Bologna! (feb 10-11)

Bologna is north of Perugia and it is where they crated Lasagna and Tortellini. We began our journey in Perugia going to Florence and then directly to Bologna. This was one of the worst weekend for snow in Italy history which caused a lot of problems when having to travel. So many different trains where getting delayed so it was a bit crazy. But Bologna had A LOT of snow way more than in Perugia. But even with the snow it was not as cold as Florence the previous week. We got there and ended up exploring around the city! I had tortellini all weekend and man it was fantastic! One of the coolest parts was going to this local restaurant for dinner. The atmosphere in the restaurant was so awesome and it felt apart of the culture in a way like never before! I loved hanging out and listening to drunk italians sing some irish songs it was very exciting! After dinner we went back to our hotel and walked some movie in Italian and went to bed. The next day we explored all around going into a very cool archeological museum and seeing one of the 1st rooms ever where they preformed surgery. Bologna all around was amazing! With all the snow it made for a very exciting time!

Here comes the SNOW! (feb 1-5)

You heard me right its SNOWING here in Italy. And man its snowing A LOT! It is the most snowfall that Italy has gotten in the last 25 years apparently. The amount of snow is just the craziest thing right now! But its a wonderful thing seeing the snow again just cause i was missing it a little (not a lot). So this week we had another Tandem, and if you didn't read below Tandem is an event when America students and Italian students come together and talk in different languages. It is extremely fun and meet lots of new people every time you go. So after we hung out with them we all went out for drinks and it was just a great relaxing night!
The next day I went to Florence (again) this time for the purpose of a class trip! We went a day early to explore a little more of Florence. I was very upset the first day we got there because when I booked a hostel somehow the date got changed to another weekend. So the hostel we were in would not let us stay there cause it somehow got booked for another day. The whole thing was a little crazy but I figured out another hostel and I booked it! So after all the craziness we went and walked around. Being in Florence this weekend was probably one of coldest weekend I have ever had. I thought because Florence is in a different part Italy it was going to be warmer. That was very false... I ended up only wearing a t-shirt under my jacket and jeans on and i froze. It hurt to walk around and my face was burnt from wind chill. It was brutal.. But through all of it we still managed to walk around and have a great time. My highlight of the day was that we went to the Uffizi Museum. The Uffizi is amazingly beautiful and I had the best time there! My favorite piece of art we saw was the birth of Venus. It was breath taking to say the least. After our trip through the museum we had a nice dinner and then froze in our hostel with no heat. It was a brutal night but I don't regret going what so ever. =]
The next day was our class field trip day and we all went to meet our teacher and he showed us some great parts of Florence. We went to a beautiful church and one of the best chocolate factories I have ever been in. The chocolate was so good! We then went to lunch which was the whole purpose of the trip and it was incredible. We had food cooked from one of the best chefs in the world! He cooked for Obama in Switzerland so its just incredible! The food was so spicy which is very non italian and it had so many flavors! The meal lasted 4 hours and it was simply fantastic =]
Well that is all for that weekend... Miss and love you all!
catherine..

Assisi trip!

Ciao!
Sorry its been a crazy couple weeks with school that I have not had a lot of time to write on the blog. But I promise I will make better efforts to write at least once a week! So the last time I posted one here I went on my big trip to four cities and they were super awesome! But the weekend of January 27-29 I ended up taking it pretty easy. On Friday we hung out in Perugia and walked around the city. Because we are on the top of the city we have to walk down lots of stairs to reach different parts of the city. The weekend of the 28th was a awesome one in Perugia because it was there patron's saint birthday. Because they had that going on they had a huge market that was available to everyone. The market was really long it was like 15 blocks selling everything from clothes to food. It was an experience to say the least! But it was really cool to see people haggling and trying to sell the best meats and cheeses in Perugia. I ended up buying a sausage that was soo good. The whole thing was such a blast!
Then next day we went to the beautiful town of Assisi it was so pretty! I didn't think that I could see a prettier city on a mountain side. The town is VERY hilly.. It was a major workout to do anything and that part was rough.. But it was all worth it in the end. We ended up hiking to the top of Assisi which was so beautiful! On top was a castle which was really cool to walk around it and be near it. We then walked to the the church of St.Francis whom I sadly didn't realize was so important! The church of his was very amazing and I even got to see his own tomb inside the bottom of the church. The church was so cold to be in however that I had to leave sooner than I wanted because I could not feel my fingers.. But it was such a great weekend! I didn't do much but I enjoyed not doing much I had such a good time.

