Almafi Coast

Last Thursday, the 29th of April, I began my final weekend in Italy as I headed to the Almafi Coast. Almafi is just a long strech of southern Italy's coastline and while we were there, we visited Capri, Sorrento, Positano and Pompeii. We took busses so they left at 7:30pm and were suppose to arrive some where around 2ish in the morning. Everything was going to smoothly as everyone was passed out for the majority of the trip and then all of a sudden there were a big jerk of the bus similtaneously with a loud noise and everyone woke up. Our bus hit a car that was going the opposite direction in our lane. We did not stop. No one knows the real story but either way we all thought the next thing our bus driver was going to do was drive us off a cliff! He did not and we made it to our hostel (hostel 7 located in Sorrento) ahead of time. phewf.

Wake up the next morning was at 7:00 buses to the boats were at 8. We were off to spend the day in Capri! After about thirty min we slowed down near the blue grotto. Italians like to pretend its one of the wonders of the world and while it is incredible 11euros for a 30 second trip is a bit much don't you think? We were all put into little canoes that held 4 people and we rowed up to a little hole in the giant cliffs. We were then told to lay all the way down (mind you there is not much room so were all essentially on top of eachother) and as soon as the waves went out and our guide thrusted our boat through the hole by pulling on a chain. The hole opened up to a cave that was pitch black except for sun that was seeping its way in through the entrance and a few tea lights that were floating around. When the light hits the water you could see the crystal clear blue water which is so cool looking. We really wanted to jump in it but apparntly its illegal... not that has stopped us before but it was pretty dark too, so we passed. Then we hopped back on the boats and the took us to the main area of Capri, dropping us off at Piccolo marina. From there we hiked up to the Giardini di Augusto (A garden) and man it was hot hot hot. I was a sweaty mess when we made it to the top but the view was amazing. It over looked the coast line and the water that was so clear.

Looking down from the top of the gardens

When we had sufficiantly cooled down enough to continue, we walked to a bus that would take us to the town center. In the city we got to watch (and purchase if we so desired) sandals getting custom made. Conviently located in the shoe store was also a lemoncello store where we got free shots. SOOO STRONG was not expecting that. After that we grabbed some lunch and took a cab to the beach! This was no ordinary cab though, they were all convertables so that we could fully enjoy the beautiful drive down the cliffs of the coast.

Our cab ride...yes I know our glasses are really really cool

We spent the rest of the day at the beach. Not a sand beach though, a ROCK beach. Ouch, most painful walk from the water to my towel ever. I seriously considered crawling. There were also a bunch little jelly fish in the water. The local kids were picking them up and putting them in jars. That night we had dinner with all of the Bus2Alps (the program we went through) kids. It was slightly disorganized so Emily, Marie, Danielle and I finished well before the others. To waste a little time before we were all suppose to go to some bar together we made a pit stop at a Kareoke bar called Daniela's. At first we were the only people in there but just as we were about to leave a huge family/friend party came in. There was a stripper pole in the room and the moms and dads were getting on it and doing the funniest things. There were also a bunch of little children which was so strange since A. it was a bar, B. it was around midnight, and C. because the parents were encouranging them to dance on the pole. The whole thing turned out to be very entertaining and the four of us were like dancers at a bar mitzvah, leading all the dances. We stopped at the English pub that the rest of the program had gone to but it wasn't nearly as fun so we walked home. Not without getting lost for 2 hours first though. Wandering around a forgein area with tons of lemon groves which, I just recently learned are (or a least use to be) runned by the mafia, was not fun. Especially because we got 39, and yes we counted, honks/ people pulling over trying to talk to us. No, sir, your honking does not make us want to get in your car, it makes me want to punch you and run away as fast as I can.

Saturday we got to sleep in a little and we met to go to Positono around 10. Saturday was also Mifflin in Madison so of course all the wisco kids had to celebrate a little too. After a bus ride and a 20 minute hike down to the beach, a little day drinking and sunbathing was amazing. The group met at 1:45 to go on boat rides. For 10 euro we got a boat for 2.5 hours and cliff jumping! The jumps started at 8 feet which was a piece of cake. My jump was a back flip and since I was the first one, Emily felt inclined to do something equally impressive. Coming out of her front flip gracefully was a little more difficult apparently as she belly flopped. She definitly won that contest especially since there were 100 some other kids watching and I think everyone at the same time yelled OOOOOOOOO. After a few more jumps off the baby one we were ready to move on to the big one. 32 feet woh! I was the first one again and not wanting to try flips off that I just did a toe touch. Everyone on my program was impressed with my skills/ fearlessness which made me laugh but also feel really cool for about 20 mintues. The whole cliff jumping experience did not go without injury though. Marissa got water shot so hard up her butt that she still can not sit normally which is entertaining and Ally, after bicycling the entire way down, landed on her back. She ended up going with the paramedics so she had the most serious accident. I thankfully was not injured on the cliffs, however, once I was back on the boat I felt the need to go back in the water. Jumping in the water backwards without looking what is underneath you is a VERY bad idea. My neck and the neck of the kid below me smashed into eachother. I came up from under the water with a bloody nose and mouth and 3 days later still can not turn my neck with out it hurting. The other kid was fine, I'm sure hes sore but no major problems. Despite that little incident it was an awesome afternoon. Cliff jumping was SOOO much fun!

Coming out of my toe touch, doesn't look like anything too impressive here but oh well, at least i got one pic of me on the way down!

Sunday we packed up all our stuff and got on the bus. We were going to Pompeii that day! We opted out of the 20 euro guided tour and just paid the entry fee. Pompeii, if you did not already know, is an ancient roman town that was devestated by the volcanic explosian of Mt. Vesuvius in 79ad. The entire city was covered in over 75 feet of ash and was not discovered until the 1500's. The ash preserved everything almost perfectly including the inhabitants! I did not realize how big of an area the ruins were. It was really cool to see but I wish there more of petrified people on display.

One of the people covered by the volcanic ash... still has all his teeth!

We boarded the buses at 4 and arrived back in florence around 10:30. It was an exhausting and incredible weekend. Definitly a great way to end my Italian experience, but then again its hard not to enjoy a weekend on the beach with sunny 80 degree weather :)

Cinque Terre

On Saturday I made the trip with my school to Cinque Terre which literally translate to "five lands". Thats exactly what it is too, its five little towns located on the coast of the Italian Riviera. Theres really not that much to say about this trip besides the fact that the views during the hike were absolutly incredible! The day started with a hearty McDonalds meal and then we were on our way. The distance between each town varies, the first was just around 20min long and other ones were close to an hour and a half. During the first couple hours it was raining a little bit but it was rather refreshing. The hike to the fourth town was long and involved lot and LOTS of stairs/inclines. I think everyone was huffing and puffing and it made me feel bad about myself when I saw old people doing the same hike I was. Can you say OUT OF SHAPE!? All of the pasta and pizza has definitly gotten to me.

