20th birthday in Paris!!!

I recently celebrated my 20th birthday (about a week ago) in Paris, France! I have to say that this was absolutely the best birthday I’ve ever had and a fantastic way to say goodbye to my teenage years.
About 20 of my friends from my study abroad program accompanied me and my friend Sabrina (who was turning 21 the day before my birthday) to a 4 star hotel in the business district of Paris. The whole weekend was magnificent – I ate nutella crepes nonstop, drank French wine and champagne, and saw all my favorite places in France!

I started my birthday off by going to Notre Dame, one of my favorite places in the world. The architecture conveys so much passion and devotion that must have gone into constructing this church. Standing there, looking at the breathtaking stained glass gives me a sense of tranquility and clarity. If I lived in Paris, I would be in Notre Dame every day just drinking in the beauty.




I also went to the Champs Elysees where there is a Christmas market and the Arc de Triumph where the Christmas spirit is nearly palpable.



I went to Montmartre – one of my favorite areas of Paris – and sat inside the Sacre-Coeur for a while.



On the way back to dinner, we encountered a band playing in a metro station. There was a huge crowd and a ton of strangers started dancing together. It was so much fun and there was so much positive energy. I felt as though it was my own personal dance party in the metro. I couldn’t stop smiling. :)



The best part of my birthday though was the evening. On 9:20 all my friends and I jumped on the metro and got to the Eiffel tower just at 9:54pm (the time I was born). I stood under the Eiffel tower and turned 20 there. I popped a bottle of champagne under the tower as a fantastic light show began and music played. My friends and I all watched the light show with awe – it was fantastic. We danced under the tower until we got too cold to stay any longer and went off in search of some other place to dance.

Upon returning to Italy, I had so many birthday wishes from my friends and family back in the US. My brother even wrote a special blog for my birthday :) check it out here:

The whole experience was so memorable – I feel so lucky to have celebrated my 20th birthday in the city of lights and have received so much love from the people in my life. Thank you to everyone for making it so special.

Update (part 2): Autumn and Sicily

Alrighty, part two of my blog update…

First of all, I’d like to point out that up until now, I have spent my entire life in Southern California. Therefore, I do not know what cold weather really is. Due to my belief that winter consists of a couple rain showers and temperatures in the low 60’s, the last few weeks have been a cold shock to my system. Despite my slow acclamation to the autumn weather, I managed to get myself out of the house and take some pictures of the beautiful autumn leaves at La Fortezza (the fortress) near my apartment.






This is also where I go to exercise when I’m feeling fat from all the food I’ve been eating here. I love the beautiful views from La Fortezza. It almost makes running fun. Almost.

So due to my inability to cope with the cold, I was quite glad to escape to the south of Italy last weekend where the temperatures are considerably warmer. I met up with a friend I know from the US who is currently studying in Florence and we flew from Pisa to Palermo (in Sicily). From Palermo, we ventured across Sicily to the city of Catania, then back to Palermo before returning home.

On my way to Sicily, I managed to snap some nice photos from the plane. I believe this is the Amalfi coast (but I could be wrong). Look at the beautiful blue water!



I think the best way I can describe Sicily is this: when you picture Italy and all the stereotypes that come along with it, you are imagining Sicily. Now I say this in a good way, because Sicily truly completes one’s experience in Italy. They have amazing foods (especially pizza and baked goods), gorgeous buildings (some antiquated and dilapidated), handsome men, hectic drivers, and Italians yelling, gesturing and swearing at each other in Italian. The Sicilians speak far less English than the north of Italy, but they are infinitely more helpful and warm when tourists ask for directions.

There are other stark differences between Sicilians and Tuscans. First of all, the Italian spoke in Sicily can almost be considered its own dialect of Italian. While northern Italians pride themselves on having a more “pure” form of Italian, Sicilians have a very different way of speaking.

Another huge difference is the nightlife. In every other Italian city I have visited, the majority of people go out around 10 or 11 at night and party until about 2 or 3 in the morning. However, the Sicilians do it very, very differently. In Sicily, people go to a bar around 11 or 12, then go to a different bar/dance club until 2 or 3, then head over to another bar for a few hours, then another club. Most people seem to stay out until 6 or 7 in the morning. While the nightlife in Sicily (especially Palermo) is exciting, I had an incredibly exhausting night full of dancing and drinking on my Saturday in Palermo.

Catania is a beautiful city that seems elegant and sophisticated, but is also incredibly colorful with huge outdoor markets of fresh meats, cheeses, fruits, and of course seafood.









The Sicilian countryside is absolutely beautiful with lots of greenery, hills, and palm trees due to the more tropical climate of the south.



In Palermo, my friend and I did some exploring and saw some beautiful sights. Here are some statues, parks, cathedrals, and theaters we found.












We were also directed (by the owners of our hostel) to a delicious bakery that serves the most delicious chocolate cake I have ever tasted.





We also went to a huge seafood dinner. Sicily, being on the water, has a great amount of fresh, delicious fish. Here are some shots I snapped of my dinner before I devoured it.




Although I was not allowed to photograph it, we did go to the Cappuccini Catacombs in Palermo, where years ago some monks began mummifying people once they had died. In the catacombs, there were hundreds of dead bodies on display, all dressed in the clothes they were mummified in. Some corpses had flesh and hair while others were only bone. It was a haunting, yet interesting experience.

