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...
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!
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...
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...
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