The Thrill of it

So I just realized how behind I am on my blogging! its bad. So this will be another entry similar to my last. heres what we have to talk about

1. sienna

2. venice

3. week summary (interesting stuff here!)

4. amsterdam

                         

TCU Girls in Sienna

1. Not the past weekend, but the weekend before, our program (Accent) took us on a day trip to Sienna. It was so fun. Our whole group from TCU went (minus the 2 boys here who missed the bus). It was an absolutely beautiful city. We went to museums, walked around, and then climbed to the top of the duomo and where we saw the most amazing view of the entire city. So cool! 

                                              

View from Top of the Duomo.... GO XO

James Bond Quantum of Solace was filmed in this Piazza..
this is us attempting to look like James Bond... or charlie's angels? haha

Duomo in Sienna

2. The next day we did a day trip to Venice. We took the train so it was super easy. It was a perfect day when we got there. 

Horned Frogs in Venice

We spent the day exploring the city. We went to St. Marks basillica which is unbelievably gorgeous. After lunch, and some bellinis (they were invented in Venice!)  we went on a mission to find masks for carnivale. History lesson for the day: carnivale is an annual festival that starts 2 weeks before ash wednesday and ends on fat tuesday. The masks come from way back in the day. people used to wear them so that other people wouldnt recognize them know what social class they were in. That way you could get away with socializing with people in other social classes and what not. Well we eventually picked out some masks and wore them around the rest of the day because little did we know, the Saturday we were there was the official kick off of carnivale. 

loving our masks

There is this fountain in San Marco square, where they held the opening ceremony for carnivale. There were people (i assume the big name families of the city, or the venetian high society) all dressed up in crazy costumes. Everyone was packed in this square for the ceremony. We wiggled our way through the crowd up to the front by this big fountain. This man, master of ceremony or something, starts giving this speech (in italian so we had no idea what was being said). People would cheer, music would play, and there is some famous song that everyone danced too, and then before you knew it, the fountain started pumping out WINE! pretty cool. Apparently that fountain pumping out wine marks the start of carnivale. Then they filled cups with the wine from the fountain and passed it out to the crowd and this kicks of the party for the next couple of weeks. So it was pretty cool to be there, especially since we had no idea it was going to be happening that day! win for us. we will be celebrating carnivale in the french riviera this coming weekend!

people waiting for carnivale kick-off

fountain of wine! 

drinking from the fountain of wine

3. This past week was interesting. School was the same (nothing too exciting). Ginny and I ventured out one night for our first apperitvo. I don't know if I told you about this yet, if I have you can skip this. Essentially its like Italian happy hour. You buy one drink (alcoholic or not) and you get all you can eat. Depending on the place, they serve pastas, sushi, chips, etc. Apparently its the thing to do if you here. So we have been here a while and had not been to one yet. Well Ginny and I go to this one place, Moyo, for their apperitivo. We find a table, sit down, and Ginny gets up to order drinks for us. By the time she gets back, we realized that they had completely cleared off ALL of the food that comes with these drinks. It was a major fail. So we moved on to another pub called Kikuya, where they serve one of the worlds strongest beers or something like that, I have no idea. However, they do have some American food (hot dogs) which is something that we are really starting to miss over here. So it turned out to be a good night.

Ginny and I enjoying a night out

Thursday, half of the girls left for Amsterdam (ill explain later) and Ginny, Kendall and I were the only ones still in Florence. It was a relaxing day until about lunch time. You see, I had been expecting to hear from ROTC about our rated slots the previous week. Of course the results were delayed, so I was hoping to hear sometime this weekend. Well Ginny and I were enjoying a fabulous lunch at this place called that fox and cat? cat and hound? cat and fox? something like that. We were the only people in this little restaurant, enjoying our food, when I got a phone call from an unknown number. I answered it and to my surprise it was my Lt Col calling to inform me that I had been selected as a CSO(navigator). I was pretty excited. The waiter/owner saw we were excited so he brought us desert and limoncello to celebrate. The best part was... our waiter was trying to figure out what was going on. I had gotten up from the table and was pacing around anxiously while talking on the phone. He was tlaking to Ginny and said "must be boyfriend". she responded saying "no its the Air Force". hahahaha so I get off the phone and come back to the table. He looks at me and says "you in military??.... nooooo".  He couldnt believe it. So he brought us celebratory drinks saying "for new job!".  We probably spent about 3 hours at this restaurant. It was a solid day! After that, we returned home and spent the night packing and getting ready for AMSTERDAM! 