Siena, Florence, Lucca, and Pisa O MY!

Hello all! So I realize it has been a while since I wrote.. Maybe a week or so but I thought I would just tell you about what has happened so far! Classes are going so great I love all of them and they are so interesting. Its cool to look out your classroom window and see a huge beautiful church sitting there. I just feel so lucky to be here I love it.
So last weekend was my first big trip outside of Perugia. We went to 4 cities Siena, Florence, Pisa and Lucca. We started in Siena, which about an hour bus ride from Perugia. We got there and it was so pretty! Siena is a smaller town like Perugia but they had the prettiest Duomo I have seen. Most of the work in the Duomo was done by Michelangelo which was so awesome. The picture on the right is what it looks like on the outside. All around it was such a great time in Siena.


We then stayed the night in Florence that night and it was so crazy. I am really happy I am not studying abroad there because I don’t know if I could handle the amount of people. With so many people around it is much easier to get things stolen from you. So I ended up walking with my backpack in front of me because it’s the safest way to make sure all your stuff is safe. But the hostel I stayed in was actually really nice. I was expecting something way worse because we only paid 15 euro a night. But it actually was on the 5th floor of this building and you could see the city of Florence like in the picture to the left. It was so cool

The next day (Saturday) we took the train to Pisa! Pisa was not all that it was cracked up to be. It really only had the tower of Pisa and that was about it. So we got there and had to walk about half an hour to the tower. When you saw the tower you just had to take a second and laugh it off. The fact that they build a tower on sand cracks me out. But it was cool =] I did the classic holding the tower of pisa up as you can see. I don’t think I will ever go back to Pisa but it was still worth the time to see the leaning tower.


After Pisa we went to another small town called Lucca. Going to Lucca we didn’t know much about the town at all really. All my teachers told me that it was worth the effort to go there and check it out. They were so right. Lucca may be one of my favorite towns I have been to. We got there and it was just so green. The picture with the water and the green grass is from Lucca. Seriously a fantastic time and the best food EVER!! I got pasta and it was sooo good I ate it so slowly just so I could savor it. It was incredible.


Then we went back to Florence to spend the night and hung out in Florence the whole day Sunday. Florence is a seriously beautiful city but it’s so crazy with tourists. There also is way to much to do in just one weekend. You would have to stay in Florence for a whole week to see everything here. Although I didn’t get to see much I was able to see a museum with statues and painting from the Duomo in it. Again Michelangelo’s sculptures were so awesome. One of the famous ones is called “Mary with the glass eye” in one of the pictures on the right there is Mary and if you look close you can see the glass eye. Then we went back home =]


Well that is all for now. I am also in the process of uploading all my pictures onto an online photo album. So I am working on that should be up in the next week or so just so you can see all my pictures from my trips. Miss and love you all
-catherine

Off to Tuscany for the weekend!

