Ups and Downs

So you know how I was SO EXCITED to go the Bayern Munich game? Yeah. I didn't get to go.

Unfortunately the school here has a really strict absence policy. For each class you have, you can only have 3 absences. Going to the game yesterday would have counted as two absences because we had a makeup class scheduled for 3pm yesterday and then had class this morning at 8am. The trip to the game would have made us leave around 3:45pm yesterday and we wouldn't have been able to come back until about 10am this morning. The reason why this is so bad is because we are going to be going to Istanbul in a couple weeks and I would have to be absent for Thursday and Friday, and I have that same class those days. So that would equal 4 absences total. Which would mean I would have to drop the class.

Basically I had to chose between wasting $150 or so dollars by not going to the game and missing out on this amazing experience I might not get again OR drop the class, no longer be enrolled as a full-time student putting my loans and scholarships into jeopardy, have to retake the class in Pullman, and wasting a ton of money. Clearly I went with the second option. And luckily there are some die hard Bayern fans that go to school with us that bought the tickets from Maddie and I. So really I'm only out $25 from the train reservations that we had. That makes me a lot happier.

Luckily I got to watch the game on TV still, and Bayern did me a solid and won the game in the last couple of minutes, 1-0!

On a good and upward note...it's finally snowing in Brig!!!!

After 48 days of being in the middle of the Alps, it finally started snowing in town! And it is just so gorgeous. There is just something about the snow that makes me feel at peace. Which is something that I really need right now. It is supposed to keep snowing for the next 5 days. I'm hoping after our weekend in Barcelona that we'll come back to a ton of powder and we can finally go sledding!

-Love-

Escape to Venice

The city of Venice is unreal. Literally, it seems so fake. As soon as we stepped into the city I said, "I feel like I'm in Disneyland." It was absolutely beautiful and such a fun little city.

Both the train ride to Venice and the train ride back to Brig sucked. Not because they were uncomfortable or because they were long, because neither was the case, but because BOTH times I was sitting by a PDA infested couple. FOR 5 HOURS. Just what I need to remind me that I'm newly single. Great.

When we got to Venice we went on a hunt for our hostel. Which took us a good 20 minutes because the directions were terrible. When we got there we rang the doorbell and no one answered. We banged on the door, still nothing. We went to a different hotel to see if they could call, no answer. We spent about 20 more minutes trying to figure out how to get into our hostel, until we decided to just forget about that hostel and find somewhere else to stay. Which luckily we did after two other hotels were booked. We found one with a room with two twin beds and no bathroom. Oh well, at least we had a place to stay!

After the hostel debacle we decide to head out and explore Venice! The weather was perfect by the way, and the scent of the salty water made us feel like we were back in Seattle. Our first stop was gelato! I got pistachio and cherry, yum! Then we continued our walk across a large bridge where a lot of peddlers stand and try to sell sunglasses, purses, and toys. There were many a times that we would pass them during our trip and they would say "Hey, wanna be my homie?" Haha, really? No thanks. But I did end up buying a pair of fake Ray-Ban sunglasses for 8 Euros! Maddie is really good at bargaining and brought them down from 25 Euros. I was impressed. We also bought some scarves and then ended up taking a gondola ride! Which was totally worth it.

Gelato and a view! Perfect.

On the gondola ride! This is the bridge you saw a lot of peddlers at.

The color of the water was so pretty!

This is the oldest Catholic church in Venice.

Maddie and I on the gondola ride.

Such a fun experience! Well worth the 30 Euros.

