kathleen and italy mix very well!!!! (very very long)

ok so i know that it has been a long time since i have last posted. more than one person has already told me this....i get it. but now nobody can complain about a lack of blog. so now i will begin from where else???? the beginning. so i left london last week in the height of all the crazy fog...i personally barley made it out of the airport, my flight was delayed basically a half day to milan. that was so annoying. anyways i was dead tired cause i got about 3 hours of sleep the night before because i was up late packing and one of my flatmates kept talking to me. anyways so i crashed on the flight to milan making it very quick found my luggage (which they almost lost) found my train that brought me to the center of milan. and i FIANLLY met up with my aunt and uncle along with their three kids and mary! the rest of the day was just getting us back to florence since its almost 3 hours away.

******Next Day*******
so mary and i slept in a bit and got a late start with my uncle mike showing us around. i felt like we really saw a lot. we went to a bunch of piazzas that i dont remember the names of at the moment, we went to the giant church (duomo) and climbed to the top some 400+ stairs, and we were able to see David the sculpture by Michelangelo. It was very amazing. i really had no idea that he was so big. but he is not normal human size at all. he was built large (his hands are incredibly oversized for his body) so he could be put on top of the duomo but Michelangelo decided he didnt want him up there. so huh there you go. i have decided that florence is pretty easy to navigate around once you have done it once or twice....so if mary or i ever got lost we wouldnt be lost for long i am guessing. we had a long day in town so mary, mike, and i came back to the apartment (which is the largest apartment i have been in in a long time and it is so cool) and just hung out and called it an early night.

this is the duomo in town. its absolutely gorgeous. made of marble and really breath taking. when you climb the top of the duomo you can see for ever it seems like, it really gives you a good idea of florence.

this isnt the real David, the real one is inside a museum so the elements dont wreck it too much. you can kinda see it, his oversized hands....check em out!

**********Next Day*********
so this day was a little more eventful. we decided that we wanted to see some italian country side so all of us (sarah, mike, and kids included) all borded a train and headed to a town about an hour out of florence called cartona. this is the city that the movie "under the tuscan sun" was sorta set in. this is the town that diane lane's (at least i think thats who is in the movie) character gets off the gay bus tour stops at....it was pretty cool. this town was litterally on a hill and pretty much no matter where you wanted to go was up. and of course the place we wanted to go was to the old castle on top of the hill. so up and up we went. once we got there since it was so close to christmas (or natale as they say in italian) the castle and the church was closed. oh well at least we got to see it as i always say. from there we walked back down to the small town square and grabbed some lunch that included me getting a very large calzone that i couldnt finish. i am blaming it on the fact that my tummy still isnt better yet from being sick and it cant take a lot of food. thats what i am going with. but it was sooooooooooo good. after lunch it was so cold that we all decided to head back home and call it a day. mary and i totally crashed on the train ride home. i dont even remember falling asleep!!!!!!!

this is the view we got from about half way up to the top. dont you just love tuscan landscape????

alice (my 6 year old cousin) and i taking a break climbing to the top of the hill!my calzone that i REALLY wanted to finish but was unable to.....boo.

*****Next Day*****
So now it is finally christmas eve and it sooooooooooo doenst feel like christmas, buts that ok cause i am in florence italy and i lovin it. this time sarah and baby jill took us around and we saw even more stuff. we went to a street market where i finally grabbed my turqoise blue scarf that i wanted and sunglasses that i needed. it was such a cool little market, its the kind of place that you can haggle with all the vendors and every stall is selling the same kinda of stuff, all the fun tourist stuff...you know. anyways we walked around that for a while and then went into the main market area where they sell food and explored a little bit and bought a few items. we walked around some more and watched jill run around in her favorite piazza that is full of pigeons. she is so cute to watch run around. just love it. we went and saw another church were michelangelo is burried, but we didnt go inside. from here sarah and jill left mary and i and we went to what seemed like a nice suburb of the city called fiesole on the top of a hill to watch the sunset. it was the first time we had been alone in florence. very exciting!!!!! so we took the bus up and sat on a ledge for a while after playing around by a monastary and exploring a bit. from up here you could see everything. it was so cool. once the sunset it automatically got very cold. colder than we enjoyed it to be so we hopped on a bus and headed back to the apartment, it was christmas eve after all!!!!!!!! so here instead of santa (babbo natale) coming down chimneys and filling stockings he climbs in the window and fills shoes. so the kids had their shoes all set out and ready for babbo natale to come. it was my first grown up christmas that once the kids went to bed i saw the presents get put out and the shoes filled. i even got to write the letter back to the kids from babbo natale.....cause i have santa like handwriting! cool!!!!!!!!

