Last Post ?

I cannot believe I am writing my last blog post ! This month flew by. Unfortunately there won't be any fun pictures in this post due to computer problems (my charger was Taken like Laim Neeson's daughter..its MIA like paper planes !) But I can still write and thats interesting riight?

Today is our last day, we will have a test and than a farewell dinner tonight. In the morning Sagan, Vilan and I leave for Florence where we will be spending our last few days (until Tuesday) I am excited to see 'David' and go site seeing I have heard its beautiful there ! Wednesday night Sagan and I fly out of Roma to begin our long journey home ( Rome->Amsterdam, 12 hour layover (which were just gonna make the most out of and turn into a mini vacation !) then Amsterdam --> NYC -> Home !) sooo basically if you want to see me more tired than I ever have been in my whole life than come with My family and Dallas to pick me up at Ragan next week ! haha

Looking back on this whole experience I just feel so lucky to have gotten to spend the past month here studying abroad. I think I am lucky to have gotten great roommates that I have traveled all over the country with , to have had a great advisor who helped us out and guided us all the way through (shout out to D.Wright ! Don't think for a moment I have forgotten about the Ke$ha re-write I am preforming for you tonight !) to have seen all of the sites and traveled safely everywhere, and to have learned so much from all of it (like the difference between an island and a city ! )

Since I can't use photos in this post and being the musical theatre geek and all around nerd that I am I have decided that these two songs best capture my feelings right now, Enjoy :

I couldn't find a good Stephanie Mills or Diana Ross Version, so I turned to Glee

DIRTY DANCING- Final Dance
Caricato da Stella78. - Scopri altri video musicali

Cheesy? Yes, Necessary ? YES ! haha

One Last CIAO !

America I will see you soon ! :) I cant wait to see you next week family and friends, I've missed you all so much !

Tourin Turin!...or Torino...Gran Torino ??

Today we went on a group trip to Torino Italy. I LOVED this city ! We went to the National Museum of Cinema which was so interesting and had all sorts of neat exhibits, like these origional masks from Starwars and Planet of the Apes !

(excuse my dorky pose, I didnt get the memo from the left side that we were going to play it cool this time hahaI couldnt help myself, I mean I was standing next to a real Chubaka mask haha )

The Museum also had an amazing glass elevator (reminded me of Willy Wonka) that would take you all the way up to the roof of their tower where you could see beautiful panoramic views of the whole city, below is one picture I took while we were up there Speaking of Willy Wonka, did I mention Turin is a city that runs on chocolate, Ferrero Rocher is made there ! As a choco-holic I had mad appreciation for all of the fine chocolates we found as we explored the city. We even tried one of their local specialties: Bicerin which is basically heaven in a cup. It’s a layered beverage: one-third hot espresso, one-third hot chocolate, and one-third softly whipped cream. SO GOOD !


How perfect does that look ???

Heres Sagan and I about to enjoy our long awaited and mispronounced Bicerins

These drinks are SO chocolatly that ours were served with a shot of water to consume afterwards !



AHH writing this post has made me crave one all over agian, I wish I could go back for more !!

Today was a great day ! :)

Chocolat

This past weekend we visited Chocolat (not to be confused with the cinematic masterpiece starring Johnny Depp) THIS Chocolat is well known as one of the most popular gelaterias in Milan. It was cute and trendy and delicious ! with way better prices than I expected and super generious scoops. Yumm :)

This picture turned out bad but the cones were so cute and had the name printed on them !

At Chocolat we met up with one of my roomate Sagan's friends from home named Jay, he has been traveling throughout all of Europe for the past two months and is going to spend the next two months traveling even more, I dont know how he does it ! It was cool to hear about all of his travels so far

Could it be ???

Today I finally bought a fedora ...furthermore its white- yep I am one of those tourists now.

I just hope I dont too closely resemble Britney Spears circa her trainwreck-K-fed-cheeto phase

5 Terre !?!

After many setbacks (see previous post on falafel for one example) We finally made it out to CINQUE TERRE today ! I dont have a lot of time to write about it because I have a lot of work to do on my last paper but I wanted to post some pictures (they speak louder than words anyways..riiigghht?) because it was unbelieveable.

Falafel is the Italian word for FOOD POISONING !

On Saturday I got super sick from some Falafel that I had for lunch (which is Weird/Shfeird because its made with chick-peas not meat so I thought it would be relatively safe) I can easily say it was the worst 8 hours EVERRR. I'm so happy it was nothing worse than that and that I (knock on wood) seem to have fully recovered!



