A Bittersweet Goodbye.

As I started my first blog post talking about a rush of emotions upon arriving in Italy, it is fair to say that im feeling the exact same way as my time here in Europe quickly windes down. A mix of emotions are rushing through me. Yesterday and today all of my roommates left to go there separate ways in the states and I head home monday (6/25/12). It is such a bittersweet feeling that is going to be difficult to explain. When I got to the apartment for the first time (after lugging our luggage up 61 stairs!) and found out I'd be living with 6 girls instead of 2 I didn't know what to expect. It didn't take long to realize that we were all so different. That may sound like a bad situation to you but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. If we were all the same or too much alike I don't think we would have gotten along as well as we did. We are all so different that we balanced each other out perfectly as roommates. The different personalities and backgrounds within the apartment added so much to the experience. Yesterday I did some last minute shopping with my roommate Megan which felt like miles upon miles of walking. We must have walked all of Florence for souviners! I personally think I scored pretty good souvenir wise which makes me pretty excited to go home and give my gifts! Then we spent the rest of the afternoon packing (depressing) and cleaning our apartment which looked like a war zone. If you were to take a look you'd think for sure guys were living here, that's how dirty it was! Friday evening we enjoyed our last meal together as roommates at a restaurant right by our apartment and then headed up the piazza Michelangelo to watch the sun set. There you can overlook the city of Florence, it was beyond beautiful! There were so many couples up there bein all mushy, infact we saw a bride and groom up there takin pictures. Made me wish I was up there with a lover too (only for like a minute then I was over it, haha) then I remembered I was so glad to be up there with the girls I've shared the last six weeks with! Then we went to one of our favorite gelato shops on Denri street, so those leaving Saturday could have it one last time. Side note--I've consumed way too much gelato for my bodies liking during my last week here and I'm sure it's showing! Oh well, your not in Europe often so mine as well take advantage of it! A few of my roommates left at 4:45 am for the airport saturday morning so they just stayed up all night and were planning on sleeping on the plane (thats my plan tonight as i wait for the taxi to come at 4:25 am) Unfortunately I've come down with some type of cough that has caused me to have a pretty horsey voice and plugged up ear. Apparently a girl in my hostel last weekend that I shared a room with was diagnosed with bronchitis this week, so I'm praying I don't have that. I think this is my bodies way of telling me it's exhausted and ready to go home and slow down a bit. We work our bodies pretty hard here with all the walking everyday, occasional late nights, and traveling every weekend. It definately takes a toll on your body! Yesterday my roommate Loryn and I moved into our friends apartment for the night since we had to be outta our apartment by 10 am. It was an eventful move thats for sure! Once we finally got the apartment in decent condition we gathered our belongings and headed for the door. Once we closed our door for the last time and left our keys behind things began getting intense. Loryn went first down the stairs with her huge backpack and luggage and I followed with mine. Before I turned the corner to take the next set of stairs I hear a huge shatter. Loryn had hit the window in the stairwell with her longboard that was horizontal in her backpack! It was the loudest glass shatter I've ever heard! There was no turning around because we turned our keys in so our only option was to keep going and leave the glass there. Once we got to the next set of stairs the lady that lived on that floor opened her door and was speaking Italian so we couldn't understand what she was saying, but were pretty sure she was talking about the glass. So in that situation you just nod your head as if you know what there saying. On that same floor one of Loryns bags had broke and stuff was falling out. Then finally we made it out of the stairwell! Apparently the situation wasn't disastrous enough because once we got out of the stair well the wheel on Loryns luggage came off. All this happened and we hadn't even begun the walk to our friends apartment yet. After a long walk in the heat and taking multiple breaks along the way we finally made it to our friends apartment. Once we got there we had no time to waste because our friend Miranda was meeting us at the Duomo to climb it. We were already 45 minutes late because of the shenanigans that happened in the stairwell. After about a 25 minute wait in line and 8 euro entrance fee we made it in the Duomo and were able to climb to the top where it over looks Florence. It was around 436 steps to the top in a really small stairwell where at times there were people going both directions, up and down. It felt very claustrophobic! After the Duomo climb we enjoyed some lunch, went and said good bye to our neighbors from New York, and went to a hostel to use there pool for the day. The pool was relaxing and refreshing and had these sweet cushioned bed like things you could layout on along with bean bags! There