Sightings

This has been a very eventful week since my parents were here visiting me on their Spring Breaks, so we got lots of sightseeing in. This was also a kind of big week at work for me because we had many people away on holiday, which presented lots of opportunities for me to do many things on my own. It’s always nice to be handed those extra things to show off what you’ve learned and what you can do. Unfortunately, I’m beginning to feel like my days in Europe are becoming increasingly limited. With less than a month here, and staying after the program impossible, I am trying to get in all the things I have yet to see and do in London.

On Wednesday, my day off, I spent the day hard-core sightseeing with my parents and brother. We first went to the Churchill and Cabinet War Rooms Museum. It was pretty expensive, but, possibly, the coolest museum I’ve seen so far in London. The Cabinet War Rooms, where Churchill and his advisors debated about strategies during WWII were really interesting to see. The whole museum was actually underground where the Churchill and many of his advisors lived during heavy bombing and rooms where the war was debated, etc. However, the Churchill Museum was by far more fun. It was one big room full of Churchill’s whole life, personal and professional. It was very interactive, but fun for adults, which is hard for a museum to pull off—interactivity that’s not for kids. It was really cool. If you’re even a little bit into history, I highly recommend it. It’s worth the 10 pounds.

We had a very full day that Wednesday. The museum was right across the street from St. James’ Park so we walked through the park back to the Tube, where we went to the one place my Mom was dying to go—Harrod’s. According to my Mom, I would never go on my own, and I just have to see Harrod’s. Even for non-shopper, I have to say that it was pretty cool. The whole first floor is mostly just touristy type things—a Harrod’s gift shop, and a TON of food. I’ve never been in such heaven before. A whole chocolate wing, a seafood wing, a pizza restaurant, a tearoom, a whole grocery store. It continued forever and was amazing. We ate at a cute little place on the main floor, but it was really expensive. Everything in Harrod’s was really expensive, so maybe I’ll just get take away next time, but it was pretty cool. And, of course, my Mom lent her financial support to the gift shop, which is always nice.

We were not done with our day. We walked around a bit and then went on to our next eating destination—Kensington Gardens to walk around and for high tea. By the time we got there we were kind of hungry, so we ordered two full teas for the four of us to split, and it was all very delicious. Nothing like scones with real cream and sandwiches with no crust to make your day a little better.

My brother, Shale, and I then split off from my parents, who walked around London at night while Shale and I went to the London Eye. It was pretty cool. It was a nice view of London, but, in my opinion, not worth the money. It was cool to bond with Shale, but was definitely an attraction I could have lived without. Then Shale and I hung out at the hotel room and waited for our parents while watching the premiere of The Apprentice, which is a big deal here in London.

Thursday was Lauren’s 21^st birthday. A very big deal. Not in England, but still to us. I started the somewhat hectic evening with a nice Italian dinner with my parents and then a second Italian dinner with my friends while my parents saw the play 39 Steps, which they really liked. Then, my friends and I decided to take the opportunity to go to this one bar that’s been very hyped about by all our friends. It’s basically a bar made entirely out of ice. Everything—the glasses, floors, walls. We were given huge cloaks to wear to keep us warm, and they did. It was all sensationalism basically, but it was very cool.

We were all exhausted by Friday, but that did not stop me from still doing stuff. It was a good workday for me. I did a lot of work that I was proud of. I had a quick pint with my colleagues before going to a delicious dinner of tapas with my parents. My brother decided to stay behind and order room service, because we went on to the musical Billy Elliot near my work. It was a wonderful, wonderful musical. One of the best I’ve seen, and I am quite the critic. I really enjoyed it. The story was very complex and innovative, but there was also great music and, obviously, choreography, so it was a very enjoyable evening.

Saturday was my family’s last day here, so it was a bittersweet day. We awoke early to get in their last bits of sightseeing. We ate a good breakfast and made our way through Kensington to go to the Natural History Museum, which is very cool, but has an especially impressive castle-looking outside. We then went next door to the Victoria and Albert Museum for a few minutes because I’m going back on Wednesday for our class field trip. I said goodbye to my parents and left to spend the afternoon with my friends. 