I just wish my falafel would've come with a warning just like 'that girl' from this 1990's Bell Biv DeVoe Smash Hit... "POISON POISON!"

Just around the River-...I mean Castle ...-Bend !

Last night at the end of a day full of beautiful Monastery/Abbey seeing and attempted paper writing Vilan, Sagan and I decided to take advantage of the somewhat quiet evening and finally venture out to find this 'Bar Bianco' that we have heard so much about.

On our way there we got a little lost and stopped to ask a nice couple for directions :

"Excuse me, do you know where Bar Bianco is ?"

"Bar Bianco? Ah Yes ! Just walk past the Castle and take a right"

Oh of course! just casually walk past the castle and take a right, just past the Castle NO BIG DEAL haha I love Italy !

I attempted to get a picture of the castle but it was huge ( I mean it is a castle after all) so I could only really get a corner Vilan and Sagan (above) and Sagan and I (below) infront of the castle on our way there
Shortly after passing the castle we found the infamous "Bar Bianco' and it was totally worth the hype; as my mom would say it was 'hoppin' haha


Oh and ofcourse we encountered a cute dog on the way there ! I think owning an adorable dog must be a requirement for citizenship in Milan

Vilans in the puppy pic today, that dog loved her it was so cute !

MiniGolf is Italian for HELL

Apparently the 3rd week of the program is the hardest, in terms of students getting homesick and stuff like that. So as a sweet gesture last night Dr. Wright gathered up the group and got us all to go out to Mini Golf. It sounded like a great idea, mini golf would be like a fun little piece of home riiiight?....WRONG
We arrived and noticed the first difference, NO COLORFUL BALLS ...now this is a small problem but STILL noteworthy ..ontop of the lack of color they were also Dirrrty' (on a scale of 1-Christina Aguilera ..they were 'Stripped') ..we should've known right away somthin was up

Next difference, the turf that was once green was worn down to a grey color ..no water..no sand ..no color ... it looked like no one had been to this place in decades.. definatly a problem but not too big ..we could still deal...
Ok heres where the real problems begin, the turf was COVERED in bugs ! it looked like an optical illusion because just the whole thing was moving..I tried to capture a picture but I didnt want to get to close, you can see two ants in this one:

The bugs would crawl on you if you stood still for too long, it was super hot we were all sweating like crazy and the mosquitoes were OUTTA CONTROL- the really aggressive type that bite through your clothes I must have gotten 15 new bites (including two on my BUTT).

We split into teams above is my team and I ( on the left Jennifer and in the middle Stephanie) joking around with them made it all a little more bearable.

When we finished and walked outside we saw most of the rest of the group accross the street..doesnt everyone look happy ?

haha so basically we were all MISERABLE but at least we were all miserable together ...it was quite an experience

to top off the night the bus took FOREVER to come and mosquitoes continued to swarm

we saw some ridiculous but appropriate for the moment graffiti

Once we were on the bus we thought wed be safe from the bugs, but the driver took a smoke break before taking us anywhere (a pretty routine thing here). On these smoke breaks the doors and windows are left open so the mosquitoes decided to hop on the bus with us.

The picture below is Travis after killing some of the bugs that attacked us on the bus, make no mistake ..those spots on his hands arnt freakles...they're dead bugs

Even after all of that I still think the idea of mini golf was a really sweet one of Dr. Wright to have to cheer us up ! But just like communism it was better in theory.

10 Corso Como and Aperitivo part deux

On Monday night we went out to the even 'cooler' even 'hipper' side of town which houses the (apparently) well known store '10 Corso Como'. Its a store that has all sorts of crazy expensive designer things.

That bag was so cute !

One of our assignments for the night was to see who could find the most expensive item in the store...

Mission accomplished! anyone want this random gold cuff for only 13,000 Euro ??

After Corso Como we went to a cool little resturuant called MAF (not to be confused with Math) for apperitivo. I loved it ! not only was its name fun to say and make puns about but it was way better than the first place (you know, the one that served us the chips and hotdog slices combo)

We had so much fun it was one of my favorite nights so far !

