STRANDED IN FLORENCE!

Today is Sunday the 19^th of December and I am writing from my hotel room in Florence, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, near the airport!  A huge snowstorm hit Florence Friday and everything shut down, even the San Lorenzo Market! It literally snowed from 10am until around 8pm that night! When I say it snowed all day i am not talked about wimpy delicate little flakes, I mean very heavy and thick packable snow! Now keep in mind that this is still Italy and its not the U.S. so the Chicago airport personnel wouldn't bat an eyelash at a few inches of snow, but Florence DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF A SNOW PLOW, so needless to say I am stuck here until farther notice.  The funny part is, the whether isn’t even bad anymore actually by sun up on Saturday the snow had actually started to melt. The reason the airport was closed was due to the fact that workers couldn’t get there!! With that, allow me to fill you in on how the past morning has gone for me...

My roommate and neighbors wanted to get to the airport EXTRA early because of the weather, so we loaded up a taxi just after 5am on Saturday. Upon arriving at the airport there was still no change to our flight, the screen read "On Time" while all the others had been canceled or delayed. Silly us for begin optimistic! I called home to let my mom know that there was no new information, when I looked up at the screen and saw the dreaded 8 letter word that would haunt me for the next 3days, "canceled".
Crying, frustrated sighs, shocked gasps, lots of angry cursing and complaining is what i heard for the next few hours at the Florence airport. I called Swiss Air with the hope of getting through to change my flight, but after being on hold for a 45 minuet international call, I gave up and went to get in line.

A few hundred college students mostly girls, waited anxiously in a line that hadn't moved in hours. The tiny little Florence airport was bursting at the seams and completely jammed with luggage and grumpy impatient college students who just wanted to get home. Now let me tell you the kicker to this whole situation, they had literally ONE EMPLOYEE working for Swiss Air trying to get a few hundred students rerouted, and even then he was busy working on Lufthansa group flight stuff which meant that non of us in line had gotten acknowledged in over 4 hours! NOT EXAGGERATING ON THE TIME LENGTH HERE PEOPLE!  After close to SIX HOURS in the front of the line, it was my turn. I got to the front of the line and had all my papers ready to hand to the man behind the counter when he switched seats with some woman who eventually preceded to tell me that this window was closed and that I had to go TO THE OTHER DESK FOR SWISS!! WTH!!?!? I promise you that for the past 6ish hours i had been the calm one of the group, the optimistic, go with the flow, not grumpy one! But at this point I broke down! They told me not to cry... like that was going to help! Finally the lady behind the  "Lufthansa" line took my passport and rerouted me, which literally only took 5 mins by the way! lol  I got a hotel voucher and directions to the shuttle bus to stay the night in Florence.

So now the plan is to leave at 7:50 (Sunday) for Zurich where ill have another over night layover! Ill update you on my progress when I can. I am just praying I can make it out of Florence because that will be a HUGE step in getting home.

SNOW IN THE HISTORIC CITY!

My last full day In Florence, I woke up early to meet two friends at the Ferragamo “Shoe” Museum. Such beautiful shoes and really neat museum set up! After that visit, I went back to the apartment to do a bit more packing and then I went out to get a few last minute gifts and return some European appliances that I had bought earlier in the semester.  One important thing to note is that Italians apparently do NOT know what a  “return policy!” is. I had gotten a straightner in September only because I was told i could come back in December and have it bought back. When I went in on Friday I was told by two different stores that they had bought to many back the night before so the owner wouldn’t allow them to take give any more refunds! IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT PEOPLE! haha get with it Italians, how rude! So at this point in the day it’s of course was STILL snowing and I decided to walk over across town to the “mailboxes exc" to ship some of my olive oil.  After a long snowy walk I got there and of course it was closed till 330, how could I forget Italians take a LONG lunch break. However, I made the best of it, put my stress aside and went across the street to eat a HUGE Italian lunch! It was great and sat and watch everyone outside play in the snow and laughed as they tried to push their mopeds home in the snow! After lunch I went into the mail place and discovered that not only was the mail service NOT running but apparently the airport would be closed all night. So I went back to finish packing and check on my flight.

With t-minus 14 hours till I am scheduled to land in Chicago. The only major issue is the weather in Florence! Believe it or not, today Florence had one of the biggest snowstorms they have had in a very very long time! It was BEAUTIFUL but really unnerving considering were scheduled to fly out of Florence Airport in the morning.

counting down the days...

Amidst my procrastinating...
I realized just how little time I have left in Italy.

