November 25th, 2012 - Milan, Week Thirteen!

We did some Christmas decorating yesterday, including putting up a tree, making sugar cookies, hanging mistletoe, and listening to excessive Christmas carols. Winter is coming!

November 21st, 2012 - Milan, Week Twelve!

Guys! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving!! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year, mostly because I like telling people that I think they're great, and also I like holidays that encourage me to eat a lot of pie.

This year is going to be a little different, though. Usually, around this time tomorrow, I would be at my aunt and uncle's house, gorging on way too much turkey and having a great time with my entire extended family. There would be football and my mom and I would have watched the Thanksgiving Day parade earlier that morning, and she probably would have made us all cinnamon rolls for breakfast. 

However, this time tomorrow, my schedule will have looked a little different. I still have class tomorrow, though I'm done at 3 o'clock so it isn't terrible! And then I will be coming home to make some biscuits and some apple pie, and later that night my roommates and friends will gather at our apartment where we plan to eat and be thankful together! So in honor of that, in honor of 'making things work,' and in honor of being grateful for the opportunities I've been given, here are the things I am so thankful for this year. 

1. My family. I know it's obvious, and I know #2 on this list (Heads up: It's going to be 'My Friends') is equally obvious, but I can't say it enough. My mother has emailed me every single day since I've been here. I think she missed one day, and it was because she got distracted when she opened up her email and ended up responding to work stuff. When I Skyped my brother earlier this week and asked him how he felt about One Direction, he responded by temporarily leaving the screen and returning with his hair slicked into a coiffeur that Harry Styles himself would have been extraordinarily proud of. My sister sent me a video the other day just proclaiming how much she missed me. My father lets me make fun of his beard when we FaceTime. I know it is the little things, but I am so grateful for such a loving, supportive family. 

2. My friends. Sometimes being abroad is lonely. Sometimes it's scary and frustrating, other days it's jump-up-and-down, never-want-to-come-home exciting. But no matter what kind of feelings I've had or experiences I've gone through or stupid, silly things I've wanted to share, there has always been an abundance of people willing to listen and laugh with me. Not everybody gets to say they have friends as dedicated and wonderful as mine. I'm so thankful! 

3. Globalization. Tomorrow, I'm going to get to eat mashed potatoes and turkey and apple strudel (pie isn't a real thing here, sorry) and stuffing. If I work hard enough, I think I can find a live stream of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Thanks to the extensive globalization of American traditions, I found some cookies shaped like little turkeys and pilgrim hats in the grocery store the other day. It's weird not being home for the holidays, but the dissolution of a lot of barriers that used to exist has made it so much easier to feel happy and healthy and excited about spending Thanksgiving in a foreign country. 

4. Being in Italy. I feel very fortunate to have my dreams come true. It sounds corny and silly and overdramatic, and let's be honest, I'm probably phrasing it melodramatically because I'm feeling sentimental, but I do feel extremely lucky to be living abroad. Despite the whining my roommates and I all do about the steep prices of Metro passes and the homework and the creepy guys who follow us around with umbrellas in the sunlight, spending three and a half months in Italy is the most ideal situation I can think of. I am grateful for all sorts of little things that Italy has given me: Amaretto gelato. A trip to Scotland. An appreciation for my own bathroom. Grocery stores within walking distance. A reliable transportation system. Italy has never looked so good!

5. Coming home. In 28 days, Mom and I will be boarding a plane to come home so that I can hug my friends and kiss my siblings and eat Chipotle and celebrate Christmas. I can't express my gratitude enough that I have a place to call home and that I have people I love to come home to. 

Have a fantastic Thanksgiving! Eat a lot and don't feel guilty about it. Give everyone you love a big hug and a kiss. Say nice things. Do something great! 

November 14th, 2012 - Milan, Week Eleven!

So, it's been a while since I've updated! Sorry bout that...time has been flying lately, and I keep forgetting to report on what I've been doing here! As of today, I have exactly five weeks left until I come home. Crazy, right? I can't believe it. 

