here are some photos from last semester and winter break: churches; Christmastime in Rome; Salzburg and Christmas in Austria; Austria and New Year's in Florence and Rome with the family; my adventure alone to Nice, Milan, and Perugia
I'm not very good at keeping up with this thing! It's because I like to save up and procrastinate, telling myself that eventually I'll write a really long and detailed entry. Oh well.
This new semester:
I was excited for Genevieve to come and join me in Rome so we could finally explore europe together! It's nice having someone from home here now. I'm also having fun getting to know the other new girls, most of whom I never knew before. But... I really miss the great friends I got to know last semester, like my roomates Anne, Maire, and Ashley... Emily who is now studying in France... and all the other fabulous girls of the first semester group.
Me and the other 9 girls from last semester took a little group daytrip to the Tuscan town of Montepulciano (famous for it's wine) one of the first weekends, while the new girls had
tours around Roma. It was really nice to spend time together, just the 10 of us. We got up really early on a Saturday and took some trains there. We thought it was only 3km up to the real town from the train station, so we decided to walk up. Well, after about an hour of walking through the fog goofing around and talking we thought it was about time we got there already. So we stopped at a bus station to wait after we saw that it was actually 9km to the top, and we had 6km left to do! We also tried hitchhiking, but there were too many of us. Ok, not really completely seriously... the bus came eventually. We broke through the fog on the way up, into the beautiful sunshine and the hilltop, so we could see all the fog pooled below us in the valleys. It reminded me of breaking throught the clouds in the alps going skiing. We had a good lunch together, had some wine, bought some wine, and headed back to Rome.
I've haven't done as much as I should be doing around Rome, but I'll get on it. Gen a
nd 2 other girls and I went to Florence the other weekend. We climbed up a bajillian (hehe) steps to the top of the dome of the Duomo to see the city sprawled out before us on a beautiful, clear-blue sky day. Then we met up with Vanna, the family friend we saw over New Year's when my parents and Scott were here. We hopped on a bus and somehow found our way to her house for tea. She spoke all in Italian to us, which was really fun. I can understand well and respond, but slower. Gen and Leanna who are new to Italian could understand the gist of things, which was neat too. We had a cake thing that was traditional for Carnevale time in Florence. We got to meet her son, Neri, who came over and ended up taking us all around the city! It was awesome. We spoke English with him. He took us to Piazzale Michelangelo, a piazza with a bronze replica of David that looks over the city, which Vanna also took my family to when we came. It was a beautiful night. We then had some spumante (a sparkling white wine), which is a typical Tuscan/Florentine pre-dinner drink. Then we walked around the city for a while down backstreets and kind of got to see "the real Florence." Then we had dinner: 3 appetizers, some insalata caprese (my fav) and tuscan crostini; red wine of course; we all got pizza; a chocolate dessert; and coffee. And he graciously paid for it all and pretended to not understand us when we asked him if he wanted money :) Then we went for another walk and a drink, met some of his friends (besides the people working that he seemed to know at every place we went), and had some fun teaching slang and quizzing each other on English and Italian. We all had a blast!
Sunday while the 3 other girls went to the Uffizi and Academia I went to the Archaeological Museum by myself... I got to see the Chimera of Arezza, this big bronze beast that I studied in archaeology- so that was cool. Great weekend!
More later about my trip this past weekend to Barcelona!!
I'm not very good at keeping up with this thing! It's because I like to save up and procrastinate, telling myself that eventually I'll write a really long and detailed entry. Oh well.
This new semester:
I was excited for Genevieve to come and join me in Rome so we could finally explore europe together! It's nice having someone from home here now. I'm also having fun getting to know the other new girls, most of whom I never knew before. But... I really miss the great friends I got to know last semester, like my roomates Anne, Maire, and Ashley... Emily who is now studying in France... and all the other fabulous girls of the first semester group.
Me and the other 9 girls from last semester took a little group daytrip to the Tuscan town of Montepulciano (famous for it's wine) one of the first weekends, while the new girls had
tours around Roma. It was really nice to spend time together, just the 10 of us. We got up really early on a Saturday and took some trains there. We thought it was only 3km up to the real town from the train station, so we decided to walk up. Well, after about an hour of walking through the fog goofing around and talking we thought it was about time we got there already. So we stopped at a bus station to wait after we saw that it was actually 9km to the top, and we had 6km left to do! We also tried hitchhiking, but there were too many of us. Ok, not really completely seriously... the bus came eventually. We broke through the fog on the way up, into the beautiful sunshine and the hilltop, so we could see all the fog pooled below us in the valleys. It reminded me of breaking throught the clouds in the alps going skiing. We had a good lunch together, had some wine, bought some wine, and headed back to Rome.I've haven't done as much as I should be doing around Rome, but I'll get on it. Gen a
nd 2 other girls and I went to Florence the other weekend. We climbed up a bajillian (hehe) steps to the top of the dome of the Duomo to see the city sprawled out before us on a beautiful, clear-blue sky day. Then we met up with Vanna, the family friend we saw over New Year's when my parents and Scott were here. We hopped on a bus and somehow found our way to her house for tea. She spoke all in Italian to us, which was really fun. I can understand well and respond, but slower. Gen and Leanna who are new to Italian could understand the gist of things, which was neat too. We had a cake thing that was traditional for Carnevale time in Florence. We got to meet her son, Neri, who came over and ended up taking us all around the city! It was awesome. We spoke English with him. He took us to Piazzale Michelangelo, a piazza with a bronze replica of David that looks over the city, which Vanna also took my family to when we came. It was a beautiful night. We then had some spumante (a sparkling white wine), which is a typical Tuscan/Florentine pre-dinner drink. Then we walked around the city for a while down backstreets and kind of got to see "the real Florence." Then we had dinner: 3 appetizers, some insalata caprese (my fav) and tuscan crostini; red wine of course; we all got pizza; a chocolate dessert; and coffee. And he graciously paid for it all and pretended to not understand us when we asked him if he wanted money :) Then we went for another walk and a drink, met some of his friends (besides the people working that he seemed to know at every place we went), and had some fun teaching slang and quizzing each other on English and Italian. We all had a blast!Sunday while the 3 other girls went to the Uffizi and Academia I went to the Archaeological Museum by myself... I got to see the Chimera of Arezza, this big bronze beast that I studied in archaeology- so that was cool. Great weekend!
More later about my trip this past weekend to Barcelona!!
