Barcelona...what the heck! You can buy pets on a street!!

Yes I am behind. Well I went to Barcelona and it was so amazing and so interesting!!! First yes, I did go to the beach in Barcelona, yes...everyone had their tops off, and yes there were really really really gross old men completely nude.

Ok so we got into Barcelona on Friday at 530. It was a late flight but you deal with what you get, so that night we went out and had Tapas! So good!!!!! Sangria, which is also so good! Then we walked around Barcelona, got use to the metro system which is amazing!! Then went to the beach as well that night.

The next morning we got going early, we went to the Sagrada family church which is taking like 80+ years more to build. I will say even with all the construction around it, it was a really cool church. Of course there is still tons of construction going on around it because it is still not done. Haha

After that, we went to this crazy architectural structure that looks cool...mostly because it looks cool nothing more than that. After we did that we meet up with some of friends at the BEACH!! It was an awesome day to be at the beach in Barcelona. Except for the fact that really old naked men were walking around the beach, it was a great day!

From tanning on the Beach for a couple of hours to going to dinner, which was so good! We had piella which is a traditional Barcelona (Spain) food. It was so good! Las Ramblas is the major drag in Barcelona, which is an intense street packed with not just shops in buildings bug also vendors in the middle of the street! Where you can yes, buy an animal from off the street, I

don't mean just chickens, I mean chicks, and turtles and birds. Which at night when they are closing down. They just lock up their huts with the animals inside. If PETA knew about this I bet some heads would roll.

Barcelona at night is a fun and interesting place, nothing really starts to happen in Barcelona till like 1 AM even then that is the early people. Sense we had to catch a bus though for our flight at 330 in the morning we just stayed up all night and didn't pay for a hostel. Which was a very interesting experience...which is one that will be repeated again haha

Out flight back was fine...it was just a long day of traveling on Sunday!! Next entry...will be...of my last trip to Roma. :(

Florence to Salzburg to Cortona! What is next...

Last week we went to Florence for our last time...:( but it was all ok after we got through our class stuff from the beginning of the day.

We started in Florence at 1030 ish and kept going till 445 that afternoon. Of course with a 1 hour lunch break. What was dreadful was the 2 hour Uffizi visit that consisted of us only seeing 5 different paintings in the entire museum. Yes, I did say 5!! Which means that we spent...mostly standing! in front of each piece for 24 mins. I never knew I could possibly fall asleep standing up. haha

After all of that though it started to be a great day!! I got my leather jacket! Which is a dark brown, with a zipper and very just simple. Then we went shopping some more, but what was going to be the best thing ever that night was getting Mexican food for dinner!!!

We decided not to back to school for dinner on Wednesday but to stay in Florence for our possible last trip...which we are planning a day trip for ourselves to do the very last shopping and get Mexican food one last time! It was so good!! We had margaritas, cheese dip that was more like fondue...and great Mexican food!! Over all we had a wonderful Wednesday!

This past weekend was amazing!!! We went to Salzburg Austria for easter weekend. It was such a beautiful weekend! We saw so much of Austria, I didn't get to go to a concentration camp or salt mines but what I did get to see was just as awesome if not better!

We went to

- Salzburg Zoo

- Mozart's Residence

- Mozart's Birthplace

- Fortress

- History of Natural Science Museum

- Toy Museum

- Musical Instrument Museum

- Stiegl Beer Tour/Museum

- Dom for Church

- The Sound of Music Tour

I am pretty sure that is everything...I am probably missing something we did. It was all so amazing though, plus we had great weather all weekend...it got a little cloudy on Monday but we were leaving so it was ok.

The zoo was so much fun!!! I am wanting now to go to every single zoo in every country we go to but I am seeing that as not a possibility. So you know though...when you go to a zoo in a different country, well at least Austria they don't believe in a barrier between you and the animals. At home you always have like a fence and 10 feet of space between you and the animal. In Salzburg most of the animals were in betting range. Even the Rinos, and I could stick my camera through the fence for the Leopards.

Mozart's locations were so interesting and completely different in what they had information wise. Science Museum was so cool, it was also like a little aquarium at the same time.

The toy museum was very interesting, it was basically a look back in time at all the different toys that were invented for child entertainment, as well as puppets. The musical instrument were connected to the toy museum which was very interesting because it had a collection of some of the very first built pianos. Along with all the different forms of how a piano worked. Then all the different musical instruments basically that Austria has gone through in its history.

