So it has finally dawned on me that I am leaving Italy this Sunday afternoon! I haven’t got much planned for this week really, I’m just going to eat a lot of ice-cream and pizza plus laze in the park topping up my tan. Though the next few weeks are going to be a bit crazy, the day after I get home I am going straight up to Lancaster for four days, then on my way back down south I will be stopping over in Wigan for one night to see a friend and then I’ll be going to Brighton for the weekend. Then on the 2nd of July I will be starting my month long internship in London which I am so excited about!

Last weekend three of us went to the beach for the day but when we got to Liguria, it turns out that all of the beaches are private (and were full) and the public beaches consisted of tiny strips of sand which were frankly disgusting. We finally managed to find enough space for three towels on a public beach and started the tanning process! It was hot, about 33 degrees! I am pretty brown now, yeahhhh! Though it fades quickly so I will be going to the park most afternoons to top it up. I really am going to miss the weather here especially as my Mother said that she had to turn the heating on last week in England! The train journey back from the beach was like a train journey to hell. It was packed so we were huddled up on the floor but the worst thing was that they couldn’t open the windows on the train, so we had to endure the stifling heat for two and a half hours; having survived that, I can now survive anything!

Also yesterday I realised that I have lived pretty much the same years abroad as I have lived in England, so ten years abroad and ten in England! It sort of explains why I haven’t suffered culture shock or homesickness whilst living in Italy for the past nine months. I can also confirm that this won’t be my last time living abroad (I dislike England quite a lot) as I plan to move to Japan next year in the summer after my graduation! Exciting!

A view of the Alps from my bedroom window

So on Friday afternoon after work I wasn’t expecting to get up to much over the weekend. My Swedish friend Fanny rang me and said to me ‘I want to go to Nice tomorrow and stay overnight. The weather is meant to be amazing! Are you in?’ I hadn’t really planned on doing any more travelling during the last two weeks of my year abroad but faced with the prospect of a boring weekend plus bad weather in Turin, I instantly agreed! We couldn’t find the train ticket prices so we rushed to the station and found out that it was €55 return to Nice from Turin and would take 4 hours on the train. We rang our friend Frankie and said ‘We’ve bought train tickets for you to Nice’ before she even had time to agree!

The next day we set off at 7:30am. We had to change train, we were very worried because we only had five minutes to catch the second train. Our train arrived late but thankfully the train to Nice was delayed! We arrived in Nice at 11:30 and walked to our hostel. The hostel was perfect, it was situated one street back from the beach and we had a room for the three of us. We dumped our stuff and went straight to the beach, the water was the most beautiful colour! I decided to be an idiot and used oil instead of sun cream and my lower back and the backs of my legs were burnt after seven hours in the sun, fail. After the beach we strolled around Nice for a bit and did some shopping. During the evening we went for dinner in the old quarter of the city. We had the best bowl of muscles known to man plus copious amounts of wine, perfect! We met some other travellers and ending up having drinks with them until about 3 in the morning.

The next day we got up t 9:30am, went for breakfast and hit the beach again! The wind picked up at about 2pm so we left the beach and went for lunch. We pottered about, went back and picked up our bags and went to the station. Of course the train that we had to get was cancelled and they said that we could get a bus instead but that meant that we wouldn’t make the second train that we needed to take. Thankfully they agreed to let us take a different train and we could still use our original train tickets. The train went through Monaco! We made it to Ventimiglia but had to run to catch our next train! We got back to Turin at 9:30pm tired, slightly hungover and tanned. It was a fabulous spontaneous weekend and I hope to go back to the south of France again but for a longer time!

Moules frites!

The beach

Frankie, Fanny and I.

My university essay (6000 words in Italian) is really ruining my life at the moment. It’s 30 degrees at least most days so I tend to be sunbathing in the park instead of writing said essay.

If I’m not in the park then I am eating pizza and drinking litre jugs of red wine.

Or drinking a silly amount of cocktails.

It’s a hard life.

Sorry that I haven’t posted anything this month! I really haven’t been up to anything interesting at all this month mainly because I need to work on a 6000 word project in Italian for my university which is actually killing me mainly because it is pointless.

