A Much Anticipated Return...

HELLO WORLD!!!! it's good to see you again. Sorry I've been gone for so long. But its surprisingly difficult to keep up with a blog. I'm going to do my best but there are no promises. I have two blogs to write because I feel like if it were all in one it would be so long no one would read it... besides my mother.

With that said we're going to start with number one... I like to call this..

I thought I'd Have Irish Luck.. I guess Not: The Traveling Nightmare.

we start this tale the night before I am scheduled to leave for London and ultimately Dublin.

The scene is as follows.. I am spending 4 months away from home and have not one article of clothing packed for said months. I also have to write 2.5 film reviews for my class that I am taking in Dublin/Belfast. I have one night to get it all done...

needless to say it was a sleepless night. I didn't sleep a wink but instead worked through the night and talked to my friend from Italy and ended up finishing my reviews. so YAY!!! erin got her work done, got herself packed, got no sleep and is ready to travel.

then there is Lambert Airport. Oh my third home... concourse A. I get to the gate everything is dandy and we get on the plane. I knock out... serious deep sleep 15 min cat nap. Wake up to people getting up on a still parked plane. "whats going on?" "oh we're getting off because the plane is delayed 2 hours.." wooooonderful. The plane continues to get delayed and during this time I have a 30 minute phone call with a friend on a not completely charged (and charger-less) phone, and remember the items i forgot to pack. At this time I call my sister and get her to run up to the airport selflessly missing volleyball she promised to be at so I could have my items. (these are important items i can't get in the UK.. i'm not some crazy bitch that made her sister come over a tshirt or toothbrush). To get these things I have to run outside and then run back through security and back to the gate, only to find out there is going to be another hour delay. Have I mentioned that all of these delays are chipping away at my connection time in Newark? Well they are... severely...

We finally get on the plane around 4:30 the plane was supposed to take off at 12:51. and my phone has totally died.. so i'm using stranger's phones to call my mom and try and figure out the whole london flight situation. I get to Newark and BOOK IT... however, I have no idea where I am going or what this airport is all about. So I am doing my best and make it to the ticket counter and find no one.. absolutely zero people, in the ticketing area. I start talking to the people at Virgin and they're telling me the gate is closed and I cant make it. On top of that I'll have to pay 50 pounds as a change fee to change my flight till the next day. So i just break down and cry. It's been such a long day.. i'm running on like 15 mins of sleep and just want to get to london.

Finally someone from SU finds me and gets everything settled including my emotions and nerves. She gets me on the flight, i have to pay $150 to check my bag that I had as a carry on but whatever I'm getting to London. So I start racing down to the gate totally expecting everyone to be boarded and having to walk down the isle shading my face so no one can see me because i help up the plane. But instead... I see everyone there.. the people that know me are like ERIN! and I get greeted with a hug from Brian our AMAZING trip assistant. <3>

We get to London everything is dandy. Got about 2-3 hours of sleep so I'm still pretty tired but just really excited to get there. Then Molly starts to pull out her passport and I'm thinking 'hey yeah i should get that out'.. I start looking around in my backpack... and I'm looking.. and looking.. and looking and try as I might I can't find it... anywhere. shit. So i lost my passport.. and I'm at the UK border. things are looking faaaaantastic. Everyone else goes through the border and I am stuck to wait while Brian lets people know so they can look on the plane and so forth. I take out my pendulum and it says the passport is on the plane so I'm totally relaxed.. its just a waiting game at this point. As I knew they would (thank you pendulum) they find my passport on the plane but it takes a total of 1.5 hours for them to search the plane and get it to me. which again chips away at my connection time.

If you have ever been the London Heathrow then you know, its GIGANTIC. I'm with Brian and he walks me to where I have to declare my bags missing. (another thing to the trip nightmare but the fact that I barely made the plane I was not surprised when my luggage didn't show up). Anyway, Brian has to leave me to get his own luggage to the van and tells me 'go through nothing to declare then alskdjfoksaufeoiuioshdgsd" I couldn't remember what he said by the time I got through customs and out to the ticketing area. So I basically relied on my instinct and airport smarts to get me from one terminal to the another one on my own.

