What I've been up to (If i can remember everything)

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June 1
First day of class!!!
Our first class is Italian at 9 am. We find our way. I think it is so cool how you can't even tell it's a school since the building just looks like another apartment building! Ah the city.
We find our class and sit closest to the window to catch the breeze coming through. We met this girl May who lives upstairs from us, super nice.
We have a pretty interesting group of kids in my Italian class... But I was excited to start a new language and not be bored in a language class for once!

Walked to Apicius at 1130 and went to my wine class. The room was so cool because the tables are super high and there are like high chairs. Also every table has a funky sink in it so you can wash your wine down the drain. FANCY SCHMANCY!
Massimo, my wine teacher, is the shiz. He is a cute older man! Too bad he is married! hahaha jk But he has so much energy and I could tell that he loved what he was doing. He had owned restaurants before and sold them, then becoming a wine teacher. He has a pretty good life.
After the first class I was super nervous because it seemed like hard material. Tried to switch into a cooking class but the drop/add period had been the friday before that. who has drop/add before classes even begin?!

Next we have to walk to FUA which is like... a 30 mins walk! we only have 30 mins to get to our next classes and since it was the first day trying to figure out where to go it took longer. We were both about 25 mins late to our classes. Thank the lord there is only 4 people in my Graphic Design class (which by the way better transfer or i'm going to be angry) beacuse he didn't really mind and he understood. The only problem that day was that I had just had wine and was tired. Also, he is a very monotonous speaker so the hold time I was trying extremely hard not to nod off.

At the end of the day Lauren and I cant believe that this will be our lives for the next four weeks. We are already dead after one day. We complain to our parentals but of course they have no sympathy for us. 😊

June 4

First Italian quiz! Got a 94 😊

June 5

Today Lauren, Jerry, Jen and I went to Pisa! Chelsea, Addison and Meredith went to Cinque Terre to do the 8 mile hike!
Walked to the train station and had a little issue with trying to figure out how to get tickets and where to get tickets 😊
Got on the train 1 minute before it left the station! Power to ya!
We end up not finding seats and have to sit in the entry way of one the cabins (where people get on and off).
We take milions of pictures of the country side as it is unbelievably beautiful and green.
We arrive to Pisa and the first thing we think of is COFFEE! We get a map and go to our coffee shop and sip on some Cafe Lattes. yum yum!
We start walking towards the Leaning Tower and window shop while we are doing it. We found some pretty cool stores. Italy is so bad for women or even men who love to shop! I could spend Millions of dollars here!
The river was amazing and the houses along side of it was just so picturesque. All my pictures are on Facebook but I'll try to upload them here.
We get to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and we get out the cameras 😊 tourism 101 ALWAYS HAVE A CAMERA.
We attempt to take a bunch of pictures "holding" up the tower but there are sooooooooo many people there its such a pain in the butt. We went to see how much it cost to walk up the tower but decided on not doing it since we believed it was over priced.
By this time our stomachs were growling so we found a place to have lunch.
I had amazing prosciutto and melon 😊 Jen and a margherita pizza and lauren had a caprese salad. While we are sitting and waiting for our food. My dearest friend catches my attention and points to a very handsome boy sitting not to far away from us. She tells me " I'm not sure if you'll get upset if I bring this up but that guy looks like (the last guy in my life)..." of course I look over and he does resemble (the last guy in my life) and I immediately start to paparazzi him. This guy is very very very good looking and i find it my mission to try and spark up a conversation. I have a feeling he knows we are watching him hahah
He gets up with his friends and they walk away. At this point we realize he is american (not a problem) but that he is leaving!
I am so sad haha . After lunch we walk to the fountain and guess who is there! He is filling his water bottle up and so I decide that I need to fill mine up as well.
You can guess it... we never actually talked LOL but he was SO good looking 😊 and tall!
We then walk to the bus station and take a bus to the beach. We re dropped off in front of "American Beach", ironic?, and pay 2 euro each to go on the beach.
It is absolutely amazing. So beautiful and just such a good feeling to have my toes in the sand.
After about an hour and a half we wait for the bus which turns out to be an hour wait in the beating hott sun. You would think they would write some stuff on the bus schedule in english! its next to the american beach for pit sake! 😊
We get back to Florence and wipe out.

June 6

Today is Siena!
Hop on the bus and off we go!
Of course I decide that no, I don't need a sweater because it looks like it is going to get sunny. Alas, when we get to Siena, because it is higher in altitude it is so cold and windy!
We become tourists again and visit the duomo, the central square and have lunch.
We were going to try and make it to Volterra (which is where part of the 2nd twilight movie is filmed) but the bus schedule there didn't work out for us. Pity!
We came back to Florence around 4 and walked the market.

June 10
We go to a place called Moyo for aperitivo!
What you do is buy one drink and then there is sort of like a buffet style appetizer table.
Lauren and I meet Jen there and order 2 drinks.
The aperitivi are so good! After two plates i was full! And only for the price of one drink!
We eventually got a table outside becaues it was sooooo hot inside.
We cheersed to our first week in Florence and the following 3! 😊

June 11

Italian Test! ewwwwww

We can't help ourselves and we are back at Moyo!
We had a good night that night just relaxing.
And we got to go home in super good moods!

