i'll tell you everything about livin free

video montage number two. rome, venice, and random florence

song: vagabond by wolfmother

LIES YOUTUBE REMOVED MY SOUND. WORKING ON IT. DON'T WATCH YET

haaaappy birthday to me

i would say this may have been the best birthday ever. i have never felt so loved in my life. many of you were a huge part of that and i thank you. even from thousands of miles away! and thanks to some sweet friends here i had an awesome day.

i woke up to little notes everywhere. on the window. next to my bed. in my bible. on my intended birthday dress. on our door. in the bathroom. everywhere. my roommate lauren decided to let me know why i'm awesome...EVERYWHERE. overwhelmingly wonderful. she also put a bueno bar next to my bed (european bliss...so bueno). then i got on my computer to find several emails from my family including some very generous birthday presents...an online book of my life and a serious chunk of cash. which is exactly what i needed. i read the ebook and cried. i uploaded it to facebook for those of you who make an appearance. i got some more emails from some more sweet friends and went into the kitchen to find these little AWESOME chocolate pies from a bakery near our house. and a note from more sweet roommates. it felt like home. headed to class feelin good in my birthday dress that i've been saving for months. ps it was 62 and beautiful out. i mean beautiful.

after some classes through which i doodled and daydreamed, lauren met me for lunch at the american diner. we got cheeseburgers and chatted. it was lovely. easy way to make my day- get me a cheeseburger. then we wanted to sit outside since it was so lovely so we went to this fountain by our school and just chilled and talked. a guy walked up to us (we think homeless-and a little nuts) and said "ragazze! uno...due....tre..." and turned around and pulled his pants down. yes we got mooned in the middle of a piazza. happy birthday to me. went to italian class and got out early. i ended up getting little gifts (mostly of chocolate) throughout the day from thoughtful friends i haven't even known that long. touching.

we headed back to our house with julianna and sarah. i watched ever after by myself in my bed and they wrote papers. as lame as that sounds i love watching movies in my bed. and ever after just makes me so blissfully happy. we all headed to dinner with my other roommate megan and her wonderfully hilarious friend kassi from home. a bit of a walk but il teatro is worth it..by far our favorite restaurant here. great good great wine and special attention from the owner. so funny. my sweet friends pulled together to get me a massage when we're in greece! i've never had one before and i'm pumped. so many presents. so loved.

since it was tuesday i was supposed to volunteer but i skipped for my birthday. oops. went to a club called bebop that has a beatles cover band every tues. and it was so fun! we made a bunch of friends and just danced and had a ball. we were kind of way in the back but we could still hear to it was fun. we met some of the "beatles" on their set break and told them it was my birthday. so when they went back on stage they called me up and sang happy birthday to me! we got front row seats next to the band manager and a free bottle of champagne. and i danced on stage for a little which was half embarrassing and half too funny to pass up. finally we headed over to our favorite club, red garter, for a bit of dancing. it was pretty empty since it was real late on a tuesday night. so we were pretty much the only ones dancing but we did anyway. awkward dancing. things we're good at. some friends from our program were there too so we all got to hang out. made it home by 3. successful night. great birthday. possibly the best. i am so blessed.

the dance party that broke out at midnight on birthday eve

cheeseburger paradise

il teatro dinner

complimentary champagne and a glimpse of mossimo

being sung to by the beatles!

VENEZIA

venice. it's sinking. beautiful, but sinking. if you're not paying close attention the waves could come up over the edge and soak your feet. sometimes the tide comes up so high that there is over three feet of water- everywhere- and people have to walk on these raised sidewalk things. so if you haven't been to venice, GO! soon, because i don't believe it will be there too much longer.

i've heard venice called an adult's disney land. although the colors and talk of carnivale create an upbeat atmosphere, it is definitely a small town. we found ourselves not exactly out of things to do but definitely visiting the exact same glass shops over and over and over. we toured some interesting churches and schools of art but if i'm being totally honest i'm reaching my limit of renaissance art. never thought i'd say that. but there are only so many annunciations and pietas one can see before they all blend into one large biblical entity. i wasn't as stoked on the titians as i should have been. but art is art and i do love it. st. mark's basilica was cool. i love my biblical landmarks. but in terms of actual things to do in venice...we weren't overwhelmed.

