our lovely hostel and palermo and at the top is the volcano water!
mudbaths!
mudbaths!
ash in the water to the left!!
our B&B in Lipari!
the Island of Lipari!
Sunset in Agrigento!
my new boyfriend and the Turkish steps!
Lots of ruins!
outside the Duomo in Cefalu!
the views from the Cefalu b&b
beach in Cefalu
sending messages home!
the duomo in Cefalu
the view from our terrace
The Alps from the plane!
Anne Frank house ticket!
Heineken Factory!
Coffee shop in Amsterdam where Ocean's 12 was filmed!
inside our b&b in Cefalu!
another one of the views from our terrace!
Ciao ciao! Or should I say…hallo! My spring break was very international and very amazing! It all started Thursday the 11th in which Sarah, Kelly, their roommate Allison, Becky and I all left for Amsterdam! Inter-European travel is pretty cheap, but that means the airline companies nickel and dime you on everything else. So they don’t give you water or a drink when you get on, and one carry-on means ONE CARRY-ON. Not one carry-on plus a purse, or a shopping bag, or even a tiny bag that holds your passport and ticket! My spring break began that Thursday night and I did not get back until Monday the 22nd, aka I had to pack for 11 days worth of travel with Granddaddy’s green tiny carry-on! I think I put that thing through more in those 11 days than it had gone through its entire life! So we went to Amsterdam in the evening and the flight was at that weird transition from evening to night, so my side of the plane showed an almost pitch black sky but you could see the Alps poking out above the clouds—an amazing view! Meanwhile the other side of the plane had an entire pink sky in which the sun was still setting—crazy! So we landed in Amsterdam and are walking to leave the airport and we ran into a STARBUCKS! Are my eyes deceiving me? Is this real life? Somebody pinch me or get me a grande skinny vanilla latte! Needless to say we were all extremely excited…and to get it in to-go cups! Those are unheard of in Italia! I sat there staring at my drink and couldn’t help but wonder if the cups got bigger or if I am just used to the tiny cappuccino cups they serve here, guess I will never know! We took the train to downtown where our hostel, the Flying Pig, was located. We stayed in a 20-person mixed dorm in the basement for 5 nights!!! Guess it’s all part of the experience, right? So we locked up our bags and walked around downtown and the city is actually REALLY CUTE. All of the buildings are really tall and skinny and lean slightly to the side and sometimes forward. The city is filled with canals as well, kind of like Venice which unfortunately gave some of the parts the “Venetian smell.” Also, everybody rides bikes it is so cute! So we walked around and took it easy the first night since we new we had a long week ahead of us. We couldn’t help our curiosity and took a stroll through the infamous Red Light District—once again, all apart of the experience! Being abroad has made me so interested in different cultures and I can’t help but wonder why this one place legalizes something like prostitution when it is illegal everywhere else. The Red Light District actually isn’t really sketchy, it is just weird. It was kind of like “window shopping” for the lonely (for lack of a better word). They girls just stand there talking on their phones in skimpy clothes and when guys walk by the tap on the windows and try to lure them in. Well at least now I can say that I saw it. On Friday we walked around, went to the I Amsterdam sign which was really cool and saw the Van Gogh and Rijks Museum of Art, which we had learned about in our history of interior design class—both were very cool! There were always a million different things going on everywhere we went—musicians playing in the streets, different acts on every corner, lots of shopping, etc. Obviously Holland and Amsterdam are famous for their tulips—I wanted to get some bulbs for Mom and Mamalynne to keep until I got back but the people said they wouldn’t make itL It was our goal for the trip to go out and see the windmills and tulips—supposed to be an amazing experience and it is so close by, but they weren’t in bloom yetL On Saturday we explored the city a little bit more and then went and got a tour of the Heineken Factory which was actually really cool to see! Later that night we saw Alice In Wonderland—movies in English! We had to take advantage. We also went to the Rembrandt Square which is a really busy part of the city which was really fun. We also hung out in our hostel a lot—there were lots of things to do there and lots of people staying since it was Spring Break. Hung out with some Aussies and then some Greeks and it was fun exchanging stories. There is an outside part with 2 decks and some guys upstairs heard us talking about San Francisco and yelled that they were from the Bay Area too! We