Carnevale e Firenze

Hannah was here all week!!!  On Tuesday, Stacy, Hannah, her parents and I all took a day trip up to Montepulciano.  Hannah's family had a rental car so luckily we were able to drive down country roads and see the beautiful views.  I had seen some of those typical rolling green hills before, but nothing like this.  This was like...the maximum amount of beauty a hill can have.  It was ABSOLUTELY freezing that day and raining, so that was a downer.  But we were still able to walk around the town, get some cute pictures, and eat some lunch.  Twilight fans:  First of all, you suck, those movies are terrible. Second of all, Montepulciano is apparently where some of New Moon was filmed..so be jealous I guess.

 Tuesday night was a huge Carnevale party in our town!!  After dinner, Hannah and I half-assed got dressed up as cats and went over to Iva's host family's house.  They were having a party with wine and snacks and costume was mandatory.  After a few glasses of wine...everybody walked over together in a huge group over to Bar San Marco where the town was having a huge costume party.  A lot of people went ALL OUT.  I felt kind of out of place.  The costumes were very creative and funny though.  After a little less than an hour there, everybody took a private bus to Viterbo to go the the discoteca!  So crowded, but so much fun.  Italian clubs are more like raves would be in the U.S. and I really liked it.  At 430am (I was like 15 min late...oops. but hey, not my fault) we took the bus back to Tuscania and went home and passed out.
Thursday I got to spend the entire day with Hannah just hanging around Tuscania shopping and sipping wine outside.  We had a little farewell dinner at the nicest restaurant in town before we had to say our goodbyes.  I am SOOSOSO glad they came, I miss you Hannahhhhh!

Ok, so now we're on the topic of Florence.  whatever.  Thats how I feel about it.  Why anyone would want to study abroad there beats me.  It was basically like I took a trip back to NC State's campus for the weekend to just go to bars with a ton of other americans.  Was it Italy?  No.  Was it pretty?  Yeah, I guess.  Do I have the dying urge to go back?  Not really.  It was a lot of fun though, I'll give it that much.

We got there Friday evening around 7 and Stacy's friends that we were staying with met us at the train station and walked us back to their apartment.  For dinner, we went to an American Diner.  I know, I know...bad.  But listen, in Tuscania, American food is completely nonexistent and all I've had since I've been here is pasta and pizza.  I ordered a cheeseburger and fries and Stacy ordered pancakes.  We split them half and half.  SOOO good, I miss all that stuff.  We then all went out to like 3 different bars/clubs that night which was a lot of fun.  We ended up getting free pastries from this one bar when they were closing, and if you know me at all, you can imagine how happy I was.  The next day we went to breakfast at the american diner again to continue with our americanized weekend.  So good.  Breakfast is another thing that doesn't really exist in Italy.  They find it acceptable to just have a quick cappuccino and croissant...I need real food.  So this was nice.  We walked around the city a little bit.  The huge duomo was pretty breathtaking.  In one of the piazzas near the duomo, they had a merry-go-round and music and people dressed up.  These 2 guys dressed as who knows what came up and literally yanked me out and started spinning me and making me dance.  I got a couple of pictures of this of course, but then left as they kept saying stuff to me.  I realized later that they expected a tip...but hey, I didn't ask you to dance with me....
I loved the bridge over the river that had buildings and shops on it.  I had always seen pictures of it, but it was a lot prettier in person.  We then took this really long hike up to this cliff-type thing to watch the sunset over Florence.  Seeing as though it was extremely cloudy and gross out, there wasn't much to see.  But we bought a bottle of wine with some plastic cups and sat out there listening to music and watched the city anyway.  At night, it was actually really pretty.  All of the churches and stuff have lights shining on them so it was almost unreal.  We then walked back down and went to dinner at the American diner...again.  Hey, this is the last time I could eat a cheeseburger for a while.  So good.  We went to another bar that night and then got up really early the next morning to catch the 100 different trains and buses we had to take to get back to Tuscania.
I was seriously so relieved to be back.  Although I'm glad I saw Florence, I am even more glad that I didn't study abroad there.  When I was there, I actually got a little homesick..of Tuscania.  I missed Italian culture, which is the reason I'm in Italy anyway.  If I had studied in Florence, I would not have been able to experience Italian culture at all and it would have basically just been another average semester in college.  Although I got a nice break from pizza and pasta, I'm even MORE appreciative of Tuscania and my decision to study there after this. 
Off to London on Friday for spring break!!!!  Then to Dublin on Tuesday!  So excited! Ciao Ciao