Milan

We went to a World Food Expo in Milan this weekend on a field trip!! It only happens every 5 years and we were lucky enough to be here the semester that it was happening! It was sooo so cool. Every country has a beautiful built building that they have some sort of exhibit about food and then they also have food of their countries dishes that you can buy. Did I gain like 5 pounds this weekend? Possibly. This is a list of the foods that I ate (I would have tried everything if possible but it was expensive and there was seriously just too much)... guacamole from Mexico, falafel from Isreal, pesto ravioli from VIP tent that we snuck into (didn't have to pay for pasta which was great), sushi from japan, canoli, dessert bar thing from Iran, fries from Ireland, some sort of meat veggies and rice noodle bowl from a country I don't remember and couldn't pronounce, magnum ice cream bar from build your own magnum bar, beer from Germany and Czech Republic. As a group we also went to McDonalds but I didn't get anything because I refused to get McDonalds at a World Food Expo haha.

Anyways the weekend started with us leaving at 5 am and driving 6 hours to Milan going to the festival ALL day until 8:30pm, having a dinner provided by our program at 10pm, going to sleep at 12, just to be awake at 6am again the next day and do it all again. Needless to say there was not a lot of sleep involved and so Sunday (after getting back to Orvieto and going out that night) I slept until 1pm! I hate wasting my days like that but it was a much needed sleep. My roommates and I didn't do much on Sunday either. Mainly consisted of getting food, going to a cafe for wifi, and then going home and watching youtube videos and then going to sleep. I guess that's what lazy Sundays are for right!?

My magnum from build my own magnum... sooooooogood

Tree of life (at night this thing had a sweet light show with fireworks and everything)

net thing at the Brazil building that I waited like an hour to go on 

Part of America's building was a ton of food trucks. haha

view from walking towards EXPO

Life

Most of my posts thus far have been solely about what I've been doing: I went here, I ate this, I did this. Today I have been doing some reflecting on being here. I know this isn't a diary so I won't be writing my full thoughts but I thought I'd write a little bit about my thoughts.

I used to do this thing where I write down three things that I am thankful for each day. They could be anything, from the food I ate, to being thankful for having ears to listen to music. Theres a science to it that you are slowly training your brain to think in a positive way and see the things you have that are good rather than bad. I have stopped writing down the things I am thankful for but haven't stopped noticing things that I'm thankful for. As I was reflecting today on my time here (I'm about halfway through my trip) I started to look at my thoughts and see if they had changed. I thought about it, and I think they have a little bit but I they have been progressively changing from before this trip. This trip has shown me how much I have grown in the past couple years. I literally think positive thoughts more than half of the time (theres always room to grow:)) Especially in times that are "bad". I find myself constantly telling myself it could be worse. Like when this photo machine stole 5 euros from me I was genuinely mad but then I had to calm myself down and say, "at least I have 5 euros to lose, a lot of people don't". So many people think negative thoughts all the time and they don't even realize it. People are constantly complaining about being: too cold, too hot, too fat, too tired, can't sleep, not enough money, class being boring, whatever it is the list goes on. There's literally no point in thinking and saying all of those things because all it is doing is making you unhappy. I'm not trying to boast about myself but I think it's okay to acknowledge a growth in myself as a happier person than I was a couple years ago, not that I was ever really unhappy, but I am just enjoying my happiness more because I am consciously aware of it... and who am I kidding, no one really reads other peoples study abroad blogs anyways...

I find myself loving Italy more and more every day. There's something about how slow the lifestyle is (at least in my little town of Orvieto) I've been going to cafes by myself, getting an espresso, and just researching or doing whatever on my computer for hours and I love it. I feel like I would have no time to do this in the States. This place makes me want to do all the creative things that I say I don't have time for back home, like painting and writing. I've read like 4 books while I've been here and I although I read over summer and love reading, I never do it while at school. America is such a different way of living. Especially damn U of A. I would say I miss my friends, but not U of A, the toxic environment that it is. Like I love reading, being healthy, getting outdoors, experiencing life, and I just don't do it often enough while I'm there! I get sucked into the extremely fun but extremely bad for you party scene! But I guess this is the time in my life to do that though, so it's okay...? But is it? Probably not. But coming back for the last semester of my senior year it's not exactly time to change haha. I'll have one more bad for my body semester and then who knows what I'll be doing next... not having an office job that's for sure.

