Friday, April 15, 2011: ITALY!
10 a.m. this morning, I met up with the girls to take the 3 euro airport bus to the Granada airport. It was soooo nice not having to go to the Malaga airport this time! We ate our lunches in the airport cafeteria and then boarded the plane. I slept mostly the whole way. I woke up on the plane to everyone staring at me. I had been sleeping with my head back, mouth wide open, as well as my eyes! Apparently in that position of sleeping, my eyes don’t fully shut?
Once we landed in Milan, Italy, we hopped an hour long bus to get to the Milan train station. After a lot of confusion on how to purchase our tickets, we finally were able to figure it out and bought our tickets just in time for our train to Verona! We had budgeted 30 euro for each train, but this one was only 9 euro! Woo!
Once in Verona, we met up with Taylor, a boy from our program, that didn’t have any real concrete plans. This included no hostels, in Rome, during holy week before Easter. Yikes. Thankfully, he had found our hostel earlier that day, because by now, it was dark out and we had no idea what our hostel looked like. We had booked a bed and breakfast, which was really just some guys house. When we got to the door, the only name on the building was teeny-tiny underneath the doorbell…great. We pushed open the old creaky door and it was pitch black inside. In the corner, we saw a pair of old dirty boots and maybe a balled up sweater. Of course, awful ideas raced through our minds: like there was a killer right inside! Taylor wasn’t man enough to check it out, so I grabbed the light from a phone and peeked my head inside to find that it was only old clothes in the corner and the rest of the room was empty. We flipped the light switches on and climbed the creepy old stairs up to the Bed and Breakfast where we were met by a really angry man. Since we had reserved the wrong arrival time, he had already given away one of our 3 rooms. Thank god he lowered the price! We had to squish 3 girls to one bed, but besides that, it was a fine stay.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
In the morning, we were up pretty early, had a crappy free breakfast of toast chips and jam and then started our day. Since Taylor had been in Verona the day before, he served as our tour guide. We saw all the really important parts of Verona, including: Piazza Erbe with the Venetian glass jewelry market. Next on the list was to visit (for free!) Juliet’s Balcony and Wall. Even though it’s fake and totally a tourist thing to do, I still loved it! It was fun to write a message to Juliet on her wall too.
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| Juliet's Balcony! |
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| Writing a letter to Juliet. |
Verona was a super casual, relaxed trip. One of my favorite things to do while traveling is to simply walk around and get a feel for the city. We walked by the mini coliseum and took pictures with gladiator men, even though we had to give them some change afterwards, totally worth it!
One day in Verona was enough to see all of the touristy sites, but I think I would definitely enjoy it for a longer period of time. Everyone was super chill and very nice. In Verona, we had lunch at a cute little café and afterwards I tried licorice gelato... don’t hate if you haven’t tried it yet. I also had my first experience with a true “European” bathroom. It looked like a square toilet cover in the ground with a hole in it. Quite the experience I must say. I have a picture of it too! Overall, Verona was a sweet place to visit.
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| Yep, I used this. |
Off to the train station! We hopped a 6 euro train to Venice! We arrived to our (3 star) hotel in Venice! I don't even know what town it was in, but totally worth it because we got the hook up! The hotel was beautiful and they even made sure there was an extra bed for Taylor. (He had such amazing luck on this trip!) Our hotel was 3 different large rooms all connected and we shared a luxurious bathroom. That evening, we went out to the town’s basically only pizzeria, but had excellent food! We came back to the hotel and played drinking games until the family below us yelled to us to be quiet. Buzz kill!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
We had an entire day to explore Venice the next day. After first getting lost for 2 hours trying to look for the basilica (now a bit of an inside group joke), we asked for directions and discovered we were quite a ways away from it, and actually in the bottom corner of the map. Oops. We hopped a quick gondola ride across the river. This part was hilarious because most of us were too cheap to buy a real gondola ride. We were snapping pictures left and right on this 60 second gondola ride (.50 cents hell yeah). Good times besides the fact that I was so scared we would tip over!
We stopped at a take-away pizzeria for lunch where I had pizza fungji (mushroom). Eventually, we found Piazza di San Marco where the Basilica was. It was so impressive! Since the line was hours long, we decided we had seen too many churches in Europe and opted to keep going. We strolled along streets filled with Gucci and Prada just to window shop. I can’t believe there are people out there that drop 600 euro on a pair of shoes… que ridiculo!
To end our awesome day in Venice, we chilled at Ponte Rialto, which is a famous, white bridge in a very tourist area. It was nice to sit on the edge of the street and dangle our feet over the water for a while. We lucked out with the weather too. So pretty and sunny!