June 12

Today is friday and we have decided to go to Vada Beach.
It is known for its white sands and crystal blue waters. Apparently this is the only place in Italy that has caribbean water! When we got there we couldn't believe our eyes. It was beautiful!
It reminded me of a James Bond movie. Where he has his little life boat and he comesout of the water and then the girl comes out in her bikini with a knife strapped to her leg or something. Yea it was cool.
The day was so relaxing but the only down side was that we kept getting harrassed by guys that were selling stuff. And they didn't just come around once. They kept coming by. I just wanted to be lke "I said no the first time, why do you think I want one now!"
But I'm nice and I didn't yell at them.
We headed back To florence around 6. We were going to go to go to Moyo againn but we wiped out.

June 13

Today we went horse back riding in Chianti.
We went with a program called Florence for Fun which is designed for college students studying abroad. They have amazing trips planned for alot cheaper then normal so it was only 90 euro to go horsback riding! We met our bus at the train station and hopped in. It was actually more like a van but whatever.
Our driver, Felipe, is crazy. He puts on the radio and its hard metal/rock. Of course we had all just about woken up so instead of having coffee this seemed like our wake up call.
This guy had the most interesting past. I can't remember that much right now but I can tell you it was the most interesting van ride. He told us about his childhood, his life now, etc. and he was just so interesting. He is one of those people that you meet and just want to know more but not in a philosopical way because he was vulgar and tattooed up but so mch fun.
We ended up stopping for coffee, which he bought for all of us, and then drove to the barn. Once we get there we meet the family and the owners. They are all so sweet. Currently there are little kids riding mini horses. I thought this was the cutest thing ever so I took a picture of them!
We hop on our horses and start the trail ride!
We ride past some villas and through the vineyards and do sort of a figure eight trail. This trail ride was so relaxing/beautiful and I'm so glad that we got to do it the way we did. It was awesome to be on a horse again and I know Lauren and Jerry liked it as well.
After we got back the lady owner took Lauren out to the ring and let her gallop and trot and play around. THen Lauren did a jump and we were ready to go.
We rode up to this gorgeous farm house that had a perfect view of the 13th century castle of the town of Chianti. The couple who lived at the farm house made us an amazing lunch with caprese, proscuitto, salad, pasta and wine. It was just so good. The cheese! oh my gosh the cheese! So fresh and sharp! We also had a desert wine with biscotti at the end which I thought was sooo gross. It tasted sort of like whiskey or rum and had that smell. Whenver I drank some of it I had to close my nose with my fingers 😊 How lady like of me!
After lunch we had espresso in their yard and drove up to the castle.
We only walked around the square for about 5 minutes before heading back to town.

June 14
This morning we headed to the outlet mall. Would you like to know what it is called? The Mall, Outlet.
HOw original haha.
This mall is owned by gucci so of course there was Burberry, Yves, Gucci, Feragamo, Miss Sixty, Deisel and other very expensive stores. There was a wicked cute burberry zip up that Jerry, May and Lauren got but they only had larges. It was so worth it though! Wish I could have gotten one in a small! Then after we went to the Dolce and Gabbana outlet because I wanted to find a pair of sun glasses but didn't end up seeing some I liked. So after this I was the only one who hadn't bought anything. But thats okay because if it wasnt meant to be it wasnt meant to be!
THen when we got home I found out about Dustin and was a mess. I called steven and talked to my friend vanessa and looked all the articles up online.
It is just horrifying when something like this happens so close to home. Also, you just can't understand why? Why would you shoot someone flat in the face?? Especially someone that was not older! I think the guy that did it awas either in his 20s or a teenager.
I'm not sure but all over fb and myspace RIP Dustin White was appearing. The saying for him is "Fly high Dirty, We'll miss you forever."
My deepest condolences goes to Monique, Devin and Devin's family.
We were supposed to go to Fiesole that evening to watch the sun set over Florence but never made it because I was not up to it.
Instead we stayed in and ate alot of cheese and crackers and had a bottle of wine.



June 18

This morning was hard.
I mean not too hard but still hard.
I popped right up from only sleeping 4 hours and got ready in 10 mins. UNHEARD OF.
We were walking to italian class when it hit me. My body was just telling me to go home and go back to sleep hahaha.
Italian class was boring of course and then we had a quiz. I think I did okay.

THen we went to this place called the Oil Shoppe which makes AMAZING sandwiches/subs.
I've never gone before but it is probably the best sandwich I have EVER had in my life. THey tend to close around 2 because they run out of bread. Thats how awesome they are!
Well because I hadnt eaten anything I ate the WHOLE sandwich, which I would probably have had to save if it was any other day. I dont regret it though. It was wonderful :D
We went ot wine class. Had a quiz in wine class which he said would be easy. um WRONG-OE
SOOOO HARD.
I mean how can I fail wine class?! I'll tell you why, because it is soooo hard and there is so much information!
I am going to have to study so much for the final next week.

Didn't have to go to Graphic Design so Lauren and i poked around the expensive shopping street. Roberto Cavalli, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, Louis Vuitton. It was a nice afternoon.

Now we are lounging as we are so tired form last night! what were we thinkging!

We are going to make a HUGE salad with chicken for dinner tonight. I can't wait.

Then tomorrow off to Cinque Terre to hike 8 miles! THis should be hilarious as it is just going to be Lauren and I. We are going to be stopping ALOT. haha
see you then!

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