Roman Holiday!

On arriving in Rome, I very quickly realized that it was most definitely NOT Florence!  Although I was only in Rome for a weekend, and I am really taking any experience I get over here as bonus and amazing, being in Rome really made me miss Florence.  It’s a huge city with tons of people, cars and tourists.  Unlike other big cities though, there really aren’t sidewalks and it is crazy to get around!  I was constantly feeling like I was about to be hit by a car/vespa/bus etc. and one guy from TCU even got hit by a Smart Car!  Last weekend, my 48 hours in Paris made me completely fall in love with the city and never want to leave.  Being in Rome was a completely different experience and made me so, so soooo glad that I live in Florence!  Now that, that rant is over, heres the breakdown of my trip!

Friday: This trip was with all of the TCU people because it was organized by ACCENT, so we were always in large groups (which is probably another reason I didn’t like it as much).  We caught the 8:45 train from Florence to Rome and got there around 10 (usually it’s a 3 hour train ride, but we took the fast train).  After getting there, we were set free to get lunch etc. and we went to what looked like a cute café.  After spending the weekend in Rome, I realized that really it’s a major tourist restaurant, but at the time it seemed cute.  I ordered pasta carbonera which if anyone has had it, is an egg/bacon/cheese type pasta.  Its usually really good, but this version of the dish was basically Velveeta pasta with bacon.  It was wayyyyy too rich and felt like a rock in my stomach after lunch.  Then we met up with our guide for the trip, Frea (she is from Australia, but has lived in Italy for 7 years and is super cool) for a walking tour.  We saw a bunch of really cool churches, palaces, and ended at Trevi Fountain.  Again, not to sound like a spoiled brat, but after 4 churches, its pretty hard to differentiate between and appreciate them, so I can’t really tell you much more about what I saw.  Trevi Fountain was pretty fun to see again (the last time I was in Rome, I was a sophomore in High School) and we threw coins in the fountain.

Government building

weird looking fountain

pretty church (#2 I think??)

throwing coins in Trevi Fountain

Then we were set loose for dinner and free time.  Kaylen, Nicole, Sam and I went to dinner at this really awesome place which had a 15 euro special.  You got bruscetta, pizza, pasta, dessert, and 2 types of wine (all you can drink) and it was all soooo good!  After a ton of food and wine, we went to the piazza by our hotel which has a bunch of bars at night.  We ended up at the Drunken Ship, which was a lot of Americans, but still very fun!  Also, Sam and Nicole knew a couple of guys that they met in Venice who met up with us.  They tried to take us to another bar, but we got lost and ended up back at the Drunken Ship.  Around 1:30, Kaylen and I decided to call it a night and tried to start making our way back to our hotel.  Unfortunately, the map we were given of Rome has the hotel taking up a 5 block area, which it definitely does not in real life!  Because of this, and since we had only been in Rome for less than a day, we could not figure out how to get back and ended up asking a group of Italian girls that we ran into.  They were super fun and it was one of theirs 23^rd birthday!  She kept trying to get us to drink with them, but we were needing to go back to the hotel, so they showed us how to get home.  FINALLY we made it back to the hotel about 45 minutes later.

Our new Italian friends

Drunken Ship!

Saturday: Around 9, we met with Frea and the TCU group to go to the Vatican.  Again, I have seen all of this before, but it was definitely nice to see with a set of older and more appreciative eyes!  Compared with the Louvre and Musee Orsay in Paris, I didn’t like the Vatican museum as much, but all of the artwork is still incredible.  Probably even more amazing than the art though is the building.  Every room has ceilings painted in elaborate designs and scenes from the bible.  The Sistine chapel ceiling is of course, amazing, but even better I think is the painting of Judgment Day (also by Michelangelo) on one of the walls of the chapel.  As Michelangelo was painting it, many people were critical of his work, especially a cardinal who said it belonged in a brothel.  To get back at the cardinal, Michelangelo painted him as one of the guards of Hell.  Rumor has it that when the cardinal complained to the Pope about being painted as a guardian of Hell, the Pope told him that “while he had jurisdiction on earth, he had no power in Hell”.  We also saw St. Peters Basilica which is huge and amazing, but in my opinion, just another church.  I can definitely see how those with catholic roots would appreciate it more though!

