Eurochocolate!!

i did two really fun things this weekend: fonclea & eurochocolate!

fonclea is a live band club/restaurant. i went with a group of people and it was a lot of fun. a few of us got there early to get a table and we got a table right in fron

t of the band. we had appetizers and drinks. i had a margharita which was really weird, haha. the band we heard was a cover band for the Bee Gees. they were re

ally really good and it was a lot of fun! at the very end we started a dance party which was crazy. it was just a really fun night :]

sunday i went to eurochocolate in perugia! i went with my friend laura and we left rome at 8 on a packed train (we sat/stood in between cars). we got there around 10:30/11. it was easy to get to the festival because there were people telling us what we should do and everyone there was going to eurochocolate. we spent around 3 hrs. there. it was so huge! there was soooooo much chocolate!! i tried this cake thing with fruit and churros with chocolate, they were really good! my favorite was italian hot chocolate...omg...i got dark chocolate and it was so warm and it was also thicker than our hot chocolate. it was the best! also i tried this white chocolate piece of chocolate with grains or rice cakes and it was my next favorite thing. i bought 2 gifts and dark chocolate filled with banana for myself. the coolest thing i saw there was chocolate sculptors. perugia has a chocolate school.

so these students were scuplting things from huge blocks of chocolate. they used sculpting tools, axes, and a drill-yes a power drill. we even had to shield ourselves from the chocolate that was being sculpted off!

we didnt actually stay there long enough to see what they sculpted but it was really cool. you had to push and shove to get near the sculptor's assistants because they were giving away the chunks of chocolate that were sculpted off from the blocks of chocolate, yummy! it was an exhausting day because i basically traveled all day because we got back around 8 something but it was a lot of fun!

THIS WEEKEND I'M GOING TO PARIS AND PRAGUE, AHHH!!!

Awesome Week filled with ADVENTURE!

well really only 1 adventurous thing-but still this past past week was awesome! the week im talking about is the 5th through 11th. my week was great but it really became awesome on thursday.

for art history we visited galleria borghese which is an art gallery. we always go see what we are studying in person which makes this class good, fun, and helpful for me since i am a visual learner. i am really enjoying this class. we saw a lot of renaissance art obviously since that is what the class is focused on. we saw sculptures too. it was great! i love renaissance art and we saw a bernini sculpt

ure that-omg...i wanted to die of how detailed and beautiful it was. just being in this gallery made me want to visit florence even sooner to go to the uffizi. we are going as a depaul group. i have been there before and i loved it. also my favorite painting of all time is there: the birth of venus. i cant wait to

have my breath taken away again....

friday we went to cinecitta which is the main film production company in italy. its basically like warner bros and all that jazz. so i got to walk around! it was pretty cool. we walked on a lot of sets that were in gangs of new york which makes me really want to see the movie now. we also saw props from gladiator, la dolce vita, and others. it was cool. friday night was just awesome in general too. just hang out with a few girls and enjoyed roman nightlife, haha.

saturday was the HIGHLIGHT! my friend leslie calls me and says, "so h

ow do you feel like getting out of rome?" spontaneous and awesome! i took my first train ride ev

er for 1 euro and 90 centessimi (cents) for 30 min. we went to castel gandolfo which is the summer home of the pope. it was really pretty and quaint. it was like one of the towns in cinque terre except maybe a little smaller and more spread out and there was a lake instead of the sea. it was wonderful and beautiful! we just walked around, took pictures, went into little shops...just enjoyed ourselves and the fact that we were there and able to do this-just travel to a smaller town outside of rome! one characteristic i liked about the town was that there was a mosaic studio and they do the majority of shop signs. so you see all these little shop signs above doors that are done in mosaics, so cute! the best part was dinner. we went to this place called arte e vino (art and wine). the theme was rustic cabin in the fall. it reminded me of thanksgiving in oregon

. it was great! i think i liked even more because it didnt remind me of italy-so some place new and it did remind me of home. the food was wonderful and so was the wine. it obviously was warm but it gave that warm feeling like comfort i guess? i dont know how to explain....man, it was great!

