io abito qui:

the place Emily and I call home.
living room

we found the table and matching four chairs!!

view from our door. the little banner that molly made for me is the first welcome!

teeny tiny little kitchen.

at Lake Harriet.

Sienna. she drinks out of the water faucet.

home again home again

my mom welcomes me home with live entertainment

first full day in the states and i find myself on the golfcourse with my fam.

Willis, rockstar golfer.

James and Greg came to KS to see me for an Atrani Reunion! Swanky car...

me mum and i preparin' some food to bring to Emily's house in Manhattan. We all had a HUGE meal together and a lovely lovely day full of chitchat and laughter.

Emily and I made our traditional stop at the Windmills in Iowa.

In Minnesota now...and James is STILL wonderful and STILL dancing.
Me and Emily . summer summer summer FINALLY
So. alright. I'm in Minneapolis now. Emily and I have an apartment right near Loring Park. Its perfect. We are in walking distance from the Orchestra Hall where we can hear music outdoors all summer, the Walker is only a few blocks away (we snuck into the $75 Andrew Bird concert the other day and it was BRILLIANT), we practically own the park, James is our neighbor..... I'm sooooo happy to be back!

Ciao-ciao Florence, never again.

on my last day in Florence, Beth and I smoked cigars, drank tons of wine, and watched Sense and Sensibility (the girly movie of our time together)
...in highschool i went through this phase where i purposely smiled like a dweeb, this is me remembering those days.

I only managed to get ONE of the 8 different roomates I had in a photo. this is one of my favorites, Carmen.

My absolute favorite person in all of Italy = HOLLAND GUY!!!!!!! James and I always bought cheese there together, Beth and I always bought our peanut butter there, and on my last day, when i stopped to say goodbye I told Holland Guy that his shop was my favorite place, and he started crying. what a wonderful man!

the sun will come

so, i finally made my way to the giant park outside town , where i found all the halfnaked italians sunbathing. glorious right?
this is how packed the streets are now its full tourist season.

view from the Uffizi.... lovely right?!

the little courtyard below my balcony.... i'll miss staring at it

view outside my bedroom window.

Aprile dodici

not a ton here...
but it snowed today, and i'm having a bit of a hard time grasping it.
James and Beth are both off traveling for a while, so i am alone in Florence for a couple of weeks.
my wandering companions and this 4day rain have kept me in my room/studio working.

the hunt for my day has been trying to figure out what type of snake gave Eve the apple, what type of snake Medusa's hair was, and what type of snake bit and killed Cleopatra. i've only found one answer: THE ASP... the asp killed Cleopatra.

i've had 4 cups of tea today, and i'm daydreaming of american coffee.

The best part about Florence is Leaving it

I've just returned from a short gira to the Amalfi Coast in Southern Italy. After a full day of trains and the doom-ridden cliff bus we were finally swept into the town of Atrani during a rainstorm. The night brought us (James, his friend Greg, and me) peaceful sleep in a beautiful hostel and the brief knowledge that somehow, the entire town knew we were coming...
We woke up, walked about 45 seconds and found we were quite possibly in the loveliest place on Earth.

It didnt take us long to become the children we all are. We were climbing rocks and toying with the ocean in no time.

This is the anchor rock, and the other view of Atrain from the 100 meters of beach. We spent a lot of time playing music from the anchor rock.... as you can see, this is me and James' band photo!! haha

It was a 7-10 minute walk from Atrani to Amalfi, so we were back and forth a lot. Our first venture into Amalfi found us staring up the steps of this church to see gold mosaic and colored tile glittering with the setting sun. We fell up the stairs and when I heard organ music we made our way into the church to find a wedding happening. So we watched the rest of the wedding!!

On our last evening on the coast we took a boat from Amalfi to Positano for dinner. Being as the ferry boat back was only 2 hours away, we didnt go further into town than the restaurant (Chez Black).

On the boat ride to Positano. On the Maria Madre... my first boat ride in the ocean! James being.. himself. :)

you can see the island of Capri AND Homer's siren rocks in the background!

This is the view of Atrani from the road. lovely!

This is the view of Atrani's main square from the road. ALL of the streets were scalloped.

James and Greg waiting at the bus stop on our last morning. I was sad to leave.

Easter

Alright, these fotos are all out of order, but oh well. This is a very bad and very small view of the enormous building we call the Duomo ( or that the unlearned Americans, call the Domo. wow, right?). Anyhow, the plan was to attend mass here Easter morning. We expected thousands of people,....but not the lack of a service, and not the rain.
This was after the fireworks . Despite the rain, there were gobs of things for tourists to feast their eyes on. It was actually quite lovely.
One of the many bulls paraded through Centro Firenze. These two nearly toppled me.

Beth made letter cookies ( a Florentine tradition ) and I spelled all the important people of the day. Oh. and there's a giant chocolate age.. yummmm

Me, Beth and Teddy (Teddy is Beth's English beau. we met him at language school) in the rain after the fireworks.

Alright. here we are: In front of the main entrance to the Duomo was an ENORMOUS cart/castle/thing adorned completely in fireworks. The display lasted about 15 minutes and managed not to touch the Duomo or its Baptistry.

The purple smoke was brilliant!!!

Every Florentine and tourist was out with their umbrellas. It all seemed quite correographed really.

colorful men in the parade before the fireworks. we obviously, were not in the best of locations.

Noordwijk and Amsterdam!

Aww, the disappearing sands of Noordwijk. On our first night in this sea-side town, James and I were, very luckily, picked up by a local couple who told us about the mystery sands. There is major work being done to bring sand from nearby towns and reloading the beach. James and I seemed to be the only people who knew exactly where the sands are disappearing to. THE STREETS!!! IT coats EVERYTHING!!!.. haha

Sunset on the North Sea. James and I spent hours in the freezing cold taking in the beauty.

I'm the dork holding the sugar cube.

Me and James. freezing.

This is the only small image i have of Amsterdam right now. Right near the Science Museum we went to for my 21st Birthday. We got hailed on, snowed on, and rained on, all in a gap of 2 hours. Prompted us to hole up and eat burgers. yummmm