Fam Time and Midterms

It's been a while since my last post, but with good reason. My family came! And unfortunately for you that means a really long post! Get excited!

I met my mom, dad, three brothers, cousin, and two aunts at the train station in Milan. Yes, that is 8 people, 9 if you include me. What you must understand is that nothing happens quickly in a group this large. Every 20 seconds someone is asking, "where is Kristen?" "Has anyone seen Connor?"... Most of the time it's really funny because the person they are looking for is in the vicinity, usually either directly in front of, or behind them.

So Milan. Beautiful. As if anyone had doubts.

Now enjoy these pictures telling the story of our weekend in Milan.

Kristen (my cousin) and I chasing birds at the Duomo

Fountain!

Milan has the street of my birth. Which is exciting.

My dad tried to get us tickets to see the last supper.. He got one ticket. So I got to see the last supper in Milan! It was huge and fabulous and i absolutely loved it! I also took this pic illegally. It was awesome. I couldve been kicked out. 

Inter Milan Soccer Game!!!! GGOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLLLL! They actually never scored a goal.. but it was still fun.

View from the top of the Duomo

Fam in Milan

My family on top of the Duomo

Inter game

Fam at the inter game

We climbed the Duomo. I saw the last supper. We went to a soccer game. Milan was fun.

My family also brought the harlem shake to Europe! We harlem shake'd Milan...twice, and Florence! And now, for your viewing pleasure... The Paetzold's Harlem Shake Milan Metro!!

Anyways...I had to go back to Florence for class because, unlike my family, I wasn't on spring break.

So they came with me.

We climbed the duomo in Florence. 

Mom and I on the Arno

We ate at the best restaurant in Florence, where Will took me for Valentine's Day. But, maybe I'm biased. We also went to the mexican food place, I can't get enough of it... we also ate A TON of gelato while they were in Italy.

On Wednesday my family left for Pompeii and I was stuck going to classes.. that was fun. But, I met up with them in Rome on Friday morning.

During that time frame the new pope was elected!! So crazy to be here in Italy during the conclave! I watched it all live on the news, which was in Italian, but I could actually understand them!! Which was even more exciting! My roommates and I were going crazy. Jumping up and down, screaming, and running through the apartment. It was so much fun!

White Smoke!

New Pope!!

So, since there is now a new pope I had to go to Rome and meet him!!

And look who came with me!!

Good thing Will planned to come with me to Rome, because we washed his passport. So when we got to Rome at 8:30am friday morning we headed to the consulate because he left for his spring break in Spain on Sunday. Basically long story short, they would only let Will in, I wandered around for 2 and a half hours trying to stay warm and also not getting lost in the two to three blocks I walked of the consulate. Will got his replacement passport and we met up with my family at the Pantheon for lunch.

Half of the crew left Saturday morning (at a very very early time that will not be mentioned) so my dad got us a hotel on the beach, obviously. It's closer to the airport.

Sunset on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea

There is a story with this photo...

So Carson, Kristen, Connor and I decided it would be a good idea to climb on those rocks.. Carson jumped across the water and made it.. I jumped... and totally missed the rocks, landing in knee deep water... Kristen decided to just accept her fate and waded through. Connor, well... He sort of jumped and slammed his knee into a rock!! HA! So obviously, the caption on the photo is a hilarious one if you know the story. Whats even crazier is that my boots were magically dry the next morning, probably because I used two hairdryers on them for a while.... 

Saturday it took us most of the day to figure out how to get back to Rome. We had to catch a bus, to take us to the train, to take us to the metro, so that we could store our luggage in the Termini train station. But that's okay because we ate Chinese food for lunch, it was amazing. We met one of Will's roommates at Termini and he wandered around Rome with us until it was time for the family and I to head back to Florence. 

Saying goodbye to Will is literally the hardest thing ever for me, and this time was worse for multiple reasons. He was leaving for spring break in Spain, I was going back to Florence to study for midterms... and well.. I really don't need to keep going. 

My parents and I took a spontaneous day trip to Lucca for a couple hours on Sunday.

Dad and I on the wall in Lucca

Carson helping me study for my Italian Midterm on the train to Lucca

It was pouring rain and beautiful. We walked along the wall after getting crepes and then ended up having to sprint back to the train station to catch our train. With our umbrellas. In the rain. We were quite a site. 

