Ciao, Florence!

Today marks my last day in Florence. Not to go on a sappy rant, but I really can’t believe that 4 months can go that quickly. Even with all of my amazing travels, I am so glad I stayed in Florence for a few weekends to really get to know and enjoy the city. Soon enough I will be having separation anxiety with Florence… I have been so lucky with my time here.

Some of my favorite things here that I am going to miss:

1. The Arno River: I walk along the river everyday, and everyday it looks different. The bridges and buildings surrounding it are beautiful. I hear there are huge rats in the water, but that doesn’t change how much I love it. Power to ‘em for finding such a nice place to live.

2. The fruit stand outside my apartment: Fresh fruit everyday is such a luxury. The family who owns the little stand is so nice and friendly. Side note to everyone.. I went yesterday to get figs and she told me they aren’t getting them again because it is hot outside now. I was devastated, but it seems symbolic that the figs left Florence at the same time I did…

3. Piazza S. Spirito (where I live): Even though I was hesitant about my apartment at first, every problem with it has turned into a quirk that I love. The square where I live is always full of people at night and the S.Spirito church is the perfect place to read a book on a warm day.

4. Views of the city: Whether it is from the top of the Duomo, Piatsa Michelangelo, or the Boboli Gardens, the different views of Florence never cease to take my breath away.

… also on my list of favorites: Gusta Panino, Santa Maria Novella train station (that I frequented 3 times a week), window shopping on via di Tournaboni, Zara, legally drinking, late dinners, sitting on the bridges with gelato, the San Lorenzo Market, Nomination, the Duomo, Michelangelo’s David, watching Friday Night Lights before bed with Kotovic, picnics at Piatsa Michelangelo, Santa Croce, and cooking classes..

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Ireland with Sierra, Hannah Morris, and Hannah Kotovic. We are backpacking Dublin and Galway and then heading over to Scotland. Our last stop is Berlin, Germany, and then we will make our way down to Frankfurt for our flight HOME. I hope to blog throughout my last travels, but I don’t know what the Wifi situation will be like.

It is a weird feeling.. being sad about leaving my home here, but really looking forward to everything at home in Wisconsin. Definition of bittersweet, I think. For how much I have loved being abroad, it definitely made me realize how great my family and friends are at home. I don’t think it would have been the same had I not been able to share it with them (and you- if you’re still following my blog at this point, I’m sure you qualify..) There are so many little things about home I am looking forward to that I never thought twice about before.

Ciao for now, Florence! The one thing I didn’t do here is eat a cannoli, so now I guess I have a reason to come back..

Around Italy with my Mom.

I knew that a weekend in Italy with my mom would bring about more funny moments than I would be prepared for. We tried to “save our best conversational material” for when she came, so we had lotssss to catch up on. The weekend was full of unbelievable food and restaurants (the best lobster pasta I ever had.. I dream about it), great wine (Vermentino, our new favorite), her BIRTHDAY, and tons of laughs.

Even though her luggage got lost on the way here, we managed to have a great first day. First, she had to buy a pair of walking shoes because she a) didn’t pack them and b) even if she did, they would have been lost in Germany somewhere. See below the shoes that she picked out.. now picture her trying them on with tall black footies and a maxi dress. After that purchase, we went to the Accademia and saw the David.. or as we now like to call him, Davíd. Of all the paintings in the museum to mull over, we chose the one attached below. Bizarre, unrealistic, and immature of us to think it was as funny as we did.

We went to the designer outlet the next day (me, her, and the shoes) which made for a fun morning of shopping around. We were going to go to the Uffizi Museum afterwards, but the combination of the long line and me informing her that the Mona Lisa was NOT in Italy made us skip out and roam elsewhere.

On Saturday, we took a day trip to Cinque Terre. For those who don’t know (aka my mom until 5 minutes before we left), Cinque Terre is 5 beautiful little towns on the coast of Italy. The idea behind it is that you hike between each of the towns and stop at each one to enjoy the scenery. 2 of the towns were destroyed from mudslides so you are supposed to take a train through them.

For some reason, mom didn’t believe me when I said to pack sneakers and was very skeptical to wear them. Luckily, I was also I was able to convince her to switch out the khaki capris for a pair of athletic pants (her luggage made it the night before!).

