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!

March 8th

Yesterday was a very educational day for us in Prague. First we got a tour of the Jewish ghetto and then Kathleen and I went to the Communist museum. We woke up around 11 and booked a tour of the Jewish ghetto online. We figured it would be much more meaningful for someone to explain to us what everything is since I don't know much about the Czech Jews and my roommates don't know much about Jews in general. The Jewish quarter is the biggest and most impressive Jewish ghetto in all of Europe. The tour started at the astronomical clock (a medieval clock which is a big tourist attraction now-a-days). Our tour guide was named George (he had some really complicated name in Czech, but he told us to call him George). He kind of reminded me of Agaustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate factory. We were the only ones on the tour so we were able to ask a lot of questions. We learned a lot about the Czech jews and the conditions they were living under throughout the centuries. There were always good periods and bad periods. THe good periods were always when the Protestants ruled, and the bad periods were always when the Catholic Church ruled. The Jews were put into a ghetto during the Catholic rule (i think in the 1300s), were made to wear yellow hats, and were not allowed to leave the ghetto at night. We also went to the Spanish Synagogue which looked very Sephardic and had architecture that looked like it was influenced by the Middle East. It was filled with intricate decorations and gold everywhere. There was also a Jewish museum that showed a bunch of world famous Jews from the Czech Republic...such as Kafka. Then we went to a memorial for the thousands of Jews killed in Prague (only 10% of the Prague Jewish population survived the Holocaust!). The memorial was in the Jewish synagogue and all of the walls were filled with names of the victims, the town they were from, and the date they were deported. The names took up all of the first floor and second floor of the synagogue. It was crazy to visually see all of the names written out because we could actually get an idea of how many people perished, as opposed to just getting a numerical statistic. It took the people about 15 years to come up with a list of all the victims and another year and a half to write all of the names out.
We also went to the old Jewish cemetery. It was filled with gravestones very close together and from all different time periods. Because there was not enough space to bury the dead, the Jews stacked bodies on top of bodies over time. There were about 12 levels of graves. Our tour guide told us that if you look at the symbols depicted on the graves, you could figure out their family name. For example...A pair of hands is Cohen, a water pitcher is Levy, a rose could be Rosenthal or Rosenstein. Modern jewish names are mostly german translations- so families with the words "Gold" or "Silver" like Goldberg or Silverstein were bought to elevate their status hundreds of years ago. Jews wanted to have German last-names so they could fit into society better and be more respected.
The tour was a bit overwhelming. The tour guide presented way too much information, but a lot of it was things I knew from before. George thought that we were at the beginner level of Jewish knowledge (which my roommates definitely were) so he didn't present us with too many complicated facts. After the tour, we went to get some hot chocolate and then Katelin went home because she didn't feel well, and Kathleen and I went to the Communist museum. It was a lot of reading but it had some really interesting info about communism in Czechoslovakia. It had different artifacts like communist books, old bike, a big scary suit in case there was a nuclear attack. THere was also this blackboard with a homework assignment and poem from the teacher in Russian about some girl feeding geese and cows. There was a short documentary as well that included very graphic footage of protesters against the regime. It showed people getting beat up and harassed by the Commies. One British man was trying to get footage of the protest and a commie ripped out his film. There was also a 20 yr old student who lit himself on fire to protest the regime and died from his burns. After the museum, we walked back to the hostel, got some food at the supermarket for dinner, and just chilled at the hostel for the night.

Praha - first few days (March 7th)

