Fall Season

What's not to love about the fall season? This is one of my favorite times of the year. Hands down. In the month of November alone, I have so many family birthdays to celebrate (including mine), a week-long break from school, and Thanksgiving with the fam.
Also this is the season with pumpkin flavored everything, layering clothes and accessorizing with scarves,  and watching the leaves change colors! Ahhh, I just love it!

I thought I would share some of my favorite "must-haves" for this particular season.

Fave go-to nail polish:
OPI Linkin Park After Dark





Fave perfume:
Juicy Viva la Juicy


Fave accessories:
Alex and Ani bracelet



Stella and Dot Nugget wrap bracelet

Madewell bow necklace

Fave shoes to wear:
Steven Madden Lindley boots (Last season)
 

Minnetonka mocs (I have a funny story about these....ask me about it)

 
Things on my shopping list:

• Combat boots
• JCrew quilted vest in Herringbone
• Kate Spade watch "Cooper strap"
• Camel colored crossbody
• NARS Blush in Gaiety

What are some of your favorite fall must-haves? Share with me!

Off to bed now...farmer's market in the morning. Can't wait to get more crisp apples, zucchini bread, and cider! :)

Back in the Black(sburg)

It's so good to be back in Blacksburg, my second home. I love the college town atmosphere, the slow paced lifestyle, and the people here. It has been over 8 months since I've been here and it will be my last year as a senior undergrad! It's really scary how the time flew by, but that only means that I have to embrace every single day I have left in this amazing place.

I've already been here for 6 days, and finished 2 days of classes. So far, my classes are going smoothly and all of my professors seem to be cool. My apartment is coming together one by one..but still needs some work. Thanks to Lauren, my roomie, it looks pretty awesome and extra cute! :)
Also, a Comcast technician needs to come back and set up our wireless internet. (Why did he just leave after setting up our TV? Not cool.)
In the short time I've been here, I've seen a good handful of my closest friends, visited the sorority house, and met amazing people on SGA Exec whom I'll be working with closely this year.

I'm so excited for this semester! I'll be extremely busy during September with FLEX (Freshman leadership experience), marketing the program, the application process, interview process, and selecting 30 energetic freshmen! It'll be nice to be busy again with my sorority, too.

Most importantly, our first home game is on Monday night....can't wait to start JUMPING!!! LET'S GO.............!!
 

Day trips on Day trips

One thing I will miss is how convenient it is to hop on a bus or train to take a day trip. Within the past 3 weeks, I went on several trips with my friends to the following cities:

-Viareggio
-Amalfi Coast (Capri, Sorrento, Naples, Amalfi)
-Siena
-Cortona
-Lucca
-Cinque Terre

You can see that I've been up and down the entire Western coast.


Viareggio- beach time!!! Only an hour and half away from Florence.

The Girls

Amalfi Coast with Brit and Josie
Highlights: Hiked to the highest point in Capri, Monte Solaro, Blue Grotto, Stayed in a beautiful villa in Sorrento, Ate amazing seafood in Amalfi, and ate the original Margherita pizza in Naples.

Capri, Italy

View from Monte Solaro

Blue Grotto

THE Original Margherita Pizza

Siena & Cortona- Amazing hilly cities! Got to do a wine tasting at Castello Verrazzano.

The valley

Castello Verazzano vineyards

Our wine tasting room

Chianti Classico

Lucca- Such a cute, quaint town. Happened to go when they have their once a month flea market. Lucca has such pretty churches! We also did an olive oil tasting at Fattoria Il Poggio~

The famous wall that surrounds the city

Alli, Me, and Paul at the tasting

Cinque Terre- Most recent day trip with Alli and Josie. One of my favorite trips~ Cinque terre was absolutely beautiful. We only made it to 4 cities and had to skip out on the 5th. My favorite city was Manarola. That city had the most color and breathtaking views.
 

Riomaggiore

Manarola

Corniglia

Vernazza

 My time in Florence is now dwindling down. I have 10 days before I'm back home in VA! Such a bittersweet feeling. I have one last week of classes and then finals the following week. My sister is also coming to visit this weekend, so I'm SO excited! I have to use the rest of my time here wisely. Eek!

Last but certainly not least...#4: Dublin

I will keep this extra short and sweet since I only spent 1 full day and 1 night in Dublin, Ireland. I'm not going to lie...but at first I had no interest in going to Dublin. I had stereotyped it to be a very green, pasture-like city with nothing to do. BOY WAS I WRONG! Dublin was a very busy, NORMAL city. The people were friendly and spoke English. It was really nice to hear English. I automatically thought I was in the U.S. The girls and I went to the Guinness Storehouse. We learned how to properly pour a Guinness, which was really neat! I really enjoyed the Guinness beer, not super bitter or strong.

Afterwards, we decided it would be really neat to ride a carriage back to Grafton St, the main street.

