hello dear readers,

I'm back in Cordoba after a fantabulous trip to Italy with 3 of my Preschita friends.
We started in Firenze(florence) climbed up the dome of the famous duemo there, walked all over the place, saw the replica of michealangelo's david (because it's literally exactly the same as the real one, except its free to visit), and climbed up the hill to san miniato al monte (famous church) to see the excellent view of the whole city, as you can see above, and we went to the famous art museum there (uffizi) We also met some mexican's and columbians in the hostel there, and they speak Spanish sooo much clearer than andalusians. It's amazing. They didn't pronounce z's like th's, and they didn't leave the s's of their words and i understood everything they were saying. Next time i decide to immerse myself in the spanish language, i'll be going to latin america. Also in florence, we visited my wheaton friend who's studying there and had dinner with her. It's always super guay (cool) to meet up with people you know from normal life in extravagently exciting places.

After Florence, we took the train to Venice and spent two nights there. sort of. we really were staying outside of venice in a campground sort of thing in a small trailer with an outside kitchen, and taking the bus into venice. no biggie. Venice was, of course, super super beautiful and I really really want to go back when i have some more time to walk around and get hopelessly lost on all the tiny little streets and maybe ride in an outlandishly expensive gondola.

Then we took the train back to Pisa (the only day it rained was the day were we were in a train for 5 hours, so that was lucky), checked into our hostel, played with the resident kitten, and made pasta by repeatedly pouring boiling water over pasta in glasses, since there wasn't a kitchen. The next day, we visited the leaning tower, which was really quite pretty, and then traveled back home to cordoba. All in all an excellent (and surprisingly affordable) trip.

Tomorrow, our program goes to Granada, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to Morrocco the weekend after that, and then austin/claire visit, then zomg not very much time left at all. (then i go to Paris with kirstie before I fly home) So the only place on my wishlist I'm missing is Portugal, and I'll definitely be okay with that because I'm 100% certain that sometime in my fabulous, wonderful life I'll have another chance to go to Portugal (and maybe to the north of spain because I'm kinda sad I haven't seen the Guggenheim too)

I'm enjoying this semester very much and it makes me feel like there's no reason the rest of my life can't be this fabulous, so I'm very excited to keep living. It's a good feeling.