L'ultima Volta per Questa Blog

Allora, since I am no longer living in Europe embarking upon European Adventures, I believe that it is time for me to start una nuova blog! Check it out at nerdynomadblog.wordpress.com. I hope to acquire a lot more people to read and relate to my postings.
For those who don't know, you may contact me with questions, comments and/or concerns at hollieg713@gmail.com.
I now officially close this blog in good spirits :) May peace and happiness be with you all.
Ciao tutto.

Mi Mancha Italia Molta :(

In about 2 months, it will be year since I returned to America from living in Italy for 9 months. I can't believe it. I feel like it has been forever since I was living in Torino. Everyday my heart aches for my city. I've enjoyed being back home in Texas where people speak English and I can buy spaghettios, I would give both of those up to be back in Italy. Every time I think about Italy, the people, the food, the overall culture and environment, I get so upset. The other day, I was writing an essay for the Honors College at my campus, and I wrote about Italy; I started tearing up just writing about my experience living there. It's the same as when I watch Eat Pray Love or any other movie that involves Italy. Sometimes I just feel as if I don't belong in America anymore, that I don't really belong anywhere. I miss traveling. I miss staying in shitty hostels consuming nothing but bread and coffee for breakfast. I miss not getting any sleep until I get seated on an airplane. I miss being able to walk, fly or take a train anywhere and everywhere, meeting a new person, with a new language and new culture every few feet. I miss exploring. Basically, I'm having a withdrawals as my wanderlust increases with my lack of continual traveling.

I am trying very hard to be patient as I finish college, so that I can get back out in the world. I'm going stir crazy just being stuck here attending classes day after day, going to work to serve people food. The only time I ever really satiate my adventurous fervor is when I go trail running. Soon there will be an even more exciting adventure come my way in May. My mother, father, sister and her fiance and I are all going to Ecuador for two weeks! I cannot wait, suuuuper excited! Once we land in Ecuador, that will be the fourth continent upon which I have explored. Only three more to go; although, I'm not really how certain I am about traveling to Antarctica, not that I'm against it. I just don't think this Texan can survive in that kind of cold for very long.

I just can't wait to see the rest of the world. I wish I could go ahead and begin exploring again at this moment. After seeing so much of Europe and a tad bit of Africa, I realize how amazing the world is and how much incessant beauty there is to experience. I don't even care if I sound like a naive hippie. I'm much happier with this kind of view. I'm just waiting. Waiting for the real fun to start again.

Pasquetta

So I'm going to talk about my Easter experience, even though I know that it was a while ago. Easter Sunday,  or Pasqua, was a beautiful day. I went running and hung around outside relaxing. There were people everywhere laying on the grass and having picnics with family and friends. The next day on the Monday after Easter, or Pasquetta, it was not as pretty of a day, but it was a lot of fun. 

First I must say that while I was on the train to Milan for my flight to Marrakech, I met an Italian named Francesco. We were the only two that were in our train cart considering it was past midnight. He heard me talking on the phone to my sister, and when I hung up, he came over to talk to me, telling me how much he loves to talk to Americans to practice his English and because he said Americans are always very gregarious. He got off the train before I did, but not before we exchange info. A few days after I returned from Spring Break, I had forgotten about getting his information until he called me and wanted to meet up for appertivo (a drink and food). We went and it was a lot of fun. Then we went to meet up with his friend Simone, he's also a nice guy who had  an adorable puppy named Frisky that obtained all of my attention while I was there. I am so animal deprived. Anyways, Simone doesn't know English very well, so we spoke in Italian as the three of us relaxed drinking some coffee. When we were leaving, Francesco then invited me to go to his family's house for Pasquetta for una grigliata (a BBQ).

So that's what I did for the Monday after Easter. I had SO much fun! It was a blast. There were a bunch of people there. All of his friends and family and they were all so nice. When I first got there, they didn't really talk to me because I don't think they knew that I know Italian, and none of them besides Francesco knew English. Haha. Once I started up a conversation to one of them, they all started talking to me. It was really weird because I was kind of like an amazement to them. They asked me all kinds of questions about Texas and certain foods and where I go to school and everything. It was super overwhelming, but I got some good practice for my Italian. The food was mostly just meet. They had chicken, sausage, hamburgers & hotdogs (without the buns) and even ribs. They had some grilled melanzane (eggplant) and zucchini, as well as some salad for after. There was lots of wine and beer. And for dessert they served a traditional Italian cake that is only served at Easter. I can't remember what it's called but it was pretty good. Later, after ALL of that food, someone brought a delicious pizza out and added hotdogs to it.... haha. That may sound really gross, but it was surprisingly good. At the part, I met this girl Giorgia who is super sweet. We talked a lot and before she left we exchanged numbers. A week later we had lunch together. I was a little nervous because I would have to speak in Italian for an hour straight, but it was easier than I thought. 

So overall, it was a very good easter. 

Okay. Well, back to my homework. I have so much to do -_-

Spring Break

Ciao tutti!
I was able to spend about a week with my lovely parentals before they continued forth on their Italian Adventure to the Italian Riviera and Rome. I tried to show them as much of Torino as possible before they had to leave, and I think they enjoyed themselves. I took them to eat great food and see the beautiful sites, but one week wasn't enough, for them to see Torino or for me to see them, but after 7 months of not seeing them it was still good! 2 days after they left Torino to finish celebrating their 30th year anniversary, I went off my own way onto my own adventure that would last 9 days.
Spring break was incredibly exhausting, but the best spring break I've ever had! I chose to go to 3 places... Marrakech, Morocco then to Barcelona, Spain and lastly to Ireland where I stayed in Dublin and visited Wicklow.