As of right now I have approx. 14 days and 20 hours (give or take the time change on the flight), before I touch down at O'Hare airport on the 18th of this month. What that means is that I have been in Italy for more then 95 days now!! Wow, where did the time go?! (Is it possible for time to go straight to your gut? Because if so that’s exactly where mine has gone, if you know what I mean?!? Well okay, maybe it wasn’t the time itself but more the carbs I ate during that time!) 

Allora, back to my main point…

Lately I have noticed myself blurting out this report to anyone who cares to here it, “There’s (X) number of days until I get home!!” Do I love Italy? Do I love traveling? Do I love Italians and am I abundantly grateful for the opportunities I have been given this year? ABSOLUTELY I am! But am I also ready to come home and see my family and friends, and to be apart of the communities at ISU and Fuel again? You bet cha! I really miss those good ole 50-minute classes at ISU! 

I cannot believe that I am already almost a junior in college. Time is flying by SOOO quickly, why on earth would I want to count down the days till my next big move? Why is it that I can’t just bask in the moment and love every minute of who I am, where I am, and who I am with right in this very second? Does counting down the days make the next exciting chapter of my life any more exciting or make it come any quicker? No, but what it does do is distract me from all the great things happening in this current place and time. 

I would be lying if I told you that I wasn’t overjoyed to come back to ISU and to join the Fuel House mission this spring.  I can’t wait for it to be January 1^st  but I still have 14 more days here in Italy. I need to take advantage of every last day here because who knows if I’ll ever come back, or “when” ill comeback I should say. Many people could never dream of having an opportunity like this and I feel ashamed to say that there have been moments when I have taken it for granted. So i am making it my goal to soak up as much European culture as I can in these last few weeks! This semester is something I will never forget and it has certainly made me appreciate many things in life. (look out for my "New Years" blog: coming soon!) I am thankful to God for protecting me along my journey and for opening up new doors in my life. I am thankful to my family for their support and encouragement and I am thankful to my friends for being excited for me and for looking forward to my return home. I am thankful for the people I have met throughout this semester along the way and for the teachers here who are so loving and compassionate.  I have SOOO many wonderful things to look forward to in the next few months, and the next few years even! As hard as it will be to leave this place, I am thankful to be going home. I can not wait to see what more the Lord has in store for my life and the lives of people i come into contact with this next semester!
Leaving this place will be the definition of “bitter sweet”.

I’ll leave you with this statement…
Time sure does fly when your having fun!

Christmas Markets in Munich - A Winter Wonderland

Frohe Weihnachten!! 
That means Merry Christmas in German! 

The count down continues and Christmas is now only 26 days away, which means that I have less then 19 days left here in Italy! I am trying to take in every last bit of Europe that I can without going completely broke! I have seen England, Ireland, France, and Italy and it only seemed appropriate that I visit Germany since that’s where my relatives are from! So that’s exactly what I did this past weekend to celebrate the Holidays!

 

Munich Germany was my last major trip of the semester. A friend in my religions class invited me to go earlier in the semester and so I spent 3days in Germany with 8 girls I didn't know at all before  that! I arrived by myself in the snow covered and very cold Germany and fell in love with the culture immediately! Here are a few Highlights pictures from the trip! I'll blog a little more about the weekend tomorrow!

 

I LOVED Munich, Germany. It was great experience, I got to know some amazing girls, I played and sang carols in the snow and i bought some GREAT Christmas stuff! I will definitely be going back to Munich during the Holiday season again someday!! It was a beautiful winter wonderland!

Thankful to be Abroad

Some words to describe my Thanksgiving this year would be; tasty, interesting, different, strange, filling, surprising, diverse, exciting, random, novice and most of all, memorable.

It was a nice holiday away from home. Thanks to a gal in one of my classes, I even had a full thanksgiving meal! She made a 14-pound turkey, gravy, green beans, chocolate pie and sweet potato fries. I brought the mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, and two beautifully inedible pumpkin pies! (My friend forgot to add the sugar!) I even cooked the first pie in my little tabletop oven! It was like baking thanksgiving desert in a grownup version of the “Easy Bake Oven”! It came out beautifully and I was so proud of myself for baking my first pumpkin pie to perfection, all by myself! But then we taste it… Opps! Won’t make that mistake again! A few people said they didn’t mind the taste of it when it was covered in homemade whip cream though! So a few slices got eating, believe it or not! They were such troopers! There were about 10 of us at the Thanksgiving meal Thursday and I only knew a handful of the people. It was interesting eating Thanksgiving dinner with people I hardly knew, but we were all able to go around the room and say what we were thankful for. I believe we had a very wide range of U.S. states represented that night. Indiana, Florida, Ohio, New York, Arkansas, Hawaii, California, and Washington I think.  I got my fill of turkey, mash potatoes, and deviled eggs so I was a happy camper! 
HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Grocery Shopping at the Market… always an experience

The result of my random adventures at the San Lorenzo Market!