I get lost and turned around but I'm still plugging away because at this point there is no way for me to call or reach Brian and I can't go back because I don't know where 'back' is. I'm running around the airport and finally find out where I'm supposed to be. But then continued to get turned around and confused. However, I make it all on my own to the gate and everyone there is like 'you found your passport??!!' again.. what an entrance. I tell everyone my trying story and then we hop on the plane to Dublin and everything is dandy. I'm so happy to be there we get to our 'hotel' which is actually Grad Student housing at Trinity College and they're these amazing little apartments. But anyway, I'm unpacking everything and I can't seem to find the little items my sister brought me at the airport completely out of the way. Since it's so fitting with my day I consider them lost and hope they turn up somewhere... luckily they did. In my backpack, that i searched 3 times, 3 days later.

Thats the travel story. I'll try to do more about Ireland in general and also finish up some of my Italy posts as well. So it could be a little jumbled... then there are also the posts about my first week and an half in London... just be patient with me. I'm doing my best.

LOVE FROM LONDONTOWN

Most Amazing Ending Ever

So there is this boy, Clemente, and he is friends with two of the girls in the program's host brother. And we've hung out with his friends, including Clemente, for about 2-2.5 weeks now. Over the last week I've noticed Clemente very subtly flirting. A little closer of a hug with Ciao kisses, hand on my back not my shoulder, small small things but there. So tonight was our last night and I was determined. This was going to happen.

So we start off our night at a bar called Kikuya, and Clemente and I arrive to the table at the same time. I again get the slightly closer Ciao kisses and we sit down next to each other. Then throughout the night we're able to talk and talk a lot. also talk close together. So after a while this idiotic girl, V, comes over and is all over him. Just like she has been since she met him. I just look at everyone else like is she clueless?? He has not once returned your advances, it sure as hell aint gonna happen tonight now that I'm showing interest. So since I don't want to vom over everyone I go to get some air and everyone else is like WHAT? go in and get your man, get rid of the competition. But I'm just like, ha, theres no competition there. I mean if he wanted that a. i dont want him and b. he's had plenty of opportunity he hasn't taken so... I'm fine. Then he comes out a few mins later, with her tagging along of course, and I just laugh to myself because she is being so pathetic. We then decide we're heading to Lion's Fountain.

Before this we say goodbye to a bunch of people going home and unfortunately some of them were some of my very close friends on the trip and I already miss them. Like Audrey, my gay husband, who is a whole other post in herself but that was really hard and took forever because we're all girls and we were like hug.. ok.. no wait HUG! blah blah

So we head to Lion's Fountain and he disappears for like 10 mins. I don't know where he went. But when he comes back he sits next to me to listen to videos I took of him singing and we're pretty close then finally the last lose end of extra people drops off and its just the two girls, their host brother, a real brother visiting, Clemente and me. 5 people. Nice and small. We head to Santa Croce steps, our fav, and we talk for maybe half an hour more. We get ready to say goodbyes and my first one was to Clemente, and while I have him in my arms reach I say 'dame un baccio' and he gives me a kiss on the corner of my mouth. So I return with a kiss on the cheek. After that for some reason all the goodbyes hit me and I have a mini breakdown. But then we finally all go our own way, the 2 friends and the 2 brothers, then Clemente and I.

As we start walking he asks where I live and I tell him near Piazza Beccaria and he responds, 'do you want a ride?' Now when we were outside of the first bar we had been asking for moped rides and he said no so I was confused and asked 'on what?' 'the moped' 'do you have an extra helmet?' 'Yes i do, I just didn't want everyone on the moped' understandable. So we get me a helmet thats totally motocross racing type. He figures out how to clasp it on and we're good to go. So we're on the moped riding to my house, I've got one hand around him and one gripping the moped. It's not too scary since it's late with minimal traffic so everything is nice.

Then we get to my corner and we're sitting on the bike, I'm trying to get my helmet off and I cant. He goes.. 'get off' so we get off and he unbuckles it for me and then takes his off and he's like don't tell Adrienne (another girl that wanted a moped ride. she's great). She'll get really upset and jealous. And we ciao kiss again but we don't seperate. Then comes the stare in eachothers eyes then to the lips then back up to the eyes moment before he kisses me. We kiss for like 20 seconds and it was fantastic. We then separate to kiss one or two times more and I make the decision to go before I never leave. So I squeeze his arm and say I'll visit. Because it's true. I'm coming back to Firenze while I'm in London and I'll see him and the friends.

Then when he turns the corner to leave I wave and it was pretty much storybook amazingness.