We lucked out on a beautiful day. The weather was perfectly sunny making the water look unbelievable. We started the day with lunch/wine at a little restaurant overlooking the water. I loved the little wine bottle and decided that it needed to be carried throughout our hiking experience so I could take it home with me. The first little stretch of walking is called the “Via dell’Amore” where everyone puts love locks along the path. So cute.

We then took a train to what we thought was the 4th town (You couldn’t walk between town 2 and 4 because of the damage). Little did we know we got off prematurely at the wrong train stop (town 3). We started hiking up a beautiful hill of lemon trees, only moderately complaining about the incline. We were unaware of the fact that everyone else was taking a quick look at the town and getting back on the train to go to the next town… we, on the other hand, thought that we were hiking to our final destination. Well, 4 hours later, we were completely alone and lost in the bowels of Cinque Terre. No car would stop for us, no matter how desperate we looked, so it wasn’t until one old italian plower man pointed us in the right direction that we finally felt like our last days wouldn’t be spent starving in Cinque Terre. (I had to use my vast Italian language knowledge to ask him where the hell this place was, mind you). Seeing the 4th town over the trees was probably the best moment of my life. Thank goodness Mom watches ‘Survivor Man’ and would have been able to keep us alive had we continued in the wrong direction.

Our last 2 days were spent walking around, popping in and out of churches, celebrating her birthday and enjoying each others company. I’m glad that she came late in my time here because it made me excited to go back home. I sent her home on Monday afternoon with tons of kisses and a suitcase full of my dirty clothes. That’s what mom’s are for!

brief summary of Amsterdam.

The city of Amsterdam was unlike anything I have ever seen, and I’ve therefore decided to give more of a brief summary of my experiences there. The city itself was amazing. People were everywhere and there was a melting pot of restaurants and stores that kind of reminded me of New York. The architecture of the buildings were really whimsical, making the city feel quaint and like a gingerbread town.

Friday was a whirlwind of walking through the Red and Green Light Districts. Whoa.. I didn’t know a place like that existed. I stayed in a hostel with Sierra called the “Heart of Amsterdam” with movie themed rooms. We stayed in a dorm-like room (aka we had 2 out of the 8 beds) that had quite the view of the “heart” of the Red Light District. At night, we entertained ourselves at our hostel by people watching on the streets from our window. It made for hours of fun.

Saturday was more of our cultural day. We saw the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum. The Anne Frank house was an unbelievable experience and is something I am really proud that I can say I have been to. I will tell you this- it made me relieved that I didn’t name my blog “The Diaries of Andie Frank.” There was a misunderstanding on the closing times of the Van Gogh Museum, so we got there with a little over an hour to walk around. It was a nice change from the museums I have been seeing in Italy.

Sunday we went to the Heineken Factory which was probably my favorite part of the whole weekend (sorry, Anne). The “Heineken Experience” was complete with a tour of the former brewery where we got to see/try the four ingredients and see how the beer is produced. There was also a 4D brewing experience that resembled a less intricate Universal Studios ride. Then we got to taste the beer and learn how beer should be enjoyed. I took notes for everyone interested..

1. Look at the beer: Look at the bubbles and foam. Foam protects the bubbles from getting out… now I know not to drink the foam right away.

2. Smell the beer: Slightly roasted body.

3. Taste the beer: Don’t take little sips.. You can see the number of sips you take because it makes rings along the glass. Give it a try.

I will say that I thought Amsterdam would be my chance to be rebellious and bring out some sort of drug-crazed alter ego… but I ended up just texting my dad about all my illicit drug use questions. Even if they’re legal, I seriously do not know how people do drugs everyday. I am just not cut out for it. Lesson learned.

Photos: famous “I AMsterdam” sign, me at a sex museum, and the Heineken factory

Lee sisters take on Croatia/Bosnia.

After a blissful day of skydiving, I showed Jackie around Florence for a few days before we bused off to Croatia. She seems to think I am “losing my wit and vocabulary since I am not stimulating my brain here as much as I would be in Madison,” so I am now going to make a conscious effort to spend some quality time with the thesaurus before my brain turns to mush.

… and I quote, “All I’m saying is that a sudoko or crossword puzzle wouldn’t kill you.” Thanks, Jackie.

