Larisa Lee in Rome!!!

So Dome invited My romates and I over for dinner. Now he has cooked for me before at his house when I met his sister and his dad for the first time. He cooked fish and potatoes and bruschetta. So I thought I was fairly prepared for the dinner. When he picked us up he was 15 minutes late which is pretty good for him usually he is between half an hour and 2 hours late. He mentioned to Donna and Christina how he was tired from cooking. That gave them the idea to get Flowers for his mom so we had to stop there on or way. When we walked into Dome’s house it was beautiful red tablecloths draped every flat surface in the living room where we ate. Bruschetta was already on the table. There was a basket of bread on another table and napkins and plates. They poured us each some strawberry sparkling wine which was delicious. After Bruschetta we had this past and type of codfish dish. then came the Tuna and potato caserole dish. Im not sure if it was a caserole it looked more like a carrot cake before they cut into it. It was served with belgium endives and onions. Then came the dessert. It was a low sweet cake with pears. It was shaped like a heart soo cute. We all talked during dinner usual conversation, then I asked Laura his mom to show Donna and Christina the picture of dome when he was little so she brought it out and then showed us all the pictures of dome when he was little it was soo cute. hahah Dome made fun of me for asking for pictures of piccolo Dome (small Dome) hahah. After Dinner we said our goodbyes it was getting pretty late and Dome wanted to bring us around Rome. He brought us to the spot looking over Rome that he first brought me too on our first date it is so beautiful there. Then he brought us to another spot of Rome where you can look over the Tiber and Pazza Venezia. It was agreat night. Now I will be cooking dinner for Dome and his sister Sara American Style! hahah

Sunday Jim and Denise were here in ROME!!! It was by far the best day in Rome yet. I woke up after only two hours of sleep and picked them up at Termini. I wasn’t sure they would be getting off the train I was waiting at so I was just making sure they werent on the train before I went and asked someone. Then out of no where I see someone waving and then I realize it’s Denise and it was like a movie we both ran to eachother and hugged then it was Jims turn.  We went back to my apartment I gave them a tour. After the apartment we headed to Trastevere where we had lunch reservations. It was pretty easy to find the restaraunt JIm navigated the map and Dneise spotted the street name.

The restaraunt was really cute. The food was delicious I even ate the squid and it was good. They gave me these really adorable earings from Turkey, they match almost everything I own. I realized that almost every shirt i have has pink in it. I think I need to start branching out on the colors in my wardrobe. Anyway they are beautiful. After lunch we walked toward the train station so we knew where it was and they wouldnt miss their train back. We walked trhough the flea market in Trastevere. It was closing down at the time, but I think thats the best time to go because they are too busy packing to try and sell you anything so none of the guys are really that annoying.

When we got to the train station we thought there was a train leaving in two minutes so we sort of rushed to the track but it being Sunday none of the train schedules are correct we ended up waiting a while for their next train. Denise kept telling me I could go home and sleep but I didnt want to leave them. A guy started singin into his phone and was pretty entertaining along with the young kids across the track doing the C walk. When the train finally came they had to rush to get a spot on the train it was pretty packed I waited for a minute thinking I could wave but it was going to be too difficult so I went back to catch a bus. I shed a few tears on my way. It was sad to see them go but it was a great day and I cant wait to be home. But It is so sad to think in less than a month I will not be able to travel though Italy catch a 20 euro plane to Barcelona or france or Germany, I won’t be able to have a glass of wine at dinner or walk into a store and bye bottles of wine, or even go to my wine class. Time here flew so fast.

Donna, Lore and I decided to go meet Chantal in Lucca and Pisa for a day trip. We took the train to Firenze station which was cheaper than a direct train. It was weird because we ran into chanti and conn there so we took the train together. When we got to Lucca Conn went with the other girls from Keene and Donna Lore Chanti and I decided to explore together we went and couldont figure out what anything was we came to a piazza with a horse and carriage and I though lets just see how much it it. It was 20 euro for a short ride so 5 each we decided to do it it was really great the horse loved us and kept kissing my neck. The driver was really grerat he waited for it to stop raining and gave us an umbrella and he even told us some history and the names of some of the churches. The ride was way longewr than what we were expecting after ward we stopped for some food and wine. It was delish! The we caught the next train to PIsa it was dark when we got ther but we still saw the tower and such. We should have done Pisa first but it was still nice. We took all the funny pictures well we tried anyway. It was hard to do because the lighting was really bad.

