IkoIkoAhNay

I love the smell of photo chemicals

2010-10-25T18:49:00.000-07:00

And yes, I know that's weird.

Well, it's almost the end of October and I feel like I've been back at Georgetown for months and months already. Life's pretty busy lately. I would explain all of what I've been doing but why do that when I can just use this handy pie chart?!

Don't you just LOVE the internet???? (I love how classes are such a relatively small part of all this)

Katherine

Aaahhh boredom

2010-09-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

In order to assuage myself from the fact that I want to kill James Elkins right now (just trust me on that one) I'm posting a blurb I found in an issue of the Levee over the summer that both hit home and made me laugh. For those of you who don't know, The Levee is a satirical sort-of magazine that was started up in New Orleans a few years ago. Think the Onion, only specifically Gulf Coast related. Sometimes they get a little too silly for me, but every once in a while I love their stuff. This one, from what I believe was this year's August edition, was one of the latter, which is why it is currently staring at me from its place of honor on the back of my bookshelf:

from www.nolevee.com

New Stages of Acceptance
Zach Poche

The traditional five stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance - have been updated to accommodate New Orleanians and Gulf Coasters who have had to deal with the federal levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and now the massive Gulf oil spill that has changed and is changing lives every day. The new stages are:

- Disbelief
- Anger
- Sadness
- Acceptance
- Confusion. You subconsciously accepted what happened, but more oil kept spilling. It's like if your friend dies, then keeps getting more dead day by day.
- Back to anger
- Frustration
- Defeat
- Little more anger
- Ennui
- Hunger
- Sadness
- Frustration. The mind needs a release. It decided to watch a rerun of "The Cosby Show" to have some positive vibes, but it hits the wrong button on the remote and accidentally sees an oil-covered pelican on CNN.
- Anger. But not the furious type of anger - more like the type when a parent says, "(Sigh) I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed in you."
- Horniness (Yes, the human mind is a strange thing)
- Reminiscence of the way things used to be.
- Boredom. Leading the id to need to waste time looking at random YouTube videos. Then it keeps seeing advertisements of how BP is helping the cleanup.
- Furious hatred
- Bloodlust. Directed solely at Tony Hayward.
- Forgiveness. For Tony Hayward. The super-ego overrules the conscious saying that no human deserves the torture that you would deliver if you could get that British bastard alone in a room for an hour or two.
- Anger. The mind reverses its position as the conscious tells the super-ego it can go help some old lady cross the street. If you ever meet Tony Hayward, God help him.
- Sleepiness.

Fantastic, right?

now enjoy this little gem: http://www.nolevee.com/?article=city_trying_to_kill_pothole

Katherine

In That Number

2010-08-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today's a big day for anyone from the Gulf Coast. As much as we try to forget what happened 5 years ago today and as much as we may want to forget, Katrina's legacy remains for everyone. So in honor of the culture of New Orleans which isn't recovering but has survived (get it right newspapers!), I'm sharing this mix I've put together from various benefit albums and compilations. I like it, and I hope you do too.

http://www.mediafire.com/?yhda0go93mbilr0

Katherine

Airports

2010-08-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

In honor of the fact that I will be leaving to head back to DC in exactly one week I'm doing a little experiment for myself as to the airports I've been in in the past 365 days. Or rather, the past 358 days as I will be going up to next Wednesday. So without further ado I present to you a list that tells you just how much of my life I've wasted in these things lately (in no particular order, with official names if I know them off the top of my head):

New Orleans (Louis Armstrong International Airport)
Atlanta (Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport)
Washington, DC (Reagan International Airport)
Washington, DC (Dulles International Airport)
Boston (Logan International Airport)
Memphis (the Tennessee one, not the one in Egypt)
Detroit
Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport
Tampa
Chicago (Midway International Airport)
Paris (Orly)
Paris (Charles DeGaulle)
Florence-Peretola
Pisa (Galileo Galilei)
Frankfurt (am Main)
Berlin-Schönefeld
London (Gatwick)
London (Heathrow)
London (Stansted)
Glasgow
Glasgow (Prestwick)
Dublin
Edinburgh
Venice (Marco Polo)
Verona-Villafranca
Milan-Malpensa
Tokyo-Narita
Osaka
Taiwan Taoyuan

Next up - train stations! Ha, just kidding, that would be horribly difficult and at least 5 times as long (hooray for European and Asian train systems right?!)

Now this is just making me sad because this year this list will be much much shorter. As much as I dislike airports I do love traveling. Shame. Oh well, I'll just have to fit in some trips somewhere! Suggestions?

Books, books and more books!

2010-07-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

I know it's been quite a while and to be honest, this doesn't even really count as a real post, but it's summer so I'm okay with being super lazy. And I stole this from Malin.

Rules of the game:

1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (almost)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (at least halfway)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

The end... almost.

2010-05-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm done. Finally. Seeing as I finished classes almost 2 months ago exactly, the end of exams has been a long time coming.

As I was taking my methodology of art history exam this morning (in a chapel!) I realized that art was most definitely ingrained in me at a young age. I was writing an essay about how psychoanalysis has affected the assumption that artists are the people who best know the meaning of their on work, but my mind kept drifting off to a series of books I used to love when I was a kid.

Malin might remember this moment - but when we were in Venice, in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection's gift shop, I happened to find a copy of one of the "Katie's Picture Show..." books. Now, for some reason, the memory of these had been completely erased from the forefront of my mind but when I saw this book I immediately remembered reading them (and having them read to me!) For those of you who don't know, these books are amazing. They recount the stories of Katie, a little girl whose grandmother always takes her to museums (usually it's too hot outside) and then falls asleep on a bench while Katie wonders around the galleries. She's able (magically!) to jump inside paintings and talk with their inhabitants, and invariably causes a bit of trouble (like flooding a gallery or losing a hoop) but in the end everyone is restored to their paintings and Katie and her grandmother go off and get a slice of cake, or some ice cream. At the end of the book there's always a list of the paintings that Katie explores with a little bit of information about all of them - fun and educational at the same time!