I should preface this blog by saying that the weather forecast for the weekend was not in our favor.. and by that I mean 90% chance of rain throughout the trip, making that ‘spring break tan’ just out of reach.

The trip began with a 12 hour bus ride to Croatia. Normally, I have no problem sitting and watching movies for an extended period of time, but I ever-so-gracefully slipped down our cement stairs last week, cracking my tailbone into what felt like a million pieces, so the ride was rather uncomfortable. (I should note that I had a handful of pistachios in my hand at the time that flew all over the floor, making the fall look pretty dramatic… nothing that a few episodes of Friday Night Lights and pain pills couldn’t handle.)

We arrived on Friday morning and after getting situation in our hostel, we headed off to an all day island hopping tour (more or less booze cruise). Thankfully, the clouds opened up out of nowhere and it turned out to be a beautiful day. We stopped at a few islands on the Adriatic Coast that were much different from Split, the city we were staying in.

We weren’t so lucky with the weather on Saturday and got caught in the rain on our way up the Marjan hill, a big hill with a great view of the city. There was also a trail to a little zoo (very sad one, I might add) with mostly birds that I swear were screeching for my help. We brought our towels (aka showering towels) in case the weather permitted laying out (ha. ha.), but we ended up just using them as cover for the rain. Ew.

On Sunday, we went to Mostar, Bosnia which looked like nothing I’ve ever visited before. The Bosnian/Croatian war was in 1993, leaving a lot of the city looking like a battlefield. The combination of the unbelievable views on the 3 hour bus ride to get there (I like to call it a bus tour) and interesting city made it one of my favorite stops. I think I probably took about a million pictures out of the window and nudged Jackie anytime I thought she wasn’t fully paying attention to the view. It was definitely weird not being home for Easter, but I tried to compensate by having a nice ‘Bosnian brunch’ and texting my dad about the family whereabouts throughout the day. Once we got back to Croatia that night, we found a little sweet shop to celebrate Jackie’s 19th birthday.

On the ride back to Florence from Croatia, we stopped at Krka National Park.. might have been my favorite part of the whole trip. The waterfalls were like nothing I’ve ever seen before and the walk throughout the park was surrounded by the most amazing colors and crystal clear water. I’m turning into quite the nature girl.. minus basically falling into the water while precariously trying to hop between the rocks.

Despite the weather, it was so great to spend the weekend (and week) with Jackie. Hannah Kotovic made an obstute observation before we left for Croatia, “Andie, you’re a lot weirder when you’re around Jackie…” I hadn’t seen Jackie in almost three months, so I had a lot to get out of my system before she left again.

Holy Skydiving.

Soo.. I went skydiving.

Jackie’s plane landed at 9:30 Sunday morning. I had just remembered that I forgot to tell her which apartment number to buzz up when I heard an ever-so-graceful thudding up the stairs. I ran down to see Jackie lugging her suitcase up the stairs as she followed an old lady (who shushed me when I saw her). Shortly after our sweet embrace (half sweet/half annoyed that I forgot to tell her the apt number), we left the apartment with Hannah Kotovic and her friend Molly to catch the train to go skydiving.

We made a pitstop at Gusta Panino on the way, which in hindsight was a bad idea because getting that (along with other very misfortunate events along the way) caused us to miss our first train. Once we got to the station, my ATM and credit card weren’t working so I had to very reluctantly call my parents at 4:30am their time to have them call the credit card company. I think I may have been more nervous to call them than I was to skydive.

Thank goodness it all worked out because a 2.5 hour train ride later, we were in Verona getting ready to skydive. On our way there, we called saying we would be a little late.. and they then informed us that it was really windy and might be a bad day to skydive. Since we were already in route to Verona, that just wasn’t an option..

Once we got to the skydiving place, we were greeted by the instructors who led us to the demonstration area (not before signing our lives away). The predeparture demonstration lasted about 4 minutes and made me realize that I would probably just be winging it once I got up there. Then we put on our orange space suits (definitely unflattering, but the closest thing I will ever come to looking like Britney Spears in her “Oops.. I did it again” music video) and got ready to take off.

I wanted to use the restroom beforehand to ensure that I wouldn’t uncontrollably pee my pants mid-dive, but the toilet was basically a hole in the ground. Ew.

There were video cameras all around us. We got a video and a photo CD afterwards, so the whole thing is thoroughly documented.

