HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

First and foremost, I would like to say happy birthday to my very amazing mother. Without her, I would not be where I am today, physically and emotionally. She has been such an important influence in my life and her unconditional love and support keep me striving for bigger and better things in my life. I always want to make her proud, because her opinion counts the most. I LOVE YOU MOM!

In honor of my mom's birthday, I'm going to the Perugia CHOCOLATE festival this weekend! We leave within the hour, and will be there till Sunday.

I know I haven't posted any blogs in literally forever, and this week I started writing on but never posted it, so I figured I'd post what I have now, and add more later-just so you guys have something to read. Here ya go:

Ah, we just finished finals and everything for Italian 4. I am now officially in Italian 5!!! But basically, that’s the reason why I haven’t blogged in so long. That also combined with the fact that we still didn’t have internet for a long time (which we finally do now, but stopped working this morning…uh oh).


Since the last time I’ve written, A LOT has happened. First of all, we finally made it to Amsterdam! We went this past weekend and it was amazing. The town itself was breathtaking. I loved all of the buildings and architecture. I felt like I was in the movie Anastasia or something (even though I know that’s Russia, I couldn’t help but sing songs from Anastasia all weekend). We flew into a town about two hours away from Amsterdam and took a bus in, so we also got to see the country-side, which was adorable. It almost reminded me of the East Coast or something, the way the trees were all lined up. And there were tons of old windmills everywhere. Amsterdam was such a nice change from Italy. Three days was definitely not enough time to spend there. I could seriously consider moving there for a good amount of time. I even already know how to say hair in Dutch! “Huur”. Being in Amsterdam and another country in general made me realize how close-minded Italy can be sometimes. I loved just going to the grocery store and being able to get Chinese food, and HUMMUS! For dinner we got all you can eat sushi, and the other night we got Indian food. I just loved having options for dinner, and how open Amsterdam was to other cultures and other foods in general. In the few days there I saw more diversity than I’ve seen in my entire time in Italy. Though I love Italy, it was really nice to explore another country, especially one that was so different. It made me really excited for all the weekend trips coming up, and all the different countries and cultures that I’ll get to see.

Last week we also went on a school trip to Dievole winery! It was so amazing, and even though it was slightly raining, I had a lot of fun.



........and that's where my blogging stopped. Haha. I'll add more later, I swear!
Off to Perugia!
I LOVE YOU MOM!