a "street"

lots of people took the ferry over to morano to go watch glass blowing. which is cool. but we decided to check out gondola rides instead. so worth it. 60 euro for the four of us which isn't bad. 40 minute ride. our gondolier was tomasso, an older italian man with a voice straight out of a movie. we sang frank sinatra and a lil celine dion through the canals of venice. so much fun. the thing about venetian water is it's actually real contaminated. we had a friend who somehow or another fell in and he was super sick for the next two days. he had had a coin in his pocket and just from the thirty seconds he was in the water the coin completely rusted. the water is pretty to look at, but i wouldn't suggest trying to touch. it would be hard for some people in our program to go an entire weekend without going out, so the poor only bar in all of venice was stuffed with aifs students saturday night. which actually was pretty fun. very chill night.

tomasso!

the guggenheim! sunday we went to peggy guggenheim's modern art collection and man oh man i thought i was going to cry. i've been a bit modern art deprived and it was totally refreshing to catch up on some pollock and kandinsky. i appreciate renaissance art so much and will in no way diminish its brilliance but i'm a modern art girl when it comes down to it. i walked by myself in the museum for over two hours. and it's not a huge museum, it's just her house turned into a museum. but i was captivated. and i bought myself a kandinsky poster because he is one of my favs. definitely top five. and it was a beautiful day. venice really is lovely.

guggenheim

happy 150th birthday italy!

march 17th 1861 is the day italy was unified as one country. therefore, last thursday marked the 150th birthday of italy. and let me tell you they do it big. starting the night before there are parades, performers, decorations, mayhem. it's awesome. three different piazzas had big events going on, santa croce even had a hot air balloon. the streets were ten times more packed than i've ever seen here...which is real packed. people get dressed up in green white and red and just hang out. everywhere. so much singing and italian pride. it was so cool. after midnight there were fireworks in piazza signoria and we danced to this sweet band...

walking through the italian-decked-out streets

ponte vecchio lit up in italian colors

palazzo vecchio with fireworks. i. love. fireworks.

a lil moroc vid

words can't describe.

(i wrote this blog and accidentally deleted it. here's some of what i remember)

there is no way to encapsulate the past six days into words. seriously. so much of this has been beyond anything i could explain. so i'll give some main points. just know that it goes deeper than you can imagine. i could (and do) easily say it was the best trip of my life. here's a glimpse.

the first three days we spent in taghazout...

the riad: we stayed in a surf riad. which for the record is the chillest place i've ever encountered. everyone is friendly and talks to everyone else. no one wears shoes. i can't explain it. but i know it's my kind of place. very open. like you can see in everyone's windows. and there's no door on the bathroom just a toilet and shower. do the math. our riad was run by abdul, a funny moroccan man who was everywhere. seriously every time you turn around abdul is there asking if everything is ok. i think he knows that phrase in 14 languages. such a character. the riad had a very family setting feel, everyone ate meals together and just hung out. sunsets from the roof were insane. there were also always a random array of animals around. turtles, birds, and scruffy the dog. you just feel home instantly. it's the kind of place i want to live. chillin sooo harrrd.

surf riad

sunset from the roof

surfing: oh surfing. turns out we were the only ones with the snow or sand program. but about 20 of us went out surfing every day. we were the noobs. but we learn quick. and if nothing else we're determined. far more than anyone else learning. we surfed 5 or 6 hours every day. no one else did. there were several times when we were the only ones out and everyone was just watching us from the beach. they said they didn't believe we'd never surfed before! which is probably more ego boosting than true but i'll take it. we really did work hard. got to a point day 2 where we were standing up on every wave. never mastered turning. next time. don't think we were really good or anything, we weren't. our friends called lo "surfs on sand" because she stands up really late and me "surfs on knees" because sometimes i don't stand up at all. so we're not pros yet. but to my surfing friends: i get it. i get surfing. and i love it too. the second and third day we got up at 6am for a sunrise surf sesh. and oh my lanta there is nothing like it. we went out and the waves weren't good but we just laid on our boards and didn't talk and watched the sunrise. nothing like it, nothing at all. i plan on continuing. and getting better. i'll do it. watch me.

