London!!! i want to go back!!!

ok soo ive been back for while now but i have been super busy with finishing and studying for finals. ok now for london.... we left right after our history final to go to Pisa. We werent sure if we would be able to make it to Pisa by train because there were strikes going on, but once we got to the train station, there was a train going so we hopped on. Once we got the the airport, we still had a long time before we could check in. We all found a spot to sit and eat our dinner. I still had somewhat of headache from stressing out at this time. After an hour or so of waiting this really big group of kids from london came up and were going to be on the same flight as us. we rushed for the front of the check in line so we wouldnt have to wait for all of them to get checked in. Once we were checked in we had to go up to the boarder control to get our passports stamped. After that it was time to get on the plane. That was the worst plane ride of my life!!! take off to landing was about a little over an hour...and i was in the bathroom puking my guts out for almost the whole ride...we got off the plane and i felt like i was going to faint. it took us about another 20 mins before we could get our passports stamped. after that our taxi driver was waiting for us with our names on a sheet. i was glad to be off the plane, but being in another moving vehical was going to kill me. i had a bag in my hands for the 2 hour drive just in case i ended up getting sick. It was around 2:30 when we got to the house. we couldnt find the house at first bc each house has a name instead of a number. we had to call kaylas aunt and ask her where it was. she was there waiting for us at the house to let us in. where we stayed was the annex which used to be an old storage house until a tree fell on it and they rebuilt it. we slept in pretty late the next day. when we got up we got to meet the family. they have two boys, jamie and john. jamie was about to turn 17 and john is 13. they way they treated each other made me think of my booger little siblings :). later that day we went for a walk out in the country side of London it is really pretty where we were staying. They live up on a hill so you can see the little towns around them. Kaylas aunt and uncle even own goats!!! we got to fed them :). in the annex there were three beds so kayla and bri shared the pullout upstairs i had a mattress in the band room and danielle had a bed in the kitchen. the next day we were off to oxford!! Oxford was to pretty it is made up of a whole bunch of colleges. while we were there we got to eat at this placed called the mission. sooo basically its oxfords version of chipotle! i was soo glad to have mexican food!! after lunch we walked around the town and went into part of one of the old libraries and we even to the bub, Eagle and Child, where CS lewis and Tolkin would meet up and have a drink and talk about there books. I was still feeling pretty bad, but was slowly getting better because of my meds that the DR gave me back home. once we got back to the house we got ready to go have dinner at the local pub. It was just a quick walk through the woods to get there. I had the soup of the day since i was still feeling queasy from earlier that day. After our lovely dinner we headed back to get some sleep because we had to get up early to get to LONDON!! we had purchased tickets to go on a haunted ghost ride for Halloween night. Sunday morning i was feeling awful again. At first i didnt think that i was going to be able to go to London. We went to this little church in town for mass. I had taken more meds and was going to base my decision to go to London on how I felt after mass. It was nice to hear mass in English again :). I was feeling better after mass and knew that while i was in London i would feel better with the fresh air. So after mass we were on our way to London! we had to take a train to get to the main station before getting on the tubes (subway) to get to where we wanted to go. This first day in London was more of a walk around and relax day. we didnt do a whole bunch of touristy stuff. our first stop was Piccadilly Circus. This is Londons downtown New York City, with all of the lights and signs and shows. I really wanted to see a show while we were there but we didnt :(. pretty much the whole day we were walking around London and looking at the sights. the girls wanted to find fish and Chips so they had that for lunch. I was feeling better, but didnt want that grease in my stomach so i had a slice of cheese pizza...:/ yes i know.. i wasnt in italy anymore but it was the only thing that i thought my stomach could handle. after lunch we walked some more and had quite a few impromptu photo shoots with rocks that looked like eggs and in a park. After a while we found the Sherlock Holmes pub, which was right across the street from where our bus was going to start for the haunted bus ride. once we knew where it was we walked around because we still had like 4 hours before our tour started. we ran into an Indian Festival and i even found some Dr. Pepper!!!! i was really happy :D. finally we decided to go back to the pub and wait. Kayla and Bri had some beer while me and danielle passed. During this time bri and i had a really good discussion and she helped me figure out somethings that i needed to work on. finally it was time for the bus ride. I was scared, but we were laughing pretty much the whole time. after that we were all tied and ready to get back. we crashed as soon as we got back to the house after the train ride. ok that was my first 2 days in london i will have more up later, but right now i need to get some sleep. we leave early tomorrow morning for ROME!!! ill post more later! Ciao!!!

so much to catch up on!

ok sooo i havent posted in awhile... so i have a lot to catch up on... so this will probably be split into three parts. ok so part one will be about the week before our italian history and culture final. I was really stressing out over this final. we really hadnt been told what the test was going to be over, except he had given us these packets to read through and a time line that we needed to memorize. The packets were pretty big, and all he had told us to do was read through them... i tend to not do well if I dont know what is actually going to be on the tests. so the test is on friday, and its wednesday and i still havnet gotten the gist of any of the readings that he had given us. I still hadnt even gotten to my notes that i had taken. by thrusday i was falling apart... i had a complete breakdown i was stressed out. i was crying and i was a mess. i have to do good this semester, since everything that i hope to do is based of me doing really well and raising my GPA. i told my parents, and my dad called me on skype to try to help me settle down. we talked for a while and he told me to calm down and to find a quiet place and say a rosary, and just take a little bit to settle down. while i did that he told me that once my brother Aaron got home, that they would go for a walk and say a rosary for me. once they got back they called again to see how i was doing. I had calmed down quite a bit and had a laugh while watching my brother goof off in the back of the video chat, him being the monkey boy that he is. after all of that, i was talking to some of the girls just to see if they had an idea of what they though would be on the test, and they ended up sending me there study guide that they had made. i was really really grateful for that. i pretty much just studied that until i went to bed and through out the next day until the final. we had gotten out of Francesco's class early so i took advantage of that time to pack since i left for London right after the final. once i was all set and packed i studied even more. the final was easier than i expected, but there were some tough questions. i find out in a week or so what our grades were on it. after that test i felt a wave of releif. it was done and over with, and now i could concentrate on having a blast in London and Malta for fall break!!!

