Ciao!!
I should be doing homework and studying for my midterms but I really don't feel like it. So instead I decided to blog about being in Florence in general. I haven't had time to blog about Florence too much, I've just been focused on blogging about traveling. These are the things that I like and I don't like!
LIKES:
1) Beauty: Florence is the most beautiful city I've ever been in. Everywhere I walk is so pretty and I often have to remind myself that not all cities look like this. The buildings are all so cute and I love how small the city is that I can walk everywhere.
2) Markets: I like all the little markets with fresh food. They're so easy to stop by on the way home and just grab some ingredients for whatever you're making for dinner that night. The grocery stores here aren't very big because most Italians only buy their necessities and shop multiple times per week. It's a much different lifestyle.
3) Cheap wine: Wine is so cheap here compared to the United States. It's only 3€ for a bottle which is really awesome. They also have a wine filling store where you can bring an empty bottle and fill a liter of wine for only 1.50€. America is much more expensive.
4) Slow pace: The Italians definitely have a slower pace. When they say a certain time, they will take their time getting places, they're never in a huge rush. Even just walking around town, they walk so much slower than I do. I also think that none of them work and all they do is shop and buy food, but I doubt that's completely true. It's nice having a change of pace. I find myself to be less stressed out here, but that could also be because of my next like...
5) Not a lot of homework: My classes are all interesting and I like most of them. I never find myself having a lot of homework. Italian is the only class I have homework for each night. It's a lot more writing essays and such, but it's a nice change. I haven't written essays since probably high school.
6) Food: The food here is awesome!!!! I don't think there's something that I've had that I didn't like. Everything is amazing. I'm going to miss the mozzarella here the most. It's so much better than at home. It's always so fresh. It actually comes in water so it stays fresh.
7) Small school and staff: Coming from a huge school and campus, it's nice to experience the small school atmosphere. I know so many people from my school because our classes are so small. I like having 17 person classes, it's a good change. The staff at the school is wonderful. They are all so incredibly nice, and are so helpful with anything you ask of them. They also have so many events that the students can attend for free or for low cost and they're all so fun.
8) City life: It's cool being in the city and being able to experience the night life. It's nice having a semester of school in the city after being in a small town before.
9) Restaurants: All the restaurants here are so unique and cozy. The restaurants are all very small. I haven't seen a restaurant bigger than about 20 tables. There aren't chain restaurants here like there are in the U.S.
10) No classes on Fridays: After having classes 5 days a week, it's awesome to have a long weekend every single weekend!!
11) History: I really enjoy learning about the history of Florence. I've already seen a lot of the museums but there's more I want to experience as well. I find all the stories so interesting. My one class is called "Story of the City"and one class we have a lesson and the other class we take a field trip to somewhere historical around Florence. It's so cool to learn the stories behind everything with the ancient and medieval worlds.
DISLIKES:
1) Dog poop: There's no grass here so the dogs just poop on the sidewalks (which are very skinny). It's annoying because a lot of people don't pick it up, they just leave it there.
2) Little weird dogs: The dogs here are all weird mixed breeds, and they're kindof ugly. Also, they're are little tiny dogs. I get really excited every time I see a dog that's normal looking and a bigger size.
3) No living room: Our kitchen is nice, but we don't have a family room where we can all hang out in so the kitchen becomes our hangout spot. It's annoying because we can't have many people over since our kitchen really isn't that big.
4) Mosquitoes: Apparently the mosquitoes here are really bad in the summer. Most of that cause is probably because the windows don't have screens. But, we have had mosquitoes in the house, and it's annoying to wake up with bites on your arms.
5) Bread: I expected the bread here to be great, but it's been so incredibly disappointing. It's usually too hard and difficult to eat. The best bread I've had here has been from the supermarket.
6) Rain: I didn't expect it to rain that much in Florence. In January, it seemed like it rained every single day. It doesn't snow, but I would rather it have snowed than rain everyday. It's been raining a bit less, so I'm hoping it will rain less and less.
7) Weird hours for restaurants: The restaurants here don't usually open til 7 PM, and I'm usually starving by 5 PM so it's really inconvenient. I still haven't adjusted to their schedule. Also, a lot of markets and stores close from 2:30-4:30 during the day. It's such a random time.