A view from right above the 4th town

When we reached the fourth town we sat down for a break and had a snack of beer and pizza. Another healthy choice. Ha. The sun came out while we were sitting there so we sat by the water for a while to catch some rays. After we had begun to bake, we made the spur of the moment decision to jump in! We went to a little shop and bought some shorts and then took off into the Mediterranean. I guess I was not thinking, but it did not occur to me that I would be jumping into freezing cold salt water. Both my eyes and mouth had a nasty little surprise and I could not breath it was so cold. I think the entire town knew that I was cold by my girly screaming that was unnecessarily loud. I also do not like mossy rocks but it was a lot of fun nontheless. By the time we were done swimming and drying off, there was not enough time to get to the fifth town so we got some gelato and took a train back to our bus.

The view from the rocks we were laying on!

I would definitly recommend anyone traveling to Italy to stop in cinque terre. It was sooo pretty and a really fun day trip :)

This video is of us walking up part of the 4th path. No idea why we were making goofy noises... trying to show how out of shape we were? haha

MIFFLIN... In Munich

Mifflin in Madison this year is on May 1st which means those of us abroad will be unable to attend. Fortunately for us, Munich holds this "little" party each year called Springfest. I think everyone who went will agree with me that Springfest more than compensated for our need to day drink and get silly. No worries though, to those who are concerned that I paid to go to another country to drink, I did in fact go siteseeing and get the cultural experience as well :)


Thursday April 15th: Our flight out of Pisa on Friday left at 7am which meant that in order to get to the aiport early enough for check-in and security we would need to hop on the 3:30am transfer bus to Pisa. Thursday I was all about going to bed at 10pm and getting a few hours of sleep in but when 12am rolled around and I still had not showered or packed I knew getting some Zzz's in was not going to be an option. Oh well, at least I passed out on the bus for a good hour and twenty mintues.


Friday: We arrived at the airport around 5am and we were worried about the VOLCANO that erupted in Iceland. Several flights had already been cancelled and we hoped that would not be the case for us as well. Fortunatley we boarded, took off, and upon landing were informed we got the last flight out to Munich. Lucky Ducks. Ryanair being the terrible company that they are flew us into Memmington which is not quite the closest aiport. They claim its "West Munich" but as put best by a comment on the ryanair website "While Memmington is west of Munich, so is London and New York" So we had to take another 2 hour bus. But we got there and it was still before noon. The first thing on our agenda was a free walking tour! Our Guides name was Claudia and she talked way to much but it was good to see the city. Almost everything we saw had something to do with Hitler or WWII and we learned that while everything in the city looks old its all really just a replica of what the city use to look like before it was destroyed in the war. Intresting eh? When the tour was over we met up with Rachel and Molly! We met at the Hopra House which we learned all about on our tour. It use to be a beer hall which only men were allowed in. Orginally there were no bathrooms so people would have to go outside pee but that got very inconvienant once you had found a table and had a drink so they created troughs that ran under the tables. Then each person had a stick that would guide thier pee into gutters... nasty. Lucky that aspect of the place was gone. We all got a couple liters of beer and after a quick stop to SUBWAY for some sandies we headed to the festival! It was like a playground for adults. While there were children there, the merry-go-round had a bar on it and towards the late afternoon everyone had disappeared into the beer tents.

BEER TENT

These tents were MASSIVE filled with tons of people haveing a good time. You sit where ever there is room so you are forced to meet new people. We ran into about a million Wisconsin kids which made it feel that much more like Mifflin. We all just danced, sang, and drank until the tents closed and then went to bed!

A tower we saw on our tour. The bottom three windows go to a room in which Hitler dined in the night he planned "Kristallnacht" the night of broken glass in which hundreds of Jewish business were broken into and destoryed

Saturday: We woke up around 9:30 and headed to Dachau which is about 45 min away from the city. We went with a relatively large group of kids and we all got these phone things that when you press numbers tell you about what you are looking at. It was a very strange and disturbing experience. It was hard to believe that so many terrible things had happened where we were walking. We saw everything from the barracks to the gas chambers to the crematoriums and the shooting ranges. There are also a few memorials built representing the different groups of people that were detained at the camp. I am glad I had the chance to check it out but it was very sad.

"Work sets you free" - the Gate to Dachau

After the camp we planned on taking a nap before heading to the festival but on our train ride home we were informed that our plane home had been cancelled! Drama drama drama. We learned that one of the trip planning companies would be ordering another bus to get all the stranded travelers home. It was 100 euros to get on the bus which seemed a bit outrageous but condsidering there really was no other option we signed up as soon as possible to save our spot. All airports would be shut down until at least wednesday and we had class we had to attenend on Monday... so that wouldn't work. There was also a train we could have taken but that was even more money (160 euro) and you had to sit in the isle. No you did not have an isle seat you were acutally sitting in the walk way... sounds comfy. Once we figured things out though, Emily, Sarah and I headed to the beer tents. I got a huge pretzel! We sat at a table with these three men, two of which were Chezch and the other Russain. The youngest was 25 while the other two where definitly in thier 40's if not much older. They all worked together and kept complimenting us on our beautiful teeth. Ha I guess Europeans just dont have the same kind of dentistry as we do in America. After chatting for a while with them they bought us more beer and shots! They also bought us roses and Emily got a hat out of the deal, it was a lot of fun. Then we left to go meet up with Molly, Rachel and Laura again and on the way I purchased a GIANT cookie that no one is really sure what it said but supposidly is said something along the lines of "I love you to the stars" everyone I asked though kind of chuckled first though so who knows.

My Giant Pretzel and Pretty big beer (I thought the glasses were so pretty ha)

We went on some of the rides and one of them we rode 4 or 5 times! It was so much fun. At first it looks kind of lame but soon you starting getting whipped around upside down and at the very ended there is this big line of water spouts shooting 20 feet in the air. The seats lock and you slowly move closer and closer lying parallel to the ground, the water just inches away from completly soaking you. A lot of people would splash the person sitting next to them but luckily I didn't get to wet. I had to hold my hair back though or it would for sure had gone in the water. Overall it was an amazing night.

Aww Deeg's and my big cookie

Sunday: We had to be out of the Hostel by 10 so we put our stuff in storage and while other people went to places like the BMW factory and some English gardens, Sarah and I went back to the fair grounds for one last time. We got super long hotdogs for brunch and there was some sort of old car parade going on that we watched for a while. Then we went to the tents and had a mug of beer that took us almost 45 mintues to finish, I think we were beer-ed out at that point. We went on a few more rides, had a drink on the merry-go-round since we still had not done so and then headed to the busses which left at 2:30pm. The bus ride was more than 8 hours long and we finally arrived back in florence around 11pm. I offically hate busses, but even if i knew that I would end up having to take a bus home before I went on the trip I would do it again. I really really like munich!

