Venice

This past weekend I went to Venice with the school. I had a great time despite still battling from a bad cold. There was a huge number of us that went on the trip this weekend- 90! That is pretty much everyone in the program...

We were off to a bit of a late start on Friday because the bus drivers thought we wanted to be picked up at 4:00 P.M even though Peter clearly said 8:30 in the morning... oh well. After we left the drive was only about 3.5 hours... not bad! I slept, caught up on some studying, and read part of my new book and a Cosmo that my mom sent over with Chris when he visited in Florence.

We stayed about 25 minutes by ferry in a small town called Fusina. We stayed at a campground in small cabins, which actually ended up being pretty nice. However, it was pretty annoying that the power kept going on and off during the weekend. Once we arrived in Fusina on Friday, Georgina, Angie and I decided to stray away from the group because we wanted to take a shower and rest up a bit before exploring the city. Around 2:00 we caught the ferry to Venice. We walked all around the small city and peeped into various shops. Georgina and I were craving a Crepe (random huh?) and I embarked on a place called "Le Cafe" that was surely French. We ended up splitting a nutella crepe with banana and a bottle of Pino Grigio- yum! I think my mind was still a bit on France from the week before because how random is it that I was craving a crepe?! The rest of the evening I just relaxed and act some snacks that I got at a local grocery store.

Some of my favorite memories include looking at all the shops, seeing everyone dressed up (it was Carnevale weekend), and just exploring the small city. I got a gorgeous dark blue and turquoise Murano-style necklace while in Venice, and I am wearing it right now as we speak! I also purchased some post cards and a souviner for Chris (but I am not going to mention what it is on here).

I really liked the outside of St. Mark's Basilica- I didn't get a chance to go inside, but the outside was beautiful!

This weekend was so packed with tourists and natives of Venice because of the Carnevale. I wanted to buy a mask and "fit in" so to speak, but I knew that my pretty mask wouldn't last on the way home... it was much too fragile! They were pretty though (look at the picture on the left :0) ).

Anyways, most of Saturday I spent just exploring the city and wandering around and doing my own thing. There were optional tours to go on this weekend, but I wasn't feeling too well because of my cold, so I didn't want to be tied down in case I wanted to go back earlier than everyone else.

On Sunday we had to check out by 10 AM and then we had the option to go back into Venice one last time before we left at 3 PM. Georgina and I went into Venice for a few hours and just walked around the outskirts of the water and took pictures. We also got another lovely Crepe (I got a nutella and coconut- yum!) but this time it was from a little hut outside the main bridge in Venice. It was a pretty relaxing day! After we came back from Venice into Fusina, we decided to chill at the local restaurant/bar and study for our Management and Organization test that I took today. And in case you are wondering, I think I did a pretty good job! :-D

Well that is my recap of the weekend. I am going to Athens, Greece this weekend with Georgina.

Ciao!

The bittersweet life of Lemonade

I love the phrase, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

What exactly is it that makes lemonade so delicious? Is it the tartness and tang of the lemons, the sugar component, or perhaps the memories that go a long with it? To me, the perfect lemonade is one that has an equal amount of tartness and sweetness. Without the equilibrium, either the tartness is overwhelming or the sugar is overpowering. To me, this adds additional meaning to the quote; perhaps in life, in order to make delicious and fruitful lemonade, one must have an equal amount of tribulations and sweet memories to mix in. Although the tribulations might be immediately sour, once mixed with life lessons and growth, they produce something that tastes amazing.

Speaking of the sour aspect in life, sometimes its hard for me to back up big life decisions. There are so many pros and cons, and its so difficult to weigh them and figure out which choice is the best one right now. I have always been an indecisive person, because I can always see the rationality in doing things one way or another. I have a lot of trouble in making that "jump" in concluding which choice is the right one for me at the time.

I am not going to go into details, but this past week I had to make a very big decision regarding a friendship and believe me, it wasn't easy. I consulted my mom, boyfriend, and a few close friends. They all gave me relatively good advice, but ultimately they all said the same thing; "you do what you feel is right." How am I really supposed to know?

I know we all have the innate intuition to figure out what we are supposed to do in life, yet for some reason, I feel like my "consciousness" is often clouded over by doubt and instability. Although I may know the right choice for myself, I always strive to be the better person and put others before my well-being. This can be a blessing, and a torture. I almost felt like I made my decision a few days ago based on pure anger, frustration, and stress. Perhaps if I only waited a few more days before my head "cleared," but this was a decision that needed to be made promptly, which is often the case...

