Trips, Statues, and Food

I haven't blogged in a few days and I have so much to update on. One, my mom sent me some recipes so I can be a grown up and finally start cooking my own meals and I must say I'm quite a cooking success. I've made ravioli, spaghetti, fiesta bean dip, applesauce, and french toast. All very delicious by the way. I have more to learn but I have the basics down which is exciting to me.

Classes are going to be difficult but since I don't have tv and I do have a 4 day weekend it should be fairly easy to keep up (or so I hope). After my first classes I have about 200 pages to read total for my classes. There's just going to be a lot of reading. I started reading the Iliad for my "Age of the Heros" class which is confusing but interesting. I ventured out of my apartment yesterday to read out by a statue (as there are many in Florence) on a park bench. I got distracted a few times by people watching. Let me tell you there are many guidos in Florence, which I didn't really expect but there here. It was nice to sit outside and get some "fresh" air (a lot of people smoke here) and just be apart of florence. I'm pretty sure I ended up in about 50 tourist pictures of that statue.

But anyway, yesterday Jess and I went to talk to a travel agency about our plans for fall break. We don't know where we want to go exactly but we know we have a budget and that limits us. We were thinking Paris and one of the trips offered through the travel agency which would be very safe and secure goes from florence to prague, prague to amsterdam, amsterdam to paris. We would have a tour guide, stay in 3 star hotels, and get the most for our buck but it's a little over what I wanted to spend. So I tried figuring out some ways to do it on my own. I looked up flights for madrid, madrid to paris, and paris to stockholm. That was pretty inexpensive, but the tricky part is figuring out the right hostels to stay in. If I go that route I'm probably going to be visiting the travel agency a lot to get some tips. There are two many choices and I wish I could do it all but let's face it I'm not a millionaire.

I'll just figure that out sometime later and prepare for my exciting journey to capri, pompei, and sorrento tomorrow! I can't wait to go on my first field trip and see some southern parts of Italy. All of ISU is going so it'll be fun to get to know some of the other ISU students that are here as well.

Yesterday Jess and I went for a walk to see if we could find the river which led us on quite the adventure. We took a wrong turn and stumbled upon the "quad of naked people" as I like to call it aka the quad of famous statues. It was a place where I've never seen so many statues before in my life and that was pretty funny to see but exciting that we could. I took many pictures and they are all on facebook so check em out! We then kept going and finally found the river...right at sunset. It was beautiful and so breathtaking. The clouds looked fanominal and the sun was setting just over the buildings that it looked stunning. I also found out thats where most of Florence goes for a run, perfect! I've been looking for places to go run! So then we walked across the bridge and walked around on that side of town which is just as beautiful and way less touristy. I also found my intern friend, Anna, a smooshed penny for her smooshed penny collection. When we walked across another bridge to head home, we found a very pretty spot with live music playing. All sorts of couples were over there and it was just a beautiful time. We then headed home for the night.

Later on, the neighbors, Kaitlyn and Britni, came over and asked us to go out for a night in Florence with them which we couldn't resist. It was fun seeing the city at night without the million tourists roaming around. Well I've written a lot and now I'm off to find the park and do some more reading! Ciao!