Corri la Vita

Sunday morning me and 4 of my roomates woke up bright and early to meet people from our school for Corri la Vita. Corri la Vita is a 5k walk or run for breast cancer. It was fun to do something that I would normally do at home. As Kelsey would say,"we're saving lives". The walk started in a piazza by our house, went across the ponte vecchio, through the boboli gardens(where I went Friday), back across the ponte vecchio, past the duomo, and back to the piazza. We signed up for the non competitive walk. However, after seeing how slow it is to walk behind the entire city of Florence, my equally competitive roomate and I wasted no time in making this walk a competition! I'm sure that comes as no suprise to those that know me! Me and the roommates wore pink ribbon and had a wonderful time. The weather was very nice. After the walk we made a quick stop at our apartment and headed to the Diner. This time I had french toast and it was sooo yummy! Here are pics of the walk!

Here we are before the race


my fellow competitive spirit


ready to start



this is what I mean by the entire city of Florence




Today I had a quiz in Marketing and tomorrow I have a quiz in Italian, so I will be busy studying!

Love!

Palazzo Pitti

Friday, me and two of my roommates decided to get out of our apartment. We went to the Palazzo Pitti.



This opens up the the Boboli Garden. The garden is huge! And there's actually grass! There is no grass in the city so this was a welcome change.






With entrance into the garden, we got to go into the museums too. My favorites were thePorcelain Museum and the Costume Gallery.

The Porcelain Museum was more interesting than expected. All the peices were so beautiful and unique. These were my favorites.





There was also an awesome chandelier inside!





The best part was the Costume Gallery. They wouldn't let you take pictures inside which was so sad. This is basically a fashion history museum. All the pieces were absolutely amazing!! There were dresses, shoes, hairpeices, and all kinds of accessories.

We also got some wonderful views of Florence!




It was a wonderful and relaxing day!

The Happiest Place on Earth

As I was on my way to the market on Tuesday morning, I walked past a little shop that I thought was a flower shop. I only got a glance and the only thing I saw was flowers. I decided to come back on my way home because I wanted fresh flowers in our apartment. As I walked in I recieved quite a suprise! The flowers were fake and I had stumble upon a small, Italian version of Hobby Lobby. I have a slight obsession with Hobby Lobby. I can tell you how every Hobby Lobby in Austin is laid out. So I was beyond excited when I stumbled upon this place!!!




My favorite

The weekend in review

This weekend we pretended like we weren't in Italy. We ventured out on Friday to find the American bakery that we had learned about in orientation. I was very excited about the possibility of a blueberry muffin. Sadly, when we got there only one muffin remained. It was banana nut and I was a little bit sad. I immediately cheered up when I saw that I could get peanut butter on a bagel. I have been searching and searching for peanut butter. I heard a rumor that it could be found. I would love to hunt the person down who started this rumor because it is a lie. I jumped at the chance and let me tell you, it was heavenly. We hung out there for a while and came back. We had an uneventful evening. Saturday we went shopping and walked around the city. It was pretty rainy all day which was dissappointing. We all hung out that night. The rain was a downer but we prevailed. Sunday morning we were all wanting a huge breakfast. We went to the diner. Its owned by the same people that own Acqua el due where I got the yummy pasta the first week. It was all american food. YUM!! I ate an egg sandwich, hasbrowns, and turkey bacon. It was so so good. I almost feel like I'm cheating on italy and this amazing experience. So I will try to avoid pretending like I'm in America but sometimes a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. Sunday evening I got to talk to my family. Apparently it was family weekend in Austin. I got to talk to my grandparents and hear all about what they've been up to. I also got to see my daddy since he was gone last time I skyped my mom. My mom and carol were there too and I'm glad I got to see them. Flo still can't understand where the sound is coming from but I think she hears my voice. The hightlight (even though it was all wonderful) was getting to talk to my brother and Karissa. I have the best older brother and sister and I'm so glad they were in Austin so I could see them! That was definitely a wonderful end to my weekend! Just for fun here are some pics of my family since they made my weekend!

this is one of my faves of us as children


here is the day Karissa officially became family


and here's the smiths at thanksgiving


PS Mom,I don't seem to have many recent family pics, lets take care of that at christmas

School days

I just wanted to take a few minutes and talk about my classes. This is mostly for me so that I can look back and remember. Probably the only other people besides me who care about this will be my parents but I'm ok with that. I am in 4 classes which is kind of a break for me since I'm usually in at least 5 or 6. On mondays I have Special Event management. I have been looking forward to this class since I started college. I'm a little upset that Tech only requires one. I can't wait to learn more about my future industry. I am already enjoying this class and learning so much. As one of our feild trips, we are going to an Italian bridal show. I can't even begin to describe how ecstatic I am about that! I could dedicate a whole post but I won't. On Tues/Thurs I have Italian class. Its very challengeing but I am enjoying it. My teacher is very animated and tries to make this class as easily as possible. It is my mission to put a lot of effort into this class and learn as much as possible. On Wednesdays I have Hospitality Marketing and Supervision & Leadership in the Hospitality Industry. I was really dreading a marketing class. I took this class over here because I figured if I hated it like I thought I would at least I'd be in Italy. I actually enjoy it! Its interesting and not as business like as I thought. Hospitaliy marketing is focused on the costumer which is what I love most about the hospitality industry. I do however feel like "that girl" in class. My class is very tiny (less than 10) and no one answers questions. So very unlike my school-self, I seem to be the one answering a lot of the questions. I feel like everyone in that class thinks I'm a know it all. If they would just speak up! Oh well! My supervision and leadership class is challenging. First of all my teacher doesn't speak as well as my others do and he makes very long, very intense eye contact. Its a little awkward. Its also not in the lecture style that I'm used to so its hard for me to take notes. I will get through it some way or another I'm sure. The good news is, I only have to get C's. I obviously will try to get better grades but they don't transfer as grades to Tech. The hardest part of these classes is that they only meet once a week so they are 2 1/2 hours long. I have trouble sitting still for a 50 minute class so this is quite the growing experience for me. I will leave you with 2 things that will shock you
1. In 2 out of the 4 classes, I sit in the front row....by choice
2. I have been doing my homework right after I get out of class which is like a week early

Love Love

The only thing to fear is fear itself...

