Masks rock

Location: Milan, Italy

Happy Australia Day!!

Haha, today is Australia's independence day and I happen to be in the company of 4 Aussie girls so it feels like it's my Independence day. The plan is to go to an Australian pub to celebrate later.

The next two weeks are going to be so much fun. Carnival was amazing and I can't believe that it's just starting. Last night was so much fun. We met a group of 12 guys from Notre Dame that were staying at our hostel last night and we all ate dinner and hung out until it was time to be out on the town. We all had our masks on (even the guys) and we had bags of confetti that we were throwing all over the place as we were walking down the street. At first, we just walked to this piazza down by the Grand Canal and stood in the square and drank wine from a little bar kiosk thing. After we had enough piazza, Mimo, the guy who owns the hostel, walked us back to this supermarket which apparently had a discotech on top of it - naturally. The discotech was great, we danced a lot and had a really great time until early in the morning.

Today has been a pretty boring day. I woke up relatively early and had our nice breakfast (which consisted of crunchy toast cracker things LOADED with nutella) and some tea. We walked to the supermarket (yes, the same one with the discotech on top) to get some lunch for the train which ended up taking us an hour (because we wanted fresh ham from the butcher man and they also had Russian salad so I had to get that). Since it took us so long to figure this out, we missed our train, of course, so we went back to the hostel and ate our train lunch in the hostel and said bye to all of our little friends. We walked down to the train station, and literally onto the train as it is pulling away, almost missing our second one.

After we had been sitting there for about an hour, the woman came to take our tickets and reservation... except, we didn't have a reservation because our little book had told us that it was a free train and not one we needed a reservation for. Well, guess we messed that up. All of the train people were talking to each other to figure out what to do with us and finally they just let us pay them for a reservation and we were fine.

The train ride was GORGEOUS. We drove pas the southern part of the Italian Alps the whole time. They were so big and huge and looked like they just came up out of nowhere. It was so beautiful!! And all the snow was amazing. I can't wait to get to Switzerland.

I haven't decided if I am going to go to Lugano tomorrow or the next day, but hopefully it will be clear :) It's been nice so far!!

XOXO

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Whoever invented cioccolato is a genius

Location: Venice, Italy

My hostel rocks.

So after I go back last night with my little picnic, I meet a group of people (its a small place so there's only like 20 people staying there) including 2 Aussie sisters, 2 Aussie twin sisters, a German guy, a guy from Chile, a guy from Washington, a girl from Jersey and a guy from Ft. Worth. So the guy who owns our hostel cooked us all dinner (which apparently he does every night) and it was this nice little plate of tortellini and we all went and bought bottles of wine and sat around and drank and ate and it was magic. Then we watched the beginning of the Italian Job (which was kinda cool, coz we are in Venice) and went out to this really neat little local Italian pub until like 3 then back to the hostel to chill until we finally went to bed at like 5.

Woke up this morning and walked with the Aussies and the girl from Jersey to the train station (because we had heard there was going to be a strike and wanted to make sure we could all get out of town ok in the morning) and then got some little sandwiches. We spent the ENTIRE day just casually walking around town talking. We stopped in almost every store especially the mask stores so we could find our masks for Carnival.

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention... tonight is the first night of Carnival which they apparently celebrate in Italy as well (I thought it was just a Brazilian thing) and Venice has the rowdiest Carnival in the country. It's like the New Orleans of Italy. So, we all bought masks that we are going to wear tonight (I really wanted a cloak as well, but they were too expensive). My mask is baller and pink with these feathers coming out of the top. It's great. I am so pumped.

So we walked down to San Marco square (it took us like 3 hours because we were walking so slow) and we shot some pictures. We went inside the church which is literally the most amazing church I have ever been in. It is absolutely breath-taking. The entire ceiling is made of gold. Real gold. There are mosaics everywhere and it was so huge. After this we walked down to see the sea and took some pictures near the main gondola station. After this we walked back down to the square to feed the pigeons. This was literally one of the most un-real things I have ever done in my life. You get this thing of food and then instantly you are COVERED with pigeons... Hundreds of them are just flying at your face, sitting on your head, your arms your legs, all over the ground. It was so scary at first and you kind of just stand there and scream for the first part of it. After a while though, you get used to it I guess and its not so bad. I didn't get pooped on, I was lucky, but one of the twins did, yuck!!

