An American Girl in Paris

This past weekend the girls and I went to Paris and had the time of our lives. Wednesday night through Thursday night we did not do anything because we had a midterm on Friday so a fun weekend in Paris was well-deserved.
We were all really freaking out about the midterm. It was supposed to be really really hard. We studied like crazy. I was not happy about giving up fun nights out in Rome to study for a midterm. When we got to the test we were all very nervous. It was not as bad as we thought but still pretty hard. The biggest complaint was that the test asked very, very specific questions on hundreds of centuries worth of information. That is really why it was so hard. Right after the midterm Brittany and I went to a cafe and got a cocktail...it was very much needed. Afterwards we came home, packed, and got ready for PARIS!!!
We took a 4 hour train from Rome to Milan and then got on a 7 hour train to Paris. We slept in a 6 person car and we were only 4 people so we had 2 randoms...that was quite an experience. It was me, Rebecca, Brittany, and Olivia.
We got to Paris at 930ish and immediately got in a cab to go to the hotel, check in, freshen up, and go to breakfast. We found this cute cafe a few blocks from our hotel and right across the street from the Luxembourg Gardens. We all ordered omlettes and cafe au lait. I haven't had eggs since I was back in the states and it was soooo nice to finally eat some healty food! The other girls (Hilary, Ashley, and Kelsey) all flew so after breakfast we met up with them back at the hotel and started our touristy day in Paris.
Paris was absolutely beautiful! and very clean. Plus, the people were so nice. To be honest, we were just so happy to be wearing jeans and not sweat our body weight out. The weather was gorgeous: about 70 degrees and just a tad bit overcast. The Luxembourg Gardens were magnificent. They had little ponds where people were playing with toy sailboats just like in the movies. There was a palace off to the side that we took lots of pictures in front of :-)
We only spent about an hour inside of The Gardens because when in Paris make sure you have tome for SHOPPING! On the way to the shopping area we stopped at the Notre Dame. It is overwhelmingly huge. I wanted to go inside but the line was extremely long so I settled for pictures from the outside.
We spent the whole rest of the day shopping. I think we went to probably 12 or 15 different stores and 7 or 8 shoe stores! It was exhausting! But luckily we found a Starbucks...there are not any in Rome so we were pretty excited.
After running around Paris for hours we headed back to the hotel for showers. Brittany and I bought a bottle of wine and after everyone was ready we all met in one hotel room, popped it open, and drank to a great night in Paris. Then it was off to the eiffel tower. Most of us wore high heels because we can't wear them in Rome (the cobble roads are not really the greatest for high heels) and we were very excited! We got all pretty for pictures at the eiffel tower. We took the metro over, followed signs pointing towards the tower and when we least expected it, there it was right around the corner. Every single one of us all at the same time just said "oh my god it is beautiful!" and the cameras started going. We took ssooo many pictures! each step we took to get closer and closer more and more pictures were taken. Olivia and I were really the only ones interested in going to the top so the rest of the girls went to eat dinner while Olivia and I got on line. There were these kids in front of us (around the age of about 16, 17, 18) and the guys in line were talking about Olivia and I, it was extremely obvious. We ignored it and laughed about it later but at the top, we asked a random guy to take a picture of us and he turns out to be the trip coordinator of the little teen tour these kids were on. This guy was about 25 and Olivia and I spent the entire time at the top talking to him-he was pretty cool. We laughed about the kids he is in charge of. Some of the girls started giggling as we walked by them and all of the boys were like "oh my god! he is with those girls from the line!" It was extremely entertaining for Olivia and I. We were cracking up. It was a really good time.
