new blog

Okay, so I have a new blog address. Same ol' me, just new and improved (well, maybe not improved), blog address.

it is www.explauren-life.blogspot.com orrrr you can CLICK HERE TO REACH IT.

Have fun. Get excited. It's time to blog.

I'm baaack.

Due to popular demand, the blog will be back up in action. However, I have to warn you, it won't be nearly as exciting as it was when I was in Europe, because well, let's face it, Washington State doesn't really come close on the 'cool scale' compared to Europe... and I don't know if I'll be able to put a picture with every post, but we'll see...I'll do what I can.

Anyway, so I'm back in washington. And back in the swing of things, so it's all been pretty good so far. And to add the cherry on top, it's SUNNY! Yeah, that's right. SUNSHINE. That yellow blob in the sky? yep, that's the sun and yep, it's shining on bellingham, washington. Now, not sure if you are aware of this fact or not, but here in bellingham, sunshine does not equal warmth. It just equals pretty scenery, which of course, is nothin' to complain about, but y'know a little warmer weather wouldn't hurt. But hey, at least I'm getting my Vitamin D... which means, I don't have to go to the Health center and use their happy lamp. Yeah, that's right, the health center has a happy lamp. I once tried to use the happy lamp while waiting for a doctor, and I don't know how happy it made me. I mean, I wasn't expecting to step away from the light being extraordinarily giddy, but I honestly felt the same as I did when I first sat down. Oh well.

Now I'm just rambling, FANTASTIC.

Okay, so you caught me, I really am updating this blog because I am procrastinating on doing my homework. Why do I actually have to do work and put forth effort in order to succeed? Can't I just snap my fingers and voila? Instant Fame. Yeah, wish that was possible.

On a different note, last night at Shabbat (I go to chabad every week for shabbat dinner), some friends told me about this website. It's called People of Walmart, and it's all about people who shop at walmart. You HAVE to check it out. You'll laugh. At least I hope you'll laugh instead of thinking that I gave you some dumb website. But anyway, here it is. Click here to reach the website.

Uhmmm what else? Well here's the breakdown on my classes, because I'm sure I'll talk about them at some point...

• Communication Sciences and Disorders: It counts as a GUR (general university requirement) and it counts for my science credits. It's a 50 min. class, and let me tell you that those 50 minutes on monday, wednesday and friday go by SO SLOWLY. The teacher is boring.
• Communication- Diversity and Controversy: I'm a comm minor, so that class goes to that... Basically, I think there is a lot of busy work. Lots of writing. The Professor has a killer beard though...
• Graphic Design II: This class is taught by my favorite prof at western. He challenges me with my design work and makes the 3 hr class fun by telling jokes and just being funny. He knows what he's talking about as far as design goes and I really respect his opinion. Basically this is both my favorite class and most challenging class this quarter.
• Environmental Studies: blahhhhhhh. In short, I'm not a fan of this class. It's another GUR for my science requirements (I have to take 3 science classes)... and sure, this is better than chemistry or biology, because let's face it, I'm terrible with science and math and numbers and all that yucky stuff. I'm an art major. I use the right side of my brain. Anyway, this class has a few hundred people in it (I wish I was exaggerating that number) and the teacher is not my favorite.

So that's my life for now. I'll try to keep up with this blog.

Oh, just thought of something else. A lesson: While wearing 5.5 inch heels and being drunk, it is a BAD idea to hug a friend and fall over. End of story? I now have a brace on my left ankle and I have a 3rd degree sprain and a hairline fracture. Am I in pain? You betcha.

Okay, now I'm really done with this entry. Hope everyone is doing well!

ciao for now.

I'm not packing.

I've been trying to tell myself things that I'm looking forward to when I go back to the US...

here are some of them...

• for at least a couple days, I can eat anything in the kitchen
• ziplock bags. enough said
• peanut butter galore
• can go out and not be surrounded by creepers
• can actually cross the street and feel somewhat safe

uhh... still trying to think of more reasons....

