Ci sono molte cose da fare, ma non c'e abbastanza tempo!

Hello all!
I know it's been a while since i last posted anything about my life... so I thought I'd share! This week is midterm week, so things have been hectic to say the least. SUF has this strange schedule almost like a finals week where all of your courses have the midterm on the second day of class in one week right before you leave for fall break. While it's awesome not to have to worry about much while on break, it's slightly intimidating to have 5 exams in 2 days!

Outside of midterms, however, life has been going really well! I've been to Ravenna, Rome and Perugia since I last wrote. Revenna was beautiful, we went to see some early Christian mosaics, and went in churches and martyriums dated to 400 AD (CE). It was amazing! Rome was absolutely incredible as well! Unfortunately, we only got to go to Rome for one day, as I went with an art history class to view works that were going to be on my midterm... that trip is now coming in handy! Unfortunately, Rome is enormous and we only saw very small museums. Therefore I'm really really excited to go back November 9th to stay for two days with the school and see many of the major sites. Being in Rome is a bit of a trip, you walk down streets that are very modern and city like, then you turn a corner and there's an ancient temple ruin. Something that really cannot be described. Perugia was also an interesting town, though I admit I didn't see a whole lot of it since I went specifically for the Chocolate Festival! Chocolate Chocolate EVERYWHERE. Who could ask for more? Although I must admit, I had the image of the chocolate room from Willy Wanka and the Chocolate Factory in my head, and unfortunately the chocolate river had dried up and the oompa loompas seemed to have the day off... but it was still a great experience and I have enough chocolate to last me the next two months that I'm here and more!

This past weekend, I just stayed in Florence to get some studying done... which I did, kind of. haha. The weather turned this weekend though. We'd been having crisp mornings and cold nights, but very warm days, then suddenly Mother Nature changed her mind and it's cold and windy without change... and it rains a lot in Florence, in case you weren't aware--even knowing it I'm not prepared for this much water to fall out of the sky! Things are going well though, I'm buying layers and gloves and scarves etc., my goal is not to freeze to death while in Italy!
Friday marks the start of my fall break, and I'll be heading off to Prague for three days, followed by Barcelona for four and London for two and a half. I'm really excited, and if anyone has any reccomendations I'd love to hear them!
That's about it for now, I'll definitely post again after my adventures in Europe!

Hope you all are well!!!

Con Amore,
ashlee

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

Friday I went to Cinque Terre with 3 friends. Cinque Terre is composed of 5 small sea towns along the western coast of the peninsula. We arrived at the town farthers north and then travelled down the coast to end in the last sea town. Cinque Terre is usually a great beach spot, but the weather was stormy so that definitely didn't work out. Though I think I may have appreciated it more because I really got to enjoy the towns more than I would have if I spent hours on a beach. The water was incredible due to the storm so the waves were huge and intimidating. Our most interesting adventure occured on the final stretch when we were strolling down Via d'Amore on the way to Riomaggiore. As these two american boys passed us one stopped and recognized my friend Becca from his Italian class last semester. As it turns out, he took a leave of absence frum USC to travel around Italy and write (he's a creative writing major). It was ridiculous! What a small world! Anyway, we had a great time and then travelled back to Florence for the night

Saturday morning we headed to Venice for the rest of the weekend. The city was unbelievable. the canals and the buildings are incredible.It's really indescribable in that it's exactly what you expect and yet not. I know that's vague... I guess you'll just have to go yourselves! We walked around Piazza San Marco and went inside the Bassilica which has gorgeous mosaics. Then we just wandered around and got lost... which was lots of fun in itself! We ended up having dinner at a little Indian restaurant which was amazing, although it was probably exaggerated if only because it wasn't pasta... :) The hostel was an adventure as we ended up taking a 50 minute bus ride to get there... unexpected. But everything worked out and Sunday we had a nice breakfast, took a gondola ride and wantered around the city shopping. In all it was a spectacular weekend and I hope the rest will be just as great!!!

I hope you all are having amazing adventures of your own and I can't wait to hear all about it.

Buon giorno!
ashlee