Austria and Germany and Childhood movies

So our first stop was Vienna. We were there for a couple days got some amazing bratwursts and hot dogs. So yummy! Got to have real legit Vienna beef! I didn't realize how many famous musicians came from Vienna including Mozart. Maddie told Caroline and me about these candies we had to find that we're these chocolate balls that had like nuts and marzipan inside of them. We finally found these "Mozart balls" and they were amazing! So I guess you could say that in Vienna we enjoyed some great wieners and some really good balls. ;) We saw some amazing museums that all have become a blur to me. Love the art but I don't remember which art I saw in which museum only because there was too much and we are seeing 2 or 3 museums every day. Also one of the best parts of Vienna was the hotel! I got to room with Caroline and our hotel felt like we were from Xenon! Everything was motion censored and we could control all the lights by the remote on our bed and the shower was in the middle of the room and clear all the way around but blurred in the right spots haha. Kinda awkward to shower but the best part of the shower was the shower head changed colors! So we had fun showering with the light off. It was awesome haha. Tried watching tv but everything was in German and English subtitles wouldn't work. Wieners, balls, and light up showers: I promise this is a BYU study abroad haha

Then we made our day trip to Salzburg which of course where sound of music is filmed!!! We got off the bus and walked right to where they sing the Do-Re-Me songs! We walked around what truly felt like the sound of music. We all couldn't help but sing the songs, I'm sure we all did not like the loud and annoying Americans that he Europeans know us as. Sorry not sorry.. Haha but we also got to walk up and hike our way to the top of the mighty Hohensalzburg Fortress! Too much money to go inside but it was pretty and fun to walk up! Got an amazing pretzel and walked into many lederhosen shops that they took very seriously. Felt like Rapunzel walking around the fun Shops and dancers right next to the castle. All i needed was a Flynn Rider to get a cupcake with..next time. We then got on the bus to go to our group dinner somewhere in Austria on the way to Munich. It was like a thanksgiving feast. They just brought out plates and plates of food kind of buffet style. So much meat and vegetables I was happy to eat them all. Sometimes on the road you feel so awful because your just eating carbs and sugar all the time haha. Little did I know that the best meat I ate was actually veal! Sometimes ignorance is bliss. If I had known I would not have ate it. But then they brought out dessert and I felt much better. There was like 6 different cake like desserts and we all just grabbed our fork and ate off all of them. Felt like I was a seven dwarf in Snow White. "What's wash???" Because maybe the last time we had washed was "recently" haha.  Thanks for anyone who understands these quotes from the movie. Everywhere I turned in Austria and Germany I was either seeing Snow White, Sound of Music, or Tangled haha




So after dinner we get back in the bus on our way to Munich. All I can really say about Munich is that the metro is the hardest thing in the world to figure out. First of all I'm not very good at direction anyways but if things are properly labeled and color coded then I can figure it out. This was not the case. After a very successful day of wandering around the main shopping area of Munich me, Maddie and Caroline start to make our way back which shoul take about 20 minutes ended up taking us about 3 hours. But the best way to figure out your way around town is to get lost. What I love and hate about study abroad is that our professors will give us a map and tell us where our hotel is and then say, "good luck! See you at this place tomorrow!" And then let us loose. In Venice when they did it it was kinda fun because it felt like amazing race. Like here's where our hotel is; see who can get there the fastest haha. But by the time I was in Munich I was done with getting lost. While we were lost though this random little man helped us and gave us directions. I kid you not, he looked like a gnome. he was little, had a beard, came out of nowhere, and had grass in his hair! I think that there are magical dwarves or gnomes in germany that help people because it was magical. He shows up and knows english and then like magic he dissapeared instantly. Very cute man. Still though after getting directions from the gnome we were still confused and lost. Luckily all of the metros have been much easier but basically the way we home was random king running into our professor and figuring out that we had the wrong written down for our hotel. Haha so once we got that cleared up we made it home in no time. Munich was beautiful though! Went to the worlds biggest beer hall and got water and yummy food haha we looked pretty silly but there were a lot of funny drunk people and especially giant groups of bachelor parties. Very fun to watch them, it was like dinner and a show. That's it for Germany though. Very green, very pretty, didn't like the metro

Christmas store with decorated eggs. This is only one little section of the store. Entire store was FILLED with these hand painted eggs

Oh my Venice.