we met some pretty cool fellas from Kentucky, where my friend Miranda is from too! We ended up hanging out with them for the night and getting pizza. This morning my roommate Loryn left for Poland and I was the last of my roommates left here. I moved again to my friend Jordan's apartment, but this time the move went much smoother. Today we walked around Florence and bought a few last minute things. This weekend it's a really big festival here in Florence called the festival of San Giovanni. There is soccer game that takes place between the different districts that is extremely violent! It is called the Calcio Fiorentino (youtube it--seriously!) and its basically a violent version of medieval soccer. It is a mix between rugby, wrestling, and soccer. What happens is there are four districts and last weekend there were two days of games where the districts played each other and the top two teams made it to the finals which were today. How it works is everyone basically beats the crap out of each other and the only rule is if someone is unconscious then you can't go after them but other then that players get to go at each other trying to get the ball in the goal. I wanted to get tickets so badly but they were sold out, it's unlike anything you'd ever see played in the United States! So my friend Jordan and I went to Astor and watched it live on the TV's there. Another part of the festival was fireworks! What better way to go out with a bang then with fireworks (: The fireworks were beautiful and the streets and bridges were filled with both tourists and Italians watching and taking photos--it was quite a site! This was a big weekend for the Italians, there soccer team played England in the eurocup tournament. The streets were flooded with cheering as they won in over time! To conclude my last day in Italy I ended with some gelato. Yummmm! Now I sit and wait in my friends apartment while there all sound asleep until 4:25am for my taxi to come and pick me up for the airport. I decided to pull and all nighter because I was scared I wouldn't wake up to my alarm and so I could sleep on the long flight. To help pass the time I skyped my roommate Megan who is already home and it was so weird to think that she was just here with me and is now all the way back in the states. This trip has been so incredible in so many ways. It's a bittersweet feeling going home but I'm ready to see my family and start working back at camp for the rest of the summer! Time to gather the last of my belongings and anxiously await the arrival of the taxi! Thats all from my european written point of view, pictures will come soon after I get adjusted back at home. Thanks for following my blog and I hope though it you've been able to live vicariously through me! Ciao!--xoxox 

Conquering Croatia!

For my last full weekend I took my exhausted body to the land of Croatia! As much as traveling is fun it is very exhausting on the body, especially when you travel some place different for 6 weekends straight. On Thursday (6/14/12) I accidently slept through my first class. My roommate has class before me and when she got back she was like what are you doing?! You have class right now! So instead of going to class we spent the day relaxing, cleaning, and packing up for our big weekend. At 9:00 pm on Thursday we got to the bus station to meet the rest of the group. There we checked in like usual and made our way to the buses. But this time when we got to the bus there was a surprise..students from Rome were already on the bus. We had big plans and high hopes of being the first ones on the bus so we could get the good seats for the long 12 hour bus ride. So instead we found a set of two open seats and plopped down. It didn't take long before we found ourselves extremely uncomfortable. The Rome gals in front of us thought it would be a good idea to recline there seats back as far as they possibly could. Keep in mind--they don't make these bus with tall people in mind. It was a very cramped ride and it didn't take long until we were brainstorming different ways to rearrange ourselves to be more comfortable. My roommate ended up laying down on the floor where our legs usually would go and I got the seats. Then after a couple hours we switched spots. The floor isn't my favorite spot but the space and being able to stretch out was so worth it. We arrived in Split, Croatia at about 9:00 am to piping hot weather conditions and checked into our hostel (Goli I Bosi) and had some breakfast. In Split Croatia there is a huge palace called Diocletian that was abandoned many years ago and lies on the south side of a short peninsula running out of the Dalmatian coast. Our hostel was actually in the palace and you can also find different shops and restaurants in and around it too. Once we got situated in our hostel we needed to get some Croatia money. It was difficult to gage how much money to withdraw because the currency and worth is so different from the dollar or Euro. For example; 12 kunas is equivalent to $2.00 American. So we ended up withdrawing $300 kunas which is about $50.00 American and it got me pretty far, lasted me the whole weekend! At this point the majority of the group left to go do white water rafting and me and my roommate headed for the beach. There were two to choose from--a sandy white touristy beach or a rocky pretty secluded beach. We thought we were headed in the direction of the sandy beach but ended up at the rocky one. It was