A Weekend in Florence & DUBLIN

Forwarning.. I'm really behind blogging sooo this is going to be a long one. The week after Paris was pretty basic- random site visits and such but nothing outrageous. We went to Santa Maria Novella Church and the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum, both of which were pretty interesting but the tour guides (usually my teacher) kill me. They always know exactly what to say to put me to sleep. That Tuesday night there was a Dave Matthews coverband at one of the places we usually go, Red Garter, and considering most of the band was Italian they were surprisingly good.

Yummy Homemade CRUSTINIS

The best part about my week was without a doubt my Food and Culture field trip. We went to a family's house in the country and made a four course Italian meal from scratch! I chose to work on the gnocchi, but we also made three different types of crustinis for appetizers (eggplant, tomatoes, and roasted peppers), ravioli with spinach and riccata filling, some type of pork, and tirimisu for dessert. To say it was amazing is an understatement (even though I say that about pretty much everything I eat here). It was a really long process though.. at first I was having a great time but then I was just starving! And if you know me, I get grumpy when I'm hungry so those last 45 minutes or so before we were allowed to eat was a struggle.. but like I said it was definitely worth the wait.

As soon as we got back from our field trip we rushed home to change and then headed over to meet everyone at a bar by the Duomo to start the bar crawl tournement! My friends best friend who is also studying in Florence created a huge bar crawl with ridiculous rules you and tasks you had to complete in order to get points. Everyone was on a team of 8 and had to wear costumes (ours were chefs hats we bought on the street) and just to give you a few examples:
1. Have a football play in a bar
2. Write bar crawl 2011 in at least 3 bathrooms
3. Get behind a bar and make a drink
4. Request a song that has the word "American" in the title
5. Makeout with your coach on the steps of the Duomo
6. Changes everything but your socks and underwear with a teammate
7. Take a bodyshot off of another teammate
8. Piggyback a teammate the entire way around the Duomo
9. Start the cotton eye joe in a bar

TEAM CHEF'S HATS!

And the list goes on and on and continues to get even more insane, especially because there were twice as many people as usually (a TON of Barcelona visitors). It was a shit show but SO much fun. By the time it was 8:30 I was so beat we came home to take a nap and I didn't wake up until the next morning. Guess I needed a good nights sleep? haha either way it was one of the funniest things I've ever done and something we will definitely have to do again.

A few of my friends have to go to the little town of Fiesole (a 20 minute bus ride away) so we decided to take a quick trip because there is an incredible few from the very top that everyone has told us we have to see. Unfortunately it was really overcast, so we'll go again on another day, but it was still beautiful. You can see the entire city, although I forgot my glasses sooo it was a little harder to see some of the things that were farther away, oh well. Since Fiesole only took about an hour we decided to wander through the leather market and see if we could finally start our search for the perfect leather jacket. I tried on a few but no luck just yet, but I did buy a few presents and a cute little frame to put next to my bed so I would say it was still a successful trip. That night we went to dinner with almost everyone from the bar crawl at Dantes where the food is cheap (& delicious) they give us free wine which is reason enough for any college student to go. I was planning on going out but I was still in desperate need of relaxation so I took it easy and just hung in with a few roommates.

Sundays are one of my favorite days (even though everything is closed) because we sleep in, relax all day, and go to The Diner. We were surprisingly productive school-wise though so we weren't COMPLETE wastes all day...

At Temple Bar =)

Soon enough it was Monday and we were leaving for Dublin WEDNESDAY! (Side note: Monday was Valentines Day and I got some beautiful flowers from a certain someone :) )The week flew by and before I knew it, it was Wednesday and we were on our way to the airport! Traveling wasn't terrible, by the time we got there we were relaxed and ready to go! We stayed at Lauren's best friend Tom's apartment which was so much nicer then staying in a hostel. I feel so bad for him though, he is 1 of 6 kids in his program (they are literally foreign exchange students studying at a school in Dublin) and he lives in an apartment with them so its 4 girls and 2 guys, and the other guy is a little strange so he only hangs out with girls. I can't imagine having so few people studying abroad with me. Even the students in other programs are all girls. Luckily they are really nice, but still.. ONLY GIRLS? That's rough. We went out with a group of them each night, and Wednesday we went to this place Capers. They told us it was similar to a club here called Space, which is a pretty sketchy place so we were worried but it ended up being really cool... NOTHING like Space. It was all 90's music that you can sing along with and some fun Irish music. Everyone was really nice and friendly and THEY SPOKE ENGLISH! Ah what a nice break for the weekend! We all had so much fun and on top of it, Lauren found a fake leather jacket on the floor and after asking around and no one claiming it, she took it home and it fits great! Successsss