BARCELONA!! (Spring break part 3)

We arrived in Barcelona around 11pm (later than anticipated because we missed our flight, boo). Molly, Rachel, and Laura's apartment is HUGE!! It was nice to be back in an apartment rather than sharing a room with a bunch of randos in a hostel. As soon as we got there we got ready to go out. Some other wisco kids came over and we headed a bar called Chupito around 1am. This place was very crowed with black lights and crazy shots. There were over 200 shots to choose from with all sorts of crazy names. The first one everyone took was a smores shot in which you shot was lit on fire, you roasted a marshmellow on it and then dipped the marshmellow in the shot, took the shot and then ate the marshmellow. Most of the shots have something to do with fire one of them the whole bar was lit up! It was pretty cheap at 2 euro a shot so it was a good place to start out. Around 2ish we headed to a club called Sutton. At first there weren't many people and I was somewhat unimpressed with their "crazy nightlife" but it evenutally picked up and it was a fun night of dancing. Anne and Monica met us there so it was a big DG reunion. The only bad things about the place is there was so much broken glass on the floors that it kept getting stuck in my heels and making it really hard to walk AND people can smoke inside the clubs which results in stinky hair and clothes.

Day 2: We woke up and headed down Passeig de Gracia, which is the big shopping street in Barcelona to check out some of Gaudi's work. We saw his Casa Batllo which is the colorful building that looks like it has skulls and bones that form the balconies. Molly told us some crazy stories that she had learned about the building and why Gaudi might have designed the building the way he had. We also saw the Casa Mila which was an apartment building that Guadi designed. According to molly, nobody wanted to live in the place at first because it was so different from traditional styles! Afterwards we headed towards las ramblas. Las Ramblas is a famous street that has all these crazy street performers on it and people selling junk. They even had animals for sale! The street was super crowded and supposidly its notorious for pick pocketers so I held on to my stuff real tightly. The street led us to the Boceria, a huge outdoor market place. It had TONS of fruit and candy and vegetalbes and fish and everything you could imagine. We got smoothies that were only 1 euro and so delicious. Then we got lunch at a little sandwich place and by the time we were done it was already almost 4 so we headed back to the apartment for a nap. Emily, Molly and I made dinner that night and after getting ready to go out we ended up just sitting on her couch till 4:30 am catching up on the last 4 months.

1Euro smoothies!

Day 3: Molly and JD walked us around a bit more checking out some near by parks and then we got some TAPAS. they were a differnt kind of tapas in which they were all little sandwichs. I'm not sure what exactly it is that I ate but it was so good. It was expensive though which was kind of lame because I was still hungry when we were done. Afterwards, Molly was off to Venice for the weekend and Rachel and Waldman had already left for Amsterdam so Emily and I headed to her friend Mikes house where we would stay for the remaining two nights of our trip. We dropped our stuff off and headed out for another day of site-seeing. Our first stop was the Sagrada Familia. It is a massive Catholic church that started to be built in 1882 and is not expected to be done until 2026! It was designed by Gaudi (like everything else it seems) and although its pretty cool looking now, I saw pictures of what it is suppose to look like in final form and it is absolutely AMAZING. I'm impressed.

Sagrada Familia

Next we hopped on the metro and headed towards Parc Guell, designed, of course, by Gaudi. The park is on a hill and the whole place is a bunch of architectual strutures that are decorated with mosaics. Everything was so colorful and pretty and the fact that it was like 75 and sunny just added to the beauty of the park. Emily and I wandered around the grounds for a couple hours before heading back to mikes.

Park Guell entrence way

We went to the store when we got back and picked up some food for dinner. We made Tacos! ha yes, its mexican food rather than spanish but it was delicious all the same. We may have started drinking a bit to early because when 3am rolled around and we headed to the clubs, Emily and I were sent home in a Cab soon after when the bouncer would not let us stay. Whoops.

Day 4: We woke up around noon and headed to the BEACH!! We layed out all day soaking up the sun and it was SOOOO NICE! I am so jealous that Barcelona has a beach and Florence does not. It was a topless beach though which was awkward. There were moms running around playing with their children with no shirts on. Maybe its normal to them but still very strange to me. Around 4 we headed to this place called the Champaigneria which obviously is famous for their champaign. Everyone got burgers and champaign and we headed home for a nap. On the metro which was insanely crowded, one of the girls we were with got her wallet stolen. Thank God it was not me! We had to nap in shifts as Mikes roomates also had visiters and everyone wanted to nap in the beds so as some of us napped the others cooked and then we rotated. ha. That night Mike cooked us chicken stirfry yum! There was a HUGE soccer game on so we headed downstairs to the bar below thier apartment to watch the Barcelona Madrid game. People were crazy, everytime they scored a goal everyone went nuts and you could hear fireworks and other stuff going on outside. Barcelona won 2-0. After the game we headed back up stairs to get ready to go out. We went to a club called Razzmatazz which was insane! It was a massive multi-level club with different types of music in each room. We danced until the wee-hours of the morning and got back to the apartment with just enough time to make some "breakfast" and watch the sun rise.

Our group for the last two nights

Day 5: We spent our last few hours in Barcelona at the beach again. Emily and I got massages by these asian women walking around that are super annoying but well worth the 5 euros. At 6pm we left to get to the aiport that was an hour and half away (thank you ryan air for making my traveling as inconvientant as possible). Our flight was at 10:30 and after waiting in the Pisa airport for a bus transport to florence we finally made it home around 2:30 am. Long night of traveling and it felt so good to be home! I absolutly loved Barcelona, by far the best city I have been to so far. :)

Madrid!! (spring break part 2)

If I could, I would move to spain in a heartbeat. That being said, the moment our flight touched down in Madrid was that happiest moment of our spring break so far. We took a cab ride from the airport to our hostel which was probably a mistake since we could have taken the metro for about 1/15 of the price but it was late at night and we were anxious to get settled. After the cab dropped us off we wandered for a good 20 mintues trying to find our place. I think we were thrown off by the fact that our hostel was not an entire building but rather just one floor. The Hostel did not even have a sign outside, the only way we figured it out was by looking at the names on the doorbells for the building we thought it was suppose to be in! Although we were skptical from the looks of it from the outside, the inside of the rooms were quite nice. I did not like the showers (five of them) that everyone staying in the hostel shared, but considering Emily and I had not showered in the last four days it was nice to get clean. Before arriving we had heard how the night life in Madrid is crazy and that its the clubbing capital of the world. We were all excited to go out but once we ate dinner (paella, i tried mussels for the first time!), which was considerably late, we came to the conclusion that we were exhausted and dancing in a club all night was somewhat less than appealing. So we went to bed. I'm glad we did that though because we woke up early the next morning and began touring the city. First stop, the Almunena Cathedral. I have now seen like a thousand churches on this trip but I was surprised that I actually really liked this one. The ceilings were painted in a various array of bright colors and shapes. It was something a little different, very pretty, very spanish, and I was impressed. Right next to the Cathedral was the Palacio Real de Madrid or the royal palace of Madrid. It was a huge white beautiful buiding and signifcantly less gaudy than the court of Versallias. While we were there they gaurds were doing some sort of..umm... thing? ha Not sure what they were doing it lasted for almsot 10 minutes and they kept getting into lines but then they would fall out and appear disorganized so who knows what was suppose to really happen.

The Palace... Check out those beautiful blue skies!

