Day 121!

We are in Milan! Yesterday was the first day of our Krazee Xmaz Adventure. Erin and I left Bologna around 11 in the morning and got to Milan around noon. Getting to the hotel was quite a task! Erin and I are both really good at overpacking, so dragging our suitcases from the train station to the hotel was a good workout. My arms are still sore! Erin’s friend Alex (a boy Alex, not the girl one who is joining us for Christmas in Novara) was waiting for us at the hotel. The hotel is pretty nice and the man at the front desk is super friendly and really funny. I love Italians! We got settled in then headed out to see Milan! We went to the Duomo and just walked around Milan. It was snowing the whole time! It felt like we trekked around the entire city in a blizzard! But it made for a beautiful winter wonderland, so I’m not complaining. We went back to the hotel, grabbed some food from a supermarket for a quick dinner, then got ready to go out on the town for the evening. What an evening! We wanted to go out to a club or a discoteca or something fun, but ended up getting lost in the snow and wandering around, across town from our hotel. We finally found one bar that was open, so we stopped there, but then they started closing up, so we had to leave. We needed to get back to our hotel, but the metro closes at 12:30, so we ran to the metro stop and just BARELY made the LAST train! Erin and I jumped the turnstile and Alex held the doors open for us as we ran onto the train screaming. A real adventure! But we finally made it back to the hotel. It was a really great dayJ

Today we slept in then got up and got ready for a full day of sightseeing. First, we went to the Palazzo Reale and saw an exhibit of the artwork of Edward Hopper. It was really cool because I had only ever seen one of his works before (Nighthawks) so I didn’t really know who he was, but now I know that I love his work! It’s so great to broaden my artistic as well as cultural horizons while I’m hereJ Next we headed to the Triennale to see and exhibit on the architect Frank Gehery, which was also very interesting. Our last big event of the day was walking down the famous Via Monte Napoleone, the home of high fashion! This, of course, was my favorite part…well it would have been if I could afford ANYTHING! We saw all my loves: Gucci, Armani, D&G, Versace, Prada, etc. We only went in a couple stores (Prada and Armani) because it was just too sad to see all the beautiful things that I will never be able to have! Nonetheless, it was really cool just to be there. Tired and hungry, we headed back to the hotel and had dinner at the little osteria right underneath. I had pizza with mozzarella, gorgonzola, and speck—delicious as usualJ

I like Milan a lot, especially with the Christmas decorations both manmade (beautiful lights!) and natural (soooo much snow!). On to Novara tomorrow!

xoxo

Day 119!

Ciao! I leave tomorrow for my grand Christmas adventure, and I am so excited! I've been trying to pack for most of the day today. I am famous for overpacking and this is no exception. I still need to do some narrowing down. Erin and I are leaving on the 10:40 train tomorrow, so I will have some time in the morning to finish up.
I had my first oral exam on Thursday. I was really nervous about it, even though it was with Prof. Ricci. But all went really well, and I got a 30 (A+) to my surprise! Now I just have to study for my other exam in Jan for literature and write a paper for cinema. I have a lot of time to work on all this, so I'm not too stressed out, which is nice!
There has been a lot of snow here this weekend, and everything looks so pretty and Christmasy! I was walking around today just soaking up the holiday spirit and the festive atmosphere. As much as I miss being with my friends and family this time of year, I really have enjoyed experiencing the holidays here. It really just feels like Christmas in the air, and I just LOVE it. Every city in the world should put up Christmas lights the way Bologna does. And the snow just completes the feeling! I added a few new pix of the snow (at the end of the album).
I think I will be brining my computer with me on our trip, so I will try to make time to keep you updated and post pix during the journey!
Buon natale!!
xoxo

Day 115!

Ciao tutti!
Nothing really exciting to share today, but I just want to check in because I have been so bad about blogging recently! I have been going to classes and studying this week. I had my last cinema class yesterday and our oral exam is tomorrow. I'm so nervous! I still need to study a lot, but I feel like even if I know all the material, I am still going to get stage fright and forget everything. Why do Italians think that oral exams are a good idea? Because I don't. Oh well, at least this one is with Prof. Ricci, so hopefully I won't get too intimidated talking to him haha. This is also my last week of literature class before we have a break for Christmas. I will still have a weeks worth of classes when we get back and then the exam in late January. I miss the American system where the entire semester is done and over with before Christmas break because now I am going to be spending my break worrying about school! I have the oral exam for literature and a huge paper for cinema due in January. I would rather just get everything over with, but oh well!
I can't wait for Monday when Erin and I leave for our trip! Oh, and Alex is coming now too! It's going to be so fun, I keep thinking about it and then I get so excited that I can't study haha. Speaking of which, I need to get back to, but I'll write again before the break:)
xoxo

Day 111!

