A little catch-up

Wow. It has been so long since I even thought about publishing ANYTHING on this blog. I need to catch you all up on my flight back home...etc.

So, April 29th, was the last day in Ascoli for Britney, Britney and myself. We were traveling home together and had to say our goodbyes to our little city. We took our last italian classes and had lunch with our group for the last time. When all of us finally made it down to the bistro under our school, we were met with a surprise!
Piero, the man who owns the bistro, had a whole goodbye lunch set up for us!There were literally 10 different dishes that just kept getting magically refilled.
After lunch we all said our final goodbyes and it was so sad. Haha. Everyone was just running around hugging. I had to run after that because I needed to get all my final things packed up and ready for the 2:30 bus to Rome. Right before I got on the bus to leave my roommate Christine and Molly and Mollie showed up to make their FINAL FINAL goodbyes. I got yelled at by the bus driver because I was taking too long. :)

Briteny, Britney and I took the three hour bus into Rome since our flight was leaving the next day around 10:30. Giorgio met up with us at the bus station and took us out for dinner with his wife Danilla and his daughter Giorgia. We went back to the really good pizza place that he brought me to with my parents when they were in Rome.

I said my goodbyes to Giorgia and Danilla after that and Giorgio left us off at the hotel. The next morning he dropped us off and the airport and true to Britney Weaver's style, she went to give him the double kiss and went to the wrong side first....AGAIN. She always ends up smooching people on the lips. Oh b-weaves...

Our plane was delayed, but we eventually made it on after chit chatting with one of those elderly tour groups. The flight back went smoothly and before I knew it, we were beginning our descent into Boston. When the pilot told us this over the PA, I started crying.....hahaha. I dont know why, I just wanted to stay on the plane and go back to Rome.

We landed and then went to look for our luggage, and just when we thought the fun was over for our trip, there was a drug bust in the luggage claim area! YES! hahaha. When we walked through the door from baggage claim to our families (and by families, in my case i mean Mike Burke), and said our goodbyes, it really hit me. I was home. No more pizzas from il teatro, no more trips to San Benedetto or Roma. No more little italian children to teach English. I was done with all of the art and narrow allies with cobblestones. No more tabaccherias and old italian men asking me if i want to go get a cafe.

I was back in the USA, but nothing would be "just like it was" before. I would see everything in a different way now. A trip like the one I took really changes a person.

TIME CRUNCH!

Things are coming to an end in Ascoli! I can't believe it is ending so soon. On one hand, I feel like this was a sufficient time to be living in Ascoli Piceno, but on the other hand, I feel like I could stay for another two months.

I had my Italian teaching practicum this morning where I teach the Italian children English. At the end of class, they all gave me little cards that they wrote out and colored for me. Each one wrote a note inside and they were all sooo cute! It made me want to stay with those kids for ever! Haha. Of course, that wore off when I remembered that I would be seeing my niece and nephew when I go home!

I have a big paper due tomorrow, and right now I should be working on it but I am actually blogging...coincidence? I think not....

I also have an Italian final on Wednesday, but I'm not too worried about that. It should be pretty easy seeing as it is ELEMENTARY Italian...:)

So, since I should be writing my paper, and not writing on my blog, I am going to stop writing this post now. Leave you people with a cliff hanger...maybe? haha

CIAO!

Registering for Classes

So I get to register for my classes today at 5:30pm.....American time...which means that I have to be up and at some sort of internet point tonight at 11:30....great haha. But it's ok. My friend's apartment has internet so we'll just have a movie night and then I'll register and go home.
So about registering....anyone that want to hang out with me...do it over the summer because I will literally have NO LIFE next semester. My OT classes are literally going to kill me. There are sooo many hours of class time and LABS! Ok, that's all of the complaining I am going to do...for now.
Ehhh the days in Ascoli are winding down...My program ends on April 30th :( It's bittersweet I guess. Atleast there are travel opportunities afterward. I'm going to miss friends that I made here, but I am also going to be ready to come home when that day comes :)

Monday and Tuesday 4/20 and 4/21

My parents and brothers and Andrea left Monday morning. I had to teach English at the Italian school from 8-10 and so I met them at the Bistro under my school at 10:15 to get a coffee and say bye before my class at 10:40. I also sent them along with one of my suit cases :)

The rest of the day was back to the same old same old. It was one of the girl's 21st birthday Monday night so we took her out for some Chinese food in Italy... haha go figure.

Tuesday I woke up with a massive stomach ache (the chinese no doubt) but I got over it during the day. I finished the third book of Twilight too,but I am waiting to start the fourth one until my 10 hour plane trip home is closer:)

Saturday with the Family

The next day it rained ALL DAY! We walked around and I showed my parents around Ascoli a little more. We went into some of the churches and the crypt of one of them. By lunch time we were all soaked and decided to call the touring a day. We went for lunch at Café Lorenz and ate yummy pasta. ML wanted to shop a little bit so we did that in the afternoon.
For dinner we went to Vagabondo with some of my friends. We were the only customers that night and the man that owned the place was the only one working. Insteada of making a bunch of different dishes for us, we ate family style. One dish for each course for everyone. SO Fun!

After dinner we were all tired AGAIN haha so we called it a night.

End of Rome, Beginning of Ascoli

The next day, we were leaving for Ascoli Piceno but we had a few things to see first. We was the Pantheon, Piazza Minerva, the lion thing, a monastery with a secret. The secret was a gate leading into a garden. Through the key hole in the gate you could see down a long path of trees in this garden that eventually led to a gorgeous view of the dome on the Vatican. Finally we ended with the Colosseum, but that was not before we accidentally walked in on a wedding in a little chapel near the monastery.
Saying bye to Giorgio was so hard. He drove us to the highway and then he was like…Ok! I’ll see you again I hope! He got out, we said our goodbyes and he grabbed a bus back home. When we got back into the car we noticed that he wrote us a note saying goodbye! SO CUTE AND NICE!
The drive to Ascoli Piceno was much quicker when my dad drove versus the bus. Just over two hours and fifteen minutes I would say. Oh daddy….My family checked into their hotel and then we walked around for a little bit. Then they went for a rest before dinner. That night we ate dinner at Al Teatro and had some good pizza with my friends.

Sistine Chapel and Vatican

The next morning we woke up early and met Giorgio at 8:30. We had a tour of the Vatican scheduled with a retired CAPTAIN of the Swiss Guard, Martino. So cool. We walked us through the Vatican and told us SO many things about it! He knew so much, and you could tell he knew more and was just giving us the “abridged” version. After the Vatican came the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Martino knew everything about everything.
Just as we were about to leave the Sistine Chapel Giorgio came running over to us and motioned for us to follow him. He brought us into this little side room in the Chapel that was off limits. When we were in and the door was shut he explained where we were. We were in the Room of Tears in the Sistine Chapel. Martino, who was in the Swiss Guard for 37 years had only been in there twice! This room holds all the ancient treasures and old vestments of past Popes from the 1200’s-1300’s till the present. It is also the room where the newly elected Pope goes to “collect himself” between being elected and first speaking to the people. SOOO COOL!!!! Once in a lifetime.
After the long day, my family was tired because they were still dealing with a time change. They rested up but I still had energy. Giorgio, Andrea and I walked around Rome. We happened to pass the Trevi Fountain and then we walked around looking for a leather jacket. Eventually we had to head back and get everyone for dinner. We met Danilla and Giorgia again and had an amazing time with them. They really were so much fun to be around!



Things I saw in Rome:
1. Dig
2. Old circus (where they used to race chariots)
3. Really cool fountains
4. Massive statues
5. Road with old chariot marks in the rocks paving it
6. An old water fountain (that I somehow shot water into my face and hair with).
7. Spanish Steps
8. Trevi Fountain
9. Pantheon
10. Colosseum
11. Piazza Minerva
12. Vatican
13. Sistine Chapel
14. Vatican Museum
15. Lion face thing you put your hand in and hope it doesn’t get bit off while you make a wish

Wednesday and Thursday! SURPRISE!

So I returned from Ischia on Monday, and Wednesday afternoon I took the 4:30 bus BACK to Rome! I was meeting my family the next day in the Airport, but they didn’t know that because it was a surprise! So I got to Rome at 7:30 and met Giorgio , a friend of the family who lives in Rome. Did I mention that neither he nor his wife speak ANY English haha….He was picking up my parents, two younger brothers and Andrea (family friend…basically family) at Fiumicino (one of the airports in Rome) in the morning. This whole scheme was actually Andrea’s idea and everything was all set-up for me. All I had to do was show up in Rome Wednesday night.
Giorgio and his daughter Giorgia took me to grab a big rental car for the fam when they got here. When I saw it I instantly dubbed it “Nostro Pullman!” (our bus! Haha). It was actually a 9 person van hahaha! Giorgio got a kick out of that one.
Then we headed back to their house where Giorgio’s wife Danilla was preparing dinner. She made an amazingly delicious meal. It was simple but out of this world. Pasta and chicken but SO GOOD!
After dinner…so at like 11pm haha….Giorgio, Danilla and Giorgia drove me to my hotel and got me settled for the night. The next morning Giorgio picked me up at 6:30am so we could get to the airport for 7:30am. Naturally, my parent’s plane was late, but it gave me more time to figure out a surprise strategy with Giorgio.
When they finally walked through the arrivals door I ran behind a column and popped up in front of them….SURPRISE! They had no idea. It was great.
We went to the hotel and the fam took a nap while I read. Did I mention that I started reading Twilight? BAD CHOICE! MY LIFE REVOLVES AROUND THESE BOOKS! Haha kinda sad actually…anyway...After their nap Giorgio met us and we went out and saw a few things around Rome. There are some pictures that I took of a site of a dig that is actually going on in the city right now. Giorgio was basically our master-mind tour guide all weekend that had every connection possible in Rome. It was great!
Then we went to a pizza place where we met-up with Danilla and Giorgia. After we all successfully ate enough for two weeks we rolled ourselves back into nostro Pullman to go back to the hotel and crash for the night.

