Barcelona!!!

Ok here we go...Barcelona (Barthelona). There is way too much to say about it. It was probably my favorite city so far - from the architecture, to the nightlife, to the museums and the people. Gina and I had such a great time, and she is my favorite person to travel with because she's really chill but active at the same time, and very easy to get along with.

Gina and I had a VERY ROUGH start to our trip. We have been planning it for a while. Our trip was supposed to be from Thurs to Monday (Monday we didn't have class because of Easter). I even missed one of my classes Thurs to get to get more time in BCN. Well guess what?!? We ended up missing our flight Thurs! We had to get to Pisa from Florence by train, and then from Pisa fly to Barcelona. Our flight was at 4, and we came out at 1, which was perfectly on time. Our train went to Pisa Centrale, and there was supposed to be another stop right after for Pisa Airport, but instead the train went to the next city. So we had to take it back to Pisa Centrale and then take another train to the airport. By the time we waited for two trains and got to the airport, we were not even close to boarding time (it was like 20 minutes after our flight departed). I think Gina is seriously bad luck because the week we went to Sicily she almost missed our plane as well. At that point we were so bummed and so stressed out. We came up to the ticket booth to ask when the next flight is and the woman told us we had to pay 110 euro just to change our flight. She also told us that the next flight was at 8:00 am the next day...so we figured we would just sleep at the airport and check in at 6 am. But then once we paid and I got my ticket, I looked and saw that it said 8 pm on the ticket. We showed the woman, and she started yelling at us that it's already been done and we can't change anything. She kept saying that she didn't say 8 am, but both Gina and I heard her. What a bitch! That meant we had to go back to Florence, and come back to Pisa the next day. Not only did we lose 100 euro, but we lost a full day in Barcelona. ugh

Gina decided to sleep over at my apt because she didn't want to face her host parents. But on the way back, we ran into her roommate, Casey, on the street and she was shocked to see us. Our plan for Fri night was to get lots of vino, go out, forget about our terrible day, and then sleep in the next day. We came back at like 3 am and slept until 1:30 (probably the longest I've slept this whole semester). On the way to the airport Fri, we almost missed our train to Pisa! Ahhh but we finally made it to the airport perfectly on time. Just when we thought our trip could not get any worse, all of Gina's liquids got taken away at the security check.

We decided that we should just forget about everything that has happened to us and enjoy our weekend in BCN. The plane ride was about an hour and a half, and then we had to take a bus for another 1.5 hours to get to the center of Barcelona. We made it to our hostel at like 12:30 at night. We were originally going to try out CouchSurfing, but that didn't work out cuz all the people we wanted to stay with were traveling that weekend. So we ended up booking a brand new hostel (Nest Hostel) that just opened up 3 days before we came. The staff there was soooo nice and helpful. There were three guys and two girls, and they were all so friendly and fun. I was sooo excited to speak Spanish with them!

Gina and I were starving so we decided to look for some food in the area. The neighborhood the hostel was located in was several stops from the center, so it was pretty dead. Nothing was open at that time. I asked some young couple in Spanish where we could find some food, and he told us everything was closed in this area. I got sooo excited when he talked with the lisp...it meant i was in Spain fo real!! We ended up just walking around some more and finally found a gyro place. I broke my passover fast on the second day because there was nothing to eat but gyros. We sat there for a while and watched funny latino videos on tv. They were playing "Boriqua, morena..." and Son by 4 "Give me back my fantasy" in Spanish hahaha. so old school. After our extremely late dinner we went to a bar in the neighborhood and got really delicious pina cooladas. The bartender asked us if we want them "strong like the real ones". We chilled upstairs and got back to our hostel around 3.

Gina and I were in separate rooms in the hostel. I was in a room with 10 people, and I was apparently the only girl there. When I got there that night, I was the only one in the room. Then in the middle of the night, a group of guys came into the room yelling and laughing really loudly. They were speaking in a language I couldn't identify...it sounded like Arabic. They were apparently really drunk and speaking like no one else was in the room except for them. I was so scared! I was surprised that no one else in the room was telling them to shut up, but that's because I was the only one in the room except for them! After about 5 minutes of just laying there waiting for them to shut up, I got enough guts to tell them. It got quiet for a little bit but then when when I fell back asleep I got woken up by them again. So I didn't get much sleep that night and I was really pissed off about it.

