Let's Try This Again :)

Kelsi: Okay so I originally had written out a long novel on everything that has happened and unfortunately it was erased but that's ok I'm over it and I'm ready to try again! :) ok so My birthday was amazing my roomates made me feel so special! I was having a great birthday week yes "week" that is what we do in my family we get a week for our birthday and dad usually gets a birthday month! That's my dad for ya! Neways so I went and bought my brother a birthday present and was taking it to the post office to mail it when I walked in to a nightmare. No one could speak any english which is crazy to me because I mean it is an international post office. Neways I went to buy a box which took me 15 minutes to even put it together because the directions were in italian and this was not a typical box I promise! So after I put it together I walked back in and let me just say this place is huge and there were so many different lines to choose from and of course I couldn't read what anything was saying so I found this woman who spoke very few english but what I got out of her was to get a number, take a seat, and when my number appears walk up to the line. Ok so I took a seat and waited for an hour or so and then I saw my number well as I was walking up there this old man who I thought was going to be so nice to me just started yelling! Well I'm looking at him in confusion and am asking him if he spoke english and then he continued to yell and poked his head around the corner and yelled at everyone in the building for someone to speak english. Of course now everyone is looking at me and no one is responding so I just stand there. Well then he starts waving his arms in my face and I just start to tear up when someone told me I didn't have the right number... well I guess that's what they said, they just kept pointing at my number and so I just turned around and walked off and had a break down! I guess you could say I had my first bad experience or break down where I just started crying and griping! haha well after a few phone calls to mom and dad I was calmed down and decided I would go back tomorrow and try again. Me and Mary Shannon went to this other place the next day and they were so nice to me and spoke very good english so everything went well and my brother did get his present:) Well then came my birthday and when I woke up Mary Shannon had me a card and some flowers by my bed. The 2 yellow roses were beautiful and the card with bugs bunny was cute too! haha I walked into the kitchen and it was decorated with a bouquet of yellow roses that were gorgeous! Mary Shannon told me that I needed to go downstairs to get something so I walked downstairs and when I opened the door there was a man standing there with a huge bouquet of peace lillies!! It was from my family so of course I got all emotional because well that's me I'm kind of an emotional person! haha So the day was going amazingly and that night we went out to eat to a restaurant which I wasn't able to know about. All my roomates asked me was what kind of food I wanted to eat and of course I said STEAK!! That night we went to this beautiful restaurant that looked over the Ponte Vecchio. When we arrived we met up with some of our close friends and sat down to enjoy a tasty dinner. We all ordered a huge piece of meat of course I ordered the big Florentine steak which was absolutely amazing! Well later to find out my dad treated us all to the meal so I was very excited about that!! He has such a big heart and he always takes good care of me!! Oh I almost forgot the night before this which was midnight me and Mary Shannon walked to the Ponte Vecchio and I cut my fake i.d. (which I never used :) ) hehe and threw it into the arno. We sat on the bridge and just talked for a little bit and then I decided I wanted to go get a beer so we walked to a club might I add no showers, no makeup, hair in a ponytail and both wearing t-shirts and loving life!! We had a few drinks and then went back. There is no one better to spend my birthday with then Mary Shannon. We had so much fun. Ok so now fast forward to my birthday night, after dinner we went to the club Yab and had a blast the rest of the night. Well we were now getting ready for Venice for Carnivale! Once we got to Venice it was the most beautiful place I have ever seen! Everything is on water from the postman, to the ambulances, policeman and everything else in between. It was amazing. There were no cars and the roads were so small. Everyone was dressed from head to toe in costumes from older couples to 3 year old kids. There were also a ton of americans just running around in masks dancing and laughing and just enjoying life. Me and Mary Shannon bought some really cool masks that we wore and we also got our faces painted which was fun. The people there weren't very happy to see tourists this particular weekend I guess because it was so busy but wow they were mean to us. It's not like you can say anything back to them because well there is a huge language barrier between us! haha I will say this trip has definately made us hard women who have to clinch our fists and smile and walk right by them. I can't even tell you how many times we have been yelled at but that's ok because we are getting really good at it now! You know us 2 Arkansas girls who "think" we can take care of ourselves no ? about it :) Well once we got home we were so tired and ready to be back home. Let me tell you this past week went by so fast and before you know it we were getting ready to head to Interlaken, Switzerland. WOW can I just say that place is amazing! There were about 200 students that went and we took a bus that was about a 6 hour drive. The ride wasn't all that comfortable but I mean the view itself was just phenomenal. Once we got there which was at 3 a.m we got our keys and went to find our room. Ok now here is where it gets interesting. This was our first hostel experience which was very well let's just say different. We asked for a 4 bed room so that we could all room together. Well when we walked in there were 8 bunk beds in a room maybe as big as one very small bedroom. There was no room to even move around. Well as were all got the 4 bottom bunks we see these 4 random ppl come into our room. Yep there were 3 girls and 1 boy that were going to be bunking with us. They ended up all being from NYU and they weren't that bad they were pretty cool but it was just really weird sleeping in this little bitty room with ppl you don't know. Well now it was about 4 a.m and me and Mary Shannon were going skiing the next day at 7:30 so we knew we needed to get some sleep. As we were all getting ready to go to sleep the girl above me starts snoring!!! OMG I thought I was going to die! I layed there for about an hour and then thought hmm. maybe I can start coughing or clearing my throat to give her a hint to quit snoring... well NO that did not work! So then I thought I will get my ipod so as I was getting up I saw Kate get up to get the same thing I was getting! haha all of us 4 girls were wide awake and could not sleep because this girl was sooo loud. Let me say I