Fun, Pranks, Incorruptibles...

this weekend was a blast! It started off right after lunch on thursday. the boys had left for the weekend so the girls who were still here called it an official girls weekend. we decided to take a page out of the step up 2 movie and pull a prank on the boys. so thursday after lunch, we all started looking for good songs to dance too. we found a really neat dance to Ke$ha's Blah Blah Blah. So that night we all were down in the cantina practicing... we have some pretty funny videos. we up up till like 1 in the morning practicing. Friday since we didnt have classes, we decided to get up early and practice again, but that ended up not happening, but we did practice after we decided to change the song, because of the lyrics.. we ended up using TikTok instead which was perfect because the dance that we had already learned fit in! it was decided that joy molli bri and christina would dress up in the guys clothes and dance around. after a few practice rounds we headed down stairs to mess around. we were up till 1:30 when we finally decided to go to bed because some of us decided to get up early the next day. saturday morning i got up early with Christina Molli Joy and Nick to go to a monastary to have mass with some people from the Saint Tomas More Society here in Florence. The priest who said mass was Don Mario. He is a really cool priest from New York. while we were at the Monastary, we go to see an Incorruptible body of Mary Maddalena of Pazzi. she is not fully incorrupt, but it was still pretty cool to see. after that we met up with a group of kids from a college up in Northeast IUsa. I cant remember the name of the school that the group was from. While we were with the group Don Mario got us in to the Baptistry for free! it was really neat and we could just bypass the line too! being friends with a priest has its benefits. after that we went to a nice resturant. we all had a blast. he has some very funny stories, and since he is from new york he is a liitle sore about the rangers beating the yankees to go to the world series. after that we decided to go shopping to look for outfits to wear to the club and for the video since we were going to shoot once we had gotten back to the villa. man those girls when they were in the guys clothes looked like the guys lol. we filmed and had a blast filming. we were going to go out that night but we decided not to. on sunday i went to mass up in town and then came back because i wanted to work on an essay for Francesco for our final. it didnt happen... i could not concentrate. at all. after dinner a bunch of us waited till the boys got back because we wanted to show them the video and listen to what happened this weekend. they ended up getting back a lot later than what we were expecting. they really enjoyed the prank, but there faces were the best when they relized that it was there room and clothes. they said it was a nice ending to a crappy weekend. all in all i think this was one of the dunnest weekends spent here at the villa, and i cant believe we only have one more weekend here before we leave for Rome! Ill be home in 30 days!!!! its crazy!!! Ciao!

oh and here is the link for the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzBMxk5bhYo

Check it out!

Venice and Padua and Verona...Oh my!

wow what a fun weekend!as the title states, I was in venice (venezia), padua (padova), and Verona with my friends Katie and Rachel. we left early friday morning to catch our train to Venice. we got in around noon, so we decided to walk around and find a place to eat lunch. we ended up at The church of St Mary Magdalene. Lunch was bad as usual. we have only had one really good sack lunch since we have been here. AFter that we decided to go shopping and find out how to get to St Marks Square. Once we got back to the train station, a man told us to just head back the same way that we had come and keep going and follow the signs and we will get there. so we were on our way...even though it took us for ever to get there, Bc we shopped way to much :) we also stopped at a lot of churches. then we finally made it. It was amazing!!!!! There we soo many people but it was amazing still. we wanted to go in the cathedral, but not luggage was allowed. our backpacks were considered luggage. they told us that we could drop them off some where but we were not going to do that at all. so we decided to walk around and take pictures! got some gifts while we walked too. after that we headed out on our way to find san barnaba church. this church was used for the outside of the library in Indiana Jones and the last Crusade. it took forever to get there, and we were lead the wrong way at first but we finally got there. we couldnt go in because there was an exhibit going on so we would have had to pay. :/ after that we were getting tired so we had to find a place to eat. we did and the girls realy wanted fish. me not so much and i was feeling really dehydrated then too. so i just got some pasta carbornara. it was really good and the girls liked there fish soup. we made sure not to get the water this time since rachel and i had learned our lesson a few days before. once we were done we got to take on eof the boat rides back to the train station. That was really cool to see the city at night along the water. once we were back to the station, we had to get our ticket to the other venice station where our hotel was located. we could not for the love of us get a ticket! i mean its only one euro! finally we found the right machine and all i had left was a 20 and 2 50s so i put the 20 in thinking i would get my change back...no i got my ticket and a little slip of paper that said 19 euros on it. i started flipping out. the ticket office were close so i couldnt ask them so i went up to one of the vendors and asked them what it meant. the lady told me i just take it up to the window and they would give me the change. i felt relieved when she told me that. so we got the tickets and were on our way to the hotel. we got lost finding it and had help from some very nice people. one lady even called the hotel for us. once we got the directions it was fairly easy. we got there and passed out, well only for a few mins for me...i had a coughing fit and was dehydrated from the day and ended up getting sick, but i didnt make it to the bathroom :/. after that i passed out. the next morning we got up somewhat early to head out to padua/padova. we went to the ticket line and i got my money back :). it was a 30 min train ride there. once we were there we decided to buy a map just in case. good thing we did we would have gotten very lost later in the day. 1st we decided to go to the convent of the Fransician Elisabethian sisters, which was a convent that a blessed Elisabetta Vedramini on my dads side of the family founded. on our way there we stopped at even more churches. katie brought up the point of saying that she hadnt seen any other church besides a catholic church since we have been here. but we finally made it. we walked in to see if we could tour around, but the sister at the front did not speak english and she couldnt understand our broken italian so we took a few pamphlets and a pin and took some pictures of the sign. next we were on our way to the cathedral of st antony. this is where we would have gotten lost, because we wanted to stop by the church of st benedict on our way there. we made some pit stops to on our way too. we went to this really cool breadstore and we even stopped at a card store where i bought my brothers magic cards :)it was amazing going in there. we even got to see his tomb and walk by and touch it. we knelled down to pray afterword and both rachel and I had this weird feeling after we had gotten up. it was very strange. we even got to see his relics too! after that we headed back to go to verona! once we arrived, we made our way to the wall. we had to pass by a lot of fancy highend stores so we didnt bother looking. once we got there, we took some pictures and wrote our names on the wall. it didnt really live up to the expectations of the movie but it was still cool to go see. all in all we had a good weekend and i am still super sore from carrying a backpack all weekend but we had a blast. we would all like to go back to vencie though :) Ciao!