When I was little I remember imagining that I was Katie (it didn't hurt that we had the same name!) and that I could go inside paintings and explore them. I still wish I could, but I guess studying art history is about as close as I'll get ;)

Katherine

Unfortunately, as I've just realized from reading his blog, James Mayhew, the author, was in Edinburgh in April and somehow I missed his talk!! I would've loved to meet him :( More fortunately, the next Katie book will be about adventures in Scotland!

Spring Break - Cuid dó

2010-05-02T17:19:00.000-07:00

(That's Gaelic for Part Two)

I've been meaning to get to this post for a while now but as usual, life has gotten in the way. In other words, I've been lazy, and then I had visitors for a while, so I'm just now sitting down to think about the 2 weeks I spent in Scotland with my parents. As I'm sure anyone who reads this doesn't actually care that much about what exactly we all did, I won't bother regaling you with a day by day recap. Instead, just a few points of summary:

- Sheep are AWESOME. As are lambs. Unfortunately, they are rather skittish and do not like being approached.
- My dad kicks ass at picking hotels. Seriously.
- People at American consulates are not very nice.
- Scotland has good food!
- Scotland is also cold. Seriously. It snowed when we were in Edinburgh. On April 20th. Not cool.
- Highland cows (aka coos) are also awesome. And shaggy.
- It gets WINDY on the Isle of Skye.
- It also gets BEAUTIFUL.

Spring Break - Parte Una

2010-04-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

This will be a rather long post so bear with me here.

Well, I am currently back in Glasgow catching up on TV shows before my parents arrive tomorrow and I'm making myself sit down and write about the past two weeks before I forget all about them!

So my trip started off Monday the 29th of March, after a nice weekend of relaxing in my empty room and avoiding the disgusting Scottish spring weather. I flew out of Edinburgh to Milan, which was sufficiently stressful because even though Daylight Savings time was early Sunday morning, no one seemed to have changed their clocks. Fortunately I got to the airport in enough time (mostly because EasyJet was having an issue with their systems so my flight was delayed a bit anyway) and sat around watching the news about the metro bombings in Moscow whilst waiting to board.

Got to Milan finally in the late afternoon, had issues finding an ATM since of course EasyJet flies into the small terminal that had a total of one ATM that was, of course, broken. But eventually I had euros and a train ticket to the central station, found my hostel and then collapsed in bed.

The next morning I slept late then went and did a bit of exploring of Milan, with a camera that had no battery. That means I have no pictures, but honestly, there wasn't much anyway. Can't say I enjoyed the city all that much, but it was nice to finally have gone there. I will leave you with one photo of the cathedral, borrowed from somewhere on the internet, because it is quite an impressive building.

The next day I woke up, checked out of my hostel and headed to Genova. I really only chose to go there because I didn't want to spend 2 full days in Milan and I didn't want to be in Florence until Thursday so I had a day to spare, and Genova was (1) between the 2 cities and (2) somewhere I'd never been before. I'm quite glad I did go because it's a beautiful port city and the weather was very nice so I enjoyed exploring it! I stayed in a very cute bed and breakfast type place right by the port that was cheap and in a great location, and, best of all, had a bathtub!! Plus the woman was extremely nice and very excited when I could speak Italian with her, it was adorable.

Penguins at the aquarium in Genova, the largest in Europe.

And a turtle!

Genova's cathedral, a rather Tuscan looking one.

Fountain in downtown Genova.

On Thursday I sadly left my adorable room and got on a train to Pisa and then from there to lovely Firenze. It was very odd being back because it made me feel as though I'd never left! Thursday we all (we being me, Sam, Rosemary and Jackie) celebrated my 21st birthday (which was Friday) by having a wine tasting at Pino's, then dinner at a restaurant nearby, then went to have drinks with Gregorio and Jacopo. They ordered me 5 shots and add that to the wine at the tasting and at dinner and the cocktail I had at the bar and I was surprisingly not very drunk by the end of the night - impressive! The next day we hung out and relaxed, had an aperitivo and then dinner at Yellow Bar and then spent the night in the Piazza della Repubblica, listening to music and drinking wine before we went to have more drinks at Luna Rossa.

Rosemary, Pino, me and Jackie at the wine tasting on Thursday night.

The next morning Sam and Rosemary left to go to Rome, Jackie went back to Poland and I checked myself into a hostel in Florence to stay one last night - then I went shopping (of course) and had very yummy tortellini with panna & prosciutto for dinner.

Easter Sunday I headed over to Rome in the early afternoon then spent a few hours browsing the shops at Termini until Malin's flight got in. We then went to go check into our hostel and met up with Sam and Rosemary for a very yummy dinner in Trestevere. The next morning we went with them to the forum, and while Malin and Rosemary (it being both of their first times in Rome) explored the ruins, Sam and I sat on some old columns and people watched - very relaxing, even though the weather wasn't so nice and we were both sickly.

Sam, me and Malin near the ancient forum in Rome.

Then we headed over to the Colosseum (being able to skip the lines with our forum tickets, hurrah!) and wandered around there for a while.

Me being silly in the Colosseum.

After being accosted by gladiators (because one of them was Rosemary's dream) we grabbed lunch at this amazingly yummy pizza place near the Pantheon that I will have to be heading back to, then went and saw the Pantheon (closed for the first time I've ever seen!) and the Trevi fountain (Sam's favorite place in Rome). By this time I was feeling rather sickly so I headed back to the hostel in the rain while Malin went to see the Spanish steps and the Piazza del Popolo. We went to dinner at a restaurant near our hostel that was quite yummy and delicious then headed to bed.

