Last day in Firenze!!!

pictures!

Just taking in all of florence I can in my last days! heres David on top of the duomo, during Wheres David? week hahaha

 

 baptistery of San Giovanni

 Boboli Gardens Fountain (of course commissioned by the Medici)

 gorgeous duomo

palazzo vecchio

christmasy streets!

 (above) santa croce! In the plaza where sarah and amanda live

last week in firenze...

My gallivanting around europe is coming to an end this coming weekend unfortunately :( Although I am veryyyyyyy excited to head back to the US, i missed everyone and just everyday american things, but it is still very sad as well. I have to leave behind my two roomies Nil and Lauren, who hopefully ill see again! Nil wants us to visit her in Turkey someday so I hope to be heading that way at some point :) I will also miss Firenze and living in a city, where else can i get amazingggg kebabs at 3am with sarah and amanda just because were hungry and need a study break? hahah Ill miss the food, my host mom, and all the other people I have met here, and speaking italian! now i have gotten a little tired of always having to be in italian mode and i miss being able to know I can communicate with the people wherever i go, but it has been amazing actually using another language and i know i will miss it insanely as soon as im back for a bit. All in all this has been an amazing experience. This past weekend I went out with all my friends and we did lots of celebrating! I also got to be in the end of the year fashion show for the fashion classes at my school, because our friend Marianella was in fashion design class and asked me to be her model. of course i agreed, although had some doubts after she showed me the outfit I would be sporting for the whole university to see hahah here is just a lil sample of when I first tried on the outfit:

 so it was quite the outfit hahahaha apparently the theme was either 60's or hippie chic? clearly Marianella has no idea what they wore in the 60s because thts the era she chose, everyone had these pretty cute outfits on and i wore this. she is too funny, i do have to say our outfits were the hit of the show! I wasnt too nervous, even though one grl back stage said wow u have a lot of self confidence to wear a marianella design in public hahahahah it was so much fun, im so glad i decided to do it. I had my makeup all done up and looked a lil more like a vegas showgirl than a 60s grl but owell! heres a few pictures from later that night of our last weekend out in florence!!!

 mary, alyse, me

 me, spencer, sarah, amanda

It was a great weekend. Now i just have tons of work and finals to get through than im heading home! wooooo!!!! :) cant wait to be back! well i better get back to studying...

ROMA ROMA!

This past weekend i went to roma with amanda, sarah, and christina. It was sooooo much fun. We took a train there on friday around 11 and got in at 330ish. Christina met us at the station because shes studying in Rome so she was already there of course. Our hostel was super close to the train station which was very convenient. It turned out to be a really nice hostel which was awesome bc it was oonly 15 euro a night and i had done the research to find it soooo if it didnt wrk out i wouldve felt bad hahah so we checked in and got changed to head out into the big city! It was already a lil dark out bc it gets dark at around 4 now haha but not a problem still could see a few things. first we went to the trevi fountain which was soooo gorgeous. threw in my penny so tht means someday ill return to roma!

Me with the trevi fountain

 all of us!

After the fountaiin we went to the pantheon which was pretty cool, but it was even cooler bc we ran into this grl megan from bentley who were good friends with whos studying abroad in madrid, spain who just happened to be visiting rome and in the pantheon the same time as us! such a weird coincidence!!! sooo we chatted and almost got kicked out of the pantheon for being too loud hahah and exchanged numbers with her so we could meet up later that night.

After this we headed to aperativo at this bar, which is wen u go to a bar and u just have to buy one drink and they have this whole buffet of food set out and u cn eat as much as u like! its supposed to be like appetizers but we treated it like dinner and got a ton of plates full of delicious food. We relaxed at the aperativo place for a while which was super nice and chic, we felt like we were on Sex in the City. after this we headed to another bar called the drunken ship, which was sooo much fun. they had beer pong going so me and amanda played christina and sarah, and of course we won. me and amanda are too competitive to lose anything. The next day we did the hop on hop offf bus tour of rome. its an awesome thing to do bc it stops at every tourist attraction adn a bus comes to each stop every 15 minutes so u get to see everything very conveniently instead of walking everyhwereeee (which is hard in rome bc its huge!) and figuring out the metros and all the public transportation this was much more convenient and fun.

on the bus! we got front row seats!