8) Long classes: Although tuesday/thursday classes at Penn State are an hour and 15 minutes, for some reason, my hour and a half classes seem incredibly long.
9) Tourists: There have been more and more tourists arriving and I find it somewhat annoying. They all travel in huge packs and slow me down on my walk to school. They're usually pretty obnoxious as well.
Despite all my dislikes, I'm loving it here and I can't wait to show Florence off to my family and Matt!
Now I better go get some work done,
Katie
Friday, February 22, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Bonjour!
I spent this past weekend in Paris! It was awesome, I really enjoyed it. This past week before Paris was pretty uneventful, I was just catching up on sleep from my Interlaken trip. I volunteered officially for the first time with the elementary school. It was fun to meet all the kids, and the ones that I worked with were very advanced english speakers. One little girl even gave me a postcard that she had gotten from a museum. It felt great to volunteer. Also last week, my field trip was to a church called San Miniato and it's up on the hills with a beautiful view of Florence. The church was from the medieval times and it was very dark and almost creepy. There weren't many windows, and the church was split-level, which is very unordinary for churches. It was a cool field trip, I really like that class.
My weekend was so awesome!! I traveled with my friends this weekend, and my roommates did a mix of staying home, and some went to London. I was excited to travel with a different group! There were seven of us but we accomplished so much in just two and a half days and it worked out that we all pretty much wanted to do the same things. Our flight to Paris was at 7:20 AM, so we were pretty exhausted all weekend after not getting much sleep before the weekend either.
We got to Paris at 9:20 AM on Friday and took a shuttle to our hotel to check in and meet up with the other girls who had come in on Thursday night. After meeting up, we started planning out our day. First we went to grab some breakfast. We each got a pastry and split a baguette. The bread is AMAZING in Paris, I don't understand why Italy's bread sucks. Also, the pastries were all so good no matter what you ordered. The metro was just about 20 feet away from our hotel, right across the street. We figured out the metro pretty quickly. The metro is so efficient and convenient, I'm surprised it isn't like this in the U.S. After we planned out our route, we decided to go to the Louvre first. We saw the Mona Lisa, which in my opinion wasn't all that impressive. There was a really cool egyptian exhibit in the Louvre which was my favorite part there. There was a real live mummy! The Louvre was unbelievable huge. I couldn't believe how long it stretched around. After the Louvre, we headed to the Orsay Museum and it was also cool. I liked the Louvre better but Orsay was cool. Orsay was mostly paintings and sculptures. We saw a lot of Van Gogh, which was a lot cooler in paintings than in books when we just learned about them. I definitely have a lot more respect for the artists we've learned about now that I can see the real paintings. We also saw Monet, and Degas. After the Orsay, we headed to Notre Dame!!! It was a really pretty church. On the way there, we saw love-lock bridge and there were so many locks on there, it was adorable. We got to Notre Dame, and when we went in, mass was going on. It was actually pretty cool, but there must be pretty annoying for the people actually trying to listen with all those tourists around. After Notre Dame, we tried to head to a fondue place but it was way too busy, so we just grabbed dinner somewhere else. The meals in France were so cheap, they were 15 Euros for a 3 course meal with an appetizer, entree, and dessert. It was nice because we don't have that in Florence. After dinner, we walked around a bit and saw the Moulin Rouge area. We were so exhausted we just went home and went to bed because we were getting up early the next day.