....forgotten details...

so i just totally remembered that I never talked about going to see the David and the Ufizzi... the David was Awesome.. I cant believe that Michelangelo did that when he was only 23! The only thing that is off about the statue is the hands they are to big compared to the rest of his body. After that we went and saw another one of Michelangelo's creations. On the other side of Florence, there is a Little church that has a statue of the crucifixion. it was beautiful! Michaelangelo sculpted this when he was only 16! its amazing what he did. Just like the David, there is one thing that is different about the statue. His head is significantly bigger than the body of Jesus. It is still an amazing masterpiece. That was 2 weeks ago. The week after that we went to the Ufizzi. It used to be the Medici's palace, but now it is an art gallery. It was really neat to see all of the different paintings from all of the artists dating from fall of rome to after the middle ages.well thats all for now. i will be posting lot tomorrow about my weekend in Venice Padua and Verona. Ciao!

why hello there.....its been awhile...

so yeah i told myself that i was going to post everyday, but nothing really exciting has happened....we finally hit the m=one month mark of being here. time has really flow by. i have been so many places since i have been here its not even funny. so this week we had our last class w Francesco. that was a really fun class and i will miss it. on thursday we only had one class so we were free the whole afternoon. it was mainly a chill day so we just hung out at the villa. friday was free to so i got to sleep in for awhile. after lunch, me and maddie went into town. i got the boots that i wanted so i was happy. after that we played some games and had a barbeque at the villa. the ga,es were fun and entailed a whole bunch of random things. after that we decided to go to the Red Garter which is a karaoke bar. we all had a blast!!! the whole group came except for the girls who were in Ireland. even jen the lady who heads up the program here and our RD pietro! we had a blast. i even went up with 2 other girls jill and fiona and sang your love is my drug by ke$ha! saturday i slept in till 12 i was tired from all the things we had done on friday... everyone else did too. that day i hung out and went shopping with rachel and katie. we also went to mass at 5 at the duomo bc its in english!!!! it was so nice going to mass where i actually understood and could follow along. after that everyone wanted pizza, but me and rachel really wanted to get some alfredo pasta. after walking a good 30 mins we finally found a decent place with pasta alferdo. we decided to split so it would be even cheaper....that is untill we got the bill....they charged us 4 euros for a bottle of water!!!!! had we known we wouldnt have done that :/ oh well we got to have a nice chat and walked around downtown florence at night. once we had gotten back to the villa we decided to stay here and start studying, but a few others went out again. we were tired so we didnt want to go. sunday was truly a lazy sunday again. i got a lot of reading in to help prepare for my history final at the end of the month and i did some italian homework. i had to write to a friend back home in italian. but all in all it was an ok week but deff had a blast with everyone on friday night! ciao!

"mi chiamo Bond....James Bond"

