Just a little love note...

Oh herooo famiry!
Just wanted to give a little shout out to the ones I love most, hold near and dear to my heart, the ones I will be buried next to. Any whosers I haven't talked to most of you regularly (you know who you are). No excuses of I am working all the time. I am in Italy, yet still find time to write this email to my adoring family. Let me just give you a little break down.
Mom: We chat everyday via facebook, skype, the phone, and email. Success!
Dad: Talked to once, only because I called you!
Christina: One phone call and one skype.. Not good enough!
Katerina: One baby skype but other than that... Zip. Nada. Zilch. NOT OKAY.
You all know how to use your little fingers on the computer, so lets start acting like it shall we?
Thats all for now.
Lots of love from Italia!
Stephanie
PS send me things.

More...

Okay EW, first thing first. Becky and I were walking back from class tonight and naturally we were prepared for some whistles, stares, and maybe even some following, but not THIS à We walk by this normal looking chill guy with a beanie sitting on his bike. I look over at him because I am a very inquisitive person and basically look at everyone that walks by me (not such a good thing to do in Italy, which I have come to learn). Anyways he was making this noise and then I see him moving his hand up and down by his crotch. I was in shock. Like is this guy really jacking off right now? No he wasn’t actually, but it looked so real. My eyes are burned for life. I never thought I could ever be so disgusted. He was literally pretending to jack off to us. Only in my dreams would anything like that be a turn on, of course in my dreams he would be this sexy Italian and was just so turned on by my beauty. This was not quite the case in the least bit. I hate Italian men. I am going to pray tonight that I might find a nice boy soon otherwise I think I might go crazy and go after the next Italian perv that hits on me.

I am going to try to block that image from my head now and tell you about my body language class. I am in love with it! We started off with stretching, which felt amazing! Becky said she got that "tingling" feeling. Someone was really enjoying the exercises. Then we did trust games. I’m sure you know the one that comes to everyone’s mind and is almost always terrifying. Everyone stands in a circle and one person is in the middle. Then they have to literally fall back expecting the people behind them to catch them. I can honestly tell you I have never done it in my entire life. I have always gotten out of it. This time I did it! It felt amazing. Also Becky and I almost dropped this girl. Classic. Lets see other things I have learned in the class so far:

· My last name is super hard to pronounce so I need to learn to annunciate the syllables so people will be able to remember it

· The status I give off is a 3-4, but I want to be at a 5

· I have a baby lisp aka when I say the letter S it is “soft”

· I need to have better eye contact

· I need to stop biting my tongue

· I need to have better posture i.e. standing up straight, jutting my hips out

So many of these things are so helpful! I am so excited to learn more. ;)

Meow.

To run or not to run? Currently it has been really cold here so that has been my excuse. I know I should get off my ass and run to the river... but I just cleaned my room. It would be a shame not to enjoy it right? :)

Lets see as for updates yesterday was a long hard day full of classes. First was The Built Environment of Florence. First lecture then a tour of a couple churches. I learned a lot of history and we even got to go in to this special part of the Uffizi museum that no one else gets to see.

Then Italian, which is a joke. She expects us to know everything without even being told what it means in English first. Hah.

Lastly Globalization, which I am obsessed with! We read an article about how Venice was offered a deal by Coke to set up vending machines along the boat docks for 2.7 million. Venice obviously is in need of a lot of money to restore the sinking city, but it has been a couple years and still no decision. We debated in class on whether they should or not. I had a LOT to say. Then we got in to groups and I was with three guys from Mexico. They were all super nice! Even nicer than the guys that I have met from America. Sadly still no Italians yet. But I loved talking to the guys from Mexico, they were super funny, and I would say we came up with a great solution to the issue of Venice and coke. :)

Right now I am dying for these See by Chloe black bow flats with a gold zipper outline. They are at a store right by me and they are on sale!!! I think I might have to go try them on. They are calling out to me!! I can't bring myself to buy a crappy pair of 10 euro flats so looks like designer is the way to go.

