Spring Break Passport

It has been one crazy week where I was out all day and had spotty internet access at night. But otherwise, my spring break was amazing. My parents came to hang out with me during the break which was really nice. They came to Florence a couple days before my program was finished, and then we went first to Nice, France by train. The train ride there was close to seven hours long in total, but it was worth it. The flight there would have cost more because of all my baggage. And besides, trains are kind of fun.

Nice was lovely, but the real stars were the nearby towns we visited. It's all along the French Riviera, and we visited Monaco (and, by extension, Monte Carlo) and Cannes. Cannes was definitely my favorite. Besides the awesome seafood we had there, the water and the beach was beautiful and the sand was actually sand instead of rocks. It also helped that the one clear day we had in France was when we were in Cannes. There weren't many people either, it being an off-season time, and so it was the perfect time to travel. I can't believe how crowded it would get during the summer!

Nice from a clifftop view

One of the many boats in Cannes

Me and the Cannes beach

 After spending three days in Nice, we took a direct train to Paris. Paris was also beautiful. I love big cities and Paris was definitely it. We hit most of the big tourist attractions such as the Arch of Triumph, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Shakespeare & co., the baby Statue of Liberty, and Cleopatra's Needle which is a really pretty thing, though perhaps not as big of an attraction as the others. There were a lot of people, as expected, but I really enjoyed the bustling city life. The apartment that we rented was outside of the city center near the hostel St. Christopher's and right next to the canal, and that was a really nice location. Also, St. Christopher's seems like a really nice hostel. If I ever go back to Paris on my own, I'd plan on staying there and taking the metro around.

A blurry picture of the Arch

Cleopatra's Needle

The sparkling Eiffel at night

Baby Statue of Liberty

The coolest bookstore ever!

Notre Dame (sans bells)

Along with Paris, we also went out to Versailles to see the palace. It was overwhelming, but the history of the place amazed me. I love learning about all that history and the grounds of the palace was pretty much unable to walked through in one day. Or until someone collapsed. It's HUGE. There was also an absolutely amazing bakery there too called (don't laugh) Bigot Bakery. They had the best pastries I've ever had anywhere. No wonder all the pastry chefs train in France...at least so I've heard.

The gates to the Palace of Versaille

One of the streets in Versaille

Four days in Paris was wonderful and I felt that I saw all that I really wanted to in that time. On Saturday we made our way to London via train and so far I have really come to love this city. The underground is the best and easiest public transportation I've ever taken. I really want to stay here longer and learn all about London and Londoners, but of course this is just the beginning. There is so much to see in the city and there is so much to do I can't wait! The first night, cooking didn't seem to be too much of a problem. We've all seemed to coordinate our own cooking schedules well enough and I'm glad. The kitchen is a bit small, but workable if only a few people are in there at a time.

All in all, my spring break was pretty awesome and I can't wait to see what London has for me. There are more Protestant churches here and I'm definitely going to be looking into that for this coming Easter Sunday. Is it really coming to Easter already? My list for things to do in London is growing everyday and let's see if I can get them all done! My goal is to check each and every one off. Here's my list so far (though I'm sure it's far from finished):

-Charles Dickens Museum
-British Museum
-British Library
-Pollock's Toy Museum
-Kensington Gardens
-National Gallery
-Museum of London
-Harry Potter WB Studio Tour
-Westminster Abbey
-Natural History Museum
-Walk on Tower Bridge (if possible)
-Shakespeare's Globe
-Camden Market
-Brick Lane Beigel Bake
-Tower of London
-Victoria & Albert Museum
-Ride in the London Eye
-Visit Liverpool and Surrey

I'm sure I'll hit most of these museums with classes, but I'll let you all know when I start ticking these things off my list! There are so many things to do in seven weeks. Cheers!

My Final Hurrahs

With three days left of class and four days left in Florence, it's hard not to count down the days. As I have obviously already done. Finals, however, tends to distract one from the sadness as well as all the awesome food Florence has to offer. There's got to be hundreds of blogs just dedicated to the good eats, and here are my two cents:

1. The Diner - American diner. How American can I get?
2. Gelateria dei Neri - The best gelato around and it's not super crowded.
3. Grom - The second best gelato around and right next to the Duomo. One reason why hundreds of tourists are there every time I go.
4. Libreria Cafe la Cite - A cute coffee shop with a laid-back feel.
5. Kikuya - Good nachos, good drinks. Gets too crowded too fast, though.
6. Be Bop - No food, but great drinks and awesome live music. Tuesday Beatles nights!