oh my goodness oh my goodness... so much has gone on since i have blogged.ok so thursday we left early in the morning to go to Assisi, the first of our many stops on our trip. The first place we stopped at was outside of Assis. we went into the church that was built around the church that St. Francis built. It was really neat to actually be in the same place that Francis had once been in. After we had toured around, we ate lunch right outside of the cathedral. you know your lunch isnt good when the pigeons wont even eat it. stale bread and meat is not tasty at all. after lunch we walked around in the stands for a while and bought a bunch of small gifts. one has to get a rosewood rosary while they are in Assisi. next we were on our way to Medieval Assisi. we stopped out the outskirts to take pictures. The city is huge! Once we were actually in Assisi, we went to the cathedral of St francis. while we were there we got to go down into the crypt and saw the tomb of St. Francis. it was a really cool experience. there are also 5 other tombs in the crypt. 4 of which are Francis's best friends, and loyal followers, as well as one women who we believe was the last person that Francis was in contact with before he died. from the catherdal, we walked up and up and up to a higher part of the city to see the church of st. claire. while we were there we also go to see where she was buried. in the crypt, they had some relics, one of which was he shoe of St. Francis. This shoe was the shoe that he was wearing when he received the stigmata. Now Claires bone are in a maniquin, that is wearing that habit that the poor claires wear now. FAter that we had like 2 hours of free time, so we decide to walk around. while we were walking, we found this little store that was selling soccer jerseys for 5 and 10 euros, so we decided to get some. i ended up getting a De Rossi Italy jersey. after that we headed to the hotel for dinner. Hotel Sacro Cuore. This place was beautiful! the hotel over looked the city off of a side of a mountain. once we got there we had an hour before dinner, so we decided to watch some tv.... of course, the only language that they have is ....dun dun dun Italian!... so we watched a few episodes of scrubs on MTV. of course scrubs was dubbed, but one of the guys watching had seen the episode before and kept us up to date with what was going on. the food there was amazing!!!!we had this delicious pasta dish, then soup and a second course of chicken Parmesan, and tiramisu! i was stuffed after the pasta! after that we all got ready for bed we had to be up early the next day for classes, so christina zach gabe fiona and i decided to watch some tv. on one of the stations they had a james bond movie playing. It was golden eye so we decided to watch that. i will have to say i have never seen a Bond movie before, but it was still a good movie for being dubbed. after that was over me and christina crashed. the next morining we were up bright and early we had to leave the hotel at 7:45 :/. we were on our way to Norcia, to visit the home town of Benedict. once we were there we got to go to a latin mass with the benedictine monks in the Cathedral. that was really cool to experience. after that mass the abbot came and talked to us. most of the monks were americans, but the had a few indonesians and europeans there. there are 14 in total and they had just celebrated the 10th anniversary of being back in Norcia. after that we walked around again before going up the mountian into a really smal city. i wish i could remember the name:/. being in the mountian reminded me of LOTRs. it was so pretty there but cold. after that we headed down the mountian and back to the hotel. The next day was Pietro's our RDs birthday so we went out for a night on the town in Perugia. we went to a bar because the club was going to be way to expensive. (i had a coke. i wasnt going to take any chances on getting sick this trip) after that we were told about a little bar down below where they had a DJ for free. so we went there and danced for a few hours. some of us decided to leave early but Pietro didnt have a phone to call a taxi, bc he had left it with the girls who stayed back. (they ended up not even using the phone at all :/) so we started walking back bc we couldnt call a taxi. we walked up hills and down hills for a good hour before finally stopping and calling a cab. it was 1:45 am before we got back. once we got to the hotel we crashed. luckily we didnt have to leave until 10 the next morning. 9 am rolls around the next morning and my alarm goes off...me and christina didnt get out of bed till 9:30. by 10 we were on our way back to Perugia. we walked around the town and went into the Cathedral there. the church is believe to had the wedding ring of the virgin mary in a case in the wall. they also had a replica out for people to see. we a a little bit of free time to walk around so we decided to het some chocolate. francesco said that Perugia is known for there chocolate, so why not. I got some dark chocolate with almonds and some orange chocolate. both are really good! i figured out what im going to do for my family members for christmas, but it will not be discussed here! after that we stopped at this castle on the lake. a feww of us went up into the castle to take picstures. it was amazing! once we were back at the villa we all just chilled and relaxed after our long trip. sunday was game day! not football, but SOCCER! we went to mass at 11 and the walked around for a while befpre the game at 3. we kinda got lost and couldnt find where we were supposed to meet everyone. we stopped at one place and waited while the guys ran to find the other group. we were then told that the other group was on the opposite side of the stadium so we had to run around to the other side. once we were on the other side, we couldnt find them and we had to run all the way back around to where we first started...it was a long run/walk. at the game we had a blast. soccer here is like football back home it is a lifestyle. one person i saw there was a pregnant lady who was cheering and watching the game. there was also a bunch of guys who were in front of us who were completely drunk and crazy. i guess you could say that they were the italians version of rednecks. one of them kept blowing this thing in my ear it was kinda like a vuvuzella, but worse..... oh well. They lost to Palermo, and i learned a lot of italain... none f which is appropiate...but all in all i had a great adventure in italy this weekend.

ugh lots to catch up on...

alrighty... sunday. i slept practically the WHOLE days since i was still feeling pretty sick. I accidentally slept through mass :/. Monday we had italian. giovanni was back! i personally like having the two separate classes. only the bad news was that he had to have another xray on tuesday and he might be out for another week...he told us that he had slipped on some wet tile and when he caught himself, he landed weird on his wrist. after class we had to study for our quiz the next day. tuesday was just a boring. italian class, then quiz and then theology. after classes i tried once again to put up my pics from germany, but nothing would work.:/ wel also watched Henry the Vth. we really didnt want to watch it but when we saw who was in it we got excited. wednesday was culture class. we went and saw David...finally. he is magnificent! michaelangelo carved him out of marble when he was 23! the only thing odd about the sculpture was davids hands. they were too big, but it really didnt notice it to much. tonight was spent packing for our Assisi trip this weekend. i hope i dont get sick on the bus again :/ *knocks on wood* we will go to assisi, perugia and norcia. we get back on saturday night. im excited for sunday tho too. were going to an Italian soccer game!!! that will be a blast. well im off to bed now. i hope everything is well back home. ciao!