Monday- Return to Ascoli from Ischia

The next morning we caught the ferry at 7:45am. We almost got lost and missed the ferry like a bazillion times…as usual when I travel. So typical… haha only this time there was no taxi to rely on. From the ferry we thought the train station was close, so we opted to walk rather than pay for a taxi…bad choice….typical. We walked for 45-50 mins through the port of Naples…AGAIN! Tempting fate two times on our one trip…not very smart. Eventually we made it to our train, boarded and just found seats together before the train left. It was PACKED! Little did we know it could and would get worse.
By the time we made two more stops (picking up more people) there was a HUGE group of teenagers standing INSIDE of our compartment and out in the hallway. FIRE HAZARD! Hahaha. They were EVERYWHERE though. My friend was sitting in a fold out seat in the hallway and they literally smothered her. She had butts in her face no matter where she turned. She couldn’t breath. I had to blindly stick my arm out into the teenage abyss and attempt to reel her in. Eventually I got a hold of her and pulled her into the compartment. There wasn’t much more room in there either but at least she could breath!
We finally made it to Rome and killed a few hours before boarding the bus back to Ascoli. Once the three hour ride was behind us, we all trudged the 20 minutes back to our apartments and crashed. We were all physically and emotionally exhausted from the long day of travel. 7am till 6pm. SO WORTH IT! 

Sunday in Ischia

We decided to dedicate Sunday to sun-bathing and a hike to the castle on Ischia. We woke up and grabbed some breakfast at the hotel and threw our bathing suits on…TIME TO TAN…only it was a little chilly. So we wrapped up in towels and waited it out…we were determined to TAN! Hahaha
After lunch, we hiked to Castello Aragonese d’Ischia. It was soo pretty in the distance we just had to see it up close. We were preparing for like an hour and a half, two hours there, and hour back down. When we got to the base of the castle, we were pleasantly surprised….by an elevator. It was 1 minute to the top haha.
The castle was really cool. Lots of old buildings and you could tell that this was a castle town and not just a plain castle. There were churches and homes and an abbey….you name it. Even a SUN temple…can you say ZELDA!? All I could think of was Mike trying to beat that stupid temple in Zelda. Once again…look at the pictures. If you do you get to see the NASTY nun thing we found…They look like seats. Just as I was about to sit on one, my friend started to read the description of what they were. They were in fact seats…but they weren’t for living people. They were where the dead nun corpses would rot away…delicious huh?
It started to rain so we went back and got ready for dinner. We walked to the downtown area for food after waiting to no avail for the rain to let up… no chance on that one. Good food and bed…as usual. Early ferry in the AM.

Saturday in Capri!

we woke up early to take a ferry to Capri for the day. So much fun!!
On the ferry a man approached us and asked us if we wanted to see the Grotta Azzurra. I had no idea what it was but my friend did so we decided to go. Apparently, it is the MAIN tourist attraction in Capri….haha so much for knowing where I am. We bought tickets for the boat ride to the Grotta Azzurra, and when we got off the ferry in Capri we went straight there.
When you get to the area of the Grotta Azzurra, you can’t go in it with a normal boat because the opening is too small. It was literally two feet high when I was there because it was high tide. Since the opening is so small, people are transferred from the bigger boats, that take them out to the Grotta, to super small row boats that take you into the Grotta Azzurra. I got into a small boat with my friend and a family of three from Argentina. Haha…typical. I would find the only Spanish people in Capri.
Anyway, we were getting closer and closer to the opening of the cave, but it wasn’t until we were just about to enter it that I realized just HOW low the opening actually is!! I shimmied down (on top of the Argentinean family) and laid as flat as I could in the bottom of the boat. It’s a good thing! Because my head would have gotten chopped off if I didn’t move! WE WERE SO FRIGGING CLOSE TO THE ROCKS! Let me repeat….we were moving toward the opening, next thing I know I was franticly trying to keep from being decapitated while at the same time trying to pretend that the guy rowing the boat wasn’t laying completely on top of me so he could fit through as well. Good Times in Capri…
Needless to say, the Grotta Azzurra was SO PRETTY! I literally can not describe it with words…it was soo BLUE. On the boat there, we met two women who were traveling together around Italy. The originally came over to visit one of their daughters and were just going from place to place after that. When they found out we were studying in Italy as well, we struck up conversation that lasted the whole boat ride.
When we made it back to Capri (the land part of it anyway) we asked the women if they knew anywhere that was good for lunch. They said that they were going to hike up to the town center (at the top of this massive mountain) and see what was up there. We decided we would go along. We wanted to go up to the center anyway.
After what seemed like an endless climb to the top (it took forever!) we all of a sudden passed through a massive archway and were in the middle of this quaint but amazingly stunning town center of Capri. Once we were up there we decided to go to a famous pizza place for lunch. We walked in and soon realized that they served more than pizza….and stuff that was a lot more expensive than pizza. My friend and I figured…”Hey, how often are we at the top of a mountain in the historical town center of Capri in a nice restaurant? Let’s go all out”. We literally just decided this when the woman whose daughter the two women went to visit said that we could pick whatever we wanted…and it was on her. SO NICE! So we got some delicious fish and shrimp pasta!
After lunch we had to catch the ferry to Ischia so we had to say bye to our new found friends. They were so NICE! We really enjoyed lunch with them.
After the ferry ride back, we took a nap and then went downtown for some dinner. More fish….go figure! How could I not take advantage of the fishy opportunity presented before me?! After dinner we were exhausted to we decided to call it an early night again…but not before getting another gelato

Friday! Traveling to Ischia

Friday morning we began our journey to Ischia. We grabbed the 6am bus from Ascoli Piceno to Rome. We were going to try and catch the 10:24 train to Naples, but we got into Rome a little later than planned and the train was completely booked.
My Italian professor told me that on Christmas, all of the Italians stay at home with their families. On Easter, they all travel….I could definitely see that she was right. Termini (the train station) was packed.
We ended up having to take a later train, and we had a few hours to kill, so we headed to the most American thing that we could find in the train station….Mc Donalds. When we got on our train, it was literally IMPOSSIBLE to find seats near each other. We found a compartment that had one other person in it and just settled….It wasn’t until we were seated that we realized we were sharing a compartment with a bit of a “fishy” character….haha…yeah…
We made it to Naples alive, but that was only half of the journey. From the train station, we had to take a bus (where we all got molested one way or another, emotionally or physically) and then got off at the port to take the ferry to Ischia. We got off at the wrong port, so we had to trek through the port district of Naples (probably the most unsafe place in Italy…) to the other port. We grabbed the ferry and took in the two hour ferry ride to Ischia. SO GORGEOUS!
When we docked, we grabbed a taxi and finally made it to the hotel…after 11 hours of traveling….
That night, we went out to dinner and I had some delicious muscles (Cozze) and a gelato! YUM!

Update

I just put up some pictures from Ascoli and my most recent trip to Ischia and Capri! The accompanying blog is soon to come!!

Ischia!!

So it is official!! I am going to Ischia for Easter Weekend! Yay! We have Monday off from school because it is a national holiday for Easter in Italy, so we are taking advantage of the four day weekend and taking a trip to Ischia!
Originally, we were thinking of going to Capri, but Ischia is a little less well known, therefore it is a little less expensive.
We booked our hotel, and it has it's OWN PRIVATE BEACH! I'm so excited...ahh! I just hope that I don't come down with this sicky thing because we have a three hour bus ride to Rome, a two hour train ride to Naples, and then an hour and a half ferry ride to Ischia. That's a long time to feel nauseous. Cross your fingers for me!

Monday

Yesterday after my Italian class, I left school ASAP because I just wanted to be back in my apartment, sitting in my window and reading. I sat there for THREE hours, just reading and people watching. It was such a nice break from all the stuff going on. The other five girls that I live with were still in school so I had the whole apartment to myself!
Needless to say, I got sunburned....yay!

After my window-time, I went to the fountain for internet and then I hit up Tonic.

Bed early again...I am trying to stay healthy since there is a pukey thing going around with us....three girls down now...IM SCARED! haha...

The end of Sunday....and EARTHQUAKE!

So mass was a little bit longer on Sunday because it was Palm Sunday and they had to read the Passion of Christ. So...it finished in about an hour vs 45 mins haha. After mass we went back to my apartment and just hung out and made some dinner. I went to bed early because I was so exhausted on Sunday.
Then, all of a sudden, around 3:30 in the morning, I woke up to shaking. I thought that my roommate Christine was shaking my bed so I was like "CHRISTINE! STOP SHAKING MY BED!! ITS GOING TO BREAK!"....then I realized it was an EARTHQUAKE! The shaking went on for atleast a good 60-90 seconds. After it had passed, I was a little scared, but I didn't think too much of it.
Literally three days before the quake hit, my italian teacher told my class that "tremors" were common and not to really worry about them. I thought that this was just a "tremor"...oops. So after it passed, I told my roommate what my teacher said and then we both just went back to sleep. We felt a few smaller tremors after the big one, but I really honestly thought that it was normal since Ascoli Piceno is close to a fault line.
It wasn't until the next day that I found out the actual damage that happened in L'Aquila. I cannot even imagine what it would have been like to experience the earthquake there. All I could think about was being one of those students who were trapped in their dorm rubble. The amount of people that have lost their lives is just horrific.
So yes, I felt the earthquake the other night. No, I wasn't scared when it was happening because I thought that it was just the usual for Ascoli. Yes, I am TERRIFIED now because I felt another smaller tremor last night that woke me up...around 1am. Maybe I'm just oversensitive to them now...I don't know.

Catch-up

Since spring break nothing too exciting has happened. The week following my Sunday return to Ascoli, I pretty much slept in EVERY day in attempts to catch-up on sleep. On that Thursday, I was supposed to go to the Italian school to teach English (I go once a week), but when I woke up my eye was all infected and gross again.
Friday, we decided that it would be nice to go out to Murphy’s because we hadn’t been there since before break. So basically, I laid around all day trying to get better, and then went three steps down the street for two hours haha.
Saturday…much of the same. We attempted a hike, but that failed miserably because for some reason, all of Ascoli decided that they would do work on their trails and walkways. So I went to Tonic instead and sat in a Jacuzzi for an hour…probably not the best thing for the homeostatic regulation of my body, but what are you going to do…
Sunday, I laid around outside all day, and then headed to church at 6:45pm. I was expecting a regular mass…hymns, singing, the whole lot. Let’s just say, it was lacking a few…ok all musical overtones of a mass. I felt like I was at mass at that church in Seabrook, NH where you go during the summer between leaving the beach and going out to dinner. The mass started at 6:45pm and I was out, in Piazza del Popolo, drinking an apertivo, before 7:30pm.
We met some friends around 8pm and went out to dinner at a place called Pepperoncino. Apparently, everything there is spicy. After eating, we three of us were waiting outside while our fourth was paying the bill. We were standing outside of the restaurant talking when, all of a sudden, a guy approaches us and starts speaking to us in English. He had a British accent, so I figured he was from England. Then he said, “Are you in the University of New Hampshire program?” When we said yes he asked if we were from New Hampshire. I said I was from Rye Beach and he said… “NO WAY! I’m from PORTSMOUTH!” So basically what happened was….I ran into a guy that lives 15 minutes away from me on Congress St. in Portsmouth, NH, IN ASCOLI PICENO!!! Thousands of miles from my home…So CRAZY! So yeah, that was Sunday.