On Saturday, we woke up early to go to Versailles! It took us so long to get there because Versailles is on the outside of the city. We thought we knew how to get there but we had to switch so many trains because they kept ending. Finally, we realized that the one train we needed wasn't going to Versailles that day and we had to take another that would take us in walking distance. It was probably a good hour or so of travel time, but it was completely worth it. Versailles was my favorite part. I loved seeing the palace. The palace was where Louis the 14th, 15th, and 16th stayed, as well as Marie Antoinette, and another Marie. I loved all the rooms. They were incredibly gaudy and overwhelming, but it was awesome to picture living back in that time. Even the dauphin's apartments were nice. We thought we were done looking around until we walked outside and realized the gardens extended very far, and there was Marie Antoinette's estate down there. My friend and I walked down there and wanted to see the estate. Unfortunately, we had gotten separated from our friends earlier and they had our tickets, so we had to pay just to see the estate. The estate was much more home-y and quaint than the palace, but it was still very nice. The one funny thing is how small their beds were, because they were much shorter back then. After Versailles, we headed to grab some lunch. We all got grilled cheeses and fries. Their fries are pretty good -- I mean they are FRENCH fries after all. The grilled cheeses were cool because they put cheese in the middle AND on top, and I love cheese. After that we headed to the Eiffel Tower!!! Honestly, the Eiffel Tower is cool but it's brown and somewhat ugly. It's really pretty when it's lit up at night though. Apparently the guy who built it ate lunch everyday under the tower because that's the only place he couldn't see it. We waited in line and we were planning on taking an elevator to the top. Me and my friend Abby were freaking out because we don't like heights that much. The top ended up getting closed while we were in line so we could only go to the second floor which is about halfway up. That was a little easier to handle than going all the way to the top. We still got great views, and it was cool. After the Tour Eiffel, we went to see the Arc de Triumph. It was big, and to get to it you have to walk down stairs underground and then back up, since the intersection is so crazy. Under the Arc de Triumph, they had their tomb of the unknown soldier, which was very pretty. They don't have a guard that watches it like the U.S. though. We then headed to another great dinner, where they gave us free white wine with raspberry. It was delicious. After that, we headed home and slept.
Sunday morning, we just took our time getting to the airport. When we got there, our one friend found out that for some reason she was on the later flight. I think Expedia messed it up. The flight home was okay, we hit a lot of turbulence which really freaked me out. I was glad to be home after a busy two weeks of travel.
Paris was awesome, but I'm so glad I'm studying in Florence. Paris is way too big of a city for me, and even though the metro was convenient, it still took a good amount of time to get places, and you can't really walk anywhere. The metro is quick, but you have to switch trains a lot to get specifically where you want. I always like having the option to walk places. The other thing about Florence, is that I feel a lot safer here. In Paris, there were a few sketchy incidents that occurred. My one friend was getting money out of an ATM machine and there were some young, about 13 years old, boys near by. I thought it was kindof weird that the boys were so close, but then I felt bad for judging them so I just ignored it. Apparently, when my friend got to the screen where you pick the amount you would like to withdrawal, the boys covered the screen with a paper, pressed the maximum amount button, and were trying to grab her money before she could. Luckily, a french man from across the street ran over and yelled and them, and they ran away. My friend got out 250 more Euros than she planned but at least she was holding them and not the boys. There was another incident where we were getting off the metro and some man was getting on and all of a sudden, four policemen ran and pulled the man off the metro. That was scary because we hadn't even seen policemen or security on the metro until then. And then in the airport on the way home, there was almost two women fighting. Some cashier came out from behind the counter and pushed the customer and I thought for sure there would be a fight. It was quite an interesting weekend.
This week I've just been relaxing and getting ready for midterms next week. Next week, I'm supposed to start playing soccer, which I'm very excited about, but I have 4 midterms next week and I'm supposed to play in 4 soccer games. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to go to them, so we'll see how my studying goes. I have a lot of studying to do. Most of my midterms are essays, which makes me a little nervous seeing as I haven't had essay exams probably since high school. I have a lot of studying to do!!
Cannot believe my family will be here in 8 days!!!!! And Matthew will be here in 2 weeks!!! I am so excited to show them around Florence and I'm also excited to see Rome!!
Ciao ragazzi,
Katie
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Ciao ragazzi!
It's been an awesome week and an even better weekend. Last week was good. I had two quizzes that I did well on, and I played in a practice soccer game. I think we start the real games against other schools next week. It was so great to play again. I also went to the elementary school that I will be volunteering at. It was a really nice school and I was surprised at how early they start teaching english. These little 6 year olds were already learning english phrases. I'm excited to start volunteering this week, it will be very fun. I went to Interlaken this past weekend, and it was possibly the most beautiful place I've ever been. Florence is a very pretty city but Interlaken is this beautiful snowy place with amazing mountains. It's so serene and amazing.