After a very stressful and hectic midterms week, it was time for spring break!! Me and my two roommates -Kathleen and Katelin made plans to go to Prague and Amsterdam several weeks before. Kathleens birthday was this Saturday, and so was Gina's, so Gina decided to meet us in Prague for literally a day to have a double birthday bash! My roommates left on Fri March 6th, but I booked my plane ticket for Sat because it was twice as cheap. So me - the girl who gets lost everywhere - decided to travel to a country all by myself. I had to take the bus, a train to Rome, then from Rome a train to the airport, and then from the airport a bus to the hostel. Crazy right! I made it in one piece and managed to not even get lost...well maybe a little. I had to ask a bunch of people for directions though. I also discovered that i now have a phobia of flying from my traumatizing flight to Florence in January. When the plane started to take off to Prague, I started tearing up a little because i was so scared. And then when it was landing, i was asleep so it wasn't too bad. Our plane had a huge group of Italian highschoolers who were being very obnoxious. THey were screaming during take-off and cheering and yelling through out the whole flight...which didn't really help my phobia. Oh and when I got to Prague, and I had to take the metro to the hostel I didn't really know which direction to take it so I just jumped on a train and asked some random old man if I'm going the right way in English. He didn't understand me so I changed to Russian...and he was like.."oy ti Ruskaya da?" And I was hesitant to say yes because I heard they don't reeally like Russians there. But he was very very nice, and helped me out. He also wished me to have a very great trip.
So I finally met up with my roommates and Gina at the hostel and we decided to get some sushi that was right around the corner. Gina and I walked in there and looked at the menu and it was waaaay overpriced. California rolls for like 20 Euro. We thought we would be eating like kings in Prague since 1 Euro is equal to 28 in Czech money. Talk about inflation! We decided to look for another place to eat but every restaurant we passed the menu was in Czech and we couldn't understand it at all. We were trying to look for a place that had English translations and we finally found one. But it was pretty much like a diner with American food.
After dinner we decided to go crazy since we had two birthday girls who just turned 21! First, we went to a local bar right next to our hotel. The drinks were extremely cheap so we just chilled there for a bit. Then around 12:30 we hit up the discotech, which is supposed to be the best in Prague. The discotech was sooooo much fun. The DJ was incredible...it was American music (but really good american music you could actually dance to). And the most surprising thing was that noneof the guys were being sleezy. They were just minding their own business. so us girls were just having a ball dancing and not having to worry about anyone disrupting our time. Gina had to catch the plane at around 6 am, so we ended up leaving around 3:30 so she could get a taxi to the airport. On the walk back Katelin and I were walking behind Gina and Kathleen and all of a sudden we lost them because we didn't see them turn a corner. Katelin and I didn't really know where we were going and everything looks so different at night..After a while we found our hostel, but we were too embarrassed to tell Kathleen and Gina what happened to us, so we just said we stopped by at a bathroom and that I had to tie my shoe. We decided to sleep in the next day...

Venice and the weekend after (Feb 13)

Ugh there's too much to say about Venice and not enough time to write all of it. I'm gonna try to keep it brief. So there were six of us going to Venice...me, Jenah, Kristina, Trish, Lindsay, and Elaine. We all reserved a hostel several weeks in advance. but when we got there (mind you it was Fri the 13th) it turned out that we reserved for March instead of Feb by accident. Carnivale is the busiest time of the year so all the hostels were completely booked. We all started freaking out and coming up with places we could possibly sleep at...like the train station or the boats. Then the guy, Gustavo, who works at the hostel, was being extremely nice to us, and told us that we could have one room. We agreed even though we knew it would be extremely uncomfortable. We had one big mattress for six people to sleep on. That mattress may have been big enough for three people to comfortably fit, but definitely not 6! So we were all spooning for two nights. We didn't have any space to even shift an arm...but at least it was nice and warm. Btw, Gustavo charged us the full price, 27 euro (which is more expensive than most nice hostels charge). But we were just happy to have something...he could have easily told us to get lost.

Usually me, Jenah, and Elaine would split up from the other three girls because it's too hard to walk around with 6 people. I did more walking in one day than i have ever done. We literally walked from 9 am to 1 am without even returning to our hostel. The first day (Fri) was beautiful because it wasn't carnivale yet, so it wasn't as crowded as the next two days. We were able to walk around and enjoy ourselves without being bothered by thousands of tourists. Jenah and I separated from the other three girls after lunch and we went to the main piazza (San Marco). There we went to the church, which was incredible, but a bit overdone. There was sooo much detail on it...sculptures and gold all over the place, and all the columns were extremely intricate. Then we just walked around and got lost a bunch of times. Jenah is great to travel with. She's very entertaining, funny, and easy going. We met up with the other girls for dinner and had some 5 euro pizza (we each had a whole pie). It was amazing! I dont think authentic Italian food exists in Venice. Everything was way too touristy and overpriced. It took us about an hr just to find that one pizza place that was decently priced. Then Elaine joined us after dinner (she arrived in Venice much later because she took the wrong train twice!). Venice doesnt really have any nightlife as well. We went to a pub in Piazza Margherita but everyone in the piazza was just chillin outside even though it was like 30 degrees outside.




