Sexual Harassment - Italy versus United States

    Many women who travel to Italy sometimes experience whistling or staring from Italian men. Many women take this the wrong way but realistically, it should often be taken as friendly flirting. Now, not every case is like this but Italy is much like the U.S. when it comes to the way women are treated. It's just that Italy has a different culture and just because they don't hide their stares behind their sunglasses or wait to look till after the women pass by, doesn't mean they are sexually harassing the women.

Roma

      Rome was a totally different experience this second go round, as I expected. With my family, I got a great tour of the Vatican, the Colosseum, the forums and many other places. This time, we had a much bigger group and it wasn't put on by a private tour guide so it wasn't as enjoyable. But, it was a blast. Even though we had no idea what our "english speaking" tour guide was saying, we had a little too much fun looking at her under arm hair...

      Out of all the things we saw, my favorite might have been the trevi fountain. While it is much smaller than the vatican or the colosseum, it was just as amazing. 

      Besides all the amazing historical structures we got to see, the pub crawl we did had to be the most fun part. For 20 euros, we got free drinks for an hour and a half, and then were brought to two more bars. I've heard from friends that its a really fun thing to do and they were right. We had a big group of about 20 of us so it was great. 

       We were lucky enough to make it to St. Peters Square just in time on Sunday at noon for the popes blessing. Pretty crowded. 

Happy 21st Birthday Alex Simm

     Alexander the great Simm turned 21...even though that means nothing here in Italy. We went out to Golden View Tuesday night and had a blast. Then, we made out way to Club Space last night. It was fun to say the least. This week went by so fast that I just realized today we leave for Rome tomorrow! This will be my second time going to Rome but should be a totally different experience since last time I was with my family and now I'm with all my friends. The last time I was in Rome, I took this picture...

Flood, Wine Tasting, and Planning Interlaken

          This past Sunday was eventful to say the least. While it was raining and hailing, we noticed our courtyard had about 4 inches of rain. Then realized the rain began rushing into our apartment. It was funny at the time  but when we had to clean it up...not so much. We figured out we had to unclog the drain and the problem was solved. 

          After a full day on monday, we finished the day with our first wine tasting. Now I actually have something to think about while drinking wine besides how bad I'm going to feel in the morning. We learned the three steps of identifying the wine are visual analysis, olfactory analysis, and gustative analysis. 

         Coming into this study abroad trip, I knew my one big weekend was going to be a trip to Interlaken, Switzerland. We started booking the trip and we should have about 15 of us going which will be fun. We are going through bus2alps and get to stay at the Balmers Hostel. And, we get a discount since we are bring more than 10 people, which is pretty awesome. Cant wait to skydive (maybe)!

Oh, and I finally got to skype Julien. 

GELATO

This being the second time I've been to Florence, I knew how good the gelato was. But, when we were brought on a tour of the Gelateria, my view drastically changed. The owner of this gelato store take's pride in making all natural gelato. He only uses fruits from right here in Florence, unlike most gelato stores who import them. The taste between this all natural gelato and others was amazing.  

Family business: father and step-son

Even got to see some banana gelato made. Took about 5 minutes. 

Now I know there is no where else that I can go to get gelato. Nothing will compare. 

Golden View, Viareggio, and Pontasseive

You would think being moved tables at the Golden View restaurant because you told them you are using meal vouchers would be a bad thing, but we actually got a private room so we could be the loud Americans we are!

To cure our hangover's, we took a short train ride to the coast of Viareggio to hang out on the beach. This is what I did all day, and loved it...

After sleeping in till about 11 on saturday, we hopped on a train to head to a wine festival in Pontasseive. We arrived during the siesta time so we had a few hours to spare, we got to take a few pictures of the scenery. 

Can't wait for Rome next weekend.

I am officially a Godfather

While having the time of my life here in Italy, my sister delivered her first born child. And I'm the Godfather! Since the phone were having trouble working, I sadly had to find out through facebook...We also met up with the newly weds, John and Leslie.

We finally made it to the other side of the river...

One thing I never do is cook...with the "help" of Frabrezio, we cooked a three course meal. 

It has been an awesome experience so far and I still have 5 weeks to go!