I am in Italy!

I am in Italy and it is so beautiful. As soon as I stepped off the plane it felt like home. It feels like California here; nice and warm. Andrea picked me up at the airport, took me back to her apartment and made me a delicious lunch of veggie pasta with cinnamon tea. She took me all around Florence to a bunch of Italian places that I can't spell but they are important and I am cool for going there now. Everything is beautiful and full of so much history!
We ate delicious gellato and I have only been spending the Euros that Greta and Kyle gave me so far. Haha.
The men here are very forward and tell you you are beautiful and will just start talking to you. Andrea takes my hand and pulls me away. They all want one thing from American chicks according to Andrea but I swear it would not do to much harm to just talk to people...but I know she knows better than me after living here for all these weeks and having to fight the men off with a stick. They all want her America bootay!
So I took a little sietsa (only got 3 hours of sleep before I came here) and then we went to an Irish pub and I had absinthe and Guinness. How freaking European of me, right?
I am just so in the zone and so happy to be here. It is strange that two days ago I was in Estonia, this morning I was in Copenhagen, and now I am in Italy. I seriously cried a little bit once I got off the plane from the warm weather (I was in rain gear and freezing just last night!) and a familiar face.
We are going to go see tons of cool things and eat good food this week. I am not into the pressures to see all of Italy in a week. Right now we are watching Italian TV and Andrea made homemade chocolate chip cookies for her class for tomorrow. To some this may seem boring and one might say, "Why aren't you out doing stuff, you are in Europe!" But I live around here now and sometimes the nice chill days are just the best. And its Sunday. This is a Catholic country so there aint too much going on tonight anyway. I will go play the tourist but I want to relax and just have a good time as well.
Next week we are going to Barcelona. That "we" includes me and Andrea and there are tons of other people coming with us I guess, but Andrea doesn't know who these others are and either do I. I have no idea where I am staying (hostels probably, but maybe friends of friends of friends? Oh and we might see Madrid as well...?) Should be an adventure and I am going to do my best to go with the flow, not ruin anyone else's crazy spontaneity, and try not to spend too much money, eek.
Oh and I will probably get to see Ha Ani from high school in a small town outside of Florence. I don't even get to see the girl in "real life" at home very often, and how great is it we just get to see each other in Italy!

On another note, my week long "academic" study tour was fantastic! I took a train to Stockholm and there I ate some Swedish meatballs, took a bath in the hotel and {GASP} shaved my hairy body just because I could, hehe. We had delicious and cheap food in this underground art cafe and played so much Egyptian rat fuck...so much fun. I saw two different styles of Swedish schools, went to see the Vasa museum, had a tour of the old town, explored the metro system (it goes really deep into the ground. I think I felt the temperature change, I swear.)
Then we had an overnight booze cruise from Stockholm to Tallinn and it was great; my first cruise! The alcohol was tax free on the ship! The buffet was delicious and I had caviar for the first time ever. The dessert spread was amazing too. Turkey was playing Estonia in football the next day so our ship had tons of creepy Turkish Swedes on their way to the game. It was one girls birthday and it was certainly an adventure to sum it up. The next day I think was still drunk and left my passport in my cabin on the ship (oh em gee, right?) but luckily my friend found it. Long story short, hehe.
Estonia is such a cool country and I never would have gone there. I am not gonna lie. I didn't know it existed until I was forced to go there with my school. It was occupied by the soviet union until 1991 so it was so interesting to hear about that. I am REALLY fascinated with Russia now and I want to go there next semester. The town looks like a Disney movie and definitely has an Eastern European feel to it. I had a beautiful hotel in Estonia, went to an Estonian jazz concert, ate a completely mid evil meal only using my fingers in candle light, went to a modern art museum, ate at this neat African Kitchen, saw two Estonian schools, had a walking tour, went to a mall (eek. Estonia was pretty cheap so we were in search of various things, but yeah. A mall is a mall is a mall is a mall, which means mall stuff is more expensive always). Then we flew back to Copenhagen.

That was my great week in a nutshell. So much history, so many cool stories, currencies, languages, etc. I might have done more but honestly cannot remember!

Three cheers to an amazing week in Italy and another amazing week in Spain!

Aha!

I just dreamed in Danish! Isn't that one of those signs that I am basically fluent?
The dream was in English too, but I actually understood the Danish and the English part of the dream wasn't even important...

Either I am on the road to fluency or simply scared for my midterms this week. Lets hope its the first!

It's going to be a long winter...

It is 53 degrees here right now.
It is also 53 degrees in Truckee. How is this possible that I lived there for 14 years and I feel like right now I've never been so cold in my life?
I guess the bay area and Reno warmed me up?
I think this difference can be attributed to a) the climate change. Truckee may be high, Copenhagen is coastal. b) In Truckee we had a heater and a fireplace. Here, the heater just broke and I think it has to actually be freezing for Bodil to turn it on anyway. The fireplace doesn't do much and takes a long time to get started (or something...I am not quite sure what the deal with that is, but it does take a lot of tending to)
I am wearing two pairs of socks, a pair of PJ pants and a pair of work out pants, a long sleeved shirt, a small sweatshirt, a big sweatshirt, a scarf, a hat, a hood, and leg warmers on my arms (can't wear gloves or I can't use my hands too well.)
This is only the beginning and 53 isn't even that cold.
It is going to be a loooong winter :)