The fortress was not that all of amazingness, it had a great panoramic view but besides that it was nothing too special.

The beer tour was so cool!! Of course seeing how it all is made is cool, but with the tour...which part of going to Salzburg we bought a Salzburg card for three days, that included everything we saw as free entry, plus free public transportation. It paid for its self by the second day. Well we got into the beer tour for free, plus you get 3 free samples of beer and a free gift with the tour.

The beer was very good, we had their house beer, there Easter beer which they only have for like 4 weeks, and then their blonde. All three were very good, plus I had a few more because what is nice about a big group of people not everyone likes beer. So I tried their strongest beer, and the light wheat beer. All very good! The gift was cool, it was a cup the holds .33 L. Very nice gift! Plus I bought a few other things of course!

Church on Sunday was interesting...we missed the high mass because they thought the arch bishop was speaking at the high mass which was at 12...well it turned out to be at 10. but o well

we went anyways...very interesting. I spent the entire time looking at the church walls and organs. Which they had 5 total organs inside. 4 small ones and then their 5th was like a whale!! It was so beautiful though when played! I have decided that I don't like organs at home, but you play a organ anywhere in a church in Europe/Italy/Austria and it is freakin amazing!!

The sound of music tour was really cool, very nice tour to use to not just see the places they filmed stuff but also see more of Austria. I would defiantly recommend doing a private tour if possible though. Because Danielle and I got split from the group because they couldn't all transport us to the place to meet the bus for the tour. Well they ran out of seats on the bus and we and 6 other people got a private tour and it was so much better!!

We saw more things then the big bus and got more information about the movie and had more time to see everything. Our tour guide of course was so amazing, so that helped a lot in making it more enjoyable!

Also, the sausage here is so good!!! We had sausage for lunch every day and it was so good!!! Plus the pretzels are awesome as well! Along with every is so nice...I don't know if it was because it is such a tourist town...which defiantly go in April to Salzburg because it was not crowded at all...or at least go Easter weekend.

Overall Salzburg was an amazing trip and if I could I would stay there for a very long time! haha

This Wednesday we went to Cortona which is a little town just 30 min away by bus. or 15 min if you walk half the distance back like we did.

We got to see the church in Cortona as well as S. Francesco's church as well as monastery. Cortona is defiantly a beautiful place...kind of glad they didn't decided to put the school in Cortona because I would die with all the hills in Cortona. You think the hills are bad in Castiglion...you would have to see Cortona and then you would cry! haha I will say it has a beautiful country side and lots of olive tress!

Next blog will be about Barcelona!!!

Ciao!!

Florence!!...and a Train at 9:4..2

So I am going to catch up everyone who has been reading my blog real fast...because if I don't then me being behind will just get even worse!

So last Wednesday we went to Florence to visit the Accademia to see Michelangelo's statue of David. After that...which wow statue of David...didn't know we could spend and hour and a half talking about one thing. I am so glad Dr. O saved us!!

After that Dr. O took us to Fiesole, which is a really nice town just like a 30 min bus ride from Florence. There we saw a Roman theater and a Bath complex. Which was really cool, but we also had a picnic lunch which was a lot of fun and a great moment to just relax and enjoy our surroundings.

After we got done at Fiesole around...4. I made my way to the ponte vecchio to by me my leather gloves!! I got two pair, a brown set and a black set! I was very excited about that, because tomorrow (Wednesday) We are going to Florence again to go to the Uffizi and I am going to by me a leather jacket!!!

This past weekend we went to Verona with Dr. O for our archeology class. It was a great weekend...except for a few delays. haha Well our train left at 9:42 in the morning on friday...we arrived at the train station at 9:42...so we kind of missed the train. haha Luckly he was not mad, mostly due to the fact we now had to figure out on our own how to get to Verona. Sad to say, but the next train to Florence was not till 11:06...so we had to sit in the train station in Castiglion for an hour. Me laughing and a few others worried we planned out our plan of action upon our arrival in Florence.

We arrived in Florence at 12:54...we quickly got off the train and made our way to the self service station to buy tickets from Florence to Verona. Well we almost bought the first train..but because of our ability to make a train on time we decided not to go with our first choice because it left in 3 min. So our next one was leaving in 30 min. A time we were all very comfortable with, which this train would put us in to Verona at around 4.

Needless to say that was a very long train ride...but we played cards, slept and talked.

