Saturday, June 15, 2013

Imma Coming Home!!!!

I've officially left Siena. I'm bummed about it. But it was an amazing experience and I met tons of just wonderful people and I am excited to hang out with them when I get home. Also I miss my friends and family a lot.

I speak Italian now, better than Spanish. Mainly because I have forgotten so much of my Spanish, but hopefully it will come back.

I am currently at the train station in Florence with my buddy Samantha, waiting to catch a train to Rome. We will spend the night there and then tomorrow (Sunday) night at 11:00 pm I will be back home. WHAAAT.

I can't believe it's gone so fast. Actually I'm not surprised that it went fast, I'm just surprised that it's already over. Ever since I found out I was coming to italy at Christmas I have been planning and waiting for this trip. It was far better than I could have hoped it would be, but now that it's over I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself.

I said before I came that I would be disappointed in myself if I didn't gain at least 10 pounds.
.....Mission accomplished, and then some. Zach, we are going to be doing some serious working out when I'm home.

But it was totally worth it. I at gelato every day, and I had the best time ever.

I'll do a big post either at the hotel tonight or when I am home, with alll the pictures and things.

Here's a picture of me at the train station in my fort of luggage that I made just now.


If any of you know someone who speaks italian, tell me so that I can practice with them. 

Love you all.


Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Tiramisu

Ok so I'm an awful blogger. We know this now. 

I said goodbye to one of my best best friends in the world, miss Courtney Shill, who is leaving tomorrow for a mission in Madrid, Spain. She informed me that she had been checking my blog every day looking for new posts, which were rarely there. This has therefore guilt tripped me into writing a post today. 

Also I'd like to make a #S/O to Alison Patch, because she requested it (although I don't think my blog is the smartest place to reach out to the interwebs)

So. Back to Italy. 

I have taken cooking classes while here. My roommate and I have a very spacious apartment so we often have a bunch of kids over for dinner, and we are dang good cooks at this point (Well Lauren was already a good cook). I make some mean homemade pasta and tiramisu. 

My Italian is excellent. I have never felt more confident in wanting to study Linguistics and just go live in the world and learn lots of languages, because I love it so much that it's not even difficult, it just happens. Voglio imparare TUTTE LE LINGUE NEL MONDO!

It's incredibly beautiful here. We went to the beach again this weekend on Saturday and Sunday, and even though it rained on Sunday it was still so much fun. I have mastered public transit, and actually thoroughly enjoy it at this point. Siena is really quite a small city, but since I walk everywhere it doesn't feel small at all. I feel like even if I had a bike the city would shrink considerably, but I like walking and it has let me get to know the city much better than I otherwise might have. 

That's me and my tiramisu, that I made. 
I'll post more pictures in a little while. 

 Ciao ciao

Ok here's the more pictures. 

1.  Here we have classy Monday, with me, my roommate Lauren and our neighbor Max. 



2. At the beach with cute little Rudi, who is a ball of fun always. 



3. On top of the duomo in Siena

4. Karaoke night with the girls. They are all super fun. 

5. Rudi venice and Madison love their wine, and I love them (with concern) 

6. Max and I cooking up some delicious pasta

7. Blue steel with Max and Nick at the gelato festival in Florence 

8. The girls at the beach. This is very cute of all of them and I am not even looking up, so fail there. 

9. Rolling out the pasta with Rudi and Amanda. 
















Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Malata in Italia?????

I'm sick today with a pretty bad cold, so I guess I'll post some pictures and junk while I'm moping around my apartment.


On Sunday almost the whole group went on a tour of the wineries in the countryside, but my roommate, myself and our dear buddy nick opted to hang out in Siena instead. So we climbed to the top of the clock tower in the middle of the city and we got some ah-mazing pictures. It was a win for iPhone 5 panorama mode all around.



















Friday, May 17, 2013

Siena. Need I say more.

Ciao i miei amici!

