When it rains...

LAUGH!

So honestly.. one of the best nights I've had in Florence was tonight. To some it may appear a disaster, to me it was stomach pains because I laughed so hard. I had the brilliant idea of going out at 1am after we returned from Bologna. We all agreed.. well me Katie and Aloo. It wasn't wet, and Italians go out late so it seemed like a good idea. We all headed out to the shot cafe. Then we went to red Garter... which was no fun without any GU people there. I didn't realize how essential and crucial the people I see every day are to my happiness. But it was weird! The large group makes things less awkward, people respect you more even when we are loud, and just leave you alone.

Anyways after that we headed to Twenty one which is a club here. It's the spot where all of the local-more sketch people know to go. Normally we are with a larger group of Americans so its more fun and we just dance stupidly and have a good time... but it was just us. I found some kids from the university of Florence in a corner who were diggin life and just enjoying everything so we danced in a circle with them for a bit. They were a lot of fun, and our dance moves were actually accepted by them! WHO KNEW?

After, we left and found a random group of kids from minesota studying in London. They were visiting Italy... we talked to them for a while and then our group decided to lead them to the club. By this point it was pouring rain and we began to get soaked. After we got halfway there they gave up on us and we were drenched, in the middle of florence without anything but ourselves and our clothes which were soaked with all the rain water. SO I laughed.

There will never be a night again where it downpours so hard you can't see in fornt of you and nothing matters but dancing and laughing. We began to walk home and met a random homeless man on a bicycle who said "IT'S A RAINY DAY!" and he was wearing a trash bag. We laughed and began to dance in the street. Who cares if you're soaked? Who cares if you don't look good? Open up your eyes, see you are in ITaly, it's downpouring and you are laughing! So that's what I did. We were unrecognizable when a group of kids from London/New Zealand began to talk to us they are working at a winery here or so they claimed and have a "castle." Of course, they invited us and we had to decline because that's weird, and also we were too wet to do anything but to walk home and laugh the whole way over nothing but our situation and our lives.

When I got back to the pensione.. i talked to the student who works here during the nights about how we got wet and he laughed. It's just a night to laugh, and I love it. GOODNIGHT GUYS :]

PS. We went to Bologna and Siena this weekend... I will post an entry about the two cities soon with pictures!

You can look all over...

'But you'll never find hot shit like mine, oh it blows your mind.'

Kid Cudi's song while sounding mildly vulgar kind of embodies how I feel about Italy right now. It's maybe a more modern approach but I do agree. This city is blowing my mind every direction I turn, every word I speak, every new person I encounter. I'm trying to open my mind to new ways of thinking and new life. It's hard to sometimes want to go out into the city and explore, especially when we are tired on weekends but we do it anyways. We push ourselves into territories which are new, unfamiliar and sometimes a little scary. But the benefits are beyond reason, we grow as people and we see new cultures that change our perspectives.

SO all this leads me to quickly summarizing my weekend. We went to the museum yesterday called the Uffici. The Uffici includes the painting entitled "The birth of Venus" by Botacelli. This painting is just sitting in one of the galleries, I turned around.. and opened my eyes. It was insane, to see one of the most famous works in person and be abel to appreciate it. We bought a pass that allows us to go into most of the museums in Florence for free now, we can go whenever we want, whenever our heart desires and stare at beautiful paintings and skills.

The galleries did take a while to go through but they were worth it. Luckily my friend knows a ton about art and is taking art classes so she could educate us on a lot of the details of the paintings that was nice so that we got to understand deeper what we were looking at. Sometimes I get tired of staring at religious images, painted in gold that to me have no significance. I know they are pretty and outstanding, but why is Jesus imaged as an older man in a baby's body? I know now, it's because he was wise and they did not have perspective of how to make a man into a young image! I learned so much already.

Well, today we are doing homework and going to the Boboli gardens. It's a pretty calm day in Florence, we are all pretty tired for the first five day week last week. As much of a joke as that sounds it's not, we travel a lot, do a lot and try to enjoy our time here. We all get super exhausted because we are going all the time, it's nice to take a step back and be able to see everything from a calm perspective.

I think I'm growing up in this country.

Ciao :]

Little bit delayed...! The voyage down South!

Hellllllllooo!

SO this entry I guess will be about Sorrento, Capri, and Positano! We went there last weekend (now four days ago) through Euro Adventures! This is on the South West Coast of Italy... one of the most beautiful places I have been honestly.

This was the port of Sorrento, where we took the ferry to the island of Capri. So I'm getting ahead of myself. We left from Florence at around 7pm at night, drove all night in a bus with great movies (including couples retreat, a real treat) and finally arrived at about 1:30am in the morning. The bus ride, while a little long was faster than i thought due to being extremely tired and sleeping.