Tuesday we met up again with Sam and Rosemary so that Malin and Rosemary could explore the Vatican museums while Sam and I sat around being sickly. We went to get tea first, and played cards while eating these super weird french fries that I wish I'd taken a photo of, then went to get lunch and then laid down in the sun in St. Peter's square because it was actually very nice and sunny. Not gonna lie, we almost fell asleep and probably looked like vagrant homeless people but we were so sick we didn't care. That night we had some crazy people in our hostel room, including one girl who, despite booking a bed in an 8 person dorm, didn't want to sleep on a top bunk and went and complained to management about it. She still didn't get one.

That was more or less all of our adventures in Rome, or at least the ones that are of any interest whatsoever. On Wednesday morning Malin and I woke up, packed all of our stuff and headed to Termini to buy tickets to Venice. We got on a Eurostar and despite my coughing attacks every half hour, enjoyed the trip.

Venice was, in one word - GORGEOUS. The sun was shining the entire time we were there, there were no clouds in the sky, the temperature was just right and the water was sparkling. It could not have been a better time to visit! I am now getting tired of typing so the rest of this will not be as detailed as I would like, but I am absolutely certain that once Malin returns from Eastern Europe she will post a lengthy description of our adventures in Venezia.

a typical Venetian canal.

Suffice it to say that we enjoyed ourselves. Malin had found a wonderful little hostel that was right next to a fantastic little square with an equally fantastic restaurant that we ate at both nights, and nearby was a little bakery that we enjoyed chocolate croissants from both mornings we were there! We had a lot of fun wandering around the streets and canals of the city and getting somewhat lost sometimes (when in doubt, always ask the mailman!) and never stopped window shopping. I knew that Venice was a bunch of islands but I never realized just how many until we had to cross a new canal every other minute! We saw the touristy things like the Rialto bridge and market and St. Mark's and the Doge's palace on Wednesday afternoon.

il Ponte Rialto

view of the Grand Canal from the Ponte Rialto

Malin and I on the Ponte Rialto

St. Mark's cathedral complete with the requisite ugly scaffolding

the beautiful colored street lamps - one of Malin and I's favorite things about Venice!

gondolas waiting for customers

sun starting to set over the Grand Canal

Thursday morning we went first to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (after buying me a beautiful Carnevale mask as a birthday present). I absolutely adored her collection and summarily bought 10 postcards to hang on my walls. Plus, it doesn't hurt that her house is beautiful. I wish I was a Guggenheim so I had all that money. And art. It was weird being there since they just recently rejected me for a summer internship, but when I saw all the interns selling tickets and running coat check, I was much less sad about that!

Statue on the porch of the Peggy Guggenheim collection. As if you weren't already envious of the location, look at that blue water behind it!

me at the Collection

After that we took the (stupidly expensive) vaporetto up the Grand Canal just for the experience, then walked to the dock where we could catch another vaporetto over to the island of Murano, which is famous for its glass making. We walked around there for a bit, enjoying the relative emptiness and the always fantastic weather, and checked out the church of San Donato, which is famous for its floor. It was fantastic - a mix of Byzantine mosaics with geometric designs done in Venetian glass for a very cool effect. We weren't allowed to take photos but this'll give some idea of what the glass part of the floor looked like:

After Murano we headed back to the island of Venice... tried to get back without buying a new ticket for the vaporetto but then we fortunately heard a man returning to his family in the front of the boat saying that they had started checking tickets in the back, so Malin and I jumped off at the next stop, the small island of Certosa. There, we hung out on the floating dock and watching a man fish for a while until the next vaporetto came and we could buy a ticket. It was actually a rather nice place to wait, seeing as we could enjoy the bobbing of the dock and the sun and just sit in the quiet. When we got back to Venice we found the Bridge of Sighs, which unfortunately had scaffolding all around it covered with huge ads with Julianne Moore's face so that only part of the bridge was visible. Then we went back to St. Mark's so that we could go inside, seeing as we'd gotten there too late for that the afternoon before. I had had no idea that there were so many Byzantine mosaics inside - the church is literally covered in gold:

After exploring the church we got granitas and relaxed by the water again (our favorite pastime). I took this fantastic picture of Malin dozing while she wasn't paying attention.

Then a nice Spanish couple took a photo for us - only after I took a couple of minutes to figure out how to ask them in Spanish and not in Italian haha. Wow my Spanish has suffered lately

That was pretty much Venice for us... we woke up early the next morning, packed and headed to our bakery (me carrying a billion things because I had shopped too much the day before), where we met some nice old people from Utah who were unhappy with the fact that a caffe in Italy is an espresso. Then we braved the alleys of Venice one last time to find the bus station, where I caught a bus to Marco Polo and Malin headed off to spend hours at Treviso before her flight later that night.

Me posing with the mask I bought.

Getting home was quite an adventure. I'd been worried about my flights because I chose to travel with British Airways as it was the cheapest and easiest option for getting out of Venice but fortunately those strikes did not affect me. What did were the ground workers strikes that were going on that day only at Marco Polo airport. Fortunately British Airways, instead of canceling my flight, rerouted it through the Verona airport and herded us all onto a bus for the hour/hour and a half drive over there. I eventually returned home only to realize this morning that I was missing my passport, which has provided a whole slew of issues to deal with today.

On the bright side, I seem to have brought the Venetian weather back with me because today was gorgeous here in Glasgow and it is supposed to stay that way for a bit. Good since my parents will be getting in for a visit tomorrow morning. More adventures will be blogged about in two weeks after my tour of Scotland!

Ciao ciao,

Katherine

One week and counting

2010-03-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

It's weird that there's only a week left in the semester and yet it's only mid-March. I can only repeat what I've been saying all along: the UK school system is WEIRD.