I went to the San Lorenzo Market Tuesday after cooking class to pick up some fresh vegetables. I wandered around the market stopping at each stand to check out the selection, not really knowing what I wanted to buy. I had my eye on one particular container of strawberries however! I was planning on baking a special dessert with fresh fruit topping that night. Apparently it is not customary in Italy to pick out vegetables and fruit with your bare hands. In the Conad grocery stores for example you have to wear plastic gloves to pick your veggies out. So I pointed to the bunch of strawberries I wanted and of course they were the farthest away and nearly impossible to reach. {Those were the best of the bunch though I am telling you! ;-) } So she grabbed a container of strawberries near the ones I wanted, which happened to be much smaller and less red then the ones I had my eye on. I was told in cooking class to be direct and let them know exactly what you want, so I shook my head and pointed to the ones I wanted originally but they were just out of her reach. She mumbled something in Italian, shock her head, through her arms in the air and decided she didn’t want to sell me anything! Somewhat embarrassed about how much of a “picky American” I was being, I told her id take the ones in her hand. Something that has really been pounded into my head this semester is the fact that Americans are impatient, picky and apparently don’t understand the fact that all fruit is the same from one box to the next. It's not like in the US where you have to check your eggs before you buy them and make sure your apple isn’t bruised. So I took my less red and much smaller strawberries and kept moving. I came to the booth where I always buy potatoes. The man there is always very helpful so I bought 4-euro worth of potatoes for a thanksgiving treat.

An older, very Italian gentleman ran the last booth I stopped at last. I pointed to the green pepper I wanted and not being able to remember the word for pepper, all I got out in Italian was “Verde” (green). He laughed and put it in a bag for me. I smiled and jokingly shook my finger at him saying, “don’t make fun of my poor Italian!” Grinning from ear to ear, he pinched my cheek and handed me the bag. “Basta?” He said. “Si, basta” I replied, which pretty much means, “yes that’s enough.” Getting my money out, I spotted a nice bunch of Kiwis on the end and I asked him for a few of those also! Then I said, “Basta, Io sono finito” (Enough, I am finished) I gave the cute old man my money and walked away satisfied with my purchase. I looked down at the bag he had handed me and noticed that there was lettuce and some red root looking thing in it! I swung around and went back to his booth to tell him that he had handed me the wrong bag. He just smiled and said, “SI MANGIA, MANGIA!!” Which means YOU EAT EAT!!  
He pinched my cheek and gave me free veggies!! isn’t he sooo sweet!! I smiled, shook his hand and said Grazie mille!!

As difficult as Italians can be sometimes, most of them are such warm people and always seem to make me smile.  When I go to the San Lorenzo Fresh Market, (which by the way, is different from the outdoor market with all the leather.) I speak more Italian there than anywhere else; I meet the nicest locals and always leave with the best fresh produce!

My School Abroad- Lorenzo De Medici (LDM)

For those of you who are wondering what my "campus" looks like or what it would be like to study abroad, in this fine city, This post is for you!

This is the Odeon Theater and when there isn't an international film festival, they show movies in English with Italian subtitles! The right side of the building is where I have half my classes. LDM is on the  "3rd floor" of this building... well more like, LDM is 7 flights up... 3rd floor my butt!

This is the San Lorenzo Market - open everyday day, all day, all year around, rain or shine! I took this picture on the way to class one morning. They wheel their janky carts down the cobble stone streets every morning. The same routine everyday, setting up all their merchandise. I commend them for their consistency! Walking home from class it never fails, I hear someone say... 
"Ciao Bella, Hello, do you speak Italian? English?... JAPANESE!?" or my favorite, "free jacket for you, yeah?!" The guys in Florence are a different breed all together.  If I go a day without hearing a cat call or obnoxious comment from a local, its a rare day! They are relatively harmless though really! Just learn a few basic Italian phrases, get the "pissed off European, don't mess with me look" AND walk then you'll pretty much be left alone! On days i need a good laugh or want to snoop for good souvenirs, I walk through the middle of the market but ive learned to just avoid it and walk behind the booths to get to class!

Pictures of the more important side of campus 

"Via Faenza" coming soon!

When in Rome...

