European Escapades

Tonight is the commencement of Ashley and I's true Europe backpacking adventures.

We are riding the night train to Munich, Germany and will arrive at 6:30 a.m., where we will have to find something to entertain ourselves with, or sleep on, until the city wakes up around 9 and then we go on a tour of the Daschau Concentration Camp. For the rest of the day, we plan on exploring and seeing the town and enjoying the fact that we are in Germany. Then, at 9:30 p.m., we will again, board the night train to return to Florence around 4 something in the morning, and we will come back to our apartment for a few hours- hopefully sneaking in a nap and shower, before we again board the train to La Spezia to arrive in the Cinque Terre, Italy's beautiful hidden coast that is unfortunately and too often overlooked against the Almafi Coast. Lucky for us, that means not as many people!

I am sooooo excited.

I feel like a true backpacker, riding the night train and all. I seriously look forward to taking pictures of our "bunks" in the sleep car... it will be an adventure for sure!

As for Cinque Terre, it is a goup of 5 towns that you hike through along the coast, and it's supposed to be absolutely breathtaking. You can go cliff jumping, or lay out on rocks, and hike the "Journey of Love" covered with locks, where lovers "locked" their love, and threw the keys into the sea. I just can't wait.

After this weekend, that means we only have one week left- which is terrible. I never want to leave Italy. It is so beautiful here, and the culture is so rich and wonderful and so interesting. It is seriously crazy to see how much we use energy and literally how much we waste in the U.S., just being over here for a month. I think they should inform all Americans of how much we waste, by either paying for a trip over to see how they do it on the other half of the globe, or maybe by infomercial, since TV is a commonality among most Americans. However, if they sent everyone over here, I don't know that all, or even many, would return. Shoot, I wouldn't! (At least, not for a while)

Anyways, I get the pleasure of spending my afternoon in the library because every morning, at precisely 7:45 a.m., there is a constant banging from the workermen next door working on the apartment. It really is wonderful to wake up to. I thoroughly enjoy it- along with how well it helps me concentrate and focus on my studies. Please excuse my brattiness, it just really gets on my nerves some days, and, well, this is one of those days...

... Good thing we're going to Germany!

Peace and blessings, peace and blessings.

Cravings

I miss Tex-Mex.

The first thing I do when I get back to the States will be to get some good 'ole chips and salsa and some guacamole. I cannot wait. The existence of Mexican food here is slim to none, and I fully look forward to getting some the minute I get back home.

I miss ice.

Europeans don't use ice here. It's really a strange concept. I assume from the lack of clean tap water, but still, it's just strange. So yes, ice is another thing that I miss from home. Ice in addition to free water at restaurants, and not having to buy "still" water.

...

We went to Rome this weekend, and it was very fun! Getting to see all the things you read about in your history books, and actually going inside the colleseum was great. Definitely an unforgettable experience. And besides the unbelievable heat, the city was neat, and we got to ride the Metro back in forth- Rome is HUGE.

We went to the Trevi Fountain and made a wish and threw coins in the fountain. Ashley made 3 wishes on one coin, to which the guys shook their head. But she went back and did it again and only wished once, so we're hoping maybe that will cancel out the other two? Better experience at the Trevi Fountain than the hog fountain in Florence that you let your coin roll of the snout and into the grate at the bottom... Hers didn't go in on the first try, and not realizing you could try again, picked it up and threw it in. The guys all put their hands on their heads and said. " Noooooooo!!" Haha, it was definitely a funny experience, since we didn't know that throwing it in yourself dooms you to "never come back to Florence." She plans on coming back next summer just to spite the silly tale and hog. I, once again, support her endeavors.

One of the best/coolest things about Rome was all the water pumps around the city pumping fresh water from the aquaducts in the mountains that you could refill your water bottle up with. It was great! And it was FREEZING COLD! Which was absolutely wonderful.

We also went to mass at St. Peters in the Vatican on Sunday morning before we left, which was just so interesting, and really a once in a lifetime opportunity! Unbelievable. But very hard to understand Latin.

After tripping all over Rome- literally I tripped at least 5 times a day, and slipped down a crosswalk- you'd be surprised how slippery the dang things are! We were sooo glad to get back to Florence and to cooler weather- weather that we had previously thought was insanely hot.

I can't believe I left out our adventure at Heidi's hostel in Switzerland on my last post, so I will definitely update that later. Because Heidi and Herberts is definitely a tale that one cannot forget.

A thanks to Switzerland for satisfying my sweet tooth.

It's a miracle that all Swiss people aren't huge.