HAPPINESS CLOUD NINE = ERIN

cherry on top = get to rub it in obnoxious girl's face.

but mainly it was the perfect ending to a GREAT adventure in Italy.

more posts coming i SWEAR

How did Trash Boat turn out??

It's about time I updated this uh?

Well let's see. This last week... hmm. bunch of stuff don't really know where to start.

I guess we'll start at last weekend. I went to Venice with my class for the night. We got there at a decent time on Friday like lunch time and then dropped our stuff off at the hotel which was fine. I had amazing roomies and didn't get stuck with Katie so all was good. Then we got pretty crappy pizza that didn't fill anyone up and some fruit from a stand. Then we headed straight for the art show and stayed there till dinner. We went to some ok place that was around the art show because we wanted to see this performance type thing our teacher had been talking about and the boat to go see the show would pick us up near where we were so we stayed. Then we tried to find out how to get there but my teacher is a serious space cadet so it was all way too difficult. Then when we finally got the ferry to get us there was nothing there. It was just a mess. And when we got back she left us to go try and find it herself. crazyness. So we walked around a bit. Saw some really pretty glass because Becca is obsessed with the glass there. Oh mom you'd be or should be proud I identified Chihuly in about .005 seconds upon seeing his glass. Anyway then we went back to the hotel. Blah blah blah... Oh by the way in case you didn't know Venice is a MAZE. it's so easy to get lost and most of the streets are creepy little back alleys that don't look like they should be streets but they are.

Then the next day we went back to the art show but she gave us till 4:30 to meet back at the hotel so we walked around the art show, saw what we wanted to, killed our legs from the amount of walking and then went to walk around the actually city. So we started walking and there isn't much to say about us walking other than its absolutely GORGEOUS but definitely something you need to see to believe. We probably stopped at all the different glass shops because Becca is obsessed with it. And because of that I found my wonderful new necklace that is a star shape with yellow flowers in it so it looks sooo pretty. If you know me well enough you should know that I love the stars and my favorite color is yellow so its like a match made in heaven. I don't really think there was anything else to interesting to talk about in Venice. We got our stuff took the water bus with our flaky teacher back to the station. someone was an idiot and lost their ticket (catie) and so they had to change hers. Which turned out to be great because she was in a different car than the rest of us. YAY!!!! We all pretty much passsssssed out on the train ride home and it was just lovely.

Thats Venice.

I'm sorry I haven't updated this as regularly as planned. It takes more concentration than I realized and well... i often lack concentration as it is. But I promise more will be coming!!!

The Italian Family (Treats for Mary!)

ITALY!!!!

things needing to be discussed in this blog:

1. the past few days

2. the trio

3. my other amici

4. italian boys

5. dancing in the club with italian boys

6. Pisa

1. So the past few days haven't really been that exciting. It's like I've finally gotten used to being in this city so the excitement and such is wearing off. It's still amazing to be here don't get me wrong but seeing new things isn't as thrilling it's just more Florence. The WOW factor and the I CANT BELIEVE IM HERE has worn off quite a bit. Which is maybe why it feels like I've been here for 2 months and not a simple 2 weeks.

2. The trio consists of my new AMAZING friend Jess, who goes to Syracuse too and my new lover Audrey, who goes to Bates. So Jess is a little Babeatron and she is getting a boy here. Well, already has a boy here. And Audrey and I sat this boy down and asked the tough questions after he BUTCHERED his first time having an 'us' convo with Jess. And when Audrey and I reflected on this convo with Jess we realized we both acted like dads in a different way. I was kind of like what are your intentions? and audrey asked all the tough questions. So we're now Jess's Gay Dads and it's beautiful. Jess and Audrey are roommates. I'm really jealous. They live like right next to school. It's much nicer than my twenty minute walk to school. But apparently my place is nicer says Jess who is reading over my shoulder... HEY!!!!. anyway. 

3. There are so many great people here in the program its a lot of fun.. JESS JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE ON THE BLOG UPLOAD UR DAMN PICS... sorry she is reading still and I dont think she should have special privileges. You can look through all the glorious pictures of me being put up and find mi amici. But they are super cool. I love them a lot and I dont really know what to say about them that wouldn't take forever in a post. 

