i was kicked by a greek hobo

i am supposed to be cleaning my room/ workin on my bod right now. but i'd rather sit here, be emo and type blog entries all day. so here it is

rome was awesome. as soon as we got there i took the metro to st. peter's basicica to st peters square. important. st peters square is actually st peters ellipse, so don't be fooled/extremely disappointed when you travel all the way to rome and not be able to find corners. then i walked across the Tiber (hey mesopotamia unit in 4th grade) to the Trevi fountain and Spanish Steps. I must say, i was a little disappointed with the steps, they are just steps, but dont worry, they grew on my exponentially, they are great for sitting on and looking good.

lookin good on those steps

the trevi fountain was super watery and neat with all those statues spewing water everywhere. i dug it a whole lot. we took a million pictures in front of that and then went to meet courtney and her friends for dinner. we found a place for 12, wait 10 euros (because we were smelly college students) and got wine and salad and pasta and it was great! i really havent seen a vegetable since 2010, when i last saw Sand my mom, and she provided nice vegetables right in front of my face on my plate at dinner.

this is me throwing a coin into the fountain, lookin trendy

then we walked home. people may doubt that rome is walkable, but to broke backpacking college kids, any city can be tackled via dirty tennis shoes. the next day we hit the Colosseum and i made my poor friends take about a million pictures of me in front with my terrible towel. gotta rep that yinzer pride.

here is me, the terrible towel, and the colisseum

we are taking a picture in front of some ruin, love ruins

after contemplating what it'd be like to be slaughtered alive by lions, gladiator men wearing minimal clothing, etc, we went to the pantheon! let me tell you i love backpacking as much as the next person, but after 2.5 solid weeks of sightseeing, monuments start to blend together. the parthenon was cool though, especially because im reading angels and demons. i do want you to know it is the worlds largest unreinforced, (holy smokes!) concrete dome.

we then went back to our hostel and the english majors journaled about life while i ran around all over packing and not journaling. witte has noticed that i can't sit still really ever, and every time we go to a train station, airport, ferry dock, etc i have to go explore the area while she is forced to man the luggage. i think this further proves my little theory that i have undiagnosed add ( and maybe a flair for the dramatic). my mom still never will let me get tested all because i had 4.0 in hs, where is my 4.0 now? out the window with the adderall i dont have.

so anyway they contemplated the meaning of life while i just sat there. then we had pizza and wine so that was delicious.

friday we had one goal: the sistine chapel, so we went and it was all nice and we got shhhed alot by the shhhhers, whose life passion and occupation is to crush joyful comments of Sistine Chapel first timers. Michaelangelo painted the whole thing and 

a. who has that much time?

b. who knew he wasn't just a ninja turtle

painting by day and fighting bad guys by night must have left little michaelA with no time to contemplate life

this is the famous painting thing but it was illegal to take pcitures and all the shhshers were shhhing me so sorry that it is blurry i was nervous

stairs in vatican

Courtney and I went to the Steelers bar afterwards. amazing. definitely one of the best days of life, and i kept being like, this is the best day of my life.

and look at these

my favorite is this terrible towel wrapped around jesus. my other favorite thing is my friend alex asked me if i put the terrible towel around the jesus. yes, alex, i stood on a chair, hijacked the jesus and placed my yellow towel around it. and get kicked out of my favorite bar in the world? do you know how important jesus's are to roman people? there is a high probability id spend the night in jail. no i did not do that.

anyway, the guy is not evern from pittsburgh, but whatever he was super duper for existing. and his bar existing too.

also an ad just came on for will and kate, is there job to walkround from place to place kissing babies and receiving flowers? because i can do that.

i also got rosary beads blessed by the pope! wow. impulse by though, let me tell you. as soon as i wen tto st peters elliptical square i saw this guy with rosary beads and i knew i had to get some for my gig, my grandma, she'll die, not literally, she's going to outlive me the rate things are going, but she be real happy. and it was on my checklist of abroad things to do. travel the world. check. rosary beads for my gram. check. i wanted to do some rosary bead exploring before i bought some, wooden or metal, jesus or no jesus. but this guy was like , "this is the only day you can get them blessed by the pope" ( he comes out on wednesdays and blesses the people) so i had to get them (although i doubt the pope is like "and i bless you and you and the rosary bead guy at the back", but whatevs, mission accomplished)

then we went to greece

and now were here.

