CAR! | sono stancha.

sorryyy i'm so behind on blogging! first off for this post, i'd forgotten to upload pics from my point and shoot, so a little backtracking to the airports on the way here:

ceiling/lights at the frankfurt airport and first stepping foot outside the rome airport. cobblestones already. 

first of many cappuccinos here. yes i asked for less foam. this was bought at our school bar that's run by the RC's (which are like what RA's are at UT). bars in italy are different than ones in the US - they sell pastries, sandwiches, and coffee drinks as well as alcohol. like it's common to go to the bar in the morning to get breakfast, which seemed like a strange concept at first.

some UT kids chillin in the courtyard. is melynn falling asleep? also the weather here is pretty amazing and reminds me of socal weather.

i'm kind of in love with this staircase in the courtyard. 

i've also discovered a fascination with cars here, especially alfa romeos. this 2010 guiletta is parked here a lot. the "CAR!" part of the post title comes from when we're walking around town and someone hears and/or sees a vehicle, they yell car and we all condense over to the side against the wall. streets are MUCH narrower here. but it's funny that "car!" gets thrown into the middle of conversation quite a lot and it's just something we've learned to deal with in everyday life.

amber requested more food pics so i took pics of a dinner here at school. italians typically have wine with every meal, accompanied with sparkling water (in a separate glass.. not mixed). this was a red wine purchased from the school's bar. i'm slowly acquiring the taste for red wine. we'll see how that goes. as fod food, the first course is bread, second is pasta (not pictured, i guess i got too excited and ate it before i remembered to photograph), third is meat & veggies, and finally a bowl of fruit. the fruit pictured is a plum, smaller than the ones i've eaten in the US.

annnd of course.. unfortunately study abroad involves doing work. this is my roommates and me doing our studio work, on the floor of our dorm, almost last minute before lunch. 'losing track of time while working on studio stuff and being late to lunch, almost showing up with graphite all over hands and face.. oh studio.' this leads to the other part of the title. in our italian language class, we learned how to saw "i'm tired" (sono stancho/stancha) and "we're tired" (siamo stanchi), which i thought very useful for being in the school of architecture. ha. 

after lunch and studio, a couple of us walked to the pool. this weather is perfect pool weather. 

i was planning to include yesterday's trip to florence yesterday in this post, but i'm tired and pics are taking forEVER to upload cuz the internet's so slow. it's taken over an hour and half to make this post cuz of the picture uploads x.x and i don't have the energy to figure out why the dinner food pics aren't centered as they should be so whatever. to keep y'all updated on what's been going on since i'm behind in picture posting, yesterday was a daytrip to florence where i indeed saw the duomo! today we went to arezzo for a HUGE antique fair they have on the first weekend of every month. a couple of us are going back to arezzo tmrw for this jousting tradition thing. i'll explain more about everything later. sorry i'm so behindddd!! =/ indeed, sono stancha.. ci vediamo domani! that means see you tmrw, but i mean that hopefully i'll post about florence tmrw. close enough. ciao! 

first post from italy!

buongiorno! 

1) i had to look up that spelling on dictionary.com translator

2) in this process my roommate informed me that it does not actually mean hello, but it means good morning. so... yea. oh well.

quick post and pics if i can figure out how to do that cuz i'm so jetlagged. note rome is +7 hrs from US central time. i took some short naps on the plane and bus but definitely not enough to have been awake for this long. taking a shower and sleeping right after this. so anyways! first bit is that i ended up not having to travel here alone. turns out i was on the same flight as two of my studiomates so thank God, that made things much much better. we flew from dfw to frankfurt, about 10 hrs which i didn't really think was that bad. then waited 1.5 hrs in frankfurt before flying off to rome. now for pictures.

this is the first picture i took in rome, which has an ugly reflection from the bus window but i've decided in my tiredness that none of the pics on this post will have any postprocessing. i obviously wasn't happy with how this pic came out but there can only be one first pic taken.

on the way to castiglion fiorentino, the city we're staying in, i was thinking, 'haha.. we are literally under the tuscan sun. wait, is that a book or a movie?' good moments of jetlag. 

after the 3 hr bus ride, these are the GORGEOUS views of the tuscan countryside from our room's window! 

on the way to my first gelato, which honestly was not the best i've ever had but there are already plans to try another place tmrw =] first one's blurry cuz i was moving too much.

then stopped at a pub type place, i don't rlly know what to call it. there was a bar, pool tables, and video games.

melynn! then a few of us were too tired to even focus on sitting and watching other ppl play pool so we walked back to santa chiara (the name of the study center) and happily discovered that i do indeed get wifi in my dorm. WOOHOO! anyhow, roomie jus got out of the shower so perfect timing =] i miss everyone at homee please comment anything and keep me updated on your lives!

5.5 days and counting!

hello everyone! i don't know how much i'm going to end up using this as i was planning to keep in touch mainly via fb/email, but this may be a good way to keep in touch as well. with 5.5 days left in the states, i'm making final preparations and should start packing... ugh. but with the summer coming to a close, i realise how thankful i am to have been able to spend my summer in dallas with my family and with the dallas church. <3 i wish you could all come with me!