i'm going to italy!!!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

i just booked flights this afternoon, so i'm headed to italy february 25 to march 2nd!!!

i am sooooo excited!

lots to do to plan this one, especially with only 2 weeks. but YAY! 

this will be my first time seriously traveling by myself. 

my first time in london three years ago, i was alone. but it was london and i went to n. ireland by myself in october. but this will be my first adventure to a place where i don't know the language.  so a little bit more intimidating, but i'm sooooo excited!

i'm flying into venice, then going to florence/pisa and then rome. it is going to be quick and i'm going to be packing a lot into my days, but i am excited. 

here's what i'm thinking...

wed - flight arrives into venice at 8pm

thurs - run around venice and love to canals

fri - up early and train to florence and then enjoy the artwork and the duomo

sat - pisa for the morning to do the obligatory picture with the tower, more fun in florence

sun - up early for train to roma, then the coliseum and pretending i'm a gladiator, and then people watching on the spanish steps with gelati at sunset (i was told to do this by a friend)

mon - vatican and more in rome. be at airport around 6.30 for flight back to cork. 

so does anyone have any omg you must do this? advice? or good places to stay?

so besides booking my flights, making this trip a reality nothing much else going on. 

i had a quiet weekend, i wanted to be more productive, but well that didn't happen. 

saturday i ran errands in town and had fun skipping in the sunshine, but it was COLD. ireland the 30s are not typical, please bring back the 40s. and then i watched an AMAZING rugby match. the 6 nations are back! YAY! it is ireland, scotland, wales, england, france and italy and for the next few weeks there are lots of glorious rugby matches on the weekend. so that is fab. and the game was great. ireland won 30-21 it but it was close a few times. france played a great match, but somehow ireland managed to hold them... so fingers crossed for the next few weeks.

and then sunday, well that was gloriously lazy. i thought about going hiking, but my bed won. it was actually sunny, but it is just bitter out with a wind. so next week, i'm going no matter what because it is the reeks, and i don't miss the reeks. but i enjoyed sleeping in, reading books in bed, watching a few movies, and the last 3 episodes of grey's... and WOW, soooo good! i love lexi and sloan together, and alex and izzy (and hopefully that awk thing with denny is over) and i liked the new doctor, but seriously the thing with callie? uuugh, don't fuck her over again. i love callie. and wtf with addison? which reminds me i am soooo behind on private practice, and oth and gg. 

and i'd like to aplaud the library with another tale of amazing. so i had many arguements with the library at my university over books. they always went missing when i needed them and after about 3-6 weeks they would be like yea, that book is missing and then i could interlibrary loan for free (otherwise they chargd 16 euro!!!) so this was great fun while writing my thesis. luckily i had time with that, not so much with my term papers. so a book i needed and requested last FEBRUARY and according to the catalogue, was listed as in process. which meant they were buying it, because the copy had been lost in 2006. so i figured i should have it by the summer. nooope, so i ask at the desk about it, yea it is still coming.. ok fine. so i realised by september nope, not getting this book. oh well, i'm not about to pay 16 euro for a book. what did i get over the weekend??? an email from the university library telling me the book was on hold for me. while i would have loved to go get it, i couldn't because i am no longer a student and don't have access to the library - it is card entry only. so thank you library for finally getting me that book a year later, and four months after i turned in my thesis and 2 months after i have my MA degree. 

so happpy monday!!!

oh and ps. welcome to all the new people reading :)

and a hot water bottle - yea i didn't think they existed any more either, reminds me of in like 19th century novels where they would bring heated bricks into bed... but they are used to warm the bed and i absolutely love mine. the irish really don't believe in heat, like we do in the us. so we don't have heat on at night... only between about 6pm-10pm and 7-10am. otherwise the house is freezing! so the 2 duvets and hot water bottle keep me nice and warm!!