Oktoberfest 2010 - "Its like the thanksgiving of beer"

I just got back from oktoberfest about an hour ago and it was the best weekend ever. Germany was amazing! Oktoberfest was all i hoped it would be and more. I was a lil worried since it was built up so much and probably one of my more expensive trips tht it wouldnt live up to its standards, but i have to worry about that no more hahah This was by far my favorite weekend of being abroad thus far. I left thursday afternoon on a train to  Rome to meet hayley. I had class from 9-415 and walked to the train station and took a 5pm train. The trains run very frequently to Rome so its very easy. it only took about an hour and a half which is not bad at all. Italian trains are also the most comfortable trains ive ever been on. There's first class and second class seats and i got 2nd bc they're cheaper but i honestly thought i was in the wrong place when i got to my seat. Plenty of leg room, a table for eating or reading or using or your computer, outlets to charge electronics, people coming by with refreshments...i thought i was on a first class plane ride haha I arrived in rome around 630 and met up with hayley. She took the local bus to come meet me at the train station. Rome is huge so buses are the way to get around, its not like florence where you can walk everywhere its more like nyc with its crazyness. Florence is a big city, but not that big i kind of like that about florence. its a city but never overwhelming. Also Rome cant have a subway system bc of all the antiquity so they cant dig underground or blow anything up to build subways sooo its only option is buses, which are super inefficient bc of traffic and just bc italians have no concept of time at all. Thats the one frustrating but true stereotype about italians, they are always late, whether it be in restaurants with the service where you have to wait 45 minutes to get a check after a quick dinner, or buses to come on time or teachers for classes, being a new yorker where were all about speed and efficiency and rushing this baffles me hahah its nice and refreshing at times others ill just get annoyed haha but anyways so i got to rome and me and hayley took a bus to a restaurant in Trestevere (spelling could be incorrect...a neighborhood of rome though btw) to meet 2 of her friends. The restaurant was called Dar Poeta and was the most amazing pizza place id ever been. I had a huge pizza with cheese, potatoes, and all sorts of toppings. and also had some of hayley pizza tht had delicious cooked peppers on it. we also got bruschetta, one pomodoro bruschetta and one pesto with cheese which was amazingggg for an appetizer. we also got lots of the house wine, which was delicious! another plus of italy even the cheap wine is good wine haha we got a calzone filled with chocolate for desert and i was stuffed to the brim. It was sooo goood. and it was so cheap too! it was like 12 bucks a person and we had huge pizzas each wine and desert! it was also just so much fun bc hayleys two friends were hilarious and we got along super well and obviously me and hayley always have a good time together. we were at the restaurant for quite some time and thean headed to hayleys apt which is in Monteverde (another neighborhood of Rome) her apt is super nice and one of her roommates was away for the weekend already so i got a nice bed and slept for about 3 hrs haha than unfortunately had to get up at like 3am to go catch our flight. the airport is like 30-45 mins away and we wanted to make sure we got there on time and my flight was boarding a 615am and had to be there early to go through security, which actually only took all of 5 seconds so we had some time to wait in the airport but better early than missing our flight or something haha so my flight left at 645 and i got to munich in about an hour and a half and hayley was on a different flight so i waited about an hour or so in the airport for hers to show upo. While waiting i got some starbucks which was amazing bc they dont have it in italy and sometime i miss normal coffee haha After finding hayley we got our stuff and figured out the subway system to get to our hotel. The german subway system was amazing so clean and efficient and everything they did made sense. they had signs saying when the next train was coming how far away it was etc etc everything was so nice. all the people were nice too, everyone was helpful and we were already huge german fans by the time we got to our hotel hahah our hotel was actually super nice it was a Sheraton, and me hayley and her two friends kim and kailey from richmond were sharing a room we had two big twin beds and they were super comfy and it wokred out perfectly. it was nice to stay in a hotel. Kim and kailey are hilarious and the four of us had so much fun together. When we first got to our hotel we took a quick shower and nap got a snack and headed to oktoberfest. Getting to the festival from out hotel was about as easy as it gets, we took one subway which was right next to the hotel a couple stops, than all you had to go was get out and follow the lederhosen for a few blocks haha We got to oktoberfest by around 4/5ish and it was PACKED. Millions upon millions of people, and i wish lederhosen werent so expensive bc you feel a lil left out not wearing them haha we tried to wait on line for some of the beer tents but at that hour of the day it wasnt happening. Everyone was filled to the brim and they werent letting more people in. But that was totally fine, me hayley and some richmonders went and got lots of chocolate covered strawberries from these stands whcih were the most delicious things ever and had my first germand sausage which i am now in love with. So delicious. After eating as much as we could fit into our stomachs we went to a lil bar outside of one of the tents. Here is our first oktoberfest beer! German beer is so delicious!!! So much better than any beer ive ever tasted. It was enjoyable.

It started pouring rain so it was even more packed under the awnings bc people were trying to stay dry but still get their beer haha and it was pretty cold too so it wasnt a warm rain. I was freezing for a bit bc i was wearing pants but a shorts sleeved german soccer jersey (which was a great idea to get bc the germans love their soccer hahah).