From here we got some gelato and then walked to the Rialto bridge which is one of the only bridges that crosses the main canal. We stood there for a while and took pics and then decided to take a gondola ride. Angie didn't want to, so she sat on the bridge and the 5 of us all went on a nice little 25 minute gondola ride. It was great!! It was actually really scary though, because the gondolas are not exactly the sturdiest boats and you rock the whole time and I kinda thought we were going to tip at least 3 times. The views from the water though, were amazing. Our driver didn't sing though :(

When we got back to Rialto, we got some cioccolato (which is basically melted chocolate, but they call it hot chocolate) and then sat on the bridge and watched the sunset. It was beautiful. We walked from here to this awesome little glass store to look at the figurines. I really wanted to get these little animals that were no bigger than a blueberry, but they were €7.50 each and I thought that was a little high. I'll have to make sure and get some when I come back here and don't go anywhere else.

I am absolutely in love with Venice.

I am so excited about carnival tonight.

XOXO

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So what happens when it rains?

Location: Venice, Italy

Today has been relatively worthless but it has been fantastic.

I woke up and immediately got on the train in Florence for Venice. It wasn't too bad (a couple hours) and I got into town at about 12:30. I immediately got lost trying to find my hostel and walked around for about an hour before I found it. The buildings literally start in a direction at number 1 and go all the way up. I was at 2205 but it was like sort of back in an alley, it was so confusing. And then, when I found it, there was no sign on the door so I was hesitant to just ring some random person's doorbell. But I eventually did, and it was right.

The hostel is awesome. It's a really old HUGE house with big ceilings and its going to be fun. We also get free dinner and breakfast and internet is pretty cheap as well. I think it's going to be fun.

I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around town and looking at the canals and what not. I also stopped into a market to buy lunch where I picked up some ham, cheese, bread, olives, artichoke spread and 2 bottles of wine (one for my free dinner). YUMM!!

It's dark early so I think I'm going to head back and have a snack before dinner starts up at the hostel. Tomorrow will be jam packed with activities I am sure.

XOXO

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Calm down there tiger

Location: Siena, Italy

I had a nice long day in Siena today. It was absolutely beautiful and I love the city. Although, I can see how it may be slightly boring, which is surprising with so many students!!

We left early at about 9 and took the almost 2 hour train into Siena. From there we took a bus to the Piazza il campo which is the main piazza in the city. It's fan shaped and has one section for each of the contrada (which are like the neighborhoods in Siena). Each contrada has it's own water fountain, church and museum. They are each represented by an animal which is on every corner in that contrada and on the fountains and flags and stuff. My favorite was Brucco the caterpillar (it was really cute) but we didn't get to go there. The only one I saw was the turtle one which is called Tartuca. One of the pictures is of their baptismal fountain. The rivalry between the Contrade is still really hyped up and there is an annual horse race called the Palio where each contrada chooses a jockey and then everyone draws a horse and it's one of the biggest events in Tuscany. It's a HUGE deal to win this thing.

Anyways, so I was supposed to meet up with Frances, but she forgot about me (thanks Franny) so I got a really crappy slice of pizza in the piazza and sat there and waited for her to remember me - which she finally did. As soon as she showed up (I may have cried I was so excited to see someone I knew) we started off to see the city in a couple of hours. We walked first to the Duomo which was really awesome. It has a really cool story in that the main part of the church was built in the mid 1200's. In the early 1300's they decided to double the size of the church by building on a new nave and would have made it the largest Duomo in Italy but then the black plague hit in 1348 and the place was literally just stopped in the middle of construction and never resumed. There are two walls build and some of the bases for the columns are there. It's pretty freaking awesome, especially since it's not done.

