It's almost been 4 weeks since I've been here already and time is moving by so quickly!! I feel like I'm still getting used to things like ordering at restaurants and I'm still finding different ways to walk home... Aaaandd our fall break is literally tomorrow!!! We are going to Rome on a field trip and then once the field trip is over we are on our own! We have a bed and breakfast booked for tomorrow night and then our flight is at 7:05am and will be arriving in Munich at 8:45... from there is to be determined but eventually making our way to Oktoberfest. We'll be in Munich until Sunday and from there take a bus to Prague, stay there until Wednesday, bus to Salzburg Austria, and then back to Munich for our flight home. Ahhh soo much to look forward to!! I'm laying in bed getting soo excited just thinking about it! Ahh well tomorrow is going to be a long day so I am going to try and fall asleep.

Ciao

Danielle

recap 9/20

It's been a tad harder to write in this frequently than expected! Well actually I could have predicted this. I am so busy all the time here which is a good thing! I will do a recap of my week from what all I can remember... and only the days where I had events going on.

Wednesday:

We had a cooking class at Alba's (our I guess you could say "leader" while were here) house. We learned to make tiramisu and gnocchi and it was delicious! And the gnocchi was actually really easy to make so I can actually maybe make it for my family when I get home! We weren't really taught how to make the sauce though so I'll have to get help there. The best part of this evening was when Sam fell out of his chair at the dinner. They were flimsy chairs and he was reaching for something and totally fell out of his chair. I died laughing because I was sitting right next to him. Other than that it was a great experience and cool to see another apartment in Orvieto... and I got to take the leftovers because I am all about leftovers and asked :) After the cooking class Sam and I went back to my place with Dakota and ended up going out. We heard the same locals playing again, this time laying in the grass by the cathedral which was really surreal and awesome. I like our more low key nights here. They're still really fun and just different than UofA.

Friday:

Friday we went to the town Tivoli on our field trip. This was for sure my favorite field trip so far. We saw and learned about a HUGE ancient ruin with pools and bath houses and all this other ancient stuff. I really enjoy the bus rides to and from our field trips. It's like a time to reflect on life haha. After the tour of the ancient ruins we had a couple hours for lunch. I got a cheeseburger and fries! So american and delicious. Then we toured the Tivoli fountains which is where part of the Lizzie Miguire Movie was filmed. The fountains were the coolest part, expect for the fact that I was dripping sweat because it was so so hot. After our field trip we cooked dinner to save some money... We made some pasta with the leftover sauce from the gnocchi and I got to have my leftovers.

Saturday:

Saturday I was determined to do something fun and get out of Orvieto again. Everyone was kind of moving slowly but I really wanted to go to this lake that was like 20 minutes away from us. After doing some yoga on my own I got Sam and Dakota to go with me and we met this girl Emily and her friend Louisa there. We barely made the bus and got a free ride down the cable car to make it! When we got there we wanted to get alcohol so had to make a trek to a grocery store 10 minutes walk because most of the small ones were closed (everything closes between 2-4ish for siesta it's so weird and annoying! I'm so used to 24 hour convenience of America). After the lake we went to dinner in town at this pizza place and it was DANK even though I hardly remember it haha. Then as were trying to go home, we realize we missed the last bus home. Some locals told us that no taxi would come there so we start thinking we have to sleep there the night! I was not pleased with that. We eventually find a taxi because we tell him we would pay 50 euros for him to take us home. All 5 of us split that so it wasn't bad. Once I got home, Halle and I watched the movie Prestige and went to sleep.