sarah and i in florence going to see some more sights!!!!!!mary and i in our new sunglasses and scarves. we were climbing up to go see the sunset!the view from fiesole...so breathtaking!!!!!!its hard to find really large christmas trees here so we had a small one on the "christmas chair" and here the kids have their shoes waiting to be filled from babbo natale...

***********Christmas Day************

There isnt much to say about christmas besides that it happened and it was very nice. our christmas started at 8 in the morning which is very doable...thats not early for christmas. we ended up spending our entire christmas in our pajamas and playing with all the kid's new toys and reading books and just lounging around. we drank mimosas with blood orange juice and just had a relaxing day putting together puzzles and playing battleship (love that game so much). it was a good christmas away from home. it wasnt the same but i wasnt expecting it to be at all, if i had to be away from home i am glad that i got to spend christmas in a beautiful country and not somewhere like butte montana. ugh. but i hope everyone else had a wonderful christmas day!!!!

******Next Day**********

So the day after christmas (which is actually the day that i am writing this) was a pretty eventful day. mary and i discovered that pisa is actually only one hour alway from florence, and we totally capitalized on that. sarah helped us onto a train in the morning and we took the train to pisa. when we got there we wandered around a little bit and eventually we turned the corner and there it was.....the leaning tower of pisa. in person it looks so much extra leany. it was really unbelievable. the tower is in company with a large duomo and a bapastry. they are all located in the "field of miracles" it has large lawns of grass and its very picturesque to look at. its not in the middle of a street, which i half expected it to be in a roundabout or something like that. but it was in a spot you wish all landmarks were placed. but anyways word is that the tower leans 1 mm more every year, and when it was built like over 1000 years ago or something like that it was leaning right away and 2 architects besides the original one tired to correct the lean. so on the 4 ''floor" you can tell it was built back to try and compinsate for the lean. very crazy. mary and i were gonna go climb to the top but it was 15 euro and it kinda creeped us out a bit how much it was leaning...just didnt feel safe really. so we ran around pisa for awhile, and we found out that without the tower there people would not go to pisa. cause thats about all there is to do, so after we grabbed some lunch (i tried another calzone and had a lot better luck with it) we went back to the train station and went back to florence. Once back in florence i really wanted gelato (my new favorite thing ever!) so we went to this place called festival del gelato, a place that sarah and mike showed us, got some gelato walked around and then went back to get MORE gelato ( i told you i love it) but the second trip turned out to be very interesting. i was trying to decide what flavors that i wanted when i saw this young man that looked a lot like a kid i know back in bozeman. but i didnt really think about it cause i see people that look really similar all the time to people i know. but turns out it wasnt a look-a-like. his name is kevin clayton and he is from bozeman and i am friends with his older brother and i ran into him in festival del gelato in florence italy. how random is that?????very!!!!!

the tower and the duomo, which is also leaning but not as severly...and i dont know which way it is leaning.everywhere you look people are doing the same pose, pretending to push up the leaning tower. these little things to stand on made it that much easier. i just really liked how you could see everyone doing the same pose. i liked it!!!!!and then here i am pushing it up myself. and it is actually a harder picture to take than you think....mary giving it a go herself.....both of us in front of the tower....