So we hung out there for awhile talking and making friends. Trying to learn a few german words haha at around 9 they stopped serving beer and started only serving this wine drink, its barely alcoholic and its supposed to be watery to bring people down from all the beer haha we learned all about it from these 2 super old german guys that me and hayley made friends with and they bought us a drink which was really nice. After that last drink we headed back to our hotel in the pouringggg rainnnn. (pic below: germans using tables as tents in the beergarten hahah im not the best photographer so the quality isnt that great especially with my camera being soaked and all...)

It was still super fun though and Munich is an absolutely gorgeous city! I could definitely see myself living there for a bit, I wish i was there for longer than just a quick weekend. Later that night me and hayley ordered chinese food and even that was amazing the germans seem to have everything down haha The next day (saturday) we all woke up at like 6am got dressed and headed to oktoberfest. The tents were already packed at 7am but we only had to wait a bit and we got in and got a table.

we had an awesome table it was right next to the band (the two guys in the second picture were tuba players who loved us) and we kept running into people I knew (such a small world even when im all the way in germany ran into high school friends, grls from the liberty lax team, etc too funny) They started serving beer at 9, so these crazy german woman who can carry like 15 GIANT beer mugs to the tables bring them over to you. you can also order food at the table so we had tonsss of delicious pretzels in the morning and than at lunch time we ordered chicken for the table and everyone got about half a bird for lunch haha it was the most amazing food ever!! We had fun standing on our tables chanting german songs like "ein prosit", (i just looked it up on youtube to see how close we were to singing it right...not too too bad hahah http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD2-aSbcW0s) we had some german guy who was about 16 and so adorable teach our table all the words. He said we did awesome but idk how well we were pronouncing some of these intense words hahah Me and hayley thought it was the funniest thing on the subway to try and announce the stops bc they were all intense words like Odeonplatz and i cant even spell the others hah so we spent the majority of our time in this HB beer tent and than a lil after lunch we headed out to the fairgrounds and met all sorts of characters and ate more delicious food of course haha oktoberfest is definitely not only about beer its alot  about food, which is my kind of party hahah

we also went to this bar that was a giant merry go round/carousel type thing which was definitely an experience to go on! We hung out there for awhile and than at around 730pm we were so tired and done for the day haha figured out how to get back to our hotel and watched Germanys Got Talent!, like americas got talent but german version...they even have a guy that acts like the Simon of american idol but i think the german version guy is way scarier hahah it was pretty funny. we went to bed pretty early and than woke up early to get our flight. the flights are so nice and easy got to the airport via subway got some food got on my flight and headed back to italia! once at the rome airport i took a train to the rome train station than another train to the florence train station and walked home from there. the public transportation here is amazing. too good to be true. i am super exhausted now but this was one of the most fun weekends yet. I would love to go back to germany and explore munich more, its a beautiful city. Everything about it was amazing!!!!! (below is me and hayley with our bavarian hats that we had to purchase in order to at least sort of blend in, everyone dresses up its so fun!, and also me and kailey, and me hayley and gina)

 

:)

Yesterday me sarah amanda and alyse did alot of planning of trips and what not. we decided for fall break were going to go to amsterdam and dublin for the first half and than do a trip to greece through florence for fun at the end for the last 5 days. i am SOOOO excited. we just have to look into flights and stuff, the hostels are super cheap which is nice, its the transportation thats always more difficult to plan but were going to the library again tomorrow to figure out more about that. we also are trying to plan a trip to barcelona which would be amazingggggg. theres so many places i want to go and its so strange that i can just go to these countries for a weekend or so, its so unreal and amazing. After we did some planning we went to italian class and got our quizzes back, i got a 98 :) was pretty happy about that one haha and than afterwards i went to the gym and came back to my room and relaxed until dinner. dinner was soo much fun, it was just me lauren and the 3 austrailian boys and than darlene came a lil later. we were at the dinner table from 8 till 11 just laughing and talking about how we eat pasta everynight haha watching funny youtube videos and having a good time. the boys are really funny and remind me of my brothers so much. were like a lil family here its fun. and i was supposed to meet up with sarah and amanda at like 10 theyre like wat the heck took u so long! i was like i was at dinner...for 3 hrs hahaha and than there was chicken wings that were left in the oven and we werent sure if they were for us but we were still hungry and they looked amazing and the boys were like should we eat it...and darlenes like lets do it. hahahaha so we ate all the chicken. found out tonight that it was supposed to be for tonights dinner and anna was like wat the heck u guys ate all my chicken! and first she blamed just the boys but than darlene was like it was my idea! hahaha anna had to go to the store and get mroe meat hahah but she got pork for tonight and that was delicioussss so it worked out anyways haha and we had pasta carbonara which was tasty as well. im super full after tonights dinner. im staying in tonight and going to be early, i was out super late last night but it was fun we went to a new club called club yab. i had made friends with this club promoter last weekend and he always tells us what clubs are good on what nights so he was a good friend to make. and hes originally from brooklyn and speaks english and italian so its nice to have a fellow new yorker haha club yab was super fun and me and amanda did some crazy dancing! only bad thing was i had checked my bag and than i lost my ticket! i was trying so hard to communicate with the lady but she wasnt understanding and i was starting to freak out but some guy was super nice and translated for me and we worked out the whole thing and i didnt even have to pay a fee for losing my ticket sooo that worked out well. than we got kebabs on our way home from the place next to my apt it was so delicious. my road has so many good food places as ive said and its amazing. i wanna try the sushi place next i wonder if its any good here, sushis not common here at all its the only sushi place ive seen. im going to go shower and get into bed im exhausted. ill hopefully skype with matt for a bit than just hit the hay! got class early tomorrow and all day sooo its a long one!