ah germany part 2

ok so part 2. in the last part i forgot to mention, that while we were on the train, there were a bunch of people already pregaming for Oktoberfest. one guy said, "we will start off with italian wine and end with German beer!" it was crazy. now to continue with the story. It was also really cool to see the sun rise up above the mountains. After Munich, we were on our way to Oberammergau. I was still feeling bad but the advil was defiantly working. We got to the town and dropped our stuff off at the Youth Hostel. It was really nice. We went for a walk around the town and stopped in this beautiful church called the Church of St. Peter and Paul. (I believe. I may have to double check in my pictures.) the art work was astonishing!. They even had the body of St. Amadeus located in the church. When we walked in the church, we had accidentally walked into them celebrating mass. It was neat because they were talking in English. We decided to be respectful and leave to come back later since they were at the homily. After lunch we went down to watch the 1st act of the passion play. The place we sat in was huge. It held 4700 people and it was covered, but the stage was under the open sky. The first half of the play was a little boring, because we had to keep referring back to our texts book since the play was in German. For the second half though it was a lot easier to understand because we knew what was happening on the stage. It was sooo cold the 2nd half. i wish i had grabbed one of the blankets that they were handing out. i would have but it was warm when the 2nd half started, so i was like ok ill be fine with my long sleeved shirt and jacket on my legs....nope not a good idea at all. But in the end it was a very good show. I would have had a better connection to the play and actors if it was in English, but it was still very well done.
The next morning we headed back to Munich for Oktoberfest. It was the 200th anniversary. The train was packed with people heading the same way. It was really neat to see all of the kids on the train wearing the dirndls and lederhosen. Once we got out to the fair grounds, it kind of reminded me of the state fair with all of the food stands and rides. The beer halls were huge! We tried to walk through one because Kayla wanted her beer. It was so crowded inside and out! I was starting to feel a little better but I still didn’t want anything heavy on my stomach. I did however have oneof the famous foods from germany, the PRETZEL! As we were walking we couldn’t help but notice all of the drunk people. All in all it was a fun weekend and I was glad we got to go.

ah germany...part 1

after class we got a ride from jennifer to the train station. we had already gotten our tickets last week so we didnt have to worry about that. we did however have to get our eurail passes validated with a stamp. 1st line= no good we were sent somewhere else. the lady at the first place was really rude too. the second place that we were told to go to was no good either. once we had gotten to the front of that line and were denied, we had 15 mins before our train left. the big ticket line was way to long. we went to a help station in front of the trains. we asked the guy there for help but he didnt have the right stamp. we had less than 10 mins now before the train left. he saw how frantic we were so he went back and stamped them for us. during our whole frantic search, mean lady from place #1 was telling the man not to stamp them. we were thankful that he stamped them. now we were on our way to venice. there are 2 train stations in venice. our train from florence stopped at the train right out side of venice, but our train that took us to munich was from the train station inside of venice. once we got to the 1st train station, we went to the ticket office to get our ticket to the other train but right before we got up to the window they closed. so we went over to the ticket machines to buy the ticket, but there was a sign that said that they didnt sell the tickets to the other station. there were 2 men standing there selling the tickets for 2 euros, even though it only cost 1 :/. well we needed the ticket so we bought it but the guy didnt have enough change so he ripped me off by 30 cents....oh well. once we got there, we had 2 hours to spare so we walked around and got some gelatto. :)when we finished walking around we headed to the train station. i was starting to feel really sick, and thats when i realized that i was having a migraine. :/ i wished that i had figured it out sooner than then so i would have my medication, but oh well. at least i had some advil with me. that was my savior the whole trip. so on our 7 hour train ride, i got sick 3 times and slept maybe 1 hour total. the chairs werent that comfy either. around 4:30 i decided to go stand out by the window and breathe in some cold air. and it was really cold. it was also really neat to see the sun come up over the mountains and see all of the fog. right now im still feeling pretty bad so i will continue my story later. miss everyone!

BBQ!!!

today was long just like yesterday.... italian and theology....Giovanni is still out, but we were told that he would be back next week. after classes we got to chill out before we made dinner. bring out the hot dogs hamburgers and italian sasuage!!! after that i wasnt feeling to well so i went up to get ready for bed. while i was getting ready i also started packing for germany. we leave in just a few hours! im soo excited. it was also nice being able to talk to my family before i left. I got to see andrew and annemarie this time. now its off to cultural class before we leave! i will post all of the happenings when i get back on saturday night! ciao!

monday and tuesday

ah the beginning of the week... my favorite time of the week!....not. monday was our kinda free day of the week since we only had italian in the morning. so we all just kinda relaxed. After dinner Christina Zach and I went up into town to get some money from the bank. I am so happy my card worked! we needed to pay Pietro for our Siena trip last weekend, which was 25 euros. Unfortunately the atm decided to give me only 50's so all three of us stopped to get some gelatto. I am a big big big fan of the Lemon flavor. Once we got back we all had to watch a movie on St. Francis for out trip to Assisi next weekend. It was called Francesco and it starred Mickey Rourke and Helena Bonham Carter. It was kinda weird seeing both of them in the movie since the last movies that i had seen with them in it was Iron Man 2 and Harry Potter 6... It was very good and I really enjoyed it. Tuesday was the longest day ever! we had italian and theology. Italian seemed so much longer bc one of the teachers was in a cast bc he had just broken his arm and couldnt teach. so instead of 2 classes 1 hour and 15 mins long it was one long 3 hour class. after classes a bunch of us went into town to the supermarket to get some necessities. that night a bunch of people went into town to a karaoke bar. i really didnt want to go so i stayed back with a few people and went to bed early and just relaxed. all in all it was a nice night.