The next day was Carnivale and it was crazy, and touristy, and so much fun. Jenah, Elaine, and I walked around some more. There were thousands of people EVERYWHERE. you could not escape the crowds, even in the tiny little streets. I got some hot vino on the street but it was kind of weird. Jenah got some coffee, and the woman put salt in it by accident, instead of sugar. It tasted soooo nasty. Jenah went back and told the woman, and she didn't believe her until she tried it herself. The theme of Carnivale was 6 senses, so all around Venice they would have an area that focused on one of the senses. The one we were concerned about was Taste of course. However, by the time we made it to that area, all the free food was gone. They were giving out free wine and a bunch of other stuff, but we missed all of it because we arrived literally twenty minutes after it started. I purchased a bag of confetti (that's an italian word btw...i never knew that). We were hanging out in San Marco, drinking wine, taking pictures with people in crazy costumes, and throwing confetti everywhere. After we used up our whole bag of confetti, we just collected a bunch from the ground and reused it. THen at night, there was a crazy dance party outside in one of the smaller piazzas. A lot of people were dressed in costume and they were dancing to techno beats. Obviously we joined them and it was so much fun!




On Sunday, it was even more crowded than Sat, so we just walked around and barely took any pictures. Jenah and I took the local train back, where we had to transfer in Balogna. The train was really packed and Jenah ran in to find seats. She found two, but this old man told her in Italian that they were taken, and she told him that he's not allowed to save seats on the train. So we sat down there anyway. The two people who he was with sat down across from us, and he stood because there were not enough seats. So then Jenah and I felt really guilty and awkward for making an old man stand. After debating for a few min, we finally got up and told him to sit down. From Venice to Balogna we had to stand the whole time (over 2 hrs). At least our conscience was clear. We thought we would be able to take a nap on the train since we got very little sleep that whole weekend, but that didn't happen.

This weekend was kind of blah. I didn't travel anywhere. Friday I had a site visit to Siena with my Masterpieces of Art class. It was ok...we went to a few churches as always and just walked around a bit. Siena is really beautiful, and I'm sure it would have been a great trip if I had friends going with me. I don't really know anyone in that class except for this girl Emily, so it wasn't as fun as it could have been. Then Saturday I just relaxed, Skyped, and went to the painting studio to get some work done. Sunday I wanted to go do some site seeing but my roommates have been sleeping in the whole weekend so I couldn't count on them to go with me. Yesterday, Katelin woke up at like 2:30 pm and today she was still sleeping when I left at almost 1 pm. So I decided to hang out with Emily (not the one who is in my masterpieces class...but she is Jackie's good friend from home). It was the first time we hung out outside of class and we had a really fun time! We went to the Pitti Palace, which is the palace where the Medicis and the Grand Dukes used to live. It had a bunch of really beautiful artwork that they collected over many generations. The palace was huge and each room was crazy decorated with beautiful frescoes and gold sculptures on the ceilings. Emily and I then went to the Boboli Gardens, which are right outside of the palace. They also belonged to the Medicis. The gardens were beautiful but I could only imagine how much nicer they will look in the spring time when everything is blooming. The second we entered, it got gray outside, so that was really disappointing. I'll definitely have to come back next month, especially because it's free to get in. On our way back there was a carnival going on in Piazza Signorina. there were so many people, and confetti everywhere! There were also these performers doing some crazy tribal dances on stage.