Once we arrived we checked into our hotel and put our stuff down. Ran into Dr. O outside the hotel and talked to him about what we missed...which luckily all we missed was going to see Juliet's balcony. So seeing how we missed it we learned where this balcony was and was on our way to finding it.

While searching for the balcony which we found...we found a great candy shop...where it had POPCORN!!!!

I have been craving popcorn for who knows how long, and I finally found some!!! Well the grocery store has popcorn...but because we don't have a microwave we can't cook it.

So I finally got popcorn and it was sooooo gooooddd!!!

We had a very short day after we got to Verona...because we all knew that Saturday would be a very long day so we went to bed very early. It was so great to wake up in the morning having like 10 hours of sleep!!

The next day we walked all around Verona...doing 15+ miles. OOOO If you did not see my facebook status...I have lost 20 pounds since being in Italy! I was very excited to check the scale the other day, and finding out my weight! :)

So you know...if you rub her boob it gives you good luck!! So I am not being creepy...lol

Verona is such a beautiful town, and has a lot to offer. For lunch on Saturday we got Mexican food!!!! It was no tex mex...but when you have not had Mexican food in for like 3 months...anything is good! It was so good!! That night though for dinner Dr. O treated us all to Chinese food. It as well as the Mexican food was so freakin good!! The ++++'s of Verona they have more mixture of food then just Italian even if it is fake Chinese and Mexican!

This weekend was wonderful and April hasn't even started yet and the rest of this semester is going to go by really fast!! With Austria this weekend, and then Barcelona, Rome, Madrid, then somewhere...and then we are done! Insane!!!

Till next time!! Ciao!!!

Venice...and snow!?!?!?!

So it has been two weeks and a little bit more sense my last post basically because we went to Venice and then spring break!

So two weeks ago we went to Venice from Tuesday to Friday. Well none of us figured it would be really cold till one of our professors decided to inform us of the possible chance of snow. Yea...snow!! So packing for a week in Venice and then another week after were climate changes will occur is not easy! I luckily had it easier because I was staying in Italy but for some of my friends...not so lucky. Especially with the issue of only taking one bag for two weeks.

So Tuesday we left for Venice at like 7 A.M. with the train to Florence which when we were in Florence we catch a Eurostar (a very fast train) to Venice! When we arrived we took the bus boat to our hotel on lido. Which the hotel was nice except with all of us having to take showers in the morning uses up all the hot water really fast!

That Tuesday after dropping our stuff off at the hotel and grabbing some food for lunch we went to St. Marks square for the first time. Which included a two hour tour which none of us were prepared for the cold wind!!!! Got a great look at Venice and surrounding area of St. Marks.

The next day we all woke up to a wonderful shower of SNOW!! Yes...SNOW! In the middle of March...I did not understand this! I can only say that it was caused by Global Climate Change. It was intense though because it just snowed and snowed like Colorado style. It must have snowed like 5 in. Well we all found out that the plans for that day were cancelled because of the snow, but they encouraged us to go to St. Marks Basilica on our own. Which we did of course and got there to see them light up the inside at 11 which was so amazing!!!

After we saw the basilica we were done completely for the day so we just walked around Venice going in and out of all the shops. Which was a nice change sense we were use to having to stand and listen to a tour guide for 2 hours at least!

Thursday we went to Murano, Burano, and Tortecllo with my Archeology class. It is was cool! My favorite out of all three of those places was Burano because the houses were so colorful!! Murano was cool of course because it is the location of all the hand made glass.

That took most of our day Thursday, but after we were done with touring those three places we headed back to the hotel to start to pack because the next day was Friday!! Which for everyone it meant a day of traveling! But for me it meant Heather and Mom were arriving!!

Eiffel tower or Leaning tower?

What a weekend!! We went to Pisa, Viareggio and Lucca this weekend. What beautiful places to visit!

We first went to Pisa for class, saw the Piazza del Duomo, Camposanto Monumentale, The Baptistry of the Catherdral of Pisa, which is freakin amazing because how it is built acoustically. We also saw obviously the Leaning Tower...which for some reason I guess because Pisa and Paris both start with a "P" I kept calling the Leaning Tower the Eiffel Tower...not sure why.

