The photos are of Cinque Terre

This past week hasn't been incredibly eventful, but we did go to Rome for a night to celebrate Cory's birthday this past Thursday. Cory is one of the three cities people that I mentioned in my last post, so now that whole group is in Rome. It was a lot of fun, just getting to see the rest of the group and meet new people as well. Getting locked out of the apartment that we were going to stay at for about half an hour wasn't too great, but other than that I had an incredible time.

Then on Saturday Cory came back to Tuscania to visit, and we had a frisbee playing reunion, which was something we had all felt deprived of since the three cities people left.

On Sunday we took a day trip with the API students to Assissi and Perugia. It was really cool to see such a famous church being used. I really wish I knew more about the history of the place, because I definitely would've appreciated it more, but it was still really awesome. Perugia was really neat as well, but we just went in order to go to the chocolate festival. It was incredible, there were stands selling every type of chocolate you could possibly imagine (except with peanut butter, because I don't think peanut butter exists in Italy). I bought a cup of cioccolata fondente calda (dark hot chocolate). However, it's not like hot chocolate in the states. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but hot chocolate here is like drinking a melted hershey's bar. It's so rich. My friend Rich always refers to it as diabetes in a cup, and I'm inclined to agree with him. But anyway, also at this chocolate festival were these tents with gates around them with people making these 5 ft cubes into sculptures on this 3 ft. high platform. Then there were these people inside the gates who would pick up all the chocolate carvings and put them in plastic bags and give them to people in the audience. They gave first priority to children, but I waited for about half an hour or 45 minutes and finally got a bag of Perugina chocolate shavings. It was so crowded, though, and some people were kind of rude a pushy. It definitely would've been a lot more fun if it there weren't so many people there. I guess it is understandable, though. This city is pretty famous for it's chocolate, and it would only make sense that a bazilllion people would want to go.

Midterms started on Monday, so we've been rushing around trying to get art projects finished and everything. It's been a little stressful, but I'm so glad that I'm taking 3 art classes and only had one midterm that I actually needed to study for (which would be Italian). Our cooking class final is this evening, and I'm making a mocha creme roll, which I'm really excited about. I made it before at home, and it was just delicious, so I figured why not try it again.

I also realized that I need to register for classes back in Kutztown on the 30th, but I've been having trouble getting in contact with my advisor, and I also realized that 2 of the classes that I absolutely have to take this coming semester are either not offered or are not listed in the online course catalog. So that should be fun.

On Saturday we leave for our Fall break trip, which will include Paris, Amsterdam, and Prague, in that order. I'm really excited about all three, but I wish we could have more time in each place. Maybe cramming it all into one week wasn't such a good idea, but we'll see. I'm sure it will be great no matter what.