• I'll be back at a school where i'll really feel challenged...
• restaurants have 'to-go' boxes so you don't feel like you have to eat everything
• the euro is stronger than the dollar, so everything will seem so cheap
• restaurants will serve unlimited water... for free
• I will get to decide the amount I want to give waiters and waitresses instead of having a set cover charge
• I will be on the same currency that is in my bank account which means no more atm fees...
• I won't have to weigh my own fruit and veggies at the grocery store
• I will get my groceries bagged.... and FOR FREE

There have to be more reasons... just can't think of more right now...

It's going to be so weird to go back to the states...

Anyway for my last night here, firenze decided to make it snow for me....

Soooo gorgeous. I am in love with you, Firenze. I will come back soon. Firenze can't keep me away...

Finals...

I hate finals.

I hate that I have to return to the US.

I hate that I have finals during. my last week in Italy.

Friday night I had a Hannukah Party to celebrate the first night. It was really fun, I had a lot of friends show up, which was cool. I also made a TON of latkes as well, but the majority of them turned out tasting more like hash browns... It was pretty cool though that so many people came who had never been to a hannukah party before.

Here are a couple pics...

My latkes!

Some of the people who came...

Today I had my digital photography final. In addition to the written test, we had to do a few photoshop exercises... one of them was to take a photo that the prof. gave us, and make it look antique. Another exercise was to take the scratches out of another picture that was given by the prof. There were a couple other exercises, but they really weren't that exciting...

Anyway here are how those two exercises turned out...

Here is the photo I started with that I had to turn into an antique photo.

And here is the antique version...

Here is the photo I started with that I had to take the scratches out of...

And here is the wrinkle free version....

Okay now I have to stop procrastinating and study for my other exams... blah.

ciao for now.

Coming down to the last days...

I really don't want to go back to the states on the 19th, but thinking back to everything i did during this semester makes me happy...

Some of the things I have done this semester are...

• Climbed the leaning tower of Bologna
• Taken a typical tourist picture in Pisa
• Crossed the Ponte Vecchio more times than I can count
• Seen Juliet Capulet's "balcony"
• Had more chocolate that I should've at Eurochocolate in Perugia
• Climbed the hills of Fiesole
• Walked through the cities of cinque terre in the rain
• Taken a gondola ride in Venice
• Taken a choo choo train tour in Bari
• Seen the hills of San Gimignano
• Rented a car in Corfu
• Visited the famous white houses in Santorini
• Had an authentic Greek meal in Mykonos
• Rented a motorcycle in Katakolon
• Walked the fortress walls of Dubrovnik
• Went on a tour and pub crawl around Prague
• Climbed the Eiffel Tower
• Thrown a coin into the Trevi fountain
• Seen the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam
• Had lunch in Munich
• Gone skydiving in Switzerland

I'd say that that's a pretty accomplished list... I'm happy with it and I have loved EVERY second of my study abroad experience.

Tomorrow starts the first night of Hannukah and all nights of Hannukah will be spent in Italy. Tomorrow night I am throwing a Hannukah party at my apartment, and so far, it seems like a lot of people are planning on showing up. It should be fun. Here is my makeshift menorah...

Hannukah is seriously my favorite Jewish Holiday. I love the latkes. I love the lights. I love the company. I love the songs. I love the spirit.

Despite finals, I'm living my final days here to the fullest!

rome, amsterdam, and switzerland, OH MY!

I have been a very, very busy girl lately... Aside from traveling in the past couple weeks I have...

• Submitted my Citta del Vino posters for the contest
• Applied for 5 art scholarships
• finished my portfolio for graphic design here in italy
• Wrote a 10 page paper on art history
• Created 5 headers for web design

Sooooo that is why I haven't had too much time to post about my fantastic adventures... but, I'm here now, posting about them.... deep breath. here we go.

aROMA!

So I went to Rome 3 weeks ago... wow was it really that long ago? Anyway I went with my study abroad group. I had been to Rome when I was 15, so it kinda took the 'magic' out of everything since I've seen it all before... but it was still fun to go. I hung out with a few people who I don't normally hang out with too much which was really cool. One of the people I met on the train with mom and nana when we were coming back to florence after the cruise. He lives in Rome so he showed my friends and I around which was cool. Although I had been to Rome before, it was really fun to experience it with friends. For one of the dinners, we went to this little place where the locals go to hang out. You don't order anything, they just bring out the food and you pay by the course... so if you are hungry than they'll keep bringing out food until you get full. I had to tell them I was a vegetarian though, but it was still all super tasty. They gave me cooked artichoke hearts with cheese on them... I've never thought about putting cheese on it... like melted cheese, but it was DELICIOUS! and then everything else was also really good... to give you an idea, I definitely walked out of that restaurant 15 lbs heavier...

here are some photos from Rome...