When we got back down to the bottom we met up with the girls and some of our guy friends who were also in Paris that weekend. We went to some pubs and bars around our hotel and just had a really great time. Us girls ordered some really girly, fruity drinks and made the boys get girly drinks too-the pictures are pretty funny. Around 2am we went into a grocery store and bought just about everything in there. Olivia and I bought crepe bread, bananas, and nutella to make crepes....that did not wind up happening. We got back to the hotel and passed out.
Sunday morning we got up and went back to our breakfast place to get more omlettes :-) After breakfast we started our trek to the Louvre. We were all prepared to wait online for hours to get in but there was no line, we walked right in and, the best part, our tickets were FREE because we are students in Europe. We spent about 2 hours in the Louvre looking at all the famous art. We wanted to stay for longer but after 2 hours we were all ready for some food! We got the most expensive sandwiches, water, salads, and crepes of all time! The water alone was 4 euro....seriously, the most expensive meal ever! But I definitely got nutella all over my mouth from the crepe...totally worth it.
We wanted to walk over the Arch de Triumph from the Louvre but all the streets were blocked off for the Tour de France. Oh yea, I forgot to menion that the Tour de France was there that weekend. It was very cool to see that. Paris was really busy with all the tourists and there were a ton of events going on all weekend. Afterwards we did a little more shopping: I bought 2 cute Parisian paintings (2 euro) to put up in my room at school. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a bakery to get stuff to bring back to Rome. We bought 2 baguettes which Olivia and I used to get into a sword fight with...it was a lot of fun.
Once we finally got back to the hotel I literally passed out on Ashley's bed. I was out cold for a good 30 minutes before dinner. We were all pretty full from snacking on yummy french foods throughout the day so we just got french onion soup at a cafe down the street. It was the best french onion soup I have ever had in my life! And in France they just call it onion soup, not french onion soup.
At 8:30 it was back on the train :-( This time we shared our sleeping car wtih 2 old men who smelled really bad. I slept cuddling with my backpack because I was terrified of getting it stolen. I actually slept really well on the train: when the conductor knocked on our door to give us our passports back I did not move a muscle, I didn't even hear him knock. Olivia had to get down from her bed and wake me up. We got off the train and then got our train from Milan to Rome. I passed out ontop of Brittany in that train...we had snuggle-bonding time.
Finally back to Rome, we caught a cab to our apartment and complained the whole way about how unbearably hot it is in this city. I cleaned up the kitchen, which was a mess when we got back, made myself some risotto for lunch, and started my outline for a paper. The rest of the day was pretty boring: we made chicken, spinach dip, and potatoes for dinner.
A bunch of the girls and I went out and had such a good time until we got home....we were sitting on a ledge right outside of our apartment and some guy ran by us and grabbed Olivia's perse with her credit cards, cash, camera, phone, keys, and social security card in it! It was such a mess!! I stayed up with her until 5am calling the police, the embassy, and our school to get it all fixed. I barely slept and then had to get up at 730 am for class. It was a really really long day! I came home and passed out for 2 hours straight.
Tonight Brittany made baked ziti for us for dinner: it was DELICIOUS! After dinner the plan is to go to a club (maybe) and have a great time.
We are all just excited to go to Switzerland this weekend :-)