Ashley Coffey

VIDEO CHATTING WITH ASHLEY COFFEY JUST MADE MY NIGHT!!!! I LOVE YOU! have fun painting your nails.. wish i could join in with you!
that's basically the only thing that happened of importance today. duh.
PS don't you love all the pretty colors? :)

A day in the life of Kelsey and Stephanie:

Just the other day Kelsey was attempting to sit on my bed because we were having a picnic with lots of delicious foods, but somehow she sort of slid off the end of it. I honestly could not tell you how it happened but one second she was on the bed, the next second she was literally on the ground, and a second later she had pulled herself back up. Needless to say it was quite hilarious and possibly magic of some sorts?

Typical us pose

Peaches

So Kelsey and I have an obsession with those chewy peach candies. We discovered this candy store that is right next to Grom, which makes it very convenient to eat Grom then walk across the street and proceed to buy candy. Kelsey bought a box of the peaches last week, they were gone within two days. Today we each bought a box. Kelsey's will be gone by tomorrow and I will give myself a couple extra days since I eat slower. We also each bought a bar of chocolate. I mean how could we not with so many choices?


I also changed the class I didn't like to the European Union, which is in less than an hour. Should be interesting. Now at least this one will count for something but the question is, will I hate it just as much? Only time will tell..

Like monkeys in a cage..

February 6

Here is some background on the past couple days. On Friday Becky, Kelsey, and I went out to dinner with Colleen, Tara, and Topher. Colleen and Tara are studying in Perugia and come to Florence for the weekend. It was so good to see them! Of course we took them to our spot. Then on Saturday, left the house late like usual, it takes forever for all of us to get ready. We went to the chocolate festival, which was absolutely amazing! The best and most chocolate I have ever seen right in from of Santa Croce. I had a skewer with bananas and strawberries covered in white chocolate. I also bought delicious truffles that melt with just one touch of the tongue. Then we decided to wander to new territory and found ourselves right by the river at the end where there were actual streets with cars and lights. I took us to Piazalle Michelangelo (quite proud of myself) and it was probably the most amazing view I have ever seen in my entire life. It’s even better than the Duomo because you really are able to see the whole city in its entirety. It was a hard walk up to; I can’t wait to go running there. That will definitely keep me in shape here. We are one week in and it’s not looking too good. After that little excursion we went home to eat, went back out to shop, and ALMOST saw George Clooney. I know you are dying right now. He was in this store and there were news crews, but then by the end of it there was a huge mob and they told it was a joke and he wasn’t really in there. I swear I saw his beautiful peppered hair from the window, but I guess I will never know. All I know I cant wait to party with Jersey Shore when they start filming their next season in Italy. After shopping usually comes dinner and we went to this place called Dante’s where they give you free wine. I had amazing pizza! Then comes more drinking at a bar or club. We found a random guy on the street and he led us to a pub, we drank beer, listened to awful live music, and finally decided to leave our new friends. We proceeded to be chased home by a group of 15 Italian guys that were literally singing it us. We kept giving them attention, so they kept following. it was hilarious.

Best view in town.

Palm trees in Italy... whatttt?

Today Becky, Kelsey, Katherine, and I wandered around and this consisted of: buying fresh bread and cheese at the market, shopping, chocolate festival again of course, playing cards, and just walking around. Quite a good day if I do say so myself!

This evening Becky, Kelsey, and I went to our favorite restaurant, Il Sasso di Dante that is right next door to our place. We only wanted some vino and dessert, but left feeling like we were animals at the zoo. We sat right next to the kitchen, bad idea. The two chefs would take a peek at us every couple minutes without fail. The first few times we went there it was expected since we get stared at literally every place we go. Are we some sort of alien foreign beings? I mean they probably have never seen such beauty in their lives, so naturally the staring makes sense. At first it was kind of amusing, but then they started talking in Italian while staring at us, so it makes it even more awkward. Do we give them a bitchy stare, a flirty wink, ignore them.. who knows? I think it’s safe to say next time we will sit closer to the front of the restaurant.

Now I am currently sitting in my bed writing this blog and just had yet another fantastic conversation on facebook with Caio! There you go, hope you enjoyed that. :) Now here a few pictures of where we are living, since I haven't posted any yet. Enjoy!

My front door :)

Walkway

Kelsey opening the second door

And finally the walkway to the third door

The kitchen Kelsey and I share

The double doors into our room.. we like to keep it classy. Then there is the upstairs, but currently I am too lazy to take pictures of all of it.