the best italian st. pattys there ever was...i think.

ill just start this entry off with my game face...

lucky for christine and i, the italians reallllly know how to celebrate an irish holiday (but even the irish dont party on st pattys like americans do, we pretty much made that baby up). i was going to skirt over this particular puzzle piece in my italian adventure but decided that i would be skirting over one of the best nights of my life right next to notte bianca which i will blog about later. 

ill keep this short and sweet because with the countless amount of very large beers that i consumed that night, i dont really remember much (sorry dad, its only happened once :)). 

the first beer and the only one bought at lions fountain

we decided to do a bar crawl for the day and started quite early, around noon. this is the day that we met a great group of people that we ended up hanging out with the rest of the semester. this includes luca- shout out to him because he recently started following me...hey luca! luca is pictured below. a hansom italian man with a smart ass mouth but endearing personality. also, very good taste in music which he played with his band conveniently right across from my apartment at a bar called BEBOP. 

christine and i were pretty poor in italy. but we wanted to have fun like rich people. so naturally, we made our way to our local euro store to buy our beers. it was the worst beer that ever touched my lips but you win some you lose some. except i still won because they were only a euro, and thats that. of course we forgot about a bottle opener so i ended up popping them off with my bare hand on a metal post in the street all day. i felt pretty badass. the next day i woke up with a hangover and a purple hand. 

this is the part where i tell you all the details of the night. but they are sort of muddled so...

details, 

everyone signing my bar crawl shirt (some appropriate, some not so appropriate. definitely cant wear that shirt in public)

details,

christine dropping her iphone in the toilet,

christine making bets that she can outdrink grown men,

details,

ride on lucas scooter,

details,

teal shows up,

details,

we meet a wonderful older couple erin and something or the other and have a drink with them,

chatting with teals mom about how amazing erin was...

on and on till about 4am

the details arent important! what is important is that this night was one of the best and i met some wonderful people that made the rest of my time in italy a blast. the next morning i was greeted with the worst hangover in the universe that was thankfully cured by a little thing i like to call GUSTA PIZZA. those people put crack in their crust, i swear it. 

"im almost positive this is where fairies come from."

i can honestly say that croatia is one of the most beautiful places on earth. imagine: the islands are made of this beautiful white rock, contrasted with forests of deep green colored trees and all of this sitting in the middle of the bluest, freshest water. during my visit to croatia, teal, christine and i saw the islands of korcula and hvar. both seemed to be straight out of some crazy utopian world.

the funny thing is- we went to croatia for our spring break which was halfway through march. nobody informed us that the islands dont really get poppin' till the first weeks in may. so...everything was dead. in a nice way! let me tell you, with all the florence craziness, a relaxing spring break was sort of needed. 

to give you an idea of how dead it was...we only had basically ONE choice of a restaurant to eat our meals at. that leads me to the subject of hospitality...the croatians art quite possibly the most hospitable people that i have ever met in my lifetime. maybe its all the fresh, fabulous air? or maybe everyone is always slightly high on smiley drugs? not sure. but ive never felt so welcome in a foreign place. 

when we arrived at our first hostel, the owner (whos name i could not for the life of me 1. remember or 2. pronounce if i could remember) sat us down, fed us the most scrumptious dried figs (they are known for their figs) and gave us the strongest homemade liquor i have ever touched my lips to. i like strong drinks. i choose to drink whiskey on the rocks. this stuff, i think if i actually swallowed it, i would have been jumping from rooftop to rooftop, topless. for real, people. (a thought- maybe this is why they are all so chill?) on top of the strong drinks and figs, this man, all warm smiles, made us feel like family. upon realizing the VERY short list of eateries, he insisted that he would find a way for us to have an amazing seafood dinner. he called his friend up and told them to open their restaurant to cook for us and only us. (this restaurant hadnt been open since the end of the season which was easily september). a personal chef basically! if that isnt hospitality, i dont know what is.

the view from our first room

our time on the islands was made mostly of finding hidden sunbathing spots in the rocks that line the shore. we found a few amazing spots- one spot is featured in my current profile picture on facebook that has caused such a huff among everybody. i mean, come on people. if youre going to go topless, it should be in croatia!

