So this crazy thing happened after I made my last post. AIFS emailed everyone in our group to talk about an optional tour to Sorrento. Sorrento was the only tour that I really wanted to go on because it was headed to Capri and apparently it is stunningly beautiful, so I was pretty pumped. I was under the impression that there would be three optional trips run by AIFS. I thought they would be Venice, Sorrento and Rome. I was alright with missing the trip to Venice. I've been to Venice twice already and I've never really liked it for a lot of different reasons. It was not that pretty when I've gone because its been summertime both times and the water level was really low. So you could actually see all the green gross stuff on the canal roads. Also it smelled really bad, and there was no place to go to the bathroom, which a lot of people don't think about. It was mad expensive there as well, way overrated, and not much to do after seeing St. Mark's Square. Rome is pretty cool because there is so much to see there and I wouldn't mind going back and seeing it again especially with a tour guide from AIFS. I went on two AIFS type trips when I lived in London and they were pretty great so I was definitely looking forward to these trips, especially Sorrento. As I've said, I know it is important to plan really early and to just be ready. It seems this time I panned a little too early because the trip to Sorrento happens to be the same weekend I'm going to be in Paris. That is literally terrible. I really wanted to go to Sorrento with AIFS people and now I doubt anyone will want to go with me now if they are all going with AIFS and if they are all going to Sorrento the weekend I'll be in Paris, they will not be able to go to Paris with me and I really don't want to go to Paris by myself. The whole timing of that seemed really unfortunate, I honestly don't know if there is anything I can do about it, but I will check with Easyjet. Not only that but Sorrento will be the only optional trip for this semester, which is also terrible. I guess I will just roll with the punches and maybe somebody would rather go with me to Paris, but I doubt it.I'm still really excited to go to Florence and I'm still planning a lot of stuff. Oh crap, I think I meet with the AIFS lady like really soon so I should probably check on that. Arrivederci.

It's definitely been a while since my last post and a lot of stuff has been done. I went to a meeting where I learned that only like 2 people had bought a plane ticket and out of a group of like 15 only like 3 people were going to be using Dulles airport to depart (it is the closest airport to our school, besides BWI, which no one was deciding to use). his was unfortunate because after the people selected their flights and paid for them I sent the info to my mom so she could book it, but the plane tickets got extremely expensive, extremely quickly and she was like "we need to find you a different flight, so you can't fly over with the two people you know." I was like "that sucks" but at the same time I was cool with because my mom was still paying for my ticket to Florence and paying for my whole trip (and beggars can't be choosers). So my mom's company has a travel agent that handles important stuff like that and he was supposed to book my trip and make it much easier. At this meeting we literally just go through all that crap about how the country is different and how we need adapters and converters and to bring important stuff cause they might not have the same over there, which I kind of already knew but we're building here. At the same time I made a Facebook group for our Florentine group. Our instructor had not had a Facebook at the time of the meeting but he decided that he would make one so we could have a group. He made one and I was his first friend (which I was pretty proud of)and then for some reason he made another Florence group on Facebook and invited everyone, and he did this after I invited him to the original Facebook group. So I thought that was a little weird, but I don't think he quite has the hang of social networking yet. At the group talk thingy I didn't mention that I was planning all these trips, but I had been talking to people and since there are like 12 girls going everyone wants to go to Paris. I wanted to go to Paris because even though last semester I studied in England I never got a chance to go to Paris. So I wrote it on the Facebook group wall that if anyone wanted to join me they could meet me in the library at 4. Well, no one showed up, but two people said that they couldn't make it to the meeting but wanted to go to Paris with me. So, I was little disappointed but hey I already knew when I wanted to go to Paris and when people realize that I'm going to Paris and did all the work they will want to jump on that too, right? So I was like whatever. I went on sky scanner and saw a sick flight that would let me leave Friday afternoon and come back Monday afternoon. I'm like "3 days and Paris, lets get excited." The flight was booked for the last weekend in March with Easyjet, for $115 and I'm hyped. I found like two really good hostels but I didn't book any of them because I want to book with other people going with me, so we can book together and hopefully room together. We'll see what happens cause I have this odd feeling that people that I'm going with aren't thinking about Florence everyday like I am, which I don't know why they aren't. I just really want to take advantage of every second while I'm there. So I talked to some people that had been to Paris (2 girls, one had lived there for 2 months and the other had been to Paris 5 times), so I was like "hey ladies, tell me about Paris." They told me a lot. They gave me a bunch of things to do while talking about how great Paris is, which I doubt, but we'll see. So here I was with this flight booked for Paris, yet no flight to get me to Florence so I can study abroad! I was freaking out a little bit. Then my mom was like "the travel agent got your ticket and you get to fly over with your friends". So I get even more hyped and mom booked my plane trip back seven days later than everyone else's so I can chill for an extra week with them and no classes. The hostels I'm looking at for Paris are "The Young and Happy Hostel" and "St. Christopher's Hostels." Shouldn't be extremely expensive but I am a poor college student so we'll see what happens. I got one kid that said he would go to Istanbul with me so I gotta plan that next and I'm super hyped. Also this woman from AIFS that is apparently in charge of the Florence trip as a whole will be visiting the school this Monday, her name is Kirsty Isherwood. I don't have many questions, but we'll see how it goes and I'll probably blog it later. Anyway still a big week and I get to chill with some friends from London that still go to my school and the instructor that went with us last year, at the instructor's home this Friday. I'm pumped cause I think it will be a really good time. I'm also going to Colorado to see my roommates from London because they live there. Its gonna be a road trip with another girl that studied in London with me and still goes to my school. We plan on stopping at cool places on the way to see cool stuff and to see our friends in Chicago, Milwaukee, Des Moines, and Larramee. I don't think the kids I'm going with now realize how close we will be by the end of this trip. To be honest: they will probably hate me, but I'm ready for it. Until next time children: BE GREAT!