We went to the colleseum and went inside of it. that was super cool.

We also went to the spanish steps, which werent as impressive as i had expected, but still cool.

We also went to the Vatican, which was INCREDIBLE. Even the size of it alone is unbelievable. It was so gorgeous and there are tons of cool pieces of artwork everywhere. it definitely lived up to my expectations and more.

We stopped at a couple other places saw lots of cool buildings and piazzas. There are just ancient ruins everywhere in rome its strange ur on a pretty modern bus and street than theres all these crumbling pillars from millions of yrs ago along the sidewalk haha so strange but cool. We did the bus tour all day than finally tourist-ed ourselves out and got ready for dinner. we went to this delicious restaurant and got bruschetta for an appetizer, i got gnocchi with chicken as a main course, side dish of potatoes, and cheesecake for dessert and of course some vino to go with it, when in rome! The waiter loveddd us and thought we were hilarious so he gave us tons of free wine and ice cream so we stayed at the restaurant for hrs enjoying ourselves hahah

 this waiter loved christina and he was so funny, as u can see from me laughing so hard to the left hahah

after that we went out to a bar and relaxed the rest of the night. the next morning we had to checkout by 10am so got up early showered and headed out. Christina took us to this hugeeeeee market that had everything from makeup to clothes to pets to everything you could imagine. it was crazy. we went to lunch at this cafe and had the worstttt food. our lasagne was cold, the meat was weird, it was the worst meal wed had in italy, we were so hungry though we couldnt even complain we just ate hahah and our waiter would mumble wen he talked so we didnt understand him at all, and he was speakin enligh we would have rather he spsoke italian, it wasnt the language barrier he was just a teerrrible waiter haha but besides the bad meal the rest of the day was awesome, we went to a park by christinas house and got soupali's which are delicious fried rice balls with tomatoe sauce and stuff in them. deliciousssssss. than also got the most famous tiaramasu dessert in rome. it was DELICIOUS and i dont even usually like tiaramasu tht much.

always eating...

 this huge donut thing i got at a market the first night, after it was warmed it was covered in nutella, basically the ultimate donut...AMAZING

After that we had to head back to the station to get our train back to florence. it was such a funn weekend we had a great time and it was a good last trip together. now i really have to think about heading back to the states! so crazy! im excited to leave bc i miss everyone and just being home, but im really sad too bc italy is amazing, my host mom is amazing, and my roomies lauren and nil im going to miss so muchhh!!!!!

long overdue...France! and other adventures!

So i havent been able to post in a really long time, i have been super busy with school work, because unfortunately its coming down to the home stretch here! I am super excited to come home because i miss the family and just american things haha but i am definitely going to miss it here, it has been an amazing experience. Two weeks ago I went to grenoble, france to visit Chantal and family! it was sooo much fun. i took a train there which was the one bad thing about the trip haha i had to transfer about 4 times on the way there and it took over 12 hrs to get there and i missed one of my connections bc the train was late so spent an afternoon in Torino, Italy haha but I finally made it there by friday night at 8 and Chantal picked me up at the train station and took me to their house! the house is sooo cute and located right in the city. They are also right next to the huge grenoble soccer stadium which was pretty cool, they said it can be alot of fun but also pretty crazy with these european soccer fans right outside there door during game time hahah The city was gorgeous and surrounded by mountains, the big buildings with the mountains in the background was so surreal looking.

