the end

hi all -- so I am back from italy and have been for several months now, so its time for this blog to end.  i'll leave it open for viewing, but I have started a new blog as a sort of informal digital portfolio.  If you want to check that out it is:  www.jacquelynpurvis@blogspot.com

thanks for all your support and interest in my time abroad!

-jacquelyn

kinda forgot i had this blog! lol

last weekend was venice and i literally just got back from switzerland where i got to go skiing on a glacier!!! so amazing! tons of pictures and an update to come! i promise! all is well though. last week of classes this week then finals next week! gunna be crazy! then i pack up and head to germany! can't wait to be living in a house for awhile!
miss you all and i will be home in about a month! crazy!
ciao!

holland

Hello --
It's been awhile since i've written anything! My parents came to visit this past week and a half which was amazing! So good to see them and to show them around my city and school and life here!
As i speak i'm using a computer at my hostel in amsterdam! It's been pretty fun so far though it's been the longest day ever! I've been up for 21 hours so far! Sleep is needed! Tomorrow we're going to the anne frank house and maybe a couple other museums. I hope to do some sketching and people watching tomorrow too! Seems like the perfect place for that!
Hope all is well! Back to italy and my final four weeks on monday! I'll be uploading lots of photos as soon as I can!
ciao!

ten hours closer to christmas

I just got back from a long weekend in London yesterday. It was fall break at my school so for the first half Hillary and I went to visit her friend Natalie who is doing the Pepperdine study abroad program there. We also got to visit my friend Clara who is attending a music school in the London area! The first weekend was full of tourist sights: the london eye, parliament, big ben, tate modern museum, piccadilly circus, abby road, tower bridge, etc... We hung out at the pepperdine house saturday and sunday evening which was nice since this hostel was not quite the same experience as our last one (in a negative way). Hillary has a video of our hostel if anyone really wants to see it! lol. But yeah, overall great weekend! Monday was nice too since we just had a relaxing day that ended in hanging out with Clara at her pub and then seeing a movie in english at the O2. We saw couples retreat! very entertaining! So yeah, thats about the basics of it all. Oh Getting TO london friday was quite the fiasco. Our flight was canceled due to airline strikes in italy and paris... so we hung out in the pisa airport for... oh about 12 hours. one of the worst travel days of my life! Luckily the weekend made up for it!

For the rest of this week i'm enjoying an empty apartment and doing my own thing for a couple days! It's been just what I need so far at least!

Also, in about 5 days my parents will be here which I'm really looking forward too! Europe semester through westmont will be stationed out of Florence starting next week as well! Looking forward to that too!!

For halloween I'm volunteering at a kids carnival at St.James church. I'm on the decorating committee and will be helping out in some way for the actual carnival! Should be really fun!!

Happy halloween I guess! And happy end of October! Crazy how fast time goes by!

ciao!

here are some of my london photos!

this is clara working at her pub "The Yacht"

Tower Bridge (aka the famous bridge in london)

sign for the real london bridge

platform 9 and 3/4 (for those who don't know anything about harry potter... this is how he gets to hogwarts.... the train through this wall...)

abby road (picture fail -- good one is on hillary's camera!)

hillsong church in london! message sucked but the music was amazing!

hillary and I in front of Harrods! (the famous department store in london -- very expensive!!)

it's fall here! the parks were possibly my favorite part of london!!

the queen wasn't home :-(

natalie and hillary walking through one of london's many parks! gorgeous!

hillary and I with the london eye in the background!

another famous church!.......

typical telephone booth picture! got to have it! (inside is hillary and i)

This is hillary and I after about 10 hours at pisa airport! we were a little bored and going a bit crazy by this point!

summary of rome

So basically Rome was awesome! went for one night and stayed at my first european hostel! It was called the yellow and wasn't too bad for our first hostel experience! I went with Hillary and Rachel and had a pretty great time! Saw all the sights, artwork, etc... but without too much information being forced at us! We probably walked about 8 miles the first day and I was wearing low heeled boots... BAD call! my feet have never been so mad at me in my entire life! Rome was a nice break from Florence! While it is still touristy it is much more open and the weekend we went the weather was pretty much ideal! Below are some pictures of what all we visited and saw! Along with all this we saw the sistine chapel ceiling too. While I know that most of it is not original, it was still amazing. The more frescos I look at the more impressed I am with the process that went into it originally. Painting a ceiling on sketchy wooden scaffolding and only with the light of candles while using one of the most challenging painting techniques available! craziness! But ya, had a great time and would totally recommend visiting Rome! it was definitely worth it!

here are some pictures to check out of where all we went!

me in front of some ancient Roman ruins near the colosseum.

look! it's the colosseum!

a cool church we stumbled across.

the colosseum!

our hostel - "the yellow"

famous painting i learned about in art history (#1)

famous painting i learned about in art history (#1)

famous sculpture thing i learned about in art history

the pieta by Michelangelo! amazing!

St. Peters Basillica

the river! (rachel, hillary, and me)

the ferrari shop

up there is a great lookout point of the city... where i'm standing is the nice shopping street!

throwing a coin in for luck!

LONDON!

hey from london! it's fall breat at my school so Hillary and I went to London -- so nice to speak english for a change!! having a great time though! update soon, i promise!!!

ROME

Went to Rome this weekend! Pictures and update to come soon!!!