Amanda-NOT-in-Italy...

Sad face.
So I guess I could still post to this lovely blog for all my dedicated readers, even though I'm not in an exciting foreign country, traveling and spending way too much money. Instead you will hear about my boring college life...right here in good ole' Denton!
But first...I must turn in a 10 page paper, and take a Maya Civ. test!
Don't let the suspense kill you.

2 Weeks Notice...

My official two weeks notice for you.

This week has gone by in a flash! I can't believe I will be walking through DFW International Airport in two weeks. Prepare for my arrival!

I had my midterms today. (Again, I can't believe this term is halfway over!) I think I did pretty well on my art history one. I knew all the information and it seemed pretty easy. Oh and I totally rocked the image identification. Haha. I know that I made stupid mistakes on my Italian exam, which frustrates me. But I will blame it on lack of sleep, I for some reason could not fall asleep last night and just lay in my bed starring at the ceiling for what seemed like my lifetime.

Today is cause for celebration though. Because I have finished the exams. I don't have class until Monday. And even though I made stupid mistakes on my Italian exam I still made an A. So...I'm thinking I might visit the Boboli Gardens again and just lay on the grass and read. Maybe take a little nap. That sounds lovely. Tonight, we are apparently going to do Karaoke at this Irish pub down the street from our apartment. I don't know about that. I mean unless they have Sonny and Cher I Got You Babe...I won't be singing! Just wait up for that phone call dad! :]

Back by Popular Demand.

The writer has decided to continue writing this blog.
The End.

WARNING!

Warning!
The writer feels under appreciated.
The writer is going on strike.
This blog will be shut down.
If no comments are posted.
The End.

I Swam in the Mediterranean!

This morning, bright and early we all met at the train station for some travelin!
Our destination, Monterosso one of the towns in the Cinque Terre. Plan for the day, hike a little, lay on the beach...sounds like a wonderful day to me!
We arrive in Monterosso after a two and a half our train ride, which really wasn't that bad, the seats a little uncomfortable but the company was good! I'm starving when we get there, and I tell Nikki that if I don't get food, I will most likely eat her arm. So sure enough, we find a place for food! Monterosso is a cute little town with a lot of beach and places to layout and relax. Although we had other plans. HIKE!
So off we go. And as we are walking around the town we see many prime jumping places for a little (dangerous) fun in the water. And of course we see a group of American boys taking advantage of these locations. Me and Jessica almost joined them! But alas, we had our hike ahead of us.
I really don't think I had realized the intensity of this walk between the cities. Maybe none of us had. Laura, Nikki and I were the only ones wearing tennis shoes, and I can't even imagine doing this in flip-flops. I mean I am uncoordinated enough, I mustn't add to such a disability! The first section of this hike was about 850 stairs. My legs were jello afterwards. Not only are these HUGE steps, especially for my little legs, they are really narrow too, so only one person can walk up or down them at a time. So what do you do when someone happens to meet you mid climb?....CRISIS! Well in some areas there are small (TINY) clearings of trees where you can step off to the side, and in the places where there is not a clearing...well you end up doing this weird little dance with random people you don't know who are just as sweaty as you are. It's funny. So on our hike I took about a million pictures. The view was beautiful!
And then we were in Vernazza! We had made it through the hike and now were rewarded with some beach time! It wasn't an extremely sunny day, which was very nice during our hike because it wasn't a million degrees (not to say the hike was easy for that reason). But now laying on the beach it was almost a little chilly. Windy at times, which made the water pretty choppy...but did that stop me from jumping off a huge rock into the water? The first time I went out to the pier and looked at the water it was so choppy that it was splashing a good two feet up over the pier edge. And Laura said..no amanda I think you should wait. So we went back and took a little nap on the beach. Then I was pumped, READY TO GO! And Jen said she wanted to do it with me. Yay! Now I have a buddy! So off we go to the pier to see how the waters doing now. Well we see that these three boys have already jumped in and are now trying to get out. Quite a difficult task it looked like. And because the waves were so huge the boys could get a grip on the edge of the pier before it came splashing over them and pulled them back out. So what they tried to do was swim with the wave and have it push them up over the pier. They were successful, however it did look kind of painful. I didn't want to do that. The Nancy Drew in me came out and I investigated the scene, finding a small ladder over the far edge near the rocks. Yes! Thats my escape route!

