New Year With A New Adventure

It's been a while....

2009-03-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

So it has been quite some time since I have posted anything. Things here have been CRAZY! I am teaching full time (finally) and then I have this dreaded Teacher Work Sample to do, which thus far is 37 pages. I have not even started my portfolio which is due the end of April. So, in between planning, typing and trying to see Europe as well, there hasn't been much time. Since I last posted I have been to Venice (Carnevale), Austria, Nove( cermanics place), tons of restaurants, the biggest cave in the world in Trieste, a castle and who knows where else. I know I am missing some places but I can't think.

So, I have been a busy girl! School has been quite time consuming, so that is where most of my time goes.

During Carnevale, I did get a chance to go! It was SOO Much fun! We took the train in to

The biggest cave in the world that I went to was a ton of fun! I went with the Outdoor Rec. group. It was 500 steps down into the cave and 500 steps back up and out of the cave. It was in no way as cool as the ones I saw in VA, but it was just HUGE! Then we went to a castle. The castle was right on the ocean and it was beautiful! This guy built it for his daughter and then she never even went there. Such a tragedy, these poor spoiled kids!

I'll continue this later! Gotta run for a bit...

Amazing weekend on the Mediterranean sea!!

2009-02-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

   This is a road that zig zags all the way down the cliff on the Almafi coast

   This is at Positano
   Also at Positano
   Beautiful streets.. more of Positano (which is where Under the Tuscan Sun was filmed.. fyi)

   I just loved their signs.. too cute!!

   Church...
   This would be our tour guide.. Elio.. crazyy Italian..
   Me.. obviously.. at Capri... one of the most amazing places EVER..
   We're at the top of Capri looking down.. boy was the drive up here scary!
    Beautiful!!!!!
   I just liked the tree!
   Bus we took to get to the top of Capri
   My newly acquired friend, Megan and I getting the best seats in the house on the bus.. Up FRONT!
   Pics from the bus ride.. yea we were that close to the edge!

   Funny pic... so the guy in the mirror is our bus driver and he was awesome!! He looks just like Robert Romano off of Everybody Loves Raymond!!!!! Awesome guy!!
   Bottom of Capri, which is Anacapri
   The rocky Mediterrean coast...

   just off the ferry in Capri
   Naples!
   You know me... I love takin' pics of myself! lol
   "Pistachios.. Pistachios... Cashews.. "
   Castle behind the port of Naples
   Bus that brought us from Aviano to Naples

Pics.. GALORE!!!!

2009-02-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

   Little over board with the garland.. or whatever that is.. I thought it was cool though!
   The Italian MACHO man!!!!!! OHHH YEA!!
   Don, look at that.. why isn't our wood stacked like that??? :)
   Loved the view..
   AWESOME BOATS!!!!
   Awesome tree!!!
   Too MUCH FUN!!!
   Dirrty Elephant Ride!!!!
   Look at that CRRRAAZZYYY GIRL!!!
   HAAHAAHHAA... what can I say????

Breathe it! Live it! Love it!

2009-02-03T07:37:00.000-08:00

   Walkin' the plank.....
   Scaredy Cat!!!!!
   We couldn't pass up a romantical moment!! lol
   I'm gonna do it!!!!!!!!

   Yes... we're laying on the random ground!!!

   Awesome DOME!!!!

   Crystal was obsessed with the manger scene!!!
   The water is TURQUOISE!!!!
   AMAZING!!
   Small town... and a windshield wiper.. haha
   Crystal and I... we're on top of the WORLD!!!
   I do believe I can see all the way back home!!!
   Wouldn't want to be under that THING!!
   That's more snow than SC has seen in all my years of living!!


   Another Amazing dessert!!!!
So.. what I have been doing??? That is a great question that is been plaguing the minds of ones for years upon years... Anywho.. I've been meeting more people.. which is great! This past weekend I went to Barcis where they have this awesome lake where the water is turquoise!!! It was amazing! The weekend before that I went to Piancovala (I'm sure I didn't spell that right). That place was also AmAzInG!!! I went to the top of the mountain that I have pictures of all over the place! You could see forever and it was awesome! Crystal and I had a great time! Ok pictures..