So we got there early in the morning and headed to our bungalow. Italy has VERY VERY strange names for 'Cabins.' This place was honestly, just a glorified cabin. The location was pretty nice very close to downtown Sorrento we had to head down to the downtown which was a little bit of a hike down a hill but gave us a better feeling of the town. Our bungalow literally looked like it was in the middle of the jungle, it came complete with vines and grapes growing from the 'ceiling' or canopy. It was awesome! I was in a cabin with 5 girls, one being my roomie normally Sarah. It was nice, but we were all kinda sniffly so at night we sounded pretty great.

The next morning we woke up, and got on a ferry at around 8:30. We went to the island of Capri, the ferry ride was about a half an hour. But it was worth it for the view! The pictures above are pictures from the ferry ride over there.

When we got to Capri, our guide suggested we get Caprese sandwhiches before doing the death hike. So of course, we can't say no to food so we got them. It was one of the best decisions of the weekend. They were phenominal. They were made with bread, mozarella, tomatoes and some sauce that I'm not sure what kind it was.

This is a picture of us reveling in the glory of our sandwhiches. We were all very happy, ate them all, and then decided to scale a mountain. In that order.

So we hiked up to the main part of the island of Capri. It was beautiful a nice panoramic view of the city. We then continued up from that point and started on our mountaining climbing experience. They warned us that the hike might be a little difficult, but I don't think they ever stressed the point that it was UP A MOUNTAIN. Most of it involved climibing rocks at weird angles, and hiking up dirt clumps that didn't look climbable. 

This was about the difficulty of the hike, in so many words. 

Although when we got to the top it was all worth it. The view was one of the most amazing sights I've seen, an hour hike for an entire view of the island as well as the main land of Italy. I was definitely digging it. PLUS! They gave us champange at the end to celebrate, and I think to calm our nerves. 

This picture is taken at the top of the mountain. Not too shabby of a view huh?

So after the hike, we ventured back down. The walk was very easy on the way back, we took a completely different road. We then walked around for a bit and had some food and tried to recover! We then went on a boat cruise. The boat cruise with our guide "Fabio." Not really sure what his real name was, but man was he a baller. He drank from the bottle, smoked his cigarettes and drove our boat while blaring music at the top of the speakers ability.

Let's say... the boat cruise was very needed and amazing after our hike! 

This is a picture of some of us on the boat, while we were enjoying the sites of the Medeterranian and the sunshine. The weather that weekend was beyond perfect. We crusised around, went and swam through a few of the caves, got to see the blue grotto. The blue grotto now was ridiculous, we had to go in this small little boat pay 10euros, and lie down on our way into the cave. Although it was completely worth it. The colors inside were indescribale, and our guide sang so it was pretty worth it.

 

This was our little private boat into the grotto BEFORE we had to lie down. Our guide had to lie on top of us to get in because the roof of the cave was so low and the tide so high.

After we finished the boat cruise we chilled, had dinner and headed back to the main island. We spent a quiet night at our bungalow, cooked some pasta from the market, and relaxed.

The next day we went to Positano! This is SUCH a beautiful city. It's right on the cliff, and the busride to it was all on the cliff. A slightly freaky ride, but totally worth it to get to the city. We spent the entire day on the beach going into the water, enjoying the sunshine and soaking up some South Italy vibes. There were definitely a fair share of those people wearing speedos, but it's Europe, right?

This is Positano.

We also went on another boat ride which was great. We went swimming, cliff jumping, and again just enjoyed the fact that we were in the South of Italy.

That night we headed back to Sorrento and had some dinner downtown. The view leaving Positano was incredible, and completed a wonderful day.

We went to a little lemon jello shop where they sell all things lemoney, which Sorrento is famous for. We got to meet the guy who made our products and even take a picture with him. I felt so honored, except when they said he was single. I'm not too tempted to have a life making lemon jello.. as great as that would be.

Although i mean, c'mon, it is piteresque right? NOPE!

Okay, so the next day we headed to Pompeii. This is the ancient city that was covered in ash and was found more recently. The remains of the city are still pretty intact and you can see the buildings, frescos, and get a general jist of life there. We took the train, spent the morning exploring the city after paying 11 euros and got to see a city we've all heard so much about and now finally got to see.

The city was amazing to see. You can Mt. Vesuvius in the background, and the sidewalks and main road are still intact. It's incredible to be able to still see the marks on the road where the carridges, and wheels passed by 1500 years ago. There are still mummies within the city, that were petrified when the ash and lava came down. They are still preserved and in the last position they made before they died. It was insane to see.

We then headed back that night, and got home late around 11pm. School started monday and we are now in our first FULL week of school including school on friday. It's off to Cinque Terra for the day on Saturday and staying in Florence on Sunday, can't wait!

CIAO! Erin