I'm not about to complain though! One more week, 5 more classes, 2 more papers and 2 more presentations and then I'm done until finals! I'll be leaving for Milan on March 29th, going from there to Genoa, then Florence in time for my 21st birthday, then Rome and Venice with my good friend Malin so I should have a good break whilst being back in Italy before I return to meet up with my parents and do some more traveling around Scotland. The temperature has slowly been getting warmer so hopefully by the time I return from the South it'll be nicer.

Today was good - I woke up, turned in my 3000 word Methodology of Art History paper on the restrictions imposed on the study of art history by a restriction to the Western canon (doesn't that sound like fun?!), went to Beanscene for a chocolate muffin and a mocha (ah, yum), went to my Italian conversation hour during which I yet again wondered if I just have stupid classmates or if the UK system really fails at teaching languages (I've decided it's a bit of both) then took a walk downtown. I went to Primark first (come on, who doesn't love cheap cute clothes?!) and bought a dress! Then I spent an hour or two reading at Waterstone's because I didn't think a book was worth spending the 10 pounds on (and it certainly wasn't).

This next bit requires a bit of back story I suppose: a couple of weeks ago at Waterstone's I found a book that was this guy's study on Matisse's reception in America starting with the 1913 Armory Show. If you know me, you know that this is basically my perfect book. Only problem was, I couldn't find a price tag. At the time I was buying a book by Calvino so I figured I'd ask at the register if they could look up a price. The cute Scottish guy (ha) spend about 15 minutes looking on the computers and asking other employees to try and figure it out because apparently the book was no longer in the store's system even though it was on the shelf. He eventually told me they could sell it to me for 25 pounds which, even though the book sounded interesting, was exorbitant in my mind. It's just a ~250 page hardcover book, no plates and in fact it was kind of beaten up. So I said thanks but no thanks, bought the Calvino, and left. I returned to my dorm only to look up the book online and find out that its $45+ in the US. So a week or so later I returned to Waterstone's but the book was no longer on the shelf, alas.

Anyway, today, I was browsing through the Art History books, noting down titles of the larger ones to buy when I'm back home, and voila! There's the Matisse book! Same copy (I could tell my the worn cover edges - Malin, you would kill someone!) and even though it had been put back on the shelf, still no price tag. I decided 'what the hell?! I'll buy it' and went to the register. The cute guy (a different one - there's 2 of them!) was very confused when he scanned the barcode and nothing showed up, so I told him that this had happened before and that apparently it wasn't in their system. He asked me when this had happened and I told him a couple of weeks ago and that they had said they'd sell it to me for 20 pounds (I'm a horrible liar but I guess the pout and the American accent work wonders here) so he shrugged and said OK. So yes, apparently I should've said 15 pounds because that probably would've worked just as well, but as it is I got 5 pounds off which is enough for me! Hopefully it will be as good as it looks.

So after Waterstone's it had started raining (ew) but I went to the movie theatre to meet up with some girls from my art history classes. The Cineworld theatre here in Glasgow is HUGE and this big multi-level debacle - of course half the escalators weren't working so we had to go down to go up and up to go down, etc etc. Twas very confusing but eventually we made it to the 4th floor (which was really more like the 8th or 9th) to go and see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which is based on Stieg Larsson's first novel. This movie has been out for almost a year (or over, I can't remember) in the rest of Europe but only came out here in the UK last Friday and is being released in the US tomorrow. Overall I was a bit disappointed, but that's because I went in with high expectations from the book. They did do a good job simplifying the plot (all that financial stuff was hard enough to swallow in writing) and the 2 main actors were very well cast but it was rather long and much more gruesome than the book seemed. Also it was rather awkward because this middle aged man came and sat down next to me halfway through the previews even though there were loads of other seats, which would have been fine but there were several awkward sexual scenes in the movie, including some rape and non-consensual tattooing so it was a tad weird sitting next to a stranger. I do suggest seeing the movie though if you think you can stomach the violence and the 3 hours of Swedish with English subtitles, though it's still a surprise to me that the Swedes made it before Hollywood picked up the rites.

Anyway, that was my day today. I'm going to watch some of the opening day of March Madness now in preparation for the Georgetown-Ohio game that's on in about half an hour and then try and work on the 2 essays I have left this weekend... yeah, we'll see how that goes.

Katherine

When will it ever stop being so cold?!

2010-03-01T12:56:00.001-08:00

Whoever let me think it was a good idea to live in a northern island country for 5 months was crazy! Fortunately the days are getting longer and so there's more sunlight, but last week was all snowy and rainy and disgusting.

Life has been pretty normal... I go to classes, do research, wander around the area and the rest of the city, etc. etc.

On Saturday my friend Matt Collins and I went to a gig - to see Girls. They were pretty good and it was a fun show... I hadn't realized just how long it had been since I'd been to a concert so that was quite fun.
Tomorrow I'm going to Edinburgh for the afternoon with one of my art history seminars. I actually haven't been able to make it over there yet so it should be fun.

And since I have nothing else exciting to report, I will leave you all with a few photos of Glasgow, stolen from Matt's facebook.

view on the River Clyde

the Cloisters at Glasgow Uni

the back of the University... or the front, depending on which way you see it.

Maybe I should start clicking on Facebook ads more often...

2010-02-17T11:13:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to lie, today was actually the second time I've clicked on an ad on the side of my Facebook page. The first was in Paris a couple of weeks ago, when for some random reason it came up with biodegradable products for a woman's that time of the month, you know, yeah... I just had to click, it was too intriguing! And Katie and I had a good laugh about it, but it was also kind of disgusting.

Anyway, today, a musician's ad popped up. And before I could stop myself, I was clicking. Boy, was I glad I did.