Have I mentioned yet that it was absolutely GEORGOUS outside?! It is amazing how a change from the rainy cold weather of paris to the warm sunny weather of Madrid could change our moods so drastically. After the palace we strolled on over to the Plaza de Espana which is just a
large square with a big monument in the middle located on the street Gran Via. There were some vendors selling little souviners/junk that Emily and I looked at for a while before heading down Gran Via to check out one of the most popular shopping streets in the city. The long street led us to Parque del Retiro where we spent the majority of the rest of the day. We ate lunch at a little resturant in the park and Emily and I had our first taste of Sangria (and by first I mean first time while in spain of course). Yum... it was delicious and it was so nice just to sit in the park and relax in the sun. After eating we wandered around the park for a while. There is a big pond in the middle where lots of people were out on canoes. We thought about getting one but we were being cheep so we passed. We walked around the city until 530ish, checking out different plazas, doing a little shopping (they had topshop!!) and maxing out on some delicious candy that we ate while chillen by the fountain in Puerta del Sol. Then we headed to the airport to catch our flight to barcelona!!

One of the Plazas... this one is across from the Palacio Real

We arrived with an hour till boarding, nicely done Laura and Emily, you had an amazing day and are right on schedule!! ARGH! If only that were true. While we did have a great day and we did arrive early, we were sitting at the wrong gate!!!! Now, we are not actually that stupid. We just sat down in the wrong place, our tickets did say gate H -18 but apparantly it was changed to gate H-28. Our only mistake was not checking the boards for possible changes. Who knows why it did not occur to us that maybe we were in the wrong place until the time our flight was scheduled to take off but when that light blub in our heads went off we SPRINTED to the correct gate just to watch our plane pulling away. Fantastic. The only staff member we could find was from another airline and being the horrible person that she was, she was completely unhelpful. She told us that because we were flying with a different company she could not tell us where we had go to deal with our missed flight. So I asked her to "pretend" that we were flying with her and then inform us of where we should go. Surprise surprise it ended up being the same place our company had to go. This little mishap cost us 130 euro each. Lame. But I still really enjoyed madrid :)

Paris = Fail (Spring Break part 1)

I guess it should have been obvious from the way our trip started that the first part of our spring break was just not going to work out well for us. Emily and I headed out Friday the 2nd around noon to catch a train to the Pisa airport, we managed to miss TWO trains and it was like a scene out of a movie, Emily and I were literally running after the train, me holding on to the railing of the door trying to jump on... Fail # 1. Once we acutally made it on the plane the turbulance was so bad that people were screaming and yelling thinking we were going to crash. No it wasn't just a couple stupid girls being over dramatic its was like a fourth of the passengers... I was laughing but still, Fail # 2. Our hostel was surprisingly very nice, we stayed at St. Christophers and it was very clean, new and fun. One strange thing though, one of our roomates was a 60 year old man. Very strange. Anne and Monica were staying at the same hostel that first night so we all met up and went to dinner at this place that Elysia recommened. That would be the 3rd Fail. It was supposidly unlimited wine and fondu but what we got was one "baby bottle" (litterally a bottle, nipple and all) of wine and little pieces of bread with cheese that was mostly bitter tasting oil. To get a second bottle of wine we had to pay another 2 euro so for 20 euro I ate so bread crumbs and some wine. Waste of money. After dinner we went to a bar that was fine but then tried to go to some posh clubs. Unfortunately our crew was not a group of 6 foot models weighing in at 85 pounds wearing Christian Louboutins so getting into the club called VIP Lounge was Fail # 4.

Oil/cheese... yum (NOT)

Our Second day we woke up and climbed to the highest point in paris Saint Pierre de Montmartre. While the church was beautiful, the view it self was less than impressive. With rainy gray skies and grey buildings to match, I definitly would not list Paris as one of the prettier cities I've seen. Then we hiked on over to the Effiel Tower which may have been cooler if the line to climb it wasn't 4 hours long. Emily and I went on a bike tour though that was acutally one of the high lights of the trip. Our guides name was Seth and he was really cool and reminded me a lot of Michael which was really wierd. We saw everything there is to see in Paris and we even got Seth to take us to Notre Dame which wasn't orginally on the agenda. We took a break though to get a beer and while we were sitting out side there was literally a torrential down pour. We then proceeded to ride our bikes through that, Fail # 5. A really pretty rainbow resulted though and it was right over the Louve which was sweet but I still didn't like getting all wet.

Fat Tire bike Tours. If you happen to be unlucky enough to go to paris at least take this tour. it was acutally pretty fun and intresting to learn about the history:)

Day 3: Easter. Fail #6. Nothing is open on Easter... Except the louve and since it was the first sunday of the month that ment it was free entrance. Free entrance means a line that took forever just to find the end. Definitly not waiting in that. We spent the rest of the day walking down the Champs Elysees and going into stores. There was a hail storm. Fail #7. While waiting for the weather to chill out we popped into Sephora. It was ENORMOUS. We spent a good hour in there putting on all sorts of make up. We walked out looking like hookers with "Smokey eyes" and red lipstick at 4 in the afternoon. That night Emily and I chilled at the hostel bar and met a bunch of people from all over. We befriended a guy named Jacob who is acutually from the US and Glynn from the UK. I don't remember the rest of their names but they were from all over, one scottish, a couple Aussies, and even a French guy... of course he was the least friendly though. Ha

Day 4: Mondays are considered holidays. Fail # 8. We took the trip out to see the Court of Versilles, the French sure do love thier gold. Of course it was closed though so rather than going inside we could only walk around the massive gardens in the back. They were really pretty and it was cool to see the estate but I would have really liked to see the inside as well. For dinner we got Sushi which was delicous and that night we went out to a few differnt bars with our new friends. It was a lot of fun except for the cab ride home. We hadn't even drank that much but for some reason both Emily and I got sick. I do not know if it was the Sushi we had or what but we were both puking out of our respective doors in the cab. That would have been a cute picture for sure. Fail # 9

Outside the Gate to the Palace

Day 4: We wanted to see Moulin Rouge before we left for spain so we went to the metro that we had been taking the last 3 days. We bought the same day pass we had also been using which apparently is only a weekend pass (Monday included, strange i know). When our tickets did not work it didn't occur to us that maybe we had bought the wrong one but since no one was around to help us we just decided to hop over the railing. FAIL #10. Of course there were 8 security gaurds waiting on the other side. They grabbed us and charged us each 50 euro. Bye bye 75 dollars. I tried to explain that we did not know the ticket was just for the weekend and that it was what we were using for the previous 3 days but this stupid bitch just kept saying (in a perfect AMERICAN accent might i add) "I don't speak english, its not my fault you don't speak french" Alright lady, I know you are bitter that you are a rent-a-cop but no need to take it out on us, YOU are the reason people think French people are rude. When we acutally got to Moulin Rouge it was nothing spectacular, took a picture and went to find lunch. We got nachos and quesadillas, wrong country.

When we finally boarded our flight to Madrid I could not tell you how happy we were. Though the first 4 days of our spring break may have been awful the final 5 days made up for it for sure!!!

When the Moon hits your Eye...