Things have been going really well here! The news of today was a general strike that happened across Italy. Kids marched down the street next to my school, hundreds of kids, stopped outside our gates and threw eggs and fireworks at the school. They were extremely unhappy about the state of private vs. public education in Milan, and since they have every right to express that displeasure, we were forced to stay in the school and just wait it out. Luckily it passed after about 20 minutes, nothing violent happened, and it was a cool sight to see! 

The past few weeks have been a flurry of schoolwork/midterms, cooking, shopping, and wandering around the city. Anne and I went shopping near the Castello Sforzesco last week where we found the best amaretto gelato I've ever eaten. The weather has been changing, so it's been cooler and rainier here (my favorite weather). Other than that, I feel like I don't have a lot of exciting things to report! Milan definitely feels more like my home now. I adore this city and I am going to be heartbroken to leave. I can't imagine what I'm going to do without the city that has taught me so much over the past three months! 

It's not time to be sad yet, though. I still have so much time! So in the meantime, I think I'm going to go hunker down with a vat of pasta and watch a little TV with my roommates. 

Have a great day!

November 2nd, 2012 - Milan, Week Nine!

Hello!

Just wanted to give you a little update. This weekend is my 'fall break,' so we had Thursday off for All Saint's Day, and we resume school (and midterms) on Monday. 

For Halloween, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by some great friends and FANTASTIC food! We held a miniature aperitivo at our apartment and everyone contributed a dish. Some of my personal favorites: toasted pumpkin ravioli, grilled prosciutto and cheese sandwiches, and mac'n'cheese gnocchi. I'm picking up some great recipes here! After dinner, a couple of my roommates and I headed to one of the theatres here in Milan to see "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" because it was being shown in English! It was one of the best Halloween's I've had in a long time - probably because it consisted of two of my favorite things: food and musicals. 

"It's just a jump to the left!" 

The rest of the weekend has been delightfully calm. This morning I went out to the Duomo and toured the cathedral/climbed to the top so I could see the city from way up high. Yes, it took me exactly two months to be a 'true' tourist in my own city. It was worth it though! The view was fantastic. Tonight my roommates and I made homemade spaghetti and meatballs, and have been listening to Christmas music on repeat. (A little early? Never.) 

Yep, this is the city I get to live in!

The rest of my weekend will consist of studying (gross), shopping (thank the Lord! The credit cards have arrived!), and eating (as usual). Hope your weekend is great, too!

October 30th, 2012 - Milan, Week Nine!

Today I would like to do a compare and contrast post. I've been noticing a lot of similarities/differences in this country and I think it's time we discuss it. 

Compare/Contrast #1: Fun 

Things that are fun: being in a foreign country. Things that are not fun: being in a foreign country with no money (yeah, I'm looking at you, Barcelona). This leads us to Compare/Contrast #1.1: The Post Office. In the United States, my packages get delivered, and that's that. In Milan, my packages, which contain my brand spankin' new credit cards, gloves for the cold winter months, and a nice pair of headphones so I can listen to Nitty in peace, 'clear customs' on a Friday, 'clear customs' again on Monday, and then don't get delivered at all. (It's Tuesday and even though the USPS site says it was delivered, I have yet to see evidence of that. You win, Milan. You win.) 

Compare/Contrast #2: Lectures

Milan gets approximately a thousand points in my book for the lecture I got to attend tonight. I was fortunate enough to be invited by my roommates to a lecture hosted by Ezio Guaitamacchi, who sat us down in a circle on the floor and attempted to "recreate Woodstock." This included singing Bob Dylan songs while he played his acoustic guitar and told us about his close personal relationship with Country Joe from Country Joe and the Fish. The last lecture I attended at UNL was about water security, which, while it was informative and obviously a very important topic, didn't strike quite the same chord as hearing someone speak who had seen Bob Dylan live in concert 55 times. 

