Vacation almost over... :*(

Well finally I can update this blog thing.. so much for keeping up with it after Italy.. but I guess it’s better late than never.

So let’s do a quick rundown: Switzerland from July 1 till July 11. Netherlands from July 11 till July 16. Denmark from July 16 till July 19.

So my main vacation started in Switzerland. The first weekend we were in Zurich, there was Zurich Fest 2010, a tri-annual fest. When we first booked the trip, we had no clue this was going on while we were there so this was a very pleasant surprise. On July 1, we pretty much just fly into Zurich and made it to our hotel (Hotel Continental, very nice place). After checking in and getting to our massive room, Thom and I decided to go walk around the area. We ended up at an Italian restaurant for dinner. Despite being in Italy for 6 weeks, I was ready for more Italian food. This is when I got the first taste of how expensive Zurich was. For two pasta dishes, bruschetta , a half litre of white wine, and a water, our bill came out to almost a 100 DOLLARS!!! For this same amount of money, I could have easily cooked at home for over a week. But it was a nice dinner and both Thom and I got a little buzzed, me because I had 4.5DL of wine, Thom juts had a glass and was gone, haha. That night we walked along the river that ran through the center of the city and then went back to the hotel and passed out as we both were very tired.

The next day, we woke up early to catch a tour of the city and then to go to Liechtenstein. Well, we didn’t get a tour of the city thanks to the Zurich Fest. To make matters worse, we were in a bus with one of the most anti-American asshole tour guides in the world. I can take an American joke or two, but this guy was just an endless record of the same bad American and sexist jokes in the world. I won’t dwell on this very much as I already wrote about a page and a half about this schmuck (and sent it to Viator to get a refund of $150, woot woot!). But when we finally got back to Zurich, we walked around the festival for an hour. This festival was merely a street carnival disguised as a festival. Yes it was cool, but I expected more than just drinking and a few carnival games. Oh well. For dinner, more over priced Italian.

Saturday, July 3rd – We woke up and headed straight for the train station to get some breakfast considering this was the only place that we knew would have food for breakfast. This was fine with me since we had some Belgian waffles, sweeeeeet. After this, we walked around the carnival for a little bit before heading to a viewing party for the Germany – Argentina World Cup game. Germany decisively won which was awesome because I wanted Germany to win it all and also because about 30% of the Swiss population is from Germany, so it was almost like being in Germany for the game. Later that day, we watched the Ghana game in the hotel room as we just wanted to relax since we were going out at 10:30 to watch some fireworks. At about 10:15, we headed out to watch the fireworks. We ended up on a bridge where Thom and I separated. I ended up hanging off a trailer and got to see over everyone’s head while Thom was stuck in the middle of the crowd but still got to see them.  We went to bed at a decent hour since we had another tour booked the next day.

The next day, we headed out for Lucerne and Mt. Pilatus. Lucerne was neat to see but we only spent about an hour there, which is all we needed. We then set off for Mt. Pilatus. This was pretty epic because the peak of the mountain was above the clouds and we got to go up there. When we go to the base of the mountain, we took a couple lifts to get to the top. Once at the top, we heard some of those stereotypical Swiss Mountain horns being played by an older couple. This was just so surreal because it was one of the things that I thought I was going to miss while seeing Switzerland. We then proceeded to hike to the top of the mountain (about 100 ft from where we were, but I decided to run up it and was definitely out of breath when I got to the top, totally worth it since the view up there would have taken my breath away anyway. I hiked up another path but it wasn’t as nice since clouds were starting to roll in. We eventually took a Cog Railway down from the top to the bottom. This took about 45 minutes but it was so cool to see everything slowly and from down low instead from the gondolas that took us up. There were cows grazing all over with their massive cowbells.. once again, pretty awesome. When we made it to the bottom, we took a ferry across the lake to get back to Lucerne, another great experience. Finally we made it back to Lucerne and eventually Zurich. We eventually just went back to the hotel, than ate, then back to the hotel, then crashed for the night as it was pretty much just more carnival stuff going on.

Monday – We woke up later in the morning and eventually just skipped breakfast. We went to an American eatery called Sam’s and got some stuff crust pizza, I was so happy to have something truly American (stuffed crust pizza, hooray!). After this, we went back to the hotel to change into swim trunks and went swimming in the Zurich River. I went jumping off a bridge a few times and all jumped off the side. It was nice to do some backflips for once too. The water was about 72 degrees and so refreshing. The current was actually pretty strong too. What many people would do is jump in at the bridge and float down for a half mile and come back and repeat. We didn’t do this because we didn’t trust the people with my backpack with some personal belongings in there so we just floated down like 30-40 meters. Still fun. We did this for an hour or so, then went back to Sam’s for dinner, lol. After Sam’s, we just went back to the hotel to pack for Zermatt.

Tuesday July 5 – We boarded the train for Visp and then connected to go to Zermatt. Once on the train from Visp to Zermatt, we were pretty much just taking a train through the Alps which was pretty awesome. I have never been blown away by a train ride, but the scenery on this ride was just amazing. When we finally got to Zermatt, we just checked into the hotel and hung out in the area. We had the perfect hotel room. The room was a modern take on a rustic scheme. The walls were uncoated sheets of wood and the floor was wood as well. Doors were of the same material as the walls and actually blended well with the walls.  The bathroom was completely different than the rest of the room. The shower was just two glass panels in the corner. There wasn’t even a dedicated floor for the shower, it was the same floor as the rest of the bathroom, a nice dark slate. The drain was a slit along the wall. The main accent wall was just a solid rock wall, almost like an old stone house wall, this was soo cool. Normally I am not blown away by a room, but the entire hotel room was so amazing. But after looking at the entire room, we walked out to one of our two balconies (we had a corner room). One of the balconies had a perfect view of the Matterhorn. This was the cherry on top of everything. I couldn’t have had for any more other than a nice big flat screen TV.. which we had too!! After being in awe of the room, we set out to see the village. This village is unique because there are no cars aloud at all. This was perfect because that meant that there was close to no pollution at all in Zermatt (the only gas powered vehicles were for maintenance and for being up in the mountains). We registered for paragliding on Thursday. That night, we went down to the wellness area of the hotel and just sat in the sauna and steam room as my back was killing me and I needed some killer heat on it. After the wellness, we went out to get some Italian dinner on the lawn (pizza of course) and then went back to watch the Netherlands beat up on Uruguay, then went to sleep.

Wednesday July 6 – we woke up early to get a great free breakfast thanks to the hotel and set out to go hiking. We wanted to take an easy yet long course so we started at Blauherd (about 2700m in elevation) and wanted to end up at Riffleberg (2500m). Of course, we took a detour to Fluhap (a restaurant at 2800m). All in all, the entire hike was so amazing and took about 5 hours. We could have done it slower or faster, but it was just the right pace. Toward the end of the third hour, we eventually made it to a forest full of pine trees. I have never smelt anything better in my entire life. Not only was the air the crispest air I have ever had in my lungs, but it smelled so fantastic. I wanted to stay there for an extra month, this was definitely one of the greatest points in my life, and yet it was so simple. Upon finally getting back to the hotel, we crashed for a little bit and then got some dinner at the street festival outside the hotel. We eventually watched Spain beat Germany that night and I was wicked pissed. Oh well, shit happens. Later that night, when down in the wellness area, I was mooning all the people who would walk by thinking they could not see in.. well the next day, while walking around, we walked behind the hotel and could see in perfectly.. hahahaha oops. We ended up crashing after the game after the both of us were dead tired.