Here is a breakdown of what happened:

Hannah and Molly went on the first plane; Jackie and I on the second. After Hannah and Molly went, Jackie and I got all harnessed up. We walked over to the little plane, which held 9 of us like little sardines. At first, it felt like a really cool plane ride (about 15 minutes to get up there) but getting strapped to our “partner” as tightly as possible was a constant reminder that we would shortly be jumping out. My guy spoke very broken english.. He was cute though. On the way up, I nervously sang and said my goodbyes to mom, dad, Georgia, and Rory.

The plane got to 4000 meters, and the door opened up. Oooh my gosh. Jackie was first to jump, I was second.. but not before the other camera guys wizzed out of the plane. They literally are fearless. Thank goodness I have a video because I can’t even describe what having your legs swinging out of a plane feels like. Then, you fall. Even though the free falling goes quickly, you still definitely have time to process what is happening: “Holy shet I am free falling out of a plane.. this is so cool.”

Shortly after, the mini balloon opened up to stabilize the free fall. You are going so fast that your ears are blowing up and your mouth is beyond dry. It was hard for me to get that picture-perfect smile with the wind blowing my cheeks and lips back at a million miles an hour. I was screaming/shrieking so loud that the camera guy could hear me the whole time as he was falling. Pretty impressive, eh?

After that, the paracute opened up and I jerked back up and then it was silent. It was unbelievable. The wind was so calm and I was just floating, looking at the city for about 6 minutes. I got to steer the paracute (I couldn’t quite get the hang of how to go left and right so he took the reigns away shortly after) before we started our landing.. which was pretty graceful, I might add. We landed standing up and a few lurching steps and a high-five later, I was on the ground and it was over.

What an adrenaline rush. I look so annoying via the video, but I think I have watched it about 8 times by now. Even though I have the video, I don’t think I’ll ever forget what skydiving felt like. Everyone should do it!

Side note: It was really hard to comb out my hair afterwards.

A Few Points of Interest:

1. There is a pregnant dog outside of my apartment. At first, I thought it was a lazy, fat dog.. and then I realized the poor thing is pregnant. Either it is a stray or the owner lets it lay on the pavement all day. I’m eagerly awaiting the day that I walk outside to little pups everywhere.

2. I got to work with display stuff at work this week, so that was fun. The founder, Paolo, speaks no english, laughs whenever he sees me, and only calls me “Bionda.” I hope that is a good sign..

3. Happy Belated Birthday to my dad, who is well-represented on my bedroom wall.

4. I finally watched The Vow with Hannah Kotovic and Sierra. We had to have four different tabs open on my computer because they all kept freezing, but we got through it after about 4 hours. I call that dedication. We wanted to watch Sex and the City, but my mom sent the case without the disc in my care package. Wah Wah Wahhh.

5. I went to this Jeffrey Campbell spring drink show. I seriously envied every single person’s outfit (minus the drag queen). Everyone just ate and drank while trying on all the clothes and new collection of shoes. It was neat. I also went to the Gucci Museum- equally as cool. (pictures below)

6. When I got here, I was under the impression the whole world had free wifi. Shockingly enough, I was sadly mistaken. At first I was very anxious about not having 24/7 wifi, but it is kind of nice only being able to iMessage/What’s App when I am in my apartment or at school. That’s not to say I won’t seriously appreciate it when I get back..

7. I have officially overdosed on figs.. similar to the way I ODed on hard boiled eggs freshman year. I have since recovered from the hard boiled egg incident and am hoping I can do the same with figs.

8. Everyone says I have an accent here (“half Wisconsin/half just the way I talk”). I still think that my voice is the accent that all other accents are judged off of.

I have a 10 page paper due tomorrow, so as you can see, it was a pretty low key week/weekend.

I admit that calling these “points of interest” may have been a stretch. Sorry if the title was a tad misleading…

Venezia.

For the most part, Venice was exactly what I thought it would be. It is unlike any other place and definitely had the feeling of an italian city. Normally after looking at the scenic pictures I take, I have no idea what I am going to do with them or when I am ever going to look at them again. Venice was different. I took some of the most beautiful pictures (on my iPhone, which I am convinced takes better pictures than a digital camera) that I am going to print if it is the last thing I do. I couldn’t help myself but to snap a picture at every corner.. each little canal is so different from the next.