We left for Interlaken on thursday at 8 PM and didn't get there until 4 AM. I woke up as we were on the side of the mountain in the snow and driving so slowly up the hill. It was probably the most terrifying ride I have ever been on but we made it! When you enter Switzerland, it's just tons of mountains so there was a lot of tiny roads up and down the mountains. I was just glad that I didn't have to drive on those roads. We got to our hostel and immediately slept for about 2 hours. The hostel was so nice, super clean, and they were very helpful. I feel like I was a little spoiled for my first hostel experience. We all got to stay in the same room so that was nice. We went with a company called Bus2Alps and they were so helpful and nice compared to the last company we booked a trip with. After we slept, we got up to have breakfast and get going to start skiing!! My friend Colleen and I had booked a full beginner's day and we were really excited. We got there and found out that we couldn't have a lesson because not enough people had signed up. So our choices were to pay more and have a private lesson, or to just do a half day skiing and have our lesson in the afternoon. We decided to do that and it was so perfect. The lesson was sweet, our instructor was really friendly, and the mountains were beautiful. I was so glad I took the opportunity to ski. I wore so many layers that I was actually so hot on the mountain, and I never once was cold. We went down the bunny hill the whole time, with little kids flying past me, but I didn't care, I had a blast. After we got home, we went out with a big group to grab dinner. All food in Switzerland is crazy expensive. It was hard to find a meal that was under 15 swiss francs (swiss francs are basically the same amount as dollars). We all went out and had swiss cheese fondue for dinner. It was very filling, but I wish we had gotten chocolate fondue instead! We were all so exhausted Friday night that we went to bed early.
On Saturday, me and some of my friends went to Zurich. It was so cool! Zurich is a really pretty city and it was only about a two hour drive away from Interlaken. It's pretty small but it reminded me a little of Boston. It was very clean and people friendly. It was snowing and it was so beautiful. First, everyone made a stop at Starbucks, since there are none in Florence. It was nice seeing some familiar American stores there. We walked around the city, saw a beautiful church, and then we got to climb the Grossmunster church and see the views of the city from the top. It was awesome, and Lake Zurich is beautiful. We got lunch and shopped. For lunch, we all got rostis. A rosti is Swiss food, and it's basically a hashbrown with toppings. Mine was the rosti on bottom, then cheese, bacon, and egg on top. It was delicious; it pretty much just tasted like breakfast. After we got back to Interlaken, we grabbed dinner and then spent the night with all of our friends at the other hostel's bar. It was a great time, and so fun because we knew so many people from our program on the trip this weekend.
On Sunday, we walked to the beautiful lake in Interlaken. It was about a 20 minute walk and we got to see a lot of the local houses. They all look like little toy cabins, they are so cute. The lake was so clear and blue, it was like we were in the caribbean. I was in awe of how beautiful this place is and I hope to go back someday and bring my friends and family. After, I bought lots of chocolate, and it was unbelievably delicious. Chocolate, unfortunately, is also very expensive. We grabbed some burgers for lunch - which were weird and tasted more like sausage - and then got on the bus home! We were all exhausted by that point.
I feel like this trip was probably different that the others I will be doing. Most of seeing other places is just walking around and going to museums and such. But this trip, we got to do really fun activities while seeing the country. They had a ton of stuff you could do: skiing, snowboarding, paragliding, skydiving, night sledding, etc. It was very expensive but 100% worth it. It was also really awesome, because in Switzerland they speak Swiss-German, so I could read and understand things! It was a nice change from being in Florence where I can only understand a little.
There's a chocolate festival going on in Florence this week, literally 2 minutes from my apartment. We signed up early and tonight we get to go to a free wine and chocolate tasting! I'm really excited :) Other than that, this week is pretty relaxed since I will be getting ready to go to Paris friday morning! We still need to figure out everything we want to see but it will be fun regardless. I want to definitely see the eiffel tower and the louvre. I'd also like to see Versailles because I've heard it's beautiful. I'm so excited!
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Feb 15-17): PARIS! I am so excited!
Next weekend (Feb 22-24): The weekend before midterms, so I will probably be studying and just relaxing after all of my traveling!
THEN IT'S SPRING BREAK!!!!
I miss you all! Ciaoooooo,
Katie
It's been an awesome week and an even better weekend. Last week was good. I had two quizzes that I did well on, and I played in a practice soccer game. I think we start the real games against other schools next week. It was so great to play again. I also went to the elementary school that I will be volunteering at. It was a really nice school and I was surprised at how early they start teaching english. These little 6 year olds were already learning english phrases. I'm excited to start volunteering this week, it will be very fun. I went to Interlaken this past weekend, and it was possibly the most beautiful place I've ever been. Florence is a very pretty city but Interlaken is this beautiful snowy place with amazing mountains. It's so serene and amazing.
