La Bella Toscana, La Bella Vita!

So Keri tells me that i don't put enough funny stories on my blog, and she's probably right considering that i dont post that often, but this is sitting in my head and i find it hilarious and it needs to be documented...

Also needed for this is a comment made my Emily when she was in Siena. We were walking around and a couple of times came across the Carabinari (Sienese police) and each time they were just standing around in their fancy uniforms talking to eachother and Em observed that The Sienese Police don't actually do anything, they just stand commenting on how cool their uniforms look.

And that brings us to Saturday night, where me and some kids from the group were leaving a bar around 3am when Marci, one of the girls, was like "we should go to the pizzetta man!" and being that i was hungry, and never been to the pizzetta man, i quickly agreed and we were off.

The pizzetta man is this: an old man in his pajamas, who if you bang on the door hard enough will come down and  cracks open the door of his little store from the hours or 1am-5am and sell people pizzetta's for 1 euro, but he keeps the lights off and makes it as shady of a transaction as possible. So we went and ordered 8 pizzette from the old man and waited our turn. As soon as we had our pizzette in hand, we look down the hill and see the Carabinari on their way up the hill! See since all these pizzette transactions are done without sales tax and without the government knowing he is selling them, they are basically black market pizza's! So we had to run from the cops because we didn't want to risk getting arrested for buying 1 euro black market pizzas! Could you imagine if I had actually got arrested? Me calling mom from jail being like 'hey mom, yeah umm, im calling from jail, Why? oh because i bought a pizza at 3:30 in the morning" HYSTERICAL! So i have no idea if the old man got in trouble from the Carabinari who's only job is obiviously stopping black market pizza transactions since they don't seem to do anything else. I guess I will just have to go back next weekend to see if he's still kickin and makin those yummy pizzas.... yum...

til next time kids
me

whenever i go to do this, i feel like i never have anything to say! here its been like 2 weeks and ive done oodles of things yet when it comes to writing about them i just don't know where to start or what to say as to not bore the few of you who read this to tears. but alas. here it goes again.

Well lets see, Emmy arrived in Siena and had a good time without a hitch, then Nice was quite nice, hung out by the water (but didn't go in since it was way to cold) went to come museums and walked around old nice, Old nice reminded me alot of Siena with the curvy, small streets and little stores n such, it was by far my favorite part of nice. The rest of Nice was okay but it reminded me too much of just any other city and didn't have the same charm that old Nice had. but it was awesome to just get to spend time with Keri and Emily, a much needed taste of home to get me through the final stretch.

The day after we arrived Me and Emily went over to Monaco to look around and gamble some, and by some i mean we each allowed ourselves 10 euros to try to win the jackpot. I think at one point I had won 6 euros, but in the end it was all gone. Also did you guys know Monaco was its own country?! i had completely forgotten that i even knew that when i was in Monaco. and i was thinking that Monaco was a tourist trap with only the Monte Carlo and the Grand Prix and not much else to offer, but now that i know it is its own country, that makes it SO much cooler!!! I'm just bummed that i didnt get my passport stamped!

Right after fall break we had all our midterms (thank you IES for that scheduling stroke of genius) and os fat the results are pretty good, i got a 100% on my poltics exam and i got an A- in italian! ME! I got an A on a midterm IN ITALIAN!!! Im so proud of me right now like whoa! especially since we had to give a 15 minute presenation in italian for our oral part of the midterm exam and i can't believe it actually didn't go that bad! woohoo!

Tuesday was Halloween as you all know, and i must say it was the most fun i've had on a halloween in forever! and it was in a country that doesn't even celebrate halloween! crazy! some of the bars here threw parties for all the americans and of course you could tell who an american was because they were wearing some sort of ridiculous costume, and it was awesome. I was a cowgirl, except i didnt have a cowboy hat which was the saddest part of my evening. but cowboy hat aside, it was just nice because the entire groupd went out together (all 18 of us i know i know) which hasn't happened in a while so it was nice to be all together again.

so whats next you ask? Well tonight me and some of the girls from the program are heading to Cinque Terre, which means "five lands" and its basically 5 remote villiages on the italian coast that are connected by hiking trails and beaches and since they are so small, only until recently were they connected by roads/trains etc so they still have alot of the old charm of the traditional italian villiage. the views and towns suppose to be magnificent and i'm really excited to get to cross this off my list.