2009-01-20T08:44:00.000-08:00

My Adventures Outside of Aviano and such....

2009-01-20T08:03:00.000-08:00

I'm so very sorry I haven't posted in over a week now. The internet has been down quite frequently and I've been doing a lot as well. Last week consisted of lots of dinners and such. There was nothing too amazing going on. I went to the chinese place which is called Take Away and it's just like Pagoda at home but 10 times better. I also had an American Cheeseburger from a restaurant. The cheeseburger was awesome and when it came out it had an American Flag sticking out of it which I thought was quite comical. The guy that owns the place commented on my coat.. you the brown black and cream colored one I wear all the time. He said it looked like something Queen Elizabeth wears. That turned into a 10 min. conversation about how I had the features to look ritzie and could pull it off. The guy was American from Detroit, interesting guy but I was flattered nonetheless. I had some of the most amazing desserts this past week as well. OMG...Italian desserts are to die for!!! Here is exhibit A:

A whole menu for various teas... hmm..

This menu is all chocolate.. you pick your chocolate and they turn it into hot chocolate.. really really rich!!!!!

This what a typical coffee bar looks like... FYI if you stand at the bar and drink your coffee or wine you it cost much less than getting a table.

The irrestible "Crazy Sundae"!!!! Oh my......... is all you can say about that!

The Weekend

The weekend was quite interesting as well. Friday we went to a pool hall in Pordenone. It had tons of arcade games, pool tables, and all jazz. That was good fun! Then we went for toast and coffee (which is the Italian Waffle house bit). Toast is a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and it is delicious!!! The coffee is macchiato cappuccino. It's the best coffee ever!!!!!

Saturday we left early to go to Montebelluno, which we thought was near Belluno.

There were some detours and they took my advice on directions (b/c I've been here so long) and we

ended up going to Belluno which is almost in Austria! I was so hoping we would go into Austria, but

you have to have like a road tax something or other and we didn't have it. But, the scenery was AMAZING!!

We were in the huge mountains and it was just beautiful! I was so very glad we went an hour and half out of

our way! I took some pics.. of the view.. but they were as we were driving so they aren't the best.

The Weekend

2009-01-11T04:38:00.001-08:00

So, this has been quite a fun-filled weekend although it was supposed to be more than what it was, but that's okay. I have officially been to a movie on AFB. They one movie a day at one time, very convienent of course! You also have to stand up for the National anthem and this slide show thing ( I was prepared for that one). I haven't got my ID card to actually go on and off base alone because they messed up my paperwork and all that jazz, but it's okay I'm making friends so that's not such a big thing. One of my friends I met, rented a car and I drove it to the base, which was quite an experience since I've never driven in Europe before... lol.. good times! On Saturday I went off with my teacher, who is super super super super nice!! She took me to the commissary and Bx. I got things to make my room more homier and it is!! I even have a plant now.. her name is Tillie! We're a perfect match! Ms. Welke also took me to this store just to look around and I found all sorts of home things.. I love Italian home decor!!! It's the coolest stuff! I found a blanket that was fairly cheap and it's orange! I also got a mat to go in front of my door that matches... I was super excited about those purchases! I could have bought the whole store, I just loved everything there. We then went to a winery, and got some wine (my teach can't live w/o her wine of course!) Funny thing is, the guy who owns the winery is from Kentucky! lol.. who would have guessed?? Oh, the coolest thing I've done this weekend so far is the outting for sushi! When mom and Don come.. this one of the first places I'm taking them(well as of right now)! We went to the next town over to this big mall.. the mall's architecture was pretty amazing in itself but, the sushi place... that was cool. The sushi comes out on little plates on a conveyer belt that goes past all of the tables. You just pick what you want as it goes by. It's all you can it for like 17 euro. It was a lot of fun. What I liked best was that you don't really know what it was cause there are no names, so you just decide if you wanna try it or not. And there is tons and tons of food. It just goes around and around. Boy, do you eat a TON of sushi that way.. because of course you want to try EVERYTHING! I was super stuffed after that one!

