I'd had my eye on a flier at the school for a few weeks that I'd been told about for horseback riding and I knew I had to get a group together to go. It included wine tasting, 2 hours with the horses, and then A POOL! The weather had been really hot all summer, and without any air conditioning, we were all desperate for a relaxing day in a pool without a beach involved. I rounded up 2 of my roomates: Lindsey and Leslie, and got Kevin and Brittany to come up from Montepulciano with his brother Calvin, and a [View Full Entry]

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It was 8:30am or so when Katie, Sarah, and I found ourselves outside of the Vatican. There was a nearby free tour about to begin, but after realizing just how slow it would be, we quickly broke away. Apparantly, we beat the crowds through the whole experience because we went straight into St. Peters, and then the museum afterwards. The church was absolutely amazing. I was burning up, because I'd worn a halter top that day and had to cover my shoulders up in the heat with the sweater I had with me. It's considered disrespectful to show knees/shoulders in these [View Full Entry]

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It was already the end of July and time was quickly running out for me and my roommates stay in Italy. So, like any sane person would do.. we decided to challenge ourselves to seeing Rome in a day. Myself, Sarah, and Katie caught the 5:55am train from Florence to Rome and arrived 2 or 2.5 hours later. We knew we were going to be rushed for time, so we caught a cab and went straight to Vatican City/Holy See. (See my other journal entry about this.) Upon leaving Vatican city, we caught another cab (I know.. I know...) and found [View Full Entry]

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Images taken in Berlin. Many of these are from areas where graffiti is allowed. One area seemed to actually encourage it on the "privacy fence" put up around construction, because of the skill of art present and also because there were actually youths working on pieces in the daylight. [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Berlin around 2pm after our 5 1/2 trainride in from Amsterdam (Which is the fastest train we could get!) They checked passports every 45 minutes to an hour while on the train, which didn't allow for much sleep, but I'm sure it had to do with the bombings just 2 days prior in London. After checking our passports 4 times, they stopped bothering us everytime they came through. There was a little bit of confusion once we got into the general area, but we figured out the city trains/subway pretty quickly and navigated into the area of Berlin [View Full Entry]

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Images taken from around the city. (It's really interesting to look at these.. and then compare to the other blog I posted of the Graffiti found not so far away in Berlin.) [View Full Entry]

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We caught an early train and took the 2 1/2 hour ride into Amsterdam from Brussels. Amsterdam immediately felt more welcoming than Brussels.. and there were people EVERYWHERE! We worked our way down through the city to just below the "U" of the canals to where our hotel was. Thorbecke. Climbing up narrow stairs (which were apparantly normal for the city) we checked into the hotel. We got an upgrade on our room because they overbooked and it was quite nice! All was not so well in other parts of the world, this was the day the London bombings happened. We [View Full Entry]

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It was the semester break for our studies in Florence, Italy, so myself and my roomate, Lindsey, decided we would take advantage of the opportunity and head to Brussels, Amsterdam, and Berlin for the week! Brussels was a stop-over for us because ultimately it did not cost much more at all to fly into the area (Charleroi airport) and then take a train into our intended destination of Amsterdam, than if we had just flown straight into Amsterdam. Who were we to complain about the opportunity to see an extra city/country! The arrival airport was a small one, and after a [View Full Entry]

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The San Giovanni festival in Florence is every year on June 24th and it honors this patron saint of the city. Festivities begin with a flag performance and is followed by a parade that winds through the city to the Santa Croce piazza where there is a ballgame of Calcio. Not even the Italians I was friends with quite knew how to explain the game. It's an old, old, traditional game that now seems to be a brutal form of rugby.. but hey! Traditions are traditions! ;) Later on in the evening , the night finishes off with an amazing fireworks [View Full Entry]

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I went along with my school (Santa Reparata) for the day trip to Siena and San Gimignano. First we went to Siena, which is less than an hour away from Florence. This city is broken into regions and is also the site of a famous horse race. The city centers around the main square which is in the shape of a seashell and away from this area is the duomo at the top of the hill. It is a smaller city compared to Florence, but it still had a charm of it's own. Interesting fact about the city: in one of [View Full Entry]

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