Overall, Sicily was beautiful and seemed to be the quintessential Italian experience. I wouldn’t be surprised if I find myself there in search of good food and a little bit of warmth in some of the colder winter months.

New Computer!

So I haven't posted in a while because my laptop died...again. This was possibly the 6th time I have encountered a problem with my HP laptop and I am sick of putting more and more money into repairing it. Enough was enough. Time for a new computer!

My good friend Anna is in town visiting so today we went to the Apple store and I bought a MacBook! I've wanted a Mac for a long time and finally made the switch from a PC.

I absolutely love my new MacBook. Its so nice. But what is even nicer is that my laptop came with a free (after rebate) Ipod Touch. Oh my goodness, I had no idea how amusing those things are! I've been more fixated on finding apps and accessing the internet with that thing than actually using my new computer!

Lets see...what else is new in the world of Taylor?

My family has been hosting a few pool parties over the past few weeks - all have been very enjoyable.

I leave in less than two weeks for Siena, Italy! :)
I'm so excited! I wish I could say I've been vigorously studying Italian in preparation for my trip, but I've been so occupied with more immediate errands I must run before my departure.

I'll be heading off to the race tracks again this coming Wednesday - I hope to win even bigger than before! Tomorrow evening Anna, my brother and I are going to a performance of 39 Steps -  I'll have to let you know how it all goes!

Busy Busy Busy!

The night I finished my last final (Thursday), I came back home to San Diego.

Ever since then, I have had a non-stop agenda. I don't have to start my summer job until next week (at the earliest)so the past few days have been filled with family events - my brother's high school graduation, my other brother's birthday party - and catching up with all my friends from high school who have returned home for the summer.

Here's the thing about going away for months on end and then returning home and trying to pick up right where you left off: people change. Obviously, strong friendships endure the passing of time and the personal developments that accompany it. But even those strong friendships need to adjust to the shock of change.

While I can see that my friends are growing and changing for the better (as am I), it is sometimes a shock to the system that our old relationship needs to be modified a bit before we can be fully comfortable with one another again.

People never cease to intrigue me.

Don't question my drinking habits (or lack thereof...)

I haven't posted a new blog in a while, and I have a very good reason: school and study abroad forms are slowly sucking my soul right out of me.

Aside from running around trying to get all my school work done, I've been frantically trying to turn in all necessary paper work to my Education Abroad Program (EAP) office. I will be studying abroad in Siena (Tuscany) in Italy for the entire next school year. As excited as I am to go, I am not excited by the crazy amounts of paper work I have to do.

Today I had to go into the doctor's office on campus to get my health clearance. Basically I just had to fill out a health questionnaire and have them take my vital signs so they can make sure I'm healthy enough to travel.

I didn't think this would be a problem at all, but upon filling out the questionnaire, I came across the question "How many alcoholic beverages do you consume on average per week?" I answered zero.

Now this is a completely honest answer. I may go to the biggest party school in southern California, but I do not drink. There are multiple reasons as to why I don't, but the main reason is that I suspect I have an allergy to alcohol. I get sick almost every time I try to drink any sort of alcoholic beverage. So i tend to avoid the stuff.

But, this being Santa Barbara, the nurse takes one look at my questionnaire and says to me "and you're sure you filled out everything truthfully?" ...like its not obvious what she's hinting at.

"Yes, I'm sure," I say. Do they want me to say I drink copious amounts of alcohol? I would imagine that would create more problems for them.

She looks at my paper again and says "so, you haven't suffered any severe illnesses in the past year?"
"No."
"And you drink...how many drinks per week?"
"None."
"...Alright. Lets go take your vitals then."

I know this isn't a huge problem, but its just so disheartening that due to my surroundings, people don't believe me when I say I don't drink.

Anyways, my new camera finally got to see some daylight today! I'll post some pictures soon! :)

Party Town

This town is a noisy one. Friday evening rolls around and you can forget about having a quiet evening in and watching a movie in the peace of your own apartment because outside – not only in your apartment complex but for a quarter of a mile radius – all hell is breaking loose. A twenty person game of beer pong is taking place next-door, a techno dance party from the floor above causes your head to pound with the unnecessarily loud bass, and drunken students in the street break out into a fight below your window, all the while screaming obscenities and smashing empty beer bottles on the ground. After somehow finding a way to relax and fall asleep amongst all this mayhem, you awake in the morning to see that the usual beer cans floating in the pool are accompanied by three bikes and a lawn chair. Weekends like this force me to ask myself the question: what the hell am I doing at this school?

I’m not the typical college girl. At least not the kind of girl you’d find here at one of the biggest party schools in the nation. I’m full of these ridiculous things called “morals” and would rather read a book than go out to a party and drink until I pass out, throw up, or lose all my common sense. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy going out and being social, but this backdrop of a carefree life of alcohol and sex isn’t exactly my scene.

So what am I doing at this school? Wouldn’t I be better off at a school where the student body places more importance on intellect than how many shots of vodka one can take? Yes and no. I originally came here because I did not get into Stanford or Berkeley. This was a safety school for me. I often find myself thinking that had I applied to other schools or gone to a university that was in a more cultured and diverse city I would be happier and have more mental stimulation. But, against all odds, I have come to love this school and the life I have created for myself here. I have friends I love and an exciting life I am proud of. Had it not been for the extreme environment here, I doubt that I would have become the person I am today.

So even though the partiers in the street disturb my sleep multiple times a week, I have to love them for teaching me exactly who I am and who I don’t want to be.