4. Ok italian boys.... they are gorgeous for the most part. yum yum yum. so nice to look at. most of the time tho i wish i didn't have a nose when i am looking at them. because they smell like a sweaty locker room. The good news is when you find a well dressed, really gorgeous guy AND he smells good, its probably the best thing ever. And you want to marry them and run away into the sunset but instead you just keep walking because u've only passed them in the street. 

5. now, different story is when you go to a club or a bar and there are italian men there. HOLY SHIT HOLD ON TO YOUR COOTER. cuz they are after it and they stop at nothing to try and get it. like last night for instance. we go on to the dance floor and we're like 5-6 girls strong... so you'd think maybe one or two would get picked off to dance. HELL NO. ALLLLL 6 of us get some creep that takes us away and trys to dance all sexy but its really just nasty and... JESSS SOON ENOUGH READ YOUR OWN COMP... and you're like o this is kinda fun for about 5 seconds. then they get really into it and invade your personal space like its they're job. they're in your face and there is nothing you can do to get away. We even tried to help eachother and go to the other side of the floor and they FOLLOWED US! so this one guy is following me around and trying to get me to makeout with his tongue it was so gross i don't even want to talk about it right now. but he was all up in my grill and i was like buddy, back off. Then when i finally got off the dance floor and away from him he WAITS for me to come back and seriously stays in one spot till i find him again when i leave. and he does this motion like OH there you are!!! and I was like WHAT? you didn't find someone new by now? ah shit. it was terrible terrible. What's even worse is that a really cute boy, tho he did smell, tried to get me to dance after that but i was too scared i get molested via dance to go with him. ugh. this could ruin the rest of the clubs for me. and to think i was actually looking forward to the aggressive italian men. 

6. PISA!!! we went to Pisa on saturday. It was lovely. We climbed the tower and I was so scared half the time. with my messed up head i could feel every time we were tilting and it was so freaky. But the view really was amazing and blah blah blah. Then going back down was SOOO ridiculously terrifying because all of the steps were made of marble and the marble was wearing down so i was sure i was going to slip and fall on one of them. Ugh. By the time i got back on the ground i literally ran over the lawn and sat down. I was like thank you goodness for the solidness of this ground. Then i laid down with Jess in the grass and when we got up realized i was allergic to that kind of grass and itched for about 10 mins. FABULOUS. Anyway, then we went to lucca. Nothing to exciting to report there. 

Everything else is freaking amazing. I love my host mom. I love ninjavideo for keeping me up to date with TV.. like WEEDS!!!! and my roommate is totally opposite me but we still have fun. Shes religious and neat and a study person but we still get a long fine in our room. I think thats all for now. I love youuuuuuuuuuu ALL. 

Arrivederci,

Erin

D is for Douchebag

ugh his birthday is on saturday so his name is on my homepage. and as much as i hate to admit this it still stings a little how everything went down and how he didnt do everything he could to stop it and how at one point he just gave up. i dont think about this obnoxious issue a lot but when it comes up its a little pain. like a splinter i haven't been able to completely remove. i wish i could get an apology, i wish i could tell him how pathetic it was for him to give up, i wish i knew 100% that at one point i meant more to him than he portrayed at the end.

Sweet Silver Lining

So if you didn't know the post title is a song by Kate Voegele who I'm slightly obsessed with at the moment. (esp Angel. GREAT song) It's a pretty perfect title for right now too because I am about to freaking saw my wrist off it itches so bad but I pretty much just tell myself I have bug bites in ITALY I'm still in ITALY so it's all good. My wrist has 2 HUGE bites on it that were so little yesterday afternoon then decide to....
I think i just saw two birds having sex. that was weird. or it looks like the male is just raping the other bird. poor thing.
... inflame and be come massive. They itch so intensely that they woke me up a couple times this morning. I'm being eaten alive and it's terrible. Then I also have a blister the size of North Dakota on my foot and that kills.

Other than that not a whole lot to tell. We just walk around during the day. Grab some lunch and try our best to get lost. We also get gelato like everyday because its good and cheap. perfect combo. We saw the Gardino Biboli yesterday which is the Biboli Gardens and it had some AMAZING views. There weren't really any garden gardens but it was big green place with trees and statues. It would take forever to go through it all.

