Fun times in Florence, St. Moritz, and Como Lake!

Last week was wonderful!! I got to hang out with my parents in Italy, we went to museums and ate lots of good food!! The museums weren't my favorite part but spending time with my parents is always a good time! I discovered that at least every other picture in the Uffizi is of "Madonna and Child". They apparently didn't have many topics to choose from when creating art!

Thursday was the first meeting of our cooking club! We made tagliatelle, ravioli filled with ricotta and spinach, and gnocchi! We also made ragu, pesto, and tomato sauce! It all provided for a nice lunch! :) I think the cooking club is going to be a good time!

Friday, I did super exciting homework!!!! Okay, so it wasn't really exciting but I had to get it done so that I could go on the trip on Saturday and Sunday!!

Saturday morning we left for St. Moritz...we had to be at the bus at 4:30 in the morning! Totally worth it though!! The weekend was filled with A LOT of sitting on busses and trains, however the views were amazing!! We rode the bus to Tirano, Italy. It was a cute town, with beautiful views of the Alps. From there we got on the train and rode through the Swiss Alps to St. Moritz. The views were sooo gorgeous!! The fresh air was nice too (we were all in our fleeces and scarves but rode with the windows down the whole way). Since, I'm not good at describing let me just show you some pictures...

Once we got into St. Moritz and put our bags in the hotel all of the shops and a lot of the restaurants were closing...it was 5/5:30...on a Saturday!! We did find some hot chocolate and a chocolate shop though!! That night we got a traditional Swiss meal. It was really good!! We had tagliatelle noodles in a cream sauce with mushrooms (I actually ate most of the mushrooms too!! They weren't slimy and they were covered in cream sauce so they were pretty good!) The second course was turkey in gravy and french fries (I think we all know I enjoyed that course!). The dessert was chocolate mousse. I could only finish half of that though, it was pretty big bowl and the first two courses were pretty big as well, plus we had hot chocolate and a little bit of chocolate already! (So, it wasn't the healthiest day ever!) After dinner we basically went to our rooms and passed out! Our rooms were pretty nice, when we first got there it kind of resembled a dorm room, however, the beds had feather beds on them and really nice pillows!! It was a good sleep!!

The next day we woke up early and went down to breakfast at 7:30. I had really good croissants (yes I had more than 1). We got on the bus and drove back into Italy. We went to a town called Varenna. From there we took a ferry to Bellagio. We didn't have very much time to walk around so we went to a villa and walked around and looked at the trees, plants, and more views of the Italian alps. After leaving Bellagio we took another ferry to Como Lake area. We had a couple of hours there, except for our lunch took two hours. It was a good lunch though and we sat outside and watched the lake and the scenery. It was a very big scenery trip with very gorgeous scenery!! After Como Lake we headed back to Florence.

Now I have a couple more days of classes and I'm off to Rome to see my parents again!! I definitely feel very lucky!!!

Amalfi Coast!!

This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Amalfi Coast!! It was sooo pretty!! I had so much fun seeing new places and meeting new people!!

It took a seven hour bus ride to get there and seven hour bus ride to get back! We stayed in Sorrento in these little bungalows. I didn't end up getting to stay with my friends who I went with but instead stayed with five other girls. They were nice but very sloppy!! We didn't explore Sorrento very much except for just walking around!

We went to Capri on Friday. We started the day out with a very intense hike, my legs still hurt!! There was a really good view at the top but oh how I hated it on the way to the top!! We started at ocean level climbing up many, many stairs and then started the actual hike (but lets face it...I was tired by the time we reached the start of the actual hike!) and then climbed to over 3,000 feet. It was a very steep hike to the top!! After the hike we went on a boat ride around the island. I loved how blue the water was!! We got to jump in and swim in the water for awhile. After getting back in the boat are boat driver reached into the water and picked up one of the non stinging jelly fish so people could feel it, he then proceeded to throw the jelly fish into my lap!! I held the jelly fish after that, it was very very slimy!! But, I can now say that I held a jelly fish!! In Capri we also went into this area called the Blue Grotto. The water was by far the bluest water I have ever seen!! It was awesome!! After the Blue Grotto we went and hung out the beach. It was pretty but instead of sand it was very rocky!!

The next day we went to Positano! That was my favorite place on the Amalfi Coast that we visited!! I loved it!! It was so beautiful!! The beach was black sand (and more rocks, also black) Whenever we went into the water I just kept staring at the coast line!! I love the way it looks with all the buildings built up on the mountain sides!! The water again was wonderful and I was still so excited to be swimming in the Mediterranean Sea!! Loved it!! After laying on the beach and swimming we walked around the stores and explored the city. It was an awesome day!!

On Sunday we went to Pompeii. It was very interesting!! It was hard to believe that it was actually a city at one time and it was very impressive how well the structures have held up after so many years!! It was very easy to get lost because there were not a lot of street signs. We had the map labeling all the spots but without labels in the city itself we got lost a lot!!

