spain

Since my trip is over in 2 days my mom keeps bugging me about updating my blog. Its almost over does anyone even read this any more? I think its only her and i talk to her almost daily and tell her what i am doing so Mom this is so you can know what i have done this past week and a half and you can read it anytime you want. my blog is now updated. :)

I went to Athens, Greece. Hostel was great. We had a roomie from Chile. She had been traveling for weeks. She spend 6 hours in a museum we spent 2 in. Their was also a guy that looked like Johnny Depp.
We went to an island of the coast of Greece and met a old man from England that used to be a teacher and now lives on aegina (the island). he taught us many great things about the island. sadly we learned no Greek.

With only 4 lovely days in Athens we jetted off to Barcelona.. well almost. Apparently Alitalia sucks. So they changed our original flight and canceled our second so we made a full circle and we spent the night in a 4 start hotel in Rome. We felt very much at home.

The next morning we left for Barcelona. Our hostel was young hip and cool. We putted around Barcelona for 3 days going to museums, parks and enjoying the Spanish culture.

When we started out trip we didn't know how we were going to get from Barcelona to Madrid so we were looking at options. They were the following:
1. high speed train for 150 euros= 3 hours
2. overnight train for 100 euros= 8 hours
3. bus for 50 euros= 8 hours
4. plane for 56 euros= 1.5 hours.

Plane won. Saturday we took a plane across Spain to Madrid. What a great city to end with! I love Madrid. Saturday we spent walking around Puerto del Sol. Sunday we spent at church and walking around. We got into the Prado museum for free! wahoo. We spent 3 hours in there and are planning to go back on Tuesday (when its free again) because there was so much to see.

I have been trying to upload photos but the internet in my hostel is not as speedy as i wish. Therefore all you get is words


Taaa daaa mom.
Also i am sending my mother my password to my blog so she can correct all the spelling mistakes in my blog post.

countdown:
2 days until Family
9 days until Kiel

Athens

I have just spent a wonderfully relaxing 4 days in Athens. We have seen the Parthenon, Acropolis and bought some hand made Greek sandles.

Tomorrow we are leaving for Barcelona then moving onto Madrid.

I can't believe is almost over!

8 more days until hugs.

Venice and beyond

I just spent a fabulous week in Venice. I saw an orchestra concert, rode a gondola and bought some Morano glass.

It was a perfect ending to an amazing trip in Italy with the best friends anyone could as for.


Today I leave for Athens, Greece and then on to Spain.

hugs and kisses I'll be home soon.

Ciao.

Since we are leaving Siena tomorrow morning I have been thinking about my time here and what I will miss here's a list.

1. Cioccolatta calda. Italians confuse hot chocolate with the either warm chocolate pudding or a Hersey syrup
2. Ben (my host dad) telling me what of our dinner that night and that I should eat it. And usually its because I am not eating it.

3. The special invites Erika and I get for dinner every night from Guiseppe.




4. The friends I have made and always remember.


5. Our horrible Italian that makes our teacher want to commit suicide.

6. Literally running to catch the bus every morning. *

7. Hanging out in the Irish Pub.

8. Gelato.


9. Tuscany beautiful landscape

10. The Everett Family

11. My Italian Family

*Not the actually event but laughing about it after wards.

Ciao this is my final post from Siena...


SIENA SENDS LOVE

the end.

Well its here. the end. Erika and I made our last walk to school this morning.

We spend most of today we spent saying our goodbyes to our beloved Italian teacher and our wonderful chef.

Alessandro and Enzo, our humanities and italian professors on our last day of class.

We woke up to a cloudless sky and knew today was going to be great. Erika and I caught the bus to school flawlessly. (it finally took us 2 months to master this public transportation system).
We got to school and began our finals. These were the two easiest finals of my life. Our Italian was only about 20 questions and humanities was two essay questions about 150 words long.

When we finished our finals Erika and I strolled up to Piazza Gramschi and did our 'tourist' thing along the way. We turned around and hit the the internet cafe on the way back to school.

As we were leaving the internet cafe, the lady who ran it asked if we are sisters...

What do you think?

At 1 o clock we had our farewell lunch. It was delicious.

