ReCAP!

Katie C trying to keep her umbrella under control. The wind won!

Wow!

A lot has happened since Venice, I am sorry for not updating.

November has FLOWN past and I am amazed it's already December! December marks the end of my journey and I am feeling the panic go to see things while I still can.

My mother arrives in Florence on the 4th, which makes it exactly two weeks, exactly fourteen days until I go home.



Home... how I miss you (especially burritos) .



So the first weekend of November was spent in Dublin! I went with 6 other people- Andrew, Katie C, Candace, Shantyel, Amanda, and Alex. Why? Despite the fact that the Irish have the loveliest accents in the world we were going to see the Flogging Molly show (which was the best fun)!





Our weekend was very cold and wet, yet we had the most fun! Friday night we went to the show, Saturday morning we slept in then we went and saw Trinity College, shopped and got dry in a Starbucks and went and saw James Bond after getting our dinner in an Irish equivalent to a Quick E Mart. Sunday we went to Planet Hollywood and walked and saw a Castle, and walked past some other castles, then we went to the Guinness Brewery which was a lot of fun and really interesting. After that we split up as a group and Alex, Katie and I walked to Kilmainham Gaol, which the desk clerk at our hostel was a 5 minute walk from the storehouse (it was actually 45 minutes). Since we were short on time we caught a bus back to O'Connell st. which was being used for a Christmas Tree lighting and ran back to our hostel fighting our way through the masses of crowds. Since O'Connell was blocked it really prohibited us from getting back to the airport! So we asked our hostel people where we could catch the bus, but Amanda had text Katie directions so we followed them. And got lost. So we spent the next 15 minutes running around in the freezing cold trying to find a bus that would go to the airport. Finally we flagged down a random bus and the driver told us to hop on. He was doing all he could to get us to the right bus stop! Sadly, we ended back where we started, literally down the street from the hostel, in which we walked back to the street that started the same journey all over again. Fortuantely we found the right way go to and found our bus stop, in which we were told upon arrival the bus would be late. And it was... 5 minutes... no bus...10 minutes...no bus... 15 minutes... no bus... PANIC! we had 45 minutes to get to the airport so we finally flagged a taxi driver down, named Eugene who was possibly the nicest man ever. After a friendly conversation about politics we arrived at the airport just in time to catch our plane. I also, had apparently caught a cold and was feeling it the minute I sat in my seat.


The next week and weekend I was busy being really, really sick. My throat felt like it was on fire, which in turn made my ears feel like they were on fire, which made it IMPOSSIBLE to sleep! I spent 12 days on antibiotics and felt a lot better just to feel like crap again during thanksgiving.

Our thanksgiving we had 5 days off from school and most of the kids took off to other countries. Katie R, my roommate, and I were the only 2 who stayed home. Wednesday that week we went to Piti Palace to see the Modern Art museum and then we went shopping! Thursday we took off for Bologna, where i went and saw Flogging Molly yet again! I must say they put on a much better show here than in Ireland! Friday we came home and crashed, Saturday we went to the market and cooked and ate all day and had a wonderful thanksgiving with a bunch of foreigners. 5 were from the states, 2 were from Norway and 1 was from Germany. The Norwegians and German had never celebrated a thanksgiving before so they were all very excited!


I'll update more later!

Singing in the Rain- In Venice!

Well I would just like to start by saying Go Obama!

Things are well here in Florence, I spent part of my night at a big election party occupied by mostly Obama supporters. The event was large, with at least a few thousand in attendance through-out the night. It was held between six pm to four am. A modgepodge of events were taking place inside Saschall's, a large concert hall on the outskirts of Florence. There were live bands, two large screens with CNN, booths (mostly supporting Obama), free food, open bar, and people milling about trying to settle in.

.. Pictures and more to come about the election party. Now about Venice..

The five of us, Me, Katie Cook, Shantel, Amanda and Jacie left early Friday morning on the 31st of October, hoping there would be some great happenings in the squares of Venice. When we arrived it was raining and cold and everyone was about with their umbrellas. All the colors made such a lovely introduction to a beautiful city. We found our hostel, luckily, and dropped things off and set out for an adventure. There are so many shops of masks and glass it's mind boggling. The canals are equally mind boggling because there are so many, and each feels unique with it's own special characteristics such as plants hanging from windows or colorful boats lining the narrow passageways.

