October is meant for scares! But not of this kind..

We had a pretend restaurant

at the Garden

A drawing we spent days working on

Giova's 6th birthday

Giovanni's road

At the International Market

October is the acclaimed month of Halloween where we dress in costumes and get candy by saying the phrase Trick or Treat! Or atleast that's how it works at home. Here I'm told its much different. But I've already had my first big fright and we haven't even gotten to Halloween night. About a week ago, Giova started complaining of stomach aches, but they were nothing major and so sporadic we thought nothing of it. In the middle of the night on Monday the 15th, he started crying and complaining more and more and was up all night. The next morning we took him to a doctors for an ultrasound, they found nothing but air. The next few days were a mass of confusion, phone calls to doctors, screams of pain from Giovanni, and loss of sleep. He went into the hospital Wednesday and had to stay two nights there. We've been worried and at wits end being with him while he whines and cries saying how he is dying and his stomach hurts so bad. A phrase I picked up quick, mal di pancia! The hospital was doing all that they could, the doctors said the problem was only an infection in his stomach and the way to make it better is if he can get it all out in the bathroom. This became the problem, he couldn't go. None of the suppositories or laxatives were helping. Eventually Thursday evening they performed something that I'd rather not describe, that was the last thing they could think to do. And he went a little, but not like he was supposed to. And again and again he complained of this horrible pain. It hurt to listen to him and to see him hurting so much. Later on Friday he was finally able to go more and the amount of pain he was feeling decreased monumentally. I was interrupted writing this by his arrival! We were so happy that he could be home. It is a wonderful thing. I am so thankful that he is alright. Now he is relaxing watching a movie and still complains every once in awhile but altogether he is much much better. Now that this is practically over with, we can get on to Halloween and all its wonderful festivities! In the next week we will get pumpkins and carve them, but I'll letcha know how that goes when it happens. Enjoy all the pics of Giova and I so far!!

September. the beginning of school, fall, leaves, and football games. wait..

September brought the start of routine, but not the same routine that I know and love at home, it brought on a whole new routine and way of life. As I start to get into the swing of things, and understand each day a little more of the way of life of Italians, I find myself feeling more and more comfortable and at home in a whole new world.
     Transportation: Unfortunately riding bikes in the city is the one thing I may never get used to, with the honking horns, loads of tourists, and every other Italian trying to hurry for the only time in their life whether by car or moped. It is so hectic and I breathe a sigh of relief every time I get back home and can hop off that bike. Almost every day I have to take Giova to school and pick him up by bike, a bike that when sitting I can just barely get the end of my tip toes to touch the ground. I much prefer walking. You can't view enough of Florence by bike, you go too fast and are too busy making sure you don't collide with every moving or stationary object. I love to walk down a street looking up, with many buildings the top half is cooler than what you can see at eye level. For example, the other day when I was walking (looking up) there was a row of windows on a building, all identical, except for one. One was painted onto the wall, it looked almost exactly like the others and if you don't look closely, you'll never notice. I put the pic below so you can see for yourselves :)

     School? Although I had planned on taking and picking up Giova from school, I hadn't planned to go myself, but by the end of September that's where I found myself to be. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I spend two hours in the morning at La Parola where I hope to learn Italian. I'm getting better and I try to listen to the conversations going on in the streets to see how much of it I can put together, is it considered eavesdropping if I can only make out a third of their words? Soon I'll be having my own conversations in Italian! The girls in my Italian class are fantastic, they're almost all au pairs as well. Some from America, one from Holland, one from Ireland, and a few from Germany. We're almost all at the beginners level so it makes the atmosphere fun and inviting. A few are in the class just to help with their grammar and that's not so helpful for the rest of us but it's no big deal. Our teacher Maria, is incredibly nice and a great teacher! I'm back to saying ughhhh I have to do my homework! Words I thought I wouldn't hear outta my mouth for quite some time but there they are. Sometimes when Giova has homework, we'll sit down together with Mavi and do it all together. 