Throughout our program we all talked about our lives at home but not to the extent we did today. For most of us this was a 3 months vacation from reality. With only 1 week left we all are stating to talk more about home and the lives we have going on there.

This is the highlight. Okay so in September I bought a snazzy green umbrella here in Siena. When I was in Milan, I was walking out of the subway my umbrella fully broke. Great. So the next day it was raining so i bought a new black one with a sweet handle. I just figured that it would last me the 4 weeks I had left in Europe. Today as I was leaving school it was raining and so i pulled out my umbrella and this is what happened.

Taaaa daaa. Seriously?

I just busted up laughing. just my luck. So on our way home I bought a flashy bright pink one. 3 weeks I am hoping that this one will last me the 3 more weeks I have left.

Once we got home we Alberto and Guessipi had friends over and were using the computer in our room. All I wanted to do was take a nap and use the internet. I tried using the internet but because there were 3 computers on it i guess it was overloaded. haha europe. So I took a quick nap, the boys left then i got to use the internet. Its still a little picky on which webpages it will load. but hey i can't complain.

siena sends love

Phenotics video

We never know what to expect from Phonetics class.
I snuck this video. :)

countdown

I feel as though the countdown has begun. We have finals this week and then we leave Seina in 7 days! I can't believe is almost over. I am excited to spend a week in Venice though. Then Greece and Spain!

Here are some lovely photos of the week.

Signor Bebelacqua. (Mr. Drink-water, Yeah that is his actual name) Our phonetics teacher/actor from Rome.


In our last phonetics class we learned some very valuable phrases.
"la citta e bella perche l'amiable "
"The city is beautiful because it is lovely"

Erika and I decided that makes absolutely no sense. We came up with some other sentences that were similar.

"You are fat because you are obese"
"You are ugly because you are not good-looking"

Take 10

Tuscany

Pottery shops in San Gimigano

Kendis and I in front of one of the many towers in San Gimigano


Everyday our bus drops us off near the church on the left, San Domenico, We walk past the Duomo (center one) and school is next to that FAR church on the right.

Medici fortress in Siena.

Chelsea and I in Il Campo

So this weekend we just traveled around tuscany. Saturday night, Johanna, Erika, Chelsea and I got Chinese food and had movie night. It was a great change of pace.
Also our host family -finally- got internet in the house (wireless. Wahoooo!) so i am writing this from the comfort of home and not the beloved Irish Pub. :)

Siena sends love!

dinner.

HAPPY 19^th BIRTHDAY PATRICK!

So this was the menu for last night’s dinner.

Bruschetta with olive oil

Bruschetta with porcini mushrooms and olive oil

Bruschetta with smoked salmon and butter

Gnocchi with porcini mushrooms

Gnocchi with salmon and a cream sauce

Chocolate cake

Yeah I ate the mushrooms and tried the salmon. Go me!

Love ya

Milan and football

Sorry i have no motivation to write anything so i will just upload lots of pics!

Basically i spent the weekend in Milan and it was a blast.
Jo and I in front of the Duomo in Milan.

unfinished statue by Michelangelo. its in some random castle in Milan. we got in for free.

In front of the Opera house in Milan. Its the most famous. We saw the "Merry Widow" in our own box. yeah it was cool

Gourmet hot chocolate from the McCafe.

Saturday was the craziest day ever. We were going to catch the 9.15 train to Verenna. so we got to the train station at 8.50. the entire milan central station had 1 ticket line. So we waited in that line for over and hour. during that hour Jo and i ran to get food. by the time we got back to erika she still hadn't bought the tickets so we 5 min to buy tickets and get on the train. so we bought the tickets and took off running with all our overnight bags through the station. We missed the train. so we went to the top of the duomo.
At the top of the duomo. First day it wasn't raining.

Verenna.

This is the view from our resturant. nice.

Chelsea, Erika, Me and Jo at a Siena football game.
-Siena almost scored right after this photo was taken and the guy that took it broke his seat, threw it into the crowd and got kicked out of the game all within 5 min of taking this picture.. crazy drunk man.

SIENA SIENA SIENA... we won!

love ya

pasta

i hate sitting down at dinner and finding a tentacle in my pasta. something about it just makes me lose my appetite.

tuscany travels

This week was busy busy busy.

