Perugia and Skydiving

Basically, you can follow along from my facebook, but this past weekend I went to Perugia for the Eurochocolate festival and then to Arezzo to go skydiving. Perugia was a really cute and quaint town and I really enjoyed being there, mainly for the reason that the whole town was filled with chocolate. I contained myself and only bought 10 euros worth of chocolate, but it was the best chocolate I have ever had. I also bought a cup of hot chocolate, but their version was literally melted chocolate, it was to die for! They even had a gluten free stand which made my day even though I totally thought all chocolate was gluten free haha oops!
The next day, Saturday, on a spur of the moment, 7 of us decided to hop on a train to Arezzo(about an hour away) to go skydiving! I was totally terrified, but it's something I have always wanted to, and when in Italy! We got to the place around 2 and I was the 2nd to last one to jump and I didn't get in the plane until 5:30, so needless to say it was a long day of waiting and basically freaking out haha. Ride up in the plane was the most terrifying thing of the whole experience because you are anticipating basically jumping out of a plane 2 and half miles up. I was shaking uncontrollable, partly because it was cold but mostly because I was about to pee myself. Once we got to elevation, we were above the clouds and it felt as if the plane stalled and that's when the nerves really kicked in. Two guys that were in the plane with us jumped and then it was my turn, after watching them fall out of the plane I just started screaming I was so scared. My legs were dangling out of the plane and the next thing I knew I was falling 2 and a half miles from the ground. Falling into the clouds watching the sun set in the distance was probably the most horrifying and the best feeling in the world! The adrenaline was incredible and it was just awesome! We fell into a rain cloud so it got a little cold, but for the whole minute you are free falling, it is just the biggest rush ever. Once we broke through the clouds my tandem pulled the chute and I was allowed to steer us around, so I pulled a couple wheelies haha. Landing however, was a little rough, basically it was just an ass-plant to put it in technical terms. All in all, it was the most awesome thing I have ever done and I would totally do it again!
After the rush of jumping out of a plane wore off, we headed back to Firenze and the studying began. This week was midterm week so I had 5 exams in 4 days, I did pretty well on all of them which is a relief. Now I'm all done with school work for the next week and half, so I'm off to Ireland and Scotland! We leave Saturday afternoon until the following Tuesday afternoon. It should be fun, I'm trying to meet up with Arthur so there will be a little CofC action going on in Edinburgh, watch out haha.
Well, thats all for now, I'll post another one when I get back from fall break!

