here I am Italy!

Hi!

I am in Italy finally! It seems like just march that i was just applying for the program. So our flight from PDX was 6 hours, then we had a 5 hour layover in JFK. Let me tell you about JFK- its one hot and muggy airport, with no air conditioning. It's really not all that interesting either, and you cannot buy stamps there. Our flight from JFK to Pisa was about 8 hours, which was not that bad at all. The turbulance ripped my stomach up!

We arrived in Pisa around 11 AM, and took an hour drive and got dropped off at our apartments. Ours is a nice apartment, very modern and we only have one flight to go up. The whole apartment and entrance is marble, which makes for a chilly evening.

We have had two walking tours of the city, and yesterday we went and viewed everyones apartments.

We had our first pizza and italian wine at a restaurant called La Campane! it was very good, and seemed to be the very hip place to be on a sunday night.

commence exploring

Well, I leave for Florence Friday morning! I have been wishing, if I only had one more week at home, if I only had one more week. But I had two weeks to get things taken care of, and pretty much just lazed about the entire first week. I'm very excited to leave though!

I have my plane tickets to Dublin for November 7th-9th - I'll be seeing a favorite band of mine, Flogging Molly there. It is truly a pleasure to say that I'll be seeing them there!

my mom is planning on meeting me in Italy for the last leg of my trip, then we'll spend a few days in Austria, then back to Italy, and back home around December 18th.

I've been toying around with maybe a trip to Barcelona or Monaco. My first priority is to see all of Italy though.

I am almost done packing, toiletries-check, underware/socks-check, "summer clothes"-check which is mainly tank tops, a skirt and 2 capris; and i'll be packing my "winter clothes" and electronics soon.


Oh, I am not looking forward to 19 hrs of combined plane time! (6 hrs to JFK +5 hr layover, 13 to Florence).

Firenze, Firenze!

Well this is a small unlabeled street map of Firenze, and the area where I'll be spending most of my time. I'll be attending classes at ABC school and living within 15-20 minutes walking distance.

I went to an informational meeting on Saturday the 23rd and met some of the people I'll be schooling with. They warned us women of pick pockets, to heavily guard our purses. Also we'll need to bring toilet paper as some public toilets are kind of like outhouses.

Things I am hoping to do:

• Go to all the museums I can: Uffizi, Accedemia, the Science Museum, etc.

• Shop for fresh produce at the markets

• Attend Sunday Mass once at Il Duomo

• Acquire recipes from the locals
• travel on the Italian Coast (esp. Almafi)
  

• Go to 1-3 other neighboring or close countries: France, Austria, Spain, Germany, Greece, and Ireland are some of my choices.
  

• Speak Italian with some locals
• Go to a European Chocolate Festival
  

Well. . . This is it for the time being. I'm sure I'll ad more to my list later!

Good News + More waiting + Crazy

Well! It's true! I am a future recipient of the Gilman Scholarship- at the value of 3,000 dollars! Fortunately I am also relying on our federal gov't to cover another large chunk, and am going to be "loaning" from my mom to cover the rest. I am very fortunate and feel that I am very blessed in many different ways to be able to go on a trip like this.

Unfortunately I am still playing the waiting game (few months before I leave) and am still trying to teach myself Italian. I have found this whole experience to be pretty stressful and I have not even left yet! It's a new experience for our financial aid director at LBCC and I am sure that our travel abroad advisor thinks I'm a nutcase. I am not even going to cover AIFS and the difficulties I have come to experience with them.

I am SORRY but this whole thing, this traveling abroad thing is NEW to me. I am very green, very very green when it comes to applications and deadlines and scholarships and dealing with programs and trying to make everyone happy! I think I have pissed a few people off, and probably annoyed others- but I want to make sure all my bases are covered, ya know? So excuse me if I email you 5 times in one week.

*sigh* that was my rant.

In other personal news: I got engaged on June 14th and we are planning our wedding for August 1st, 2009. I have discovered the best website on earth The Knot via my best friend Lindsay who is also getting married next year!

Also, it seems like when the meatball starts rolling down the spaghetti of life, it rolls fast, downhill and collects dirt chunks along the way. We have had concerns of health for my nephew who has CF- contracted a bad virus that messes up his motor skills. Two of my cats have needed veterinary care, I have been mildly job searching, planning a trip to Canada with mom this summer, trying to clean my real room because we're in the middle of a remodel, and just trying to figure out my life in general. Things are crazy and stressful and God decided that I work better under a lot of pressure. He must not realize it makes me cranky, snappy and my hair fall out.

waiting

Well its June 10th, and I leave for Italy on September 26, 2008. SCARY!

The waiting game drags on as I wait to hear about scholarships, and waiting to get the info packet that tells me where ill be living.

I hate flying and I keep trying to reassure my mother no Natalie Holloway incident will happen. I tell her "the most you have to worry about is diseases, zombies, snakes on the plane, plane crashing on an island that doesn't really exist, or into the ocean in which case she should worry about sharks." I say "don't worry I'll be fine." After all, I watch Shark Week on the discovery channel, I read about survival in case of zombies, I will know what to do in case i land on that non existent island. As for snakes I am not afraid and well, if its a disease than I am SOL unless Tom Cruise or Jason Stathom show up with the magical antidote.

But I am not really convinced myself that I'll be fine. Seriously, what if I land in Florence and there was a horrible disaster whilst we were in flight and there are zombies raping the land. I would have no time to prep on the plane..


In the mean time I get to look forward to the trip to Victoria BC that my mom and I will be taking in august. Oh i also have to find a job :(