So as we made the long journey to Venice we stopped in the city of Civici and saw The Scrovengi chapel which is home of the absolutely breathtaking frescos by Giotto. When I first started my art history classes in the winter the first painting that I felt like I truly loved and was possibly my favorite painting ever was Giotto's Lamentation. I actually didn't even know we'd be seeing it until I got there and was watching the orientation video they show you before you go into the church..then it hit me that we were about to see it in real life and I began to freak out! For those who arent familiar with the chapel, there are dozens of scenes of all of christs life and miracles and crusifixion. pretty much the entire new testiment is painted on every wall. Not only are the colors beautiful and the composion interesting and perfect in my eyes, but in the video they talked about how all of the frescos are so famous because Giotto painted them as they would have truly occurred. Minus one scene of the devil eating the wicked and then pooping them out I feel like all of the paintings of christs life were very inspired and accurate. It was the closest I have felt to the story ever. For example they show the nativity of Mary laying down and Joseph half asleep in the stable which is kind of funny but at the same time that's exactly how it would have been. Mary would have not been standing beautiful over the newborn Christ child and Joseph would have been tired. Also the image of the slaughtering of the innocence was very beautiful in showing all the tears on all of the mothers faces and showing real emotion in the face instead of an archaic smile or a glorified angelic grin that most paintings or statues show women as. I also loved the one of the 12 apostles at the end and they are all looking in different directions when Christ is appearing to them after the resurrection. It reminded me of Hollands talk two conferences ago about how the apostles didn't now what to do when Christ was gone. They were simply going to go back to fishing and Giotto shows this so beautifully in such a simple composition. And of course my favorite is the Lamentation where they take Christ off of the cross. The visual lines, the colors, the expression on the faces of even the angels weeping, and most of all the interesting figures sitting away from the viewer so you see their backs. We were taught that Giotto did this because he wanted the viewer to be able to sit themselves in the painting with everyone else. So cool when a painter includes the viewer. Which is also why I like a lot of the Impressionism and the manorism paintings more than the classical because you can usually see either look through the eyes of the painter, or the eyes of the subject and apply it to yourself. So cool.

Well once we finally got to Venice, we saw many things like Manet and tons of famous Venician paintings. Today however I have never felt more tired. I think that everything hit me all at once and I couldn't even write notes because my hand was exhausted. So after a bunch of museums I went back to the hotel and took a 40 minute nap. Then after we went to another church with some famous Titian paintings and I learned that in Nancy Drew books she said her mother said she had Titian hair which means strawberry blonde. I now understand the reason behind this because Titian always made Christ have strawberry blonde hair because it was said that was his favorite hair color. Kinda funny. I'm going to tell Erin now that she has Titian hair, and she is NOT a ginger haha.

Then after the museum, Maddie, Madison, Caroline, Jessica, Abby and I all split a gondola ride that was AMAZING!!!!!! It was 40 minutes and our gondolier was very handsome and said he had been a gondolier for 21 years! That's as old as me...so that means he's probably 35-40 and he looks that good.. Dang. He even sang to us and whistled love songs, it was great. He showed us the hotel where The Tourist was filmed. So cool. I think I'm the only one who loved that movie. Maybe because I love Venice and Johnny Depp, and any movie that takes place in Europe. Also I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to movies. Anyways, Venice is prettier than I ever imagined. Got a REALLY pretty watch with Venician glass in it that is gray and my favorite thing in the whole world. I think I might wear it to bed.. Ok maybe not. But I love it. Leave for Austria tomorrow. So excited but sad to leave Venice and Italy in general.