     Work: This part has become very routine for the most part. Mondays are school and tutor, Tuesdays are school then free, Wednesdays are half days at school then tutor and horse riding, thursdays are school and swimming and fridays are free, saturdays are morning soccer and the rest of the weekend is the biggest alteration in our weekly schedule. I quite like routine, it makes things simple but man does it make time fly! September came and went before I knew it. Giova is so exhausted by the end of the school days that after dinner at 7:30, he's asleep watching a movie by 9. Some nights I have to babysit and others I don't, so some nights I have to stay in, and some I can go out and roam the streets like the rest of Florence's inhabitants. I also recently became a Bus2Alps ambassador meaning I have a code, ASHLEYP and anyone who signs up for a tour using my code will get 5% off and I make 5%. So I'll be passin word along to try to earn a little extra money. In a recent "tip of the week" email I recieved from them it had a quote that brings me to my next point.. 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do" - Mark Twain.        Well now I'm glad to be done talking about school and work and I can get to the fun part!! I have done some great things since I have been here and met some even greater peeople! I went paragliding, which was quite a rush. Especially when he asked if I preferred the hard ride or easy and I told him hard of course. So we spun in circles till we were parallel with the ground. My friend Jess went next and she asked him not to do the hard ride, he said to her, "What? You're not a hero like Ashley!" haha.

      I recently ran the Corri La Vita, to support cancer. I finished the 5k in the top few people and the clock said 17:15 when I finished and I think somehow there was a glitch but if not dang that was fast! :) I did it for you Grandma Ruth. That night, I went with two friends to an American Diner outside of Florence. As you can tell from the background it was pretty legit, although the menus came only in Italian, and as you can see from me in the foreground, I am quite enjoying my BBQ burger :D The friends I went with are from England and gawked at the sight of a burger so large and a person who would pick it up and eat it, no utensils needed! One morning Jess and I had planned to go to Pisa, she texted me and said she didn't wanna go because of the rain, I told her that we were still going and the rain would make it a even more unforgettable trip! Little did she know I was absolutely right. It POURED the whole time we were there but that left the leaning tower pretty unoccupied. When we were walkin down the street towards it I asked, I wonder if when we see it it's just gonna be like incredible, or, OH MY GOSH!!! THERE IT IS!!! AHHH!!! I jumped in the barren street and yelled and pulled my camera out like a good ol' tourist should do. At the tower, we took every classic Leaning Tower pose you can think of. We even laid on the puddle-filled ground and pretended to prop it up with our feet. We. Were. Soaked. But it didn't matter to either of us when were having such a great time. Luca randomly said that that Sunday I wasn't needed so I booked a trip to FINALLY go to Cinque Terre and I'm glad I did. Unfortunately every hiking trail was closed except for one, the "expert" trail. While some girls were deciding whether or not they thought they could handle the told 2 hours of uphill walking, I was already anxious to get started! It was hot no doubt, as fall has still yet to start here in Italy, and the first 40 minutes was constantly walking up stairs built on the trail. The guide who had never done this trail either, had the right idea. He went hard and fast for that first section because he knew that was the best way to get through it, ya just gotta do it! Fortunately for us, we had a couple loud mouth barbies who had decided they could do it, who complained that entire amount of time. Ah what I woulda given for headphones! But all that aside, the view from the top was breathtaking, stunning, incredible, you know when you see something that just can't be described by words? This was one of those times. All our hard work paid off when all you can see is blue skies, blue seas, and small colorful little villages. The buildings were great in each town that we got to visit, I can't wait to go back again! Excuse my sweatyness in the below photos :p

 Even in Florence there are so many incredible sights to see, I especially loved the Boboli Gardens and the San Miniato church. A little history lesson, it is said the the Saint San Miniato was ordered to be beheaded in Piazza Signoria and once he was beheaded, he picked up his head and started off through the trees, the place he fell and finally died is where they built the church. By the way, Piazza Signoria and this church are on opposite sides of the river, and quite far away from each other. The below picture is me, Gem and Jess and Boboli Gardens with the Pitti Palace behind us.