wonderful weekend in firenze...and more to come!

We ended up not going to Pisa today b/c it was super rainy this morning and not looking good, but of course it cleared up and turned out to be gorgeous but thats alright well be able to go another time was just a lil bummed. This weekend was still amazing between hayley coming and just exploring florence it was great. last night me sarah amanda and alyse went to tijuana, a mexican restaurant and the food was amazing!! and a super nice change from italian food haha italian food is delicious but we have it everyyyy dayyy. i had a chicken fajita and me and sarah split this delicious nacho appetizer. it was so delicious. than we got some wine and hungout in the plazza where tonsss of students and people hangout at night. we ended up not even going to a club we just chilled and had a relaxing fun night it was super nice. i slept in this morning which i havent done lately and that was refreshing and later on in the day we did a lil shopping and got delicious gelato. We also had chinese food for dinner. we just went for a bunch of different foods this weekend haha it was good and super cheap which is always a plus. the place was right on my road too so nice and convenient. i love the road i live on its super close to everything and it has a million hole in the wall type restaurants on it that are all DELICIOUS. kebabs which are more like burritos with everything u can possibly think of in them are my new favorite thing, theres this shop next to my apt with this adorable lady who makes the best food ever. im goin there tomorrow for lunch haha i got some hw and stuff to do this week so ill be busy and thiniking of taking an italian cooking class on tuesday just have to see if theres spots left tomorrow so tht will be yummy. and this weekend is oktoberfest!!!!! im so exciteddd!!!!! im leaving thursday night for rome (bc my flight is out of rome) and staying at hayleys apt bc my flight is at 645am friday morning. im soooo excitedddd were going to have so much funnnn, itll be me hayley and a bunch of her richmond friends tht are super cool and than sarah amanda and alyse are going to be staying at the campgrounds so well all meet up at the tents and party together! Were going to get matching german soccer (excuse me "football") jerseys to wear for the weekend haha so well all match and we dnt want to bring any nice clothes so we thought tht would be a fun idea. I iwsh lauren was coming this weekend but she had already booked her oktoberfest stuff for the weekend after before she knew wen we were going but thats okay. its going to be so funn!!!!! itll be good to go with a big group so we can all keep track of each other and be safe and together. im so excited to go to munich ive heard its a really cool city. anyways im going to bed early tonight than getting up bright and early tomorrow going to the gym getting my kebab planning fall break (greece!) and a few other trips with alyse amanda and sarah and than italian class (i had to write a story for italian class and i wrote about a parrot named squawky who lives on a pirate ship and finds gold hahaha i havve limited vocab...should be funny) and thannn checkin out the cooking class thing and going to the library to start researching for my medici family sooo itll be a long day! and i think were going to check out club space tomorrow night which i havent been to yet but is supposedly super fun sooo well see how tht is. so excited for this week/weekend!!!!!!!

Great weekend...

I just took hayley to the train station to send her back to Rome :( so sad! but it was sooooo much funnnnn.

we had two super awesome nights together so that was good. she got in thursday at like 9 which worked perfect bc i finished up dinner than ran over to the station to meet her and her friend siri and that friends bff from home emily. all thrree of them were staying in the hostel together, which strangely was right on my road! so convenient. her friends were really cool and fit right in with my friends. We took them to shots cafe bc its our favorite bar and the bartender loves us, and than we went to club twice. we had suchhhhh a good time and hayley was hilarious. she was super tired the next morning when we went to the diner to get eggs and stuff sooo she pretty much slept a ton that day and couldnt do much (of course wouldnt expect anything else from hayley hahah) and than we took it a lil easier the next night bc we got up early this morning and hit up some museums and the markets and stuff. hayley was in love with all the art work and architecture her being an art history buff and all haha so its great walking around with her bc she has a story about everything. we also all went to dinner last night at this restaurant on my road called gato e volpo (the cat and the wolf) and it was DELICIOUS. and reasonably priced which is always a major plus haha so that was nice i got pasta carbonara and the bread was so amazing. all in all it was greatttttt 2 day visit, and i cant wwait to visit her in roma!!!! next weekend is oktoberfest sooo i also be seeing hayley again woo. ill take a train into rome thursday ngiht than my flight is outta rome friday morning at 6something AM. thats going to be so much fun i cant wait. Tonight ill be goin out with sarah amanda alyse and maybe a few others. lauren came out with us last night and we had such a good time, shes so easy going im so glad i roomed with her.

above, this is me and hayley having way too much obviously hahaha
below, is emily, siri and hayley at Shots, theyre so much fun!

alyse just posted more pictures from amalfi coast soooo heres some pics from that weekend i shouldve included a couple posts ago....first picture is all the bentley grls on the hike, second is me amanda and sarah going out in sorrento, 4th and 5th is me and alyse on the hike, and the last one is all of us in front of our bungalow!