The rest of the family left Monday morning :( It was sad to see them go, it was good to mix up the traveling group, see familiar faces, and speak english!!!

__________________________

In other news, we are getting a lawyer to write Fish Pub a complaint about the noise problem and possibly fine them. They are apparently in hot water already because of a fight that occurred there recently.. awesome. It made the papers and everything. So we are hoping we can eliminate the Fish Pub problem entirely.

Also, our water damaged walls are now growing mold. We are hoping we don't all die.

Katie has been taking a lot of pictures for her photography classes, so it's been fun around here.

She photographed fruits and veggies and Jenn and I decided we wanted to be apart of the fun!

Katie also took Jenn and I out today for a photo shoot. It was a lot of fun. These are a few of her photos of me that I edited for the blog. BIG NEWS!! I bought the leather jacket I've been wanting! The guy originally told me 140 euro. I went into the store with 100 euro cash in my wallet. After trying on and ABSOLUTELY LOVING the jacket I asked him how much and then proceeded to show him that all I had was 100. He replied "Do you have just 10 more?". "umm... I have a lot of coins!!" I pulled out 6 euros worth of coins and he took 5 of them. So I got my leather jacket with the student discount price of 140 euro for 105 euro! I am pretty dang proud of myself. Although I couldn't have done it without the moral support of Katie and Jenn. Plus, I got to wear my new jacket in the photo shoot today! So you can see for yourself how cute it is!

Basically Katie is awesome with her photography skills! If you think the editing is bad blame me! but the photos are ALL HER and her wonderful talent! We were going for a hipster/indie look. I think we got it. Also I found a new cute outfit I can wear in the process!

She also cut my hair this week. Just the back. To be honest I haven't seen what it looks like yet, but I haven't noticed anyone laughing or looking strangely at the back of my head....

So anyways.. I still have midterms this week. Oops! I have one more tomorrow and then we (Katie, Jenn, and I) are off to Munich on Friday morning!! I am beyond excited. The weather in Munich is... cold. rain. chance of snow. Sounds like perfect spring break weather to me!! I'm glad my mom checked my bank account today before I left for spring break. That way I could know I only have $4.38 in there to use for the rest of the semester. Living the college dream! ... maybe buying the leather jacket was a bad idea... I'm broke, I'm in Italy, and I'm absolutely loving life!!!

...now back to studying

Arezzo e Firenze

Most of my posts are titled by what I do on the weekend. Let's be honest, the most noteworthy stuff happens on the weekends. For example, this weekend Will and I took the weekend to spend time with each other in Arezzo and Florence. We stayed local.

But first, you need a recap of the week.

School. I'm still going to classes. I read a lot to prep for my lectures. And I've visited quite a few sights in Florence with my Museology and Palaces of Florence classes. 

Palazzo Medici Riccardi. Right around the corner from my apartment. Who knew it was so beautiful on the inside. The rooms shown in the pictures were added after the Medici family sold the palazzo to the Riccardi family. They are decorated in the baroque style. This style is all about grandiose and lavish furnishings and details. Also, much like a theater. The chandeliers are made from crystals from the islands around Venice.

I recorded my Ancient Rome teacher this week. I've decided he doesn't speak english. Its like spanglish, but its italian.... so... Italish? Englian? He is half and half going between english and italian. I either have to put all my effort into listening to what he is saying, or I just fail and can't retain anything. There is no inbetween. It's horrible. Also, it is ruining the class for me. I love Ancient Rome, seriously my favorite period of history. But, like so many say, the teacher makes the class, and let me tell you, he is ruining it. Oh well. It's only once a week. 

On my way to class I pass by multiple leather shops. Unfortunately, there is a certain leather jacket that has caught my eye. It teases me everyday as I walk to and from class. Somedays I think I don't want it.. and then I see it again.. And I just want to throw caution to the side and break bank on that beautiful jacket.

I spent most of my week eating gelato. I guess it makes me feel better about not having a leather jacket.

eating gelato

I got another haircut.

I really want to buy some carrots from Mercato Centrale.