We left for Interlaken on thursday at 8 PM and didn't get there until 4 AM. I woke up as we were on the side of the mountain in the snow and driving so slowly up the hill. It was probably the most terrifying ride I have ever been on but we made it! When you enter Switzerland, it's just tons of mountains so there was a lot of tiny roads up and down the mountains. I was just glad that I didn't have to drive on those roads. We got to our hostel and immediately slept for about 2 hours. The hostel was so nice, super clean, and they were very helpful. I feel like I was a little spoiled for my first hostel experience. We all got to stay in the same room so that was nice. We went with a company called Bus2Alps and they were so helpful and nice compared to the last company we booked a trip with. After we slept, we got up to have breakfast and get going to start skiing!! My friend Colleen and I had booked a full beginner's day and we were really excited. We got there and found out that we couldn't have a lesson because not enough people had signed up. So our choices were to pay more and have a private lesson, or to just do a half day skiing and have our lesson in the afternoon. We decided to do that and it was so perfect. The lesson was sweet, our instructor was really friendly, and the mountains were beautiful. I was so glad I took the opportunity to ski. I wore so many layers that I was actually so hot on the mountain, and I never once was cold. We went down the bunny hill the whole time, with little kids flying past me, but I didn't care, I had a blast. After we got home, we went out with a big group to grab dinner. All food in Switzerland is crazy expensive. It was hard to find a meal that was under 15 swiss francs (swiss francs are basically the same amount as dollars). We all went out and had swiss cheese fondue for dinner. It was very filling, but I wish we had gotten chocolate fondue instead! We were all so exhausted Friday night that we went to bed early.
On Saturday, me and some of my friends went to Zurich. It was so cool! Zurich is a really pretty city and it was only about a two hour drive away from Interlaken. It's pretty small but it reminded me a little of Boston. It was very clean and people friendly. It was snowing and it was so beautiful. First, everyone made a stop at Starbucks, since there are none in Florence. It was nice seeing some familiar American stores there. We walked around the city, saw a beautiful church, and then we got to climb the Grossmunster church and see the views of the city from the top. It was awesome, and Lake Zurich is beautiful. We got lunch and shopped. For lunch, we all got rostis. A rosti is Swiss food, and it's basically a hashbrown with toppings. Mine was the rosti on bottom, then cheese, bacon, and egg on top. It was delicious; it pretty much just tasted like breakfast. After we got back to Interlaken, we grabbed dinner and then spent the night with all of our friends at the other hostel's bar. It was a great time, and so fun because we knew so many people from our program on the trip this weekend.
On Sunday, we walked to the beautiful lake in Interlaken. It was about a 20 minute walk and we got to see a lot of the local houses. They all look like little toy cabins, they are so cute. The lake was so clear and blue, it was like we were in the caribbean. I was in awe of how beautiful this place is and I hope to go back someday and bring my friends and family. After, I bought lots of chocolate, and it was unbelievably delicious. Chocolate, unfortunately, is also very expensive. We grabbed some burgers for lunch - which were weird and tasted more like sausage - and then got on the bus home! We were all exhausted by that point.
I feel like this trip was probably different that the others I will be doing. Most of seeing other places is just walking around and going to museums and such. But this trip, we got to do really fun activities while seeing the country. They had a ton of stuff you could do: skiing, snowboarding, paragliding, skydiving, night sledding, etc. It was very expensive but 100% worth it. It was also really awesome, because in Switzerland they speak Swiss-German, so I could read and understand things! It was a nice change from being in Florence where I can only understand a little.
There's a chocolate festival going on in Florence this week, literally 2 minutes from my apartment. We signed up early and tonight we get to go to a free wine and chocolate tasting! I'm really excited :) Other than that, this week is pretty relaxed since I will be getting ready to go to Paris friday morning! We still need to figure out everything we want to see but it will be fun regardless. I want to definitely see the eiffel tower and the louvre. I'd also like to see Versailles because I've heard it's beautiful. I'm so excited!
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Feb 15-17): PARIS! I am so excited!
Next weekend (Feb 22-24): The weekend before midterms, so I will probably be studying and just relaxing after all of my traveling!