One thing that I hate is the feeling of guilt. Knowing you hurt someone, and the task to reconcile is daunting. With me being stubborn, I feel like this person is mostly in the wrong for how she treated me. I have sat here and tried to justify my actions of hurtful words and actions based on how she has treated me throughout our friendship, but when it comes down to it, we were both selfish and mean to each other. No one deserves to be treated unkindly, even when it originates by one person being rude or inconsiderate. The golden rule, "treat others how you would like to be treated," has been constantly ringing in my ear as I am left feeling empty after making my decision.

One thing I pride myself on is the ability to see other people's perspectives in many situations. I am a great listener, and over the years I have improved one of my negative qualities of being overly defensive. However, if I find that the person I am trying to meet half way is being unreasonable and unaccommodating to my feelings, it becomes harder and harder to be nice and understanding. I felt that I tried to do everything I could with this person, but with our lack of patience and stubbornness collectively, things quickly began to spiral out of control, and suddenly we are no longer speaking again. How do I stop attracting so much drama into my life?

Consequently, because I have improved on becoming less defensive, lately people have often told me that I do not stick up for myself enough, and that I tend to let my friends and others walk all over me. This is not who I want to be, yet it is hard to set a fine line between sharing my viewpoint, and getting the friend or other person from becoming upset with me. I like to share how I feel, but a lot of times people take it the wrong way. For this reason, lately I have hid my true feelings and emotions to prevent arguments or disagreements. This sometimes works for me until it slowly bottles up inside and I burst...

I felt so empowered immediately after I ended the friendship with this one individual, but now I just feel lonely, empty, and guilty . We are all human beings with feelings and sometimes it's hard to see past our own. Perhaps friendship is not meant to be on our agenda, but kindness and sincerity should always prevail.

My task from here is going to be dealing with finding a balance between mending the tension and learning from the choices I have made... essentially making Lemonade. Although friendship may not be in our horizon, I hope at least a friendly attitude will.

A visit to Julie's home in France

This past weekend Cierra and I went to visit my cousin and her family in France. It was definitely my favorite weekend trip so far. It was so nice to be around a family atmosphere, and everyone was so accomodating and friendly.


Cierra and I left for the airport around 3 A.M from our pensione to catch the Terravision bus at 3:30. From there, we arrived at the Pisa airport and checked in. Luckily our flight was on time! We transfered in Munich and had a short layover and then we arrived in Geneva (which is about half an hour away from Julie's house) around 1:00. Julie and two of her boys were waiting for us outside of baggage claim and it was so nice to see them again!

That afternoon, we had some tea and caught up and talked about life. About an hour later, Cierra, Julie, and I went to a small town called Annecy, which was absoloutely adorable. We took some pictures and walked around the little town and walked into some local shops. Cierra treated us to some amazing chocolate caramels at a small chocolate store. For dinner, we had some authentic French Crepes. I had one with cheese on top and on the middle and ham. It was delicious!

The next day, we had a lovely Breakfast at the house and then Cierra, Julie, Benjamin and his friend Piere went skiing/snowboarding in the French Alps. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. It was sunny and clear skies. The snow conditions were great too! I also got to borrow Julie's friends' skiies and boots, which was very nice. After we were done skiing, we had a quick bite to eat at the lodge. I had a ham and cheese sandwich, french fries, and a coke. That afternoon we pretty much relaxed, and then for dinner we had another authentic French meal. For our apertivo, we had some chips and pecans and some lovely Champagne. For dinner, I forget what it is called, but basically you put these cheese slices into a little metal pan and stick it into a machine that melts the cheese and makes it crispy (depending on how long you leave it in there). It was amazing! Once the cheese is melted to your liking, you pour it on sliced potatoes with cold cuts on top.

On Saturday (Valentine's Day), Julie, Cierra and I went to the town of Chamonix, which houses the largest mountain peak in Europe. Once we got there, we looked around at a couple souviner shops. I got Chris a small gift and some postcards. Then we bought our tickets for the two gondolas, which would take us up to the top of the mountain peak. Once we got to the top, I was absoloutely in awe of how gorgeous the views were! It was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. After we came back down on the gondola, we had some extra time to walk around the little town and take pictures. Cierra and I split a banana and chocolate crepe... yum!

