And the adventures continue!

I am SO sorry for not updating all week, it's been crazy busy here, but I am here now to inform you what all has been going on this past week :)

The last I left you with is being in Florence.  Florence was such a beautiful city and everything was walking distance (aka no public transportation!! woohoo!) Alyson and I did a lot of shopping for everyone in Florence-we definitely boosted their economy a bit during our stay.  After we got back we had regular classes Monday and Tuesday.  On Monday, we went into Rome and saw "Cine Cita" which is the cinema city where all of the films were made in Rome (the HBO serious "Rome" is also shot there).  That was pretty cool.

On Wednesday, the whole group went to a monastery for an overnight visit.  At first I was pretty hesitant...no internet, no town, no stores...nothing.  It was a monastery that was built on the side of a mountain, and so it was literally in the mountains.  I was not too excited to go, on the way there we had to take the train to termini, which is a 47 minute ride.  Then got on a subway and took us to another stop, that was about a 35 minute ride, then we waited at this bus stop for about a half hour to catch a bus, that drove us about an hour to the town...at this point I was on the verge of tears from how motion sickness I was from all these different public transportation vehicles. Then, we were picked up in shifts by this man in a tiny little car that drove like a race car driver up the windiest roads/hills I have ever come in contact (like West Virginia x 846847321...no exaggeration!)  We actually almost got ran over by a semi truck because these people drive like complete MANIACS.  So when I finally arrived at the monastery I was as sick as a dog...we had 2 hours before our first tour and I went into my room there and laid on my bed and passed out for those 2 hours, I felt like I was spinning the whole time (again, public transportation and myself are the worst of enemies).  After my nap I felt much better and we took a walk up the mountain to another monastery and got to take a tour of it.  It was San Benedictene's, absolutely beautiful.  The brother that gave us the guide was so informative and interesting, I loved it!  Then we took a tour of the other monastery that we were staying at, which was also very cool.  The next morning we woke up at 5:30am and went to "morning chants" with the monks, following chants we all had breakfast at the monastery, and then me, my teacher, and Joe (one of my classmates) left for a long hike up one of the mountains.  It was beyond amazing, It was about a 4 hour hike, lots of climbing, but the view we got at the top of the mountain took my breath away.  It was so beautiful and amazing, definitely worth every minute of that awful public transportation I went through to get there.  It was a very relaxing stay at this monastery-definitely a much needed time.  I got to just relax and do a little self-reflection and really connect with God in a different way than I usually do...in his beautiful masterpiece of a world.  It was great.

Then we got back Thursday night and on Friday morning me, Alyson, and Catie left campus at 4:45am for the airport to head to the beautiful city of Madrid!  When we got to Madrid we took the metro (cleanest metro ever might i add) to town and walked to our hostel...it was a cute little hostel that we all liked (thank goodness!) We got settled in and Katie Rice (Alyson and I's friend who has been studying in Madrid sine August) came to our hostel and we began exploring the city! We went to Musea del Prado and Museo Reina Sofia and looked at some amazing art pieces, (like Picasso's Guernica), then we walked through a huge park and saw the Crystal Palace, we also got to see the bull fighting arena and the Royal Palace, we went shopping, and went to eat and to a couple bars...it was so much fun!  Also, I was pretty impressed with my Spanish skills (thanks to Senora Gary!) It was so much fun and having Katie there to show us around was such a blessing...she made it such a great weekend!

This week is Thanksgiving and it's been pretty rough for me thinking about all the festivities going on back home preparing for this holiday and for Christmas and everything.  It's hard being so far away during big things like that--but we are having Thanksgiving dinner here as a group in Castel Gandolfo and are holding our very own Turkey Trot run and a chef is coming and cooking us dinner...even though it will be nothing in comparison to a traditional Hibbard Thanksgiving meal...but it will be nice I'm sure :)

This weekend we will be going as a group to Pompeii/Naples/Sorrento from Friday - Sunday...that should be fun, and that is our last trip as a group...then the following weekend (Dec 2-4) me alyson and katie will be going to London for our last trip as a 'free weekend' and then the following weekend (Dec 10) we will be returning to the United States, it will fly by I'm sure.

