Firenze, Italy

So this last weekend AIFS took 30 of the students in my program, including myself, to Pisa and Florence in Italy. 

We left Friday morning from the college at 9 o'clock (I think) on a Mercedes charter bus; fortunately, I was one of the few who had two seats to themselves so I wasn't completely crammed in there. It took us about 5 hours to get to Pisa (our first stop) where we stayed for about an hour. It doesn't sound very long but if you've only heard of the Leaning Tower then an hour is plenty. The road that the tower was on is loaded with street vendors so everyone was either browsing around or doing as I did and b-lined straight for the gelato. At the end of the hour, after everyone got their photos taken, we clambered back onto the bus and headed for Florence; they are about an hour and a half away from each other. 

Once we made it to Florence we went straight to the hotel. It was situated in the middle of a square (which I would tell you the name of if it had one). The hotel we stayed in was really nice compared to what I though we would stay in. The last time I was in Paris, we stay in a really expensive hotel that wasn't very nice and my feet hung nearly a foot off the end of the bed. These, however, were nothing like that. It had a tall ceiling, long beds, a really nice bathroom, and a great view out the window. After that me and my friends Kevin Clay Steven Aaron Kylie and Hailie all set out in set for food. One of Kevin's friends had studied abroad in Florence previously and told us to go eat at the great pizza place called Gusta Pizza. Truthfully, it was probably the best pizza I've had in my entire life. Oh, and here's what we saw on the way there:

At the restaurant the tables were made out of large barrels with glass on top and everyone that goes out to eat there puts their names on a piece of paper and then slides it under the glass. If for any reason any of you ever go there, look for me! After dinner we just sat around in one of the restaurants in the square and had a Peroni, one of the more popular Italian beers. 

On Saturday we went on a walking tour of the city which started out kind of cool until we realized that the tour guide wasn't the walk-and-talk type. She would quite literally walk somewhere, stop, and then proceed to tell us the history of something for the following 20 minutes. Then we would walk a little more and stop. Again. In all honesty, it wasn't that bad. It would have just been nice if she had walked and talked so we could have seen more of the city at the same time. At the end of the tour, we came up on Saint Maria del Fiore Cathedral. I'm sure you've either heard of it or seen it but if not here's another picture: 

Afterward me and the guys I listed earlier, sans Aaron, decided to climb the the top of this Dome/Duomo. No biggy, it was only 496 stairs. Here are some pretty awesome pictures I took from the top.

After spending about 20 minutes just staring at the city, we started our way back down which may have actually been more frightening than actually looking over the rail at the top. By then it was nearly 2 o'clock which was only 30 minutes away from a museum tour we had planned. Once again, I'm not quite sure of the name of the museum was but I will say this one was particularly interesting. We got to see quite a bit of the work done by Botticelli and Donatello which was really impressive. 

After the museum visit, we had the rest of the day free. Aside from quite a bit of meandering, we didn't really do a whole lot. However, we did make reservations at a traditional Italian restaurant with hopes of trying real pasta while we were there; and that's exactly what we got. He's a picture of my supper from Saturday night: 

After we finished eat, we headed back towards the square trying to find something to do. After people watching for a little while, we decided to head to the Pub for a beer before called it a night and were greeted with quite a surprise; there was an Italian soccer game on. In an Italian pub. If that doesn't scream fun at you that you've never watched a soccer game with European's before; they get into it! It was really exciting for the majority of the time until the opposite team tied it up. Milan was playing Juventus (no idea where that is?) and seeing as we were American, we waited to see who everyone else was going to root for before we opened our mouths; it was Milan. Anyways, that's about it for Saturday night. 

Sunday was the day we returned to Cannes but we made two more stops before leaving the city. Our first stop was the Accademia Gallery, better known as the museum that holds the Statue of David. Now I'm fairly certain I wasn't supposed to do this but I couldn't help myself:

And for our last stop we went to where I wanted to be the whole trip: The country side.

So to finish the trip off, we spent 7 hours on the bus; but then again, it was a Mercedes (classy). 

As far as other things go, my French class is full of surprises every day. One day it will be the hardest class ever and then the next will be a breeze. I think it has a lot to do with how awake or not I am though... 

Anyways, spring break plans. I'm nearly finished getting everything planned. I'll be going to Zurich, Munich, Vienna, and Budapest. How about that? I'm really excited, especially because I thought for the last couple of months that surely I would spend all of spring break with our friends in Belgium. Sadly though they wont be there that week so I had to improvise. I'm also excited because I'll have my own person tour guide name Sara Beth aka my cousin's cousin who lives in Munich at the moment. I can't wait! 