I got my Italian Leather Jacket!!

we were all so exhausted from saturday in siena, that we wanted to sleep in. in settingnano, they have mass at 9 and 11. everyone went to the 11 o'clock mass. the people in town were so nice to us. they gave us a print out of the readings and even introduced the group to everyone and thanked us for coming and being part of the church. at mass they had a Bishop come in from India. (we think... we couldn't understand some of the things he said in english) The Bishop could speak some italian, but the homily was in english. like i said before, we werent quite sure what he was saying. After mass we went into town to go eat lunch and shop. we took about an hour to find a restaurant that our teacher Francesco told us about. we were going h=to head back to the villa, but then decided to go to a nice little pizza and sandwich shop that we went to last week. after lunch bri rachel sr judith and i all went to look at leather jackets. we ended up getting matching jackets in the same style but in all different colors. total price to begin: $380 euros... final price: $110 euros. the jacket was $100 but the $10 extra was to get the sleeves tailored. they were just a tad to long. lol. I am glad we got them at such a good deal. the owner of the shop was very nice. after we paid for the jackets we went shopping around the tents. i got my dad brother and some cousins present. still looking ofr my mom and sisters. once we got back it was time for a little nap before dinner, but then that changed to sitting down and watching some cartoons and music...everything else was either in italian or dubbed. it was really funny to see the Hills dubbed. after dinner it was study time! whoohoo!...not. we have a quiz in italian on monday. I was still really tired from saturday, that i was in bed and asleep before midnight.
Ciao!

a head and finger.....

i really need to find something stronger than Dramamine....strike #2!!!....not cool. today we went to Siena and San Gangalo for a day trip. In Siena we saw St. Catherine of Siena's head. It was kinda strange to see. i snapped a picture but it didnt turn out that great, we weren't supposed to take pictures anyway. after the head and finger, we walked to Catherines house. we saw her room and one of her sacrafices to jesus was a to sleep on a rock! after that we walked around to the big church on top of the hill. I cant remember the name right now. it is very hilly in Siena and those hills are super steep! :/ from there we walked to the amphitheater were they have horses races. that would have been neat to have watched, but alas they did not have any races going on. It was very windy and rainy out today so I was sure glad that i had brought my umbrella. After Siena we went to San Galgano were we ate lunch and tried some wine. I had a sip of a red wine but i didnt like it at all. it was way to dry. After lunch we went to see the churches that are in San Galgano. On of the churches had a sword in a stone. the sword belonged to Galgano himself. people had tried to pull the sword out, but no one succeeded. once we had finished our tours we still had 45 min before we had to be on the bus. Jennifer had a game for us that made us look like idiots. we were laughing so hard through out the whole game, that

the troubles are solved!!!

since today was a free day, me and kayla decided to figure out another way to get to germany. the one train to munich from florence was completely booked. we didnt know what to do. we found a train from venice to munich. apparently the train that we have for munich was the same train that was full but, people i guess are getting off in Venice. After we get to venice, we will have a 2 hour wait before we leave again, so we may walk around venice for awhile. once were are in munich, we will hop on another train to obermmeragau. on the way home we will be on a direct train from munich to florence. we are going to spend saturday in munich and celebrate octoberfest. were glad we found another way to get there. it only cost us $28 euros for the three trains with out eurail pass. I am excited this play is a once in a lifetime deal.

Pizza, french fries, beer, coke and tiramisu!

wow of those 5 things don remind one of America, then i dont know what is wrong with you. after theology class we had free time. during that free time one group got to make pizza for dinner. the girls who had signed up got lost in town and there was a set time that we needed to start to have dinner on time so the people who were here got to make it instead. first we made the dough from scratch. flour salt yeast and water. we had to let it sit to let the yeast work its magic. while to dough was rising, the other group made tiramisu. we made so much pizza we had it for leftovers. we had 4 cheese pizza margarita, and cheese and sausage. we thought all we were going to have with the pizza, but then the chef gilberto started frying up some french fries! it was a very yummy dinner and desert and it brought back good memories of being back home.

eh....

nothing really new happened today just had italian class with daniel and giovanni. same old same old. we have a quiz on the few phrases that we have learned so far and a few of the verbs that we have learned in our next class. after class we had free time till around 4 when we had a pingpong tournament.... i didnt do that good. :) maybe next time. after that a few of us went down to the cantina to play some games. there wasnt much to choose from and they were all in italian. we are thinking of having some one ship us a game of apples to apples if we cant find it in english here. we each started to wrute a story but then after a few seconds we had to switch papers so they all had a different twist to them. i want to teach the group the game "What if..." one day.the only really yummy food i had today was the risso and asparagus, with just a hint of Parmesan cheese....yummy!! that will have to be one of the things that my mom will have to make one day :) tomorrow kayla and i along with Pietro and jennifer will go into town to get our train tickets for germany...so you can stop fretting mom... Ciao bella everyone!

same old same old

today we had italian and theology class. the italian is getting a little bit easier, because now all of the spanish that i tried to learn and latin is coming back. it also is helping with the verb conjugations. today for lunch we had a delicious roast chicken...with pasta carbonera. Malto bene! classes were seemed like they were going really slow today. that first 3 hours dragged on soooo much. after theology i went and took a nice nap. :) dinner was ok we had risso with olives. im not a big fan of olives and the rice really tasted like olives, so i didnt eat much, and we also had a meatloaf thing again. Worked on some homework for a while, and then talked with the fam via skype!!! i wish the internet was a little better here but it works for now!!! now off to sleep and Italian class tomorrow morning!!!