i think the world doesn't want me to like athens. we got to our hostel and our greek man told us all the acropolis/parthenony/reasons for going to athens/ stuff closed at 2 and since we got there at 1:30, we were out of time. as i explored all i really saw was alot of garbage and stray dogs, pretty wild. but i know they just went through some bad economic times, so i'll come back one day athens, and i expect you to get your shit together.

we went to bed and then in the middle of the night i thought we were gonna be attached because someone kept coming to our floor. and no one was staying on our floor. and when its like 3am you always think your gonna be taken by bad guys, like that is their "stealing kids time" or something, but no worries, we weren't attacked, and me taking out my one orange earplug (i lost 2 in florence) was pointless.

the nest day we hiked up the acropolis. we hiked up to the top and saw some old Zeus buildings and stuff and the parthenon, everyone knows the parthenon! (not really) and when we got to the top we saw this building that looked like the parthenon that a wrecking ball had hit, and we could see this other really parthenony buildling was way below us. the is the time where you think, "i wish i bought a guidebook because the dumbest question i could ask at the parthenon is 'is this the parthenon'", well good news, it was, some southern lady from upstate new york told us. also why can't upstate newyorkers just be like "im from albany" or say the location for petes sake. is there somethin goin on in upstate new york that no one can say that?

after we got back we grabbed our bags and went to catch the ferry. now let me tell you this real  life story about how i got kicked by a drunk greek man. i am sitting there on my giant backpack in the subway and this man comes up to me and gives me this really weird look, then he kicked me with hi swork boot, then i screamed, even though it was in slow motion because he was so drunk, but i screamed anyway. then he death stared the shit out of me, and i death stared the shit out of him. then witte and i ran away because we got scared.

then we got on the bus to the fairy. and i had my huggggge backpack on. and i was real squished with my big backpack on and witte was like "daina move over" then this weird barefoot old man with long hair and a beard was like "you have the power" so then i was like "alrigh ti have the power and i moved over" tight squeeze though,  then as we got off we found out that this old barefoot man was not in fact homeless but he has a whole backpacking family and backpacking baby. he had his entire life on his back and his family's too and his baby in front. then his backpacking family followed him onto his ferry forever.

i have eaten 15 gelatos

so now i am in italy and i am in love. we started off in cinque terre where we walked along the cliffs and saw beautiful sunsets and everything beautiful in the whole wide world. also, one of the trails was closed, so ryan led us on a cliff


florence- i have never had better food in my entire life. kait and jenny took me to a great place where a little italian man talked and sang to us the entire time, while his wife cooked us food of the gods. if jesus made pasta, it wouldnt be as good as this ladys. holy smokes. he also took pictures of us every half an hour because whe wanted our dinner to be well documented. additionally, i would like to point out that the stereotype is true. italian women do everything, and the men hang out all day. he told us about his life in the boyscouts while his wife slaved away making gnocci with buffalo mozzarella. i almost fainted and threw up! faint because that could be my favorite thing in the entire world and threw up because i ate so much. but neither happened! and also we had unlimited wine, which is like angels words to 5 broke college girls. and it was all 15 euros, really.

the next night we went to a pizza place which in fact, there is one with the same name in the burgh! i melted with the pizza because it was so delicious. also we got wine again, they drink wine more than water. which i didnt even think i liked wine, im just learning that italian wine is a bit better than franzia.

also, i counted how many gelatos i have eaten. but then i stopped, because it ebcame embarassing. kait took me to her favorite place and if jesus specialized in ice cream and not saving people he wouldnàt compare. actually maybe he would. i dunno jesus doesnt make ice cream. i had fig because im trying to do stereotypical study abroad things, cliff diving, eating fish heads, you know.