Romaaaa

2/12/09 Sorry I haven't updated in such a long time! Last weekend I was in Rome for my painting class/All School Trip. A bunch of my friends went including Casey, Gina, and Elena. Our school trip was only for 2 days, one night, but those girls and I decided to extend for an extra day. So we booked a cheap hostel all together. We took the train to get to Rome at about 7:30 am, and it took about 2 hrs to get there. We had a very tough day on Fri. From the train station, we drove directly to the Vatican museums. We walked around the museums, which were absolutely stunning. I saw works by Rafael, Carravagio, and of course Michelangelo. There was a room filled with Raphael paintings and I was blown away by them. You could really see how his style developed over the years (he died in his late 30s). Our tour guide told us very interesting facts about the works. I didn't know that Raphael pretty much developed the sfumato technique. He was so good that Michelangelo was threatened by him. He was also very well liked..unlike Michelangelo, and a huge womanizer (his death was caused by excessive sex one night and caused him to develop a fever!). The last piece that he painted, The Transfiguration, which was in the Raphael Room, was sooo beautiful and inspiring because of the lighting and the emotional quality. Our tour guide started with the Middle Ages, then to the Renaissance, and then moved onto Carravagio's work. Carravagio's figures look like they could actually be real people unlike Michelangelo's very ideal looking figures. Mary was always portrayed as a young woman even when her son was in his late 30s...but Carravagio used realism and made her look an appropriate age. Carravagio was dirt poor all of his life and constantly used homeless people as his models.
And then of course there was the Sistine Chapel. When we walked in, it took me a few moments to realize that we were actually standing in the Chapel because it was so small! I imagined it to be much bigger. The entire room was packed and so many people were taking pictures, which really made me upset. Our tour guide went through most of the biblical stories on the ceiling. There is a tiny rectangular section on the ceiling which shows a piece of the fresco before it has been restored, and it is almost black. I found it interesting that Michelangelo tried to reconcile the Old Testament with the new one...on one side of the wall there were images from the Old Testament, and on the other wall there were images from New Testament. He did not portray the Jews in a negative way like they were usually portrayed at the time.

Then after the Vatican, we were supposed to go to St Peter's but our painting teacher decided to take 8 of the painting students to a contemporary art museum. I was very pissed that I did not get to see St. Peter's. The art museum turned out to be very un-impressive (compared to the MOMA of course).

We had a very chill night. Me and a few other people had a very nice dinner around the area where the Pantheon was. Then we just went back to our hotel. I stayed with Gina, who also goes to Syracuse..I didn't know who she was before Florence but we became pretty good friends.

The next day we went to the ancient Roman ruins and the Coliseum. One thing that I loved about Rome is you walk around this thriving metropolis and all of a sudden you come across ancient ruins right in the middle of the city where people live in modern buildings. It's just sooo weird and I had no idea that it was like that. The Coliseum was very impressive of course, and I learned a lot about the ancient Romans from our tour guide. Did you know that the Romans had over 100 holidays a year and people would come to the coliseum for entertainment for the whole entire day for these holidays. When there were games going on at the coliseum, the city was completely dead (this was almost every other day...crazy!).

We also saw the arch of Titus, which commemorated the seizure of Jerusalem, expulsion of all the Jews, and the beginning of the Diaspora. We still see the effects of Ancient Rome in the Middle East conflict! We were walking around for several hours and it was raining pretty much the whole time. Then we went to the Pantheon, which is considered to be one of the most perfect architectural structures ever built. The huge dome has a big opening, and since it was raining, all of the rain was falling into the Pantheon. It was incredible! I wish my camera could have captured the rain falling from the dome. After the Roman ruins, we went to the Burguise Gallery where Gina, Casey, Emily and I decided to stay extra to sketch. The gallery had incredible sculptures and other classical Renaissance art.



Then we went to check into our hostel...we had no idea what to expect. We only paid about 12 euro to stay the night. At the hostel we had to split up into two since us 5 could not fit into one room for some reason. I ended up staying with Casey and Gina, and there were 3 random girls in our room. Two of them were from Siberia and came to study architecture in Rome. One of those girls was Korean, but living in Russia. They both spoke Russian and a tiny bit of English. So I was speaking to them in Russian the whole time. They were both asking me why I moved to America. They didn't understand why I would do such a thing, and they are completely in love with Putin.

