Birthday in Italia!

On Saturday I celebrated my 22nd birthday in Florence! I wasn't too excited to begin with...22 just isn't an exciting year..but thanks to my friends, I had an amazing day!! It began, of course, with birthday gelato.We stopped by the Central Market to pick up some olives, and they sang me "Tanti Auguri"--the Italian birthday song
We went to our friend Stefany's house for an afternoon BBQ--with wonderful burgers, cheesy spinach dips, chips...and a nutella birthday cake!
Daniela and Jeff made awesome calamari with squid fresh from the central market!
It was also Jef's b-day! So we all ate way too much and had a fun time. Later on, dancing! It was a very nice birthday....I don't even feel that old at the moment.

grass!!!

So after my last post about the beautiful sunny weather, it rained for a week straight! They say "marzo e' pazzo" because the weather is so crazy...BUT after all that rain we had the most beautiful weekend! On Friday I walked around all day, exploring Oltrarno, and sketching at the Brancacci chapel and then I went to a fun Italian dance party with Gaby! On Saturday we all went to the Pitti Palace to bask in the sun at the Boboli Gardens....we napped on the grass (it felt just like being at Long Beach!)
It was a lovely lovely day, and we went back the next day to bask a little more before seeing two of our friends perform in an English/Italian performance of the Vagina Monologues! The weather is a little more indecisive right now...but we are going on our last feild trip this weekend to Napoli, and hopefully it will be sunny there! Other than constantly discussing the weather, I am painting, going to the Accademia (now that it's resumed after a month of testing) aaand, cooking a bit and whatnot..that's all for now, ciao!

Ah Firenze!

On Friday, we took a walk Oltrano to go to the Pitti Palace! It was really really sunny...a gorgeous spring day! (I'm sorry, I'm so excited about warm weather it's all I can talk about...)

After spending some time at the Galleria Moderna, we got gelato and marveled at the beautiful twilight colors...


Afterwards, Avery and I went home and our couchsurfers from Spain (who are studying in Ireland) arrived. Gaby made a lovely dinner, and they bought some nice Lambrusco wine for us to all try. Then we gave them a night gelato tour of Firenze, it was fun and we were able to communicate really well between english, spanish and italian!

Mardi Gras in Florence

On Tuesday night, I went for a walk with Avery and we stumbled upon a random mardi gras celebration for the last night of Carnevale in Florence. A truck blasting techno came rolling down the street out of nowhere--followed by a HUGE crowd. We followed them into Santa Croce where a strange sort of open air dance party broke out, complete with firedancing and strange creative costumes..it was quite surreal.

Carnevale!

Last weekend I went to Viareggio (a beach town near Pisa) with Gaby to celebrate Carnevale! There were amazing floats, tons of confetti, costumes, music...it was really amazing...here's a video I took:



I'll post some more pictures from that later...I just finished up my first week of the new spring semester here, I'm pretty excited! More to come...

Blue skies in Firenze!

Yesterday was so gorgeous! Clear skies, sun...still kind of cold but I walked around for a few hours just to enjoy it (I swear spring is almost here..) People were basking by the Arno, and I found some secret paths to go down by the water...

I climbed up to this garden (I think it's called the Giardino Bardini) the view was great, and I can't wait to go back when there are flowers!

I painted a portrait of my friend Geo, and then we had an impromptu dinner party potluck! We had pasta with squash and pancetta, roasted chicken and vegetables, potatoes, stuffing, salad...so yummy. We tried to go dancing, but that failed, and we just ended up sharing a big pitcher of sangria at Salamanca...

Amsterdam! day 3

We went to the Van Gogh Museum on our last day! A new exhibit, "Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night" had just opened, so we got to see a lot of amazing night landscapes...along with the permanent collection.
Canals and bikes at twilight...
We ate our last meal at a nice Indian restaurant...saag paneer, mango lassi, naan with lamb....

Sorry for all the food pictures!! but it was the most wonderful thing to be able to eat delicious spicy ethnic food once again, we've reached the halfway point, we deserved a delicious reward :) go to my shutterfly to see more!