then i climbed the duomo. 453 steps to the top. my new thing i hate in life is people that block tiny European staircases. the stairs in the duomo are tenny tiny and  spiraly. this man kep ttaking pictures of every brick in the goddam buildling so we had to stand and wait and be done. i learned an important lesson in life a long time ago, that when you get back from your trips, your not gonna print all your brick pictures, your gonna print your people pictures, so flex in front of the duomo or something.

then kaitlin took me to the leather market. my mom kept being like, daina, go to the leather market and buy yourself a nice leather coat, its timeless. and im like, ma, im not gonna spend your 8 million dollars on a leather coat, yes im now on my moms dime, dont come to a country where the exchange rate is double. go to south america or something. but actually do come. as were walkin through the market this guy alex came up to me and made me try on like 17 leather jackets and i was like ''alex, listen there bud i am broke as shit  i am not buying one of you rleather jackets'' then he was like ''i will give it to you for 70 percent off''. now that is a deal. so now i have a timeless leather jacket that i am wearing around europe, i look rull trendy and good, so let me know if you see me.

next, i saw a canoli in the window, and i thought, oh my goodness, im in italy and this is a canoli, so i got it. ( my new passion/goal in life is to eat all of the barbs in italy and believe me it s challenge, but dont worry, things are going great so far). it was awful, the canoli. jesus definitely could have made a better one. so then i went on a canoli search because i was like holy moly i have to eat a good one while im here. the end.

finally, i would like to tell you how i do with beggars. not well. europe is known for its variety and originality of beggars trying to scam daina. probably my soft green eyes and gentle face that lure these suckers in. probably my wealthy looking appearance ( i have worn the same £1.50 fleece and shorts the entire time ive been traveling, witte is concerned that people will notice that i have been wearing the same blue fleece and shorts the whole time. no. im not. i am wearing them right now. and i feel great) anyway, so these beggar people find me and i really can never shake them. women with clipboards, firls with postcards saying they cant speak english but need money, men without legs. it had become a joke that i am always the target, my favorite was when i went to the bathroom in the marseilles train station, which you have to pay for but i really had to pee. i couldnt figure out how to put my money in the gosh darn slow and then this kind old man came up and showed me , spoke english with me, and talked to me about his, german french an dbelgian wife. then he showed me the slot to get a token! ah thats what i was missing! then i was thinking, wow what a nice guy, hes a winner, then he goes,'' can i have 4 euros? i need a bus ticket'' fiddlesticks! fooled again

also last night i thought of a great idea. jenni kait and i were going to sleep and then i thought what if bucknell had a sorority paintball fight to become the most popular group of sorostitutes!! maybe the best one ive ever had. 1000 sorostitutes running around campus with sorority color corresponded paintballs. so now weve been debating who would be agile and stealthy and strategizing. now the end.

also, there are alot of words and i apologize for the lack of pictures. iwould be really bored and wouldnt read this, so if you did. wow.thanks. your really nice.

EN FRANCE (throaty voice)

i am currently updating from paris. the city d'amour. my new passion in life is speaking frenglish. anyway, paris was amazing. i have been to the eiffel tower 3/3 nights 100% eiffel tower all the time is what i'm about. and for those engineers out there, it really is in the shape of its moment diagram.
the first day we got here we went there, and it was amazing. then we walked to the hotel des invalides, which is napoleon's tomb, and we weren't even supposed to go there, another reason why i love europe, you just walk around, and your like " oh yeah, this built in long time ago century and this is the most important monument in the world" all the time. then we went to the champs d'elysees and saw the arc de triomphe. then kristen left to go write a paper, and i went to. THE. STEAKFRITES PLACE I'VE BEEN DREAMING ABOUT FOR 6 YEARS. when i came to paris in high school we went to this place that served steakfrites (steaks and fries) with this magical green sauce. Mrahskis and i have been craving steakfrites since that day.when i got here i thought id give a google search a try, and what do you know, there are like a billion "entrecote" aka steak frites places. its a chain! but thats ok cause it s delicious chain! anyway, so i went to "entrecote" and ate the whole dang thing, then i felt sick afterwards but i walked towards the eiffel tower (time number 2) and got a crepe and sat from the palais du something..palais this, hotel that...its hard to keep em straight,  but it gave a great view of paris and the eiffel tower. so i had a crepe in my right hand, and i just sat and watched it for 1.5 hours (im not joking imreally that werid) then it sparkled. WHICH IS LITERALLY MY FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.  then i rolled back to the apartment and then i was really sick. but that's ok. cause steakfrites and a shit ton of crepes was so worth it.
the last thing we did in paris was go to the top of the eiffel tower, which was amazing, but the most important thing about paris are

