spain 2011: spring break part 3 and MORE

hello all! i have grown weary and tired of posting my blogs! it's been a lot of work. i'm definitely going to do the condensed version about florence and venice from spring break. luckily i've included some guay photos for your viewing pleasure too :)

the first day in florence we wandered around te city all day. well, i think we do this in every city we go to the first day. not that shocked. the cathedral is called the duomo and it is probably the most beautiful building i've ever seen. there's nothing really like it-so orante!

obviously we spent a lot of our time in the leather market and we did a lot of shopping :) florence definitely had the best shopping in all of europe. i'm not sure the boys were too thrilled with how much time we spent looking at the beautiful things but hey, this girl wants to be a girl! we enjoyed ourselves. another reason why i loved florence so much. brownie points for the carousel. of course we childishly rode it at the first opportunity we got. would you expect anything less?

we spent easter mass in the cathedral and were surprised/somewhat terrified when they lit this huge firework display outside that went off for a solid half hour. it was unbelievable. my friend lamia who had never attended a catholic mass before said: "is this how you always do mass on sundays?" ha! only in italy...

"f is for fire that burns down the whole town" -hanna prince aka plankton

the best pizza in italy.

c girls

carousel time weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

indulging at the leather market

duomo

one of the most famous bridges in florence is called il ponte vecchio. it's the main place is be in florence. while walking along on our way there i saw one of the things i was most excited for! all the locks :) it sounds kind of corny, well let's be honest- very corny, but it looks so beautiful that my heart just skipped a beat. apparently if you go to this spot and you are married or in a relationship, you're supposed to write your names on the lock and chain it to the other locks to symbolize how strong your love is for each other. or something dumb like that :)

love lockdown

so ariya and i got separated from the group after awhile, and wouldn't you know it. neither of us had a cell phone, OR MAP. that made things interesting! after awhile of us trying to figure out what we were going to do, ariya said he remembered they were talking about going to the piazza michaelangelo for the sunset. so we treked up the many stairs with our gelato and were just enjoying the hike and of course they were up there! it's funny, ariya and i just read the book the alchemist (i highly recommend it), and we were talking about following the signs of life! some of my favorite quotes:

"and when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

"when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."

"remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure."

piazza michaelangelo

it was a wonderful evening watching the sunset with the city below us. what was heading for us next: venice! little did we know the following day would be one of the worst known to all of mankind.

so we had some mishaps at the train station and basically with the combination of our awful hostel, and encounters with some unfriendly, and some insane italian people, and other attributing factors, we were in the venice train station for a solid 4 hours. we were so frustrated that hannah began to throw things on the ground! haha. nobody would help us and it was the most frustrating thing in the entire world. eventually all of us just sat on our suitcases with defeat written all over our faces. hannah went inside to go get some food, and when she came back she brought an entire tray full of beer over, didn't say a word, and just set them all down right in front of us. it made everything instantly better and cheered everyone up, and we were back laughing immediately. our first impression of venice was a bit skewed from this GOD AWFUL experience.

the look of absolute DEFEAT.

but once we got IN the city................................................................................. PURE BEAUTY!

we wandered around for a significant amount of time, and venice had absolutely amazing shopping as well! so much beautiful glass, and carnivale masks! lamia and i also had fun pretending like we were 007 agents. casino royale anyone? anyone?

007 in da square

the perfect city to wander all day long

san marco

we also spent a significant time down by the water just sitting, standing, talking, doing whatever. venice was definitely the best city to visit last. gave us some time to unwind from all of our adventures.

"say it with me: i am free."

yes we did end up taking a gondola ride!!! SO FUN! i don't know why people would come here for a honeymoon or a romantic getaway..................but having my girls with me-ah i wouldn't have changed it for the world :)

i'm on a boat

overall spring break was a blast! it breezed by so quickly, and now my time here has breezed by here so quickly by just being back in madrid! there's still the london blog to look forward to as well. don't worry still some golden posts left in this baby. i know i've been slacking lately- but finals are here! and emily my best friend from back home has been here visiting so i've been very occupied lately. our despedida dinner is tonight. saying goodbye to everyone and remembering all of our memories from this past semester. oh and we also had graduation this past week- it was a fun tradition to take part in. one of the kids from our program preformed this UNBELIEVABLE SONG after graduation. he wrote it, sang it, and rocked it. his voice :) do you ever dream of europe? then listen to it.

as a reward for skimming through this awful blogpost which i have been dreading to write. here are some pictures that i finally got back from my 21st birthday which i had been dreading to see. so here you go. no judgment here please ~~parents and family~~. eh who am i kidding? everyone will judge, so here's to not caring! just had an innocently fun night in santorini with my girlfriends for my birthday :) enjoy. laugh. make fun. do what you will.