Malta

Ciao!

Last weekend Aaron, Erik, Spencer, Mike, and I went to the little island of Malta, not to be mistaken for Malta, Chicago or Malta, Maine.  But before we even start while we were walking up to our plane across from us there was a plane that was decked out with MTV scribbles all over it and a lot of security... If you haven't heard Jersey Shore is coming to Italy for the next season and should be here soon... Or are they already here?? I hope we run into them.

 The only way to describe this is a mini cheap Cancun.  When I saw say cheap, I mean that all the food and such were so cheap.  The same meal I could have got in Rome was almost 2-4 Euros cheaper each time.  The one thing that confused me the most about the country of Malta was all the stray cats that were running around?  Not to mention there was a weird creepy cathouse hanging out by our hotel (see picture) 

Malt was so much fun no doubt, they speak English mostly there so fitting in there wasn't hard at all.  Our hotel was right on the beach, and on January 28th it was warm enough to walk around in board shorts and a cut off... NBD.  

The night life in Malta is out of control, it was like walking from my house in Boise to campus (maybe a 10-15 min walk) and that’s’ if your always stopping.  As you come into the strip of clubs and bars, you see 100's of randos walking around cluttering the street talking all sorts of different language.  It was a culture shock like no other, never have I seen a full block of bars packed like this, not to mention all of the people in the streets.  Driving a car between that would have been impossible!  My favorite part about Malta was at the very end of the strip there were the heavenly gates of Burger King!! I've have only been here hardly a month and already missing American Fast food :( that's fine at the same time though, I've lost around 8 lbs, gotta love loading up on pasta, then walking until your feet want to fall off then eat one small meal to cap the night off followed by some gelato.... life is good!

Also to those who I told I was sending post cards soon HOPEFULLY I will have them sent out either tomorrow or before Thursday...

The weather and roommates take a turn for the worst!

We've been here in Italy for little over a week now and the past two days the weather has been kind of gloomy.  When it rains here though it's a lot like rain in Hawaii, it a really thin soft rain.  And when it starts to rain, it only trickles for a little bit at a time.  It's a lot like when it's snowing, you can hold out your tongue and only a few raindrops will nick it.

My roommates are also going down like the weather, everyone (expect me and Ben... I think?) Are getting sick!  Two days before I came to Italy I was fighting off a serious sinus infection and possibly the flu!  But luckily when I arrived to Italy I felt 100% better.  Aaron and Spencer I don't think will be going out with us tonight.

A lot of people went to Switzerland like I said in that last post this weekend and I'm actually really mad that I didn't go :( Since I was in 4th grade my lifetime goal has been to ski the Swiss Alps...

At the same time though that's ok cause we are going to Amsterdam this next weekend, Greece the weekend after that and then Switzerland after that, and even if I go ski alone, I'm doing it!!

Last night, I was walking back from the market that's close to my apartment.  I had two large bags in both hands that I was trucking across the street when I heard a little buzz, then BAM!  A black scooter, with it's front light out, came flying down the road and nailed me in the right arm.  This sent all the groceries in my left arm flying everywhere.  My coat is cut pretty bad, and I have shards of the side view mirror in my arm. This place is really scary to cross the street in there are no "right-always" and no lanes of traffic either, you can drive in zig zags, I was on a cross-walk, with the little white sign showing "you can walk now" when this happened also.  All the Italians tell you to just be aggressive and stick your hand out and tell them to stop... Yeah, that's not going to happen!  So I'm posting this video on here so everyone can have an idea of what Italy is like compared to the rest of Europe!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQWNGLv8w74

And since it's Friday that means we are all going out tonight in Rome, hopefully it's the only weekend we go out here for awhile I am really anxious to start traveling all of Europe... Tonight we are heading to an "Ice Bar".  But this time we won't have most of the roommates, I don't think any of them are starting to feel better at all... Fingers crossed I don't get sick.

Until Next time CIAO

Scusi, c'e un Bango?

Scusi, c'e un Bango? meaning, excuse me is there a toilet here?

It's almost been a week here in Rome and I think that this language is starting to come to me a little bit more, it helps having a background in Spanish for SOME of the Italian but other wise it's really confusing.  For example, when you are counting in Italian 2 in spanish is DOS, 2 in Italian is DUE (Doowe) 3 in Spanish Thres, 3 in Italian is Tre.  There are some similarities and some that can actually screw me up cause of it.
But almost forcing yourself to learn the language just to survive here is helping a little bit.  I really want to learn this language though, especially when we pissed our neighbor off really bad the other night and he was screaming at Aaron and I.  All I could do was laugh and then he made a first and put it in Aaron and I's face and thats when we puffed our chests and he soon realized what was going on and left.  That's how we do it in USA!
Today was also the 2nd day of classes, I thought for sure that this food and wine class was going to be fun and really interesting... It's not terrible but you know the books on tape and the guy?  He typically has a really soft almost annoying voice? Like he knows everything in the world, you can just picture a white headed man, wearing small rounded glasses, probably smoking a old school tobacco pipe, in a green sports jacket with a colored dress shirt under neath that is tainted with stains from whisky.... Well that guy is my teacher and he literally put me to sleep today in class... It sounds like once we start going to markets and such it will be a lot more fun, plus we have to make a wine journal so when I come back to the states I'll be a wine champ!

Everyone in this program is either from Penn or UA, there is one girl who goes to WSU and I'm of course the only person here who goes to BSU or even knows where or what Idaho is...
I'm excited for this weekend, I guess there's a huge event going on in Switzerland up in the Alps and a lot of people we know are going to it, I was planning on going there and skiing next weekend but I think if everyone is going now, splitting a hotel room will help out a lot for costs of renting all my ski gear :(
Today was also the gloomiest and coldest day since we've been here and I think it might rain on thursday or friday?? Hopefully I won't be here for either day.
But it's time to make some Italian flash cards and practice. vamos!