The next day, GIna and I woke up at 8:30 to get an early start on the Segrada Familia, Gaudi's masterpiece - a huge cathedral. The line swirled around several blocks to get inside. It was worth the time and money. The facade was incredible - it was the Passion scenes on the front, and the back of the building had the Nativity scenes. I loved the Passion facade because all the sculptures really conveyed emotion and suffering even thoough they were very abstract. The columns on the inside were CRAZY...they looked like huge trees souring up to the sky. The cathedral is still under construction for almost 100 years because Gaudi died and never got to finish it. He also left no blueprints so no one actually knows what the building is supposed to look like when finished. There was a museum inside the cathedral that explained the thought process behind Gaudi's work. Every design of his looks very organic and is based on nature. For the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi hung chains from the ceiling to make them look like upside down arches. Then he took a mirror and reflected the arches so they look like they are standing up...and that was how he came up with the design for the cathedral. so cool!

After that Gina and I walked around to the other Gaudi buildings (Casa Mila and Casa Batllo). Both of these houses had huge lines to go in, so we decided to pick only one of them to see from the inside. Casa Batllo had a really expensive entrance fee, but we got a free audio tour. The inside was so unique and very well worth the money. After that house we walked around some more streets and got to see other really really cool architecture, not by Gaudi. All the buildings in Barcelona were so interesting and unique. Then we walked to Las Ramblas, the most famous boulevard. It was filled with lots of shops and restaurants and tourists. We kept saying "scusi" and "grazie" by accident to people the whole entire day. It was so tough to switch from Italian to Spanish. We also found a real smoothie place on a st called "Princesa" but pronounced Printhesa...so awkward to say. We got so excited, cuz there aren't any smoothie places at all in Florence. We planned on getting breakfast there the next day.

After Las Ramblas, we took the metro to Montjuic castle, where there was a huge fountain that was moving to music. It was all lit up at night. Gina and I found it really funny because the music that they played was so corny.

We got back to the hostel at around 8:30 and played some pool (I kicked Gina's ass). Later on when I came back to my room, all the guys from last night were there. And they all apologized for waking me up. Oh and they weren't arabic, they were greek.

By the time we left for dinner, everything was closed again! We ended up getting shawarma in the center because that was the only place open at the time. After dinner, we went to a random bar for some drinks. It was very American, sort of like the Fish Pub. These random French boys came up to us and started talking to us even though they barely spoke any English. We told them we were Canadian, and they thought we were so cool. We invited them to go to a discoteque after, and they ended up paying the cover fee for us, which was 15 euro. The only downside was we had to dance with them the whole night. Thankfully the metro was running the whole entire night because we ended up getting back at around 5 am.

Sunday was a very chill day. After waking up, we took the metro to the Las Ramblas area and got our fruit smoothies on Princesa. Las Ramblas was extremely crowded because it was Easter Sunday. There were a bunch of people dressed in costume and a bunch of outdoor shops. I asked a woman how much one of her scarves costs and she answered "diethhhh". I had to ask her like ten times to repeat herself and finally I got that she meant - diez. oh that lisp. There was also a Spanish band playing music outdoors. They attracted a large crowd and a bunch of people bought their CD because they were so good and passionate. After watching the band for a while, we walked around the harbor and discovered some more very cool architecture. There were palm trees everywhere.

Then we went to the Picasso museum...it was free on SUndays and the line to get in went for several blocks. The museum had paintings from Picasso's earliest period when he was just an art student at age 15/16. His nude studies and portrait studies where incredible, and he was only 15 when he did them. It also had a series of work called "las Meninas" which is based on Las Meninas by Velazques. He took each figure in Velazques's famous painting and abstracted it numerous times. For most of them I was able to tell which specific figure in Las Meninas he was using even though it was very abstract. I also learned that Picasso was married four times and one of his wives was a Russian ballerina.