For your ears' listening enjoyment, I give you Everett Thomas. Not only is he gorgeous, but he has a voice that just makes you want to curl up on a couch with your favorite blanket and listen to him forever. Yeah, that kind of voice. Enjoy.

http://www.everettthomas.com/

A long weekend in Oxford... and A SAINTS SUPER BOWL!

2010-02-13T17:07:00.000-08:00

Well while everyone else I usually go to school with was battling out the several feet of snow that was dropped on the East Coast over the past week, I've been back from a very fun weekend in Oxford, visiting my friend Malin! I will try and do a little recap here, something I've been meaning to do for the past almost week and haven't, so we'll see how much I remember.

So Thursday night I set out to go to the Buchanan Bus Station here in Glasgow to get on an overnight bus to London. I can't complain too much about the bus I suppose, seeing as I only paid 11 pounds for my ride down, but it did only further prove that I have no absolutely no ability to sleep while sitting up. After a sleepless night I arrived in London at about 7:15 am and set out to find the Oxford Tube stop so I could get on another bus and go to Oxford. This was supposed to be very easy because the map said the stop was right in front of the Victoria Bus Station. What they don't tell you is that there are two separate buildings that form the Victoria Bus Station, one for departures and one for arrivals, and that the arrivals one is not marked on any map. So after being very confused for just a bit, I found the bus stop and got on the (wi-fi included!) 1 1/2 hour bus to Oxford, where I met up with Malin!

I'm not going to lie, I was exhausted when I finally got to Oxford, so after talking with Malin for a while, I took a nap. Then we set out to explore some of the various colleges that make up Oxford University. For those of you who don't know, Oxford's system is very strange (although I'm sure it makes a lot of sense to people who know only that one) and the University is made up of over 30 colleges, all of which are more or less their own tiny school. (Malin may have to correct me on that number!) Malin goes to Pembroke College, which is one of the smaller ones, but it was very pretty and looked exactly as an old English college should. First we went to Christ Church College, whose main quad looks like this:
Unfair, no?! Christ Church College is famous for its pretty architecture, but also because its dining hall/staircase was used in the first Harry Potter film. Unfortunately the hall was closed as it was lunchtime and students had to actually eat in there, but we did sneak a peak at the staircase on which Professor McGonogall meets the First-Years in the first movie (yes, I'm a dork).

We ate lunch at this very adorable place right in front of a church... very good tea and very good lasagna.

That is me looking very cold, although after a January spent in Scotland, Oxford was actually very warm in comparison.

We then went on to Magdalen College, which, despite what the spelling would lead you to believe, is actually pronounced something like Maudlen. However they choose to pronounce their name, Magdalen was also very pretty (beginning to see a trend here?):

Magdalen College sits on a HUGE piece of land. Some of its finer points:

A cute little cottage:

And a deer park:
Yes, that's right, a deer park. When I told my dad this he immediately asked if the College used the deer as food, but I had to inform him that they are Royal deer and therefore cannot be killed without suffering the wrath of the Queen. (I'm not sure how much they would actually care, but I wouldn't put it past them to have some kind of law that gives people life sentences if they touch these deer)

After that we did some more wandering around before heading back to Malin's (spacious) single where we hung out with my old friend Bryan a bit (alas, this was the only time this weekend I would get to see him) and then Malin and I went to this Japanese noodle place for dinner, which was very delicious (and spicy! Yay!). We got ice cream for desert at this very cool place called G&D's... apparently an Oxford institution. Their chocolate cookies were amazingly delicious!

The next day we went and had a late lunch/early dinner of a traditional English tea at this place called The Rose. It was phenomenal!
We spent the rest of the day shopping and then went out for dinner again.

Then on Sunday I charged Malin with distracting me from the upcoming Super Bowl. We got lunch at Pret and then went to the Ashmolean, the UK's oldest public museum. They just finished a huge renovation and were still fixing up some things, but the place had a very impressive collection - I liked their Chinese and Japanese art the most, and they had lots of examples of modern Japanese painting that were gorgeous. We went back to Malin's and did a bit of work (you can never escape it!) and I tried to occupy myself with the history of the Scottish Civil Wars but I was way too nervous! For dinner we went to formal hall at Pembroke, where they serve you and stuff and the students have to wear their robes. I got away with my jeans and Saints shirt however, as it was rather dark! The food was okay, but it was a very cool experience. Then we went back to studying until the game started later that night.

For the Super Bowl we went to this pub around the corner from Pembroke College and it was packed! Fortunately almost everyone was rooting for the Saints, and it paid off because WE WON!!! It was an amazing game and I'm so glad I got to watch it! I'm not ashamed to admit that I did cry.

me, Malin and a fellow Hoya at Oxford, Ross.

After sleeping in on Monday whilst Malin worked on a paper, we got yummy panini for lunch at another Oxford institution, Heroes, and then hung out for the rest of the day. After getting bagel sandwiches for dinner at G&D's (where I bought a chocolate cookie for the bus ride home) I hopped back on the Oxford Tube to get to London where I got on my bus back to Glasgow. Fortunately this time I was able to pretend like I was waiting for a friend to sit in the seat next to me so I got a row to myself which meant I could actually lie down and sleep! Sometimes it pays off to be short, let me tell you.

Well that caps off a lovely weekend spent in Oxford and hopefully Malin will come and visit me soon so I can repay the favor!!

Katherine

tea and 24 marathons

2010-02-01T05:06:00.000-08:00

Yet again I'm slacking on the updates, what a surprise! My new month resolution will be to post here more often... we'll see how long that happens.

