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 :/

My amazing Nikon

Here are some more pics of what my amazing new Nikon can do. I'm taking a photography class this spring and some of these were assignments and some just for fun. :)

Solar eclipse pictures: My Professor tole me that out of all his professional photographer friends I got the best shot of the eclipse. YES!!!

GNO at Spark the "mocktail bar" (non-alcoholic drinks) 

Fire and fireworks at the Canyon :)

Hiking in the Canyon at Aspen Grove

BYU Baseball game!

 Robin egg at the Riv

Spring is almost OVER??

Soooooo life here in Provo has been seriously amazing. When I first got here I was cold and I was not in the mood to be living in Utah at all. Luckily I have the most amazing roommates ever and my ward is seriously the best YSA ward i've ever been in. Don't like to talk too much so here is life at the Riv this spring in pictures and i'll explain as I go:

These are the cupcakes we made in honor of watching Tanged as roommates after realizing we all had our own copy of the movie. Go us.

So here is me at my friend Chris's house. His little sister showed us the brand new kittens their cat just had...basically I died of happiness

Saw this on the way to school.. oh yeah gotta love mormon graffiti  

painted this with my oil paints one day. Still not all the way done but kinda like the way its looking so far

Ray had a braid phase where she did my hair in this cool 4 stranded braid. So sweet 

So once upon a time Ray and I were at our friend Chris, Travis, and Nicks apartment and they had to leave and they kinda accidentally left us all by ourselves in THEIR apartment...muahahahaha!!! so we did some damage to their oranges:

 best one right here:

 Me and my lovely friend Abbie trying on wedding dresses at the DI

 Abbie being the lovely "Junice" from the SNL Lawrence Welk skit for the Talent show. So great.

Check Check!

so I got to check off two things on the list I made yesterday! So Wednesday after work, me Rachel and Eevanna were walking back home when we found Joel and some other guys slacklining so we decided to join him. I was really bad at it but really we all just started talking about what we're doing after this semester and stuff and one of the guys was Ariel's (who's in our ward) brother who was visiting her for a few weeks. And then he said that they were doing stairway to heaven that night. And me and Eevanna have been talking about doing Stairway to Heaven for a while but there was only two days left she was going to be in Hawaii so we kinda gave up. but once he said that we were like "CAN WE GO???" haha maybe it was a little rude but we didn't care. So he told us to meet at Ariel's house at 1:30 am. (just so you know, Stairway to Heaven is illegal and you have to do it in the middle of the night so the guards don't catch you. Its illegal because its dangerous, but mostly its illegal because the community that lives right below hates the noise and all the tourist and teenagers going up and being crazy.) So we are on our way with Me, Eevanna, Ariel, Ariel's brother, and Ariel's friend Austin. here are some of the pics from the hike. It was truly amazing. Sooo many times you felt literally holding on to the iron rod with the mist of darkness on one side, you could see Kaneohe on the other side with tall cities, and a sheer drop on either side of you. the view was simply breathtaking. The only thing we'd need was a tree of life at the end and it was literally lehi's dream haha. But there was a rainbow at the end of the hike that was pretty spectacular.

 Aulani! got to go on thursday and didn't realized that it's location is basically in the armpit of Hawaii. Yeah didn't think there was one until I got there. It looked like Bakersfield or Arizona or something. It was gross. BUT the resort was truly spectacular. There were different lagoons you could walk to that are public for anyone. And then Eevanna, Rachel, Stephen, and I snuck into Aulani and Eevanna and I snuck onto the water slide and rode it twice! Then we started to realize everyone was wearing green wristbands so we decided to leave before we got thrown out haha. But really it was awesome and fun. So great to feel back at disney kinda again :)