On our way to the museum I found a wallet underneath a car tire. I picked it up and tried to see if there is any contact number or identification. The person had all the important documents there, but no credit cards or money. We figured it was stolen and the person just threw it on the ground after taking all the important stuff out. There was no phone number there at all. We later brought it back to the hostel and one of the guys who worked there said he would take care of it. Later, he called up the woman's bank to see if he could get her phone number, and it turned out that the woman actually worked at that bank. So he told her what happened and that how two American girls found her wallet, and she was sooo thankful!

We missed dinner time yet again by accident, so I never really got to try authentic Spanish food :( After our extremely late dinner we went to this shots bar called Chupitos. It had hundreds of shots, with really crazy ingredients. Our first shot had an actual orange which the bartender lit on fire, then he poured the shot into the orange and we had to drink out of it. We met a guy there by the name of Cormellon Head, who's from Albany and is studying in Belgium. He spoke French almost fluently and had quite the personality. Me, Gina, Cormellon Head and his three friends took a shot together where we dipped our thumb into the alcohol and then the bartender lit our finger on fire! We had to put our flaming finger in our mouth and then take the shot. THere were some other shots where the bartender lit the whole table on fire...oh and the Monica Lewinsky shot...but I won't get into that.

After the bar closed at 2:30 and we got kicked out, Gina and I decided to go salsa dancing at the best salsa club in Barcelona, which was in the area. After paying a 10 euro cover fee, we walked in and did not expect what we saw. There were only couples dancing to real salsa, and they were all INCREDIBLE. It was like being at a latin dance competition. All the guys were such great dancers and most of them danced better than the girls. We felt really out of place even though we both took a latin dance class in high school and knew the basic steps. So far a while we were just sitting down and watching all the couples dancing. Then out of nowhere this really cute Spanish guy asked me to dance. I told him that I didn't know how to dance salsa in Spanish of course, but he said it's really easy and that he can teach me. So I was dancing with him the whole night (Gina was dancing with his friend) and it was very easy like he said. He was a great dancer and it was a lot of fun. I was surprised that I was actually able to hold a conversation in Spanish. I was also surprised that the Salsa club was open so late on a Sunday...Gina and I got back to the hostel at around 6:30 am.

The next day, Gina and I spent the entire time in Parc Guell, which is a beautiful park dedicated to Gaudi. It was nothing like we expected. It was huge, with so many palm trees and crazy cave looking architecture. It felt like we were in another world. The weather was perfect. There were a bunch of musicians there performing and selling their CDs. We were just walking around listening to them play. Most of them were pretty amazing, and they were so passionate about their music. We watched this one guy play the hang drum, which looks like a flying saucer. It was the coolest thing ever and the music was so calming...his name is Leonardo Trincabelli...i bought his CD :)

I went back to the hostel to get my stuff and say bye to the awesome staff. Gina stayed for an extra day because she got the wrong plane ticket by accident. So I had to fly by myself and then take a bus from Pisa to Firenze at 1 am. By the time I got back to Florence, which was around 3 am, there were no buses running and I didn't have enough money for a cab. So I had to walk home by myself, which took about 45 min. So scary!

Horseback riding through Chianti

A few weekends ago, Kathleen, Katelin, Gina and I decided to go horseback riding for a day trip. We all stayed in Florence that weekend and wanted to do some kind of day trip not too far away. Chianti is known as the wine country (where they make the best vino!) and it's only like an hour outside of Florence. We all got picked up by a van, and the driver drove us straight to the horse ranch. From there we got our horses, and had about a 2 hour tour through Chianti with a few other people. The riding was a little bit too slow for me...i thought we would be going much faster on the horses. But we pretty much kept the same slow pace the whole time. My horse kept stopping to eat some grass, which was strictly not allowed, but I felt bad kicking it and pulling the ropes to make it stop. I kept on getting yelled at by one of the staff people to keep going and not let the horse eat, which was funny. It was really nice weather, and the country was beautiful. When we got back, the guys who worked there bought us some snacks and took us to see a baby goat. It was so cute and we all got to pet it! Then we all drove to a castle where we had lunch near by. We had lunch at an authentic Italian restaurant with about 20 people, who were all part of the Chianti tour. We got to try three different kinds of wine - 2 red, and one white. All of them had such unique tastes, and our guide was explaining to us what you drink it with and where it came from. My favorite was the white wine from San Gimignano; it was amazing! We also had some pecorino cheese with the wine. The guide poured honey on the cheese, which i thought was really weird, but it turned out to be delicious. We also had some pasta samplers and some cookies for dessert. After our meal, we got back into the van and one of the guides drove us back. The staff were so nice, and the guy who was driving us was talking to us like we were his friends. He offered us a ride to the mall, and offered Katelin and Kathleen to stay with him for their last night in Florence (since our apartment is not going to be available then)...hmm..a little too nice. Overall it was a great day, and very relaxing.