That night everyone was really tired but I decided to drag everyone out (well not Emily) since this is the only weekend I'm gonna be in Rome and I wanted to experience the night life. We had no idea where to go so we asked the young girl at the front desk of the hostel. Gina and I made sure to tell her that we want to go to a place that doesn't have tourists or Americans...just Italians. So the girl suggested this block that has several really popular clubs and bars (they are supposed to be the best in the city) where young Italians like to hang out. We had to figure out how to take the subway at night which was very exciting. We got off at the stop that we were supposed to but then we didn't know where to go from there. so we followed a random group of young Italians because we just assumed they were going there. And as it turns out we got to the right place after all!

We saw this discoteque that the girl at the desk was talking about so we decided to check it out. Some random Italian guys came and started talking to us in Italian as we were waiting to go in. They wanted us to get them into the discoteque because apparently it's too hard for guys to get in if they don't have any girls with them haha. The club had a 15 euro cover, but that included one drink. It was like 12:30 when we entered and it was still kinda dead on a sat...no one was even dancing yet! Then i remembered someone told me before that Romans only go out at like 1 am, and that's when places really get started. And it was so true! By 1:30ish it got really packed and everyone was dancing. We were seriously the only Americans there which was pretty awesome. I never seen guys at a club that were soooo well dressed and had such great style. they were wearing either suits, really tight button down shirts, vests, ties, nice pants and shoes, or a combination of these. In the U.S. they would look really gay. Casey and Gina decided to go home early but Elena and I stayed. The whole entire night those guys that we got into the club kept on following us around. We kept on running into them, being followed by them, and running away from them. Then we finally got away and started dancing among really good looking people haha. There were these two really cute boys dancing right next to us, but not with us. So I grabbed one of them, and Elena then grabbed the other and we started dancing with them. As we were dancing the guy (giovanni) started asking me questions in italian, like where are you from and how old are you. I told him that i was from Florence, but since I was only able to keep up with 3 or 4 questions it became obvious that I was not Italian. Turns out both of them literally knew like 3 words in English so you could only imagine how funny our conversation must have been. Then Elena and I realized that it was like 3:30 in the morning and we didn't really know how to get home. Giovanni offered us a ride (we know that it's not very smart to get a ride from random guys that we just met, but they were geniunely nice and we were too broke for a cab so we agreed..plus Giovanni wasn't drinking). We were driving for a while and it clearly seemed like the wrong way. Giovanni stopped the car in some random area which seemed to be overlooking the whole city. We got out of the car and sat on the ledge where we could see all of Rome at night. It was sooo romantic! Then we got back into the car and he drove us back to our hostel. They asked us if we wanted to hang out with them the next day and we agreed (but then the next day we realized it might not be such a good idea so we didn't). It was around 4:30 in the morning by the time we got back. Then the next day Giovanni sent me really funny, dramatic messages in Italian. this is part of one of the messages he sent me..."buona notte angelo caduto dal cielo" (good night angel that fell from heaven) hahahaha.

The next day was basically a day we could do whatever we wanted because we were on our own. All five of us decided to go our separate ways. I decided to check out the Jewish ghetto and the big synogogue that was there, Elena went to the central fountain, and the other girls just walked around. I took the city bus on my own to get to the ghetto and got around the city by using a map (how touristy). The weather finally cleared up and it was so beautiful and sunny out! finally. I had such a good time exploring the city on my own. I went to an area with all these Jewish shops/restaurants and there were a bunch of Jewish kids playing in the middle of the street. It was so cute! I decided to get lunch at one of the Jewish shops, and I just sat outside and watched the kids play.

The synogogue was beautiful and it had a rainbow dome on the inside, to symbolize peace. After, Elena and I met up and we had to walk back all the way to the hostel to pick up our bags and run to the train. On our way back we passed by some very beautiful sites, and I wanted to explore them but there was not enough time. I wish I could go back to Rome again because there is so much more to see!

