Pics of London!

 This is actually a picture of New York when we were landing and flew by. Pretty foggy, but you get the picture. 

Some homes outside in Westminster area.

 Off by Hyde park! Very neat, green place. 

 Royal Albert Hall - lots of famous concerts are/were held here.

 The famous double decker London bus. 

 Royal College of Music!

 Hotel room in London!

More Pics to Come!

Classes!

After two days of lessons, I feel like I have learned A LOT of Italian! I am glad I decided to take the more advanced one; it definitely is a challenge, but if you're reading this, you probably know me and how I am!

Today after classes a few friends and I went to a pizzeria and ordered a mahrgerita pizza- your standard cheese pizza, baked in a stone oven with mounds of mozzarella and a creamy tomato sauce. Molto bene!

Afterwards, we walked around Florence, ending up in San Lorenzo, where a lot of the markets and stores are. The outside kiosks sell things such as scarves, purses, boots, souvenirs, and pretty much anything you can imagine. I bought a leather jacket (it wasn't insanely expensive, parents!) and I really like how it looks and feels. When I come back in the summer, I feel like I'll be dressing like a fashionista! Ofcourse, it will probably be 90 degrees then in May!

After that, we had a meeting to attend talking about our Rome classes. It looks like I'll be taking Intermediate Italian I, High Renaissance Art, Ancient Roman and Greek Art, and Michelangelo in Rome. What a treat it will be to go to class where the art actually is, rather than looking at slides in a classroom!

Also, I found out yesterday where I'll be living- it's in the Northern section of Rome, one of the wealthiest areas apparently- so maybe I'll have a nice room! It's on the third floor, and the family's name is Berucci. More information to come!

Tomorrow I'll be heading towards the Uffici Museum and will be in class in the morning as well.

Ciao!

Some Things About Italy:

Just in case you were wondering!

Food: Breakfast here at the hotel is great, lots of options, from meats, cheeses, eggs, croissants (in all different toppings!) and fruit and granola. Also served is coffee, tea, juices, natural and sparkling water. It's all you can eat, which is a dangerous situation when it comes to the nutella and croissants!

Lunch is up to you where to go, since it's not provided. So far I've stopped at places for sandwiches which have all been good, especially the bread.

Dinner is also pretty delicious: it is always 3 courses, starting out with salad and bread (which don't actually count as a course), then some sort of pasta (we've had ravioli, tortellini, and other types), a meat and vegetables dish (chicken, veal, etc), and then a dessert course, from tiramisu (which I actually liked!), cakes, and fruit.

Very delicious overall! I didn't like everything I tasted, but I made sure to try a bit of everything.

 Florence: The city isn't too hard to navigate, but I wouldn't yet go off by myself yet. There is a river that you can use as a landmark to get where you're going. The traffic isn't horribly bad, but the foot traffic is pretty crazy, especially later in the day. We are surrounded by centuries-old architecture and art, going back a thousand years and earlier!


Fashion: Both sexes dress pretty fashionably here, atleast more so than in the US. I've noticed that leggings are in, as are boots and puffy coats and ofcourse leather. Fur lined things are also worn. As for the men, I'd say nice jeans, often skinny, and polo shirts and jackets are worn. I haven't kept an eye on fashion much, but that's what I've noticed with passing people on the street.


Shopping: There are lots of places to shop in Florence! I went to a bookstore which was neat, having books in all sorts of languages. There are also many expensive boutiques and shops, such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Jimmy Choo. I also passed by a Disney store, believe it or not!

I will insert some more pics of Italy from the art tour I went on today. I will tell you how my class goes tomorrow; ciao!

In Italia!

Buongiorno!

It's a little past noon here and I'm on my third day in Italy! My luggage got lost at the airport in Pisa, which was wonderful. No sweat, though, I have it now!

That night, I was tired and ready for bed. I think I'm turning into a morning person here!

We have been busy here nonstop, doing things like icebreakers, and tours around Italy. I just took an Italian placement test, which I'm not sure I did great, but maybe I'll pass one class over.

Today at 2 we'll have an art tour, which should be interesting. I got a phone and some books so I'll be ready for classes tomorrow! The city isn't terribly hard to navigate, but is better than London! I also finally had some chocolate gelato (ofcourse) last night, which was very tasty.

I'll try loading some pics, let's see how it works out!

London!

Oh there's no place like London....

Hello everyone!

After a flight from St. Louis to Newark, with a five hour layover, and then an overnight plane ride, I finally made it to London cerca 7:25 am, 1:00 am our time. I only got about an hour of sleep on the plane ride, so I was pretty tired! Once we got dropped off at our hotel, the girl I flew with and I walked around High Street, in Kensington. We looked around at the shops and went to Hyde Park where Jane Austen's infamous characters often visited.

Later I had lunch at a French cafe (I had a salad) and got back to the hotel to check into our rooms. Crashing, I took a 3 hour nap, then went to an AIFS meeting to go over what we were doing the next day or so. Later, Christine and I went to a pizzeria place where they served a pretty good pizza! 1 pound roughly equals $1.50, and things are pretty expensive here.

Anyways, fast forward to tomorrow: after having a continental breakfast from the hotel, our group went on a 3 hour tour of London, which was interesting and gave plenty of opportunities for pictures! We went to places like Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's church, and across the Millennium Bridge. Afterwards, a group of us went to lunch at a burger place. By the way, sodas here come in a bottle and they give you a glass to drink it out of- I still drank it out of the bottle anyways. ;)

We walked around London a bit more, then ended up at the Tate Modern Art Museum where they had some pretty famous works there from Surrealists, Post Expressionists, Abstract Expressionism, Futurism, etc, etc. Very neat place! After that, we made our way back to the hotel via the tube, their underground subway.

Which leads me to here where I am- a McDonalds, finally getting wifi to type this up! So everyone, I am safe and sound here and am looking forward to tomorrow's flight to Florence (except for the fact that we have to check out by 6 am!)

Tata for now!

More pics to come when I don't have 20 minutes of battery left! No plugs at Mcdonalds :(

Packing

In less than 48 hours, I will be on my way to Europe! I will be arriving in London, staying there for two days, and then going on to Florence for two weeks. Finally, I will arrive in Rome!

Now that I've finally gotten my passport, visa, and all the other details taken care of, I'm on to my next biggest goal: packing. Wish me luck!

Hope you enjoy the blog!