This past week was much of the same thing. Tuesday was one of the girl’s 21 birthday, so I made her some chili (hahaha ohh kelli), we all bought her a nice cake, and eventually got dressed up and took her out. The rest of the week was pretty relaxed. Not much going on. No big assignments until another two weeks.

Yesterday, Saturday April 4, 2009, we took a day trip to Urbino. We left Ascoli at 7:30am. The trip to Urbino took three hours. By the time we got there…we were all exhausted and ready to call it a day haha. In Urbino there was a Rafael exhibition. We went to the “Galleria Nationale delle Marche” and walked through the Rafael exhibit and the Palazzo Ducale di Urbino. Very cool stuff. Just to get into the ancient city of Urbino, we had to climb up this massive spiral walkway. It looked just like the walkway you have to go up in (EWW a Burberry man purse just passed by under my window) the Gorgon Castle in Zelda. Yep, I know…I’m a loser, but at least my brothers and my cousins will know what I’m talking about. So after the spiral walkway, there were stairs, and then this twisty windy upward brick trail….soo sool. I’m putting pictures up so look at them!
After we got back yesterday we were all so tired. We took naps and then got dinner out. After dinner we loaded up with nutella and cookies and watched some quality Desperate Houswives. During the episode, the back legs started creaking….then all of a sudden, THEY BROKE RIGHT OFF! MY WHOLE BED COLLAPSED! WHAT THE HECK! So last night I had to sleep on the couch.
And just to put the final touches on things, when I woke up this morning, that weird eye guck thing was back. It’s not pink eye…I don’t know what it is but its weird….Oh life.
For breakfast we hit up Murphy’s because they were having a Sunday brunch. There was also a parade through the streets of Ascoli for Palm Sunday. What a day. I have to run now though, because I am trying to make it to 6:45 pm mass again. We’ll see how quick this mass is….

Sunday in Dublin

We woke up on time Sunday, and every thing was going according to plan. We grabbed our taxi at 5:30 and he took us to the bus station. He offered to drive us to the Airport (which was an hour away) but we said no because we wanted to charge us £50. We went to get on the bus, and I didn’t have enough cash for a ticket so we went to an ATM. As I was taking my money out of the ATM the bus left. We figured…no big deal; we’ll catch the next one. Only the next one didn’t leave until 6:30 and wouldn’t arrive until 8am. Our flight left at 8:40 but the gate closed at 8:10. That wouldn’t work. So now we had to figure our how we were going to get to the airport in time.
We walked outside of the train station trying to catch a cab to the airport. We figured it couldn’t be that expensive. We talked to a cabbie and he said it would be £120 for a ride to the airport. £120!!!! SO much money. I tried to talk him down to a lower price, but he wouldn’t budge.
Instead of taking a cab to the airport, we took one to the train station in an attempt to catch the 6:20am train. We got to the station at 6:19am. SOO close!! We ran in and tried to buy a ticket but the machines were broken. Then we were approached by someone who worked there with an electronic ticket machine who sold us tickets. We grabbed them from his hand and RAN to the train platform, but we had JUST missed it. Luckily, there was another one leaving at 6:40am.
We took the train to the airport and got there around 7:30. We went in and made it through security without a problem. We were at our gate by 8am. Things would have been perfect….except that Ryan Air was late…AGAIN. So the airline that prides itself on being on-time was late 2 out of the 4 times I used them. Go Ryan Air.
So after all that traveling just to get to the airport, instead of just paying the £50 it would have cost us for the cab driver to take us directly to the airport, we paid £16 for the cab ride, another £18 for the second cab ride, and £20 each for a train ticket. That’s a total of £74….
We landed in Rome and caught the bus to the center of the city with ease (amazing huh?). The we had a few hours to kill before our 2:30pm bus left for Ascoli. So….we ate some pizza….and played some slots haha. I learned not to bother…I DO NOT understand those games in English, never mind Italian!
When we got on the bus, there were four other girls from our program on there too. Christine and I got front row seats on the second floor (yes, they take double decker busses around the cliffs of Italy) and we were soo excited for the ride back. Then, out of no where, some crazy old lady comes up to us and stars yelling at us saying that we took her seat. Apparently, she RESERVED! the seats we were sitting in. Go figure…typical.So we moved to the back of the bus and slept/watched Grey’s Anatomy the whole way back.
Getting back into Ascoli was the best feeling ever. I was so sick of traveling around everywhere. I was so excited for a good night’s sleep! For dinner that night (because the bus dropped us off at 5:30pm) we went to Teatro Pizzeria and had some AMAZING pizza for €4. I think the thing I missed the most about Ascoli was the cheap food!

Saturday of Spring Break

When I woke up on Saturday, my ears were KILLING but we only had one day to see everything so we ate breakfast at the hotel and went on our way. Just sitting in the Tube, I felt like crying my ears hurt so badly! We decided I needed meds so we went to a clinic in London….Clinic, not a good idea….SO SCARY! So we went to the ER instead. WE WAITED THERE FROM 10am UNTIL 2PM!! And after all that they told me to take ADVIL!!! ADVIL! WHAT THE HECK!
So basically after that, we went to the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral (that was super cool. We climbed up to the top and saw the whole city), The National Gallery (they had a picture from Ascoli Piceno there!), Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. All in the span from 2pm till 7pm. SO Tiring but soo much fun! We wanted to ride the Eye in London but we literally didn’t have the strength to walk over there. We took the tube back to the hotel (with no issues) and ate dinner at the buffet there and went to sleep. We had an early morning the next morning because we had to catch our taxi at 5:30.

Friday of Spring Break

When I woke up Friday morning my eye was crusted shut. Thank You Christine!! Before we left Christine had an ear infection, a sinus infection and pink eye. Apparently I had caught at least the pink eye from her…Needless to say; I was not a happy camper. We got ready to check-out (we were staying at a different hotel for the next two nights that were closer to the attractions in London) and grabbed breakfast at the buffet. We were meeting my friend Lilly in London at 10:30 and we left our hotel at 9:20. We took a shuttle to the airport because that was the easiest place to catch the Tube. By the way, I love the Tube, but it is SO SLOW! Haha. We got on the Piccadilly line into the city. They announce the termination point for each line and it just so happened that our line terminated at Cockfosters…ha..ha. We couldn’t help but giggle a little every time it was announced.
When I first got on the Tube I figured it would function just like any other metro. Nope. The Tube likes to close major stations and stops. Christine and I were on the Tube for an hour before we figured out that this wasn’t going to work. We were already going to be late for Lilly. We were about half way there so we figured we would get off and walk the rest of the way. We had our entire luggage collection at this point because we hadn’t checked into our new hotel yet. SO heavy. If you can’t tell, we LIKE trekking through foreign cities with massive backpacks. NOT. We walked for what seemed like forever and had to call Lilly and tell her to meet us in a different stop. We were going on a bike tour through London at 11am and it was already 10:50. We hailed a taxi and asked the driver to take us to the bike tour spot. We got into the taxi and drove in a MASSIVE circle because all the roads were closed too. What is it with London? When I say a massive circle I mean a £10 circle. That’s a big circle.
He dropped us off and we gave up haha. We called Lilly and we picked a different spot to meet. Unfortunately, this spot was inside the biggest park in London, Hyde Park. So yes, we got lost AGAIN haha. We found Lilly eventually and headed to our hotel. We checked-in (it was GORGEOUS!) and got settled.
After settling in we had to decide what we were going to do since we only had a day and a half left. We decided to do the sights on Saturday and do fun little things for the rest of the afternoon and night. The first stop on our list was Abbey Road! We walked Abbey Road and took pictures! (and stopped traffic in the process  ).
Then went to Harrods, and when I walked in I felt like I was in heaven. I turned to Christine who could not WAIT to go to the National Gallery the next day and I said “Christine, this is MY “National Gallery”!!!!!” I can’t even start to tell you about the clothes that I saw in there. They were breathtaking. I ran into the Pharmacy there too to grab some eye drops for my nasty eye 
Then we decided we would take in a show in London so we got ticket to see Wicked! We were all so excited! We were buying tickets late and they only had a few seats left. We were going to pay £60 for not-so-good seats, but then the guy selling the tickets cut us a deal. He felt bad for us and they had three seats together, right in the best section of the house, FOR THE SAME PRICE!! TALK ABOUT SCORING A DEAL!!! So we saw Wicked and it was wicked (sorry I had to, talking about London and all…).
After the show we called it a night and left Lilly at the Tube station. Christine and I thought that we had gotten a hang of the Tube system but apparently we were wrong. We rode the same line (but four different trains) for an hour before we found the way home. We kept going back and forth between Baker Street Station and the Finchley Road stop. So sketchy! We couldn’t understand what the issue was! Eventually we figured out that it was because all the stations were being repaired. We made it back though, and went to sleep.

