New Site

http://jamiesitalianadventure.shutterfly.com/ This is my new blog site...its easier for you too look at pics this way!!!! I hope you enjoy!

Chocolate Anyone?

We hear of a Chocolate Festival in Padova to raise money for the Childrens Hospital. Padova is only a 15 min train ride so we decided to head there for a few hours and see what it had to offer. I'm not a huge chocolate person but it was sooo GOOD! They had choc. covered strawberries, doughnuts, crepes, noodles and even chocolate lasagna. I tried the strawberries, crepes and lasagna and they were all soo good!

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Group that went to the Choc. Festival...Elizabeth is taking the pic!

Me and Mike with the clowns and the bear who were walking around the festival

Chocolate Lasagna anyone?

These Strawberries are soo good that I had two of them!

Biggest Chocolate I had ever seen!!!

If you could pay 335 Euro

They say Milan is where the fashion is...well they were right!



Me, Emily, Keri and Ashleigh decided we were going to go to Milan...the city of fashion and the city that has the most amazing looking Golthic Cathedral ever! Milan isn't far from Vicenza so we just planned a simple day trip...thinking we could see the Cathedral, some of the town as well as the shopping areas...you could do that all in a day right...WRONG



We spent about 2 1/2 hours in the cathedral! It was amazing...the alter, the side sitting areas, the confessionals, the details put into this cathedral were amazing! We payed 8 euro to take an elevator to the top of the Cathedral.



....then we decided to eat! The place we ate...

by the time we were done eating it was about 6:30...our train left around 8:30...after we were done eating we decided to go into a department store...that had 7 floors....and when I think of department stores I think of semi-cheap things...NOT THIS ONE! This has DG, LV, Guess and many more expenssive places! I saw a swimsuit, that you probably couldn't even wear in the water...or even want to wear in the water for 335 euro! Are you flippin kidding me!?!?! Also in this department store you can't take pictures...who would have known..not this girl! I got in trouble for taking Keri's picture in front of Louis Vuitton..my bad!






Inside the Gothic Cathedral where you light a candle and pray.


Front of the Cathedral. In the top part of the picture you may see a red light. There is where a nail, from when Jesus was placed on the cross, is kept!



An AMAZING view from the roof of the Cathedral. We paid 8 euro to go up to the top of the Cathedral and I'm so glad we did!

Delicious Gilato, to bad the food wasn't as delicious as this was!

The Gothis Cathedral at night, so beautiful!



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What Happens In Rome

When in Rome...right! Thats what I thought to :)

So I went to Rome over Valentines Day weekend and it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! The whole Camp A family decided we were going to go there since we had a three day weekend but some things didn't go the way as planned...let me tell you the story...

Once apon a time in a land far far way...there was a little place known as the Happy Days Hostel in a magical called Rome. Well 11 new friends decided they were going to visit the magical land and stay at this wonderful looking hostel. 4 of the 11 friends had already decided they were going to this magical land before the other 7 so they had already had their hostel booked, so the other 7 booked their rooms all together as well. We all wanted to stay in the same place so that we could explore this magical land together.

Well on Friday night, a group of 6 of the friends set out their voyage to the magical land....the other 5 were going to set out in the morning. We had everything taken care of except calling the inn keeper to confirm our reservations. The group in that was leaving in the morning had called first and the inn keeper told them everything was fine and there was nothing to worry about. Then about 20 minutes later, we recieved a call from the other voyagers. They had said the Inn keeper told them that a pipe broke at the hostel and that they were being moved to another hostel..but they should worry b/c it was just as good as Happy Days and also the group that was leaving in the morning would also be moved w/ the other group. So the other 5 called the Inn keeper to make sure we were being moved as well but the stupid Inn Keeper told us that we were going to be staying at Happy Days and NOT moving with the other group, every thing turned out fine...THE END.....

...I WISH...

Me, Ashley, Jen, Ashleigh and Steph did end up staying at Happy Days Hostel..it wasn't to bad actually. It was different and at first I was alittle worried about staying in this hostel but it ended up not being to bad. The other group had had two girls who were booked on our reservation but they ended up getting moved with the other group...