Compare/Contrast #3: Media

Something I've been noticing here in Milan: There are virtually no outlets for media out on the streets. Restaurants do not have TVs in every corner where you can watch the news or a sports game or some quippy pop culture talk show while you eat. Even down in the Metro and other public transportation terminals, the screens that are present are mainly to advertise dining services on the trams or highlight the fact that you can buy a 49 euro round trip ticket to Hungary (Good deal!) While sometimes this makes me feel pretty isolated in the city, it is also kind of nice. Rarely do I feel ashamed of my not-quite-as-fashion-saavy taste in clothes (sweater weather, whaddup!) or concerned with what day-to-day decisions celebrities are making. 

Compare/Contrast #4: Cafeteria Food

I can honestly say that I have been very lucky with dorm food during my college career. Neihardt had a good selection and rarely did I feel like I wasn't getting my money's worth because all of the food was cold, slimy, or inedible. However, Neihardt's cafeteria food has been sufficiently shown up here in Italy. How is it possible that even the food mass produced for Italian college kids is still kind of a delicacy? Every day I get to eat some fancy pasta dish, or a beautifully roasted chicken, or, as was the case tonight, a great plate of steak fries that were perfectly seasoned and didn't even need ketchup. I am grateful for great food. 

Compare/Contrast #5: Wanderlust

I'm going to be honest. After Barcelona, I didn't quite feel like myself. For one thing, I was constantly paranoid about being mugged or harassed or even approached on the street. For another, I didn't feel the same pang of wanderlust that I have felt basically every day since I knew what wanderlust was. I didn't have the same desire to travel endlessly; I just wanted to be safe and tucked into my bed here in Milan, eating gigantic bowls of pasta where no toothless men could steal my belongings. But today, something changed. I was walking down the street on the way to school when all of a sudden, I got a wave of restlessness and started wishing that I were back in Scotland. That got my mind wandering and I started thinking how cool it would be if I were in London today, just roaming around. And then I started wondering if it were possible to teach foreign languages in London, and thinking I should look into that. I guess the point of this is that it was just really nice to feel a familiar breeze of listlessness. Made me feel a little bit more like myself (and also made me really want to get over to London.)

Milan is doing great things today! Hope you are too :)

October 23rd, 2012 - Milan, Week Eight!

Hello!!

Just wanted to give you a quick mid-week update. Not too much has been happening here out of the ordinary, but here's a couple of things I've been excited for!

1. I had my first midterm this week and it went surprisingly well - I'm really pleased that I was so well-prepared, and that I have one less test to worry about for when midterm week rolls around in early November!

2. ABSENTEE VOTING. I finally got my ballot together, found the consulate, found the right envelope/address/postage, and got to cast my vote. I am so excited to have officially voted in my first presidential election!

3. National Novel Writing Month starts November 1st! I am so excited to get started. I found an adorable American-style coffeeshop right next to school this weekend, so I hunkered down and got some character sketches going and I'm feeling prepared and motivated, so that's great. 

4. My new credit cards are on the way! Thank goodness for that - plus, that means there's shopping on the horizon, which is great news.

5. The food here just keeps getting better and better. This weekend has been a cornucopia of truffles, stews, and fresh fruit - all of the best things in the world!

Hope everyone's having a great week!

October 18th, 2012 - Milan, Week Seven!

You Can't Know What You Want Until You Know You Don't 

Know What You Want

This popped up on my newsfeed two days ago (on my father's 50th birthday, by the way! Happy birthday, Daddy!) and it was pretty much the culmination of every thought, fear, and question I've had over the last month. So thanks, Thought Catalog, for hitting the nail on the head once again!

"I hope your biggest revelation this year is that you don’t really know what you want.

We grow up thinking we know what we want, but we’re wrong. We all start with the wrong idea about it. Your whole life, society has told you what you want. Others know what they want you to want. Your family, your religious institutions, your politicians and your retailers know exactly what they want you to want. You’ll get everyone’s idea but your own, but these foreign ideas will accumulate, and in the absence of your own they get you chasing things.

And you’re not born knowing what you want, either. People assume they ought to know automatically what they want, which tends to be whatever the convention it is in your culture. For some that means marrying off to “a good provider,” for others it means achieving a senior managment position, for others it means a Personal Relationship With Jesus.