It's crazy how many things I still need to see in Italy, I didn't realize how much Italy had to offer until I got here, but there is no way I'm going to be able to see everything I want to see before my time here is over, I still need to go to Pisa, Bologna, the vatican museum, Pompeii, Napoli, San Marino, and the list goes on and on and on! Its insane how fast this has all gone, its just so weird that i spent so much of my time worrying about going abroad, and now im living it and soon it will be over, all that time i spent getting ready for this, and so soon its over. It's just hard for me to fully comprehend! ugh!

anywho hopefully ill update after cinque terre so that i can give you more updates :) i miss you all

love
bailey

As foreshadowed earlier, being that I'm home alone this weekend, i feel like posting again :) I've realized I havent really talked about the little things that make life different here, and even if i don't achieve that, I'm just in a talkative mood right now so I'm gunna exploit that into another entry :)

So i realized that Italy is going to turn out to be more like finishing school for me than a wild experience in Europe, and while that doesnt mean i'm not having a wild experience it just means i'm doing a lot more household things that i never really needed to do at GW or home. Like cook. Me! Bailey! I cook ALLL the time now! And I haven't burnt anything yet! Well besides the stove top popcorn, but thats neitehr here nor there. the point is that without a microwave, or processed foods, im learning how to cook with actual ingredients! its awesome! I'm also cleaning more, but without modern products, more of the old fashion cleaning that I rarely do at home, no clorox wipes over here! its all like a fun experiement, who knows how much longer I'll actually like cooking, but for now, I'm milking it for all it's worth.

The other noteworthy difference in my life is a jam. Not a jam as in a tight spot, but an actual fruit jam named Frutti di Bosco (translates into Fruit of the Woods or AKA HEAVEN) and its possibly the best thing in the entire world. its heaven on a cracker, its perfection, and i dont know how i will life without it once I'm out of Italy. But I do know this, i already know what i'm getting everyone for Christmas this year :) and trust me, you all will enjoy it IMMENSLY!

So those were the two things on my mind, other than that I just realized yesterday how little time I have left here. Its already been almost two months, and I can't believe that the experience that I had been stressing over and thinking about for close to a year is already almost over. Then i will return back to GW and my home and it will be normal, just like the experience never happened, except who knows if I will be the same or normal, it sure will be interesting to say the least. I just can't get over how fast time has been going....

On another note, EMILY ARRIVES TOMORROW!!!! and the arrival of the best friend is much needed :) and i cant wait! oh! and to all u G'dubbers, the schedule of classes came out a few days ago for Spring, and as some of you know scheduling time is the my favorite time of the year :)!!! lets just say i think we can all assume what Bailey will be doing instead of her homework! yay!

alright my lovelies, thats about as random of an entry as you can get, so i hope you enjoyed, and now im off to plan my spring semester :) man sometimes my losership surprises even myself..

love always
Bay

Let us see, let us see...

Actually considering that its been like 2 weeks since my last update, i really dont have THAT much to say, things are going well, its nice to be in a set schedule finally. it was kinda weird having so much free time with only one class for those three weeks, but now im firmly into my academic semester and its going alright. Its weird to say that italian is my favorite class this semester, weird for me right? its just leaps and bounds better than my other three classes. Two of the other three are basically medieval history classes, and being that i have absolutely NO interest in Medieval history, having to listen to that same things twice, well lets just say its a blasty blast.

Then my other class is my politics class, which should be my favorite, considering how much i love all that kind of stuff, but the professor is kind of letting the class just waif, not really making it an awesome class, which sucks. it is making me realize that even though our govenrnment is totally screwed up and demented... it is no where close to the chaos that is italian poltics. kinda makes you proud to be an American! but what is interesting in class is that tones that come out when comparing italian and us poltics, cause its quite obivious that the professor thinks that the italian system is better than the american system. but on the opposite side, you can tell by the way that me and the other students discuss italian poltics that we all thing that american system is better than the italian system. its just interesting... but other than that, classes are just Blah, nothing special, nothing amazing, just something i have to schedule the rest of my life around.