I have been to a few libraries to get books out for said project and it has been pretty challenging! At the La Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino I had to first of all obtain a library card which was a mission. I went to go and get some books out yesterday and was told that I’m not allowed to take them of the shelfs. You have to fill in a form for each book that you want, then you hand it to the librarian who goes and finds said books. You’re only allowed to take out a maximum of three books. It took them two hours to find the three books that I needed, it was safe to say that I was pretty pissed off/suicidal/on the verge of a mental breakdown. To make things worse the weather is actually really nice, it was 31 degrees yesterday, though it’s meant to be raining again this weekend…the joys of living so close to the Alps!

I’m flying back to England on the 24th of June and I can’t wait! It will be nice to catch up with all of my friends plus I am going to be doing an internship in London during the month of July. I am sort of wishing the next four weeks away now!

I took these two photos when I went to visit the Basilicia di Superga with my Mother and Great Aunt. The views of the city from there were amazing!

Sorry for my lack of posts recently, I wrote a post two weeks ago but wordpress wouldn’t let me update the photos so I gave up. I will try and upload the photos again this evening!

A fortnight ago Mother and Great Aunt came to visit me, they came bearing gifts i.e squash, peanut butter and cheddar cheese. The weather was beautiful! We ate out at some pretty fine restaurants, one of them didn’t have a menu, you just had to choose from the dishes that they were serving that day, four courses later and I was absolutely stuffed! On the Saturday we went to Superga which was amazing, the views were stunning and we even climbed to the top of the Basilica. On Sunday the queue for the cinema musuem was so bad that we ended up going to the Egyptian musuem which was quite impressive even though it was full of screaming children…

Last weekend a few of  us went to Cinque Terre. We got the train at 5:20am, I haven’t been up that early in a bloody long time and it wasn’t pretty. 4 and 1/2 hours later we were in Riomaggiore and checked in to the hostel which was a bit overpriced for what it was to be honest. We walked along the Via dell’Amore to Manarola and then got a train to Monterosso. Thankfully the weather was fantastic so we spent most of the afternoon laying on the beach. Lauren spied some pedalos so we went over to ask how much they were, €15/hour for five people. There were eight of us so we rented two pedalos and only had to pay €3,75 each and it was so much fun! I was absolutely knackered afterwards and we were all a bit sunburnt! We went back to the hostel, went for dinner and got an early night. The next day it was raining, sad times. We walked to the Manarola again and then got the train to Corniglia. To get to the village we had to climb about 370 steps, not for the faint hearted! Then we got the train to Vernazza and decided to walk along a 3,5km trail to Monterosso. Just as we started the hike we realised that it wasn’t going to be an easy one mainly because we were lugging our overnight bags and because it was basically a hike up a mountain. We soldiered on and it was well worth it, the views were stunning and we even stumbled across a man who sold fresh lemonade and limoncello which he made himself. We had another ice-cream to reward ourselves and then we got the train back to Turin!

Since Monday it has been raining constantly and it’s meant to be like it for a few more days which is really annoying. I did not come to Italy for this weather! I’ve been bitten by the travelling bug and I really want to travel more now. Next on the list is the Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso and Lago Como which are both relatively close to Turin! I have been thinking about going to the south but it’s cheaper to fly there from England than it is from Turin so I’ll leave it for another time!

It has been pretty much raining everyday since I came back to Italy last week. It was sunny yesterday though I woke up to torrential rain again this morning. Hopefully the sun will man up and make an appearance by Friday because I don’t want the weather to be bad when my Mother and my Great Aunt are here.

The weekend was really good even though it rained the whole time! On Friday I went round to a friend’s for some drinks and about twenty of us were there. They live in a lovely old quaint flat located on the five floor (no lift may I add) which has the most fantastic view of the Mole:

I ended up going to Murazzi, which is a street of clubs located next to the river, and that was amazing! On Saturday I woke up feeling a little jaded but soon sorted myself out and went to Porta Palazzo market, where I managed to get 3 bags full of fruit and veg for less than €10, bargin. In the afternoon I went for some much needed hot chocolate with a friend. In the evening it was a friend’s 21st birthday party, I only remember spilling cheap cava all over myself and getting into an argument about Rihanna vs. Beyonce (We all know that Beyonce is better). On Sunday I felt very poorly, so I laid in bed unable to move until the pizzeria near me opened, I staggered there and got myself a massive pizza which made me feel a bit more alive after  I had eaten it.

Being that my family are visiting me this weekend, I have decided to total abuse the situation and have already booked three restaurants for us to go to. Firstly for an aperitivo, which everyone should experience, and then for two local Piedmontese restaurants. I have yet to try the local dishes properly so I’m looking forward to that! I think we might go to Superga as well, all I know is that they want to go to most of the art galleries in Turin and I shall just turn up for free dinner!

