Thank you God :)

Europe » Italy » Tuscany » Greve in Chianti
September 9th 2011

Published: September 9th 2011

Edit Blog Post

Jemerson122

Sunflowers!

Not many sunflowers are still alive right now, but I happened to find these on my way back from the "run" to the castle

Well it's been awhile since I've written, sorry! The internet was down for over 2 days & I've just been super busy! :-/ Internet is still back & forth but better than nothing! Everything is going really well here, I'm so happy 😊 Definitely missing everybody though. I'm trying to remember everything I've done so far. We went to Arezzo last weekend to a jousting tournament that was pretty intense, apparently it's a big deal there...there were people crying when their teams didn't win. There were others going crazy, throwing full water bottles at each other & the sticks of flags, pushing & shoving, screaming at each other & repeating chants for their team. I don't really get why it's such a big deal but it was fun to watch!

We started school this week, but I only had 2 of 4 that started for me...my black & white photography & my watercolor class start next week, I'm so excited!!! For my history class we take a trip every Wednesday and this week we went to Florence, or "Firenze" as they call it 😊 It was so much to take in for only being there a day, the architecture is

Befriending the locals!

Karaoke night, the locals are so friendly & loved sharing their wine with us :) Love this town!

outrageous! We got to look around the shops for about 30 minutes then had to head back for dinner, which is probably a really good thing cause I'm trying SO hard not to buy stuff this soon. I'm saving all that I can for fall break to Ireland, Scotland, & London! I've already booked the flight there & back, I just need to book the one from Ireland to Scotland. My fall break is from October 22-30th. I'll be in Venice the week before fall break so I'll be traveling quite a bit during that time!

I also booked my flight to....GREECE!!! Hehe so excited! I'm taking that trip on October 7th weekend. It's crazy to think that I get to experience all of this in such a short period of time. Thank you God 😊

Today I went to a wine tasting festival in Greve, which was about an hour & a half (maybe less) bus ride from Castiglion Fiorentino where I'm staying. It was 10 euros to buy a glass then you just walk around to any of the booths & ask to try whatever you want, there were SO many to choose from. They gave

Night Out

Having a drink at the Garden, a little cafe/bar at the top of the hill

us a card so that we could have 7 tastings & get it punched each time, but most of the booths didn't punch it, so I got pretty tipsy by the end lol. It's not something I would normally do, I wouldn't consider myself a wino, but I did it for the experience & I really enjoyed it!

Speaking of other experiences, I have another one to tell! There's a castle wayyy up on the hill in the distance from where we're staying. It's about 3-3.5 miles to get there so we decided we were going to make it to the top. A few of us girls got up at 7 in the morning to go on a run & make our first attempt. Omg....I almost died, I'm so out of shape y'all. I ran probably half of it straight then stopped & walk/ran the rest. But it was the most relaxing walk I've ever been on, the scenery is unbelievable! We passed sooo many fruits and vegetables and fields of flowers, all kinds of colors. We even picked some wild grapes and berries and they were AMAZING! I had to stop running completely when the hills got steep,

Roomies!

Carolyn & Liz, the trio! This was karaoke night in Castiglion Fiorentino

and even just walking I could feel the burn in my thighs like no other. We finally got to the top & 2 of us had to go to the bathroom so bad & there was nothing around us...so, we can officially say we've peed next to a castle wall 😊 Sorry if that's TMI, but it was a fun experience lol. On the way back I got caught redhanded taking some grapes off this man's tree, I didn't know that it was his & he looked at us like we must be crazy, we didn't know! But they were yummy!

Well anyways, I'm going to go watch a movie so I will write again later! Enjoy the pictures 😊

Additional photos below

Photos: 16, Displayed: 16