Hayley is coming to florence!!!!!

Today was my super long day of classes. got up at 8 had a quick bfast than ran to class. Had MG class first where we went over a bunch of econ stuff but thanks to my awesome econ teacher snyder from bentley i already knew everything that we were talking about, and our teacher thought me and the other bentley kids in my class were just super smart haha than i had history of the medici family class, the begining was SO boring bc my teacher is the most unexciting person ever butttt for the second half of class we went on a field trip to the san lorenzo church and that was super cool. San lorenzo was a saint because he used to work for a king who asked him to collect all the townspeoples money and jewels because he needed it to pay people off, instead of taking the people valuable san lorenzo brought all the townspeople to the king and said the people are your jewels you dont need money...so the king burned him on a grill! The grill was a common symbol throughout the church. For example all the columns in the church has architectural "grills" on them:

We went to see this church because it was commissioned to be built by Cosimo Medici. The Medici family crest was all over the church, and Cosimo and his sons and a few others in the medici family are buried there. Their tombs were really cool, very intricate, huge and gorgeous. The outside of the church is actually not that pretty, but as soon as you walk in its breathtaking and huge. Its all grey and white stone, and the ceiling has gold ornamentation on it. The gold was added on later during the baroque period when using gold to decorate architecture became popular.This is the outside of the church....

and than here is the inside....

So that was pretty cool. Unfortunately we had to rushhhh out of the church after the tour b/c me amanda and sarah all had italian next and we had a quiz! I was a lil nervous but it turned out to be really easy and i think i got 100 :) good way to start the semester! finally italian was over and my long class day was done! I came back and went to the gym, and than after was starving and knew i wouldnt be able to hold out till dinner so went to the 99cent store and bought a ton of snacks, and the lady there was really nice i either had to give her a 50euro bill or i was like 30cents short so she just let me have the snacks for 30cents cheaper haha than i came back and showered and am now realizing till dinner at 8. Im super excited for this weekend, im always excited for the weekend but this ones even better bc HAYLEYS COMING TONIGHT!!!! she gets in around 8 or 9!!!!!! im sooo excited to take her around florence and party together. Its only been a few weeks but feels like i havent seen her in forever. were going to have so much fun! shes staying tonight and friday. saturday night she leaves for cinque terra i believe and is doing a day trip there sunday. sunday i think ill be doing a day trip to pisa, so of course ill have to take my picture with the tower haha anyways im going to take a quick nap and than eat dinner and than the fun weekend begins! woo!

Just another day in firenze... : )

I had class nice and early today which was a lil brutal since we went out last night, but i was good and didnt stay out too too late! i had sculpture from 9-230 and it was great we started making the "subtraction" projects, and at first i didnt like mine at all. I redid it about ten times, but in the end i made a pretty cool sculpture. Im excited to get it fired and all officially done and bring it home! Sculpture class is super fun and all the grls in my class are really chill we all went to lunch during our 30 minute break and got delicious salads at this place down the road from class. I had italian after sculpture and that wasnt anything new or exciting we just reviewed for our quiz tomorrow! im super nervous about it, its pretty basic stuff but still difficult! im good with the vocab its just the definite articles and the forms of verbs and stuff where it gets confusing to me, im working on it now sooo hopfully ill be super ready by tomorrow. i know everything i think im just nervous, want to do well on my first quiz of the semester! after italian i went to the gym even though i wanted to nap so badly, was very proud of myself haha than came back and showered and did some reading for history class and my management class ready. Management reading was stuff we had discussed last class so was pretty easy, history was awful! it was soooo longgg and read like the most boring history textbook in the world, it was font size 2 and it was about italian politics in the 1400's...sounds like tons of fun right? I think im going to like the class bc of the trips and interesting info, but my teacher is boring and assigns boring work so thats the only bummer. we had dinner at 8 as usual, and its always interesting with about 10 people eating at this huge table, massive amounts of pasta and mozzarella and tomatoes, SO delicious. we had an amazing fruit salad for desert that was awesome. the austrailian boys staying here are like haydon and christians age and theyre pretty funny and help me with my italian bc they speak english but are also fluent in italian (so jealous!) and they remind me of my bros and i miss them! theres this older woman Doris who is so strange and speaks a billion languages, but she never makes sense. maybe shes learned too many and cant speak anything anymore haha  but the austrailian kids think shes hilarious and the dynamic between them just has me cracking up all dinner. after dinner i came back to my room to study and am still doing so, just taking a quick break. lauren went out for a drink with some of her friends and invited me butttt had too much work to do! guess i am starting school now gotta get used to that part of being abroad, cnt just party and travel all the time hahaha anyways i gotta get back to studying but just thought i could recap my day and use this as a lil brain break time

Amalfi Coast Continued...