nav wings

4. Oh amsterdam. Such a great city. I don't even know where to begin. Ok, so yesterday (sun 27 Feb) was my roomies (Kelly) 21st birthday! When we first arrived in Florence she said she wanted to spend her birthday weekend in Amsterdam. So we all booked flights for that weekend. However, flights were sold out and really complicated. It turned out that only Kelly, Mary, Kristin, and Morgan could get flights out on Thursday. That left Ginny, Kendall and myself to leave Friday. Well the flights were also weird coming back so the first group of girls left thrusday and came back saturday. We left Friday and came back Sunday. Since we were staying different nights we had to find 2 different hotel rooms. This proved to be very difficult because apparently in Amsterdam, you usually have to stay a minimum of 3 nights at  hotels/hostels. Well we were only staying 2 nights, so it made it ridiculously hard to find a hotel to stay at because they were either SUPER expensive or SUPER sketchy. Well the first group of girls found a hostel in the red light district. We tried to book there, and of course it was sold out. So weeks are going by and we can't find a place to stay. Literally the Thursday night before we left Friday morning, we sat down and just booked a place. We were at the point we didn't care about location, but we just wanted a cheap place to stay. 

"I AMsterdam" sign in the city

So Friday morning we got on a flight to Amsterdam. We had a lay over in Munich, which wasnt bad.... until they started delaying our flight. They kept pushing the time back, and we were worried it was going to be cancelled, but we were able to leave and got to Amsterdam around 6 (i think) that night. Our taxi took us to our hotel (Owl Hotel.... yes go chi o!) and it was precious!! This hotel was in the Liedsplein (spelling?) area, and was super nice! It worked out perfectly. After checking in, we decided to go explore. 

*side note: We had plans to meet up with the rest of the girls. Well we land in Amsterdam. I go to check my phone and it had turned off. I turn it back on and see that I need a pin number. Of course I didn't have it with me.. it was back in my apartment... so we couldnt even turn my phone on the whole weekend. The cell phones we have here suck, to say the least. They are awful. You never get service, random women talk to you in Italian when you try to dial. Then it just hangs up before the call is even made. Oh and it send you random text messages all in Italian. So we have no idea what our phones are saying or doing. Anyways, yeah we get to Amsterdam only to learn that they wont work because we arent in Italy anymore AKA no way to contact the other girls haha so we spent the weekend separated.

Back to exploring. We ate at this delicious pub called Boom Chicago. Our waitress was super nice and told us how to get around town and where everything is. So after dinner we decided to head to the red light district. We jumped on a bus/tram and got off in Dam square. We walked a few blocks down and before we knew it, we were in the center of the red light district. Now for those of you who do not know what the red light district is, it is the part of town where the street is lined with windows (with red lights..... hence the name) with hookers trying to bring in new clients hahahaha. it is definitely an awkward/weird/sketchy place. This area is packed with clubs, bars, coffee shops (aka where they sell all the weed), sex shops, and girls trying to lure in the people walking by the windows. It is so odd. I can't even explain it. I have never felt more uncomfortable in my life hahahah. We went down here to try to find the girls so we found their hotel and of course they werent there, decided there was no hope in trying to find them, and headed back to our part of town. 