As far as pictures go I'm gonna do my best to get some up asap.
LOVE YOU ALL

Quality Life Choices

So after yesterday there is so much to tell! Saturday was proably the best day I've had here yet. SOO great. Lets start at the beginning.
I met my host mom and her name is Pia. She has 2 sons and they dont live at home but the older one came to visit and he is... well pretty is an understatement. But its the best word to describe him. His name is David and he has a supermodel wife. Whatever, still nice to look right? Its a great house and she has a little pug. Ugliest pug I've ever seen but so cute because of it.
Saturday we all got to go to Chianti (key-an-ti). It is a Tuscan hill town and so the drive was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, ever. First we stopped at a town right before it called Geneva and it was so cute. They were having a little concert recitale thing in the square and when we first got there the song they were playing and singing was Summer Lovin from Greece. So great. We just walked around and I got Gelato. The best strawberry gelato I've had yet.
Then we went up to the Villa that we were going to have lunch at and do a wine tasting. The hill was a bitch and a half. Imagine, the mount + Booth's hill on top. Terrible. But so worth it because the Villa was AMAAAZING! This guy that owned it couldn't have been more than 30, my roommate and I are thinking 27 to be exact. He had a huge garden, huge house, amazing view and it was all just breathtaking. Then we had lunch. Nothing to really write about just some pasta and Prociuto and so forth.
But we also tasted his wine. And yes... Erin tasted it too. I had my first free will sip of alcohol and I don't know how you guys do it because it was absolutely disgusting. Even the sweeter wine that was later, which apparently tasted like apple juice to everyone else, was repulsive. Ew gross, no thank you. And don't worry, everyone at my table had a camera ready so there should be about 5 different points of view on Erin's first drink. Then they all thought that since I was having my first taste that I wanted to start drinknig, clearly these people have only known me for less than a week. I continuely was like but I'm not looking to start drinking. I was simply tasting it here because its Italy and the best in the world.
Anyway, so I'm to about 3pm in my day here and it ended at 1 am. Bare with me.
After all of the food we just walked around the Villa a little, our guides were amazing. Fillipo liked me a little and kept coming over to say hi. But he's great and we did italian kisses when we left. Left to left cheek then right to right. Mike was also great and sat with us at the table and talked to us about everything. We'll definitely be seeing him again.
ok so then we went back to florence, and I dont really remember what we did. We had dinner, very good of course and then met people up at the school. Have I mentioned school yet? I think I have, Villa Rosa, goregeous garden etc. When we got there, like typical American college students they all wanted alchohol and they wanted it about 10 minutes ago. So we go off to the Piazza right by school where there is a kiosk for wine and other drinks. There are also alllll these Italian teenagers hanging out.
We were trying to figure out where we were going to go to get bottles of wine for everyone when an italian guy started getting closer to us like he was eavsdroping so I just said Buon sera, buon sera. And he kind of walked away. I looked over and said you cant fool me! Then about 5 minutes later he was back with a girl on his arms and they were saying they were an exchange couple so I kind of slowly walked up and said again buon sera. From there we started talking and it was extremely entertaining. I found out that he was looking to exchange his italian gf for an american girl and that they would help us find good wine. So everyone else is kind of freaking out like what are you doing but I was just doing my thing and they loved me. Then the original guy's best friend came from behind and grabbed him. It was strange but he (italian #1) said oh he's gay. Very gay. So I turned to him and spoke very clearly and loudly, WE ACCEPT YOU. WE WILL ACCEPT YOU IN AMERICA. They couldn't handle that. They were laughing very hard. It was fabulous. Then I tried to introduce myself and the girl, who I later found out was named Virginia, said her name was nipple, no nipple cow. And because of that I was like ohh really? well I'm titty cow. And again I cracked them up. (toot toot) They were trying to show us where to go to get wine but it was like a 20 minute walk. not something we were totally up for. But I ended up getting a picture, finding out that the "gay"'s name was Luca and having a blast making new friends.