Obviously I haven't done too much eating outside of my home stay, but I have been enjoying home-cooked meals every night. It's worth not spending 20 euros or so at some pizzeria as a student.

In the last week since coming back from Rome, I've been trying to study for finals (going slowly) and papers (even worse), but I have been spending a lot of time at my new favorite cafe, Libreria Cafe la Cite. It's a cute little place that is a lot bigger inside than it looks. I'm pretty sure they play live music too around ten at night. As the name suggests, it is part bookstore/library. People go in there all the time just to look at the books. It's a really cozy environment for anyone who wants to spend a euro-fifty on a cappuccino and sit on one of the couches to read or study.

Other than that, school's been school and everyone's been getting a little flustered about final projects and papers and all. Finals are stressful wherever you are, as I have quickly discovered.

One thing that spiced up my weekend was the trip to Tuscany. It would have been more beautiful if it wasn't raining, but it was still lovely. After checking out a monastery and a couple different churches, the fun part most of us had been waiting for finally came. We took a visit to Capezzana where our (incredibly attractive) tour guide showed us around the winery. After the tour, we had a little wine tasting session where we tried three different wines. It was so tasty and along with our tasting, he taught us how to drink wine properly. Like a refined connoisseur. I know I'm going to be showing off a little to everyone when I get the chance.

Besides that, this weekend was, well, really relaxed. Other people had their fun out late at night, but I enjoyed spending the rainy afternoons at La Cite drinking coffee and doing some work. Little cafes are the best finds in my opinion. Almost as great as finding amazing gelaterias. And attractive men whose families own an international (delicious) wine-producing vineyard. Together, they have the power to create...the happiest little American student around!

A view from the winery. 

The blessed vineyards.

The three wines tasted.

A glass of my favorite: Barco Reale di Capezzana

Roman Holiday

Last weekend I went on a Roman holiday. While I didn't meet my Gregory Peck, I did fall in love. With the city, just to make that clear. Rome is absolutely amazing for anyone who likes bigger cities, lots of historical sites next to modern buildings, and Roman history. I can see why Rome is such a beloved city by so many. It certainly surpassed my expectations. During the three days we were there, I was able to go to the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel, the Trevi Fountain, and stick my hand in the Mouth of Truth. There was a lot packed into two and a half days and I went a little picture crazy in Rome which is enough of an indication for people who know me that I was really taken by that place.

Roman Forum

Roman Forum

Starting at the beginning, we arrived in Rome by train around nine in the morning and, after dropping our stuff off at the hotel, went right away to tour the Roman Forum. It was absolutely, hands-down my favorite ruins to tour. We had a tour guide who was adorably short (and she noted it with pride) and very informative. She painted pictures for us of what ancient Rome must have looked like in the years before Christ and kept me captivated the whole time. I never realized how deep my interest in ancient Rome was until she started talking. We walked around for maybe an hour and a half or two hours, and then stopped in a really nice grove where we ate our lunch. We probably only walked around half of the Forum because I saw a whole other part to it during our break, but we were on a tight schedule.

Roman Forum

Inside the Roman Forum

After lunch, we went to the Colosseum and had a special tour where we got to go from the bottom of the Colosseum where the gladiators and others would enter the stadium to the top where the poorer people sat. It was definitely a thorough tour of the place, but it made me a little sad. How grand the Colosseum must have been when it could seat 87,000 people and was so lavishly decorated! Seeing the skeleton of what it once was and imagining the grandeur of the place was depressing.

Ground level of the Colosseum

First level of the Colosseum

Second level of the Colosseum

Third level of the Colosseum

The Pantheon

That brought my mood down, but after that we went and toured the Pantheon, another really awesome site considering the people who used to meet there, and then got really good gelato. Afterwards, there was another hour and a half walking tour which was actually really interesting, though my feet definitely hurt after being on my feet all day, and after ending the tour in Piazza Navona, we made our way back to the hotel for some rest. My friends and I got dinner on our own at a nearby restaurant called Insalata, a place seemingly known for their salads (I didn't try their salad) with decent dinner prices, and then walked around for a bit before going back in to sleep early after the long day.