Morocco was the craziest place I have ever been to! I have never seen anything like it before... the culture is completely different than any other I have ever seen. I was thoroughly entertained the entire time. And yes I traveled there alone, but no worries because I wasn't alone for one second, except when I went roaming around on  my own for a bit on the first day. After roaming around Marrakech for about 4 hours I had to go back to my hostel and take a nap because of my ridiculous journey to get to there. I had to leave Torino at 11:00 pm to take an 1 and a half hour train to Milan. Then I had to wait at the freezing Milan Central Train Station for 3 hours until the bus came to take me to Bergamo Airport which was a 1 hour trip. Then from Bergamo, I finally flew to Marrakech, and I arrived at about 10 am. My hostel sent a taxi to the airport to pick me up which was awesome, and when I arrived at the hostel, they and their cat Mimi greeted me with mint tea and cookies. They gave me a map and showed me how to get around, and they taught me how I should barter with the locals which saved me a lot of dirham! They were so nice and helpful. So after my nap in my room that I shared with 7 other people, I woke up to hear someone rummaging around in their bags in one of the bunks near mine. We started talking, and then decided to spend the rest of the day together. His name was Peter, and he's from Slovakia, but moved to California for work. I had so much fun with him. He is such a funny guy, and we had great conversations that were very interesting. We both loved taking pictures, and we spent about 2 or 3 hours on a restaurant terrace just taking pictures of the sun setting over the main square as the chaos continued to burst on the streets below us, drums and chants filled the air as we breathed in the smell of curry coming from the street restaurants, watching them fighting with each other for customers to eat at their tables.Peter and I were walking through the street restaurants (which only come up at night) to get to the markets on the other side, and a man literally started pulling me into the restaurant to eat there, but luckily tall, strong Peter saved me. Haha. He was good at that since me being a white, blonde, blue-eyed american I got more  attention than I wanted. Peter and I ate our dinner, continued taking pictures and bought souvenirs until we finally got tired enough and headed back to the hostel a little after midnight, even though the locals were still frantically beating their drums and enchanting their snakes behind us.
       The next morning, Peter and I had our free breakfast at the hostel (including the best coffee ever), and then we had to say goodbye because I was off to a trip to a hike up the mountains to a waterfall, and he would be gone to Egypt by the time I returned. It's sad having to say goodbye to people with whom you get along so well. That day, the hostel had organized the trip, and just myself left to another a hostel to get more people that wanted to go. That's where I met my other two new friends, Natalie from New Zealand and Tom from England. They both live in Seville, Spain as English teachers, and they're roommates. Natalie and I got along so well. She is just as crazy as I am, so we had fun basking in our weirdness. We drove to the waterfall in a van and made a few stops along the way. The first stop was a local woman's house where she made us tea and let us look through her house which was nice, for a summer home since it wasn't really completely inside. Our group sat together on a large sofa drinking tea and talking. We had people from Italy, France and German in our group. It was interesting. Our next stop was at some camels on the side of the road. We were able to ride them, and, of course, there were Moroccans trying to sell us jewelry. The next stop was at a garden where they grow all kinds of herbs to make creams, lotions and oils. It was really cool to see how certain herbs can be used and watching them make everything. The next stop was where we had to cross a river to a blacksmith on the other side. It was alright. Finally we stopped for food, which Natalie, Tom and I found too expensive so we went somewhere else while the wealthy french people ate. Our food was better anyways. After everyone was well replenished, we began our journey up the mountain. It was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. It took a long time, and I probably would have fallen if it wasn't for our travel guide who was hopping all over the rocks like a spider monkey.The view at the top was breathtaking, and then to get back down, we had to go further up. Natalie and I made it even more fun by singing songs relating to what we were doing like "Top of the world looking down on creation..." "Ooooh, we're halfway there, oooh living on a prayer." ect. ect. Tom enjoyed our voices I'm sure. We all slept on the van ride back because of the effort we exerted throughout the day. Once we returned to the crowded streets of Marrakech, the 3 of us decided to smoke some hookah with the turtles of the hostel and then head over to a restaurant for some happy hour drinks and to see some belly dancing which I involved myself in. I felt like I was swaying my hips in succession with theirs, but I don't think that's really how it looked! Haha. While we were at the restaurant, we decided it would be a good idea to write our own rap, about Morocco. We created our own rap names, and began the lyrics to our Moroccan rap. Soon we decided to go back to their hostel and smoke some more hookah while we finished our rap. Tom ended up going to bed early so it was just Natalie and I finishing our song by ourselves. After we completed it, we recorded it. It is embarrassingly amazing. If anyone wants to see it, just Facebook me and I'll message it to you because I am  not posting it up here. The next day I hung out with 6 students that are studying in Paris. 4 of them are from the states, one from Canada and the other from Australia. They were all super cool, and we went out to eat together and then relaxed at our hostel afterwards smoking some hookah [it's just what you do when you're in Morocco]. All of them but one had to leave in the morning to Casablanca, and one of the 2 girls, Abby, wasn't leaving until a little later, so we hung out until then. And a few hours after she left for Paris did I leave to go to my next stop. Barcelona.

I arrived in Barcelona a little after midnight to my hostel. I didn't really like my hostel in Barcelona. The only thing I really appreciated about it was the fact that they had muffins AND fruit for the included breakfast, which never happens at hostels. I shared a room with 13 other people, but I never really saw any of them because they way the room was set up. Each bed was like it's own little room with boards separating each bed from the other, and they each had curtains as doors. Hostels are how I meet people, so that really messed up my methods, but it was kinda cool in the fact that you have more privacy. The next day, it rained, hard. I went out anyway with my umbrella, but soon I grew tired of the cold water seeping in through my boots, turning my feet numb, and once I found out that there was a hole in my umbrella that slowly dampened my hair I was done with the rain. I couldn't even take any pictures. So I just went back to my hostel after eating some delicious Spanish food, and read off my Nook until the rain stopped hours later and I went back out to take pictures. The next day, I did a lot more. I went to the beach, and did a bus tour of the city which is could since I had no idea where to go. Then I went to the aquarium and the Gaudi house which was the coolest designed houses I have ever seen! So weird yet amazing. I had Paella and Spanish wine for dinner and got a good 2 hours of sleep before I had to take my taxi to the train station to take the bus to the Girona airport for my 6:55 am flight to Dublin.

I got to my ridiculously expensive hotel (at least for me)  in Dublin at about 11 am. It was a really nice hotel with a delicious breakfast! But the only reason why I stayed there was because all hostels were completely booked and my couchsurfing plan didn't fall through as I had hoped. Dublin was really cool even though it was a tad dreary because it rained a bit. On  my second day, I went to Wicklow Mountain National Park.It was so beautiful. I spent 6 hours there roaming around through the lush green trees and flowing chilled rivers. At one point I was walking up a hill, where the trees were so dense that I couldn't see an ounce of light coming trough. And then about 30 feet in front of me along the grass, I saw a large brown furry creature walking towards me, so I immediately turned around and sprinted back down the hill as fast as I could. I have never seen a bear before that wasn't inside a cage. People said there aren't any bears in the park, but I beg to differ! What else could it have been? On the bus back to Dublin I met these two guys from Wisconsin who were really nice, so I was glad to meet more people to hang out with.
       I took a ton of pictures as always once I got back to Dublin, had some fish and chips and visited the Jameson Distillery which was amazing. I got some free whiskey, and became an official whiskey tester according to my certificate. I met a couple from Houston there, and we all had lunch at the distillery accompanied by some whiskey sours. They were really nice and fun to talk to. Both of them worked for the Air force. I went to a club on my second night with some people I met and it was crazy. I just met some more people and danced to the crazy music. It was a blast. The next day rushed by in a flurry of green and Guinness. It seemed as if everyone in the world was in Dublin dressed like leprechauns for St. Patrick's day. The parade was loud and consumed the entire city. I hung out with some people I met the day before and to be honest I couldn't tell you much. It was the best St. Patrick's day, I know that, at least. One of the people I was with let me put my bag at their place so that I didn't have to carry it around with me the whole night. There were tons of bars, pints of beer, loads of singing and a myriad of people! I'm just happy I was able to make it to the bus that took me to the Dublin Airport. I had fallen asleep on bus, and I woke about 6 Italian guys being very loud, which was good so I wouldn't miss my stop. I didn't move when I heard them. I just continued to lay on my bag with my hair covering my face, then I heard them. The guys were speaking in Italian, and they were talking about me. They obviously thought I couldn't understand them. They were taking about if I were pretty or ugly and how they couldn't see me because my face was covered, and they were wondering when I was going to wake up. Then I sit up, and they're all looking at me as I say... "Allora, bella oppure brutto?" Which means, "So, pretty or ugly?" haha. They all freak out and one of them said "Oh! Ha sentito tutti!" "She heard everything!" Haha. It was hilarious. Then I started talking to them until their stop came. Soon I was at the airport. I found a nice cushioned bench on the top floor where I fell asleep before my flight in 5 hours. I woke up a few hours later and saw every other bench occupied by another fellow drunken St. Patrick's Day Celebrator. Also the floors were covered with passed out people dressed in green. It was a long journey back to Torino as I had to fly to Barcelona first then to Milan because it was cheaper that way.