have uncles who snore really loud and I can sometimes deal with that but this girl was snoring with the best of them! haha As I got my ipod and got back into bed I smiled and put on my headphones and went to turn on my ipod when of course my ipod is dead! That's just me of course no luck! Well I leaned over and told Mary Shannon to lay her head by mine so we could share her ipod. Hey best friends are willing to do anything to help each other out! Well so we got maybe 2 hours of sleep and had to get up and go ski. We were sooo excited and so exhausted at the same time the next morning when we went and got our ski's and headed up the mountain. This was the cool part we had to take a train up the mountain. This train went up, over, around, and under the mountains to get to the top where the ski lifts were. Oh and my parents sent me my ski jacket so I was feeling pretty stylish let me tell ya! haha Once we got up there we just kind of stood there in amazement realizing that we are about to ski on the Alps. As we were thinking that we looked down the mountain and started getting a little nervous :0 When skiing in the Alps the level of difficulty colors are different so we couldn't really tell so we just said oh well and headed down the mountain. We of course fell a few times towards the beginning when trying to get use to being back on the slopes. Once we got the hang of it we were off. We did a few hard ones and also the very top which was so cool because at the top there was a sign saying that this is the top of Europe and it's the highest point in Europe that you are allowed to ski on. That was a pretty cool experience! The view made everything so worth it though I mean when your skiing down the slopes and you look up and just see cliffs some with snow on them and some without mountains for days! What I really liked about it was that its not totally based around tourism. I mean there is like one hotel at the base and maybe 4 shops and a couple of restaurants and the rest is just mountains! So there isn't much up there on the Alps but that is what I most enjoyed about it because like in Colorado it's just a huge cluster of buildings and tourists and it's even hard to come down the mountain without almost running into someone. This was alot more peaceful although it was a little icy but not as much as I thought it would be. We ate lunch outside of this restaurant that overlooked the Alps and it was just beautiful. The weather was perfect not to cold not to hot. After we got done skiing we went back and went out to the bar like club that was at our hostel. We danced and all had a good time and then the next day we got up and went into Zurrich. We spent the day there which was really cool. There is a lake beside the city that we went and looked at that was so pretty because if you looked beyond the lake you saw the snow covered mountains in the background which was just so peaceful. We also ate at this small Tai food restaurant that was so good. I got shrimp fried rice and ate every bit of it!! I mean we are so use to eating pasta the second you put something else in our face that is not pasta we go crazy! haha That night we went night sledding with the group which was so much fun. We kind of had the wrong idea at first I mean when we though of night sledding I though of like 40 of us on this huge sled getting pulled around the mountain and Mary Shannon thought that dogs were going to be pulling us so as you can tell we had the wrong idea. Night sledding is like a sport I mean they gave us our own sled and we had to steer it and everything! They sent us down the mountain which was like a green if you were to ski on it and we had to steer the whole way and let me tell you we got some speed and were having so much fun screaming the whole way down! We fell of course a few times but night sledding if you ever have a chance you have to do it. That and skiing just made the trip for me!! I mean its not every day one can say they went skiing and night sledding in the Alps! Once we got down the mountain our guides treated all of us to cheese fondue. They bring you a big pot of cheese and little pieces of bread and potatoes and then you dip them in the cheese and then eat them. Oh it was so good, I know it sounds strange but its so good. We were going to go out that night when we got back but we were so tired that we couldn't so we just went to sleep and got up the next morning to pack. We decided to go into town so I could get some things for my family to give them for when they came over here. As we were walking it started to rain which was not good considering we didn't have an umbrella! Well we wanted to get something to eat and the one place in Interlaken that you eat at seeing that it is a very small town is Hooters. haha yea so we ate there along with a ton of other americans. The food was actually really good however the atmostphere not so much! haha Afterwards we went to this chocolate factory and decided to take a tour of the factory. That was pretty cool even for me considering I don't like chocolate. I know it sounds crazy but I just have never been a huge fan of chocolate but I will be honest and tell you that I ate a few pieces of white chocolate and milk chocolate and loved it! The swiss chocolate I mean its so different over there, it has a better taste than most of the chocolates I have tried. Mary Shannon who lives for chocolate was loving every bit of it. Our guide told us that we could take some if we wanted well Mary Shannon decided to get a few handfuls! haha See she gave chocolate up for lent so when Sundays role around its nothing but chocolate for her! She deserves it though because I will say temptation is everywhere I don't know if God is giving her a hard time or what but every store we walk in there is always huge displays of giant chocolate bars that are her favorite right beside the front door!! Crazy huh!! Yea that's what I thought!! He's got a good sense of humor let me tell ya! :) I went to get my swiss army knife that I was getting engraved with my name on it before we left and of course they spelled my name wrong. Well I was upset but was to scared to say anything but like they say when one friend is down the other one fixes it and sure enough Mary Shannon got my knife took it back up there got them to fix it. From what I heard it wasn't that easy of a process to do but Mary Shannon she found a way! We are always taking care of each other :) We got on the bus to come home and got back into Florence at about midnight. Oh yea me and Mary Shannon washed our sheets but since there is no dryers we had our sheets hung all over our apartment all weekend so we were hoping they would be dryed when we got back and they were thank goodness. They weren't very soft though I will say that. But that is about everything that has gone on the past couple of weeks. This coming up weekend we are going to Paris which I think is going to be pretty amazing so we are getting really excited about that!! It will be our first overnight train experience so I'll be sure and let you know how that goes! I miss everyone and will talk to you all soon!! Love you all!!!