Altar in the Pantheon

Saturday started off with breakfast at the hotel and then a trip to Vatican City. It is its own city within Rome where the Pope would live (if there was a Pope). We had a special tour of Necropolis, an underground crypt where people before Christ buried their dead in the walls lining the streets that used to be at ground level however many thousands of years ago. We also saw one of the first portrayals of Jesus in a mosaic of someone's tomb and he looked a lot like Apollo, the sun god the pagans worshiped, with some very important, but subtle, differences. It was all very fascinating, but a little creepy.

Then we went to the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica. The basilica was enormous and lavishly decorated, though it was a bit too ostentatious for my liking. Although it was incredible, the decor was just a bit too overwhelming. The church also held Michelangelo's The Pietà, one of his first sculptures and, in my opinion, most polished works. It was unfortunately behind glass, so I didn't get to get a good picture of it, but it was certainly beautiful.

After the Vatican, we had lunch and then went to see the Sistine Chapel. We had to get through a lot of the museum first, however, just to get our money's worth and see what the program directors wanted to show us. When we finally got to the chapel, it wasn't exactly all that I expected. It was fascinating, but also had an overwhelming number of frescoes and paintings. After that, we were free once more to wander, and after getting dinner we went back to the hotel and talked for awhile before I went to bed. Other people had more interesting nights out in the town, but I just wasn't feeling it.

Careful, it bites!

Sunday morning, we had breakfast, packed our things and put it away, and then were free to explore the city on our own. A couple girls and I decided to hit two main places: the Mouth of Truth and the Trevi Fountain. As huge fans of Roman Holiday, my friend and I both needed to take the opportunity to stick our hands where Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck did. We had planned to go to the fountain first, but a few wrong turns and we ended up heading towards the Mouth instead. Getting there early was a great idea because the weather was beautiful and the line was short. We went through, got our pictures, and then left all in maybe ten minutes.

View of the city behind us lovely ladies

As we made our way to the Trevi Fountain, we passed a lot of ruins, pagan temples, and random broken down walls and pieces of stone that were just lying around. The random ruins looked like trash that the Romans had never bothered to pick up even though I know and they know it has more meaning than that. It's a connection to their past, so nobody bothered to pick up the stones where it fell, although I'm sure if independent pieces were in the middle of the street they moved it to the side. They also may have left those things there because it was too heavy, but I like to pretend there's meaning to everything there.

Random piece of a pillar

Arches in a broken wall

We also passed the Altare della Patria, otherwise known as the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II, and climbed up the back way to some museum I still don't know much about. It was pretty, though, and we had a beautiful view of the city where I took a lot of pictures. When we finally made it to the fountain, we took more pictures, had lunch there, and then made our way back. That was probably my favorite part of the trip, being able to explore and see so much of the city. I love seeing the ruins next to the modern city and Rome is pretty clean, something I hadn't expected.

One of the many pagan temples

And we finally made it to the Trevi Fountain

S.P.Q.R.

One fun fact about Rome is that the letters "SPQR" are everywhere in the city from the ancient ruins and arches to the trashcans and manhole covers. It stands for the Latin phrase "Senātus Populusque Rōmānus", or "The Senate and People of Rome," obviously a phrase that was coined and used when ancient Rome was a republic. By having these letters around everywhere, it's another way modern Rome can connect to her rich past. It became something of a game for me to find the letters wherever I went.

Once our free time was up, we met back at the hotel, grabbed our things, and took a bus to the Borghese Museum which consisted of a villa-turned-museum and a large park for the Romans to enjoy. The villa had really awesome paintings and sculptures from Bernini, who is now my favorite sculpture, to Caravaggio's paintings. Apparently most of the real sculptures that used to be a part of the family's collection were sold to Napolean and are displayed in the Louvre. Lucky I'm going there in the next two weeks!

The magical-looking fountain in the
Borghese Park

After that, there was a three-hour bus ride back to Florence which was quite entertaining. We watched Gladiator during most of it and I was able to point out the places in the movie that I had just been to and some symbols that I recognized. It was a happy moment for me as I watched a portrayal of what ancient Rome might have been like then.

Of all of the cities I've ever been to, Rome is my favorite, and, God be willing, I'll be back.