It was such an extraordinary vacation, but I am happy to be back in Torino after being away for so long. I missed my city. Then I thought about when I'm going to have to leave in less than 2 months. I can't believe I have been living here for this long. My roommate and I were just talking about how we feel like this is our life; like this is what we do. I'm going to be so sad to leave Italy, to leave Europe, but then again, I can't wait to see my family and friends again! I miss you all!

Well, I appreciate it if you took your time to read this crazy long post, and I hope you enjoyed it!

Un Altro Mese Passato

Hello all,

So this past weekend I went to Verona and Venice with USAC. It was so much fun. I liked Verona alot, and Venice was gorgeous! Pictures I've seen of Venice are nothing like it is in person. I did and saw everything necessary when I went, I saw the bridge of sighs and il Ponte de Rialto, San Marco Piazza, the main canal, I went on a Gondola ride, bought a Venetian Glass and Venetian masks. The Gondola ride was by far the best Gondola ride in the history of Gondola rides. Haha. Our Gondolier was so sweet and he even sang for us which is something that all of the other Gondoliers is Venice refused to do. 

About two weeks ago, I went to Bardonecchia to snowboard, something I had never done before! I went with my friend Matt, and the entire way there and up to the point where we rented our skis and snowboard, I was asking him which one I should do, ski or snowboard, ski or snowboard, snowboard or ski? I was really nervous since I had never done either, and he told me skiing would be easier, but I've always wanted to try snowboarding.... and I'm glad that I did! It was the most fun that I had in a long time! I knew I would hurt myself, but I wasn't going to worry about that until it actually happened. Matt had skied before, but he went with me to the bunny slope, so I could try it out. I went down twice (very difficultly I might add) and then he told me it was time for the bigger slope, which was pretty darn big. When I was at the top of the slope, I had to stand and breathe before I would go down because I was terrified! When I would get to scared of falling or going to fast I would just kinda fall down on purpose to stop. I usually fell on my ass and my hands which really strained by wrists, especially my right one, but by the end of the day, I had snowboarded down that hill about 8 or 9 times. Matt said I did really well for a first timer. There were moments when I hardly ever fell, and I would just listen to my iPod to Rob Zombie and Prodigy, and I flew down the slope, past all the loser snowboarders that fell. The last time I went down, it was getting pretty dark, and I couldn't fully see the run, so I fell pretty badly on my already wounded tailbone and wrists that I screamed and some of the other skiers came over to me to see if I was okay. They wanted to call the snowmobile medic to come get me, but I made it down the rest of the hill on my own. When I got home from a long day, my wrist was wrapped and barely movable, I couldn't move much because of my severely bruised or otherwise cracked tailbone, and I was covered in bruises. The next day, I was so sore, I couldn't move a muscle without being in pain! It was ridiculous, but all worth it because I had so much fun on the snow.

Next week is the last week before spring break, and I am so excited! I have 3 destinations planned that I will be going to, and I can't wait (Non vedo l'ora)! I have all of my flights booked and all but one place to stay. It's definitely going to be the best spring break that I've had in a while, mainly because I've had to work for the past few that I remember. In just a couple more days, my lovely parentals are coming to visit me for about a week, and I can't wait to see them! It's been about 7 months since I've seen them, far too long. I wish the rest of my family and friends could come with them!

So before you leave my blog, check out my "Carnival of Ivrea" page and my "Bardonecchia" page because they both have videos on them that I recently uploaded. Also I put up pictures of Venice (including video of Gondola ride) and Verona, so check those out, too!

Ho finito. A presto!

Buon San Valentino!

Ciao tutti! This is the second time I have been slacking in my postings, and I apologize. I believe I left off when I was in Rome... well, Jill and I ended up riding a vespa around Rome the next day after that post. It was really cheap, so we figured why not! It was probably one of the most terrifying days of my life. Italian drivers are crazy, and I was so happy once we returned the scooter intact to the store. I'm pretty sure the woman who worked there was surprised to see us alive and the scooter in one piece. We're just glad she didn't notice the scrape on the side from when we fell! La Morte Macchina (our nickname for the scooter) will live on to escort more foreigners around Roma. At the end of the day, Jillian told me that every time we stopped at a fountain to make a wish, she wished that we would live through the scooter rental. Haha. It was easy when it was just me on the scooter, but it was exceedingly difficult once a second person came aboard!  We drove to Vatican City and the Spanish Steps the day we had the vespa, and we also saw the Sistine Chapel which was just as incredible as the former two. I liked that all of the Christmas decorations were still up all over Rome, so we were able to enjoy them a little longer. I really enjoyed Rome. It is definitely a beautiful city with a plethora of history. I loved the Coliseum. I could not stop looking at it! 

I returned to Torino the night of the 11th after a long day of traveling to get back. I had to take a bus from Rome to the airport, a plane to Bergamo outside of Milan, a bus from Bergamo to Milan central train station, a train to Torino and then finally the metro to my apartment. It was exhausting! I was so happy to be back in Torino after all of that time away. I really am going to miss it when I have to leave for good. The new USAC students got here on the 14th, and we went to the group dinner to meet everyone, but really just because USAC was paying for the food. They know that's the only way to get us to come to those events... free food. Christina and I met our new roommate, Stephanie. She's really cool and very sweet. I got lucky with my roommates this year. They're not those kind of girls that drive me to insanity. The new guys that live across the street from us are pretty cool and nice to talk to. It's not the same without the old crew, but at least Brody is still here. 

Classes this semester are a lot more arduous than last semester. They definitely take more of my free time, so since classes have started I didn't really travel anywhere. I just stayed in Torino which is fine. Some of the new USAC girls, Erin and Emily, and I found this amazing Mexican food restaurant because all of us miss Mexican food! The people that work there know us now, and always give us free drinks, so that's a plus. We're going back tonight to celebrate Valentine's day with some margaritas and nachos. I'm looking forward to it as it will probably be one of my better Valentine's Days. Haha. I finally went somewhere this past weekend with some kids in USAC. There were 12 of us who went to Aosta and Cogne to go hiking in the mountains, and it was so beautiful! I had never seen anything like it. When we were hiking, we saw some ice climbers on a frozen waterfall, so we went over to get a closer look and decided to trek up the side of this very steep mountain to see them in action. It was exhausting getting up there, but the view made it worth it, and getting down was the best part. We just sat on out butts or out shoes and slid down! It was so much fun! I was freezing, but I was having too good of a time to care. 

