woooh i guess i havent been keep up with this too well. it just gets so hard to manage your time here- when i'm not at school i'm always walking around to hanging with the girls, doing something...but i want to try to remember everything, so here goes. basically during the last 4 weeks I've gotten to see some amazing places, spend a perfect weekend with some family, get severely sick for 5 days, and then go to prague.
i think i last updated this before dublin, but that was the next place we went after fall break. Tiff, Elissa and I left for Ireland the friday before Halloween. we stayed in an actual HOTEL, which was suchh a nice break from these crappy hostels. real towels, shower caps, shampoo, a real lobby..things you forget to appreciate until you dont have them. we arrived friday evening and immediately walked into the town of dublin, ready for our "bar tour" that began at 7:30. after a quick dinner (don't yell at me- we got fast food burgers. we didnt have time!) we began our bar tour at this typical Irish bar- called Gogartys. it was funny cuz in my head i was thinking, "oh this looks just like an Irish pub in the states.." but...it was just a pub in ireland. so legit! we walked in and there was live music, tons of young kids drinking beer and singing, and lots of decorations. the bar tour ended up being not what we expected- we saw two bars. but it was really fun nonetheless- our guides were two irish musicians, a fiddler and a guitar player, and they talked about the history and importance of music in Ireland. one was really cute, which didn't hurt. it was during the second bar that we discovered Irish "cider"- my perfect alternative to beer. it tastes like apple cider but it gets you drunk. soo we spend the night sipping on cider and listening to authentic irish music! then in the second bar the guys asked if there was any singers in the crowd, and of course my friends pulled my hands up to volunteer me. i wasnt that nervous (a first) so i just got up and sang some verses of "Suddenly I See," since I'd sang it in NOTA. it was a "soak-it-in" moment personally...who can say they sang in an Irish pub in Dublin? then later the cute fiddler said I "had a lovely voice." i melted.
ahh i'm already spending too much time on details..i have 4 weeks to get through! so this weekend in dublin was basically amazing (Typical..i think amazing is my favorite adjective). we took a free 4-hour walking tour, then hung out with the (kinda weird) tour guide later, then we walked around Grafton street and did some light shopping. oh we also had great breakfastes both days- EGGS SAUSAGE toast bacon the whole thing. stuff u just dont get in italy unless you hit up an american restaurant.
Saturday night was Halloween, and since it orginated in Ireland, EVERYONE was very festive and into celebrating. even older folks were completely dressed up! so i bought a bumblee costume from Claires and the three of us had dinner in a church/bar, then we hit the Temple Bar area. this street is just loaded with irish bars and pubs...it was a night full of cider, bar hopping, meeting irish guys (who LOVE America) and dancing. one of the best Halloweens I think i'll ever experience. pictures on facebook.
sunday we had a lot of time before our flight, so we visited the Guiness factory..which would have been interesting had we not all been extremely hungover. lets just say i didnt take the complimentary pint of Guiness...i opted for the diet coke.
wooh okay so that was dublin. the week after consisted of more loving Florence, going out for dinner and some clubs, and getting ready for the next weekend. even though i never talk about the weeks in this blog, i dont want it to come across as if they're uneventful. the weeks are usually the most fun because all of us roomates are together, in florence, enjoying everything. we go to class (which are fun) then walk around (market-shop, get gelato, just enjoy the sites) and always have a great time. there's always some school-associated excursion or some special night at a club that we go to. its just that the weekends are so jam-packed i feel like i have more to write about them...but i still absolutely love florence to death.
