arrividerci yall

Welp I just finished midterms. First half of the semester? Check. That went by disgustingly fast.

With the exception of me spilling my coffee all over the study table in the library this morning (This was the ONLY time I am grateful they don't give you big cups of coffee here), midterms week went pretty smoothly.  I am leaving for my fall break tomorrow. First stop London, second: Dublin, third: Brussels, and fourth: Milan.  Four countries in 9 days. If I make it back to Perugia in one piece it will be a small miracle.

As of 7:30 tonight the raw diet will be over. It wasn't horrible. If I had been able to have some eggs and cooked beans like lentils or something it would have been way easier.  Eating tomatoes, bananas, apples, lettuce, and peanuts all the time was getting old fast. Just saying. BUT now my paper will have first hand experience in it. Which is always way more interesting in my opinion.

Things I Should Be Doing Right Now
1. hanging my wet laundry
2. cleaning my room
3. picking out classes for spring semester at nova
4. packing 9 days of clothes into a backpack

What I Am Doing Instead
sitting in my bed listening to guns n roses. and glee. quite the combo let me tell you.

Good news though. I got a new sheet for my bed. Of course the landlord stops by with the new sheet unannounced and my room looks like a bomb went off, I have a sleeping bag on my bed as a makeshift sheet, and I'm wearing a strange combination of men's sweatpants, a flannel shirt, and a cable knight sweater. She can't speak English and couldn't understand my Italian as I was scurrying around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to pick things up. I ended up just profusely alternating between saying sorry and thank you. Her response, "Good luck." Good luck with what? My mess of a life? It was perfect timing. Just like always.

Alright. Try not to miss me too much next week. God only knows what I'll be blogging about when I get home.... Ciao ciao for now lovers.  

Running Diaries: Perugia

Okay so I've been working on this puppy (who says that? 50 year old men. that's who) for quite some time now because being able to run in Perugia has given me opportunities to see and discover things I would otherwise probably not have found. Another reason to love running.

What's up Jesus?

The convent hill that we do hill repeats on = my death every thursday

An old convent (i would never make it)

From the top (its steeper than it looks I swear)

The track (its right behind the bus station) ugly view right?

Casual.

Favorite time of the day. no contest.

Old aqueduct that used to bring water into the city. Now you can run on it.

See the switch back stairs? Yep.

Prettiest view. This doesn't do it justice.

Trying to show you the olives. The whole park is full of olive trees.

And some kind of nut trees.

Subject for next photography project: hanging laundry. I love it.

I've been really into listening to Frank Sinatra and Michael Buble while I've been running lately. Is that weird?

yes.

Raw diet update: IT SUCKS.  no its really not that bad. However, I was going to try to give up coffee but by 3 this afternoon I felt like I was going to die so I drank a cup. I feel kind of like a cheater. But its coffee! Not food. Right? Right.

I am currently having some life struggles. Not real ones. Just small ones. Like my watch broke, my socks all have holes in them (I don't even know how), my single sheet has a huge rip in it, a loaf of bread is staring at my right now, and there's an obnoxious amount of fruit flies in my kitchen.

Why are these problems? I am constantly looking at my wrist to see what time it is, I feel like a poor person and bottom line I just really love socks, I am OCD about my bed and the ripped sheet is throwing me off, I want to eat the bread, and fruit flies are just plain annoying. What a useless creature.

On the bright side, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant just came on shuffle. Billy Joel. What a game changer.

EUROchocolate

Our main street lined with chocolate vendors

Let me just start by saying that the amount of chocolate I consumed this weekend was actually obscene. Oh good God. But it was so good. So so good. Perugia is the chocolate capital of Italy and this weekend the Eurochocolate Festival kicked off on Friday morning. There was literally chocolate everything everywhere. Chocolate bark, truffles, milk, fudge, chocolate kebabs, life size chocolate bears, chocolate cream cheese, chocolate liquor.... it was unreal. If you paid 6 euro you got a Chococard which provided you with samples from 15 places. Of course I did this. How could you turn that down? 

gale force winds. nbd.

chestnuts roasting on an open fire!!!!

So do you like all the pictures I took with my third new camera?! The amount of money I've spent on cameras still disgusts me. Vom.

Anyways. As you can see it was just a lovely eat fest all weekend. On Saturday we escaped the cast of thousands that were taking chocolate to the face and swarming the streets of Perugia and went over to Assisi. It was so beautiful and quiet there. We went in the churches and saw St. Francis's tomb. I said a prayer on it (I know, my holiness is overwhelming) And then we had the most amazing meal ever (anyone noticing a theme of eating here?) But seriously, it was this thin bread with gorgonzola, figs, and prosciutto. It was amazing.