After this, we walked to this amazing hill where we had some beautiful views of the city (and it was extremely sunny and beautiful so we could see forever!!) and then we walked down to the garden at the base of the hill which Franny tells me is a community garden where anyone can just plant their crops and then they all trade them around when it's time to harvest and its amazing. There were so many little green sprouts coming up and the place was utterly packed full of plants. From here, Miss Padon needed to go home to get some meds before she had a planned excursion at 5 so I headed off and walked up to the main fortress. It was so cool. It had to be the highest point in the city and had stunning views in all directions. It was also surrounded by this huge brick wall and a gorgeous garden. It also had an old roman theater in the middle that would have been really cool to see a show at.

After this, I was getting a little hungry, so we walked back into town past the futbol stadium and up to get some of these little cookies that Franny told us we couldn't leave without eating. They were like lemon squares with almonds on them but in cookie form. They weren't as moist as lemon squares but they were close and it was cookie dough. And they were soooo soft and had powdered sugar all over them. So I got one, and then after I ate it, I went back inside and got 5 more. Oops.

And if I hadn't had enough of the sweets, I decided to get some gelato for the walk back to the train station. I got pistachio gelato and hazelnut gelato and I have never tasted anything pistachio flavored that tasted this much like pistachios. OMG!!! It was so amazing. Seriously good. I also got a piece of pizza for the train ride back that was mozzarella, tomatoes, mushrooms and artichokes and it was wonderful.

Mmmmm :) I love Italian food.

As soon as I got home, I decided to just do some laundry and then me and the 3 other girls in my hostel chatted for a couple hours before going to bed.

All in all, a very successful day.

XOXO

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Vai via? E perché?

Location: Florence, Italy

Today was relatively relaxed. It was Raine's last day so we got up super early (7:30) to make the hike up to the top of the Duomo before the crowds started. The hike was really hard. There are 460 something steps and they are all very narrow and steep. There were over 200 in a row on a spiral about 3 feet wide. It took us about 20 minutes to get up to the inside round about where you are right below the start of the fresco of the roof of the dome. From there you could literally touch the bottom of the painting.

I'm not sure why I was surprised, but the painting quality is actually relatively poor. I understand that on such a big scale, it would be almost impossible for it to be much better. And I also understand that the artist who painted it (Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari) didn't actually paint the entire thing themselves (they had a lot of apprentices who would to the rough draft and the main artists would focus on things like faces and other defining features). But it just seemed kind of sloppy. The scene was beautiful though. The bottom most tier was of hell, with a sort of purgatory earth and then heaven on top with Jesus at the very top. It had all kinds of different types of devils, demons and wild animals and even little flying angel looking demon things hovering in the middle. It was a beautiful scene.

After this, we had about another 10 minute hike up the last 150 or so stairs (going up to the very tip top of the dome) and had some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. The city was cloudy but there was pretty good visability so we really got lucky. The mountains surround the entire city and the duomo is right in the center so it was really easy to see pretty much anything.

The hike down was really scary. The steps are so narrow and I really thought I was going to fall at least 15 times. When we did finally get down, I said bye to Raine (who was going to Pisa for the day and then flying back to London from there) and I headed to the Galleria dell'Accademia to see the statue of David. The museum itself was kind of boring. There were some really pretty paintings but nothing too exciting. I did really enjoy seeing some unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo. There were 3 sculptures that were intended to be eventually placed as part of a tomb for this pope and then they ended up burying him in a cathedral or something like that, so there were these three sort of half finished carvings that were really interesting.

Of course, David was beautiful. I mean, the statue is really amazing. The proportions and the build of his body are perfect and it's a very large statue. Unfortunately, they won't let you take any pictures (and they have someone standing there making sure you do not) so I didn't get any, but it looks just like the fake one, only... real.

After i finished there, I walked down to the Piazza Pitti because I wanted to go inside the Giardino di Boboli and the Forte di Belvedere, but you had to pay like €20 to get in and that sounded lame so I parked in the Piazza on the ground to protest and read for like 2 hours. The sun was out for most of it and it was beautiful.

The boys decided to wait and leave in the morning, so we may go to dinner tonight, I'm not sure. If not, I will definitely be in bed early because I did not sleep last night hardly at all.

Off to Siena tomorrow to see Francis (a roomy from Theta) who is studying for the semester. I'm not sure I can express to you how excited I am to see her.