The next morning, we woke up, ate breakfast and went to the paragliding shop to meet the guys who were going to take up almost two miles high. Once we made it to the top of Rothorn, we set up all the gear, snapped a few photos, and took off. Me and my pilot were the first to take off and we had a rough take off. While we were running, there was a gust of wind that picked us up a foot or two and then it disappeared and we started to crash toward the hill. Right when we touched back down it came back and we were off. I was officially paragliding over the ALPS!!!! This was probably one of the greatest experiences ever, so much better than sky diving because I could actually enjoy the view and not be in an uncomfortable position the entire time. After about 20 minutes of flying, we had to make our way toward the landing point. My pilot asked me if I wanted to make the trip fun and the glider into one giant rollercoaster/swing and of course I said hell yes! This was so amazing as we pretty much did a flip since we were above the chute. I survived the ride, but Thom almost puked and I felt badly for him but I was laughing on the inside, oops, haha. After we landed, we had to head back to the hotel so Thom could rest since he was queasy. After about an hour to hour and half, we set out for lunch. We ended up a nice little place with a perfect view of the Matterhorn.  After a nice relaxing lunch, we set to go up to (Rotenboden) to get another perfect view of the valley and the Matterhorn. We spent an hour up there taking pictures and eventually had to head back because Thom’s tummy was bothering him again. For dinner, we ate at the hotel restaurant where our waitress Lucy told us her entire life story. Everything from how she wasn’t supposed to start work at 8am to how she almost ended up in California with some guy she fell inlove with on vacation to how Thom looked like her dead uncle. This was quite the dinner.. and the pizza was good too!

Friday – We set back for Zurich. After a long train ride back, we finally made it. I was so sad to leave Zermatt because I actually fell inlove with the village and want to go back every year if possible. The rest of the day in Zurich, we just walked around our area and ate dinner at a massive outdoor place called Movies. This place was alright but expensive. We eventually just ended up walking back after dinner and then crashed for the rest of the night.

Saturday – Renting Bikes!!! I found out that we could rent bikes for free so we did. We both wanted to go swimming in Lake Zurich so we found a little place about 20 minutes from the city center. At first we did not want to go here cause not many people were here but we eventually decided to stay. When we arrived, there was this woman who was another jukebox of bad stories, her name was something like Seagull (Segal I think).. but she would not shut up either, but it was entertaining for Thom and I. She told us everything, just like Lucy in Zermatt. She told us about how she hates German and was so happy to speak English to her early life to how her hubby cheats on her to how she was dating this one guy who supposedly likes dogs a little too much, another guy who she is inlove with be she doesn’t like his hair. This beach we happened to be at is also a nude beach. The three of us were the only ones who were not nude and this is what this crazy lady was also talking about. One time she said she thought that everyone who was there was gay. Right when she said this, one woman who was laying with a man said “my husband isn’t!” This was funny. Another time, there was this older guy walking around naked (well most of the guys were older), but this guy in particular stood out because of what Segal said. She said that if she was him, she would not walk around naked because his dick was about the same size as her thumb!!!  I couldn’t stop laughing, it was too funny. After a while, we eventually left and headed back to drop the bikes off and had our last meal in Zurich. There was a nasty storm that night, I guess Zurich was sad we were leaving.

Sunday – Heading to Amsterdam FINALLY!!! We landed in Amsterdam 6 and got to our hotel around 7. We then set out to find a pub with a TV to watch the World Cup Final between the Netherlands and Spain. Of course the Orange choked and Spain won.  This was depressing because I wanted the Orange to win, oh well, life goes on, atleast they were not my favorite time.. if this happened to my Colorado Avalanche or Tampa Bay Lightning, I would have been crushed.

Monday – Tour Number 1 – Bike Tour. Woke up kinda early and really grumpy because the room we were in was extremely warm and I didn’t get much sleep and I was wicked hungry. Finally after some food, I was feeling better. We took a bike tour of Amsterdam. Saw Anne Frank’s  house (looks just like any other house, lolol), saw a couple other things.. Also learned that XXX doesn’t mean sex, drugs, and rock n roll like it would in the States, but instead it stands for something along the lines of no plague, famine, or fire.. meaning the city would be safe from all three. We were also told about how they made all the canals and how many of the houses are on wooden posts still. There is one building, the Palace, that has 13569 posts supporting the building.. The rain rolled in early that after noon and stayed almost all day which kinda sucked. Later that night, it cleared up so we walked around. We saw some of the Red Light District (RLD). This was very interesting to see these women on display like toys in a window. Some of them were FUGLY while others were extremely beautiful.

Tuesday was a free day. We walked around a little more. Thom bought a couple books since the mfkr reads like a fiend. I still don’t read because it’s boring, lol. Once again, the rain rolled in later that afternoon and ruined the afternoon. Cleared up that evening so once again, we went walking around the RLD.

Wednesday – Another day, another tour. This time, we started off by going to see a few windmills and also a cheese factory. The windmills were really cool and I would love to go back and see them again. After the windmills, we set off for a wooden clog factory where I bought some that I want to wear to my cousin’s wedding, haha. After this, we took a boat ride and then eventually ended up in Delft where they make the pottery with the blue ink. Actually it’s black ink that turns blue when baked. After Delft, we saw The Hague, the governmental capital of Netherlands. The saying is in Rotterdam is where they make the money, The Hague is where they talk about the money, and Amsterdam is where they spend all the money, haha. After the Hague, we went to Madurodam, a mini version of Holland and everything import scaled down to 1/25 of the original size. The part that sucked about this was it was pouring. Oh well. Eventually landed back in Amsterdam that night, ate some shitty Mexican, walked through the RLD again and then headed back to the hotel. We also went out to see the Seven Bridges (the only place in Amsterdam where there are seven bridges in a perfect row. This was cool cause I took many awesome photos.

Thursday – Last day in the Dam. We pretty much just walked around all day. We ended up at the Museum Plaza where the I amsterdam  sign is. This sign looks it says I Am Amsterdam because the I am is in red while the sterdam is in white. Pretty much just walked around for the rest of the day, still a very neat city to see.

Friday  - Off to Scandinavia. We arrived in Copenhagen after a couple of annoying plane rides and a bad train ride thanks to some fucking crying brats that I wanted to kill, but I didn’t. That night, we ate at Hard Rock. I got an alcoholic lemonade that was actually tasty (hooray vodka, gin, and rum). We didn’t do anything that night because there wasn’t anything to do.

Saturday – Woke up and took a tour up to Sweden and the Denmark country side. Both were very beautiful. In Malmo, Sweden, we saw the Turning Torso, a highrise that twists 90 degrees on its way up. Other than that, there was nothing to see on Saturday.

Sunday – A city tour which was cool but not for photographers. Also took a canal tour, same thing, no good pictures. After this, we went to see the Tivoli gardens. There were two good things about this: a giant spinning swing like you see at the carnivals but this one went like 75-100m high.. it was pretty awesome to see Copenhagen from that high. The other great thing was the little ducklings that were not scared of people they wouldn’t run away from my camera!!! Other than that, there was nothing to see. For the rest of the day, we didn’t do anything because Copenhagen sucks.

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If I were to rank all the cities I have been to, here is how I would rate them..  Also if I were to live in each city, this is how I would rank them.