went up to talk to them and the guy is telling us how he is from the city but goes to NYU. This other guy chimes in and is like “no way, you go to NYU!! That’s crazy, I go to Columbia, this guy goes to Harvard, that girl in there is from Princeton and this guy over here is from Yale!” We are waiting for the inevitable, and then it happens. “So where do you guys go?” …………………… “Umm…Chico State??” “Oh that’s funny I’ve never heard of it…is it a liberal arts school or something?” “Yes…yes it is…and very hard to get into…probably why you haven’t heard of it….;) On Sunday we spent the day shopping for postcards, souvenirs, etc. On Monday we went to the Anne Frank House—such a surreal experience walking through the actual place where she and her family hid for 2 years…couldn’t really get over it. It’s all perfectly preserved as well. Tuesday morning we set off for Sicilia with a plane ride to Milan then from there to Palermo! Our layover at Milan was supposed to be for 7 hours…thank God we were able to get on an earlier flight!! We only had to wait for like 2 hours but this meant me talking in my best Italian to a 60 or 70 year old Sicilian who speaks…well Sicilian! 50% of Italians speak a dialect that is only intelligible to their region…and Sicilian is one of the bigger ones that most Italians can barely understand! To the foreign ear it just sounds like Italian, to me it just sounded like Italian that I couldn’t understand! But with hand gestures (lots of hand gestures) and drawings, plus a little bit of regular Italian between the 2 of us we had a pretty nice conversation. He told me where I should go, I told him everywhere I was going to go was planned out, he told me other places I should go, etc. He was very sweet. Then on the plane ride he tells the entire plane about the “American girls” sitting in the front who are spending the week in Sicily for the first time. Round of applause everyone! (Literally!) We land in Palermo and rent a car since Sicilian transportation is completely scattered and unreliable. Thankfully we were able to get an automatic, but that did not making driving in Sicily any easier! I did not know driving could get crazier than in Torino, but alas it did! Poor Allison had to drive and I did not envy her! What to say about Palermo…think of it as the east Oakland or Emoryville of Sicily—aka somewhere you don’t want to be! After a couple of stressful hours of trying to find our hostel (think wrong way down one way streets, driving through a nighttime open market, and many honks!) we found our hostel! It was…interesting? Part of the experience…right? It was 10 euro a night is what it was! We walked into an apartment building that was all open and the paint was peeling off the walls, there was laundry and trash everywhere, etc. Once we got in it was a little better and hey we were only staying there for a night so all we really wanted to do was sleep which is what we did! We woke up early in the morning to head to Milazzo which would then get us a ferry to Lipari. We were driving around looking for the port, and we finally find it and run to the ticket counter in which the guy tells us the fairy left 10 minutes before and they weren’t doing another one until the next day! We started freaking out but then he said there was another company nearby that had ferries to Lipari as well. We race to the counter and the guy gives us the tickets and tells us to run—he called the ferry and told them to turn around to come get us! We get to the island and take a cab to our B&B—surely a step up from our 20-person room in Amsterdam and our sketch ball place in Palermo!! It was a cute huge apartment area with run by this little old lady who did not speak a word of English! Once we got there we met up with our other friends Micki and Katherine who were travelling around Sicily for all of Spring Break with Micki’s friends Lauren and Crystal. We meet up with them and they tell us that they are going to island hop to the island of Vulcano to go take a mud bath in a crater on the island! So we hop on ANOTHER ferry to the island to check out this mud bath! The island has an active volcano, Mount Etna, which has a bunch of craters in which there are hot springs of mud and sea. It’s about 3 pm at this point and the girls I was travelling with and I realize we hadn’t eaten lunch, so we were all pretty hungry. Well, since the island is TINY…nothing is open since it is off season and not even lunch time for that matter…and on top of THAT it’s prime siesta time! We finally found a place and got the experience that every person dreams of when they think of travelling to and eating in Italy. This little old man owns the restaurant, which is completely empty and run by him and his family. He welcomes us with open arms, excited to practice his English. Instead of handing us all menus he tells us what he is