Then we become adults and, if we’re lucky, slowly learn that nobody can teach you what you want. You stumble upon it. But only if you do a lot of stumbling. Your parents didn’t know what you want, they figured it’s the same as what they wanted. The only ideas they can give you of what you ought to want are the wants they can identify with. Advertisers don’t know what you want, they fish for it. The only idea they can give you is what they hope you want, which is to buy something from them.

Your own idea appears only when you have the actual experience of what you want. You can’t know until you taste it. We all start with a false idea of what we want in life, inherited from others during childhood, before we gain any perspective about life. The false idea has to be given up and the real desires have to be discovered. They may make others uncomfortable. They may make you uncomfortable at first, because you inherited your comfort zone from others.

You will either recognize this and overcome it, or you will always pursue what other people want you to want, convinced it’s what you want.

I am convinced that how happy a person becomes in life depends on how much time they spend learning what they want. Just to know what makes you glow inside is the work of a lifetime. Your real, heartfelt wants accumulate over the years, as you stumble into new experiences that electrify you.

How quickly that happens depends on how often you do what you’re not used to doing. That means travel hastens it, and habits stifle it. Doing scary and unfamiliar things hastens it, doing comfortable things stifles it. You can’t know what you want until you taste it. Do more tasting.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking what you want is just one thing. Each of our personalities is so intricate that we will resonate with thousands of categories of experiences, from the kind of clothes you feel best in, to the city you want to live in, to the person you want to grow old with, to the way you take your coffee. You may not know these preferences of yours yet, even if you assume you’ve known for thirty years. 

Your wants are always going to be more articulate than the ones you inherit from society. They are more specific. They make something tingle in your consciousness in a way that nobody else will understand. That’s why you can’t listen to anyone else when it comes to what you want in life.

I’m slowly learning what I want, and I only began to learn, really learn, once I discovered that I don’t already know what I want — that the things I’ve been chasing all this time have been other people’s wants.

A few things I know I want, even if nobody else wants me to want them:

I want more driving with the windows down and the radio off

I want fewer things from the dollar store in my house

I want more one-on-one coffees and lunches with friends

I want more walking

I want more savoring and less chugging

I want more metal possessions and fewer plastic ones

I want more plants

I want to wear clothes that make me want to stand up straighter

I want more time with a book in my hand and less time with a mouse in my hand

I want more talking and less thinking

I want less drink-nursing and more dancing

I want more greens and fewer starches

I want people to collect things I create

I want color co-ordination

I want things well-oiled and tuned up

I want baths with ambient music playing in the next room

I want to meet people with unconventional attitudes towards sex

I want to be a regular, with a usual, somewhere

I want to mingle with strangers, everywhere

I want to surprise people who know me

I want to change plans without fretting about it

I want to read one book at a time, instead of eight like I do now

I want to change the way you think about the important things

What do you want? Tell me, but don’t answer too quickly. " 

October 17th, 2012 - Milan, Week Seven!

Things have calmed down quite sufficiently since I've been home, I'm happy to say! I've gotten most of my belongings replaced or on their way to being replaced, so apart from losing a bit of spending money, I'm on the road to recovery! It's funny that most of the recuperating has been mental - I've spent the last few days feeling a little paranoid and a little on edge every time I leave the house, but slowly it's getting easier. 

The best part of having to take all these little adventures to get my ID and Metro cards replaced has been the ridiculous stories I've acquired. For example: yesterday I went to the Metro information desk to get my replacement card and after greeting the man at the counter with a simple "Ciao," he started speaking to me in French. Though I was a little taken aback, I figured I might as well give it a shot since I could understand most of what he was saying, so we spoke in rudimentary French for much of the exchange. However, as soon as he bent over to fill in some of the paperwork that I hadn't understood, I noticed he was writing my ethnicity down as 'Canadian.' I promptly informed him that I was NOT Canadian and he laughed a little before switching to English and saying, "Oh, I'm sorry! I thought you were Canadian, that's why I was speaking to you in French!" I'm not sure which part of my "Ciao" made him think I was from the Great White North, but whatever, it was funny and it made the whole experience of having to stand in line to replace a Metro card that much more enjoyable. 