Now i bet you are wondering well what happened to the othe group. Well the got moved to the crappiest place ever they said. They had no hot water, there weren't enough blankets or pillows for all of them. A man had pulled a pillow from a cabnet w/ chemicals in it and gave someone a table cloth for a blanket. They ended up leaving that hostel and demanding a refund...the girls who were supposed to be on our reservation also got a full refund from happy days...they ended up staying in a hotel on sunday night.

We didn't really see much of each other the other group but some how we ended up seeing them at the Trevi Fountain and the Coliseum...how that happens in Rome I have no idea but I'm glad it did and then we hung out w/ them on Sun Night. I felt soo bad for them and wish everything would have worked out for them, but you just have to take it how it is and try and make the best of it which they tried to do.

Below are just a few pics from Rome..if you would like to see all 700 of them feel free to visit this site... http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8EaNmzVwycOmg

This is Me and Jen in front of the Trevi Fountain. They say if you
toss a coin into the fountain that you will someday return to Rome.


Here is the Coliseum! If you have seen the movie Gladiator, this is where
it is taken place at. It was amazing to see something like this!



This was Monday at the train station, the day we left and I
just had to leave my mark in Rome!



This was a castel that we kinda found. It was cool walking around
it but it was closed so we didn't get to go inside.



The Vatican City! Once again a beautiful place to see, but i
had wish I had seen the Pope, that would have been something
I would have never forgotten! I don't think I'll forget any of this!


We went out to a bar in Rome after meeting up with the other group.
Me and Emily, another girl from Iowa, made up Team Iowa for
beer pong, and yes we beat the guys in our Camp A group!
It was a close game, but as usual, guys couldn't handle the
preasure :)



This was a man at the Spanish Steps. There are so many men
selling roses all over Italy. Well he came up and decided I was
his hunny and insisted on a pic w/ me. When he pulled me closer I
knew he was going to give me a kiss, but I didn't know he was going for
my lips...good thing I turned my head real fast. After that he followed
us down the steps, calling after "his hunny" the whole way.
A Valentines Day Miracle....I Guess



On the Spanish Steps on Valentines Day. Another guy had came
up to us and gave us these roses and then tried to get us to pay
for them...we just threw them back at him...after he took our pics
w/ them ;)


One night Me, Steph and Ashely decided to go to the Coliseum at night.
I was soo pretty and we had a fun photo shoot!

I got to see the town im living in..

L'avventura Numera Quattro- VICENZA 1/30/10



I am living on an army base in Vicenza as most of you know from reading my blog, but we hadn't been out to explore Vicenza yet...4 of us girls tried earlier but you all read how that went in a previous blog. So finaly the family (us camp A participants- there is 11 of us) decided we were going to go into Vicenza, see some museums and other sites in the city. We brought our trusted Rick Steve's book and set off. Vicenza was a beautiful place and I enjoyed seeing the city. We had gotten a museum ticket for about 6 museums and after about the 3rd or 4th one we were sick of them, but there were some neat things in the museums. Below are some pictures of our adventure :)

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Sometimes it was hard to follow Rick Steve's map so we found these helpful signs that pointed us in the right direction.--->




































Sometimes even the signs didn't get us to where we wanted to go so we invested in men in orange suits...they were all around the city helping sutpid Americans...just kidding..he was a friendly snow scooper :)





















































These stairs were huge...there was no way I was climbing to the top..the first 10 steps were fine w/ me

This was the entrance to the Olypic Theater. There were some cool statues!

This one even lost its head to i figured I would be the be replacement :)

This is the Olympic Theater designed and constructed by Palladio. Behind the stage (you can't tell in these pics) are 5 streets that go off in different direction...you can see three of them in the pic below. These streets were created for Oedipus Rex, the first play ever performed here. The main street that you can see here is 40 ft. deep.

The theater was designed for 800 people and more than 2,000 attended on opening night in 1585...talk about CROWDED!!!

Many of the statues in the niches are modeled after the people who funded the work. Despite the stunning stage, the audiance must sit on woodend benches which you can kind of see in the pic above.

The theater is still used today for performances from May through June...oh why can't it be June?!?!