After MAF ( ..AFTERMATH ! BOOM yet another pun...genius genius genius) we made our way over to the Duomo area to continue the night. The sunset on our walk over was pretty

When we got there and sat outside we were literally eaten alive by mosquitoes (mosquitoes are a HUGE problem here I'm suprised I havn't written an entire post dedicated to them yet) but it was sorrrrta worth it for the view (ok not really but the view was great!). Somtimes when we're out and about Ill stop and look at my surroundings and I just can't believe that these crazy beautiful historical places are where we get to hangout everyday... I also can't believe this guy in the cut off shirt walked right in front of my camra and ruined my (almost) good pic! Thanks a lot brah' ! haha regardless I love Italy and Milan ! :)

This weekend we're going to Cinque Terre and I may hit up the leaning tower of Pisa while were near that area. I'm super excited ! :)

The Last Supper

On Wednesday we went to Santa Maria delle Grazie Abbey, located here in Milan, to go see Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. It was definatly one of the highlights of my trip so far. I have seen plenty of pictures of the Last Supper in the past but seeing it in person was amazing, its a whole different experience. It's hard to describe and it sounds sappy but it really took my breath away when we first walked in and I saw it. It's truely a masterpiece. I feel so lucky to have gotten to see it in person

A picture of my roomates and I before we went in to see it

Another interesting thing about going to see The Last supper is that you have to go through like 3 or 4 vault doors that open one by one to let you into different chambers just to get to where the painting is located, its so intense that it made me laugh a little. I felt like Tom Hanks was going to pop out at any moment.

Before we went to see the last supper we stopped by the modern art museum in Milan, it was small but nice. I love going to see modern art, it always makes me so excited and energized I dont know why.

We actually wern't allowed to take pictures but I didn't find that out untill after I snapped a few ...that seems to be a pattern for me here...anyways I LOVED these chairs that had a moutian/waterfall landscape on them.

Bigfoots girlfriend apparently lost one of her shoes here in Milan (bah dum cha !)

Another reason I love modern art museums is seeing all the people that go to them. I LOVED this guy so much I took a creeper pic ..but I mean ..can you blame me ? look at that mustache !

BULLSEYE!

...and by eye I mean Balls

Let me explain according to some sort of tradition , if you go to the middle of the Duomo area find the mosaic bull, plant your heel on the bull's testical and spin around on it it gives you good luck. This tradition/legend is so popular that theres actually a little divit where you place your heel. (as shown)

I still dont know all of the reasoning behind it but when in Rome (or Milan) do as the Romans do! (...even if it's spinning your heel around on a bulls testical)
above and below are proof that I have indeed 'done as the Romans did' and earned my Italian good luck



I also feel like this post wont be complete without referencing: "DA BULLS DA BULLS DA BULLS DA BULLS "


Ok thanks for letting me get that out of my system :)

we're about to go out to karaoke tonight so hopefully tomarow Ill have an amazing post full of pictures from that :)
Ciao !

According to all sources...the streets the place to go

Alright Im just gonna come right out and say it to you straight...Bascially there's graffiti ALL OVER the fine country of Italy.Apparently its a growing problem, we talked about it for a second today in class (but it didn't take that class to notice it) I've seen it in Rome, Milan, Venice, Lake Como (EVERYWHERE). . It ranges from really cool graffiti art ( like the one pictured below) to dumb scribbled 'tags' which say things like 'BAMA' .

(I took the above picture on the 'hip/young' side of town where we ate appretivo last week)

This ones from the train station in Venice. It's my favorite graffiti so far

so darn cute it left me saying to myself WHY didn't I think of that first!?

ciao :)

VENICE

Ok first things first, in ALL of the travel books they say 'Dont spend a lot of time in Venice' or people say 'Venice is SO overrated'...I went there this weekend with low expectations and was blown away. VENICE IS MY FAVORITE (so far), it wasn't even that smelly ! I loved

it all.

It was SUPER hott there on our first day , so please excuse any exceptionally high degree of 'hot mess' you may or may not notice in this picture


There were crazy tourist-y stands everywhere.

Is it weird that I actually love the way they look ? tacky or not

The views in Venice looked UNREAL, they were all SO beautiful. I can't even describe it and the pictures I have dont even capture half of it.


My roomates Marie, Vilan, Sagan and I

THIS WAS THE BEST FOOD WE'VE HAD IN ALL OF ITALY.

pesto, some sort of seafood dish ( which was the best one!) and gnocchi

we were so happy after that dinner

A picture from our evening Gondola ride. GAHH :) -sorry its pretty blurry

One of the best parts of our choice to stay overnight is that there was apparently a festival of some sort going on this Saturday that we had no idea about, but at 11:30 we followed the crowd to St. Marks Square and watched an AMAZING fireworks show. Seriously, could this trip have been any better ?

One of the few pictures I got of the fireworks show, its not great but you get the idea of how crazy they were ! I still cant believe our luck and that we got to watch these beautiful fireworks over the canal from St. Marks Square. GAH. Best.Night.Ever