After we got back to sorrento that night we got dressed to go out. We went to a karaoke bar, which was sooo much fun. After going to dinner at our new favorite pizza place of course, where we each got a huge pizza to ourselves and a bottle of 2.50 euro wine haha Me and amanda sang a spice girls song of course and we rocked the houseeeee.

it was a fun night, everyone had a super good time and we left by like 1am soo went to bed not too too late. had to get up early the next morning to get a train to pompeii! The trains were much easier to figure out than the buses. So we got on a train to pompeii, and arrived in about 30 minutes. There was a ton of fresh orange juice stands, when we got off so i had a glass and it was so delicious and fresh. We than got a map and headed into the ruins of pompeii. they were so cool, its something everyones been learning about in school since like 2nd grade so it was weird to see it up close and personal. Some of the people who were frozen in stone was kinda creepy. The town was just unreal. We had a guide book and a map so i pretended to be a tour guide for our group and read aloud to all of us haha it was weird to see Mt Vesuvius right there and imagine the eruption that occured in 79AD! it was so long ago i dont understand how everything was preserved so well.

I wish we had time to do the drive up to the top of mt vesuvious but we just didnt have time, we had to be back by 4pm to get our bus back to florence! it was a long a jampacked weekend but totally worth it. the bus ride home was pretty brutal though, it took about 10 hrs and everyone was tired and cranky haha but watched some movies and after dropping some people off in rome we got our own row for the last 3 hrs of the trip so wasnt so bad. the weekend as a a whole was so unreal. Today i was a little tired but didnt have class till 3 so that was nice. and was super productive joined the gym and worked out so that was good. Its a rainy after noon so im going to eat dinner than organize some stuff than get to bed early!

Amalfi Coast: Capri, Pompeii, Positano, and Sorrento

So i just got back last night from my euroadventures tour of the amalfi coast and it was AMAZING. It was the most beautiful place i have ever seen. We left thursday at around 6 and didnt get in till 2am friday morning so the bus ride was a bit long but it was a comfortable double decker bus with all the bentley girls who went and than a bunch of other people who signed up for the trip. All the kids on the trip were super cool so made a few new friends which is always nice! We stayed in these bungalow houses in sorrento. They were pretty cool, just stuper small. I roomed with 5 other grls and theres was two rooms and three beds per room. I roomed with sarah, amanda, alyse, marianella, and mariantonia. Marianella is from panama and rooming with sarah and amanda here in florence, and she is so hilarious. Mariatonia is also latin but i forget what country she said shes from and is living with alyse in florence. It was a really fun group. And christina and her friends she met in rome roomed in a bungalow next to ours! Heres a picture of our bungalow...

The first day on friday we went to Capri. At first in the morning it was rainy and we were all kind of bummed out because its like a beach town so rain is not what we wanted! But it started clearing up as we took the ferry over and we went on a hike first. sarah, amanda christina and everyone didnt want to do the hike and just explored the town so me and alyse did the hike with all the euroadventures people and it was AWESOME. it was a super intense hike and took almost two hours to get to the top, but it was totally worth the view. And it was a great workout haha we were all drenched in sweat, thank god it wasnt too sunny at this point. I forgot my camera on the hike but a bilion cool pictures were taken so ill add some of those to this as soon as people post their photos on facebook so i can really show you how amazing the views were, even though the pictures wont even do it justice. heres one picture of the whole group at the top that lauren canepa posted:

After the hike the weather cleared up and it was the most gorgeous day! We than got sandwhiches and drinks and got to take small private boat rides around the island and to the grottos and all these cool places!!! It was so much fun, the boat ride was probably my favorite part of the trip. We unfortunately couldnt go inside the blue grotto (one of the seven wonders of the world!) because its only like a 3 foot opening and they close it when the waves are too big but its okay we got to see it and we went inside another almost as cool grotto haha the Mediterranean sea is SO beautiful and the water was blue and amazing. Only problem was the jellyfish there were a decent amount of those but wasnt so bad. We also got to do some cliff jumping, which was so much fun.

After the boat ride we went back to Sorrento and relaxed and than went out to dinner. Sorrento was nice but it was similar to the hamptons of LI, gorgeous but overpriced. Everywhere we went to eat was super expensive and a bit touristy. It wasnt until the last day unfortunately that we found this small relaxing pizza/pasta place that was cheap and so funnn, we wish wed known about it the first day and couldve eaten there everyday haha We were super tired so after dinner we just grabbed a drink at the "English Pub" where they were giving euroadventure kids a deal, and than went to bed by 1030. We were soooo tired. We got up bright and early the next morning to catch a public bus to Positano. The bus was a whole ordeal bc we thought it would take like 30 minutes and it toko more like an hour and the bus was so packed we had to stand the whole way! and than none of the stops were labeled or announced so we had noooo idea where to get off and we went way too far and had to get off that bus and get back on another going the other way. it was definitely an experience with public italian buses hahah Finally we got to where we were going and the town was so cool. it was all these cool shops and food places built into the side off this cliff.