For more photos click here -- PART 1

OR click here for Part 2

AmsterDAMN!

Last weekend I went to Amsterdam... it rained the entire weekend, but it was still really gorgeous and really fun. I took a tour there that I have taken in other cities as well. The company is called 'new europe' and they have tours in a lot of the major cities throughout europe. I've taken their tour in Prague, Paris, and now Amsterdam. It's a free walking tour that lasts about 3.5 hrs. The tour guides work on a tips only basis, so they make the tour as interesting as possible, so they can get tips at the end. These are basically the only tours that I have paid attention on. They tell the history in really enthusiastic and interesting ways. I also went to the Anne Frank house, or rather Otto Frank's factory. It was so interesting to be there. I had seen pictures of the place in documentaries about Anne Frank, but it was so much more intriguing to see it in person. For some reason, I had in my head that it was a lot smaller than it actually was. I mean, I guess it's small considering they had to stay in there day in and day out, but I pictured it to be a lot smaller. On Saturday night I went on a pub crawl. For those of you who don't know what a pub crawl is, it's when you pay a flat fee, and you travel to 4-6 bars/clubs throughout the night getting free alcohol in each place. I did a pub crawl in Prague, and it was really fun because I got to meet people from all over the world. For the first hour of most pub crawls, they have a power hour where it is unlimited drinks at the first bar. And at most pub crawls, the unlimited drinks are in shot glasses, but in Amsterdam? ohhh no. They poured that liquid directly into your mouth... so I really had no idea how much I was drinking until I felt the after effects from it... bad idea to drink that much. too much sugary stuff = bad hangover the next day. Anyway, the crawl was really fun overall. I met a lot of people from different places like Holland, Australia, England, Budapest, Germany, etc. We also went to a lot of cool clubs with a lot of dancing that was cool. There was also the Red light district in Amsterdam. I had only heard a few things about it before going, but oh man it blew me away. Girls rent out windows (more like rooms with glass doors that face towards the street) and they just pose there have naked advertising themselves. You just walk up to the window and start negotiating with them a price. The tour guide said that some of them are single mothers, some of them are college students, and some of them just do it for the fun of it. The windows are usually 150 euro per hour for them to rent out but when they work, they usually get paid 50 euro for 15 min. and up depending on time and what they do for you... You can't take pictures in the Red light district because the girls wish to remain anonymous and if you try to take pictures of them, they'll open their window and throw urine at you.

Anyyyyway here are some pictures of Amsterdam...

Here are a couple pictures I found online of the Red Light district....

And here are some pictures I took of Amsterdam...

This is where Otto Frank's factory was... on that corner...

The narrowest house... I changed the colors except for the house so you can see it...

The widest bridge...

Amsterdam was so gorgeous!

For more photos of Amsterdam CLICK HERE

Switzerl-AND fun

I went to Interlaken, Switzerland last weekend. Interlaken is this cute little town located between Brienzer Lake and Thuner Lake... hence the name INTERLAKEN. It had snowed last week, so there was snow EVERYWHERE. It was so gorgeous. The weekend overall was super relaxing because the town was small and there wasn't a WHOLE lot to do, so it was nice to just hang out and not be rushed to go anywhere. On Saturday, I went skydiving. Yes, SKYDIVING. Y'know when you jump out of a perfectly working plane... Anyway, it was AMAZING. I jumped out of the plane at 14,000 feet off the ground and fell/dove at a speed of 120 mph. Seriously, incredible. I wasn't scared at all, but I think a lot of that was because I had been wanting to do it since I got here, and I was just so excited. I was expecting my stomach to drop, but it didn't at all... I'm glad I paid the extra money though to get a dvd of the jump as well as pictures because honestly the main things I remember are putting my head back before jumping, flying in white space (aka clouds), having the parachute go up, and land... it happened so quickly! I jumped with a professional tandem master who controlled everything...