The long beautiful journey to Florence

So after going to some more amazing museums in Rome we got on the bus on our way to Orvieto and Florence. Sad to leave the beautiful city of Rome but little did I know that the drive to Florence was
Literally the most beautiful bus ride I have ever seen. So many grape orange vineyards and wild poppies. It looked like price and prejudice meets wizard of oz meets sound of music. Those hills were literally singing. So beautiful. We first stopped at the city called Civita that had a population of about 10. But only because the city was on top of this giant cliff that looked like a castle about to fall off the cliff. It was so beautiful. There was a sign on one of the doors that said "Pinocchio" was filmed here as seen on tv.  I haven't seen anything on tv about Pinocchio besides Once Upon A Time but I highly doubt they went all the way to a random city in Italy to film Pinocchio's part in the show haha. But that gives you an idea of how much it looked like a fairy tale. So pretty. And the best part: there were so many cute cats. And they were clean and nice and just chilled in the city. I am actually making a very lovely collection of pictures of cats in Europe. It will be famous someday. By the end of the time spent in Civita I realized this is the place I belong. Just give me a castle on top of a cliff that has hardly any people to bother me and overlooks the most gorgeous part of Italy with a bunch of cats and I can die happy. But really...

We then headed to the other beautiful town of Orvieto, Italy. Our professor lived there for about a year and loves this city. I love this city too. A little bigger than Civita and they have some very famous history. Very fortressy and very pre-renaissancey. Loved it. Got some SUPER good kiwi gelato there that was pretty cheap. Fun fact. I will buy gelato over food any time of day. It's a good thing I have a sweet tooth and I don't get sick from anything. Because gelato is cheap and wonderful.. But then again, so is pizza haha but not so cheap.

Finally after our super long journey to Florence we made it in time to explore a little and go out to dinner. Yum! First of all our apartments here are slowly and slowly getting worse and worse quality because the more we travel the more expensive it gets. Which is sad for my wallet. In Greece our hotel room was tiny but it was very nice. Then in Rome the apartment was huge but it was crapy and my friend Caroline literally had an evil spirit living in her apartment. Scary. Everyone in her apartment could feel it :( good thing we are not there anymore. Here we are staying in a hotel that Heather our professor, knows the owner very well. She is really cute and funny and loves everyone. But our shower towels look like table clothes, and the shower is never hot. Also the you need a light key to make all the lights work. Weird. And the soap smells weird. But the nice thing is that our hotel is right by the river and close to all the museums we want to see. I've never seen Room With A View but my professor Heather says our hotel is very close to where that is. Our room does not have a view though :( we open our Peter Pan windows to some lovely scaffolding. It's a good thing that I am very low maintaince though because some of the girls are having a hard time. Especially with the wifi.

We have technically had wifi every hotel we've stayed at. But they each have their own flaws the first place in Greece the wifi only worked if I layed down on the floor right by our front door. In Rome it worked really well except that you couldn't get Skype or texting to work. And here in Florence it only works in the hallway and it kicks you off every 5 minutes or so.


Anyways. So we got to Florence and we have seen so many amazing things. Seen some things like the David, climbed to the top of the bell tower and the dome of the Duomo, seen percius and medusa statues, Birth of Venus and Leanna and the swan which was RUINED for me when my teachers told me that it actually is suppose to be symbolic of zues as the swan being unleashed about to rape Leanna. :( ok I love learning about all these wonderful artworks, but literally all of them are about rape, or the artist was a crazy person, or the artist was raped, or they just made it becaus ether were commissioned to. So lame. Man, sometimes ignorance is bliss.. Can't I just look at a painting of the birth of Venus and pretend she's a cool mermaid instead of finding out that there is dirty meaning in a lot of the symbols.. Oh well, haha that's art I guess.

So my friend Caroline understand me a lot. We decided the other day that we have the same exact mother that loves Vera Bradley.. And actually that's the only thing I can think of haha. But also we have lots of fun. Sometimes during really serious art lectures in museums we talk about how inappropriate some of these paintings are. Also we discussed how this painting of this friar who was looking at Jesus on the cross in the air with this light beams coming down. And we decided that it looked like the friar was flying a Jesus kite. We might be struck by lightning soon but sometimes you have to laugh at all these silly religious paintings. Well that's all for now.

When in Rome, get lost and eat gelato

So we got to Rome last night and boy was it beautiful. Our cab driver was literally a crazy person. At first I didn't even notice that we almost hit like 12 cars. But then I started paying attention to where we were and we were a huge 8 sweater van in tiny road Italy almost hitting every mini car, motercyclist, and even a couple flower stands. Even though I felt like I was gonna die, his crazy driving was still very smooth. He just casually would sway away from every oncoming vehicle. So I guess he knew what he was doing?? Hopefully.