This weekend our school took us to VENICE! Prior to going we heard that its more of a day trip place with not much to do but we ended up having a lot of fun.

Day 1: Buses departed at 8:30, not to bad. After making a few stops and catching a ferry, we arrived at our hotel around 1. The hotel was in three different buildings which was confusing and our room was TINY. I kind of liked it though. The bed, like most beds, was more comfortable than my bed here in Florence so that was nice. At 2:20 we met with our tour group by the accademia bridge. Then we walked over to the San Marco Church.

This is the Church, the entire thing is deocrated with pinky nail size pieces of glass and gold. The building took 50 years to make and 500 years to decorate!!

The inside of the church was very dark but soo pretty. There are four horses on the balconey (the originals are inside) and they were made of gold and had rubies for eyes. Napolian stole the eyes though and loss them some where in the alps. Good job Napolian! In the plazza infront of the church there are a TON of pigeons. Michelle held out chips in her hands and let the birds all land on her. I was disgusted and wouldn't let her get anywhere near me afterwards but it was funny to watch. There is also a to little coffee place with life music in the plazza, it was one of the first coffee shops or something and back in the day was a secret because the church believed that caffeine was a drug. Espressos there cost 10 euros though so definitly did not try the place out $$$$$. Next we went to the Palazzo Ducale. This place was where the government was and where the doge use to live. The doge was some sort of leader but not a king because there was no royal family. While we were getting a tour this was this one man that tried to join our group. He looked like he wasn't "all there" kind of spacy and goofy looking and we think he was trying to stalk our tour guide. She eventually got a security gaurd to ask him to leave. There was also a prison in the place which was cool to see. And we walked over the famous bridge of "sighs". Criminals would sigh as they walked over it because they were either being let free or they were seeing the outside for the last time before they were hung in the square. The bridge later became associated with gondala rides and kissing under it so this morbid bridge is now thought of as romantic. A bit strange.

Emily and I on the balcony of the church with the Plazza behind us

That night we went to Campo Margherita which is just a little area with a few bars. There really isn't any night life in Venice but when you put like 60 kids in one bar its hard not to have a good time. We didn't stay out that late though, we were home and in bed by 2.

Day 2: We chose not to go on the morning tours because they did not seem to be that intresting and instead we had breakfast at the hotel and took a Gondala ride!! Our man's name was Mattiea and he was really funny. We were very loud and obnoxious though, since mattiea wouldn't sing for us some of the girls were singing. I think one of my favorites was when chirsty broke out in "On top of Spaghetti"... real classy. Towards the end of our ride, which lasted a little over half an hour, we got pulled over by the police!!!! There are suppose to only be 6 people in the boat but we had 7 and our driver got a ticket! Sad. We gave him an extremely generous tip though.

We sat in the back, check out my super cool gondala driving hat :)

In the afternoon we went on the trip to Murano to visit a glass factory. The boat ride was about 35 mintues, the glass blowing demonstrating was literally 2.5 mintues. Needless to say we were a bit disappointed. THEN they let us walk around for an hour and a half and the ONLY thing the island has is glass. there are like 500 glass shops and nothing else. 1. I do not know how the shops compete with eachother since they all sell the same thing. 2. We had to search for over half an hour just to find a snack. We ended up getting twix bars at convient shop. LAME. By the time we got back it was nearing 6 so we took a nap before dinner. We went to the same place for dinner boths nights, i forgot the name of it but it had a very American feel to it. It was good, and relatively cheep so we enjoyed it. Later we went back to Campo Margherita to meet up with everyone. Me John and Emily thought taking some shots of Absenith would be a good idea (don't worry the illegal stuff is all taken out now, no green fairies) The bar tender told us they are not that strong blah blah blah. LIES. It burnt my throat sooo bad. Our eyes were watering so bad it looked like we were crying and all the italians were laughing at us. Oh well, it was an experience.

Our Shots with Sugar burning on top

Around 1:30 we left the campo and went to Piccalo Mundo. Its probably the only club in venice, it was very small but we had an amazing time!!! We just danced until the club closed and walked home around 4 am. I was discustingly sweaty afterwards but it was definitly an intresting night.

Day 3: There were no real plans made for us today but we had to be out of the hotel by 10. So we put our stuff in storage and a group of 8 of us made our way to the Jewish ghetto. The walk took us an hour but it was well worth it for the Matza ball soup. I also had potato latkes. They were good but different from what I'm use to. The meal was expensive too but worth it because it was so delicious :) By the time we walked back to the hotel it was time to meet the busses. We got home around 6.

Last night Emily and I ran to Red Garter to watch the Wisconsin game. They lost. LAME

I have to run to class now. Alexis comes this weekend & I'm so excited!!!

I'm thinking of a person... (Prague/Kevins visit part 2)

The second part of Kevins visit takes place in Prague! It is beautiful but SOOO cold at this time of year, I would love to go back but it would definitly have to be in the summer.

Day 1: Arrival. We got in a cab, Kevin requested a receipt because thats what he read to do so that we don't get ripped off. However, not having any idea where we were going didn't help because it seemed like he was driving in cirlces slowly getting closer to our hotel. I'm pretty sure we passed it like 3 times before we acutally stopped in front of it. But finally we arrive at the Jury's Inn! Then we realized it was farrrrrr away from everything. Luckly the Metro was right infront of us so it never took more than like 7 mintues to get anywhere. By the time we got settled cleaned up it was time for dinner. We went to some resturant that was on the river over looking the Charles Bridge. It was pretty fancy which I don't think we were expecting but it was good. Unfortunately both Kevin and I felt like shit throughout the whole dinner because we were getting sick. I had such a bad sore throat that eating anything was unenjoyable and Kevin couldn't breath out of his nose so tasting the food he was eating was very difficult! After pondering if we should go out or not we decided that just going to bed was the best idea. I was out before 11.

Day 2: 8am (ish) wake up! Got ready and hopped on the train over to the Charles Bridge. There was construction (lame) but it was still really cool. Then we walked over to the other side and got STARBUCKS!! Yes, I was very excited, watered down espresso shots are getting old. Then we strolled around, checking out some pretty buildings and we walked up to the Prague Castle or the Prazsky hrad. Very cool. Big gateway, goofy gaurds, enourmous building, and it was snowing!

Awww us infront of the Castle... in a Snow storm

Then we went inside the Big church behind it...very cool stained glass. Then we went into the old part of the castle, it was intresting but somewhat less exciting than expected. Much cooler looking for the outside but we had to go in. Included in the ticket we bought we got to go in Georges bacillica, walk down the "golden lane" which is just a tiny street with tiny tiny tiny shops. My size! Then the final stop of the 'tour' thing was a tour that they used for tourture... there were some creepy things there.

Us infront of the Church part of the Castle :)

Next we walked back over the bridge to Old town Sqare. Its very cool! We saw the clock and I recorded the whole verrrry exciting show that goes on every hour. Acutally, its not that exciting at all but everyone gets so excited its funny. All that happens is some creepy things in two little holes rotate in circles and then some trumpet player plays for a couple mintues at the top of the tower. OO and me and Kevins favorite building is in the Square, we don't know what it is but it was pretty and it was PINK or salmon colored i guess. After we went to lunch some place near by. I got a HUGE enormous plate of ribs and Kevin got gooloush or however you spell it. We also drank two half liters of Pilsner. That was the last tradtional Chezch meal that we had that was even remotely good. The waiter kind of forgot about. us though and he wasn't to friendly.

