Horribly Behind!

Okay I know I am horribly behind my post but I swear I am determined to post all my trips!

But on a side note, I am creating a webpage dedicated to my photography. I have a few photo shoots lined up, to help build up my portfolio. Here is a little preview of what it might look like. It even has music playing to compliment the photos! The reason why I am making a website is because I realized that I can use my portfolio as a tool when applying to internships. And also I can slowly get my name out there and people might want me to take photographs! I will have a web domain and such but I am not sure when I will make it public. I want it to be perfect and there are still some kinks I have to work out.

Until then, I will try and post some of my trips in the next few days. I have made a few changes in my lifestyle so I might have more time to get those out to you. I also have a few more projects that I am trying to do so hopefully that won't be too much for me. I also have my job back at H&M, which is a major relief, I don't have to worry about money anymore!

"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." - William Shakespeare

Home, Sweet Home.

Hello everyone! I just wanted to say sorry, once again about the lack of posts through out my stay in Europe. Perhaps it was the lack of internet access or amount of activities I was doing was making it nearly impossible for me to post anything. I did write some posts in my journal and in word documents so don't you worry. Many, many stories still need to be told!

So I still need to post about:

• Interlaken
• Siena/San Gimignano
• Viareggio
• Rome
• Prague
• Berlin
• Amsterdam
• Paris (Round 2)
• Budapest
• French Riviera
• Croatia
• Corfu, Greece
• Venice, Italy
• Sorrento/Capri
• Rome (Round 2)
• Kamatriades, Greece
• Last Days left in Florence

So I am hoping to post something new every other day. And each post will be dedicated to a certain trip to give more detailed adventures and more amazing photos! I will also be revamping my profile to make it more up to date and modern. And once all my stories of all my adventures are told, I will continue this blog and sharing all mycurrent adventures I will be having! So many things to do in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as travel all over California and perhaps jump the boarder of this awesome state to other ones and perhaps I will be traveling to near by countries such as Mexico and Canada? Who knows where the wind will take me, but I am excited and motivated to never take anything for granted and enjoy every second and take as many opportunities as I can get.

Just a little update on my life so far!

So I am living back home and have officially been home for a week. Lets say culture shock isn't the correct term I would use to describe the process of adjusting back to normal life. Nothing really has changed so nothing was new to really adjust to but the ability to talk to english at restaurants, bars and stores is an amazing feeling and not feeling guilty if you do is also a great feeling. Being able to lazy around is another plus to being back home but I think that comfortable feeling is only going to last so long and soon enough I am going to want to go out and constantly do something. And I am starting to feel that now. Being at home, doing nothing, is mighty depressing compared to the life I had for the past 4 months. I didn't realize how much more fulfilling it is to out and about all the time instead of being lazy, spending all my time on the computer and watching movies after movies after TV shows. So I think once I arrived back home I slowly got back into the same habits that I had before I left for Europe and that is not going to fly. So my goal for the next few weeks is to manage an appropriate amount of R&R with and appropriate amount of fun/productive activities. Thats going to be a whole other journey but I've got the time, energy and motivation to do so. I am also going to have to get back in the same workout routine, I've already worked out 3 or 4 times since I have been back so I don't think that is going to be a major problem since I think I am addicted to the gym, in a healthy way of course. I did gain some weight while in Europe but I think that was expected but surprisingly my endurance is better then ever so cardio exercises are an easy thing to keep up with.

In more exciting news, I officially have graduated from my Junior College, walked and everything. The ceremony was actually not that bad at all and we missed the rain by a good 30-40 mins so, that was a major plus.

I received a A.A. in both Humanities and Art History and got honors in both as well. I think being a student at Junior College for about 5 years you would expect more then one A.A. and honors, or at least hope for it. And you ask what I will be doing now that I am all finished with Junior College? Well I have a good response for that, I will be attending University of California, Berkeley! CAL is one of the best schools in United States, let alone California so I am very excited to attend such a prestigious school. I am actually not attending till Spring 2012 so I will have a whole semester off. But don't worry, I am sure I will have some very exciting plans to fill in all that extra time I will have.

Well now its time to be productive and to enjoy the day. Another thing I am slightly disappointed is the weather we are having here in the Bay Area. It is pretty much June and its raining, cold and just plain gross. I thought June was supposed to be warm, sunny and the start of Summer not a recreation of Winter! Oh well, c'est la vie!

Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.

James Dean

Shameless post.

