Florence, Italy!! (part one: haircut 'n stuff)

So post-Pisa we took the train into Florence. Darija, Sasha, Emily, Amy, and myself all landed in Florence and then I split off. Why? Because I was heading to meet my CouchSurfing hosts and they were headed off to their hostel.

As I met up with my host, Cassiope, I stepped off the platform and landed in a hole! Next to porta potties! The hole was filled with dirt and pee! Welcome to Firenze!

But other than that, my first night in Florence was awesome.
Cassiope and Holly-Marie were my two CouchSurfing hosts. What's CouchSurfing? Ok, it might sound sketchy but I don't think it is: It's an online community of travelers from all over the world who want to 1) have free places to stay on their travels and 2) have cultural exchanges. Ok, it's probably the other way around. But yeah, you go somewhere you send emails to people saying "Hey, I'm coming to Bulgaria, can you host me?" And then they'll write back with a yes or no. Even if they can't host you, some people will say "hey, let's meet up for coffee or a drink" which I think is great because you still get to meet amazing new people (who are, hopefully, interesting) and you get to see the city/town/village from a local's perspective.

Basically I got to stay at their place, in Florence, for free, for two nights. These are two 20 year old girls in the same program, from the US, living in Italy to learn Italian. They are two amazing girls who fed me and gave me a place to stay, gave me a "best of the best" list of Florence, a map, and a kickass vegan dinner. While I was there, they were also hosting another girl, Lucy, from a tiny town in southern California.

So Cassiope picked me up at the train station, after my graceful plummet into the hole of pee and mud, and took me to her house which was right above the Mercato Centrale, the giant market of Florence. Even at 6 o'clock at night it was hopping and everyone was selling leather leather leather everywhere. Leather wallets, belts, bags, jackets, everything. We climbed the eight hundred floors to their house, met Lucy, and started making dinner for Holly-Marie, who was coming back from work.

Once we got to the kitchen, we split up. Cassiope and Holly-Marie were on vegan-vegetable-pasta duty and Lucy was going to... cut my hair.

Yup, I had a girl whom I'd never met cut my hair with the kind of scissors you use for making snowflakes out of computer paper. It was AWESOME.

As was the vegan vegetable pasta.

Post-dinner, I met up with the girls who were stayin gin the hostel to do a little walk-around of Florence. Turns out it was FREEZING so we all bounce back and I returned to the CouchSurfing house and hung out with my hosts for the night. Good times. CouchSurfing was REALLY great for me. I'll trust Lucy with my hair anytime (although, I must admit, it did come out a lil' lopsided but whatevs) and if you want vegan recipes, just call up C or H-M. Frick yes.

Le Printemps

It is most DEFinitely spring-like out there. Oh maaaaaaaan.
Lapins. That's all I'm gonna say about that. Lapins.

This afternoon I had something to do! On a Wednesday! After a fantastic lunch of lentils on lettuce and vegetable soup (I'm a rabbit?) with Robyn, I went to a local bar called Le Hippone to meet up with the owner, Hocine. I gave an English lesson to Hocine! He's learning English so that he can communicate with his grandson (Hocine's son is married to an Irish woman, they live in Scotland, there's a lot of English spoken therrrrrre) and so today we started with "Hello, good bye, see you next Thursday at three o'clock" and Bar Conversation. You know, like "Good afternoon, what do you want?" ["May I have a coffee, please?"] "Yes, here you go." ["Thank you very much."] "You're welcome."

We are going to have some good times. Hecks yes.

Heather Spring Break 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you The Twins.
lurve.

Heather

Heather was here for a week.
A week wasn't long enough.


Dear Heather,
Wanna come back?
love
emily



*nightnightloveyou

A Saturday night in Avignon

Hello again!
I just wanted to blog about my night last night.
A few of us met at Robyn's to drink some wine (thank you, Cote du Rhone) and chat before heading out to a gay bar "Le Repere (insert accent grave on the second e)." This would be my first gay bar experience in Avignon and I was PUMPED. The idea was that on Saturday nights this bar has drag of some sort so I was even MORE pumped because my eyes are starved for drag kings and queens.
After learning how to do the "bridge" with cards upside down (the cards were upside down, not me), we aller-ed there and found a rather empty bar and a poster saying "Loto." There was a beautiful drag queen all in black (duh, we're in France) walking around and there looked to be about 5 customers. We all sat down, Slawa ordered a kiwi beer (what!?) and we chatted for awhile.