There is a constant stream of fresh baked- or made is probably the more correct term- chocolate, in addition to the abundance of gelato stands or shops that frequent every single street corner in Florence. We walked into two different chocolate shops in particular, both of which I have pictures of, and I literally think a person could spend hours in there. It is insane just how much chocolate, and how many kinds, and different flavors and textures, and you-name-its are in there. Unreal. After much deliberation, and a failed attempt at asking the woman working the counter which truffle was the best or most popular- she replied that all are good... gee lady, thanks for giving me no direction at all- I settled with some random ones from the counter that looked pretty, and I assumed tasted good, and got some chocolate raisins and almonds which were incredible. As far as the truffle "bar" goes, I have a suggestion for all you chocolate conneisseurs out there who have dreams of traveling to the delectable land of the Swiss... take a translator, or know what different liquors and flavors are in German- it will save you a lot of trouble. Don't get me wrong, the chocolates were delicious-- and you'd be surprised how different a fresh chocolate tastes, however, I got a rude surprise when I ate one of my "pretty" truffles. It was filled with cognac, a name that I didn't recognize in German, and a flavor that I didn't expect to find in my chocolate. But, to each his own, and if you like cognac, then that is the chocolate for you- no doubt. Moral of the story- learn your German.

Canyoning was possibly one of the most incredible adventures and best investments of my life. It. Was. AWESOME. I will post pictures from the great trip at the end of this. First of all, canyoning is basically a mixture of hiking and swimming through the canyons and rivers of the Swiss Alps, with the majority of the mixture being in the water. In addition to being amidst the breath-taking beauty of the Alps and just taking in the fresh air and slightly cooler temperatures than Florence, you get to basically "tear" down- I feel "tearing down" the canyon would best describe my experience as our canyoning guides responded to my literal shot through the water when we were told to lay flat in the water and "slide" through the part of the stream we were at with, "Whooooaaa, slow down! Easy, easy..." Basically, it was the best thing I've ever done. Not to mention, the 15 degree Celsius water. 15 degrees celsius is freezing. Absolutely freezing. Water that is so cold that it takes the breath out of you. The camera man caught a couple of pictures of me coming out of the water after having jumped or going under and those faces are quite the sight, haha. Also, each of our helmets had a name on it, to which we were supposed to respond during our excursion, because our guides said it was easier to read the helmet then remember a name. Great idea, interesting names. Ashley found a helmet with "Gaga" on it, and Brittany's had "kiss". I was one of the last ones to pick helmets- which are different sizes, mind you, so you have to find your size and hope that the name on that size is somewhat appropriate. The only smalls left had names in German or a different language, which I decided weren't the best choices in case they meant something super dirty, so I settled with the only medium helmet left, and beep bopped down the canyon as "Stu Pitt." Haha, it was pretty funny. If you'd like to hear some of the other names, just take a closer look at the picture of our canyoning group at the end of this blog to get a taste. Oh man, but those wetsuits and yellow diapers we had on were just parts of the most exhilirating and greatest moments of my life. For real. Go to Switzerland, and go canyoning.

I have a midterm this afternoon in my Mafia class, which is actually a very interesting class. I thoroughly enjoy it, and my professor, Stefano, is hilarious. Yesterday, his phone rang in the middle of his lecture, and he apologized before answering- informing us that his car had stopped in the middle of the road earlier that day, and that now he had to go find it, and proceeded to walk out of the room muttering Italian into the phone. Italians are funny. And they also stare. Constantly. Blatantly. Ashley said she wants to learn how to say, "Take a picture, it will last longer," in Italian, so she can tell the creepy Italian men to quit staring. I support her endeavors. I now have to go study the Mafia and read some things for my midterm, but I will update more later.

Ciao!

The Mosquito Mafia

Apologies for my slacking blog updates, I will try to fill ya'll in on what's been going on...