Berlin, Zermatt, Amsterdam, , London, Paris, Zurich, Prague, , Florence, Barcelona, Munich, Salzburg, Almafi Coast, Milan, Rome, Venice, , Malmo, Dublin, Copenhagen.

As far as countries, it’s a little different.

Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, , England, France, Sweden, , Austria, Spain, Czech, , Denmark, Ireland.

**Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Netherlands are a very close top 4 and could easily change spots at any time. I ranked Germany the highest because of Berlin and Netherlands the lowest because of the shitty food. England, France and Sweden are nice, but cant compete with those top 4, I wouldn’t mind living in any of those though. Austria, Spain, and the Czech are ranked here for their own reasons (Austria cause its too small, Spain cause of the weak economy and the crime, and Czech cause of the language). Denmark over Ireland because I got to see the countryside of Denmark which is very beautiful. Ireland just seems like a place where all you can do is masturbate and cry.

Catching up again....

Going to make this pretty much shorter and sweet.. well relatively speaking compared to normal....
Italy - Monday: Woke up, took a tour of the city that we should have done during the first week. Headed home to study for two exams the next day.
Tuesday: Took two exams that I didn't do as well as I should have... but the professors hated me cause I knew how to form my own opinion (vafanculo Dr. Sipiora). Later that night, got some good dinner and headed to Christina's for some wifi and to avoid studying for an exam on Wednesday
Wednesday: Took the exam early in the day (FINALLY DONE!!!) then went touring the city. Bought some gifts, watched a soccer game while everyone else went to out to get shitty that night. Glad I didnt go because many people blacked out.. suckas
Thusday - Festival day in Florence. Pretty much just did some more touring around the city, got to sleep in later that day. Got the single best steak I have ever had.
Friday: Woke up early to go to Pisa but there was a train strike. Instead, I went up the Florence Bell Tower to take pics. Also just did a little more touring of the city and bought more gifts. Had a good bye dinner that night and went out for Christina's Bday with everyone. This was fun, but I hate clubbing. Oh well.
Saturday: Well, I didn't go to bed till 7am as I wanted to take pictures of the Florence sunrise and of places sans people. Also found a secret bakery and got some fresh croissants and bread. Ended up sleeping till 2pm, packed a little, got ice cream for lunch and a sandwich for dessert, lol. Ended up at Christina's that night for a little going away get together. This was awesome but sad.
Sunday - Left Florence. Actually was sad to leave the city and my awesome roomie of 6 weeks. But I knew I would see two good friends in Austria so all way good. When at the airport, I meet up with Gimli (Arin from our study abroad program, he looks just like the LotR character Gimli, just younger and more ugly). But we sat down to eat lunch together which made the three hour wait a little bit better. I got my single pizza slice and small fries and sat down where he was watching the bags. He then got up to get his stuff. When he came back, he got two big slices of pizza. He then left and came back with olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette, and two different things of pepper. When he came back to the table with all this crap, there were these 4 Swedish people sitting right behind him looking at him, then the food,  then him, then the food, then me and then repeat. When he left to bring all the extras back to the bar, they looked at me and said "American?" I quickly responded "Oh yeah". They laughed at him and said that it easily showed. Now not only is this kid ugly, but hes just awkwardly fat. Some people carry their fat well, but others like this kid look like they-have-an-inner-tube-wrapped-around-his-waist fat. They said that he had more than enough room to store all that food. They then asked me where I was from and I didn't have the balls to say the State so I said Canada. Then I ran along with this story for the next five minutes as they were asking tons of questions, lololol. Thank god for being a hockey fan and a Peter Forsberg fan (an awesome Swedish player that I asked a few questions about). When Gimli came back, he actually thought I was Canadian too, poor guy. But to make a long story short, I will never tell people I am American and the Swedish as awesome (and beautiful).

Austria - Finally landed in Austria, happy to be with good friends. Next day went on a Segway and walked up to a nice little restaurant on the mountain with one of Thom's coworkers and her kids. The next day we went up to the salt mines area to go bobsledding. This was just as fun as last year but this time I could record a video, woot woot. The next day we went on the rope climbing and I had to help Thom finish some of the courses as he was too weak to do so himself. For the dinners in Austria, we went to get Italian once, went to the Austria country side for some good local wieners, and the got Chinese where the food came out on a belt that we just picked off of.. soo awesome

Switzerland/Liechtenstein - Finally in Switzerland, so freaking beautiful here. First full day here was OK because of a shitty tourguide. Oh well. Massive Zurich Party this weekend!

Rest of the Amalfi weekend....

Positano on Saturday. This was such a fantastic place to see. The city was built on the side of a very steep hill in south Italy along the sea. But everything there was so picturesque. We first got there at 11am at the top of the city and had to hike down what seemed like a thousand stairs (maybe more like 700 but my knees were hurting toward the end... then again, I hate going down stairs. But the hike was worth it. When we got into town, we set up shop on the beach (which had black sand... wtf? I guess the rocks had something to do with that). But we pretty much just relaxed in the sun for the rest of the morning and early afternoon until 1:30pm when a group of us caught a boat to go see another part of the island. 

We jumped in the boat, all 23 of us, and set off to go cliff jumping. When we got to the spot, there was another boat there so we went further down to the green gratto. This was very cool to swim in this gratto. The water was about 75 degrees and absolutely beautiful. Some of us initially jumped in and others hesitated cause the waves were a little choppy. I would guess that the waves were about a foot and a half or even just over two feet. This is not something that a beginner should jump into, just those of us that can actually swim (or at least keep themselves afloat on their own). What did two noobs do? Jumped in the choppy waters, swam for about 30 feet, then panicked, causing everyone to get out of the water as everyone thought they were drowning and wanted to help. This pissed me off cause I just got in the beautiful green gratto. Oh well. When we got back on the boat, we went back to the cliffs. 

When we got there, many people just wanted to jump once so they went big (to the THIRTY-FIVE FOOT cliff). At first, even I was a little nervous, I can't believe that of the 16 of us that jumped, 14 went to the bigger one instead of the ten footer. But when we got to the top, ToniAnn jumped first and landed a little awkwardly, but nothing that bad. Next was Olivia and she pretty much sat down when she hit the water instead of doing a pencil like you are supposed to from that height. Next was Stella, then some other people, then me. Unlike everyone else who stood at the edge syking themselves out, I pretty much just jumped on a whim. I was actually sitting on a rock the entire time, then I just said "F*** it, I'm going" and just walked off the edge and did  a perfect pencil into the water. The only bad part of entire thing was that I ended up touching the bottom of the sea (about 10-12 feet deep) with my toes. I didn't injure myself, just got a little freaked out. It was so much fun, I went back up. 

When I got back up to see Clint, Lindsay (Snooks), and Angelica. Finally we talked Clint into going. Then it was the three of us. I wanted to go last to make sure those two went and didn't walk down the jagged ledges as they would hurt themselves. Finally after about ten minutes, Lindsay jumped. She landed a little awkwardly but did fine. Then it was just me and Angelica. Thankfully Matias came up cause I wanted to jump again. Once again, I just said F* it, and jumped. Then Angelica jumped. She was leaning waaaay to far forward and her chest took most of the impact. Thankfully she was OK. After Matias jumped, we headed back to the beach. For the rest of the day, we just relaxed on the beach and then headed back to the hotel. That night we had a small dinner and went walking in the downtown area of Sorento. 