Sicilia!!

(scroll down for pics)
Last weekend was my long awaited trip to Sicily that me, Kathleen, Jenah, Gina, and Casey have been planning for several weeks. Just a week before our trip there was a school organized trip to Sicily, and half the people's stuff got stolen on the overnight train. Their wallets, computers, cameras i-pods, and all that good stuff. Some guy got into people's compartments in the middle of the night and stole a bunch of the students' things. So after that incident Syracuse canceled anymore trips to Sicily. This was the last one.

We were kind of frightened by what happened to the other students, but that didn't stop us from going. Our trip was really intense and tiring, but well worth it. We booked plane tickets to fly into Palermo, which is northern Sicily. We wanted to see Siracusa...since we all go to Syracuse, but Siracusa is all the way in southern Sicily. There is also not much to see there in terms of touristy things. We also really wanted to hike Mt. Etna, which is the most active volcano in Europe. And Mt. Etna is pretty close to Siracusa (it's actually 3 hrs away, but at the time we thought it was pretty close). Gina and Casey made it to the airport literally 10 min before boarding because they got on the wrong train to Rome. We thought they were not gonna make it (it would have sucked because it was also Casey's birthday that weekend). We were all extremely happy that they made it. Our flight was about an hr and a half from Rome to Palermo. So we have planned beforehand to arrive in Palermo, and take the 3 and a half hr bus to Siracusa. Palermo is one of the biggest cities in Sicily, and it's pretty rundown trashed and gangsta, just how I like it. But we didn't get to see much of it. After we landed in Palermo at about 12 noon on Friday, we took a bus to the central bus station, and then another bus to Siracusa. We arrived in Siracusa around 7 pm. So basically we spent all of Friday traveling.

Once we got to Siracusa we went straight to the hostel. Our hostel was actually two apartments with a common area, kitchen, and several bedrooms. We got picked up at one of the piazzas by a guy and a girl who took us there and explained everything to us. They were both really nice and incredibly helpful, and the guy was GORGEOUS. They told us where the best places to eat were and what there is to do in Siracusa. They also gave us advice on how to get to Mt. Etna in the morning. Casey and Gina decided that they didn't want to hike Etna because Casey just wanted to have a chill and relaxing birthday. That was really shocking because the whole reason we came all the way to southern Sicily was to hike Etna. Friday night we had nice dinner at a Trattoria next to our hostel, and just decided to make it an early night. We didn't realize how small Siracusa was, but it's probably much smaller than Florence, and Florence is tiny.

Jenah, Kathleen, and I were on our own the next day. All three of us woke up at 5:30 in the morning to leave our hostel 6 on the dot (we had to make it for the 6:30 bus to get to Catania, which is the town right next to Mt. Etna). We actually did leave our hostel 6 on the dot, but we were not able to open the downstairs door...there's a certain method to do it and we werent able to figure it out for at least another 4 min. So at that point we were already running late, not to mention it took us another 5 min to orient ourselves and figure out exactly where to go to catch the bus. Jenah is a really intense person when it comes to traveling with her...she likes to wake up super early, rush through everything to see as much as possible in one given day, and not take any breaks. It's really fun traveling with her, but sometimes it's frustrating to keep up with her. So she was leading us to the bus and Kathleen and I were walking like 10 steps behind her. We knew we were running late but we didn't want to tell her until the latest possible minute because she would freak out and start sprinting. So when it got to be 6:27, Kathleen and I decided to ask her how close we were to the bus stop. She was like, "pretty close...why?!?" And we told her we only had like 3 minutes to get there. So she freaked out and we all started sprinting. The second we reached the bus stop, our bus came! So it was perfect timing!

