when in rome...

we just got back from our 2 day trip to rome :) 

yesterday morning we took a train into rome, and walked (mostly) to our hotel from the train station. kameron thought he had booked a hotel near the center of rome, but it turned out that it was actually about as far away from the center as you could get. we were close to the vatican city though, so it was nice to be able to find our hotel and do the vatican city yesterday, and then rest up for our HUGE day today. we left our hotel at about 10 and took the subway into the center. we got out and about around 11, and walked straight until 7 pm! we saw so many amazing things, like the pantheon and the roman forum, and of course, the colosseum. we actually got to go in to the roman forum and walk around, which i think kameron loved :) i have to admit that i am pretty impressed with his navigating skills-we had no idea where the hotel was yesterday (he got us almost all the way there walking), and today he got us pretty much everywhere we wanted to go without really getting lost. so good job babe :)

i would write more about that, but im exhausted, so it will have to wait!

next week we have no class on tuesday-it's an italian holiday. then on saturday we are going to venice for the day and on  a private gondola ride (!!!) (and my lovely little bro turns 8)...other than that im not sure what we've got coming, so stay tuned ;)

love love love,

emily

i think my mom is bored at work and needs something to do, so she asked me to update this :)

we are on our 3rd day of class, and both love our classes. kameron gets to go to a lot of cool museums and things which i think he likes a lot :) its fun to have him tell me what he's learned as we are walking around florence. and i'm almost done with my first project! so that's really exciting.

we are in the process of doing laundry for the first time. it was a whopping 14 euros for 2 loads to wash and dry. i think we will not be doing laundry again for a while! but it will be nice to have fresh clothes :) 

we bought train tickets to rome today! we are leaving on saturday morning, but coming back late saturday night. the tickets were kind of expensive, and most of the hotels are pretty pricey too, so we are going to do our best to see as much as we can in a day. it should be fun! 

we also shopped the san lorenzo leather market today. it's completely packed with everything you could imagine, and i was a little nervous about buying things. most of the stand owners will negotiate price, and for some reason that freaks me out a little...i don't know why, i'm just weird. but i ended up getting a few things for really cheap, and it wasn't scary at all! kameron hasn't bought anything for himself yet though :( he does have his eye on some shoes though! we seem to have developed a bit of a routine also. kameron gets up at 730, takes a shower, wakes me up, we go to class, come home, lay out for about an hour on the terrace, go out into the city, come home, cook, and then lay around. its a pretty easy life :)

miss & love you!

emily

first day of school!

hi!

today was our first day of class :) i thought it would be hard to sit in one class for almost 3 hours, but it wasn't that bad! i think kameron likes his class so far as well. it sounds like they will be doing a lot of sight seeing around florence, and learning the historical value of each little sector. he already had homework though! i started working on a project already today...we are going to be doing 4 throughout the course. we started a ring today, but will also be doing a pair of earrings, a wax ring, and a bracelet. it should be fun :) 

last weekend, we took a trip to the beach and went grocery shopping...3 times i think :) its hard to find exactly what you want all in one place, so we go into the markets whenever we see one (which is not often). our trip to the beach was not as successful as we had hoped. we took a train to get there, which turned out to be much easier than the tickets/people at the train station implied. also, it turns out trains make me a little nauseous :( after arriving at the cute little town of viareggio, we ended up walking quite a ways across hot sand to get to the public beach. it was about 10 feet wide, and completely packed. there were a few topless sunbathers...awkward...and about 70% of the people were smoking. needless to say, we didn't stay too long. 

today after class we layed out on the rooftop terrace and went on a quest to find my beloved tiffany & co :) we ended with a great pizza and ice cream bars, and now we are searching for possible places to stay for our trip to rome this weekend!

love & miss you all!

emily

hello :)

so i am starting to love this city more and more. we had orientation for school today (boring), but after that we ate at this great little restaurant and climbed a huge hill to see a great view of florence and the sunset. it was amazing! for dinner i decided to be adventurous, and i had pear pasta with asparagus sauce (thanks to catherine finn!)...at first i was a bit hesitant, because really, who eats pear pasta? but it was soo good! i also found another italian favorite...truffle sauce. its really good. we did some grocery shopping at the fresh food market today...a little scary to buy meat there. a lot of it still has the head attatched and stuff. yuck.

tomorrow we are heading to viareggio, the beach. we are going by train, and im a little nervous! ive never been on a train before. im sure it will be fine though. hopefully it will be warm and sunny! thats not been a problem so far...

dont worry, im still eating plenty of gelato!

xoxoxoxo

emily

a view of the city from "michaelangelos point"

another view of the city...the big round cathedral in the middle is the duomo

hi again :) so far i've been online/updating this more than i thought. oh well! today kameron and i walked around florence and tried to figure this city out a little. it is very different from home. the streets are really narrow, so the traffic only goes one direction. the drivers are also crazy...it scares me. a ton of people drive scooters, which sucks because they seem to always come out of nowhere. so hopefully we can both manage to stay in one piece :) also, i found my favorite italian food today. bet ya can't guess what it is...not. gelato :) it's soo good. we also experienced a little incident when we bought water out of a vending machine. i opened it and it fizzed...not impressed. apparently sparkling water is a pretty big thing here, but i think it tastes awful. i don't think kameron was a big fan either. it was pretty hot/humid today also...would have been a great day to go to the beach, but we figured it would be a better idea to figure out our city before we do too much traveling. OH and one more thing-they sell nutella here (obviously), but i have yet to see it in the same size containers as back home. the ones that i've seen here are like gallon jugs of it...awesome! haha :) i really miss home! and i haven't gotten a chance to talk with anyone really, so that's sad. 

i'm sure you'll hear from me again soon!

xoxo

emily

finally here!

so i am finally sitting in florence! i had the intentions to write while i was in amsterdam (for 7.5 hours...not necessary!) but the internet was like 3 euros for 10 minutes. anyway...the flight from minneapolis to amsterdam was soo long, and i sat behind a girl who reclined her seat from the minute we boarded. it was really uncomfortable, and i only slept for 2 hours...but kameron slept for none so i shouldnt complain :) getting to florence was easy, and so was getting to our hostel, but once we got here it got a little messier. the people who work here are not exactly brilliant. i started to freak out but i am feeling a little better now. tomorrow we were going to try to go to a beach, but i guess we will see how we're both feeling about everything tomorrow. im going to bed for the first time in like 2 days now! 

love love love,

emily