Yeah right! Those of you at home know how terrified I am of birds! I'm sure you will all (esp my family) get a good laugh out of this. I realize how irrational this is but my heart has just now stop pounding. This all happened on my walk home from class. I'm walking down the street toward this cute antique store and there is a bird sitting on the pavement. As I am probably 5 feet away from this guy, he starts flying, hits the window of this store and flys directly towards me. Luckily for me he got air really fast and didn't hit me. I tried really hard not to panic because I didn't want to make a spectical of myself. Then I'm walking across the piazza de santa croce recovering from the before mention incident. Then from across the piazza an entire FLOCK of birds decided that they were just gonna start flying with absolutely no consideration of the large amount of people in the piazza. And I just HAPPENED to be in their direct line of take off!!!! So obviously I freeze, through my hands up a little, and hope they don't touch me. By the way, these are nasty nasty pigeons! Needless to say that was a very terrifying 10 minutes in my life that I never want to relive!!

Toscana

I am "home" from my first weekend trip!!! It went pretty well and I had a good time! We left Friday at 7:30 am. We were almost late but we took a quick (and I mean quick) cab ride to the meeting place and it was just fine. Our bus driver made a wrong turn and added about an hour to our trip. Awesome, thanks for that bus driver. Our first stop was a little town called Pienza. Here we saw the duomo and had an amazing view.





This town is famous for its pecorino which is cheese made from sheep's milk. The more you let this cheese age, the stronger it gets. In Pienza we had a cheese tasting.



It was actually really good. I really did like it.

After that we went to a vineyard where we had a wine tasting lunch. It was absolutely beautiful!


There were roses on every row. If the roses are dead/dying that means there is something wrong with the grapes. Clever!



After the tasting we had a tour of the vineyard. Where we saw the fermentation room and the wine barrels.





The next day we went to Pitigliano which is built on a cliff kinda. Here are pictures!







Sunday we spent the day at the beach laying out and then came back home.

Things I learned:
*Italians are never on time
*I still love the beach
*The weather here is unpredictable!

A few thoughts after my first week of classes

I have officially been to all my classes and I'm pretty happy!


Here are my random thoughts:
*I (of course) already LOVE special events. It is basically my dream come true class. I am very pleased because this just further confirms my career choice!
*Also, I don't hate marketing like I thought I would. I think that it will actually be interesting but a little challenging. I am not very business minded so we'll see how this goes.
*My HR class is weird because my teacher is hard to understand but I'll get through it.
*It is so very nice to have a routine!
*Me and my roommates are becoming better friends everyday so that is a blessing. *Good news alert!! I found 2 bookstores on my own today without getting lost!!! There is proof that I'm not directionally hopeless which is pretty major!
*Apparently in Texas there are phrases that aren't normal to other people but I'm ok with that.
*No other states take quite as much state history as we do!
*As far as Italy is concerned, Everything is bigger in Texas! :)


On the food news front:
Me and the roommates found a new hang out! One of my roomies came home this afternoon and suggested we try a restaurant just down the street. It is literally at the end of our block. We went in and it was pretty tiny. The tables have marble tops with stools and long benches to sit on. There is an older couple and a young man who do all the cooking. Tonight there were 2 waitresses. They both speak English and were able to recommend some good dishes. I ordered soup to start and roast beef with potatoes. There were so many things that sounded good. Next time I will be adventurous but I was just craving some meat. So I went with the most American choice and I'm really ok with that. Let me tell you that it was delicious! I am so glad we found this place and we are all going back very often. We then decided that we wanted something sweet. We walked around our neighborhhood until we found a gelato place we thought looked the best. We were for sure correct in that choice! I got San Luca and Alice. San Luca is white chocolate with rice crisps in it. Yum! Alice is marscapone with chocolate sauce. Marscapone is a sweet cheese. Its kind of like cream cheese but made differently. It rocked my world for sure. I'm obsessed. Maybe by a small miracle I can learn how to make it!

I will leave you with that. We are leaving on our Tuscan tour bright and early tomorrow morning! I can't wait. I will have pics when I get back so you can have something more interesting to look at! Buonasera!

The wait is over!

It has been a week since I got here. It feels like forever but it also feels like it has been so short! I know you are dying to know what my apartment looks like! I have purposefully been building the suspense. It may also be that I just haven't done it yet haha. Anyways here it is!

Here is my room


Here is my little area




Here's our closet



Here's our window and the little courtyard




These next few speak for themselves






Here is our precious kitchen!






Our living room





here is our creepy painting we lovingly call Richard



And here is how we dry clothes!



Well there you have it folks! I hope that you enjoyed that little tour. I'm off to Italian class!!

Love!