I finally feel like I have a chance to relax! The day after our midterms were over (which I guess would be Friday the 24th), I went with our student advisor to a big art museum in Rome. Several other people were going to come, but backed out, and it was going to be just me. Except before we left we had to meet Amanda, one of the people in the Three Cities Program, in Viterbo (the city close to us) to do her Permit of Stay meeting. She decided to come along with us, which was nice because it was going to be kind of weird being just me and Marco. And when we got to Rome Dan and Gabrielle from the Three Cities Program also came to the museum, as well as Rich (in the Tuscania Program) and his friend Nick who had just flown in from Utah. So it ended up being quite the crew of people, which was a very welcome surprise. I decided to stay in Rome with Gabby and Amanda so that I didn't have to go back to Tuscania, only to return to Rome the next day.

On Saturday (the 25th), we left from Rome's Ciampino airport, which I discovered is significantlly smaller than Fuimicino. I found my way there all by myself. This probably isn't a big deal to anyone else, but I'm not really a city person, and now that I think about it, I've never really walked around a big city by myself. Ever. So for me to be in a foreign country in a big city full of thieves, pickpockets, and who knows what other kinds of criminals, it was a little scary. But I didn't feel all that uncomfortable. I made it to the place where the bus for the airport leaves from, asked (in Italian) if this is the bus going to Ciampino airport, and exlained to him that my ticket for two people would only be for one because the other person isn't here. Every time I manage to communicate with someone in Italian I feel very proud of myself. So I got on the bus and began my inward gloating. The bus ride was about 45 minutes long, which was just long enough for me to stop gloating and begin to second guess whether I had indeed boarded the correct bus. It turned out that I had, and was fine. I met up with the rest of the Tuscania group, as they were flying out of the same airport to a different destination.

At last we were off to Paris! We finally arrived at our hostel around 11pm, and went right to sleep, as we were pretty exhausted from traveling for the day. The next day we decided to go to the Louvre Art Museum AND the Orsay Art Museum. Both were wonderful. A person could probably spend a week in the Louvre and not see everything. It's just so incredibly overwhelming! Orsay was wonderful as well, I really enjoyed the great collection of Impressionist art that they had there.

In between these two museums we stopped at a caffe and had lunch. I got a mediocre-tasting chicken sandwhich, and for dessert I had creme-brulle (and I'm proabaly completely butchering the spelling of that dish). But it's this delicious dessert they make, and I guess it's just caramelized cream. At least that's what the English description of it said on the menu.

After the museums we were exhausted and decided to head back to our hostel. Only we got a bit disoriented on the way there and ended up sitting down in some grassy park-like area. There were several children there attempting to juggle a soccer ball, and they were just so adorable. I had my sketchbook along, and decided it would be a good time to sketch. So we sat and sketched for a little while, then got oriented again and returned to our hostel for a much needed nap.

We met some cool peole at our hostel, and as a group decided we were going to go up the Eiffel tower, go on a boat tour, and then go out to eat. But we ended up skipping the boat tour for lack of time before the resteurant closed. The Eiffel Tower doesn't look that big until you have to climb up it. But it was well worth it. There was a beautiful view of the city from the top, although it was quite windy on the one side. We were all starving, so we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for a big meal of steak. I think pretty much everyone had some form of steak, and everyone seemed to enjoy thier food. I got an open faced Sirloin sandwhich, and it was just delicious.

The next day we went to see the Arch di Triumph, which was really cool, but I was just so exhausted from all the walking we had done that it wasn't that impressive to me. We also say Notre Dame Cathedral, which was very cool, except for the fact that it started to pour as we were waiting in line to go in and go up the towers. So we abandoned that idea and settled for just taking several photos of the outside of the building.

We also went to the train station and were informed that the reciept I had for my train tickets was not adequate proof for them to print another ticket, so I had to buy a second pair of train tickets to go to Amsterdam. I think I'm going to write a nasty letter to Eurorail.

Amsterdam was definitely interesting. Since maijuana is tolerated (though technically not legal), there were "coffee shops" everywhere. Just to clarify, coffee shops are places that people go to smoke marijuana, although I've heard that they do actually sell coffee as well. I thought there would be several, but not nearly as many as there actually are. There are also bicycles everywhere, as my roomate unfortunately found out the hard way. She now has this really nasty bruise the size of a wallet on her hip. The lady that ran into her wasn't exactly the kindest, either. This woman started cursing (I presume) at her in Dutch, then realized she didn't speak Dutch so she began to curse at her in English instead. I keep reminding her that she'll have a really good story to tell about Amsterdam.