The next day we saw Pompeii and everything it had to offer. It was so epic to see a city that was built before Christ even was a thought. Just everything that Pompeii had before Vesuvius decided to screw the entire city over was pretty awesome - raise sidewalks for crossing the streets, sliding doorways brothels with pictures above each room stating what you would get in that room, and just so many roads to make it actually a bigger city for that time. After seeing Pompeii, we were going to go to Vesuvius to hike it but mother nature axed that idea with thunderstorms. Thankfully we got back into down earlier Sunday because I would have hated walking around Florence with God knows how much in camera equipment on me. Finally home

I know I added this late, but lets just pretend that I posted this last week. Thank Buddha for a good memory.

Weekend in Amalfi

This actually started off on Thursday. I actually made it to Italian class on time for once on Thursday. This was nice because I was late (by like 2-5 minutes) for each class prior, but really the nice part was that I missed the rain that was coming. About 10 minutes into class, we could hear that nasty rain outside and decided to look to see how bad it was (mainly because Matias still wasn't in class). But when we looked outside, there was actually HAIL!!! Pretty exciting for me cause I have only seen hail one other time in my life (in MA when I was in kindergarten (which is a German word) woot woot). But after Italian, in Cinema, we actually watched a really good movie. Probably the only other movie in Italian Cinema that I actually liked.

After getting my quiz back (got a 92! woot), I headed back to the apartment to pack and eventually made it to the train station with the other guys. We ended up jumping on a bus and started driving down to Amalfi. I was lucky enough to sit next to Rosetta (/sarcasm.. she is nice and has a crush on me, but the favor is not returned at all). But basically after 2 hours, we stopped at the single most expensive rest stop I have ever seen. I picked up some gummy bears, ate a sandwich, and also come some cookies. After this we continued for the hotel. When we finally made it there (5 hours later and God knows how long on a curvy road), we made it to the hotel. I guess I am the type of guy that does get car sick, atleast when I don't drive. I think this is Nana's fault cause everytime I would ride with her, I would feel sick (miss ya Nana!). I found out that I was rooming with Mark and Clint - both good guys, then again, all the guys on the trip are tight.

Woke up the Friday morning @ 8:10. We were supposed to meet everyone at 8AM to depart for Capri. We rushed outta the room (by rush, I mean took our sweet time, about 20 mins). We ended up meeting everyone at 9am at the boat and made it to Capri with everyone. We immediately took a tour around the island and went into the Blue Gratto. This was cool but very over priced. The guide into the Blue Gratto asked for a tip but he sucked and got salt water on my lens so we didn't tip him.

Next we went up to the main part of Capri where all the shops are. I was actually left behind by the group as I was trying to get my ticket and no one waited for me. This was bullshit because I would have waited for someone, especially if I knew someone still had to get their ticket (thanks Rob). I eventually caught up with everyone, but I still thought it was kinda dick on their part. We eventually walked down to a beach. This beach was very rocky (thankfully smooth rocks that were about the size of a big toe and not sharp pebbles). We went into the very refreshing 75 degree water. This was AWESOME as I missed cool salt water, haha. But the cool part also was that there were many big rocks in the water that we jumped off of. I must admit, I am by far the most hardcore of them all when it comes to jumping, I definitely have the most jumping skills (woot woot) and was showing off (my amazing farmers tan).

We eventually made it back to the main part of the city where I got a lemon slushy (Capri is known for lemons) and then we headed back to the boat back to Salerno. On the boat, I had to fix someone else's camera as they didn't know what they did (hooray for simply fixes like sliding something). When we made it back to the hotel, I took a nice long awesome shower with shampoo and conditioner from the Rome hotel. We ate spaghetti for dinner and then everyone went out. I decided to stay at the hotel as I hate going out to get drunk.

Anyway, off to bed. More later.

Ciao.

Week 4-5 recap

Well I will try to remember as much as I can from this week.

Monday: Made a tomato sauce and gnudi (gnocchi minus the potato) in class, the chef also showed us how to make homemade pasta which reminded me of the Worcester days when Mum made easter ravioli for us. Had a big salad for lunch and then went to Christina's for dinner and stole her free fast internet. 

Tuesday: Woke up late and picked up some fruit on the way to Italian class. In Italian Cinema, we watched Nuova Cinema Paradiso, by far the best movie in the class so far. We went to get Mexican that night (argh!) and had the worst service ever. The food wasn't all that great either.

Wednesday: Cooked some desserts in class which were wicked good. Came home to nap, lolol. That night, went over to Mandy's apartment but before we went over, Jake put on a ton of cologne and I got sick because perfumes and I don't get along.

Thursday: I wanted to kill Jake cause I had to miss a class. I made it to the other class though. We watched another stupid movie (the Postman). Actually it wasn't bad, just it really did appeal to me. Came home and went to bed that night. Also went to 4Leoni again! This place is awesome.

Friday: Slept for 12 hours cause I was sick. Really didn't do anything that day other than watch the movie for my film class and write my review on it. Tried to go to bed at a decent hour, didn't fall asleep until 2:30

Saturday: Woke up at 3:30 sick as hell. Took some Advil and Aleve. Started to feel better and decided to go on the weekend excursion to the Tuscan country side. This was stupid because we spent a total of 6 hours on a bus, toured a small castle, got a few pictures, had a crappy lunch, tasted a few sips of wine, went to another small fort, got a nice view off Tuscany, then went home.. NOT WORTH IT. Watched the USA-England game with some friends and went home and to bed early that night

Sunday: Woke up after 12 hours of sleep again (I love this sleep thing). Worked on a paper for class. Jake went to Pisa so I was alone all day (FINALLY!). I went to some Giubbe Rossi place that was recommended by my cooking class teacher and it sucked. I got a Ravioli dish that was drowned in butter. That night, I went to an Irish pub to watch the Germany-Australia match. Tried Guinness for the first time and actually liked it (got a second pint in the second half). Came home and went to sleep.

Monday: Made some more tasty food in class. Came home and pretty much just rested cause I was still sick. That night, went out to watch the Italy-Paraguay game with Christina and friends at an outdoor viewing party along the river.

Tuesday: After another good nights rest, went to class and gave an oral presentation that I bombed. It sucks when of the 7 other students in the class, only 1 is also learning a second language while everyone else already speaks English and Spanish. Not Fair!!!! Oh well. Italian Cinema was alright again, nothing special. That night, went to an Osteria with Christina since neither of us were formally invited to a birthday party for some bitch. We actually had an awesome dinner even though it was raining. Our waiter was cursing up a storm and gave us free champagne, lol. "Com'e si dice 'lightning' in Italino? fulmine.. and this, this is fucking rain!!!" hahaha. So awesome. But that night, I came home, worked on another paper that was due the next morning. I didnt go to bed till 1:30. Woke up at 2:30 coughing and wanted to leave Italy that moment because I missed the States and Walgreens and actually having a home that as medicine. But I stole some of Jakes night time cough meds and went to sleep. Bastard deserves it for getting me sick.

Wednesday: Cooking class we made some desserts again. This time we made a truffle (with too much cream so they didnt come out right) and biscotti (which had way too much nuts). After class, normally I am not hungry, but this time I was so I got a big ol salad at Cuco again. The Chef there is awesome. He and his assistant were helping me work on my Italian communication skills. The assistant can speak pretty good English but the chef is just as good in English as I am in Italian so it was cool. I got some good recommendations on where to eat from him too. Now I am finally caught up on my blog, I can edit some photos!!!