My 23rd Birthday in Rome, Italy

First off I want to thank all of my friends back in the state for the birthday wishes, my Facebook and twitter were blowing up. :)

But I think you guys will prb want to hear what happened here in Rome!

10:00 AM my roommates and I head down to some random park and into a very old building (it's a techno club on the weekends...) we were in orientation from 10:00 am until 6:30 pm... We were scheduled to be done AT 1:30 pm, needless to say that the whole thing is really unorganized and exhausting.
8:00 PM My roommates and I had everyone in our school over to hang out for a bit before we went out.

11:45 We all head out, jumping on late night busses, splitting cabs, etc.
After going from bar to bar, we finally stayed put long enough for me to shout, "Oye, absinthe" and there were 3 shots of absinthe in front of me... For anyone who has never had absinthe, watch the movie, Get him to the Greek.

-After we got back to our apartment, I went straight to bed, we were all exhausted from walking from place to place.  I'm not use to walking this much at all.

- The next morning we had to do something with school in the afternoon, so all of us went to a pizza place right next our apartment.  We started to talk to the owners and before we knew it, became really good friends with them.  They helped us with our broken Italian, helping use the right word usage and helping us pronounce the right words.

So far Rome has treated me right.  I can't wait for what's ahead!

Firday Day in Rome

Where to start this day...

6:40 AM: I wake up to my dad blasting into my room, turning on the light and standing next to the door because he knows I would have just rolled over and gone right back to sleep.  

7:00 AM: Headed to the airport

7:15: found out that my flight to ATL (My first stop) was cancelled

7:50 AM: Arrive to the airport

   While at the airport I was able to get my flight moved from ATL to Chicago but I was going to have a 3 hour lay over... NBD

8:40 Am I board my flight from SLC to Chicago and start to fall asleep, right until we fire up our engines and then a second later shut down, the captain comes on the raido to say that they are going to pull off the runway and wait around 40 min for the weather to calm down.

12:15 PM: WE FINALLY TAKE OFF FOR CHICAGO

3:15 PM: Arrive in Chicago, my flight for Rome departs at 3:20...

I Start to sprint from my gate and randomly decide to make a turn down a hallway and ask a worker if she knows where the international airline is? She tells me the directions and all I could think was easy squeezey I got this, if you ever have been to the Chicago... It's pretty dang big, I had to sprint out of security, wait on a train, get on the train and then wait about 5-10 min to get to my gate, sprint to international security, I had to wait for some retards that have never flown before that had to re-go through security about 40 times cause they were setting the buzzer off.  After I got through security I was sprinting to my gate and got picked up by a dude in a cart and he drove me to my gate, I show up and they were holding the door for ME! haha i get on the plane and enjoyed a 9 hour flight with a girl next to me from Minnesota that has never left the states haha what a way to bust out!

I get to Rome at 8 am and after venting through customs and all I pop a squat at the baggage claim.... Have any of you been alone in europe and been the last person at the baggage claim and wait until the convair belt stops turning... and you're one bag short... pardon my french but the only thing I mustard out was FUCK!!

I've been here in Rome for almost 2 days and still wearing the same underwear that i arrived in, I have i think 2 shirts? and thats it for cloths, but who cares it's my 23rd Birthday and I'm in Rome.... time to do what the Romans do... whatever that means, but hopefully I will get my bags later tomorrow afternoon cause if I don't get my bags at all tomorrow I'm almost positive that I won't be seeing my cloths AT ALL!!

On the side note, I have 7 bad ass roommates and a run down bachelor pad, I'll have a video to explore it all later BUT! all you need to know we have a shower at our place that you can literally dump and shower!! The shower head is right about the toilet you are sitting on! 

3 of my roommates go to Univ. of Az

1 goes to Wesconsion

1 goes to school in Chicago

1 goes to Univ. of Tenn

I'll post pictures and stuff later but right now it's time to get ready for the night, shits going to get real!

PEACE

The Night Before Rome....

-Before I even start to try and attempt  at starting a Blog, I need to vent... REALLY AUBRUN!!! I was praying that Oregon would have just beat the living hell out of Auburn... That was not the way I was hoping the night would go.  But! The final night went great, had lots of fun with the family friends, and a few of my close friends as well that came out.  We all had a great time regardless the outcome of the game.
-It's weird that I left Boise last friday, and now I'm leaving Utah tomorrow morning bright and early at 6 am... this little time here in Utah has gone by so fast I haven't been able to catch up!  When my badass cousin and his wife come into town along w/ my best friend Brad ( I really hope you didn't break your shoulder at Basin this weekend... Although you were in Beast mode for finishing the day out! I would have crawled to the lodge and just...drank the pain away)  for the weekend,  you know it's going to be out of control!!
- It's weird that I am leaving tomorrow, I'm already home sick for Boise, I miss all my friends and can't stop thinking about scooting around all Spring!  Spring and summer are my most favorite times of the year in Boise, and not being able to rally and heckle the crap out of the LAX team this year really bust my balls!  BUT, I'm going to Rome so...NBD

- As I board that plane tomorrow I'm going to be leaving behind the new seasons of Jersey Shore, Tosh.0, Friday Night Lights, Big Bang Theory, etc (if any of you tell me what happens in any of these so help me god I will SOYF), but in reality I could care less.  I can't wait to start a new life in a new country, even though it's only a short amount of time, I really can't wait to travel Europe and get fat as hell!
-Well...I think thats all i have for tonight, I can't wait for tomorrow!!
Good Night and... I think it's... Buonanotte! (Smiley Face)