I arrived to Venice after a 4 hour bus ride and short boat ride. If it wasn’t for the mold and disease in the water (which created a pretty color), I think I would’ve jumped right in. The water gave me a serious urge to tube/speedboat. We toured during the day (Friday and Saturday) and saw the S.Marco Church, Palazzo Ducale, Accademia Museum, Rialto Bridge, ect, ect.. Our tour guide was this nice old lady who gave the perfect amount of information before moving on to the next thing and notified us at every restroom (a nice change from Franz, the history loving extraordinaire who didn’t care how bad you had to go to the bathroom).

Saturday night we went to a restaurant called San Trovaso. Spaghetti and clams and a few bottles of wine later, we were the last to leave. Our waiter must have enjoyed our company because after liquoring us up with Limonchello, he volunteered to take us to a bar after he got off work.. an offer we couldn’t pass up since Venice bars are few and far between. St. Patty’s Day drew an interesting crowd (either that or there is always an interesting crowd in Venice). I spent most of my night talking to a magician who showed me some pretty cool tricks. I told him my name was Marta, don’t ask me why, which made for a few good laughs for myself. I should have asked for his deck of cards afterwards because I have been craving playing a card game.

Sunday morning, Jacklyn, Sierra, Hannah Kotovic and I got breakfast and then went on a search for the friendliest looking gondolier. We stumbled on Christian, a friendly chap with the nicest teeth I have seen on any italian thus far. He gave us a deal on the hour long gondola ride, and we were sold.

“Gondoling” (new verb: to gondol) was my favorite part of the whole trip. While the experience provided more laughs than romance, I can now say I have ridden a gondola. Gondoling through all the canals was definitely the best way to see the city. Christian told us there are 425 gondoliers in Venice, only one of which is a woman (his cousin). I would love to see her forearms. It runs in the family, so his uncle, dad, and grandpa were all gondoliers as well. I can see how it takes practice because I thought we were going to do a little bumper car action on more than one occasion, but Christian glided past everything with barely an inch to spare. Afterwards, we sat out by the water for lunch and enjoyed the beautiful weather until we had to leave.

While Venice is a beautiful place to visit, I seriously can’t imagine having to live there. The city felt a little ‘Shutter Island’-like at times with the inability to leave if you had to and the barren nightlife. That said, it was a phenomenal/unique weekend trip and was a perfect reminder as to why I love Italy.

– HAPPY 21st to Hannah Aslesen wish you were here!! —

Eiffel for this Color.

Paris has been my favorite weekend so far. Bold statement, I know. I knew I was going to love everything in Paris, but the combination of Paris itself and the people I was with made the weekend fly by. Between the never ending “would you rather” questions and the stream of unfortunate events that got us denied from virtually every club we went to, I think I was laughing (and I’m talking serious can’t-breathe-I’m-laughing-so-hard laughing) for about 90% of the weekend.

Hannah, Hannah, Sierra and I left for Paris Friday afternoon after eating my favorite panino of all time at called Gusto Panino (a little place just below my apartment). Turkey, salami, brie cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and pesto.. then I take it back to my apartment, heat it up more, and douse it with salt and pepper. I call it “The Andie.” I could eat it every day- breakfast, lunch, dinner. I’m going to eat 5 of them on my last day in Florence.. but back to Paris..

A bus, plane, metro, and overpriced taxi later, we met Katie Bruggeman at her apartment. We were all starved by time we got there so immediately left to grab a quick dinner at Katie’s favorite Falafel stand (then went to the Notre Dame). Never hearing of the word before, I had no idea what I was in for. It was good until I got about half way through, but my lack of will power encouraged me to finish the whole thing. I forbid anyone from talking about it throughout the weekend, because just the thought of the deep fried chick pea balls, mystery sauce, and cabbage made me gag.

After the ‘Falafel experience,’ we went back to her apartment and got ready to go out. Natalie Guggenburger, a good friend from school, and her boyfriend were also in Paris for the weekend so they came over as well. We left her apartment and the club saga began. The first club we went to (allegedly a real hoppin’ place) denied Katie and Sierra because he thought their ID’s were fake. What a serious idiot. If I don’t look over 18 by now, I have some major self reflecting to do. I should note here that he had a top hat on, which made him even more annoying. After bickering with him about whether or not we were over 18 years old (how embarrassing), he admitted to not caring how old we were because he just didn’t want to let us in. I impulsively called him an asshole, which sealed our fate.