I think that's about all I've got for now. Catch y'all later.

Hayden

Short short update

Hey guys, I'm not going to write much of anything this evening because I've got a test in the morning and still haven't had dinner yet but I did just put up quite a few pictures on facebook. Here's a link to it and I hope you enjoy them. The first link will be to my Panoramic pictures and the second from Florence and Pisa:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2519910407195.2103783.1536330186&type=3

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2596339277869.2105389.1536330186&type=3

I hope you're able to see them; if not let me know and I'll try to upload a few on here as well. I'm going to try to give a full description of the weekend tomorrow afternoon sometime after my test so check back tomorrow!

Y'all take it easy,

Hayden

Nice Carnival and other things

Hey there everyone, I don't have a lot for you this week but none-the-less I've still gotta tell you about my past weekend. We got to go to the Nice Carnival which is one of the world's oldest and most popular. It has been dated back to at least 1294 and is held for a two week period ending on Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras. When we were there on Sunday we only got to stay for four hours but that's alright, it was long enough to watch the parade. I think in this post I'm going to try and put in quite a pictures because that's the only way I can think to describe a parade. So, here you go:

                       Here's Lance Armstrong and all the "Drugs" he took during the Tour de France

                                                    Notice Obama and the Pope out front?

            The streets immediately following the end of the parade; looked a lot like snow from a distance

The man of the hour; this float represents France in the upcoming Summer Olympics

                                                          The sunset at the end of the day

That pretty much sums it up for the Carnival and the weekend. Tonight we're going to see a play in town call 'Croque Monsieur' which is apparently pretty famous; I thought it was just a sandwich haha. Also while I'm on the subject of food, Dr. Edwards if you're reading this my professor talked about food for the last hour and half of class today which just killed me because I had to wait that long for lunch! I thought you might appreciate that.

Later this week we'll be headed for Florence for the weekend so I should have some good pictures when I get back. I don't want to say when I'll post another blog because it always takes me longer than expected so, I'll get to it when I can (hopefully sooner than later though).

Happy Ash Wednesday and I'll talk to y'all later!

Hayden

Hey everyone, sorry it's taken so long for me to post another update, my internet here is really choppy. I guess I'm just going to catalog the past couple of days and let you know what I've been up to.

Tuesday was our first day of class which was really interesting for me (sarcasm). I tested really poorly on the placement test on Monday so I was placed in the 100 level... After the class was over I went and talked to my professor where I proceeded to explain that I've been studying French for the past two and a half years. Based on the conversation we had, she was able to convince the director that I needed to be in a higher level. So, I got moved up to the 300 level even though I need 400 level credit. It's okay because I really feel like the material we are covering is right on par with my skill level. AND, as you show progress through the semester they move you up through the classes. But enough of Tuesday.

On Wednesday we got to go into the city and visit the Musee de la Castre which was a little like every other museum except for the view from the top of the tower in the middle of the courtyard.

                        And seeing as it's now Monday I'm going to go ahead and skip to Thursday

Thursday I got to experience my second day of class in the upper level course with my new professor Claude. I wish there was a way for me to adequately describe this man but it seems impossible; however, I'll give it a shot. He's a short, stout man somewhere in his lower fifties and looks like the most serious person you'll ever meet. But, aside from the looks, he may be the most sarcastic person I've ever met. For those of you who have seen my facebook status today, sorry, and for those of you who haven't, I wrote this, "Never laughed so hard in class in my entire life." I'm convinced that his favorite thing to do is pick on people but he's somehow not rude about it because even when he picks on you, you can't help but laugh. I'll save the actual stories for another time because they are to funny to put into words. 

Later on in the night, the entire group of AIFS students was treated to dinner at 'Le Caveau 30' (I think). That restaurant was and mostly likely will be the nicest dinner I will have throughout my stay here. It was really nice because the program paid for what seemed like a 100 meal for all 50 of the students that are here on the program. First up, they served us a very unique salad (lettuce, olives, tomato's, mozzarella, and that really thin meat that I can't seem to spell out right now) paired with a nice red house wine and a loaf of bread. After that came out the grilled sea bass atop sauteed cucumbers and carrots covered in a nice buttery  sauce. And finally was the homemade chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Overall, I'd say it was a successful night!

