ciao amici!

i know it's been a while, but i wanted to wait until i was fully recovered from spring break to update. i think i last posted the day before my family arrived so i'll pick up there.

my family came to visit me the week of midterms (three weeks ago). it was awesome having them here, but i definitely felt jipped because if they had come any other week i would have been able to spend much more time with them. midterms themselves were relatively pain free, except for a minor catastrophe that resulted in my professor writing "complex and thoughtful answers, but a complete lack of any historical sense whatsoever; emily dickinsion 1945??????" on one of my papers.

oops.

anyway, my favorite part of the week was probably when my family took my host family out to dinner. we went to a restaurant called il latini where we were served more food than any human being could possibly consume in one sitting... and then like 3 after dinner drinks and 5 desserts. i'm not exaggerating. i was so happy that my family finally got to see where i've been living for these past few months and finally got to meet my host family.

after midterms were over, kathleen and i took a train and met my parents in venice. that trip was a series of epic fails that resulted in us arriving four hours late (midnight instead of 8 pm). basically, we got off at the wrong station, got back on and backtracked three stops, and then, finally in venice, missed our stop off our water taxi altogether and rode around the venice waterways for 45 minutes. a more detailed account can be found on facebook under my videos. we were in venice from approximately 12 am - 6 am (but did have a great dinner and the hotel was pretty cool).

after venice, we took a train and went to lugano, switzerland with my family. lugano is where my mom studied abroad and is also probably the most beautiful place i've been in my entire life. our hotel was right on the lake and you could see the swiss alps in the distance. it looked totally unreal. the first day we saw where my mom lived while she was there, climbed the side of a mountain, and explored the town. the second day we shopped, got massages, and relaxed in the pool. this might have been my favorite part of the break just because it was so relaxing.

on sunday my parents left and kathleen and i parted ways for the first time in two months. she went to cork to visit tommy and i went to leuven to see ali and missy (and jedidiah was there too!!). leuven was a blast and it was so much fun to be with tons of loyola kids again. as a city, i loved it - so quaint and cozy. i think if i had to have chosen another program, leuven would've been it. the waffles and PLETHORA of beers alone were enough to make me swoon.

after four days in leuven, kathleen and i were joyfully reunited in london, where we met up with my friend meghan from high school. we saw tons of sights and went to tons of pubs where we were hit on by tons of creepy guys (particularly those from dubai and quebec?). also, we witnessed a particularly entertaining dance-off between an undercover professional and a middle-aged dubain. london wasn't quite as exciting as the other two places only because i'd been there before and a lot of the places we went to i had already seen, but it was still nice to go back.

we arrived back in florence on march 15th totally exhausted. we managed to rally on tuesday, though, and go out for st. patrick's day for a few hours. by the time we finally made it out, the pubs were out of everything except green beer and snake bites. after an unsucessful attempt at finding the secret bakery (there is apparently a secret bakery by our house that opens at 2 am instead of 5 am and sells freshly baked goods to drunk kids) we came back, i changed into pajama pants, and then we went back out (me in my pajama pants) for another hour.

since then we've been laying pretty low. last weekend we FINALLY saw the david (pathetic, i know) and it was actually pretty cool.

i'm getting really anxious, because time is FLYING and my weekends from now until the end are basically numbered.

this weekend: venice (for real this time), florence
next weekend: rome (with leuven & spain)
april 11/12: leuven (& tommy) come to florence
april 18/19: florence
april 25/26: cinqueterre, florence
may 2/3: amalfi coast

and then i fly home may 4th. YIKES.

i'll try to update as much as possible since i'll be around fairly regularly from now on.

love and miss you all.

baci!