This past Tuesday, USAC let us skip school, and they took us to the Carnival of Ivrea (http://www.carnevalediivrea.com/inglese/tuesday.htm) for the day. It was an amazingly painful yet exciting  experience! I have never been to anything like it before. I am covered in bruises and my entire body aches, but I wouldn't take it back for anything! I actually would love to go back one year and actually be on a legitimate team even though you have to pay 100 euro, but it would be great. Our group was fighting with Team Death. All the teams have their own costumes and there are nine teams. I don't remember all of the names, but there's also the Panthers, the Mercenaries, the Spades, the Chessman, etc. It was the most chaotic event in which I have ever taken part! I got hit in the head at least 6 maybe 7 times, the arms and legs numerous times, and a couple of times in the stomach. There were people walking around with bloody noses, broken noses, black eyes, it was crazy! Words cannot describe what it really was like. You don't have to get hit if you don't want to, and you don't have to play. In that case you wear a red that looks like a stocking, but you still kinda get hit anyway. Once I had scoped the situation out, I took my hat off to throw some oranges. 

Well, I have some work to do, so I have to go, but I hope you're satisfied with this extensive post!
And don't forget to look at the new pictures I posted under "Aosta and Cogne" and "Carnival of Ivrea (Orange Festival)". Also I'm going to try to upload some videos on the "Videos" page if I can get it to work, and they will most likely be sideways, so I'm sorry!

Roman Holiday

This one is going to be short, but I just wanted to let everyone know I made it safely to Rome from Sweden. The night I got here, my friend Jillian and I went to another hostel to meet new people, and that was a lot of fun. I met 5 Australians, 1 South African, 1 Russian and some others that I don't remember where they said they were from. Haha. But it was really cool talking to people from such diverse locations, and I think the Australians were the most interesting. In my room in the hostel, I'm with two Americans and 2 Argentinians, and one more person is coming today, so we'll see how that goes. Yesterday, my first day in Rome, Jillian and I saw the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, la Bocca della Verita (the mouth of truth) which is in the church of Santa Maria, the Arch of Constantine and a bunch of other things that are not significantly known aspects of Rome, but still beautiful. Today, Jill and I have plans to go to the Vatican in style... I will fill you in on what exactly I mean by that after I make sure it actually happens. So far, Rome is amazing! Very beautiful.
Well, I'm off to eat a delicious, FREE breakfast of croissants and coffee, then we're off!
Arrivederci! 

Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animal, and a Happy New Year

The last couple of weeks have been quite eventful. Quite eventful indeed. On the 21st, I left for Sweden after being in Paris for a good 4 days where I took about a trillion pictures. Make sure and look at my Paris page to see all of them. Paris is a very beautiful city, so I could not resist. A really cool thing that I did before I left Paris was when I went to Notre Dame, I sat in on a service that was going on at the time. It was pretty cool, even though I did not understand one word they were saying. I even went up and had wine and bread, and I donated when the money basket came around. It was a very interesting experience, and I'm glad I did it!

Anyways, so when I arrived in Sweden, Marcus and his mother Rika picked me up from the airport which I really appreciated. It was so good to see them again. I hadn't seen Rika since the summer of 2011, and I hadn't seen Marcus since last August which felt like it was more than just 5 months. It was freezing when I first stepped off the plane all the way until now. Brrr! Of course there was snow for a little while until the rain came and washed it all away replacing it with one of my best friends in the world... ice. Ice and I have never gotten along very well because it always insists on hurting me, so it was inevitable that I busted it and bruised my right leg quite badly. It happens. It is a nice colored bruise, though. Some wonderful shades of blue, purple and green. 

I have really enjoyed spending so much time here, and I am very grateful towards Marcus, Rika and Peter for letting me stay here. It's been very relaxing! The day I got here, Marcus and I decorated the Christmas tree. A REAL Christmas tree. My family has always had a fake tree because my dad and sister are allergic to real ones. It was nice to have a real tree for once, but it is a whole lot more difficult to decorate! Those needles are very painful, and I did not particularly like them stabbing me when I was wrapping the lights around. Marcus' brother, Christian, came a couple of days after myself, and I hadn't seen him since the summer of 2009, so it was really good to see him again. We all made a really crappy snowman together, so that was nice. Then we went on a quest through the snowy woods in search of large, deadly icicles. A couple of days later, I walked on a frozen lake. Which was really cool. I almost died. Not really, but that would have been interesting. At least, I think so.

Christmas dinner was very good, of course, since Rika made it. We had moose meat, that Peter shot and Rika prepped. I had never eaten moose meat before, but it is delicious! Tasty beasts, those moose. Some of Marcus' relatives came over for Christmas Eve dinner, so it was nice to meet them. In Sweden, the 24th is Christmas day so the 23rd is obviously Christmas Eve and on Christmas day, we also had some more delicious Swedish food. Then the time came for presents, and even though I told them not to, my parents still sent me a few items, and I loved all of them. Marcus, Rika, Peter and Christian all got me presents as well which were all very lovely, as well, but now I have a little packing problem... I really do not think I can fit everything in my luggage :( But we shall see in a few more days when I try to pack.

On the 29th, Peter and Rika drove us into Gothenburg to have dinner at Rika's parents apartment. They have a gorgeous apartment, and the food was incredible that evening. It was 3 courses: appetizer, main course and desert, all accompanied by wine. Then we had coffee afterwards. I love Rika's parents. They are so, so sweet. I would spell out their names, but I do not know how to. Haha. I also got to chat more with one of Rika's brothers and his wife who are also wonderful people. I am so lucky to have been able to spend these holidays with such amazing people that I am happy to call my family. 

New Year's Eve was so much fun! Marcus and I went to a friend's house, where we ate dinner, played some games, shot some fireworks and, of course, drank copious amounts of non-alcoholic mixtures that maybe were not really virgins. I met some new people, but I also got to see some familiar faces. I was able to see Emma, Patrick, Anna, Affe (another Marcus) and Krille (another Christian). And all of the new people were very nice. I really appreciated it when they would speak in English for me, considering I was the only one there who couldn't speak Swedish. Spending Christmas and New Year's in Sweden was a very good idea. Tomorrow, Marcus leaves to go back to school, but I don't leave until the 6th, so Peter and Rika have to put of with me for a little bit longer, and I don't have to say bye to them yet. I'm not looking forward to, yet again, saying goodbye to Marcus, but hopefully he will be coming back to Texas for this next summer.

I hope all of you had an amazing Christmas and New Years!