Inside the Vatican museum

The Vatican/ St. Peters Basilica 

At this point, Kaylen and I split up from the group and grabbed some much needed lunch (it was around 2:30 and we hadn’t eaten since 8 am!) at a pizza place.  Then we went back to the hotel and napped/read/relaxed for a few hours before dinner.  Around 8, a big group of us went back to the restaurant we had been to the night before, which was just as good a second time!  Because we can have Italian food any time we want, I didn’t really feel guilty going back to the same place twice…just like in Florence, I frequent places more than once!  After dinner, we went back to the Drunken Ship and danced to lots of American music (the Italians love American music) and I met a guy that I though was Italian, but apparently was from Ohio… whoops.  Stupid fake Pablo!

silly Pablo... (real one)

Dinner!

Sunday: We got up SOOO early, and headed on a walking tour of the Forum and the Coliseum.  Not much to say except that all of those things are so cool! If you get a chance, they are pretty awesome to see in person! 

Chillin at the Coliseum 

Roman Forum 

It started raining around lunch time which was bummer because I didn’t have an umbrella, but on the bright side, we got to see it rain in the Pantheon!  It was probably one of my fav parts of the weekend, because it looks like something is descending from the heavens or something.  Also, there was a choir singing in the Pantheon, which added to the whole effect of the rain. 

After lunch, we went back to the hotel and hung in the lobby for a few mins waiting for everyone else. Then we headed back to the train station and back to Florence!  I went to sleep around 9 pm on Sunday and got some much needed sleep! 

Overall, it was a really fun weekend, but I don’t think I will be going back to Rome any time soon (unless to visit Megan!).  That’s about it for that trip though… LOVE YALL!

Oh Firenze

This is been such a fun week so far, and tomorrow we leave for Rome! Heres the breakdown:

Monday: I was so exhausted still from Paris and barely made it to class... it was seriously a toss up when my alarm went off.  In cooking class, my group made risotto with saffron which was amazing! The other groups made a beef thing and apple strudel! 

Risotto that we made!

 

The rest of my Monday was pretty uneventful because I was so tired! I went grocery shopping, cooked dinner and went to bed around 10! It felt so good to finally get a good nights sleep!

Tuesday: Valentines Day in Florence! Between my classes, I met Jenna at the market and got some fresh produce and prosciutto (which I am OBSESSED with) and looked around the leather market some. On my way home after class, I stopped by the chocolate festival going on this week which is so cool! The entire piazza is covered in stands selling gourmet chocolate, spiced wine etc. I got a fruit kabob dipped in chocolate which was obviously awful... kidding it was so good!  Then for dinner, Stephanie, Jenna and Brianna cooked a Valentines meal for our little florence group! It was so much fun and the food was so good.. they actually know how to cook! We sat around drinking wine and chatting for a while, but unfortunately I had to study for my Italian quiz on Wednesday, so I had to leave around 10.  

Wednesday:  I had my Italian quiz which went surprisingly well! After class I stopped in at the cafe under my apartment and chatted with the cute old lady who owns it.  She speaks very little English and I speak very little Italian, so our conversations involve a lot of gestures and guessing.  What I have learned is that if all else fails, smiling and nodding is a good plan B.  For dinner, I met a bunch of girls at Gusta Pizza which never gets old.  We all got heart shaped pizzas, which I have realized just gives us less pizza than a normal shaped one! Those tricky Gusta guys! After dinner, around 10 we went to a shot bar and had a few drinks before heading to a discotecca.  It was seriously the craziest thing I have ever been in! It was really dark with flashing lights and about 100 more people than should have been in there!  I met some new Pablos and danced a lot, overall it was a really fun night! Since the discotecca was right by Jenna/Stephanie/Brianna's apartment, I crashed there (as opposed to walking home alone).  We didn't realize till we got back, but it was about 4 in the morning! Such a fun night! 

