barcelonnna (pronouncing with a lisp on the c) its catalan

wow i don't even know where to begin about this week's trip to barcelona... i guess the best way to make sure i cover everything is to start with the basics, we left thursday night and it was me, lizzie, lauren and david, our friend chris was already there and our other friend andrew was coming the next morning. we left around 4:30 took a painfully long bus ride to the airport and ended up getting in to barcelona around 11:30. the real fun began at the airport...

granted there was going to be alot of travelling involved we figured that it would go alot smoother if we bought a bottle of vodka and pregamed the flight and drank on board the plane.. it was fantastic thanks to the wonderful woman at the duty free store who helped us accomplish this by showing us how to get around the law and not seal the bag so we could drink on the flight, god bless that woman. we got to barcelona and had no idea what we were doing but we're all bit buzzed so did not stress out.

ah falling asleep at my comp since i never went ot bed last night (explanation will follow later) need to go nap..

to be continued..

so apparently im not so good at keeping up with this blog...

the title says it all. my last post was day 2 and i believe im at almost day 20 now... what can i say though? it has been a whirlwind adventure since i first stepped into italy, and im just trying to experience everything.. so a short summary of what i've been doing since day 2..

- lake como -

Gooorgeous, beautiful water, despite the 7 mile hike we had to take to get to the actual beach

we were soo touristy looking but it was completely worth it! unfortunately i did not see george clooney.. however i feel our paths are bound to cross while im in italy (these are also my thoughts on brangelina and the beckham family)

- lugano, switzerland -

also includes another lake that was beautiful and quite gorgeous. the beach was situated in the most amazing park, so many flowers and just an assortment of every color you can imagine. saw some swiss "art"... i use quotes because what i saw i could hardly define as art but the lady at the information center said that was their famous artist but to keep in mind the swiss aren't known for their art, boy did they get that right (Atleast their honest). we also went to the top of san salvatore, a mountain in the alps and hiked down the whole front of the alps, only to end up by blind horses and 2 hours away from where we started. nonetheless it was a fantastic hike and i would do it again.

- duomo -

went back to duomo, this time with friends (lizzie and lauren) and went camera crazy, but with good reason considering it is the 2nd largest roman catholic church and from the top has absolutely breathtaking views of the city. not to mention we saw these break dancers hanging out behind the church..

- cinque terra -

by far the craziest weekend here since i've been here. i dont even know where to start. i went with the same group i've been going every where, and we went there without a place to stay thinking we would camp. we lived out of backpacks and changed in restaurants and hotels and stores... we were really into the whole homeless thing. it was also our friend andrew's birthday. long story short... after getting advice from a homeless man on where not to sleep so we wouldnt get arrested, we ended up sleeping on a hill above a cemetery on someone else's property on blue tarp (the kind from home depot) completely trashed (it was necessary given the living situation). id say we all slept about 20 minutes tops, considering that it was freezing we were all inappropriately dressed and we didnt make it to bed till 4 am, and so on. we woke up at 6 to watch the sun rise, only to realize we were on the wrong side of the mountain.. yeahh not one of our brightest momemts... sunrise or not, it was a gorgeous view of monterosso below us. we then hiked from monterosso to vernazza, a hike that pretty much almost killed me. so glad i did it though because the city looks gorgeous from up top and it gave me a chance to feel like bear grylls. im really taking a like to all this hiking....

anyways got to go.. finished my italian crash course today and have been doing lots and lots of chores (like laundry and what not) since ive been so behind with travelling and work.

this weekend.. BARCELONA!! cannnt wait!

oxoxox

- e -

day 2 continued

LAUREN'S HERE!!

we both agree the rooms are dirty and what they call "Bath towels" are a poor substitute. we are planning to overcome this by shopping for cleaning products, bath towels, and much more tomorrow!

i'm soooooooooooo happpy lauren has arrived and our italian adventures can begin togetherr!

smoking converters, italian roaches, and its only 8:15 am -- DAY 2

so today was check in for my dorm at bocconi at 7 am, although when i got there, the two guys at the desk claimed it was at 8 so i waited with my new nyu friend for 8 am to roll around.

