Florence

Our last two days in Florence (April 5th and 6th) were quite lovely especially because we had a real hostel complete with heater and the weather itself was gorgeous. We walked around Florence, hitting up what Amelia, who'd lived there last summer, had advised us to. (I was jealous she got to live in Florence before and now after being there I'm even more so! It really is a fantastic, beautiful city.)

Some of the things we saw...
Great view of Florence near the Boboli Gardens and our first hostel


The river running through Florence


The Dome


Lots of street markets


We tried to get into the Uffizi Museum, but showed up too late. So we got over our disappointment with gelato.


We also saw Michaelangelo's David statue, who was a lot bigger than I thought he would be! I don't have any photos of David though because we weren't allowed to take photos inside the museum he was in.

The food we had in Florence was also unbelievably wonderful. Eating in Italy is generally good anyway, but we had some uncommonly good luck at finding great places to eat (though there was one not-so-good incident where I accidentally ordered a cola and was charged 7 euro for it! Argh!). I had the best tiramisu gelato I've ever tasted in Florence. It even had chunks of cake in it. Yum! For our last dinner in Florence, Michelle and I found this sort of hole-in-the-wall restaurant hidden off one of the main roads. Michelle and I ordered bruchetta, gnocchi and tortellini followed with tiramisu and damn. It was hands down the best dinner we had during our travels (and we had some pretty good ones).

The next day we were off to Montpellier, which was our pit stop in the south of France as we made our way to Sevilla in Spain.

Cinque Terre

On our first full day in Florence (April 4th) everything was closed because it was Easter so we took a train out to Cinque Terre, which are five little villages along the coast with a foot path connecting each one.
We had had not so good a night our first night in Florence because we had to sleep in what we came to call The Terrible Tent and it truly was terrible, but I'll get back to that later. Suffice it to say, we needed a nice day out and Cinque Terre turned out to be just that.
I don't think I'll bother with describing the day or the sights with paltry adjectives that probably won't get the job done. Instead, I'll just post some of my photos from that day (of which there unfortunately aren't too many because my camera ran out of battery!).









After our great day out and about, we had to return to The Terrible Tent. The reason we were there in the first place was because we'd had a great camp site experience in Rome and figured another hostel camping site in Florence wouldn't be too bad. We were literally given a tent with a wooden platform inside and some beds with one, thin fleece blanket each. It had been raining and everything was kind of damp, so not only was it already freezing but it was impossible to get warm again.
I've made it through 21 years of Wisconsin winters and that tent was truly unbearable. Michelle and I only survived the second night by putting on all of the clothes we owned, squishing together in a single bed, and using all of the fleece blankets. Don't worry though - the next morning we checked out of that hell hole and got a new hostel with walls. (Though hell hole is probably the wrong description here because hell would have been a lot warmer!)

Michelle and I preparing for our second night in The Terrible Tent:




(Note: We only look odd and lumpy because we're wearing ten layers of clothing!)

Rome

So, Rome. I'd been to Rome before this year actually. My first time ever being out of the country was when I went with my high school English teacher and a group of English students to Rome for a week the summer before I started at Beloit.
Although it wasn't too new for me, it was really fun getting to experience it again with Michelle. She'd never been to Rome before and the city certainly doesn't lack for things to see.









March 30th: We arrived in Rome in the afternoon after traveling from Venice and after finding our hostel (which was a cute and new-looking campsite where we had a little cabin to sleep in), we ventured back out into the city itself. We took the metro to see the Trevi Fountain, which is one of my favorite things in Rome. When I was last in Rome, I was told that if one stood with their back to the fountain and tossed in a coin that meant they would return to Rome one day. Looks like it worked!

March 31st: Our first full day in Rome. We went to the Vatican and explored the Basilica there. We hadn't realized it was the week of Good Friday and Easter and it wasn't until we did did we understand why certain parts of the basilica were roped off and why the Vatican was so dang busy. We also checked out the Sistine Chapel which was lovely to see again. I can't believe poor Michelangelo painted all of that! We wandered away from the Vatican and checked out Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and the Spanish Steps.





April 1st: This day we explored the Colosseum (which Leo really liked!) and the forum nearby. We also moved to our new hostel this day which was nice because we no longer had to take the metro and catch the bus to the campsite. Rome's metro is kind of annoying to use because it doesn't really go to a lot of places in Rome because whenever they try to expand their metro, they run into ancient stuff from Rome's long history and aren't allowed to dig any further. We also got to see and hear the Pope speak at the Colosseum later that night which was pretty neat (even though we didn't understand what he was saying!)



April 2nd: We continued to wander around Rome. We checked out the park surrounding Villa Medici, which was nice and now I'd really like to learn more about the Medici family. Apparently one of my Beloit roomies has a 6 hour long documentary series on the Medici family so maybe if I ever have spare time next semester, I'll educate myself! We stopped by the Vatican again, hoping to go up into the Cupola (it was closed on the 31st), but we got there two minutes too late and it was closed. That's the third time now I've had a missed opportunity to go up the Cupola! (I didn't do it the first time around because my feet and legs didn't have it in them at the time.) While roaming the Basilica, we unexpectedly ran into a Beloiter who was in our FYI class waaaaay back in freshman year and who I hadn't really spoken to or seen since then. She's studying abroad in Rome and it was incredibly bizarre to just randomly bump into her like we did.
Later, when we went to catch our train to Florence we bumped into one of the study abroad students we know here at Lancaster and she just happened to be on the same train as us. The world really is a small place sometimes!

Going to Rome again was a nostalgic visit for me because I feel like a very different version of myself was walking the streets of Rome the second time around. It made me think of the high schooler I was then and the college student I am now.
When I went to Rome the first time I had never been so far away from home or my parents before and had never been abroad. It was intimidating for me to do, but it also made me realize that I love seeing new places. Now I've lived and studied in two different countries on two different continents and I'm even more interested in travel than I was then. As my brother is set to enter the fray of college life, I've been thinking about pre-college me lately. I remember how nervous, but excited I was to start at Beloit. I wish I could go back in time and tell high school me not to worry a bit: college is made of all kinds of life-changing awesomeness! I guess I'll just have to tell my brother instead. :)





(My face looks fatter, my hair much improved, but my company in Rome always superb.)