Sunday:

Waking up Sunday for my grape harvesting activity was pretty rough. I did not want to go but am so happy that I did! We went to this BEAUTIFUL rustic home of a well known in America and Italy chef who also owns a vineyard and did her grape harvesting. We got to pick the grapes and then I also got to stomp on them (I really wanted to do it so I jumped on the opportunity... I love the youtube video 'Grape Lady Falls' which is the main reason I wanted to do it. As payment for our labor, Simona the chef, made us a delicious delicious lunch. It consisted of all homemade pesto pasta, ricotta tomato arugula pasta, mini sandwich bites, sausages, and potato salad... it was soooo good. I took some sausages home:) The house we were at was literally like a picture.. and she grew and made everything herself. All the tomatoes were home grown and all the herbs. She also had a goat and a rooster and hen.. I didn't ask but I'm assuming she milks the goat and lays her own eggs too. She was the cutest nicest lady. It would be so crazy to live there. I think the only way I could would be with a husband that I had the greatest relationship/friendship. Oh yeah... I was having allergies from the grape picking and asked if they had medicine, when no one did, Simona's mom brought me outside and cut some fresh aloe for me to rub on my face.. It was pretty interesting. I thought my face was getting all yellow because it was yellow on my hands but I couldn't ask the lady because she spoke no English. It was pretty funny. But it actually kind of worked! After the grape picking, I went home and took a nap, and now I'm waking up and writing in my blog and I think my roommmates are making french toast for dinner:)

IBIZA weekend!

Finally finding some time to update this! This weekend was isanneee!! Halle and I went to Ibiza, Spain for the weekend and we met up with some of my friends from school. It was unreal. First, getting there was a joke, with 2 trains and a plane that was delayed and then a bus ride to our hotel we got in wayyy later then expected... about 11:30pm. When we got to our room, we were so exhausted (not to mention checking in was a fiasco and a whole story in itself) but we got ready in like 25 minutes to go out. We found my guy friends, pregamed a little and went to this club that literally rained on you... so by the end your dancing and completely soaked! It was crazy! We left at like 4am.

The next day I had pizza for breakfast and went to a boat party open bar that was also very very crazy. That night we went to another club, Amnesia, and I don't think I've ever danced for so long. We danced for like 4 hour straight and left close to 4 again. I think I got like 5 hours of sleep the whole weekend. 

The next day we went to a BEAUTIFUL lagoon where we cliff jumped and played in the ocean and I got buried in the sand... regretted that decision quickly! haha then that night we had a nice dinner and ended up passing out instead of going out... waking up was rough and then journey home was even more rough. Halle and I left our hotel at like 7:30, took a bus to the airport, plane to Valencia, plane to Rome, train to city center, train to Orvieto, and then a cable... for a total of 6 vehicles and 11 and a half hours. We got home at 7pm exactly. Exhausted.

God I wish I could actually write every little thing that happened this weekend but I would be writing a novel. I guess I will write some bullet points to look back and remember later...

• Fajitas
• Breakfast and ordering twice... onion rings the second time
• Almost missing the boat party and freaking out
• Swimming in the ocean the first night
• Pizza for like every meal
• No electricity at first in hotel room
• Sketchy elevators
• FMC
• Habitual
• Sunset last night and Australian lesbians taking our pictures
• Donuts
• Boat party... pretty much going blind for a period of time
• Fire show

Prettiest clear blue water!!! 

This chick was insane

Got tatted

Hydrating the last day 

...not sure if this video is going to work...

Sperlonga

Well today has been an interesting day...

I'll start with yesterday haha. Yesterday we went on a field trip to Sperlonga, a town on the ocean about 3 hours from Orvieto. Somehow I was able to sleep the majority of the bus ride! We saw ancient Greek ruins and marble statues that were really really cool! I of course, being my mature self, took multiple photos of the statues peniss.

We also saw this really cool grotto that the statues were found in. The grotto was for the "higher up" people to dine and be in. It was really cool to try to picture what it would be like to live there. After the learning part of the field trip we went to the beach again, I didn't swim this time because I didn't want to be wet for the long bus ride home!