Well on Friday, we had orientation at this magnificent- literally there is no other word to describe it- theater, where they actually show movies in English. (Awesome.) It was pretty boring, but they did tell us some stuff we needed to do and things to do/avoid, so Ashley made fun of me in her blog saying I took copious notes. However, I would like to point out that I just like to have a "to-do" list sort of thing in front of me, so I can visually mark off things I had to do- otherwise I would just forget about them. Anyways, I wrote down what they told us. Then Ashley and I walked around Florence, I forget what we were trying to find exactly, but ended up at the leather market which was one of the coolest things ever! There are vendors literally everywhere- you can get so turned around and completely lost because everything looks the same! Also, another thing we learned upon coming to Florence-- the location of the street signs. When we were in Milan and asked the hotel some suggestions of places to eat for dinner the man gave us these roundabout directions (left, then right, the two lefts, etc.) and we could not figure out how to read the map he also had given us because there were literally no street signs. We came to the conclusion that Italians memorize their street names and locations. Come to find out, the street signs are up on the sides of the buildings. Oh, genius- what a novel idea. So, for future reference, if you're ever coming to Florence, look on the side of the buildings to see the plaque with the name of the street on it. So we're in the middle of the leather market- which is incredible and so neat. We walked around for a little bit, and tried to ask a man what his leather jackets were going for out of curiousity, and he ended up being super wierd and sketchy, and wouldn't tell us the price. Then we came home and waited around for the internet guy/land lord to get here to tell us how to use the stove and washer and set up our internet. That turned into a long 30 minutes, ending up in Ashley's keys that were on the washer accidentally getting picked up with all of their stuff following their explanation to us of how if we lost our keys it would be around 90 euro to replace the keys and change the locks for our safety. We went in the next day, and Mario had her keys, thank goodness! After that, we played around on our internet for a while and then went to the Welcome dinner at this restaurant with all of the students from LdM. The dinner was super nice and so yummy. It was 2 courses and had desert and bread- Italians eat A TON at meals. Crazy. However, we opted out and got gelato and walked around with a girl named Brittany who was here the first half of the summer and showed us around Florence. We walked down to the Duomo, the fake David, and found our way to the Ponte Vecchio bridge which is goooorgeous! and then headed back to crash in bed from exhaustion.

Yesterday, I got up and ran around the Ponte Vecchio with Anne, this sweet girl I met from Missouri, which was lovely. It is so beautiful and cool in the mornings in Florence. I just love it! I got seriously distracted during my run though, as I ended up stopping and looking around (ha!). After our run we went back and got ready to go to the Museo de Uffizi which is in the house (more like enormous stone castle) that the Medici's lived in when they were in power. It was really neat and had all this art and history in it... but it was like 7 hours long, and our legs were dying. I guess we hadn't mentally prepared our selves for a 7 hour trek through a huge museum of art and paitings. But we had gotten these passes that get you in free to a lot of the museums in Florence so we're going to go back and finish the hike another day. We came back and made lunch, baked potatoes- yum! And watched the Bachelorette on Ashley's iTunes and just hung out- which was sooo relaxing! We hung out after that, and I went with Cheryl, one of our roommates to the Pharmacy to try and find some hydrocortisone cream for her enormous, swollen bug bite and found the gluten-free food in Italy! YAY! Then we went back and hung out some more and then went to the Supermarket to get stuff for dinner and made dinner. The best part of the day yesterday is credit to my best friend ever who went and saw Eclipse with me, almost willingly, in Italy. It was sooooo good, I loved it! And it was pretty neat sitting in that magnificent theater watching the movie, complete with intermission. Haha, random? Yes, but great! Then we maneuvered our way home, we are finally figuring out the city- which is verrrry good, and then went to bed because walking seriously wears you out!

Today we have slept in and just plan on getting ready for our first day of class tomorrow. Ash and I are thinking about heading over to the Ponte Vecchio and the Rose Gardens that you climb up and can take pictures of all of Florence on! I am super excited about that! But here are some pictures of Florence and how beautiful it is!

The Duomo... sooo beautiful!

Being artisitc with the Duomo..

Again.. Duomo

Museo de Uffizi.. Where the Medici's lived... aka stone castle

Ponte Vecchio

View across the River

View from our apartment!

Duomo at night!

other view from our apartment

our bathroom and the European washer thing

Ashley and I's room

Okay, by the way, it is sooo hot here. During the night, since there is no air conditioning it is miserable because you sweat and literally wake up damp because you are sweating so much. Gross. Well, then you have to add taht you leavethe windows open but close the shutters so you have some air conditioning, but you are also inviting in the mosquito mafia. I think we all have a total of over 100 bites. Ashley has about five on her face, and one big one on her toe. I have quite a few on my face and a bunch all over my arms and legs. You can't cover up because then you're blazing hot, and so you suffer the attack of the mafia and get eaten alive at night. Maybe they'll teach me something about the mosquito mafia in my history of organized crime class. Because they are definitely organized in their attacks, as you are almost asleep and then they buzz in your ear. Annoying. Hopefully we'll figure out something or some way to combat their antics, but until then, we deal.

Oh, and happy 4th of July to America!!

Scusi, do've via del Faenza??

Milan's got nothing on Florence.

Seriously, Florence may be one of my favorite places in the entire world... and I get to live here for a month!? Holy moly, this is awesome. But before I tell of my italian escapades in Firenze, I will put up pictures as promised...