So me and Jen prepare for the jump. And we prepare...and we prepare. Okay I'm not going to lie the waves were huge and we were a little nervous. These two italian guys were standing a couple feet away and watching us and just laughing because we would count 1...2...3...NO! And then just laugh really hard. Finally we grabbed each others arms and just ran off the edge. It was insane, the waves pushed us around under the water (but don't worry, we didn't die) and then getting to the ladder I had scoped out was a task in it's self! Jen grabbed a hold of it first, so I just kind of floated behind waiting for a good wave to come so I could grab it. Well that wave came..and it was a lot stronger than I had thought and pushed me a few feet past the ladder and closer to my imminent death by rocks. After a few tries, and multiple waves crashing over me, I grabbed the ladder and climbed out as quickly as possibly. I would be lying if I said my heart wasn't pounding and I wasn't scared of those rocks and the huge waves. But the second I got out all I felt was adrenaline and was like LETS DO IT AGAIN!

So we did! This time Laura joined us for the dangerous fun.

After all making it out in one piece, we decided that the waves were getting way too choppy for a third round and went to lay on the beach and listen to the music (Summer Lovin, Greece Lightning, the Macarena). Who do Italians think we (americans) are? Haha.

Who's a size small?!

So my dear mother, decides she is going to send me a care package! How lovely of her! And what does a care package for a girl like myself look like? Some of my favorite shirts and adorable dresses jam packed into a small box for me to open like a can of worms!
Now. Here's the theory I have. Because my box has taken much longer than we thought it would to get here. And apparently it is out of customs as of Monday I believe, yet no can-of-worms-like box-o-clothing for Amanda. So I believe that while it was in customs and going through I'm sure the millions of scanners they have there, someone saw all my cute dresses and was like HEY! Who's a size small? Dan! Isn't your girlfriend a size small? Bob! Don't you have two teenage daughters? Yup. My clothes were pilfered. Attacked! If you will.
No box-o-clothes for Amanda....
So I guess I'll just have to go nakie now.

Terrible Twos.

My little baby boy turned two today....My how they grow up fast! I'm such a bad mom for not being there too!

Winos.

Chianti wine tour, was not as winey as I thought it would be.
I mean I was looking forward to just being totally smashed by the end of the day and then getting on the tour bus and them taking me right back to the school, only to hope we could make it to our apartments in the state they left us. Haha.
But alas. I was wrong.
We met at the campus in the morning, and of course Laura, Jessica and I were running late. Have no fear we got there right on time though. Slid onto the bus without anyone knowing how late we were and off we went. We had this funny tour guide lady, who's English was great but she just said goofy things. We stopped in two little towns, and I can't even remember their names (and no Lew I hadn't been drinking :] ) but we got to walk around, there were little markets to walk through and tasty fruit stands! Then the bus took us to the top of this one hill where we had our lunch and wine tasting. And we only tasted red wines...not my favorite.
The day was pretty good. Very tiring, probably because it was SO hot outside.

I saw the BEACHES!

So after a tiring week. Haha.

Us girls decide that we need some relaxation. And where better to relax? The beach!

The train ride is only about an hour maybe an hour and a half, so off we go.

Now of course once we get there, we do not have a map or even slightly know where to go. I see these four Italian kids with towels in hand and I offer up to Missy Jessica and Hannah that we should just follow them. And thats just what we did. We were a bit creepy... stalker-ish even. But we got to the beach! Once at the beach we still had I idea where to go. A lot of it is private beach so you have to pay to sit there, but we aren't sure where to pay or where the public beach is. So we just sit on some of the chairs and get comfortable. Then of course, we knew it was coming sometime, a man comes over and asks if we have our ticket. We don't. We ask him where we could pay or how much it is. And he gives us no real answer so we just pick our stuff up and walk a little ways down the beach. At this place we see no signs saying we can not lay there, and we see other beach goers tanning out on their towels. So we come to the conclusion that this is a good spot to stop. Yet, once again, right after we get comfy some guy comes over and tells us (in Italian) that we can not sit there. Again, we grab our stuff and walk down the beach. No one is being very helpful, we aren't being rude or even bothering anyone we just want to lay out, read, take a nap maybe and swim. But you can not do those activities at this beach! Hehe. We finally find the public section of the beach. I mean no one wanted to tell us how much the chairs were on the private beach section so here we are. A tiny little postage stamp section of this huge 5.5 mile beach. But really we don't care by this point. Just let us lay our stuff down and not get kicked off. :]

After a while, we all decide it's far to hot to lay there any longer and run out into the water. We're swimming around for a while and all then Missy comes up to me with a panicked look on her face. She looks like she's seen a ghost, or maybe a jelly fish? Yeah apparently one was right next to her when she looked down and she said that she got out of the water as quick as she could. After she calmed down a little we started joking about who would have had to pee on her, had she gotten stung. (Friends anyone?) But with that we decide to go walk along the pier. The view is gorgeous. I can't believe you can see the mountains while standing on the beach. It's just amazing. So we stop at the end of the pier and are just hanging out and talking and then we see these two little Italian boys jumping off the side into the water. So we walk closer to them (like a stalker I'm taking pictures, the were just SO cute!) they couldn't have been older than ten or eleven. And we see them lock arms and then count down from three before running and leaping off the pier. Missy and I are both cracking up and then look at each other like if you do I will! So we kick off our flip-flops and hand my camera to one of the boys and jump off into the water. Of course I didn't hold my nose and saltwater goes rushing into my brain. Along with my top being a little disoriented. But it was so much fun! And the boy got a picture of us jumping off the edge! We climb out and doing it twice more. Talk with the boys and their older brother (i think) for a few minutes and then head off down the pier to where are towels are laid out to tell Jessica and Hannah all about our random adventure!

