I viaggi in torno il mondo

So I thought everyone might like an update on my adventures over fall break in which I travelled to Prague, Barcelona and London... so here goes!

Well... Midterms went okay, for all I thought I'd die from overload :) I love being overly dramatic in Italy, I'm sure your classes are WAY harder... mine are at SC anyway haha :) Anywho, I left Friday for Prague which was probably my favorite part of the trip. The city is INCREDIBLY beautiful! I could hardly believe my eyes. I learned so much while I was there too since my eastern European history is a little more rusty than I would like. The city is filled with beautiful Gothic architecture which really takes your breath away. But what's most interesting to me is the interesting mix the city has in its architecture today. Right beside these incredible Gothic masterpieces stand bland concrete building build during the country's time in the Soviet Union which now they are painting vibrant colors to make them more... lively? haha and then you have very modern town-homes and newer structures done in a victorian style. It's really interesting in that its not divided architecturally by area, all of these styles can be seen side by side throughout the city. Things I did: hmm, walked around gawking... a lot. haha I also went to see the famous Charles Bridge, legend has it that if you kiss someone on the bridge you will be together forever... too bad my spoons weren't there with me! ;-) We went to visit the palace and the gothic basilica (amazing) as well as the Jewish quarter which was really interesting as well. They have a jewish cemetery which was used from the 14th-18th centuries. They were burried in 12 layers over that time and now as the land is shifting the oldest tombstones are all moving up to be exposed again..so cool. There was also a really wonderful memorial to the Holocaust which was beautiful and moving in its simplicity. There was a special exhibit there dedicated to the children of the Prague Holocause which displayed pictures they drew while they were being kept in the near-by ghetto. Nearly all the children were deported later that year and the majority died in the camps. It was really moving, and I only made it half way around the room. The one that had the greatest impact on me was drawn by a six year old boy who would later die in the camps of Cane and Able. The reference to the murder of one's brother and they thought that such a young child who should be care free and innocent would understand that concept and apply it to his life broke me down entirely. We also made it to the Communist museum... yet another trip! It was so extreme in its hate of communism...unreal! PS: the food is AMAZING!!!
Pictures of Prague: http://usc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2184264&l=ef00d&id=3419897

The next stop was Barcelona for 4 days. The city was a bit overwhelming in comparison to Prague and Firenze just in size alone. Unlike the other cities which seem to have a center from which you can walk to everything there is to see, You have to take the subway everywhere in Barcelona. We saw a lot of Gaudi architecture which was cool and different, we saw the olympic stadium and the old castel and palace, which is now a really beautiful museum. I ate paella 3 times! On Halloween I went out to have tappas, watched a flamenco show and then went dancing :) The first two nights we were there we met up with an aquaintance of mine from SC named Mike Thomsen and he showed us around the local bars... Barcelona is one of the biggest party cities in the world you know... haha! We had a lot of fun, but I'm not sure I'd put the city on my top list to return to, maybe I didn't do it right, but I just didn't appreciate it as much as I expected to.
Pictures of Gaudi :) http://usc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2184498&l=66ec2&id=3419897

Finally we made it to London. Having everyone around me speaking english was an incredibly strange feeling, I must admit. It was wonderful though! The first day we walked around and saw St Paul's Cathedral, London and Tower Bridge, the Tate Modern, St. James' Park, Buckingham Palace, Trifalger Square, liescter square, Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster. I met up with my friend from high school who is studying about 3 hours north of london and luckily happened to be in the area for a field trip that day which was awesome! We went out to dinner at an awesome jappanese restaurant. Saturday we walked around and got tickets to see Avenue Q later that night, then bought a whole lot of wine from a wherehouse because the friends who were giving us a tour wanted to have a wine party later that evening... they looked up information about each of them and everything, it was a little ridiculous. Then we went to see the Tower of London, but unfortunately one of the Tube lines was closed so we didn't make it there before it closed... but it was still cool from the outside and I was dorky and gave a crash-course in Tudor Family history :) We saw the play that night... too funny, had a little wine and then left for the airport at 3am! The trip back was absolutely ridiculous! We had to take an hour and half bus ride to the airport, followed by a 2 1/2 hour plane to rome, another hour bus ride to the train station, and a 4 hour train ride to florence, which broke down a half hour outside of the city and we had to wait for a new train... haha it was not meant to be! I should've stayed in London! I really hope to make it back to London in the Future! There is so much that the city has to offer that I feel like I missed out on! Too bad its so expensive :(
London pictures! : http://usc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2184500&l=68d88&id=3419897

That's about it! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their fall... we're easing into holiday season! Woohoo!

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

Molte cose di fare in Firenze!