The three of us at Trinity College

Thursday we slept in which was wonderful, and when Tom got back from class he took us on a walking tour of  the area with his roommate Lindsey. We saw Trinity College, St. Patricks Cathedral, wandered along the Temple Bar area, into a few stores, and on the main streets (Gifton maybe? Can't remember what they were called exactly..) That night we went to the actual Temple Bar where I met up with one of the guys who came to Florence the weekend before and his friend. Such as small world that we were both in Dublin for the night! Irish pubs are a lot of fun... everyone is just loving life & listening to live music the whole time. Definitely the scene I was looking for that weekend.

Best Duo Ever

CLIFFS OF MOHER

The next morning we woke up super early to go on a daylong tour in Galway! Galway is what everyone thinks Ireland looks like... all green and country. It was really beautiful. It was an exhausting day though with all the traveling. We went on the tour mostly to just see the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs were the last thing we saw but it made the entire day worth it. They looked fake they were so beautiful. It's so crazy to know that I will probably never go there again in my life. We climbed up O'Brien's tower (very, very small haha) and saw the Atlantic Ocean from an even cooler view. Only downside- its SO windy and rainy at the Cliffs that at one point it felt like the rain was pelting me in the face (which it kind of was), but when I think of Ireland I always imagine it kind of gloomy so it was suiting. We decided that even though it was a long day, we only had a few days days in Dublin so we didn't want to stay in that night.  With that said, we went to another Irish pub with some more great live music like Wonderwall by Oasis, a personal favorite. We decided to go back to the bar we were at the night before because this really great duo was performing and everyone was right, they were amazing. I was having the BEST time just singing along & dancing to everything from Sweet Home Alabama to Living on Prayer...

at the Guiness factory!

Saturday we had another late wake up (I blame the fact that we were up til 5 watching THON) and did the Guiness Factory tour! Granted, I think Guiness is kind of gross and super heavy but the tour was cool and the bar at the very top it insane. You can see everything in the entire city all the way out to the ocean. Afterwards we stopped by the Jameson factory and tried a Jameson and hot chocolate.. ehhh not my favorite thing in the world but I had to try it. After we got burgers from Gourment Burgers, and obviously it was awesome and not just because I havent had a good burger in forever. It was off to buy souvenirs, some of which are presents sooo they won't be repeated here. Then back to nap (I missed my siestas)! That night we went back out for our last night in Dublin. We kept in an earlier night because of our flight the next day, but because of our awkward eating schedule we only ate one meal so that meant... MCDONALDS TIME! I couldn't tell you the last time I had McDonalds but it was awesome.  After our super classy dinner, THON at Penn State had already started so Lauren and I took over Tom's computer for a few hours and watched the live online broadcast and made it just in time for the Pep Rally! Perfect way to end our night!

Sunday we made it home in time for the last few hours of THON! I went over one of my best friends from schools apartments and the group of ASA's watched the end and literally screamed when they announced our total and the overall total! 9.5 million FTK! INCREDIBLE!!


As much as I love every city that I go to, it only makes me realize how much I love Florence. I am always ready to get back by the end... I definitely need to make the most of my time here and not travel every weekend because Florence itself is such an incredible city. Although we did plan two more weekends.. officially booked Barcelona for Afrojack and Munich for Springfest!!! I'm so pumped because those are two places I REALLY wanted to go! Everything is coming up so fast! I have my first midterm Thursday, then two Tuesday, two Wednesday, Barca Thursday and meeting Mike in Rome Saturday! So excited :)


Considering this took a very long time I should probaby go get some work done so I can go out... Ciao!