Um, Loto is like the American Bingo.
So what did I do last night?

I played Bingo at a gay bar in Avignon with the city's gay men and drag queens. There were prizes offered! On a table before us, as incentive for buying our Loto cards and spending more time there, were stuff to win such as a giant thing of toilet paper, a fryer, a coffee maker (dammit I bought one this week!), a package of waffles (yum, gaufres!), a can of sardines, some laundry detergent, etc. The first person who won received the classiness that is a box of milk (yup, we box it here AND we don't sell it from the fridge!) and the can of sardines. Woohoo. Chris went home with the fryer so methinks we'll be having a fried goods night at some point.

That was my Saturday night in Avignon. Kiwi beer, toilet paper prizes, drag queens, and bingo. Bienvenue!

Pisa, Italy!

Buongiorno!

Ok, in case you haven't guessed, I have NO IDEA how to spell that. Apologies!

So here's a little round-up of the rest of the time in Spain...
post-Cordoba we took the bus (say YES to public transportation!) back to Sevilla and I, once again, met up with Sydney and Chelsea. We may have gone to Starbucks (yes, yes we did... there were just SO MANY) and then wayyyyy later that night I was whisked away to the most amazing vegetarian restaurant in the world.

And this is the part where I tell you what I ate!

starters: hummus on toast. It has been FIVE MONTHS since I had mashed up chick peas with tahini and garlic. It was SO GOOD.
plat principal: tofu skewers with balsamic dressing. And french fries. And mayo. Which Sydney HAD TO EAT. And a little bit of asparagus.
dessert: vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. And a few bites of the richest chocolate cake I have ever had.
and of course, red wine.

I'd just like to give a huge shout out holler THANK YOU to Chelsea for that meal because I STILL remember it and it was fantastico and I think she's still recovering from her cream of cauliflower soup.
We finished off our night watching the L-Word. Viva YouTube.

The next morning WAY TOO EARLY Darija, Sasha and I all went to the airport and flew to Pisa. I freaking LOVE ryanair because it's all so easy.

Got off the plane in Pisa, took the bus into town (all together now: say YES to public transportation!) and fell into the arms of Amy and Emily! Our group of three now made five and we head off to our first Italian restaurant.

Don't forget, everyone, that I had bought my garden back in Sevilla so while everyone was eating raviolis in creamy garlic sauces (I may have had a bite or two) I was eating a red pepper sandwich. Yes, that is indeed a piece of red pepper in between two pieces of bread. And it was deLISH.

We then made our way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Guess what... It is TOTALLY LEANING and no matter how many times you nod your head and say things like "duh" to that, it's still TOTALLY WEIRD to see it lean like that. I mean it just LEANS.

ISN'T THAT THE CRAZIEST.

So we proceeded to take a majillion touristy pictures. Pushing the tower. Leaning on the leaning tower. Cartwheels, etc. I'd like to put the following picture of my friend, Emily, up here on my blog for the whole world to see because I think it shows the strength of our relationship. Or something.

Following our Leaning Tower of Pisa adventures we went and found our first gelato experience. For the three minutes it took me to eat my first gelato, I was without words. I, Emily Findley, was speechless. And I didn't even get the tiramisu mousse! (which, by the way, I totally regreat because we could not find tiramisu mousse anywhere else in Italy (we found tiramisu but not the mousse combination)). IT WAS SO GOOD. I ate it so fast I didn't even have time to take a picture of my first cone (which was Fiesta! (a chocoalte-orange combination) and straccioldfdfaaadf (ummmmm the italian word for vanilla and chocolate chip)).

Post-gelato we got on the train (all together... say YES to public transportation) and headed to Florence. More on Florence later.

Leaning Tower: A+ because WHOA IT REALLY LEANS like that
Gelato: again, I have no words.

Ahhhhhh!

All riiiiiiiiiight so I'm a little overwhelemed right now, everybody.

1) Why can't I sleep past 7:15 am EVER? Seriously this is beginning to be a problem
2) Heather left yesterday after a week vacation here. It was the MOST AMAZING WEEK and she met all my friends, saw how I roll here in France, and we went to Nice and Monaco! I miss her so freaking much already!
3) I think I owe the US government 300 dollars so helloooooo money stress how are you today?
4) assorted other stresses that are always there

OY. I'm going to go try to blog about Italy/Heather.