I want one.

So Assisi was beautiful, as usual (ha I rhymed). On our way home we stopped at the big grocery store by the train station and then proceeded to get on the mini metro back up to the center of town. Oh my god I wanted to pull my hair out. Picture this: a tiny little subway car packed with a gazillion people with no sense of personal space slamming into you so that you can all fit so that they can go eat some chocolate. hey. GET OUT OF MY TOWN. No but seriously, I was dying. I had to go for a run when I got home so that I could be in open space and have the freedom to move again (i need therapy? nahhh)

I realized something though. I have always thought of myself as a city girl. I wanted to get out of North Carolina in high school because I thought it was boring, it was too safe, too comfortable, too same old same old. I wanted something totally different. I wanted what I thought was a city. But I don't think that's really the case. I think I just wanted a different culture. To experience something else. Because let me tell you something, masses of people crowding around me make me feel like I'm going crazy. So maybe I just wanted to be in a city because cities usually have lots of different cultures. I thought I wanted to grow up and live in New York City. I still want to do that for a little after I graduate (If I can find a job) but then my dream life would be living in some beautiful house on a beautiful piece of land where I can go for a run in the morning and be surrounded my something other than houses and cement sidewalks. No suburbs for me please. So anyways. Enough about my most current life realization.

I am doing a case study and writing my final term paper for my food class on the evolution of cooking and raw diets. SO starting today I am eating a raw diet until Friday (when I leave for fall break. First stop: LONDON yehaw) I think my body might actually go into shock this week when it realizes I am not going to feed it massive amounts of bread, pasta, and chocolate. I'll keep yall updated on how this little thing goes. Should be interesting.

Alright well. I am going to go do something with my life. Midterms this week. already halfway through B left at 5:15 this morning. Sad. Missing her already.

She's going to kill me for this. LOVE YOU.

Okay kiddies. Ciao ciao for now.

Running Diaries: Florence

dove il duomo?

I am a very happy girl right now for a few different reasons.

1. my friend B from nova is here to visit me this week (yes, its true, I do actually have friends)

2. when she was unpacking she told me she had a surprise for me and pulled out a bag of candy corn. i LOVE candy corn and you just can't buy that stuff here. Or even in the states at times other than the fall. I collapsed on the ground with happiness.

just kidding.
maybe.
not really.
but seriously is that not the most thoughtful thing ever? little acts of kindness just kill me.

3. I wore a sweater and boots to dinner tonight. AND I could see my breath. Maybe it's finally fall time in Perugia? Apparently this has been the hottest fall on record in 150 years. I don't hate very many things. But I HATE unseasonal weather. Like helllooooo stop being so inappropriate. So of course it's the hottest fall ever. (I know it is completely irrational to dislike unseasonal weather since I can't do anything to change it. But it's still annoying). 

4. I somehow managed to convince 4 girls to come do bootcamp with me tomorrow morning at the track. I am disgustingly thrilled about this. I can't wait for tomorrow morning. Planning the workout as we speak. I think I need therapy

5. Someone bought be a rose in Florence this weekend. No one has ever bought me flowers before. Small life victory.


Okay so enough with my iloveliferamble.

ponte vecchio

SO. On Friday morning I hopped on a bus and went to Florence for a field trip. As soon as we got off the bus it started pouring rain. Did I have a rain coat? Of course not! So I walked around with a sweater wrapped around my head. Picture that why don't ya. We went into a beautiful church on a hill overlooking the city. When we came out the sun was shining again, and there were also gale force winds. I decided to sit under a tree and watch a cute little couple take their wedding pictures (dream life) I was so much in molly world, I did not realize that every time the wind blew little tiny leaves were falling off the tree into my hair which is now the size of an 80s perm gone wrong due to the rain from before. So for the following 24 hours I kept finding little leaves and sticks in my hair. yum.

After the church we went to a restaurant where we were going to be served a 5 course meal similar to one that an Italian in mid evil Italy would have eaten. We were given homemade pasta with ginger and walnut pesto (substitute the garlic for ginger and the pine nuts for walnuts badabing badabom), a kind of mashed potatoes with tomato sauce and pancetta (when potatoes were introduced to Italy, chefs often tried to disguise it as polenta. tricky tricky), steak with pepper sauce, and wild boar with chocolate sauce and pine nuts. Now let me just tell you, I am not a big meat fan. Not my thing. But the boar was phenomenal. After our lunch we found out that the chef is one of the most famous chefs in the world. Right. Casual.

Friday night we sat in our hostel and read books. Actually I just listened to an audio tape.

HA. just kidding.