sunday was fun as well. got up early to go to porta portese which is this huge open air market-and i mean huge! bought a scarf and a moka for myself. and a gift for someone ;] a moka is the coffee machine here. you use it on the stove and the coffee tastes different and

BETTER. im so excited to use it when i get back. i spend a few hours there and then went home to chill. then of course sunday is giant burger night and i went with the usually girls.

so that was my awesome week/weekend. other news, the weather is finally fall weather and even maybe a little colder. its weird being here in fall, i guess i still cant believe im here and studying i guess, haha. i finally have a down comforter for the weather, no longer just a sheet! its the best! tomorrow im going to this club/bar where there is going to be a cover band of Bee Gee's. im excited, it should be a good night. also saturday i am, haha, 90% sure i am going to eurochocolate 2009 in perugia! yay! also...paris and prague are going to be here so soon!! basically a week!! im sooooo excited but nervous about how expensive everything is going to be especially in paris-and we are staying there the most. havent book hostels yet-i know bad but internet is crappy. hopefully today or early next week. im super excited though. i have stuff planned and...yeah...i love it!

so i obviously am behind in blogging. its hard because of the internet but i will post when i can. pics are of castel gandolfo. my friend is leslie and that is the little nook we sat in. we were inside the restaurant but also outside, how cool is that! also the pic i took is what i could see from the town.

1st Excursion Weekend!

So this past weekend was our first trip as the DePaul group and my first trip while in Rome. We went to Cinque Terre, Torino, and Bra from early Saturday to super late Monday.

Saturday and half of Sunday was spend in Cinque Terre which is 5 small villages surrounding the sea. Each of the villages are around an hour hike from each other. I hiked for around 3 hours on this trip and they were hard hikes too. There are paths but it's not like someone made this paths on purpose. It's like they were made over time if you know what I'm saying. We only visited three of the 5 villages and each were so beautiful and quaint as well as their surroundings. This place is gorgeous! I have to convince my dad to let us come here instead of the beach one year. Cinque Terre is also known for their pesto and I was fortunate enough to have pasta and pesto and it was amazing...The last thing I did here was swim. Yes swim at the end of September. The water was so blue and clear. GORGEOUS! The weather was perfect as well but the water was a tad chilly for my taste.

The rest of Sunday and the morning of Monday was spent in Torino. We visited the National Museum of Cinema. We unfortunately got stuck in traffic so we weren't able to spend as much time as we were supposed to but it was still really cool. The place was huge with so many different props, scripts, sketches, storyboards, posters, costumes, etc. from so many famous American and Italian movies. It was also very interesting to learn the beginnings of film. I have already learned about this at school but I did learn some new and different things. In the morning we went to a church that has the cloth/linen Jesus was wrapped in in his tomb. It is a huge controversy and when historians and universities studied this they came to the conclusion that it really wasn't from Jesus but so many pilgrims and others believe it is. We saw a replica above the tomb that holds the real thing. The linen is supposed to have the face of Jesus on it. After this I got Torino chocolate which is supposed to be the best chocolate in Italy and where they first made nutella. The chocolate was great!

We then proceeded to Bra for the rest of the day where we went to the University of Gastronomica where they study food technology and slow cooked food. We just got a tour of the school and it was really cool. I was thinking I might get my masters there haha, probably not though. The last and probably the best thing was going to a small restaurant where the cook does slow cooked food. Slow cooked or processed food is when it is just natural and organic, very healthy. We had an awesome 4 course meal. It is probably and will only be the best meal I have had/will have. Also we learned how to wine taste which was fun. We also had exquisite wine. It was phenomenal!

I was/still am tired from the trip but it was so much fun. We got back around 1 in the morning on Tuesday and we were supposed to get in at 10 pm on Monday but oh well. I am sorry I don't update my blog too often or maybe as much as some (Merm) would like me to. I try but my school schedule is really weird and I don't know what to tell you guys half the time because some stuff isn't really new. I have just gotten into a routine. But everything I have and will post are the most exciting things that are happening! Peace out! Oh! I know I only put 2 pics. up but these are just the quintessential of Cinque Terre. The ones that just are all you need to see. Also I put the pic. of the Jesus cloth up. Other than that there was nothing worthwhile in Torino or Bra.