with that said, 3 mere days after returning from dublin I headed back to Pisa airport and flew to Girona, Spain, where I was greeted by Aunt Pauline and Uncle Steve! it was one of the nicest, most relaxing weekends i've had. they live in Soreze, France, a tiny town in southern france near the border of Spain. the entire weekend consisted of small excursions to quaint French towns (on the way home from Girona we had a delicious lunch in some coastal French town yum) such as Castres, Carcassone, Girona itself, a French Gorge, and more places. some highlights of the weekend: the BEST MEAL I'VE EVER HAD in castres- a 4 course, "top-chef" style meal that made me feel like I was a millionaire. pics on facebook are worth checking out...wasabi infused caviar, pear souffle, and more crazy combinations, but everything was amazing. another food highlight (all the highlights are around food, actually) was the dinners..indian munchies the first night, a french cheese smorgasbord on Friday, roasted duck with aligot on saturday, and leftover cheese on sunday night in the Girona hotel. i also fell asleep about 3 times on their living room couch watching ENGLISH tv and just totally relaxing. also i love their dog, Bella. she is the nicest and funniest dog in the world. and we went mushroom-crazy as we searched for truffles in their backyard and ending up just finding shit. (literally, pauline thought a piece of bella's poop was a tuffle hahaha)
it was just so nice to see the family for a while. i want to visit again next year hopefully...sunday we drove back through spain and we had a great afternoon watching Catalan dancers and drinking wine. then monday morning they dropped me off at the airport and back to florence i went, excited for a relaxing week and an adventurous weekend spent in Florence...except that never happened.
well, okay, the week was great- same as always, but as soon as all my roomates left for Barcelona and I got excited to venture around by myself all weekend, i came down with a 102 fever. literally from friday morning until next Wednesday, I did not leave the couch in our apartment. i sat in darkness, watching movie and movie, getting a cold sweat every hour like clockwork, eating whatever food i had left like English biscuits and bread, and just crying and whining. eventually i got better (i think i had strep throat or laryngitis or a throat infection/fever) and thank god, since i was leaving for Prague thursday night. this was the first time i was truly homesick for my house and my parents. my parents were in new orleans for vacation, so when i talked to my mom for the first time in 5 days i burst out crying! i was such a crybaby. i'm just sayin that it's the worst thing in the world to be that sick while abroad, because its torture not being able to walk outside!
and that leads us to prague, where i spent last weekend. i'll be brief, but highlights include: seeing the amazing, Disney-esque architecture...including the Prague castle, the astronomical clock, the lennon wall, the old town square, and charles bridge. cracking up with tiff and cara the whole weekend about our situation. having free breakfast (granola, eggs, everything.) visiting the famous 5-story nightclub and almost witnessing a threesome including 3 drugged up czech people. eating sausage with saurkraut and mustard. eating goulash for dinner. spending $100 bucks in the H and M we found. eating amazing food twice at Bohemian Bagel, this American (but really popular with locals) low-key restaurant. and lastly, visiting the Prague zoo on saturday morning! i was at first against this but then I loved it once i saw the snakes and the polar bears. i felt like i was 7 years old again...or maybe 3, since I couldnt read any of the signs.
and there was, unfortunetaly, some low points in Prague: getting RIPPED OFF by the damn sausage lady the first day we were there. in prague they dont use Euroes, they use Crowns, and 1 Euro is like 26 crowns. So we had 2,000 crowns, but really only like 80 Euro. which i guess allows Czech sausage ladies to rip us off when we're first using their money..i ended up inadvertently spending 15 euro on a damn sausage. another low point- getting CAUGHT by the metro police for using an "invalid ticket" and paying the 700 CROWN fine, about 30 euro, to a big scary Czech man. we laughed later, but at the time lets just say we kind of regretted using the metro. i was out of money the rest of the weekend. but besides these two money-issues, which i didnt let get me down, we had an AMAZING weekend in prague. it was truly beautiful there, so clean and like a fairy-tale land. i recommend it to everyone!
and that leads us to this week, another jam-packed time. i have my 5th cooking class tonight, then we're seeing the singer Ryan Cabrera tonight, and we leave for Amsterdam at 3:30 am on Friday morning. yes, that's right. our flight is at 6 30 and the only bus to pisa airport is at 3:30. so that should be fun. ciao for now!
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