So I amposting a quick blog post. I know I have to catch up on all my other trips and spring break was amazing, no shock there. But on my trip I lost my iPhone and this is a very monumental loss for me. I use my iPhone for everything...photos, texting, emailing, games, alarm clock, etc. And at home my iPhone died on my once and that was horrible as well but being a foreign country, having no contact with my friends and family back home is really unsettling as well. But beyond the heartache this has caused me, I have realized how attached Iam to materialistic things. I never considermyselfmaterialistic, but now looking back on it...I really am. Instead ofpersonally remembering each experience I have, I have to document it on my iPhone or camera and I depend on that to store all my information. I was writing in a journal the other day on the train from Versailles and it was shocking at how much I could not remember only a few days before. Photography is one of the most beautiful things in the world but man...how much stuff I forget when I am behind that lens.I am scared about forgetting about these experience so I take the photos but then I forget that I never fully get to experience them and then I forget what happened.So maybe losing my iPhone was just a wake up call to life and that I shouldn't depend so much on technology to remember everything for me. I just felt like sharing this revelation with you all because I think it is very important. I'll leave you with a fewsneak peeks at the photos from my spring break trip. I will be posting my blog about Interlaken, Siena, San Gimignano, Vierragio and Rome in the next few days. Then hopefully a few days after that post my blog about my spring break. Hope all is well in your world.

"A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality" - John Lennon

Ketchup.

Okay, I am sorry for the lateness of this post. I rarely ever have a chance just to sit down and enjoy my view of my apartment let alone write a post for my blog. I really do want to keep up to date with everything on here but I don't think I will be able to actually say everything that has happened since my last post, which is about 4 or more weeks ago! So much has happened but I will highlight the main events.

I feel like there is never nothing to do while here in Florence. Something is always going on such as festivals, events, etc. Within the first week in Florence I ended up going to a Florentina soccer game. They were playing Genoa and won BIG TIME! It was so much fun, so much energy and freezing cold! People would walk around with kegs on their backs, selling beer. I feel like this would be a VERY popular thing in America. It was very convenient and fast and the beer was actually very tasty. I had a few cups of them, they weren't that expensive and definitely helped with the cold weather. I plan on going to a game later in the semester, especially when they play AC Milan. That should be a very epic game. I also bought a Florentina scarf, because I wanted to have something while at the game but didn't want to pay lots of money for a jersey and plus the weather was cold so a scarf fit in perfectly. Now it hangs in my living room, a symbol of my allegiance to FLORENCE!

Pisa and Lucca Day Trip:

Later that weekend, we went on a day trip to Pisa and Lucca. Generally its either sunny or overcast here in Florence but never above the temperature of 45 degrees. We arrived n Pisa and I thought that being closer to the coast it would be colder but nope, it was AMAZING weather! I was actually able to take off some layers of clothing and be very comfortable. When we arrived, we had a private guided tour around the main parts of Pisa which was the Church, the tower and the baptistry. The rest of Pisa isn't that exciting and a little more ghetto compared to a lot of other small towns in the Tuscany area. I loved our tour guide, he was amazing. I feel that it is either hit or miss with these tour guides but he seemed to enjoy what he was doing and I actually learned a few things. We then took those stereotypical photos next to the leaning tower and just walked around the town. We then hopped back on the bus and headed towards Lucca. I was mighty hungry by this point so I was hoping to go grab some food while having plenty of time to rent a bike, which is a common thing to do there. But the bike place we were going to rent from had run out of bikes so we had to walk all around town to find another one but it took too long and we didn't have enough time so we ended up getting food at this yummy dinner and then people watched in the park. I enjoyed Lucca a lot, it was definitely a small town and tons more locals then tourists which was a nice change. I hope to get back there soon, especially so I can get to ride that bike!

So our apartment is not equipped the best stuff. But we seem to manage. Once and a while my roommate and I cook food together and we have been really limited to what we can cook because one, the food selection here is not the same as back home and two, we only have a stove so pretty much we cook pasta and I make my signature "Cock Block Salad." Yes I know this is an interesting name but it is only called this because after eating it, your breath will probably smell because it has garlic and onions in it. It also took us about two weeks to get internet and then 3 weeks to get a washer so that was not fun. Thankfully there is a laundry matt down the street from us but it is major expensive to do a load of laundry, about 4 Euros a cycle. So 4 euros for a wash and 4 euros for a dry. Thats 8 euros for one load of laundry. That is ridiculous! Lets just say I had enough close to last me only a small amount of loads then we got our washing machine and it is actually really good, given its small size. We don't have a dryer, that is very uncommon here in Europe, so we have to hang things to dry. Generally they say it takes a few days for your clothes to dry but because our washer is new, it does an extra spin cycle the helps make the clothes less damp which then helps the clothes dry faster. So it only takes about a day to try, which is very nice but I have to plan around that amount of time to make sure I don't need that specific clothes anytime soon.

