Just another week in Italy!

  On Wednesday we went to a cooking class where we learned how to make homemade noodles and homemade ravioli! It was so fun and very interesting! The Italian women who do that everyday really have my respect.

My cooking group with our wonderful chef!

 This weekend we went to Cinque Terre! The Cinque Terre are 5 little towns built into the mountain side. We stayed in the first one called Riomaggiore and somehow got an apartment with the most beautiful view!

View from out hotel room!

The first night we went out to a great restaurant with some amazing food! Everything here is so fresh, and that makes the food so fun to eat! The next morning we hiked from the first city to the second city which was flat and about a 20 minute walk.  We rode the train to the fourth city and got ready for our 5 mile hike! We were felling pretty good after the first easy hike.... Little did we know that we had about 6 million steps ahead of us!

The hiking group

As we walked up step after step we would take pictures of the beach we were hiking to, and we would all say "We are getting SO close!! We can do it!!" A few times we thought we might not but we finally arrived! I had never been so happy to get into freezing cold water! We stayed by the beach all day, which was amazing, but I had one minor mishap. It started when we decided that we would swim out to some rocks.  When we got there jelly fish started appearing in the water!! I decided I was not going to wait around for the whole colony to surround us and took off for shore. I was about half way when I looked up and there was a HUGE jelly right in front of me! I had a mini freak out and all the girls thought it might have been the funniest thing they had ever seen. I am glad they had a good laugh while my life was in danger! (just kidding mom.. kinda.)

After a great day at the beach we rode the train back to Riomaggiore and went to dinner. We ran back to the house and some people went out and got gelato. We told them to come back and get us and we would be ready to go out for a bit.... when they came back we were dead asleep. I guess you could say we were a little tired after our long day in the sun. The next day we went row-boating!  We explored a cave and learned that row-boating is a little harder than it looks! We were all a little seasick when we got back!

I was helping, I was the coxman

All in all it was a great week and a great weekend! We are becoming accustomed to the lifestyle and figuring out all the secret places to go to and places to eat at! In the words of one of my friends on the trip, "I feel so European!"

One week down!

A few things that are different here:

It started raining! Here is our dryer!

1. Here we eat late. Very late.
2. There is no air conditioning here.
2b. There are no fans.
3. There are about 500000 restaurants that serve the exact same thing within one block of each other and all seem to stay in business.
4. They live on top of each other. Something my my dad would love.
5. They eat a ton of carbs. Like a ton. But all seem to stay in shape?
6. They exercise in nice clothing. (ex. kakis and a polo)  Its weird, I know.
7. They do not have dryers.
8. You have to pay to use most restrooms.
9. The list goes on..
 Time here is very weird for me. It feels like we have been here for so much longer than a week but this week seemed to fly by. Its going fast and slow at the same time; its a strange feeling. Sometimes I feel like I will never catch on to this language then other times, I really feel like I am understanding a lot. The whole culture is so much different than mine. It has taken some getting used to, but I am starting to appreciate it for its differences and also starting appreciate my culture more than I ever have before.

On the left is "Fake David" You cannot take pictures of the real one.

We have seen so many beautiful things since we arrived in Rome one week ago; some that I never imagined I would see. I wonder if the Italian residents realize how beautiful their country really is or if it is just a place they live?  They have some of the worlds most renown museums, and so much history surrounding them; a few days ago we saw the David! He is an enormous statue with such incredible detail!

This pretty much defines our tandem adventure

Le mie amiche

This weekend our trip was to Lucca! Lucca is a fortified castle with tunnels running under all the city. They have walls that surround their city as well. It is a beautiful little town with a much less tourist population than Florence or Rome (which makes it really fun to see). We spent the first part of our journey getting ourselfs completely lost and asking for directions; which ended up being very fun! For the second part of the day we rode bikes around the city walls and Emma and I decided it would be fun to ride a tandem bike. (haha)  That may or my not have been the best decision we have made yet! We had a bit (or a lot) of a hard time getting started but we finally got the hang of it; after a couple laughs from the locals. We all had a blast!

The castle walls 

Tomorrow we will begin another week and I look forward to the next adventure!

Moving In!

After two days in Rome; Emma and I headed to Florence.  The morning of the train ride was very hectic! There were a few other people staying the our hostel and they were a little bit scary; so Emma and I grabbed all of our things and left without showering or getting ready. In other words: we were looking good.  We carried all of our stuff to the train and my bag is heavy! ahh. But we finally got there and headed out. They told us it would be a three hour trip. After the first hour a man came by asking to see our tickets so he could stamp them. He told us that we were in the first class car and we didn't have first class tickets! that meant we would have to get all of our stuff and move it three cars down on a moving train! We decided to stay and take our chances. Thankfully he didn't come back and we made it without being kicked off in some little city! When we got to the train station we had to get a taxi to take us to our host family's house. Which might I add is probably scarier than bungie jumping. BUT we made it alive and we moved in!