Oh my heck I love it here so much. Siena is just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. I have Italian class at the university from 9-1:30 every day, which I am loving. I am learning so quickly it makes me so excited.
I've got a lovely apartment which I share with a girl from the U who is named Lauren, and she has been a great roommate, we get along quite well. Actually, out of the group of 24 students, there isn't one that I don't get along with! They are all super fun and easygoing. I am, of course, the youngest person in the group, but that is ok, I don't mind being the baby. I am pretty sure that I am also the only Mormon in the group, which I found to be surprising, but I don't mind , and they have all been super good about me coming to the bars or tea rooms with them and just getting my peppermint tea or my San pellegrinò, there are even a few kids who don't drink as well, so that's nice.

My favorite part of the day; going grocery shopping. Why? Because I get to walk past all of the tourists in the main parts of the city with my grocery bags feeling so cool, like "yeah, that's right, I have grocery bags, because I LIVE here, in this supercool place that you are only visiting."

I have not taken too many pictures yet, because there is so much to take pictures of that it overwhelms me a lot.

I'll take some I promise.

Yesterday I bought myself a ticket to the Siena vs. Milan soccer game, which is here in Siena on Sunday, and I am going with my roommate, two guys from our group and their Italian host family. Super excited for that.

Also, the FREAKING GELATO FESTIVAL is going on in Florence this week so that is where I am going for the day tomorrow (Saturday)

I'll be back with more soon!

Ciao, arrivederci






Friday, May 10, 2013

First world problems....in a first world country?

I now have little brother with me, he flew into Venice and we then traveled down to Rome after spending a day in venice.
Rome is great, it's such a happy city, as far as big cities go.
Zach is quite sick/struggling with the time change, so we have just been chilling at our room in Rome today.
And our room is great. But there's one problem.....

THE WIFI IS DOWN THERE.
Lawd have mercy.

I had to walk down the street and buy some pizza at a cafe just to access the virtual world, chat with my peeps, and post this whining post. The horror.




The following is a picture of Zach in his GUCCI sunglasses that he bought in venice. In Venice I bought a bag of that penis shaped pasta you saw in another of my posts. That should tell you something about our personalities.


Ciao ciao

Monday, May 6, 2013

Tuscany to Venice

These are some pictures from the past four days, half in Tuscany half in Venice. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Venice. It's gorgeous and just unreal.

I made my Grandpa pull the car over when I saw that field of poppies on the side of the road, It was so beautiful that it looked like a painting, and I needed that picture.


















Sunday, May 5, 2013

On my own

I have lots of pictures to post from the rest of my trip with grandpa and my cousins, but now phase 2 of the trip begins: me all by myself in Italy.

I am posting right now from the train on the way to Venice, mainly because I wanted to share some big news.

I got married!!!

15 minutes into my time alone, there were some boys coming over and trying to pick me up while I was at the train station. I slipped my ring onto my ring finger, and they practically ran away. Success.

Staying married to myself for the rest of my alone time.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Cinque Terre

Basically all of these are from wednesday when we spontaneously decided to drive up the coast to the Cinque Terre, which are these five fishing villages all squished onto the cliffs along the coastline. They were absolutely beautiful and I loved it so much. I was a little bit shocked at how tropical the forests and plants all seemed to be there, it looked like the Caribbean in some spots. We took a tour on this tiny little boat all the way past all of the towns, and it was just fantastic. Then there is also a panorama of the Tuscan countryside as seen from the hotel near the house where we are staying. It does not do it justice at all. Today we did not do a whole lot, but us girls spent about four hours eating a long meal at a nice restaurant at a vineyard for lunch, while the boys went and took a tour of the Ferrari factory. When Ashley and I told our server that we did not drink wine, he did not believe us at first. Then when I told him I was a vegetarian as well, he looked at me like he was scared for my well-being.

Also, props to me for not bringing a camera. These are all taken on my iphone and edited in aperture. They will suffice. Some of the other posts have pictures from my grandpas super great camera, but these will suffice.











Tuesday, April 30, 2013

I'm moving here when I grow up.

This place is wonderful. Yesterday we visited Pisa and Florence, and today we went to Siena. They were all beautiful, and I will just show you some pictures because I am not feeling too articulate tonight.