our little surf camp

surfing

not surfing

surf instructors: funnyyy guys. zu, moglie, and bagira. zu is the number one surfer in morocco. legit. moglie's name is munyi but we think he looks like moglie from the jungle book. bagira's name we don't know so we dubbed him jungle book also. funny guys. they took us camel riding. which was a funny experience. short and really unstable feeling but funny as crap. then they took us on a private tour around taghazout. so cool. we didn't feel like tourists. we felt like locals. so we just hung out and talked and stuff one afternoon. we found over and over that moroccans don't leave morocco. didn't meet one who'd left the country. which is interesting. they're fine with that. they're just people who don't have much yet are far happier than many who have much more. interesting concept. inspiring. kind of the way i plan to live my life. anyway all the surf instructors would come to the riad at night after dinner and just hang out and watch surf movies. sweet stuff.

taghazout with moglie and bagira

on a frickin camel

hammam spa: oh my hammam. not the spa you'd picture. which we knew going into it. but didn't know what it actually meant. boy were we not ready. two spanish girls, lauren and i were dropped off and told to take off our clothes. we walked in and there were just naked moroccan women. everywhere. big ones. it took a while and some guts but we finally got down to our underwear. the second we got our bras off there were women pulling us into these steam rooms. and we were gone. there's three rooms and each one is hotter than the last. so naturally they brought us straight to the hottest one. i mean hot. like reallllly hot. there were 40 or so women in each room just sitting on the floor washing themselves. so the ladies plopped us down on the ground and started rubbing this green goop all over our bodies. all over. no. alllll over. the moroccan ladies were laughing at us, i'm pretty sure it was clear we were americans. we just sat there and laughed til we cried, non stop the entire time. the ladies laid us down and washed all the green stuff off of us with these exfoliating gloves. much like steel wool you would clean dishes with. painful. then they flipped us over and washed the back. removed the small amount of dignity we had in our underwear. so we're laying with our faces in 2 inches of gross water, crying laughing, being vigorously scrubbed by naked moroccan women. it could not have been funnier. then they stood us up and dumped two buckets of water on our heads and pushed us out the door. one of the funniest experiences of my life but i wouldn't do it again. one of the girls we were with described it as "mom cleaning a fish". pretty accurate. i am, however, very clean.

people: we met tons of people. ismael, a young moroccan, wanted to teach us how to surf so bad. really friendly, no ulterior motives. just a funny little nice guy. the frenchmen: nicholas and pierre. probably our best friends in taghazout. hilarious beyond belief. we had dinner with them every night and surfed a bunch. so much laughter. one night we were sitting at dinner with the two french guys, three spanish friends, and a norweigan couple. it was so cool just looking around the table and seeing so many people from around the world. we just talked and laughed all night. and we met plenty of random friendly moroccans. it's possible that half of the appeal of morocco is the people we met. unreal.

our surf weekend only lasted three days but we couldn't get a flight until tuesday. so we headed back to marrakech for two days where we planned to lay low and chill.

marrakech: big city. real big. the first day we just chilled in the hostel. met some sweet americans and dinner and hung out with them all night. smoked hookah. stargazed on the roof. tuesday we went out and explored with our new friends. literally walked around all of marrakech which was lovely. so cool. like a movie. there's this call to prayer five times a day that comes from loudspeakers all around the city. everyone stops and faces east. kinda creepy the first couple times but it was cool. walked through several sweet gardens. saw so many possible pictures. culturally mind blowing. marrakech is cool. nothing on taghazout. but man i love morocco.

garden in marrakech

so now we're home. in florence. where we have to wear shoes and it's raining and we can't walk to the beach. i love florence, i do. but i will go back to morocco. mark my words i will. maybe i'll live there one day. because why the heck not? doors are opening and believe you me i'll take it.

