Firenze on fire! (at least the sky was)

Most beautiful sunset last night on my walk home after a gathering with fellow students. The pictures need no explanation:

(Well except for the first one - it's taken from the bridge that goes to my apartment)

And some pictures of the famous Duomo:

Don't have time to write much now, but will soon. Ciao!!

Roma and Firenze pictures

Bottom to top: Inside the Vatican Museum (gorgeous ceilings!), Spiral staircase at exit to Vatican Meseum, One of many political posters seen in Italy right now, The Duomo in Firenze, and the Ponte Vecchio.

As you can tell (even though a couple are blurry - good thing I have a couple weeks to get some more shots!) it is beautiful here and I can hardly believe it! Stay tuned!

Ciao!

A Couple Pictures from ROMA!

From top: St. Peter's Cathedral, Vatican City, Pantheon, Can't remember the name of the next one, and (of course) the Colloseo! More to follow!

Fun in Firenze

Well, I still haven't gotten to go see the inside of the Duomo yet - hopefully I will have time on Friday. I'll let you know how that goes.

Also wanted to make a quick note to explain all my spelling errors: I am tryping on an Italian keyboard and it's extremely hard! So, please bear with me!

School is definitely getting in the way of my time in Firenze. For some reason both of my Professors think that we should be reading 30 - 40 pages a night for class and it's way too much. I barely have time to finish it everyday. Grrrr....

Tomorrow I will take an afternoon trip to Fiesole with people from the school, which should be fun and interesting. I'm really looking forward to it. I will be going to Cinque Terre on Sunday for the day and probably to the Amalfi coast next weekend - so excited!

Going to go run and get some lunch and then most likely will post some pictures a little later on because I (incredibly) remembered to bring my thumb drive with me to school today. Yay! Cioa for now!

-Joanna

Ahhhhh, Firenze! Amore!

Oh. My. God. Florence is beautiful. The Duomo is amazing. I pass it on the way to school every day. Saw the David with my classmates yesterday, he is most certainly the most beautiful man Iàve ever seen! He looks so real - you can evenb see the viens and tendons in his hands, arms, feet, and neck. And donàt even get me started on his back and butt! And his elbows - wow! Incredible to think that someone could make that out of marble. Bravo, Michaelangelo!!!

It's bloody hot here though and I've been chugging water like crazy. I'm actually picking up a little Italian here and there too, which is fun. One of my rommates, Josie, speaks pretty good Italian so I am having her teach me and practicing whenever I can. It's a blast. I love trying to talk to people at stores and shouting back at all these silly Italian men. They're pretty funny, but harmless as long as you are assertive and don't let them get away with anything. They all have the same lines too, very funny. We make fun of them a lot. Josie and I make a lot of fun of our other rommate Laura too - she's super blonde and makes the boys crazy. It's very funny.

I'm about to go to my second class for the day - it's the first day of classes. Will try to post pictures soon, forgot to put them on my thumb drive today. Ciao for now!

ROMA!

Ok, sorry I haven't updated the blog yet, but the past few days have been crazy! So, after a flight to Philidelphia to catch a (very long) flight to Rome, I finally arrived in Rome at 9:00am local time on May 21st. As I write, it is approximately 6 o'clock local time on Friday May 22nd. It's 9 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time. Even though I haven't been here that long, it feels like I've lived a whole additional lifetime in under 48 hours!