That evening, all 9 of us (6 girls, 3 boys) visited the same pizza place. I opted to get a salad and grilled vegetables since the trip was filling me up with pizza, pasta, and gelato, I needed some green food in my life. That night, we played some more drinking games but didn’t stay up too late.
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| At our pizza place! |
Monday, April 18, 2011
The next day, we were off to the train station pretty early. At the station, we spontaneously decided to break up our long trip to Rome by stopping in Florence for about 4 hours. On this train station, my eyes were killing me! They were super sensitive to any light, my eyes were very dialeted, and every part around my pupils was bright red! I took out my contacts and went blind the rest of the day.
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| In our Harry Potter car on the train, complete with snack cart! |
The first thing I purchased in Florence were a pair of sunglasses to protect them from the strong sun. The boys and girls split up, We headed straight for the famous leather market where we spent the majority of our time. I ended up purchasing a small leather cross-body purse.
J Before hopping on our train, we needed to get dinner. Luckily, we stopped in a cute little Italian restaurant, run and ownded my a cute little old lady. She knew we were in a hurry to make our train to Rome, so she whipped up or food so quickly and it was probably one of our best meals in Italy.
The train to Rome was pretty damn long, but worth it! We arrived around midnight and thank god the boys were with us because I have never felt so unsafe in a train station before in my life. Everywhere you looked, there were creepy men lurking around and tons of homeless guys. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Luckily, our hostel was a short 5 minute walk from the station. The receptionist was sooo helpful! The ONLY cancellation in the whole hostel was one random girl in our hostel room… Taylor got lucky again! The hostel room was so tiny, but it was sufficient enough. The bathroom situation was disgusting, to say the least.
Tuesday-Friday, April 19-22
The three days in Rome were FANTASTIC! Our hostel drew up 3 different routes for us to follow each day. We followed them to a tee basically. We saw nearly the entire city this way, but in a way that I never felt rushed or stressed. We were able to casually enjoy the city.
Some highlights of Rome:
Touring the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. Even though there were nearly 60,000 visitors that day and I felt like I was swimming through the Vatican museums and Sisten chapel, it was such a great experience to be able to see it in person.
Another highlight: Hearing the Pope speak in Vatican City. It was a once in a lifetime experience and it’s something that I’ll never forget. The pope arrived promptly at 10:30 a.m. in his little pope-mobile with cheesy music and waving at the massive crowd. Once on stage and seated, the ceremony started. Each cardinal read in a different language. I believe there were 6 or 7 different languages. After each cardinal, the pope would address the different populations of the crowd using the different languages. When he spoke in Spanish, there would be chants and screaming and singing in praise of the Pope. They were so proud and it was great to see all of the support from different communities around the world. At the end of the Pope’s address, the whole crowd read an Italian prayer together. It was such an amazing experience to see this all happen in Vatican City only a short distance away from the Pope!
Pope riding his(Mercedes-Benz) pope-mobile!
"Viva el Papa!! Viva el Papa!"
Another highlight: Roman Forum and Colosseum. We each paid 12 euro for an all access, skip the lines ticket. It was really neat to see the tomb of Julius Caesar as well as the ruins of the old basilica and other governmental meeting places inside this forum. The colosseum was breathtaking. Words can’t describe the feeling you get when you are among such history and beauty. Seeing the Colosseum from the second story was even more powerful too.
Other highlights: Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, and Piazza Navona. Each was interesting in a different way. Trevi fountain was covered in tourists, but the fountain itself was so large and impressive. The thing to do there is to throw a coin over your shoulder if you wish to come back to Rome or throw 2 coins over your shoulder into the fountain if you wish to fall in love in Rome! The pantheon was free to enter and I was blown away at how well kept and pristine it was inside. The Spanish Steps again were covered with tourists and the steps could barely be seen, but the flowers lining the steps were beautiful and actually were a great place to chill and do some people watching (one of my favorite hobbies). Lastly, Piazza Navona was a gigantic open plaza that was filled with artists trying to sell their works of art as well as other stands that sold sunglasses, watches, purses, etc. I could have spent an entire day there looking threw the artwork but unfortunately, time did not permit this desire.
I thought 3 days in Rome was sufficient, but I really do wish I could have been there for a longer time. IT was great being in Rome during holy week too. Sadly, we had to get on a plane back to Madrid and then take a nearly 6-hour bus ride back to Granada. I made it back in my apartment into my bed at 7:30 a.m. Yikes. It was worth it because I had a travel experience of a lifetime. I am so grateful for everything I have been able to do while abroad. I can’t believe it is nearing the end of my adventures abroad, but I have honestly loved every single minute of it.
Ciao!