going to make us which are his 2 favorite pastas to make with homemade bread and his pick of wine—so cute! He handmade all of the bread, the noodles, everything and it was delicious. Then we went off to explore this mud bath situation and although we weren’t ballsy enough to go in…it is mud…and it is HOT…we stuck our toes in! It was pretty cool. The water was really clear—the Mediterranean Sea is so gorgeous! And some parts of the water got really warm too! Afterwards we went back to the island of Lipari and rented 4 wheelers and rode them all around the island and watched the sunset it was so pretty! At one point mine and Kelly’s 4-wheeler (which had a lot more power than the other oneJ) broke down…we were sitting there and didn’t know what to do and these guys come up and try to help…with no luck they tell us that they are going to call Luigi and he tells them over the phone how to fix it. THAT IS HOW SMALL THE ISLAND IS! The guys see us broken down and know the number of the only guy who rents out 4 wheelers on the island and he tells them over the phone how to fix it! Afterwards we went back to our B&B and hung out with the rest of the girls. Thursday morning we headed out to Cefalu with our Tom-Tom navigational system guiding us the whole way—too bad he won’t charge in our car! We stop by an Avis station to see if they can fix it…and what does the guy do but get in the car and drive the girls to the mechanic he goes to so he can see if he can fix it while Allison and I are outside! After some fooling around he got it to sort of charge so thankfully we were good for the weekend. We got to Cefalu which is GORGEOUS. I know I say that about all of the places I go to but they really are amazing! The water was blue and there was REAL SAND on the beaches, and I got to watch a SUNSET ON THE WATER which was something I missed so much from home! Our B&B was gorgeous—TWO terraces, right on the water, and we got upgraded to a huge apartment suite! The city was so cute, very quiet but very fun—and the stereotype is true—Sicilians LOVE The Godfather, or should I say Il Padrino! There was memorabilia EVERYWHERE. While we were exploring the beaches and the rocks we tried to get back to our B&B from the water in the back. We ended up going through the back of a restaurant that was closed for siesta and needless to say the waiters weren’t terribly pleased to see us. Turns out we ended up going BACK to that restaurant later for dinner because it was one of the only ones open! The people there ended up loving us and we found an Italian nonna (grandma) that we all adopted, she would speak to us in Sicilian and squeeze our cheeks and smile and giggle—so cute! On Friday morning we packed up our bags for Agrigento, which is the home of ancient Greek ruins. Agrigento is really pretty, not as nice as Cefalu but still pretty cool! We checked into our hotel which is run by a young man and his grumpy old smelly HILARIOUS father! He walks around all grumpy all day and yells at people in Sicilian hahaha. We went up to the ruins and they are so crazy! They’re huge and you’re just in awe staring up at them. We had photo shoots at all of the ruins and Mamalynne you will be happy to know that all of my friends wanted me to take pictures of them from my camera because of the quality of the pictures—I’m amazed at the way they turn out! This Spring Break I took advantage of the panorama feature and my friends and I became obsessed haha. The next day we went to the Turkish Steps which is like this huge cliff and for some reason it’s really windy there and it was so pretty! We wanted to hang up there but it was too windy haha. We went back into town afterwards to lay out and it felt amazing! Micki and I have the dream of going horseback riding in Italy and there was a place in Agrigento so we got so excited to see them! We got there and it was a tiny place with probably 15 horses and they were all so beautiful and friendly. Unfortunately the guy there wouldn’t let us go on a trail and we didn’t want to walk in circles. We tried to tell him we KNEW HOW TO RIDE but even though the other guy said it would be fine the one guy said no. But we got to hang out with the horses and I fell in love with one named Bordinarrio, he was so cute and loving! On Sunday we headed to Siracusa and saw the beaches there! At this point Micki’s friends Crystal and Lauren had left, Micki’s friend that rented their car had to take it back. When the time came to go downtown for dinner we all had to cram in our tiny Fiat. Me being the graceful girl I am known to be is getting into the back of the car. I guess I thought I was all the way in and I go to slam the door shut and I SLAM IT ON MY HEAD!!! Right between the door and the frame of the car the car literally shook and I kid you not my head just stopped hurting yesterday!!! (A week later!) Can’t say