After Pisa we went to Firenze and Lore went back to Rome, Donna and I wanted to spend the night in Florence and hang for a while Donna hadn’t been there in a while and I missed Chanti. We ended up buy some beers and vodka and drinking at the apartment till about 12 0r maybe 1 then went out to try and meet up with Cory and Elizabeth the three cities kids who had just got to Florence we had a  hard time finding them so we just went to 21 which is a club in Florence it was pretty hopping though MOstly guys so we didnt stay long. We ended up meeting up with cory and them then we split up for some reason chanti and I went back to 21 with this really old lady who was dating this 22 year old soldier who had a girlfriend back home it was quite disgusting. We got fed up with all the guys at 21 and went back to Chantis but we had to fiund Donna so we met up with cory and used the internet for a bit then we went back to Chantis and took a nap ( only because it was about 8 am by now) Donna and I went shoppping at the markets she bough 4 leather jackets and I got two purses and then we got a train back to Terminin but the trains werent running because there was a strike that everyone knew about except us so we had to take a fast train and pay more and didnt get seats we took over one of the stairs near the toilettes yet again. It always seems to be an adventure and a half when I travel with Donna.

Cant wait for Barcelona this weekend with Donna!!! After that I will be in Pompei Sorento and hopefully Capri, The weekend after that I will be in Venice and Verona and Bologna, The weekedn after that I will be in Rome studying for Finals and then I will be coming home the following Saturday!!! Laura said she is making a ham dinner and I am soooo excited!!!!

Again Getting to Dublin was a mess. The weather in Paris was strange it was EXTREMELY foggy. When I got through security we should have been boarding the plane right away but there was no gate number or anything I was really confused. I asked the lady that was in front of me in line and she said that there was no info yet and she thought there was a delay. So I waited and kept my eye on the lady because if she was going I was following. They weren’t speaking English over the intercom. She eventually headed out and I followed thinking we were going on a plane. the line brought us through a passport check and back to the fron of the building where I had to once again get on another bus. They were transfering us to the Lille airport because the fog was too bad to get a plane out of there. There was this group of four kids with their father 3 boys and a girl the girl kept staring at me and I was watching her she was really shy and I kep smiling at her she was really cute. I ended up siting next to her brother and her father on the plane and they didnt speak to me at all until I orderes a wine and sandwhich and he realized I was American and the fatrher asked me about the election who I thought would win and who I wanted to win. They were the same person of course. He was reading the paper about how in all the polls it looked like Obama would pull through. We got into a political conversation and he talked to me about Dublin and informed me on the best way to get into town which was a 6 euro bus to the city center and from there it was a short walk to my hostel. He was really nice and walked me out of the airport well atleast until I passport checks. Im not a EU citize obvously so I had to part ways.

I don’t really know what I was expecting when I was going to Dublin. I guess I thought of Ireland and though Green Grass and pots of gold and leprechauns, Hahah. NO really though I though more of the country side. Dublin is just like a normal city. Tall buildings everywhere, Shopping, busses, taxis, Trams. The one thing I was really looking forward to in Ireland was corned beef and cabbage and potatoes. We ended up not finding any but I did have this AMAZING Mushroom sauce beef pot pie. It was delicious. Chanti got the Guiness Beef stew whish was also delicious. We took a bus tour of Dublin and saw the old Jail house and got all the history. The Italian Job was filmed there. WE went to the old Dublin castle it was cool but it is used as office space for the president and none of the rooms were really kept the same way. For example the Kings bedroom is now a conference room. I guess it wasn’t really what we expected. We did see the thrown room which was kept the same and it was really cool. I kept thinking what would it be like to live there. It was hard to picture.