Thursday: A lot of us don't have classes on Thursdays, so Brianna, Emily and I decided to have a cultural day in Florence today.  The weather for the first time in what seems like forever is so beautiful and warm! We went and got paninis and sat on the steps of the Santa Spirito church for probably an hour. The sun was shining right on us and it was so nice to just be outside and not be wearing 10 layers! After lunch, we got some gelato and sat on the bridge facing the Ponte Vecchio for about 20 minutes. A police officer came over and told us that it was "impossible" to sit there, which is funny because it was pretty possible. Sometimes the language barrier is really funny!  Then we headed to the leather market because I wanted to buy a leather jacket (a birthday present from my parents).  We went to Massimo leather which several TCU students have used and I found a really cute one! 

Gorgeous day in Florence!

Brianna and I with Massimo and our new jackets!

After jacket shopping, we met up with Jenna and Stephanie and went to the Salvatore Ferragamo museum which is so cool! He was a really famous shoe designer that designed for Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn etc.  The museum is a collection of his designs and inspirations and is really well put together.  The shoes are really more art than shoes, its hard to believe that people actually wore some of what he designed!  It was also really crazy to think that someone is creative enough to come up with all of what was in the museum.  Embarrassing moment, I accidentally pulled the emergency cord in the bathroom and the security guards came running in.  I had to explain that I'm a stupid American...from the looks on their faces I could tell thats what they were thinking too.  

Tomorrow we are going to Rome for the weekend with the TCU group which will be really great! Even better though is that the weather is going to be in the 50s!!! Seriously, I have never been so excited for warm weather! I'll write all about Rome when I get back! Hope all of yall have great weekends!

Heres one more picture from today! Lots of love from Florence!

Au revoir Firenze... Paris for the weekend!

So this last weekend I went to Paris and had the most AMAZING time!!! If you don't want to read a short novel about Paris, I suggest you stop reading now cause its gonna be a long one!

Thursday: Our trip to Paris didn't start off very well because we were of course running late.  We basically had to sprint to the train station to catch our train to Pisa.  From Pisa we caught a flight on RyanAir to Paris Beauvais which even though it may sound like it, is not in Paris.  If anyone of yall have ever traveled RyanAir, then you can probably agree that flying on that airline is an experience in itself.  Seriously though, its basically a circus with everyone pushing for seats and lots of extra charges if you forget your boarding pass/ your bag is too big/ you don't get your boarding pass stamped twice etc.  When we landed at Beauvais, we had to take a 1 hr 15 min bus ride into Paris.  We finally got into Paris around 11:15 pm and were surprised when the bus dropped us on a random looking corner.  We knew the metro closed at 12 so we were definitely on a time crunch to figure out where a metro stop was/ how to navigate the metro/ how to get to our hostel.  When we finally got on the metro, I was commenting to Sarah that it was so nice not to have to worry about creepy Italian guys in France, but I definitely spoke too soon.  A few seconds later, some drunk french creepo was rubbing his hand on mine and trying to smooth talk me in French.  The guys with us on our trip quickly surrounded me and he went away, but I really was not expecting French men to act how Italians do!  Around 11:55 we finally got to St. Christophers Paris hostel which was a very welcome pleasant surprise!  I was imagining that the hostel was going to be a hole in the ground motel type thing with nasty sheets, and rats on the ground but it was so different from what I had pictures. It was super clean, had a free breakfast, and had a bar and club in the hostel! It was so much fun staying there! After we got checked in and settled we all pretty much crashed.  The biggest adjustment of the day was remembering to say thank you, excuse me etc. in French instead of Italian! 

me and my super nifty travel backpack in the metro!

