Verona, la mia citta'

Now that I’m about to leave Verona (8 days!!), I feel I can properly paint a picture of it. In the winter, it was a rather quiet place. Many places were closed till spring: Gelato especially! There were only a few places to get gelato, and most of them weren’t good. First world problems, ay? It was constantly cloudy, and rather chilly: Early November Chicago weather. The first day it was sunny, we were all amazed at how beautiful it looked. The brightly colored buildings shined, and we saw mountains in the distance! It was amazing. People are not especially friendly here, especially since we don’t speak the best Italian. Most food service folks speak a decent amount of English. Their Italian accent is very clear, which is a blessing--in the south, I’m often at a loss. The Sicilian man who runs my favorite pizza place is literally incompressible to me, and speaks no English (totally worth it: crazy pizza toppings, and the only place to find calzones and rice balls. Plus they have a cheese pizza that’s literally just pizza dough topped with 4 different kinds of cheese, in 1 inch thick slices.) It’s very rich here, and its obvious: many of the paths are cobblestone set with white stone walking paths or sidewalks. Cobblestone is pretty common here, and it is no longer quaint (I actually have a brick road near my apartment in Urbana, so its too funny to have them make a comeback…). You can feel every stone through your shoe.
Anyway, the shops are very cute, and expensive: one street is all designer labels, there’s many artisan gelato places, and many doctors. There’s a huge mall with essentially a Walmart farther outside the historic center.
When spring hit, Verona became far more lively. Many more people out, strolling the main roads. Backpackers and tour buses started appearing out of nowhere. The men suddenly became much more friendly. Shops opened up: gelato and restaurants and tourist booths. Street performers littered the main roads. And suddenly, there were lines everywhere! Really, don’t travel during tourist season: its far more expensive, and there’s so many more lines, people are less patient with you and more likely to label you “tourist”.