Grafton Street was full of people! The street was very busy with street performers, tourists, and locals. It was a fun street to people watch and window shop at. We walked around and went to Trinity College, the largest university in Dublin. Trinity College has been around for over 400 years! The buildings on the campus were beautiful, reminded me of a mini VT. The grass in the campus was well-kept and super green. You don't find grass in Florence, so I was so excited to see the plush grass. LOL. Oh the little things....

The last and most adventurous thing I did during spring break was get a fish pedicure. Ever heard of one? It's very popular medical treatment in Turkey! Essentially, Fish without teeth, nibble on your dead skin. Alli and I figured we would try it out, since our feet were exhausted from all the walking we did during our SB trips. The feeling, is indescribable. A combination of ticklish, refreshing, pain-free, and weird! Lucky for me, I made a new friend during my experience...she was this 8 year old Italian girl...I asked her to hold my hand! Hahaha...

The trip to Dublin was perfect. By the end of it, we were ready to be back in Florence. Firenze is our home, and while we are away, we miss it so much!

#3: London

Wow, I have a lot of catching up to do, more like catching everyone else up! :P
(Still talking about spring break.....)

In London, I got to see Emma! Which was the highlight of the trip, obviously. It was SO good to see her after being apart for several months. We had lots of catching up to do in so little time.

As soon as I got into town, I had fish n chips! :) Also, London has the real Diet Coke, and not Coca Light. Our first meal was heavenly.

My favorite part of the trip was going to the Borough Market. I could easily spend hours in that market. I loved seeing all the local vendors and farmers come together at the gigantic farmer's market. While I was walking around, I purchased a chunky-chocolatey brownie (of course), English cheese and chips called a Rauclette, some Chai Tea to bring home and a canvas tote to support the local artist.

I forgot how amazing my trip to London was!

I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum, which was SO much fun! One of my favorite museums by far. I got to see different art, costumes, pottery...you name it! from different countries all around the world. It was also cool to see the industrial things, such as items we use today. The transformation of a Sony Walkman to a Apple iPod....and just old school things that brought back memories!

I even got the chance to ride the London Eye and get a spectacular view of the city!

I ended up doing so much in the short 48 hours. I went to Harry Potter's Platform 9 3/4, Buckingham Palace, Gordon Ramsey's Restaurant "Savoy Grill", and even got to see my first show, Les Miserable. Les Mis was amazing!!!! I highly recommend it.

The trip was right up my alley. It was so nice speaking English after traveling to places that speak Italian, German, French......

That's London in a nutshell! Stay tuned for my last SB stop, Dublin.

#2: Paris

Bonjour! We got to Paris on Sunday and stayed until Wednesday. We stayed the longest here compared to the other cities.

When we first got in, the weather was kinda dreary with light sprinkles. We were looking for our hotel that was wedged in between two restaurants in the Latin Quarter. Our first thoughts were...oh gosh, where are we staying? We thought we would upgrade from a hostel to a hotel for Paris, but it wasn't much of an upgrade. The hotel was very old, had no elevator, and had an uneven spiral staircase. The room was small, but totally bearable. The positives were: LOCATION! and we had our own bathroom. The location was so perfect! We were surrounded by cafes, restaurants, and shops. It was very close to all the sites we wanted to see. The area was just... LIVELY.

We went to the Museo d'orsay first. It was such a cool museum. It was good to see art work I actually recognized...like Van Gogh and Monet. I also really like an artist named Edgar Degas. He is known for his art with ballerinas.

Here is a famous piece called the Dance Class:

We went to Laduree, twice during our trip. I tried the pistachio, salted caramel, raspberry, lemon, and caffe macaroons. The salted caramel macaroon was my favorite! Laduree had the cutest window displays.

For dinner, I was daring and tried Beef tartar. For those of you who don't know what that is...it's raw sirloin or filet. It was actually really good, but it was just scary to look at it. The thought of getting sick...was nerve- wrecking.

The next day, we went to the Louvre. Saw Mona! :-) along with many other paintings. Supposedly you can spend the entire day at the Louvre....but for me, it was a short 1-hr trip. I get bored easily...also it was super crowded! I'd rather go shopping!

Me and Alli shopped down Saint Honore and got French onion soup for lunch!

On Tuesday- we took a train to Versailles. It was beautiful, both inside and out. I loved the chandeliers and "Victorian" style decorations in the palace.

In the evening, we went on a dinner cruise along the Seine River. We watched the sun set as we passed by the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, and other beautiful sites.

On Wednesday morning, we went to the Nord train station to catch our ride to London. We took the Eurostar, which was amazing by the way. It only took us 2 hours to get there. It was nice to just hop on a train, without having to go to a crowded airport with strict security. That was Paris in a nutshell!

Keep posted for London :)