voluntario

every tuesday night at 9 i go to a corner on the outskirts of florence. hop a bus- sometimes by myself, sometimes i go with others. seven of us total but not every week. so we stand on a corner. and wait. and finally figures emerge from the shadows. literally. have you ever seen walking dead? kind of like that. and they kind of circle us. homeless people. between 20 and 40 of them depending on the week. so the seven of us (little, white, non italian speaking american girls, by the way) stand in a circle and wait. eventually a car pulls up with food. pizza, paninis, pastries. leftovers from nearby restaurants and bakeries. so we grab rubber gloves and as soon as we take the food out of the car we're surrounded. and we hand out food. they stuff plastic bags with as much food as we will give them. sometimes we talk. most don't speak very much english. there are a few characters i've become quite fond of. a few others i do not prefer. touchy ones. i've found the most common ground language to be french which is cool. i don't get to use my french that often. so we bring out a couple rounds of food and just love on these people the best we can. some are friendly and appreciative. others are rash and grabby. it's a weird experience really. interesting. humbling. but weird. after a while they start to wander off. except yolanda. yolanda picks a fight every single week and always ends up screaming at the top of her lungs at someone. usually for laughing too much or looking at her funny. it's just a little act. every week i just pray it's not me she gets mad at. and then we go home. usually the volunteer guys drive us home or we walk. it's about 3 miles. and again the next week. it's funny. like an unspoken meeting. we just all show up at 9 tuesday nights and then part ways. sometimes it's a bit scary and i've been quite uneasy at several times. unpredictable really. but i have the world and these people do not. so i will give them what i can of mine.

"i don't want to be the same as everyone else; i want to see a new world"

-marc chagall

ROME. i'll spare you the full tour. too much to talk about. overall great weekend fully packed with art and history. not for a minute did we stop moving. and now we're home and happy to be back. we did rome. we did it proud. and now we're done.

picture every bit of historical knowledge you have about rome. we went there. we saw that. we walked and walked and walked. and while it was all very interesting, a few things touched me big time. like had a substantial impact on my life. so yes we saw the italian senate and the colosseum and the pantheon and hadrian's villa. we saw tons of things. but here's what i saw.

the vatican. i am by no means catholic and have minimal attachment to the pope. so mostly the vatican museum. art galore. it's one thing to see great paintings hung on walls. it's another to stand in awe of the school of athens and know raphael was standing in that same room hundreds of years ago envisioning that fresco. there is something in me that is awakened by art. i come alive. and although we were in the museum for almost 3 hours and everyone else was fed up and complaining about hurting feet, i couldn't get enough. every room we went into amazed me more and more. and finally we ended up in the sistene chapel. which actually looks little like i imagined despite the hundreds of textbook pictures i've seen. it's quite small and there is no beaming light shooting in from windows or soft humming of a choir. it's kind of dark and small and the officers are constantly yelling to be quiet and not take pictures. of course i did anyway but not in a hold-my-camera-above-my-head-flash kind of way. in a sneaky snapping-up-from-my-waist kind of way. so i have pictures. and i was by no means disappointed- we're talking about michelangelo here. but it was definitely different.

sneaky snaps of the sistene chapel

st. peter's basilica. kind of in the vatican? i'm not really sure. it's named st. peter's after peter. like jesus's disciple peter. his ashes are in the underground tombs. i did not take this fact lightly. at all. i found myself with a lump in my throat on more than one occasion during our tour of st. peter's. and if you know me- i don't cry. but if there's any history that's really gonna touch me deeply it's when i'm standing in the same room as the ashes of someone who knew jesus. talked to jesus. touched jesus. it all became real for me. or more real. later we saw peter's chains in a different church. more reality. and finally we passed by the jail that imprisoned peter AND paul. our tour guide briefly mentioned it but the few of us who truly cared about that fact were amazed. peter was really there. and paul. i love paul. i want to be like paul. and he was there. he died there. he wrote PHILIPPIANS from that jail cell. it all became real for me.

paul and peter's prison

peter's chains

peter's ashes

chagall. we had an optional visit to a new modern art museum currently showing a chagall exhibit. 27 people signed up for the visit and only 7 of us showed up. which was actually way more fun, we had the art teachers all to ourselves. i love chagall. i am amazed by renaissance painters and appreciate it completely but i'm more of a modern art girl. and let me tell you i realllly dig chagall. his art, his philosophy, his character. i just think he would have been a really cool guy to know. one of my favorite things to do is walk through art museums. i love the white walls and quiet environment and ability to amble around and get lost in an exhibit. i could do it all day. i do actually do it quite frequently. chagall was just such an alive man, so unconcerned with things of this world and so bent on just living. and i'd like to say we have that in common. but he just jumped the charts and is probably up there with some of my favorite painters of all time. maybe even top 5. that's a big deal.

we weren't allowed to take pictures inside soooo this is all i got

so rome. everything i'd hoped it would be. glad i'm not studying there but pleased with our weekend. i was definitely touched by some things. and just very appreciative. of everything.

and as my dear friend marc chagall would say...

"only love interests me, and i am only in contact with things that revolve around love."