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....
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