I found a soccer jersey for Will. Literally ever since Will told me Florence had a soccer team I've wanted to get him a jersey. His favorite color is purple. Fiorentina's colors are purple. He is a soccer player. Loves soccer. Obviously, I would scour the city to find him the perfect jersey, and so I did. I wandered around Florence two different evening this week after class trying to get a jersey for Will to wear to the soccer game we went to on Sunday. Got lost a few times. Kind of scary when you're a female, by yourself, and its dark. But, he's worth it, and nothing happened. (Plus I found a laundromat where I can dry my pants and shrink them back to size!) Finally, I found a store that sold long sleeve jersey's (another requirement of this jersey). Located right around the corner from my apartment, of course. They had a single long sleeve jersey left. It was purple. Check. The size... a medium. Check. It was an amazing moment. I think Will and that jersey were meant to be.

Look how amazing he looks in his jersey, I mean, come on. 

Another ongoing adventure I've had the past two weeks was trying to buy Will's soccer ticket. You have to have your passport (or a copy) to buy one. You might remember Will surprising me last week on Wednesday, we went to buy it then, but they guy said we had to come back after 3. And, after my class at 4:15, Will was hungry and so we just ate supper and he left. I tried to go back and buy it, which is when I figured out you had to have a form of identification, and Will couldn't figure out the websites to buy it online. So he finally sent me a picture of his passport. I went to the LdM office and had it printed out and then successfully bought Will's ticket. Even if the man was mean and grumpy. 

Jenn and I had a successful Housewife Wednesday. It's a thing people! We made cookies! And when I say we I mean Jenn made them and I ate the cookie dough and watched! 

Housewife Wednesday success!

Katie and I are going to Munich, Lucerne, Prague, Budapest, and Vienna for spring break (in that order). We both have Eurail passes, which means our transportation is basically free (thanks daddy!). We won't be paying anything for transportation during spring break. Just food and lodging. Talk about freaking awesome since our first train, to Munich, costs 110 Euro. But, this awesomeness comes with a large price to pay. We have no idea how to use them and none of the info we've received on them has been correct. Thanks a lot Europe for being so daggum inefficient. So, we went to the train station because we heard they had a eurail pass office. That's not true. We stood in line for 30 minutes and when the lady took Katie's Eurail pass to activate it she wrote that days date in it. That's a problem because we want to use them for a late april trip and they can only be used for 2 months. So, the info we got about being able to tell them to activate it on a later date is also not true. We left. We are going back to try again on monday.

{After writing this post last night (sunday) we went back to the train station today. It took us an hour and some schedule, and city, changes, but we have our train tickets. Instead of Lucerne we are going to Zurich, due to train times. But, that's okay. The man that helped us was really nice. He didn't speak much english, but he laughed along with us as we tried to figure it all out. What a blessing.}

TICKETS!!! All we had to pay for were the reservations. It cost 36 euro for my train tickets today. Thank you mom and dad for the eurail pass. Seriously thought, ya'll are awesome!

In honor of being thoroughly angered by Italy and Europe in general after our eurail fiasco (on Wednesday) Katie and I decided to make pancakes for supper!

Got to love the foreign import supermarket

I got a valentine from my fam (mom, dad, cooper) this week! I have yet to go a week without mail. Thank you to everyone who is mailing me. You can not understand the blessing it is to receive mail from the states here. Just a hello from back home is so comforting and keeps me going! 

Mail. Beautiful Mail.

Mail. Love.

So, for those of you who haven't mailed me yet (you know who you are), here is my mailing address. It only costs $1.10 to mail and it brings a girl from Texas much joy.

Paris Paetzold

c/o Scuola Lorenzo de'Medici

Via del Melaracio 6/r

50123 Florence Italy

Thank you in advance, and with your letter there is a guaranteed reply from me!! So, if you want mail from Italia, mail me! It's that simple. (Can you tell I'm desperate yet? I'm practically begging here). Also, as if you need another reason to mail me, I check my mail on tuesdays. That is when I have my 6 hour studio class. Literally the longest and most tedious day of the week! So please! Make my 30 minute break full of smiles and happiness! 

____________________________________

Now. Onto this weekend.

Will and I sort of took a weekend to ourselves, as I mentioned earlier. But all that means is that we didn't take some crazy trip somewhere, although we still had plenty to fill our schedules!

I trained to Arezzo after my class on Thursday. Having your significant other waiting for you at a train platform seriously never gets old. One of Will's roommates made a delicious dinner (thanks Bryce) and we hung out in Arezzo with some of Will's friends/classmates.