When in Rome, have too much fun to remember to update your blog

After letting an entire week go by without writing anything I have so much to say!

Monday July 13, 2009: Brittany, Olivia, and I had our Oral presentation due on Tuesday so we spent the entire morning in the library finishing it up. Afterwards Olivia and I went to class and left Brittany in the library to study for her own stuff. Class was uneventful. We met back up with Brittany after class to print out our handouts and then we went to get apertivo at a restaurant by campus. Apertivo here is a really big deal. It basically is their version of happy hour. You order a drink and its usually between 5 and 7 euro and you get a whole array of appetizer foods to go with it: bruschetta, some pasta, sandwiches, etc. After we finished our yummy fruity drinks Oliva, Brittany and I went to the supermarket to get stuff for dinner. We cooked chicken parmesan.

Tuesday July 14, 2009

Olivia, Brittany and I had our presentation today. It was on the Etruscan culture. It went really really well. Our professor was happy with how it turned out which, of course, made us happy. The rest of the class did not go so well. Our professor took us through a museum of pottery. Literally we spent 4 hours talking about the different kinds of pottery. There is only so much pottery history one can take and that ends after the first 500 pieces of pottery. Brittany, Olivia and I lost interest pretty quickly and found it really hard to stay focused...so did the rest of the class. When she finally let us go we were relieved!! I then had to go to Italian...do you have any idea how hard it is to stay focused in Italian after being forced to listen to 4 hours of pottery history? Anyway, Olivia's friend Brittney (different from our Brittany), from home, was in Rome for a few days so Olivia and I went to dinner with her. Brittany's family was here so Brittany went to dinner with them. Afterwards, we all met up at the Trevi Fountain and took pictures in front of it. We had not seen the Trevi Fountain at night yet and it was beautiful! This whole city is beautiful. Moving on, around 11:00ish we said good-bye to Brittany's family and met up with Rebecca and Kelsey at a bar. We had a few rounds of drinks before walking over to Ice Bar. Ice Bar is really cool! It is a bar completely made out of ice. When you get there they give you a coat and gloves to put on. Even the glasses are made out of ice. It was 15 euro to get in and that included open bar. It was so much fun!! We stayed until about 2 and then went home.

Wednesday July 15, 2009

This morning we woke up before class to go to the train station to figure out our trains to Florence, Paris, and Switzerland and our eurail pass. First we went to the one near us in Trastevre and of course they told us we had to go to Termini station so we hopped on the tram and then a bus to get to Termini station...wonderful. Once there it took us about 3 hours to book EVERYTHING. It was such a pain. But we got it done and Olivia and I got in a cab with Rebecca to get back to campus in time for class. Class was uneventful, we reviewed for our quiz. That is about it. Wednesday night Brittany's parents took me, Olivia and Rebecca out for dinner in Piazza Navonna. That is the Piazza where the fountain in Angels and Demons is. It was so nice of them to treat us! We got about 4 bottles of wine for the table and a whole lot of food. The food was delicious! After, we walked around the Piazza looking at art vendors and just having a good time. There was a magician street performer that took Olivia as a volunteer. It he made her hold his fire batons and throw them at him. It was rather entertaining.

After that we all got gelato and Brittany's parents insisted on paying for it. That was so nice of them!! We all crashed at her parents apartment because they have air conditioning!! And I did my laundry :-)

Thursday July 16, 2009

Today was a really lazy day. We did the whole class thing and I had a quiz but thats about it. We made dinner and packed. Rebecca and I went out to Campo de Fiori with Olivia and her friend Brittney from home. I had a great time! I got to go behind the bar and make drinks- I have befriended the bartenders. It was a lot of fun! We went to this club called Anima aroudn 1am-ish but it was packed and sweaty and we left immediately...not too much fun :-( so Sam and I went back to Campo where we had fun hanging out with the bar tenders. After that we went home and I set my alarm for 8am to get to the train station for FLORENCE!

Friday July 17, 2009

WE ALMOST MISSED OUR TRAIN! (surprise, surprise). The tram was not running on time. We waited almost 20 minutes for it. We usually take the tram into the city and then get on the bus to the train station but we were running so late that we hopped in a cab once we got off the tram. I swear that cab driver was Rome's slowest cab driver! Once he pulled up to the train station we literally RAN to the bin where our train was...it was probably pretty funny watching 4 blondes with full back packs sprinting through the train station. But we finally made it! yay!