It was a small lil beach town. The beach was pretty cool, but i didnt reazlize that the sand was so black and rocky! And people make fun of ransom...although ransom doesnt look like this but still hahaha and the water was crystal blue, just once again a decent amount of jellyfish that were super scary looking! really red and tentacly. We hung out at the beach for the morning just tanning and relaxing. Than we got lunch at this great sandwhich/salad place. My okay italian almost got me a sandwhich, when i wanted a salad but finally i got the guy to understand what i wanted haha Than we did another boat ride of this area which was pretty cool too. Did some more cliff jumping and just exploring the area. This boat was a lil bigger with alot more of the suroadventure kids so it was fun to hangout with everyone.

After the boat ride we went back to positano for a bit and than caught a bus back to sorrento (much easier second time around haha) i have to go to class right now but going to finish this up after....

first day of sculpture class...

i had my first day of sculpture class today and i absolutely loveeeddddd it. my teacher is awesome, shes super chill and we just listen to music while we work. today she had still lifes of fruit and shells and stuff and we were to just sculpt wat we saw by adding clay on top of clay. next class were going to sculpt by "subtraction" which is where you have a big chunk of clay and you carve things out of it instead of adding to it, or making actual 3D objects. its a super long class is the only thing its from 9am-230pm. but it gives us alot of time to get projects done and we have a 30 minute lunch break so its actually pretty relaxing. I had italian right after that so rushed from building to building bc some of the classes are super spread out through florence. italian wasnt too stressful though very chill class and theres all bentley students in that one so its good to see everyone since sometimes i dont even see bentley students bc were all spread out in our homestays. i was exhasusted after class so came back and took a nice long nap! and than had dinner. dinner is always funny, the japanese couple was rambling on about things, Darlene was talking so fast in english i could barely understand her (shes always so frazzled! anna thinks shes too much bc she never understands anythingggg she saying but darlene continues to talk in english a million miles a minute to her hahah), and laurens italian is very impressive so her and anna were talking abd i was just just listening to it all trying to absorb wat i can! i just packed all my clothes for the weeekend b/c i leave for amalfi tomorrow at 6pm right after my classes are done so had to have everything ready. Im still super exhausted so im going to get some sleep have to get up a lil before 8am tomorrow i always have t o leave about 25minutes to get to class bc its a decent walk. ciao!

dance class?

Just got back from my second italian class, it was pretty successful. Learned some more basic stuff, nothing too exciting. Also went to the san lorenzo food market which was AMAZING. Sarah and I got some bruschetta that was freshly made and huge for 1.50 euro and it was soooooo delicious. We had to wait like 5 minutes for him to make a fresh batch but it was totally worth the wait. while we were waiting we also met this guy (i already forget his name...oops.) who was a lil older than us and doing alot of traveling around italy and giving us some italian tips. he was from toronto, most travelers are so friendly! i guess you have to be especially if you are traveling on your own, how else would you meet people? We also got some amazing bread and cheese for lunch at the market. A nice big piece of ciabatta bread and some mozzzarella balls (we finished the entire package, which was quite large haha) anddd some gorgonzola. finished most of the gorgonzola as well but not all of it tried to save it to bring back and put in my fridge but idk...it was hot out might be questionable. all the food was fresh and delicious, i also got a fresh peach there and at first they thought i said i wanted a fish not a peach. tht was a lil confusing haha fish is pesce, peach is pesca. i mean comon thats a toughie! but i eventually got my peach and not fish. ill definitely be going back to the market for lunch or just to get some groceries for the weekends. i went to sign up for clubs after class and the signup was all day from like 10-7pm and tomorrow all day from 10-7pm again butttt when i went there around 4 today most of the clubs were filled up! i had no idea that could even happen...i was pretty bummed i couldnt join the cooking club, maybe there will one day cooking classes i can take or something bc i think that would be alot of fun. or maybe ill just watch Anna cook, her foods better than the restaurants anyways haha but since that was filled i did sign up for the dance club...apparently we learn italian traditional dance? dance hasnt ever been my specialty as far as workouts go buttttt well see how it turns out. ill give it a try haha im just relaxing now and than dinner is at 8. i have a little italian hw to do before than so ill most likely start that in a few minutes. after dinner i think were going to go out to the red garter bc they have beer pong tournaments there on tuesdays? so me and sarah may test our pong partner skills hahah i have a feeling we wont do to hot but one never knows, we could be the next firenze pong champssssss. americans are known for playing a lot of beer pong so well see. I also checked out another gym today and it was lil nicer than the one thats close to me buttttt its like 30 euros more and alot further so i think ill join the one down the road from me. much more convenient and i think ill actually use it more if its not a whole ordeal of walking a million miles to get there and navigating the streets or taking a bus or anything like that. so something to think about. im going to start my italian hw, ciao! :)

Firenze...