Love and miss you all,
Lu

Bike Tour of Tuscany, Siena, San Gimignano and Assisi

So last Friday, me, Brett and Tay went on a bike ride through Tuscany, specifically Chianti. When we got to their office, they overbooked the number of people on the tour so there wasn't enough transportation to get everyone up to the castle, so we got the VIP treatment and had our own personal chauffeur, Alessio. He was one of our bike tour guides and he drove the 3 of us up in his little peddle pusher european car through the back roads of Tuscany which was so beautiful. We lucked out and the weather was more than perfect, it was high 60's with not a cloud in the sky. Fall in Tuscany is probably one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, it puts New England fall to shame and thats pretty hard to do.
Once we got up to the castle, you immediately could smell the wine and the olive oil that was being made. Our bike tour guide, the owner of the company, took us all on a private tour of the castle and we were able to see hundreds of barrels of wine that were being aged(they were huge)as well as where they made both the wine and the olive oil...and they don't stomp the grapes anymore which I was kinda disappointed to hear. Then they took us up to the fortress tower of the castle where we got a 360 view of the hills and vineyards that surround the castle. After that we were able to go to the grape storage room and eat as many grapes as we desired! They were so sweet and I'm pretty sure Taylor and I ate an entire shelf ourselves haha, we couldn't contain ourselves. We then made our way out of the castle and into the courtyard where we were given a free olive oil and wine tasting, probably the best red wine I have tried here so far. Bellisima!
We finally got our bikes all fitted(mine was name Marilyn Monroe, by the company not me) and we started the trek. I put my Lance skills to use, once again, and I conquered the trails, it was so much fun. The course was about 13 miles long and it went mainly through Chianti as well as some other small towns on the hill sides. About half way through, we stopped at a restaurant and had a 3 course meal which was once again, bellisima! I had mushroom and snausage risotto for my main meal and frutti di busco gelato, mmmmmm so good. After feasting, they decide to tell us that there is a pretty treacherous part of the course and the 3 of us were like, "yeah we are in pretty good shape, we can handle it." No way. It was a hill that was no exaggeration, a straight shot up for about 3/4 of a mile. Brett and I kept up with Taylor for a good half of it(she is on the Triathlon team at Colorado)and then I developed asthma and Brett started to roll backwards hahaha! So we let her conquer the monster and we walked behind. All in all, we were the first three to finish of about 30 so, we are still pretty proud of ourselves.
On Saturday, our program brought us to Siena and San Gimignano which are also in the Tuscan region of Italy. We went on walking tours of each and had a fair amount of free time to explore on our own. San Gimignano is famous for its towers, it used to have over 30 towers throughout the small town and now they only have 14 that are remaining. These towers were constructed and owned by the wealthy and were used as either storage, part of their homes and on occasion as protection for the town. The reason why there aren't as many standing is because of either destruction from war or the family lost their financial status among the community and it was to be cut down. It was pretty interesting to see and to learn about. But other than that, nothing too exciting really happened in either of those places, they were just beautiful cities that I am really happy that I was able to see and experience.
Assisi, on the other hand, was incredible. It is by far my favorite town in Italy, it is located in the Umbria region close to the city of Perugia. It is a small town on one of the hillsides and it is famous for being the hometown/birthplace of St. Francis of the Franciscans. I have been learning a lot about St. Francis and the Franciscan order so I have been wanting to go there since I first started learning about it. It is such a quaint town with so much history and all of the churches and their artwork are simply amazing. Learning about Cimabue(famous Italy artist)for almost 5 weeks now and seeing his artwork which are located in the St. Francis Cathedral in all of my textbooks and then having the opportunity to see it with my own eyes was truly gratifying. After our walking tour, we were able to explore on our own and do our own thing for a few hours so me and 3 of my friends(the girls I'm going on fall break with) hiked up to Rocca Maggiore(the main fortress)to see an areal view of Assisi and the surrounding hillside towns. These views never get old. After that, we loaded back onto the bus and headed back to Florence to start another week of school.
In the meantime, while I'm exploring all of these new places, I still was without a debit or credit card. I went 2 and a half weeks with no money and then when I finally received my debit card, what does bank of america do? They change my pin number on me, so even with my debit card, I still wasn't able to withdrawl money and continued without any cash. Needless to say, I ripped BOA a new one haha.
On the school side of this semester long vacation, I had my first presentation today in my Hospitality Marketing class and it went really well! And this is only the start of the endless stream of midterms, projects, papers and presentations that I have to give next week(midterm week) and the week after fall break. A week from this coming Saturday, I leave for fall break and my semester is over half way done! My time here has gone by so incredibly fast that before I know it, I'll be back in the arctic of CT and then getting my ass kicked in Charleston for diving(currently I am in the worst shape of my life, thanks to Italian food and Nutella haha).
That's all that has been happening here! I am going to Perugia on Friday for the Eurochocolate Festival to pack on a couple more lbs and I will enjoy every bite of it!(Mom, are you freaking out yet?? haha) Well, I hope all is well with everyone back home in CT and Charleston!

Ciao mia familia!