My teacher did take me out to what they call an agriculutral resturaunt, which everything there is organic. It was a really good place to eat. All of the 'truckers' eat there. I guess that's like delivery guys cause I haven't seen any like 18 wheelers or anything. I had creps with sausage and mushrooms and a rooster. It taste like grilled chicken but it was organic!! I was supposed to go to Venice today and so far I haven't seen my friend who was going to take me. Maybe we can make this afternoon, hopefully... Anyways, if/when I do make out to Venice, pics will be forthcoming!

Pics. and such...

2009-01-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

   I was trying to zoom in so that I could get a picture of the cross with the witch on it... No such luck though.
   HUGE BONFIRE!!
   This was where the food, dj and all that was!! GOOD STUFF!
   Everyone was just standing around having a good ole time!! Trying to stay warm!

So I haven't done anything exhilirating in the past few days... except school stuff. I really like my teacher, she's awesome! Most of my time has been spent doing lesson plans, grading papers, networking etc. Anywho, here are the pictures of the bonfire as promised. Some are blurry but I think it was from all the smoke!

The Witch's Dead!!!!!

2009-01-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my first day of student teaching!! The kiddos were great the all the faculty are very welcoming. Unfortunately I did not meet my teacher because she was out with the stomach bug, so it was subs all day! Interesting tid bits I've seen... teachers don't eat with kids or in the lunch room and after lunch kids have recess and teachers don't go with them. The teachers get like an hour for lunch. They can go off base and eat or whatever they prefer. That's competely different from the states. Also, in the bathrooms, there is a button on the side of the wall that flushes the toilet. Very strange!! What else... oh.. you don't throw food or drink into the trash cans. They have seperate bins for that all over the school and in the cafetereia. It's called wet trash (go figure). That's taken some getting used to.

So today my teacher came and she is AWESOME!! She's been teaching for 41 years.. holy cow that's a lonnng time! Her first priority is the kids no matter what! She's such an interesting lady and I think I'm going to learn a lot from her. She already wants me to start teaching this week... which I guess is cool. Might as well dive on in... After kiddos comes me. She wants me to have the best experience so she's trying her best to make that happen. Ms. Welke knows all of her students personally and this morning she took time to speak to each child about something that's going on in their life that she knew about. TRUE DEDICATION!!

Now.. I know y'all are wondering what's up with the witch thing! Well today is an Italian holiday; they are celebrating the three kings or something. Well the night before this holiday all the little towns have HUGE bonfires!! I mean like really really big ones.. And they have like a celebration of the burning of the Salem witch trials! So, I went to the bonfire and it was crazy just how big it was. I'm standing there, admiring the fire and all of the sudden I see a huge cross at the top of the bonfire in flames!! OMG.. it was crazy.. the cross had a head on it and that symbolizes the witches. We're out in the middle of this field with a humongous fire and they have a dj who's playing music.. a big screen that's showing a video of how they got the bonfire so big... serving food. Oh the food was awesome.. It was like pieces of grilled goat cheese (just slices of cheese no bread or anything), grilled salami(looked like sausage), oh and everything is cooked medium rare so, Julie if you come here watch out!! And there were these like cornmeal cakes that were grilled. they were awesome as well!! But it was awesome just hangin out with the locals and the local traditions. Oh, and everything was free too! They gave out door prizes and they were poinsettias... how strange!! Then I had to tell everyone where the poinsettias came from of course!! :) So, that's what's been going on so far this week. I'm off to grade papers and eat dinner! Ciao!

Day 1 of Aviano- Explorations..