We stayed one night with a friend of a friend, whose name is Emily. She was really kind, and made us an incredible breakfast in the morning. We had these little pancakes cooked in butter and then coated with powdered sugar. She also made sausage and got these little chocolate-coated ginger cookies as well. We made bruschetta for her, which she really seemed to like. After we left her place we checked into our hostel and walked around the city some more. Amsterdam definitely doesn't seem like a place I would want to live. I'm very glad we visited there, however, as it gave me a taste of something other than old pituresque buildings. It was more this modern, liberal culture. Don't get me wrong, though, there are some very nice old areas of Amsterdam that are quite beautiful. We walked around the city some more, went to the Anne Frank house, and went out for dinner at this wonderful little restuerant in a quaint area of town. I'm glad we were so lucky with food, because in every city we had at least one meal or one dish that was just fantastic, and that's how our meal was here. We returned to our hostel and went to bed quite quickly, as we were once again exhausted. The next day we left early in the morning for Prague.

We got to Prague, and discovered that our hostel is in one of the shady parts of town. We had to walk accross this grafitti-covered foot bridge that went over this old run down train station that I'm not even sure is used any more. There was this train sitting there the entire time we were there, and I imagine quite a few homeless people sleep in it at night. We didn't really do anything the rest of the day, as Ashley was feeling absolutely terrible. I'm honestly surprised she didn't hack up a lung.

As we were just hanging out in our hostel (which by the way was very nice except for the fact that I felt like I was going to be mugged every time I stepped out of the door), the two other girls staying in our room came and the one girl was in tears. Appherently her purse had been stolen! I felt really bad for her, and we tried to think of solutions so that she could still enjoy her stay. In the end I think everything turned out ok, she was just short a lot of money. Which still isn't fun, but it could've been worse. It just helped to cement Prague as a shady city, though. I don't think I've ever held on to my purse as tightly as I did there (especialy considering it had been slashed with a boxcuter by a wanna-be pickpocket on a crowded metro in the same city almost a year ago).

The next day we did all the tourist stuff. We went to the Mucha Museum and I bought a book and several postcards of his work, as well as Old Town Square, the Astronomical clock, Prague Castle, St. Charles Bridge, and St. Vittes Cathedral. Our wonderful meal in Prague came at lunch time, where we sat down and had some traditional Czech food. We both got the same thing: bread with garlic butter to spread on it, then potatoe soup, then goulash with dumplings, and finally some amazing sort of sundae. All that for less than $20 (including drinks and tip). That might not sound very cheap, but the portions were gigantic and we definitely got our money's worth out of it. We returned to our hostel and relaxed again.

Then we had to begin our journey home. We took a metro to a bus station, then a bus to the airport. At the airport the oh-so-wonderful woman at the check-in desh decided to be the ONLY person on our entire trip to enforce the one and only one bag of carry-on luggage. This means no purses, appherently. She took a look at how big our bags already were, and laughed and said "good luck getting that all in one bag." Now if I were wealthy and not pressed for time I might have just opted to put it in checked luggage and not have to worry about it. But I'm a poor college student (and a cheap Mennonite as well) and really wanted to catch a particular train that would be leaving shortly after we arrived at the train station. So what did we do? There was no way I was going to fit anything else in my backpack without removing a good portion of it's contents, and Ashley was in a similar situation. We went to the bathroom and put on almost ALL of the clothing we had in our bag. By the time we left the bathroom, I looked about 40 lbs heavier and was wearing 3 bras, 11 shirts, a pair of jeans, a pair of basketball shorts, and a pair of sweatpants. Take THAT mean check-in lady!

So we took our flight to Milan, took the 5:40 bus to the train station (arrived at 6:30), then took the 7pm train to Rome, and then the metro to our friends house. We had arrived at Rome at 11:30pm, spent a few hours sleeping at Gabby and Amanda's, then caught the 6:09am train back to Viterbo, where we were greeted by Alessio, which was kind enough to drive us back to Tuscania. Exhausted again, we napped most of the day before going out for dinner with Rich and his friend Nick, who had also returned from their trip with some crazy stories as well.

This week has been nice, as nothing in any of my classes is too intense.

However, I do feel like I've forgotten every single word I ever learned in Italian. I spent about 4 hours last night just reviewing vocabulary and rules, and doing my homework for that class. I'm sure I'll get used to it, though, being surrounded by the beautiful language once again.