The next morning we woke up and had lots to do. First we went to the Van Gogh museum which was amazing! it was so neat to see some of the paintings that you always see copies of and learn about in like middle school. They also had some other small collections (Picasso, Monet, toulouse lautrec posters). All of it was awesome! 

2 of Van Gogh's paintings we saw

After Van Gogh museum we made our way to the Heineken brewery. It was surprisingly a lot of fun. They had a lovely little 4-d ride/simulator, history, tour, beer tasting, and other really cool stuff that you do on the tour. we had a blast!

Once we had finished both of these tours, we decided to get lunch at Mr. Tong's. It was delicious asian food, something that is VERY hard to find over here in Italy. To everyone back in America, do not take the food we have in America for granted (im not talking about the gross fast food though). Im not complaining in any way about the food here, because trust me, it is phenomenal. But its been a little more than a month and all we have for every meal is Italian food. So we get excited to have different food, whether its asian, american, or the wannabe mexican food they have in Italy. Mr. Tong's was the bomb.com. 

After a power nap, we decided to hit the town again. We had heard about an "ice bar" in Amsterdam. Everything is made from ice, the bar, glasses, chairs, walls, everything! So we figured it was something we should go see. You get to the place, and it is a normal bar/lounge. And then they have a show/4-d experience. hahahaha it was epic. There were eskimos, and a snow queen, who even sang a version of shakira's "waka waka" song, luring us into her "extra cold ice bar". It was soooo funnny. Words cannot even describe. We put on our parkas and entered the bar. You get a couple of drinks and watch a 3-d movie. Anyways, we had a good time!

hard to see.... but the ice bar!

entrance to the bar/lounge. Once you go inside the ice bar is way back
in the back in a separate room

 So after the ice bar, we went to a pub called Three sisters. It was super cool, great environment, awesome music. Finally, we left to get dinner. We had passed this restaurant multiple times throughout the weekend called "pancake corner" and had wanted to eat there all weekend. It was still open and serving food so we figured we would try it. Well we walk in and it is like a straight up club. Im talking blaring music, pounding bass, crazy lights, but there are some tables, but its packed. So we walk up the stairs and its also packed, but a lot more tables. We were so confused. It was a club... but a restaurant...i dont know. It was just bizarre. You would never find a place that served a full course dinner and had this club feel back in America. So we sit down, order some food, and ended up spending the rest of our night there. We were loving the eurotrash music and watching the interesting people come and go..eating, drinking, smoking. It was bizarre. All we could think about was what a crazy lifestyle to grow up in. Some of these kids looked like they were 16 and they would order these bowls that had 30 shots in it and they would drink it like it was water while smoking at the same time. It was craziness. I just can't imagine growing up like that. We went back, watched some dog whisperer (only show on in english) and went to sleep. 

As you can see, Amsterdam was very interesting. We had a great time, even though we didnt get to meet up with the other girls. Oh interesting fact about Amsterdam, it's legal to smoke weed in public, but not tobacco (because its harmful to people around). Thats why there are coffee shops (where you can buy any weed or whatever) that you want. So bizarre. Don't worry parents... I didn't smoke. promise! 

But yeah. That was Amsterdam. This week should be interesting. I have a lot of homework actually. I knocked out a lot of it today. But have a busy week. Tomorrow night we are going out to celebrate Kelly's birthday. There is a 90s party at one of the bars we might go too, or we might go to a discotheque. Who knows. Thursday I leave for the FRENCH RIVIERA!!!! this is that trip that i won (refer to last post). It is carnivale and from the looks of the pictures from last weekends trip... it should be a good time! we stay in Nice and go to Monaco, and all over that area. I'm pretty excited! Ill be sure to update again soon! I miss everyone back home! 

but until next time... Ciao! :)

ps. if you are following me on fb you probably realize I havent uploaded pics in a while.... i should be getting my external hard drive any day and Ill be posting pics soon so be sure to check! 

whirlwind week

Hello everyone!