lazy tiring monday....

today we had to be up early because we had to meet Francesco at the Doumo at 9:30 for our culture class. we mainly stayed over by there and talked about the design... it took over 125 years to complete the whole thing and then another 15 more before they could put the dome up. we also got to see the santa maria novella church. the inside was beautiful, but i wish i could have taken pictures, but no one was allowed to take pictures with or with out flash. once we were done in town we came back to the villa for lunch. we had yummy pasta and then chicken with ham on it for lunch. after lunch we had culture class in the villa for 3 hours... we had 2 breaks and about half the class fell asleep on the couches in the tv room. i was one of them. once class was over kayla and i talked with jennifer the program director about how we should get our germany tickets. we have to go back and talk to her tomorrow so she can talk with her travel agent. Dinner was untill the main course came out. i had oreder the fish kabobs, thinking that there would be veggies and regular fish on it, but it turned out to be calimari.....ewwwwwwwwww... i tried a bite and spit it out. it was too rubbery and yucky. after dinner we watched a movie..cant remeber the name atm, but ill get to that later. it was in italian w english subtitles and it was really good. since my first set of pics were being stubborn, i took some more and they are up now. good night everyone

<3>

Whew... its been a long week...

*Day 3*

Friday we had Italian class for 3 hours. it was sooo much easier than the first class. we went over vocab and started conjugations. it is kinda coming back to me from spanish 3 years ago. After class we had free time so we went into town to the supermarket. bought a few things that I needed, but they didnt seel shorts...i wish i had brought some. Friday was Clare Gieson's birthday, she just turned 19 so im not the baby of the group! Some people in the group have had friends study abroad before and they told us about a local discotheque so we decided to go there to celebrate. we got lost on the way there so we walked around for a good 30 mins before we finally got there...it took us 4 different people and 2 different hotels to get us in the right direction. we had an absolute blast there. myself as well as a few people in the group had never been to a club before so we had a blast. apparently they are much better than the ones in America.

*Day 4*

Beach Time!!! we had been out late the night before, so when 7 am rolled around we were super tired....we had to leave the villa at 7:30 to make it to the train station on time. that morning i wasnt feeling well because i didnt get a lot of sleep, so the whole traveling in a train for two hours was going to be really annoying... about half way thru the trip i woke up from a nap and was feeling really nauseous... and now i have officially been sick on every main form of transportation available. car plane and now train. i started to feel a little better after that and slept some more. once we arrived in Viareggio we could smell the beach. we walked a little bit to the free beach but there wasnt much room, so we decided to pay 5 euros (discounted for the big group that we had) to go and have lounge chairs and umbrellas. we played in the Mediterranean Sea for a little bit then decided to lay out in the sun.... WORSE IDEA OF THE TRIP YET! since i hadnt sleep that well i fell asleep in the sun and now i look like a lobster. it dosnt sting that much now but it will turn into a really nice tan :) we had 2 hours to spare once we left the beach so we all wanted to go get something to eat. we stopped at this yummy pizza place called cartoon pizza. it was pretty tasty. the shop was right next to the shopping center so after we ate we shopped around for a while. i mainly looked around and didnt buy anything. they did have some nice fedoras, but the were a little on the pricier side. after we shopped , we got some gelatto. i had lemon and it was delicious. we had to leave at 6 oclock because the strike was going to start at 9 so we had to be back. once we got back we all decided to watch a movie in the classroom. Step Up 2 was the movie of choice, so after a while of trying to get the computer and speakers to work we finally could start watching.

*day 5*

Today we went to mass and we shopped in Florence. We went to the Duomo for mass. it was really nice and we had a small celebration. i thought it was going to be much bigger but it wasnt. It was all in Italian, but there was a sheet that had the readings in English. After mass we were all starving, so we stopped at a pizza place and had pizza again. It was much better than the one the day before, and the owner was really nice. we may go there again. we also had some more gelatto. i had caffe and mint. they were really good together. there was coffee beans in the caffe and big chunks of chocolate in the mint. we shopped around for a while. i bought a purse, wallet, scarf and hairties. i also tried on a really nice leather jacket that was 380 euros, got it down to 100, but didnt buy it. the guy handed it to me and it was just the jacket that i wanted to get too. i may wait till it gets a little cooler out. now its time for dinner and after that ill try putting up my pictures. for some reason they will not upload to facebook :( maybe i should try to do it a little less at a time.

Ciao!

