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Kelly Smith
I am currently a student at Bellevue College in Washington State. However, for spring quarter 2012 I will be studying in Florence Italy! The program is through the community college and organized by AIFS, which I have heard wonderful things about. I’m looking forward to my time abroad, and am planning on using this site to help stay in contact with my friends and family. KellySmith3
The picture is of me sitting in Dunn's River Falls in Jamaica!
Travel Blog Posts
June 6th 2012
I’m currently aboard a train to Marseille with my final destination being Arles. Since I have a few hours I’ll catch you up on the last few days. Instead of going back to Monaco on Sunday I stayed in Nice and poked around; I had made arrangements to Skype with my mom at 6pm my time and didn’t want to miss it. I decided to wonder through old town where I was told they have a flower market on Sundays. I walked through the main tourist area to get there taking my time to look in shop windows and occasionally sit and people watch. When I arrived in old town there were flower stands filling the lane. At this point it was early afternoon and many of the stands only had empty buckets that I’m sure ... read more
June 2nd 2012
My morning started off slow, I woke around 9:30 brushed my teeth and went down to grab some breakfast. It is a decent arrangement of breads, jams, cereal, yogurt, and juice. I had some toast then went back to my room where my roommates were finally beginning to stir. I finished writing my blog I had begun last night and got that posted on the website. Next I battled balancing my cash flow spreadsheet; that took a while. I decided to go to Monaco today because it was on my paces to visit and I’m only in Nice for 3 nights; but first I wanted to stop by the tourist information office (TI) and grab a map and some brochures. At the TI I got a map of the Nice area and one for Monaco. With ... read more
June 2nd 2012
Since I have now set off on my own I want to be sure to keep everyone posted; I’m going to skip over my missing weeks and work from the current experiences. As I have time I will go back and fill in my missing time in Italy. I awoke this morning at 9:20 and was required to be out of my apartment at 10. I had already packed everything but what I would need in the morning and mailed off two suitcases full of clothes and souvenirs yesterday. Yes, I actually had to purchase a second suitcase because I bought too much stuff; I am however done with my Christmas shopping! The apartment had also been cleaned the previous day. As I gathered up the last few items I had around made it look so ... read more
May 19th 2012
I woke up in Rome on April 26th and would fall asleep in Athens, isn’t modern travel wonderful! My trip from the hostel to the airport was easy enough; I just hopped on the subway to the train station and took a train to the airport. I got to the airport with plenty of time so I just settled in with my book to wait until boarding. I was flying Ryan air, one of many of Europe’s budget airlines. When flying Ryan air I was told to make sure to arrive early since they do not give seat assignments. If you arrive late you have to take whatever seat is available and if the overhead bins are full you have to pay to check your bag; two very good reasons to get there early in my ... read more
The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, aka: April 25th
Published: May 17th 2012Europe » Italy » Tuscany » Florence
May 17th 2012
This story actually begins on Tuesday April 24thbut unhappy events don’t begin until after the chime of midnight. Since I’m in Florence and church bells actually ring the hours there are actual chimes, although I didn’t hear them that evening. So Tuesday evening was the farewell event for the AIFS group from California, and to celebrate a karaoke evening was planned. Everyone from the Washington group was going to go and Michelle was even going to sing, if accompanied, because performing karaoke was one of the items on her bucket list. The basement of the Old Stove in Palazzo Vecchio was packed full of rambunctious college students ready to celebrate the end of finals; their teacher was not as kind as ours when it comes to school work. To start off the singing were three girls ... read more
May 8th 2012
It has been a busy two weeks and I have so much to catch everyone up on. I made a checklist of everything yesterday while on the train so I would be sure not to leave anything out. I left off with Saturday April 21st and my hike through the Tuscan hillside. The following day was our AIFS cultural outing to the football game between Fiorentina and Inter Milan. I knew it was going to be a difficult outing because of all my physical activity the previous day; what I didn’t expect was the migraine I had upon waking up in the morning. I made sure to dig out my migraine meds and take a couple before getting ready to go to the game. On top of the migraine I was sore, it hurt to walk, ... read more
April 25th 2012
Saturday April 21st was a day full of pain; the leisurely hike I was expecting was not what I got. It began with a pleasant public bus ride to a Tuscany town called St. Brigida, which took about an hour. After exciting the bus we start down a small side street and are told we are going to the sanctuary called Madonna of the Rock, it has nothing to do with the painting of the same name. From where we are standing we can see the church building up about halfway on the hill. Okay, I think that is doable. Then he says it should take us about half an hour to get there, alright, more difficult but I should be okay. We continue to walk along and we come across a cross and plaque on ... read more
April 20th 2012
I just got word that the weather was beautiful in Cinqueterra today and the group that did go had a great time. I will have to make sure I get out there before I leave. I spent today in museums, two to be specific, Museo Stefano Bardini and Museo Galileo; both were amazing and I took so many pictures I ran two camera batteries dead. The first one I went to was Museo Stefano Bardini who was an antique dealer and collector in the 19th century who donated his collection and his auction house to the city upon his death. The house itself was beautiful with amazing stairways and ceilings. The first room is mainly sculptures from different eras yet fit well together. Then I proceeded upstairs where there was a crucifix in the center of ... read more
April 19th 2012
Wow, it has been 10 days since I posted, sorry everyone! Sometimes time just goes by too quickly, I think this is the first time I wished a quarter would slow down. To help me reconstruct the past week I’m going to post emails I’ve sent to my mom, I try to email her daily. April 9th I'm about to cook my first steak!(It is true, I had never cooked a steak) I hope it goes well; being able to cook at home would save money. I almost have to relearn cooking because what is available is so different! No cheddar cheese, let alone Colby jack, tons of unknown ones though. They don't refrigerate their eggs or oj, but I like the oj here better more watery or something. I also can't find raspberry jam. +( ... read more
April 9th 2012
Easter Sunday! I didn’t get up as early as I would have liked so I missed part of the parade, but I saw the cart being moved so that is enough. Seeing as how it hasn’t rained for more than a couple of minutes here and I have yet to be cold during the day I wore a camisole with a thin silk flowery overlay over it, no coat. From this sentence you might be able to see where this is going. During our walk to the Duomo we came across the parade so we stopped to talk some shots of the oxen pulling the cart that will be exploded. After the parade went passed we made our way around and staked out a spot. At this point it is a little over an hour until ... read more
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