For those of you curious about the friends situation, I don't want to go to far into it because there are so many people that I get along with a spend time with here; but, I would like to list a few people. So first there's Ali, whom I got to know in London. She's from Texas A&M and had already visited London (as had I) so while a lot of the group spent the day seeing the usual sights of London, we spent the day exploring what we had missed before. Then there's her roommates Hailie and Kylie. Both are really nice and fun to be around so we spend quite a bit of time together. As for the guys, there's my roommate Nick from Seattle and then another guy we hang out with, Alex. Oh, and how could I forget Natalie? She's from Dallas and goes to school at Chapman in California (hope I got that right) and is usually present in everything we do. That isn't even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to who I spend time with but those people are the one's I see everyday.

Friday was a free day and we didn't have anything planned so Alex, Kevin, and I went running for about an hour and here's what we found.

       We started up what we though was a rural area and ended up finding hiking trails; quite a feat I'd say.

Saturday - Monaco and Eze

For anyone who has never been to Monaco, or Eze for that matter, I would highly recommend them to anyone. Everyone who comes back from them is absolutely right; they are absolutely amazing. We left for Monaco Saturday morning around 9 o'clock and arrived somewhere around 10:15 so it wasn't a bad drive at all. Here is a picture I took from a stop we took midway:

                             Can you believe I took this with my phone? No? No one else did either

When we finally got to Monaco, the first thing we did was walked through the tropical (for lack of a better word) garden of the city which was filled with all sorts of plants and cool statues. Afterwards we got to see the changing of the guards outside the Prince's estate.

After eating lunch, we hopped back on the bus and headed for the casino's at Monte Carlo. I decided since I was running a little low on money that I was going to keep it out of the slot machines and safely in my wallet; however, not everyone else felt the same. It was then that Kylie went on to win 30 euros at the slots. 

After our short stay in Monte Carlo, we were once again on the bus headed for a new place. This brings me to Eze (google it, it's amazing). 

I can't tell you a whole lot about this city but as you can see from the pictures, it was absolutely stunning. the whole town sat on top of a mountain and is at least 400 years older than the United States. It was very quite and absolutely one of the most visually appealing placed I have ever been. I would recommend it to anyone, any day of the week. 

Sorry for being so short in the last couple of paragraphs but I've actually been racing against the battery of my computer to finish this before it dies on me. PLEASE let me know if you want to here more about anything I didn't fully describe and I'll try and post another story or two before the weeks up. Cheers!

Hayden

Hey everyone. Sorry it's been a few days since I posted last, we've just been real busy since it's only the first couple of days. And just a note, the internet here is generally pretty slow and there's not a hard wire for me to use.. needless to say, a bit frustrating. But other than that everything is wonderful! The school is small but then with only something like 80 students, it doesn't have to be big. I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of it yet but I will one of these days. Being the only one from Texas Tech and only one of five from Texas is really pretty fun. Everyone wants to here about the different slang and sayings we use -- and when I say everyone I mean the Americans haha; that was the subject of tonight's conversation at dinner. The school is about a 20 minute walk from the center of the city but it's really no big deal because it's fun to walk through the rural areas and then by all of the pubs and small restaurants.

Above is a close up of the city so you can see about how far I have to walk each day. But then again that's just to go into town; I don't actually have to leave for class. Next is a picture of where I typed 'Croisette' above:

As for today, we went into town with the intentions of going to the supermarket to buy some shaving creme and various other things the girls we with needed. Much to our dismay, since it was Sunday, the market was closed. We had a good lunch though and got to take a few pictures of the city but the clouds and light snow don't help them much.

The room I'll be in for the semester is quite a bit smaller than I have anticipated. It's on the west side of the school and is a two-bed room. Me and my roommate Nick requested a different one today after seeing the size of everyone else's where they told us we would have to wait until tomorrow when the school staff returned for work. On top of other things, we're the only one's in our hallway; if anyone else is here, they must be hermits. The smallness is bearable but hopefully we can get a room a bit closer to rest of the group (and maybe that'll fix the wifi too.) I will say though, we have a great view from the one I'm currently in. If the sun ever comes out and we don't get a room switch, I'll have a picture of it for y'all.

I've got a bit more to say but I think I'm going to save it for the next time around since it's already 10:35 and I still haven't reviewed for my french placement test tomorrow morning. Y'all take it easy and I'll try to come back with a few more pictures and some new stories next time.

-Hayden