Thursday of Spring Break

We woke up around 8 (late) on Thursday because we had a tour of Wicklow National Park planned for the day. We showered and grabbed breakfast at the café again and met our bus at 9:30am. I just have to tell you that I was SO excited for this tour. As most of you know, I am obsessed with the movie P.S. I Love You. In the movie, the two main characters meet in Wicklow National Park and they fall in love, yada yada yada. I was sooo excited to see everything!
We took a quick stop at the ocean in Dun Laoghaire (where the B&B is in P.S. I Love You) to take some pictures and then headed to Wicklow. There is a part of the park (a very very small part) that is actually German soil. A little part of Germany in Ireland. During the Second World War, there were a few German planes that crash-landed in Ireland and their passengers and pilots died. They were buried in Wicklow and after the war Germany wanted them back on German soil. Rather then exhume the bodies and ship them back to Germany (which could get messy) Ireland decided to give the plot of land where the bodies were buried to Germany. Hence, there is a little part of Germany in Ireland.
So we toured Wicklow inside the bus (saw the ROAD from P.S. I Love You), and eventually we stopped at the top of one of the massive mountains there. We got out of the bus and the driver (with his Irish accent) said “If you have to take a pee…..pick a tree”. After walking around the massive CLIFFS (cliff picture) and almost slipping five million we headed back to the bus and were greeted with a shot of Jameson Whiskey. HAHA Love Ireland. Apparently nothing is fully completed unless you drink alcohol at the same time.
We got back on the bus and drove to Glendalough. We stopped for lunch at a pub, but instead of eating Christine and I bought some postcards and stamps and wrote a few letters. Back on the bus, we learned about St. Kevin and his ministry in Ireland. We reached some park in Glendalough (I forget the name). We saw the building where St. Kevin and his followers slept and the chapel that they used. We found this really cool U-shaped tree and took pictures on it. Then we walked for a little while and came across some lakes and stuff. Back to the bus again. We drove back to Dublin and got dropped off SOO far away from our hotel, so we took a cab again Before you think that it’s nice to take cabs everywhere, let me tell you…this cabbie was a little old man…WHO SMELLED SOOOO BAD! We were holding out breath for like 10 minutes!
We grabbed dinner at the hotel and got ready to leave for the airport. After mixing up busses like crazy again, we found the right one and went to the airport. We made it through check-in quickly and boarded our flight. My ears were killing on the flight because I was sick but we made it to Heathrow in London and caught another bus to our hotel. We checked in and called it a night since it was around 1am when we finally got settled.

Wednesday of Spring Break

Wednesday morning we woke up around 10:30 and naturally I was sick from not sleeping before. We were happy to sleep but at the same time, a little disappointed in ourselves because we only had two and a half days to see all of Dublin. We got ready and grabbed breakfast at this really delicious café that we had passed the day before on the strenuous journey to the hotel. I had my first real slices of Irish soda bread. SOO GOOD!
After breakfast we decided that we would go to the Guinness Storehouse and do the tour that they offer. When I walked into the storehouse (after walking around Dublin for AN HOUR AND A HALF!!...we got a littttle lost), I felt like I had walked into Willy Wonka’s Factory. The tour was so cool. We saw the whole process of how beer is made and then we got to taste a freshly brewed beer. Then we went through the historical part of the tour (the storehouse was bought on a 9000 year lease, yes nine thousand) (it was built on a water so they have all the water and power they need) and ended in the sky bar. I drank my second Guinness in the Guinness Storehouse Sky Bar. Just to make it THAT much cooler, when the bartender poured my beer, they made a clover in the head of the Guinness. SO SICK! Check out the picture.
Right before we hit up the sky bar, we ran into another one of the girls, Brittany, that we traveled with who was met up with her boyfriend when we got to Dublin. We decided to stay together for the rest of the afternoon. Since Christine and I were exhausted from the walk to the factory, Donnie, Brittany’s boyfriend, decided that we should take a HORSE AND BUGGY to Christ Cathedral where we were meeting Christine’s friend again. HORSE AND BUGGY! And just to make it even better, the kid driving it (yes, kid, he was like 16) picked up his little brother on the way and they spoke with their little Irish accents the whole time!
We met Christine’s friend and went into a pub for some food. Again, I went traditional, and ordered Fish and Chips. One thing that I learned from Ireland and England is that when they say “chips” they don’t mean little greasy slices of potato. They mean DIESEL french fries. Amazing. I also had an apple beer and a pear beer in that pub. They tasted like airheads!
After the pub, we left Brittany and Donnie and went off with Scott, Christine’s friend. Since he is studying in Dublin for the semester, he was the perfect tour guide. He showed us around Christ Cathedral, Trinity College, Dublin Castle, the Ha’ Penny Bridge (they used to charge half a penny to cross it) and the Spire. Randomly, we ran into a polish store and bought something we had never heard of or seen and tried it. They were spice cookies….random I know…
After all our sight seeing, we were hungry again so we went to a traditional Irish bar, ordered traditional Irish food, and watched traditional Irish dancing and singing. All in all, it was an amazing day. Christine and I were so tired after everything that we ended up taking a cab back to our hotel. We couldn’t bear the ½ hour walk haha.

Spring Break: Tuesday

Spring Break:
Our morning started early on Tuesday. We actually never really went to sleep the night before because we were all up at 1:45 packing and showering and such in order to catch our 3:20am bus from Ascoli Piceno to Rome (Termini). The bus ride is three hours long, so that was three more hours of sleep that we had (if you count jostling around, as a bus speeds through mountains and around cliffs, sleep…). We arrived in Rome early and sat in a café until we could catch our next bus that would bring us to Ciampino airport. That bus ride was another hour…which translates to another hour of jostled sleep, but it works.
We arrived at the airport with time to spare so we thought we would get some food. The only option was a sandwich from one of the carts in the airport. I bought a sandwich that I though looked decent…haha yeah about that….This thing was NASTY! The prosciutto in it was literally brownish black. Needless to say, my nourishment for that morning consisted of chocolate.
We checked in and after a few issues (some of my friends decided that they would register as EU citizens….) we got in line for security, right behind an entire Italian school that was flying to London. So after waiting like and hour, and getting cut in line by EVERYONE, I made it to the front of the line. I was taking off my boots to pass through security and as I glanced down to fix my sock I saw a stash of butter knives sitting next to the front of the security line…SCKETCHY!! Haha my friends and I were like…uuhhh…..what????
After security we wanted real snacks. We didn’t find any, but I did manage to somehow spend € 10 on a pack of gum and some chocolate eggs…oops. I was glad that I bought those eggs though because our plane was delayed by a half an hour and those eggs kept me going until I could sleep on the plane. Talk about being over tired!
I tried to sleep on the plane but it just wasn’t working out. Those Ryan Air flights are so cramped (and scary because the whole time you are speeding up and slowing down and going up and dropping in the air…not really sleep friendly). I did end up meeting a woman who grew up in Dublin and she was able to tell me all the good places to go and see while I was there. She also warned me to NEVER take an Air Coach bus because they are super expensive and they take longer than the usual public transportation. Can I just say, I feel like I am a public transportation guru now after figuring out public transportation in five different countries.
We arrived in the center of Dublin literally five minutes after the St. Patrick’s Day parade ended. Good timing. Thank you Ryan Air. It’s actually a little funny. Ryan Air’s big claim to fame is that they are NEVER late. The one time they ARE late, it’s the only time I need to be on time to see something amazing.
Nine out of the sixteen girls in the program traveled to Dublin, but we were all staying in different hotels. My roommate Christine and I booked a hotel together so we said bye to the other girls and went on our way. We thought that we knew the general direction of our hotel so we set out on our way. About five minutes into our trek (and I say trek because it literally was because we both had massive backpacks filled with enough clothing for a week) we realized that we had no idea where we were going. We stopped and asked a police officer which direction we should head in. He pointed us in the right direction and told us that it would be about a 15 min. walk. After walking for what seemed like forever, we stopped another officer to ask directions again. He told us we had to walk towards St. Stephen’s Green for about 15-20 mins. We sighed and continued on our way through the center of Dublin. Did I mention that there were massive crowds of people EVERYWHERE?! So after another 15 mins, we asked another officer when we reached St. Stephen’s Green. They said we had to walk for another 10-15 mins to our hotel…..SUCH A LONG WALK!!!!
When we finally got to the hotel all I wanted to do was get that stupid backpack off of me! I was so exhausted from lack of sleep and from hiking through Dublin for the afternoon. Christine had made plans to meet up with her friend who is studying in Dublin for the semester so we both took showers and headed back out again….25 mins of walking later, we met up with her friend and looked for a place to grab a bite to eat. We ended up in this really cool three story bar/restaurant. When it came time to order our food, I wanted to go really traditional with my choice. I decided on a Steak and Guinness pie…SOOO GOOD! Did I mention that I drank my first Guinness with it?
After dinner we walked through Temple Bar in Dublin and, of course, Christine and I found a place that served nutella crepes…It’s like we have a sixth sense for these things I swear…Anyway, durante nostro passeggiato we came across three of our friends that we traveled with.
We ended up walking around with them and during our walk we were stopped by three Irish guys. They seemed fun and we were going to walk around with them until one of us noticed something fishy….they were all bleeding. When we realized what was on their shirts we asked them if they had been in a fight. They denied it and said that they had run into a dumpster…Needless to say, we left them and went on our way…We didn’t want any sketchy bloody boys hanging out with us.
We ended up heading to the Porterhouse Pub in Ireland. Apparently that was the place to be on St. Patty’s Day night. Naturally we met some Italians there and we just hung out and had fun. They played Galway girl in the pub and ALL I could think about was P.S. I Love You!
When we got tired, we decided to call it a night. Christine and I made the trek back to our hotel and went to sleep. I was up for a straight 41 hours.

Wow...

Wow, I'm really sorry I haven't posted in like FIVE YEARS...ok a month. Things have been super busy with traveling and work and everything! This is my post telling you that there will be more to come in the future.

As for now. I am posting pictures from my spring break trip. I plan on posting a blog within the week that gives you details, but for now, you're all going to have to make due with what you can get from the pictures haha.

The time between Barcelona and Spring break wasn't really too amazing. Just homework and sleep haha. I had/still have a cold and I was trying to get rid of it before my travels to Dublin and London for break, but that didn't work out. Haha not only did it not work out, it got worse. Oh well. It definitely made the trip interesting. You can find out why when I blog later. :) Sorry to leave you with a cliff hanger...guess you will just have to come back later!

Since the trip, things have been pretty stressful. Christine and I returned (haha I love how learning italian makes my English sounds funny...Christine and I RETURNED?!) Sunday night. We went out for pizza and then went to bed because we're both sick. Since then I have put in numerous hours researching for my paper that's due tomorrow (that I still haven't "started" yet) and even more hours in to catching up on my American TV shows in bed. I feel much better today though...probably because I watched three episodes of PSYCH including the season finale...

I am thinking of perhaps venturing to Murphy's tonight after dinner just to stop in and say hi since I haven't been there in about two weeks now...

Ok, back to this feral paper....Ciao Ciao!