But its so weird to think that Im practically halfway through my time here, next week Emily arrives (YAY!) then me and her and heading to Nice, France for a few days, for some relaxing best friend fun times. then meeting us there is KERI! yeah thats right Ms. Almstead is coming all the way from Dubai and i COULDNT be more EXCITED! it shall be quite an fanstatic break. im really looking forward to getting out of italy actually, i mean i love it here, but im exicted to get to see another part of europe and be in a different atmosphere. thats practically the only reason im here is to travel throughout italy and europe, and so far i havent gotten to do as much of that as i would have liked.

So my roomies are out of town this weekend in Venice, them and a few of our other friends decided to go, but i decided to stay behind, i didnt have the money plus with emmy coming in on monday i wanted to be on my A game for when she arrived. but that means for most of the weekend i'll be chillaxin solo, which i guess I'm okay with, but by Sunday i'll be going stir crazy for some roommate interaction or some sort of entertainment. eek!

alright i think thats about all for now, last time my roomies were out of town i think i posted like three times in 2 days, so look out guys im sure you will be getting many many more posts :) much love
me

PS: POST COMMENTS!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello my Blog-reading Lovelies
Its about time i updated this piece of work i call my life! so much as happened! Man i really dont know where to start with anything so i guess ill go in chronological order... heres a brief outline of what i will be dicussion in the next entry:
A. Group trip to Milan and Lake Como
B. the Start of Classes
C. The death of Sparky
D. The arrival of mia madre
E. The Birth of Allora

alright team! we have quite alot on our electronic plates! so here it goes!...

A. Milan i had such great plans to tell you all about what happened in Milan, (which was over a week ago) but who knows what i should tell you now. you know how that happens. how you are all excited at first, but then like 10 days pass and its like "man, what did i want to tell them about??" so maybe i will try to give you the run on Milan... lets see.. it was alot cleaner than i remembered it, plus the weather was nicer which always makes a place more attractive. The Duomo is by far my favorite place in Europe, its so incredible, i could just spend hours there on the roof and exploring the inside, it makes me want to become a art history/architechture major! but always without fail about an hour later i realize how bad i would be at either of those fields.. alas.. my love must be contained to the Duomo.
The group tours that our director planned for the trip were the WORST THINGS EVER! but they were so bad that it became a bonding experience of the 18 of us, and over all the trip was an absolute blast. I mean john didnt even get us ticket to the Last Supper! how lame is that! hes known for months that we were coming to Milan, and you only have to reserve like a month an advance! what a punk! but besides that our tours included: and 2 and a half our lecture on textiles in the "textile Museum" (in italian), a tour of the modern art musuem that contained NO ART, and finally, a lecture by a professor about what constituded "design" in italian of course. oh man.. So the textile museum definately takes the cake as the WORST TOUR EVER!!! i dont think you could even count it as a museum, more like a storage place for really old fabrics, which with, if you are bored enough, you can walk in and some italian woman will take the next 2 hours of your life explaining to you what velvet it.. thats right... we spend 45 MINUTES on VELVET!!!! then we spend the next 30 mins going over the importance of FLOWERS in French fabric.. but not all french fabric.. no no that would take too much time.. just french fabic from the 17th century.... shoot me please..!!! i feel so bad for that woman, its like she loves fabric sooooo much that she created a museum for it. except i think we can all agree that fabric IS NOT important enough to warrant a museum... the textile museum was in Lake Como, a region north of Milan right on the border, besides it being a quaint and pretty area, the only think worth noting really is that George Clooney has a house there.. okay moving on...

