It's so hard to say goodbye...

Sadly, with all the fun we had this week there was one black cloud, we had to say goodbye to John and Jane. We figured we may as well make a night of it, so we did it Italian style and went out for a dinner. Here is my dinner, a paddletown salad (weird name right?). It is AMAZING! Romaine, swiss cheese (we think), walnuts, tomatoes, kiwi (you weren't expecting that were you?), pears and I think cucumbers. It is so amazing and yummy!

Michael, Lindsey's boyfriend arrived last Friday. He is hilarious!

Here Emily and I were trying to take a picture on both her camera and mine. First, I looked at my camera, she looked at hers.

Then she looked at my camera and I looked at hers.

Then we found it really funny that we couldn't get it right yet.

Finally we had success!

Isabel is just a blast. I can't exactly remember what she is doing here, but I can guarantee you that it was funny!

At some point during the night we all decided it was fun to take random pictures when no one was expecting them. Here Emily tried to catch us off guard, but I saw her coming.

Jane, John and I.

The group.

I am currently in Rome with Emily where we are hoping to catch a showing of Harry Potter in English. Then tomorrow my family (Mom, Kelly & Luis) arrive. SO EXCITED!!

Ciao Ciao!!

My New Place

Since my landlord rented out my other apartment, I got to move into a new apartment for the rest of my stay. I am pretty excited because I have two beds AND a pull out couch, a washing machine and a pretty nice terrace. Here are some views.

This apartment is in the same building as my last one, just a little further down the road.

Oh right... the other good thing is that it comes with a flat screen TV WITH BBC news. :-) 

My kitchen.

The noisy teens and their motorcycles/scooters/mopeds/dirtbikes. :-)

The view from my couch.

The terrace.

The bathroom.

My bedroom.

The washing machine!

Ciao Ciao!

Where do we go from here?

This past week has been very very busy. Last Saturday we had our International Art Crime Conference. We had amazing speakers come to Amelia to impart their knowledge of the subject on us. We had representatives from Scotland Yard's Art & Antiquities Unit, the FBI Art Crime Squad, and so many more! I cannot begin to explain how informative and helpful the conference was, not only in better explaining concepts, but also in a grand scheme of things kind of way.

You will be happy to hear I am starting to develop a bit of a better picture of how to turn this passion into a career, but more on that much later this summer.

After the actual conference (where I did not take any pictures because I felt it would make people nervous) we had a four course dinner at a restaurant in town.

As per usual, the food was fantastic, the wine even more so. The wine here is dangerous... it is so lovely you almost drink it like water. We had to be quite careful this night because some of us were in heels, which do NOT work well on the Amelia cobblestone streets.

I tried to get some pictures of my friends. Here is Patrick and Derek.

Try #2! Close, but no cigar!

Finally! See even boys make people take multiple pictures!

The Vice Commander of the Carabinieri of the Division of Cultural Heritage with all of the ladies!

The following morning I moved to my new apartment (photos in next blog). After several trips up and down (both my old and my new apartment are on the 3rd floor)many stairs, I sat to rest on my couch. My restful state was violently interrupted when I heard a cannon go off. Then I thought to look out my window and realized that they were having a medieval festival. Important things to remember while living in an Italian hill town... cannons go off... horses walk around town... many men in tights.

Below is the stage with the targets for the archery competition. They have to walk around (in costume) to various parts of the city to shoot at targets.

This is where the cannons were being shot from.

Amelia put out the banners for the festival.

Later that night we decided to trek down to a restaurant about a 10-15 minute walk away that has GORGEOUS views of the city. I have posted pictures from here before (the one by the columns and the house I will live in) this time the sunflowers were in bloom.

Ciao Ciao!