Monday we had a surprise exam. I got a 91.

Tuesday Peter gave us the rest of our assignments for the semester. I have a lot of paintings to do and not a lot of time.

Wednesday we had our new Italian class. We have started this program with an acting school in Rome (its equivalent would be Julliard). Every week an actor comes to Siena and teaches us how to pronounce words and letters in Italian. It was like Yoga, Choir and Italian all in one. For 3 hours we learned to pronounce 3 vowels. Eeee. OU, and aahhhhh. Each sound had an action. For the E action we just raised our hands over our heads then for the OU we moved our hands straight in front of us and aaah we made an alligator mouth. We started out class by saying the vowels and singing them. Then our teacher had us lay done and focus on our birth (he meant breath). Then we stood up closed our eyes and imagined we were a piece of grass. We had to imagine the color and then we had to move like the grass would when the wind blew by.. Then we got back in our circle and practiced saying the E sound. We did the same thing for OU except we had to imagine we were a cloud. And the ahh sound we were the sea. We were all doing our best not to laugh but it was hard.

Friday I went to the chocolate capital of the world, Perugia. Every October for 2 weeks there is a chocolate festival in Perugia. So about 10 of us went this year. We took the bus to Perugia and walked around the festival for a few hours.

Me, Charley and Kristen with chocolate covered bananas and our cow hats.

We got a card that let us get free samples and goodies at designated shops. It was delicious.

giant chocolate cow.

Saturday I met Jo and Chelsea at the bus station and we went to Arezzo. When we got their it was raining so we just walked around and we found some nice shops, so we went shopping and we had a relaxed lunch then we caught the bus back to Siena. At 4 the missionaries took the ward bowling in Poggibonsi.

Jo and I at the bowling alley.

I didn’t do very well. I think I got a 60 or something.Then we caught the bus back to Siena and went home.

Sunday our host family took Erika and I chestnut hunting and to a chestnut festival in Santa Fiora. It was a two hour drive into the mountains. We went with 2 other families. We hunted for about 2-3 hours. Erika and I found a ton of chestnuts.

Then we went to Santa Fiora and we had lunch. (in American it would be similar to a fair but on a smaller scale) We had ravioli filled with chestnut and a mushroom sauce, roast beef and chestnut paste/sauce with ricotta cheese. It was pretty good. Then we walked around Santa Fiora for a while and we got back to Siena at 6. It was a long but good day.

siena sends love

Banks, Assisi, Chestnut hunting

Siena is the home to the oldest Bank in the world: Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. These is a museum about this bank but tourist are usually not allowed to go in. We are cool though and got to go in because it was part of our cultural experience here in Italy.
We saw one of the first bank notes, some cool architecture and a great view of Siena from the roof....


This past week Peter took us to Assisi, since Erika's family was in town they came too!

We saw the church of St. Francis...


We were walking and I stopped and looked in this mirror and we looked like midgets so we had to take a picture....


Friday I went to Peter's house for the good part of the day with about 11 other girls
Leah made us delicious mexican food..


We went on a hike around his house and for the most part had a nice relaxing day in the Italian countryside.



Saturday I hung around Siena and did homework. It was Gusippie's birthday so he had 4 friends over for dinner. Anna made delicious lasagna and we had meet with fries. Then the cake was 3 layers with nutella between the layers and rum in the layers.. yeah

Sunday we went chestnut hunting! Apparently every Sunday in the fall the woods are packed with Italians looking for nuts. Erika and I had a fun time searching the ground for the best ones. We got a ton...



Then on the drive home we stopped to look at the boar at this far. it had some babies but they ran into the woods..


i ate that.


Siena sends love

if italy doesn't kill me

I swear that if italy doesn't kill me i am going to be the strongest person ever.

our host family fed us pig liver. ew then we had wild boar. Last night we had pasta with clams and calamari- with tenticles.

uuugh. i found some really good granola crackers at the supermercato.

Thursday we went to Assisi. It was cool. lots of churches. Then Erika and her family and I had dinner in Cortona. Friday I spent all day at Peters with some other girls. Leah made us mexican food! it does not exist here in italy. we loved it.

