Greece was great. It was amazing seeing Chelsea, Christine and Lauren. Athens is a veryy interesting place. We took overnight ferries to and from the island of Crete. We were there for two days. The first day we arrived at 5:30 in the morning and took a cab to our hotel. When we got there nothing was open and it was really cold. We ended up knocking on the door of a hotel that had its lights on and asked to sit inside. The man who owned the place, Dimitri, was so nice. He told us stories about his life and showed us pictures of Crete. Later, after breakfast and a nap, we took a bus to a beach twenty minutes from where we were staying in Chania. Chania used to be a Venetian city and looks kind of a lot like Venice. We went out to dinner at a seafood restaurant that Dimitri recommended. The owner showed us the options of fresh fish that had been caught earlier that day. It was a great, fresh Greek meal. I still can't get over how much cheaper greece is than Florence. It was a nice break! The next morning we slept in a bit, got breakfast and shopped/walked around. We rented bikes around noon and rode and explored down the beach. We headed towards a point on the island and found some beautiful views without any people around. We got back around five and had a late lunch. Two days later i was still sore from biking up all the hills.. We caught the ferry back at nine that night. This time we had a cabin with beds and our own bathroom and shower. The ferry is actually like a cruise ship and we sat at the bar and played cards with some italians before getting a few hours of sleep. That morning we arrived back in Athens. We walked to the acropolis before Lauren had to catch her flight to grenada. CJ chels and I went to Starbucks (it may have been my third time there..beacuse they dont have them in italy) Afterwards, we walked around Athens and bought some nice Athenian jewelry, sandals and fresh fruit. We cooked dinner and drank homemade sangria. After, we went for a walk to the Olympic Stadium five minutes from CJ's apartment. It used to be an ancient arena/stadium and was renovated in the 1860s for the first modern olypmic games. We went to bed early and I caught my flight to Rome and then Florence yesterday morning. It was a great vacation and nice to be with my friends. I'm exhausted but rejuvinated for the last three weeks in Florence.

A long overdue update!

Hello friends and family!

I am sorry it has taken me so long to update my blog. A lot has happened in the past month. For starters, I broke my hand/pinky playing in a soccer tournament with my school. It was a very silly injury. I was dribbling to the right corner and lost my balance while crossing the ball. I fell on my right side and rolled onto my arm and then my hand. It didn't hurt too much at the time and was sore for only about 24 hours. Then I got an xray and found out the bone had broken and shifted and needed to be realigned surgically. My mom came to Florence a week early to be here for the surgery and help out with the medical stuff. I have been in a cast and then a splint for about a month. I just found out I have two more weeks before they can remove the pins. It hasnt been the most fun experience but I've learned a lot and definitely sharpened up on my Italian. Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive and helpful throughout the whole thing...it was really nice knowing you were concerned.

My family came to visit for Spring Break...every one but my dad who, unfortunately, had to work. We had a great time...many have probably heard about it from my mom. We stayed in Florence for the most part...aside for a day trip to the Chianti region to visit a vineyard and do some wine tasting. I showed them all my favorite parts of Florence and every one met my host mom, Luigina. We had some amazing Italian meals. It was a great vacation. The weekend after they left Chelsea and Brianna came to Florence. We went out to a great dinner with Brie's parents and had a great two days of browsing and chilling in the city.

I've been travelling a bit since then... Three weekends ago I went to Vicenzia and Padua with my Drama class. We saw the Teatro Olympico which was the most unbelievable theatre set I've ever seen. It was a 3-D set with a perspectival vanishing point and lit up with beautiful blue and pink lights. It looked so real! The following weekend I went to Venice and I absolutely loved it. It's hard to believe that there are canals instead of roads until you actually see it. In my drama class we learned about how Venice has always been the place where anything was possible...it's always been a diverse city where anyone/everyone is accepted. It's also extremely maze-like and confusing and we were lost a good amount of the time we were there. Even though it was rainy and flooding Saturday night and Sunday, we had a great time. My five friends and I rented an apartment for Saturday night and we cooked a great dinner. This was good because the city was very expensive...there were even more tourists than in Florence! We didn't take a gondola because they were very pricey but we took the water taxi a couple of times and it was so cool!

Last weekend I went to Ischia Island off of Naples. It is next to Capri but it is less touristy and less developed. I stayed in a hotel with 5 friends in a town called Forio. The first day we took a 15 minute bus ride and then walked for 20 minutes to a beautiful, hidden rock beach cove. We walked down 249 stairs to get to this beach. It had natural hotsprings...the water coming out of the rocks/cove was boiling (the sign said it reached 90 C !) and it mixed with the cold ocean tide in these little pools. We layed out, climed along the rocks and relaxed for the whole day. We got back to the hotel, ate dinner and passed out. Sunday we went to a Baths place called Negombo. During the week it is like a resort with natural hot springs/pools/and a beach but when we went it was closed. We sat out on the beach until 3pm when we had to take a ferry back to naples and a 6 hour train ride back to florence. We got in around midnight.