For the rest of this weekend: AMALFI COAST!!! My 7D is going to get a TON of pictures. Hopefully I can go cliff diving too!

Until then..............

Roma - Giorno 3 - Destinazione: Ovunque ma non qui (Finalmente)

Day three finally arrived and that meant we were finally going back to Florence. We woke up at 7:30am (once again, 3.5 hours of sleep). Ate breakfast and set off to see the capital city again.

This time we started out at the Spanish steps. Once again, I was underwhelmed as I expected more with it being so famous. Afterwards we set out to see a few more monuments including the Trevi fountain where some girl from our group slipped in and got yelled at by the cops and also a few piazze. The biggest thing we saw the Pantheon. This was actually really cool minus the scaffolding on half of the building. The Pantheon is still used today as a church but there is also a massive dome on top. The dome has a big hole in the middle symbolizing god always watching over his followers. This hole is actually open thus exposing the inside to some elements. Our tour guide said one of the coolest things he has seen is the Pantheon being exposed to snow and some of the snow coming inside. While here, I also snapped a ton of pictures of people looking up at the hole but no one took any for me (one offered at the beginning though, thanks Clint). After the tour ended, a few of us got lunch together and I broke a glass (not my fault that the weak glass couldn't survive a fall from 2 inches). 

After a nice lunch, we were walking around and eventually made it back to the hotel after 4 hours. We then just hung around the hotel until everyone had to go to the train station to head back. I was extremely warm on the train as I had the sun beating down on me and Jake was sitting next to me. We finally made it back to Florence and Jake just wanted to stay at home for dinner and ate cereal while I went out to get some food and also enjoyed a half liter of wine. I was quite high to say the least. I actually went to bed at a decent hour last night too thanks to that wine (12:30am!!)

Roma - Giorno 2 - Destinazione: Ovunque ma non qui

I woke up at 6:45am on Saturday morning with just one alarm going off. For me, this is a miracle. I guess it makes sense since we were going to the Vatican that day. Every morning, like most people, when I wake up, I go to the bathroom right away. In Europe, especially in Italy, almost every bathroom has a bidet (an ass cleaner). Well, being right next to the toilet, I was bound to look at it. My wonderful(ly drunk as hell) roommate Jake decided to leave a gift for the maids in the bidet - let's just say when you consume that much alcohol and the same night you have pastas, hams, tomatoes and other stuff, it's going to end up looking like an omelet. It was quite nasty but thankfully did not smell as I would have punched that kid in the nuts. I went down to eat breakfast for 7:15am. I saw a few other students down there and we ate together. Rob and I went back to our rooms after breakfast to wake up our roommates (Rob actually ended up waking both Mark and Jake up, both were still drunk, not even hung over). In the end, only Jake made it down in time to walk with the group to the metro to the Vatican. Mark and Matias had to catch up later on (right before we entered the city actually, lucky for them cause they would have had to pay their own way in).

We eventually made it into the city and, of course being the awesome Catholic that I am, the first word I said was 'fuck' just because I could. We took a guided tour through out the City. We saw many painting and statues. Nothing extremely famous, but still some amazing stuff. I took many pictures of them and will post them on my flickr eventually. We started off seeing the painting and then the statues. Before the statues though, we were in this field with a giant globe in the center. Now the Italians are very lax when it comes to keeping people out of places they don't want you to go (now if they really don't want you there, that's different). There was only a chain in the way of the people from touching and spinning the globe. Some people (with the bad influence of the tour guide, haha) decided to go and spin the stunning spherical statue. Then after some statues, we finally got to see the Sistine Chapel. Personally, I was underwhelmed by the entire thing as there were too many tourists and I thought that it was going to be much bigger. Plus I hated the fact that we could not take pictures (legally).  Not even two minutes into the viewing, I was yelled at by a guard for taking pictures. This did not stop me of course. Many people were also asking me to snap pictures of them looking at the ceiling and of course I did cause I am a nice guy. After the Chapel, we set out to view St. Peter's Basilica. Personally, I thought it was a selfish and too arrogant of the Catholics on what they did to this beautiful building. Not only did they make it a tourist trap, but it didn't even feel like a place of worship. This is another reason why I sometimes hate being a Christian, let alone a Catholic.

After seeing everything the Vatican had to offer, a group of us set out to eat some lunch. We made it to this one little place near the Vatican. It was honestly the single worst Italian meal I have ever had. The waiters were rude and sneaky, the food was worse than Chef Boyardee canned food, and the prices were just too high. After eating that shit, we set out to walk toward the hotel cause some people wanted to nap. We saw a few sites on the way, but nothing all that spectacular. A castle that we didn't go in because people didn't want to pay and a square (Piazza del Popolo) that was underwhelming. After the Piazza, the rest of the group wanted to head back while I wanted to go up on the hill to see what was up there. You would think that a few people would want to have a view of the city from up there, but no, everyone wanted to head back. Once again, I was alone in Rome. At the top, there was a great view of the city and a very beautiful park. After spending about 30 mins up there relaxing, I decided to head back to the hotel and nap as well.

For dinner, the primo piatto was a pasta dish with a white sauce and sausage. For the secondo piatto, a bit of chicken with potatos. Our dolce was an ice cream dish with mints. Over all, the dinner was the best part so far. Also, for dinner, I initially sat with Evy (don't know how to spell her name) as she was sitting alone. Later on, Stella and Zim sat with us and we had a great dinner conversation.

Later that night, Jake and I met up with some of his friends who were back packing. We saw the trevi fountain at night which was amazing and also went to see the Colosseum at night too. While at the Colosseum, we took some photos of us jumping. There was one photo that I was actually so high that I was halfway out of frame, haha. I guess this white boy still got ups. This was probably one of the best nights on the entire trip and it was so simple yet fun. We eventually made it back to the hotel around 2:30 and went to bed at 4am.

Roma - Giorno 1 - Destinazione - Ovunque ma non qui

Woke up in the morning @ 6:30am after going to bed @ 3am.. F. M. L.

It actually wasn't all that bad. Jake and I had to leave the apartment @ 7am in order to make it to the train station for 7:30. They said that we had to be on time and we were... Too bad we had to wait around for 40 minutes to board the train. When we finally got on the train, there were essentially 9 of us that wanted to sit next together - 6 guys, 3 chicks.  Jake was the first one to go up ahead and he saved a seat for the three chicks. Matias and Mark were next and they jumped into the aisle seats next to them. That left two window seats for three guys. There was no way I was going to sit next to Mark cause hes a big guy and I really didn't want to sit next to Matias, so that left me all alone somewhere else in the train. Not only did someone not sit next to me, but no one even noticed. Pretty fucking lame shit. The 8 of them played cards while I sat alone. Now I am not trying to wallow in my sorrows, but this was a bitch move by everyone. I know that I would have gotten up and sat with someone else if they were alone, but that's me. I guess I have grasped the concept of caring.