The best part about Dublin was the Guiness storehouse. It was really cool to see how they make Guiness. They give you a fee sample and they let you pour your opwn pint. Though I don’t especially like Guiness I drank my whole piont and a few sips of Chanti’s. I would have drank her whole pint except I hadn’t eaten anything yet. Stumbling to the bus wouldn’t have been the best idea hahah.

We were in Dublin for Halloween and I though Dublin was going to be 7 hours ahead of the states so I tried calling dad and then Jim and Denise at about 4 am or maybe 5 am but it turned out it was really late back home and I felt horrible for waking them up. For Halloween we ddint get to buy the cat masks we were going to get because all the shops closed early on Halloween. So we didn’t really dress up we went to a club not bringin our Passports for ID because we never get carded in Italiy well they carded and we had to go back and get our passports. ONce in the club we realized that the Irish dont know how to dance haha we danced for a bit watched everyone else and went to a pub for a beer. After that we went back to the hotel and Chanti and I decided we would go back out and see what was going on. by the time we got back out it was raining again and we took shelter under one of the awnings and just talked for a while. Some guy eventually came over to us and was like who are we kidding this is Ireland it isnt going to change in 5 minutes. His name was Graham he was really nice he talked to us for about 2 hours then it stopped raining and he continued on his way and we kept walking and talking and watching all the drunk kids in their costumes it was pretty funny. we walked down temple bar turned around and went back to the hostel.

The next morning we got up we were already packed had some toast which was all the breakfast they offered and then we left. We had some things that we wanted to get before we left so we hurried across the city to the sweater shop where chanti and conn got their sweaters i got a nice pair of pink leather gloves. Then we caught a Taxi to the airport it was just as much as the bus because there were three of us and we were far from the bus stop so I’m glad we did that because we wouldn’t have made the plane to Rome if we didnt get a taxi.

ONce at Ciampino airport we asked the best way to get to Termini or into the city centerit only cost us 2.50 euro each to get to termini. We took a bus to the closest train station then a train into termini. there were some real CREEPS on the trin. This really ugly guy kept peeking around the seat to stare at us and I noticed and it always makes me laugh when i see the guys doing that. So obviopusly once you show them some sort of attention they dont stop he ended up switching seats so he could get a better view and then mimicing our english it was really bad. I wish my dad would have been there with his shot gun to scare him like he is always threatening to our BF’s that would have been hilarious.

Oh yeah I almost forgot we saw the BOOK OF KELLS in Ireland at Trinity college. Though it is quite sad that I still dont really know what it is.  I think thats about it about Dublin if I think of something I missed I’ll be sure to add it.

So I have been back at school for a week now and it was our roomates birthday this week so it has been very crazy and I havent had time to write about Paris and dublin so here goes.

Getting to Paris was probably one of the most agonizing things I have done in a while. I would rather have flights in the mornign than at night so my flight left at 7 am which meand i had to be at the airport an hour before that. Dome picked me up at 5 and drove me to the airport alls good there. Got to the airport and checked in and went through security and all that everything is good there. Get on the plane no problem. The flight is an hour long I sleep and listen to my music. The pilot comes on and explains the weather is bad underneath us and we are circling for 15 mintues till we can land, ok I can handle that little nervous at this point. The comes back on and explains that there were two unsuccessful landings ahead of us and we are flying 15 minutes away to bruxxles to land and ryan air would transfer us to Paris fine. Well their mode of transport was busses. And a 15 minute flight is a 3 hour drive. Well that would have been fine if someone spoke english to explain it right away instead of just following the crowd who seemed to beunderstanding what was going on. Well I would have been fine on the bus comfortable except an hour into the drive i mioved and felt a little sticky but i was too scared to chack if it was what i thought it was because I knew that I would put my hand there and try to apre my jeans, Well I couldnt wait anymore so i finally checked and sure enough im sitting in gum. GREAT so i sit on my hand needless to say my hand hurt a lot after that and I did have gum on my keans and it was quite upsetting good thing paris was cold so i put on my coat when i got there and no onw could see it.