We did take every possible pic possible with the tower like any tourist does, holding it...pushing it, kicking it...or even birthing the tower if you are Michelle R. lol

It was a great day in Pisa and luckily the weather was nice to us and cleared up. After all of that we checked in our hostel in Pisa which was right next to the train station...I don't think you could have gotten any closer unless we lived in the train station. Kind of sketchy thing at first because no one answered the door bell...but once we got in the hostel/apartment was so nice!! It was just us so it was great plus we had our own kitchen!! So everyone was excited about that because we ended up cooking grilled chesses for dinner on Saturday night! After we checked into our hostel we went to Viareggio. What a nice little town, defiantly a great place to go when it is warmer. Yet we still found enjoyment in going around the town and looking at all the shops.

Well I had a video that was from inside the Baptistery...but it wont load for some reason. :(

There are a lot of shops around the board walk in Viareggio, plus the ocean was a very nice look, and so you know it is possible for it to start to snow on the beach...if you have never experience it is very weird! We enjoyed just walking around and going in and out of every shop possible plus getting a crepe and gelato!!

We went to Lucca the next day, a like 25 min train ride from Pisa. It was a great day! We had the sun shining and a clear blue sky!! We got to Lucca, got maps and started walking. We got to Lucca around like 1230 ish, so we of course started to look for places to eat. A couple of us weren't hungry a few grabbed a pizza and ate in the square and then the rest of us sat down and enjoyed a nice lunch. Which the place we went to makes HUGH calzones! After lunch we walked around the town to see it and go into every little shop. It was a nice town and a great day trip! The center of Lucca is inside a giant Roman wall so not to many cars are allowed inside. So walking around inside the center of Lucca is very easy nice. It was just a wonderful day and making the weekend so great!! After we were done in Lucca we made it back to Pisa for night. Once we arrived to the train station instead of going back to the Hostel we found a few mini-marts and went inside to buy some eggs! bread! and cheese! so we could make grill cheeses and scrambled eggs. The things you would miss!! We head back to the hostel after getting all the needed food items and began to cook!

The food was delicious!! So good! Was very nice to be able to cook for ourselves! Sunday morning we got up and went to go see the Leaning Tower again to take some better pics of it, plus to go and see the shops around the Tower to make sure we didn't miss anything. We started to head back home about 1130 ish which got us into Florence around 1230. Being in Florence we decided to do some shopping before going on to Castiglion, so we all went off in Florence to do shopping.

The weather and time has defiantly started to change, because more tourist are starting to show up...which kind of gets annoying because it makes everything more crowded...but nicer because more shops are beginning to open more which means for places to buy stuff. Seems to me that more shops with leather are beginning to open which is great!! We walked around our normal places in Florence, I finally bought me a scarf, and a new shirt and pull over sweater. I am very excited about that, around like 4ish we decided we were done and finally headed back to home! To only realize we have to unpack and then repack for Venice/spring break this week!!!

When I write again I will have much to say for it will have been two weeks, a trip to Venice, and a trips to Venice, Florence and Rome with my Mom and Sister!! Yea!!!

Ciao!

Perugia, Awesome!!!...Deruta, Good Question?

Well, to catch everyone up with what is going on in my life I will start with a little bit about last week. It was basically a normal week...except we learned about what we should do for our Arts quiz and about our journals. We also went to Assisi this past week which was really nice! Big town, which we learned that they were thinking about doing some major renovation this semester at Santa Chiara so we would have been staying at a hotel in Assisi almost.

This weekend was so much fun!! So everyone knows, you can defiantly do Perugia in one day

just don't plan on going to Deruta...because it is a one town deserted train station. Perugia is beautiful though! Great place to go for a day but that is about it because you can walk and see everything you would need to see in one day.

If you decide to stay over night don't be surprised if randomly the street is filled from sidewalk to sidewalk with people! It was defiantly jammed packed last night and none of us know why! lol

I will say there is a lot of great shopping and food in Perugia!! I had the BEST BEST!! Lasagna I have ever!! Sorry family...but this Lasagna was better then anything yall have cooked!! So good!!!

It was at a nice little like mom and pop restaurant in a back ally. Which if you want cheap, great, amazing and true Italian food! You go to the back alleys and you will find the best places to eat! :)

We also found some great pizza in Perugia...but I don't know if you can really mess up any pizza in Italy...it will just not be as great as that one place you find. lol We did lost of going into all the shops and looking at the clothes. We took two breaks at this wonderful and amazing Cafe in Perugia where we all got coffee, or hot chocolate, and then me I got a latte. Which then the next night we went back to get crepes with nutella! Best thing every! Along with Gelato!!! SO GOOD!!