2009-01-03T14:41:00.000-08:00

I slept forever last night! I didn't wake up until about 11:45 am (italian time). Last night I could not find any real food so I was on the hunt for a real meal quickly! It wasn't as hard as I thought, it was just through the tunnel to the shopette. SUBWAY.. I was SUPER excited too! There I met a friend, who showed me around most of the day. We walked all around Aviano. But everything was closed. One of the things about Italy is they open around 9 am and close at 12 and then open up around 2 or 3 until 9 pm or so. So, from 12 to 3 the town is dead which is quite interesting. We did go to a beautiful catholic church and that was awesome! I had some amazing hot chocolate!!! It was to die for! I also had for the first time.. Italian Pizza!! DELICOUS!! The food has been awesome!

When I was trying to get back on base, they tried to tell me I could not get back because I did not have my sponsor with me who is the principal. That was potentially a bad thing, but luckily the people I was with were military and they helped me out! I was sweating it for a second.. but I made it! I have a television, but it doesn't work. That kind of sucks. I have no idea what is going on in the world really, but maybe when I'm in the classroom it will be better! I just can't wait until I get my pass that lets me on and off the base without hassle! Well, I'm off to sleep now.. until tomorrow everyone have a great evening!

Day one of Aviano

2009-01-03T14:24:00.001-08:00

First 2 pictures are of the beautiful mountains!! That's the view from outside my dorm!!

The next pic is of my dorm number.

The darker pic- I was trying to take a picture of my meal I got on the airplane, but also inconspicuosly too! So, I didn't use a flash...

Then there is me at the checkpoint in Char. when I was leaving!

The First 24 hours.....

2009-01-02T08:49:00.000-08:00

I made it!! YAYY! Just the flight over was an awesome experience in itself.. I left from Charolette at 1 pm. 1 pm the plane starts down the runway and my adventure was just about to come true, until... *ding* "Attention ladies and gentlemen, we have encountered a problem with the aircraft. Someone has spotted some sort of liquid dripping from the left side of the wing. The maintainence team will be arriving quickly to assess the situation." Just great... a complete halt to my adventure. Well, that ended up being a great thing because I met some pretty interesting folks. We sat there for about 30 minutes, before they decided that the plane needed to be worked on and could not be flown. So we had to get off the plane and be put on another flight. Well, at this point it was not looking so good to catch my other flight out of Philly.

We got another plane, still took us forever to load and get settled and fly away into the deep blue sky. We landed at 4:30 exactly 5 minutes before my flight out of Philly to Germany was departing. Fortunately, the flight people had already rerouted all of us to our destinations before we landed in Philly. My new flight was leaving in 45 minutes and it was on the OTHER side of the airport (of course)!

I had 20 min. to scarf down a stromboli, talk to my mom and find my gate. All of which happened in a timely manner. I was rerouted to Rome and the flight was about 8 hours! You'll never guess who I was sitting beside while flying to Rome... A PRIEST!! hahaha.. He told me all about the Pope and the religious bit about Catholism.. super interesting! It's kind of funny because the lady I sat with on the flight before had never stepped foot into a church and was asking us about the different religions in the US. Very interesting people indeed! The 8 hour flight basically sucked because I could not sleep, the food wasn't the impressing (not to be expected) and it WAS LONG!