Barcelona Part Three

Barcelona Part Three (Saturday)
We woke up Saturday morning, hit up the breakfast buffet, checked-out, and headed out to get some last minute sight seeing in before leaving at 2pm to start our traveling. We really wanted to see La Casa Mila “La Pedrera” by Gaudi. It is a house that Gaudi designed and lived in. So cool. Look at the pictures. On the way to La Casa Mila we may or may not have gotten lost…haha. It was ok though because we just asked directions. Apparently, my Spanish is very mumbled because I would say a sentence regularly and no one would understand me. Then, I would say the same sentence clearly, and they would know exactly what I was saying. Ehh….
So we found La Casa Mila, after stopping in a few shops and buying some chocolate, and stared at it in awe for a few minutes. Then we hit up the gift shop. By the time we finished, there was only one more thing that we wanted to do in Barcelona that weekend before we left. We wanted Paella!! We only had two hours before we had to leave for the airport journey (literally) and so we decided to take a taxi to the ocean front where we knew we would find some delicious paella. After checking out a few restaurants we decided on one and ordered some fish paella. SO DELICIOUS! It is like a risotto with red peppers and mushrooms and deliciousness haha.
After that we headed back to the hostel, but not before stopping at a smoothie place that we found the day before. They make completely fresh smoothies! They were so fresh tasting and it was just what I needed! We grabbed a smoothie for the walk back to the hostel and started on our way.
We met up with the other girls and started the trek back to Ascoli Piceno. Taxi to bus to air plane to bus to train station….where our train never showed up. We waited for our train for two hours when a man came up to us and told us that we needed to go and talk to someone at the customer service desk. When we went to the desk they told us that the train wasn’t coming because…get this… THE BRIDGE BROKE! Apparently there was water and broken bridges and such involved and that is why our train wasn’t coming.
This put us in a bit of a spot (as our Irish friends would say) since it was 11:30pm and we had no way of getting to San Benedetto to catch our 12:40am bus back to Ascoli Piceno. We have friends in San Benedetto that said we could stay with them, but we still had to actually make it to San Benedetto.
Left with no other choice (and filled up with free pizza from the nice man in the train station), my roommate Christine and I went out front to ask a taxi driver how much it would cost for a ride from Pescara to San Benedetto (50 mins). He told us 150 euro for the six of us (the 7th girl with the messed up ticket flew back through Rome with the other two Rome girls). We said ok figuring 25 euro per person. It was a little more costly then the 3.50 euro train ticket but what were we supposed to do? Hang out with the homeless guys that were setting up their beds for the night?
So we smushed 7 (including the driver) people in a taxi and were on our way. I was in the front with Christine on my lap, and there were four girls in the back seat. We made it to San Benedetto at 12:32 and literally bought our bus tickets and got on the bus and left! If we had taken the train, we would have missed our bus because it would have left early….maybe that bridge broke for a reason???
We got on the bus and relaxed for the last hour leg of our journey. When we got dropped off in Ascoli Piceno, we were walking back to our apartment (passing Murphy’s) when one of the bartenders ran up to us and was like “I MISSED YOU GIRLS!” it was so funny!
Finally, when I thought my day was over as I was taking a shower, I happened to kick the bottles away from the drain. We have razors mixed in with our bottles and when I kicked the bottles I sliced the tip of my toe off. Talk about ending the day haha. It was actually morning by this point.
All in all, I loved Barcelona and all the traveling was totally worth it. The only thing that was disappointing was that we didn’t really meet any Spanish people. We met our Irish friends and some Italians, and our Texan tour guide. I just wished I could have used my Spanish a little more. The other really weird thing that happened was that, when I tried to speak Spanish at first, Italian came out. I was so surprised! I guess it’s a good and bad thing. It shows that I am learning Italian!

Barcelona Part Two

Barcelona Part Two (Friday)
We started off the day with the free breakfast from the hostel (they make you rent sheets but give you free food…go figure). Naturally, we all padded our bags with a little “extra” food just in case. We had a bike tour planned for that day and knew we would need a little extra energy.
After breakfast, we set out to meet up with our tour. The bike tour was honestly the BEST thing ever. It was such a good was to see the city! We covered so much ground in four hours! It was also nice because we would make stops along the way and the tour guide (who was a looker let me tell you) would give us the history of each spot. We went from old squares to castles and churches and music houses. We stopped in this park and explored by ourselves and then the tour guide took us to see “La Sagrada Familia”. This is the church in Barcelona that was designed by Gaudi but he died before it was finished. They found the blueprints for the church in his sarcophagus (which is actually in the church) and resumed building but they are only funded by private funds so it is taking a while. I have pictures. When you look at them you will see why.
We took a break for lunch on the beach and I literally though that I had died and gone to heaven. Picture this…gorgeous day (around 65-70 degrees in the sun), beautiful sea, warm sand, surfers, cute tour guide….and a baguette, tomatoes, avocado and cheese that I bought from a grocery store for lunch! After lunch we rode around a little but more and one of my friends, who had been having bad luck with her bike all day (she ran into a pole, another biker, and a person walking down the street), suddenly was on the ground again. Luckily, I got to watch the whole thing happen and it was hilarious (she didn’t get hurt don’t worry). There were a couple skateboarders skating on this half-pipe like bench. The last one, who knew he didn’t have enough time to complete his trick, went up the bench and turned around and on his way back, he ran RIGHT INTO MY FRIEND! I watched it happening and was like “oh no, oh no oh….no good”. Like I said, she was ok, just a little flustered and embarrassed that it all happened in front of our cute tour guide.
After the tour we headed back to the hostel and showered and got ready for tapas that night. Our tour guide gave us a few recommendations. He was actually from Texas and had only moved to Barcelona 10 months prior so he knew good places to go that were “American friendly”. We went to a tapas bar he recommended and were greeted in the street by the owner (a super cute little old Spanish man!). Apparently he could tell we were Americans looking for some good food. We brought us in, sat us down and gave us a menu. Actually, it was a couple of menus. They were all the same, except in different languages…can you say….tourism. Anyway, we ordered what we thought sounded like it wouldn’t still be alive when it came to our table and began sipping our sangrias. Our food came to our table quickly. We ordered something that resembled fried calamari, a potato omelet, some chicken things and other stuff that I honestly don’t know what it was. Shortly after we began to dig in, a group of Irish men were seated right next to us. They were from Dublin and were so much fun to talk to. We though that Norman had a bad accent….until we talked to these guys.
One of them owned a bar down the street and invited us there for a Guinness when we found out that none of us had tried one before. We accepted and met them there when we finished our tapas. This bar was pretty much as Irish as a bar can get in Barcelona. The bartender’s name was “Little Leprechaun”. Come on… We hung out there for a little while but we were all exhausted after our long day so we called it a night around 12:30 and walked back to our hostel.
This day was so much fun. Fun fact….I got sunburned on the bike tour! YAY!

Barcelona Part One

Barcelona Part one (Thursday)
Let me put this into perspective for you….right now I am sitting on the window sill of my open kitchen window, looking down four stories at the Piazza Roma. The sun is shining and the air smells like spring. It is Sunday afternoon so the usual crowd of old folks have gathered in the center of the piazza to casually sit around the palm trees and chat. Honestly, this is the perfect way to spend my Sunday afternoon after such a hectic but exciting weekend.
This weekend was my trip to Barcelona. I was looking forward to this trip since I planned it with my friends about a month ago (ok a guy just walked by in ridiculously neon colored Nike’s….John and Alf, you guys would fit in so well here….). We left for Barcelona last Thursday. Of course I had classes, so I had to sit through two hours of Italian and an hour and a half of History before I could leave to go to the airport.
Most people would think that going to the airport is as simple as jumping in a car or taxi, but traveling is not that simple here in Ascoli. There is no airport in Ascoli, so we have to travel to one of the three airports in Ancona, Pescara or Rome. We were flying out of Pescara to go to Barcelona. In order to get to the airport, we left our apartments at 2:40pm. We walked the 20 minutes with our luggage to the Ascoli train station, and grabbed a train to San Benedetto at 3pm. The train to San Benedetto is about 40 minutes long. From the station in San Benedetto, we had to take another 40 minute train to Pescara, but we had an hour and a half layover. When we got to Pescara, we had to take a 25 minute bus ride to the airport. So, by the time we got to the airport, we had already traveled a little more than three and a half hours. We had to get to the airport two hours early because we were on an international flight, so by the time we actually boarded the plane, we had been traveling for a little over five and a half hours.
We were flying Ryan Air to Barcelona, and everything was fine and dandy until the last girl from our group of 7 went to check in. We were meeting two other girls from our program in Barcelona, but they had flown out of Rome earlier that day and missed their classes. The last girl that went to check in booked her ticket later than the rest of us and made a last minute decision to fly out of Pescara instead of Rome. Unfortunately…..she booked the ticket for Rome by mistake. She had to make the choice to either travel the three hours back to Ascoli Piceno and lose 100 euro on her ticket, or buy another ticket to fly from Pescara to Barcelona and spend 220 euro on a new ticket, plus 100 euro on the old ticket.
She ended up buying another ticket to get onto our flight, but we all felt so badly for her. She dropped about 350 euro after fees and charges and wrong tickets when we only spent 35 euro. That’s a weeee bit of a difference.
After check-in we headed to security. Apparently, we are all idiots because ALL of us packed liquids, razors or tweezers. I don’t know what we were thinking. Maybe we thought European security was a little more relaxed?? Needless to say, we got many a thing confiscated. When the security guards started to throw out our things, we had the brilliant idea to check a bag of toiletries. I don’t know if any of you have flown Ryan Air…but you should NEVER check things. We should have just let the guards throw our stuff out because Ryan Air lost our ONE bag anyway. It’s a good thing that we all brought carry-on luggage.
The flight to Spain was pretty much uneventful aside from the continuous speeding up and slowing down and rising and falling of the airplane. It was definitely obvious that I paid 35 euro for my flight.
So we reached Barcelona and then figured out our bag didn’t, and ran to grab the bus from the Girona airport to the center of Barcelona. When we got out to the bus stop, there was the longest line stretching out of the bus. By the time people filed on and we reached the door, the bus driver said…”four more” (in Spanish of course). That meant our group would get split. We didn’t want that to happen, so I broke out my Spanish for the first time in FOREVER and finagled us onto the bus. The bus ride was an hour and 15 minutes long (THERE IS A MASSIVE MULLET OUTSIDE OF MY WINDOW RIGHT NOW!) and it was filled with Italians….go figure. When we hit the bus station it was after 12 midnight, and the metro had closed. We hailed down two taxis and they brought us to our hostel, but not after charging us 15 euro PER taxi….what a rip off for an 8 minute ride.
We stayed in Centric Point Hostel right in the center of Barcelona on Passaje de Gracia. We checked in and rented out sheets and blankets (yes…..RENTED….PAID EXTRA FOR….) and went upstairs to our room. We were staying in a 12 person room and there were only 9 of us so we shared a room with three other strangers. When we met the first “Stranger” I was a little sketched out at first, but that didn’t last long. The first stranger’s name was Norman and he was from Northern Ireland. Talk about accent! Haha. He was really cool and helped us plan out what we were going to do in Barcelona and in Dublin when we go there in a week. The other strangers were out with the two girls from our group who arrived earlier that day so we figured they were cool too.
At the end of the day we traveled from 2:40pm until 1am…10 hours and 20

Firenze Part two

soon to come :)

Firenze Part One

FRIDAY
The train to San Benedetto was only about 40 minutes so we were in San Benedetto pretty quickly. We all thought that the trip was going pretty well up to this point….that was until our train from San Benedetto to Faenza decided that it would take the day off. It literally just did not show up…you gotta love the European Public Transportation System.