A few other things I have been involved with here in Florence is that I joined our schools soccer team. Our first game we lost then we had 2 other games back to back! It was ridiculous, so we had three games that night then another game the following night then another game the next night then we had a week off then our last game on the following monday. Lets just say we didn't do that well but we didn't really have practice and each game we got better and better. One game I made two goals, and four goals all season (yeah the season was 2 weeks) which pretty much means I made the most goals out of everyone on my team and the most injuries as well. I messed up my knee pretty bad, I couldn't walk on it for a while and it kept locking up so I might have some serious damage to it but its gradually getting better so I am going to wait till i come home then see a doctor about it. My other knee got scrapped up BIG time and it's still healing. My elbow feels like it is permanently bruised which is very irritating and I have no idea what I did to it. But overall I enjoyed being on the soccer team, it was nice getting on the field again. I kind of wish the season was longer but then again I don't really have time to be on a soccer team. We had an awards ceremony at the local pub and we got actual metals. We didn't come in last place, we came in 2nd to last and we still got metals. They even have our team name engraved on them, which is pretty sweet. Hanging that up in my room when I get home. One of the accidents that happened on the field was some guy completely tackled me and made my glasses fly across the ground. A couple days after that I was just opening and closing my glasses and BOOM they broke right off!! That was extremely annoying, only a few weeks into school and I have no glasses. I didn't bring an extra pair and I don't wear contacts, so I managed to not have glasses for a few weeks. I finally got my prescription from my doctor back home and went on a search to find glasses.But the only glasses they sell out here are designer and are pretty expensive. Also their styles are not something I would normally wear but I finally found a pair. Of course they are Chanel and are a good 250 Euros. But I literally could not find any other pair and the cheapest ones are around 150 Euros and I didn't want to spend that much on glasses and not like them so why not spend the extra money on glasses you do like. So I got them and it only took them 1 hour to make so it worked out perfectly!! It was weird to put them on after not wearing glasses for a while.

Also I signed up for multiple different events and classes with my program. I did a cooking class, we made gnocchi, some eggplant and mozzarella dish and this amazing chocolate sausage for dessert and not its not like a meat sausage its just called that because of the way it looks. A lot of people didn't like the class because it was very basic but I enjoyed it for the experience and the food was mediocre and it was only 10Euro for it so it wasn't that big of waste. I also did a pizza making class which was pretty straight forward. We didn't learn how to make the dough but we rolled it out and put the sauce and cheese and whatever toppings we wanted on it. We put it in the oven and then took it out and boom, that was it. But they did provide us with unlimited amounts of wine! And the wine was very delicious so that was a major plus and the pizza was really good. I wouldn't mind taking another pizza making class just for the unlimited wine and yummy pizza. I also attended an opera at the St. Marks church. Let me just say how amazing it was! It was very intimate, small audience and there were only 4 performers and one pianist playing. It was a love story and their voices were so passionate, and of course I couldn't understand what they were saying but I could feel it by the way they sung. I really hope to attend more Operas here if not, I am going to the SF Opera house as much as I can. I think this will be my new addiction. There are also many different festivals going on around town and my favorite one thus far was the 2 week long chocolate festival. They had fruit on a stick covered in chocolate, crepe chocolate sandwiches and chocolate rum drinks to name a few amazing stuff they had. I went there a couple different times and man, oh man, I could have spent weeks there. Excited to see what other awesome festivals they will have. School in general has been annoying. I don't even want to blog about it because it annoys me so much. Lets see, oh yeah the other night at our house my roommate and I held a Wine and Cheese Fest which was pretty awesome. A good 15 people showed up, which is a big turnout for our small apartment. We went through 7 bottles of wine! And ate some delicious cheeses and assorted breads. We plan on having many more to come, but it was a bummer because the weather has not been that great here so hopefully when we come back from Spring Break the weather will pick up and we can start enjoying our enormous terrace.

Okay well that is pretty much the gist of it now. I know this is another long one but I am sure you don't mind hearing about this stuff! I am heading on my spring break in 2 days. I will be traveling to Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris for 10 days. Yeah its a short time to be traveling to all those places but I most likely wouldn't have any other time to visit them so it was an awesome opportunity so I jumped at it. I have my next blog post already written out but I didn't want to overwhelm you guys with too much awesome stuff. The next blog I will be posting will be about the places I have travel too so far which include: Interlaken, Siena, San Gimignano, Viareggio and Rome! And after that post I will be posting about my Spring Break adventures. Don't blame me for not keeping up to date with this blog. Blame the awesome time I am having out here :)

(P.S. I haven't proofread any of this, so sorry if there are a lot of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, once I get a chance I will scan through it and fix everything!)

Ciao Ciao!!