So at Paris airport I had to get on a bus to get to paris citycenter which i already knew just didnt know where So i go inside to try and find oput where and find nothing so i go back outside and right where the bus let us off is where the ticket booth was but no instead of being first in line i was last. So i get on the bus and get off at the station i go to the metro and buy a ticket for 3 day 3 zones in Paris easy. Figure out what staion im at and Thanks to Davide I knew exactly what stop i had to get off at simple. Get off the metro walk down the first street i see that looks pretty busy dont know the name figured why not explore the area a bit, well turns out when i look for the street sign it was the street i needed to be on, simple. Look across the street and theres my hostel, great. 

I ended up going exploring for a bit pretty much just rode the metro around got the feel for it I like to watch people too. There was this really cute little girl on the metro with her mom and I was watching her a bit all of a sudden she starts making these crazy faces and im like where did that come from and i look across from me and this man is making the same exact face as her it was the cutest funniest thing ever.

When i got back to the hostel i hung out downstairs people were watching kill bill and this kid sitting across from me started talking to me. I told him how I had to find chantal and Conns hotel in the morning and i was going to bed soon well that didnt happen he klept me talking for a while i finished watching the movie and he somehow invited himself along and was going to meet me downstairs in the morning interesting. So i thought it would be nice to have some company he seemed nice enough and so i meet him downstairs and we go it took us forever to find the hotel it was right in front of our faces though. and i didnt think that chanti would be there yet so he would go away or somethig no invited himself up to their room with me and he made the whole thing very awkward we planned on going to the louvre which he already saw so we ended up ditching him on the metro he tried getting us to get lunch near the hostel so he could eat with us but i told him it didnt make sense to get lunch away from where we were going we wanted to be in the vicinity of the loouvre for lunch. very strange.

SO we got the museum pass because we figured we could do a lot for cheap with that we were right we did soo much with it and we didnt end up going to the louvre till the next day. We did a really cool tour of Montmatre area near the Moulin Rouge it was really cool and the tyour guide was hilarious and really interactive. The tour was cheap informative and came with a free drink. Then we went on a pub crawl and the tour guide was celebrating his last day giving the tours so he was on the pubcrawl with us.  It was soo much funn.

The next two days we did the louvre, which was a bit disappointin actually the biggest dissappointment seeing the Mona Lisa and you cant even get within 5 feet of her but they had an amazing exhibit of Picasso. We went to Notre dame, the Pompidu the catacombs, we skipped the pantheon, we went up the Arc d Triomphe, we went up the Eiffel tower and checked out the Mall that was like 5 floors tall. I forget the name at the moment. We also went to the hard rock cafe. We went to the aquarium which was not that cool really small more for locals everything is in french. We went to the museum of scince supposed to be the biggest in europe it was huge hard to understand some things but it was fun.

The Eiffel tower was my favorite we did it at night so it was all lit up and as we were going up the elevator it started sparkling and it sparkled when we got to the bottom too. My other favorite thing was the catacombs it was creepy we go down the stairs and Chanti didnt really know what it was at first so when we got down there i think she was a bit surprised as to what we were walking into. We read all about the old quaries and that the catacombs were made underneath the metro and the sewage area. So we walk through the galleries and then come to the entrance of the catacombs we walk in and immmediately the smelll hits you. It was so bad we wanted to just run through it but it was so amazing to thinnk about thse bodies being moved and put here on display for the public. Walking by so many bones and skulls we though would these people be mad that they were moved here and not left in peace. I though that I wouldnt be because no one would ever forget me. I also wonder if they kept peoples bones together or if they were all seperated I think they were prolly seperated.

So Bottom Line I LOVE paris and would absolutely move there in a heartberat!!!  

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So this coming week I will be In Paris and Dublin then back to rome and back to some real college life. But in the mean time I probably wont be online so if you dont here from me in a while that is why <i will be gone for about ten days. You should all have my cell number if you need me for any reason but i wont have my cell on me so dont bother. It is extremely expensive to use it outside of Italy. I will send you all an email of the hostels i will be at and go figure Chanti and i booked our hostels seperately they used a travel agancy i just went online and we are staying at the same hostel in Dublin what are the chances of that happening. hahah anyway much love to everyone!