I didnt feel any vibrations from the earth quake that hit Aquila on Monday. It's been all over the news here.

Tomorrow I leave for Greece to visit Christine in Athens for 5 days.. Friends from Williams Chelsea and Lauren are also going and we are all going to take an overnight ferry from Athens to Crete for Friday and Saturday. I can't wait! I'll update my blog sooner next time, I promise!

A dopo!

Seeing Italy one tiny town at a time...

These past two weeks have been very busy and tons of fun. Last Friday we went to Assisi. Its this little town tucked into the side of a hill in the Umbria region of Italy. Its a small town but famous for being the home of the painters Giotto and Cimabue and the birthplace of Saint Francis and the Francisians. There's a big, beautiful church dedicated to Saint Francis at the base of the town. I had lunch with a group of friends at a cute little trattoria near the center of town. It was a little rainy and cold but beautiful. On Saturday, I met with a family friend's good friend Matteo who is a well-known art restorer throughout Italy. He has projects going in Venice, Rome and Florence. He was in Florence for the weekend working and I met him and talked to him about his life/career/Florence, everything. He was so nice and gave me some great tips about where to go and what not to miss in Italy. I am going to keep him updated on my travels and may stay with him or one of his connections throughout Italy. That night my friends and I went to a discoteca called Space Electronica. It was crazy--three floors of loud music, 10euro drinks and lots of teenage italians and sketchy men. But we had a blast. The rest of the weekend I just hung around with friends, got gelato and did some work.

Thursday night was my Mamma's birthday. She didn't tell us though because she didn't want us to get her anything...but we're going to get her flowers tomorrow. Her daughter, Francesca, and grandchildren came over and we had dinner and a great meringue cream cake for dessert. After, I went out with friends to a couple of bars. Before going home we found the "Secret Bakery". It's literally a kitchen, veryy hard to find (you're supposed to find it by following your nose--you can start smelling it from a few blocks away) and its only open from 1am to 6am. There were three guys making desserts for all different bakeries throughout Florence. It was unreal. You point to whatever you want and everything costs 1 euro. It was so fresh, we were literally watching them squirt the chocolate into the warm croissants when we ordered them.

After veryyy little sleep I got on a bus at 6:30am headed to Grado, Pisa and Lucca with my Mediterranean City class. They are located towards the west coast of Italy, only about an hour/hour and a half from Florence. It was beautiful. We climbed all the way to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa (which is pretty scary because you feel tilted and disoriented the whole time!) The view was absolutely beautiful. Pisa is crazy because its just this conglomeration of amazing, beautiful buildings (basilica, bapistry, tower, etc) in this tiny town and nothing else around it except fields. My friend Marah and I proceeded to take pictures holding, pushing, carrying and kicking the tower. It was really entertaining. Then we went to Lucca, which is this small, beautiful town and looked at tons of churches with our class. We had a late lunch at a pizzeria in a circular piazza where there used to be an old Roman Ampitheatre. Our professor got us pretty lost leaving Pisa and so he treated us all to hot chocolate..which was just melted chocolate. We got home and I ate dinner and passed out at nine thirty.

Saturday (yesterday) I got on an early bus yet again with Kelly and Marah...this time headed to Ravenna. It was about a 2 hour trip towards the West Coast of Italy. We spent the morning looking at the oldest and most beautiful mosaics in the world. It was like looking at the Early Christian section of my art history textbook. For lunch, Ravenna is known for its Piadina's--pitas filled with whatever you want and then grilled/paninied--and they were amazing. We relaxed at a cafe and ate Bacio chocolate in honor of Valentines day. We got back from Ravenna and went to a late dinner at a random restaurant. We went to a place called Blob club and became members. Its a late night club/bar that plays great music. It was early when we went and we quickly made friends with the owner and bartender who told us about Blog and gave us free drinks. We skipped around and met up with different friends at some bars called Lochness and the Red Garter and then went home, exhausted.

Today Kelly and I just slept in late and went for a walk/jog/jumprope around the Stadio. It was so sunny and beautiful for the first time in a while. I cannot wait for it to get warm...hopefully only a couple more weeks. We cleaned our rooms and we're now at my friend Marah's because she gets internet at her casa. Ok well I have some reading to catch up on but I'll post tons of pictures as soon as my computer gets back from being repaired. Hope all of you are doing well :)
Ciao Ciao.

ciaoooo. 