WOW thats all I can say.. part 2

ok now for day 2. As i said in the last post we slept for a good 12 hours. we were told to be up by 8:30 to go down to breakfast. they had cereal and croissants waiting for us. only 4 of us showed up so after we stood there for 10 minutes they told us to sit down and eat, so we ate. after breakfast we decided to sleep for a little bit because we could really feel that jet lag kicking in. a liitle while later we got up and decided to take pictures of our beautiful villa. Mainly this whole day was for relaxation and getting adjusted to the time. More people started showing up a little later and almost the whole group was here. one girl was stuck in dublin because she had missed her train in the morning which made her late for her flight. That night we go to go to San Marco square to go to the Festival of the Rificolona (Lanterns) for the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. It was amazing and i even bought a lantern! we got back late and I went to bed. Day 3 was the day classes started. we had breakfast in the morning then after words we had an introduction meeting where we met the staff, one of which is currently watering the plants under my window at 1 am in the morning....and then we went over the rules. immediately after that we were whisked away to italian class. oh my i have no idea what i got my self into....they started going off an we just looked them them and shook our heads. when we do have italian classes, we will have it for 3 hours with 2 different teachers. one of the teachers told us today that we have to sign a contract that says that we will only speak in italian from breakfast all the way thru dinner....man thats going to be tough for me. next we had lunch. i guess my stomach is still getting used to the food, which is weird because i eat italian food all the time at home. after lunch we had theology. it will be fun because we can speak in english and for extra credit we can take pictures of Benedictine himself and benedictine monasteries. Since today was a feast day we had mass at 6:30 in the choir loft area. we fit all 22 of us in this tiny little area. after dinner we had a welcome party with Italian friends of the program director Jennifer. they came and sang songs and played there guitars all while we danced and had fun. i did have a few sips of beer and a little bit of wine, but apparently in italy they do not put some chemicals in the wine, and without that chemical you dont get hangovers. strange factiod of the night. when we got back we had to get the internet fixed, because for some weird reason we could not access the internet browser. we had to completely change the proxy address and now we have to put in a password every time we get on the internet. and the new proxy is messing with my firewall :/oh well. tomorrow we get to have out cultural class with Francesco and its all day :) that should be fun. we will be like VIPs in a sense beacuse he will be able to take us straight thru so we wont have to stand in lines because his other job is being a tour guide in Florence! and we also found out that there will be another party tomorrow too! I love and miss everyone back home! Ciao!!!

WOW thats all I can say...part 1

IM FINALLY HERE!!! it took forever but im here :) so on sunday i flew out of dallas at 12:55 got in to chicago a little after 3. i didnt have to wait long untill kalya and Danielle showed up. there flight got in a little early. we waited for a while before our flight left for rome!!! now comes then unfun part. the flight was 8 hours and it was the three of us sitting in the 2nd to last row. we had absolutly no leg room what so ever. then the inflight movies didnt work and they didnt work in just economy plus and economy...we were really bummed because they were showing letters to juliet and we really wanted to get psyched for italy. the food was ok it was either chicken and rice or pasta.. i went with the pasta because i wasnt sure what the chicken was going to be like. after that we tried... and i mean really tried to sleep. i maybe got 1 1/2 max the whole 8 hours. after that disaterous flight we buy our tickets to the roma termin and from the roma termini to florence. both trains cost 58 euros in total.. so it wasnt that bad. the first train was 30 and it was cramped so we stood. i almost flew into the door and kayla almost fell into the toilet. after that we got lost in the rome termini! our ticket said 12:15 to florence but on the call board there was only a 12:45 we found out that we had to take the train to milan and get off at florence. NEVER TAKE 2 SUITCASES WHILE TRAVELING IN EUROPE! one has to lift 50lbs bags up stairs... it is not fun and my muscles paid sorely from it. that train was 1 hr and 50 mins long and we stood the whole time. we couldnt fit our big suitcases anywhere or down the aisles and we didnt want to leave them so it ended up being a super long ride. once we were in florence we tried to find a place where we could get our tickets to germany, but we had no idea where to go and what to ask for since the tickets that we were looking at came from the DB Bahn train. next came one of the longest 2 hours of my life...we practically walked all around the train station looking for bus #10...after asking 3 different people and getting 3 different directions, we stopped for water in mcdonalds and decided to take a taxi. we split a 29,60 cab ride between the 3 of us. once we got to the villa we showered and got ready for dinner in the village. we got there a little early for dinner so we walked around. i had raviolis, but my nonis home made ones are better. after that we came back and passed out... i got a good 12 hours... :) part 2 will be upo tomorrow about all that i did on day 2

todays the day!!!

Ah im soo excited!!! I leave in just a few hours :). i dont think ill be able to sleep. everythings packed and ready to go tm morning early. I have to be up by 8 to start getting ready and I have to be at the airport at least 2 hours early for my 12:55 flight :/...soo what to do in that 2 hours.... still figuring that out. once im in chicago i will endure another wait, but it will only be for an hour since Kayla and Danielle will get in around 4:15. Jet lag is going to be a major problem for me. it will be wired taking off at 6 pm and getting in at 10:20 am the next day since its only a 7 hour flight. oh well i shall endure. card bananagrams and ipods will help me get through the long flight. much love to everyone and i will see you in 3 months!!!

Itinerary Euros and Phone....

Itinerary!!!

Sun Sept. 5th

12:55 Leave DFW for Chicago

3:16 Arrive in Chicago...wait for Kayla and Danielle (3 hour layover)

6:05 Leave Chicago for ROME!

Mon Sept 6th

10:20 Arrive in Rome

10:30-1:45 Figure out how to get to the train station from the airport and then on another train for Florence

5:00 Hopefully will have made it to Florence!

now for the euros....it just took forever to get it all figured out. finally ended up getting some, so now I have enough to get me over there and to pay for a few things the 1st 2 weeks. and the phone....looks like im going to have to pay $1.50 per min for every phone call and text I make...the phone we were looking at only works if you are in the US calling an international number. :( oh well....4 days and i cant wait!!!!!

One week to go!

As everyone knows, I will be in Italy for the next three months while I study abroad. I thought this would be a fun way for everyone to keep in touch with me as I will not have any form of communication. I leave in a week and I am extremely excited. I will try to keep up with this as much as I can while I am there. I will also have a youtube page for all of my videos and then all of my pictures will be on facebook. More info to come soon!

-Al