PHASE TWO of our croatian adventure: the mainland and the spectacular plitvice lakes

check out the video for a peek at our journey:

journey to the lakes in a british accent

waiting for our car after the rental guy brought us the wrong one. i looked as the stick and said uh, somethings wrong! so teals a bit sad cause she wanted the little red car. 

a better picture than the stuff in the video of what we were seeing on our drive

we walked miles on top of the water of the lakes (these hand rails were a happy surprise because usually there was no protection)

veliki SLAP (slap means waterfall. that was fun to say)

to see more of the lakes, watch this video i found on youtube. the music is...interesting. 

but! the scenery is beautiful!

plitvice lakes

heaven.

a mini cave that i just needed to explore. it would have been awesome if i found a bear in there. 

when in rome...

do as the romans do? well im not sure what the romans did but i sure had a great time. on my previous trip to italy, my family and i failed to visit rome (fail) but on the second round for me, my roommates and i took an awesome weekend trip to the eternal city. the place oozes with history. there are ruins 

EVERYWHERE. it was a surreal experience.

the trojan column

the caputian crypt- this place is decorated in entirely in monk bones. it is crazy. 6 or 7 rooms filled with rotted body parts made to look like wall and ceiling decorations. if youre lucky, you can see the crypt when the monks are chanting. creepy.

the trevi fountain! 

ta da! the colosseum 

the forum- ruins everywhere! you can walk through and in some places there 

are full columns like in the picture below

the inside of the colosseum...we got inside just as the sun was setting- 

i cannot even describe how beautiful it was

we saw this on the way to rome and it made us all smile

more caputian crypt (thats a tiny baby monk, or a midget monk. 

can midgets or babys be monks? lets ponder that question.) nightmares? yes.

more of the forum

"guys, i feel like p diddy"

a couple of saturdays ago, the girls and i were getting ready to head out for the night. we're putting on our faces and listening to music and christine looks at me and says "alex, i think this is going to be a really good night."

the evening had first started out with a terrible bout of homesickness that hit the three of us at the same moment (weird). when i say homesickness, i actually mean the terrible longing for american food because none of us actually miss home all that much because we are living in FLORENCE, ITALY. for days all i could think about was chipotle, teal would jump off a building for some ranch and christine would take a bath in some french fries if the opportunity came up. we decided to make our way to the hard rock cafe and eat some good old greasy american food. teal was sitting across from me when we decided on this plan- she jumps on the interweb and looks up the menu at hard rock. reading aloud to me our options, we were giggly in a fat person way. she looks at me in the most serious manner and says "there are so many options alex. we have to make the most of this and im worried that when i sit down, i may cry because i am so overwhelmed with this. this is the biggest decision ive made in a really long time. the grilled chicken sandwich or the pulled pork sandwich? everything in my life could be altered with this decision." no words can express how hard i laughed at these words- she was stone faced and legitimately thought that choosing either chicken or pork would affect her life. i hope you all find this as funny as i did.

fast forward...
fully bellies and smiles on our faces. we get ready and head out to the first bar. and then the next. and the next. we end up at twice, a dancing, get jiggy with it sort of place. (this is weird off the bat cause i dont get jiggy, i like bars). we start dancing and teal gets tapped on the shoulder by a bouncer who invites us into the VIP section. here, we are served bottle after bottle of grey goose and champagne that came our way with firecrackers on top- literally. we were confused and delighted about the fact that it was free but a guy behind us laughs and says thats not free, jacob is buying it. i ask who is jacob? he points to the swedish guy ive been dancing with for the last half hour. oh, snap. HA, our lucky night. jacob (who was ridiculously cool) let me pop the champagne bottles into the crowd every time we got a new one (10 total i think). i swear it, i felt like p diddy.

the next morning...
these words come from teal's point of view because it is best read that way, and then ill tell the details about her train of thought.

"i wake up and without even opening my eyes realize that i have no pants on. i feel around my body and notice that i am wearing a fancy sweater (one that i did not wear the night before) backwards and inside out. i roll over, open my eyes and look at the floor next to my bed. there are crackers everywhere. an empty jar of peanut butter laying on its side and multiple peanut buttery spoons stuck to the floor. there is an empty bottle of grey goose at the foot of my bed. i feel so confused because i cannot remember details of why any of the things im seeing are as they are. i look over and see that alex is not in her bed and in a rush, i panic. with my panic, i sit up fast as lightning and see a mattress on the floor. christine lays on the mattress sprawled half on and half off. at that moment, i burst out laughing like i have never laughed before. what happened last night?"

during this train of thought, i was in the kitchen getting myself some water and hear uncontrollable laughter. what teal does not remember is this- upon arrival to our apartment after finding laura (i have left this part out of the story for laura's dignity because the most ridiculous decisions were made on her part that night) we brought every jar of peanut butter in the apartment to our room, sat on the floor devouring them and washing it down with our stolen bottle of grey goose (christine has a nasty habit of snagging bottles of liquor). i decided that i could no longer deal with the distance between christine's mattress and mine so i told her to dress teal and i would be right back. i return with her mattress, plop it down and the floor and tell her in a get-your-ass-in-the-corner-scolding sort of way that she will keep her bed in my room (which is only about 12x12) for the rest of the semester. her bed has been in teal's and my room since that night.