XOXO

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Catching up with some old friends

Location: Pisa, Italy

Not much else of Florence was seen yesterday. After sending a couple of e-mails, I headed to the Duomo to go inside and possibly go to mass (It was Sunday after all). I sent the Aussie boys an e-mail telling them to meet me at the Duomo at 5 if they got the message in time. We were having a really hard time getting a hold of each other on the phone.

I left and did a decent amount of walking. I walked up to the Piazza San Marco and sat and had a drink and watched the pigeons and people chase each other around. I walked down past the Galleria dell'Accademia where the statue of David resides, down past the Basilica di San Lorenzo, the Central Market and the Piazza della Repubblica (where I found some nice restaurants I would like to return to). I headed across the old bridge (Ponte Vecchio) and to the Piazza Pitti in front of the Palazzo Pitti where I sat and read some of my new Tuscany and Florence guide book. Then I walked back up the river through the Galleria degli Uffizi (well not actually through it, but through the courtyard) and then through the Piazza della Signoria (where the fake David statue is) and then ended up at the Piazza del Duomo and the Duomo itself.

The inside of the Duomo was awesome. There was a lot of artwork on the walls which I was really impressed by. Quite a few murals, some stuff painted directly on the walls and then just some nice, normal sized paintings. Mostly of bishops and knights and important people. There were also tombs of a couple of bishops and the rotunda was of course, beautiful. After I was done touring the inside, I went and sat on the steps outside to wait for the boys and I read some more of my guide book. Right at 5, I saw them walking across the square and then walk right past me and off towards the train station. I jumped up and ran over to them and found out, to my surprise, that they never got my email and just happened to be walking past the Duomo right when I was looking for them. I mean, literally, the bell tower was going off that it was 5 as we were talking about how crazy lucky it was that they walked by.

We went back to their hotel and then to dinner at this really great restaurant that Greg's uncle had suggested. I had the most amazing ravioli with artichokes and spinach inside and with fried artichokes on top of it. It was so incredible. After this, we headed to get some gelato and then to this club which had a great shot deal for the night. We get to the bar, which is really close to the University, and almost all of the people in the place were either American or Australian. They were playing the NFC championship on the TV, €1 shots (like, REAL shots) and it was perfect. We stayed there all night, had a great time, met quite a few people and headed back to the hotels at about 3.

This morning I got up to go meet Andre (the Brazilian from Paris) at the train station. He was coming in from Venice and only was spending the day in Florence. Problem number one was that the only thing he really wanted to see was the statue of David and, of course, the museum was closed (all museums here are closed on Mondays). So, we decided to go to Pisa and the Aussies headed to Siena. The trip was short and we didn't spend very much time in Pisa. We were initially hoping that we could get there and then go to Siena afterward to meet the rest of the crew, but that didn't work out.

The tower was amazing. I mean, it was really cool. It looks so fake. It literally looks like it was built that way. The entire foundation is sinking into the ground. Andre got some good touristy pictures of us pretending to hold it up and what not, and he said he'll post them on facebook, so look for those. After we got back to Florence, I took him to the fake David in the Piazza della Signoria and we got a slice of pizza as an early dinner snack. Gid and Shaun were both tired after traveling and walking around Siena all day so Greg, Andre and I went to dinner at a really shady place near Piazza Republica. The guy said he would give us 10% off because we were Australian (good job Greg) and so we said ok, but the food was just so/so and they ended up trying to scam us by adding €1 to each of our dishes on the bill. Whatever.

Andre leaves soon for Rome and the other boys leave tomorrow (probably) for Vienna so I'll be back to being all alone in Florence, but I think I'll be able to figure out something to do. I have a flight booked to Prague so I will more than likely keep that reservation for next week. I'll keep ya posted :)

XOXO

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Are you David?