Amalfi Coast

Hello all! I don't know if you have seen my pictures from facebook, but I went to the Amalfi Coast this past weekend and it was nothing short of AMAZING! We left Thursday night around 6:30 by coach and arrived in Sorrento around 1:30 in the morning. The drive there was incredible once we got to the coast, all of the towns and villages that sat along the mountainside were all lit up and the water looked like glass, it was gorgeous. But once we got to Napoli(Naples) there was trash everywhere! Apparently the mafia has some sort of deal going on with the garbage men, so the garbage men don't collect any of the trash and its just everywhere..sick! Besides that, our hotel was pretty good and they served us breakfast and dinner the whole time we were there(of course, not gluten free. I feel like a diva over here constantly asking for special food haha)
So the first day(Friday), we got up really early and started walking down to the marina with our entire group to catch the 9 am ferry to Capri. Capri was amazing, it was everything that you imagine and now I understand why everyone raves about it. We took a boat tour around the island that also brought us to the Blue Grotto. It was really cool, but definitely not worth the 11.50 euro it costs for about 10 minutes inside. We couldn't even swim because there was an absurd amount of jelly fish, some of which are apparently deadly so I decided to stay in the boat for my own sake. Plus, you had to pay an extra 5 euro to swim if you really wanted to. The boat tour overall was amazing, the sides of the mountains were incredible and the water was crystal clear. Once we got back to the boat dock, we walked across the island to the beach(70's all weekend) where me and my friend Tay completely passed out for a good 2 hours haha. After our nap sesh, we walked back over the island to get the ferry back to Sorrento where our dinner was awaiting us! (Risotto al Pomodoro for me!)
The second day was by far the best day of this whole study abroad experience. We took a private coach to the other side of the coast to a town called Positano and the drive there made me a little nauseous. It was the curviest road right on the edge of the cliffs and our bus driver didn't seem to be phased by the fact that its a straight shot down haha. Once we got there we walked down to the beach and a group of about 15 of us rented a boat for an hour and a half with a driver/tour guide which only cost us 10 euro each. He took us to a spot around the corner from the Positano where people are able to cliff jump and swim. Cliff jumping was so much fun and the water was crystal clear and so blue that you could see all the way down to the bottom, and the best part...no fish! haha
After we swam and did some jumping for about 45 minutes we got back on the boat with Gino(our driver)and he basically took us around the area with the music blasting, it was like spring break all over again. Then he took us to another spot where there was a cave that we were able to swim through, it was unreal. It had the same effect as the Blue Grotto, the water was basically glowing and it was just incredible, there are really no words to accurately describe the whole experience. After the boat, we just laid out on the beach and soaked in the rays(got a little burnt haha). We left Positano around 6 and I really just did not want to leave. Its the most beautiful place I have ever been and mark my words, I am going back.

Sunday was our last day and we spent it in Pompei and Mt. Vesuvius. Pompei was really interesting to learn about and to see a village that was inhabited around the 4th century way before Roman empire, it was unreal. The amazing part is that only 80% of Pompei has been excavated and there is still 20% waiting to be uncovered(it is still covered in volcanic ash from the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius). Then the bus brought us from Pompei up to Mt. Vesuvius where we were able to climb to the top and look over all of Napoli and look into the volcano. Once again, it was just amazing. Looking into the volcano it brought me back to my fantastic geology days and I loved it, I surprisingly remembered a lot from that class. Who would have thought rocks for jock would have come in handy? After about an hour and a half at the mountain, we got back on the bus and headed back to Firenze.

This past weekend was by far the best experience I have had, maybe in my entire life, and I will seriously always remember it. But now its back into school mode, projects after projects after projects..they wont quit! Midterms are in about a week and a half, then I am off to Ireland and Scotland for 11 days for my fall break with 3 other girls. A couple things on our agenda right now are: a 3 day tour of the Isle of Sky in Scotland, pub crawls in both Edinburgh and Dublin,a tour of both the Guinness Factory and the old Jameson Distillery, tour where P.S. I love you and Braveheart were filmed, a bike tour of Dublin and best of all...Halloween festivities in the city where it all originated, Dublin! But, all of that is still a presentation and 5 midterms away. And this weekend is another full one: Friday- me, Tay and our other friend Brett are doing a bike tour of Tuscany. Saturday- day trip with out program to Sienna and San Gimangano and Sunday- day trip with our program to Assisi; the hometown of St. Francis founder of the Franciscans! So exciting!
Well that is all from Firenze (minus all of the terrorist attack threats in Europe that everyone is freaking out about) miss and love you all!

Ciao!