and that, my friends, is the story of the epic night we lost laura.

wait, this place actually exists?

my roommates and i hopped on a train to pisa a couple of weeks ago. when i was here last with family, i didnt get to see the actual town or important places in pisa because our hotel was up in the middle of nowhere (you all remember) so naturally, i was really excited. we weave through the streets to find the tower (get lost) even though there were obvious signs everywhere...and finally see him peeking over the tops of the buildings. 

upon walking up to the leaning tower of pisa, i was struck with this-place-doesnt-exist-in-real-life-syndrome. this is a reoccurring thing that has been happening to me lately (in rome i felt this was too which i will tell you all about soon). after taking our cliche leaning tower pictures, we sprawled in the grass (perfectly green and wonderful to see because grass and trees are very few and far between in florence) and ate gelato. perfect friday. 

pretty pitti

on a lazy hangover day, one of the girls suggested we go to the boboli gardens to lay in the sun and soak up some vitamin D so we would feel better. so we mosey over the bridge only to find out that the boboli gardens closes at 3 and it was precisely 3:05. life ruiner, right? well it was a beautiful day so we decided to lay on the ground in front of the palazzo pitti. palazzo pitti is a renaissance palace that originally belonged to the pitti family (i think the guy was a banker). its not the most awesome looking piece of architecture, quite plain. but it made for a great place to pass out in the sun in front of.

laying in the sun on pavement...

teal and i, happy to finally be in the sun

after the cold-pocolypse

about a week later, we did get into the boboli gardens which were beautiful! and we didnt even explore the whole thing. thats next on the list. we did lay on this stone wall in the gardens and pick illegal oranges off the private property the was on the other side of the wall. not quite ripe (sort of gross), but it was a nice idea to eat illegal oranges in the boboli gardens while you live in florence even if they were gross. dont you agree?

christine and i looking longingly at 

each other down the wall

i have a secret to tell you...

the door to heaven.

so a little birdy (teal) told me that there is this little ditty called the secret bakery here in florence. or rather, a whole bunch. these bakeries start baking around midnight to supply the local bakeries with fresh deliciousness early in the morning. the exact location of the particular bakery that we know about will be taken with me to the grave. it is a glimmer of happiness in our nightlife that we have experienced successfully only twice.

the first time we found it (after walking around in circles FOREVER) it was about 3am and we were walking home from the bars. on a friday night, the streets here in florence are blanketed with people and if you can imagine, it is very loud. upon arrival to the mystical croissant baby maker, we found a very wet, very unhappy girl (she looked like a wet dog). we were told that the group that she was in was so loud and belligerent that the baker opened the door and dumped freezing water on her. mind you, this was when italy was on red alert for cold weather. because of this, the baker refused to open the door for the rest of the night. after this incident, we tried a couple more times unsuccessfully. we pouted incessantly for about a week about this unfortunate situation.

one night we were grumpy and tired from homework because we started to realize that these crazy italian professors actually expected us to do work while living in florence (a crazy notion, right?) christine suggests a final trip to the veiled chocolate-making miracle. so we bundle up over our pj's and make our way there. the ending to this story: SUCCESS. after stumbling on italian with the secret baker man to ask for twelve croissants (yes, count em, twelve) we finally had warm chocolate bakery in our mouths. hallelujah. you might actually hear the hallelujah when you see this picture-

imagine this picture being taken in complete silence 

because if we made a sound, 

the baker wouldnt bring out our croissants. 

the fact that we were silent while dancing and jumping

makes the picture even funnier. 

a bit of fabulous writing...

for my italian grand tour literature class we were asked to find a place in florence to sit and soak in the sights, sounds and people around us. sitting here doing the writing, i was finding myself distracted thinking about how my dad complained that i havent blogged in a while. well, hello people! im living in florence, im a busy florentine! so here is a teaser for the blog entries that are a long time coming. dont criticize my writing, im no shakespeare. but maybe it would be nice for you guys to close your eyes and pretend youre here too?