Hello there! So last week was very awesome with my intensive Italian week. It was good to get familiar with the language and understand it. So at this point I can speak a good amount to get by with buying food so that is awesome! But practicing everyday is great and my teacher for Italian has been a massive help. She has even taken me to stores and helped me order things in Perugia so I love that part. Today is my first real day of classes! So far they have all been really great and tomorrow I will be going to more of them so that is really exciting. I am for once excited about all my classes and school has been busy but really good.
So last weekend we had a huge trip to Tuscany and it was incredible seriously a life changing trip. We went to a wine vineyard and it was so so great! We got to Tuscany and were able to explore a little then we sat down for a 4 hour long dinner. It was awesome! They brought out 5 courses, which was crazy but SO good. In the picture to the right is probably the best bruschetta I have had in my life.. SO good. It was all around a great time. The following day I was able to go inside the wine vineyard to explore and see how the process of wine happens. I now know how to taste wine and figure out how old they are. It was an amazing experience. Hands down a great time! Well that is all I have for now but I will be sure to keep you posted very very soon!!! Love and miss you all

my apartment =]

Airports, Italian, and Wine oooo my

Ciao!

Hey there everyone =] I was for a long time against making a blog but then I came to the realization I don’t really want to tell the same story to people 100 times. So here I am now making a super awesome blog!! Well I suppose I can start with my ridiculously long trip here. I flew from Colorado to Georgia then to New York finally landing in Rome. By the time I got to New York I was ready to go home and call it all quits. I was just so tired and the idea of flying another 9 hours just seems horrifying. However I must say when I woke up about an hour left to go I knew this was going to be an amazing experience. I got to Rome and we had to drive 2 ½ hours to Perugia. Surprisingly when I arrived I was not extremely pleased. We were staying at a hotel the 1st night and it was at the very bottom of Perugia so the views were nothing special. Because of how awful the view was it kinda bummed me out but I meet some great people and things were looking good.

My 1st real day in Perugia is one I will never forget.. we got up and packed everything up and got into groups to meet our roommates and the people we are living with. All of them are awesome! We have 2 people living above us, 3 living below and my four roommates and I are in the middle. We drove up the hill and say just how amazing this place is. The views are seriously incredible and I as soon as I say just where I was living the next 4 months I new I chose the right place to be =] We got through to our apartment and my goodness it was scary. Every single street in Perugia where you think it’s just for walking on is in fact a street. Seriously the only place that cars cant go is on the stairs.. we after several sketchy ally ways we got to this amazing set of stairs which we live right on! In the video below you will be able to see the lay out of it all. But yes its awesome besides the fact that everything in our apartment is ridiculously old. So that is the biggest upset.. We had a huge problem yesterday with water leaking from the bathroom into our room. God it sucked and the water was leaking next to an electrical outlet so it was freaky. Luck for us they are fixing it right as I am writing, but we can’t shower for 2 days sooo that is a bummer. But the view makes up for all the old things. But yea besides the apartment the last 2 days I have just been exploring the city with my roommates and other friends.

This week is a intensive Italian week so we don’t have any classes this week just Italian classes. It a lot because we about 4 ½ hours each day of just straight Italian but I am learning so much. My teacher only talks in Italian so the 1st day was a bit intense for me, but I am working on it. O I forgot to mention that NO ONE speaks English here. Not entirely everyone but a huge chunk population here only speaks Italian. Because it’s such a small region and they don’t get a load of tourist like Rome or Florence so its not needed. So when I found that small little fact culture shock hit me hard. After a couple days you get use to it but the 1st were so hard to grasp that I was speaking this foreign language. So although I sound dumb at points saying things such as “prego!” after ordering a piece of pizza (which to let you know means your welcome) or trying to say water in Italy and they bring you out a Heineken. It’s a strange concept..

Well that’s I suppose all that has happened really. I have been going to the bars which is legal here and that has been a blast! I don’t really know any drinks to order so if you have any preferences or suggestions I would love to here about them =] I have been drinking 3 euro wine so far not that fantastic but its cheap which is always fun to have. I suppose the greatest moment in the bar was watching the broncos win against the Steelers at 2 in the morning. Sitting with all the Colorado kids and looking at Denver and watching the game was so much fun! I felt like I was back home =] But all around its been a great time and I cant wait to explore more and get more involved with the culture. This weekend were going on a trip to Tuscany so I will be sure to post next week and tell you all about it. I hope to keep in touch with you all very soon =] but for now I will talk to you later! Ciao!