Ciao Firenze!

Goodbye midterms, hello fall break! I will be out of the blog world for a few days as I  now have a 12 day vacation...So much hard work for us students in Italy.  We slave away day and night, toil in our studies, and never have any fun...  Why are college breaks so much better than high school breaks?  I love it, but it seems like too many days off.... I guess it's just something to look forward to?

Anywho, tomorrow morning Kaitlin and I are taking a train to Rome because we are flying to Ireland from there.  We are going early in the morning so that we have the whole day to look at Roman ruins.  Yay for history! Then we are going to stay with our mutual friend Megan in Cork, Ireland for a few days.  Aunt Paulie, it's Megan Bolan.. From there we are flying to Paris to stay with Kaitlin's aunt and uncle who live in Paris.  Not too shabby.  Kait and I are both so excited and can't sleep even though we have to get up in 6 hours. 

Midterms were good.  Kaitlin kept me on top of my toes.  I've already gotten one test grade and I got an A in Italian.  Yay.  Io parlo italiano!!!  We went to a club called Yab last night and got to go in the VIP and met up with some people who had a table there, lots of fun, we have connections ;).  Then today was my first day of break...Here's what Lindsay and I did...

We went to lunch at our school's restaurant, I got pumpkin creme soup, it looked like babyfood but it was good.  I miss fall decorations and pumpkins, they don't do too much of that stuff here.  I haven't seen candycorn anywhere!  My friend's mom is bringing us Halloween oreos and candycorn and we can't wait.

Then we spent a few hours in the Uffizi looking at Giotto and Botticelli. I told Lindsay about all the different changes of Madonna paintings over the centuries and how the knowledge of perspective came about after the Renaissance.  I love learning about artworks in class and being able to go see them in the same day.  It's a cool feeling.  After, we got my train ticket and shopped around.  We made a scrumptious dinner with wheat pasta, chicken, green beans and garlic bread.  I Skyped my mom, dad, and gma for 2 hours.  I know I am very excited for my trip, but I think my mom might even be more excited hehe.  I can't wait to put up all my pictures!

The first pics are from my farewell dinner and the Odeon Movie theatre.  I wanna sit on the balconies next time.  As you can see, even on October 21st, the Duomo still has a million tourists visiting. Bye bye Lindsay! 

Midterms

Oh Midterms,
I have learned to love you so....you've reduced my weekend to only studying.

Kaitlin and I made this....out of gummis

With your staying up all night, eating junk food and candy, taking crazy exercise breaks with roomies, and memorizing countless facts that I will forget immediately after taking your tests.  At least I get to study some interesting information this time around.  I love learning about the young Michelangelo, he was a little brooding rebel teen.  Maybe a little depressed, a little misunderstood.  Just trying to make a quick buck. He was a crafty one. Today to make extra money, kids like myself, sell stuff on Ebay.  Young Michelangelo, however,  created an a sleeping Eros sculpture (think baby cupid statue), covered it with dirt, and sold it as an antique to make a quick buck.  Those crazy Renaissance Florentines believed it was a genuine Roman sculpture and he got 200 ducats for it. A lot of money.  Too bad he was defrauded later on...   Smarty Mikey, smart.  Young Michelangelo also wanted to portray himself as more masculine, work with the stone masons, so he switched from painting to sculpting.  Maybe the equivalent from playing tennis to playing football?  He wanted to be where all the macho artists were. No wonder they named a ninja turtle after him, he was that amazing.... just trying to be a jock in the high school world of Renaissance art.

I did take a break from all my studying yesterday to go to the movies with my roommates.  And wow, that was an experience.  I've never been to such a cool movie theater! It used to be a palace! There were balcony seats, carvings, and the schmanciest bathrooms. We saw The Town.  It was an interesting story.  I also love me some Ben Affleck. He's easy to look at. The movie takes place in Boston, my favorite historical U.S. city. My dad's and my favorite movie is National Treasure.  It's cheesy and full of history but we've both seen it a hundred times, and I still watch it with him every time we find it on T.V. together.  Love you dad! If I were to move to the East Coast I would move to the outskirts of Boston.... preferably Hingham or Plymoth, and of course I would have my summer house in Chatham.  Shout out to Maggie, my USD roommate from Cape Cod.  Her sister lived in Hingham and I went with Maggs to visit her last summer after our 9 day cross country road trip.  Now that was an experience.  We will save that story for another time.


Look at the cool Odeon movie theater!  My ticket was only 6 euro, for night time.  Bargain.  They did not have overpriced popcorn and economy sized sodas, but they did have expensive bags of chips and a bar. I guess it is better that way because you won't eat a 1,500 calorie bucket of popcorn without realizing it?  As for snacks,  I decided not.  Working at the movies this summer, now it just feels wrong to watch a movie without popcorn.  Wish I still got free tickets and perks! 

 

 

Now back to studying.... Did you know Michelangelo only took four years to paint the Sistine Ceiling?  1508-1512.  Four years, and we are still marveling at it 500 years later.  Way to go Mikey, way to go.  You were underpaid your whole life.

As much as I LOVE Europe, I miss all of this!

Venezia

Saturday I went to Venice with my roommates Kaitlin and Tracey.  It was a long 3.5 hour drive but very worth it.  It is just like you imagine with the gondola drivers wearing striped shirts, dilapidated buildings on water, and pretty lights at night.  To get around to the different islands, we used the waterbus...  haha I didn't even know that existed. Sounds as crazy as the magic school bus to me.  After riding the waterbus we hopped on our brooms and flew to Hogwarts... hehe.

We went to the island of Murano where we saw a glass blowing demonstration and looked at all the pretty vases and chandeliers.  Most were a bit grandma ish, no offense Gma, but you wouldn't even by these.  But some of the stuff was artsy cool.  They also had stores with those masquerade masks on every corner.  I really wanted to buy them for me, Emily, and my little cousins Emma, Molly, and Sarah.  I've always wanted to dress up for Halloween with one and wear a fancy gown.... A girl can dream.

Then we rode the waterbus for an hour trying to find were the main gondola area was.  The ride was gorgeousss.  I had no idea how BIG Venice is.  I had no idea there were different islands.  Saint Mark's square was absolutely gorgeous.  There were musicians playing classical Italian music at sunset, the buildings were lighting up, there were happy tourists feeding the pigeons(next to the "Do Not Feed the Pigeons" sign), and the sun setting on the beautiful church.  We got pizza and calzones for dinner and of course gelato for dessert.  I tried Meringue. It was the best thing I have ever tasted in my entire life.  It was like cool whip consistency and scrumshidalidumshious.  It was a little chilly at parts of the day but we sucked it up.  At night Kaitlin and I couldn't bear it anymore and bought scarves for 4 euro.  They are cool though, not knitted ones but look like tapestries.  A nice cheap purchase to go with my winter army jacket I got at the good will here for 7 euro.  Yay for bargain shopping! More money for traveling and gelato!

P.S. Do you know where I am going for fall break?    I'm going to Ireland and Paris! I CANNOT WAIT!!!!!!  I think I might have a heart attack I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!