THEN IT'S SPRING BREAK!!!!
I miss you all! Ciaoooooo,
Katie
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Buongiorno,
It's been another great week and also a busy one. I should really try to blog more in between so I don't have to type out these huge blogs, but I always forget. My week was good, my classes are starting to get more serious and I have an italian test next week which I'm pretty nervous about since we learned so much in just a few weeks. I'm going to have a busy upcoming week. I officially signed up for soccer and we have our first practice game this wednesday. I also have signed up to volunteer helping at an elementary school and we meet with the principal on Wednesday. It should only be a few hours a week so I'm looking forward to it. This past week I officially booked my flight to Barcelona! I should be booking my hostel soon. My friend Colleen and I are going March 14-17.
This week was fun! Tuesday my friends and I went out to Tijuana, which is a mexican place. They're pretty rare here in Italy but it was so awesome. We got nachos, toastadas, and margaritas. Tacos is my favorite meal so I was really happy. We will definitely be going back. Also on Tuesday, we went to the Uffizi Museum, which was cool. There were a ton of busts and paintings. On Wednesday, my story of the city class went on a really cool historic tour of the city. We saw exactly where the city of Florence was during the Roman Empire. It is so small to what the city is now. We saw the rounded walls of where the coliseum once stood, which is now houses. We saw where the center of town used to be. We were able to see the 1966 flood marks on the buildings, and they were way over one story high. I really enjoy that class. On thursday, we tried to go to Cappelle di Medici, which is the Medici's tombs, but it was closed. We ended up just walking around and shopping.
On Friday, we just hung out around during the day. We went to the diner and it was awesome. It's an American diner so they had pancakes and breakfast sandwiches and burgers. I got chocolate chip pancakes and I was so happy. Later around 6:30, we got all dressed up and went out to the restaurant literally across the street. It was really nice and delicious. We had a really great dinner. I got spicy spaghetti and it was way spicier than I imagined it. We then went to the opera around 8!!! It was so fun to get dressed up and go out to something so formal. The only problem was that we all bought new heels and they were very cute, but it was awful walking in them on cobblestones. The opera was good, the singers were so talented. It was just hard to pay attention to a 4 and a half hour opera when it's all in Italian. They had the subtitles projected on top of the stage, so I could look at it and identify about one word in each line, but that wasn't very helpful. The opera was called Don Giovani, and I looked at the wikipedia summary during intermission to get to know more about the storyline. It was truly exhausting and we came back and immediately went to sleep.
On Saturday, we went to Venice. I was so excited to see Venice. We booked our transportation with this one company since it was cheaper than doing it on our own. It took about three hours to get there and when we got there the group leaders weren't very helpful. We took a water taxi to San Marco, which was where carnivale was happening. Although, mostly everything was cancelled since it rained the entire day, was freezing, and incredibly windy. We all knew it was going to be miserable so we decided to make the best out of it. When we got there we got lunch with a big group of us, which was fun. We warmed up and then shopped around for a while, and it was cool because they have so much Murano glass there. Murano is another island and it's famous for the glass making there. We then went in and got "dinner" somewhere. And by dinner, I just mean we got bruschetta and I got hot chocolate, which was literally just melted chocolate. It was so thick, but it was good. We were told that the leaders would be back by 7 and they made it sound that whoever got on the first bus would leave first once it filled. Instead, that didn't happen and we sat on the bus for an hour waiting for everyone to get back. The ride back took about 4 hours because it rained, and snowed pretty hard. The bus was blowing air conditioning, so it was freezing, and at some point the ceiling was leaking. It was not the best trip, and we won't be booking with that company again.
Today, we are going to the diner again! I have a lot of work to do and then we are going to watch the superbowl tonight! We had to reserve tickets since so many people like to go see it. It makes sense because there are so many students here.
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Feb 7-10): INTERLAKEN! I'm so excited, but I need to figure out if I can rent everything I need there.
Next weekend (Feb 15-17): Paris!!! I can't believe it's so soon. We need to start looking up the places we want to go!
Feb 22-24: This is the weekend before midterms!! I will most likely be studying but we were also thinking about taking a day trip to Pisa and/or Lucca.
I can't believe the weekend after my parents will be here!!! I'm so excited! I've started writing out places to take them and everything. Time is flying by here.