Sabrina's giardino

 We live in a cute little house with Sabrina and her 11 month old son, Leonardo. Sabrina is a great cook and she is very nice! We love that she has a little baby because she says simple phrases and words over and over and it help us learn them. (yes we are kind of like babies over here)

Our room!

 After we got settled in; it was time to go meet the group at the Duomo! There are 26 of us and we walked to our school and met all of our teachers! All of them are very funny and love what they do; that makes it really fun to learn.

Sometimes Emma and I forget we are in Italy and then remember and get excited all over again!

The Beautiful Duomo

First day of school pic!

 Arecentconversation we had went "Hey what do you want to this weekend?" "I don't know, we could go to Milan. (silence for a second) Ummm I cant believe we can just say,'lets got to Milan.'" We are having a lot of fun and we try to use our Italian whenever possible.

A lot of people smile and laugh at our accents but some like to have conversations with us and we try our best to keep up! Allora Buongiorno!!

Oh My Gosh-Thats the Colosseum!!

Last night when the lady who helps out at the place we are staying left she said she would be here at 9 to make us breakfast.  When we got up in the morning she had left some bread with jam.  Yummy.. I concluded that in Italy breakfast is not the most important meal of the day, but they did have a pretty sweet toaster!

Emma in the t-shirt and socks the airport gave us!

After breakfast we went to the Inn and checked on our luggage and they said that they found Emma's but not mine :( So for now we are wearing the clothes they gave us in a little bag; they are very spiffy!

Anyways, today we traveled all over Rome! For having over 3 million people it is surprisingly small and we could get across town on foot easily! Here, it seems, everyone lives on top of each other!

The Colosseum

First we saw the Colosseum!! It was so surreal to see, what we have only seen in pictures, right in front of us! There were a lot of people at the Colosseum and we got to practice more Italian today; mostly asking people to take pictures for us!

After the Colosseum we went and saw many other things.

Fontana di Trevi

Una chiesa bellissima!!

Some ruins beside the Colosseo 

Piazza Navona

We visited the Fontana di Trevi and there were more people than live in Scott City!  It was nose to nose people but it was worth it! So beautiful!  The  Church in the upper right was one of the most gorgeous things I have ever seen. The ceiling was covered in beautiful paintings and the walls were made out of marble and gold. When we went to the Colosseum there were a lot of other very interesting ruins that Emma and I looked at for along time!  The Piazza Navona is a huge square with a lot of fountains and a lot of tourists. When the Piazzas were used for something other than to take pictures of they were places people met together and sometimes conducted political meetings and whatnot.

We are having so much fun and are so excited to meet our host family tomorrow! Still no sign of our luggage but we are praying that it finds us!!

Buonanotte!
From Roma!
Ciao!

From H❤me to R❤me

Wow. What a crazy day, or two days; I don’t really know what you call that. 

 Emma and I took off from Wichita with the hopes of an easy, fun, and restful trip… and God must have had other plans because that is the last thing we got!  Our flight from Wichita was delayed 40 minutes and we only had a 40 minute lay over in Minneapolis for our flight to Detroit.  So as soon as we touched down in Minneapolis we took off to gate F4 and realized we had one slight problem… we were at gate A.  So Emma and I took off sprinting through the airport waeving in and out of people.  Later Emma said, “That was just like in the movies!” After running from one end of the huge airport to the other we were informed we had missed the flight by four minutes! As the Italians would say <<Che Fortuna!>> (What luck) With a lot of pleading on our part they put us on a plane to the Netherlands which ended up a little more exciting than a trip to Detroit! 

Dinner and a Movie! -Emma

 After walking through the airport in the Netherlands, Emma and I concluded that we should have planned to stay a night there!! I ragazzi sono molto bello!  But, instead, we got on another plane to Rome. Once we arrived and went to the baggage claim we found out our bags had not made the flight with us; they were still in Detroit!!  After a 15 hour trip that was the last thing we wanted to deal with! But we got it figured out and our bags should be arriving tomorrow morning at our hotel (or whatever you call this place we are staying)  We rode the train in to Rome from the airport and were very glad that it was day because the places around the station were a little sketchy!

Roma!!

 When we finally made it to our hotel a man asked us if we were staying in the hostel and we said that we were.  He told us to follow him and Emma looked at me as if to say, “Are we really going to follow him up there?!?”  But we did... and the people were very nice to us! We got to practice a lot of our Italian and realized how much we still have to learn! After we got settled, Emma and I explored Rome and kept saying to each other, “We are literally walking around Rome right now!” 






We saw some beautiful things and are excited for tomorrow and the rest of our sight seeing adventures! And on that note; Emma and I are headed to bed with the hopes of a night of sleep without the company of bedbugs!! 

Looking rough after a LONG two days

PS. WE TRIED OUR FIRST GELATO TODAY!! It was delicious and I look forward to many more to come! isthisreallife11.blogspot.com