Verona and Germany

Ciao a tutti! Sorry I havent posted in a while, things have been really hectic here with classes and traveling and what not, but I guess I will start with my trip 2 weekends ago to Verona. It was beautiful, even though it rained 50% of the time. The city was small but it had a lot of charm. When we first got there they took us on a walking tour then on a bus tour which brought us up to the top of a nearby mountain where we could see all of Verona. The was gorgeous! Then after that a group of us went out to dinner and we found a trattoria(family owned restaurant)that was a Disney theme with toys, stuffed dolls and pictures of all the characters everywhere and the food was awesome, they even had gluten free pasta..bank! The next day we had free to ourselves so we walked around on our own and shopped then got back on the bus and headed home.
This past week of class was great! We went to the Santa Maria Cathedral(the duomo) and Giotto's Belltower for art history, the Jewish Synagogue for my world religion class and another class cancelled(thank god, I was in rough shape haha..sorry mom and dad). But then Thursday night me and 2 of my friends went with a tour group called Florence for Fun to Munich for Oktoberfest. It was an overnight bus ride, took about 9 hours, so we arrived in Munich around 8 in the morning. Had some McDonalds for breakfast(McDonalds is gourmet here), freshened up, got all ready to start drinking at 10 in the morning only to find out that our bus was broken. So we sat at the rest stop for another 2 hours waiting for another bus to come and bring us to the city center. We finally got a bus and got to Oktoberfest around 12 and we headed straight to the Hofbrauhaus Tent. Oktoberfest is basically a huge carnival with all these huge "tents" which are basically huge warehouses run by the major breweries in Munich and all over Germany. We walked in and there were hundreds of drunk people singing, dancing and chanting and it was so awesome but definitely overwhelming. We definitely stood out like a sore thumb..we werent dressed in dirndl or leiderhosens haha. We all got a table and joined in and the most popular songs were "hey baby" and "sweet caroline" haha it was great.
After a couple of hours we left the first tent and walked around the festival for a while and this is where the true story comes in. So as I leave the first house, I stole one of the liter mugs and put it in my purse and took a picture of it in there because I was so proud of myself..and in the picture you can see my wallet. As we start walking to the next tent, all of a sudden I "run" into this guy and he was "jokingly" not letting me pass him and starts to tickle me and of course all of my friends think it is hysterical and start taking pictures. Then his friend comes behind me and starts tickling me too, and finally I broke free. Yes, I thought it was funny at the time too until I get to the next tent and about to pay for some food when I can't find my wallet. Yes, my wallet was stolen. What was in there? 200 euro, a debit and credit card. Awesome. So of course, Alyssa is a hysterical mess and is on the phone with the oh so comforting Johnny Masch(almost a Johnny fit haha). No worries, got the cards canceled and there were no charges so that was good, but I am still out 200 euro and had no money for the whole weekend and no way to get money. Then the day just gets better, I was wearing sandals and a tank when it all of a sudden drops 20 degrees and starts pouring..wonderful. I really wanted to go back to Florence, but I was a champ and stuck it out. We got to our hostel around midnight that night and it was pretty legit, the breakfast the next morning was good and gluten free :)
So the next day, Saturday, still a little rainy out but I had already paid for a bike tour so I went on a bike tour of Munich. I'm just "Lancing" it around the world(thats for you Heely and Madison haha). It was a little cold and rainy, but it cleared up and it was awesome. We went to lunch at the Biergardens and I had Leberkäse which is a Bavarian meatloaf, it was amazing! Then we got back on our little beach cruisers and we went through the largest Metropolitan Park in the world and our guide took us to this bridge that has a constant wave where locals come to surf.

Then we made our way back to the city center where we went to the actual Hofbrauhaus, this is where my weekend really gets better. I discover the greatest beer concoction, light beer with lemon soda(sprite). It was unbelievable! Then I ordered a half of a chicken and some potato salad and feasted while singing sweet caroline and chanting hey baby..definitely a high light haha. Then our waiter comes over and informs us that half of our table was reserved and if we minded sharing the table, and since we are such nice Americans we allowed them to come sit with us. Then here comes these 4 old fat men and we look at each other like oooooh boy. So, this one guy sits next to me and we are all chatting it up and he is asking us about our study abroad experiences and if we are doing okay on money. So I tell him that my wallet got stolen and he whips out his wallet and hands me a $100 bill. Of course, I cant take it but his brother across the table was like "take it, hes loaded" so I sat it on the table and an hour passes and we find out that this man lives in Peru and is the owner of an oil company. Yeah. And the guy sitting next to him just owns an oil drill company and they were celebrating a deal they just made, no big. So needless to say, I ended up walking out with $100 haha.
The next day, we went to the Dachau Concentration Camp about 30 minutes outside of Munich. I am glad I went, but it was the hardest thing I have ever seen/experienced. It made me sick to my stomach seeing where they forced all of these people to stay and hearing what was done to them at the spot where I was standing. It was really hard to hold back the tears. The part that I really felt sick was in the Crematorium. Looking at where they basically burned people alive and standing in the exact same room where they were poisoned to death was the hardest thing to do, I had to leave, I couldn't contain myself. Even though it was a hard experience, it was definitely something that really made me think about my life and what things I definitely take for granted. It gave me a completely new outlook on my study abroad experience, and basically life. After we left Dachau and got back to Munich we got back on the bus and headed back to Florence.
It was definitely a roller coaster of a trip, but all in all, it was definitely one I will never forget and something I'm really happy I got to experience. Now, I am back in Florence and just cooking up a storm!! I am a chef, buon appetito! haha I have some good recipes for when I return back to the states so get ready for some good eatin!
Next weekend is the Amalfi Coast and it is supposed to be a gorgeous(80's and sunny) so I'm really excited!! In addition, last night me and my 3 friends Taylor, Nicole and Brett planned our fall break(end of October, 11 days long) and we are spending it all in Scotland and Ireland!! I am so excited, we are doing some awesome tours of isles and countryside as well as a tour of the places where P.S. I Love You was filmed and the Patriot! Waaaahhh so exciting!!! Well, I have my first quiz in the morning(yes, there is school involved haha)and I must get to the studying! Love and miss you all!!