That evening, the whole family took us snowshooing at nightime with a guide. I had never been snowshooing, and it was quite the experience! I really enjoyed it. Our guide even stopped to pour us some hot grape juice! It was delicious. We were out for about an hour and a half in the snow, and then we rested up at a restaurant and had fondue. It was my first time having cheese fondue, and I was immediately in love.

On Sunday, Cierra and I slept in and then had a late Breakfast with Julie. We hung out for awhile and packed up our stuff and then we had a road tour of Geneva on the way to the airport. Before we left for the flight, Julie treated us to some snacks at a local gas station. We got a baguette and cheese, chips, a candy bar, and Cierra got a pepsi. We were definitely set! Our flight left around 7:00 P.M, and everything was on time so that was good. Once we got to the Munich airport to transfer, I was lucky enough to get a staff member at Lufthansa to run and get my camera at lost and found (I had accidently left it on the plane coming from Pisa to Geneva). I was very lucky to get it back with such short time!

Well that concludes the trip! We had a fun filled weekend, and I will surely never forget it! :)

Barcelona

Two weekends ago Chris and I went to Barcelona. We originally thought that we had Thursday-Sunday there, but after the people at the hotel mentioned we had one more night there before we left, we had to look over the itinerary and sure enough, we were leaving the next day, Friday. That Thursday instead, we dedicated to exploring Florence. It ended up being a pretty nice day! :)

We left for the airport around 11:15 on Friday, and once we got there and waited in line to check in, the lady at the Lufthansa desk mentioned that our flight was about 45 minutes late, and that it was necessary to book a later connecting flight from Munich to Barcelona. We were a bit bummed because we then had a long layover of about 3-4 hours (the flight from Munich to Barcelona was scheduled to leave around 7:00 PM) but we accepted it. Well, once we got to the terminal, our flight appeared to be completely on time. We were very confused, and were determined to switch our connecting flight back to the original time. Once we got into Munich, we hustled to the Lufthansa service desk, and practically begged them to switch us back to our original flight plans. They mentioned this was very difficult to do, but with much persistence we were able to change it back just in the nick of time.

We didn’t end up getting into Barcelona until late afternoon/evening and then we had to take a metro train to our hotel which was located pretty far from the airport. Our hotel was very, very nice though. We decided to stay in a nicer place just because it was a special weekend for both of us. We stayed at Vincci Maritimo , which ended up being a pretty nice location to the city’s hot spots. That evening we took a taxi into the part of town where my friends Georgina and Jessie were staying. We met for some happy hour drinks. and then we took the metro train again to the waterfront where a lot of the famous restaurants were located. We had some red wine, Chris and I split some fried Calamari (oddly it is the only seafood I’ll eat pretty much) and we all split some chicken and vegetable Paella (very authentic Spanish food). It was delicious! That evening we walked around the town and encountered all the hot spots of the nightlife in Barcelona. We went into a few clubs and bars and had a great evening.

he next day, Chris and I slept in because we were exhausted from the busy night before. Once we were off for the day, there was no stopping us! We knew we pretty much only had today to explore the city and see all the sights, so we wasted no time. Once we hoped on the metro train (we used this a lot while we were there), the first thing we did was have tapas at this local restaurant near the Picasso Museum. We split these sausages, spicy tomato sauce fries, beer, and bread with a tomato sauce. It was super yummy! Once we were finished, we went to the Picasso museum. It was pretty cool, but kind of small. I didn’t mind though- I’ m not much of a museum goer, but I felt it was necessary to go to this museum while I was there!

After the museum, we went to a souvenir shop and I got some postcards, and Chris got a little bull figurine. We asked the man that worked there for directions to the city Cathedral, and we were on our way. We were pretty close to the cathedral, so we ended up just walking there. On the way to the church, I ran into a Starbucks and I was ecstatic. I definitely miss Starbucks from the states; although it is even more expensive in Europe, it is totally worth going to because they are non existent here in Italy. As we were walking over to the church, we noticed some talented street performers and we sat and watched them while I sipped my coffee. Anyways, the church was super cool, but like many things that weekend, it was under construction on the outside. The inside was very beautiful though.