A perfect little cappuccino :)

Rainy days

Well today was quite the nostalgic day for me! It was the first day I've had in Europe that it rained all day! And I actually loved it! BUT, I have a feeling that one day was enough for me and when it does this for days/ weeks at a time I am not going to be as fond of it. I will definitely be investing in an umbrella and rain boots in the near future.

Today started out with me waking up at about 9, making some eggs and going to a cafe. I had a delicious cappuccino and a nutella croissant. It was fantastic. I then put some headphones in and got my computer out to write an essay that's due in a couple weeks. It felt like I was in a movie. Listening to music, in a cafe in Italy, on my laptop, in the rain. It was such a movie setting it's hard to describe what I was even feeling. I was overwhelmed with happiness for being in the situation I was in. I decided to write to my two best friends Bryce and Nicole instead of writing my paper. I stayed in that cafe for close to 3 hours just writing and exploring music.

After the cafe, I went home for a little bit, to change my shoes because they were soaked and waited for a friend Elana to get here for a lunch (she was stopping by on her way to Florence from Rome). We went to lunch with her little Mackenzie and other people from her group. I had a glass of wine and pizza. Of course another pizza! That lasted a couple hours and then Mackenzie and I got a dessert from the Internet Cafe and then I went home. Although it doesn't seem like I did a lot today, it took a long time (pretty much all day) and I feel like I've had a full day! I very much enjoyed my first rainy day here in Orvieto.

Fall Break- SALZBURG

Salzburg, Austria was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life!! It had rolling green hills, a lake that had the most clear reflection on the sky, and just beautiful buildings all around. We got there at late at night the first day, and walked to our hostel. The hostel was great and clean and warm and just everything that we needed.. Oh yeah I forgot to say I had been sleeping on a couch with my sweaters as blankets for the last 3 days haha. Then we ordered a pizza and called it a night.

The next day we spent walking to the city, having an Austrian lunch, visiting the Salzburg museum, going to beer gardens, going to dinner, and then walking home. The next day, we got up early and went on the Sound of Music tour, which is where we had the most beautiful sights. Unfortunately during the tour we got a call from our hostel to inform us that we had not booked our last night and needed to leave. Because we were on the tour we couldn't do anything at the moment but once we were done we spent a good amount of the day trying to find another place to stay. Once we did we decided to go into town to get dinner which was delicious... Austria has lots of homey foods like mashed potatoes and also a lot of brats, pork, goulash, and sauerkraut. All very good. After that we went to an Irish Bar, where there was live music which I love. Because we didn't check if our hotel had a curfew, we had to go home early. When we found out there was no curfew, we went to another bar right next to our hotel that was super weird and full of many old people that were super creepy to us. When we left Austria to go home I was sad but also pretty ready to get home. After 10 days of living out of a suitcase, I had no clean underwear, and pretty much no clean clothes left.

Trying to figure out how to sync my new phones photos with this blog and am not being successful.. I am thoroughly annoyed with technology.