So, once we found out that the train just wasn’t coming…we had to figure it out for ourselves because no one decided to make any sort of announcement…we looked into taking the next train. The next train to Faenza wasn’t for another two hours so we sat at platform number 4…and waited…and waited…and then we decided that we would act like typical Americans and eat our boredom away, so out came the nutella and cookies, and the cheese and crackers. We sat and ate amidst the skinny Italians, while they watched us stuff our faces and scarf down the jar of nutella. By the time the train came, the only residual sign of the nutella jar were the smears of chocolate hazelnut spread on our faces and clothing.

Luckily,the train was a Euro Star train! This was such a nice surprise! The Euro Star trains are faster and more luxurious than the regular trains….they also cost more which is why we didn’t book this train in the first place. We had bought tickets for the regular train but we boarded the Euro Star train anyway because that was the only option we had to get to Faenza and still catch our train to Florence. We grabbed seats on the train, and a few minutes into the ride a man came by checking tickets. When he asked us for our tickets, we knew we were going to either get in trouble or have to pay more….so we just pretended that we didn’t speak or understand ANY Italian WHATSOEVER! Unfortunately, this plan that we though was sooo amazing didn’t work out too well…primarily because the man spoke English, but also because apparently none of us can act. We ended up having to pay an extra 7 euro, but all in all, I think that the Euro Star was worth the extra money. It just seemed like it was so much cleaner and almost luxurious compared to the other train.

When we realized we had reached Faenza (because at first we weren’t paying attention since we were so into our conversations and almost missed our stop), we literally got off one train, ran down the stairs, under one railway, and up the stairs on the other side and boarded our other train to Florence. We JUST made it…talk about cutting it close. The ride from Faenza to Florence was pretty uneventful. Just a few smelly people sitting near us for the nice our and a half trip…

When we reached the train station in Florence we regained our bearings and headed out in the direction that we thought would bring us to our hotel. After a little walking and navigation with our handy dandy pop-out map of Florence, we found our hotel. It was right in the middle of everything!! SO PERFECT! Five minutes from the train station, five minutes from the Duomo…perfection. Our hotel was a little sketchy at first. We walked through this massive doorway and there were two sets of stairs…one to more stairs and one to an elevator. We went the stairs route first…which epically failed when we realized that we couldn’t find a light anywhere and the spiral staircase was a little too much for us to handle with our overstuffed backpacks. The elevator route was next. We walked up the stairs to the elevator and pressed the call button. When the elevator showed up, it only confirmed my assumptions that ALL Italian people are smaller and skinnier than pretty much ALL Americans. This elevator could literally it one of us with our backpacks on.

So, we checked in and dropped off our things in the hotel rooms (which were GORGEOUS and complete with baroque artwork) and then headed out to get down to business….time to get gelato and shop…not necessarily in that order. We ended up shoe shopping and then stopping for a gelato break. We went to a few places comparing prices and settled on this one place that served the most delicious gelato flavors. Thinking back now, I should have known and taken a hint when I realized that the name of the gelato place was “Very Good”, but I just didn’t take the God given hint. We all ordered gelato and when it came time to pay, we all almost passed out (and not because the gelato was so amazing…because it wasn’t). THOSE STUPID GELATOS COST US A TOTAL OF 39 EURO!! SOO MUCH MONEY! ON BAD GELATO! They averaged 8 euro each!

We finished our shopping, headed back to the hotel and got dressed for dinner. We met up with one of the girl’s friends who is studying in Florence and got dinner with her and her friends. I ate dinner quickly because I was so excited for AFTER dinner. I had plans to meet up with Lorelle’s (one of my really good friends from home) sister, Amanda, after dinner. Amanda studied in Florence two years ago when she was a junior in college and decided that she wanted to live there after she graduated. We met up in front of the Duomo and went out for a drink and some catch-up chit-chat. So much fun! We called it a night around 12am because we were all so tired from our journey, and decided we would wake up early the next day to take on all that is historical in Florence…which is pretty much everything.

SATURDAY We started our day off Saturday with a free breakfast from the hotel. Hearty corn flakes...mmmhhh and nutella. We had reservations to see the Galleria degli Uffizi at 9:30. We spent TWO hours just going through the Uffizi. I saw paintings by Botticelli like The Birth of Venus and La Primavera. I honestly can’t describe what I felt walking through the Uffizi. There were so many gorgeous statues and paintings. It seemed as through they just stretched on forever.

After the Uffizi, we went for a little walk through Ponto Veccio. In case you didn’t know, Ponto Veccio is known for it’s gold. I went to Ponto Veccio with the intention of buying a necklace and a pendent to remember my trip to Florence. When I browsed a few shops…I realized I wouldn’t be purchasing ANYTHING from Ponto Veccio. Let me put it this way…If they sold gelato on the Ponto Veccio it would be even more expensive than the 8 euro gelato we got the day before. It would be more like 200 euro gelato.

After the Ponto Veccio we grabbed lunch at a little side pizzeria and got in line at the Duomo. We only had about two hours before our reservations at the Galleria Academica. We were in line at the Duomo for about 10 mins (did I mention the weather was AMAZING that day? Definitely in the 60’s). We paid our entrance fee and began our ascent to the top of the Duomo. When the sign said 436 stairs, I was expecting a few stairs and a bit of a climb. I definitely was not expecting a verticle, dizzying, spiral ascent that involved claustrophobia. Ohh the Duomo. When we reached the top of the dome, I realized that it was totally worth it. The climb up was actually pretty fun once I stopped psyching myself out

Opera

Oh man! Florence is amazing! Ok, now that I got that out of the way, here is the update from the last time I blogged...

Thursday night we traveled to Ancona to go to the Opera! We saw Rigoletto. Most people do not know the story of Rigoletto, I didn't, but almost EVERYONE knows the famous song from the Opera, La Donna e Mobile. Youtube it, I BET you have heard it before.

Anyway, before the Opera my friends and I did some last minute shopping (go figure) and then got dressed and grabbed the bus at 6:15pm. The ride to Ancona was about an hour and a half. We arrived at the Opera house just in time to grab some pizza across the street and then head in to the show. UNH bought our opera tickets for us, and I wasn't expecting much...haha...but when I say nosebleed seats....I really am NOT lying. I felt like I was going to sneeze and go hurtling over the balcony and plummet to my death....yeah. I was scared to get up and walk anywhere. I am unstable enough walking in heels, never mind walking in heels 2000 feet in the air.

So we watched the opera, which was about three hours of italian mumble singing, and even though I could only catch about one word every three minutes, I still got the jist of what was going on. Such a tragic ending, but what else would you expect from Italian opera?

We got home from the opera around 1am, but I still had to pack for my trip to Florence. I had five hours before I had to leave for Florence by the time we got back to our apartments from the opera. I packed up as fast as I could, ate some tortolini, and went to sleep.

All in all, I enjoyed the opera. There were a few times where it felt like torture, but for the most part I felt like it was a cultural experience that I will always remember.

FIRENZE!

I totally forgot to mention something. I am going to Florence this weekend! We are going to the Opera in Ancona on Thursday night and the Friday morning four other girls and I are taking the Train to Florence for the weekend!! We already bought tickets to two museums ( The Academia and Uffizi). I can't wait! This weekend should be a lot of fun. I am also planning on meeting up with Lorelle's (an amazing friend from home) sister Amanda who moved to Florence last September. Can't wait!

Monday Night at Murphy's

Last night, Monday, was a Happy Day's theme at Murphy's.....SOOO FUNNY! The bartenders were dressed up as Happy Day's characters and they were just ridiculous!!!!!! There was a Richie, and Alfred and a Fonzarelli!

They posted signs all over the bar that said things like "Jefferson High" and "Guys" and "Dolls" for the bathrooms, but they ALL had spelling mistakes! SOO FUNNY!

They played lots of The Beatles and The Beach Boys and good oldies! So Fun! I have pictures of everything that I promise to post soon!!! Now, I need to go take a nap because I am still feeling the lack of sleep from last Saturday night!

Carnivale and discoteca

So Carnivale was this weekend! Actually, it ran from Thursday, Feb. 19th and continues through tonight, Feb. 24th. SOO much Carnivale! Every day there are celebrations in the Piazza del Popolo (our main piazza) and also in Piazza Roma. There are massive markets everyday (clothing markets) and just soo many things going on all at once!! I guess I'll start from the top.....

Last Thursday was the start of the festivities. The girls and I didn't really do much Thursday and Friday night. We just stayed around our favorite hangout.... Murphy's bar ...haha. They were having a different party every night depending on the day of Carnivale, so there was always something new to do there.

We also took those two nights easy in preparation for the big event... DISCOTECA on Saturday night. Saturday morning we were all rushing around trying to decide what we were going to wear to the discoteca that night. Eventually, I ended up borrowing this amazing dress from my friend...sooo cute. My roommate Christine and I were walking around with three other girls when we passed a hair salon. This was the first time that I really noticed a salon in Ascoli aside from the one that is inside our CRAZYILY SUAVE gym. We walked in so that I could buy some shampoo and my roommate (who has hair that is even more curly than mine....yes, it's possible) noticed that they did a really good job straightening hair. Needless to say, we were back at the salon four hours later getting our hair washed and prepped for some intense straightening.