Friday: We woke up pretty early and headed down for breakfast around 8 which consisted of baguettes and cereal.. but it was free! At breakfast we met these Irish guys who had just stumbled in from the bars and were obviously in need of some sobering up and sleep! When they stood up to leave, one of them realized that the jacket he was wearing was not his own, and the other still hadn't noticed that he had no shoes on.. oh Irish guys, living the stereotype! Around 10 we met for a free walking tour of Paris which was sooooo awesome!  Because the guides are working for tips, and the tours are meant for students traveling, they are so wonderful and it was a great way to get oriented with the city! Here are some highlights from the tour.. it was 3 hours so this is really just a few of the places we saw!

Lovers bridge: Big and Carrie rekindled their love here in the finale.  Since that episode of Sex and the City, people come and put locks on the bridge with the loves and throw the key in the river

Bridge built by this party king who at one of his parties, had a sketch artist draw all of his friends drunk and having fun.. he thought the pictures were so funny that he had all of his friends heads immortalized on the bridge based on their drunken pictures

Louvre.. obv

everything in Paris is about symmetry, even the trees! 

After our tour, we had lunch at a great little restaurant and then went to see the Eiffel Tower for the first time!  It was so cool to see it in person again (the last time I was in Paris, I was 12) and we had a ton of fun taking pictures.  At this point the group of 13 split up and me, Stephanie and Jenna went to get a cool view of the tower from across the river and had our first french crepes! OH MY GOSH, crepes are my new favorite food. They make them fresh at these little stands and you can put whatever you want in them. I had nutella and banana and it was seriously like a religious experience.. amazing.  Here are some Eiffel tower pictures.. I have about 100!

                                                                making the crepe

EIFFEL TOWER!!

After we got our fill of crepes and the Eiffel tower, we took the metro over to the Louvre and met up with Natalie and Sarah.  Because we are temporary EU citizens, we got in free at the Louvre (and a lot of other places in Paris) and there was NO line!!  Also, for anyone traveling to Paris who isn't an EU citizen, on Friday nights if you are under 26 you can get in free from 6-9.  I wish I had, had more time because there is a ridiculous amount of things to see at the Louvre! We saw the Mona Lisa (small but still had to see it) and walked through the rest of the Italian wing which was so cool. My favorite thing was definitely seeing Napoleons apartments which are set up like they were when he lived there. It was weird to think that Napoleon actually used the Louvre as his house... we kept joking that he would have to leave 20 minutes early to go from his bedroom to his kitchen. Seriously, the Louvre is HUGE!  After about 2 hours, we met up with Sarah (different one) and Kaylen who had just gotten to Paris because they had class on Thursday and then went to dinner.  Here are some Louvre pictures:

Napoleons salon

if anyone wants to get me a late birthday present...

KAYLEN IS HERE!

After dinner (around 10) we headed back to the apartment and hung out at the bar for a while.  Staying at a hostel is like this huge collection of college aged kids from all different countries, which makes the hostel bar a pretty interesting place to sit!  Around 1 am I was drained and called it a night... such a long and great day!

Saturday: This was definitely my favorite day in Paris! Around 10, Emily, Sarah, Jenna, Stephanie and I caught the metro/train to Versailles which I was SO excited to see! Upon arriving at Versailles, we stopped in a McDonalds for some coffee and warmth before heading up to the palace.  Let me just say that France knows how to do McDonalds because it was so nice. It had a little bakery and the interior was like a nice cafe. 

my cappuccino and macaroon 

cool little tray thing at McDonald's

After our high class coffee break, we headed up to the palace which was seriously amazing.  It was so much bigger than I could have imagined and so elaborate.  No wonder the French people beheaded Marie Antoinette...the palace was ridiculous! We got in free at Versailles too which was awesome (tickets are about 24 euro) and had a free audio tour.  Here are some pictures!

just the middle of the palace... seriously though its so huge!

hall of mirrors, so incredible! 

Marie Antoinettes bedroom

After seeing the palace (the gardens were unfortunately closed because of the weather) we were feeling very Marie Antoinette and went back to McDonalds to get some macaroons for the train ride! They were realllllyyyy good.. and way cheaper than the ones at Laduree! 

