Budapest bound with Kayleen and Michelle~! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Dolcemente & Kandinsky

This past weekend, Pisa held its annual Dolcemente festival.  Dolcemente was a smaller version of the Perugia Chocolate Festival but with different sweets.  Jimin, Stephen, and I literally walked around the venue five times to sample every bit of sweetness they had to offer.  From gelato to chocolate to biscotti to nutella...ahhh dessert heaven!  As much as I enjoyed all the sampling, my favorite part was being able to practice our Italian.  Its shocking how much you can forget in a week (Fall Break)!  I always thought I knew the basics but when we had to actually speak Italian in Pisa, I realized how little I knew!  After all the sweets, we had to get something savory to balance out our palette so we found the nearest and cheapest thing possible: kebabs and falafels.  It was Stephen's first falafel, my second, and Jimin's bajillionth.  All that food had created mini food babies so we avoided going back to Dolcemente and chose to explore Pisa instead.  We ran into a lot of Italians who were on their way to Lucca for their Comic Con.  I never expected Italians to enjoy comics but I guess we're all similar in different ways.
We headed back to Dolcemente so that Jimin and I could go on our tour of Kandinsky.  Honestly, I wanted to come to Pisa just for this exhibition.  I studied a lot of Kandinsky's works in my art history class last semester and being able to easily attend an art exhibit where his works were on display just had my inner art history geek popping out.  What I thought to be a tour of the Kandinsky exhibition itself turned out to be a tour of Pisa + Kandinsky.  Our tour guide was very sweet.  Apparently all the tours were supposed to be in Italian but he translated the tour into English just for us!  I felt very bad and sorry because he was running out of breath and was switching back and forth between Italian and English so that the two of us could understand.  His English was almost perfect and for a middle-aged man, both Jimin and I found him to be very attractive.  But Kandinsky.  Artgasm.  That is all.

Fall Break: Dortmund, Cologne, and Milano

I was very sad to leave Berlin but I had promised to visit a friend of mines in Dortmund so I packed my bags and hit the Bahn.de to go west.
Dortmund was a very interesting city.  I saw many people from diverse ethnic backgrounds, discovered that the McDonalds in Germany offers Bubble Tea (boba!), and that beer was very, very popular.  Johann, my friend, did his best to show me around but there's not so much you can do when the weather is 10 degrees Celsius.
The next day, we took a day trip to Cologne to see il duomo di Colonio c:  I love being able to see the works of art that I study.  I had just finished up gothic art and architecture the Tuesday before Fall Break so being able to see German gothic art with my own two eyes was astonishing.  As much fun as being able to see Dortmund and Cologne were, I have to say that I loved Berlin the most.

Can you spot il duomo in the background?

 But my adventure in Germany had to come to and end...and I had to resume my Italian adventure!  I flew into Milano and decided to spend the night and day with my friend Michelle c: Seeing a familiar face in a foreign country is very refreshing.  Milano wasn't my favorite city (it was cold and rainy) but her face definitely brightened up my day.  Love you Michelle! <3  When the weather sucks, all you want to do is stay in bed, eat ice cream, and watch sappy movies.  It was one of those days.  But we managed to get out of the house, see il duomo a Milano, do a little shopping, and I got to spin on the Bull's testicles for good luck! c: There was so much to do, yet so little time...looks like I'll have to make my way back up to Milan another day!

I got to see her cute face!

As much fun as my Fall Break adventure was, you have no clue how happy I was to arrive back in Firenze.  As soon as I stepped off the train, a smile stretched across my face.  I didn't care about the pouring rain or how cold it was, I was just too excited to be back.  Firenze is home and home is where the <3 is.

Fall Break: Berlin

Ohh Berlin.  This was the highlight and probably my favorite city in Europe so far.  I met up with Jimin and Mahea in Berlin and as soon as we arrived at our hostel, EastSeven Hostel, which I highly recommend, we found out that we had been upgraded from the 10-people dorm to the 3-people private room!  I've stayed at four different hostels throughout my time in Europe and EastSeven is by far my favorite.  The staff are so friendly and all the people that we met at the hostel were amazing.  The atmosphere was perfect for bonding and the hostel was very clean and tidy.
Mahea had flown into Berlin a couple hours before Jimin and I arrived and had already made new friends with these two girls, Tori from Australia and her Dutch friend Marla.  We talked with the guys from Switzerland who were flying out the next day and managed to convince one of them to go out clubbing with us!  Marla took us to an area filled with clubs and we randomly chose to walk into Cassiopeia.  Let me just say that Europeans sure know how to party.  Nothing starts until 1am and the party can go on into daylight.  We drank German beer (amazing!), danced, created a dance circle with other people in the club, pulled other people into our dance circle, and had a blast.  Afterwards, we went to the Reggae section of the club...a lot of groping (no bueno) but great music.  LOVE BERLIN!

From L to R: Tori, Marla, me, Jimin, Switzerland, and Mahea c:

We didn't go to sleep until 5am but we somehow were up and about by 9am!  That's the European lifestyle for ya!  We went on this alternative tour of Berlin done by a very alternative guy who lives with his alternative girlfriend in their alternative house with their alternative pets.  Very alternative.  It wasn't the best tour but we saw some of the sickest graffiti in the world, including Finbarr <3.  Deciding to go to Berlin on a whim was the best decision I ever made.  So much street art!