Today I went to the top of the Duomo with my parents!! So many stairs to climb but oh so worth it!!! It had the best views of the city!! You could see everything!! it was gorgeous!!!

The past few days have been sooo great and I am so glad I get to spend some time with my parents!!!

Journey to Ikea

We've spent the weekend in Florence doing homework, exploring, looking at the different shops, getting fresh food at the Mercato Centrale, and walking around San Lorenzo Mercato. Today with Sam and Gen being gone, Lindsay, Stu, and I decided to venture to Ikea! We read in the LdM orientation booklet that we could get on 29 A, 29 B, or 30 to get to Ikea and on weekends we could get to Ikea for free. We found a bus on route 30 and got on. We rode around for over an hour without finding Ikea. As it turns out, people from the bus company periodically get on the bus and check for tickets. Turns out we weren't on the free bus for Ikea! Instead we got fined 45 euro each for not having tickets. Bus tickets cost 1,20 euro. That was fun!! We then found the right bus for Ikea which as it turns out doesn't have any numbers and instead says: Ikea in big letters where the route number would normally be! Yea!! Live and learn!!

Time for classes!

We started classes on Monday. It was nice to have the few days before to get to know the city a little better but then we didn't want school to start!!

Last week orientation was split up among the different groups. Two of my roommates, Gen and Sam, had orientation on Thursday and thenLindsayand I had orientation on Friday. It was basically just informational, we found out about clubs, classes, trips, and Florence laws. This weekend we went to the Boboli Gardens and the Ponte Vecchio. The Boboli Gardens were very pretty. There was so much to see but by the time we got there we were all very tired. We will definitely be going back to explore some more!! Luckily we did force ourselves to climb up the HUGE hill (we also all complained the whole way up!) and came upon a gorgeous view of the city!!

(the view from the Boboli Gardens)

The Ponte Vecchio was so cool!! I love the way it looks with all the shops on it and I love the view of the river from it with the city on both sides!! For those of you that do not know, the Ponte Vecchio was the only bridge in Florence to survive the raids on the city during World War II. I didn't go into any of the shops but they are all looked very expensive!! (surprisingly, besides window shopping, I have not done any shopping that did not involve groceries, school supplies, or like shampoo and conditioner!!)

(me on the Ponte Vecchio)

On Monday classes started. I had Italian and event planning. I am a little bit nervous as to how Italian is going to go. I like that it is a smallclass but there is almost no English spoken so I have to piece the different things my teacher is saying together. I am very excited about event planning. The professor has a lot of experience from owning her own event planning company and also teaches at a few other universities in addition to LdM. Tuesday I had visual merchandising. Soo excited for that class. The professor is an older lady who has had a lot of experience with visual merchandising but then decided she wanted to teach young people. We will be going on some visits to different stores and also be looking at a lot window displays around Florence. Today I had art history. I am excited about the visits to the different museums to have someone actually explain them to me. I am not excited about the research paper that goes along with it! I also had Italian again, which I am still not excited about!).

Last night we went to a festival. I am not sure exactly what it was called or why they had it but it looked really cool. All the kids carry lanterns that they made. Some of them were really cute. What wasn't cute was that the kids also had these long straws that they spit papers through. They were like spit balls without being wet.

(all the lanterns!! the butterfly one was my favorite!!)

Finally I'm here!!

I left Springfield Tuesday afternoon around 1 and flew to Chicago and then on to Frankfurt. Everything went well until I got to Frankfurt and had to go through customs causing me to get to my gate 7 minutes after my plane took off!! I got put on standby for the next flight which was leaving at 11:30. I didn't get onto that flight either. At that point I met a guy named Joe who was in the same situation. We got put on standby for the next flight which was leaving at 12:35 which wasn't so bad. Only an hour to wait until we went and talked to the guy at that gate. He told us we most likely weren't going to make the flight because there wouldn't be enough seats. That's when we went to the service desk and told them what was going on and told them we just wanted to get to Florence. They gave us seats on the 4:00 flight. After spending 8 hours in the Frankfurt airport (when I was only supposed to spend 1 hour there!) I was ready to be in Florence. It's a pretty short plane ride between Frankfurt and Florence (about 1 and a half hours). I got to Florence and got all my luggage and then caught a cab to go check in and pick up my apartment keys. After that I took my luggage and walked to my apartment. Of course I passed my apartment right up and walked a couple extra blocks! I felt brilliant!! After that my roommates and I and some of the girls in the apartment by ours went out to eat. I had some yummy Italian pizza. I was very ready for bed though by the time we got back and pretty much passed out until 2:30 in the afternoon. There was a little bit of time in there where I couldn't sleep though. Two of my roommates had orientation today so they were getting back around the time I got out of the shower. So after everyone was ready we just went and walked around and I bought a couple of groceries!