It was me, Olivia, Rebecca and Kelsey. Brittany and her Mom were also going to Florence on our train but we weren't sitting with them. Once we got there we hit the ground running. Olivia spent the first 6 weeks of summer in Florence so she knew everything there was to know. She pointed Brittany and her mom the direction of the Galeria de Academia (Academy Gallery), where Michaelangelo's The David is while the 4 of us went and got lunch. We all met back up at the Duomo. We bought tickets to climb all 437 stairs to the top. Talk about a workout! We thought we would never make it! But once we did the view was spectacular. The ceiling of the Duomo on the inside had some pretty graphic pictures: it started as hell and the closer to the top you got the more like Heaven it looked. The hell paintings were extremely graphic! But anyway, the view from the top was amazing. You could see all of Florence! After taking a lot of pictures we started the trek back down (a lot easier than the climb up). We hit the bottom and headed straight for the market! The market is a huge area where there are hundreds of vendors selling leather products. Florence is where Italian Leather comes from so it is pretty famous. We had a great time bargaining with all the vendors. I got one lady selling bags to give me a bag that was originally 236 euro for only 65 euro, but I did not buy it. I really don't have 65 euro to spare although I was very proud of myself (I am sure Mommy is too!). I bought 2 things, one for Mom and one for Dad, and that is all. After that we went back to our hostel to relax for a bit before meeting up with Brittany and her mom for aperitivo. We went to a bar that Olivia went to a lot while she was in Florence called Moyo. Since she knows all the bartenders they gave us a lot of free drinks. They also gave us Corona floaties which Olivia and I blew up at the next bar we went to. After playing there for a while we went to a pub called the Lion's Fountain, another place Olivia used to hang out when she was in Florence. She told us that we HAD to have a drink they made called "sex on the duomo" so we all ordered it and had a great night! We headed back to the hostel around 11:00...it was an early night for us, we were tired.

Saturday July 18, 2009

We got up at 9:30am because we had to check out of the hostel by 10:00am. We booked a different hostel for Saturday night because the first hostel we stayed at did not have any rooms available for Saturday. We packed up our stuff and headed for the train station to fix our tickets. We were supposed to go to Cinque Terre on Saturday and stay there Saturday night but we could not find a hostel so we were going to change our train ticket to leave Florence early sunday morning and just do Cinque Terre for the day on Sunday. We took care of that and got Kelsey her train back to Rome. Next, we went to the next hostel to check in. Olivia started to not feel well so she spent pretty much the rest of the day in bed. I really wanted to go see The David while I was in Florence and no one really had any interest so I went by myself. At first I was a little upset I had to go alone but I really enjoyed wandering around Florence, finding my way to the Museum alone. It was nice to have some me time, I had not had that in a really long time. I felt very independent and I very much liked it. Seeing The David in person was unreal. I feel bad that my friends did not get to experience it. Everyone sees pictures of it all over the place but there is nothing like seeing it in person. You don't realize how big it is! It was almost emotional looking at this statue that has lasted through so much history! I felt like I was part of something bigger than myself. It was very empowering. I then wandered my way back to the hostel. Kelsey and Rebecca were out getting lunch and coincidentally we both got back at the same time. Rebecca and I left to go find an ATM and get Olivia some gelato and a panino.

The next touristy thing on our list was to see the Boboli Gardens. We napped for a little bit and then got up to go. Olivia did not come because she wasn't feeling better yet (I felt so bad for the poor girl). The walk over to the gardens was beautiful. The sun was just starting to set (it was 6pm) and the villages of Tuscany looked so surreal and peaceful. We took a lot of pictures on the bridge. When we finally got to the gardens we couldn't go in because it closed at 6:30. We were pretty bumbed out but Kelsey's train did not leave Florence till 1:30 the next day so she still had time. We slowly walked back to the hostel to get Olivia for dinner. We wound up separating: Kelsey and Rebecca went to Moyo for aperitivo for dinner and Olivia and I found a cute restaurant in a piazza near-by. When the 2 girls at Moyo were done they met up with us at the restaurant and we all walked home and called it an early night. Rebecca, Olivia and I were supposed to get up at 630 am to catch our 730 am train to Cinque Terre BUT since Olivia was not feeling well we stayed in Florence for the day and left late in the afternoon to go back to Rome.