Ciao from Florence! I finally made it to this beautiful city! Sorry for the gap between entries. I haven't had any internet since Paris. The London hotel didn't have free wi-fi and the hotel in Florence didn't have free wi-fi more then 30 mins. So I opt. to wait. But now, my apartment doesn't have internet either, I am still waiting for them to hook it up. So for now, I get internet at school which isn't too bad.


So I guess I should start off where I left off…


PARIS Day 2 January, 27, 2011


So this day, we had to wake up early in the morning and had a private guided tour of Paris. Julian, our tour guide was awesome and full of useful information. Oddly enough, I knew a lot of that stuff he was talking about, I guess I have been really interested in Paris with out even knowing it. He just took us around to the major tourist sites and I definitely took lots of photos. I should start a blog just for my photos, since just on the pre-tour I took about 2,000! So after our tour was done, we were dropped off at the Eiffel Tower. There we went up to the 2nd story, since the first story was getting worked on. It was an amazing view of Paris but at the same time freezing and windy! So we didn't stay up there long. We then went back down and got into a group of about 10-12 people. From there, we jumped onto the Metro and went up a few blocks. We walked to the Musee de l'Armee and jus looked around the building. It cost money to get in so we didn't go inside. Then we went on a long journey to find Rodin's museum. We finally found it which happened to be a block up from the Musee de l'Armee. I saw the Thinker and Gates of Hell which were absolutely beautiful! I also saw lots of other works done by him, it was amazing! Then we went on another long journey to find some food. Surprisingly, that area lacked food. We finally found one and sat down and ate for a good 30-45mins.The waiter did not like us that much, either because we were American or there was a huge group of us. So that was one of the low points of Paris. Then we split off into groups because half of us wanted to go to the Louve and the other half wanted to go do something else. So I went with the group to get to the Louve. We took our time getting there, did a few touristy pictures then arrived at the Louve. We got there around 5 o'clock at night and to our dismay, the museum closed at 5:30. I was CRUSHED! It is obviously hard traveling around big cities like that with 10-11 people so I think that slowed us down but also at the same time we weren't really paying attention to the time or even knew when the museum closed. That was the lowest point of my whole trip because I wanted to at least spend an hour or two in there, knowing that wouldn't really cover a lot of ground. So I decided to make the effort and go back to Paris sometime this trip. Lets hope it all works out.


So later that night, about the same number of girls all got together and we all went out to fondu. I was the one leading the way to the place but at some point I forgot the street name and wifi on my phone wasn't really working so I kind of got us lost. We finally found it but had to wait an hour to get a table because the place was very small and there were already a lot of people waiting for seats. We went around the corner and got some beer and wine while we waited. Then we finally sat down and I fell in love with the place. It was adorable and very full of life. There were writings all over the wall, people signing it pretty much. Right behind me, someone from Standford had signed it, so that was neat. And something I learned about Paris is that wine in a glass is taxed and to avoid that tax, people put wine in baby bottles. I thought that was a brilliant idea! So we got all our wine in bottles and a few other drinks were included with the meal as well. It was 18 Euros per person and that included the appetizers, which was just meat, cheese, pickles and some other random stuff, wine, some rose and the fondu. We got the cheese fondu because we didn't really understand the guy and it was okay. The girls next to us got the meat one and I hear that was way better then the cheese. But the whole environment there was amazing, we all had a blast. We also met some girls from Italy and pretty much hung out with them the whole night. We left the fondu place around 12 o'clock and people were still coming in to eat, so it was a very poppin' place. I recommend it to anyone visiting Paris, it is called 'Refuge des Fondus.' Then we started to walk back to the hotel and decided to hit up this one bar called O'Sullivans which was right down the street from our Hotel. We met a few other French people there and some people from Boston area too. We danced, had a few drinks and it was fun. Then we all went home to the hotel. So overall, my experience in Paris was a great success! I could see myself living there or visiting it very often. :D


LONDON Day 1 January 28, 2011


So our train to London from Paris left around 12 so we had to leave the hotel around 10:45. We arrived at the train station and there we had to go through French customs and England customs. Some people were taking photos and what not and I was like 'Oh yeah, I should document our entry into London.' Stupid American. I was about to take a picture and the lady at the desk yelled at me and made me come forward. She wanted me to delete my photo that I had taken and scorned me for taking a photo. I showed her that I didn't take a photo but she said that she saw a flash and I told her it wasn't me. She then gave me an evil stare the rest of the time I was there. I didn't use my common sense and had no idea that you couldn't take a picture. Something I have learned from this trip is you pretty much have to make mistakes to learn from them. So I think that incident through me off and I wasn't as excited to get to London, plus they already hated me. So the train ride wasn't that bad at all. It was about 2 hours and everyone except a few of us fell asleep. Now I wish I slept on the train because the moment we arrived in London, I was completely brain dead. I met up with a few girls and we went to a few museums. We went to the some Natural Museum, I actually forgot the name of it. Then we went down to the V&A museum which had some pretty amazing stuff. The awesome thing about London is all the museums are FREE!! I wish America did that because paying $60 to go to a museum is ridiculous. So after the V&A, I literally had run out of steam and decided to go back home. I ran into a few girls and they were going to get some food so I joined them because I didn't want to go to bed with an empty stomach. We went to a pub down the street from our hotel and I got some yummy fish and chips. It was very good but I really had no more energy so I went back to the Hotel and pretty much went to sleep.


