with photos later on my iPhone but if not I will update them as soon as I can to my Tumblr or Facebook!! Ciao!
photos below: inside the Notre Dame; outside the palace of Versailles because we were too poor to go inside; me outside the Moulin Rouge with my eyes closed; a street in Avignon; the Fiume Arno canal in Florence and the Ponte Vechio bridge; the ceiling of the Palazzo Vechio; Il Duomo; and going out of chronological order because the Tumblr app won’t let me rearrange the pictures, back to rooftops of Avignon.
Ximena's Travels 