3/13

Today without asking a guy walked by and kissed me while I was studying on a bench. Welcome to Roma.

3/7-3/9

This weekend Lauren and I decided to go to Florence and chill with Rachel, Becca, and David (, The) Lauren and I both slept through our alarms because we were very tired from the late night before, and after awaking around 9:30 we rushed to Termini to catch the earliest train out. Here's how it worked: Left at 10. Got to Termini at 10:20. Hit the "A Firenze" button on the kiosk. Got on the train at 10:25. Pulled out of the station at 10:30. We both looked at each other and said, "Too easy." We were anticipating that because of the ease with which we arrived in Florence, something would go horribly wrong at another point in our travels, but it didn't! Woo.
It was so nice to see Rachel and Adam's smiling faces right after getting off the hour and a half train ride-I missed that smush! We went back to Rachel's to drop off our bags and she lives in the most amazing apartment ever! It's all painted a seafoam green kinda color with murals on all of the ceilings and it's just very gorgeous and Italian. All 5 of her roommates were out of town so Lauren and I stayed in a giant bedroom that was reminiscent of the bedroom that Mary-Kate and Ashley stay in in Passport to Paris. (Rachel said it, not me).
We did a lot of sight seeing throughout the weekend including seeing The David, climbing the steps of the Duomo, and going to the Ponti Vecchio. Seeing David was by far my favorite. On the way down the corridor where he lives there are all of these other Michaelangelo statues that are unfinished so they look like people trying to escape from blocks of marble. They are really rouch looking but beautiful and very haunting. The juxtaposition (i hate that word) of these statues with the pristine and majestic David was just breathtaking, and I got chills up my spine from the moment I stepped into the hallway. David was enormous, and he has one giant hand. Like, huge. Apparently he was originally intended to live on top of a building so the perspective would make his hand look regular size, but he lives on the ground so it's really weird and giant and cool.
The Duomo was quite a hike, but worth it. It's about 45 flights of stars through a tiny spiral staircase and narrow passageways that I had to duck to get through. (Not Lauren though). The view from the top was just spectacular. Florence was beautiful and glowing from above even though the sky was cloudy.
We did a lot of shopping, and among a few little things I got a great purple leather purse. I walked into a store, went straight to it, saw the price (240 euro) started to walk out, and then the woman said "It's on sale for 35." Soo...It's mine now.
I will now list the things I ate while in Florence. It was the best food I have ever had in my entire life (no exaggeration).
Lunch day 1: Turkey, artichoke, tomato, pesto panini
Dinner: Vodka macheroni, pumpkin orchiette, artichoke risotto, eggplant penne, sweet pepper rigatoni, black peppercorn steak, blueberry steak, Tiramisu, pinapple cake, flouless chocolate cake, cheesecake with strawberry sauce. (It was a sampler, don't worry.)
Lunch day 2: Cinnamon raisin bagel and pizza tornado.
Dinner: Macheroni with creamy bolognaise sauce. (This was a full portion)
Brunch was the only unremarkable meal so I won't bore you. Actually, this menu is probably all pretty boring because you can't taste these things. So, sorry.
I can't think of what else we did besides go to a pub and a few Italian thrift stores which were very cool. Oh, and markets. Ok bye.

3/7-3

3/4/08

Soo...I haven't written in a while, but there's nothing much to report. I'm just settling into a routine here so day to day life is pretty much the same, but all wonderful none the less. Today I went on my first big shopping trip and got some fabulous italian goods, because I guess I thought I needed to spend even more money than I already have been... 

Last Friday I went with a class field trip to the catacombs which was pretty cool. 

This Friday Lauren and I are going to stay with Rachel in Florence!

That's all.

2/24/08

Today was our last day in Switzerland, so we tried to ski for as long as possible. Midway through the day we got to sit and watch Jess run off a mountain to paraglide, and she swooped right over our heads. Lauren and I fell off a ski lift because John fell off and they had to stop it which jerked us off, and we got stuck in a place where there were no easy slopes down! John let the lift drag him up further, while me and Lauren opted to try out the red slope. It was scary but really fun and I finally remembered how to ski! A few runs later, however, I forgot again and got my skis stuck in a mountain and had to lie there for 20 minutes waiting to be rescued. No one came to rescue me, so I had to pick all the snow out of every little crevice of my skis in order to put them back on, and then go straight back down the mountain. At the bottom, I was expecting everyone to be waiting, but we'd all accidentally split up! Alone on Murren in the Alps, I proceeded to take a lift in order to try to see Ethan's orange jacket, Lauren's pink pants, Tom's awkward pole movements, Sam's indistinctive black ski suit, or John upside down somewhere with his snowboard in the air. Jess was in the air still, so that was hopeless. I took a gondola down and after wandering around for a while ran into Ethan. I ran towards him and jumped on him and hugged him and almost cried, and he informed me that he had no idea that we were all split up. We waited at the bottom of the mountain and luckily everyone came down in the next gondola ride! It was getting late and it was time to go back and shower, eat, and get on another train. 

On the second of the three trains we needed to take, we were informed that the guy at Termini who booked our tickets made a mistake and put them for the wrong day. The Swiss man on the train was very nice and we just had to pay 8 franc to change it over, but when we got to our connection, we found out that the train we were planning on taking didn't run on Sundays. This was a big uh oh, but we got on a train to Rome an hour later. The only problem was that the 11pm-7am train ride was not in a sleeper car. It was probably the most uncomfortable night of my life, but kind of cute to see us all snuggled up trying to sleep. As Sam noted, "People always say that they are packed in like sardines, but....that's really what this is." John and Ethan saved us from a robber by giving him angry looks, and I buckled everyone's backpacks to a pole. It was a team effort, but we didn't get mugged! We arrived in Rome and had to go to class. Let's just say it was the worst day yet. Maybe even ever. For the unbelievable weekend we had though, it was so worth it.