LONDON Day 2 January 29, 2011


So, this was our last day in London. We got on the bus around 9 and Heather, our tour manager gave us a guided tour till around 4:45. She is pretty much amazing. I couldn't have asked for anyone better. For about an hour we drove around the major sites. Then we stopped at Westmister Abbey. That place was so beautiful! Inside the church, I got to see all the graves of the major kings as well as major people such as Darwin and Dickens and I definitely got to walk on their 'graves' I felt very special. We walked around the Abbey for an hour or so then headed out and had free time. I took pictures in front of Big Ben and photo bombed a few tourist photos. Then we jumped back on the bus and traveled a little more then arrived at this shopping, tourist area and were dropped off for a couple hours.From there a friend and I went and walked towards the National Gallery where protests were being held by students who wanted to bring down the cost of schooling. I wanted to get some cool pictures from it but we got there and the protests had already moved to a different location. But there was another protest there that caught my eye, it was something about protesting against Police officers. I never really understood what it was about but I got some cool shots of it. After that, we goofed around that plaza area and then heading back towards where our bus had dropped us off and we grabbed some yummy Indian food. It was pretty amazing, especially since I know I won't be able to get any Indian food for a while. Then we got back on the bus and went for a quick stop at the Royal Palace and took some photos there. Then back on the bus and did a few more touristy shots then were dropped back off at the hotel around 4:45. From there a few of us wanted to go catch a show, like Les Miserables so we all headed to the downtown area. We got there and it was sold out! We checked out a few other plays and they were all sold out so we were pretty bummed but decided just to go out and eat instead. It took us about an hour to find a place, which surprised me how hard it was to find a place to eat in that area. We found this irish pub place that served food all night and it seemed to have a really awesome environment. It was three stories with a outdoor terrace on top. The first floor was mainly seating, the second floor had a bar, seating and a place for a band to play. The third floor was a dance floor and also another bar and a stage. Hanging out on the terrace reminding me of Mary Poppins, well all the roofs did so that was enjoyable. We met a few random people there. People from the London area and form Italian guys who were promoting something, I never really caught what it was but they dressed up in bright clothes and nerdy looking outfits. Overall, it was a fun night and London isn't my number one destination but I can see it growing on me.


FLORENCE Day 1 January 30, 2011


We all had to meet down in the hotel lobby around 6am. We then took the bus to the Heathrow airport and hopped on a plane to Florence. The plane ride wasn't that bad at all, it was about 2 hours or so. Once we landed in Pisa, I think I fell in love. Tuscany is so beautiful. Even when the weather is gross, I can see its beauty. We then took a bus from Pisa to Florence which took about an hour and it was pretty much just one big scenic route. We arrived at our hotel in Florence which was pretty nice. We were the first group there, and a few stragglers who took their own way to Florence. Nothing really exciting went on this day because everyone was gradually coming in. I finally got to see my friend Erin, who is my roommate her in Florence so that was awesome. We all went to a local restaurant and got some food. I think traveling really wears me out because I was pretty pooped after all of that and very dehydrated so I went back to the hotel room after dinner and went to bed. I figured I am going to be living in Florence for the next 3 months that there is no rush to do things. Plus I had no idea how my apartment was going to be so I wanted to take full advantage of the lush hotel living one last time.