So yeah, apart from being mistaken for a Canadian, things have been quiet and calm here! Most of my roommates will be in town this weekend so we're all going to do some shopping and some eating and probably a lot of TV-watching. I have my first midterm next week, so I'll hopefully motivate myself enough to study for that. And I think I have a couple of Skype sessions lined up, which is wonderful! All of my friends from home have been so supportive during this whole pickpocketing disaster, and for that I am so grateful. 

Hope everyone is having a great week! 

October 15th, 2012 - Barcelona, Spain

Where to even begin with this city? 

Let me start by saying that after everything that happened on this trip, I still came away having had a great day and a half there, thankful for wonderful friends (new and old), delicious food, and a good old-fashioned reminder that experience is the best teacher. 

My roommates Anne and Rachael and I arrived in Barcelona at 9:30 or so on Thursday night. The city was beautiful, the airport smelled like coconut, everything was shiny - it seemed like a dream. However, not five minutes after we stepped out of the bus and entered the Metro, we were hit with paint from behind, followed by a toothless man who offered us tissues, coaxed into setting our stuff down to clean ourselves up and then surrounded by four men who eventually made off with my wallet - yep, some toothless Barcelonian man made off with not just my cash, but my credit/debit cards, Metro card, IDs, iPod, and headphones. (Thank goodness those guys left me my passport - they had easy access to it, but maybe they felt bad enough that they thought they'd let me partially off the hook.)

Needless to say, the first night was a little rough. And the first half of the next day. But once we got settled, we met up with my friend Lee (who goes to school with me at home) and she managed to snap us out of our funk and get our spirits up! We turned the whole trip around by having beer and burgers in an Irish pub that night, and then we headed in early for a good night's sleep before hitting up all the touristy things Barcelona had to offer on Saturday. That included walking two+ hours either way to one of the most stunning parks I've ever visited, seeing the beautiful Santa Maria del Mar cathedral, and then settling in for some of the best food I've had since coming to Europe. Dinner included paella with fresh crawfish, mussels, and crab, followed by chocolate pastries, caramel-filled cookies, and an eventual trip to a nearby gelato stand where I had Kinder flavored gelato in a chocolate covered cone. We topped all that off with some more shopping, pictures, and laughing, which made for a really great trip. 

Lee and me - watching soccer in an American bar, eating burgers. 

Seafood paella!

Me and Rachael with our desserts! 

God bless you, Starbucks. 

Food markets - dried fruit

Chocolate!!

Barcelona from above

I would like to say a quick "Thank God" for the following things: 

1. My fantastic roommates, who not only kept me from bursting into tears in the middle of the subway station, but also for helping me with money and keeping me calm until things could get sorted out.

2. My mother, who didn't even yell that much when I told her what happened. And who spent twenty minutes chatting the Capital One guy online so we could get my cards cancelled ASAP. 

3. Lee, who helped turn this entire weekend around. 

4. The nice police officers in Barcelona who did the best they could with my zero-Spanish knowledge and their limited English. 

5. Milan. Never had the city felt so warm and welcoming - even the men who continuously try to sell me umbrellas on the street when I'm clearly already holding one seemed less terrifying and more familiar. Plus, the rainy season has officially started which means it's the perfect shade of grey and drizzly - AKA sweater weather, my favorite weather.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

October 10th, 2012 - Milan, Week Six!

Guys, I cut my hair today! It is so surprising to me what Italians offer for free and what they charge a fortune for. Why is it that I can get my hair cut and dyed at a salon sponsored by London Fashion Week for free, but I have to pay upwards of 7 euros for 100 grams of honey (roughly 1/3 of a cup)? Nevertheless, I can't complain because I am so happy to have something new and exciting! Besides a new hairdo, I'm also getting ready to leave for Barcelona this weekend with Rachael and Anne. We'll be meeting up with my friend Lee, who goes to UNL with me but is studying in Spain this semester. I am so excited to see a familiar face! I'll update you as soon as I get back. For now, have a great week!

