Hello blog,
Sadly this will have to be my last post since I will be leaving Roma in three days and there is still so much to be done! I can't believe it is this time already. The semester flew by but I have learned so much. Honestly my life has been like a dream this past months! I hope this loving life feeling lasts when I go home to Huntington Beach this upcoming week and realize that I won't be traveling to another country by the time the weekend hits or going to Secret Bakery to take home a fresh cannoli. But life has to move on, as hard as that may seem. Truly, I've had an Eat, Pray, Love type of year...from Spain for three weeks this past summer for World Youth Day to Oxford, England to have my butt kicked by the workload and a chance to see tons of celebrities to Roma, Italy where magic and travel has created my obsession with the world, people, and adventurous new experiences. This semester I have bought leather boots in Florence, saw the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, skied for the first time in Switzerland, went to the baths in Budapest, rode a camel and slept in the Sahara Desert in Tunisia, ate pizza in Naples, went on a gondola ride in Venice, ate waffles in Belgium, walked along the Berlin Wall in Berlin, and of course, fell in love in Rome.

These past weeks went so fast that I haven't had time to write about my travels to Belgium and Berlin! So two weekends ago I went to Belgium, one of the most beautiful countries in the world by the way. I went with my friend Nicole and we met her cousin there who is studying in Germany right now. It is true what they say, Belgium really does have amazing waffles, chocolate, beer, and fries. Oh, I also ate horse there :) There's something new. We started in Brussels and ended with Bruges. Brussels was a bigger city than I expected. I loved going around to all the chocolate shops and waffle houses, indulging in everything sweet. I ate four waffles, two things of fries, a couple of chocolate candies, and oh yes, the horse, rabbit, and duck dinner we had the first night. In Brussels we also went to the EU headquarters which was awesome to see since I've seen the UN headquarters in New York as well. We saw the Atomium as well.
In Bruges (I still have to see the movie) we went to the Chocolate Museum, saw the windmills, ate more waffles, saw the beautiful houses, and walked around through flower fields and over rivers. Bruges has got to be one of the prettiest little cities ever.

Then this past weekend, I had my final for theatre class which was a play "The Frogs" in which I played a slave and a frog. It went over better than I thought it would. Anyway, the next day I went to Berlin, Germany where I met up with my friend Angie! We did a lot in a day. We found Starbucks (gulity) and then a free tour. On this tour we saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial, the site of Hitler's Bunker, old propaganda art, oldest Nazi building, site of the Nazi book burnings, and part of the Berlin Wall. After the tour we went to the East Side Gallery where the Berlin Wall is painted with different pictures and quotes and graffiti. Such an awesome thing to see! That night we went to a club and stayed there until almost 5am. The next morning we almost missed our flight home because our alarms didn't go off. Angie just happened to wake up at nine and our flight boarded at 9:50. We ran through the airport to get on the plane. Hahaha now its funny.

Last Thursday was our banquet and now I must write an eight page paper and study for my test. Almost done! Just an Italian test after that...and I fly to Chicago on Saturday, staying there a day and checking out the city before making it back to HB! Finally ate at the Eat, Pray, Love restaurant last night! Good times!

Thank you for reading! Keep posted about my other blog Good Gone Girl!
Ciao for now! Rome will will meet again!
-Ilyse :)