When i ffirst got there we just had a delicious relaxing dinner and went to bed pretty much right after tht, i was exhausteddddd. I had a super nice bed and lil apartment in their upstairs all to myself which was also super nice. The next morning we woke up and had a delicious breakfast of french bread, yogurt, eggs, and just an amazing spread of options. It was nice to eat something for bfast besides bread nutella and coffee haha after breakfast we got dressed and chantal and xavier took me on a tour aruond town and than took me to hike "la bastille" which is like a medieval mililtary fort built in the mountainside. this is the la bastille from the city:

We had the most gorgeous day it was sunny and warm. The mountains around it also have these things called "la ferrata" which are like mountain climbing trails built into the mountain. They have all these metal bars to attach your climbing equipment to that make a sort of path to follow while climbing. It was so cool, we didnt get to do it because we didnt have the equipment but i would love to come back and do it someday.

We hiked for a long time and than went and met up with Alice and got a late lunch at this place called "Grandmas" and it was designed like a grandmothers house haha the food was AMAZING they had soups and these bread things that were kind of like italian bruschetta but the bread was so delicious and they put tons of stuff on them. i got one with bacon and cheese and idk wat else delicious things on top hahah it was wonderful. later on alice and i went out for a drink and she took me to some cool bars and showed me around town so we got to bond which was fun, shes such an interesting person and her english is amazing and im super jealous at her skill with languages haha after this we came back and had a huge birthday dinner for alice! we had tonsss of appetizers and champagne and a huge dinnerr that was delicious. they also invited their italian student they have living in the downstairs apt to dinner so that was cool, i think he prefferred to speak in english or french though since my italian isnt exactly fluent hahahh i got alice a leather bag from florence and she loved it! so i was happy with my present to her. we relaxed the rest of the evening and than me and alice had a lil marathon of the show "how i met your mother", which is a really funny show and she said she learns alot of her english from this show which i thought was even funnier haha than we eventually went to bed and the next morning we woke up had a breakfast and did another gorgeous hike in the mountains ith chantal xavier alice and leo and the dog baya!! it made me miss maya so much! but the hike was super fun and than later on i unfortunately had to pack my bags and head to the station, alice was heading back to school for the week so she cmae to the station too, to get on her train. i said my goodbyes and headed back to florence, the train ride back went alot smoother than on the way there but was still super long i arrived in florence at 5am the next day and walked sleepily back to my hosue and to bed hahah it was a great weekend though and im really glad i got to see them it was so fun. That week after i got back i just had a lot of paper writing and hw to do which wasnt too much fun. and that weekend after me and amanda didnt go on the prague trip so we did a little florence exploring. This past week i went on some cool field trips with my medici class. first we went to palazzo vecchio which was the government building for florence long long ago and the medici family moved in there and had all these secret rooms built which we got to go into so that was really cool. there would be a painting that was actaully a door and all these secret passageways it was pretty fun.

These pictures are justof the entrance hallway, we werent allowed to take any in the actual palace rooms and things. The other field trip we went on was to the Vasari corridor. This was super awesome, it was designed by Vasari the famous artist/architect and commissioned by the Medici family. The corridor goes from the palazzo vechhio all the way across the river on top of the ponte vecchio bridge all the way to palazzo pitti another meidicean palace. The medici and government people used this corridor to walk through town undetected and listen to what the townspeople were saying, basically to spy on them. It was so cool to walk through! and you got some amazing views of the city and over the river. my camera hasnt been working very well which is why the pictures are scarce, but other people have taken lots of pictures so once they post them on facebook i can steal them as my own pictures since its all the same stuff hahaha me sarah and amanda are going to visit christina next weekend in rome. i am so excited to go to rome, there is so much to see there and i have been through it a ton of times for travellling and getting flights from there but havent actually had the time to explore it. i will have lots of pictures and fun stories after this next weekend! I cant believe though as of now i have 21 days till i come home!!! doesnt seem true but it is, thats so soon! i have to get another suitcase bc of all the stuff i need to bring back! i have to go do work now but i will post again soon and post more pictures, there wont be such a long dry spell of postings again hahah ciao! :)