It has been a while since my last post so we have A LOT to catch up on. Yes that means that this is going to be a rather lengthy blog. Here are the events that I will be covering:

1. morgan's birthday
2. day trip to pisa and lucca
3. day trip to bologna and verona and chocolate fair
4. valentine's day - italian speed dating
5. karaoke night  ****if you read anything.... read this section***


                                                       *first train ride*

 

1. Ok so starting with Morgan's birthday. Last wednesday, one of the girls turned 21. Naturally we had to go out to celebrate. We had a fabulous dinner at this little restaurant called Dante. After dinner, we all decided to try out some of the other bars/pubs/clubs we havent been too yet. Well we meet some people and they tell us that YAB (you are beautiful) is the place to be on wednesday nights. YAB is a typical italian discotheque. Well we arrive and there are these italians getting in this huge fight right at the door. So we are awkwardly hovering around trying to figure out what is going on. While we are standing outside waiting, we look over and see this guy. Not just any guy... JOHNNY DEPP!!!! ok it wasnt really Johnny Depp, but they were IDENTICAL TWINS! im serious, the resemblance was uncanny. So fake johnny hears us talking about him and comes up to us and makes jokes about how he looks like Johnny Depp then asks if we want to go inside. We said yes, and he knew some people and anyways, got us inside the club. This place was insane. Im talking strobe lights, techno music, lots of creepy italians, you know... the norm. Well we danced all night and had a blast. One of the girls even found herself an italian stallion named Gabriele (we call him gabby at the house)... Well the next morning we wake up to find out that not only has he friend requested her on facebook... he has written her a facebook message (all in horrible english of course) it was an epic moment. You probably had to be there... but we found it quite humerous. She still talks to him occasionally on facebook too hahaha. So morale of the story = Morgan's birthday celebration was a definite success!
                                        
                                              *Morgan's birthday dinner*

2. since we didn't plan anything for the weekend, we decided thursday night that we would just wake up on friday, go to the train station, and pick somewhere to go for the day. We were very proud of how spontaneous we were! So Friday we went to the train station and got on a train to Pisa. *side note: Rick Steves = the man. we would not be able to survive without his tour books. he has all the info about every city, walking tours, hotels, places to eat, etc, and thats how we get around other cities* Once we got to Pisa, Rick led us all over the city, hitting all the main highlights, and finally ending up at the leaning tower of Pisa. I was unbelievable UNDERwhelmed. It was a lot shorter than i expected. I don't know why, but I had pictured something much larger. However, it is kind of insane how much it is actually leaning. I believe its 5 degrees off the vertical axis... dont quote me though. Anyways, we took the classic pictures of us "supporting" the tower, and after about 2 hours in Pisa, decided it was time to move on. Rick recommends taking a bus to Lucca ("the walled city"), which is only like 30-45 min away from Pisa. So that is what we did.  Lucca is the cutest little town. It was quaint, pretty, not crowded, and just a fun place to walk around in. After a couple more hours in Lucca, we headed to the train station and made our way back home to Florence.