Not much else is going on. We only have 4 weeks left in Siena and that measn 15 more days of school. yessss

Cinque Terre Photos

Sign on the toilet at McDonalds







Erika and I on the Via Dell'Amore



we sat here for about 40 min enjoying the view.


Sunset in Cinque Terre


Hiking along Cinque Terre


Beach in October. :)

Cinque Terre

Friday morning 22 of us left for Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is an area of Italy that is a group of 5 cites. We met at the train station at 6.30 am and took a train to Empoli then to Pisa and then to La Spezia. We missed the train from Pisa to La Spezia by like 2 min so we had to wait an hour for the next one. Once we got to La Spezia we took a train to Riomaggiore. We walked along Via Dell’Amore. We were like 50 ft above the ocean. It was so crystal blue! It took us about 30 min to walk from Riomaggiore to Manarola. Then we continued along the coast to Corniglia. It was like a 40 min hike along the coast. The view was amazing. Some of the girls stopped and swam at different points. Then In Corniglia we hiked up some 400 stairs to the city where I had honey gelato with mango.

We took the train back to Riomaggiore where we got Foccocia for dinner. I had tomatoes and mozzarella on mine. Then we watched the sunset on some rocks. All 22 of us were staying in the same hostel near La Spezia. We arrived there around 9 pm and hungout and went to bed.

The next morning we caught the 7.20 bus back to Riomaggiore then Erika, Johanna, Chelsea and I took a train to Corniglia and we started the 1.5 hour hike to Vernazza. It was gorgeous. We were about 100 feet above the ocean and you could see for miles. In Vernazza we caught the train to Monterosso. There we hung out on the beach until lunch time. Erika and I both got gnocchi with pesto and Jo and Chelsea got other pasta with pesto. Cinque Terre is famous for its pesto and Foccocia. It was so good. We had a beach front view. After lunch we relaxed on the beach. We caught the train back to Riomaggiore and shopped and had more Foccocia for dinner. We then caught the train with everyone else from La Spezia to Pisa then Empoli. 10 min after our train left Empoli it stopped on the tracks for an hour! Apparently a train in front of us had become detached so we had to wait for it to get reattached. We finally got to Siena and Erika, Jo and I took a taxi home cause it was going to be another 1.5 hours until we got home. Jo spent the night cause we were too lazy to catch the bus or walk her home.

Also our teach peter got bite by a viper snake. Friday he was in the woods with his kids and they saw a little snake and he thought it was just a baby snake that his kids could play with and it ended up being an adult viper. He had to spend the night in the hospital but is okay now. We saw him Sunday and his hand was so swollen but he said it has shrunk almost half way so it must have been huge. He is fine though just waiting for the swelling to go down.

I love you all!

stories

Sunday we had church at 1. The Italian members made pasta and us girls brought dessert and salad. The pasta was DELICIOUS. yummy
getting foor at church


Monday we had school and our poor Italian teacher said the best phrase ever " I want to suicide" We hadn't studied enough and he was quizzing us and we weren't doing very well.
Enzo. our fantastic italian teacher. he actually opened the window and acted like he was going to jump.


Then we had a special humanities lecture, but Erika and I didn't know about it so we accidentally skipped it. Honest. Then we had our midterms which i am SO glad are over. It wasn't that hard but just annoying to have test while your in Italy, ya know?

Tuesday i just had art and then I went with Johanna to get her hair cut at the Franco Salon. Her last name is Franco so she wanted to go there.

Then Jo and I went home and She found wireless internet at our house!!! There is one catch.
I have to go outside on the porch, sqeeze behind the shed and stand on one foot and the wind has to blow JUST right. - the standing on one foot thing is to prop my computer up but it makes it sound harder. I got it yersterday afternooon when it was windy but last night it wasn't windy and i couldn't get it. So yeah.

Last night erika and I also made a full pan of brownies that Erika bought. I guess they liked them cause there were only 3 left this morning.

A daily breakfast in Italy consitst of yogurt (they started buying this one yogurt with egg and cream and sugar- its not very good), cookies, crackers with the options of nutella(which is gone most of the time), jam and peanut butter(which erika and I bought) and warm milk and pineapple juice. -The cookies are delicious. hhaa

i was drawn to him.


I am half way done. boooo yaa sucka!

love ya