Wait! I think that was the Mona Lisa.

Bonjour!
I am going to start off by giving a little bit of advise:
DO NOT GO TO PARIS FOR LESS THAN A WEEK!
That was a lesson we learned the hard way after 14 hours of walking around the city of Paris on Saturday! We decided that while we were there we were going to see everything in case we never got to go back. It was an adventure.

It was real!!

But before I get into that I must tell you about our trip to Paris.  Emma and I found an amazing deal for a 75 euro flight to and from Paris... almost a little too good to be true. But we figured why not give it a shot. So we got packed and ready for a trip that we may or may not actually have been going on. We were only allowed a small carry-on, so we packed as light as possible. As soon as we could we half run/walked to our bus to take us to the airport and when we finally got there we had to find the place to get our tickets stamped and get to the gate before it closed! Luckily our flight was late and we had plenty of time. To my amazement the flight was legit and we made is safely to Paris minus our not so smooth landing.

Our first MACAROON!

The French know whats up

Our cab driver spoke no english, but we were able to communicate with him in italian which was nice! We soon realized how hard it is to not speak the language of the city you are in. We have taken for granted the ability to communicate with the italians and we realized how much italian we actually know.  The French tend to be a little rude if you don't speak their language. They have the "if your in our country you should speak our language" mentality. And who can blame them? That is our mentality in the States as well. But we managed to get by!

The Louvre!

Thats her!!!!

On saturday we left the hotel at 9 and got back around 11 at night. It was a long day to say the least. We started the day with the Eiffel Tower!! We could hardly believe we were actually seeing it and we had to remind ourselves at least ten times that we were in Paris! Our next big stop was the Louvre!! After going to so many museums in Florence, you could say I was less than enthused about walking through another one. But Emma convinced me and I was very glad she did! Not only in the Louvre the largest and most renown museum in the world it was also a palace in its time. It was incredible! It might have been my favorite thing that we saw! (don't tell Emma) Oh! And we saw the MONA LISA! She is pretty cool...
We also saw Notre Dame and many other things.   For the last stop of the night we went back to the Eiffel Tower to watch the light show that starts at 10 pm. The only problem was that at 8 o'clock we were dead tired! We finally found a little restaurant to eat at and I could barely get out of my chair when it was time to go.. We made it back to the Eiffel Tower where we saw the light show and watched all of the people hanging out in the garden. It was a great experience!
The next morning we took a bus to Versailles; which is  the most extravagant place I have ever seen. The time and money it took to make one door in one room is insane. We met a couple women from Arizona and had a great conversation with them!

Yeah thats gold...

The "Hall of Mirrors" at Versailles

Around 3 we had to catch a bus to take us back to the airport and bring us back home! All in all it was a fabulous weekend and we are very tired today! I cannot believe that I will be home a week from now! It is all a little bittersweet! I have had the most amazing time, met some great people, and have had experiences to last a lifetime! Thank you to everyone who has been following my journey! It has been a blast to share it with you!

Gun Shots!

As my time here is coming to an end I keep finding things I am going to miss. Here are a few:
1. Here I walk to the fruit vender and get fresh fruit whenever I want.
2. There are amazing artists everywhere here. I think they all know my face because I am constantly watching them paint and now they just smile and shake their heads.
3. THE FOOD! I am going to miss the food. A lot.
4. My italian family! I have had the greatest experience with my family here! It has been a great experience.
5. The immense amount of history and art surrounding me here is crazy. There is always some kind of historical significance of every building I pass.
There is plenty more I am going to miss but I am still here for now!

Our lovely view from our hotel

This weekend a group of six of us went to Napoli! We were very excited for our trip and couldn't wait for the weekend. When we got off the train and walked outside we were a little less excited and a little more scared for our safety.  A boy on the trip made the famous comment of the weekend, "If you hear fireworks its not actually fireworks; its gunshots." When we finally made the 10 flights of stairs up to our hotel room we felt a little safer because we knew that no one would work that hard to get to our things.  That night we ordered pizza because Napoli is where pizza was born! Emma and I had a pizza with french fries and hotdogs on it! It was surprisingly very good!

French Fry Pizza!

After dinner and a night of playing italian cards we went to bed in our room with an "air-conditioner" (it was not the best functioning air-conditioner I have ever used...)
The next morning we headed to Pompeii! We climbed Mount Vesuvius (an active volcano) and walked  around the mouth of Vesuvius for a few hours. Then we went into the city of Pompeii and saw the town. It was very interesting yet very sad.. the ash preserved some of the bodies so you can still see the real bodies and the positions they were in when they were covered.. it was hard to believe that that was a real person.
And from the town of Pompeii there is a clear view of the volcano that completely devastated the town. It is an erie sight.

One of the bodies found.

A view of Vesuvius from Pompeii 

Our view from Vesuvius 

After a long day of walking in the heat we finally made it back to our lovely hotel! We were all ready for bed and looking forward to a day of relaxing on the beach! That next morning we headed out a little too late and ended up run/walking to the station. We had a very eventful day with our travel; we had a bit of trouble understanding the people of Napoli because they have a different dialect than the people of Florence. But we finally made it to Sorrento! It was a beautiful city!

