Entry NOT about photography....

SO. VACATION UPDATES ARE HERE.

Ive decided to skip the photography relation in these next few entries because i just want to give you guys just basically how everything went everywhere, and a few notes about life the first days back. maybe i'll throw in some photography relations. maybe.

so.

VENICE:
Friday: so my train/bus schedule to get to venice went as follows-> leave saturday morning on a bus to Marseille, train from marseille to nice, nice to milan, milan to venice. little did a realize that instead of my bus being at 6:30 in the morning, it was in fact, my train from marseille that left at that ungodly hour. thanks to a little help from Marie-Claire, all went well. though i was hacking and wheezing and sniffling my way through planning how i was going to get to the station.
Saturday:
(travel day 1) hopped on the bus to marseille at 5:45 AM and listened to the bus driver to the sounds of already drunk highschoolers on the back of the bus, who were seranading us along with the radio the song "eye of the tiger." what a wake up! made my train (just) and slept most of the way to nice. on the train from nice to milan, i sat in a group of four with a french woman and her two kids. they were really nice, and one of the kids, the girl, was in a language centered high school. trying to copy what she had seen from american TV shows, every five seconds was punctuated with a bored "ohmyGOD." pretty funny.
At one point on that train, an italian couple sat down in the group of four across the aisle from us, facing an australian couple. the older italian couple spoke no other language, the same for the middle age australians. and so, i got to be translator with the french woman. the italian couple spoke to her in italian, who translated to me in french, who translated for the australians in english. it was a lot of fun, and after it, i talked a lot with the french family. I told my FIRST JOKE IN FRENCH! it was awesome.
On the train from milan to venice, i sat with two vietnamese women, who i swear looked like they were my age, when in fact they were both at least 10 years my senior. we talked about the differences between asiatic cultures and european ones, and a little bit about vietnamese sentaments about the vietnam (or as they call it: the american) war. she said they're mostly over it, and that it's more our guilt trip now. i don't know how to feel about that honestly. i'm glad it's still a guilt trip for us. keeps us in check to a certain point i feel.
Arrived in venice around 7:00 and gasped outloud. it was everything i could have never imagined, yet thought about my entire life. I spent a total 10 minutes there walking to the two buses i would have to take to get to my hostel.
Got to my hostel, (camping d'alba oro or something), checked in, and wrote a brief note to you guys letting you know id gotten in. went to my cabin, went to bed.
Sunday:
(venice 1) I woke up with the morning light, as i was on a very uncomfotable top bunk in a cold cabin (the heater didn't do much for me when i was next to a tiny, air leaking window). Spoke with my roommate for a while, her name was carolyn, and she was columbian, just finished with a bus tour. She told me that two of her friends from the bus tour were actually staying at the same hostel as us, and invited me to go explore the city with them. I agreed, and spent an amazing day just wandering around the city with them. That night her two friends left, which was sad, but a huge busload of australians, new zealanders (kiwis), brits, and south africans roled in. there was a big party that night, and i made lots of friends. I was referred to as "love" for the first time in my life. "Hey love, what's your name?" good times had all around.

Monday:
(venice 2) The second day my roommate left and it was just me in the cabin. I walked around venice by myself, just taking pictures. Walked from one end to the other. good day, but not as good as the previous. that night hung out more with the aussies, though i had completely NO voice whatsoever (the cold i was getting over and previous nights party had kinda taken care of that). After most had gone to bed, one of my new friends and i stayed up a little later and watched "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" on my laptop. good times, once again.