Ah! Paris! C'est la vie!

Bonjour!
So I have been in Paris since yesterday evening. My hostel is right next to the Moulin Rouge and about a million places to eat, so it has a very good location. Right now it's almost  midnight, and I am exhausted after walking around for 12 hours straight today. I woke up very early to start my day. I was going to go to the Louvre, but it ended up that it's closed on Tuesdays! So I went on to the Jardin des Tuileries - The Royal Garden. It was beautiful! I also walked to Pont Neuf, Pont des Arts, Saint Germain Cathedral, the Obelisque, the Hotel des Invalides, Parc du Champs de Mars (in front of the Eiffel Tower), the Eiffel Tower, Jardins du Trocadero, the Arc de Triomphe. I love it here. There is so much to see and do with a ton of wonderful sights. There was an amazing market, in front of the Eiffel Tower on the Jardins du Trocadero. It had all kinds products from purses to scarves to jewelry and of food from sausages to cheese to crepes to hot wine! I ate chicken Paella for dinner as I sat in front of the Eiffel Tower, and then I had hot wine (or vino brulé as it is in Italy which I had for the first time this past Sunday, and it's incredible!), vin chaud as it's called here.

The worst things about Paris so far as I have seen are, of course, the excessive smoking of cigarettes which I despise, the annoying vendors that walk around trying to sell you the same thing over and over, and the petitioners (I don't really know what they're doing, but they go around asking people for signatures and donations for something I don't even know of). Like when I went to the Locks of Love bridge (Pont des Arts), I was literally harassed by five people at the same time as they tried to get me to sign something and give them money. They were pushing me and shoving their papers in my face... No. Not a fan. Other than that, I love Paris. The architecture is spectacular of course. I still have 2 more full days of Paris until I leave on Friday for my next destination. Tomorrow I plan I using my ticket for the Louvre that I already bought last night online, going to see Notre Dame, the opera house and the Sacree Couer which is a 10 minute walk from my hostel. Then on Thursday... Versailles maybe? I would like to see it. I can't believe that I've only been here for a little more than 24 hours and I have already taken almost 400 pictures! Poor Raul (my camera for those of you who don't know)... he will be so exhausted by the end of this month.

I'm going to sleep now. so my already sore body can rest for another long day of touristy adventures tomorrow. Bonne nuit mes amis!
 

Sanctuary

The last week of school is this week. I have 3 finals to take, and I really need to study for every single of one of them. The internet that usually appears at our apartment as decided to not let us on anymore... so whenever I need to access one of my books, which is entirely online, I have to go to school. Considering how much I hate the school, that was obviously not an option. So today, after doing a Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban workout that I made myself, I decided to venture out of my apartment on a blind search for a cafe, that is open on Sundays, has free wifi, a bathroom, and good coffee and food. After trekking up and around and down and across the Porto Nuova area... Alas! I find a place called Exki Cafe, and it fits every single one of my criteria. Here I shall stay until I complete i miei compiti italiani (my Italian homework) as well as an extensive amount of  Business Law and E-commerce. I am so happy that I have found this place. It is no Starbucks, but it will surely do. 
I wanted to send a couple of packages to America for a few special people, but I found out it will cost me 60 euro to send a package that is 5 kilo! Che cazzo!? Sorry guys... but I still have things to buy before I leave on the 17th! I got the majority of them when I went shopping Friday with Jillian. She showed me a store on Via Roma that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg to buy something. After shopping we ran into some USAC girls, and we all went to dinner. Once I got home, I had to leave again, because I was invited to my Brazilian friend's birthday party. It was really fun! There were so many people, though and the majority of them were Brazilian and Argentinian! So to speak, I had to use my broken Italian or my rusty Spanish, but it's good because i got to practice :) I'm getting better at it, but there are still a lot of words that I don't know. By the end of the night, I was mixing my Italian and Spanish into multilingual sentences. Talent.
Alright, now that I have updated all of my goings-on, I really do need to do homework. Ciao! 

School -_-

I just finished a powerpoint for my European Union class tomorrow. My all time faaaaavorite class. And today I just had my presentation for E-commerce which went pretty well I think. Our professor really liked ours for what I could tell, and next week we have our finals... 3 for me since I'm auditing Elementary Italian 2. And once I finish my finals, I leave on the 17th for... well, I'm going to wait until after I've been :) I cannot wait to be out of school for a whole month.
So I babysat on Monday and Tuesday as per usual, and I bought Matteo two new books in English, The Hobbit and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He loves them! We used to read this one book in English of his, but we both reeally hate it, so I got him ones that we'll both like. Also, his parents, Angela and Georgio, invited me to go with them to their cabin in the mountains! How cool is that? Pretty cool I'd say. I've never actually been to the mountains when there's snow. I hope I can go with them. Tuesday night I ate dinner with them. We had soup, salad, fish, fruit and wine, course. 

This is a short one, because I'm exhausted and I have to wake up early in the morning for Italian, again.

Buonanotte! I will try to write a longer, more informative one next time.

Mi dispiace!

I  am so sorry everyone! I didn't even realize it has been almost a month since I last posted! I have been up to the usual thing. Traveling, food, and fun. And school, I guess, which I am beginning to like less and less and the year progresses. I'm not a fan of the professors besides my Italian one, and the school is just so boring in itself. I still babysit Matteo on Mondays and some Tuesdays. It's so much fun babysitting him. We had a leaf fight in the park the other day, and he was all smiles, and he always tries to race me everywhere! I always let him win, of course. Well, usually. Until he began to cheat. Haha. I forgot how much I like kids. I'm glad I started babysitting him. I haven't done anything like it since I tutored Spanish to Elementary kids when I was in high school.

Halloween was a fun night. It was my friend Jillian's birthday, so we all went out to dinner at Amicimiei and then to a couple of clubs. It was a late night, so I'm glad there was no school the next day because it was All Saint's Day. We had stopped going out as much for a little while, but after Halloween, we tried some new places that we hadn't been to before. There are some really nice clubs in Torino that play some great music.

On November 9-12 we were in Amsterdam. I loved it so much! The architecture was beautiful. Every apartment was completely different than the one next to it. I can't believe how much detail was put into each building. There are cyclists EVERYWHERE! They run the city. There are definitely more people on bicycles than in cars. I almost got run over multiple times because I kept accidentally walking the bike lane, and the only difference between the bike lane the pedestrian sidewalk is the color of the brick, so...no buona. Our hostel was okay. The security was good and so were the rooms, but one thing that was completely unhelpful was the fact that we could only buy a towel for 4,50 euro! Which was all amounts of ridiculous, because why would we want to carry to around with us after we buy it? We don't have room for that nonsense. Christina and I refused to buy them because we're cheap, so we just used our scarves as towels which worked out pretty well because they are so big.
Of course, we went to the red light district when we were there. I can't believe that it's really so provocative like that! I mean, I heard that there were women everywhere doing that, but I didn't really know how true it was. Christina and I felt awkward as we walked through the allies flooded with red light and men. Haha. Besides the red light district, I could definitely live there, but I'm not  a big fan of Dutch. It's not that pretty of a language, and I don't really care to learn it... Saturday, we were wondering around the city going in no particular direction and we happened upon an open market which had everything we could have needed. It was a huge market and Christina and I couldn't resist buying some things for ourselves :) Including some nice, cheap watches that they guy fitted to our wrists and replaced the old batteries for us. We got a delicious waffle with cinnamon and powdered sugar from Wally's Waffles in the market. It was incredible! So fresh, he made it right in front of us. We went to Madame Tussaud's the day we were leaving. We had a whole lot of fun in there. I completely forgot that I had already been to a Madam Tussaud's in New York City, but nevertheless, it was still a whole lot of fun.