Lastly, I wrote an article for Third Year Abroad: http://www.thirdyearabroad.com/when-you-arrive/item/1198-top-10-tips-for-survival-in-italy.html Please check it out!

So Martin’s visit was absolutely lovely and we had a great time together! I also discovered a new pizzeria which may be the best pizzeria I have ever been to; it’s safe to say that I have become a pizza snob now. Here’s a photo I took when we trekked up to the Mountain Museum, we didn’t go in, we just went there to see the view!

The week after Martin came to visit I got to go home for the week! Yay! Though I have to work tomorrow even though it’s a bank holiday which I am not amused about but at least I have had nine days off anyway. The visit home was uneventful though I did have one of my wisdom teeth pulled out and apparently the other three will have to come out in July. It didn’t hurt as much as I had expected so that was pretty handy. I did eat a lot of meat because the price of meat in Italy is not buono at all! I also got a lot of Easter eggs from relatives, I didn’t even have one piece of fruit when I was at home because I am that disgusting. I met up with Tania because we wanted to go and see the Oxford vs. Cambridge boat race but sod’s law a fence was in the way so we didn’t get to see it When we turned up to the finishing line it was pretty much over but we still had a beer and sushi so all was well plus we may have gone to Oxford St. as well! This morning wasn’t so fun as my flight departed at 7am so I had to get up at 3:30am, it was very painful though Mother did give me a massive package of food to bring back which contained cheddar cheese, pork pies, some of my Great Aunty Betty’s famous brandy brick (heaven and pretty strong!), a few bottles of Robinsons, some of my favourite Waitrose biscuits (Waitrose and John Lewis should seriously go global! I’m a southerner, I can’t help myself.) and another Easter egg. It was pissing it down when the plane took off, however it is brilliant sunshine in Turin so it was a very nice welcome back. Also Mother and Great Aunty Betty are coming out to visit me in ten days for the weekend and more importantly, I should be getting my student loan on the 20th, hurrahh!!

Happy Easter! 

I can’t believe that it’s nearly the end of March!! Time is flying now and I am really enjoying my time in beautiful Turin! If only I had been able to move here in September instead of February! I am never bored here because there is always something to do!

Not a lot has happened recently, I have just been going to work, the gym or out with friends. I am having aperitivo far too often at the moment and may have discovered the best one yet, it is called Zeli Bar and damn it’s good! Then again I went to one in Corso San Maurizio (I can’t remember the name but it is number 48)  and it was cheaper and really good as well. Either way, if you ever visit Turin you should eat there! The weather has been pretty good though it tends to be crap at the weekend which is obviously the only time that I am not in the office. So operation golden tan isn’t going very well. One of my friends showed me where the Lidl is in Turin, I nearly wept with joy. €4,50 for a bottle of vodka, €o,99 for a bar of Milka chocolate, cheap meat (i have basically become a vegetarian because meat is SO expensive here plus the quality really isn’t that amazing) and other gastronomical delights. I do miss Waitrose though! Or Asda’s 3 pieces of meat for £10 deal!

My friend Martin is coming to visit this weekend and then next weekend I am going home for a week! I actually cannot wait. I shall drink gallons of squash and feast on pork pies, roast dinners, bacon butties and cheddar cheese!

Note to oneself, don’t go out on a school night until 6am because the next day at work is hell. I had to go to bed last night at 9:30pm to sleep it off, oh dear.

I have lost my voice and my throat hurts a bit. I checked out google and it says I have laryngitis, which I used to get all of the time. One of the main reasons is excessive alcohol and smoking, no surprises there.  I had a piadina at lunch to cheer myself up at work though.

Also I am going back to England tomorrow for a mere 20 hours to see Jack Whitehall perform in London with Martin(reunited together after nearly a year).  Though we also want to eat Nandos, go for afternoon tea, drink gallons of squash and be nice and British. Then I will spend about 4 hours at home gorging on home made food and  I will get my flight at 8am back to Turin. Fun fun fun. I have just asked work about easter holidays and apparently they don’t even take the bank holiday off, meh. But I am still allowed a week off, YUHUUUU! I don’t like how fast time is going by though. I really love Turin and have met some awesome people but some of them are already leaving in May. Wahhhh. When you finally enjoy your year abroad, it just starts going by too bloody quickly!