still a good beach, nice to be away from the big crowds and group. The water was so pretty and blue, you could see through it! The only downer was that there was no breezy--it was so hot we were reapplying sunscreen countless number of times! After a few hours we were sun drained and decided to make our way back to the hostel for some lunch. For some reason all we were coming across were pizza places and that was the last thing we wanted. At this point my roommate and I were starting to get really irritated and annoyed at everything and each other because we were tired, hungry, and I was apparently being picky! So we finally find a place with salads, burgers, sandwiches and that kind of stuff. I ordered what I thought was a nice big salad with grilled chicken on it based on the picture and turns out to be the exact opposite. It was a very small salad, with minimal lettuce, chicken, onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers. It wasn't awful tasting by all means but the size and the fact that it hardly had any lettuce was disappointing. Once we finished our lunch we headed back back to the hostel for showers and much needed naps! Then when we woke went had dinner at the restaurant in the hostel, it wasn't anything special. Word on the street was that there was a 16 euro pub crawl happening so we decided to tag along. At the first bar we were told that it was all you can drink but what they didn't tell us is that the selection was very minimal. There ended up being three choices and it was the really cheap nasty stuff. I spent most of the night playing the roll of the mom. I ended up finding a girl that was staying in the same hostel as us on the street very drunk and with strangers so I brought her back to the hostel along with my drunk roommates, it was an eventful night! One of the bars we stopped at was outdoor with music and lights and was right by the water, it was pretty neat! The next morning (Saturday)We left at 10:00 am to go island hopping. Which included a lunch of either chicken, fish (whole), or vegetarian and all you can drink wine. I went with the chicken and it wasn't that bad. The unlimited wine on the other hand was so awful that people were mixing there juice or pop with it to make it taste better.we arrived at our first island and were there for 45 minutes. There was one kiosk souviner shop in sight but most of us went to the grocery store to get water, goggles, blow up rafts and snacks. Then we got back on the boat ate lunch and headed for the second and last island. The boat wasn't able to make it to the port so we ended up just jumping off and swimming to shore. Some people put there towels and cameras on a raft and swam them to. Thankfully my camera is waterproof so I just swam with it. The beach was small but had soft sand and the water was beautiful and crystal clear! We were there about three hours then we got back on the boat and headed back to Split. Once we got back bus2alps (the student travel group we came through) was organizing a group to go to this city 30 minutes away for dinner but we decided to do our own thing. Many of the students on the boat were acting obniouxly drunk all day that we just couldn't handle them any more for the day. For example; a friend of mine got peed on because a girl passed out on the boat and peed herself. Another girl was so drunk that she was at the front of the boat and did a front flip down the stairs to the main part of the boat. Any way, so we got back to the hostel, took showers then headed out to dinner. I was determined to find myself some breaded shrimp! We went to a restaurant a man at the hostel recommended but they didn't have breaded shrimp. We looked around for awhile and were having no luck and we were getting to the point that we were so hungry and tired that we started to get ornery with each other. So we ended up going back to the place where I got the salad the day before. This time I went with the chicken nuggets and French fries, it wasn't anything special at all. Once we were done with dinner at about 9ish my roommate Megan and our friend Allison wanted to go back to the hostel and call it a night. I still had Kaunas to burn before the morning because we weren't going to have any shopping time in the morning because we were leaving early. Because they are such good friends and didn't want me walkin the town alone they decided to come with me (: we walked around for a little while and bought some souviners. One ofnthe outdoor kiosks we stopped at the owner was very friendly and asked if we were Americans and proceeded to tell us that we are very lucky to be because the economy there is so very bad. It was really sad and made me think about all the complaining we as Americans do regarding our economy and to here someone say we're really lucky was convicting and touching at the same time. And of course after hearing that we couldn't walk away and not buy something so we did! After a little souviner shopping i still had some kunas to burn so i treated us to a little late night snack, some deep fried dough balls with nutella and powder sugar and some cinnamon roasted almonds! The night life reminded me of Key West, you'll know what I mean if you've been. Random street performers Skattered around all putting on different acts for a donation along the water. After our late night snack we all agreed it was time to call it a night since we had to wake up early to get back on the road. The next morning we