It took about two hrs. Then we had to take another bus to get to Mt. Etna from Catagna which took about an hr. As we were going thousands of feet up the volcano, we were kind of surprised to find out that it was completely covered in snow and that people were skiing. We were not very prepared for the snow. We were all wearing sneakers that get easily wet. However, we all brought hat and gloves and wore many many layers because we knew it would be very cold there. We wanted to get a guide so we could go close to all the lava and craters and not get lost but guide tours were out of season, so we had to hike ourselves. We took a ski lift even higher up the volcano and started our hike from there. We went away from the ski areas and were in the middle of this beautiful landscape filled with snow, and the steaming volcano in close vicinity. We were so high up, we were literally above the clouds. We took some great pics!


The hike was very tough because it was uphill and through the snow. It was slippery and Kathleen's feet and my feet got soaking wet. On our way up we found an area of the volcano that was just covered with molten rock, no snow. The reason it had no snow was because it was steaming hot! There was actual steam coming out of the ground. Our feet warmed up right away, and when we sat down on the rock for a few seconds our butts started burning. It was the coolest thing ever.

So after we got a little warmed up we walked around some more, but our feet were in so much pain because they were soaking wet and freezing. Kathleen and I decided to go back to the lodge to dry our feet. Jenah's feet weren't as wet because she doubled her socks but she came back with us as well.

We sat for about 20 min drying our feet and then Jenah and I decided to go for round two. Kathleen's sneakers were made out of material as opposed to leather so they were still pretty soaked. She decided to chill in the lodge while we hiked around some more. We wanted to hike even higher closer to the part of the volcano with all the smoke. Since my feet didn't dry completely, they got completely soaking wet again in about twenty minutes. The sun was out and the snow became very slushy so that also added to the wetness. I was way behind Jenah and had a hard time keeping up because my feet were in so much pain. I kept on wanting to turn around but I knew how much she wanted to hike up so I didn't want to ruin her day at Etna. There was a point where i couldn't continue and Jenah gave me her dry socks (I will never forget that!). Since my sneakers were all wet inside, her socks got wet in a few minutes so it didn't really help. At that point, I had to turn around and walk back to the lodge because I literally felt I was gonna pass out from the pain. Jenah wanted to continue hiking on her own and I was very skeptical to leave her by herself. If anything would happen, no one would find her. We were literally in the middle of nowhere with no people around. But she kept on being persistent about it, so I went back by myself and she promised to call me every 20 min to let me know that she's ok. I felt like such a loser that I was not able to continue the hike. But I felt much better once I made it back to the lodge. I sat with Kathleen next to the heater, and we both ate lunch and put our socks and shoes on the heater. I noticed that Kathleen got a really bad burn on her face because of the sun and the snow reflecting it. She was wearing her headband and sunglasses so the sunburn came out really funny. I was wearing 70 spf on my face so I didn't get burned. It felt so good to take off my shoes and socks. Jenah came back about an hr after me, and by that time Kathleen's and my shoes were completely dry!


We took the ski lift back to the bus stop and we had about 45 min until the bus came. So we decided to go to a huge crater that was not far away from the stop. It was incredible and it was not covered in snow. Both me and Kathleen were in such a good mood now that our feet were dry. On our bus ride back, our driver was blasting Celine Dion the whole ride. And on our way there, our driver was also blasting music like Michael Jackson and the Beegies. Imagine the driver blasting music on a Greyhound bus?!..would never happen in the states.

That day was Casey's birthday, so after we got back from Mt. Etna we met up with her and Gina for dinner. We went to a really cute Sicilian restaurant. The waiter/owner kept bringing a bunch of appetizers for us to try that were delicious. Everyone in Sicily is sooooo nice, not like in Florence. Also, not that many people speak English. When we spoke to them in Italian they actually answered in Italian and appreciated our efforts. The owner gave Casey a kiss on the cheek cuz it was her birthday. Right before we were about to leave the owner put on music. We started singing to it because we knew the song, so he turned it up and started dancing to it. It was so funny. After dinner we went back to our apartments to sleep because we were all really tired and it was pretty late.

