Okay. It has come to my attention multiple times that I have been less than great about updating the ole blog recently… apologies!
To pick up where I left off, I ended my visit with Annie with a lovely day trip to Verona and a really fun Italian Halloween. Verona is an incredible city. The leaves were just changing, so the whole city, along with being gorgeous, was crisp with young fall. I could have stayed there forever. We crossed the river at Ponte Pietra and climbed to the top of a large hill to get an incredible view of the city. Verona was a really nice day trip because we didn’t really do much. Once we arrived, we found an incredible osteria for a lunch of homemade pasta, and then we spent the rest of the day simply enjoying the beauty around us and each other’s company.
When Halloween came along Annie and I were excited to bring a little bit of the US to Italy. We spent the day hanging out and preparing our costumes. I made myself a funny red hat and went as a garden gnome, and Annie, more daring, fashioned balloons and plastic garbage bags into an adorable “Bag of Jellybeans” get-up. We met up with Carter (no costume- lame, though he did sport the “free candy” sign we made for him), and went to our friend Balsa’s apartment. It was a fun night- a good mix of Americans, internationals, and Italians came to the party, and the best thing about an Italian house party is that the hosts made delicious pasta for everyone! I ate two plates!
The next week was decidedly low-key. The night before my birthday I watched Back to the Future with Carter (which was really exciting because I LOVE that movie!), and my roommates (so sweet) banged at my door at midnight to wish me a happy birthday. We danced around a bit in celebration, and promptly ate some left-over tiramisu! Mmmmmm… Sadly, I had to go to school on my birthday, but I had delicious Napolitano style pizza for dinner and met some friends for 1 Euro night at the Cornetteria (where you can get delicious croissants filled with chocolate, fruit, nutella, general goodness), and turned in early in preparation for my flight to Dublin!
I was so excited for Dublin! I went with five American girls, and Annie met up with us at the hostel! On Friday night we went out to a traditional pub and had a real Irish meal-delicious. The people in Dublin are so friendly; the bartender at the pub offered to take a group shot of us all behind the bar! Unfortunately, at this point, I was stricken ill with some kind of ear infection/head cold, so I spent most of the rest of the trip in the hostel. I did make it to the Guinness factory, though, and that was incredible. I’ll put up some pictures soon!
This week I have just been working on school, and taking things easy as I am trying to get back to being 100% healthy. All my love-
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