Friday, April 24, 2009

Barcelona

I was lucky enough to have a class that was good enough to go on "Gita" (voyage/trip) this year. Our destination was Barcelona, and we traveled by "pullman" (charter bus.) Because of the travel by bus I also got to see some of south France. The sights are too much to describe by only words, so I will include some pictures of my trip to illustrate the beauty I saw. 
   

Pictured above is the "Pont d'Avignon." It is supposed to be good luck for couples to walk on, and there is a popular French children's song about the bridge. 


A picture of the streets of Barcelona, the night we got there. There was a street protest of students against school system changes that got a little out of hand. 


This is my class plus class 3E in front of the Sagrada Familia. They are still working on this building.... I'm not sure it will ever get finished. It is wonderful. Every side is wildly different, and very imaginative, which makes it look like a castle I would have wanted to live in when I went through my princess obsession. 


The two photos above were taken at the park Güell. It is the park that Gaudi brought to life. It is truly a magic place.



More to come soon! But I've got to go finish my homework. 








Monday, January 12, 2009

WARNING! DANGER!.... Fraud?

According to my bank I've been spending some time, and money... scratch that. According to my bank I've been spending a lot of time and a lot of money in (drumroll) ROMANIA! Thought I was going to say Italy? Well either I've been making a lot of unconscious trips to Bucharest, or I've been another statistic in the growing credit card fraud epidemic. As the first one seems a little unlikely (although Romania sounds like it is beautiful and I'd like to go there) I'm going to go with the later. Seems like sometime while using my card somehow someone got my information. I'm not to happy about the whole situation. I spent my hours this summer serving endless lines of usually grumpy, un-caffeinated people (if you are a happy coffee customer than I send you a big pat on the back and a double thumbs up) to pay for some thief's nasty spending habit I know I'm not the first person to get a reality check like this one. So basically no need to say an exact amount, but it was a lot. But looking for the silver lining on this one, at least I'll be more diligent in future, and my mom isn't worried that her daughter has a serious spending issue. I'm really grateful that I have my parents backing me up on this one, working hard to try and get it back, and telling me that crap like this happens. Lucky we caught it now and not later. So with this blog I just wanted to let you all know that things like this happen, so beware! I sincerely hope that it doesn't happen again, but next time I guess I'll know what to be looking for. 

Thursday, January 1, 2009

"Have a nice vacation and work very, very hard" were the parting words I received from the last teacher of the day on Saturday the 20th. After hearing about the four snow days back home, I was definitely ready to start my own vacation. The Italian idea of school vacation is not like it is back home. I have enjoyed the break, but I was given three projects and 2 tests to study for! Another difference in the school system. Christmas break started with toasting champagne during the last class on Saturday. It was a really strange experience. It went against the eleven previous years of rules "no alcohol in school!" again, another difference in school system and culture. My Saturday was very eventful as I remember. I went home quickly after school and ate lunch and then was out until one in the morning! I went out ice skating, hung out with friends, ate dinner, and went home. I thought I was settled for the night when my host sister invited me to go out with one of her friends. I agreed and we headed for a new bar/teenage hangout spot to meet her friend. We stayed a few minutes but were soon off again to meet with her brother and sisters to eat dinner. We went a little out of the way to eat, to a restaurant called "Pizza Man." It was packed with people! We waited about an hour and a half, then were finally seated. I had already eaten, but I did sample a piece of pizza. I definitely recommend the restaurant to any pizza lover who visits Florence. Needless to say, it was a grand kick-off to the vacation. 
I've mostly taken it pretty easy this break. I have seen a couple films ("Si puo fare," "Natale in Rio," and "Happy Go Lucky.) I have also gone out, visited friends and the like. For Christmas I made snickerdoodle cookies and German Chocolate Cake. I also made fudge just a few days ago. Another interesting thing I did was to go and listen to two Greek men talk about the riots in Greece. It took place at this little cafe with beautiful photographs of India and a lot of political books. 
For Christmas Eve I went to midnight mass with the family and returned at 1:30 AM. We then opened presents and toasted champagne and ate some cake! I missed my family a lot, but I talked to them for two hours over skype with video which was a lot of fun. The next morning we all slept late, having stayed up until 3 in the morning. We passed the day at the house and had a nice Christmas dinner. 
Happy New Year to everyone! I called home while I was in 2009 and Oregon was in 2008, I thought it was kinda funny. Last night, the 31st, all the buses, to my dissatisfaction, stopped at 8:00 PM. I left the house two minutes after that. I waited about twenty minutes, then returned to the house to put on some walking shoes. I then walked to the center and arrived in about half of an hour. I met up with a friend of mine, Minja, from my Italian lessons. We found a little pub called "The Old Stove" and spent an hour there listening to some good old rock and roll. It wasn't very crowded so we could sing along without disturbing the peace. I recommend it to anyone looking for a cozy little spot to hang out while in Florence. After we left the pub we headed to Piazza della Signoria to meet up with her family and to listen to the orchestra playing in the Loggia de Lanzi. It was packed with people and there were fireworks. It was a fun place to be to count down till midnight. Afterwards things got a little dangerous. People were throwing their empty bottles everywhere! Just throwing them on the ground, or at times, into the air. I hope there weren't any champagne bottle deaths. The road was completely covered in glass on the walk back. I walked to a nearby piazza where my host parents graciously picked me up, as there were no buses. All in all it was a really nice evening. I'm looking forward to starting a new year. New year, new president, university in the fall time. But for now I've almost made it through four months here and I will continue to work hard at learning the language, and the culture, and to have fun, get out there and out of my shell! Happy New Years to everyone. May 2009 bring joy to you all.