This pic is of me at the Deruta train station...that was literally out in the middle of know where...we got off the train and it was the train station and nothing else. So we turned around and the train was gone...luckily there was another train going in the Direction back to Perugia coming by in like 40 min...so we took pictures and sat at the train station wondering if we would make it back. lol Then as time went on we started coming up with plans in case the train didn't stop because the Deruta station is like a stop only on request station. Luckily their was a number for a taxi service on the train station door. So if we got desperate enough we would just call the service and get us back to Perugia...not really worrying about cost because we figured getting back to a place we know is more important then the cost of staying in a train station over night. lol

Once we got on the train back to Perugia...we realized that we didn't really have a valid ticket...lol so a littled worried we just got on the train because the fine of no ticket looked a lot better then not getting back. Luckily the train person said something in Italian...which from what we understood, he assumed we had connecting train/already have had our ticket checked/validated so...we were good. We immedtialy got off at the Perugia PSG train station because sense we didn't have a valid ticket we wanted to get one. We found a train leaving in like 20 min going back to Perugia, well as we boarded the train and were on our way, Michelle P realized we were going in the wrong direction. Well we ended back in Assisi...the place we went to last Wednesday. So we immediately got off there because we didn't want to go any further. At this time we felt a little more at ease, I know I know...we aren't in the right spot. Except we are at a trainitalia station...oooo the train we had to take to Deruta was not a trainitalia...some weird like FCU thing...word of advice don't take it! It makes no sense!! lol

So we were in Assisi, we were about to find a train that left in 1 hour back to Perugia...so we felt much better! We finally got back to Perugia like at 1700, which we were so glad to be back to a place we knew. lol We had originally planned to go to this Mexican food restaurant that Michelle had found in Perugia, sense that was one of the main reasons we went to Perugia was to get Mexican food. Well after looking for it and finding out it was in the geto of Perugia we decided to just do pizza again that night for dinner.

That is about it for my weekend...seems like a lot when I think about lol

We did plan to go to...

Deruta...fail

Chocolate Factory...fail

Mexican food...fail

We did do Perugia which was a awesome town!! Just nothing you need two days for lol

Till next time!! Ciao!!

Relaxation...and dirty laundry

This week was a nice a relaxing week. We went back to Firenze on Wednesday to see the Duomo and go to a archeology museum which would have been so awesome if we would have gone to lunch then the museum. Instead of all of us being hungry and still going to the museum so we stayed for 30 min.

Classes were good this week, it is starting to get annoying with the fact that they don't completely have the entire semester planned out. Well...they kind of FINALLY have the semester planned but when we arrived they had no defiante dates on trips which made it very frustrating for us as students to plan our trips. It is all good now though because everything is done and we actually got a trip added for archeology to go to Verona! Which is very exciting! All the other classes are going good photography is really cool because we will develope our own film and choose which ones to develope into pictures. Plus the prof is a old man and is so funny!

Art history is werid...none of us know what is going on in that class because Paolo has not been feeling well so we have had like a sub...hopefully he will be back Tuesday. He is really funny and talks about just the key points. Mythology is interesting, we are right now learning about all the Gods from Romans and Greek. Because they all intertwine between each other, which makes it a little hard because they could have at least two different names.

Here is the picture of the shoes I bought in Sorrento for only 20 euros, and they are really cool because they are blue and shiny, and you can only get them in Italy!

This weekend we have just relaxed and re-cooped from this past week and weekend. We did laundry today which was really easy. Yes Nana, I did my own laundry in Italy! :) Also lesson learned, because we get a few laundry services with our program...but I forgot to read the part that said they don't separate your clothes...so my undershirts look like they have been cleaned in dirt.

I did my own laundry and I did separate my clothes out. What was interesting and freaky was getting back to campus. Because you can get a free shuttle service on certain days like Saturday. Well...Bruno is the guys name and we also met his wife and they are an adorable old couple that run the complex. Well they don't speak a lot of English so we communicated using hand signs, so we got a ride back to campus. Which was scary!!! We almost died!!! We couldn't scream though because we didn't want to freak him out...but o man! It does beat though climbing all the way back up the hill to campus.

This week is another just normal week, Wednesday we are going to Assis for our field trip. That will be cool! This next weekend we are going to try and go a few places and see Italy. Not sure exactly where but some where in Italy!

Ciao!