So I have been notincing a few things that I would just like to share. Everyone here is so calm like they have no where to go when walking down the stree. The woman always have the nicest shoes on. Everything closes so people can go home eat and take a nap making it very difficult to go shopping for food or anything else a lot of restaraunts do this too. Almost nothing is open on Sundays. Night clubs are always packed with people but if you know the right people you can get in for free and usually get someone to pay for your drinks. People here dont believe in lines they just crowd in a huge bunch around whatever they are trying to get too and push until they get it. People drive way too fast and get into way too small areas. We were on a huge coach bus that pulled a Uey in a place that I wouldnt even of been able to with my Acura. Which I miss emensely. 

The other day in Perugia we were waiting behind this really hott guy to get tix for the mini metro when he turned and asked if i had a change for a 20 i didnt and neither did anyone else so i gave him a 2 euro coin to get his ticket just because we had 5 uro and he neded only one and there were four of us well my good deed payed off when i went to get out tix i put in the 5 uro and was supposed to get 1 euro back instead i got 5 euro back and 5 tix for the metro and it was so great, an imediate return on a good deed done.

I have been taking pictures around of things that remind me of the states everytime i see something that is really american like a basketball hoop in the middle of no where tuscany that says USA on it i take a picture and the Simpsons are everywhere..

We also found an International food shop where we went to get some foods that we have been missing out on. I finally learned what the word for pickles is so now i can ask where the pickles are.

I just finished with my third midterm and am now going home to study for my fourth at 6pm and getting something to eat and I have to sign up for classes at Keene so that means I will prolly be at an internet cafe and will bemaking some phone calls. Miss yall!!!

Funny video davide sent all us italian clubbers check it out….. I have experienced most of these things. http://www.infonegocio.com/xeron/bruno/italy.html

So Our school had a trip to Umbria to see a wine vineyard, oil press and Lunch. The oil press was cool not a whole lot to see. I tried a fresh olive it was pretty disgusting. The olive oil was AMAZING though and so delicious. Lunch was a  Great. I had this amazing olive spread, Some roasted onions, and artichokes,  this pasta with a cheese sauce, Im not sure what the meat was maybe pork and lamb, with roasted potatoes. We had some wine and a cappuccino before heading to the winery. The wine place was really cool. Each of the barrels alone without the wine are 700 Euros each thats like 1050 dollars. It was cool to see the way they make the wine because we learned about it in the wine class but the class is so boring. It is really hard to retain the information from the way it is taught. The instructor reads off the paper all the info we are supposed to know for an hour and a half then we tase for an hour. The tastings are where we all sit around the table and discuss the wine and we all learn more in that hour than the whole 2 and a half hours of class. Anyway we had four amazing wines all DOC and the oldest was four years old. I got it right when I looked at the color of the middle of the wine to the edge of the wine and you could see a lot more brown in the middle.

After the winery they were heading back to Rome a 2 hour drive I had worked it out with Sophia that Donna and I would get dropped off at the train station in town and take a train to Perugia for the Chocolate festival. SO Hannah and Natalie decided last second to join us for the night so we called the hostel and booked them too. It was a whim of the monent thing for them. We waited for the train and got to Perugia figured out how to get to the hostel which was really easy on the MINI METRO hehe. then we all went out to find food and a place to hang out for a while. we found a pizzeria and they werent seating us so i went to ask someoen and got directed to another guy who i told was my birthday and there were four girls and he told me ten minutes for four splendid ladies. It was great we waited a really long time to get the bill at the end so i finally went up to get it and Supermario gave me 2.50 off the bill then asked if we wanted shots on the house so he came and gave them to us at the table and of course we couldnt do them without supermario too so he went to get a glass came back did a shot then told us to have the rest of the bottle which was more than half left. We are pretty sure he just wanted us to get drunk and hang out there and get the party started but we decided to leave and take the bottle with us. So it was pretty funny walking down the street with Limoncello.