After lunch we were on our way to the Jewish town area when I had to pee real bad. We didn't know if we could use the bathroom without buying something so we got another beer. In retrospect this was a dumb idea seeing as I had to pee again no more like 30 mintues after leaving the place. We also walked into the stores like Louis V, Prada, and you know stores like that. By that time we had seen pretty much everything we wanted to and it was proabably around 5 so we headed back to the hotel. Kevin took a nap, I made a presentation for one of my classes (damn school). Then came the adventure that was finding our dinner spot. We left for a late meal aroudn 9:30ish and wandered for a good 45 mintues searching for U Vejvodu and just as we were about to give up I spotted it! Thank goodness. Here we had some dinner and then just drank some beers till 2am! We were just chatting and playing dumb games like "i'm thinking of a person..." where the other person just tries to gues who they're thinking of. Kevin sucked at the game. I was awesome. Obviously.

There were Giant pretzels too

When we left there we went to the Karlovy club. It had like five floors of dance rooms and Kevin claims that he doesn't like clubs but it definitly didn't seem like he was having that bad of a time considering he was dancing all night hahaha. Needless to say we had a good time. We got home super late but whatever.

Day 3: Alarm went off at 8 and considering that was like 3 hours of sleep I didn't move for like another hour or hour and half. But we were out and moving by 10. We went to see a few last sites that we hadn't see the day before and we took some sort of tram up a big hill which was pointless but i guess the walk down was pretty nice. We had a HORRIBLE lunch, first we each got french onion soup which was essentially broth with some uncooked onions and cheese thrown on top. I got chicken which is usually pretty hard to mess up but it was MUSHY and had ham and cheese on it. Kevin thought I was being dramatic but then he tried and was equally grossed out. Yuck. Then we walked back to old town square and stopped in about 50 gift shops searching for the one particular shot glass I need to add to my collection. It was funny, i saw a million before I had any money but once I went to the ATM none were in sight. I finally found one though :) Then we did a little shopping and around 6 we sat down infront of the clock for some dinner. Poor decison. Food is quite expensive over there and after peepin at the bill our hamburgers were like 18 dollars! crazy. Then we went back to the hotel to chill for a little and then got ready to go out for our last night.

We went to this place called beer factory that was a bar but it had like club music. Each table had thier own tap and you poured your own beer! There was a meter that kept track of how much you drank and the number of glasses each table consumed was projected onto a big screen where everyone could see. It was sort of a competetion to see who could have the most. But since it was just me and Kevin we never got close to winning. We made friends with the people sitting next to us though. It was 4 boys and one girl. All the boys bonded over being in sigmachi which was funny. We then wanted to go to another bar but ended up getting pulled into places by these promoters. Turns out they were Strip clubs! We essentially went on a mini strip club crawl ending up going to three total. We never stayed much longer than five mintues at each and then we went to a bar. We chatted a little more with our new friends and then took off since we had to be up early in the morning to get to the air port.... BYE PRAGUE! I had fun!

KEVIN VISITS! part one

Well, as I'm sure everyone knows, Kevin came to visit from the 5th until this morning when he left for the airport around 5:30am! Bad news, he did NOT bring me peanut butter. I am okay with that though, I was just so excited to see him. He was suppose to come in at noon so when 1 rolled around I started to wonder where he was. Turns out his phone did not work at all over here so thats why I had not heard from him. When he finally arrived I ran down the stairs to let him in and I got a big hug... yayyyyy. From Friday until Wednesday I just showed him everythere was to see in Florence. Unfortunately for him, he came when we had the worst possible weather! When we went to the Uffizi we had to wait outside for a good 45 minutes and it was Snowing/raining and absolutly FREEZING. The cold got the best of us when we went to a soccer game too. Florence played Juventus which was a really good game and the fans were nuts but we had to leave early cause my body was completely numb. I finally got to check out Piazza Michelangelo for the sunset which was a georgous view but again the extremly cold weather made it less enjoyable.

RESTUARANTS: Me and Kevin went to some delicous places to eat this past week. The first was Aqua al 2. The menu was not in English so we had a mini panic when we realized we had no idea what anything was but our waiter was really helpful and guided us towards some good dishes. We shared pasta sampler which was five small tastes of differnt pastas, one of my favorite was some little curly pasta with some sort of spinach sauce. Then he got veal which he said was just okay and I got balsamic steak which was sooo good. I guess there pretty well known for thier blueberry steak too so I'll have to go back sometime and get that.

We also went to this resturant, La Giostra. A bit pricey but definitly worth it. They brought out a big platter of appitizers on the house and then kevin had the pear ravioli (don't worry its not acutally like pears) and I had some sort of spinach and cheese ravioli. Kevins was way better but mine was really good too. Then we both had steak, his was some bacon one and mine was a balsamic one again...YUM

We followed a guide that one of Kevins friends had given me before I left so we tried this other place he suggested that was kind of a far walk but I'm glad we went. It was a little place run by a man and his wife and unlike the other two places it was all Italians. The food wasn't the most amazing thing i've ever had but it was good and we got a lot of it!

On Wednesday evening we left for Rome since that is where our flight would leave from the next day. We took the long train (4 hours) because it was significantly cheeper. We were running a little late though so we ended up having to literally run to the train, we forgot to validate our tickets and there were NO SEATS LEFT. We thought we were going to have to stand for 4 hours and we were definitly not thrilled with the idea. But evenutally it cleared out, we got our own seats and when the ticketman came around to see ours we played dumb about the whole validation thing. 50 euro fine avoided.

When we arrived in Rome Chelsea told me what bus to take and were to get off but some how we messed things up horribly and wandered around rome for about an hour before we decided to hop in a cab. Finally arriving at Alexa and Chelsea's we chatted for a bit and then just passed out. Kevin and I were also just beginning to get sick so waking up at 8 the next morning sucked. But we did it anywhere so I could show Kevin the major sites in the two hours we had before we had to leave for the airport. We hit up the Colosseum, St. Peters, the Pantheon, and the Trevi fountain. I really wanted to show him the inside of St. Peters but the line was SUPER SUPER long. I was carrying my bag with my the whole time though so of course I was complaining because it was so heavy. Siteseeing with luggage = not that great of an idea.

Our flight was suppose to take off around 1:30 but there was an hour delay. I really wasnt to upset because I just napped the whole time. We landed in Prague around FOUR......

Prune hands.