Ciao Tutti!
I thought I should fill you all in on my first weekend in Florence, at least, the first weekend without administrative nonsense to take care of.
I spent Friday and Saturday hanging out and exploring the city of Florence while most people left on vacation. I'm really glad I stayed though because there is so much to see and do here that I fear I would miss out on if I were to leave every weekend... so instead I think I'll only leave...most weekends :) On friday my friend Allie and I walked around most of the major tourist spots, feeling awkward and american, although it's difficult to overcome that. We walked across the Ponte Vecchio and saw the "fake" David in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. Then we went shopping around the piazza della republica. The afternoon was the best part of the day though because we decided to go to the Accademia to see the genuine David. AMAZING. Honestly, its one of those things you really cannot describe to someone who hasn't seen it. Photos say nothing about this work. The detail is simply astounding. Of course, the rest of the museum is splendid too, many of the peices have been removed from Cathedrals and churches in and around Florence, all were religious depictions which I must admit make me wish I had read more of the Bible than I have yet, just to understand where the artist is coming from and the purpose these portrayals served.
Anyway, Saturday I went with some friends to I Giardini Boboli, the Bobali Gardens which are absolutely massive and take up a large portion of the city on the other side of the Arno. There were some beautiful views of the city from the gardens that I wish could be expressed through photography, but simply can't.
Sunday I went with the school to Popolonia, an ancient Etruscan town where we got to see many ancient tombs and learn about the peoples who lived on the peninsula prior to the Romans. All in all it was a pretty darn good weekend! This weekend I'm heading out to Assisi with the school which I've heard is absolutely beautiful and then plan to spend more time exploring the churches and museums here in the city. Yesterday I sat down with a few friends and we attempted to plan out our trip schedule for the rest of the semester, not any easy task! There are so many places I want to go, but very little time, especially before the weather turns bad. Next weekend I'm even trying to fit Cinque Terre and Venice into one weekend... yikes! Wish me luck! I think for my 10-day fall break at the end of October, we're going to go to London, Barcelona and Switzerland. Very random and all over the continent, but they are all places we need to see and it's the only time we'll be leaving Italy...so might as well make it grand!

Pictures have been posted.... Hurrah! They can be seen through the following link! I know there aren't very many, but more to come when I remember to stop gawking and take out my camera! I hope you all are doing well! Keep me posted!

http://usc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170589&l=56f37&id=3419897

Always,
Ashlee

La Prima Settimana

Ciao Belli!
It has taken some time to finally have access to the internet, so sorry for the wait! This week has been rather busy with registering for classes and filling out paperwork, getting cell phones etc. But things should be settling down shortly.
Yesterday was the most exciting day of all as Imet my new host family! My mother's name is Carla and she has two sons: Frederico (39) and Yacobo (37) who live at home with her. I'm truly barely 5 minutes from school which is wonderful! Everything seems to be going well in my new home. I have a roommate from Syracuse who is in the more advanced italian program (option II) named Lauren, but we seem to be at the same level, which makes conversation easy. My mother has been hosting for more than 14 years, every semester and spends the summer in between in the county in Umbria. She's very sweet, and Lauren and I have an enormous bedroom to ourselves, which is rare and wonderful!
As a gift for my new family, I brought them a deck of playing cards that had been used in the Bellagio, which they went ecstatic over. :) It was a great reaction, actually because it led to a topic of conversation in which were finally able to sit together and converse in mostly italian.
I feel like there are a million things going on right now, but I'm just ecstatic to be here! I miss you all and, of course, I wish you could experience this with me, but I am slowly adjusting to my new surroundings, and soon it will be second nature to go strolling through the city.
I now have my address for mail which you can ask me for since I don't want to post it blatantly on the internet, and I'd appreciate it if you wanted to send email, you'd send it to ashlee.welday@gmail.com so my usc inbox doesn't become full and start rejecting mail!

Tutto il mio amore!
ashlee

PS: the food is AMAZING.
PSS: pictures to come as I'm using a school computer rather than my lap top :) ( no internet at home)

3 weeks and counting!

Hello all!!
So I thought I should set up something like this so that you all can check up on me at your convenience :) I'll try to post as often as possible on my adventures in Florence: the interesting people I meet, the gorgeous art and architecture I see, and of course, all the amazing food I am eating!
I can't believe that I leave in just under 3 weeks now. It seemed like september would never come! I'm so full of feelings, excitement, fear, sadness, curiosity. I can't keep them all straight! I'm scared to face a world so new and different all on my lonesome. My italian seems impossible rusty, but at the same time, I can hardly keep my feet on the ground as my mind drifts toward all the opportunites that lay before me in Italy.
These past few days have been full of shopping for things I'll need, luggage (#1) clothes, shoes, adapters, currency etc. If anyone has any recommendations for things to bring or travel tips I'd really appreciate you sending them my way! My parents and I are kind of stumbling in the dark as none of us have ever really been to Europe before.
Well, I don't know what else to say now, and time is short, so I'll leave you! I'll be sending all kinds of contact information as soon as it becomes available, I'll be getting Skype and I'll have an Italian address eventually as well :-)

Tutto il mio amore a tutti i miei amici e la mia famiglia,
Ashlee