Now that I got that off my chest, I can finally move on to Rome. When first got to the Hotel around 10, we couldn't go to our rooms for almost 40 minutes, so we had to wait around the entire time. Once again, I was kinda off on my own. Some people did come chat for a few, but they would only have a short conversation. Jake and I finally got to our room and dropped our stuff off to meet back in the lobby for 11am like we were told. The group didn't end up leaving till 11:30. We walked all the way down to the Colosseum area, about a Km or two away. I found this to be annoying as there was a train that could have taken us down there in about 10 mins instead of walking for 30 mins. We then just looked at some of the ruins in the area while snapping photos. Our 'tour guide' didn't tell us anything which pissed me off. We ended at some building where the other groups 'guide' told us about it. The only problem is that he is very soft spoken and isn't great for leading big groups. We grabbed a quick 30 minute lunch in order to meet back at this building (which I later found out was the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II - Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.) We were supposed to leave @ 1pm but that didn't happen, again. This time we left at 1:20. We set off for the Colosseum to take a tour there. While waiting for a real guide, everyone snapped a few photos. We finally got to go into the Colosseum. Once again, I was in the wrong group. This time I was with a group of people that I didn't know, a group that doesn't talk to anyone but themselves (Bugger off UF). The tour was kinda neat, I guess. We did a quick tour of the ancient building, too quick I think. We spent about 30 mins there and left. I easily could have spent 2 more hours there. We then set out to see some more ancient ruins which was cool. I took a few photos here and there.

After the tour ended, many of the students wanted to go back and nap while I just want to explore. Thankfully someone came with me this time (Rob). We found a neat little island in the middle of the river. After checking this out, I got a wicked good fruit milk shake at one of the best gelato shops in town. We then found this square with some more ruins but hundreds of cats. Ever where you looked, stray cats. It was cool at first then I got grossed out. We eventually made it back to the hotel after an exhausting hike to the hotel.

Later that night, we had a nice dinner with bow-tie pasta and some hams. After dinner, everyone wanted to get drunk and party while I just wanted to go take night photos, and I did just that, alone again. After seeing the Colosseum and Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II - Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at night, I decided to head back and goto sleep. At 2:30am, I got a call from drunk Jake saying he didn't know where he was. I didn't know either so there was nothing I could do, lolol. I went back to sleep listening to Against Me, again.

First half of week 3

Monday: Made an Onion soup, Risotto, and Beans in cooking class. My group made a mean onion soup that I will actually try to make at home. The beans were pretty good. The risotto was alright, nothing to write home about even though that's what I am doing right now. Later that day I went to the top of the Duomo for a spectacular view of Florence. Nothing else really happened Monday night thankfully.

Tuesday I had class alllll day. In Italian we reviewed for the test on Thursday and also she taught us some curse words!!! This made my day. During the film class, I downloaded "Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)" as I am going to write a paper on that film. We also watched Mamma Roma but I missed out on much if it since I was downloading my movie.

Later Tuesday night, we went out to an American pub again. I felt like I was back home (and this is not a good thing). It felt that I was in a college bar in Alabama or at an Old Navy convention. It was pretty sad on how many people were from America. Later, after getting sick of the bar, Jake and I headed to the a bar called Yag. This was a first for me to say the last, a non American bar. Things here were much more relaxed. It was an interesting bar and I couldn't complain at all except it was 5.50 for a beer. The scenery was nice though. We stayed here for an hour then left.

Wednesday: Nothing but studying, procrastination, and blogging.  OH and eating. Jake and I finally went to 4Leoni (Four Lions) for dinner. I had the best meal since I have been here at this place. The prices were not too bad but next time I will spend less and I will not get Filet steak.

Siena

Well I guess I haven't stuck to my word by updating this thing every day. I remember to, but then I don't bother as the internet here is pissing me off most of the time. oh well.

Before Siena we went to a wine tasting at a winery in the Toscana country side. The views here were pretty breathtaking (especially after 4 glasses of Italian wine.) While here, we got a little intro to wine that I did not pay attention to as I was too busy taking pictures of everything and showing off my huuuuge Canon lens, hehe. But afterwards, the owners set up a few tables for us and we sat down and tried a couple wines and some foods. This was one of the first times in a while that I realized how much I hate Americans. The guy just finished bringing out the food all the students just started digging he. He didn't even get a chance to tell us anything about the food. Why do Americans have such bad manners? I hate being American at times, my own people are so damn annoying. The food and wines were very tasty though. It really was just a small sample of meats and cheeses, nothing special, but everything just blended so well.

Well after a few glasses of wine and being quite high off the alcohol, I just started walking around snapping up some pretty damn good pictures. I was expecting some crappy photos when I uploaded them, but almost every photo was a keeper! After everything was said and done, we went back on the bus and headed off to Siena. When we got back on the bus, everyone wanted to start singing but I was tired as hell so I just put on some Alkaline Trio. I woke up about an hour later and pretty much everyone else was finally asleep. Eventually everyone woke up as we just arrived in Siena.

Siena was nice. There were only a few bad things about the place and that really wasn't Siena's fault. Some of the chicks on the trip kept begging me to use my expensive camera. Also, some of the Zeta chicks were just complaining the entire time that they just wanted to go drink (another reason why I hate Siena).

Siena is full of hills unlike Florence. There also were not as many tourist which was nice. There were a few nice places in the city too. In the centre of the city, there is a massive square that they have horse races around every year. Really other than that, there wasn't too much to see in Siena.

We finally hopped on the bus and headed back for Florence. Had a nice dinner with some friends that night and talked about some other students on the trip and how some are just weird and others are cool, the normal gossip shit.

Went home, went to sleep. The next day I didn't really do much of anything either.

Siena and San Gimignano

Well this was quite the weekend.

Started off with a quiet Friday. Basically just slept until noon for the first time this entire trip. Jake and I went out to look for the Diesel store, which is Italian and the prices were actually higher here than the prices in the states. We also saw the Florence Gelato Festival going on - 2 Euro for 3 flavors. I got stracciatella, lemone, and mango. It was pretty good for 2 Euro. The rest of the day was a wash after I took a nap at 8pm till 10pm and then couldn't fall back asleep for the rest of the night.

The next morning, the entire program had to meet up at a piazza about 20 minutes from our apartment on the other side of Florence. I love getting up at 6:45am! We boarded the bus and set off for San Gimignano (Ji(m)-min-nah-noh). After a little nap, we started to explore the little town. This was neat to see because most of the buildings here were easily 800 years old it seemed. There was on town (the tallest in the town) that we could go up for a picturesque for view of the township and the surrounding country side. At the very top, you could stand on the wall (which did not have a safety net around it - I guess the Italians believe strongly in Darwinism.) Many of us were standing on the wall taking pictures and some were even daring enough to dangle their legs off the edge. I thought that I was going to witness a death with some of the daredevils. At one point, Rob was walking across the ledge and Mandy decided she wanted to sit on it. As Rob was walking on the ledge, Mandy was jumping up with her back toward the wall to sit on the ledge. Well with some perfect timing, it almost seemed that she was going to knock Rob off a 200' wall. Well after that almost near catastrophe, I set out to explore the town on my own. I found the place that won best gelato in the world, twice, in the last four years. I must say, it was pretty damn good. Other than that and some pretty spectacular views, there is nothing to see in San Gimignano.

I will update again tomorrow for Siena.

Until then...
Arrivederci!

Week 2 in Review

Now for Week 2.

Out with the old, in with the new seemed to the main point for the weekend.

A little back information. There are a total of SIX USF guys on the trip. They decided to put all of us in one apartment with just one bathroom. The apartment also had some other crap going on in there, but the bathroom was the main issue. Well, after hearing how some of the ladies on the trip got moved cause their flat was crap, we tried to do the same. We came up with a plethora of excuses and thought we were golden. Well, that blew up in our face. we got most of the problems fixed, but two guys had to move out. It was down to either Clint and Matias or Jake and I. Well, after a little bit of discussion, Jake and I bit the bullet and moved out. We now have a much nicer (and bigger) apartment. It is more Italian in my opinion. For the most part, it a much better apartment with just two downsides. One - it's on the south side of the river while the other guys are on the north side. Two - we have to hike a really steep hill just to get to the building... At first I didn't think this would be that bad but it sucks early in the morning, haha.