On Sunday, we went from Amsterdam to Brussels for our school field trip. I was actually pretty excited about it, until we got there and experienced it. I thought we were going to be getting exclusive tours around Parliament and having discussions with multiple influencers, but nooooo. It was basically a total of 6 hours of 3 different people talking to us about the EU. Talk about bo-ring. It was like I was sitting in class, except that I had to dress up. Since we were in Belgium, We (be prepared Marcus...) ate a lot of waffles and drank a lot of beer. We went to this really cool pub called Delirium. It was huge and had a plethora of beer! I only drank dark beer though (because you taught me right, dad). But the bartender picked out some really good, inexpensive ones for me. Another really popular thing in Belgium in french fries. I wouldn't have thought that. And they eat them with mayonnaise.... interesting. They speak Dutch as well as French in Belgium. Not was I expected, but when you think about it, it makes sense. It was very dreary when we went. There was no sun through Wednesday when we left, but Belgium does have some beautiful aspects just like most cities. Some of the architecture is still from the 1600s and the churches and parks are always spectacular.
When we got back to Torino on Wednesday, I had to go straight to school for 4 hours. It was not fun. I was particularly exhausted from traveling.

Today, I just got back from London. I really enjoyed it! There is so much to do and see, and all of the Christmas lights and other decorations were so beautiful! I love Christmas decorations, and they were all over London. There were a couple of things I wasn't too jazzed about... one is that there are way way way too many people. It's a bit vexing. Two is the amount of trash there was in some areas. Pretty gross and pungent at times. I saw all of the necessary London sights. I went to Big Ben, the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge (SO pretty at night), the London Eye, the Peter Pan Statue Platform 9 3/4 (it was really disappointing, but it was cool to be at Kings Cross Station), the Millennium Footpath (the bridge that is destroyed by Death Eaters in the Harry Potter 5 movie), Buckingham Palace, the National Portrait Museum, Westminster Abbey and Shakespeare's Globe. But since all of us are running low on funds, we didn't get to do a couple of things such as going inside of Westminster Abbey (where Elizabeth I had her funeral and where Harry and Kate were married). We couldn't go on the Tower Dungeon tour or in the London eye. We were supposed to pay for the museum of the Globe Theater, but we found a way around that. It was pretty lame anyway, so it wouldn't have been worth the 13 pounds for an admission ticket. The Globe is now only a replica anyway. I would have payed if it were real. I would like to go back to London another time and do more when I have more to spend.
The weather was freezing! On Thursday, it was cold and started raining at night. We had a wonderfully delicious dinner of french fries (or chips) and hot chocolate. Haha. We were all missing our family, but we made the best of being in London for thanksgiving. Friday, the weather was pretty good, so we got to see a lot including the changing of the guards. It probably seems stupid, but I really thought the guards would have been like they look in the movies. Wearing red uniforms, massive, black, furry hats and standing on the outside of the gates so I could try to make them laugh. Nope. I could not even try to converse with them, but the changing of the guards was still cool to watch. Saturday the weather was terrible! It was raining, super windy and freezing air.
Even though the weather was bad, I loved London. It was also nice to have Starbucks again. I haven't had it in 3 months! I will be uploading pictures soon.

Una Nuova Citta!

This weekend Christina, Jillian and I went to Lisbon, Portugal! It was so much fun and such a beautiful city! To me, Portuguese sounds like German.... but it's basically Spanish with extremely different pronunciations! We didn't get to spend as much time there as we would have liked to, but we can always go back, and it was just a last minute trip considering we bought the tickets on Thursday! Our plane left at 8:00 pm Friday, or it was supposed to, it was delayed 2 hours so we had to wait at the airport, and we didn't get to Lisbon until past midnight! So that was a little upsetting. After climbing a mountain of stairs from the metro, we went straight to our hostel (Old Town Hostel). It was so nice and very cute. Right after we put our stuff in our room that we shared with 5 other girls, we left to go out. The guy that worked at the front desk was just getting off work, so he took us to a bar to try a traditional Portuguese drink which was very nice of him. Then he introduced us to a lot of his friends and they showed us around that night to some a popular club called Jamaica. They had such a good musical selection. I was impressed. While there I met some sweet guys from Belgium and Scotland.We got back home VERY late. We only got 2 hours of sleep that night because we wanted to wake up early and see the city.

We got a complimentary breakfast of bread, cheese, butter (seriously the best butter I ever had), jam, cereal, coffee, juice and anything else we could find in the kitchen. Then we went on a walking tour of the city, where we were taken to a huge market at the end. It was super cool and had a lot of interesting objects to buy. After the tour was over, we went to find a restaurant for lunch and chose the worst place ever! We all hated our food. It was terrible, but at least our server was nice. We found a Starbucks on our way back to the hostel, so that gave us some more energy to get all the way back. There are so many hills in Lisbon! It was exhausting. Once we got back, we passed out for 2 more hours before we went to dinner at 8:30 which was made by the people who worked at our hostel. It was WAY better than our lunch. There were about 30 people at the dinner sitting around one big table, one small table and a couple of couches (which is where we sat). We met so many nice people at dinner! 2 Italians, a German, a Spaniard, a girl from California, a guy from Lisbon, and a Montenegrin. After dinner we were taken on a pub crawl sponsored by the hostel by a guy named Tiago... haha. He was awesome. There ended up being about 40 people on the pub crawl, and we met so many people!

We left the pub crawl early because we had to make it to our flight back that was leaving at 6:50 AM on Sunday.... terrible, but we figured we would sleep on the plane. Right after we got on the plane, all of us were out like a light. Haha. We arrived back in Torino at about 10:30. Christina and I ate lunch, and passed out super early (sorry I couldn't skype with you, mom and dad). It was a very exciting and eventful weekend. I definitely loved Portugal and hope to go back. I will stay in the same hostel because it was so cheap and nice!

Relaxing Sundays

Big news! Thursday, Christina and I booked tickets to go to London for Thanksgiving! We're going with a few others from USAC, and we all have a big dinner of Chipotle and Starbucks for our Thanksgiving dinner. It's going to be so much fun!
This weekend was a lot of fun. Nothing too crazy. Friday night, I went out with some friends to get some sushi. It was really good! After dinner we went to a hookah lounge, then to a place called Barz8 for some really fruity and pretty drinks that took the bartender about 30 minutes to make because of how articulate they were, and then we went to Murazzi for about an hour, and we saw people lighting lanterns to float into the sky!