So Paris was fun - Katie's foot wasn't hurting this time so we got to walk around more, Shelby was in town, and all the museums were actually open this time as compared to when I was there last fall! I got in around noon-ish on Saturday after the most frightening walk through Glasgow at 6 in the morning in the dark park to get to the bus station to get to the airport. First I met Katie's new roommate, then we hung out for a bit and then went to the Musee d'Orsay where there was a ridiculously long line, unexpected for a cold January weekend. Fortunately it moved fast AND we got in free! Yay for European student ID cards and for Katie's German passport (makes everyone more trusting that I'm actually Scottish and not American...). The Orsay was fun, they had an Art Nouveau exhibit going on that, while ridiculously crowded, was very interesting. Unfortunately they didn't have my Mucha prints so I wasn't able to replace my posters... if anyone is going to Prague in the near future please please please talk to me so I can convince you to get them for me!!

Anyway, Saturday night Katie and I went to go get fondue and found a place for only 12 euros each, not a bad deal in Paris. It was really yummy but ridiculously filling and we weren't able to eat all of it. Then I got a lemon crepe for dessert - mmm!! We hung out and watched Angels and Demons for the rest of the night.

Sunday we slept in late and got a French king cake for breakfast/lunch/brunch! We met up with Shelby and went back to Katie's apartment to eat it. Then we went with Shelby to the Pompidou Centre where we got in free again!! Not paying for things is one of my favorite things in the world! The Pompidou was nice, but they had this huge feminism exhibit taking up most of the 2 floors so a lot of their permanent collection wasn't on display. Fortunately most of their Matisse collection was hanging so I got to drool over that for a while :) And buy a poster. Which unfortunately keeps falling down so desperate measures will have to be taken to get it to stay up.

Sunday night was, of course, the NFC Championship. And Katie fell asleep. So I stayed up on my makeshift bed and watched the entire game, not falling asleep until 5. But it was so worth it, because, as I'm sure everyone knows by now, the Saints are going to the Super Bowl!!!!! (there's no way I can express my excitement in a blog, so just trust me, I'm excited.)

Anyway, I got back to Glasgow on Monday afternoon and have been basically lazing around all week. My schedule here is so easy it's almost ridiculous. As it is, I should probably be working on some of the papers and stuff I have to write this semester. Actually I've already started research on some of them so I'm way ahead of schedule... my normal schedule at least. Of course it doesn't help that I've started watching 24 and am already addicted even though I've only just passed the halfway mark of the first season. It's been very slow going as I can only find the episodes on megavideo and ever since they changed their stupid website I can only watch an episode at a time at most before it cuts me off.

Well, I should get back to doing actual things now I suppose... I'm trying to find some easy recipes so I can actually cook here and not just survive on apples and cereal and tea. Not that I don't like those things, but they can get a little old.

Au revoir,

Katherine

AAHH!!!

2010-01-22T12:07:00.000-08:00

I promise there will be a longer post after this weekend chronicling the first couple of weeks here at Glasgow and my weekend in Paris (which I should probably pack for...) but right now I'M TOO DAMN NERVOUS TO THINK ABOUT ANYTHING BUT THE GAME ON SUNDAY!!!!! All these articles about "how could anyone root against the Saints?" make me laugh but at the same time, if the rest of the country knew what a Superbowl win would mean for us, they'd let us kick the Vikings' asses and the asses of whoever wins the Jets/Colts game. It sounds silly, I know, that a sport means that much but if you need any proof about how important this game is to the people of New Orleans look no further than the more than 3 dozen songs our newspaper gathered together that have to do with the Saints... and the comments just keep adding more:

http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2009/12/new_orleans_saints_tribute_son.html

My personal favorite is still Kermit Ruffins. Gotta love 'em.

So I'll be watching the game in Paris this weekend and I hope everyone who reads this (i.e. Malin) will be cheering for the Saints as well!!!

WHO DAT?!

Katherine

(please excuse my relative silliness in this post, like I said, we've all gone crazy)

Welcome to Scotland!

2010-01-15T12:54:00.001-08:00

OK this is going to become a serious thing this semester, I'm serious. Or at least, as serious as I can be when it comes to keeping up with things like blogs and journals. I hate that I lag, but I guess that's just something I've got to keep working at!

Anyway, I've been in Glasgow for 1 1/2 weeks now and so far I'm loving it. Granted, the weather could be a bit more forgiving, especially the ice that was ever-present the first four or five days, but it's been slowly warming up and I'm starting to get used to it! The University of Glasgow campus is gorgeous, exactly like an old European university should be. The main building was built around the same time Healy was built on Georgetown's campus so it reminds me a lot of being in DC. Add to the fact that there is a nearby Dumbarton Road and that the university is commonly referred to as GU and I have deja vu all the time!

I got ridiculously lucky with housing as far as location goes. A bunch of international students are stuck in the dorms that are far away and face at least a 20 minute walk to the main section of campus every day whereas I am next door to the library and a couple minutes walk from the main gatehouse and all my classes. We live in what's referred to as a flat here, although it's really just like a regular dorm in the US: some doubles with shared bathrooms and kitchens. The only difference is that there's only about 10 rooms on this floor and that's the most I've seen in any of the similar buildings. We also have 2 different kitchens in our flat, and laundry as well, so it's pretty darn nice.

As for classes, they started this week and it's taken a bit of adjusting to the way they do things here. The most obvious difference being that participation/attendance counts for nothing. That's right, NOTHING. Instead, all that matters for most classes is the final paper and/or exam. My Italian class is a little different but since it's a language class, we have regular homework and stuff. So for this semester I'm taking two Junior Honours art history seminars, Methodology of Art History and the Making and Viewing of Sculpture in the 18th and 19th centuries, Italian 2 and a bi-weekly seminar called Exploring Scottish Culture. The two seminars are going to be pretty tough because of the final papers and tests, but they're ridiculously interesting as well. Italian will be ridiculously easy, on the other hand, and the Scottish Culture class should be interesting. I'm glad I'll be learning something more about the history and literature of the country while I'm here.