After the gondola ride we did a little bit more exploring around the city before deciding that it was time for dinner. We stopped a little restaurant and order so delicious Italian food. I had gnocchi pomodora, baked chicken, and a salad. Maddie had spaghetti pomodora and a caprese salad. Mmmm, just what we needed! We also found out that it was the start of Carnevale (a celebration similar to Mardi Gras), so lots of people were walking around dressed up in costumes and masks, and a lot of tourists joined in the fun and bought masks too! So naturally Maddie and I decided we should get masks as well! Here are some of the many, many costumes we saw:

After dinner, Maddie and I did some more exploring and shopping, and grabbed ourselves a drink. We got hot sangria from a little outside bar, it was delicious and perfect for being outside on a chilly evening. We then went back to our hostel to grab our masks and trying to find a bar, club, or pub to go to. On our adventure, we found this group of people that looked about our age, and they were speaking English. So we went up to them and Maddie said, "English?!" And they were all really happy to meet us and talk with us, so for the rest of the night we were hanging out with them and getting lost in Venice together.

We were attempting to find a club that one of the guys was told he should go to, but we never made it there. We took them to the place where we got hot sangria so they could get drinks, and two of them bought masks from a little stand because we asked them why they didn't have any. The majority of the group was guys, actually they were all guys except for one girl. They are all US Air Force and just got stationed an hour outside of Venice.

At one point an older man selling roses tried to get a couple of the guys to buy me some roses. The man handed me the roses and looked at the guys to try to get them to pay him. I was holding the roses awkwardly, like "What am I supposed to do with these?" He kept looking at the guys like, "Please buy these for the pretty girl." Then one of the guys, Gio, said to the man, "It's our honeymoom man. This is my new wife. I just bought her a $6,000 ring that she's not even wearing, I can't afford roses." Hahahahaha that was just too funny to me. I looked at Maddie and she mouthed "Too soon." I shook my head and said "Yes, way too soon." Long story short, I gave the man back the roses, and apparently was a "wifey" for the night.

One of the guys Dylan decided Maddie was going to be his "wifey" for the night too, and Blaise sort of ended up the fifth wheel and kept saying over and over and over, "I want a wifey!" Quote of the night for sure. All in all it was a really great time. We had a lot of laughs and met a ton of interesting people. Maddie and I turned in around 1am because we had a whole day ahead of us and we were exhausted. The guys we met couldn't leave until 7am so they ended up staying out the rest of the night! Crazy.

Getting our hot sangrias.

We found a Disney store! Clearly I was happy.

The things that you see/people that you meet during Carnevale.

The two we convinced should buy masks! Blaise, myself, Maddie, and Dylan.

Me awkwardly taking a rose while Gio tries to explain why I should have it for free.

The group of Americans we met!

The Egyptian guys we met! "We're US Air Force, we got your back."

Maddie and I in our masks.

This kid cracked me up. His many quotes: "I want a wifey!"; "What kind of shampoo do you use?! Your hair is so soft!"; "I like the way she thinks."

The three boys we hung out with: Dylan, Gio, and Blaise.

After an eventful night and a long sleep, Maddie and I woke up and got ready for another day of Venice! We checked out of our hostel around 10:30am, and luckily were able to leave our bags in the lobby while we explored the city more. We started the day with Nutella crepes for breakfast. I could do that everyday. So delicious. Then we started our journey to find St. Mark's Square. That was such a fun adventure because you could tell a lot of people were heading in the same direction, and we had to go through all of these tiny streets and past lots of fun shops. And there were signs on buildings pointing you in the direction you were supposed to be going.

Lots of people headed to St. Mark's Square!

There are opportunities to take gondola rides pretty much everywhere.

Lots of shopping!

There was a parade for Carnevale through the Grand Canal!

All the people watching the parade.

We finally made it St. Mark's Square!!

This fountain was filled with red wine in honor of Carnevale.

And they served the red wine to people!

I wore my TOMS and brought my TOMS Flag! I uploaded the picture to the website last night so hopefully it'll be up in the next couple of days!

The trip was definitely a success. Maddie and I both has such a fantastic time! Many memories were made and new friendships were formed. I'm very happy that we got to travel here. It was a much needed escape after a week from hell for me.