I did it again, I apologize! Let me just say that I cannot believe it's already half way through December! And I have been here for over 100 days! This semester has really flown by. I am already completely done with one of my classes! I had the final for my Italian grammar class on Dec. 3, so I spent most of the first week in December studying for that. It's such a relief to only have two classes to think about now, even though grammar was my favorite class.
Saiya, one of my very best friends from IU, was here from the 5th to the 11th. She just finished studying this semester in South Africa and was making a few stops in Europe to visit people before she headed home for Christmas. I'm so glad she was here for a week, it was a really wonderful time. It was perfect timing, too, because Dec. 8 is a national holiday here (for the Immaculate Conception I think). So I didn't have any class on Monday or Tuesday last week--a FIVE DAY weekend! Saiya got in on Saturday afternoon, and we went grocery shopping and just walked around Bologna a little bit. She and I, Rodolfo, Anne, and Alex all went out for an aperitivo and gelato Saturday night. Sunday Saiya and I just caught up and chilled. She is a wonderful cook and made me African food--baked squash with spinach sauteed with garlic and onions with yogurt on top. It was delicious.
She and I and Rodolfo went to Venice on Monday for the day. It was a pretty gray day, but Venice was still such a beautiful city! We took a boat to Murano, the island famous for its glass. I could have spent the whole day just in Murano, there was so much to look at! I definitely want to go back before the end of the year.
The rest of the week I just showed Saiya around Bologna and introduced her to the wonder that is real Italian food haha. She also cooked for me a lot, which I really miss! I liked introducing her to new things here. We tried roasted chestnuts for the first time--there are people selling them on the streets this time of year. They were delicious! It was so good to have someone from home here. I liked showing her around because it made me realize just how much I have learned since getting here. It was very sad to see her go, especially since it meant that I really have to focus on my schoolwork now! I have my final for my cinema class on Thursday. It's an oral exam, so I am getting pretty nervous about it! I also have to write an 8 to 12 page paper (in Italian, of course ugh) for that class. It's not due till Jan 15, but I want to get a head start on it so I can just focus on studying for my literature class when I get back from my Christmas trip.
Speaking of which... Erin and I have planned a trip from Dec 21 to Jan 4 or 5. We are going to Milan, Novara for Christmas eve and Christmas day (Erin has family there), then Interlaken, Switzerland, Berlin for the BIGGEST New Year's Eve celebration in the world!, then Munich on the way back to Bologna. It may sound extravagant, but I know I will need something really exciting and distracting to do over the holidays so I don't have too much time to think about missing my family and everyone back home! There will be LOTS of pix, of course!
I have been a little bit homesick just because of the season, but it is also exciting to be here for the holidays. Bologna, and all of Italy I think, is really getting into the holiday spirit. There are Christmas lights strung across all of the major streets as well as many other small ones. The taller of the two famous towers of Bologna is all lit up, and I can see the top of it from my window. The whole city just has a really festive feeling, and I really love it! Little Christmas markets have sprung up across the city. It's fun just to wander through and browse all the gifts. I have never spent the holidays in a city before, and I kind of like it. There are always people bustling around Christmas shopping and carrying lots of bags and packages. Sometimes there are people on the street playing carols on a saxophone or accordion, and as I mentioned, there are chestnut vendors on the main streets. I just love the Christmas season, even though I can't believe it's here again already!
xoxo
Check out my latest album!

Day 97!

I'm still here! I apologize for not posting in over 20 days! Totally unacceptable how fast time goes by here. So much has happened since my last post. The week of the 9th was midterms for me, so I did nothing but study for those. I did pretty well on my grammar midterm and got 100% on my test for my cinema class! I was so surprised.
We went to Padova as a big group on Friday the 13th. I missed the first train with everyone because my alarm didn't go off, then missed ANOTHER one, not really sure how! But I finally made it there around 1. We wandered around the city, had a tour of the university there, and saw Giotto's frescoes. Padova is a really cute city.
Nothing too exciting the next week, just class and homework, the usual.
The weekend of the 2oth, Erin, Rodolfo, and I went to Barcelona! What a beautiful, fun city! It was a really fun weekend. We flew out on Friday afternoon, arrived in the evening. We settled into our hostel and went out for dinner, walking around the Ramblas and just experiencing Barcelona. Saturday we got up and walked to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia--SO AMAZING! We took a tour bus around the city for most of the day, stopping at places we wanted to see: Gaudi's Park Guell and Casa Batllo and the Picasso Museum. We got to see so much of the city from the bus, too. We saw the sight of the 1992 Olympics, the ports on the Mediterranean, beautiful views of Barcelona. Really a beautiful place and a wonderful day. Sunday we had to check out of the hostel and make it back to the airport, but we all agreed that we have to return sometime this year!
Once again, just class and homework this week. Our program provided a lovely Thanksgiving dinner for us on Thursday, so that was fun (and delicious!). I can't believe it's almost December! Time has really flown by!
Be sure to check out the pix of Padova and Barcelona!
xoxo

Day 76!