I was going to go out tonight, afterall it is Thursday. However, being the awesome person that I am, I stayed in and cleaned. I scrubbed the floors, fluffed the pillows and even tackled the bathroom (sans the toilet because I refuse to go near that beast). And after two hours I deceided to give up. This is what I learned:
1. The floors are still dirty, maybe they should be washed more than once every 7 weeks
2. you have to use about 40 swiffer wet wipes to pick up all the hair that five girls create over a two month period alone
3. tile hurts ur knees
4. scratching candle wax off shit breaks your nails
5. I have pruney hands (i dislike having to use my fingers right now Michael)
6. I never want to be a cleaning lady

On a more exciting note, KEVIN ARRIVES IN LESS THAN 12 HOURS WOOOOOO

DAVID BECKHAM, and other less important things

On Wednesday the 24th I went to another soccer game, Fiortina vs. AC Milan who temporarily has DAVID BECKHAM. So thats obviously the only reason 100's of american girls went. We lost in the last five mintues 2 to 1 and David Beckham never even went in but, I did take about 40 pictures of him streching in hopes that he might go in. I only posted one because I didn't think anyone else would be as intrested in the copious amounts of pictures of his butt as I am.

Saturday, the 27th I went to Fiesole with Emily and Ally. It was like a 10 minute bus ride up the mountains a little. We were in search of a nice relaxing little hike but instead, taking the road less traveled, spent a few hours walking up and down rather steep rocky hills in the forest. It was fun though, good exercise and beautiful views of all of florence. When we made it back to the town center we were tired and STARVING so we downed large pizzas and went home. Of course we did not make it home before we got Mcdonalds McFlurries... so much for having a healthy day :)

Today, Sunday, me and my roomates did nothing. We all booked a trip to the Amalfi Coast though for the last weekend in our program. Should be amazing but also sad that its the end!!! This week I have to complete 3 research papers that are approx 9 pages each so wish me LUCK. And then Kevin comes on Friday so I'm obviously very excited for that. He better bring me peanut butter

Rome... A little late

So, I have taken my time putting up this post because I wanted to include photos but for some reason it won't let me so everyone is just going to have to deal with it. DAY 1: Thursday the 18th, we woke up at 7am to get all our stuff together and run to our bus that was waiting outside the Ferragamo store. We made it, I was quite sweaty though. Yuck. The bus ride was 4 hours and I tried to sleep but coach busses, no matter how luxurious they are suppose to be, are not that comfortable. We arrived around noon, checked into our hotel and got pizza for lucnch. We got these HUGE slices that they fold in half for you so you eat it like a sandwhich. Of course I dripped the oil from it all down my shirt so that was nice. At 2 our first tour began. We took the subway to the Spanish steps which are right in front of this street with all the expensive stores on it and it always seems to be crowded but it was a lot of fun. Then we walked to the pantheon which is essentially just a really really really really old church with a hole in the ceiling. Oh and Rapheal the painter, not the ninja turtle, is burried there. Outside of the Patheon there were these men dressed up like ancient roman worriers. One of my roomates was trying to get a picture taken with him and he said that she had to pay. But then as I was causally strolling past he said "for the sexy one, free" so I took a picture with them and of course felt very special for like 30 seconds. We then walked to the Trevi Fountain which was packed but beautiful. We threw coins over our right shoulder because thats what everyone does. What we gathered was that if you throw one coin you will return to rome at some point in your life and if you throw two you'll fall in love, or something cheesy like that. Then we got gelato yum! The rest of the tour that afternoon was a long precession of churches that all blended together and none that were too exciting of famous so I've blocked all details of that out of my head. BORING.
That night we met up with Allie and Allison who are studying there and we went on this organized bar crawl. We all met by the Colossuem (pretty cool at night) and had a sort of happy hour where there were "free drinks" (we paid 15 euros to join) we got a t-shirt and we played some games that were entertaining to watch. Emily, Marrissa, and Michelle all played one game where they were partnered up and had to push a beer can, while blindfolded, up the leg of thier partners jeans, and down the other, then open the beer and try to get their partner to drink the whole thing without spilling as fast as they can. The one girl in the competition that wasn't one of my friends won. Then we went to three other bars, danced, drank, and had fun!

DAY TWO: 7am wake up...again. There was a bus strike so we had to be at the subway at precisely 7:45am because the strike began at 12 and we had to make it to the Vatican!! When we met our tour guide, Fredarica (who was acutally really cool except for this little incident) she took attendence like 5 times. No joke. We were all ready to murder her and wander around the massive building by ourselves. But she eventually got her shit together, got us "Whisperers" aka headphones and we were off! We saw a bunch of broken statues in the first couple rooms that did not impress me. Then we saw some of the old popes living quaters and all the paintings done by raphael like the School of Athens which is that painting with people walking/sitting/chilling on some sort of steps. I'm sure if you saw it you would know what it was. Then we went into the sistine chapel in which you are not allowed to take pictures but I snuck a few. After taking like 15 I got caught on the last one and one of the guards yelled at me. Its okay though cause I had no idea what he was saying. Next stop was St. Peters which is BEAUTIFUL. It is also enourmous, the largest church in the world! Everything in it is overly decoratated with gold and mosaics and all sorts of things. Our tour guide pointed out that everything that looks like a painting is not a painting at all but a mosaic and thats why its okay to have lights on all the time because it can't fade. Looking at the pictures then was incredible because these things were so elaborate and huge. The last popes body is still on display there which was slightly distrubing. I got pictures of that as well which felt wrong but it was allowed and I was intruiged. His face was covered in wax though so he still looked like a human as opposed to a rotting piece of flesh. YUCK. We climbed to the top of the dome after which was more steps than the Duomo! There were gorgous views up there. I lost my friends though, thought they had walked down with out me. It turns out we were just circling on the top in search of eachother at the same time so we never ran into eachother. I then sprinted down the stairs thinking they would be waiting at the bottom but no such luck. I just chilled at the bottom and then approx 7 minutes later they came busting through the crowd yelling my name so I guess everyone was a bit paniced. The rest of the day we spent relaxing. We had a long, expenisve, lunch which was not good (Rome's food kind of sucks) and then we took a very much needed 4 hour nap. We had Mcdonalds for dinner and then we went to Campo di Fiori which was this really fun little square with lots of bars. We started the night in this bar called Drunken Ship and a bunch of us girls got these pitchers of long Island Ice Teas yum. Then we went to a couple other places and thats about it!

Day Three: We went to the Colesseum. Its really cool looking. I'm mad at one of the popes though from back in the day because he wanted to recycle the marble so theres no seats left cause they were all taken out! It probably would have still looked more like a stadium today if that hadn't happened. LAME! The rest of the day was spent looking at ancient roman ruins which were cool but very little was left so it was hard to picture what it was like. For lunch me and Emily got CHINESE!!! It was nice to have a little change. I ordered way to much though so for the rest of the day i felt like a fatty. Then we took another long nap and went to the same place as the night before.

Day Four: We signed up for an optional tour which was of these "villas" they were also ancient ruins and one of them was this fountain garden. There were some 30 fountains and it was amazing. So pretty. It was crazy to think that people in the 1500's were able to figure out how to get enough water pressure to shoot the water so high! For lunch we got kabobs which are just chicken wraps kind of but they were delicous. Then we went home!!

Oh and I forgot the mention that besides a few moments of rain, it was like 60's and Sunny... in Feburary. JEALOUS???