Okay, here is a picture of the strange half covered shower... the door cuts off the other part of the bath tub, but the glass piece literally covered about 2 feet of the tub/shower... It was a very strange experience. Ha!

And here is another picture of the crazy bathroom, and the wierd European washer... which might I add, is also a part of our apartment bathroom in Florence. Apparently it's a European commodity? Interesting...

So, so interesting... Anyways, here is a picture of the Duomo in Milan, that literally is puny and near ugly in comparison to the Duomo in Florence. Gee whiz.

And clearly, Ashley and I were having a blasty-blast in Milan, glistening and enjoying the pigeons.

And only because it's almost 1 am here, I will put up pictures of Florence and tell tales of our adventures tomorrow!!

Buonanotte!

Oh, and p.s., I fully plan on making notecards of Italian phrases and words, because I am DETERMINED to learn the language.

Ciao, Italia!

Well, we made it to Italy, praise the Lord.

The first flight to London was rough- whoever tells you that the seating on international flights has more leg room is yanking your chain. You are just as cramped and crammed in those seats as you are on any other flight. Ashley got the window seat this time, and I took the aisle which posed for an awkward 9 hours trying to get situated and comfortable. However, they DID show Bride Wars on the plane, which was awesome, and kept me entertained for the time being. Our flight was delayed 30 minutes but they assured us we wouldn't have any issues making connecting flights...

Well, they forgot to mention that taxiing to the gate takes a million years and that the airport information of what terminal you need to go to is extremely misleading, not to mention Ashley getting stuck at the security gate for an hour because of a water bottle. We ended up in the wrong terminal, and eventually ran to our gate to make our flight to Milan as we heard 'Final boarding call for flight to Milan'. Long story, short, we made our flight and were lucky enough to get on a plane in which the air conditioning only worked when the plane was in flight. Awesome. Ash and I weren't next to each other on this flight, but the man I sat next to didn't say a word to me, which was fine- as my plan for the flight was to sleep. Ashley conked out before the plane even took off- catching flies and everything. I should be talking- I woke up with a huge drool spot on my pillow... oops?

After those eventful flights we made it to Milan and decided to ride the bus instead of paying over a hundred dollars for a taxi. On the bus, I whipped out my Italian-English dictionary and tried to learn some essential things to communicate- I asked the man I was sitting next to if he knew where we were supposed to get off, and he was very nice and assisted us- thank you to my sister Ashley for loaning me that book, it has been a LIFESAVER. For real. I don't know where we'd be without that book.

Once we got to our stop at the Centrale Stazione, we went to our hotel and ate dinner, showered, and crashed. I'm convinced we had jet lag. We slept 14 hours this morning, minus waking up for 30 minutes to go down and eat breakfast, which I can't wait for, for tomorrow. Ha! We woke up to my alarm at 1:30, Ashley flipped out, which was extremely amusing, she didn't realize we had slept that long. We figured out train stuff for tomorrow and how to get to Florence and the train to use, etc. and then rode the Metro to the city center of Milan and walked around for a bit. The Duomo was absolutely gorgeous, but we didn't realize you needed pants and covered shoulders to be allowed in, so we'll make sure we are dressed appropriately in Florence. Other than that, we just walked around looking at all the different shops. Ashley got some gelato, which she said was incredible, and we are sitting at an internet café, about to go get some dinner, and then probably head to bed.

Our hotel room is so neat! I'll have to upload some pictures whenever I have my own computer, but to turn the lights on, your key card has to be in this slot by the door. Oh, and forgot to mention, when we got to the station from the airport, we didn't realize our hotel was literally across a couple of streets, so we got a taxi-- the driver kept laughing and mumbling something to us, we didn't understand- but when we pulled up to our hotel a minute later, we realized he was laughing at us! I feel like we have been made fun of quite a few times since we've gotten here. We walked into the hotel, and the two men who helped us with our luggage were laughing at us- we assumed at the amount, but who really knows!? Anyways, the bathroom is probably the neatest part of our room, the shower has not shower door or curtain-which is super strange, but there is this glass that blocks the water thats probably only about 2 feet wide and then it's wide open. Crazy! And they have one of those European washing things next to the toilet- which is also super strange. Oh, and there is a TV in the bathroom, in case you get bored I guess??

Well, that's pretty much all that has happened or that we've experienced so far, besides constantly being stared at. Literally, constantly. Guess we'll get used to it! Tomorrow we'll ride the train to Florence to get to LdM, and get situated there, which will be nice to finally get to our apartment and not have to lug everything around!

Oh, and I'm dying to see Eclipse.

Until next time- arrivederci!