But anyways, once I landed in Rome, I met some other girls who were flying solo for various reasons! They are pretty awesome peeps and we're planning a trip to Austria one weekend! So, two of the girls are from Canada they are working here being a nanny (isn't that an awesome job! If only I had known about that sooner!). There is a website you can put your application out there and parents of children will pick you out. You live at their house and get paid a small stipend approx. 100 euro a week. It seems pretty awesome to me because you're off on weekends and you can do for however long you want. Anyways, those two chicks were great and then we met another girl that was going to fashion school and one that works for the UN in Rome. Lots of interesting people at airports... so the girls and I stick together in Rome as long as we could, but eventually we all went different ways. In Rome, I began getting ill, cause I've been up for a bazillion hours and just wanted to get there! Oh, and I was super worried that Mr. Evans wouldn't be able to find me. Anywho, that flight was late as well, and it was a very cramped flight!! Oh fyi... if you ask for water in Italy they will give you seltzer water blaghhh... boy was that a suprise.. for future reference ask for natural water.. also, the doorknobs there are strange... you don't turn them, you push a button to open it. I did get stuck in the bathroom in Rome, I will confess but I figured it out. Oh, another interesting tidbit about bathrooms, to flush the toilets, you push a big button on the top of the tank of the toilet. There is no little handle.. fyi! So, when I did get to Venice FINALLY.. I didn't think my luggage would be there since my flight schedule got all messed up, but all 102 lbs. were there! The principal was there to pick me up.. with my name on a piece of paper and all!! (typed too...) Her and her husband came to get me since my flight came in late. Actually the other person Mr. Evans was picking up was going to be on my Germany flight, but I missed it.. oops. Anyways, it was an hour and half back into Aviano. At first I was trying to act super professional, but after 30 min. I was just normal! They were so sweet... they took me to a coffee shop and I had my first cup of coffee in Italy and when I got to my dorm there were presents for me from teachers and kids. They all made me welcome cards.. it was super sweet! I have not figured out how to use a phone, but I found wireless internet! YAYYY! SO, I'm here and I have tons to do before Mon. ! Until next time... have a wonderful night!

The Eve of the Departure....

2008-12-31T19:12:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow's the BIG DAY!! I'm super excited! I'm not really nervous or anxious quite yet. I just don't know what to worry about really so I'm just going to roll with it! I am sad that I'm leaving everyone, but it is a bittersweet goodbye! Everything is pretty surreal at this point.. I'll blog more tomorrow! Good night and Happy New Year!

Excitement... Stress... Nervousness all In ONE

2008-12-23T19:25:00.000-08:00

So... I was all set to start my student teaching in Williamston and I was super excited about it until I got the e-mail!! The best e-mail I think I have ever received, the one from the principal in Italy. It was letting me know that I was accepted and wanted to know my flight schedule and all sorts of other things that I had not planned for! It was set at the point, I was heading to ITALY!

From that point on my focus was how to get to Italy and what do I do when I get there. I have never flown overseas and I really don't know how it all works. I have a passport and a couple a suitcases, that's about it. So, the plane ticket was no biggie, got the cheapest one possible! Easy enough... Already had the passport... and then this visa came up. The principal told me I needed to get a student visa since I would be over there for more than 90 days. BOY OH BOY... was that an ordeal in a half! I thought that was just something you did online and it was no big deal, I was WRONG! In case you don't know, in order to get a student visa to Italy, you MUST see the consulate in person, unless you are going with a school that has an agreement already. Since, I have to do everything on my own, it was a major difference. There are like 8 consulates in the states, but all the states are under certain jurisdiction of the consulates. The consulate for SC is in Miami, FL. For a week, I called people, e-mailed visa services, googled, googled and googled some more. This would be where the stress came in to the picture. I was freaking out. The family was freaking out (especially mom). I found no other way but to just head down to Miami and try to get out all squared away because I only had like 16 days until I leave. My dear ole' bro agreed to head down with me since it's a 12 hour drive and we were going to make it quick! By this time, I think I was in a state of PANIC! I was so close, but I felt as though I was soo far away! Then another wonderful e-mail arrived, one to say that I did not have to get a visa! WHOOOOH... was that a relief for ALL of us. So, I will just go to another country (which obviously I will) and come back and that starts my 90 days over again! Problem solved!

Thankfully, the stress has subsided and I'm just overwhelmed with Christmas, packing and trying to see everyone before I leave. I will be leaving on January 1st out of Charlotte at 1 PM. Can't WAIT! I will definitely be starting the new year with a new adventure! With hopes of many many more to come!

This is just the beginning of this adventure... so come back and check out how Europe is treating me!!!! :)

Merry Christmas