salem and maine

amsterdam tomorrow. can't wait!

October

I haven’t updated in awhile! So today is the last day of October, I thought I would recap what I've done. I have been to Perugia, Florence, Barcelona and Venice this month. Its been a whirlwind of adventures. Perugia was the Chocolate Festival of Europe, which was huge (of course) and full of chocolate. I ate so much chocolate...I don’t think I had solid food that day. They had these people carving huge sculptures out of blocks of chocolate, and then people in the crowd got to eat the chocolate they were chopping off. the crowd was insane fighting over the chocolate!
Florence was beautiful, as everyone says, but I definitely don't think it beats Rome. I went to the Uffizi and the Academia, which was amazing of course, and saw a lot of beautiful art. seeing the Michangelo sculptures was definitely the epitome.
Barcelona was a crazy trip. I saw a lot of great Gaudi architecture, this guy who designed these buildings in a very Tim Burton-esque way, it was so cool. He designed parks, houses and churches all resembling things of nature, like tornado columns...etc. Partying was good there and the shopping was amazing. We went out all the nights to bars, ended up a lot at the Travel Bar (of course, since it is the American Bar) even though Luci and I wanted to go to more local scene things. Almost missed our flight back because we got there about 25 mins before departure, and they would not let us check in. I begged them and Luci and i were about to cry (she had an exam and my mom was coming that day) and the let us on, thankfully.
We ate at a tourist trap place and spent way too much on dinner the first night, but that’s what happens when you don’t know the area. We met up with Luci's friend from BC Natalie and Natalie's friends from Cork. They were a lot of fun. Luci and I also went to the Picasso museum, that was so great too.
Venice had a great museum that I basically was orgasming over the artwork in it. It was the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, very small but filled with Braque, Duchamp, Kupka, DeKooning, Pollock, picasso, max ernst, rothko, giacometti, dalli, mondrian, kadinksy...etc. i got postcards and a poster from it i loved it so much. it made me realize again how much i love modern art and how it impacts how and who I am as a person. I went to Venice with my mom who visited for a week, and it was lovely. My mom is so great, she brought a small suitcase for herself, and a large suitcase for my stuff! She brought tons of dvds, food, shoes..etc anything I wanted she brought. I hope she had a lot of fun here, she hung out with Jen's mom who was visiting also during the day while I had class.
Its been a crazy month of October, and November I know will be even crazier. My plans are Amsterdam this weekend, then Prague, then staying in Rome (and Scott is visiting! yay!) then paris for thanksgiving, and Kathleen visits, then finals. I can't believe so much time has passed, its been so quick<>

i sprained my toe. i didn't know hurting your pinkie toe could be so painful.
i'm going to florence this weekend, can't wait. planning trips is stressful...

Domes are so 2005...

I just got back from my travels to Budapest. Lucy and I decided to randomly go to Budapest because every other city was too expensive to travel to this weekend...and Boy did we do the right thing. we had such a great time there. the city was so chill and we met some amazing people, it was definitely one of the best weekends I’ve had so far in europe.
we started the trip in the airport—lost—and trying to figure out how to get to our hostel. We met 2 guys from holland at the airport and ended up spending the whole weekend with them. it really made the difference because one of them new about hungary since he lived there for a few months so he showed us around. we did a lot of touristy things like buda's castle, the house of terror, heroe's square...etc. but i also met some of the locals which was really good. i even got to talk to one girl about what it was like living under communism when she was younger. it is so strange to hear it coming from someone who lived through it and not just a textbook.

We went to this really cool bar that I can’t recall the name of in this really sketch part of Budapest. Lucy and I were skeptical as we got up to the bar because it was like in a run down building, and looked really bad, but inside it opened up into this amazing indoor/outdoor bar with an artsy ambiance and edgy décor. We even met up with our new friend’s friend evert who also studied abroad in Budapest, and then liked it so much he decided to stay and live there. (which I’m thinking of doing now too!)

We took these Hungarian shots called palanka (sp?) that has this honey aftertaste. I also discovered a brazilian beer I was really into called Skol.

That night was great, we just talked and laughed and played this dutch game called misses.

The next day we went to the thermal bath’s which Budapest is famous for, swam around in naturally heated springs. Then did some more sight seeing. i am very much in love with the city.

We went out again with some girls from emory that also go to JCU in Rome and we all went out. The last night we went to statue hill, brought some drinks, and drank as we looked down on the whole city.

Lots of good memories and new friends.

Sailing, Sailing...

my adventure has been amazing so far.
last week I went sailing on the Mediterranean sea. It was beautiful, we sailed for 3 days or so, traveling around the islands off the coast of italy.

We had a decent sized boat which we slept in also. There were about 7 people on my boat, and 4 boats in total. Our captain’s name was Leo, he was a good sport since he had all girls on his boat and had to deal with Disney sing alongs and girls laying out tanning on his boat. We got off the boat one night and went ashore, went to a bar and got some gelato. Most boats brought tons of alcohol, our boat was not as prepared. Going to the bars was really fun, except that the boat captains made us leave a little early cuz of “rough storms” on the water. And let me just tell you: being drunk and rough seas do NOT mix.

Basically I was living the life on the boat: swimming, reading, eating, drinking. It was so relaxing.

School is going good as well, I’m painting a lot, and I love all of my classes.

Medusa! Medusa!

i went to cinque terre this weekend. it is these 5 little cities on the coast of northeast italy that you hike to each town, explore then go to the next. on the first day we went swimming on this pebble beach. the sea seemed rough but we all jumped in. little did we know jellyfish were swarming in the water. my friend dave got stung really badly and you know whatthey say you are suppose to do when you get stung by a jelly fish...
i got a little stung but not too bad.
the next day we hiked the first 3, then we were all pretty tired and it started to rain so we took the train to the next two. the hiking de-tour we took was rough, but amazing because we ended up hiking through all these vinyards on the cliffs of a mountain. the views were breath-taking.
we stayed in a hostel (my first time) or l'ostello but it was a really nice one. all of my friends stayed in one room + one random person. we were worried about the random-er. but both nights our random hostel mate were great. NIGEL was there the first night from Amsterdam who was a nuclear biologist and was really drunk when we met him. the second night we had a girl named Leah from Toronto, 22 years old and really sweet.
did a lot of reading and reflecting in cinque. lots of dogs. and water...