We returned after great exploration for a rest, a change of clothes and a gathering of moral. Our room was quaint, and our five beds, reminiscent of the 60's with their green burbur covers were side to side taking up two-thirds of the room. The other third was used as walking space to our spacious and clean bathroom. Fortunately Katie Cook decided to do pilates which turned into a comical event of us trying to mimic her on our Orphanage-like beds. A seach through our tourists books lead us to believe there was a Mexican restaurant on the island that would be open for dinner, and we were greatly disappointed when they kept telling us to come back in a half an hour. So we decided to depart that idea and get dinner else where.

We were not really surprised though to find that Venice really had no nightlife, afterall we had been properly warned. On the other hand there were masses of children running amok trying to get treats from every shop open, including the butcher shops! We decided to head back to the hostel for a second dry off and to call it an early night.

The next morning we were greeted by blue skies, sunshine, and two crazy sounding alarms that lasted for five minutes each and did not seem to cause anyone on the island to panic. We were off for the day to have breakfast and to do some serious shopping! We just happened to wander past a location to get on the Gondola's so we decided to go on a 50 minute ride and it was so much fun! The rest of the day was fulfilled by lots of walking, snacking, shopping and visiting the flooded Piazza San Marco which was not flooded the previous day. Fortunately we had a mostly dry day and only a slight amount of rain. We concluded our day by early dinner at a cafeteria then departing around 4:30 to Firenze sweet Firenze!

a happy Gondolier

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your Ears

Well, we just got back from Rome!





Rome was a very busy place, and we had a VERY busy weekend! I think we walked a culmination of about 30 miles for the weekend (friday-sunday).





We started our trip on Friday morning, taking the fast train from Florence to Rome. After we dropped our stuff off at MJ Hostel, we went to the Vatican where we had a tour of the Museum, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peters Basilica. All of which are essentially connected by walkways, which is amazing! I have never seen so much beautiful art concentrated in an area like that before. To say that I have stood under Michaelangelo's fresco in the Sistine is something I never thought I would find myself saying.



(photo: standing near the Pope-hat fountain)

After that tour we walked all around Rome, finally ending at the Spanish steps (and there are a LOT of steps by the way). From there the group parted ways, and we all had dinner and gelatto and went back to the hostel. This was my first Hostel experience, and it was an interesting one. Our room was up like six flights of stairs and let me tell you that Roman stairs are VERY STEEP. The showers were grimey, but were a necessisty after walking that much! My bed was a sight for sore eyes except that it sloped to one side and that made for an interesting two nights sleep.

-- more pictures and the rest of Rome soon!

Ciao Bella!

Well Hello! Last week was terribly busy! Lets start off by our guided Uffizi tour on Thursday by our wonderful Angela. Angela is a German women, who is fluent in German, English and Italian - and she is probably the most intelligent person I know! She is an Art Historian so she does most of our tours as well as our ILC lectures. I dont know how she stores all this information in her head but she does!

photo: Me in Lucca

Friday we as a group went to Sienna and San Gimignano. Sienna is a rival of Florence, and they were at war with each other for about 300 years. Finally Florence conquered Sienna, but the Sienne's still hate the Florentines. (Really, all towns are rivals- just because). Sienna was a beautiful little city with a unique and fantastic history! Everywhere you went in that town had the smell of good food being cooked and it definitely made your mouth water.

We then went to San Gimignano, and it was another equally lovely peaceful little town. San Gimignano sits on a hilltop, like most of the towns, and it had gorgeous view points of the valleys of Italy. I enjoyed San Gimi a lot better, and it was then when I realised how much I love being here and how much I don't miss the United States. Then I got pooped on by a pigeon and quickly changed my mind! After that though a group of us went to a torture museum which was really a waste of 6 euros because mostly it was just drawings of examples of torture.

photo: me in San Gimi with all the towers behind me

Highlights. . .

Everything is going well here in Florence and I am commencing week three of my stay so I thought I would give you all some highlights.

So far I have visted three other towns, Fiesole- a quiet Etruscan town minutes away from Florence. We also visited Pisa to see the leaning tower and Lucca (right) for a nice afternoon stroll. I have climbed the Duomo here in Florence and I visited the Uffizi and the Boboli Gardens with my museum pass.

I have been sad that there are not very many animals in the center of Florence, especially cats. However when I went to the Boboli gardens on Saturday, I discovered that all the cats in Florence are there and it is quite a haven for them!

Sunday a group of us took a trip to Cinque Terre and what a grand day that was. I was swimming in the Ligurian Sea I realised that was THE highlight of my trip. The day was beautiful, and the sea was as clear as could be - you could see the fish swimming between you as you floated along.

Well, I'll have more pictures and maybe some video up soon, tomorrow if not wednesday!

Ciao

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).