                                                             *leaning tower of pisa*

3. The next day we essentially did the same thing. Headed to the train station, decided to go to Bologna. We had heard, and saw online, that there was a big festival (with food, clothing, what not) going on so we figured it would be a good day to go. Well unfortunately, Rick doesnt talk about Bologna in his book, so we got there with no maps, no idea whats going on, or where to go. Bad planning on our part. We stopped in several stores and asked about this festival... well apparently no one knew what we were talking about and looked at us like were crazy. Major fail. So we decided just explore anyways. Bologna definitely lost the competition of cool places to see for the weekend. and to make it worse..... as we were making our way to the train station to leave for verona... waht do we run into... A MASSIVE MARKET/FESTIVAL! bologna people were either really dumb and didnt know what was happening, or the just didnt like us and lied to us. either way... rude! so we left bologna and headed to Verona. Verona was amazing. One of the favorite places we went. it was amazing. and to top it off.. we went the weekend before valentine's day... and being the city of love... there was a festival going on called "Verona in Love". All of the streets had hearts painted on it, all of the towers were lit up with red lights, balloons, live bands, vendors, you get the point. it was precious! Also, it is the fake home of Romeo and Juliet. They even have a house that falsely claims to be the famed balcony Juliet talks to Romeo from. its a major tourist attraction (see picture below). We had Rick guide us all over the city. and then for dinner, we found this amazing place and had one of the best dinners i've had so far (pumpkin filled tortellini)... amazing! well dinner was so good, we actually missed the train we had thought about taking. so we sprint to the train station, luckily there was one more train back to florence. We get on the train and it is straight up Harry Potter style train... we all piled in one of the rooms, closed the door, and enjoyed our 2 hour ride back. Unlike Harry Potter, we didn't go back to Hogwarts, but back to Florence... but who can complain about that. So overall it was a very successful weekend :)

                                    *Juliet's balcony(top) and Roman arena in Verona(below)*

oh and then sunday, Florence was having this chocolate fair, so we decided to go check it out. amazing. I bought some treats and will be sending it back home. get excited. However, the same day as the fair, there were protests going on. We literally got stuck in them trying to go back to our flat. Apparently people arent too happy with the Italian prime minister. We found out later this week that now he is going under trial (again) for prostitution. drama mamma i tell you. But like i said, it was a great weekend here in florence!

4. Valentine's day in Florence was not that exciting. However I did receive a rather large bouquet of lilies and iris. They must have been the size of half my body and I had to talk across town with them, and everyone commented and stared. It was somewhat embarrassing having all the italians comment on them as I walked by but they were absolutely beautiful :). Well that night we decided to go out to a local bar just to see if anything was going on. Little did we know what we were walking into. They were doing speed dating (in honor of valentines day)? A couple of girls did it, and met some rather interesting italians and english men. I did not partake in the speed dating, but had fun laughing at the whole situation. it was priceless!

5. Tuesday night was epic. We have been booking trips through this travel agency/student travel group (euroadventures). They are awesome. Anyways, they had karaoke night at this pub called old stove. So we all decided why not go and sing some karaoke because that is always a good time. When we arrive, we talked with one of the guys from euroadventures. He said they would be giving away a free trip for the best karaoke performance. My roomie, kelly, had previously won a free trip with them last week to the french riviera for carnival (mardi gras of europe but better), so we told him to give away another trip there. Obviously we started off the night being the first group to sing. All of the girls we went with sang "Girls just want to have fun". Then my roomie and I sang the duet "summer lovin" from Grease (see picture below) apparently our dancing was in synch. Everyone loved it. We rocked it. Well after our awesome performance, another one of the euroadventure guys came up to me and said just fyi we will be giving a trip away to the person who sings a solo, because no one was singing solos. Of course everyone told me to go up and sing a solo, and I wasnt about to say no to a free trip. So I went up on stage, and belted out "summer of 69" and rocked it. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of the life, but so fun. Everyone was singing with me. Well some other people there sang some solos, but at the end of the night, I was declared winner. hahahaha obviously because I was the best performer right? thats what I like to tell myself. Anyways, it was a blast and we had a great time singing songs all night!

                                                     *roomie duet of "Summer Loving"*

This week we also made serious progress planning trips. We are going to amsterdam next weekend, we booked a trip to Munich for strongfest (spring version of october fest), and amalfi coast for easter weekend! Tomorrow we have a day trip to Sienna, and then Friday we are doing a day trip to Venice. I'll be posting pictures at some point on facebook (well once I get an external hard drive... cough cough parents i need that fedexed please :) but ill keep yall updated

but thats all for now! until next time.... Ciao!!

weekend in switzerland

Happy superbowl sunday everyone!!