2/23/08

Today we woke up bright and early, (but an hour darker and later than we wanted to), got breakfast at the hostel, and schlepped up the mountain for an hour and a half just to schlepp further up the mountain to the slopes. Our first stop was the bunny hill, where our Ethan (who is actually a ski instructor) gave us all the same lesson he gives "4 year old kids and fat men from Texas who have never seen snow." After his entire day of hiking up unmarked trails and skiing straight down black diamonds without so much as a stumble, Ethan fell down the bunny hill. Yikes. 

Now, I was under the impression that I could ski, but apparently I was very, very wrong. I was so nervous that I would fall and break my leg and not be able to get on the busses in Rome that I was all shaky and horrible and could barely stay on my feet. I took a couple of bad falls and got a giant bruise that is really awesome/disgusting. After a full day of skiing, we schlepped back and did the shower race before going downstairs to the club. Now apparently, this was the hottest club in Switzerland, but frankly, we found it lame and sucky. We all stuck together and had a nice time though, and John and I got to enjoy our free beer vouchers that we got for skydiving. The Swiss men were pretty creepy. They kept saying "Yaaaaahhh" and sounded like Fat Bastard. 

2/22/08

This morning we checked into our hostel straight off the night train at 6 in the morning. We stayed at Balmers in the private guest house and it was amazing! They really took care of us and the beds and pillows were ridiculously comfy. We woke up too late to hit the slopes, but Ethan couldn't wait and so he did all of the ridiculous black diamonds and unmarked paths in lieu of sleeping a couple extra hours. As we were sitting at lunch eating insanely expensive Swiss food (hash browns), and paying 30 francs for water, John suddenly announces, "I'm going skydiving in an hour, who wants to come?" I pondered for a few minutes, considered throwing up, and then said "I will." An hour later and a whole bunch of will requests later, John and I were on a bus on the way to go jump out of a plane. We got there and had a "lesson" which was literally three minutes and basically the only instructions were "don't throw up on your tandem partner." Then we got into our blue astronaut suits and harnesses and waited for our plane. When I saw it in the air on its way down and realized that it was so high up that I couldn't make out wings, I started to get a lot of nervous. Three minutes later John and I, our tandem partners, a hot Swiss photographer and two pilots were on our way up into the sky, 13,000 feet up (putting us at about 15,000 feet above sea level.) I thought we were about ready when we could see the tops of all the Alps and France and Italy, and just then my tandem Roland said, "Halfway up!" While this was true, some of the other things he said to me were just to mess with me. For example: "Oh no! Did you forget to grab goggles!", "I'm nervous, are you?", "You know one person a day dies doing this with me and I haven't lost anyone yet today." "All of your carabeeners are broken! I'll have to just tie onto the bottom." I was shaking in my Ugg boots the rest of the way up (yes, I wore them) and then the door of the plane swung open and I was leaning over the ledge with my feet dangling over the ground far below. Suddenly a wave of calm rushed over my entire body and all fear that I had turned into this amazing feeling like I could do anything. I leaned my head all the way forward because I forgot everything I learned in the 3 minute class, and Roland had to pull it back so that I wouldn't break my neck jumping. And then I was in the air. It was almost an entire minute of free-fall, over 8000 feet of breathtaking views of the Alps and every surrounding country. I couldn't get a single breath but it was ok, I wasn't even thinking about it. After the minute that felt like about 10 days, (in a good way,) my parachute released and everything slowed to a halt. I was 5000 feet in the air and swooping around the cascading mountains surrounding the valley where I would soon land. After a few minutes in the air, the ground grew nearer and I yelled to Roland "Do we have to go down now!?" He responded, "...There's really no other direction to go." We made a fast descent to the ground and I landed on my butt in a pile of mud (don't worry, I was supposed to.) A minute later John landed and we spent a few minutes jumping up and down screaming. (I think I said I love you to Roland.) We made it back to Balmers about an hour later and saw the rest of the gang who ran screaming and embraced us shouting "You're alive!" 

We were in and out the door in about a half hour and on the way to night sledding. We took a gondola up through the pitch black mountain which was possibly scarier than skydiving. Then we got our lesson which consisted of a man named Ronnie with a ridiculous Swiss accent handing us a sled and a glow stick and saying "Eef you vant to be turnik right put yourright fut on seh ground. Eef you vant turnink lefft put your lefft fut on zeh grownd. Eef you vant to stop then puttink bof feet on zeh grownd. Eef you see a black tink movink closeh to you, you should break because dat ees eizer a tree of a cleef. Okay, vee go!" ....And....down the mountain we went. It was a narrow path about 12 feet wide with a cliff on one side and a rock formation on the other, and it was about an hour of horror down to the restaurant. After we arrived safely, we were served a very authentic Swiss meal of cheese fondue and hash browns and eggs. (They love hash browns and have them at every meal.) Dinner was fabulous but way not enough food because I am an over-eating American. Before we left we made sure to get one more good look at the unbelievable stars. There were more than I have ever seen in my life, and the view of the Alps with the sky lit up in stars was breathtaking. We contemplated checking out the bar on our way home, but once we saw our beds we were in for good (even though it was only about 10). Then the 7 of us went about all sharing one bathroom the only way you can... to just run for it and see who can get in first. This method worked out just fine. Slipping into our picnic table print beds after the long day was amazing, and I had skydiving dreams all night!