I am embarrassed that was the best I could come up with after 20 years of learning how to creatively compound swear words from my dad. Our luck didn’t get any better from there, because 3 clubs later, we still hadn’t managed to be in a building for over 15 minutes. Thank goodness we got a few good laughs out of the whole experience.

The next day was full of sightseeing. Obviously, the Eiffel Tower didn’t dissapoint. We took just over a million pictures by the Eiffel Tower. It doesn’t look that big until you get literally underneath it. Then Katie took us to the arc de triomphe, which had the coolest music playing. Once we got tired from taking videos and dancing to the tribal music, we walked down Champ Elysees street. The line to get into Abercrombie and Fitch was out of this world. I can’t even talk about it.. so weird.

For dinner that night, we had reservations at this little fondue place where you drink wine out of baby bottles. Where do people come up with this stuff? Nothing like cheese/meat fondue for a real light dinner (pshhh). The restaurant was super small with walls covered in writing from everyone who stopped through. It was such a fun and delicious dinner. At the end of our meal, the waiter gave us the coveted sharpie so we could make our own mark on the walls. A combination of the ceiling being low and me being tall enabled me to write on the ceiling. Nice. We probably hogged the markers a little, but we had to make sure we wrote down everything we needed to.

Hannah Morris and Momo (another friend studying in Paris who joined us for dinner) went home after that, but Sierra, Hannah Kotovic, Katie and I thought we would take another stab at the going out scene. We went to meet some of Katie’s parisian guy friends at a club.. more specifically, top hats club. I didn’t think I would ever see the little guy again in my life, but sure enough, there he was. I knew there wasn’t a chance that he would a) forget about us and b) let us in.. I was right.

After that drawn out experience, we went to a shot bar that was out of alcohol so we didn’t get in. I’m laughing even thinking about that kind of luck. After finally finding a Guinness bar, Katie’s friends told us to meet them at a nearby club. A 20 minute cab ride later, we realized that there must have been some sort of misunderstanding with the cab driver. Katie is fluent in french and notified him that he took us across the city to a metro station that happened to have the same name as the club. If I could attach a video, you could see the unbelievable bickering between Katie and the driver.. with Katie refusing to pay for the cab and the driver shouting that he would steal her purse or take us to the police station. We finally scurried out of the cab in disbelief of the situation. I thought he was going to run us over. By time we got a cab to the real club, it was 3:40am and the club stopped letting people in at 3:30. We ended up meeting some characters from London so hung out with them after.

Sunday morning went quick. We grabbed a keish at The Louvre and sat by a water fountain until it was time for us to pack up and head back. It was a sad but quick goodbye because we had to hop on our metro so quick. It was so great seeing Katie these past 3 weekends. The weekend went so fast and I would have loved one more day in Paris.. but who doesn’t say that?

On the plane home, Hannah Kotovic, Sierra, and I sat in the first row on the plane. They asked how old we were before we sat because you have to be over 18 to sit in the front row. I just can’t catch a break.

While we were there, I wore my OPI nail polish “Eiffel for this Color.” So fitting.

The Climb.

My first week of work was quite the whirlwind. I’ll start by saying I am in charge of the Facebook page when I am there, so everyone should like Nomination on Facebook to see all the intriguing stuff I post. I wonder how many blog followers I would get if I posted this to the page.. tempting.

I’ve only had two moments of panic at work so far.

1. I was looking up fashion blogs and remembered one I used to follow, glamourai.com. My memory failed me because when I typed in glamouri.com, tons of graphic porn popped up all over my work computer. My desk is in view of everyone in the office, so I just about smashed the macbook on the floor to get it off my computer. For anyone who thinks my blog brings little value, you now have a new porn site to look at. Enjoy.

2. I was on my way to work on Friday when I looked outside of the train and realized that the scenery was not looking too familiar. Call me Nancy Drew, but once I looked at my watch and confirmed I had been on the train 10 minutes longer than usual, I realized I was on the wrong train. To be more specific, the train to Pisa. Shorty after taking a few deep breathes in my paper lunch bag, I called the emergency school number so they could tell me what to do. Thank goodness I packed along a good book, because it took FOUR hours of waiting, looking up departures, and training to get to work. I now experience serious bouts of anxiety anytime I get on the train.