got on the bus, even got there early to get good seats and it still didn't happen! People were crowding and pushing each other that it just wasn't worth it. Once we got on the bus our next destination was Krka national park (google image it!), which was about 2 hours away from Split. There we saw some beautiful waterfalls and got to swim in one of them--pictures to come, as soon as I get home! Before we got there we were thinking about skipping the swimming in the waterfalls but once we got there that changed quickly. It was so beautiful and so hot out that we would be stupid not to go in. Side note--the cool water felt so good on the sun burn I got on my back from the day before. After we swam and took pictures in the water falls we sat down for some lunch and used up the last of Kaunas before we left Croatia. I got myself some French fries and sasauge. If I would have known I was ordering breakfast sasauge I wouldn't have gotten it, but oh well! What can you do when you cant ask questions about the menu due to a language barrier. You just gotta guess and hope for the best and it really wasnt that bad! After a good three hours at Krka we all piled back on the bus for the dreaded 12 hour bus ride home. Thankfully this time the fella in front of me reclined his seat a reasonable amount without taking up the little leg room I had to begin with. This helped make the ride a little more bearable (: we arrived back in Florence at about 11:00 pm, just in time to wish my Dad happy fathers day!! We shared stories with our roommates about our weekend then put it to a close and called it a night. It was yet another successful weekend trip through Europe! The only thing I'd change about the weekend would be some of the people on the trip. Other then that it was great! Now that I've conquered Croatia its time to take on finals week here in Florence and soak up every moment as I will be heading home on Monday (6/25/12). This week has in store for me roughly 4 papers to be completed as I've put them off this whole time. Thankfully there short ones compared to papers back in the states! It's bittersweet thinking about leaving Florence and going home. It's been an amazing adventure filled with tons of memories and growth. I am beyond blesed to have been able to experience this and travel the places I've been. I hope one day to come back and explore the rest of Europe--with my roommate Megan, hahahah (she wanted in my blog). Well that's all for now. I think Megan and I are gonna attempt to watch a movie to wind down the day but when ever we do we never seem to make it through it, we always fall asleep from pure exhaustion. Until next time--ciao! Xo-

..Everything In-Between.

To catch you up on my where abouts here in Europe, last weekend I spent most of it here in Florence and took a day trip to Rome on Sunday. I wish I spent at least 2 days in Rome, one was not enough at all. Although, when time is of the essence you gotta do what you gotta do. I could have explored Rome on my own for two days but the thought of it was very overwhelming. So I heading out with a crew from Florence For Fun on a 3 hour bus ride and explored the historic city of Rome for the day. The whole day was very rushed, it was always one thing and quickly on to the next. Our fist stop was the Spanish steps. We heard a little history from our tour guide, took 2 minutes for pictures and moved on to the Trevi Fountain. The fountain was huge and was highly populated with tourists. The legend is that if you throw a coin in you are sure to return to Rome. There are roughly 3,000 coins tossed into the fountain daily, wow! After the Trevi fountain we walked to the Pantheon where the first King of Italy was buried along with his son and his sons wife. His sons wife is the one that Margherita pizza was named after. Then we enjoyed some lunch at a restaurant recommended by our tour guides. There I got some carbonara spaghetti (Rome is where the recipe originates from). It was quite delicious! I met a girl there who is from northern Italy, blonde hair and fairish skin. If I recall correctly..my ancestors are from Northern Italy. After seeing her, I think I fit that profile more then I do here in Florence. Everyones got the dark hair and skin here. She actually said that in northern Italy they speak Swiss German instead of Italian and do not really associate with being Italian. I thought that was interesting! After that we visited a fountain where 3 rivers in the bible come together that had statues on it, pretty neat! Then we made our way to the Coliseum. Along the way we passed some ancient ruins. It is crazy how well everything has preserved so well and no natural disaster has wiped everything out. We finally made it to the Coliseum but sadly weren't able to go in, due to time. Then we got back on the bus and drove to the Vadakin. Which in fact is its own state, they have there own post office and all the kinda stuff. Luckily we didn't have to wait in a long line to enter. You do have to go through security and a dress code check. If what your wearing doesn't cover your shoulders and go down to at least your knees then they will refuse to let you enter. It was pretty intense, there were plenty of people in our group that could not enter. The security guards were dressed in clown looking uniforms that were designed by Michelangelo himself. The inside of the Vadakin was absolutely beautiful! It is incredibly hard to even begin to describe it, there is