So last night i went to lions fountain, which was a cool but very american bar. I met this guy who was traveling around europe getting ideas for a new restaurant he wants to start. He already owns this pretty successful one in miami, thats asian style and apparently wants to start another one but with a more european flair so him and his partner are traveling around Europe getting ideas. I told him i am going to school for marketing and management soooo if he ever needs someone to help advertise his new restaurant in the near future to shoot me an email hahah doubt that will happen but hey one never knows! came back pretty early last night because have alot i want to do today. Theres a museum down the road from my house (i live on via ghibellina) that i want to check out i just honestly have no idea what it even is haha I went to the Uffizzi museum the other day by the ponte vecchio bridge and that was pretty cool. They had a Caravaggio exhibit and his paintings were amazing, some were a little morbid but cool nonetheless. We werent allowed to take pictures unfortunately but heres one of the paintings i saw that was super intense

All the Caravaggio paintings and one painted shield with a medusa type person on it were all in these rooms that were painted a deep red so it was a cool effect. The rest of the museum was just okay, some of the paintings were cool but there was also alot of portraits (which personally i think arent too exciting, especially when theres like 100 of them haha) and very religious art work. They had a bunch of old statues around the building that was cool. The actual museum itself was gorgeous, everything in italy has so much history and is so old that even the museum itself is a piece of history. its pretty awesome. I got a museum pass for 40euro which is a pretty good deal bc now i can go into a ton of museums for free and cut the lines. The museums are fairly expensive some of them so i use it 3 times and the pass was worth it. Today i have class at 3, but i am going to meet sarah at 12 and go check out another gym, weve been comparing gyms and prices to see if we want to join one and which one to join. We also want to check out the san lorenzo food market for lunch and maybe do a lil grocery shopping. Apparently the food there is super fresh and delicious, and ive heard the food market is huge so im excited to see that. ive only been to the san lorenzo clothing market so far. So that is my plan for the day! I am going to head out now and do that. It still blows my mind that im living in florence. I dont know if ill ever get used to the idea haha the only bad thing is the mosquitos i aquired a few more buts last night its awful, theres no way to avoid it. Darlene, a woman who is living with us who used to work on wall street is now going back to school here for painting, bought us a citronella candle yesterday which was super nice of her but idk how much it actually helped and we cant leave it on at night bc anna said well burn the house down haha but im pushing 45 bug bites right now, i just want it to get cold out bc than theyll all die out and not bother me anymore!...the cleaning lady just came in to take our sheets and laundry i think...she started speaking super fast italian and was picking all our stuff up so im assuming so or me and lauren were just robbed of sheets and clothes hahah she said as she was leaving, "parlo italiano si?" im like uhhhh "un poco?" hahahah anyways time for me to get my act together and head out. Italian is my only class today, tomorrow i have italian and sculpture class, thursday i have italian and rise and fall of the medici family (history) and global buissness and society. So its not too crazy of a schedule gives me alot of time to discover florence and of course the 3 day weekends are great for traveling. im so excited to leave for the amalfi coast on thursday night!

Grazie per la cena!

I think im just excited to have finally started this blog so now all i want to do is write in it haha i just finished dinner and learned "grazie per la cena. era molto buenna. (spelling?)" Thanks for the dinner. it was very good. haha anna makes me speak italian which is good but super hard haha we had this Japanese couple here with us as well tonight and i think theyres staying for a little while? that was all i could get out of the conversation haha they were nice, very funny, they laughed at everything haha im going to go out for a lil bit to an irish/italian bar? called lions fountain with lauren (my roomate) and her friends. so going to shower quickly and head there! have italian class again at 3 tomorrow but thats it :)

Just to add....

I dont want to forget a single moment about florence sooo just adding some more stuff! Anna just said dinner isnt going to be ready for a lil longer so now i have some more time and was just thinking about if i forgot anything...This weekend we (sarah amanda me alyse and lauren and the girls) went out friday and saturday it was SO much fun. We went to this place called "Shot Cafe" first and it was so fun. The drinks are cheap and the menu is hialrious. You order these shots with super funny names like "duck fart" and "boobs" and weird things of that nature haha we had a really good time there and the bartender lovedddd us and gave us a bunch of free drinks and was protective of us when the annoying italian men would try to hit on us haha so we went there firday and saturday and definitely plan to go back ASAP. After that on friday we went to go back to club21 which was the first club we went to when we got to florence on wednesday. Its pretty cool but the drinks are super expensive so we didnt buy any there, just danced and had a good time. Its a very american club so there was a ton of LDM students there. Saturday we went to club twice, which was a much more local club. That was pretty cool, attempted to speak a lil italian got laughed at haha but they appreciate it when u try! That night was super fun, but didnt get back till almost 4am! ugh slept alot on sunday haha monday i was ready for class and got up at like 8am showered, went to the santa croce plaza down the road and read my book for a bit in the morning it was so relaxing (im reading The Jungle right now, upton sinclair) and than met sarah to check out the gym and than ate lunch and headed to class as i explained before. okay now i think im really caught up with everything....this is such an amazing experience i want to remember everything i do every second! haha now hopefully if i keep up with writing this blog itll be easier than trying to recap everything from the past like 2 weeks. ciao!

me, alyse, sarah, and amanda at shots cafe ordering some boobs...

 us again at the ponte vecchio bridge...(with my super cute new red leather bag from the firenze boar market)

hilarious menu....