your surprised right? Monday came the day to finally go home, it was bittersweet for Spring Break to end but we were excited to go home (still weird to call Torino my home, but now I think of it as such!) to the “normal” pace of this alternate reality that I am living in. Spent the week getting into the swing of things at school (yes, there is a school attached to this program believe it or not!) and this weekend we hung out with our Italian friends. We went to our friend Fabrizio’s restaurant that he works at on Thursday night and he was glad to show off his American friends I think! Friday we went to the G.A.M. museum for our history of interior design class which had a whole exhibition on chairs. The chairs were cool and I was utterly impressed by our guides ability to talk about a single chair for half an hour. Friday night my roommates and I practiced our cooking skills and made a good pasta and then on Saturday Giovanni and Fabrizio took us to go find some horses to ride in Asti in the wine country. We went to one place and they told us we had to be members, then went to another place and said we could only ride in the arena because it had rained a couple of days before! We have officially given up but Gio and Fabri say that it’s a western thing to ride horses anyways so we should just wait until we get home haha. When we got back into town we went to a tabachheria to try to buy tickets to the Juventus soccer (called calico here, not futbol!) game but unfortunately for this game you can only be a Piedmont (the region Torino is in) resident to go because the team they were playing is from the nearby region and there are too many fights! We are heading into the 1 month left mark and it is completely bittersweet, I can’t say I want this experience to end but I miss my friends and family terribly (and Harley too!) I don’t know how much travelling I will be doing besides Ireland at the end of the experience, I don’t want to look back and wish that I spent more time getting to know MY city (which our Italian friends always tell us that we live in the best city anyways so why travel!).So I am definitely excited to hang out for a while and explore. There are too many nearby places I will want to go! Becky’s mom is coming up this week for the Easter Break so I will get some “mom time” in with her! Gratzie mille to everybody for helping me make this experience so amazing, I can’t wait to see all of you when I return!!! Infinite x’s and o’s, ciao belli!
Caitlin
our B&B in Lipari!
the Island of Lipari!
Sunset in Agrigento!
my new boyfriend and the Turkish steps!
Lots of ruins!
outside the Duomo in Cefalu!
the views from the Cefalu b&b
beach in Cefalu
sending messages home!
the duomo in Cefalu
the view from our terrace
The Alps from the plane!
Anne Frank house ticket!
Heineken Factory!
Coffee shop in Amsterdam where Ocean's 12 was filmed!
inside our b&b in Cefalu!
another one of the views from our terrace!
Ciao ciao! Or should I say…hallo! My spring break was very international and very amazing! It all started Thursday the 11th in which Sarah, Kelly, their roommate Allison, Becky and I all left for Amsterdam! Inter-European travel is pretty cheap, but that means the airline companies nickel and dime you on everything else. So they don’t give you water or a drink when you get on, and one carry-on means ONE CARRY-ON. Not one carry-on plus a purse, or a shopping bag, or even a tiny bag that holds your passport and ticket! My spring break began that Thursday night and I did not get back until Monday the 22nd, aka I had to pack for 11 days worth of travel with Granddaddy’s green tiny carry-on! I think I put that thing through more in those 11 days than it had gone through its entire life! So we went to Amsterdam in the evening and the flight was at that weird transition from evening to night, so my side of the plane showed an almost pitch black sky but you could see the Alps poking out above the clouds—an amazing view! Meanwhile the other side of the plane had an entire pink sky in which the sun was still setting—crazy! So we landed in Amsterdam and are walking to leave the airport and we ran into a STARBUCKS! Are my eyes deceiving me? Is this real life? Somebody pinch me or get me a grande skinny vanilla latte! Needless to say we were all extremely excited…and to get it in to-go cups! Those are unheard of in Italia! I sat there staring at my drink and couldn’t help but wonder if the cups got bigger or if I am just used to the tiny cappuccino cups they serve here, guess I will never know! We took the train to downtown where our hostel, the Flying Pig, was located. We stayed in a 20-person mixed dorm in the basement for 5 nights!!! Guess it’s all part of the experience, right? So we locked up our bags and walked around downtown and the city is actually REALLY CUTE. All of the buildings are really tall and