Hej!

Yup, I've got finals (of a sort) too, but I need a little break. Thursday, Gabe and I have to give an oral exam in Swedish together, and I just finished a seminar (Gabe is still working on his), and we have to do a project for this class we're in and have it done before we go home from Sweden since the software is very expensive... if we actually had it, we'd be able to finish the assignment "whenever" (that actually means before the end of January, but it would still be alot more time than we have)

Lets see... Italy was beautiful. Gabe and I need to go back there and spend a month or so just so we can see everything. 5 days just isn't anywhere close to enough time. The girl we stayed with, Tania, said it was amazing... that we must have brought and taken the sunshine with us. It rained everyday for almost 2 weeks before we came, stopped raining the morning of the day we arrived, then was cloudy the day we left. The time we were there, though... it was sunny as can be! They have palm trees in Rome!! It was very warm too, and we had sunshine until almost 6 at night (about 3 hours longer than we get here in Sweden).

Anyway, getting to Italy was absolute hell... there was a bunch of confusion with Air France and Gabe and I have sworn never to fly with them again. Here is the story: They asked us if we had come from SAS... we had (we had flown with SAS from Sundsvall to Stockholm but had tickets with Air France the rest of the way). Air France tells us they can't take us then and can't help us and basically "get lost"... (said in much nicer terms than their voices implied). Finally they say, ok, we can take you but your luggage won't go because of security reasons. Luggage won't go on a plane that a person is not currently on... afraid of bombs. Gabe and I don't know what to do, so we say we'll wait. We're really confused and may have gotten on if they had not been such ***es to us to begin with. We go talk to SAS, and they have no idea what Air France is talking about. We go back to Air France and have to talk to the SAME guy again. He starts saying that he can book us on the next Air France plane to Paris IF we actually have reservations on the one we just missed. Gabe and I are like.... what!? So he starts looking at our tickets and asks us... "Why do you have Air France tickets?".... "Because we're booked with air france!" He says something to the effect of us coming from SAS, so we explain how we had come that morning on an SAS flight. It turns out that there was an SAS flight to Paris that had been cancelled, so SAS had rebooked everyone on Air France but Air France did not have room for them. He thought we were one of them. Well, he books us on the next flight... bt guess what.. that flight is postponed 2 hours so if we take it, we'll miss the last flight to Rome! So, we go talk to him again, and he gets us booked with Air Italia from Paris to Rome. Bleh... To top it all off, the reason we missed the first plane was because we were worried about not having any luggage when we got there.... Welp, our luggage missed the flight to Rome anyway. We finally got it the next day in mid afternoon.

The rest of the trip was not anywhere like that though. Tania and Fabio showed us everything they possibly could. We saw the Colloseum and walked around all he ruins around it. We also saw St. Peters Basilica (the largest church in the entire world devoted to God) and Michelangelo's La Pieta. Then we went through the 7 Vatican museums (that took FOREVER!) At the end of the 7 museums is the Sistine Chapel. It was so beautiful! I would not think it was a chapel though. There aren't any of the typical stained glass windows or anyting. In fact, most of Rome didn't have stained glass at all. Anyway, that night, Gabriel and I ate dinner with Tania's family in a restaurant just down the street where Francis Ford Copola (sp???) was with his son who was filming a movie. Welp, after dinner, Tania and Gabe and I went on a tour of Rome by night until 5 am. We saw the Pantheon, lots of famous fountains, the mouth of truth, stairs where models are always posing, and some places that are famous for having late night cafes for wine and such. We tasted Novella wine which is wine that is freshly made. Its very good... I don't like regular wine. This stuff was kind of like grape soda! hehe...

anyway, the next day, Gabe and I went back to the Colosseum so we could see the inside (there are cats ALL over the colosseum, and their soooo friendly!) Then we went to Perugia. Perugia is on a mountain and very pretty. I don't really remember what we did that night, we were very tired from the nigt before. I think that was the night that we went out with Tania, Fabio, and Tania's friends. They showed us some of Perugia, then Gabe and I went home to go to bed! Next day, we wandered around Perugia and shopped. Then the next day we went to Florence. Something I've learned about Europe... never go site seeing on Monday if where you want to go is a museum!!! All the museums in Florence were closed, and Gabriel and I wanted to see the statue of David!! oh well... Anyway, we walked all over Florence looking at the neat little places, and I think I took alot of pictures too. We got home from Florence to Perugia around 9 that night, and Tania's mom made us a very good Puerto Rican/Italian meal. :) the next day, we hopped on a bus back to rome, hopped on a plane, and came home to Sweden.

Welp, we weren't in Sundsvall very long. We got home at 1:00 am and a day and a half later we were on our way to Vemdalen, a ski resort! I learned to ski!!! wooohooo! Gabe skiied for 3 days from about 9:30 to 3:00 each day. I took 3 hours of lessons and still am not very good at all! I also rode a snow scooter though, which Gabriel didn't do! Welp, I have to say that I spent quite a bit of time on my butt. My instructor tried to teach us one of the ways to stop, and I just never could do it right. I'd make the turn, but then I wouldn't stop! So I'd end up coasting into the high banks of snow or a bush and fall on my rear. At one point my teacher took me on a medium hard level. BAD TEACHER!!!! It scared me to death!!!! I was in the class with two other girls. One girl did it just fine, but me and Annette really just wanted to sit down and slide! Welp, I fell twice if I remember correctly... maybe 3 times. I ended up getting down though. BLEH! I didn't go back to that track again. In fact, I spent most of the time on the "Mycket L�tt" (really easy) tracks. They were fun, but not very steep at all. On Sunday, Gabe got me to go on some "L�tt" (Easy) courses. The first one I went on, I fell twice and then decided to sit on my skiis and sled! I went down that same one again, fell 3 times, then made it! I went down about 6 or 7 times after that and stood up every time!!! :) It was so fun! Then Gabe took me higher... Then we tried another, lower, easy one but I fell alot on it too. In fact I never did it standing up. I always would fall in this same spot, get spun around backwards, then slide half way down the hill butt first! Gabe didn't do much better on it, but he at least didn't slide down the hill. Anyway, we skiied as much as we could and it was very fun, but I know that I at least am very sore now. We both have bruised shins, and I think I used all sorts of muscles that my body didn't know it had! It was fun though!

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