Switzerland

Has been so long since I've written on here, I need to remember to do it more often!
     In the second week of July I went to Switzerland for a few days and stayed with a friend and his family. Switzerland was a breath of fresh air- literally! It was much cooler and and the lush green forests everywhere reminded me so much of home and was nothing at all like the dry hot land Italy becomes in the summer. It blows my mind that in a flight that only lasts an hour you can find yourself in a totally new and different land- a land similiar to Oregon besides the fact that they use Swiss Franks, speak Swiss-German, and have really neat houses that you don't find inside the U.S. Anyways, we visited the largest waterfall in Europe, the Rheinfall, and I personally expected it to be a bit larger! From a distance it is not that impressive as it is much wider than it is tall, but they allow you (for a fee of course) to take a ferry to a large rock in the middle of the falls and all the water gushing at incredible speeds on either side of you as you climb the steep steps to the top is quite incredible. I loved it to say the least. The rest of the day was spent visiting an old fort and eating a currywurst at the top, going to a little traditional village, and enjoying the waves in a small boat on the Rhein river. The buildings in the little village were hard to peel your eyes away from, each one had beautiful intricate paintings on them. When we went out on the boat, the boys let me drive so it was pretty fun! :) that night we had a typical Swiss dinner called raclette, each person has a little mini pan and you stick a piece of cheese in it and add a combination of toppings, anything from pickles, tomatoes, onions, baby corn, sardines, mushrooms, and even bananas, once youve put all you want inside you stick it into a heater on the table that melts the cheese. While your waiting for it to melt, you peel and cut a potato and once the cheese is melted you put it on top and prepare your next toppings. This meal was great and my favorite combination was corn and banana! as odd as that sounds I promise it tastes AMAZING.
      Day 2 we took the train to Zurich, walked around plenty and window shopped, the only place we actually went in was the grocery store for some water because the streets here are lined with designer shops that don't exactly fit in my price range. We took a ferry boat that went all along the river for an hour and a half. It was pretty but I'd have to say pretty boring. Afterwards we went back to the train station to take a train up to the top of a hill that overlooks the city. Raphi (my friend) jumped onto a train he thought was the right one, well it wasn't. It goes about halfway there and turns around, we were confused but ast the first stop in its way back down we jumped off and ran up to where we had been since that is where the train we wanted to go on was to leave from. Just like in the movies, we were running to it and got there right as it was pulling away.. so we sat and waited till the next train arrived. from the top of the hill you can hike up a bit more and then climb a huge metal tower, the view from the top was just beyond incredible. Zurich is breathtaking. I never wanted to climb back down. Instead of taking the train back down, we decided to take the trail, took a few wrong turns but eventually we made it back to town. While walking back to the train station we saw a man who used to be like a president of Switzerland! Back at Raphi's house we had roesti, its very similar to hasbrowns but better.
     The next day was my last full day in Switzerland. In the morning we took Raphi's brothers car to the Alps since that's what I really wanted to see. The trailhead said we could hike up it but we kept getting lost, eventually Raphi asked someone and she said that there's still snow and its pretty dangerous since I only had my nike shoes. I was maybe a little stubborn and incredibly disappointed because I so badly wanted to hike it! Whatta bummer. Instead we took the lift to the top and it was SO windy, our steps were staggered while we walked around outside, Raphi had a cold so he kept wanting to go inside but I wanted to stay out and enjoy it! We were literally in the clouds and it was amazing but I did realize that it would have been very difficult to hike it with my nikes and each of us only had one jacket and it was suuuper cold. But I have vowed to go back, better prepared, and hike it at some point in my life! Later, we walked around his hometown, not much of anything there but a beautiful church. Dinner was raclette again, Raphi's mom made it a second time since I liked it so much the first time. We all stayed up and chatted till we were half asleep, I really love Raphi's parents. They were so hospitable and friendly to me, I couldn't have asked for better hosts. Oh and they gave me a box of 50 Swiss chocolate sticks ;)