It's a big update

Sunday March 22,was a great day! After mass my friends and I went and got kebabs at this little hole in the wall place in Florence. They were so good! When then headed over to a professional soccer game! It was a blast it was Florence vs. Siena. Siena is our biggest rival so it was really funny to listen to everyone's comments. At the game they put the Siena fans in a cage. It was probably 20 feet tall and surrounded by security. I think we need something like that Chief's games. It was funny though because the Florentine fans would go up and taunt the Siena fans. It was a great game that we won and it was a great experience. One other girl and I walked back after the game. It was a really long walk,(we live in a neighboring city), but our friends that took the bus got back to the villa 5 seconds after us. We are awesome...that's right. But the day still gets better because after dinner the friends that I went to the soccer game with and I go outside to over look the BEAUTIFUL view we have outside, drink wine, and smoke some vanilla cigarettes. We had a fantastic time talking about how lucky we are that we get to do this. Do you think the day can't get any crazier? It does. We then went upstairs and operate on my friend, Frank's leg. A little over a week ago he fell down a rock slide and cut his leg to the bone and had to get A LOT of stitches. So Sunday night we took them out for him, to save him 23 Euro. As Jenn and Addie were taking them out they found more than what the doctor said were in there. It was funny to watch and film. We were glad our Resident Director was out of town though because she would have killed us. We were still in a bit of trouble when she showed up but the look on her face was priceless. One of our professors came in though while we were doing it and he said, "you guys shouldn't be doing this!" But then he just stayed and watched and then left saying, "I didn't see this." We are all in our 20's but I think we may still need adult supervision.

On Wednesday March 25 my friends Frank, the one who fell down a small cliff, and Adrienne went a built a bridge at the point where Frank fell and cut out his leg. I went to check it out and back there is a beautiful waterfall and a great flat area of land and we were talking and we decided to clean it up then one day before we leave we are going to steal a bunch of blankets from the Villa and camp back there. Addie and Frank managed to dig a nice fire pit and we plan on having bonfires back there because we have been told by the villa that our plans to roast marshmallows is not allowed. Well we have found a solution to our problem. And it’s about ¼ of a mile away from the Villa…we’ll show them. LOL

On Thursday we had a BBQ with games and hamburgers and hot dogs. It was going to be great. I was really excited for some MEAT, we don’t get much meat here. The first game we played was one where a string was tied to a fork and we string it inside our clothes from top to bottom until everyone was connected. It felt really weird to have the string going through my clothing. The second game we played was one where people started up at the top and had to bob for fruit, then run down the hill and drop it in a bowl. At that point two people had to cut it up and make a fruit salad. The team with the best salad won. One person on my team dropped the fruit on the gravel and we still had to use it. Needless to say I didn’t eat it. The last game was a water balloon/dodgeball game. It was a great idea. Expect when I got nailed in the stomach by a water balloon, thrown by one of the strongest people here.
At that point not only was I out but I was in pain. I came really close to throwing up so they took me to the hospital. I rode in an ambulance and ended up being in there until 4 am. When it was all done with my resident director came up to me and apologized for the medical bills and kept telling me that I was being charged a lot. I finally got the amount out of her and it was 176 Euro (roughly $225) for the ambulance, medicine, and all of the tests run. And anyways my insurance covered everything because I have $0 deductible. I was trying to explain to her that it was a fantastic deal compared to the United States. I thought it was pretty funny.
I was pretty ticked that I had to go to the hospital though because I was suppose to go to Venice early on Friday morning but because I felt so ill I didn’t go. I was feeling a bit better at the end of the day though on Friday so my friends and I decided that we would just go Saturday and Sunday.
So on Saturday I woke up at 2:30am to watch the KU basketball game only to see the get defeated. I went back to bed and then woke up at 6am to head to Mestre ( just outside Venice) where my Aunt Simonetta’s parents live. Once we got in my aunt’s mom met us at the bus stop and took us back to her house for a great lunch. It was fantastic to have good Italian food. The food at the villa sucks! After lunch the girlies and I went into Venice and walked around until we ended up at the Rialto then San Marco Piazza. We were having so much fun in Venice that we almost forgot that we had to get to mass. We ran back to the bus station and we got on the right bus but it didn’t finish its route so we had no idea where we were. Thank god that we had another guardian angel on that bus because he got off and spoke perfect English and was able to tell us where we needed to be. We got to mass seconds before it started.
On Sunday we went back into Venice but it was raining so we came back to the house and just got spoiled for the afternoon.
This Tuesday I got to meet up with the infamous Bret Mach and his girlfriend Robin for lunch. They both are studying abroad at Oxford and they were in Florence for a few days. It was so great to see an old friend from back home. Yeah Kansas people!
Tomorrow around 12 I leave for Berlin, Germany. I am getting very excited. I can’t wait to see the rest of Europe. Now my trips will really begin to take off with Ireland in 7 days, Pisa the weekend after that, then Rome, Barcelona, and Paris all in a row! Then it is back to Chicago for a week and I head home to Kansas City on my birthday.