Arezzo

On friday Will had his Discovering Arezzo class. *GASP* class on friday? What kind of world is this? But, luckily Will has awesome teachers and they let me tag along! It was SO AWESOME! We took a walking tour of Arezzo. Apparently his class had already taken a walking tour so Will already knew everything, but I was absolutely loving life! I love tours!
Highlight of the class.... wait for it... We went to a restoration workshop! OH MY GOSH I DIED!!!!!

Restoration in progress

I wanted to ask the women in that shop so many questions, but they didn't speak English. Dang. Language barrier. Maybe next time. We also went to a weird little museum with a lot of random items that belonged to some dead dude. It was cool!

Jenn and Katie came up for the day on friday and hung out with us. We met them after our class. Will took us to the Roman amphitheater ruins and the town's duomo. 

Arezzo

I love hanging out with this guy!

We got some gelato, crepes, and piadinas by the time we were done with our day, and to top it all off, all four of us put our cooking expertise together and made some dang good stir fry!! Got to love non-Italian food. 

We got to Florence at 1:30 on Saturday. Our first stop, Mercato Centrale. Had to show Will where I get all of my awesome fresh fruit, dried fruit, and anything else to eat you want. We also attempted to climb the duomo. It was closed. Maybe next time. So instead we found some really good gelato (Will got blood orange sorbet. It's to die for) and hiked up to the Piazzale Michelangelo just in time for sunset.

Florence sunset.

Florence sunset

Florence sunset

On the way to Piazzale Michelangelo we found Florence's tribute to Dante. Will is in a Dante class and is super knowledgable about that kind of stuff now. It was fun giving Will a new spot on the map and letting him find it.

It is hard to see in the picture, but the streets are Via dell'Inferno and Via del Purgatorio. Would never known about this had Will's dad not told me about it. Thanks Mr. Spears!

Then.... get ready. WE ATE MEXICAN FOOD!!! HALLELUJAH!!! THE HEAVENS ARE SINGING! We didn't make reservations to this place. We couldn't really figure out how to. So we just walked in. And when we walked in I hit a wall of delicious smelling mexican food. Will asked how long I was willing to wait to eat, "all night, I'm not leaving without eating food" was my reply. But, luckily they had room at the bar so we sat there without waiting. We split some nachos and ordered some yummy in our tummy enchiladas! In the midst of losing ourselves in the nachos Will and I had this little exchange. 

Will: "mmmm..."

Me: "what?"

Will: "I just had a bean burp and it tasted even better the second time"

Me: "I'm so glad!"

We were pretty excited to be eating mexican food, to say the least. We drooled over our food and ate every last bite of that spicy, salty goodness. And we loved it so much that we went back Sunday night and took Jenn with us. Yum!!!!!

my enchiladas sent from heaven and made by angels

Sunday, Will and I went to the Fiorentina v. Chievo Verona game. That took up all of the day. We sported our Fiorentina jerseys and watched as Fiorentina took the win 2-1!!! Such a fun game. It was Will's first professional soccer game. I hadn't realized he never went to a professional game before and boy was he in soccer heaven. It was nice having him there to tell me what was going on. He also bought me the large popcorn! He is so good to me. Buying me the biggest sized popcorn. Just what I needed!

Fiorentina Stadium

Fiorentina Stadium

Also, surprise surprise. We have water damage in our apartment. This week the landlord from the apartment above us came and asked us if we had any water damage. We couldn't find any. Jenn noticed it this morning (Sunday) and this is what it looked like tonight.

Water damage for the win

Caitlin also fell this morning and hurt her knee on the water puddle. Its swollen now. We are hoping there isn't something really wrong with it. There is also water damage in Katie and I's room as our room is the closest door on the right that you see in the picture. Can't wait for all the rando Italians we have coming and going into our apartment this week.

In other news. I wore through my "new boots" I bought 3 weeks ago. They were short lived. I've been wearing my old boots that are also worn through, but since they were originally much better quality, I can actually walk in them!

After a week of comfort food and time with my man I'm excited to see my family next week!!! 6 DAYS.. its so soon! Watch out Milan, the Paetzold's are invading! I just hope I can get a train ticket, there are rumors of a train strike!!