If anyone has any special requests from this part of the world let us know!  We will definitely be needing to either ship stuff home or check abnother suitcase, we have SO much stuff to bring back!! but Christmas shopping is just about complete :)

Well I love you all and miss you TONS! See everyone sooooon!

Random thoughts

So I am currently sitting in the hotel room in Florence, Alyson and I just got done with shopping at the Market for a few hours this morning and are now waiting to leave for a church to visit with the whole group in a half hour, so I thought I'd write a short post to catch you all up on Europe!

As I just said, this weekend the whole group is in Florence, and so far, I LOVE it here.  It's a lot different than Rome, it seems a lot cleaner and organized than Rome and the buildings are absolutely beautiful.  The streets aren't as crazy with drivers, and the best part is, everything is super close so I haven't had to get on any public transportation yet!! All walking, thank goodness.  After the church visit Alyson and I are going to rent some bikes and ride to the Boboli Gardens and go on a run in that park, should be beautiful :)  then later today we are going to ride our bikes to the oldest chocolate factory in the world (yum!) and probably go to a local bar tonight to hang out for a bit.

Tomorrow we leave around 3pm, so not too much more time here unfortunately.  We are definitely getting a lot of Christmas shopping done, and just to let my family know...you are SPOILED this year by us!!! But a good way to ease the home sickness and us missing you guys back home is by buying presents for you all :)  We are definitely going to need to look into FedEx prices to ship a box of stuff back home because we are not going to have enough space/weight room in our suitcases (Michelle we might need your assistance on looking that info up!)

The homework load here is a bit stressful, we have tons of reading and writing to do and it gets to be kind of annoying when we want to go into Rome but need to get back to study or do homework, etc etc. But, Alyson and I are both trying to stay stress-free and enjoy every minute here because in less than a month we will be coming back home!

Like I said in one of my earlier posts, this traveling is absolutely amazing, but has been pretty hard for me.  I get homesick a lot and wish my whole family could be over here with us experiencing these adventures with me and Alyson.  Whenever I hear about things you all are doing at home (sushi night, Jasmine, dinners, game night, and so on) I get pretty sad and wish I were there for all of that--BUT I keep reminding myself to enjoy each moment I have here...because who knows when I'll be back!

I miss my nieces SOOO much.  Oh my gosh...seeing them on skype and facebook pictures makes me sad lol they are growing up so fast! But we got them the cutest present ever...so that will be fun giving that to them.  The hardest thing that's going to happen for me is Thanksgiving...I know it won't be the same here, I already miss the food back home a ton (I know you all love Italian food...but I prefer mom and nana's cooking a TON) and especially for Thanksgiving because I absolutely love our family traditions.  But there is every other year to have Thanksgiving at home...only once to have it in Italy I guess.

Christmas things are beginning to go up around here and so Alyson and I have been jamming out to Christmas music quite a bit...can't wait :)  The weather here has been mostly in the 60's still, I'm sure on our plane ride home we'll have to start layering up because we might be walking out to a white Ohio from the sounds of it!

Well I miss you all very much...I better get ready for this group outing...I'll update again after we get back from Florence.  Love you!

Karma

And I had to have a little payback after Alyson's blog post the other day...we have a tendency to fall asleep anywhere and everywhere these days. Enjoy!

bonjour...au revoir!

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, it has been crazy busy with school work and traveling it's hard to set aside enough time to update on what's been going on over here in Europe!

This past weekend me and Alyson and 5 other students from our group packed up and went to Paris!  It was a MUCH smoother trip to and from Paris than Greece was two weeks ago, we are practically experts at this traveling business nowadays :)  We got to Paris and once again ran into a couple that was from Canada who was studying in France that told us exactly what we needed to do and where we needed to go and what metro we needed to get on and how to buy our tickets, etc etc etc.  Let me just reiterate the obvious fact that Jesus has blessed us all with some amazing guardian angels, and we were definitely saying a few extra prayers that night!

We got to the hostel very easily, and got all set up and situated.  Mind you, this was our first time staying in a hostel, it was called St. Christopher's hostel and was ran by mostly English speaking people, and the people staying at this hostel were mostly our age and traveling from America as well.  The atmosphere was fun and relaxed, they had a restaurant and bar on the first floor and even a night club atmosphere in the basement (however we did not check that part of it out on our weekend stay) butt he option was there!