We boarded the bus to San Benedetto in our finest (with our straight hair) and with four other girls. Unfortunately, at the next stop these four boys got on the bus. When I say boys, I mean 16 or 17 year olds that were completely enthralled with the fact that we were American. When I say enthralled, I mean they wouldn't leave us alone for the whole hour long bus ride to San Benedetto. Did I mention that they smelled like they hadn't taken a shower in....well.....their whole entire lives? My friend was actually starting to feel physically sick about half an hour into the epic journey that was our ride on l'autobus.

We arrived in San Benedetto and called our friend to come pick us up at the train station so that the sketchy boys wouldn't follow us....good times in Italy. After hanging out at his house for a little bit, we caught word that l'autobus di festa (PARTY BUS) was ready to go. We rode the bus (with 25 of our friend's other friends) for another hour to the discoteca. I have no idea where the discoteca was, I just know that it was called Lola, and that I was happy to finally arrive because there was just tooooo much italian yelling on the bus for me to handle at 1:30am. When the bus dropped us off, they said "OK! We'll be back to pick you up at 5am". I can't even describe my emotions in that moment...all I can say is that I am not made to stay up past 11pm....

We walked into the discoteca and were immediately blinded by the stobe lights. I literally thought that at LEAST one person in our group of 35ish people would go down with a seizure and I would have to whip out my lifesaving skills (but it's ok Kristin because I'm a lifeguard). Luckily there were no casualties to the discoteca lights. We danced forever...and ever...and ever...and eventually an hour went by....hahah only two to go. I made it until 5am and when we went to leave the discoteca some of the girls weren't allowed out. When you enter the discoteca, they give you an exit card that you have to present to the bouncer when you leave. If you don't show the card, you can't get out.

We finally snuck the two girls past the body guard and ran out of the discoteca. Ohhh the excitement of my life....Just when I thought the night was over, we realized that we had no CLUE where the bus was parked. At this point I just started running up and down the parking lot with two other guys looking for the stupid party bus that went missing. I was soooo happy I had been hitting up Tonic (the gym).

Finally we found the bus, and luckily it was bringing us back to Ascoli so that we wouldn't have to switch busses in San Benedetto, we would just have to stop to drop off a couple people...ok like 25 people...

We didn't get back to Ascoli until 7am......I WAS SOOOO EXHAUSTED! I had to was past a church on my way back to my apartment and this little old man was just staring at me in my party clothes...I felt like such an idiot! haha

Needless to say, I took a shower and went to sleep. I slept until two, did a massive cleaning of my apartment and went out with the girls to grab some pizza. That was honestly the best ending to an endless night...Teatro pizza....delicious.

Barcelona and Carnivale Weekend...

So I am super duper excited right now! Last night right after I finished up my blog, I packed up and got ready to leave. As I was walking out the door, my friend stopped me and told me she had some exciting news! There were tickets on Ryan Air from Ancona to Barcelona for only 35 Euro round trip!! SOO CHEAP!! So guess where I am going to be from March 5th till the 7th!!! BARCELONA!!! Finally!! I can communicate with people without stumbling over a language that I barely know and without having to resort to English! I am soo excited to go!

We converted the price and it came out to around $45 US dollars. Not bad for a flight huh? Granted we are not checking any bags, but we don't really need to because it is only for four days!

The other news I have to share today is about Carnivale here in Ascoli. Although Carnivale started last weekend in Venice, there is a huge celebration here in Ascoli Piceno this weekend. Apparently they are having a huge discotecha party in honor of Carnivale. If we took the bus to the discotecha, we would either have to leave at 12am.....which is an hour after the discotecha opens...or leave at 6am...which means I would be asleep on some nasty discotecha floor because I would crash!!

In order to solve this problem we came up with a very ingenious idea....WE ARE RENTING A PARTY BUS! YAY! Haha. The 16 of us are getting together with the guys we hang out with from San Benedetto and we are all going to chip in for a bus so that we can come and go from the discotecha as we please! SOO NICE!

I will be sure to update soon again! I have to stay on top of this blogging business or I end up with three massively long blogs to write like I had yesterday!

Teaching the Children!

Today was the first day of my practicum. I went to an Italian school in Ascoli Piceno, right over the bridge, to teach English to the Italian children that go to school there. They are soo cute! I am teaching ten year olds and they actually have a grasp on the language. I was very impressed. All the schools in Ascoli teach English so most of the people here have some knowledge of it.

The teacher picked me up at the pharmacy right near the piazza roma this morning at 7:50. We were at the school by 8 and I taught till 10. They asked me simple question like what my name was and where I lived. Then they threw me a curve ball and asked me my thoughts on Obama ....uhhh....no comment? haaha

I had italian class after that and then the girls an I headed to Tonic, our FAB gym. After the usual run, we headed to the "aquatics center". Can I just say, we left for the gym at 3pm, we didn't get back until 7pm!!! We went in the pool, the sauna, the steam room, the turkish bath AND the jaccuzi.

We were all starved when we got back and literally changed and were at Pizzaria Napoli in 20 mins. Now we are at Murphy's again...doing homework... well I guess I'm blogging, but I do have an Italian exam tomorrow and a lot to read for my history class, so I have to make this short. Can I just say that I love the fact that our new homework hangout is a BAR! where the bartenders know us all by our first names? hahaha

I LOVE ASCOLI!

Continued!!

Ok, so to pick up where I left off earlier.....

We watched the dance off and then started to head back to the hotel. While we were walking we thought that we would take a short cut....which in Venice usually equals a LONG LONG cut. All the bridges and stores look the same. The only ones that I can tell the difference between are Versace, Gucci and Prada....no dad, I didn't buy anything...no worries. So anyway, we got SUPER lost in Venice and no one wanted to take control of navigation. I grabbed the map and took about 20 mins to find our location, but once I figured it out we began our track back in the approximate direction of our hotel. I'm pretty sure that we zig zagged our way through the city haha. I can't even tell you how many times I told the girls I knew where we were when I actually didn't, just so that they wouldn't freak out.

We made it back safe and sound and in one piece. We finally made it to bed and I fell asleep sooo fast. Then, at 7:00am the students staying down the hall from us (with british accents so I am assuming they're from England), started knocking on our door saying "WAKE UP CALL!". Ohhh..I was not a happy camper....

We had breakfast at the hotel that day (I totally stocked up for all the walking I was doing since it was a buffet) and then we headed to the Peggy Guggenheim Colletion for a bit of art and culture. I am not really much of an abstract art fan, but I thought that the collection was really interesting. I actually saw my first Picasso so that was really really cool.

After the Guggenheim, I called up Alberto, our AMAZING family friend. He is a curator at the University Library and Museum in Venice. He showed me and two friends through the library and the museum which used to be the house of an aristocratic venetian family. SOOO COOL! Once again, I am unable to find the words in English or any other language (other than babbling) to describe what I saw and felt. Everything was so gorgeous. The floors were all slanting too because the foundation was crumpling in on itself since the building was built on mud. So cool...che figo. The he showed us the walled in garden where there was a FISH POND! Before we left, Alberto took us up to the terrace where we could see the entire skyline of Venice. It was so pretty seeing the Piazza di San Marco with the colums and ocean behind it. Picture are up on the blog! By the way, Alberto is THE BEST!

After seeing Alberto we met up with the other girls and decided that a gondola ride was in order. We found two guys that gave us a nice cheap price, and started off down the Grand Canale. They took us all through not only the Grand Canal, but also through the little side canals that run through Venice. Throughout the 40 min trip, my gondola driver, Umberto, gave us all a run down on the history of all the places we passed. I really feel that taking a gondola was one of the best ways to se the Venice.

After the gondola, we grabbed a bite to eat at a local pizzaria and then went on a mission to find carnivale masks. After finding the perfect masks (mine was red... oh la la), we went to the Piazza di San Marco, wearing our masks, to watch the famous comedian Dario Fo. So funny, and I only under stand some Italian.... On the way home, we grabbed crepes with nutella in them. So delicious. By the time it was 11pm, I was ready to sleep. I went back to the hotel and passed out...sooo tired but such a good day.

The next morning we grabbed breakfast again (and stocked up again) and headed out to do some final shopping. My ending total of things I bough in Venice is as follows:

Carnivale Masks: x3 ( I bought two more :)) = $35 (but euro not dollars)
Jewelery (Venetian glass...soo pretty) = non lo so (oops)
uhh........ = mi disculpa....

At 11:45 the whole group met in the Piazza di San Marco to watch the Volo del Angelo. Basically, they dress up a famous person and string them up to this long zipline. At 12pm, they drop them slowly down the line that runs over the Piazza. So interesting but scary because there were TONE of people there. Afterwards, when we were trying to go back to the hotel, there was a mosh pit of people and it was mass confusion. There was a complete standstill and people were pushing and shoving. I was pressed up against a glass window and I thought that I was going to break through it into the shop...not fun. I was actually pretty scared at that point because an older lady fainted in the middle of everything...not cool. The police came through and ushered her out though, and after that, things pretty much cleared up and we got the heck out of there.

We went back to the hotel, grabbed out stuff and walked the 20 mins to the bus station. The bus ride back to Ascoli was a little shorter than the ride there (by a half hour), but I only slept about an hour.

We got back, and literally in 15 mins. we were all at Murphy's, on our computers! LOVE MURPHS! Homework was done by 11 and then we went to get YOGI! SO delicious. They take fresh yogurt and mix in anything you wany. Naturally, I got nutella and bananas (I AM OBSESSED WITH NUTELLA! IT IS RIVALING PEANUT BUTTER. IF YOU KNOW ME, YOU KNOW I CAN NOT SURVIVE WITHOUT PEANUT BUTTER!). Yogi made the perfect end to a fun weekend.

I have to say that I was relieved when I got back to Ascoli. I missed it. I am already dreading the day that I have to leave... :(

Major Catch-up and Venezia!

Where do I even start?! I feel like it has been sooo long since the last time that I "blogged" haha.

Wednesday night we had the guys over for an American dinner since they had us over for dinner in San Benedetto last weekend. We thought that it would be fun to make them a traditional American meal....so we made them hamgurgers with the usual sides. They told us that they liked them....I hope that they weren't just saying that to make us feel good haha.

We had sooo many issues trying to cook them. Our apartment electricity is very very tempermental so we can only have one or two big appliances on at a time. If there are too many things on, we blow a circut and have to go outside to play around with the circut breaker and fix it....no fun, especially since that was the part of my physics class in high school where I always used to electricute myself. Where is Charlie when I need him???


