Through My Eyes: General Update & Fun Things to Come!

Remember my last post when I talked about having the flu? Well apparently in some cases the flu can develop into pneumonia...can you guess where this is going? After about a week of feeling pretty bad and waking up multiple times during the night short of breath and coughing I had the worst night ever. After being awake almost all night and still feeling short of breath I decided it was probably time to get to a doctor. Of course it was Saturday when this all happened so to make a long story short the "weekend" doctor downtown just happened to be on vacation leaving me with no option but to go down the street to an urgent care type of place in the Emergency Room of some hospital. At this point I texted my roommates (who I figured were now awake) to let them know what was going on. Thankfully I live with 3 wonderful and very caring girls who all quickly threw on some clothes and came to the hospital where they found me in the waiting room. Of course once they got there they were all hugging me which was immediately followed by them scolding me for not waking them up to come with me in the first place. I guess being as independent as I am I just assumed I could go by myself and it would be fine. It was only when I saw them and started crying that I realized I needed them to be there with me. Anyways, I was seen by the doctor who almost immediately after listening to my lungs sent me up to get an x-ray to confirm that I did in fact have pneumonia. As much as I was hoping that it was something else a little less serious it in fact was pneumonia. I started antibiotics that day and thankfully am now feeling much better. Last night I didn't even wake up once during the night, woo-hoo!!! I'm now wearing a winter hat, scarf, and mittens to school in the morning and drinking plenty of honey lemon tea and water to ensure that I have a full recovery and stay well! Thanks for all of the kind thoughts via facebook, e-mail, or whatever. It's always nice to hear things from family/friends at home when you're sick!

In much better news fall break is coming up!! Next week the students have school Mon-Weds and then Thursday and Friday they have off so we can have parent teacher conferences. Because I'm in a different class each day of the week it makes my conference schedule a bit challenging. I'm currently looking at all of the classes conference schedules to try and decide which students conferences I will attend from each class. As annoying as that is to plan out it will interesting to be doing conferences in all of the grades that I'm working in--what a great learning opportunity! After conferences we have one more full week of school and then it's fall break! I'm super excited because I'm spending my week long break in Italy with Miss Kate Leary. Kate and I go way back to the days of Elementary School and are now lucky enough to be able to have a reunion in Italy. She has been working for the University of Oklahoma's study abroad program in Italy for almost a year now which is completely lucky for me because I get the opportunity to see her and do some traveling of my own in Italy. Here is a list of all of the fun things that are coming up starting with fall break:

October 29th - November 7th: Italy to visit Kate
November 11th - 14th: Christina and Bryan visit Brussels from London
November 25th - 28th: Kate visits Brussels from Italy (maybe a day trip to Paris that weekend)
December 4th: Day trip to Lille, France for their Christmas Market
December 11th: Day trip to Cologne, Germany for their Christmas Market
December 18th - January 2nd: Home in Minnesota for Christmas Break

I must admit that I feel completely blessed to have the opportunity to travel and to show friends around Brussels. If anyone has certain places in Italy that they think I really should not miss while I'm there please leave a comment letting me know! Here's what I'm thinking as far as traveling around goes:

Fri-Sat: Pisa --> see the leaning tower with Kate and then make our way to Arezzo
Sun: Florence with Kate
Mon-Tues: Rome
Weds: Venice
Thurs-Fri: Cinque Terre
Sat-Sun: places around Arezzo with Kate?

Let's just say that I'm just now starting to think more about where I want to go. I'm pretty lucky that I have Kate to give me suggestions and Italy travel tips since she's been to all of these places and more! I'm excited about the fact that I'm in charge of planning where I want to go and can have a true laid back vacation on my own time. Is that selfish of me? I feel as though it might be but I'm also a 23-year-old girl who is excited to explore a new country! Well I should get going so I can collect my laundry that needs to be hung all around my room to dry (we're in the process of getting a new dryer at our house). Here are pictures of some of places that I'll be visiting in the next couple of months...