Once we got home we went to dinner with a group again, and then decided to go out. This time, being off my antibiotics I was able to go out... we pregamed a little at the guys house and then went to a couple bars. The best part of the night was after all of this happened and these Italian musicians came back to the guys house after. We all were just singing and laughing and having a really great time after. The guy playing the guitar was soo so good it was amazing! It was cool to get to know some locals and listen to live music. During this after party sesh I apparently got peer pressured into chugging half a bottle of wine... Needless to say I threw up when I got home and was still drunk well into today.

It's 6:02pm, I just woke up from my nap and now have a hangover. I had classes from 9:00 am to 2:50.. but I was drunk till pretty much the last class so it wasn't too bad haha actually pretty entertaining. What can I saw, it was my first official night and I just had to catch up to everyone else who have been going since last week? Idk but I'm definitely paying right now. Just remembered that first thing I did this morning was smack my head on the ceiling of my loft. At least I got my homework done today!

The rest of my night will be spent eating, packing for Ibiza, and figuring out trains to get to Rome. I am STOKED for this weekend!

Finally have wifi in our apartment!!! Thank you lord baby jesus.

And finally have decided to upload some photos of my apartment...

This is the street we live on... so pretty :)

Walking in foyer and kitchen

What I'm working with in the kitchen...

Our cute little balcony :)

my room... closets to the right

My loft with bed and skylight

Still no wifi!

It’s my second Saturday night in Orvieto and I still do not have wifi and it is really frustrating. It also makes me really aware of how much I really use wifi which is kind of sad because it obviously is too much when I’m a scratching for it like a junkie looking for crack haha. It’s just tasks like booking fall break have been challenging because of not having wifi.

On Friday we had our first field trip outside of Orvieto. We went to tarquinia to view ancient painted tombs and go to the beach. Things I learned about the tombs: lotus flower is associated with Egypt as a sexual power, Etruscans did about everything to music… from having sex, to torturing slaves, and fishing can be a sign on rebirth. There was honestly so much more that was taught to us but I am sometimes bad at recall and paying attention :/. After we had our informational part of the trip we went to eat and swim in the ocean. I had a giant delicious pizza so I felt stellar jumping into the ocean after that (sarcasm). Everyone else drank but being on antibiotics I had to refrain L The Ocean was still extremely fun though. The water was surprisingly warm and there were decent sized waves to play in. The sand was like almost black which was interesting. On the bus ride we had 2 unexpected stops when someone had to pee and then when someone was throwing up. That night we had Asian food (lol) and then went out but I went home because I wasn’t drinking. I was completely fine with that though because I was exhausted!

Today we spent hours at a café getting wifi, then Halle and I explored the city a little more and found another ledge (Orvieto is sort of a like a castle city on a hill so there’s a lot of ledges) that we spent a good amount of time staring off into. After that we went to another café and split a bottle of wine and some antipasto. During our time at the café we saw a wedding take place (well the ending of the ceremony) outside of the church we were by! It was so cool because as the bride and groom walked out of the church they had a ton of confetti guns being sprayed, rice being thrown all over them, and then 2 cages of doves being released as the very end! It was all very extravagant and beautiful and after having a couple glasses of wine, all the more amazing to watch.

Ciao,

Danielle

Well I have been here almost a week now and seem to be adjusting just fine. Even though my bed is the hardest bed I have ever slept on, I seem to be getting more sleep than a lot of other people who have had a lot of troubles falling or staying asleep. I am not adjusting to the horrid mosquitos though! They love me so much and I hate them so much. I don’t understand how I am such a target but I probably have like 10 bites on each leg at all times. Kind of anxious for the weather to get cooler so I am not showing skin for mosquitos to attack. It has been quite hot here!.. And humid which I am not used to living in.  But I like the humidity because it makes my skin feel niceJ

My apartment is still taking some getting used to. We still don’t have wifi ugh! (the only apartment our that doesn’t have it.. something to do with the service) So that is REALLY annoying. But it has kept me very scholarly I would say, reading every night before bed and when I have some free time haha. I guess it’s also a good break from my usual over connectedness with the social media world. It’s just gotten annoying when having to buy flights or now that school has started. Our kitchen does not have a dishwasher or a microwave so adapting to that is still in the process too. Using our oven has been a challenge too because it’s only in Celsius and we don’t have the wifi to look up the conversion. I blame myself for not remembering this conversion in school. We cooked (what we think was chicken) in the oven a couple nights ago and what we estimated should take 15 minutes ended up taking like 40.