skinny and lean slightly to the side and sometimes forward. The city is filled with canals as well, kind of like Venice which unfortunately gave some of the parts the “Venetian smell.” Also, everybody rides bikes it is so cute! So we walked around and took it easy the first night since we new we had a long week ahead of us. We couldn’t help our curiosity and took a stroll through the infamous Red Light District—once again, all apart of the experience! Being abroad has made me so interested in different cultures and I can’t help but wonder why this one place legalizes something like prostitution when it is illegal everywhere else. The Red Light District actually isn’t really sketchy, it is just weird. It was kind of like “window shopping” for the lonely (for lack of a better word). They girls just stand there talking on their phones in skimpy clothes and when guys walk by the tap on the windows and try to lure them in. Well at least now I can say that I saw it. On Friday we walked around, went to the I Amsterdam sign which was really cool and saw the Van Gogh and Rijks Museum of Art, which we had learned about in our history of interior design class—both were very cool! There were always a million different things going on everywhere we went—musicians playing in the streets, different acts on every corner, lots of shopping, etc. Obviously Holland and Amsterdam are famous for their tulips—I wanted to get some bulbs for Mom and Mamalynne to keep until I got back but the people said they wouldn’t make itL It was our goal for the trip to go out and see the windmills and tulips—supposed to be an amazing experience and it is so close by, but they weren’t in bloom yetL On Saturday we explored the city a little bit more and then went and got a tour of the Heineken Factory which was actually really cool to see! Later that night we saw Alice In Wonderland—movies in English! We had to take advantage. We also went to the Rembrandt Square which is a really busy part of the city which was really fun. We also hung out in our hostel a lot—there were lots of things to do there and lots of people staying since it was Spring Break. Hung out with some Aussies and then some Greeks and it was fun exchanging stories. There is an outside part with 2 decks and some guys upstairs heard us talking about San Francisco and yelled that they were from the Bay Area too! We went up to talk to them and the guy is telling us how he is from the city but goes to NYU. This other guy chimes in and is like “no way, you go to NYU!! That’s crazy, I go to Columbia, this guy goes to Harvard, that girl in there is from Princeton and this guy over here is from Yale!” We are waiting for the inevitable, and then it happens. “So where do you guys go?” …………………… “Umm…Chico State??” “Oh that’s funny I’ve never heard of it…is it a liberal arts school or something?” “Yes…yes it is…and very hard to get into…probably why you haven’t heard of it….;) On Sunday we spent the day shopping for postcards, souvenirs, etc. On Monday we went to the Anne Frank House—such a surreal experience walking through the actual place where she and her family hid for 2 years…couldn’t really get over it. It’s all perfectly preserved as well. Tuesday morning we set off for Sicilia with a plane ride to Milan then from there to Palermo! Our layover at Milan was supposed to be for 7 hours…thank God we were able to get on an earlier flight!! We only had to wait for like 2 hours but this meant me talking in my best Italian to a 60 or 70 year old Sicilian who speaks…well Sicilian! 50% of Italians speak a dialect that is only intelligible to their region…and Sicilian is one of the bigger ones that most Italians can barely understand! To the foreign ear it just sounds like Italian, to me it just sounded like Italian that I couldn’t understand! But with hand gestures (lots of hand gestures) and drawings, plus a little bit of regular Italian between the 2 of us we had a pretty nice conversation. He told me where I should go, I told him everywhere I was going to go was planned out, he told me other places I should go, etc. He was very sweet. Then on the plane ride he tells the entire plane about the “American girls” sitting in the front who are spending the week in Sicily for the first time. Round of applause everyone! (Literally!) We land in Palermo and rent a car since Sicilian transportation is completely scattered and unreliable. Thankfully we were able to get an automatic, but that did not making driving in Sicily any easier! I did not know driving could get crazier than in Torino, but alas it did! Poor Allison had to drive and I did not envy her! What to say about Palermo…think of it as the east Oakland or Emoryville of Sicily—aka somewhere you don’t want to be! After a couple of stressful hours of trying to find our hostel (think wrong way down one way streets, driving through