Sorrento, Naples and Pompeii

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Sorrento, Naples and Pompeii

Pigs feet

Happy New Year!! I can't believe it's 2011! So for the new year the house cleaner lady invited us to her house to celebrate. There were nine people in total. When we first got there we sat and talked for a little bit and then we ate later. Honestly, I could only understand about 6 words. So it was about 8:45 when we finally started eating. The first course was little appetizers, like cheese and olives. In total there were about eight courses. Including pigs feet. Not joking. When they told us I could barely even look at it. And lucky for me, even if they hadn't told us it was pigs feet, I was way to full anyway. We also had gelato for dessert! And then the lady saw my dad eating some of my giant dessert (even though i asked for only a little bit) and she made another giant ice cream for my dad. After we finished eating which took FOUR HOURS, it was almost the new year so we all sat down and watched Italian TV. The lady had two dogs and one of them just had a puppy 10 days earlier so she brought it in and I got to hold it! After it was officially the new year we drank some champagne (including me, I had even drunk some wine earlier). After about 15 minutes, we were all getting very tired so we went home and went to bed, and all I was really thinking about was the fact that it was only 3:00 pm at home.....

-And next Sunday my dad is going to preach at this church we went to yesterday.. that is going to interesting.
-I'll take some pics of my new shirt for the next blog!

Christmas and More Rome

Christmas was really nice and quiet. On Christmas Eve I decided to put out one of my dad's socks (they're bigger) on the fireplace mantle. In the morning I checked to see what was in it, but I already knew the night before that I was going to get a few oranges and some boci (a chocolate candy, not the game).Later in the day, we went to our house cleaner lady's house for tea. Which I did not totally agree with, because it was Christmas and I wanted to be "home". But!!b Turns out it wasn't that bad. The lady had a dog that had a ten day old puppy, that hadn't even opened it's eyes! She also had a few birds and five turtles. We stayed for two hours and in that time period I understood about five percent of the out conversation. We had some cookies and pie thing... and I had juice instead of coffee. My mom did most of the talking and my dad a little bit. The lady kept trying to talk to me alone, while my parents were talking to her husband. We were trying to have a conversation about her turtles, but I couldn't understand, so I did what you're suppose to do: Smile and nod. After we left her house we went back home and played lots of games,like Nertz!! That is one of my favorite games now. In the first couple weeks we were here we played it every night. Anyway after a few games we watched Mrs. Doubtfire. That movie is sooo funny! Yesterday we went to Rome again! We were going to go on the day before that but my dad was sick, and still is a little bit. So anyway, we went to Compo di Fiori, and had really amazing pizza, at Forno. After that, my mom and went shopping and I bought a really cute shirt. Then we went to the Pantheon. Which was really cool. After that we went and got some gelato, mine was cookies and creme, I think. After we had gelato we headed home! And now I am planning our trip to Venice!


Oh this is really funny: I almost forgot my L.A teacher's name!

RomAmoR

Rome was incredible! On the first day it was the afternoon so we took the "Dolce vita Walk" (thanks to Rick Steves). We first walked through the stores on the street, Via del Corso. Next we went to the Spanish Steps, which is kind of just a hang out place for teenagers. After that we walked some more, again through the stores :). After that we went to the famous Trevi Fountain which was really cool. Did I mention? It was really cold the whole time! So, we went and I got a strawberry and nutella crepe! After some more, you guessed it, walking, we got back to our hotel. Our hotel was about a block and a half from the Colosseum!

The next day was a really big day. We first went to the Colosseum, with a guided audio tour from our pal, Rick Steves. Let's just say that after we left the Colosseum, I definitely wanted to back! After that we went to the Roman Forum. Which again, was an audio tour by Rick. It was really.. Interesting.. To me it kind of looked like a bunch of crumpled up bricks.. After the Forum, we headed to the place where Peter and Paul went to jail...It has a different name but it's too complicated for my brain. It was a tour of the prison, some talking rocks and a little church. To me, it was REALLY cheesy. But it was still really cool to see the prison (I would have been fine without the talking rocks though). Next, it was night time so we did the "Night Walk" and again we were helped out by our BFF, Rick Steves (honestly I think someone's getting obsessed... *cough* my dad). But before we could start the walk we got lost, thought my dad thought we we "just around the corner". Finally we started the walk. We saw a couple of fountains, in a piazza. Though in my opinion fountains in Italy are like mosaics in Israel :). We walked to another piazza near by where a little carnival thing was happening. My mom bought a little ornament witch, named Befana, she is like Santa Claus. We also went back to the Trevi Fountain just for fun. After the walk we went back to our hotel and played some card games, then went to bed.

The next day was probably my favorite day. We went to the Vatican City. AMAZING! We first went to the Vatican Museum. We saw a lot of statues and really old art stuff, even a Egyptian mummy! After wondering through the museum we headed to the end with the Sistine Chapel. It was absolutely incredible! We were guided by Rick (again). We saw the Last Judgement and the famous God and Adam. I thought it was really sad that we couldn't take any pictures, but I saw a least five people take pictures. Only four of the five got busted which made me made that someone could just get away with that. I really didn't want to leave the Sistine Chapel but the thing on our list was Saint Peter's Basilica! If you would like to know how big it is, here it is: The length is about two and a half football fields, and the height at tallest part is about one football field!!! After we listened to the audio guide for that, we headed for the train station. If you want to know the traveling experience go to my mom's page, all I will say is that is was cold, snowy, expensive, rainy, and miserable. A couple more things... I will post my pictures later... and this is really random but.. If you have ever seen the Lizzie McGuire movie, she goes to Rome, and the Trevi Fountain, and couldn't help but think of that when we went! Remember pictures later, and check my mom's blog for traveling! :)

Sheep!

Hey! Today was a really awesome day! We day tripped into Sora, a little town about 20 minutes away from where we are. Instead of doing a lot of exploring around the city, we hiked. We went up a lot of rocky stairs and it was kinda gross on the way up. Our destination was a small little church you could see from the city. The church was locked up (thankfully due to our past experiences with unknown churches). After circling the church for awhile we found a small short little path of nice, neat stairs... Guess where they led to? About half a block from where we had started up the mountain (remember.. the rocky path???) When we got back down we stopped for some pizza and window shopping. Personally I would really like to go back to Sora because I found a really cute sweater dress for 12 dollars! After that we were all pretty tired and we decided to head home.. And thank goodness we did. Coming into our driveway we saw 74 sheep! The people who own this house have a cousin who is a shepherd. He comes around every two weeks with his sheep and they come and "mow" the lawn! After all the sheep excitement we settled down and read some books :)

Oh and today we couldn't find Lea the dog so we went looking for her.. She was at her old house where she grew up.... Did I mention?? Lea is about 20 years old!