Ciao miei amici!

(Picture to the left is of me and my friend Taylor)
This week has been awesome! I haven't gone many places or really done much, but the weather has been absolutely gorgeous and my classes are going great! I'm in love with my World religion class and in my art history class we went to the Santa Croce and saw all the amazing art work that line the walls painted by some of the most important artists in Italian history, Giotto and Cimabue to name a few. Also for the class, we have major research project where we have to pick a topic in art history write a 3-5 page research paper and give a presentation to the class. While I was in the Vatican I fell in love with the painting by Raphael called The School of Athens and my teacher was so excited when I asked her if I could use that as my topic so that made me even more excited! Also, in my sustainable tourism class we have to do 2 projects/presentations for the semester. My final project we have to create a 3 day sustainable tourist itinerary of Florence and the surrounding areas and I'm so excited to start working on it! Once my partner and I finish it, we are going to do it for ourselves and experience Florence in a sustainable way. Planning trips and researching things to do within Europe has been so much fun and something I really enjoy doing and I think I finally figured out what I want to do with my life!! Finally, right? So that's just a thought right now, but we will see where this semester abroad takes me!
This weekend we were supposed to go to CinqueTerre, but due to weather we cannot go anymore so instead our program is taking us to Verona(aka Romeo and Juliet) for the weekend...I can't wait to go to Juliet's house and write her a letter!! Haha (Letter to Juliet if no one caught on). Well thats all my updates as of right now!

Ciao a tutti!

This weekend was the first weekend we traveled, on Friday our program brought us up to the Medici Villa. It's where the Medici family lived in Florence(they are a big deal around here)and where the king, his wife and his affair lived when Florence was the capitol of Italy way back when(haven't gotten the history down yet). The house was amazing and the gardens surrounded the villa and looked over all of Florence, absolutely breathtaking.

Then Saturday, a group of about 10 of us went through a program called Bus2Alps to Venice for the day. The bus ride took about 3 hours but the scenery of Italy was incredible! Once we got there we got an all day waterbus pass and took the waterbus to the island of Burano. The houses were all rainbow colored and placed right on the canals, its one of my favorite places I have been so far, definitely somewhere I would love to go back to! After Burano, we took another waterbus to the main island of Venice and to be honest it wasn't what I expected it to be. Don't get me wrong, it was amazing how there is a city built on water, but it didn't give you the feeling that places like Burano and Medici Villa gave you. But, we walked around for a while, got some dinner, vino and most importantly gelato and headed back to the bus station. Venice at night was a different story, taking the waterbus through the grand canal was gorgeous! After a long day we headed back to Firenze and arrived at 1:30 in the morning only to get up 5 hours later to be back at the train station by 7:30 for our beach trip.

Sunday we went with our school(FUA/Palazzi) to Viareggio Beach which is also in Tuscany. Our school reserved a private beach for us with umbrellas, chairs and what not and the water was perfect! Once you got to the edge of the water you could see the mountain in the background..it was awesome! After getting a little sun kissed(sunscrean costs about 20 euro=$30ish) we headed back to the train station where the conductors were on strike so we sat next to the tracks for about 2 more hours waiting for a train to come through. We finally got on one and made it back safe and sound!
Classes started up again today, and unfortunately I don't have mondays off anymore. I dropped one class(supervision and leadership) because the professor had horrible english and asked us to mainly speak with our hands so he could understand...yeah, no. I dropped it and added World Religion which I absolutely love, its so interesting!
Well, thats basically it for now! Love and miss you all!

Ciao begli!!