Anyways. We get home and we are starving. So even though its super late and exhausted we run to a close pizza pizza place to stuff our faces before fast Sunday. Group of like 15 girls and our only boy Nate sit down and take our orders of mostly just a lot of pizza and water. Also, here in Europe water is not free :( 1 euro for each jug on the table. So we just got a bunch and split the price between the 15 or so of us. Anyways, another movie reference; totally felt like Liz on Eat Pray Love and I totally was having a relationship with my pizza. I got a Margareta. It was cheap and good :) I ended up folding up the last piece and shoving it in my face. So good. No judging.

Next day we went to sacrament meeting. Had to take the metro which was cool! Got there and they told us the translating radios were stolen or something so we just had to live with Italian sacrament. But when we got there there was a SUPER cute missionary from Cali who talked to us for a while and then for every persons testimony he went up and translated for us right next to the pulpit. Someone who spoke English even went up to bear their testimony and he then translated in Italian for the Italians. So cool haha. He messed up a few times cause he kept having to switch back and forth. So funny.

Then we took a break and went to see some famous churches in town with some extremely famous Italian paintings and we saw the piazzale flamino square and the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish steps. So cool. Also I got to drink out of every fountain I saw. The water is straight from an aquifer so it's safe to drink. Also it's the best tasting water that I've had so far in Europe. It's even better than water in Provo, which isn't really hard to do. Haha then on our way back from the Trevi Fountain me, Caroline, Nate, and Weipoo wanted gelato so we leave our group for 5 seconds to grab some and come out and our group is gone. So first of all, we have gelato, so life isn't really that hard at the moment. But once we wander around trying to find people we then finish our gelato and some back to reality that we are lost. So I have a brilliant plan to show some police officers a picture of the piazzale flamino which is right where our leaders said to meet if we got lost. The tell us 500 meters in a certain direction and we'll find it. So we walk forever and totally find it. No problem. So then we decide if our group isn't there by 715 then we go get more gelato and get on the metro back to our hotel. We totally got all the way through Rome no problem on our own with 4 people who really don't do well with direction and paying attention. Some roman angels were looking out for us toay I think. So fun though. Our group wasn't too worried about us. Haha we're from byu, we're pretty smart cookies. Tomorrow we go back to the Trevi Fountain so I'm gonna take more pictures. And maybe make another wish? Is that allowed? I don't care. It's Rome. Another movie reference, THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE MOVIE!! Give me some Gordo and Ethan Craft and a hot Italian popstar who shows me what dreams are made of and I can die happy.

Athens, Greece. There you go!