After our short visit to the church, we took the metro train to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia Church. Before we entered the building, Chris and I spotted a place across the street to get hot dogs, and I haven't had a hot dog since I left the states, so I was ecstatic. They even had ketchup! :) Anyways, after our little snack, I couldn't help but notice the outside of the church was simply breathtaking and had very interesting architecture. This famous structure is currently unfinished. According to Trivia-library.comthe shell of a church, one of the landmarks of Barcelona, Spain, occupied architect Antonio Gaudi throughout his career. He inherited the project from the original architect, Francisco del Villar, in 1883, one year after construction had begun, and transformed the conventional Gothic-style cathedral into a surrealistic forest of imaginative shapes resembling natural objects. After 1910 he abandoned almost all other work, secluding himself on the church site. His work, described as the three-dimensional dreams of a madman, contains bulging facades, swaying pillars, and weird protuberances. In 1926 Gaudi, 73, was run over by a Barcelona streetcar. Only one of the 13 planned tubular towers and one transept of the church were completed when he died five days later. Although the church was brutally damaged during the Spanish Civil War, Gaudi's assistants, friends, and concerned citizens have kept the work going. Although Chris and I were a bit unimpressed with the inside of the church, we began to appreciate the structure after learning about the history and the historical significance. My favorite part about the building was the optional elevator lift that took us to the top of the Church unto a balcony. It was here that we had an amazing view of the city. We definitely took lots of pictures up here.

When we were done looking inside the church, we had a quick snack (again) at KFC. It is nothing like the states though; they didn't even have popcorn chicken! Anyways, we took the subway to the stop where "La Pedrera" was located. I am not quite sure the significance of this building, but it looks really cool and I knew I wanted to see it. We didn't go inside or anything (I think it might even be an apartment complex?) but it looked super neat. I know the building was also designed by Gaudi.

We took the metro train once again back to our hotel, freshened up, and met Jessie and Georgina again for a buffet dinner. It was all you can eat for 9.50 euro, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but most of the food was terrible. The salad bar with the cold pasta salads was really good, but the hot foods looked and tasted stale. It was almost as if they were sitting out all day... gross. I guess that's what you get for eating a buffet, right? haha. That evening we were looking for two famous bars in particular; a "shots cafe" and a "Stock-exchange bar". We got lost trying to find the shot cafe, and apparently it is a very Americanized bar, so none of the Barcelona natives knew where it was, or even had heard of it. Bummer... but we did end up finding the Stock-exchange bar. It was pretty much out in the middle of no where, and the concept behind it was there is menu that contains all the of drinks and next to it, much like stocks, are the current prices of the drink. Every 10 minutes or so, they are adjusted based on the "market" and drinks either go up or down based on their popularity. There even were "stock-market crashes" much like the real world. It was a cool idea, but the bar was so crowded and really smoky. We had one drink, and had to leave. We ended up going to a bar close to the girls' hostel, and it turned out to be pretty fun. We hung out in the basement of the bar, and there were two British men that decided to sit next to us and chat. They were very friendly! Apparently they were both teaching English to the Spanish people; I was curious how long they have been speaking Spanish, and the man replied... "oh only about 9 months or so!" I was completely shocked; I wondered how in the world are these people teaching English if they are not even fluent in Spanish?! The man said that they pretty much speak only English to them, even from day one. Wow, things are so different in Europe!

We ended up staying until the bar closed, and then we went to bed. The next day, Chris and I had a quick Breakfast and then we headed to the metro station one last time to get to the airport. We thought things were fine and dandy, but the man at the train station gave us the wrong train to take to the airport, so we were just riding along, and after awhile, we noticed things were looking pretty strange. There were cows and other various farm animals on either side of us... and we were just thinking something didn't feel right. Sure enough, we were heading in the wrong direction, so we got off at the next stop and waited until the train was going the opposite direction. We figured out which stop to get off to transfer to the real airport line, but at that point, we were super pressed for time. It was so stressful; once we finally got to the airport, we had about 15 minutes until our flight left! We booked it with our bags to the Lufthansa check in, explained our situation, and luckily we arrived just in the nick of time as the flight was boarding. We were sweating though!! The rest of the day went pretty smoothly and I was mainly consumed for studying for my Operations test the next day. It is so hard to study with your boyfriend there, believe me!