Amsterdammmm

This past weekend me hayley christina and sarah went to amsterdam! it was amazingggg. I left thursday night on a train to rome with sarah and than we had to chill in Roma termini (rome train station) for awhile than take a short train to the airport than flew from rome to amsterdam. Our hostel was not far from the airport when we got there which was convenient. Our hostel was super nice, and located right in the hub of things. It was actually a christian hostel so there was religious stuff everywhere so that was different. we got bfast in the mornings which was good too, first day was ham and eggs second day was pancakes, so it was a good choice of hostel. When we first arrived we unpacked our stuff and headed out. We decided to do the van gogh museum first. We got there and totally lucked out because there was no line at all, so we got right into the museum and got to see tons of famous works of art. It was really interesting. they also had another exhibit going on called "Illusions of Reality". It was all works of art that were made to look like photographs which was pretty cool. It took us about 2-3 hours to go through all the rooms of the museum. When we came out it was pouringggg rain and we were very unprepared haha it was about dinnertime so we ran into the warmest nearest pub to dry off. It ended up being a good choice, we had an amazing dinner of burgers and fries and salads and of course Heineken. After we finished dinner the rain had cleared up a bit and it was a lil safer to walk around. We walked through the red light district which was a lil creepy and depressing, but definitely different than anything ive ever seen. We stopped at a few "coffeeshops" which is where they have menus off all the diffferent kinds of marijuana, which was the weirdest thing ever to me. So used to it being such an illegal thing and to see ppl legally buying it and smoking in public was almost an awkward feeling haha It was a good night though we just relaxed and got some super good hot chocolate because it was freezing out and than went to bed fairly early bc we were so exhausted from traveling and packing in more stuff into the day. The next morning we woke up bright and early got our bfast and headed to the RijksMuseum, which is the museum that contains a large quantity of works by Rembrandt and other famous artists. It also had a cool exhibit going on which showed the history of the netherlands through artwork. They also had this display of giant doll house like structures that rich people used to have made of their hosues. It was considered a show of wealth to have a replica of your home created. The doll houses cost about the price of a riverside home in amsterdam, so these were no ordinary doll houses hahah It took a few hours to get through everything in this  museum and than after we were done we were starving, so we headed to a kebab place. I had an amazing kebab with french fries, totally hit the spot. After we filled our bellies, we headed to the Heineken factory! This was so much fun. First you go through a history of the Heineken factory and than you go on a 3D ride where you are brewed into a beer! This was so funny. After the ride we got to try some Heineken and than we got to make movies and send them to our families which was hilarious. After this we learned more about brewing the beer and saw all the huge beer vats. At the end they have a cool bar where you get two large free Heinekens. We had such a good time in this museum hahah After the henekien museum we headed back to our hostel to get changed and freshen up to go out later. We got ready than went and got some chinese food for dinner which was also delicious, havent had good Chinese food in Italy yet so this was nice. The best chinese food i found so far was in Germany when me and Hayley went to Hong Kong City hahahah but this was a close second. Afterwards we explored the area a bit and finally settled down in an irish pub that was serving large heneikins, nachos, and had some american college football games on. We found our home for the night hahah we were there for hours rooting for teams and enjoying ourselves. the bartender was also really nice and everyone we met there was so welcoming (and thank god most spoke english bc i dont know a bit of dutch hahah) We had such a fun night, and stayed out pretty late but finnally called it a night bc we had to check out at 10am the next day. Here are some pictures from the trip:

 weird benches:

 our hostel:

 square outside our hostel:

 Jolly Joker coffee shop:

 weird leaning building:

 so pretty!

 Me just brewing some beer:

 first taster beer!

 making our video haha

 cute group shot!

 Heineken Brewery:

I AMsterdam sign

 Red light district at night:

 me with the "t"

 yummy kebabs!

All in all it was an amazing trip, and amsterdam is such a cool place I would love to go back at some point and spend more time there. This week I have some school work to do and than this weekend I am going to France to visit Chantal and the family!!! i am sooooo excited i just bought my train ticket today and sent her an email and its all official :) so excited!