October 6th, 2012 - Milan, Week Five!

Just wanted to do a quick post to let you know what I've been up to! It has been a very quiet weekend so far - my roommates have all gone away to Oktoberfest in Munich, so I have the whole apartment to myself. It's kind of a wonderful feeling! As much as I love all of the girls I'm living with, privacy and quiet is hard to come by, so it's nice to have a little break. 

So, last night I got to Skype my family a little bit before hunkering down with a bottle of white wine and the first season of Friday Night Lights. It was perfectly lovely! Today, however, will be a little bit more adventurous - after I finish the boring rituals of my morning (working out, getting dressed, eating breakfast), I'll be heading down to the market to pick up some fresh fruits and veggies, and then hopefully tracking down a giant second-hand bookstore that is supposedly somewhere in the nearby vicinity. Later I'd also like to go exploring and find the California Bakery, which apparently has the best American-style apple pie in the city! Between all of that, I've got some homework to finish up and some Skyping to do and some general laziness to enjoy. 

To top it off, it's the perfect fall day here in Milan - a little breezy, a little overcast, a little chilly. It's looking like a very good day. 

Hope everyone had a good week!

October 2nd, 2012 - Milan, Week Five!

It has officially been one month since I've moved to Milan. How crazy that time has flown this fast! I am loving every second that I get to spend here, and I am so grateful that I've gotten to know such wonderful roommates and that my classes are turning out to be extremely rewarding! (The accidental economics class that I signed up for is going to be terribly difficult but I think it'll probably be my favorite. Who would've thought!)

I just wanted to do a quick list of some things I've learned since I've been here - just a little reminder of what's been good this month :)

1. Patience is a virtue. This is ESPECIALLY true here in Milan. Italians have zero ideas about time efficiency, especially when it comes to bureaucratic paperwork. I waited three and half weeks for a Metro pass that was supposed to take 10 days. My appointment to get my residency permit has been rescheduled three separate times. Yesterday I accidentally waited in the wrong line for a solid forty-five minutes (granted, that was partially my own fault, but the two and a half hour lunch breaks are still really getting me). Yet, while all of this is oftentimes irritating when it's happening, it has helped me realize just how precious my time is, and how easy it is to squander it on silly things. That makes all of my free time even more appreciated!

2. The people you live with can make or break your experience - I was fortunate enough to be placed in an apartment with five other wonderful girls, as well as a roomful of great people just two floors down. This has made my travels, my everyday struggles, and my long evenings that much more entertaining. I love them all dearly!

3. Before I left, a lot of people really encouraged me to "find myself" and "go crazy" because this was my time to do whatever I want before I "settle down." What I've found is that being abroad isn't the time to go wild - it's the time to see how the person I've carefully cultivated over the last 20 years fits into the greater world system. By the same token, when you do what you want, when you take the adventures you suddenly decide you want to take, all while still trying to keep the essence of who you are, the world doesn't fall apart. 

4. There is a difference between being independent and being alone. There is also a difference between being comfortably alone and being lonely. Travel really teaches you that lesson quickly. 

5. Distance does not affect the relationships with which you were most comfortable upon leaving. I am so blessed to have such caring friends and family who have taken the time out of their schedules to email me, write me messages, send me selfies, and read about my travels. I am too grateful for words! 

September 29th, 2012 - Edinburgh, Alnmouth & Alnwick, Scotland

This weekend I was lucky enough to visit Edinburgh, Scotland! I took a little trip all on my own and, though it was initially terrifying, it was also liberating and exciting and a beautiful city to visit. 

The first night I got there, I checked into my hostel and proudly meandered around the city for awhile until I got hungry and settled into an authentic Scottish pub for a deliciously non-Italian dinner - a burger and fries. I am not in the least bit sorry. It was scrumptious. I then topped it off with a large cafe mocha from Starbucks, and hung around to hear a beautiful Scottish man play his guitar on the street corner for a while. All in all, a wonderful night!