Final Tally: Taxi=8 Nuns=7

Today actually started out...one could say with last night.

I went to dinner with Nikki and Marco. After getting stuck on their street with no way to call them or find out their number (of course I forgot it already). My phone has decided that it no longer wishes to actually work. It will not connect for phone calls unless it is plugged into a wall. What kind of crappy phone did PicCell give me?? I'm calling them today for a new phone!
So last night at dinner Nikki and Marco are telling me the times of arrivals for the new girls for the July session. P.S. there are 11 new girls coming (so there will be 14 of us for this session). And all eleven of the girls are coming on Tuesday. the schedule was insane. One person could not possible do it. Because girls were coming into the train station and the airport at times far too close to each other. So Marco was telling me how he is picking up the girls from the airport. Well I decided that I would go with him, because two of the girls are goign to be my new roommates. So why not just help him out and meet them at the airport. And that is when I decided my fate for today. Haha :]
Today started off bright and shiny at 7:00 for me, which came far too early after a phone conversation with John after he got off work (6:00pm for him, 1:00am for me). (Don't worry parents, he called me...not another phone call on my already killer, I'm sure, phone bill). So anyways, 7:00am, right. I woke up and got ready then met Marco to find a taxi to take to the airport. While waiting for the taxi we read the newspaper. And by we I mean I stumbled through it and asked him what certain words meant before being able to understand the whole article. But I think I did pretty well actually and Marco said he was impressed with my comprehension. So we get a taxi and make our way to the airport where we pick up the first girl Jen, and took her back to the San Gallo Campus to get her housing assignment and keys. After showing her to her apartment, Marco and I head back to the airport to pick up another girl. this one's name is Dawn and her plane was an hour late. Which really wasn't a problem for us, we mostly just felt bad for her. But when she finally got off her plane we took her to the campus for all the information. By this time we hear the news that three of the girls who were supposed to come into the train station at 13:00 never showed up (and the two girls who's train got in at 13:45 have already gotten their keys and made it to the apartment), so up to the train station we go to check things out. Sure enough two trains coming from Roma Termini come and go and no sight of three semi-lost American girls. Marco and I leave Lealle at the station because if not we are going to be late picking up the third girl from the airport, Adriana. As we wait for her plane to land we get a call from Jessica saying that she found three girls sitting outside of the apartment building looking exhausted, semi-lost and saying they were with Abroadco. Crazy... Marco tells Jessica to take the girls up to the San Gallo Campus and we will meet them there when we get Adriana. So now we feel a little better, the girls were found, they did make it into the station. But how/why did they leave the station without finding someone with Abroadco and how did they find the apartment? Interesting. Marco, Adriana and I make it back to the campus (and by this time Marco and I have taken six cabs today, but only see four nuns), back at the campus we find Jessica sitting with Hannah, Amanda, and Elizabeth. and everything gets taken care of. now that we know where all the girls that should be in Florence are we head off to our apartments and I lead the way for the girls who are in my apartment with Marco helping out with the bags. Finally we get the four girls in my building settled into their rooms and I flop down on my bed exhausted. But wait there are still three more girls to pick up, did I mention that part?
I pick my tired butt up off the bed and start walking to Nikki and Marco's apartment. I'm going to eat dinner with them and then go to the train station to pick up the girls (two of which are in my apartment). Dinner was excellent. Marco made this rice that I could have eaten forever. Haha. then off we went to the train station. Marco and I's taxi count is now up to seven and oh! Did I mention that we had seen two more nuns? Taxi=7 Nuns=6 Almost even now!
At the train station we find the girls really easily thank goodness. They are all really nice and I can't wait to get to know them better. Once they got their stuff set in the apartment all 13 of us girls (Missy is out of town) met up for some gelato. (Nora would be so happy).
Fourteen is going to be such a huge group. When it was only five of us it was much easier to get around without being the huge-group-of-loud-American-girls target. But now...we no longer have that luck.



Oh. Did I mention...I can't believe I will be home in less than a month. I'm actually kind of sad to think about it. I don't think I want to leave. But I do want to come home. If that makes any sense? I was to see everyone I miss so much, but I guess I just don't feel like my time here in Italy is done. Hmm...I guess I will just have to move back here some day. :]