so it's been a while, and there's alot to catch up on!!

since elba, we went to rome for a long weekend...not that great, i'm partial to florence obviously, but rome was too big and full of tourists, plus our lovely president decided to visit rome that same weekend, which caused rallies and riots a-plenty, i've never been so aware of being american and disliked by eurpeans. my prof put it well, at first the people in europe just really disliked bush, but there was a distinction between bush and us, the people, so they liked us...until we re-elected him of course, which i had nothing to do with...now there is no line between our government and us, so politically active people just tend to dislike americans and america, which was very clear in rome...of course i'm sure there are those people who can still make that distinction, and i actually heard that there are some pro-bush ralliers in europe, although there can't be many of them

so rome was ok...but last weekend i just stayed in florence, and it was wonderful! saturday i walked the city, got lost, got found, it was beautiful and not too crowded around where i was. then sunday we did a bike tour of tuscany! so fun, our tour guides, one of whom is pictured in this photo for the blog entry...they were so nice and fun, this one is from scotland, the other is irish...so great accents all day!!!

the trip is going by so fast! at least i have two more weeks after our program

i'll try to write more later!