terrifying? yes. i can vouch for that seeing as i ROAD IN IT!

senza helmut, left to right (in gubio). sam, me, caitlin, scott and richard.

biker babes.

haha, the gang. dont we look tough and biker like?!

I’m a nut (cluck, cluck), I’m a nut.

This endeavor is mixed beer nuts from a can, in honor of the “biker” in me.

Art continues to be the main catalyst of all things good in my life. I have been meaning to run up to Citta di Castello about an hour north of Perugia to see some Burri works. I finally had an open weekend and decided to go see the museums. I invited Caitlin and she got the fabulous and wild idea that we should take scooters to Citta di Castello. . . .

Friday, we had a little lesson. I was terrified but made it into the traffic after about 10 minutes of parking lot. We then road around with Richard, a kid on the program who was sort of a ringleader for the weekend and his visting friend, Sam. So, they drove us, we watched gorgeous Italy zoom by.

Saturday morning, gear up, armor, its cold. I wore a durable collared shirt, a wool sweater and a hoodie with my jean jacket and a scarf—I was still cold. Saturday the above mentioned and my friend Scott all participated in our little trip. In the beginning of the day I had the “special” scooter—he was slow, at least while I was driving him. At one point I was way behind and everyone pulled over to wait. As I was trying to get to the other side a huge truck pulled right behind me a honked. That was scary. Sam happened to be taking a video. HA. We snuck into a deserted house. Accidentally went to Gubio and rode in terrifying birdcages up the mountain. Lots of little fabulous things all day. We just rode around and let the road take us where ever.

In my life, this whole scooter extravaganza was merely a vehicle to an art museum. Funny enough ,when we reached Citta di Castello the museum was closed. As I mentioned above, art is the catalyst to all things good in my life. If I hadn’t wanted to see those painting I probably would have NEVER gotten on a blasted scooter. That blasted scooter was one of my favorite things I have done in Italy. I am going to do it again. A monster has been created.

careful. slowly. you go around me. ooops, footing. okay, breathe. do NOT look behind you--SMILE!

this is not a joke. focus. creak, creak, FLIP! splat.

jesus hill. this is a little terraced hill in our hostel town, manarola. manarola was the least toursity of the "five lands."

Cinque Terre: The Adventures of Swamerina and Katerina

All right, time to crack open another nut. This nut is an almond in honor of the homemade trail mix that kept me fed the WHOLE TIME we were in Cinque Terre.

Swamerina and I hiked, and hiked, and looked over the very steep, treacherous edges and hiked, oh, and we ate pesto. One of my favorite trips in Italy.

First hike, HARDCORE! We accidentally went on a “not well marked, no other people around, practically crawling on our hands and knees it is so steep” trail. At one point we seriously had about 18 inches on which to walk, if we went one inch too far we would have landed very, very far down--scary far down. I could not look to my left for sometime, vertigo would have consumed me and I would have become part of the Cinque Terre terrain for eternity. We loved it.

Our day continued with hikes that were very nice but not half as exciting as our debut to Cinque Terre.

We consumed an entire jar of pesto between the two of us in one sitting.

I want to work their for the summer, I actually came very close to asking for a job but then realized I miss my Bloomies and my family too much . . .

The trains had to stop due to rioting caused by soccer rivals. These trains, by the way, lean SEVERELY when ZOOMING the tiny little platforms. We managed to pull a classic Swati and Kate, we just sat chatting while everyone else left, the conductor had to get us off the train. So typical.

I got to wear spandex for an entire day and it was okay.

On our way home we stopped in Florence for a few hours, shopped, had coffee, saw Lili. So nice.

We DID NOT take a taxi home. Cheers! Eat your almonds.

lindsay in the main piazza in prague near the anti-climatic clock.

Prague in a nut shell

yeah, the food, can we say HEAVY!!!!!

A cotton candy nut shell . . .

FANTASTIC TRIP! Prague was fine, it looks like Busch Gardens. No good art which always dampens my experience anywhere. Kafka museum, fine--to stretched. Mucha museum, interesting but not my kind of art. Communist museum, wow, it JUST happened. Swan Lake, that was incredible. Jazz club, fine. Hostel, very nice. Evening ghost tour, not scary. This is ME saying something WAS NOT SCARY.

Fun memories. The Japanese Princess who lived our hostel with her rescuer with leather wrist bands. They were couple who seemed to live in the hostel, spoke neither English nor Italian so we had no communication for smiling (sometimes). They were camped out—settled for the long haul. Throughout our stay in Prague Swati, Lindsay and I created a fictitious scenario of their lives which became our reality of them.

The Burry. They had every kind of beer (I tried many of them (blue berry, coffee, champagne, cherry, regular good eastern European) and still left not liking beer). We went their EVERY day we were in Prague. We became regulars in four days (regulars in our own hearts, not really in theirs).