Long day

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Was quite a long day for I was up at 7 and got home at 5:30 from school. On Mondays we have class from 9-11, 1:30-3:15, 3:30-5:15. First class is Art Appreciation with Eric and today we just had a big chat session. He told us that we have a fund of 1,100 Euro's that our group can spend. We can either use the money for small museum visits that our Uffizi card doesn't get us into or we can go on a bit trip at the end of the year as a class. We all opted for the small museum visits for we all have weekend plans for traveling. But after Art we got a bit of a break so I decided to go with Matt and Ali to Matt's for lunch. We had bread and cheese (that's all we eat here...) then decided to head over to the market.

Okay, so some of you might tisk tisk at me but oh well... While Ali, Matt and I were strolling through the market after lunch, a gentlemen walked by us asking if we'd like to buy some designer handbags. This is ILLEGAL in Europe now, if you are caught in the middle of buying a handbag you can be fined anywhere from 500 euro to 1,000 to more. And the sellers can be jailed or deported, seeing that a lot of the guys that do this business are illegal immigrants and work for the Italian mafia (no joke, my culture teacher explained all of it today). Anyways, Ali and I were a bit interested for heck, cheap designer bags? Why not! So the guy points over to a corner, tells us to wait for him and that he'll be back in a couple minutes. After waiting a good 5 or so minutes he pops back up and has this huge garbage back of fake bags and one or two guys with him. He starts pulling out fake bag after fake. I ask if he has a Chanel (I had one but it got stolen at Halloween...) and he reaches in a and pulls one out. He tells me it's for 60 and I tell him I only have 20. I end up giving him 30 and quickly walk away. I can't tell you how scary and terrifying it was for the whole time all of us were looking around for cops and I felt so terrible for buying a fake handbag. But a fun bag for cheap, I got the experience and plan on not trying it again!

Were currently trying to book a hotel room in Cinque Terre. Joe says it's his favorite place and he and his family have been, so I made it a must do on my list. He and Dominic apparently wrote their names in a bar somewhere in Cinque Terre so I plan on looking for them : )
We've found a decent place for way cheap, however this is the quote of the day: "I can sleep on chairs. I've done it before. I'll do it for Cinque Terre."
That's Brittni talking about our hotel room for we plan on shoving 5 of us in it when it's meant for 2.
Ciao for now, love and miss you all tons.

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Comments

[carla lumbra]

Hello!!
Haley...I just spent the last 30 min reading all your journal entries! Loving it big time!! (Greg especially liked the rat photos, of course. He said that's how they cleaned the bodies out of the catacombs..sp?) If you get low on groceries, we could probably scare up some delicious recipes for them!!ha. I called your parents last night because I freaked when I heard about the earthquake. Glad you're okay. Much love, Carla