a nighttime open market, and many honks!) we found our hostel! It was…interesting? Part of the experience…right? It was 10 euro a night is what it was! We walked into an apartment building that was all open and the paint was peeling off the walls, there was laundry and trash everywhere, etc. Once we got in it was a little better and hey we were only staying there for a night so all we really wanted to do was sleep which is what we did! We woke up early in the morning to head to Milazzo which would then get us a ferry to Lipari. We were driving around looking for the port, and we finally find it and run to the ticket counter in which the guy tells us the fairy left 10 minutes before and they weren’t doing another one until the next day! We started freaking out but then he said there was another company nearby that had ferries to Lipari as well. We race to the counter and the guy gives us the tickets and tells us to run—he called the ferry and told them to turn around to come get us! We get to the island and take a cab to our B&B—surely a step up from our 20-person room in Amsterdam and our sketch ball place in Palermo!! It was a cute huge apartment area with run by this little old lady who did not speak a word of English! Once we got there we met up with our other friends Micki and Katherine who were travelling around Sicily for all of Spring Break with Micki’s friends Lauren and Crystal. We meet up with them and they tell us that they are going to island hop to the island of Vulcano to go take a mud bath in a crater on the island! So we hop on ANOTHER ferry to the island to check out this mud bath! The island has an active volcano, Mount Etna, which has a bunch of craters in which there are hot springs of mud and sea. It’s about 3 pm at this point and the girls I was travelling with and I realize we hadn’t eaten lunch, so we were all pretty hungry. Well, since the island is TINY…nothing is open since it is off season and not even lunch time for that matter…and on top of THAT it’s prime siesta time! We finally found a place and got the experience that every person dreams of when they think of travelling to and eating in Italy. This little old man owns the restaurant, which is completely empty and run by him and his family. He welcomes us with open arms, excited to practice his English. Instead of handing us all menus he tells us what he is going to make us which are his 2 favorite pastas to make with homemade bread and his pick of wine—so cute! He handmade all of the bread, the noodles, everything and it was delicious. Then we went off to explore this mud bath situation and although we weren’t ballsy enough to go in…it is mud…and it is HOT…we stuck our toes in! It was pretty cool. The water was really clear—the Mediterranean Sea is so gorgeous! And some parts of the water got really warm too! Afterwards we went back to the island of Lipari and rented 4 wheelers and rode them all around the island and watched the sunset it was so pretty! At one point mine and Kelly’s 4-wheeler (which had a lot more power than the other oneJ) broke down…we were sitting there and didn’t know what to do and these guys come up and try to help…with no luck they tell us that they are going to call Luigi and he tells them over the phone how to fix it. THAT IS HOW SMALL THE ISLAND IS! The guys see us broken down and know the number of the only guy who rents out 4 wheelers on the island and he tells them over the phone how to fix it! Afterwards we went back to our B&B and hung out with the rest of the girls. Thursday morning we headed out to Cefalu with our Tom-Tom navigational system guiding us the whole way—too bad he won’t charge in our car! We stop by an Avis station to see if they can fix it…and what does the guy do but get in the car and drive the girls to the mechanic he goes to so he can see if he can fix it while Allison and I are outside! After some fooling around he got it to sort of charge so thankfully we were good for the weekend. We got to Cefalu which is GORGEOUS. I know I say that about all of the places I go to but they really are amazing! The water was blue and there was REAL SAND on the beaches, and I got to watch a SUNSET ON THE WATER which was something I missed so much from home! Our B&B was gorgeous—TWO terraces, right on the water, and we got upgraded to a huge apartment suite! The city was so cute, very quiet but very fun—and the stereotype is true—Sicilians LOVE The Godfather, or should I say Il Padrino! There was memorabilia EVERYWHERE. While we were exploring the beaches and the rocks we tried to get back to our B&B from the water in the back. We ended up going through the back of a restaurant that was closed for siesta and needless to say the waiters weren’t terribly pleased to see us. Turns out we ended up going BACK to that restaurant later for dinner because it was one of the only ones