so i follow the lovely man up to my room, and walk into a sweatbox, soo freaking hot. he hands me a remote for the air conditioning, which after 5 minutes i finally figured out how to work. and its still sweltering. i then walk into the bathroom where there is a massive bug, which i would call an italian roach, feel empowered by the last 24 hours in milan i decide to be the anti-liz and kill it without screaming. this was a sucess thanks to my left sneaker, which 2 minutes later also killed a fly, so i think its doubling not only as my sneaker but rodent killer. i could be fairly disgusted and freaked out by all of this but im determined to stay uber positive and have continued to unpack.

this decision led me to want to set up my laptop and blog about my "experiences" (what richmond tells us to call unpleasant moments spent abroad). here i realized that none of my outlet converters work except one, which is from about 1980 and extremely finicky. after setting up a contraption that finally made it work, i am able to blog. but all i can think about is a conversation with my father last week regarding power adapters that went like this..

me: dad i need to get outlet/power adapters for milan!

dad: dont worry we'll go to radio shack and i have one from when we went to spain

me: ok, well do you think we should check to make sure the outlets havent changed abroad?

dad (laughing quite hard): elizabeth, do oyu really think they changed the whole outlet/electricity system in europe? of course not! think of how --- continued after smoking adapter -- expensive that would be?!?!

me: fine

CRAP AS IM WRITING THIS MY CONVERTER JUST SNAPPED AND IS NOW SMOKING .. f meee .. anyways ill finish my story .. i cant believe this happen giving the story im telling

look whos talking now dad-- no way to charge anything..WAY TO GO! i still love you though, im just thoroughly peeved.

must go unpack and make sure i dont set off the smoke alarams with my smoking converter

Day 1 -- Milano, Italia

preface --

ive decided to blog about my abroad trip to italy, because lets face it i want the world to know and its easiest to communicate to you all through one portal and also because hell its just another social medium/experiment i can jump on the bandwagon of and we all know i'm a techie/gamer..

first thing i noticed, well really noticed anyways, happened to be at baggage claim, the gate around my carousel had a huge (both vertically and horizontally, because lets be honest, i know you're curious) jonas brothers ad for them, and their disney show i guess, but mainly it was just each brothers giant face next to eachother... having noticed this i looked up and around and realized they were all around me, mona lisa has got nothing on the jonas brothers, i felt stared down at from all angles. i now realize that this jo-bro obsession is not limited to the US, but an international craze.. which leads me to the question.. does the WHO know about this? because this thing is going from epidemic to pandemic, and it could get ugly and i feel like now thats its clearly international, shouldnt we have some higher ranking officials monitoring this insane situation?

The ride to the hotel was pretty uneventful as was finding out that i couldnt check until 2pm, when the current time was 9:15am. given my ample amount of time to kill, i headed out towards il duomo, a famous cathedral i had read about that was near by, ready to start my journey in milan. obvi the cathedral was beautiful, but i think the most enlightening moment at the church for me was on the stairs up to the roof, not in the treasury or chapel, but on the 165 stairs up to the roof where i realized i was severely out of shape or just not equipped to deal with working out this hard in 95 degree weather that feels like 101, in small enclosed spaces. i've never been clausotrophobic, but when you're 75 stairs in, huffing and realized you didnt take any of your asmtha medicine yet today (because you're so confused with what time zone you're body is in and trying to figure out if it was appro to take another dose (that math alone made my head hurt)) , the fact that you're walking up stairs that can barely handle one way traffic, yet is doing two way, space and size start to matter. did i mention i actually paid 5 euro for this torture? call me a mashochist...

as i continued to climb, i cursed the maintenance people at the church for gating the windows (and windows is an exaggeration b/c it was merely 8x2 inch slits in the walls)because jumping out of one seemed a hell of a lot more humane than continuing up the stairs. but i was grateful in the end for making it, to the top and staying alive wise, because the view was GORGEOUS and im glad i put my body through helll to get there.

the rest of the day was filled with purchasing an italian cell phone ( talk about a langauge barrier there, i can barely get through to AT&T in english, this was quite the spectacle, and just so you know, pay as you go is an english expression used in our cellular world that does not translate at all in italian, consider yourself forewarned. it took me and 3 salesladies about 30 minutes to get f rom pay as you go to prepaid being the same thing, ayyy) , pizza, practicing some new italian, and some delicious limone gelato.. i could definitely get use to this!

i will now wisk myself off to bed and force myself to sleep so my 7am check tomorrow for the dorms doesnt seem so egregious.

and so my love affair with not only milan, but italy begins...

ciaooo
xoxo