My hostel, inside and out!

The next morning, I woke up bright and early to catch my train from Edinburgh to the tiny town of Alnmouth, Scotland (AKA The Middle of Nowhere). From Alnmouth, I trekked up a small mountain to the bus stop, where I had to wait three quarters of an hour before my bus would arrive to take me to Alnwick, where I was planning to visit the castle that Harry Potter was filmed in. This forty-five minutes would lead to an inordinate amount of selfies on my camera, as well as some really judgmental looks from the gardener across the street. The fact that there are that many selfies on my camera is something I'm actually a little bit sorry for. 

When the bus did finally arrive, it brought me right where I needed to go, and I spent a fantastic few hours in the early afternoon wandering around the beautiful castle grounds and exploring the state rooms before having a quaint little picnic surrounded by approximately 100 school children with adorable Scottish accents. However, after I hiked back down to the town of Alnwick, it began to downpour rain within about twenty minutes. 

Not having a lot of options, I decided to go back to Alnmouth and hopefully catch a train back to Edinburgh, where I knew there was an abundance of things to do. Alnmouth, of course, had beautiful weather despite being a mere 4 miles away from the castle. The man at the ticket booth in the train station, however, was not sympathetic to my plight and casually informed me that I couldn't just hop on the next train to Edinburgh because I had a "reserved seat" on the 7:11 train, and would just have to wait another five and a half hours for it to arrive. He did, however, inform me that I could hike down to the town of Alnmouth itself. Alnmouth was approximately a mile and a half away, and though the walk was beautiful, the 'town' revealed itself to be one strip about two city blocks long of tearooms and B&Bs. I eventually found a tiny little cafe called The Dandelion, where I could use the spotty WiFi, drink espresso, listen to the rain that eventually hit the town, and read my new copy of J.K. Rowling's "The Casual Vacancy," which I picked up in town earlier that day. All in all, the day had its ups and downs, filled with excitement over castles, dismay over the sudden rainy weather, and a deep contentment as I sat and read in a baby cafe in the middle of nowhere. It was wonderful!

This morning, I knew my flight left at 12:45 so I didn't have much time, but I did enough room in the agenda to grab a muffin for breakfast, hike around Edinburgh for a while and drink a quick cup of coffee with a friend I met at the hostel. It was the perfect way to end the trip!

Now, I'm home, contentedly gorging on pasta and happy to have reliable internet with which to talk to my friends from home. Scotland will one day be merely a gorgeous memory of a weekend, but it will always be one of the best places I've visited!

September 24th, 2012 - Lugano, Switzerland

Too much to report! 

This weekend was a crazy flurry of friends, games, laughing and traveling. On Friday night, I spent a beautiful evening on the terrace reading The Catcher in the Rye and drinking red wine. And it was a very good thing that I did, because the rest of the weekend was pretty hectic! Saturday my roommates and I spent the afternoon at the market, where we bought fruit and bread and cheese for our impending trip to Switzerland. Later that night we got dressed up and went to the 'oldest pub in Milan' called "Magenta." We had such a great time talking, laughing, and eating excessively before crashing into bed for a short, albeit wonderful, night's sleep. 

The next day we all woke up and scrambled to make our train into Switzerland! We spent the day in Lugano, a beautiful little town about an hour north of Milano, where we picnicked by the lake, took a boat ride across and then hiked the hour and a half back, and finally rewarded ourselves with gelato. And maybe a couple of bars of Swiss chocolate to take back for later. And maybe some fresh bread later that night. What can I say, my roommates and I know how to eat.

Swiss life is a pretty good life.

Lugano, Switzerland

Me and Rachael!

Other highlights of the weekend included: Finding a place to run. Getting to pet a dog. Starting classes today (Italian Cinema - I think I'll be dropping it and replacing it with a history class instead. Something about gangster films with Italian subtitles just doesn't appeal to me.) Eating a lot of chocolate. Getting ready for Scotland this weekend!

Hope everyone is having a great week!