Saturday USAC took us to the Alba Truffle festival. They had told us that we would either love the truffles or hate them because of how potent they are. Aloooot of people hated them, but I liked them, maybe it's because I really like mushrooms, but it was still really except the smell of them was a little too pungent for me. There was so many samples of incredible cheese and wine and chocolate and oils and bread and truffle creams to try! We couldn't have free samples of actual truffles by themselves because they're so expensive. It costs 3,000 euro for one kilo of truffles.... so I obviously didn't buy any truffles. Haha. They're so expensive because truffles are grown underground and are very hard to find, so pigs and dogs are usually used to find them. Pigs because they are naturally attracted to truffles and love to eat them, but dogs are more commonly trained and used these days because pigs would eat them, too much! 

We were going to go to Ikea today to get a comforter for Christina, but that didn't happen. We're generally too lazy on Sundays, but we still might go.

Well, make sure to keep checking on my picture pages because I do upload new ones onto some of the pages or create new ones every once in a while!

Ciao ciao.

Brrrrrrrr!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Not having internet access all the time makes it difficult! I might have to buy an internet stick soon because Skyping is next to impossible. I don't have e-commerce today so that's 3 hours of my life that I don't have to spend sitting in a classroom :)
Babysitting is going really well. I love Matteo! He is adorable and such a smarty. I pick him up from school every Monday, then I take him home, make him dinner and I show him some movies in English that he needs to see... and they help his English. So far I've only showed him The Lion King and the first half of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. He loves them both! I think it's important to pass on such great films to the next generation.
Thursday I met up with my language partner. Her name is Sara and she's very sweet. Her English isn't bad at all. Two other girls from USAC also have language partners, but one of theirs ditched, so we all just hang out together instead. It's Layla and Oana, Jillian and Marco (no more) and of course Sara and I. Saturday night, Sara, Matteo (Sara's boyfriend) and Oana took us out to Karaoke at a place called Luca's Pub. It was a lot of fun! We met up with a bunch of their friends, and I'm quite proud of myself that I remember the majority of their names. When we went on stage, Sara, Matteo, Nicolas, Oana, Jillian and I all sang Barbie Girl and Baby One More Time. I'm pretty sure the crowd fell in love with us... no big deal.
I haven't been traveling as much as I would like, but I hope to do a lot more of that in the near future. I have written out all of my plans, and now I just have to execute them. This weekend we're going to Alba for a truffle festival -- truffle as in the mushroom, not chocolate -- and Christina and I might hit up Milan on Saturday night when we get back form Alba. It should be a good weekend.
I've been looking into my Christmas break destinations since I have a whole month! Many places are being considered, and they will all be very exciting, but I know I can't wait to go back to Sweden for Christmas :) I'm sad that I can't be in my home for Christmas, but even though I can't be with one family for Christmas, I am lucky enough to have another one to go to.
It's been getting really cold at night and pretty chilly during the day, as well. If it's this cold to me in the fall... I'm scared to imagine how I'm going to be feeling when winter actually hits! I hope I survive. Living in Texas my whole life has not properly prepared me for this! I wish we had a bigger fireplace in our apartment, or one that we knew how to work. Ah well.
I finally got my glasses in the mail! So I was excited about that (thanks mom and dad for sending them!), even though I had to pay 53 euros to pick them up from the post office. They work great, but I can definitely only wear them when I read because otherwise they make me dizzy.
I have two exams tomorrow, one in Italian and one in European Union (ugh). The Italian one is a final because it's the end of Italian 1, so next week I start Italian 2. Should be interesting.
Ho fame! Time to go eat. Ciao ciao!

It Tis A Hard Life

I feel like I've been so busy lately, but I don't think I really have been. Haha. Although, I do have an exam tomorrow in Legal Environment for Business that I'm a little worried about. I just finished studying for it. And I have 2 exams on Thursday as well, in Italian (easy) and European Union (not easy and super boring I'm sorry to say).
I started babysitting though :) An adorable, little boy named Matteo. I babysat him for the first time yesterday. And I babysat him today only for a little bit to pick him up from school and take him home, but I stayed for dinner tonight, and his parents are both really nice. For dinner we first had some bread and cheese (delicious), second: some eggs (odd) third: some pasta with oil (plain but good) and then of course gelato. Then Matteo got out some of his books that are written in English and read to me. He is actually very good at English for being 7! It surprised me! And he's also learning Chinese... it's crazy. Such a smart kid. I'm only going to babysit him on Mondays and Tuesdays so I'll still have time to travel and do school work, but I might start volunteering at an elementary school, as well. I haven't decided yet.
I've seen some great places that aren't too far from Torino. On Friday, Alberto took me on his motorcycle to a beautiful lake! I really enjoyed it, and he's also taken me to a few castles outside of Torino and some parks in Torino: Parco Madalena and Parco Europe. Both are very pretty with a spectacular view of the city. I went to my first hookah lounge in Italy last night. It was really nice, too. Cozy.
I've been enjoying living here so much, and sometimes I still can't believe that I do! Even though, I do miss my friends and family just a smidgen... ;) haha. I normally wouldn't even be able to be on the internet right now, but my neighbors recently got internet, so I'm using theirs :)
Off to bed! I have to wake up for a long day of class tomorrow.
Buonanotte!

Incredible Weekend!

This past weekend, USAC took us to the Italian Riviera including Genova, Santa Margherita, Cinque Terre and Portofino. It was so beautiful! It was better than I had pictured it. We left Friday morning at 8:30 by bus and drove to Genova which is the 6th largest city in Italia. It is a very pretty city with a ton of churches and, of course, ships because it is a port city. We stayed in Genova for a few hours and then got back on the bus for one more hour drive to Santa Margherita which is right on the water and is very well known for its pesto (the best I've ever tasted). We had focaccia for lunch and had the rest of the day to ourselves. There were many stores to buy clothes, but we only found one that we could afford... haha. That night we ate at a restaurant that had the best pizza and pasta I have had yet; it was called Pizzeria d'Emilio. Our server gave us free two free Lemoncini each, and they are so strong! Christina and I met this older couple from Bristol sitting right behind us at the restaurant. They were very nice and gave us a lot of information about where we should go and how, and they had a dog named Polly who was so sweet and I was able to get my puppy fix for the day :) I miss puppies so much! They're everywhere and I just want to pick all of them up! I''ve only seen 4 cats since I've been here and 3 were in the Italian Riviera.