FLORENCE Day 2 January 31, 2011


So this was the big day, we were going to get our apartments! We all checked out of the hotel and then went to a meeting room where we had a 2 hour orientations, just covering major points. Safety, travel, living, food, school, etc. Then group by group we were all sent out to our apartments by taxi. Probably about an hour later we got our taxi and went about 10 mins from our hotel to our, how should I put it, amazing apartment. Literally a few feet away is the Duomo. It is hard to describe the experience of waking up every morning to the Duomo right there. Every night going to sleep, the Duomo glows and lights up everything surrounding it. Our apartment is on the top floor of the building, so we have to walk up about 4 and a half flights of stairs. After a few days of doing it, I know it is going to kick my ass. We have a lift but I don't like small spaces and I don't trust it even though its pretty new, I rather just get some exercise. Our apartment is very small compared to everyone else's but the view makes up for everything. To get to our apartment you have to walk through an open terrace. So we pretty much have our own terrace, and if we open all our windows we have a panoramic view of the Duomo, simply beautiful. So we have a small living room and dinning room that are connected. A small kitchennet that is inclosed and looks like cabinets. It's very small but also very charming and has lots of character. Then our room is separated by a wall that doesn't connect to the ceiling so its pretty much like a studio. Surprisingly there was plenty of room in the wardrobes for our stuff so we evenly placed everything out between the two of us. And yes, there are only two of us living together. Everyone else either lives with 3 - 6 other people so in a way we lucked out but at the same time, we don't really get that satisfaction of meeting and getting to know other people. So around 4 o'clock that day, we met up with one of our student service people and they gave us a quick guided tour of our surrounding areas to give us an idea of what was around us. My roommate and I went back to our place because my friend who has been living here since August was going to stop by. She stopped by and then we walked about 10-15 mins to her house. After that we walked about another 10-15 mins to her friends house where we ate some nachos and drank some margarita type drinks which were pretty good. We stayed there for a few hours then my roommate and I head back to our place. Nothing really exciting the second night but it is nice to just get settled in.


FLORENCE Day 3 February 1, 2011


So this day was dedicated to workshops and other useful stuff to get us ready for the next day, which was going to be the first day of school. So people with the last name starting with A-M met up first at 9:30 at school. It was about an hour long where we just talked about cultural differences in Florence and how we can transition ourselves into their environment and living patterns. Once that was done, a few of us had about 3 hours to waste before more workshops started. So a few of us walked over the Ponte Vecchio to this group of guys house. About 6 of them live together in this MASSIVE apartment! It is ridiculously big, they have a room just for their kitchen and a room just for the tv and sitting. So I already know where I am going to hang out most of the time. After that we decided to go on a walk/hike. I guess the main idea was go to find some gardens but somehow that didn't work out and we decided to keep walking to the Piazzale Michelangelo. But we took the major scenic route and let me tell you, it was AMAZING! we walked the Viale Galileo Galilei which goes through a high end residential area but is up in the hills so you look down and see all of Florence. We were also lucky because it was really sunny. We all decided to make that a weekly hike. We then all walked back to the historical center and got some food and met up with some more people. We then went back to school to sign up for some Cultural classes. I signed up for the day trip to Pisa, which is this saturday. I also signed up for a Cooking class, a Pizza Making class, Opera @ St. Marks and wine tasting. There were a few other things I might sign up for but I didn't have to do it right away. All together that cost about 60 Euros which isn't that bad at all and everything is subsidized so it is way cheaper through school. I also signed up for the AIFS soccer team and I guess we just play other international schools and our first game is this Monday. And that is all I know. I am interested in seeing how that works out because the sign ups only allowed 10 people but it looks to have about 30 people signed up. Lets see how that works out. So the rest of the day we had a Italian Life and Cultures meeting and then a Travel Workshop just re-covering major points that are important. After that I brought back a few friends to my apartment to show them the amazing view then we went off and got some food and they went shopping. But once again I was pretty tired so I went back home after that and passed out around 8 at night. So so far, I haven't done too much in Florence but I am loving every minute of it.


Wednesday was the first day of school but I have already written a lot so I have decided to save Weds - Saturdays information for another post. Tomorrow (Saturday) I am going to Pisa and Lucca for a day trip so I am sure I will have a lot more to post after that. Till then Ciao and hope everyone is doing well. Obviously I am doing amazing. :)

Je suis à Paris!!

Bonjour à tout! I am in the amazing city of Paris right now and it has been absolutely amazing!

So to catch up what you have missed the past few days. Friday, I went to my friends surprise going away party (she is the girl I am actually going to be rooming with in Florence, yay!) And supposedly she was very surprised. A lot of people were there so it was really nice to see everyone and our night consisted of Just Dance 1 and 2 for the Wii and also Glee Karaoke, which I must say is pretty damn fun!

Then the next day, Saturday, I had a going away BBQ at my sisters house. There was a really great turn out! I was slightly surprised and it was pretty fun. I am happy I got to see a lot of those people because I know when I come back either I will be moving away or they are going to be off doing their own thing so who knows when I will be able to see them next. Kind of sad really to think about but no sad subjects right now! Later on Saturday night, I went to San Francisco and met up with some people for my friends birthday party. I realized later that it was closer to my birthday then her birthday. So secretly it was my birthday party, but she doesn't have to know that. Haha. Then Sunday and Monday consisted of packing, buying last minute things, stressing out, emotional breakdowns and family time. Nothing unexpected from an adventure like this.

