Italy with Brett & just lately..

Wow, I've been terrible about keeping up with this blog lately... sorry!

So hmm, what have I been up to?
Well.. from the 5th-12th of March Brett came to visit me :) The first night we went out with all my friends in Bologna which was just the best. I was so happy to have Brett meet the people who have become so important to me over the past few months. He also got to experience probably the most brilliant thing in Italy: Aperitivo. <3
The next day we were off to Rome for four days. We packed in the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Vatican, and some other random sight seeing during the days, then incredible meals of pasta (one each) and pizza (split between us) every night. After Rome we traveled to Vernazza (one of the cities of Cinque Terre). It was the most amazing TINY little Italian city you could possible imagine. It is made up of all these little streets and hills and cliffs etc. that you see in books, movies, postcards, etc, but that you miss in the big cities like Rome. We were absolutely in love with it. After walking through the town 5 or 6 times (yes, it's that small), and doing some hiking to get great views, we returned to our room that was the top level room of someone's house on the hill of Vernazza. We drank some wine from Cinque Terre and dreampt of our next vacation to see all 5 of the cities.
The next day, after 5 incredible fresh Italian pastries, fresh orange juice, delicious cappuccino, and fun conversation with a very outgoing pasticceria owner, it was back to Bologna. Traveling was exhausting, especially all the 4 hour train rides, but we managed to muster up enough energy in Bologna for one more big meal of some great pasta followed by a nutella crepe.








Since then I've mostly just been soaking up every ounce of fun possible with my friends who I'm going to miss so much when I leave. I went with two of them, Lillian and Alex, to Lake Garda last weekend to get into some nature and away from the grayness of the city. I don't think it was what anyone expected. It was one of those trips where many things went wrong or weird, but that made it all the more fun, and we had a blast...and ate soo much seafood!

So far as much as I can predict what I'll miss about Italy is my friends more than anything. Then Italian coffee... also Italian nail polish is way better than ours (random, I know.)... crepes. being able to walk places. fresh pastries.. I'll be curious to see what I really miss once I'm back home. I only have about a week and a half left.
I finally feel homesick though. I guess it's sort of perfect timing. Now that I feel homesick I realize that up until now I haven't, which I'm pretty impressed with myself for. It's nice though that now finally when I miss home I will get to go soon.
It's too bad I'm leaving right when the weather is getting nice. It was about 60 and sunny today and a few of us went to the park and just layed out in the sun for hours before getting some delicious gelato. <3 I'll miss that too.