marble and art every where. Inside you can find one of the only pieces of art work that Michelangelo fully completed and put his signature on. There are tons of people inside, especially nuns that are bowing down to pay respect to Pope John Paul the second. There was also some type of church service going on inside too. With the ancient city preserving so well, the costumes of the security guards, and walking on original cobble stone streets, you literally feel like you've been taken back into time and are living in that period. Throughout the whole day I couldn't stop thinking about my parents, I know they would have loved Rome, especially my Dad! I hope one day they can visit Italy. That concludes my trip to Rome, hopefully from this brief blurb you can gather how rushed the day was. You can make it a one day trip if its a must but I defiantly recommend visiting the city for at least two days so you can appreciate it more. Rome is so much bigger and busier then Florence and makes me glad I live where I live! Enough about Rome, now on to my most recent and exciting adventure--


Interlaken, Switzerland! This by far has been my favorite trip so far. I went with a couple of my roommates and the trip began Thursday! We stuffed our backpacks with some clothes and minimal belongings, took them to class with us, then headed for the train station to join the rest of the students going. Once we got to the train station we met our guides, got on a charter bus and drive roughly 7 hours to Interlaken. The bus ride wasn't miserable until I took some benadryl, passed out for awhile, and woke up when the bus was winding through the mountains. I don't usually get sick on bus rides but the drossy of the benadryl, the time of night, and the winding roads sure made me feel like it. Finally we arrived at roughly 3:30ish in the morning at an awesome hostel called Balmers--minus the community bathrooms. Me and my 3 roommates shared a bedroom with 6 girls who came from Barcelona. The hostel came with free breakfast each morning--cornflakes, cheese, and two pieces of toast with butter and jam. Not my favorite breakfast but when you can get something free in Europe--you cant pass it up! We also got a free bus pass. In the morning after we slept only a few short hours me and my roommate Loryn and her friend Eric decided to go on a hike while the rest of our friends went white water rafting. We met some other girls that wanted to join so we all got on the bus and took it to the train station. There we had planned on taking a train up the mountains a little ways and then beginning our hike. But the train ticket was about 60 swiss franks so we said no thank you! So Loryn, Eric and myself decide to do our own hike--those are always the most eventful! We found a trail and started to follow it. Mean while, it wasn't the most pleasant day outside. It was pretty rainy on and off and cloudy. Any way, were hiking up this trail and we come across some tracks of some sort. They for sure weren't train tracks but looked more like tracks for a trolly. So we thought it would be a great idea to follow the trolly tracks because surly they would lead us to the top! After following them a good 4o minutes we came to a tunnel. You couldnt go over it, under it, or around it. So our friend Eric thought it would be a good idea to try and go through it because we had not seen any sort of trolly pass by yet. So we begin to make our way into the tunnel, and it starts to get dark very quickly. Like pitch black! Shortly after entering we hear the trolly coming. We all book it out of the tunnel like none other! We casually watch it pass slowly by as we are all laughing and freaking out about what just happened. So because there is no way over this tunnel we had no other option but to head back down. As we were heading down we came across a walking trial--one of which we should have taken to being with. We take the trail for a while until we come across more tracks. So because we are so anxious to get to the top we decide to follow the trolly tracks one more time. Hoping they dont lead us to another tunnel. Mean while, these tracks are on the steeper side and are lined with rocks, it was not an easy walk! Gods beauty was defiantly reveled through the many incredible views along the way (pictures to come as soon as I get home!). Any way, we finally reach a point where we see some men herding cattle. Side note--all the cattle, sheep, and goats in the mountains have really big bells on them. So you can hear them from a distance! So we proceed to ask these men where we should go to get on the trolly  that had been passing us periodically through out the day on our hike up. They sent us in the right direction and we finally made it to the trolly station. There we were greeted by a man who had already heard about us by the people running the trolly that passed us a couple times on our hike up. We asked him how much it would cost to take the trolly down the mountain and he said about 25 swiss franks. After that response- - the trolly was not an options, we had only brought up with us 20 euro. So our next question was- -food. Where can we get food. He directed us to a cafe that was next door. On the outside there were signs for a buffet. We were so excited and hoped that they would take euros! We walk in and it was basically a concession stand of drinks. There we also found the two men that were herding the cattle earlier and gave us directions. They offered