I like Aosta the Mosta (not really, Siena is still best but still)

Just returned from the Alps yesterday! And it wasn't even as cold as I thought it would be, but then, what do I know about the snow.
We set out on Wednesday and had to be on the bus for way longer than promised, but since I've been on Wheels several hours on a bus is no big deal for me. We finally made it to  Torino, where we went to the Cinema Museum, which they told us was pretty important for film. Being a comm major I probably should've been more interested, but film isn't really my area, I'm more of a rhetoric girl. Also, I think it was pretty bad planning to have us go from a hot stuffy crowded bus to a hot stuffy crowded museum. It was fun to see the famous movie posters in Italian, but it was also frustrating that we didn't get time to see the city at all before being shuttled onto the bus.

Wade and Heather on the bus and ready to go

We finally got to our hotel in Aosta a couple of hours later, just in time for dinner. The food at the hotel was unimpressive, but at least the bread had salt in it. That's kind of a big deal. Not much happened that night since we were pretty worn out from all the travel.
The next morning we got up with the intention of snow shoeing, but were told that there would be a guided tour the next day, so we held off on that. We still took the lift up to mountain and looked around, and of course the gondola ride and being up on the mountain was gorgeous. We also found a little caffe to get some coffee in before heading back down.

Me and Some Mountains

Julian and Maya Skiing

Bus Station in Aosta-Ready for France!

Then in the afternoon we decided to mosey on over the border to France, since it was right there and all. We had to buy bus tickets that would take us to Courmayeur, which is still in Italy, and then change buses to get to Chamonix, France. There were seven of us total (me, Rachel, Krissy, Megan, Libby, Marli and Fiona). On the bus we ended up meeting an English guy named Tim, who was traveling around and going ice climbing, which to me sounds very very cold. As I pointed out later, of course the strange European man we befriend was the one with the ice picks strapped to his backpack.   He was fun to talk to, and he hung out with us in Courmayeur and showed us a good sandwich place once we got to Chamonix. At one point we made Rachel do an English accent so that we could get him to do an American accent for us. Both were classy renditions.

My New Look

The bus was mostly a pretty ride, except for the part where we went under Mont Blanc to get to France. It was cool to be under such an epic mountain, except it really it just looked like a long-ass tunnel. Outside  of the tunnel it really looked like we we were driving through Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The snow was lovely, but like I said, not super cold at all. Awesome mcpossum.

French French Fries!

Chamonix and Me

Rachel and I were sad to have to leave France

Chamonix was lovely, too. There we didn't have any plan in particular aside from just going to France, so we just walked around and enjoyed the small town, and we really only had a few hours anyways. Just being surrounded by those mountains was incredible, chilling under Mont Blanc is kind of a big deal. It was also nice to be out of Italy for a while and see everything written in French instead. I really like being here, of course, but being away for few hours, even just being over the border made me realize how much Italy overload it really is, so it was refreshing to see something in a different style for a bit. I think the trip to France is probably best summed up in the pretty pictures, because I don't really have much else to say about it. Oooh, although Rachel did get some really good Brie at a grocery store (sooo good, sooo cheap) which we enjoyed later that night after dinner. Another night that wasn't super eventful, except for our epic adventure trying to open a bottle of wine Heather had bought before the trip. In the end we got a bottle opener, and the wine tasted like manichewitz anyways. It was quite the triumph in the end, though.

Castello di Sarre

The next morning we got up to go check out a castle that was only about a 10 minute walk from the hotel, called Castello Sarre. The guy at the hotel said that this one wasn't was cool as the Fenice castle, which was too far to go, so we weren't sure what to expect,  but it ended up being a really cool castle. As it turns out it belonged to Regina (Queen) Margherita and Re (king) Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy. NO BIG DEAL.  So that was bad ass. And it turns out that old Victor was quite the hunter, and decided to show it off by decorating his hallway and game room with horns of animals he shot. And I don't mean like a few here and there, I'm talkin' 3,612 horns. It was cool but also creepy. We also got a tour that was included in the admission (which as only 3,50 to begin with). It was in Italian but we had our friend Julian translate. That worked out because we all could understand a lot of the tour but Julian filled in the gaps. Very handy.

Snow Shoes

Krissy, future Olympic snow shoer

After that we grabbed lunch at a place next to the hotel before Kirssy, Julian and I set out snowshoeing! It turned out Heather was coming too, which was cool. We almost missed the bus, actually, but since it was a super small group (the four of us plus one other NY student and a bunch of the staff) they came back to pick us up. We went snowshoeing in Gran Paradiso, which, as we'd learned earlier in the castle tour, used to be Victor Emmanuel II's private hunting ground. One of his son's later donated it to the public because he liked fishing instead. The foresty park kind of reminded me of Yosemite, only snowier and more mountainous. Snowshoeing was kind of like hiking but with silly shoes, but I have to admit, I may have accidentally almost fallen over a couple times. I didn't though, but still. Skillzzzz.

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After snowshoeing the four of us hitched a ride in the city (on the bus that was going to pick up the skiers) and found the brewery/beer bar in Aosta. That was fun, especially beer isn't really a big thing here. We had quite the adventure getting back though, since they had told us it wasn't far to walk. Long story short, it was, plus we kinda went the wrong way for a bit. We almost missed dinner but eventually made it back though.

Italian Gorgonzola!

The next morning we piled on the bus again and once again stopped in Torino, this time to go to the Egypt Museum. This is the museum that has all of the stuff that Napoleon took from Egypt but didn't want to drag over the Alps, so he left it all in Italy. And man, it was a lot of stuff. I was a little frustrated because they put me in the tour group that was in Italian only without the translation. I understand lots if Italian but I really would've appreciated it more in English. A couple of us ended up breaking away from the tour anyways and just wandering around on our own. Grabbed some lunch and filed back onto the bus for the rest of the long ride.

Lunch in Torino

And now, back in Siena! I liked Aosta and the mountains a lot, definitely better than Florence, but I'm still happy to be in Siena.

Also, you'd all better be reading this, because updating after long weekends is quite a task. So thanks for reading, e'rebody.