An Afternoon in Piazza Annunziata

Sitting here, on marble that is warmed by the sun, I glance down the street ahead of me at the Duomo in the distance. No matter how close or far you are, its beauty strikes you. On either side of the piazza, cascades of arches hug me give me the feeling of safety. I close my eyes and bask in the feeling of the sun and the sounds of the environs around me. The tik tik tik of bicycles pass me and the occasional vespa vroooom. I hear a giggle to the right of me and open my eyes to glance in the direction of the happiness. An observation I have made since living here is the immense amount of public affection. The idea of kissing your beau in front of whoever is watching because you cannot possibly wait another minute to touch them is an idea that warms me just as sufficiently as the sun. The couple next to me is young, maybe in their early twenties. As they gaze into each others eyes, I feel like I am eavesdropping on a secret. Just beyond Romeo and Juliet a familiar face stands in the distance. Everyday on my way to school I pass this elderly women in her huge wool coat (no matter what the weather), chin high, walking proudly and with purpose. On her arm is the leash that holds back one heck of a killer: a chihuahua. This dog is just a bit too chubby, gray and ailing. I have to admit that the woman resembles her dog quite a bit but I find that because of her air of confidence, her appearance seems unimportant. Now this, I am learning, is a trick of italian women. Confidence. Still thinking of Signora Wool Coat, I focus on the columns and shutters that decorate the architecture around me. The amount of history that shines from their cracks is blinding. The two frescos that decorate the area above the doors on the piece of history to my right (quite actually a piece of history - this building is on of the first Renaissance masterpieces by Brunelleschi) seem beautiful enough to be seen in the Uffitzi. The structures around me are dignified, just like their inhabitance, I would guess. I could go on forever in these observations but the sun is going down and duty calls. Tonight, I am making lasagne for my friends. If only i could make a quick trip to Ferrara to learn THEIR italian lasange secrets...

so there it is. thatll have to do until i can sit down and update yall about the goings on in florence. and no, i did not misspell lasagna. apparently, we've been saying it wrong. wacky americans.

to the city of bridges!

ok so: venice. carnevale. masks. wine. 10 degrees. wine. this weekend my roommate christine and i made our way to venezia. first, we went to st. mark's basilica to be dazzled by interior of golden mosaic walls and a true byzantine architectural facade. 

i am simply in love with the arabic touches smooshed in with romanesque ones.

and the inside? oh no big deal, just every single surface covered in tiny tiny glass mosaic pieces. the amount of time and energy...planning and dedication that the fabrication of of places like this take is amazing. i find myself wondering...does anybody have dedication like this anymore? excuse my french- but people bitch if the skyscraper in their neighborhood isnt being build fast enough. places like st. mark's basilica took years and years plus a few more to build. and then! and then! added to over centuries. masterpieces take time. italy has countless masterpieces like this. maybe they know how to do it right?

and then, the fact that it was 10 degrees and a cruel wind was coming in 

from those damn siberians hit us. wine maybe? 

and the opening of the carnevale ceremony! in this, they suspended a woman in crazy carnevale garb and slowly lowered her from the top of the bell tower to the main stage. all this while playing super dramatic opera music. im not gonna lie, it was pretty cool to see.

still drinking wine to keep warm...

a fun video of carnevale happiness

this video kind of stinks but i absolutely could not delete it because of the crazy dancing woman...

ciao venezia!

farmaceutica di santa maria novella

teal's mom suggested that we make a quick trip to the first ever pharmacy in florence. so we decided that might be a good idea! a quick trip on a friday because we were out till 5am the previous night...it was an easy outing. turns out, it was beautiful! they sold natural soaps, skin care and things. it smelled wonderful in there. also, they sold herbal teas (the girls and i bought a fruity kind with raspberries and sunflower) and all natural home remedies. the inside was all original- the walls had generations of paint and wallpaper applied and peeling in some places. but on top, there were big paintings with gilded frames and every room was beautifully furnished.

the ceiling in one room in the farmaceutica

the wall in that same room

this room was awesome because it felt like art museum status but there were 

no boundaries whatsoever. 

you could walk up to the walls and actually see the texture on the fresco. bellissimo!

lucca, tuscany

on saturday last week, the girls and our friend rain ventured out into the countryside to a small town called lucca. lucca is surrounded by a tall wall that you can walk/ride a bike around and see the whole town. so we rented bikes and rode around. enjoyed the beautiful scenery. it was a little cold but we managed.

       me on top of the wall that surrounds the town

awesome church in lucca

the main square where we sat on little bistro tables and ate panini- yum!

cheers to new drinks

my roommates and i have decided that we need to branch out in the 

drink department. so we decided that whenever we enter a bar 

(which is excessively done on our parts) we will pick a random new drink to try. 

this is the drink menu at the red garter 

(a mostly americanized bar- they have wing night for gosh sakes) 

the place we got our first three drinks

the orgasmo--kahlua, baileys, milk and cinnamon. looked gross when she was pouring it but boy was this baby delicious. tasted like a milkshake. i want a do over :)

sex on the table--some fruity tropical thing. pretty gross. i needed a tequila shot after this one...

and, the remains of the tequila shot...

zombie--equally fruity and girly. two things that i am not! so whiskey made an appearance shortly thereafter for me (compliments of an italian man named guiseppe that claimed he was in love with me)

im an irish car bomb virgin so this weekend, ill be watching some football not rooting for the giants and chugging irish car bombs at an irish pub called the lions fountain. monday classes may be hazy...