Tuesday:
(travel day 2) On tuesday i said goodbye to the aussies and left for florence. it was a rainy voyage and arrival, but it was soooo good to see jasmine waiting for me at the train station. We hugged (not air kissed!) and she helped me find my hostel, just about a 10, 15 minute walk from the station. It was the same company, but a super nice hostel. i was staying in a mixed room (boys and girls) of 8 people. when i arrived, the people staying with me were mostly girls from the US traveling for their week break, and a seargent from the UK. The girls were really...uh...vapid so i tried not to spend much time with them. Instead, i talked to the seargent and mary and jasmine that first day. since it was raining, i tried not to go outside too much. ate my umpteenth pasta dinner (a la arrabiata, for you eddie izzard fans) and went to bed. (this night, punctuated by the least amount of sniffling and coughing yet!)
Wednesday:
(florence 1) On wednesday i met mary and jasmine at the train station in the morning, and then they showed me around some of the markets in florence, and we ate lunch at this delicious (and cheap!) sandwhich place. it was so nice to see them. SO nice. When they went to class, i continued walking around for a little bit before meeting some of my roommates at the Uffizzi gallery, where we say birth of venice and spring by botecelli, as well as some other gorgeous artworks. Later on, when i ate dinner, i sat down with this lovely red headed fellow, Owain. Recently graduated, he was "woofing," or traveling from organic farm to organic farm, working in exchange for food and housing. He was taking a break and meeting his girlfriend in a few days. We had a great conversation that branched all over traveling, shakespeare, farming, chestnuts, and other things. We finished the night by watching some def poetry jam and reading some ee cummings before agreeing to meet up to climb the duomo the following day.
Thursday:
(florence 2) Thursday i woke up a little earlier and went to see "David" and some pretty paintings at the Academia. David was...amazing. I couldnt even imagine the detail that was in his hands. I blinkedm, but i could have sworn i saw him breath. Afterward, i met mary and jasmine a little bit later at their school (which is in this amazing old building thing) and ate lunch together. Afterward, I met up with Owain and we climbed the 423 steps to get to the top of the duomo. it was...tiring, and a little scary climbing up all these little mediaval steps, but amazing once we got to the top. Because the weather had been kinda crazy, when you looked off of one half of the duomo it was dark and stormy, but the other side was bright and sunny. cool. Afterwards, because he knew the city, owain showed me a delicious and cheap place to get gelato, and then we went back to the hostel where a note from mary was waiting for me on my bed (she's so shady) telling me that a bunch of folks were meeting up at the duomo later to go out to a bar where a band was playing. My old roommates had left at this point and had been replaced by Kirsty, an australian woman who was at the end of her trip, Mr. Argentina, who was, as you can guess, argentinian, Martin, a really sweet german guy who had just left a couple in their 60's he had been staying with for a while, and Adrian, a guy from australia somewhere in between the end and the middle of his trip around europe. Owain, Martin, Adrian, and I decided to head out to dinner together, and afterward head out to meet mary and jasmine and folks. the night that followed was a lot of fun, even though we were a little concerned about exactly how much martin had drunk. it was a great time though. Said goodbye to Owain, who was moving into a hotel for a few days with his girlfriend.

Friday:
(florence 3) what did i do on friday...i honestly don't really remember. I woke up late, walked around a bit, met up with mary and jasmine. That night, we went to a halloween party at a bar. It was a good time. Jasmine got "mama mia"ed. that was seriously entertaining.
Saturday:
(travel 3) I left florence with a sad goodbye to mary and jasmine at around 11 in the morning. Unfortunately, due to two late trains and a missed bus back to aix-en-provence, i only got back home around 2 in the morning. I slept until 12:00 on sunday...the longest i've slept since.

all in all the vacation was AMAZING. I had such a good time. Unfortuantely, now i think i realize exactly how lonely i feel here. I was so easy to connect to the people i met on my trip, and of course to actually see some friends...but now that i'm back in aix, i have a full view of what life could be like NOT here. and that's both a blessing and a curse. I think it might have been better if i skipped study abroad, and just backpacked for a few months. would have been a better experience i'm sure based off of this little one i had for a week.

Lili, the program head here, had us all write evaluations of the program before we left. Unfortunately, due to my condition of stress and annoyance, i was probably a little more honest than i wanted to be. she, in turn, now wants to talk to me about it. god...i really hate this woman. the only reason she wants to talk to me is to play god and be intimidating. trust me on this one.

that's all the updates for now...see you guys sooooon! I'll be back in town on dec. 22nd.