So my flight left from SFO on Tuesday around 3:30 pm. I have never taken an 11 hour flight before so it was pretty interesting. Waiting by the gate, I met up with the rest of the pre-tour group. We all just knew right away that we were part of the group, plus it was pretty obvious. So we all chatted it up, then boarded the plane. Air France was pretty decent. We got unlimited amount of drinks, and two meals. The meals were okay, but it's airline food. You can't expect much out of that. I maybe fell asleep for a total of 20-30 mins the whole flight. I am not sure if a lot of people or not fell asleep but literally sleeping on a plane is nearly impossible for me. But there was a lot for me to do on the plane, tons of movies to choose from. I watched the beginning of about 5-6 different movies. I didn't finish any of them. I kept getting distracted by other things. I read some of my book, played some games. There was a dance party on the plane at one point, that was interesting. Also I made sure that I was up to see the sun rise, which was absolutely beautiful. That picture doesn't give it justice. So overall, it was pretty good plane ride and I don't think I would mind doing it again.

Even on the plane, I don't think it fully hit me I was going to Paris. Once I was able to see the French ground and safely landed on the ground, it hit me. I felt like a little kid in a candy shop, I became so giddy. Despite the lack of sleep, I felt fully awake; definitely gained some second wind. Luckily no ones luggage was lost, we met up with our tour manager, Heather who I must say is pretty bloody awesome. We got some tutorials on the bus ride to our hotelabout Paris, the metro and safety issues. On the way to thehotel, I didn't really feel like I was in Europe, nothing seemed to be different. But then we gradually started to further into Paris and I could tell, nothing at home can compare to this. The buildings are absolutely beautiful! I am in love with this city. The weather is dreadful but honestly, doesn't matter what the weather is like here. The drivers here are way more aggressive then back home but I already expected that. Pedestrians don't have the right away so its interested trying to walk across the street but I notice a lot of locals don't give a crap and walk in front of cars anyways, so nonchalant.

So we got to our hotel room, which is pretty sweet. We settled in then we went off to la Seine to have a boat tour. We first were introduced to the metro which reminds me a lot of the subways in New York, fast passed and crowded so it didn't seem like anything new to me. We got off at Tour Eiffel and headed towards the boat tours. As we were walking out our tour manager, Heather, ran out in front of us with a camera. I am like 'Aw thats nice, she is taking a group photo of us.' Then she was just standing there not taking the photo. She told us to keep moving forward and then I started to get confused. Then at that moment she told us to look up and BOOM! There was the Eiffel tower. It was simply amazing, my heart dropped to my stomach. We stayed there for a while and did some photo ops. Even with gloomy, gross weather, it was beautiful. We then jumped on the tour boats and started the tour. It was so freaking cold and I was jet lagged and tired as hell but I stuck it through because not a lot of chances you get to come to a beautiful city like this. The tour was awesome!

We passed the Louve, Notre Dame and some other historical buildings. Even though la Saine is really gross, it is magical at the same time. I enjoyed people watching, lots of couples hang out by the river but also then again there are lots of couples in Paris. No wonder they call it the City of Love or as the tour guide on the boat said, City of Lights. After the boat tour, we headed back to the hotel because we were supposed to hand off one suit case that would be sent to Florence so we would have lighter baggage for the rest of our travels on the pre-tour. But let me just say, we were all pretty zonked out by this point!

We all wanted to go out and get dinner together then hit up a bar or pub afterwards. Everyone went back to their hotel rooms to get ready but most of us realized we didn't even know which rooms people were in so it was hard to get in contact with people. Facebook was our only form of communication. So I got in contact with a few girls and we met up. There were 6 of us and we walked around near our hotel and found this cute little place. We walked in and saw about 8 other people from our tour group there so we all hung out. We ordered some amazing pizza and a bottle of wine. We all goofed around and had fun. The group we met up with at the restaurant decided just to go back to the hotel room because they were pretty whipped out. I was kind of bummed because I really wanted to explore the night life but being up for over 30 hours isn't very ideal. Our waiter was so funny, we goofed around with him and generally you don't have to tip here but we gave him a 3 Euro tip because he was really awesome. I wanted to take some pictures of the Moulin Rouge because it was just right down the street. So we all walked down there and took some photos. And someone noticed on the ground a lovely latex object on the ground. Yes, we found a used condom on the ground right in front of the Moulin Rouge. It was disgusting but amazing at the same time. We got a pretty good kick out of it.

I went back to the hotel room and pretty much passed out. But because of the time difference I woke up at 3 a.m. my time and pretty much have been up since. It is now just about 7 a.m. our time and we are all about to meet up and get free breakfast at the hotel. I am extremely hungry so I am pretty excited. Today we have a half guided tour of Paris then after that we are going the 2nd floor of the Eiffel tower because I guess the top floor is being renovated. Then after that we have the rest of the day free! So probably a lot of us will split off. Most likely we will all meet up later tonight. There is this restaurant a few blocks away from out hotel room that serves fondu and wine in baby bottles so I am kind of stoked to go there. Then after that we will most likely hit up the local pubs and night life. I will most likely update this again when I am in London or if I can't sleep. Until then, Au Revoir!