Im sure many of you are getting ready to go to superbowl parties. Well, unfortunately, the game doesnt start until 1 am here, so we arent watching it. We had an eventful weekend and we also have class tomorrow so I'll just have to deal with watching the superbowl ads on my computer tomorrow. Besides, thats the only reason to watch the game, right? or maybe thats just my love for all things advertising/public relations coming out. :)

Anyways, this past weekend, the girls and I decided very last minute to go to Interlaken Switzerland. Here's a little background history about this quaint tourist town. The city gets its name because of its geographical location. It comes from Latin and means "between 2 lakes".... this is because of the 2 lakes that surround the city. There is a river that connects the city and flows through town. Well this town literally looks like it was dropped in between the mountains. I'm talking unbelievable views everywhere you look. It was unbelievable. Well another reason this city is so popular, is because of the wide range of activities to do. I would say that interlaken = swiss version of Colorado. You have the same type of outdoor activites: snowboarding, skiing, sledding, skydiving, canyon jumping, base jumping, canyoning, hiking, rafting, horseback riding, paragliding. I mean anything your little heart desire you could probably do in Interlaken. This is what makes it such a popular tourist location!

So with all of these options, a couple girls went skydiving! Apparently it was awesome. I wouldnt know... because i didnt do it. Not because I was scared but because I, along with the rest of the girls, didnt want to break the bank and decided a better option to get our adrenaline rush would be night sledding. We figured we would be in nice big sleds cruising down a slow hill. FALSE! we were straight up at the top of this mountain in complete darkness (only lights were the flashing red glowstick on a necklace they gave us) on these plastic toboggan/luge like sleds going down this crazy trail that zigzagged through the mountain. It was AWESOME! Kind of scary because theyre were no rails or anything on the sides and im pretty sure i almost fell off the side of the cliff a couple of times, but I survived so no worries. I actually think the most dangerous part was when we would stop sledding, and we would walk a couple of feet because of ice/dry patches and what not. I was dragging my sled and tripped over it and completely busted it. Im talking feet in the air where my head was and then landing on my back. It was painful. Back to sledding. We stopped halfway down the mountain and walked off the trail to this huge frozen waterfall. so cool! After successfully making it down the mountain about an hour/hour and a half later, they took us to go get fondue at this restaurant. Apparently the Swiss are known for fondue. I don't know about you, but my fondue meals in America have always been extravagant, 4 course meals. So we expected the same in Switzerland, home of the fondue. once again... FALSE! its a big pan of hot cheese and then a lot of bread. But it was still a fun experience and good time. We finished the night by meeting locals and exploring interlaken night life at several different places.

The next day we continued to explore the city. Our next food failure = lunch. We had the bright idea of going to Hooters for lunch. Yes we were in Switzerland and went to hooters. I have never been to hooters in America and my experience in Switzerland was not so pleasant. It took about 3-4 hours to place our order/eat/pay.... which should have taken about 1-2. It was really frustrating but afterwards we continued on with our adventuring of the city. Of course we stopped at a chocolate store, and some other cute swiss stores. That night we stayed at our hotel and hung out with our Swiss friends we made the night before. Played some card games and then went to listen to a band from Bern play at a bar.

We had a 7 hour bus ride back today and lets just say it was a loonnggg ride. It was good to come back home to Florence though. I think it finally hit me today when we got back that this is my home for the next couple months. How crazy is that?! Its such an awesome experience and I can't believe I'm able to do this. I mean I spent the weekend in Switzerland making memories with great people! I am very blessed to have this opportunity and I definitely plan on making the most of it! So thanks parents :)

But yeah, this weekend was definitely a huge success. We had an absolute blast and had some good laughs! Interlaken, you were a great way to start off our semester and I cant wait to see where we go next! However, now its time to focus back on school I already have been doing homework and trying to get ahead. Speaking of school, its getting late and I have class tomorrow morning so its bedtime for me. Enjoy the superbowl and the glee episode afterwards!

until next time... ciao!