Ciao Ciao Ciaoooo,
Katie
It's been another great week and also a busy one. I should really try to blog more in between so I don't have to type out these huge blogs, but I always forget. My week was good, my classes are starting to get more serious and I have an italian test next week which I'm pretty nervous about since we learned so much in just a few weeks. I'm going to have a busy upcoming week. I officially signed up for soccer and we have our first practice game this wednesday. I also have signed up to volunteer helping at an elementary school and we meet with the principal on Wednesday. It should only be a few hours a week so I'm looking forward to it. This past week I officially booked my flight to Barcelona! I should be booking my hostel soon. My friend Colleen and I are going March 14-17.
This week was fun! Tuesday my friends and I went out to Tijuana, which is a mexican place. They're pretty rare here in Italy but it was so awesome. We got nachos, toastadas, and margaritas. Tacos is my favorite meal so I was really happy. We will definitely be going back. Also on Tuesday, we went to the Uffizi Museum, which was cool. There were a ton of busts and paintings. On Wednesday, my story of the city class went on a really cool historic tour of the city. We saw exactly where the city of Florence was during the Roman Empire. It is so small to what the city is now. We saw the rounded walls of where the coliseum once stood, which is now houses. We saw where the center of town used to be. We were able to see the 1966 flood marks on the buildings, and they were way over one story high. I really enjoy that class. On thursday, we tried to go to Cappelle di Medici, which is the Medici's tombs, but it was closed. We ended up just walking around and shopping.
On Friday, we just hung out around during the day. We went to the diner and it was awesome. It's an American diner so they had pancakes and breakfast sandwiches and burgers. I got chocolate chip pancakes and I was so happy. Later around 6:30, we got all dressed up and went out to the restaurant literally across the street. It was really nice and delicious. We had a really great dinner. I got spicy spaghetti and it was way spicier than I imagined it. We then went to the opera around 8!!! It was so fun to get dressed up and go out to something so formal. The only problem was that we all bought new heels and they were very cute, but it was awful walking in them on cobblestones. The opera was good, the singers were so talented. It was just hard to pay attention to a 4 and a half hour opera when it's all in Italian. They had the subtitles projected on top of the stage, so I could look at it and identify about one word in each line, but that wasn't very helpful. The opera was called Don Giovani, and I looked at the wikipedia summary during intermission to get to know more about the storyline. It was truly exhausting and we came back and immediately went to sleep.
On Saturday, we went to Venice. I was so excited to see Venice. We booked our transportation with this one company since it was cheaper than doing it on our own. It took about three hours to get there and when we got there the group leaders weren't very helpful. We took a water taxi to San Marco, which was where carnivale was happening. Although, mostly everything was cancelled since it rained the entire day, was freezing, and incredibly windy. We all knew it was going to be miserable so we decided to make the best out of it. When we got there we got lunch with a big group of us, which was fun. We warmed up and then shopped around for a while, and it was cool because they have so much Murano glass there. Murano is another island and it's famous for the glass making there. We then went in and got "dinner" somewhere. And by dinner, I just mean we got bruschetta and I got hot chocolate, which was literally just melted chocolate. It was so thick, but it was good. We were told that the leaders would be back by 7 and they made it sound that whoever got on the first bus would leave first once it filled. Instead, that didn't happen and we sat on the bus for an hour waiting for everyone to get back. The ride back took about 4 hours because it rained, and snowed pretty hard. The bus was blowing air conditioning, so it was freezing, and at some point the ceiling was leaking. It was not the best trip, and we won't be booking with that company again.
Today, we are going to the diner again! I have a lot of work to do and then we are going to watch the superbowl tonight! We had to reserve tickets since so many people like to go see it. It makes sense because there are so many students here.
Upcoming Plans:
This weekend (Feb 7-10): INTERLAKEN! I'm so excited, but I need to figure out if I can rent everything I need there.
Next weekend (Feb 15-17): Paris!!! I can't believe it's so soon. We need to start looking up the places we want to go!
Feb 22-24: This is the weekend before midterms!! I will most likely be studying but we were also thinking about taking a day trip to Pisa and/or Lucca.
I can't believe the weekend after my parents will be here!!! I'm so excited! I've started writing out places to take them and everything. Time is flying by here.
Ciao Ciao Ciaoooo,
Katie
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