Fiesole!

Today several girls from our program decided to go to a town called Fiesole right outside of Florence for the day. It is a town on a mountain and it has a few museums and ancient ruins of the Etruscan civilization. We took the public bus to get there and it took only 20 min! Once we got there, we didn't really know where to walk so we just started heading up hill and it we got the most amazing view of Florence. It was the only view where the Duomo looks absolutely tiny! We sat on the ledge and just enjoyed the beautiful view for a while. Then we decided to get some lunch around the area. Casey brought delicious kiwis. We just sat in an open area and had kiwis and beer. It was such a relaxing time and it was so warm and sunny. We weren't running around from museum to museum to church for once. It was great just to sit around and do absolutely nothing. We walked around some more and then I suggested that we stay and watch the sunset in the mountains. A few girls went home but Casey, Jenah, Gina, Sarah, and Lauren stayed for the sunset. We were sitting on the ledge for about two hours drinking wine (wow, that really does'nt sound very safe, but we were very careful don't worry!) and waiting for the sun to go down. We had such an incredible, relaxing time there.

We took the bus back, and all paid for our ride. As we were riding we saw some of the Italians on the bus starting to panic and take out their bus passes. At first I didn't know what was going on but then I realized that there was an undercover cop checking people's tickets randomly. Then he came up to me and Jenah and asked her for her ticket. She showed it to him and he started yelling at her in Italian. She paid for the bus so there shouldn't have been a problem. But he continued yelling, and she kept telling him that she doesn't speak Italian. We had no clue what was going on. THen he took out his notepad and started writing something down so Jenah freaked out and started yelling that she didn't do anything wrong. I wish there was someone on the bus who could translate what that cop was yelling about...he probably just hates Americans and was just yelling for no reason. Then he just took Jenah's bus ticket and ripped it in half. We were all shocked and on the next stop we just all got off the bus. We had no clue where we were. It was all the way on the other side of Florence, but we were too scared to take another bus so we decided to walk. It took us like 45 min to walk to our street and we went to a really good pizza place right next to us.

Assisi

This weekend I went on a school trip to Assisi, which is a beautiful medieval town that has the church of St. Francis. Our group got a tour of the Church and I learned so much about St. Francis and his followers - the Franciscans. The church was very colorful and had beautiful frescoes of his life. After our tour of the church, we had free time so Kathleen, Elena, and I decided to get some lunch and walk around the town. The weather was perfect for that. (a little info on Elena...I met her on the trip. She goes to school in Syracuse and she lived in Alaska for several years but now lives in Connecticut. She has a boyfriend in Alaska who's a fisherman, and she wants to move back to Alaska after college). After lunch we decided to hike all the way up to a fortress where we heard we get the best views of the mountains. The streets in Assisi are ancient and all the houses are made out of stone...just like they were in the 1100s. It kind of reminded my of Jerusalem. Some streets are made up entirely of steps and they lead in all sorts of directions. We didn't really know where the fortress was, but all we knew is that we had to keep going up. So every time we saw two different alleys, we took the one that led us up higher. The views on the way up were beautiful and it was a great way to work off our lunch. The air was soooooo fresh. Once we got up, we realized that we only had 20 min to go all the way down and catch the bus. So we didn't get a chance to walk into the fortress, but we did manage to take some great pictures on the way up. We speed walked all the way down and made it for the bus.
Kathleen invited Jenah and Elena for dinner Friday night at our apartment. It was the first time I cooked for guests!! We went out and got some wine. We cooked fish, pasta, green beans, and I made a salad. Our dinner turned out to be a great success! It was nice having people over and we're thinking of doing that every Friday. It's as close to Shabbat dinner as I'll ever get here. Elena heard on the news that a volcano is supposed to erupt in Alaska really soon and that's close to where her boyfriend lives. She called him on the phone in a panic but he was away fishing in the seas haha. Before we went out that night, Kathleen, Elena, and Jenah did the dance to Beyonce's "Put a Ring on it" and it was hilarious...and I caught it on camera so I'll post it soon.