I was a little upset that I did not get a chance to go to Cinque Terre but I wanted Olivia to be healthy. Now I have a reason to come back to Italy (in addition to all the other things I don't have time to see hehe). But because we did not go to Cinque Terre we went to the Boboli Gardens. WOW! is all I can say. The gardens were BEAUTIFUL! and huge. I took so many pictures! at the top we were able to see all of Florence with the mountains in the background. It was a really nice day. We also went to the "costume museum". They had outfits from all the different eras so we could see how fashion has changed through the ages. That was pretty cool. Afterwards we all at lunch and then Olivia, Rebecca and I left Kelsey to shop before her train and we headed to the train station to catch an earlier train.

We were so excited that we were going to get to be home by 5pm...or so we thought...

Our train broke down about 20 minutes outside of Rome. We were sitting there WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING! for a good 45 minutes before they sent another train to get us. It was horrible! We were all dying of heat and miserable. Finally we got onto the new train and we were back in Rome around 6:15ish. I was excited to see Brittany (I missed my roomie) and we made pasta for dinner. Now I am going to spend a night relaxing and reading. And I may go have a few drinks....

When in Rome...travel through 20 cities to get to 1

What a weekend! Rebecca, Olivia, Brittany and I visited Pisa and Milan together and had such a great time (and did some damage to our credit cards...oops). But first I need to go back to Thursday.

We had class at 9am and has a little adventure trying to get to the meeting point. We met at the entrance to the ancient Roman Forum on a street called Via dei Fori Imperiali. It was basically in between the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum. Our teacher got there a little late so we ran across the street to a cafe to get some breakfast (I had a cafe latte and an egg and tomato panini). We finally found our teacher (or rather she found us) and the four hour class started. While four hours is way to long of a time to ask for my attention, the information was actually really interesting. We learned about the Roman Forum and all the different rulers who built them. The forum basically was a public meeting place and served public functions (trade and markets, etc). Most of the material was imported from Egypt and other places because Rome's materials were not sturdy enough. There was the forum of Nerva, who was a god. The ruins from the Forum of Augustus, Forum of Tragian and Forum of Julius Caesar were all there and we learned all about that. We also got to go into the Capitoline Square, which was the head of ancient Rome. Inside it is a museum of ancient roman and greek art.

What is really cool is that the G8 is in Rome this past week and the wives of all the Presidents had lunch at the care where we had lunch on Thursday. Olivia and I saw Obama's car dive by last week...that was pretty cool. We have seen a lot of protests around Rome from the G8 meetings and the school sent us an e-mail telling us to carry around our passports in case we get stopped by cops and to be careful when we go out. Also, what I noticed is that most of the taxis drive the new prius hybrid and all of the taxis are stick shift.

Thursday night I got to see Jay and Devrah (friends of my parents) and their girls. They treated me to dinner, which was really nice of them. I had a great time and I was really happy I got to see them!

When I got back from dinner I packed and then Rebecca and I went out with the boys to Campo de Fiori and got back late so getting up at 745 am for the train was not fun. Rebecca, of course, was the last one downstairs but we still love her. We bought our train tickets and had an hour to eat so we went to a cafe in the station to get breakfast. It is a good thing Olivia looked at her phone because all of a sudden we had 5 minutes to get to the train! But we made it :-) Our tickets were double booked so Olivia had to sit in the hallway but the little cart that we sat in was SO HOT that I joined her. We finally made it to Pisa but we were all exhausted and went straight to the hotel to freshen up. Our room wasn't ready yet when we got there so they held our luggage for us while we went down the street to get something to eat. Rebecca and I shared a pint of wine which made me automatically feel much better! We got back and our room was ready so we went to put our stuff away and take care of our Switzerland trip. The weekend we decided to go to Switzerland is a holiday so we wanted to get everything booked as soon as possible to make sure it did not fill up. After like 2 hours of dealing with a crappy internet connection and our student discounts not going through we finally got the trip booked and we are all very excited. We then went back to our rooms to shower and nap.