Boar Market!

me sarah and amanda at the duomo...still cant believe this is down the street from where im living....

First Blog in Italia!

So I am starting this blog a little late, i had been keeping journal entries but typing is so much easier than writing! So just going to do a lil recap first and than get up to speed. I got to Firenze about 6 days ago, but feels like i've been here forever already. The city is absolutely gorgeous. Before Firenze I was in Tuscania for 6 days before going to Firenze. We had a school orientation there. The scenery was absolutely amazing, great for going on long runs. The town was very cute, and I was forced to use the very few words of italian i knew such as "Ciao", "Como estai?" (how are you?), "biondo" (blonde) and "molto benne" (very good) haha that was about it. We saw a ton of super cool things in Tuscania such as Viterbo, which is a medieval city, and Villa Lante which was nearby and the most amazing grogeous thing ive ever seen! Villa Lante was like an estate for italian cardinals and important people. They lived in styleeeee. Each one added their own bit to it, so it became huge. There is even a public park in it. Heres some quick snap shots of the area (the pictures don't do it justice, and i have full albums on my facebook im going to see if i can somehow put a link to those on here - still learning how to do this whole blogging thing haha)
Garden in Villa Lante:

Street in Viterbo:

We were given tours of all these areas by a guy who works for LDM. His name was Massimo and he was the cutest lil italian man ever! He called me viking, because he asked about my hair and if i was from norway, so from than on i was Viking! haha We also had an LDM advisor named Mae. She was super nice and was like our mother hen in Tuscania. She would yell at italian men who would say things to all the girls and get us discounts at the nicest restaurants ever. She was awesome, we all wanted to take her with us to Florence. The bentley group we have is really nice, theres about 18 girls and one boy. Everyone got along really well and it was fun to go out at night to the small tuscanian bars and attempt to speak italian to the locals. My vocab has increased a bit since I got to Firenze but not much, considering i just started Italian classes today i'm hoping ill start picking it up a little more easily now. My teachers name is Rossera and shes really nice, we played italian hangman for the first day and learned how to introduce ourselves to people and say what we are studying. Mi chiamo Torre. Sono americana di New York. Ho venti anni. Estudio historia, buissness management (apparently its the same word in italian?), e arte a la escuela de Lorenzo Di Medici. And thats all i got haha but its a start! My first day here i had to ask Anna my host mom for a towel and i looked up the word for it and it was "asciugamano". That was a lil intimidating but i attempted to pronounce and she understood. Thank goodness or drying off after showering would have been difficult haha Anna is super nice and an AMAZING cook. She said im a skinny american and she needs to fatten me up (at least thts wat i got from my attempt to understand her, maybe she was really saying im a fattycake american hahaha), im much obliged to let her do so the italian food is so good. for breakfast we always have these bread cracker things with jelly and a nutella type chocolate spread and coffee. The coffee is amazing but super strong, its definitely an acquired taste. I add a ton of milk to it and i love it. lunch we have to get on our own, but thats not so bad theres a bunch of places that give student discounts. Today went to a cafe and got a delicious ravioli and bread thing for 7 euro. Also went to that same place the other day and they have cheap sandwhiches so thats good. Going to check out the San Lorenzo market tomorrow, apparently they have tons of fresh fruit, veggies, and cheese. YUM. so i may see if i can make a lunch there tomorrow. I have a fridge in my room which is super nice so i can save some stuff for the week from the market. I haven't been to it yet because its only open till 2, so going early tomorrow before class at 3. I also am yet to find a park to go running in, i have tried running a few times around where i live but it gets frustrating because its so crowded and impossible not to run into big tour groups and just traffic. I hear there is one near me to run around in, but i got lost looking for it today. Ill make a second attempt tomorrow haha this time ill bring a map instead of just winging it. I want to join a gym but the one near me is 150 euro to join till december. Thats alot of money but might be worth it, going to check out a few others a lil farther than this one first and than make a decision. Now im just waiting for dinner, its at 8pm monday to friday. They eat so late in italia! bfast is super early, than late lunch like 2ish and than lateeee dinners like 8 or 9. Going out to the clubs and bars is always a late night italians don't get to the clubs till almost midnight! I don't know when they sleep...I dont mind too much though i like being busy all the time. And i have alot of free time during the day to nap and relax and explore the area. Found a 99cent store today that was a great find. it had all sorts of shampoos, soaps etc. and got a bunch of school supplies there so taht was super handy. Im looking forward to all my classes this week and this weekend ill be heading to the amalfi coast to see capri, amalfi coast, and pompeii. Maybe naples if theres time. i leave thursday night so ill have friday, saturday, sunday. Alot of bentley students are going, were doing it through eurotours. Should be alot of fun. Anyways its about dinner time! This post was super long but had a lot to catch up on and theres still more i could say! I am going to try and post everyday. So far i love firenze :)