It's a great place though, I can not complain at all. It's just the two of us and we decided to share the same room cause we didn't want to be too secluded from everyone, at least this way we have someone to talk to. It's worked out great so far too as we have a ton in common. I will take pictures eventually and post them on here (hopefully).

Other than moving in to the new apartment, nothing really all that amazing has happened so far this week. We cooked some really delicious food again in class, we learned a little bit more Italian, we watched one good movie and one bad one.

Last night, we went out, about 15-20 of us. It was a blast as well - even if it was clubbing (yes, my white ass went clubbing, and yes, I can't dance cause I am white and I like metal). Tomorrow, we set off for Siena and San Gimignano. This should be fun. I am bringing three lenses with me so I should get at least one good picture.

Ciao for now!

Day in Venice

First off: I promise that I will update this thing more often!! ARGH!! It's frustrating that I do not keep up with this enough!

Now. Venice was amazing. We first arrived and every one wanted to put their bags into storage so they wouldn't have to carry them around all day. Being the rebellious one, I said screw that and decided to take mine along with me. There was only one point through out the entire day that I regretted that choice and it was when we were going into the basilica at St. Mark's square. They wouldn't let me in - bastards.

But Venice was tight but it started off on a bad note. We were waiting in line to get tickets for the 9:05 train to Venice and it was about 8:55. We were in front of the ticket office which was two stories below the train platform. Well, we found out that we could just get our tickets on the train so we booked it for the train. We eventually got on the train and settled down. That is when I wrote the previous post. When we arrived in Venice, we did our normal head count. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. DAMN IT! We lost someone!" Turns out that we left Rob at the station in Milan. He was unable to keep up with us and no one even noticed that he was gone until Venice. Sorry Rob, but it was kinda your fault cause you are so damn quiet. Oh well. We booked our tickets home on the long train to Florence right away. There was supposed to be a high speed train but apparently it does not exist any more (thanks trenitalian.it for lying to us!).

Well, while everyone was checking their bags. I decided to roam around a little. Since they were taking an extra long time, I thought they were eating some food, so I decided to do the same. I can honestly say that I have had the worst pizza ever in Italy. Pretty sad huh?

But we finally met up after everyone's crap was checked and we set out to explore. We pretty much set out for Saint Mark's Square, the popular tourist spot on the opposite side of the small city. Normally this is supposed to take about 20-30 minutes to get there, it took us about 2.5 hours. We were not in a hurry though. We stopped for lunch, stopped for pictures, stopped for snacks, and eventually stopped for a GONDOLA ride. This was pretty freaking awesome. I never thought that I would be on a gondola in Venice. Since there were 10 (yes, 10, one stupid chick didn't want to be social) of us, we split up 5 and 5. My gondola had Angelica, Jake, Stella, Zim, and Me. It was absolutely surreal that I was on a gondola with 4 people that I just met less than 10 days before but have become very good friends with. We saw a couple neat bridges, some amazing water ally ways, and even the house that Marco Polo (Fish outta water!) lived in.

We actually ended the ride a little early in order to get to St. Mark's. After snapping a few photos, we just started to explore the area a little. Nothing spectacular here. I did a little gift shopping here (yes, I have already done Xmas shopping) for the family. We eventually took a water taxi back to the train station as everyone was sick of walking. This was pretty awesome as well. The people in Venice are magicians with these boats. They are better at driving the boats on moving water than most people are at driving! Pretty crazy stuff.  We eventually made it back, I snapped about a 100 photos on the water taxi ride alone, and we set off for Florence.

All in all, it was a pretty amazing weekend. I snapped about 600 photos too. Venice is by far one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen.

Catching up FINALLY

So here is a recap of week one.. I just hope that I can do more and more of this blogging stuff as the progresses. 

With that said, here we go. Good luck getting through this, there is a TON of stuff. 

Day One: Lufthansa flying over was awesome. They know how to treat their customers. The only bad thing was I could not sleep AT ALL. It was quite warm on the flight as there were no personal fans, but I could deal with it. The meal wasn't all that bad either - a pasta dish with some veggies and wine. I took the wine hoping it would help me fall asleep, but like I said, I got close to nothing (one solid hour of snoozing). After landing, I went into Munich to visit some friends (Jan and Jerry, great guys) and had two delicious meals with them. After spending about five hours or so, I set off for Italia! Finally I would be in the land of half of my ancestors, the place that I have wanted to see more than any other nation. The anticipation was getting to me and my mouth was getting dry. After waiting for the slowest family in the world at the vending machine, I finally got the Coke I was waiting for. I forgot how crazy-delicious the Coke in Europe was. As I was getting my Coke from the machine, the door on the train closed on me and I thought I was going to miss my flight as the next train was not for another twenty minutes. After pacing back and forth and panicking that I would miss my plane, the train arrived, but trust me, my heart was still racing as it was a thirty minute ride out to the airport and I had forty-five minutes to get to the airport and go through security and finally make it to my gate. Long story short, I made it with five minutes to spare. The best part is that we didn't even start boarding for another fifteen minutes so I was worrying for nothing. I don't remember the plane ride as I passed out the second the main cabin door shut. Next thing I know, we have arrived in Italy! I finally made it to my hotel at 10:30PM and was starving but the only thing that was open was Micky D's. Who would have guessed that my first meal in Italy would have been a Royal with Cheese (Pulp Fiction tribute, woot woot!). After making it back to my hotel, I wanted to charge some electronics. I brought a power strip with me, plugged it in, and zapped all the power on my floor of the hotel. Oops! After getting the power back on, I just decided to charge one thing at a time and pass out for the night. 

Day 2: Woke up around 10:30 and caught a cab ride to my school. I know in Italy you are supposed to walk everywhere, but there was no way I was walking with a 50lb bag behind me in a city that I did not know. In this cab ride, I thought that at least thirteen people were going to die, the drivers are that crazy/ballsy here. People would just walk in the middle of the streets, cars would just not obey the traffic laws, and it was complete insanity, I love it! I finally made it to my new school and met the program director and was shown to my home from home, or at least I thought it was. The apartment that my flatmates and I were supposed to move it was not ready so they stuck us in another apartment for the night. I was there alone for about an hour or so until two of the guys (Mark and Clint) arrived. From there, we set out for lunch and met up with some other classmates of ours. Later that day, we met the other three guys (Matias, Rob, and Jake). That night we went out, nothing special and not very late because we had an orientation the next day. 

Day 3: Orientation day and finally moving into the new apartment. Nothing spectacular happened on this day other than us blowing the power in the apartment because we turned on a light and having to 

Day 4: Sunday - The last day of vacation. One again, nothing special. Took a short walking tour of Florence, saw where our classes would be. Saw the Dante's church (which was surprisingly small). We also participated in a wine tasting which was very boring. Afterwards, Jake and I set out for a bar to watch the second half of the Inter Milan soccer game. Later that night, we discovered a gelateria that offered free wifi! I couldn't be happier at that point, haha. 