Anyway here are some pictures of skydiving and Interlaken...

The view outside my hostel window...

Such a cute little town... with such cute little people...

The water was SO fresh, SO clean, and SO blue... it was so gorgeous...

Annnnnd now for the skydiving pictures...

The airplane I took to go 14,000 feet up in the air... and then jump out of...

Strapping in... and making sure everything was secure...

The view from the airplane... so pretty!

Right after I jumped...

Flying high above the clouds!

Screaming "WOO HOO OHHH YEAHH!!!"

loving every second of it...

Annnnd coming in for the landing...

For more pictures of Switzerland CLICK HERE

Okay, I'll seriously seriously SERIOUSLY try to post something before another 3 weeks pass by... especially because I won't be here in 3 weeks :(

This silly little thing I have that some people call 'a plane ticket' says I return to Los Angeles on the 19th of December.... do I really have to use that ticket? do I really have to come home...? Florence is my home now, and I'd like it to stay that way...

oh goodness

So I have to admit... I'm a tad embarrassed by some of my past posts. Some blogs appear as though I hired a first grader to write the blogs for me. And the sad part of all of that is, if I picked Jeremy to write my blog for me when he was in first grade, it probably would've turned out a lot better than what I had wrote... Ladies and gentlemen, words of a college student. Thanks for giving me your tax dollars to improve my education and make me sound like an idiot all in one. Seriously though, as my Italian gets better, my English gets significantly worse. The other day I was talking to my roommates and in a sentence I said, "But there wasn't anybodies there." Really now? Really? Did I really say that? And did I really have the courage to type that here and admit that I sounded like a complete moron? Yep. I really just did that. AWESOME.

On a lighter note... today I had my first thoughts in Italian. I was thinking about something and it was all in italian. At the grocery stores here, you have to bag your own groceries. So, tonight I was standing there bagging my own groceries and in my head I thought "Devo mettere il mio pane nella borsa e dovrei metterlo sulla cima." Which translates to "I should put my bread in my bag and I should probably put it on the top." It took me a good 5 minutes after I thought that statement to realize that I said the statement in my head in Italian. CRAZY.

Oh goodness, so many people are counting down to the day they get to go home... but I don't wannnnnaaaa go home. I want to stay in Italy, find a nice Jewish Italian man and live la vita bella, the beautiful life. I guess I should probably get my first degree in the states before I do that though...

Enough shmoozing... down to the nitty gritty... well... kinda. Last weekend I went to Rome. It was fun blablabla I'll write more about it later, when I have more time... However, I have a funny story to tell... It's actually my favorite from the weekend...

SO there are guys who walk around the Trevi fountain with large Polaroid cameras who try to get people to pay them for a picture. So, I'm sitting there with my digital SLR camera, aka my baby, and this guy actually comes up to me asking me if I want him to take my picture. I was in a goofy mood so I looked at him, put my camera in his direction, and snapped a shot of him. Immediately afterwards, I looked at him, put my hand out and said "One euro please." He looked at my camera, told me that it wasn't a good picture and he didn't like it. So I retook the picture and once again I told him "One euro please." I think he was in such shock with the whole thing, that he was caught off guard and he had no idea what to do because he ended up pulling out his wallet and paying me. That's right ladies and gents, I got the camera guy to pay ME! I made a profit in Rome! After telling one of my roommates about it the next day, and after a few laughs, she said "Can you imagine if I went back to florence and when the roommates asked where you were, I told them that you decided to stay in Rome because you found your calling as a trevi fountain photographer?" haha I was thinking about it later, and I realized that I probably could've made a lot of money going up and down the pathways by the trevi fountain and asking people to take their picture for a euro and then I would e-mail it to them. And in reality, I would end up e-mailing it to them, because that's the type of person I am, but I feel like the majority of people would think "well, why not? If she ends up sending the picture than great, but if not, what's a single euro?"

yep, that was my favorite story from the weekend... Because I will post another blog soon that will include more pictures and more info about Roma, I'll only give a sneak peak with one picture....

Not the "typical" picture from Roma, huh? And all along you thought I was going to post something like the Colosseum or the Trevi Fountain. hah! surprise! I didn't do that!

And there is my cue to wish you all a good night! :)