Other than being at home, I have LOVED exploring and walking around Orvieto. There’s just so much history in all the buildings! You can see which walls have been renovated recently and which haven’t been touched in centuries, and dents in the walls where maybe cars have swiped parts of it off. It’s like the buildings tell the story of the city. It’s fascinating to me. It’s also crazy to me that in America there’s techniques to create to look of the walls here that are just naturally beautiful with age and distress. Also, when walking around the city, there are not only a lot of stray cats, but a shit ton of WIENER DOGS!  I feel like everyone who owns a dog has a wiener dog! It’s so weird! But I love it because I have always loved dogs with short legs so I’m digging all these hot dog dogs walking around with there million steps just to go a short distance. Hehe.

Ciao,

Danielle

Made it to Italy!!

For Reference: this post is somewhat long because it is my first one, but I highly doubt my others ones will be this long :)

Finally got my life together enough to create a blog for my family and friends to check up on me while I'm here and also/ mostly for myself so that I can look back on my experiences here in Italy! I have been here about 4 nights now and feel like I am adjusting pretty well. Finally getting on the time schedule!! I have never created a blog before and I feel like I'm just writing in a diary and this feels weird to post on Facebook but I guess I will because I said I was going to do it! Haha. I will not be writing every day like my ambitious best friend @brycepatrick but more of a whenever I feel like it kind of thing.

The plane ride here was actually pretty awful. My plane was no joke like 40 years old. I couldn't control my own AC so I FREEZING for the first and last 2 hours of the plane ride... even with 2 blankets, a jacket, and 2 pairs of socks. Also, we didn't have personal TV's on the seats in front of us and I was pretty far from the TV I was supposed to watch so my eyes were watering halfway through the movie I watched. Good news is they played my favorite movie, The Great Gatsby, so that made me happy:)

Other not so good news is that I have been sick since around last Friday.. about a week and 4 days now:(  In the states I was told to continue taking Tylenol until my sickness went away but when it still wasn't going away and I was waking up with 100 degree fevers every morning I decided I needed to go to a doctor here in Italy. I told my program coordinator and she set up for a doctor to meet with me during our orientation on Monday. I was not in a doctor setting, more like a school classroom, and it was overall a very weird situation. After the doctor asked me what was going on and I told him, he asked me to take off my shirt to listen to my back through a stethoscope. So here I am sitting in my bra in a hot classroom, sweating, while an Italian doctor listens to me cough. Then he asks me if I had taken my temperature that morning and when I said I had and that is was 100.4 when I took it, he just took my word for it and wrote down that number... So all in all kind of unprofessional but either way, I got prescribed some antibiotics which is all I wanted anyways so I should be feeling better in the next couple of days.

Ok, well enough with the complaining about being sick and the plane ride, being here in Italy is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. It's literally everything you would ever imagine Italy to look like with cobblestone streets, laundry being hung to dry everywhere, flowers and vines on every building, and gelato stands on every corner. My apartment flat is very nice too, except we don't have wifi yet which has been challenging for getting ready for school. Hopefully that comes in the next couple of days!! I'll post photos eventually once I figure out how to. So far, my roommates and I have gone grocery shopping like 3 times, cooked two dinners, and also been to very many cafes. I have been really tired from being sick and jetlagged. I kind of feel like my experience hasn't entirely started until I get healthy because I haven't wanted to go out that much... the one night I did, I was out until like 3am and woke up at 1pm with a 102 degree fever. Not the smartest idea on my part!

There's so much more I could write about but honestly I am just kinda hungry so I am gonna go get some food and leave that for other posts... Also don't want these posts to be too long!

Ciao,
Danielle