There were 7 of us and I had booked all of us to stay in one room, which happened to be an 8 person room.  So as we walked in our room we noticed that the eighth bed had clothes laying out on the bed, so it turned out that we did have an 8th roommate!  However we never actually saw or met him because the first night he came back very late and we got up and left for the city super early the next morning, and the second night he didn't come back at all.  So it turned out great anyways!  We did have a community bathroom (yuck!) whose odor resembled very old, moldy, urine that has been covered with rotten eggs, all in a very moist tiny space whose temperature was that of a sauna...just not the relaxing aspect of a sauna.  So needless to say, we avoided having to use that restroom at all costs and remember to go in the public restrooms in the city before returning to the hostel for the nights.

SO...we arrived in Paris late Friday night, so we wanted to get an early start on Saturday to get as much exploring in as possible.  We got up and were out of the hostel by 7am the next morning and immediately head into the city to find the infamous Eiffel Tower...and we found it.  Absolutely beautiful and breathtaking, it was hard to take in that I was actually looking at this landmark that I have seen in countless number of films and read about in tons of books and seen hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of all over the world.  It was amazing.  I stayed with Alyson and Danny the whole day and we explored the entire city, from 8am-9pm we were out walking around the city of Paris...sounds cool, right??  We saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Pantheon, the Palace of Luxenburg, the Louve (however didn't go inside the Louve), a couple churches, some boutiques, a cute restaurant in the park, and so many other random places that we just stumbled upon.  I was in love with this city, the buildings, the parks, the weather...it was absolutely amazing.  Everything seemed so clean and organized, the streets weren't overwhelming, the metro system was manageable, and the city was just flat out gorgeous.

We returned back to Castel Gandolfo on Sunday around noon and were able to get settled back and do some homework and go to mass at 5 up on the hill.  So that was really nice, the mass was pretty interesting as well.  It was all spoken in Italian (of course) and Alyson and I got there about a half hour early and were sitting with our Italian teacher (she's American, but she teaches Italian at this campus in Italy for Walsh).. anyways, an Italian man came up to us and spoke some Italian (Alyson and I just sat there and looked at Laura for a translation)...turns out he needed readers for the mass that evening...and so he asked Alyson if she would do it.  Alyson didn't know how to respond, seeing as we have had about 3 weeks of Italian, but Laura answered for her and said yes, of course Alyson would do the reading!  So...she did...and although she stumbled over a few words, and maybe forgot the last line that translated "the word of the Lord", she still did an amazing job!! I was shocked because I know how she gets beyond anxious saying the reading back in America, speaking English...so I was extremely proud she was able to go in front of entire congregation of Italians and read from the Bible in a language she is very unfamiliar to, so props to her!

This week has been filled with class and homework and sprinting through the streets of Rome trying to catch trains and buses and every other public transportation out there.  One thing I am not going to miss when I leave here is public transportation, I absolutely hate it.  I might even sleep in my car a few nights when I return home because I will be so much more appreciative on just having the capability of driving myself anywhere I'd like whenever I'd like and not have to sprint in pouring down rain across the city of Rome trying to get to termini and to the correct train station by 4:23pm so we can catch the train and not have to sit in termini for another hour until the next train.  Why did we have to run (literally) across the city to get to termini?  I'm glad you asked!  It's because Roman people enjoy having strikes about anything and everything and at the most inconvenient times and places, so basically anytime that it will inhibit convenience for us a strike occurs.  So the buses were not running that would take us to termini, therefore we had to fall back on running...or sprinting...to the station.  It was an adventure...to say the least.

This weekend we are packing up again (the whole group this time with our teachers) and heading into Florence for the weekend!! Should be an awesome time, maybe do a little more shopping :)  gotta finish that Christmas shopping!!! We are definitely going to need to ship stuff home...it's been quite the expensive trip-but all so worth it!

I miss you all and get homesick a lot at night, but I'm having an amazing time here and can't wait to see everyone come December!! I'll try to post more often now, and share pictures with you all :) love you and miss you!!