Whew! What a recap... hope I didn't bore you guys to tears! I am currently in the process of posting all my Barcelona trip pictures on face book. Feel free to have a look! :)

Ciao buddies!

Paris remarks

Hey everyone!





Sorry its been so long since I lasted posted. Things have been super crazy here between traveling, schoolwork, and Chris visiting last week.

I thought instead of talking about my most recent trip (France to see my cousin!) I would start with where I left off. A recap of Paris...

I went to Paris with my good friend Cierra and we left on Thursday after classes and stayed until late Sunday afternoon. We had a lovely time all together. We had really fun filled days while we were in Paris because we were trying to fit everything in during a short amount of time.

One thing that is super annoying about Ryan air (the budget airline) is that although the fares are relatively cheap, they tend to take you to the most ridiculous airports that are super far from the actual city. Our travel plans consisted of a train to Pisa for an hour, a short flight to Paris, and then a relatively long bus ride into the city center of Paris, and then a subway to our hostel. For these reasons, it was pretty late once we got into Paris so we pretty much grabbed a bite to eat at a local grocery store, and went to bed at our hostel.

The next day I got up and had Breakfast at the hostel while studying for my test that following Monday in Management and Organization. One of my favorite memories of Thursday was going to the Museo d'Orsay which had a lot of artwork including some of Picasso's famous pieces. After the museum, we decided to get a bite to eat at a local cafe and I had a turkey sandwich which would've been amazing had there not have been mustard seeds... it was an intense taste and I hate mustard haha. I also had some apple juice, which is pretty much my favorite juice out there ;).

After our lunch we decided to head over to the Louvre. It was another hugee museum! Because we were a bit "museumed out" after the Museo D'Orsay earlier in the day, we decided to see just a few of the main pieces and call it a day. These include the Mona Lisa of course, and Venus de Milo (the statue with no arms), and Hamarabbi's code (which was significant to me because I wrote an essay about it last year in History class).

Once we saw enough of the museum, we decided to go to the Notre Dame church and look around. This church was beautiful and very unique. I loved it! Before the church we got some Icecream at Haaigen Daas. We hadn't seen that icecream since the states! I think its from Germany though... hmm. After the church extravaganza, we headed back to our hostel and took a small break. After that, we headed towards the Eiffel Tower and unfortunately our directions were pretty far from the tower itself, but we managed to get there by the strobe lights in the sky (we went during the evening). We decided it would be fun to go all the way to the top, why not, right? And it was definitely worth it. My feet were freezing (I was dumb and wore flats) but other than that the sights were spectacular of the city. The rest of the evening we pretty much relaxed... and had a crepe with ham, egg, and cheese.

The next day we took a day trip to Versai... the campus was huge! There was room after room and many buildings to go into. One of my favorite places was Marie Antoinette's house. I definitely took a lot of amazing pictures while I was visiting. You guys should check them out on facebook if you get a chance (I finally caught up on uploading them all). After our day trip, we went to a performance at the Moulin Rouge. Before the show, we got a chocolate and banana crepe for dinner, which was good at the time, but our stomaches were mad at us later because of how rich and unhealthy they were haha. Anyways, the performance was definitely not what I expected, but it was still fun non the less. I was kind of thinking it was going to be like the movie, pretty old fashioned and what not, but there was a large variety of songs and eras. There was even a couple 80s songs thrown in there! We sat next to two couples, one of which were from Belgium and they spoke English so that was nice.

That next day we pretty much saw all the last minute things we didn't get to see from the couple days before. We took a few more pictures at Notre Dame, saw a church on the hill, and explored several subway stops that led to parts of the town with street vendors. I enjoyed a cup of tea, and bought a very cute white hat! We ended up sitting in a little cafe and studying for our tests later in the afternoon before we left for our flight. It was a pretty relaxing day until we almost missed our bus to the airport because we didn't realize we had to be there 2 hours before our flight left. It all goes to show that researching is super important! Luckily a staff member loaded the next scheduled bus at a faster pace, so we ended up making our flight just in the nick of time. The airport was super crowded too, and it was under reconstruction so there was no place to sit... I was definitely feeling pretty clasterphobic. After the bus ride, the flight, and then another bus ride from Pisa to Flo, we finally made it back around 2:30 A.M. AND I had a management and organization test the next day... whew! The busy life I lead....

and that pretty much concludes the recap of Paris! Let me know if you have any comments or questions!