Luca(Gay), Eavsedropper, Me, Vittoria

Everyone I was with was like Erin has game, I'm so glad youre with us, You're so good with the Italians etc. It was awesome. I liked that hahah.
Then we walk towards the Duomo and find this group of guys celebrating their buddies 26th bday and totally drunk. We still hadn't found vino yet so I asked them. Again I start making friends and before I know it the bday boy has all the girls lined to either side of him and they are trying to get someone to kiss him on the cheek. No one was doing it and they were looking like if they did they would get a disease or something. But there was nothing wrong with him. So i lean over and give him a little kiss on the cheek and everyone erupts AYYY!!!! Woohoo Erin saves the day, again. They can't tell us how to get to any vino store so we end up moving on and keep going. But I think one of the guys tried to tell me that they thought American girls were easy. Which isnt news to me, its pretty widely thought here, but I never thought someone would say it to my face. He said in broken english, we think... American girls and vino... and just made hand gestures like keep going with me on this thought. So I go nooo noo noo! I swear they were harmless and not as horrible as it sounds while I'm writing this. Dont worry mother. Another one of the guys said "raggazze americane sono belle" in a whisper and i turned and said grazie which was answered with a prego. (American girls are pretty).
We ended up never finding a place to buy bottles of wine but just sitting on the steps and drinking the bottle someone had bought at the Villa earlier that day. (It was opened by my original friends in the piazza when Lauralise came and said she couldn't get them to open it. He just took it from her and she said no they wouldn't open it, and go them to open it no problem). It was a fabulous night and everyone is now jealous of my broken not so good italian skills. Anyway, long story short most people reading this, from cuse, are friends with a P I M P or just a kick ass person, either way.
Fabulousness.
I get wireless internet tomorrow in the school buildings YAY! and today it was raining :( but whatever. We went shopping with Pia which was very interesting. I dont really know what else to write about. And I think this blog is lengthy enough since I've been writing for about 20-25 minutes. I hope you were able to read it all. I miss EVERYONE but I'm having an awesome time.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEVON!!! that too.
I think I'm going to get going here. wow 43 minutes online and only 1.5€ sweeeeeeeeeeet. maybe gelato time? i dunno.
LOVE YOU ALL,
the Diva. Erin :)

ITALIA ITALIA ITALIA

Boun Giorno,
IM HERE!!!!!!!!!!!
It is unbelievably beautiful. Like I can't explain it, but the pictures and the postcards are real. They are right in front of me and its like they have just come to life. It's so crazy and I'm loving it SOOO much.
I haven't met my host family yet and I'm so beyond nervous. Like who am I going to live with? How is everything going to go? I hope it's going to be good and I'll be living with someone I like.
The people that are here on the trip are 90% awesome. Some people are giving me bad vibes and there is one girl here that just explained why. She's a tridelt and I thought instantly, so that's why you give off the I'm-better-and-prettier vibe. Gotcha. Anyway. I'm so glad my dad got a cell phone and some euros for me before I left. Everyone is scrambling around trying to get those things figured out and I'm just sitting there like, oh, mine's kinda done.
So yesterday we took this AMAZING walking tour with a cutie named Tom. He has a gf who is italian and came with us and they were adorable together. Anyway not the point. The point is it was supposed to be about an hour long but since there was only about 15 of us and we were enjoying ourselves we took about 2 hours. It was so gorgeous, we got gelato, and we just wandered. Parts of Florence remind me of Paris and I'm thinking it's just the European way of things that is doing that.
We finaly saw the Duomo that everyone is talking about and OMG I can see why they can't really describe it. Its just HUGGGGE! and so breathtaking. But it's crazy because the front of the building was just done about 140 years ago (just ha). The rest of the building however, is about 700 years old or from the 1200's I can't remember which. Can you imagine making something now and having it be something people are still using, talking about, loving 700+ years down the line? That's just amazing.
Right now I'm in our little computer cluster and it feels so good to be back on the internet. So many of us were just going nuts over not having the technology we do back home. Like no txting are you kidding me? But anyway. (I say that a lot) there is a Skype room so you best all be getting Skype and we'll chat. I miss everyone but I'm having so much fun and meeting a bunch of new people and it's just begun.
I'm pretty pumped for everything that is coming my way. We already have some trips in mind, like going to Siena for the horse race around the Piazza, I'm going to Venice with my class and others. I'll keep you all udated as much as I can. I'm getting wireless access around the school buildings and have class TTh 8:30 (shoot me) -12:30 then 1-3. So hopefully I'll be able to update this a bunch.
Arrivederci. I LOVE YOU ALL!!

The Day Has Come

So it's finally travel day. I'll be on my first plane in less than 5 hours. I have everything packed and thanks to packwhiz.com i don't feel like I'm forgetting something, however it's me and I will forget something. Its just bound to happen.