Katie Bruggeman came to Florence for the long weekend, so she and Hannah Kotovic waited for me at the train station that night when I got done with work. I was a little high strung after almost traveling to Timbucktoo, so it was nice to see them. Spending the weekend in Florence was so relaxing. We packed a lot into the weekend so Katie could get a good perspective of Florence – some delicious restaurants (had the best spaghetti with clams), wine at the Piazza Michelangelo, picnic at the Boboli Gardens, shopping at the San Lorenzo Market, and a 463 step climb up the Duomo. The climb up was great because not only was there a spectacular view at the top, but it served as an unbelievable calf workout. The climb circled the bottom of the paintings on the Duomo ceiling, and I had a serious compulsion to jump and touch the paint. I knew I would get yelled at the moment I did it, but now I can say I have touched an old fresco painting. Ganzo.

I literally don’t know how old people (or claustrophobic ones) climb up there because the stairs were as steep as I’ve ever seen. I wonder how many people have taken serious tumbles. I was definitely a little disheveled once we got up there, but we managed to get some nice pictures. I got one of me blowing my nose, because that is all I have been doing lately so it seemed fitting. I feel like a child, because having a stack of kleenex in my handbag is the first thing I think of before I leave my apartment. The “Lee nose”.. it’s a curse.

I was walking home from the gym with Sierra in my favorite running shorts and Bucky sweatshirt my dad bought me at a football game when I was painfully underdressed, when a guy walking past me stopped and said, “If the fashion police were here, you would get a ticket.” The clever little joke didn’t even register with me until he had walked past. Who says that? I admit to looking a little rough but am justifying it by being at the gym FIVE minutes prior. He better hope I don’t see him again.

I’ve been testing out the red lipstick lately. I’ll probably stop the moment I get back to Madison, but it’s fun for the time being.

Roma.

Most of my preconceived notions of Rome come from ‘The Lizzie McGuire Movie’ where she was mistaken for a pop star and then got romantically vespa-ed around the city, so I had pretty high hopes when I arrived. While I can confirm that neither of those two things happened during my long weekend there, the trip did not disappoint me in the slightest.

First off, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. This was a relief because we had hours upon hours of touring/walking around each day with various history buff teachers in our program.

We were a little tardy arriving to the bus stop Thursday morning, which was a crying shame because I got on the bus in a cold sweat and seriously needed to use the restroom. Thankfully, I was in the first row of the bus to make sure I wouldn’t barf all over everyone.. sadly, we didn’t stop for two hours. Since I couldn’t fall asleep on the bus in fear of peeing my pants, I was able to enjoy the unbelievable view from out the window.. I was loving it.

We had three full days (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) of sightseeing. Rome is so much bigger than Florence, but I think we saw literally everything there is to see. The Trevi Fountain was my favorite thing the first day. I probably spent a little too long thinking of my wish.. but I figured it was a one shot deal. Later I found out that throwing a coin in the fountain only “ensures a return back to Rome.” Waste of a coin if you ask me. My wish better still come true.

We went to a really great sandwich place called ‘Due Centro Gradi:Bread and Condiments’ after the Vatican City on Friday. It was in Rick Steve’s book, so it was no surprise that it was so delicious. I love condiments, so it was heavenly. If you are wondering what I looked like eating my sandwich, you’re in luck.. picture below. I also attached an exclusive picture of me in the Sistine Chapel. The police were really cracking down on the “no picture rule,” but thanks to the reverse camera on my iPhone, I was able to sneak in a real keeper.

The best part of the whole trip was probably seeing Katie Bruggeman out on Friday night. She is studying abroad in Paris, but has been visiting Italy the last couple of days (She’s coming to Florence this weekend). Before seeing her, I went to a shot bar that provided unlimited shots for 5 euros. As you can imagine, it was quite the dramatic/emotional reunion when I finally spotted her afterwards in the crowded club. Even though I am meeting so many great people here, it is definitely nice to see a familiar face every once in awhile.

It was the perfect weekend to go to Rome. Now I can say the expression “When in Rome” with some serious gusto.