The sun goes down . . .

Another day at the beach. This time Alessandro took us to his very own "private beach". He took Danielle there yesterday and so they decided to take me today.

Alessandro is quite the character. I want to say he's in his early 30's has a wife and a blonde baby girl (his wife is french and blonde as well) Supposedly he was very happy when we called the first day, he's never had American's on his little beach tours. We've learned that he's a strong swimmer in the ocean and that he absolutely adores Jack Johnson. Tomorrow I'm going to bring my iPod and introduce him into John Mayer and Maroon 5, I'm sure he'll love them just as much.

Today was another relaxing day on the beach. I'm almost done with the Hunger games, it's so nice to actually have time to read a book. It's crazy how much you can take in when you're sitting on a beach just starring out at an open sea with nothing to look at but pure blue. It felt like a dream and it still does. The pictures I take do not do justice. This whole trip to Italy feels like it's been a dream. As I sat out on the beach I watched Alessandro; he treats Danielle and I like princesses going out of his way to make sure that we're comfortable and have everything we need. He says were stubborn because we're always trying to help him carry things to and from the car, it's funny... "we're not like Italian women" he claims. As we arrived to the beach he went on a mission to pick up all the garbage on the beach and swept away all the seaweed type plants on the beach.. it was quite odd. After that he just dove into the ocean like it was a big pool. It puts me in awe how majority of Italians do this. I'm quite scared of the ocean and could never just dive in and swim to the deep blue part of the sea. I envy Alessandro and his ease into everything, almost like he doesn't have a care in the world besides Italy winning their soccer games. Oh the lifeee. . .


Anyway, that completes our last full day in Sardegna. We made a nice family dinner and watched "Under the Tuscan sun". Cheesiest movie with horrible acting but as we were watching it we kept recognizing places we've been. For example once she steps off the tour bus, the main character arrives in front of the Duomo and at that moment I realized how much I am going to truly miss Firenze as much as I hated the 2 mile walk to school, the heat, the sweat, the tourists, the hustle and bustle of businesses... I am sad that I won't be waking up to that. I am not anticipating getting off the plane and becoming a blubbery mess realizing I'm home. But I've missed home oh so much as well.. this Thursday is going to be weird.

On a happier note, here's a picture of the sunset from last night (Monday):

 and here's some pictures of the beach I took today and a happy Italian song that I've learned to love :)

Our plan for tomorrow is to go to one last beach, the beach Americans call "The Painted Beach". It is gorgeous from the cliffs that I've seen it from, I can't wait! I don't think I'll be enjoying the water as much though because our flight leaves at 6:40 pm back to Pisa, then we have to catch the Terrevision bus back to Florence which is an hour drive. We left our luggage at our internship so then we have to catch a cab straight there and collect it and theeen.. well we don't really know. We're thinking about going out to eat somewhere close to have one last meal in Firenze, the airport doesn't open until 5AM and our flight doesn't leave until 7:20 AM. sooo we're thinking about staying at a local bar/caffe until 2am and then catching a cab to camp out at the airport until it opens. It's going to be interesting to see what happens, I'll keep you informed, if I get a wi-fi connection somewhere (Mom).. Another night and another day in paradise, time to climb into bed.. Until I step foot on America... ciao ciao!

On an island in my bed . . .

Yes in my bed :( I woke up this morning in so much pain & agony. I believe the sun had drained all the energy out of me and the fact that I forgot to drink water yesterday added on to that as well as watching the Italy Vs England at a local bar... learned my lesson, always hydrate!! Anyway, spent the day inside today which kind of sucked but it was nice to give my skin a nice break from the warm Italian sun. And I didn't mind sleeping all day, felt really good and refreshed when I woke up.