Planning for Florence Part I

Anyway, the point of this blog is to talk about my experiences leading up to, during, and after my trip to Florence. Yesterday was the first time that I began to plan my trip officially. I had come up with a list of places, I wanted to go on the weekends that I will be free while in Florence. The way I planned it was to go to the warmer places first, so that it will be temperate at those places (I will arrive in late January). Then I want to go to colder places that I will go to as it starts to get warmer, so that way it’s not freezing when I get there. I know from when I last studied abroad in London, that it is much better to travel on the weekends with friends. Also if one does not plan very soon then they will miss. The first place I was looking at going, was to Istanbul, Turkey. I have a friend named Kevin Harris, who lives in Milwaukee and studied in London with me last year, that decided to go to Istanbul and he only spent one day there and said that it was pretty cool there. He also went by himself and he is a pretty large guy that knows martial arts so I doubt anyone was going to mess with him. I'm a lot smaller and only a white belt and a tiny Karate class, so it’s pretty safe to say that I will not be traveling there by myself. Hopefully I can convince one of these kids at the meeting with me tomorrow to travel with me there. I decided that I really wanted to go there hearing all of the cool things that people say about the city, but I knew that I wanted to go there for longer than one day and I knew I actually wanted to spend a whole weekend there. A lot of people like to spend the first weekend getting acclimated to the current city they are living in, but I was like "nope". I want to travel and that’s the reason I'm going to Florence. One of the great things about going to Florence is that it is close to three different airports. The first one is located in the city, and is actually very small, so some flights may be very expensive. Luckily Pisa and Bologna are very nearby and have very large airports which should make for some easy traveling around Europe. Not only is that but the train tickets to these airports not very expensive because Florence has one of the largest railway stations in the Country (if not the largest). I usually use sky scanner to find the best flights because it compares all the airlines and airports to find the best price, so it saves a lot of time. The price of Istanbul on sky scanner was about $147 round trip, which I'm pretty sure I can afford and it would be the first weekend that I'm there. I plan on traveling almost every weekend, so I see no reason to make this one any different. So the next place I planned on going to was Casablanca, in Morocco, mainly because it’s in Africa and that would mean that in less than a week, I would have been on three continents (Istanbul is in Asia, and Florence is in Europe). I feel like that’s pretty cool. Casablanca is perhaps the most famous of the cities in Morocco that I looked at going to, but we’ll see what happens there. I did kind of want to go to the beach, cause it will be the first week in February and how many other people could e on a beach on the African coast in February? I wanted to be one of those people. It only $150 to fly there that weekend and to come back. I feel like I can pretty easily afford that because I have $1800 saved up right now for the trip. We’ll see what happens there though. Those are the only ones I’m pretty sure I’m going to as of now. Some of you may be worried that going to these countries could be a poor idea because I only speak minor Italian and English. Although most people speak English (or at least apparently they do in Turkey). Anyway if they don’t speak English, I’m not too worried about it. I’ll learn some emergency things before I go and just wing it (emergency things = how to say water, what numbers you call for the police, etc.). In my experience every country has a fair share of English speakers and right now it seems to be the universal language in the world, so I should be fine just armed with that, but if worse comes to worse, I know a little Spanish too (Morocco is really close to Spain and Spanish is large there). Those are the two places I’ve got planned now even though the trips are around 4 months away (it’s important to plan early for the lowest prices), I need to move faster so I expect to get the rest of the places up and running very soon.

Background on me

So if you don't know yet, I'm getting ready to study abroad in Florence for Spring 2014. It will be my Senior year, so that means after I'm done in Florence I will be done as an Undergraduate in College, which is a very scary thought, but hey, I'll get through it, after all you just gotta want it. Sometimes, I look back and I just think I should've enjoyed a little bit more of college or I should've worked harder. I kind of could do better in both accounts because I was kind a middle of the road type of student in college. I had a good time and I took some classes really seriously. But hey, I manage to graduate in 3 years with a major in History and a minor in English, while studying abroad twice and being on 4 club sports teams (baseball, basketball, Rugby, and Soccer), being President of one club sports team (basketball), and being on at least 5 other clubs (Mount Republicans,Sports Management Club, History Club, Educators for Justice Society, and Knights of Columbus), and being a Resident Assistant. Also came in with a scholarship, and did 4 marathons in college and a Half - Ironman. All I'm saying is my parents better be proud, and that I got stuff done in those three years. Anyway, the point of this blog is to talk about my experiences leading up to, during, and after my trip to Florence, so the rest of the blog posts should be about the trip. This one was just to show how awesome I am and to give you guys some background on me.