These are a few picture from the differnt museumes we were at. We found brail at each little area in one museum. Im just wondering how blind people would get around w/ out knocking things over :) j/k

I though this was a neat painting of Jesus. You can see the 3 nails, his thorn crown and an angle crying.

Don't know who this guy is but he had some nice teeth! I wonder who did his dental work?

We found Michael Jackson, who ever scultped this did and excellent job!










This was the alter at one of the churches we went in. Its pretty amazing if you ask me!

We had a delicious lunch and a restaurant Rick Steve's suggested. It was called Antica Casa della Malvasia.

After we got done eating we were sick of museums so we just started walking around town and looking for a gelato Rick Steve suggested...

after finding some cool statues to get our picture taken with and spending about an hour looking for this gelato place...we decided it was time to head home.

This is Palladio, the man who designed the Olympic Theater and other building and clock towers in Vicenza.

But before we could go home..I had to get my pic. taken by McDonalds!!! Thats 2 that I have found!

REGINAS = Yummy Italian Food!

L'avventura Numera Tre- REGINA'S


Regina's was a little place that we were told to go eat at by some ppl on the base. They said it was really good. You get a three course meal and wine for only 10 euro, can't beat that can you! My first course was lasagna, and then came the chicken and then I had broccoli

<----Step 1: Your Fearless Leader Makes a Toast and then buys a drink for everyone. When I mean drink I mean a shot of something what is clear and smells TERRIBLE!

Step 2: Take a cute picture before you take the nastiest shot of your life! ---->

<---Step 3: Everyone needs to hit glasses of course.

Step 4: Remember to take your camera away from the mean person who took the after shot picture. ---->

<--- Step 5: Make sure your still alive b/c that shot tasted like rubbing alcohol. Atleast is was some sort of alcohol right :)

Regina's was just this little place that barely fit our group of 11. We took up half to the place! It was a fun night. After Reginas we spent about 1/2 hour looking fo a gilato place! We were getting into residential areas so we decided to turn around and head back to base! It was a fun night to share with the whole group!

Its been soo long...sorry about that one!

Okay ppl, sorry its been so long! The only excuses I have is being TIRED and BUSY! I've been working at the day care for the past week and its been pretty good. I got placed with infants that are 6 weeks to 18 months and toddlers that are 18 months to 3 years old. If you ask me thats kind of a wide age range for toddlers but oh well I don't make the rules!

I have also come to a fabulous conclusion...i never want to have more than 3 kids under the age of 18 months at once and I mean NEVER (which now god will laugh and me and say thats what I'm giving you!!!) Also I have determined that if I ever work in a day care again, I will want to work w/ older kids b/c infants certainly can't hold a conversation :) I work 8 hr days so that is what I'm doing during the week..then I come home eat supper and sleep. There were two days were I had to open the room BY MYSELF at 6 am and I had never opened the room before...no one really told me anything but it went fine and I got through it...since I have only been here one week we haven't really done too much but we have had about 4 adventures....let me tell you about them!

L'avventura Numera Un- Adventure Number One- 1st bus ride in Vicenza 1/20/10

So, Me, Emily, Keri and Ashleigh (three girls doing camp as well...im sure you figured that one out on your own) decided we wanted to go into Vicenza and see if we could find a place to eat or maybe just look around. During orientation week ppl made it seem so easy to get to the bus/train station and then down town would be only a few blocks away. Well we were told to get two tickets at the front desk and get on bus 1...okay that was no problem...then we had to get off at the train station, and they told us we would know it was the train station b/c everyone would get off even the bus driver, and it would just be a straigh shot...sounds easy enough right...WRONG!!! I don't know what that guys was on when he was giving us directions but it was not that simple! We drove and drove and drove until the ppl get off the bus and bus drive pulled over and began reading a book. What do you think I did....I BEGAN TO LAUGH MY BUTT OFF...the same thing pretty much happened to us when I went to Cancun and I couldn't believe it was happening again. So we tried to ask the man if we was done or if he was going to go back..and some how we got that across to him and asked if he could tell us where the train station was...so after he got done reading some of his book he started up the bus again and showed us where to get off this was about 8:15 pm but we weren't done yet. Oh no, we had to figure out how late the trains ran, so we asked some nice lady (who soon turned into a not so nice lady when we told her we didn't have a cell phone and probably regretted telling us how late the buses ran). The lady kinda showed us how to read the bus schedule and we determined the bus only ran till 8:35. AWESOME...good thing we were at the bus station but by the time 8:35 rolled around we still hadn't seen bus 1 going the direction we needed but there was one across the street so we ran over there but the bus driver was no where to be found and there were 3 Italains standing there smoking. We tried to ask them for help but all they told us was to get on bus 7...well we knew that wasn't right b/c we were told to always take bus 1. FINALLY about 8:45 bus 1 showed up at the bus station and we hopped on it. All I could do was laugh the whole way home. It was a fun experience!!