Sending some love to one of my favorite street artists!

After the tour, we grabbed some noms at YAAM where we ate the most delicious Jamaican food c: We walked the East Side Gallery (Berlin Wall), went back to our hostel, drank the best apple liquor, enjoyed German sausages, made friends with the hostel people, smoked a cigarette for the first time, took a puff or two of a joint from Amsterdam, learned how to dance from the Brazilians at our hostel, made a bunch of plans to go out and do hookah and go to another club, but in the end, all three of us ended up crashing out on our beds.  It wasn't the most exciting thing to do but it was all worth it in the end.

EastSeven Hostel! The BEST hostel I've ever stayed at. c:

Fall Break: Edinburgh

The land of kilts and Nessie c: hehe

Edinburgh had a charm that London didn't possess.  The Scots are overly friendly and it was just another reminder of the aloha spirit back home.  I had such a hard time understanding their accent though!  But I enjoyed hearing them talk c: hehe

The best part, I WAS REUNITED WITH KAYLEEN~! <3
She cooked me the best and healthy foods (yummm!) and showed me around Edinburgh.  We met up with Julia, who Kayleen met on her trip to Dublin and just happened to be passing through Edinburgh. The three of us went to the National Museum of Scotland, took pictures at Greyfriars Bobby, went to the Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series, took pictures with a cute guy wearing a kilt, visited the Scottish Parliament, visited the Queen's Palace (she wasn't home), went shopping for a wee Scottish jumper, and cooked a scrumpcious dinner at Kayleen's house c:

Reunited with this cutie~! <3

Men in kilts c: ohh myy~! (;

Lovely time spent with these two ladies c:

Fall Break: London

British accents.  That is all.

I loved London.  It felt refreshingly nice to be able to use English again, although I had the constant urge to constantly say grazie and ciao to everyone.  What started off as the worst beginning to our Fall Break adventures ended as the best start.  My roommate Sierra couldn't fly out to London with us on the same day.  Lets just say that Ryanair is not the best for customer service.  Our first night in London was drab.  Jimin, Amanda, and I eventually found our way to our hostel, ate delicious Chinese food, faced some credit card problems, dealt with the pouring rain, tried our best to ignore our creepy hostel roomie...
The second day, we went on a FREE tour of London (the Royal tour).  Our tour guide, Jo, was amazing.  She had so much enthusiasm and passion for her job that all of us just had to tip her!  London looks very much like the English version of New York City.  But I think London has just a little bit more charm...but it could just be the accent that makes me weak in the knees.  After the tour, Jo took us to a little pub where we ate FISH & CHIPS!

Fish&Chips

So our original plan was to hit the London clubs and dance the night away.  But the cover charge to get into a club in London is roughly 20 pounds, which equals about 35 U.S. dollars.  No thank you.  Instead, we went on the alternative pub crawl hosted by the same tour company c:  We reunited with Sierra at our second hostel and went out to experience the London nightlife.  Turns out, we were the only ones on the pub crawl.  But what started off as the biggest FAIL and boring night turned into the best night ever.  We managed to convince our tour guides, Damien and Manuel to take us to the clubs in east London.  Only problem is that on Sunday night, no one rarely goes out because of their early Monday workday.  ):  We hopped from one club to the next, hopped on and off the metro and the bus, walked all over London, and eventually ended up at Manuel's flat.  His cousin, Simon, was hands down the funniest person I have ever met.  He had so many Asian jokes but for the first time, he was in a room surrounded by Asians (his cousin Manuel is a quarter Chinese, Jimin, Sierra, and I are all Korean).  Just picture a Portuguese man downing five cans of beer, saying "I'm a very, very thirsty man," singing Call Me Maybe, and cracking Asian jokes all night.  Funny thing, he was the same guy who served us our Fish&Chips.  Simon was the sweetest.  He walked us over to the train station when we left.  Thanks to Manuel, Simon, and Damien for the best night in London~!

Girls night out! From L to R: Jimin, Amanda, Sierra, and yours truly c:

Perugia Chocolate Fesitval

Welcome to Chocolate Heaven! and the pathway to get Chocolate wasted.

"Posso assaggio per favore?"
All of us were given a Chococard which gave us access to sample all of the chocolate from the vendors.  Literally heaven for me c:

Cioccolato fondente, con nocciola, con arancia, con caffe, cioccolato birra...ahhhh...I just want to go back to my chocolate heaven.  And the best part?  Cute Italian guys giving you all these chocolate samples c:

My favorite: Kebab al cioccolato con lampone sciroppo. :B noms

Italian style hot chocolate with white chocolate shavings c:

The chocolate lovers crew! 

Yours truly with a YELLOW flower balloon c: 

I went to the Perugia Chocolate festival with the intention of only sampling and only buying one or two of my favorite chocolates.  In the end, I spent a total of 50 euros on JUST CHOCOLATE.