The weirdest thing I've encountered so far is the scheduling as far as the semester goes. We have classes for 11 weeks, up until our 3 week break that starts on March 26th. We come back from that and have absolutely nothing except studying and exams and paper due dates until the end of May. So basically, starting from March 26th I'm done with classes and will just be writing papers and lazing around. Hopefully the weather will be nice by then!

Glasgow itself is nicer than I thought it would be. I was picturing a city with nothing to do but things on the campus, but the city center itself is very lively and interesting. There seems to be a lot of stuff to do, and it's already started to seem more lively to me than Florence, although not quite as old-looking! The University is in the West End and this area is very student-geared, which is nice. The center of Glasgow is about a 20-25 minute walk away or there's buses or a big circular metro that you can take down there. They call the metro the Clockwork Orange because all the trains are orange and it runs in a big loop... oh, the Glaswegians are oh so witty. So far I've been downtown a couple of times, and I've also been exploring the area around here, trying to find the best pubs (I had a bottle of Stella for 1 pound the other night), the best grocery stores & the best (i.e. cheapest) food.

So so far, life is good. I've got a lot more free time this semester so hopefully that'll lead to both more blogging and more adventures to blog about. As for tonight, I'm staying in the warmth and planning on going to an art museum or two tomorrow and finding a pub to watch the Saints/Cardinals game! Wish me luck!

Katherine

Various travels

2009-11-24T05:47:00.000-08:00

Instead of writing my sociology paper which is due in a week and which I desperately need to work on, I will update everyone on everywhere I've been this semester, as I've only got 2 1/2 weeks left! (time has passed so quickly!) These are by no means in any order because I can't remember when I was where haha!

INSIDE ITALY

Rome -
Fun as usual. This was the first trip, and it was technically only a day trip for art history, but they gave us open-ended return train tickets so most of us stayed over until Saturday night. Did all the usual touristy stuff, the Colosseum, the Forum, St. Peter's etc etc. and got to go to the Galleria Borghese again (one of my favorite museums in the world) so this was a very fun overnight trip, although nothing new!

San Gimignano -
Very new, on the other hand. San Gimignano is this walled medieval city near Siena that's beautiful but has become ridiculously filled with tourists. It's famous because its still got most of its old medieval towers (unlike most Italian cities) and also for its white wine, Vernaccia. They grow the grapes in the hills surrounding the city. The views here are GORGEOUS but I wish I'd been able to go during the week when it wasn't so crowded. Definitely worth a visit if you're ever in Italy though.

Ravenna -
Not the best of field trips. I was excited for Ravenna because it's famous for its Byzantine mosaics but overall I was pretty disappointed. The mosaics, however, are beautiful, no surprise there, but the rest of the city was rather empty and lifeless.

Val d'Orcia -
Val d'Orcia is a region in southern Tuscany that we went to for a day trip with our Italian professors. By far the best field trip according to everyone here, we went to some monasteries, had a great huge lunch and also got to go to a cheese factory! Pecorino filed with black pepper = yummmm!! I wish I'd bought more!

Modena & Verona -
Another art history trip (surprise surprise)... Modena was OK, but it was rather rainy when we were there in the morning/early afternoon so that wasn't quite as fun. Good art museum though. Verona, on the other hand, I enjoyed a lot. The city is a nice mix of the ancient (gorgeous arena, churches) and modern (streets filled with designer shopping), and was a very interesting visit!

Sorrento/Capri/Naples -
Not a school trip, shocker! I'd already been to all these places but with my family so it was quite a different experience going with friends. We took a train down to Naples, got sufficiently lost trying to find the train to Sorrento and stayed there for the night (technically we stayed in San'Agnelo, thanks to Elena's incredible hostel booking skills!). We spent Saturday on the island of Capri, which was even more gorgeous than I remembered. It was the end of September and still ridiculously warm so we did some hiking through the towns and found this monastery at the top of the mountain where the monks gave us coffee and biscotti and we sat and talked for a while, enjoying the view. On Sunday we stopped on the way back to Naples at a beach town and enjoyed some sun, but unfortunately we decided to leave somewhat early and go back to Naples - bad idea. I'd only ever driven through Naples and now I'm glad I didn't stop for any amount of time, the part we walked through was so horrible that we ended up exchanging our train tickets for an earlier train just to get out of there! Fun weekend overall though.

OUTSIDE ITALY

Vienna -
My favorite place so far. The last time I was in Vienna I was maybe 5 years old, and the only thing I remember from the trip were the Spanish horses (white horses that do this kind of dance/dressage performance, v. famous). This time was fantastic, and I can totally see myself living in Vienna one day. I stayed with (VERY) distant family in their beautiful 3-story apartment (luxury!!) and they made me dinner every night, and took me out once for a typical Austrian meal. I spent my days in museums and cafes. No seriously, that was almost all I did besides wandering around. Vienna has some amazing art, and the cafes! Don't even get me started. If you're ever there, check out Hawelka, their pastries are AMAZING. I spent my entire Sunday afternoon there.

Prague -
I think I'd hyped up Prague a lot in my head because I'd been wanting to go there for so long, and so the real thing kind of let me down. But it's not like it was a bad place. I had a great hostel and had the most fun wandering around the old and new cities. Highlights = seeing the opera Don Giovanni performed by puppets and eating lunch in a cafe underneath Manet's Absinthe Drinker.

Berlin -
Extremely fun, mainly because I was there the first weekend of November and the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was officially celebrated on November 9th. This didn't mean they couldn't celebrate for the entire time up until then! Berlin was most fun for its history, because I'm disturbingly fascinated by the Nazis and all, so it was neat to finally be there. I'd always thought that I'd been with my family when I was younger but I was wrong so it was cool to see a completely new place like this.

That's it... wow it seems like I've done a lot more. I'll be in Paris this weekend visiting my good friend Katie for Thanksgiving and then I've only got one more weekend left after that! It's so weird that this semester is almost over!