Countdown: 4 days

Today has been a very productive day. I finally started putting stuff together or more like throwing everything into one big pile. Probably on Monday I am going to finalize what I am going to bring with me and what I can leave at home. But progress is progress and I am pleased. I've also organized my room, cleaned it out and what not. This was a fabulous idea because I found lots of missing stuff which have been added to my non-stop growing pile. Also set up some decor items, make it look usable because I am assuming my parents are going to be using that room for guests (if they were to ever have any) and/or a room where my dad can escape to. Either way, I wanted to make it functional. My mother has been very helpful lately as well (and yes mom, I know you are reading this and examining every spelling and grammar error I make)...she was kind enough to get me some Euros and Pounds! Of course I can get some from the ATMs out there but it will be nice having some cash right away. Given, that cash probably won't last long in Paris and London. I've been backing up my computer on 2 different hard drives and also creating clones of it, just in case. This computer is well over 3 years old and its been a good computer, besides the fact it has crashed on me about 3 times. I am just hoping it will survive this trip long enough to save all my pictures and documents. Poor guy gets used everyday, he is pretty worn out.

So yes, the countdown has now reached 4 full days. Still pretty nervous but I have been working out everyday and perfecting my yoga to help calm the nerves and ease the mind. I think it is finally helping because I am now starting to relax a little bit and focus more on all the awesome times I am going to be having there instead of dwelling on negative issues such as the language barrier, money and being homesick. I think it has helped that I have spent the last few days at home, hanging with the family.

Well I think it is time to get back to work. Still have laundry to do. Party to plan for on Saturday. Food to be eaten. Sleep to be have. I most likely won't post anything within the next few days since it shall be very busy. Also want to thank everyone who has been reading this. At least 100 people have in the past few days. That is pretty awesome, except I only have one follower. Follow me!!
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. -Leonardo da Vinci

Snowshoe Brewing Co.

Progress on packing = one beer down. That is all. Well I guess I bought some jeans and a sweater today. Not sure if that is any progress since that is just adding more to the list of clothes I need to wash and pack. Where is my motivation? I am hoping my beer will be my motivation. But now its 11 o'clock. Fail.

So tomorrow, I am determined to at least throw some clothes in my suitcase that I want to take. This just takes so much unwanted energy. I am going to be hitting up the gym tomorrow, then some yoga. After that I am going to the local Junior College and going to try and sell my books back to make some extra cashmoney. I have been trying to sell my books online but have been failing at it. People want to spend $5 on books when they were original worth $150. So lame. But money is money and I wouldn't mind getting as much as I can right now.

Countdown is at 6 days.
“And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed!”- Dr. Seuss

First Post

So this is my first post. I wanted to create this blog to be able to share my experience I will go through while studying in Florence. I think this blogs lifespane is only going to be a month, but I am really hoping that I can keep up weekly posts. I am 7 days away from depaturing to Paris, France. For 5 days, I am going to be doing a pretour starting in Paris, then later on traveling to London. Each location we get one day of guided tours and the rest of the time is free. Sadly, 7 days from now is actually my birthday so I will be leaving on my birthday. Spending 11 hours on a plane is not ideal but if I had to look at it in another way, I am on a plane to Paris. That's not too shabby.

The picture I posted with this post is my big ol' empty suitcase. I have been stressing and freaking out about this trip because this is a pretty new and exciting thing. And because of that, it has distracted me from doing the essential things, such as packing. I am hoping to be at least 50-70% done packing the day before I leave. Knowing me, I will be rushing the last few mins before I have to leave for the airport. I am very excited but very nervous. I've been sharing this with everyone of course and everyones response is generally the same: "You are going to have such an amazing time, chill out." Yes, I know I am! But no one can prepare you for those initial emotions of what ifs?.

I've been mainly stressing about the language barrier, given I know no Italian. Also, I never thought I would ever think of this but I am actually bummed I am going to miss a lot of stuff while I am gone. I know that is lame to say but when friends are constantly making plans in front of you, knowing you have no way of being involved, yes that kind of sucks. Of course I am going to be doing way more interesting and exciting things but that level of knowledge of what exactly I am going to do hasn't settled in yet. And one of the worst fears is being homesick. I've never been this far away from home for this long before. Maybe if I get home sick now, I will get it all out of me and will be able to enjoy the time there. We shall see.

This is going to be an awfully big adventure.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” - Dr. Seuss