FALL BREAK and Family Visits

As of Wednesday, I am officially on fall break. And to make it even better, I have 2 full weeks :) I haven't even had a full week of nothing since middle school probably (high school we had a "fall break" but I always had soccer practice/games) It is the weirdest feeling knowing that I literally have nothing to do school wise for 2 full weeks. I have decided, just a few days in, that I officially miss a fall break. Haha. But, fall break means no school work, and family visits! As I am currently typing this, my mom is sitting in the Charlotte airport waiting to board her flight to Frankfurt. She flew Lexington to Charlotte, and then will go Charlotte to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Florence :) It's so exciting. I am sad that she is the only person coming to visit me, but I am glad that she is the one who is coming to see me! I know that we will have so much fun exploring Italy together. We are going to places that I have already been to, so I know where to go. Here is our itnerary for the week:

Monday: SHE GETS HERE! So we will probably just explore the city while she is getting over her jetlag and so we will get her acquainted to they city

Tuesday: Another day in Florence; still walk around, maybe head up to Fiesole (it's a 20 minute bus ride up to a high point overlooking the city)

Wednesday-Thursday: We head off to Rome! It's such an amazing and well known place in Italy, so of COURSE we had to go and visit. We are going to stay overnight so that we aren't rushed to try and see everything. Thursday we have a reservation to get into the Vatican Museums at 10, so we will be going through the museums, the Sistine Chapel, the Crypts/Tombs, St. Peter's Basilica (which we missed out on when we went with ISA because we only had 4 hours to see the entire place!). We will head back sometime last Thursday afternoon.

Friday: We may head over to Cinque Terre or Pisa. Cinque Terre is prettier when the weather is nice, so it will all depend on the weather.

Saturday: We have a cooking class arranged starting with a pick up around 10 am (I think) and we will be picked up here in the city and taken to where the class is. I think we are learning how to make 3 pastas (from scratch), 3 sauces, and then we get to eat them! It will be fun! Then, I think that we get done early afternoon, so we may try and go to English Mass at the Duomo (it's such an experience...when will you get to go to church in the historic Florence Cathedral??)

Sunday-Monday: WE ARE OFF TO VENICE!! I am excited to go to Venice. Everyone RAVES about it...and Mark (Mom's coworker and a family friend of ours) basically told her that she HAD to go...otherwise she would be missing out. So we'll probably do the same thing as we do with Rome; leave early morning and try and get back not too late Monday afternoon. Also, Monday will be sad because I will have to say goodbye to her that night...her flight leaves really on Tuesday morning, so she will be picked up by the airport shuttle at like 4 am...

Tuesday: She leaves and I won't get to see her...I will just take the day to get all of my school stuff ready seeing that I go back to class the next day.

It seems like I have been waiting FOREVER for this week to get here, and now that I look at our schedule all typed out, it doesn't even seem like it will be a week that she will be here. I know that the time is going to be great, but I am afraid that it is just going to fly by :( But I am so excited for her to get here. Time seems to be flying by, and it's crazy to think that we are officially half way done with the semester. As of yesterday, I will be back in KY in a mere 8 weeks. I love it here and this is probably one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life, and it saddens me to think about how quickly my time is flying here. I am definitely making the most of it (as much as I can) and will continue to do so. ISA has been such a great program to go through; they have been so helpful with every aspect of the stay here, whether it being our apartments, our classes, the city, or really anything. They truely are here to help us in any way that they can. They are worth the price that we paid and I would recommend them to anyone looking to study abroad in a heartbeat.

On a lighter, more interesting note, yesterday was homecoming back in the Bluegrass, and I always get excited for gameday, no matter where I am. And the game yesterday just happened to be against the UGA Bulldogs. Now this is funny, because Cat goes to UGA. And neither of our teams are doing stellar this season, but we still like to "trash talk" against each other. So in spirit of the game last night, Olivia, Cat and I had a little tailgate of our own. We all went over to Cat's apartment (because our gas range decided that it didn't want to put out any gas for us to use) and made cheeseburgers, fruit salad and potato chips, and cookies courtesy my Mom's halloween package. It was a great gathering and we really didn't discuss football and our team or how are seasons were going; it was more of an excuse to get together and just be in good company. After dinner, we hung around there for an hour or so more and chatted with Cat and Jess, her roommate (who had just gotten back from dinner with one of our other friends). It was such a good time and it was nice to get out of the apartment and hang out with some great friends that we have meet here.

I guess that is it for now. I more than likely won't be updating until Mom leaves on Monday. I will be putting pictures up on Picasa, but I will probably do a massive blog update (maybe even 2) that week that classes start back up, so be patient because I know everyone will want to know how the visit goes. One thing I am excited about is the fact that we are going to have Olivia take our picture in front of a monument (or two) here with the Advocate Messenger (our paper from home). If you do that and then send the picture of you holding the paper into the paper's office, they print it! How cool would that be? Pretty cool I know!!

So, until next week...have a great week everyone and get ready for massive updates (with pictures!! Mom is bringing her camera!)