Just got back from Rome a few hours ago. It was amazing! And very nice and warm yesterday. I left Friday morning with my Mediterannean City Art history class at 5:30...tough hour but I got to sleep on the bus. First we stopped at some Renaissance Villas 

a hour or so outside of Rome. It was soo beautiful. We got to rome in the afternoon and did the Papal procession (known as the possessio) that begins at St. Peters Basilica and ends in S. Giovanni in Laterano. Our teacher/TA treated us to the best best caffe at an amazing little place near Piazza Navona and the Pantheon.  We stopped in there for a little bit and then headed back to the hotel and had the evening off.  I went to a late dinner with five friends 

at a really deliciousss Italian restaurant.  Afterwords we walked to Piazza Navona 

and then Piazza Campo di'Fiori...its a really lively, young, fun place where we went out to a couple bars and ran into a bunch of other Syracuse kids. Twas fun.

In the morning we had a SU tour guide named Rocky take us around the major sites in Rome.  We started at the Vatican Museums where I saw so many amazing things that i've only been able to see on screens for the past four years. It was crazy. After we walked through the Sistine Chapel we went to St. Peters Bascilica and then the Colosseum. It was all so beautiful..and we didnt have to wait in any lines which made it so efficient and easy. My friends and I decided to stay for one more night and we booked a hotel.  We got wine and cheese and hung out with a bunch of SU kids before getting pizza and walking to the Campo di'Fiori area again. We caught a train back this morning and got to florence in an hour and a half.  The train was really nice and the ride was beautiful. I have four days of classes and then I'm going to Assisi on Saturday for another All-School trip. 

I put all of my pictures up on the slideshow in the top right corner of my blog. Just click the photos and you should be brought to a website where you can look at them bigger! 

Soo the first week of classes went really well. I like most of my classes a lot. Its cool because for a lot of the classes were in the classroom the first day and then the second class is a site visit somewhere around florence. Its great because this way i get to see most of the big, famous sites with a teacher (and we have a museum card that gets us to the front of the line and in for free!)Our host mom Luigina is doing great...shes excellent at understanding us and helping us understand her. Weve been able to have some good conversations at dinner about obama and the war and florentine politics andd gelato...last night we talked about the origin of chocolate.

Speaking of which....today Im going to the chocolate festival. It happens once a year in Piazza Santa Croce and its supposed to be amazinggggg. all of these Perugian chocolate venders come with this artisian chocolate...in the shapes of silverwear, animals, etc. Ill take a ton of pictures! What else what else...Ive been going out at night a lot with friends. There are a lot a lot of fun bars but theyre mostly targeted at american students so theyre prettyyy expensive. Weve found a couple that we like a lot and usually start the night with. There are also tons of clubs/discotecas but you have to be in the mood-and there are a lot of creepy italian men. But it can be fun.

Everything is on sale right now..like fifty percent off or more..its amazing. So ive done a tinyy bit of shopping. Apparentlyy its the time to do it. Also by walking around all day im getting to know the streets pretty well. And its nice not being completely lost with a map all the time.. But I did get lost for about fourty minutes trying to run to the stadium one day... I think I asked 8 people "dove lo stadio". Everyone was really friendly and nice. The streets are not grids like NY so if you take one wrong turn you will most likely end up on the other side of the city. Ive also gotten some Obama comments...like congratulations on your president and then just random people cheering Obama. Its nice to hear and I think its one of the better times to be abroad. Syracuse set up the Inaguration on a big screen and it was packed with students and teachers...so cool. Va bene. Ciao.

Firenze I

Quick update..Florence is so cool. i love my host mom she is amazing. The last few days have just been orientation meetings and organization but classes start on monday. Kelly is my roommate and happens to be the first person i met at the airport and my first friend on the trip (shes from LA and goes to UC santa cruz) and shes awesome and so cool and we get along perfectly. Im taking italian 102, italian culture class (that is mandatory and accompanies the language class) also an art history called The Mediterranean City (we go on 4 different prepaid field trips throughout the semester to places like Pisa, orvietto, Rome, sicily (for 3 days!) and other places i cant remember), an english called Literary travels, where we discuss and read about/ the journals of people who have traveled all over and specifically florence. my last class is an italian drama class...the teacher seems so cool and we even get to do a little acting! Hm what else..ive gone out a couple times with a good (big) group of girls that ive met so far who are from loyola, syracuse, tufts and a bunch of other schools. Its fun but the men are a little forward so we stick together. Ummm....everyday we walk for hours. literally sore from walking at night. its good though because im mildly obsessed with the gelato. i havent done all the museum stuff yet but im so excited. walking past the duomo everyday is unbelievable and i cannot not stare at it. its like my art history textbooks have come to life. Also this whole time ive been debating joining a gym bc its really expensive and i havent found a reasonable one that is close and i like...so this morning we walked TWO blocks over the train station (so close its amazing!) and into a huge sports complex with a public track, soccer fields (even a turf), tennis courts, and EVEN a playground...i was in heaven. its amazing and im so glad i didnt join a gym. it will be a lot better and ill just do body weight lifting. so yeah, everything seems to be working out perfectly im so lucky! Ok i think thats it for now!