McDonalds bakery

 

 

happy girls with their macaroons!


After getting back into Paris, we headed to Champs de Elysee, the famous shopping street with the Arch de Triumph at the end.  It took me about 10 minutes of Emily and Jenna repeating the name of the street (which is pronounced chom ze lee ze) to finally get it right, but after we incorporated the name in a song, it was super easy! As we were walking up one side of the street, we noticed a super long line outside of Abercrombie... still don't know why but it was weird.  When we made it to the arch, we sat under it for about 15 minutes because our guide for the tour on Friday said that statistically, a car accident happens every 15 minutes around the arch because there are no traffic rules!  Unfortunately, the statistic wasn't happening when we were there, but we still got to see the Arch de Triumph!

                                                                                                  such models!!

When we were walking back down the other side of Champs de Elysee, we ran into one of the guys, Nick, who had shared a room with some of the TCU kids the first night in the hostel.  He is from Australia and is the most flamboyant, funny kid ever! It felt so cool to run into people we knew in Paris... we are such international travelers! After getting our fill of shopping and the cold, we took the metro back to the Eiffle tower area for dinner.  I got a croquet monsieur (very french, or so I'm told) and we tried escargot. Unfortunately, my camera died at the Arch de Triumph, but the other girls took a bunch of pictures! Then we walked outside just in time to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle (it does so every hour on the hour after dark) which was a truly magical experience. It felt like I was in a movie standing with a crepe and watching the tower sparkle! If you have never seen it, you should watch this youtube video of it because it is so cool! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEofyytUWFs

After hanging around the tower for a while (again I wish I had pictures, but my camera died) we headed back to the hostel and hung out at the bar again. We met a group of fun Irish guys who once again, held up the stereotype of Irish men very well.  I went to bed around 2:30 and slept like a rock!

Sunday: We got an early start on Sunday because we only had a half day to do things before our flight home later that day.  Jenna, Stephanie and I took the metro to the Notre Dame area and first went to the Sainte Chapelle cathedral which was absolutely breathtaking. The cathedral is about 70% stained glass and is seriously beyond words. My little coolpix camera does NOT do it justice at all, but here is a picture! 

one of the windows, there were 14 in total surrounding the entire cathedral 

one side of the cathedral... sorry, its the best coolpix could do!

After the cathedral, we moved on to another cathedral that yall might have heard of, the Notre Dame! It was so cool because mass was going on when we went to visit it! It definitely added to the experience and I was really glad we had accidentally come at that time! Compared to the Sainte Chapelle, the Notre Dame isn't as breathtaking, but it was still so cool to see it!

 Side note about the Notre Dame that we learned on our tour: around 1820, the cathedral was falling apart and no one really cared about it anymore. They were thinking about tearing it down and building another one until the novelist Victor Hugo wrote the Hunchback of Notre Dame in an attempt to save the cathedral. He used the novel to make the people of Paris fall back in love with it and saved it from destruction!  

mass inside the Notre Dame

After the Notre Dame, we went to Musee d'Orsay which unfortunately had a line to get in, but at least we got in free! It was SO cold and I thought my feet were getting frost bite, but it was so worth it once we got inside.  The museum is an old train station and the building itself is worth seeing, let alone all the artwork inside of it! It has an amazing collection of impressionist art like Monet, Renior etc. I literally had 30 minutes inside so I was taking the museum at a run, but it was still better than not seeing it at all! After the museum, we grabbed a quick lunch and then booked it back to the hostel to get our stuff and catch the bus to the airport! We got to the bus stop about 20 minutes too late and had to take a taxi to the airport (about 25 euro a person...) but it all worked out in the end! I finally got home around 11 pm and have never been happier to be in Florence. It was such an exhausting weekend but so amazing and wonderful! Definitely a great first trip this semester! Heres one last picture from the train ride home :)

I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep right now because I had to stay up and study for a quiz today so I'm going to take a nap now, but I will update yall again mid week on everything going on in Florence! LOVE YOU ALL!!

xoxo