Sunday was a very lazy day. We got up around 10, left the apartments at around 11 and explored Siracusa. We had to be back at the apartments to meet the owner so we could pay her and give her the keys. For the most part we just chilled by the rocks and the beach. It was very relaxing to watch the waves hit the rocks and make a splash. We
went to a fish market as well and got to hold some really creepy looking swordfish.

We also got some gelato and then me, Gina, and Kathleen went to a ghetto playground and fooled around on the seesaw.

We took the bus back to Palermo,and then two other buses just to get back to the airport. We got there at around 8 30 pm and spent the night there because our check in was at 6 in the morning. During the entire night, we were all paranoid about our stuff getting stolen so 2 of us at a time took hour long shifts throughout the whole entire night. Gina and I had a shift from 1-2am and then from 4-5am. We played really funny games to keep us awake before going to bed like Cheepuxa, the blinking game, and the laughing game. Everyone really liked Cheepuxa and we got some really funny stories out of it. Our watchman shifts worked out really well and we managed somehow to make it through the entire night. It was a looong and tiring day/night. We finally checked in at 6 in the morning on Monday. We felt so gross and dirty by the time we got back to Florence. I was so happy to be back and take a normal shower. I had to go to class a couple hours after we got back.

My birfffday!!

My 21st birthday was on a Monday - first day of classes after spring break. So I thought everyone would be busy getting ready for school and recovering from their breaks. I decided to have dinner at a russian restaurant called Marina. I called and reserved for seven people in Russian. It was very exciting to have someone understand me in Italy! The owner told me that he could tell I lived in the states for a while because of the way I spoke. haha. But he was either from Georgia or Azerbajan and had the thickest accent himself! For dinner, it was me, Kathleen, Katelin, Gina, Jenah, Elena, and James (who came to visit my roommates for a week from Westchester). When we sat down at the table, a guy came in who was selling roses, so the owner bought me a rose! It was so cute! We also got a bottle of wine on the house! I had galuptsi sa smetanay and they were delicious!! Katelin had pelmeni sa smetanay, and Jenah had some zharkoye. They all really liked their food. Elena got me a tiara, and I wore it the whole night! After dinner my roommates and James went home and the rest of us went out to Yab, which is a club in the center. There was hip-hop night there and a bunch of breakdancers. We had a great time!

Amsterdam 3/11 - 3/15

Our train ride to Amsterdam took about 16 hours and it was a pain! I printed out the wrong part of the ticket so I didn't have my seat number. I was so scared I would get kicked off the train. I was in compartment with Kathleen, and Katelin was in another compartment with this Czech guy. Kathleen and I came over to Katelin's compartment to hang out because we still had like 3-4 hours before we should be goin to sleep. The guy, whose name is Vladimir, was a musician, in his 30s, and very good looking. He knew ten different languages because he has been traveling all over the world. He knows Czech, Eng, RUssian, Spanish, Italian, Serbian, Japanese, Arabic, and some other ones! He doesn't really have a permanent home since he hasnt stayed in one place for too long. He told us really crazy stories about how he hitchhiked across Germany and Japan. He said that it's not as dangerous to do it in Europe and that Germany was the easiest place to hitchhike in (good to know). He told us about the time him and his girlfriend tried hitchhiking in Italy and some drunk man picked them up. For some reason as they were sitting in the car, the man reached for a gun and Vladimir and his gf just opened the doors and rolled out of the car. Vladimir sounded like he knew a lot about life and he gave some good advice.

After a few hours of talking kathleen and I went back to our own compartment and tried to fall asleep. It was just us two at first, but then around midnight our train stopped in Berlin and a bunch of people came into our compartment. It's really hard to sleep when you're sitting squished in between strangers. So I did not get much sleep that night.

The first day in Amsterdam we went to the zoo and aquarium. The zoo was not that impressive. Definitely no where close to the Bronx zoo. there were just a bunch of animals in very tiny, not so animal-friendly environments. The fish in the aquarium were beautiful with very cool patterns. Why do they need such bright colors and such beautiful geometric patterns? I was very inspired by their designs and want to do a series of paintings on fish patterns...haha we'll see how that works out. After, we just walked around a bit, stopped by a coffee shop - Bluebird, and then by 7 we came back to the hostel. All of us fell asleep by accident until the morning.

