#udwinter

One of our last days in Thailand was spent at the Baan Chang Elephant Sanctuary. Here we learned about how these elephants were rescued, as well as their lifestyles and how they are cared for. Then we got to feed them, ride them, and wash them. It was such a cool excursion that none of us had ever done before.

This weekend unfortunately was my last weekend abroad and we traveled to Rome! On Friday morning the whole group went on a guided tour of Florence. When I went last weekend we didn't get to see many historical sites, but this tour gave us so much interesting information about the city and it's past. After the tour, my friends and I took a train to Rome. We took a taxi to our hotel and the driver was NUTS. I thought NYC was crazy, but no. While we were in the cab I felt like I was in a video game because of this driver! The rest of the night consisted of dinner and drinks, with which you can't go wrong.

Saturday was action packed of sight seeing. They say you can't see Rome in a day, but we tried our hardest. We took another bus tour, like we did in Paris. We first stopped at Vatican City, where we saw St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum, which held the Sistine Chapel. Everything was beyond beautiful, but the Sistine Chapel was unlike I anything I have ever seen before. It was breathtaking. I cried a little when I got inside because of the sole beauty of it. It's unreal how Michelangelo was able to paint the entire thing himself, without any technology or other forms machinery. It is mind boggling.

Our next stop was the Trevi Fountain. I of course made a wish, throwing a coin with my right hand over my left shoulder, which is supposedly how you are meant to do it. 

After we stopped for a snack; one of the girl's dads made a suggestion to eat mozzarella carrozza. It is basically fried mozzarella in a triangular shape. I love mozzarella in any way, shape, or form, so I knew I would love it. We then attempted to see the Colosseum but our bus route was ending, so we went back to our hotel and saved the Colosseum for Sunday.

We woke up early the next morning to fit in as much sightseeing as possible. Like I said, we headed for the Colosseum. We took a guided tour and it was so worth it. While we were inside on the top level, one of the girls on our tour from Britain pointed out that across the way was MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY. We ran, and yup, it was him. I had never seen a celebrity before and I was beyond star struck. He was with his wife and kids and one body guard. I regret not saying anything to him but I didn't want to disrupt his family trip. This was definitely the high point of the weekend and even with all of the history we learned, nothing else beat seeing an A-list star in the Roman Colosseum.

That pretty much concluded our weekend in Rome. Our last week is packed with activities, including a cooking class, authentic dessert tasting, finishing a research project, and studying for my final. I'm sad to be leaving so soon!

The other day we went up to a nearby mountain, called Doi Suthep Poi National Park. There we were able to walk around and see some temples, lots of flowers and plants, and got a tour of a jade factory. It was very cool to see how the northern part of Thailand has a different lifestyle than Bangkok, where we began our journey through Thailand. That same night, we went to the famous Sunday Night Bazaar--streets filled with shopping and lots of delicious street food!

And so marks the halfway point of my study abroad trip. Tomorrow we all leave Venice and move on to Siena. We have about a five hour bus ride there in the morning, and I can honestly say I'm looking forward to it solely because I can sleep the entire ride. I also managed to sync my mom's Kindle account to my iPhone and Macbook, so that's a plus!

These past two weeks have been quite the roller coaster. I have about four readers of this blog, but hey, I might as well share it all. To begin, we didn't have any ice breakers or anything before the trip, so I barely knew any of these girls when we arrived at the airport on New Year's Day. Then we arrived, deprived of sleep, to the smallest hotel room I've ever seen (keep in mind this is my first time out of the States.) Then I was given the course curriculums and syllabi for the classes I'm taking; it was so much more than I expected - four presentations, two research projects, four journal entries (which I didn't mind), a midterm, and a final. Obviously I knew that I was earning six credits, but I was under the impression that abroad classes are generally easier. Anyway, then we tried to explore the city. Turns out that since it's off season here in Venice, many shops and stores close extremely early (before 8 or 9pm) and there is absolutely no night life. We didn't find one bar to go to - this wasn't the most important thing on my agenda, but the drinking age in Europe is 18 and I'm a whopping 20. Then, on top of all of that, we had a bed bug scare at our hotel. All of a sudden we were on the phone with the director of Global Studies, and then we were switching hotels. It was a lot to handle in a short week abroad. 

After two weeks of being here, I must say I am ready to leave. I don't want anyone to think I am complaining or ungrateful for my time here, but when you tell anyone in Venice that you are staying here for two weeks, most of them question you or laugh at you. Venice seems to be a place you bring your significant other in the summer for no more than a weekend. However, it was nice to get to know the city, and I can now say I know my way around an Italian city.

I had to do a research project in which we asked locals about their opinions on Italian dialects, and it was interesting to hear what people had to say. All of the Venetians we spoke to loved the Venetian dialect (big shocker there) and they all spoke negatively of the southern Sicilian accent. Our subjects stated that these people seem uneducated and unfriendly based on their accents. I compared these findings to the people of the south in America; most people tend to find those with southern accents uneducated and negative overall. I also learned that the Florentine dialect is the most closely related to Standard Italian; this is because Florence is centrally located and it is where Italian language originated. 

In these past two weeks I got to see more beautiful sites and eat more delicious food than I have in my measly 20 years combined. So far this trip has been quite the ride and I'm just continuing to ride it out. Once we get settled in Siena tomorrow, eight of us are taking a train over to Florence! We are staying in a bed and breakfast and I'm thrilled to take on a new city. 

One week and one day down out of the 5 week session of classes. 

I am first taking an online class, Law of Inn Keeping, and online classes are challenging because you have to be motivated to do all of the work. I find it really interesting, but we go through 3-4 chapters per week, so I am constantly reading and doing the assignments/ quizzes on sakai. 

If that wasn't enough, I am also taking a beginner Jazz class, DANC204. It's actually really awesome. The instructor is so sweet and understands some people may not have had any dance experience. We have 4 performance exams and the first one was yesterday! I think it went really well!