But i started my packing with about 30 outfits laid out for a 42 day trip. I have it now down to 16 outfits. Mainly because I got so many cute new shirts for this trip it was hard to leave them here. But I know i'll be ok with my adorable wardrobe. My only concern is apparently Italians don't wear flip-flops around and I packed at least 5 pair. (Hello $1 flip flop sale at Old Navy!). 

Anyway, I'm really bored. Its 4:30 and I dont want to go to sleep because then waking up would be TORTURE! plus how much sleep would I actually get?

I'm getting really excited and really anxious. I just want to know whats going on, who i'm living with, who my roommate is. So many questions. Hopefully, they'll all be answered very soon. 

oh also. My professor sent out an email today saying to get very specific paper for the photo class and I read it at like 5pm tonight. All I could think was seriously? You know we're leavingTOMORROW right? I don't have time now to go get that paper. Ugh... whatever. I'll get it there I guess. 

I got my family gifts. I hope they like them. One is a bar of soap. Its handmade and looks like red grapes. I thought of red wine and thought it would work. I was originally looking for something with an Arch on it, so I could show them my landmark but they didn't have anything at the place I went. I also got them Cardinals baseball cards. I thought it was cute because of how big football is over there and so the (kindof) counterpart for me is baseball and especially the Cardinals. I just hope they get it and they like them. I know nothing about them so it's not like I can pick the most perfect thing ever. 

Also, I think... I'm leaving RufRuf home. It would be her first time staying home while I'm traveling but I worry about her. I would never want to lose her and, while no one will steal her, what happens if I forget her? Or my bags get lost for good? She's too valuable to me to lose. So I think for her safety, I'm leaving her home. It's going to be a sad day. But after 18 years you've got to let go a little right?

That's all i've got for now. Talk to ya in ITALY!!!!!

This has nothing to do with traveling... for the most part

I'm going to talk today about birds. Birds being in my freaking house. 

So when I was at camp summer after junior year, I turned on the shower and a moth flew at my face. Thats why I don't like moths and butterflies. And now I'm not starting to like birds that much. So the first bird I found was in my basement and when I came downstairs freaking FLEW AT ME! like came and attacked me. I shrieked and had my dad get it out of the house. Of course it had to fly around some more, come at me some more and then fly out the door. Now this new one was here the other day. I went into my laundry room heard some rustling around which I thought was strange. When I turned on the light the fucking bird flew at my head. I flipped out and ran out of the room, my dad went in again and got the bird to go out the door. NOW there is something tweeting in my freaking bathtub. I'm too scared to look and startle it having it fly at my face. Why are there birds in my house?!?!?!?

ughh.

oh and I don't have anything actually packed. I have stuff laid out but nothing in the suitcase. YAY procrastination!  

5 days left and I'm... Blogging

So it's my first post.. YAY! anyway. I was just in the car rockin out to some song and then the weirdest thing happened. The song stopped and I got this ping of loneliness all the sudden. It just keeps hitting me everyday now that I'm not with my lovers at Cuse. The majority of which I wont get to see till next YEAR :( either. I miss you all and I don't know how I'll handle it. Lets count here.... may, june, july, august, september, october, november, december thats... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8... EIGHT MONTHS without Cuse and wayyyy to many Cuse lovers. 

--- on a happier side note, I'm currently watching Two A Days, whatever happened to this show? its so fabulous. this girl is going hunting in PEARLS?!?!---

ok so.. This is my blog for those 8 months where I'll be traveling alllllll around Europe makin it my bitch lol but really EVERYWHERE. And this is so everyone can know what I'm up to and get updates on me when its hard to get in touch. But everyone better get themselves Skype and a webcam. That way we can leave each other videos on facebook and video chat and funnnn stuff!!

in 5 days I head to the first part of my journey, Florence Italy. and can we just talk for a second.. about the fact that I have no FUCKING clue what I'm getting myself into. Like here is what I know.. 1. I'm living with an Italian family, probably with someone else too 2. I'm taking one course thats a photography course 3. I'll be in Florence or Firenze 4. It will probably be balls hot 5. I'm hopefully going to be able travel. FIVE things. thats NOTHING!!! AHHH. and I'm kind of a planner type. I dont need everything planned out in front of me but I like to have a better idea about what I'm getting myself into. ughhh.

Thats my life at the moment. I miss everyone at Cuse. I'll let you know how everything goes with Florence. I know it will be fabulous but I just don't know exactly how yet.