Location: Florence, Italy

Florence was LOVELY yesterday. The temperature was perfect, not a cloud in the sky. It was great. I started the day late (after I finally caught up on all my sleep) and went to a cafeteria only to find... (drum roll please) a TURKEY sandwich!! I hadn't had turkey since before I left so I was so excited, and even though it was just a little sandwich with only cheese and turkey and it was €4 I was still so excited to eat turkey that I bought it. After this I got my first of many bowls of Gelato (Mango and Papaya today) and then I walked around and saw the Duomo and then walked down to a really interesting old outdoor museum. There were about 20 statues around and most of them were absolutely beautiful. The museum surrounded this big plaza in the center and then ran down the side towards the river.

All of the statues were authentic except for the one of David that I took the picture of. The actual statue of David is inside a museum a couple of blocks from my hostel and this one is located where the old David statue used to stand. A bunch of students recreated it and I think some people were genuinely confused as to whether they were looking at the real thing or not. Another statue that I took a picture of was another recreation (the close up on the warrior looking guy holding a dead guy). Except, this statue was created in like 640 AD which was amazing to me that a recreation of another statue still happened early enough to be it's own statue. Crazy!!

Also, everyone in most of these statues is naked. Well, let me rephrase that. Every statue in the ENTIRE city, the people are naked. I mean, these people are not modest in the slightest. And there are lots of statues with very obvious hints to homosexuality. Just right out in the middle of squares. Very vulgar things, but very interesting.

After this I walked down a long corridor (where I saw the smoking statue) and down to the river past another big museum. The river was so pretty and was lined with all of these Mediterranean Tuscan houses and the sun was setting and it was just perfect. I walked across the old bridge and over to a more residential area of town where there were a lot of really pretty lofts and churches. After this, I meandered my way back to where I came from and past a bunch of black market purse sellers.

Once I was back at my hostel, a girl in my room, Rain from China, was going to o up to the top of this Garden to watch the sunset so I said lets go, we got a bottle of wine and headed up. Unfortunately, we were a little late, so we're going to try again today, but we did sit up there and people watch and drink our little bottle. After this, we came back to the hostel, where the guy who owns the place was just getting off work so he asked if we wanted to go get some food, which of course we did, so we all walked back across the river to a cute little restaurant by the church with the violinist. We sat down at 8 and didn't leave until almost 11:30. I had the most amazing Gnocchi with a Radish and Gorgonzola sauce (it was incredible) and then we drank a ton of wine and had chocolate cake and just sat there and talked about (of course, get three drunk people from different countries together and what do you start talkin about) solving all of the worlds problems, the war in Iraq, communism... all very light topics for a first time dinner together ;)

Once we left, we went down to a couple different clubs and had a couple drinks before retiring relatively early (relative to Spain that is) at about 1:30.

Today, obviously, I have spent most of my day uploading pictures. It literally has taken me a couple of hours so be grateful. I'm gonna head out now and get some food... I think the word of the day is Pizza.

XOXO

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The bird flies away to Italy

Location: Florence, Italy

Yikes, today was rough. After my near mugging incident I was a little shaken up so I drank a little too much vino for dinner and things only went downhill from there. We went to the clubs again, which was great fun. Things start to get clear again at about 5:30 when me and one of the boys were walking back to my hostel to get my backpack but we sort of got lost and then somehow, randomly, 3 of the other guys found us wandering the streets and directed us back where we were supposed to be going. I got my backpack, caught the metro to the bus station, took the 2 hour bus ride to the airport and then the 2 hour flight to Rome. From there, I got on a bus to the metro station, metro to the train station and then took a slow speed (so it was free) train to Florence which took about 3 hours. I slept for most of the traveling because I hadn't slept last night, but it was a rough morning to say the least.

Florence is beautiful!! It's warmer than Barcelona by a little bit and I'm already in love with the city. Plus, the people here speak Italian and I could listen to it for hours and I have no idea what they're saying at all. Even when they're yelling at eachother (which seems to happen quite often) it just sounds so pretty :) I'm glad I will be here for a long time. I haven't had any good food yet because I haven't been hungry yet today, but I think I'll be hitting that up in the next hour or so. Nothing else really to report. Hopefully my weekend will be exciting. Gid, Shaun and Greg from Australia are meeting me here tomorrow and staying for a couple days and then Andre from Brazil is coming in town on Tuesday so I'll be kept busy with old friends (Ha!).

XOXO

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