At 6:30ish we finally were on our way to the tower. It was still light out so we got to take pictures with the sunlight. The four of us fooled around a lot with our cameras and took some fun pictures. We bought tickets to go up to the top-a little pricey but definitely worth it. The view was absolutely spectacular (see attached pictures). Around 10:30ish we headed into town for dinner. We found a cute little restaurant in the corner of a side street of a piazza. The food was good and afterwards we got gelato (of course). We went into the middle of the piazza and sat on the bridge and ate our ice cream. When we were done we walked back to the hotel. This one guy who kept staring at us started to follow us and we freaked out and got ourselves lost in the crowd to try to lose him. We all had our phones set to the. equivalent of 911 just in case but luckily we lost him and got back to the hotel safely. That night we slept like babies because we finally had air conditioning...we were so happy to not be sweating in our sleep (our apartments don't have AC)!!!

The hotel had a complementary breakfast (although the whole complementary thing is carp as far as I'm concerned). It was actually pretty good-the first time I had eggs since I have been here. We stole croissants, fruit, and crackers from the breakfast to take on the train to Milan. We made sure this time that our seats were not double booked and were next to each other. We had a cart to ourselves and all fell asleep on top of each other. Four hours later we were in Milan...the fashion capitol of the world! At the train station we hailed a cab and told him the address of the hotel. He looked at us funny and told us that the our hotel was right there and pointed across the street. We were sooo embarrassed! We had to get out of the cab and get all our luggage out.

We went to the hotel, freshened up, took our credit cards and were on our way to shopping in the most expensive city everrr. We really wanted to go to all the high-end stores like Gucci, Prada, etc (not to buy, just to be part of the atmosphere), but we also wanted to make sure we got some shopping done so we settled for the cheaper end. Brittany did some major credit card damage haha. I didn't spend too much money because I want to be able to buy stuff in Florence and Paris (and maybe even Switzerland).

For dinner we looked in my guide book for recommendations. We picked this local restaurant that wound up being a little out of our budget range but worth every single penny. I got a pasta dish with vegetables and it was by far the best pasta I have ever had in my life! It was definitely hand made. Brittany and Olivia shared a seafood dish which as also to die for and Rebecca had some really amazing risotto. Afterwards we couldn't help but to order dessert. We were tempted to steal the dessert cart and run away but the fact that we wanted to stay in Italy for the next 4 weeks stopped us. We split a piece of amaretto cake with chocolate pieces in it and a lemon meringue with nutella on top. AMAZING!

We really wanted to go out but we were in a more suburban area where there were not a lot of people out and we did not know where all the young people went out so instead we had a cab driver drive us by a wine store, got a bottle of wine and went back to the hotel and had some good old fashion girl bonding.

In the morning we checked out, bought our tickets back to Rome at the train station, and got breakfast. Finally, we were on our way to Rome. This train was a nicer train (we paid a little more for it) and the four hour trip went by super fast. I slept for a while and read for class. We got a small bottle of wine towards the end just for fun because we had nothing else to do. This really hot british guy got on at one of the stops and we spent the rest of the train ride just staring at him. He totally noticed but we did not even care-it was as if he was the last guy on earth. We were a bunch of kids in a candy store...it was pretty funny.

We got back to Rome around 4:30 and went back to our apartments. Brittany and I both passed out. Once we finally woke up we went over to Oliva and Rebecca's apartment to eat and work on our project. We spent the rest of the night just hanging out and now we are all in our separate beds going to sleep. This weekend was a great weekend. We didn't do any partying but I really got to bond with the girls and fall even more in love with them. I am so lucky to have found such great girls on study abroad! I love that we are old enough to appreciate how ancient Rome is and how much history there is in Italy and yet still go out and have fun like a bunch of kids.