Sleeping was ok except getting woken up at 6 am to our roomate back home being locked out and needing phone numbers that we didnt have. everyone was pretty upset about being woken up but i think it just adds to our weekend. The chocolate fest was pretty cool it was basically an outside chocolate store with every kind of choco you could think of. There was this HUGE Chiave (key) that someone carved and they were having some sort of contest with it and a massive game of chess. Check the pics tomorrow I forgot to bring my External hard drive to school with me this morning and I have no reason to come back later… sorry.  We sat down to watch the game of chess and then i hear my name but i can see all four girls that i came with so I was condused and look across the game to Conn waviong at me. How crazy out of all the people that were there that she found me and i didnt even know she was going to be there for a class.  Anyway It was a great time. Donna did the Salsa with Virgin active, i got a great video. We were told there was going to be choco face paintings and people with choco hair and crazy stuff but we didnt see any of it. We tried to get on the mini metro and couldnt because it was sOOOO packed it was pretty ridiculous for the size of these things. Anyway, we ended up taking a taxi back to the hostel to change and get ready we decided to stay in perugia another night.

We got ready and went to the bar next door for some food and a drink. Then we kept on going back into the city center we ended up outside a bar that looked like you had to be on a list and we were next to a group of guys with a blow up doll they thought they were pretty hilarious!!! We walked back up to the choco fest ended up at a bar somewhere and had a drink then went to a place that was selling buritos. Donna has a thing where she keeps putting really hot stuff on the things she is eating then is too hot for her so i ended up eating hers while she ate mine. But we dripped it all over our shirts first of course so I had to keep my jacket on for the rest of the night and monring. We found out about a dance club that opened at one and it wasnt too much longer so we hung out made our way to the club went in danced till about 5 am then got kicked oput when they closed and went to find a breakfast place. Everything was starting to open again plus the bakery we were at was open early to start their baking. We ended up eating and going and walking around the choco fest again because they had much cooler stuff people carving in the middle of the walk way out of huge peices of chocolate. Chanti and Conn Im sure saw much cooler stuff than we did because we left right after that becuase we needed to shower and change and get to Assisi so we didnt end up back getting into Rome really late. We took a nap on the train then left our bags at the train station and went to the top of Assis by bus it was really beauitful then we walked back down. We didnt have much time becuase the place where we left our bags was closing in a coupple hours so we didnt go inside any where like the Basillica or anything. When we got back to the train station we got tix then waited for our train apparently we got on the wrong train because we had to pay an extra 16 each once were on the train and then couldnt even get a seat because it was so packed and we walked up and down the aisles four times before we just parked ourselves where the doors are we chilled with the toilettes. Donna and I were both overtired so we were pretty hilarious and spent the rest of the hour and 15 minutes because it took us 45 minutes to find a place to sit just talking and laughing about how ridicuous we are and how we really should have went back to the hostel and slept at some point. It was a great ride actually. More fun than being surrounded by soo many people and possibly being seperated by seats. AT one point this wicked chill train guy came and asked us if we would sit in seats and we told him there were non and he kept begging us to move we think he felt bad for hitting Donna with the door. He even went and found us two seats that were semi close. Then he started teaching Donna some Italian He didnt want to talk to me. hahaha.  Another time this guy came and was just standing there. we were cracking up i finally asked if he spoke italian then he started talking to us. then another guy cam out and started talking to us and teaching us italian too and so it got pretty crowded when the first guys friend cam and sat on the stair and all of a sudden we smelt smoke. The only reason they came that way was to have a cig but we were on the stairs so the snuck in when we stood up because there were so many people in such a small space. then we laughed at them because we thought he was there originally just hitting on Donna and being really random. The second guy his name was Faustus and he was getting on the same bus as we were so we got tix quick he was on the front of the bus and we got on the back and squished together like sardines and my Butt still got caught in the door and i had to shove my way in another inch. Then at the next stop this Faustus Comes from the front and squishes in the back with us which was a bit un called for and gave us his number we thought he was a bit creepy. Thern we got off at the next stop did our italian ho9mework i read a magazine we cracked up about Donna asking me ten times if i wanted a chip and I was finally like NO I DONT WANT A CHIP why do you keep asking me she hadnt realized she was doint it and i got caught up on the Hulk Hogan family drama and then Passed out till this morning when i went to class and then Started writing alll this And now im going home to sleep some more. Miss you all Love hearing all your comments!!! LOVE