The next day Olga came and I was very excited! Before she came though, my roommates and I went to the Rembrandt house. It did not have any of his paintings, just his etchings. They were soooo amazing! He did not try to idealize people, but drew them the way they actually were. He was not afraid to emphasize people's not so pretty features. Many of his etchings were tiny...like 1 or 2 sq inches. I took my time looking through all of them and making some sketches. My favorite was the one of Adam and Eve in the Garden. Both of them are not so hot, especially Eve who has really frizzy hair and a saggy tummy. I also got a better idea of how an etching is made.

When Olga finally came, we walked around the redlight district. We ran into Zach...how random! He was there for spring break, and he's not even studying abroad. It took us a while to find the windows where prostitutes just line up and stand there. We walked into these narrow, creepy alleyways by accident, and that's where all of them were. Those streets were all filled with men, and it was pretty frightening walking there at night. That area is supposed to be the safest in Amsterdam though because there are so many cops there.

Olga and I also looked for a bridge that was supposed to have a really nice view of the canals at night. We walked through a bunch of canals, really pretty castles, and brightly lit up streets to get there. We had a little photoshoot on the way since Olga had her prof slr cannon. We walked around so much that day and were extremely tired by the end. We had some shoarma for dinner and then went to check out the nightlife in Leidseplein Sq. That whole area was filled with bars and clubs. Olga and I just decided to go from one place to the next to the next, since none of them had cover charges. The first place that we went to had "macarena" blasting as we walked in. That was definitely a plus! We decided to leave our coats at the coatcheck there so we wouldn't have to worry about carrying them around the whole night. Then we went to another club that had a bunch of people standing outside waiting to get in. They all looked pretty young, probably younger than us. Once you enter the club, the bouncer tells you to lean your head back and pours a shot in your mouth before you enter. We danced around there for a bit. Olga spotted someone she thought was cute...an emo boy who looked like a girl and was probably like 17 yrs old. typical.

We just hopped around from place to place and spoke Russian most of the night. Every single place we went to charges at least 50 cents to use the bathroom. So annoying! there aren't free bathrooms anywhere in Amsterdam! When we got back to the hostel we couldn't get our door to open. We kept on ringing the doorbell even though it was like 3 in the morning. But no one would open the door for us. Then Olga just pushed the door and it opened right away. So it was open the whole time, and we felt so stupid.

The next day was very eventful. Olga and I split up from Kathleen and Katelin because we wanted to walk to the Van Gogh museum, but they wanted to take the tram. On our way there we found some really cute shops and a flower market. There was also a Christmas store with pretty decorations and different ornaments. The Van Gogh museum was amazing! It had three levels. THe very top was dedicated to his art friends, artist of his time, and artists that inspired him, such as post-impressionists. Then the other floor were all his paintings and some drawings. His career only spanned 10 years and he produced about 800 paintings. The bottom level was dedicated to his fascination with twilight. It had a bunch of paintings of dusk and dawn, and of course included his most famous piece, Starry Night.

After the museum, Olga and I were really overwhelmed by all the art, so before going to the masterpieces museum, we decided to take the tram and bus to see a windmill. The windmill was in the middle of the city...it was bizarre. We took some pics by it and left after about ten minutes. Then we took the bus and tram back to the museum area and went to the Rijksmuseum. We saw some Rembrandts and Vermeers, but other than that I wasn't really impressed with it. I learned that Vermeer only produced like 30 paintings in his lifetime that we know of.


After, we walked around for like 2 hrs trying to find a cheap dinner. All the places were extremely expensive. We found this one block filled with cute restaurants. Amsterdam has any type of food you can ever want...Indonesian, indian, mexican, chinese, thai, japanese...but we couldn't find any Dutch food! Everything was over 20 euro. So we ended up settling for some cheap stirfry from a chain Chinese take-out, and it was GROSS!!

We finally came back to the hostel for a little bit and then went out in Rembrandt Plein. We wanted to have a chill night, we just went to a coffee shop for a beer. There was a Russian couple sitting in front of us, and we were trying to guess their names. We came to the conclusion that it's probably Svetlana and Veetya. The bouncer in the coffee shop randomly came up to us and told us that he met us last night at another club. He also said that we were speaking Spanish to him (but i think it was Italian). I dont remember any of that eeeeek. The coffee shop was playing really hilarious music like Baby One More Time and the Gypsy Kings. After the coffeeshop we got some ice cream and walked home.