This means that we can't use the stove and the oven at the same time..so annoying. Instead, we used the stove in the apartment downstairs from us, and used our oven upstairs. Everyone had fun at our apartment, and then we headed to Murphy's, our FAVORITE hangout haha. There are so many pictures that are taken in Murphy's. If you put them all together you could get a complete view of the bar!

Let's see....I joined the gym here in Ascoli last week. This gym is absolutely amazing. It is a normal gym on the top floor...workout equipment and weights....but downstairs it is like an aquatic paradise! And SOOO CLEAN! Amazing 25 meter pool and a turkish bath....so crazy! So that is my new favorite hangout! I am just waiting for my package from the US to arrive with my cap, goggles and swimsuit and I will be all set.

Now, on to Venezia! Venice was AMAZING! So much fun! We left Ascoli Piceno at 7am on Friday morning. When we woke up, is was SNOWING in Ascoli! SNOW! AH! The roads were covered and we were all slipping and sliding around with our luggage as we walked to the bus stop.

We took the bus to Venice, and the ride there was about 6 hours. Can I just say that I NEVER sleep on transportation of ANY kind just because it is impossible for me. Even on the drive to Florida, I barely slept. Somehow, on this bus ride to Venice, I passed out for the WHOLE TRIP! CRAZY! It was really nice though because I woke up and we were there! I got my first glimpse of the ocean/sea for the first time since being home and it was SOOO nice to see open water. Such a comfort! I can't even explain it!

When we arrived in Venice we had to drop our things off at our hotel (Hotel Messner) and then run out again because we had a scheduled tour of the Chiesa di San Marco. This is the MASSIVE church in Saint Marc's Square. There are tons of pictures of it in my photo album! Unfortunately, I could only take pictures of the outside because cameras were not allowed inside the church. I can't even describe the amazing paintings and mosaics and sculptures...EVERYTHING!! was so gorgeous! I can not understand how a people can be so creative! These massive buildings were built so long ago!

Out tour guide was telling us that the buildings in Venice are very characteristic of the city beause they are all for show. Apparently, Venice focuses more on what is on the outside i.e. masks for carnivale!! Venice was built on wood beams that are stuck in the mud, so the buildings can't be too heavy or they will sink. In order to keep the buildings afloat, but still pretty, the Venetian architects build the actual buidlings with wood, but covered the outside with marble. SO cool and smart! This way they are light, but still gorgeous! Che figo!!

So after our tour of the church we toured the Palazo Ducale, or the Doge Palace! AMAZING! I know I keep saying that everything was amazing, but it really way! I have never experienced anything like this in my entire life! The paintings and sculptures on the ceilings alone were enought to keep me standing there looking upwards for DAYS!

That night we had dinner at the hotel. DInner was...shall we say...less than desirable. Pasta with tuna and some sort of fish with spinach. It sounds like it would be ok....but it wasn't. Haha That night we went out looking for something fun to do. I called up Andrea's niece Martina and asked her about the night life in Venice. She basically said that there are two places to go....both of which were a hike from out hotel. We decided to hit up the Ponto Realto haha. Ponto Realto is one the the famous bridges in Venice.

We crossed the Ponto Realto and came upon this massive party! So crazy! It was a big outdooe dance party. We hung out there for a little bit and then, out of no where, this dance off just exploded in the middle of the croud. There were all these people dressed up in carnivale outfits having a dance-off! HOW AMERICAN IS THAT?! I have to say, one of the only things that I did not like about Venice was how touristy and american it seemed. The clerks in the shops didn't even try to speak italian with us, they would just automatically speak to us in English. I have to say, that I really appreciate that about Ascoli.

Anyway, yeah, dance-off....After that, we decided to head back to the hotel because it was late and we were tired from our long day. More to come!! Read the next blog!

Classes and such

I had my first Italian class yesterday....SO difficult. The actual language isn't too bad but I mix EVERYTHING with Spanish. We just learned basic stuff yesterday and today but the little add-on words are getting to me like..."di" versus "de" and "e" versus "y". Ohh Spanish.

It does help out though. The other day I went to the hardware store to get an adapter. When the guy behind the counter eventually realized that I am literally unable to communicate anything other than what I want to eat in Italian, we tried English but that didn't help either. So then I said "Parlo spagnolo" and he started talking to me in Spanish! hahaha Sooo funny! But it worked out and I got an adapter for my 3-prong plug on my computer. Oh the joys of language.

Since I have been here I have realized just how "american" my fashion is. I feel like I only have a select few items in my closet that I feel comfortable wearing here. Its funny because I brought enough clothes that I picked out especially for this trip out of allll my clothes at home, and I still feel like I need new stuff....maybe that is just stemming from my shopaholic tendencies...I don't really know.. haha

It is also hard to wear my clothes because we don't have dryers. We wash our clothes and then hang them to dry. I usually shrink my jeans when I dry them so that they are nice and snug after they come out. When they drip dry here, they're all baggy....eehhhh...

Ok, time for me to go. It is almost 4pm and all the shops are going to open up after their afternoon lunch break! New shirts and jeans....here I come.

Sitting in "The Murphy's"

So I am sitting here in "The Murphy's" chatting online and checking e-mail. So weird! I am sitting in a ber doing homework and drinking a cafe macchiato. So fun. Umm so I should update you on the happenings here in Ascoli Piceno.

Last night we went to San Benedetto del Tronto for a party at our friend Giovanni's house. It was so much fun. We just hung out and met some more of the local folk :) San Benedetto is right near the beach. Giovanni's house was something like a 5 minute walk to the beach. How nice is that?!

Things have been good this weekend. We have been going out pretty much every night but just to be social but we have already made tons of friends. I love it. We go to the same bar every night and now the bar tenders know our names! SO funny!

We are finally going to start "real" classes tomorrow...unfortunately. I can not picture myself doing homework here haha. I'm pretty sure that that's a bad thing!

Today I went for a walk through the hills of Ascoli with some of the girls. We took the prettiest pictures! They are going to be up soon, probably tomorrow because it takes too long to load pictures here in the bar. These pictures pretty much speak for themselves. Gorgeous country shots and a couple of the architecture around the outskirts of the city!

I went for a run this morning just to explore the city a little bit by myself. Don't worry Daddy....I stayed on main roads...One road twisted down under a bridge and I had to run back through the gates of the old city to get back to the apartment...SO PRETTY! Ascoli is actually a gated medieval city so the only way to enter or exit the city is through an archway in the wall that surrounds the city, and then over a bridge because a river also surrounds the city. SO COOL!

Miss you all!!

Getting Settled

I am beginning to get accustomed to life around here. Silly little things happen here that just had to get used to. For example, the shops and businesses close from 1-4 in the afternoon, but I am getting used to things! So fun! I have to run, but I will try and blog a couple times a week. It's hard to keep up now because we only have internet access in the cafe or at school and all I want to do is BE OUTSIDE! It is so gorgeous!

My first experience in the open market!

Today was a little less interesting than the other days. Usual breakfast at the cafe (still amazing), class stuff....blah. Then we walked to the post office to get a packet for the permisso del soggiorno. It is an application to stay longer than 90 days in Italy. My visa says 130 days so I need added permission to stay that long.

After the little trip to the post office I hit up the open market. SO MUCH STUFF FOR SO LITTLE MONEY! I got a beautiful scarf for 5 euro. The man gave us a deal because we were "ragazzi americane". Love it! Discounts for being american. Then I decided it was time to boot shop. All the women here wear leather boots and I had to find some!!! After a little bit of searching and trying TONS of boots, I finally found a pair of brown leather boots for 30 euro! SOOO GOOD!!!

I grabbed lunch after, and then ran to class again.

After class we grabbed gelato, but I was so tired from the night before I ate it and then took a nap. I woke up, showered, had dinner in and went to "sleep" at 10. I didn't finally fall asleep until 2:30 though. I guess the time change is affecting me more than I thought!

Gotta run! Time to explore and hit the market again! My new mission is BLACK leather boots! haha

Our first date with some Italians!

Today was the first full day in Ascoli Piceno. We stared off the day by visiting a historic cafe. I think it is hilarious that all of these Italian women are sooo skinny, yet they still eat pastries every morning with their breakfast! Now I know why my Nanno always likes his cookies in the morning. I had a creme filled crossaunt. AMAzing. That and a delicious cappuccino.

The coffee here is so amazing. Dunkin Doughnuts literally tastes like petrified swamp water compared to the delicious cafe they serve here. Their coffee is much darker and much more bold than ours. They do serve a lighter coffee, but it is called "Cafe Americana"....go figure!

After our breakfast we did some school stuff, mostly orientation. We got a walking tour of the city and there is so much to do here! Ascoli seems like a small town compared to Rome, but there are still sooo many things to do. There is even a movie theatre right down the street from out apartments. As I was walking through a little old man passed me and said "Bellisima Ragazza!". I love it haha. They just stop you around here to tell you that you're pretty! Soooo funny.

The food here is ridiculous! Everything that you try tastes good. They could make poop taste good here. For lunch today, our professors took us to the cafe next to the building our "school" is in. School is in quotations because it is literally an office with a couple rooms and a bathroom. Even though it is an office building, all of the ceilings are are painted and curved. They are GORGEOUS!! Pictures will be up soon!Anyway, I had a salad for lunch and it was simple but sooo good. Mixed greens, olives, fennel, tomatoes and tuna. The dressing was just a little olive oil, salt and lemon. SOOOO dilectible.

After our school we walked around a bit and then got ready to meet our first Italians. We were meeting Giovanni and his cousin Gino for dinner at 9:30. Yes, 9:30 pm...They eat dinner super late here. Giovanni is friends with one of the program directors and he was set-up as a speaking partner with one of the girls who was here this summer and came back with us. We gave his cousin the nickname of Papa Gino! So funny! We went to a cute pizzaria that I thought was this little hole in the wall but the restaraunt extended through three massive rooms. I got a Pizza Bianca con Zucchini. So good. I know I keep saying that but I don't know what else to say! It is all sooo delicious. Delizioso!

After dinner we headed to "The Murphy's" which, funny enough, is like an Irish bar in Italy. WE got drinks there with Giovanni and Gino and hung out and talked for sooo long. While I was waiting for my drink at the bar another old man....like 70 years old old, kept saying "bella ragazza! Belissima cara! Ragazza Americana! SO funny....until he started to pet my face..uhhh i don't really appreciate it when old men pet my face...

Before I knew it, it was 1:30am and we all had class the next day at 9am. Needless to say, we all decided to leave since we had class early. It was an amazing day!