I left Florence at 5am on Saturday for Rome. It was a two day trip with LDM, jam packed with famous sights to see, "When in Rome". 

First on the itinerary at 9am was a visit to the Coliseum, Roman Forums and Arch of Constantin, ill explain what those are later. The line to get into the Coliseum was HUGE but since we were with a group we got to skip the long lines and go right in. In front of the Coliseum were a lot of cheap souvenir booths and men dressed in cheesy gladiator costumes taking pictures with paying tourists. I wouldn't expect anything less from the locals! The actually structure of the Coliseum wasn't quite how I pictured it. Very little is completely preserved, so it was challenging to picture what it could have looked like during the Gladiator games.

Next we took a walk around the Rome Forums which was essentially a huge outdoor sports complex. After that we hoped back on the bus to go to the Vatican City. The Vatican is a walled off city in Rome. Inside is the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and Raphael's Rooms. We also saw San Peter's Square and Basilica where Popes are buried. We saw a lot of famous art and beautiful architecture inside the walls of the Vatican City.  The Church of Saint Peter is the biggest of it's kind, and of course absolutely over whelming to look at. Our local tour guide told me that in 30 minuets the choir would be singing... I begged him to let us stay! He then told me that he got to sing with an American choir in the church many years ago!! I was so jealous!! Unfortunately we couldn't stay an extra 30 minuets, instead we had to go below the Basilica to look at the bones of old popes... yippy!?!

The next stop was The Sistine Chapel! It was even more beautiful then I had imagined it to be. I tried to snap a quick picture on the way out even though we weren't allowed! *see my photo bucket Michelangelo made it clear that he was a sculpture and not a painter when forced to paint the ceiling of the Sistine. His passion for sculpting was apparently by the 3D effect and life like qualities of the characters, who seemed to come right off the ceiling at you!

Day two started with a walking tour of Piazza Venezia where we saw 4 of Romes most famous fountains including the Trevi Fountain near by. The tradition is to throw a coin into the water over your shoulder with your back facing it.

Next we saw the Spanish Steps which in Italian translates to " The steps of the Spain Piazza." This is simply because the Spanish Embassy used to be the most important embassy in Rome and is located near the steps. I wasn't to impressed but, It was neat to be there non the less! After climbing up the Spanish Steps we walked to the Pantheon which was originally built with the purpose of worshiping pagan gods. The buildings unique architecture is what makes it so famous. The last stop on our walking tour was the Vittoriale a memorial built to commemorate a prominent leader in Roman history.

Next we visited one of the most important churches in the History of Christianity. The Church of Saint Paul know as the Church San Paolo Fuori le Mura to Italians. It is said to be the place were Saint Paul was martyred and buried.

After that we went for our traditional Roman lunch. First course was bruschetta and grilled vegetables. Then we got pasta with a spicy tomato sauce. The main course was a white vial with grilled potatoes and tiramisu for dessert. I was RIDICULOUSLY STUFFED! I had to help the vegetarians eat all there extra food because the waiters kept bringing them random foods from the kitchen because they didn't know what to do with them since they didn't eat meat! 

Painfully full from lunch we went on a tour of the Catacombs of St. Domitilla. 
*let the history lesson begin! don't worry i think its pretty interesting stuff and i ll keep it brief! ;-)
There are approx. 63 Catacombs under the streets of Rome that stretch for many kilometers. The soft volcanic "tufo" rock under Rome is highly suitable for digging and made it the perfect area for such elaborate tunnels to be constructed.The Catacombs of St. Domitilla, the oldest and one of the most preserved catacombs of Rome was the burial place and secret meeting spot for Christians beginning in the second century. Upwards of six million of the bodies of the early Christians were deposited in the Catacombs. Believe it or not people STILL meet done there for services! The catacombs have 4 different levels of which we explored 3 with our tour guide. Thankfully for us, there are no long any bones or body's remaining in the catacombs shallow graves dug into the walls. This is due to many years of deterioration, grave robbers and explorers. It was a slightly creepy end to the trip!  Obviously out of respect pictures and videos were not allowed. This time I strictly followed that rule!! 

In 2 days I saw pretty much every major historical sight in Rome! After a ridiculous amount of walking, I was exhausted and I am glad to be home. But now, I must go dedicate some time to my school work. Can you believe finals are just around the corner which means ill be home in less then 39 days! Wow!

FALL BREAK

Fall break video blogs and pictures coming soon! check back in a few days to hear ALL about my time in Paris, London, and Dublin!! It was GREAT FUN! Cheers!