The next morning, we went to a few outside markets and then to the Sex Museum. There were a bunch of old men there walking around which was kind of creepy. Olga left around 2 pm and I went back to the hostel to meet up with Kathleen and Katelin.

some of my artwork from this semester

This is my big painting I was working on up until mid semester, and some other little studies/sketches. I don't know if you can tell, but it's really big! Our assignment was to pick an object and develop a concept based on that object. It was a long process just developing my idea and experimenting with a lot of different stuff (you could see some of the experiments i did on the small canvases below my painting). My object was a flower...as i was making a study of it, it just died on me. so then i decided to go along with the concept of life and death/vulnerability and really capture flowers in their dying stages. I used a lot of texture - i made a really really really thick layer of gesso and glued flowers all over the canvas. then i painted over the flowers with gesso and white oil paint. All the pigment that you see on the flowers is their natural pigment as they dry up...no colored paint was added!!
Sorry these pics came out kinda dark. I'll try photoshoping them later.

March 9th in Praha

So I've been doing a pretty good job blogging during this break surprisingly. Today my roommates and I decided to wake up early and go on a tour of the castle. We had to meet our tour guide at 10:50 by the astronomical clock again. The day was perfect in the morning...very sunny but pretty chilly. It was this young Czech woman and she was a pretty good tour guide. I asked her if many people in Prague still speak Russian and she said that her parents do and she learned it because she likes how it sounds. She told us that Prague has four main types of architecture - Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque. I first thought the castle would be really old-fashioned looking - like in Gothic style, but it turned out to be mostly Baroque. My favorite fact that I learned today was that Rococo actually means sea shell in Italian!! And all Rococo architecture has sea shells on the buildings. Why didn't our art history professors ever tell us such a vital fact?? We weren't actually allowed to go into the castle, but we got to see the changing of the guards which was pretty cool. We also went into St. Vitus cathedral which was right next to the castle. It is in the gothic style, and is considered the most important Church in the country. We learned about the legend of St. John of Nepomuk, who was buried there. He refused to tell the secrets of the queen of Bohemia, and was thrown off the bridge because of that. Legend says that when he was thrown off the bridge, people could see stars in the water. Many years later when Catholics dug up his grave to check for signs that a miracle has occured, they found his tounge completely intact because he did not spill out the Queen's secrets (usually the tounge completely decomposes). Later they realized that the tounge was actually the brain, which decomposed, turned into mush, and then fell down into his jaw! Yuck!

Then we just walked around and got a really nice view of Prague from the castle hill. We saw a bunch of other soldiers walking by, and one of them was smirking at us when we took a picture of him. How unprofessional of him. And when we were leaving the castle, one of the guards that was guarding it (standing very still like the guards at Buckingham Palace) was falling asleep while standing! Once we left the castle it started drizzling and then hailing! And it was sooo cold!
We then went to a toy museum right next to the castle after our tour. the museum had very creepy dolls and many toys from the 1900s. There were a bunch that looked like devils and ones that were doing really scandalous things. the museum also had a huge barbie collection. We saw spice girls Barbie dolls, 90210 dolls, Skipper, and Barbie's best friend Midge (who is not as pretty as Barbie because of her freckles and her not-so-hot face). All the toys brought back many childhood memories.
Then we got rained on some more as we were walking back to the metro. As we were walking some guy randomly ran up to Katelin and jumped under her umbrella, and then I offered my umbrella to one of the other people from his group. They were completely drenched!
When we got back to the hotel, we wanted to go to some kind of music venue, like a concert, ballet, or Jazz club but when we looked into it online, we discovered that everything is closed on Mondays. We ended up just going to dinner and then a few drinks afterwards. We got thai food and it was delicious!! I got this soup called Tom Ca Koong, and it was with prauns, coconut, and some spicy stuff. soooo goood. and then me, Kathleen, and Katelin split an amazing chocolate cake. I'm going to add pictures when I come back from break, so keep checking back!