oh ps... funny story real fast. I was walking down the hall at our hotel and saw this massive object in the middle of the hallway. I did a double take to see what it was. It looked like a big stuffed animal. Get closer to it and realize it was a st. bernard. pretty sure it was the biggest dog ive ever seen. possibly bigger than a lion. it was unreal! Turns out the dog was a girl and it was adorable so ive decided I need to get one, after I get my old english sheepdog (named asparagus but called gus for short), my white siberian husky, and my golden retriever. These dogs, along with the white siberian tiger, elephant, and giraffe, will be the animals I own when im older. Well that was my fun fact for the day about me... so I'm gone now. Goodnight! :)

Verwelkom naar interlaken

Well its official. We are spending the weekend in Interlaken, Switzerland!!!

hahaha it took us a while but we got it all figured out. It should be an interesting trip thats for sure. We're pretty excited. Some girls are going skiing, some are going night sledding, some are going paragliding..... the options are endless! This is our first time traveling and we booked the trip through an agency, so hopefully it all works out. It looks legit, it has good reviews, and we know people who have used them and recommended them to us. So be sure to check back after the weekend to here about our interlaken experience!

Today was busy. I had 3 classes. I am super excited about one of them. Its called "war and media". Essentially is about the whole argument of the public's right to know vs the gov't obligation of national security. This is really interesting to me especially because of my major (strategic communication) and of course how I am in AFROTC. So I definitely get to hear both views during my other classes at TCU so its something I have always found interesting. In this class, we are going through and analyzing how the media and government handled different wars and primarily focusing on the wars within the last 20 years. My teacher is legit and it should be a really interesting class. Im so pumped for it! anywhoo enough about school. A couple of us are going out tonight and we are going to try to experience italian night life because last time was a major fail. So this is it until after switzerland!

until then... ciao! :)



ps: one of the top european hits right now... Heartbeat by Enrique Iglesias....were addicted to it at our apartment. It is pretty much always playing on somebody's computer and it just always puts us in a good mood. Probably because it is always playing in H&M and that is obviously one of our favorite stores (don't worry parents, i havent bought anything... yet haha). So i am sharing it with you. Hopefully you find it as catchy as we do :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHvSV741omk

stresses of italia

so its like 1030 or something like that here and i feel like im going insane. after a delicious dinner with mary we came back to our apartment. ginny was home from class and we decided to stay in to do some travel planning while the other roomies went on a pub crawl. so while researching different trips, we decided either we are not very smart or everyone lied to us because everything is reallly expensive. However I was in class today and some of the girls were like yeah we found flights to spain for 8 euro! LIESSSS!!!!!! we have looked everywhere and there are no such thing as 8 euro flights ANYWHERE! hahaha so we decided looking at trains/eurorail and well had some technical difficulties. I think part of our problem is that we want to go so many different places that we cant focus on one and book it. I dont know. We need help. So if you have any recommendations on travel booking tips PLEASE let us know.

i really dont think yall understand. we are somewhat delirious because we are all on our computers looking at a million different things! we are laughing hysterically at everything because its either in italian and we cant understand what its saying.... or its just super complicated. i dont know. its great. so yeah ill let you know when we plan our first trip haha

oh school started this week! italian 2 is cool. I had wine tasting today which was awesome! we tasted 5 different wines from the piemonte region. good stuff! tomorrow i have 3 class so it should be interesante.  Thats all i have for now!

lets just say... im ready for the weekend. and tomorrow we are starting it early. We have appertivo which is like the Italian version of happy hour? you can buy a drink (alcoholic or not) and you get a ton of food with it. So its a super cheap dinner. Anyways our program and another program are coordinating one for us so it should be fun! and hopefully we will meet some cool people and go out after! Thats one thing I like about my classes. We are mixed with a ton of other study abroad people from the states so its been fun meeting lots of new people! well im done venting about this fail of travel planning and I'm going to go do more research!

until then.... Ciao!

ps. ginny says hi to everyone reading!