Fall Break- PRAGUE

Getting to Prague and again figuring out the Metro was pretty interesting. We stayed with a friend of Halle's which was super nice because I really needed to save money for the amount I was about to spend. The first day we slept in a little and went to this super awesome restaurant, Globe, for a giant breakfast. Prague has like every kind of food, and we were determined to get a nice American breakfast with eggs and pancakes and everything, and very much succeeded. I think it's so weird how everywhere in Europe eats like a pastry and a coffee for breakfast and is chill with that? Breakfast is like my favorite meal so if I ever lived here for real I would have to get used to that. After breakfast we walked over Charles Bridge (gorgeous) and shopped a little and then went to the John Lennon wall. I loved the wall so much I didn't want to leave. There was a guy playing guitar there and just the vibes you get there are so peaceful and awesome. After the wall, we went to grab a drink and then headed home to shower. We went to a dank Mexican restaurant for dinner (also something we've been craving and have been unable to get in Italy). And then got ready for the night. We went to a couple different bars that all had smokey graffiti like atmospheres but were really cool. We ended up being out until 5am!

Then we got up at like 9:30am.. talk about lack of sleep. We went to breakfast, explored the castle and cathedral, and then I bought a phone. There was a lot of walking being done this day. I'm pretty sure we walked a total of 10 miles and our feet were killing us. I was exhausted from the day, and so I decided to give my body a rest and not go out while everyone else did. I got up early to try to return the phone by myself which I was unable to do (Prague I hate your return policies) and then met the rest of everyone at Globe again. Braving the metros and trams by myself in Prague was actually a tad scary, but I did it! After our meal, we went home to pack and made our way to the bus station for our bus to Salzburg, Austria.

Fall Break- MUNICH

Welll Oktoberfest was quite the adventure... there was lots of learning happening to say the least. Taking public transit is always challenging in a new city but we finally got to our Airbnb and our host, Tobias, was so nice to greet us with a nice German breakfast/lunch/idk of pretzels and brats. It was delicious. We then got ready and pregamed for the festival. Unfortunately we made no such plan of anything and just left the airbnb. Once we got there, we went to the tent that our friends were in (Hofbrau) which is also the American tent. We literally snuck in and went through the kitchen and didn't have to wait in any lines! It was great. Once we were there we we got our liter beers and just were having a great time. Everything was pretty good until after the tent when we all lost each other. I ended up going on some rides with another friend from school and breaking my phone and purse (at least I still had my wallet). I also ended up at the tents that a lot of people camped at (stocktents)! There was a whole party going on back at the tents when I got there. Needless to say, it was kind of fiasco and I lost all of pictures and didn't have a phone and it was pretty shitty and still kind of sucks. My roommates also went through hell that night, but thats's a whole different story.Oh well though, life goes on hah.

The next day went much smoother because after the whole fiasco of losing each other we stuck together extremely well and made a plan for where to meet if it were to happen again! We went to a different tent that I forget the name of found some people we knew and stayed at the table all night. The night ended with us dancing on the table with everyone else having an awesome time! The next day our bus was at 3pm to Prague but we didn't do much but slept in, explored the city, got some breakfast, and found our way to the bus station.

Don't have any pictures because broke my phone and I'm super bummed about it:(((

Besides this one which was super cool. Taken flying from Rome to Munich. Flying over the Alps was absolutely beautiful.

Found some photos!!

Fall Break- ROME

Fall break started early Thursday morning where we took a bus ride to Rome on a field trip. After hitting a lot of traffic, we finally got there. We first toured an ancient forum that was incredibly crowded. Then we were set free to get lunch and tour the Colosseum on our own. We got some more pizza (probably like the 80th one since I've been here) and then gelato, which I think was the best gelato I have had since I've been here.. It was caramel flavored:).. and then headed to the Colosseum.

The Colosseum was absolutely insane to me. You see pictures of it all of the time and then when you're actually there, you just can't help but be amazed. It's just so grand and pretty and to think that it was built thousands of years ago is crazy. It was just really cool to see. After the Colosseum, we met back up again to grab our luggage from the bus and then said goodbye to people and were on our own! We took a cab from Rome to Fiumicino where we hit our first real language barrier with a cab driver not speaking any English. We finally arrived at our Bed and Breakfast which was a very interesting house with a somewhat friendly host. We walked around for awhile and finally found a place to have dinner and some wine and then headed back to get some sleep... our flight was at 7:30 in the morning and we had Oktoberfest the next day!