Ciao! I can't believe it's been almost another whole week since I last blogged! The days are just flying by. Not much really to tell about this week. I've just been going to class and do school work pretty much. I have midterms for both of my BCSP classes next week, grammar is on Tuesday and cinema is on Thursday. So I've spent most of yesterday and today studying for those. Alex and I went to the Sala Borsa, the public library, to study yesterday. It's so big and beautiful. I felt super productive and focused, so I think I will make going there to study a habit!
Wednesday night Erin, Allegra, Alex, and I went to the Irish Pub to get hamburgers since everyone was craving American food! I guess Wednesdays are big soccer nights here. The place was packed with people to watch the game. I didn't stay for the whole game, but Erin and Allegra did, and they said things got a little crazy a times!
Last night Anne, Alex, and I went to Ristoro delle Fate on Via Zamboni for drinks. It's a really cool restaurant/bar and has a great atmosphere. It was an early night though, nothing crazy!
Tomorrow I think I am going to go to mass in the morning and then go to this gym I found to join it so I can get back in shape! It's a little far away from my place, but it is a lot cheaper than the other closer gyms. I am looking forward to working out again. I have the time for it, and I will feel so much better when I have some physical activity again. It has been far to cold for me to run this week, and I feel so lazy! Other than that, I will be studying all day tomorrow. My Unibo class has been cancelled for this week, which is wonderful timing for me. Now I only have class on Tuesday and Thursday this week, so I can spend all of Monday and Wednesday studying for my exams! Not too fun, but very helpful.
I'll try to blog sometime in the middle of the week this week for once!
xoxo

Day 70!

I tried to post this last night, but my internet was down. So here it is now!

Whew, what a week! I have been so busy this week with schoolwork. A lot of reading and a paper to write, etc. I am slowly but surely regaining my once brilliant study habits haha! I really have a lot of free time here, I just need to be better about time management. But I really got a lot accomplished this week, so I feel pretty good about my studies right now!
I have been running again in the giardini Margherita. This week I befriended the adults who I always see running there together in the morning! Well to be more precise, they invited me to start running with them. They are so nice and in great shape! I am really excited that I know them now because I can exercise and practice my Italian at the same time! And now I am more motivated to actually get up at 7 and get out to the giardini to run with them.
Halloween here was fun but not nearly as exciting as it is back in the States! A bunch of us all dressed up and went to Erin's. Erin was a geisha, Alex was a fairy, Allegra was a spider, and I was Hello Kitty. I found bat and ghost shaped cookies and gummy vampire teeth, so we had some Halloween treats! No candy corn though, which I was sad about. I actually had a dream about candy corn last week! Haha sometimes I miss the strangest, most random things from home! We were all going to go out to the discoteca in the giardini Margherita after our Halloween festivites, but Allegra and I were too tired, so we just went home!
I got up this morning and went to 10:30 mass with Maria, Michael, and Maria's dad, who's in town for a few days. It was such a beautiful day today! The sky was perfectly blue, not a cloud in sight, and it really wasn't that cold. I am starting to feel much more at home in Bologna, like when I am walking around the city. I have always enjoyed it, but have had a few boughts of mild homesickness in which I haven't really appreciated what a beautiful place it is. But today walking back from mass, I was just overwhelmed with how pretty everything was. I walked under the two towers with the sun shining on them and the blue sky behind them--I am just so blessed to have the opportunity to live here for a year! Spent the rest of the day sitting in my room reading for my Italian literature class. I am still reading the first of the novels we talked about, Conversazione in Sicilia (Conversations in Sicily), and we are now talking about the fourth! But luckily I only have to read two of the four, so I am not really as far behind as it seems. And the way exams work here, I will have a lot of time between the end of the lectures and when the exams are to study, so I can always catch up on the reading. But I made a lot of progress today, so like I said, I am feeling good about my studies, and I feel like I am learning a lot!
I think I am going to hit the sack a little early tonight to rest up and get a fresh start to my week tomorrow. Ciao!
xoxo

P.S. Check out the pix from Halloween!