On Saturday, we all took a train to the last city of Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore, and we moved through all the rest of the cities from there to Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. They were all wonderful! My favorite is probably Manarola or Monterosso. Riomaggiore is one of the smallest, so it was nice. We ate in Manarola and it was very good food. I had a seafood spaghetti (although I'm not really sure what everything was that I ate...). Corniglia is a city where you have to walk up manyyyyyyyyy stairs to see it. It started to rain but we didn't care. We just let ourselves get wet. Haha. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, we saw a sign that said "beach" and an arrow, so we followed it. It took us down to this dark tunnel where we saw two English women coming out. They said the beach was down the tunnel by about 2 km, so we whipped out our iPhones and using the flashlight app began to walk down this pitch black, creepy tunnel to see a beach. When we exited we had to walk down these ridiculous stairs to a beach that wasn't even that awesome, but we made it fun and swam anyway... haha. It was pretty cold water and there was no sand, but tons of black rocks. Then it started to rain while we were swimming and our clothes got wet (this is probably why am a tad sick at the moment, but it was fun --- carpe diem!) It was pretty dark by the time we got to Vernazza and completely dark when we got to Monterosso, but it was still fun.

We never got around to eating dinner, and we got back to Santa Margherita past midnight, so everything for food was closed, so we had wine for dinner instead. Sunday morning we went to Portofino which was 20 minutes away by boat. Portofino was soooo amazing! I loved it, such a cute city. We saw the Dolce and Gabbana house which looked like a castle! The water was so pretty. There were boats everywhere and a huge yacht. I almost bought a sailor hat, but I didn't, and I'm very upset about it. The buildings made me laugh because they looked like cutouts that would be at Six Flags or something.

We went back to Santa Margherita at 1 to eat and go to the beach where we continued to skip rocks and try to juggle rocks. Then we had to be on the train by 5:15, but it was delayed... the train ride is when I really started not feeling well. I was cold and my throat hurt and my nose was stuffy as all of that is now, but I think it was worth it, as well as the cut I got on the bottom of my foot from the rocks. The whole weekend, we made sure to have many doses of gelato, and I'm pretty sure that helped. When I got home at about 9, I did my Italian homework, took a shower and passed out because I had to wake up early again for school, so here I am. I just want to go home and sleep and eat something, but before I do, I need to do some homework for E-commerce and go to the grocery store and pharmacy :( Oh well.

Surreal

Wednesday night was a lot fun. I went on my first date with an Italian boy :) He's very sweet.
Thursday night, Christina and I and the boys went to downtown to try out this place we heard of that had a drink called the "tamango". Let's just say we're never going to go there again, but it was still a fun night... we think.
Yesterday, we went on a tour of a vineyard in or near Alba. I'm not really sure. It was a hard day for Christina and I , but we made it through. It was a beautiful place and the grapes were so good and the people were so nice! We got a 4 course lunch that was delicious as well as some wine. It was a fun trip (and I know you're jealous, dad).
Today, Christina and I went to the open market for groceries. We got so much food for cheap! We got a whole bunch of fresh fruit and vegetables, some brie e parmiggiano e pollo. Then we stopped by the supermarket below our house for bread and wine. We made a very good dinner with linguini. After dinner, we stopped by this pastry shop. It was delicious! I'm so happy I chose Italy for my study abroad location. I love food so much! Haha. I just have to make sure that I keep up with my running. Which I have been.
Today when Christina and I were on our way to the market we ran into a mime.... his face was painted white and he tried to get money from us by escorting us down the street... he was ridiculously creepy, but it was funny. We also stopped by a book store where we got some fridge magnets (one says "carpe diem" and the other "in vino veritas" haha) and I got Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in Italian :) which made my day. I will be reading that over and over again, or trying to...
Tomorrow, we're finally going to go clothing shopping, for the first time since we've been here. Ridiculous, I know. I can't believe it hasn't even been 3 weeks since I've been here. It feels like I've been here for at least a few months. 

Just Another Monday

On Mondays the only class I have is Italian, so I'm finished for today. On my test last week I made a 98, so I guess I'm not doing too shabby. Yesterday, Christina and I explored a little around Torino, and we still have a lot more to find! We're also going to start planning some excursions to other countries. We're going to Brussels and Amsterdam in November for sure, but nothing else is written in stone just yet. 

There are so many things that I notice here that are different from back home. Most I like, but others not so much:
- Italians either hate or love Americans (luckily for me I've only experience the latter)
- Men dress much better here as do people in general.
- Cars will stop to let you pass more than in America
- People are much more outdoorsy :) On Sunday, the park was PACKED with families and couples and friends. 
- The weather(at least at this time) is great! I know it's going to get much colder, but I'm enjoying it for the moment.
- The only free water can be found sporadically about the city constantly pouring from a spout onto the ground.
- The architecture is beautiful!
- The way people park here, will never cease to amaze me. They park almost anywhere! It's funny; we would be ticketed in America for what they do.
- Pizza, pasta,coffee and wine are ubiquitous, delicious and generally cheap.
- The coffee..... 0_0
- Traveling is relatively easy and cheap when confirmed at the right moments
- So far, people have been extremely kind when I've needed help with directions or anything having to do with the Italian language.
- Nice bathrooms are not easy to find when it comes to clubs or bars
- It is rare to see an overweight person
- I've only seen 3 trucks since I've been here. Lots of Fiat, Audi and Volkswagen.
- I love the language. It's wonderful, and I'm trying very hard to learn it!

So there's some of my opinions :)

I like my other classes. I have an American professor for my Legal Environment for Business class. He's a lawyer, obviously intellegent, and I know he already likes me because I'm practically the only person who responds to him in class. E-Commerce is alright. Nothing all that interesting, but the professor is nice, owns his own business and is rather attractive... haha. And my EU professor is also pretty chill, and is very excited about the subject, so I should learn a lot from him, as well. My Italian teacher is good at her job, but she's sometimes confusing with how she tries to explain it, and she wears some.... interesting outfits. Yes, let's leave in at that. Haha. Tomorrow, I have no class, but Wednesday I have class from 9-5:30. Sucks. Then I have 2 classes on Thursday from 9-2:15 and Friday I don't have anything :) This should be an interesting semester.. I plan to learn a lot! Hopefully, by the end of this semester I will be almost fluent in Italian. I feel like I've already learned so much just from being around it all the time!

I've got to look up some trip information, and the eat some lunch and go on a run before the USAC 25th anniversary gathering at 4:30.
Ciao!

Buena Note!

Christina found out that we can get free wifi in our apartment if we're in the kitchen, by the window, and only using one computer at a time. Haha. But hey, it's free! So I'm about to go to bed, so I can get a decent nights sleep before my first test tomorrow in Italiano! I think that I'm prepared enough. I should do well. Today we went to the Lingotto Museum on top of the mall. It was pretty cool. On the top of it was a track that was made for test driving FIAT, so that was interesting plus it was an amazing view! We've decided to go hiking in the Alps to see the village that's there and Lago Verde, a green lake, I guess. Haha. I'll have some pictures of today uploaded in a bit
Christina and I haven't had ANY gelato in TWO whole days. We're getting a lot tomorrow to compensate.
I'm off to bed. Ciao!