Stairs, Confetti & Masks

So, this weekend was a TON of fun :) Saturday morning Emily and I climbed the Duomo... all 463 stairs of it. The sky was bright blue and it was sunny, so pretty much the ideal weather to go to the top! It was 8 euro to get in and some of the stair cases were more like ladders. It was absurb how many flights of stairs we had to climb and how croweded it was. But it was well worth it because once we got to the top we could see the entire city... we were even able to find our apartment and I zoomed in really far with my camera and took picture of Michelle and Marissa who were standing out on our roof top patio. Saturday night we went to YAB which was so much fun. Not many people went out so it was just me and my roomates and we danced our way into this little italian VIP area. At one point me and michelle had to run away from the italians cause they were getting creepy but we were on top of the speakers so she jumped down and then i jumped on her back and she gave me a piggy back ride. It was really funny at the time.

Sunday was Carnivale! We went to Viareggio which was a town on the ocean that supposidly has the best Carnivale in Italy. I have never seen cooler/bigger/more elaborate floats in my life. Everyone is dressed up from infant babies to old old people. Some of the floats were really poltical though, like there were two with Obama on them and they were essentially shitting on America but it was still cool. We all got masks and wore them around all day and I bought confetti and threw it at everyone... just fitting in with the locals. We also ran down to the water and took some fun pics there. It was really a great experience, probably one of the most fun things I've done since I've been here!

Oh my David

Today I went to the Galleria Accedemia and saw the DAVID. It is enormous. I don't understand how one person could carve something so large with such detail, i mean you can even see the veins in his hands! The rest of a museum is kind of a bore. Besides 4 or maybe it was 5 unfinished scultures by michaelangelo that were pretty cool too, everything was paintings of jesus... I'd say 99% (maybe even 100% since the David is obviously based off the biblical character david who killed gollioth) of the art there was Christianity related and it kind of looked the same to me, lots of dark colors with gold embellishments. Oh well, Seeing the david made the trip there worth while. Unfortunatly you can't take pictures :( This weekend we might finally be getting ineternet installed in our apartment so cross your fingers! and i'll be going to Ikea so that i can get a mattress pad and acutally sleep through the night. I have to go research plane tickets now, Ciao!

Couple pics of my apartment & the duomo!

The first picture is of my roof top patio, its a picture from inside so you can't really see it, The picture with the stained class windows is my kitchen eating area, the table is covered in wet clothes so you can't really see it but you get the idea. If you go through those stained glass doors is the cooking area which also has our laundry machine in it. The picture with the couch is obviously the living room. Its taken from the front stair case so you can't see the three large windows that also look out to the duomo. the picture that looks like a cruise ship is my bedroom. Ha. Its a little messy in this picture but it would be hard not to have it messy with how small it is!! The top bunk is mine... most uncomfortable bed ever. At the bottom are just some pictures of the Duomo, which is litterally a block from my house. Its nice to wake up and walk to class with this monster staring at you. Soooo pretty :)

PISA! and soccer...kinda

Saturday we woke up at 10, ate breakfast and caught a train to PISA!! its about an hour long trainride and costs 5.70 euro. We didn't realize that we had to validate our tickets before we got on the train so when they came around p unching our tickets, we almost all got fined 40 Euro. They guy was nice though and told us just to make sure we did it next time. The walk to the tower was about 20 mintues so not too bad. Seeing the tower though aftering hearing about in school all your life is really cool. It was strange though, there are huge ears of grass in front of it and the other two buildings that are to the left to it. I took close to 30 pictures of it which was compleltely unnecessary but I wanted to make sure I got every angle! We ate lunch near the tower later and thats about it. Pisa is not the most exciting place so thank God we just went for the day. We wanted to climb to the top but by the time we went to get tickets they were "sold out" for the day. That was dissappointing. We got home at 7ish, so it was a long day. After dinner at il teatro I just chilled at home, and did things like painting my nails.

Sunday I slept in until 11ish and then me and Emily went to the market. Our intention was to get a leather purse but we both ended up buying leather jackets! The lady at the store made us try on a bunch of different styles and sizes looking for the perfect fit. The one I wanted was still to wide in the waist and the seleves were too long so she altered it for me in a hour... impressive. Then a big group of us went to a chocolate festival. There were about 40 different booths that had hundreds of different chocolate things. I got a piece of cake that was covered in hot fudge, yummy. Later that night we got ready for the soccer game! It was Florence vs. Rome so a huge game. We took a bus there and back and it was a lot of fun. We lost though. I was going to go to watch the superbowl but I was to tired so I just passed out.

Gotta run, Bye!

Average week

So Tuesday was my first experience with the supermarket. Esselunga is A. difficult to get to and B. HORRIBLE to walk home from when you have bags full of groceries. When I got home I realized I didn’t buy a single complete meal but whatever I think I am going back soon. I bought yogurt and cereal for breakfast, I bought some fruit, and I bought everything to make a salad. The walk is a good 25 min. though soo it was interesting especially since I had to keep whipping out my map to see what street to take next. Tuesday was also my first Italian class and now that I have had two (its Friday) I officially know that I will learn no more this semester. Not that I don’t want to, but my teacher is like a second grade teacher on crack and I can’t help but laugh every time she makes a facial expression trying to get her point across. We know what shes talking about so hopefully she starts moving faster before I punch her in the face for treating us like 6 year olds.

Wednesday night we went to Cavalli club (the fashion designers club) which was really cool. Of course there were projection screens of fashion shows playing in the background and the club was full of older(ish) Italian men. I just went with Michelle and some other girls that I don’t know that well but it was so much fun. We danced all night long; I don’t think I’ve ever been that sweaty in my life! Me and Michelle were dancing on stage in one of the booths for a while and at the end of the night we got up into the VIP section and could watch the rest of the club from the balcony.

Thursday I ran into Allison Cipolla and Allie Sipple at lunch it was so nice to see people from school. They came over at night and we took a bunch of cheesy pictures (Including the dg salute) in front of the duomo off our balcony. Then we went to Red Garder and then to this club called twice. I wore the wrong shoes and my feet were killing me so I went home early. I got lost on my way home and had to ask like 3 people for directions. I had to keep asking “dov’e lo Duomo” I’m sure they laughed to themselves after because its hard to not see it, and I was like a block away.

This morning (the 5th) my roomies and I went to school to for internet. Emily and I booked our flights to Paris, Madrid, and Barcelona!! I’m sooo excited!! Then we got Panini from this like place called Gusto Panini and you get to create your own sandwich, its delicious. Tonight we all went to Red Garder again and it was karaoke night. Emily, Marrisa, Michelle, Ally, Anna, and I sang Wannabe by Spice girls. It was pretty funny, Michelle recorded it on her phone but you can’t see us that well. After that we went to a club called Glamour. We got a VIP booth again and we got some bottles of champagne for free! On the way home I was walking with my coat over my head because it was raining and some Italian guy just ran up to me and smacked my butt Emily and I were like wtf just happened ha. I guess it happened to Michelle the night before… oo silly Europeans.