As always, many more pictures are on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=328379&id=672975663&l=3cab66af5d

-Love-

Life Has to Go On

It's been a long and emotional week for me. But I can't let this ruin my trip. It's extremely difficult to put myself in a positive mindset, but I have to. Only time will heal my wounds and the earlier I start to accept that the earlier I will heal.

I want to thank all of my family and friends that have been by my side all week. You forget about how much they care about you until you really need them the most. I don't think I would be able to find the strength within myself to move on and continue living life in Brig without the positive and encouraging words I have received. Thank you everyone, and I love you all so much. I can't wait to be home and see you all.

Hopefully this weekend will be a nice escape from reality. Maddie and I are heading to Venice in the morning and I'm excited to finally get to visit a city in Italy and not just pass through on my way to other places. As always, once I get back to Brig I will upload pictures and post a new blog for everyone to enjoy.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been in a rather chipper mood today. Even though I'm far away from my Valentine, and won't get to see him for awhile, I'm just thankful that I have him for my Valentine. I couldn't ask for anyone better to spend my Valentine's Day with, and pretty much any other day with :)

I got two cards in the mail today! Hooray, I love getting mail :) One little letter from Grandma and Grandpa Mallory and one card from Aunt Sara (Josh's aunt). Even though neither of them were intended for Valentine's Day, it was really nice to get cards on Valentine's Day!

More good news for today was that Maddie and I went down to the train station to try and make some reservations, fingers crossed! And we got both the reservations we wanted!!! We are going to be going to Venice this weekend, and then Disneyland Paris from March 18th-20th. So currently the vacationing/trip schedule looks like so:

February 19th-20th: Venice
February 23rd: FC Bayern Munich vs. Inter-Milan match in Milan
March 10th-13th: Istanbul, Turkey
March 18th-20th: Disneyland Paris

Hopefully we can figure something out for the Barcelona trip that was supposed to happen February 25th-27th, Tyler and I are trying to find available seats, but are having no luck so far. If something doesn't work out I'm certainly not going to pay to fly there, but I still want to go somewhere else. I really want to go to either Pisa or Florence, but I'm not sure what Tyler wants to do, and I don't necessarily thinking going by myself would be the best idea. We'll see what happens though!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

-Love-

Turning Negatives to Positives

After all the crap that has gone down with this whole Eurail pass business, I decided I just need to get over it and find other places to travel to. So today Maddie and I did just that, and decided to take a day trip up to Zermatt to see the Matterhorn! I've been wanting to go to Zermatt since day one and was so happy we finally decided to head up there. The Matterhorn is the mountain that inspired Walt Disney's roller coaster with the same name.

We hopped on the train around 1pm and were ready for our adventure. Little did we know that the Eurail pass doesn't work on the trains to and from Zermatt because they are privately owned. Wow, just our luck. Again. We have come to the conclusion the Europe hates us, and just wants ALL of our money. Lesson 7: If you are going to purchase a Eurail pass SERIOUSLY look into where you want to go and make all the necessary reservations WAY in advance.

Luckily the train fare wasn't to steep, and we were just happy that we were getting out and doing something. We were up to Zermatt around 2:30pm and made our way to the gondolas. We didn't arrive in time to make the gondola that goes all the way to the top of the mountain, but the gondola that we did take still gave us breathtaking views of the Matterhorn and the surrounding mountains in the Alps.

The first glimpse from town.

On the gondola ride.

Simply beautiful.

They call this peak the "Baby Matterhorn".

Maddie and I.

After spending a little bit of time up in the mountains, we made our way back down into town to do some exploring and to grab some food. All the little shops were so cute, but definitely targeted at the tourists. We found this mexican restaurant we really wanted to eat at, but it didn't open until 6pm and it was only 5pm. We were pretty sad since we're both dying to eat mexican food, but ended up settling for a nice little pizza place.

All in all it was a fun trip, regardless of the not being able to use our Eurail passes. I got to experience something that I probably wouldn't get to see again in my life, so I'm thankful that we went. Now we're trying to thinking positively and find other places to go on the weekends that we had previously planned.

-Love-