Danielle just came back from the beach (lucky her, she didn't suffer the same consequences as I so she had a nice day with Alessandro ;)) We had to switch from our guesthouse (due to an insect infestation) down the street to a local apartment. Definitely an upgrade. new cabinets, our own kitchen, our shower has jets to massage your back, and the bed is open in the living room so it kind of makes it a studio apartment. Here are some pictures!

Guesthouse:

New apartment: 

Glad we had an insect invasion :)

Since I have time on my hands from being sick I can give you an inside on our day trip to Parma and Modena (if I can remember)

I'm not quite sure what we did that Friday during the day but I do remember that Chef told us not to go out because of the drive to Parma... little did I listen. I believe I started drinking with some of the boys around 6pm and made it to midnight. Woke up and was pretty hungover.. bad decision.Our bus took us to Parmagioano Reggiono. They first took us to the building where they actually make the cheese.We had to wear plastic on our heads, a pancho over our clothes, plastic on our shoes and masks, pretty intense.

And that's how they make the famous Parmesan cheese! Next we went over to the families museum where we had a tasting of the cheese and just got a break from the tour.

(Kari, Brynn and I .. it was bright)

(A mistress's castle built from a king)

Our next stop was the Parma known for their prosciutto. We met the owner Stefano Fanti and he gave us a guided tour around:

Well most of the group.. kinda ready.The two oldest people in our group pictures are Alumnis. I thought this was really cool because I didn't know that WSU offers a study abroad program for Alumni to come on, I will probably look into that once I'm graduated. 

(The mistress's castle is now a bed and breakfast)

Danielle and I. 

I don't remember the specific details that he told us about. He has rooms on rooms on rooms filled with pig thighs. They hang there for months on end (I believe) and he does a stick test to see if the smell is perfect or something along those lines. The rooms smelt horrid of just raw meat sitting there, I started to feel sick. After the tour his crew and himself set up a lunch for us with red wine, prosciutto of course, cheese and penne pasta. It was delicious! Stefano is a very busy man because he helped with serving our meal as well, very devoted. 

Our next stop was the town of Modena! Home of the balsamic vinegar: 

The lady who led us around this tour didn't show us exactly how it was made but led us to a attic where they store multiple barrels of balsamic vinegar to age that her family produces. It was pretty small but there was tons of barrels. The oldest barrel they had was from the 1800s. We had a tasting outside in their backyard of multiple, different balsamic vinegar. I bought 2 of them. I shipped them home a week ago and they made it safely to my house along with a extra dry virgin olive oil. I cannot wait to come home and start cooking all the things I've learned here. 

After the balsamic, we left and went back to Firenze. I don't quite remember what  I did exactly but I went and hung out with the guys and went out. I believe this is when we met the girls from Florida at the bars. There was about 5 of them that went to Europe on a vacation trip and they were extremely nice.

The next day Danielle went to Venice with one of the other girls (a train ticket for both ways is about 200 Euros, too expensive for me) so I went and hung out with a few of the guys and we found a local market that  happens on the last Sunday of every month. It has a bunch of knick knacks and random gadgets that the local Florentines were selling. Here's a few snapshots of the market I took:

After the market we found some sort of festival which reminded me of the Puyallup fairs minus all the rides. They had many  booths that were selling things. 

And that was Parma weekend... I finished this blog pretty late. I don't think blogging is for me, it is very time consuming. But I do like to keep track of my days (as much as I can) while I'm here in Italy. I cannot believe I have 2 full days left. It feels like just yesterday I was being followed by some creeper in Amsterdam. This was definitely the best decision of my life and I think everyone should go abroad at some point in their life.If not, you are truly missing out. It's not that your missing out on the typical cliche of going to Europe, but it's more of a missing out on knowledge and living not in your predictable norm of life. Five years ago or even two, I never saw myself living in Italy or even thinking about visiting Italy. I have learned so much and gained so much respect not only for Italians but for America and WSU too. This has been a life changing experience. I must go to bed, Alessandro is picking us up bright in early for our new adventures tomorrow! Ciao ciao!