Ciao ciao,
Katherine

Wow, this is embarrassing

2009-11-24T05:40:00.000-08:00

So yeah, basically I suck at blogging. Also, I hate the website I had been using so I'm switching back to this one... long boring story full of excuses. Also, I have no computer of my own so I've been stealing other peoples... it's been a long month haha...

Here are old posts to catch up on:

Sept 10, 2009
La vita quotidiana
I’m really not sure what to write in this thing, but I guess I’ll give you guys (like anyone reads this) somewhat of an idea of what life is like here.
So I wake up around 7:30 and stay in bed for a while, then go get a shower. Annamaria (my host mom) and I have a nice long breakfast, usually consisting of fruit and these cookie/biscuit things that are delicious with her homemade blackberry jam. Then I leave the house around 9 for the 20 minute walk downhill to the Villa. I have my Italian class at either 10:15 or 10:30, then usually lunch and then other classes. I’m taking 5, Italian, Art History, and a Sociology, a Government and an English course, all having something to do with Italy. So far they all are pretty interesting and the professors seem great. But so I spend my days at the Villa, with delicious lunches and wireless internet in the gardens :). Generally my classes end around 6:45 so I head back up to my host family’s house at the top of Fiesole, do some work, and then eat dinner. We usually watch a movie together after dinner, or a soccer game (forza gli azzurri! *I probably spelled that wrong) like last night. Then I do more work and go to bed.
That’s pretty much a normal day here, although I can’t really say normal because today is only the end of the first week of classes. Tomorrow we’re leaving for Roma and pretty much all of us are staying through to Saturday. Then Sunday some of us are going to a wine festival in Chianti. Who knows when I’ll have time to do homework? (stupid homework!)
Oh! I almost forgot - best part of this week = on the walk home on Monday, a motorcycle stops next to me and the guy on it says “ciao, Katherine!” Turns out its my host dad (who I did not even know had a motorcyle) and he gave me a ride the rest of the way back up to the house! They were so shocked that it was my first time on a motorcyle, and now Vittorio (host dad) refers to his moto as his “mustang” because I told them that’s what I drove. It’s adorable!
Well, ciao for now,
Katherine

Sept 21, 2009
...It gets me every time

I feel as if I’ve been here forever already, even though it hasn’t even been a week. But we’ve all already settled into routines, which is definitely a nice change from the first couple of days, when I was living out of my backpack in a hotel and at the Villa.
So life is good, I love the food, I love my walks in the mornings and evenings to and from my host family (although I could definitely do without the uphill part), the weather’s been pretty good, the people are nice (especially my host family), classes are interesting, and I’m really not sure anymore what else I can talk about because everything’s great! Actually it’s kind of disgusting how lucky I feel here. Yesterday a couple of us spent the afternoon on the long porch overlooking Florence and sung along to some classic 90s songs for a couple of hours, until it started raining and we couldn’t see anything anymore. Then we played Shithead. Then I went home and ate this delicious pepper dish with my host parents and watched the news.
Sometimes I can’t believe that this is my life.
In other news, we’re going on a day trip to San Gimigniano this weekend, which will be exciting as it’s a place I’ve never been to (unlike everything I did in Rome, which, while not new, was fun).
So apparently I am a horrible blog writer because I really can’t think of anything to write about. So please please please if you’re reading this, let me know if you want to hear about anything specific. I.e. GIVE ME IDEAS! I’m desperate, ha, because I don’t want to give this up, but I have no idea what to write. So tell me. Now.
Grazie.

A Fiesole!

2009-09-05T02:13:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to hate Italian keyboards, but I didn't feel like bringing my laptop to the villa today because we're going into Florence this afternoon, so I'm using one of the computers in the lab and it's going to take me forever to get used to the different setup.

But I don't really care because the Villa is GORGEOUS! I'll try and send pictures on Monday in between classes but they really donàt do it any justice. The gardens are amazing and I still can't get over the view. Last night before dinner we drank wine and mingled with our professors and the host families on the patio overlooking Florence with a lovely breeze and... aahhh, I feel so lucky. (Plus, the library is amazing, and full of art books!) The cooking's great, all the professors seem nice, although we only met them last night, and everyone who's here is great so far!

As for my host family, I personally think I got the best one! They're Vittorio and Annamaria, and I would say they're in their 40s maybe, which is great because it seems like everyone else's are much older. My host parents are exactly like my own parents, which is kind of funny, and they're very lively and funny. Their garden is gorgeous, they have their own fig trees and grow tomatoes and I think limes or something, I don't know exactly which fruits are which (too many new Italian words!!) Their house is in a building of many, it's almost like a townhouse but they have the first floor, and its very quiet. I have my own room, and we share a bathroom, and unfortunately there's not really internet. They have it, but they don't use it often so they have no contract, and have to pay by minutes, but it's not really a big deal since I'm at the Villa all day anyway. It just won't be good if I need to research something and forget to do it during the day, but it's a good thing I brought all my Italian dictionaries/verb tense books with me! They said I could use it of course in case of emergencies so it's all good. Their neighborhood is amazing, seriously. The walk to the villa seems to take about 20-25 minutes, which isn't so bad, and it's downhill in the mornings which is nice. Plus the road winds along the outside of the hill so the views are AMAZING the entire way.

The food at the villa is amazing, and I haven't had dinner with my host family yet so I don't know how their cooking is but Vittorio keeps saying that Annamaria is an amazing cook and I believe him, if the marmalade was anything to go by. He actually isn't a vegetarian, they just don't really keep any meat at home since she doesn't eat it. Also, Annamaria and I are determined to learn how to make cheesecake, because the one we had for desert last night was fantastic (apparently it's the villa's speciality).

So so far everything's great!

Alla prossima (til next time)