So our last day in Milan (AKA the day of the tour of the mordern art museum with NO ART) our director told us that a few of us could get up at the butt crack of dawn and wait for a chance to see the Last Supper, cause since there were no tickets, if someone didnt show up, we could snag their spot. So 7 of us girls went, and after some sitting for like 90 mins, Domenico came out with a proud look on his face and told us there was room in the next group for us to go see THE LAST SUPPER!!!!!!!!!!!! how cool is that!!!! it was absoltuely incredible, there really are no words to describe how awesome it is. its just one of those pieces that you have to see in person to fully understand it. ooh i get chills just thinking about it! eek!

alright, i think thats all for milan... oh besides the art museum with no art... which is exactly how it sounds, except on the tour we kept thinking there was going to be art. until the very end when he was like "oh no the exhibits dont open til tomorrow, there are no exhibits" YEAH THATS RIGHT WE SPEND 2 HOURS LOOKING AT WHITE WALLS as he talked about how cool the art would look there once there were exhibits!

yeah... thats right! ugh... so frustrating... so moving on

B. The start of classes

Classes started on the Wednesday after we go back from MIlan (we got back on a Tuesday) and they have been going pretty well, they are all 2 hours long which kinda sucks, but we get a break which is cool. im taking four classes and all the profs are italian but lecture to us in English, i really think im going to like what im taking.

okay enough of classes... moving on

C. The death of Sparky

As some of you may know, Sparky is the name of my beloved Dell computer, which i got right before i went to school at GW. and i have loved it ever since, i mean some times weve had our differences, but most of the time i thought that Sparky had just as much love for me as I did for him... i always treated him well and he never really gave me any problems that was until i arrived in italy. when all i had were problems with mr. sparky. these problems came to a peak when the screen on my computer would just turn off while i was using it! like the screen would just turn black. and if i turned it off the screen would turn back on, but only for like 5 mins then it would be gone again. POOF! black screen!! probably the most frustrating thing ever! so i took it to an italian technician who confirmed that the problem was my LCD screen and a replacement one would cost around 400 Euros (roughly 500 bucks) can we say EEK!?

so i started to think and i talked to momma and she told me that since she was coming in about a weeks time that she would just bring me a screen from dell and i could replace it and sparky would be back in action! until then, i just had to use him even though his screen would just turn off at random intervals. which. i will reitterate, is SOOO frustrating!!! this brings us to..

D. The arrival of Momma

I'm so proud of momma, she made it all the way from Rome to Siena via bus and train and planes without knowing a lick of italian! shes such a world traveler! she and ms. stoudt (yes all u PC'ers i said MS STOUDT) and Christine Veitengruber (alan's mom for all u PC'ers again) arrived yesterday night and they seem to be having an awesome time, and im so happy to have momma here and have someone from home here to see the city that i love so much. so now she can understand why im so obsessed with the amazingngly perfectness that is Siena.
 With her, in classic momma fashion, brough a SUITCASE full of things taht she thought i might miss or want, like peanut butter, my shampoo, candy, bagels, etc etc cause shes THAT COOL she even brought a bag of bagels for Marcy, a girl in our program who was having addict-like withdrawls from bagels, lets just say marcy was quite excited this morning. also with momma, should of been my screen, to fix Sparky, however, when i got to her hotel, she told me that she was not able to get me my new screen!!! i started freaking out.. and that brings us finally to...

 E. The birth of Allora

So like a Phoenix out of the Ashes of Sparky comes Allora....

so momma says "i couldnt get ur screen"
i say "WHAT?!!"
she says "so i got you this" and pulls out a MAC!!!!!!!!! EKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 can we say "EKKKK!?!"
 I mean really, all of us together now "EEEKKKKK!"
then she proceeded to tell me, that a screen from dell would cost around 500 bucks, and they would only garuntee it for 90 days, and if it broke after that we would have to buy yet another one! so Allora became my christmas present..

(btw kristin and i decided that while my dell was a boy, my mac is WAY to pretty to be a boy, and i decided to name her Allora, the Italian word for our "anyways" or "so" which italians say ALLLL the time, and i love it)
 I'm quite sad to have to say goodbye to sparky, and i wish there was another way, im still in the process of trying to keep his screen working long enough to get my pictures and emails and stuff off of there, but i guess its for the best... *le sigh*

i think im still in mourning, but Allora is a great way to cope with my grief...

okay my momma should be coming soon to go to dinner, yay for momma! make sure to post lots of comments guys!
 i miss you and love you!!!

til next time
me