May 21st day breakdown:
- 9am arrive in Rome
- a little after 9am - very surprised that the Italian Customs dudes didn't really even look at my passport.
- 10am catch train to the city from the airport.
- 10:30am - hoof it to my Hostel, the Mona Lisa Hostel, in Rome while carrying both my big backpack and my carry on backpack.
- check in to hostel around 11:30am (I took pictures on the way)
- from 12noon-ish until 10:20pm: the Colloseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, The Spanish Steps and countless other beautiful monuments and ruins, late lunch of Bruschetta, vino and Pelligrino (I need to buy a box of it from Costco when I get back, I can't live without it now) and a complimentary limoncello and biscotti after my meal from the waiter somewhere in between and then met up with my aunt and grandma (who happened to be here too) for dinner. Then, on my walk home - which I was happy about so I could take some nighttime photos of the Trevi Fountain on the way - I was followed by a crazy young woman that wanted me to take her home and stay with me. I had to turn around and yell at her a few times before she got the picture, it was a little weird. Anyway, she went away and I got home safely and then tried to go to bed after taking a shower, which was difficult becase it was only 2:20pm in my body clock but 11:20pm here. Couldn't sleep for the life of me so I got up around 2:30 and sat in the bean bag chair and cat napped on and off until I gave up around 5:30am local time.

May 22nd (today) breakdown:
Obviously I was up early, so I began my walk to my planned visit to Vatican City today at around 7am. I stopped on the way for a pastry and a cappuccino in an outdoor bistro - the weather has been so hot here that the morning was actually pleasant. My visit to Vatican City was amazing. I absolutely loved St. Peter's Cathedral and I cannot say enough about the Sistine Chapel - it was breathtaking. The only thing that made it not as cool as it would be was the complete lack of respect by many people there - they were taking video and pictures and tlaking very loudly when they weren't supposed to and the guards kept shushing them. It would have been nice to be completely submerged in the beauty of that place in complete silence, but life isn't perfect, though the paintings most certainly were. It was amazing. I actually followed the rules and didn't take pictures though, so don't be asking for 'em!

Tomorrow morning I will leave for Florence - my train leaves at 9am and I should be in Firenze by 10:19am (hopefully). I won't be too sad to leave Rome, I saw all the big stuff and it can be a little crazy here - lots of vespas whizzing everywhere, noisy, a little smelly and slightly dirty - though it is a lovely city. I'm just looking forward to a little more low key place, like Florence, as I'm still a bit burnt out from school and going to start classes on Monday (yikes! I need to read!) - maybe part of my problem was the fact that I squeezed too much into 2 days :) It was well worth it though. Tonight, I'm relaxing. I'll have to go find some dinner here in a few minutes...

Wow, that was a lot of run-on sentences and information. I'm not changing it. Ciao for now!

P.S. I'm understanding a lot more Italian than I thought I would, speaking the very basic pleasantries better than I expected and finding it slightly funny that people keep mistaking me for a local. Ha!

P.P.S. My internet is being funky so I can't post pictures right now.... stay tuned.....

Leaving on a Jet Plane....

Ok, so there's approximately 24 hours until I leave - my bag is packed and I'm ready to go! Actually, I'm seriously impressed in my packing abilities. I managed to fit everything I need for 7 weeks in Italy, Poland and Germany in my backpack and it only weighs about 30.5 pounds! I'm so proud of my self control.

Though I am extremely excited, I am also a little bit nervous. The idea of going to Europe by yourself is a tiny bit scary- even though I'll be with 2 other girls in Florence and visiting friends in Warsaw and Luneburg (near Hamburg, Germany), I'll still be on my own for my planned trips to Krakow before going to Warsaw and Berlin before going to Luneburg. It's going to be quite the adventure!

I'm really hoping that I'll be able to keep the posting on this blog up while I'm running around Europe and that I won't be too distracted to remember to write. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess! I suppose I should probably figure out how to put pictures on here today, before I leave.....

Ciao for now!

Joanna

Ok, so..... in an attempt to try and get traveling off my head so I can study for my last two finals as a first year law student (Contracts and Criminal Law), I thought I'd try to post something. I know it'll probably be futile, but whatever.

I have two finals left, as I said before, one tomorrow and one on Friday. It has been increasingly hard to study the closer the departure date gets. Which is really not good at all since these two finals are probably the hardest of all of them. I'm just desperately trying to hold on until 12noon on Friday..... man, my grades are probably going to suffer.

The countdown continues! Exactly one week and about 8 hours from now I will be on a plane to Rome! Keep your fingers crossed for me being able to keep it together for the last couple days....

~Joanna