me a sip of their hot tea and it was not what I expected. It definitely had liquor of some sort in it- -a lot of it! I guess thats what they do there. Then the kind gentlemen that greeted us and gave us the disappointing news about taking the trolly down provided us with free hot tea, coffee, and cookies! My friends Loryn and Eric went with the hot tea and liquor while I went with the black coffee. Black coffee isn't usually my thing but it really wasn't that bad. My Dad might be rubbing off on me- - he loves his black coffee! So after we enjoyed so much needed snacks we decided it was time to head back down. This time we got good directions so the hike down was a lot quicker. That is until we hit a road block- -what we think was a lost cow. This cow was so massive and was right in the middle of the trail and there was no way around it. On the other side of the trail was was a fence with a gate so there was no way to shoe it away. Loryn begin to speak her own language to it in hopes that it would move and it wasn't working, although it was very entertaining! Finally Eric decided to jump the fence and as soon as he did that and was on the other side of the cow I think it got scared and started going in the other direction. Shortly after that we made it all the way down the mountain and back to Interlaken. When we got back to the hostel we were beyond ready for dinner, since we had not eaten an actual meal all day. Everything in Switzerland is really expensive, especially food! My roommate Loryn had brought with her 3 packs of ramen noodles she had bought in Sweden the weekend before. So we cooked those up for dinner and tried to enjoy them as much as possible as they are nothing like the Ramen noodles in the states. Then that night we went to the underground bar at the hostel called Metro. There we got a free beer just by staying at the hostel. The next day (Saturday) we went canyoning! It was seriously the most amazing experience ever. I was debating whether I should do white water rafting or canyoning and went with canyoning because I honestly dont know where else in the world you can do this kind of thing. We basically got in wet suits and put helmets and life jackets on and jumped off water falls, floated down the rapids, repelled, and swung between canyons. There were three different levels you could choose from and I did the first one and it was still an experience unlike any other. The rapids were pretty intense and on the first rapid we floated down I decided to go first- -It was a mistake. The instructor never told me to plug my nose and where to end and and so as Im floating down Im twisting and turning trying to keep my head out of the water and basically feel like I am drowning. It was kinda scary but apparently it was pretty entertaining to those watching. I made sure not to make that mistake on the second rapid! When we got back to Interlaken we washed up and enjoyed another free beer! That night I was pretty exhausted so I head to bed early along with my roommate Loryn who wasn't feel so well. Although I went to bed early I didn't get much sleep. One of the gals in the room I was staying in decided to bring a guy back and decided to enjoy some disturbing activities, haha. Everyone else was sleeping like a rock but because this persons bed was right next to mine I clearly couldn't go back to sleep at all. Finally 5:00 am rolls around and I still cant fall asleep so instead of laying there disgusted and irritated I decided to get up and go watch the sunrise. I asked the man working the night shift at the hostel where a good place to go watch it would be and he directed me to a small hill just down the road. I was there about an hour and a half and never really got to see the sun rise. It was more of seeing the town go from dark to light because it was cloudy and rainy out. But thats okay it was still cool to see. Then I made my way back to the hostel and enjoyed so breakfast and hot tea. At the point its around 7:30 am and Im ready for some sleep. So I head back to the room in hopes that the disturbing activities are over. Thankfully they were so I was able to catch a couple hours of sleep! Once we woke up in the morning we went downtown and did a little souvenir shopping, chocolate tasting, and had my first ever hooters experience (It wasn't that exciting) The hooters was locate next to a famous hotel and there is a story behind it. It is something like this guy wanted to have some type of business there and was told no that a restaurant  needed to go there because the existing building had bathrooms. So in-spite of being told no to his plans he went ahead and build a hooters. After lunch we headed back to the hostel to pack up and begin the 7 hour bus ride back to Florence. The way home was not as brutal as on the way there because we were able to enjoy the beautiful scenery along the way. Switzerland was incredibly beautiful and I would go back in a heart beat. The people are extremely nice and the place is so clean. In fact- -I wouldn't mind doing my internship there! The only down fall is everything is so expensive there. Over all it was a successful trip (: That concludes my adventure to Interlaken and everything in-between. I cant wait to post pictures when I get home! Its time for this post to come to an end as it looks like the lab is about to close! This coming weekend, I take on Croatia! Should be another exciting adventure! Ciao! ox-

High Pace Lifestyle; Just A Glimpse.