**********December 27***********

so now after a lovely time here in florence mary and i are off to paris to meet up with a bunch of friends from back home. it was so awesome to see sarah, mike, and the kids. and fingers crossed i will be back again!!!!!

of course the dryers dont work

i think my new favorite thing to do is procrastinate. i really do. because i procrastinated with doing my papers and doing my laundry. and i leave tomorrow for italy and i have one paper done out of 3 and i have not done my laundry. now the laundry doesnt seem like a big deal...but of course this weekend they are putting new dryers in and they dont work yet. great. and if i lived in some place besides oh i dont know england (which right now the fog has been so thick i am wondering if i am going to be able to take off tomorrow...but thats not the point) i would put my clothes out to dry but instead i am going to be blowdrying the clothes that i need to bring with me, ugh. what a pain.
other than that i am doing good and ready to get my christmas vacation/traveling parade on the road. here is a little glimpse into it...i leave the 21st for milan to meet up with mary (my friend studying in prague) and my aunt, uncle, and their three kids who are living in italy for a year, then we take the train back to florence after trucking around milan and stay there until the 27th enjoying a lovely christmas. then mary and i jet off to paris to meet up with a bunch of friends from back home who are coming over for holiday. we all spend new years in paris and then on the 4th we say fly to london after saying goodbye to mary (as she will be skiing europe) and then we hang out in london and surrounding area for a bit and once everyone leaves i myself fly back to the states on the 16th to visit my sweet sweet sweet family. but then i am coming back to london on like the 27 or 28 of january, just in time for the second semester at kingston uni. i am telling you all this because i most likely will not be blogging for a bit keeping you all updated on my life. dont worry though....wipe that sad tear off your face. i will be back, i promise. anyways HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

being sick so close to christmas

so i almost had a close call here. i recently have been very sick, which is no fun at all. i was sick all day friday and saturday, the sick where you only get out of bed to go to the bathroom or to lean over your bed to the garbage bag that you have so skillfully placed right next to your bed. the kind of sickness where you wake up at noon and are tired again by one after uncomfortable groaning and not moving from that "one" position that you feel semi ok in. the worst thing about it was that i was so hungry but i couldnt even begin to eat, so two days of no eating and now its the third day and i feel a lot better i am out of bed and about to start typing some serious papers but still nothing sounds good to eat, so going on three days with no food...only water and sprite.
BUT the good news is that i see a full recovery by the time i have to go to italy to meet up with mary and then we get to meet up with my aunt and uncle and their three kids. they are living in florence while my uncle teaches there. its like what i am doing but instead he is a lecturer. cool i know. so that will be fun to be in italy for christmas!!!! good place to spend your first christmas away from home i am thinking. ok well i am gonna go back into the kitchen look at my food cabinet in disgust and debate if i can choke down some rice that is in my cabinet or if i want to try and get some pizza. so many choices. well as they say here in the uk happy christmas everyone!!!!!

the pictures that you have been sleeping by your computer waiting for...are finally up!!!!

(just kidding it didnt load, real cool blog thingy..oh well you can imagine)
ok well this first one is probably one of the worst group photos taken. only some of us are paying attention, the sun is sorta in my eyes. and we just basically werent really ready but oh well, here is our ice skating team, you can kinda see hampton court palace behind us. when i asked this lady to take our picture (cause you arent allowed to take your camera on the ice) you would of thought that i asked her to reroof a house while having eggs thrown at her while its -19 degrees. i mean it was seriously like pulling teeth. whatever, she didnt do a good job anyways.



showing off my sweet skating skills with a smile....


and i thought this picture was funny cause i am making this stupid face...but it reminded me a lot of a picture of me when i was like 2 or 3 i dont know and i opened a christmas present, and that was the look on my face. i was so pumped. i think it was like an easy bake over or something sweet like that. mom & dad...do you two know which picture i am talking about???