L'avventura Numera Due- VERONA 1/23/10

We took a day trip to Verona the first weekend we were here. It is about maybe 40 min away and only cost 4 euro to get there by train. This was my first real trip out in Italy and my first real train ride!! YAY ME! That is Me and Emily with our train tickets. But we arivie in Verona and we were all hungry. We at a was seemed like an American place...lol...but the pizza was soo good! It was HUGE too, about as big as my face! And it had my all time fave mushroom and my not so fav. ham but thats okay it tasted sooo good.

One of the girls brought a Rick Steven's Tour of Italy that has some self guided tours for some town and Verona had one so we all decided to go on a self guided tour which was soo fun, that way we could take our own time and see some really cool spots! There was soo many beautiful places to see and some fun places to shop! Here the places we stopped to see and descriptions of them!

This is the Rome Arena behind us. Usually a building like this would be built outside of the town walls. Over 25,000 spectators have cheered on Roman gladiator battles, medevil executions and modern plays.

We didn't go inside here, even though I wish we had but no one wanted to pay to go inside. SAD!

This was the main entrance to Roman Verona. It function as a toll booth. Just on the other side of this entrance is the ancient city and to the ancient main drag of Verona

We thought it would be fun to have a jumping picture but most of them didn't turn out to well :) I think we had to jump about 4 times and this one was the best one we got you can imagine the fun we had trying to get the pic though.

This is in the Verona square where we had done some shopping. There is a lion if you can see it in the back ground. The Ventian Lion is supposed to remind locals of of their conqurors since 1405.

This fountain has bubbled for 2,000 years. The statue, originally Roman, lost its head and arms. The sculptor added head and arms and it became Verona's Madonna. The banner she holds reads "I want justice and I bring peace."

The town square has a ton a masks and we had found out about Carnavale in Venice. They wear mask and dress up in big dresses. Its kinda like mardi gras. But this is the mask I got to wear there! That is coming soon!

This is the Verona claim to fame, the House of Juliet. There is a little courtyard with a statue of juliet. It is said that if you rub her breast you will be lucky in love...we'll see if that happens :)

This is Juliets balcony where the famous scene took place...What ligh through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun!

This is the love wall where everyone writes love notes. Whether you are single, ina relationship or your heart is breaking. People leave notes here to tie their love to the romantic couple of Romeo and Juliet.

I wrote Jamie + Eric on a used bus ticket and stuck it up w/ gum. So resourceful..I KNOW!

This handsome man would be Dante. He is located in the "square of the lords." This place is more quiet and harmonious. Locals also call this square Piazza Dante b/c of the statue here. Dante never smiling seems to be wondering why ppl chose Juliet over him. He was an Italian poet and was kicked out of Florance for politcal reasons and was allowed to stay in Verona.

It was amazing walking into this place. As soon as I walked in I was hushed...and just looked up all around me. It was soo beautiful!

The only purpose of this stair case is to be impressive. It was alot of stairs to climb and I was out of breath by the time I got to the top :)

I didn't know what was going on behind me but I thought a senior pic pose would be appropriate at this moment.

This was our last stop on our self guided tour. This is call Ponte Pietra. The white stones are from the original Roman bridge that once stood there. The bridge was bombed in WWII and the Veronese fished the marble chunks our of the river to rebuild it.

So, I have set a goal for myself, and that goal is to get a picture in front of every McDonald's I see. Good goal to have when you in Italy, forget seeing The Pope, I wanna find the McDonalds!

I'm not going to eat at the b/c lets be real, I'm sure there is better food SOMEWHERE in Italy than McDonalds :)