I love the time I get to sit, reflect, and blog about this journey. Life here is so high pace and it's nothing like living in Midland, Michigan where living in the country is quite and you've got plenty or space and silence to digest your each and every thought and experience. Between the chatter of the people passing on the streets below, the neighbors speaking Italian to each other, or friends enjoying themselves at the apartment, silence is extremely rare at any time of day or night. It is normal to be laying in bed ready for some sleep and to hear people shout, sing, or honk their horn at late hours in the night. It doesn't seem to bother me much, in fact its starting to feel pretty normal! On that note--there is one place where you can find silence. At about 2:00am in a little ally about 2 minutes away from my apartment. Sketchy sounding I know! But there you can find what is called the 'Secret Bakery'. They technically are not allowed to be open at that time of night because it is against the law. So if you're being loud they will not open the door. If the locals wake up because people are being loud then the police will be called and shut them down. So how it works is everyone waits outside, we never actually go inside the Secret Bakery. We walk up to this foggy glass door and knock on the door and someone will come to the door and crack it open. Then they will whisper "what do you want?", we whisper back what we want, they shut the door, and then we wait. Depending on the night and what they have, our options are usually a pastry for 1 euro or pizza for 2 euro. Instead of taking that late night trip to taco bell like we do in the States people go to the Secret Bakery. It's basically the only place open at that hour of the night besides the kebab shop where you can get a shawarma. The kebab shops are like their taco bell here--late night snack kinda thing. Last night was my third attempt at the Secret Bakery and it was successful! The other two times I went people were being too loud so they wouldn't open the doors. I got a warm crossant with Nutella inside, so delicious! So depending on the night and how bad people want there food--silence can be golden at the Secret Bakery. Now on to my week--I had three full days of class as usual and on those days the days go by so fast. I have class from 12:00-5:30 but throw in an extra half hour before and after class for walking. In my food & culture class this week we made gnocchi with a fabulous kale, sausage, parsley sauce, it was one of my favorite dishes we've made yet. We also made fried sage, it had anchovies in it--very salty-I tried it but wasn't a fan. Another dish we made reminded me of Sandy because she loves to make this--bruschetta on tuscan bread with tomatoes and basil. Simply DELICIOUS! I generally don't like tomatoes but here they are so incredibly fresh and tasty that I don't mind them. And then yesterday we made two soups, an onion soup and another called carabaccia contadina. Both consisting of a ton of onions. My eyes have never burned so much from onions before. Not only the people cutting the onions (I was one the them!) but the entire class was crying from the onions. Thats how small the classroom/kitchen is and how strong the onions were! My wine class isn't as exciting as the food class. It's a lot of long lectures followed by three wine tastings each class. It has been helpful to better understand the different wines, appericate them in their own way, and figure out what I like. The dreadful part about it is we always talk about what the wines would be good paired with and it always makes us so hungry! On the 13th we'll be taking a field trip to a winery which will be exciting! I can't believe week three has already almost come to an end--time sure if flying by! A couple of the friends we've made here are only here three weeks and leave tomorrow which is sad. One of them being what we call our "big brother"--he protects us at night if were out! Their great people, we're gonna miss them for sure! Last Thursday we had some American guys from New York move into the apartment across the way from our kitchen window, one of which who we think will be our new "big brother", haha. And for this weekend--I think I will be staying in Florence, seeing some sights, maybe some gardens--potentially going to Venice for the day on Saturday. There is so much to do and see in Europe and not enough time but, I think my body will appreciate relaxing here for the weekend. Like I said earlier, life is very high paced here, it's always go! go! go! I think what fuels that is the fact that I'm surrounded by Americas in my apartment and classes and we all act so rushed. Such as; we gotta go here, we gotta go there, we need to do this, we need to do that! I think it makes it hard to fully appericate the places we go and the things we see because were so focused on whats next. But I'm doing my best to appreciate every moment to the fullest (: Because in reality simply living here for six weeks is enough in itself, it's an experience that not many people get to have and I am so blessed for that! It's definitely going to take more than one trip to Europe to see and fully appreciate the different sites and not feel rushed. On that note--I think this is a good spot to conclude this post, because a nap sounds great! Ciao! xo-