We decided to get on a bus and head to the Almafi Coast! We took a bus that drove along the edge of a mountain the entire time.. we were a little terrified and a little sick by the time we reached Positano but the view once we got there was worth it! Positano is probably the most beautiful city I have ever seen. It is built into a mountain and has a beautiful beach with the clearest water. It was gorgeous! We swam and hung out of the beach for a couple hours before heading back to catch our last train home. (to Florence) When we got back to the train station we quickly went back to our hotel to get our luggage and found out that Jason's luggage was not there. We had very little time before our train was leaving and we were all frantic! We were looking everywhere but a few of us had to go to the train station to make sure that it wasn't leaving early. About two minutes later they came running up to us and said that Jason found his luggage in the dumpster! We all ran to the train station and jumped on the train just minutes before it left! We got back to Florence around ten o'clock that night and we were ready for bed.
So there is the condensed version of my lovely weekend in Napoli! What an experience!

The Gang! (minus a couple boys)

La Bella Vita

Birthday Torte!

I currently have 14 days left of school! The time here has flown by! The first month crew headed out and the new people started school. The midterms went well and we are excited for another few weeks! For my birthday my Italian teacher, Cecilia, made me a torte!! It was delicious! She is so sweet.. when she is not making jokes about eating her students! haha
This weekend we went to Venezia (Venice) and Verona! It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! In Venice there are no cars they only have canals with boats to get from place to place. It is a very interesting way of life. It makes for a lot of walking but also some of the most beautiful views!

One of my favorite pictures ever!

The first night we went out to eat a birthday dinner. We sat right by the canal and watched people riding gondolas and I ate salmon pasta! It was a great birthday dinner! The hotel we stayed in that night had air-conditioning that we could control! (awesome) So we did what any air-conditioned deprived person would do: turned it as cold as it would go and as high as it would go. At about 2 in the morning we all regretted that decision! WE WERE FREEZING!

The glass maker!

 The next morning we took a "boat bus"to an island where they make all kind of glass objects.. some cups, light fixtures, animals, plates, jewelry ect. We we able to watch a man make a few things out of glass! He put some powder "stuff" into an oven that was 500 degrees Celsius (which is really, really hot) and added some colored beads and pulled and pushed on it with these metal objects. In less that 5 minutes he had a beautiful glass cat. It was incredible.  We ate lunch at a cute little place overlooking the water and  I never wanted to be done!

The Arena di Verona!

That same evening we rode a train to Verona to watch the opera of Romeo and Juliette! The opera was in the arena that the Romans build. I was excited for the experience but prepared myself for a bit of a boring night. The opera did get a little long after 4 hours but it was actually incredible. The Romans made the theatre with the idea that one person could preform or speak and be heard throughout the stadium. They did the whole opera without a microphone. It holds 30,000 people and I could hear every note that was sung! The Romans sure knew how to build! The opera finally finished at 1 in the morning, and we bought tickets for a train the next morning at 7:30 so we had about 4 hours of sleep and headed to the train station to get on our early train. When we got there we were not to pleasantly surprised to find out there was a train strike! So our early cheep train turned into a late much more expensive train! But we finaly got back to Venice and wished we had another week there! We took a little too long before we went to the train station and ended up runing through Venice and the Trian Station so we didnt miss our train home!

Venice was a little hard to navigate through ...
I dont know why.. the signs were so clear.

This week was a great birthday week and a great birthday weekend! I don't think I will ever forget my 20th birthday! I am feeling very fortunate for the last 20 years and am excited for the next 20! Thanks to everyone who made this week so special! Love you all!

You Just Ate Sea Beast Parts!

Our beautiful hotel!

Another hot week and a great weekend down! In school we have been working away and I finally feel like I can understand what my teachers are saying! (which is a plus) We have been touring museum after museum for our Cultural Visits.  Good thing I have my own personal tour guide (my roommate Emma) to tell me about the paintings so they don't all look exactly the same. She is an art history major and she will be a GREAT tour guide someday! I have been learning so much about the culture and history of Italy and it has been very interesting; I am enjoying watching and being apart of a different culture for two months.  This weekend we went to Livorno with Trina Harlow, one of my parents friends! Livorno is a beautiful city with a great beach! But the best part--- OUR HOTEL WAS AIR CONDITIONED!!!

View from our hotel room!

I loved these little "pools"

 Emma and I had a great time with Trina!  Trina also knows a lot about all of the art and architecture in Italy. We got to Livorno late after noon and were in awe of how pretty our hotel room was, AND IT HAD AIR CONDITIONING! I really liked Livorno because out of all of the places I have been so far it had the least amount of tourists. Many people in Florence and Rome speak english and are excited to practice it on you, but in Livorno I was able to speak a ton of Italian and that was really fun!

Our beautiful pool! 

Mostly our weekend was relaxing and we spent a lot of time at the beach, but we also had a few adventures... On saturday afternoon we decided to go to a local restaurant for lunch. Trina and Emma got pasta and I ordered some spaghetti with a mix of sea food. When my plate came out it wasn't the spaghetti plate.. it was entire pieces of fish, shrimp, muscles and clam. The fish still had its eyes and  the flies were loving my plate. Emma and Trina could hardly stand the smell and after eating two shrimp and a few bites of the fish I couldn't stomach the thought of eating anymore! EWWW!

Its looking at you too!

The waitress came back and asked how we liked our food and I told her I didn't exactly get what I had ordered and she did not quite understand so she asked if I liked it and I said it was a little bit weird.  After that the waitress was not very nice to us. Trina was reading later that day and learned that that was their local dish and I had just called it weird.. oops..

All dressed up for dinner!
But the food was not all bad; for both nights we ate outside on the top floor of our hotel overlooking the water! It was a beautiful restaurant and had great food! I tried my first octopus and it was actually really  good! We also met a very nice couple who let Trina have her charger, they wre from Russia! I have been meeting all kinds of different people who have been so kind. Every adventure I have gone on so far has been full of great people, food and memories!