open! The people there ended up loving us and we found an Italian nonna (grandma) that we all adopted, she would speak to us in Sicilian and squeeze our cheeks and smile and giggle—so cute! On Friday morning we packed up our bags for Agrigento, which is the home of ancient Greek ruins. Agrigento is really pretty, not as nice as Cefalu but still pretty cool! We checked into our hotel which is run by a young man and his grumpy old smelly HILARIOUS father! He walks around all grumpy all day and yells at people in Sicilian hahaha. We went up to the ruins and they are so crazy! They’re huge and you’re just in awe staring up at them. We had photo shoots at all of the ruins and Mamalynne you will be happy to know that all of my friends wanted me to take pictures of them from my camera because of the quality of the pictures—I’m amazed at the way they turn out! This Spring Break I took advantage of the panorama feature and my friends and I became obsessed haha. The next day we went to the Turkish Steps which is like this huge cliff and for some reason it’s really windy there and it was so pretty! We wanted to hang up there but it was too windy haha. We went back into town afterwards to lay out and it felt amazing! Micki and I have the dream of going horseback riding in Italy and there was a place in Agrigento so we got so excited to see them! We got there and it was a tiny place with probably 15 horses and they were all so beautiful and friendly. Unfortunately the guy there wouldn’t let us go on a trail and we didn’t want to walk in circles. We tried to tell him we KNEW HOW TO RIDE but even though the other guy said it would be fine the one guy said no. But we got to hang out with the horses and I fell in love with one named Bordinarrio, he was so cute and loving! On Sunday we headed to Siracusa and saw the beaches there! At this point Micki’s friends Crystal and Lauren had left, Micki’s friend that rented their car had to take it back. When the time came to go downtown for dinner we all had to cram in our tiny Fiat. Me being the graceful girl I am known to be is getting into the back of the car. I guess I thought I was all the way in and I go to slam the door shut and I SLAM IT ON MY HEAD!!! Right between the door and the frame of the car the car literally shook and I kid you not my head just stopped hurting yesterday!!! (A week later!) Can’t say your surprised right? Monday came the day to finally go home, it was bittersweet for Spring Break to end but we were excited to go home (still weird to call Torino my home, but now I think of it as such!) to the “normal” pace of this alternate reality that I am living in. Spent the week getting into the swing of things at school (yes, there is a school attached to this program believe it or not!) and this weekend we hung out with our Italian friends. We went to our friend Fabrizio’s restaurant that he works at on Thursday night and he was glad to show off his American friends I think! Friday we went to the G.A.M. museum for our history of interior design class which had a whole exhibition on chairs. The chairs were cool and I was utterly impressed by our guides ability to talk about a single chair for half an hour. Friday night my roommates and I practiced our cooking skills and made a good pasta and then on Saturday Giovanni and Fabrizio took us to go find some horses to ride in Asti in the wine country. We went to one place and they told us we had to be members, then went to another place and said we could only ride in the arena because it had rained a couple of days before! We have officially given up but Gio and Fabri say that it’s a western thing to ride horses anyways so we should just wait until we get home haha. When we got back into town we went to a tabachheria to try to buy tickets to the Juventus soccer (called calico here, not futbol!) game but unfortunately for this game you can only be a Piedmont (the region Torino is in) resident to go because the team they were playing is from the nearby region and there are too many fights! We are heading into the 1 month left mark and it is completely bittersweet, I can’t say I want this experience to end but I miss my friends and family terribly (and Harley too!) I don’t know how much travelling I will be doing besides Ireland at the end of the experience, I don’t want to look back and wish that I spent more time getting to know MY city (which our Italian friends always tell us that we live in the best city anyways so why travel!).So I am definitely excited to hang out for a while and explore. There are too many nearby places I will want to go! Becky’s mom is coming up this week for the Easter Break so I will get some “mom time” in with her! Gratzie mille to everybody for helping me make this experience so amazing, I can’t wait to see all of you when I return!!! Infinite x’s and o’s, ciao belli!
Caitlin