Day 5: First day of my first class. After hiking across Florence at 8:30 in the morning, I made it to my class 10 minutes late (I underestimated how far it really was). This class is a cooking class and is by far the best class, or at least the one that I am looking forward to the most. In class, we sampled a couple different meats (I had wild boar for the first time, I must say, it was pretty good. I don't like it by itself and it needs to be married with something else, still good nonetheless). We also sampled different olive oils, the Toscana (Tuscany) one was my favorite. Nothing else of major importance happened on Monday

Day 6: More first day of classes. Started off with a test to try to get into Italian 3 (which I did not do well on and was sent back to Italy 2 to brush up). Next was my Italian Cinema class that I thought I was going to love. The first movie we watch., Obsession, was very boring. I know some people loved it, but it reminded me of a soap opera. That night we went out to Fratelli la Bufala and I got a calzone that was in the shape of bull horns, it was delicious. That night, Jake and I were roaming the city looking for free wifi as our gelataria was closed for some reason. 

Day 7: Made it to class on time this time. We made some crepes in class that were pretty good. I really need to cook more when I get home. SawRobin Hood in a wicked nice theater that was like an opera house. It was in English with Italian subtitles. The movie was pretty good, but we couldn't beat the price - 6 euro. 

Day 8: Italian 2 and another movie. This time the movie was Rome, Open City. It was better than the last movie, but still was boring. Not sure why both these movies were chosen. That night we went out (we have gone out every other night, but tonight for much longer. Went to a couple different places for drinks. Nothing special again. 

Day 9: Off to Milan for the weekend!! We saw Sar Siro, THEE soccer stadium of Milan. Both Inter Milan and AC Milan play here. It was awesome to take a short tour of the massive stadium. The stadium is nice than Camp Nou in Barcelona but the Camp Nou tour was so much better. We got to go in both Inter and Milan locker rooms. Inter's locker room was based of the idea that there is one bench and they are one team. Milan's room was more focused on the individual. Each player had their own stall and very comfortable seat. To me, I would much rather Inter's locker room as I believe in the team and not the individual. After finishing up the tour and getting many pictures in the stadium, we set back for our hotel. Our hotel was decent but the price was amazing - a 3-star hotel for just 30 EURO! This is unheard of but you gotta love having a big group of 12 people. Later that evening, we went to the Duomo to take pictures at night and eat dinner. After dinner we just went back to the hotel as there was nothing to do according to our waiter that night. 

Day 10: Started off with a free breakfast but I woke up with a wicked congestion problem thanks to all the damn smoking here. One of my roomies smokes a pack a day and the smoke always seems to some how blow in my face when we walk around. Combine that with more than half of the people here smoking equals a very unhappy Sonny. I got some meds in Milan that seem to do a little, but I need my Mucinex that I left in Florence. We finally set out for the Duomo. When arriving at the Piazza del Duomo, there was already a watch party for later that night for the UEFA Champions League Finale. We went into the church for about 45 minutes. The church was amazing. I love the Gothic style churches. I lit a candle for each of my two recently deceased grandparents (Nana and Pep, miss ya!).  Afterwards, while the rest of the group went shopping, Rob, Zim, and I went on top of the Duomo. I still can't believe the amount of detail that was put into this project. There were just so many intricate details that the normal person would have left unattended to, but these builders did a phenomenal job.  After about an hour of walking around, we decided to take a break from and just lay down on top of the Duomo. Next to us were some teens that were sipping on some Italian beer. I swear, only in Italy can you sit on top of a church and drink beer. The thing that made the moment surreal was when a green balloon was spotted floating in the sky. Just a normal green balloon, nothing special, but it was just so weird to think that I would did similar things back in my childhood (laying on the grass, staring at the sky and random things just go by). It was amazing to think that 15 years later, I was doing the same thing, but this time on top of a church 5,000 miles away. After sitting around for about 15 minutes, we decided to walk down and meet the shoppers in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele - the oldest shopping mall in the world. In the center of the mall were four main stores - Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, and (drum roll please..............) McDonald's! Only Micky D's could get away with this. After meeting up, we went back to the hotel to drop off somethings and get some food. Later on, we went back to the Duomo to watch the game with what seemed 10,000 other fans. We had two giant TV's to watch. The fans were standing for hours upon hours. There were many chants going on and I couldn't participate in them as I was rooting for the other team (FC Bayern Munich). In the end, Inter Milan won 2-0 but I still had a great time. There were fireworks, flares, hundreds of flags waving, and God only knows what else was going on after final whistle blew. We eventually made it back to the hotel, but all over the city were thousands of cars honking their horns, Vespa's zooming around waving their flags, and so many people just crowding the streets. I was so happy I got to be in Milan for this, even if Bayern lost. Finally, at 11pm, we made it back to our hotel, where once again, I got McDonald's as I was just hungry and didn't want to wait for food. 

Day 11: Off to Venice on the train surfing the internet and writing this... I will update my entire day later on when I get a chance and the internet decides to cooperate. I love that I had a better connection on a 200km/h train than I do in my apartment. 

Expectations...

Touching quickly on three different things and my expectations: The Readers, My Photography, and My Explorations (The overall main trip),

First off - I expect no one to read this other than me. This is more a recollection for me, but if any one else wants to tag along, they are more than welcome to. If I were to take a stab at who else might read this, my guesses would be: my family (immediate and maybe one or two from the extended), two or three very close friends, and I am hoping for at least one stranger (long shot, I know). In the else, I really have no expectations to have anyone following me. Hooray me.

Next Up - My Photography. Since I have the most amazing SLR (Canon 7D) and some nice lenses to go alone with it, I expect about have quite a few stunning photos. I know I will end up on Flickr for some ideas, but hopefully this is be my first real big step away from Flickr (for stealing ideas that is). Depending on the internet situation, I hope I can learn from working with the Lightning this last season, hoping to upload at least two or three photos a day while having many more for 'second edit'. Like last year, I hope that I can make a nice picture book for my coffee table to show off to friends and family. Last year, on a scale of 1-10 (1 being Absinthe-drunk photos, 10 being professional) I thought I would end up around a 5 (which I did). This year, I am aiming high for an 8 overall. Basically this means that I hope that my pictures look more semi-pro and less n00b-amateur.

Finally - The Overall Trip. I expect that my Italian will grow well quite a bit. I expect all A's in my classes. I expect that I will update this at least every other day (once again, depending on internet). I expect perfect weather (60's and 70's, I don't care so much about the precipitation). I expect to actually be able to relax for once during my college career. I expect a great group of students (even if there will be some UF students, :-D ). I expect myself to actually become more of an adult and not sleep till noon each day and piss each day away. I expect to just fall in love with Italy. I expect to send too many freaking postcards and drink too much wine and eat too much cheese and not eat enough pasta.

As for the rest of the trip. Right now, I will see Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden. I hope to see San Marino, Vatican City, and Belgium. VERY long shots are Poland, Greece, Hungary, and Norway. I know I will have an amazing time on the second half because I will be with a great friend and someone who knows where it's at.

I leave exactly 35 hours. It's 2:18AM on May 11 and I need some rest.


Peace.
--Sonny

Keeping up with the times

Attempt #2: I hope I can keep up this time and not fail miserably like I did in Berlin (updating three days at a time in one day)

Last time I was on here, I was chilling in Berlin with the University of Florida. This time I will be all over Europe but mostly in Florence with the University of South Florida and the University of Florida at the Florence University of the Arts.

Countdown to Florence 3 days or 87 hours or 5241 minutes or roughly 314456 seconds.