eiffel tower guys. these are men that stand everywhere within a 2 mile circumference of paris and beg you to buy little mini keychain eiffel towers.67 for one euro people. its a deal. anyway, so for some reason, either my akwardly masculine walk, or my "innocent look" witte calls it. these men target me instantly. and beg me to buy their eiffel towers. for 2.5 days i was strong, i said no, also key to this, once you look them in the eye your dead, so look away, anyway, the last night we were on the eiffel tower, we came down from the eiffel tower and were hit with the most eiffel tower guys i've ever seen, right as you leave the gate so you can't escape. somehow we managed, thennnn were walkin along back to the metro, and we decide, "you know waht 6 for 1 euro, thats a goddam steal, theyre practically giving them away" so we bought 6. feeling satisfied after our colorful metally purchase, we continued to walk, only to be presented with the DEAL OF THE CENTURY. 7 for 1 euro. boom done. now we had 13 eiffel towers. what the hell do you do with 13 eiffel towers? we still don't know because they are currently in our backpack in nice. so if you want one, let me know.


after paris, we were off to marseilles to meet ryan. we took the tgv, and i made the mistake of not making train reservations til the day of, so we got to the station at 9:30, and the next available train didn't leave til 1:30. we had a lot of time, and nothing to do. so we went to this frenchy coffee shop in the train station and everything was super expensive because they know your trapped in there so they can make you spend as much as they want. anyway, so i ordered a coffee because i love coffee. it was 3 euros. i was really excited for my coffee. then it came, and it was the size of a peanut, not actually, but it was one of those espresso things, maybe its because  im from amurica where everything is bigger but its hard to drink one sip of coffee in a four hour duration.

then we went on the TAY JAY VAY as the french people call it and that was rockin because it went super fast i felt like i was in a rocket ship and there were bathrooms and everything. it was magical.

we got to marseilles and it was absolutely beautiful, we walked around the town and took millions of pictures. then we bought 16 euros worth of awful guacamole, never buy european guacamole or salsa ever. ever. ever. ever. not in london, or germany, or france. so after we had our shitty dinner, we met some americans. they were super duper cool and we hung out with them

then we went on this trail in marseilles where we had to take an hour long bus ride and then hike for an hour, but then we got to this cove-ish thing that you can now see, and your probably like ,, "wow that looks super tropical" it was super tropical. also i jumped off a rock into the water, which is big for me, cause i usually dont like heights or anything involing fun and/or adrenaline. it was amazing. it's the new me, so i'm probably going to go skydiving, get a couple tats and do other adventurous things. 

then later we all went out to dinner, and i ate boulyabase, which is spelled wrong, but i dunno how to spell it, anyway, my uncles always are all "boulyabase this, boulyabase that" so i thought id try it cause its marseilles famous thing, so alot of us tried it. and it turned out to be fish heads and soup. whcih was weird, and kind of gross, and kinda delicious, and i ate it anyway, it was a magical evening but i am too tired/not creative enough, to describe it.

now we are in nice, which is nice. but actually nicer than nice. it is great, we went on another hour long bus ride to this place called cope d'ail, which means garlic island or something, i dunno, there wasn't any garlic there, but there was a completely awesome facebook default picture perfect place. and some nude people and guys in speedos, welcome to france(and i say that in a throaty, escargot, kind of voice...shout out to #stephanie  cutler) ( i dont understand # signs) also i laugh like a french person "hoh hoh hoh, france, escargots" all the time in my french accent, because i think its funny, but then kristen gets mad, and says i can't do that in their own country, but i say, when in france. anyway, i am having the best times of life in the history of time for me. i cant write anymore cause i gotta go to bed! 

also