this is just a silly picture of the victorious girls at the maze on hampton court palace grounds. this is amaya, me, and cassie at the center. we are flexing to show how cool we are and strong. i think both come across very well!!!!! and mom it took us like a total of 5 or 6 minutes to get to the center...not our 30 or whatever it took us. what a good time!!!!!

tour guide and ice skating with king henry VIII

so this past weekend i had a friend come stay with me from france. his name is mitch and we go to school together back at msu, anyways he is studying in france and he decided to come to foggy london town to escape for a bit. also he brought a friend with him named pat...and sarah and mike you will like this one. pat is the kid of who mike works with back in bend. how crazy. finally met him and he stayed on my floor for 2 nights. small world, i think. anyways so the adventure begins...

without missing a beat london turned predictable by getting really rainy on friday the day that the two boys came in, and of course before than the weather has been very very nice. blue skies, no rain, little windy, and no rain. its like the beginnign of fall back in montana but everything is still green and alive. its crazy. anyways so the day they come in its rainy, but amaya and i pick them up liverpool street, grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to hampton wick. showed the sweetness that is my flat. and actually they were really impressed they were talking about how they share 2 hobs between like 2 floors of people, while we have 8 hobs for 6 people. their set up would make cooking a little harder i would say. anyways so we dropped off their stuff and headed back into london since our tickets were still good and walked from london waterloo (london eye and big ben area) all the way down the south bank past the globe theater to the tower bridge. some of the biggest sights in london basically all in a row. after that we called it a night, grabbed a train, and went back to hampton wick and all stayed in and hung out with the flatmates.

the next consisted of a crazy amount of walking...ugh. we hit a lot of things that they boys wanted to see (about this time i have seen most of the big touristy things and i am just along for the ride and being a tourist guide...which i am getting really good at, didnt get lost one! ha!) so we hit trafalgar square (well that is my favorite place in london) it has the national gallery looking on a square with a tower of lord nelson, 2 fountains and giant lions to climb on. here is a not very good picture of lord nelson tower/column and you can sorta see big ben poking out in the background. ok well moving on, back to my story and my sweet adventures. we hit up the national gallery in trafalgar square, st. james park, buckingham palace, national history museum (which i did learn a lot at....3 hours and it was amazing), past harrod's, hyde park, and then piccadilly circus. a lot of walking to say the least. but we had a good time. we hit the waterloo station and grabbed a train home. we went out with almost all the flatmates and called an early night and came home and watched scrubs....

so on sunday we all had tickets to go skating at the hampton court palace on the ice skating rink that they set up for the holiday season. we all bundled up (even though it was warm enough we didnt need to...but you have to go skating all bundled up!!!) and walked down to the palace and grabbed our blue skates and jumped on the ice!!!! this ice sucked. it had a nice sheet of water on top of the ice and well i have seen better. so we had an hour on the ice. and it was a lot of fun. it really highlighted how bad i really am at skating. i can go forward....and i can go forward. i am very limited in my ability of skating on the ice. but no worries no falling here. ahaha. there were some close calls.

i would upload some photos but this awesome blogger program is not letting me. great. but they are pretty sweet, i will upload them later. but we skated around for an hour with hampton court palace in the background...very charming and british. i loved it. they had a huge thing with concessions including hot chocolate, hot dogs, all sorts of super sweet stuff. so we had a good time but we had to get the boys back so they could grab their stuff and head back into central london to meet up with another friend they have in central london. but on our way home we walked past the maze on the grounds and got in with our skating tickets. it was boys vs. girls and the girls won....ahahahhahaha. so we get back and i threw them on a train and came back home and picked up my room from having people sleeping on my floor and let me tell you what i found when cleaning up....
1. mitch's glasses
2. toothbrush
3. a blood donor card
4. a pair of jeans
5. a tshirt
...this is even when i asked the boys if they got everything...oh goodness. anyways it was a good weekend and now its back to reality and back to homework. oh well.