The jersey shore was in Florence. It's a fun place. (Perks of Florence: ESPN was on at all the American bars)

Saturday consisted of going for a run (Running Diaries to come later this week) and walking around Florence for 7 hours. It was a beautiful day. Like the kind of day where the sun feels warm but the shade makes you thankful for your sweater. The kind of day where you just want to be outside forever. The kind of day where this just no way you could be in a bad mood.

Saturday night was similar to the previous night. Except for one little tiny detail. Remember that new camera I had to buy a couple weeks ago? Well yeah, it got stolen. This is slightly depressing. But what am I going to do? At least I didn't have my wallet in my bag (that would have been worse dad). Soooo guess who gets to drop more money on a camera tomorrow!? This girl.

So after successfully meeting B at the airport in Florence even though we had no phones *gasp* we treked it back to Perugia. Guess what starts this Wednesday? The European Chocolate Festival. Guess where it is? Here. As in 15 minutes from my house.  

Alright if I don't go to sleep now I'll want to shoot myself while I'm leading boot camp tomorrow. And that can't happen. I'm just too excited about the success of my persuasion techniques.

ciao ciao. buona nota

Amanda Knox

Reporting live from Perugia, Italy on the Amanda Knox trial....



just kidding.


ha

But really, I just got home from the court house where they made the verdict on the Amanda Knox trial. I stood outside of the court house with hundreds of other students and Italians hoping to catch a glimpse of Amanda. News crews from all over the world were set up with bright lights and huge cameras. I was able to find a chair from a near by cafe that I could stand on (klutch). The Italians were not happy about the outcome of the case. They all think that she is very much guilty. When her parents walked out of the courtroom they all started chanting "vergogna! vergogna!" (Shame! Shame!) I felt like I was watching a modern scarlet letter kind of situation. In that moment I felt bad for her. How can they be so sure that girl deserves a life behind bars? An entire life in jail.


After talking to locals, teachers, and students on my program I am unsure about if she is guilty or not. I think I have decided that I don't think she did it. I do think that she has an idea about what happened that night. Or maybe she did and she's using the lack on concrete evidence to her advantage. Who knows?

I was standing on a chair under the overhang on the far left.

Two doors down is where I go to the grocery store. Literally a 2 minute walk straight up from there is where I go to class every day. This actually happened in my backyard. Crazy. Once again... is this real life? 


... on another note, how cool would it be to be a news reporter? 


Kathie Lee Gifford = my life model. Married to an NFL player, drinks wine on tv and talks about real news dumb stuff every day. Just kidding she's really not my life model. But that would be a pretty great life. She's just a little annoying. Okay I'll stop rambling. 


Oh another thing, I know two blog posts in one day is aggressive. But this is interesting right? Right.

october!

As of yesterday, I have been here for a month. Hard to believe right? Yeah. It is.
So here are some things I have learned so far / still surprise me

1. You cannot get a coffee bigger than 8 oz. I'm into the glugger coffees at home. Or I have like 3 cups if I make it myself. Here, you cannot order one that is bigger than a cup and coffee pots in people's houses do not exist. Hence why I am drinking instant coffee as we speak. yuck. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.

2. Women do not run around here. Especially girls my age. Whenever I go running I either don't see anyone or see a couple men. On the rare occasion that I see a girl I have to refrain from smiling at them like an idiot.

3. The men here are strangely obsessed with American girls. It still shocks me. They literally hang out their windows and yell "Ciao bionda!" (Hey blondie!), stop you in the street to ask you to go to a cafe with them (um no), a man in Spain got down on his knees and sang to me in Spanish (that was an interesting experience), and my favorite was when we finished our run to Assisi on Friday and this guy told us we looked beautiful (wait. are you blind? we just ran 14 miles and God knows I look disgusting). I'm not quite sure what they are seeing here...

4. I now know why our street is called Via del Cane (dog street). Because literally, at all hours of the day there will be a dog barking from one of our neighbors houses. Usually the one next door. TAKE THE DOG FOR A WALK. It actually drives me crazy. I've had more than one stare down with the thing from my window. It always wins.

5. My sister is actually going crazy without me being home. Yesterday on skype she shared her talent of being able to lick her elbow. Which apparently is supposed to be impossible to do. (Sorry kit, just sharing your talents with the world! you go girl) We are not related.

6. I still like to wait until the last minute to leave my apartment to go anywhere. Right now would be a perfect example. So now I'm going to have to do the speed walk to school. People don't speed walk here. As a result, I get weird looks on a continual basis. Their thought process is probably this "God that blonde American girl needs to relax and slow down." Then they'll say something to me in Italian and I just look back at them like a deer in headlights because 7 times out of 10 I have no idea what people are saying to me here.

okay. gotta go. HAPPY OCTOBER!