So got to Athens yesterday evening so I pretty much count today as day one. So far it's been amazing!  We visited the acropolis this morning. We walked from our hotel all the way to the top. It wasn't as far as it looked like it was going to be. But boy was it hot and dusty! By the afternoon it was about 92 degrees which I thought felt great, but there are a lot of girls who are winter people so they had a hard time with the heat. And they were the ones who got burnt the most I think haha. Then we went back to the hotel and took a nap or had lunch. I ended up finding the perfect wifi spot in my hotel room which is laying down on the ground right by the front door to our room. A little annoying for my roommates when they try to come in but it's literally the only spot my wifi works so whatever. After lunch we walked what felt like a million miles to the archeological museum but once we got there we found out it was closing in a half hour. :( apparently because of all the strikes and the government issues they haven't had enough money to pay the employees who work there so the evening employees just didn't show up today. Soooo we rested there for a little until we decided what to do. Our directors said that that just mean free time until we went to dinner at 7. So then I hear from across the museum these girls say the word beach! So I ran over and we began our spontaneous trip back to our hotel and then to the beach! THANK GOODNESS I brought my bathing suit. Everyone on my study abroad told me not to but I am from California and there was no way I was going to go anywhere without even bringing a bathing suit. We took a taxi to the beach and spend a wonderful 2 hours in the gorgeous water and people sand. It was like a foot massage for our aching feet from walking on all that cobble stone. Then our taxi guy picked us up which was nice but we had to squeeze a little because there were 5 of us and only 4 spaces. He said he's take us but if a police pulled him over it would be a 200 euro ticket! Soo we just ducked in the back. But on the way back I am sitting shotgun and I see these police car drive by us and I see the police officer lean out his window and look directly into our car. My heart was pounding so bad but pleading prayer must have made them blind to the 4 very obvious American girls in the back of a taxi. So we were saved that day. But I don't plan on ridding in a taxi ever again in Greece, and maybe anywhere else. Not the best idea, but it was fast. ANYWAYS after that was dinner at this GORGEOUS restaurant that our directors took us to. The cook who was also the owner came out and told us everything she was cooking for us and I literally felt like I was on the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding because she was the definition of a Greek woman. She talked about making her food with love and getting very fat because she makes the best tsziki sauce and homemade bread drenched in olive oil. She treated us like we were apart of her big fat Greek family which was awesome. I kept expecting her to say "there you go" after everything she said. She TOTALLY told us that the roots of the word anorexia are Greek and mean with ought or lack of and appetite. So she taught us a Greek word that meant we had a good appetite that I can't remember but it sounded like something-rexia so that was cool. And there you go haha. It was gorgeous and the food was AMAZING. Then we walked back to the hotel and I went on the roof of our hotel with a couple other girls. I felt like I was in the Lizzie McGuire movie evern though we're not even in Rome yet. But the whole time looking over Greece I kept thinking "Where is Gordo?? And when is someone going to mistake me for a European pop artist???" Also while at the beach I kept thinking of sisterhood of the traveling pants when Lena goes to Greece and meets Costas. And you'll never guess what our tour guides name is. Yeah, that's right. It's Costas. Except he's like a 60 year old man but still. That's pretty impressive: 3 movie references in one day. Can't believe I wrote this much and it's only the first real day. Probably wont have time or energy to write this much for a while haha but here's some pics and a video of our lovely cook describing the food to us. Can't be sure but I'm like 40% sure she calls the cake a "Bun cake" like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. But again. I could have just been hearing things haha you can check for yourself:

Well I tried to figure out how to upload any of my pics and videos from my iPhone onto my moms ipad and then on my blog but I can't figure it out yet/don't really have time to figure it out now. So pictures will be coming soon. I'll just put them on later to each post I do.

So I leave for Europe tomorrow! flight from LAX to denver then denver to Frankfurt then Frankfurt to Athens. I will arrive just in time for our orientation that night so from 8:00 am tomorrow I will literally be busy until June 9th. So that'll be crazy and cool. I'm super tired from cleaning and packing so thats all i'm gonna post for now. I'll have my mom's iPad while I'm there so I hope to post about every weekend or so. Maybe on sunday. Idk yet. If not I'll post a bunch of stuff when I get back. Well thats all for now. Here's a cool picture of what I will think it will look like when I get to Athens with probably some scaffolding:

My Life Now

Soooo haven't blogged in a super long time..probably because my life now has been so fun and busy I don't have time to say all of the amazing things I've done and people I've met here in Provo. I now live in a new apartment downstairs with my 5 AMAZING roommates. We are so close and  so different that its seriously awesome. For ward prayer we put together a rap for apartment intros that is pretty darn thug/legit.  here's a video of it.. hopefully it works:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/qB7JZvAB3Sk
anyways. So I got into BYU for winter which pretty much has changed my life forever. I can't wait/I'm super scared of all the hard classes I'm gonna have to take. But mostly I'm excited to study abroad in Europe.. if I get in of course. Haha it seems as if I can't stay put in one place for too long. First Hawaii, then Florida, then back to Hawaii then Utah, now all of Europe. I think I've watched Eat, Pray, Love and P.S. I Love You at least 3 times each these past two months. Both of which I found in the 5 dollar bin at Walmart. BEST PURCHASE EVER... but seriously. Those movies are at least in my top 10 for favorite movies. Love my ward, love my calling, love my roommates, love my apartment, love my friends, love my job at The Awful Waffle, love life.. only thing I don't love is my History class.. bleh. I promise to myself that I will post more about my life. Cause I haven't even written in my journel yet since this semester....yikes. k well thats it for now..got to finish History homework :/