Bella Italia!

So I arrived in Italy today!!! The flight wasn't to long, but I am definitely sick of buses and metro systems.....I guess I will have to get used to that considering the main way we will travel in Florence is by city bus. I haven't seen much of Florence yet. Today we really just got settled into our house. The living arangements are tight and there are lots of girls crammed in to little rooms. But hey we are in Italy so I am going to make the most of it. The people at our house, who I don't know their names yet, cooked us an amazing Italian meal for dinner! It was delicious. I love pasta!

Tomorrow we are going to the Duomo, so I am pretty excited. I hope I have enough energy after traveling all day today!

Until next time!

The City of Love?

Sorry it's been so long....I have been busy traveling the world! I just got to Italy, but first I wanted to tell you quickley about my trip to paris last weekend!

Friday:
-woke up at 3:00am
-rode in a bus for about 12 hours to Paris, France
-arrive in Paris with no money
-find money
-find Hostel near the Moulin Rouge
-go to the Louvre!!!
-watch the sunset as we see our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower
-go to bed

Saturday:
-wake up
-got the the Musee d'Orsay!!! An amazing museum, my favorite so far!
-eat lunch at a parisian outdoor cafe
-walk to the Arc du Triomph
-starts to rain
-wait in long lines to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower
-see Paris from the top of the Eiffel tower!!
-sit in on Saturday night mass at Notre Dame
-walk back to the Louvre to find a metro
-back to the Eiffel tower to see it sparkle on the hour!!!
-get crepes with nutella and bananas!
-crash at the hostel

Sunday:
-wake up
-get back on a bus for another 12 hours
-back to freezing cold, rainy Oxford

Enjoy my pictures!

Stratford Upon Warwick?

Last week we were able to choose where we wanted to go for our day trip last Wednesday. I chose to go to Warwick Castle and to Stratford Upon Avon. Stratford is the town where William Shakespeare grew up. We saw where Shakespeare was born, went to Church and one of his theaters. Stratford was a very touristy town and we didn't want to pay the money and stand in line everywhere, so we went and got a delicious sandwhich and tarts and went and laid in the grass along the Avon River. It was nice.

After Stratford we went to Warwick Castle! The castle was fun. It was full of medieval nights and princesses. It was like a big field trip....I think we were the oldest people there. Everybody else was 10 and under. It was cool, yet tiring, to climb all the way up to the tallest tower and to go all the way down in the dungeon. There were beautiful gardens. One of them even had a lot of peacocks wandering around in it. Peacocks are really beautiful up close.

It was a fun day......oh and they should also bring Magnum Bars, a delicious ice cream bar, to the states.

Shakespear's Birthplace

Warwick Castle

The Camera, the Brush, and the Wardrobe

So I started my day off with a lost camera.....I later found it under a pillow in the commons room. Because of this I don't have any pictures to document today. Sorry.

The rest of my day pretty much consisted of hanging out at C.S. Lewis's house. We took a tour of his house and of his gardens. We walked around the pond where he bathed every morning. It was pretty cool to be in the house where such a dynamic writer created most of his works. After we left the house we walked to the church where he was barried. We saw his grave and and then sat and painted....for a very long time. Watercolors seemed easy at first, but now I am just stressed at how challenging they are turning out to be. The past two days have not been fun, watercolorwise.

I did discovered my first jar of nutella today. It was delicious. Most of my house ended up buying it by the end of the night. Try it with Ritz crackers....or anything for that matter. It's wonderful.

Not so Foggy Day in London Town

So we went to London, last Friday as a class. We took the train from Oxford and then used the Underground to get around all day. I didn't really get to see much of London yet, because the underground pretty much went straight to the museums. We went to a Vistorian musem first. It was pretty cool....but the introduction we were given was that most everything was a replica, so the appeal of everything kind of went down. It was still cool to see everything like replicas of Michelangelo's David and Raphael's School of Athens. My favorite by far was a glass piece by Chihuly. It was really amazing!!! I was great to see one in real life!! Mom and I have been obsessed for a while now.

After that we went to the National Gallery! This was very cool and pretty much insane that there are so many famous paintings in one placce. What shocked me the most was seeing my favorite painting! I walked in to a room and there it was. Only about two feet tall, a painting by Jan van Eycke. I have studied so much about these paintings and now they are actually real. Every bit of symbolic detail was there! Seeing these painting gave me chills and again, it was hard to breathe.

Chihuly glass instalation!
David and the School of Athens
Trafalgar Square with my first glimpse of Ben!
The National Gallery

"Hogwarts, a history"

So yesterday we went on a tour of Christ's Church! Also known as Hogarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I'm a dork I know, but all of you that are reading this are too. We got to go into the Great Hall where they filmed the dinning hall in Harry Potter! There were no floating candles or anything, but you could definitely picture Harry, Ron, and Hermione playing wizard's chess at one of the tables. Ha ha. I'm not sure what other parts of Christ's Church were used to film the movie, but all of it was very cool. They also say that's parts of Christ's Church inspire the book Alice in Wonderland!

There was also tons of stained glass (for you mom). And all of it was famous in one way or another. The colors and the patterns painted on the glass was unreal. It was cool to hear our crazy tour guid, Winnie, explain all of the stories on the stained glass. Later, after our tour I had me first tea in Oxford. Yes, I drank hot tea.....that's a first for me. I have really been trying to embrase the culture and try new things. Today I had a bagel sandwhich with feta, hummas and black olives....it was delicious! Jill you would have enjoyed it.

Today we went to the Oxford Modern Musuem and the Ashmoleam Museum. Both very cool. The Mordern had an Ansel Adams exibit, which was very cool. They also had peacocks in a really cool cage. It was an instalation piece. I am not sure what it had to do with Ansel Adams. At the Ashmolean I got to see art from Degas, Rodin, Picasso, Kandinsky, and tons of other artists. It was kind of hard to breathe when I walked into to room that had a lot of artifacts from like the beginning of time. Its unreal to walk around and look at things that old!

After the museums I walked home, coffee in hand, in the rain. It was wonderful and very Oxford.

In the beginning....

So I am here, here in Oxford! I love it here already! Today we spent some time getting to know parts of the city. The old buildings and all of the old colleges are wounderful and beautifuly aged. Everything here is green and smells so fresh. Walking on the cobble stones streets makes you feel like you are in an old movie. Is this what I expected? Not really sure what I excpected but it is unlike any place I have been before.

Our little house with a blue door is cute. I live in a bed room on the second floor of our house (house 9) that over looks the steet below. You can hear people walking by talking when we have the windows opened. There British accents are great....I'm thinking I want to pick one up, although I have heard that my english accent is not very good. I guess I have a few weeks to practice.

We started class today.....painting is totally new to me and I don't know what I am doing at all. But we'll see maybe I will get better.

I will leave you with a few pictures I have taken so far......it is so easy to take pictures here because every thing looks so cool!

Until we meet again......

It's Here!!!!

I am officially freaking out now......I leave for Europe in less than 48 hours.