We headed to the Covent Garden area to investigate getting tickets for all the shows I want to see before I leave. I have decided not to hold back on my musical viewing these last few weeks in London. This is the only time in probably a long time I’ll be living in a musical capital, so I’m going to enjoy it now! I got tickets to see the new play based on the film, and true story, Calendar Girls. It’s an entirely new performance, which is always exciting to see, so that’s in a few weeks. We then got day-of tickets for that evening to see Spring Awakening, a musical I’ve wanted to see since it won the Tony almost two years ago now. I absolutely loved it! It was such a different musical with such a great story. I would highly recommend it to anyone my age. I don’t know how the older set would feel about, but it’s definitely worth seeing.

Sunday was another big day for us. A few friends and I decided to take a little day trip to Greenwich. It was a good day trip for us because we were all tired, so it wasn’t that stressful. We took the hour ferry ride from Westminster Pier and immediately ate at the famous pub their called Trafalgar Tavern. It was really cute and had very good fish and chips. We then went to the prime meridian, which is what the town is known for, which is the basically where the start of time is. What I mean by that is that you can actually see where the lines of longitude and latitude start, so you can stand at the 00 point in between each hemisphere. It also features the original time telling device and a free museum that explains how modern day time came to be. It was pretty interesting. It was ironic that we went to that museum today because last night was England’s turn to Spring ahead, so we changed times. After that, we walked around in the cold and got to see some of the town and a few markets that were there. It was a nice mellow day trip.

Tomorrow is back to work and class as usual. I am trying to fit in everything I want to get done before I leave, so I will probably have many more fun-filled days to come. Hope everyone has a good week!

Spring in London

Spring has sprung in London. No especially exciting news to report from work. Natasha Richardson, as I’m sure you all know, died the other day so we were covering that on Thursday. Jade Goody also died, which is sad, but she stretched out her death for so long that I’m kind of glad it’s all over, although I’m sure her funeral and tribute coverage will be taking up a lot of my time this week.

Wednesday was a busy day for me. In the morning, we got up super, super early to go on an inside tour of Parliament. It was a pretty cool tour. It took a while, and most, but not me, were hung over from the evening of St. Patrick’s Day before. I was just tired. We even got a talk from one of the members in the House of Commons, Graham Brady. He was pretty nice, and only a little bit boring. The night before we got a lecture on how the British government operates, which was also interesting. A very different system from the States. Some of their officials aren’t even elected, which would never happen in the States. It was pretty interesting. Parliament was pretty cool as a whole. It’s cool because when you walk out of the Tube station the first thing you see is the huge tower of Big Ben. Pretty impressive.

After Parliament was over, a group of us, arranged by me, went to Leicester Square to buy play tickets for Phantom of the Opera that evening; a play I’d been wanting to see since I got here. The play did not disappoint. It was astonishing. I thoroughly enjoyed my evening.
The afternoon was rather uneventful. Much to my relief I got a haircut, which was desperately needed and walked around a little. My friends and I have planned to go to Barcelona for Easter Break in a few weeks, which should be fun. However, travel arrangements seem to be getting more difficult as we go along, so that is always a constant thing to do.

My parents came into town on Saturday, so I’ve been pretty busy this weekend and next week. They got here on Saturday and we kind of just hung out and helped them get over their jet lag. I wasn’t a big help with that. We went to Portobello Market first thing because it’s one of my favorite places in London. Dad wasn’t a huge fan because he gets claustrophobic really easily, but Mom wanted to buy the place out. We ate a traditional, although Americanized, English breakfast and walked around Notting Hill a bit. We navigated the Tube back to their hotel where they found out information about getting tickets to a play they wanted to see. We managed to find the theatre where it was at with a bit of trouble, but it was in a really pretty area of London right near the Thames.

We then navigated the Tube to St. James’ Park, which I’d been eager to see for a while. My parents sat and soaked in the beautiful day. Then it was time to go back and collect Shale, my brother, who had stayed behind at the hotel because he was just that jet lagged. We went to dinner at a restaurant called Ask, which is a chain Italian restaurant that had really good food. There are many restaurants I still haven’t tried despite being here for a while now.

Yesterday, the family woke up early and went on a day trip to Cambridge. Mom wanted to go there out of all the other places to day trip around London. We took kind of a goofy route to get there because no direct route was going out there yesterday. We took a train then a bus then a train and were finally in Cambridge. Cambridge was a really nice city. Much, much prettier than Oxford was. I wonder why our program decided to take us to Cambridge over Oxford.

Cambridge was a really quaint town with a huge cathedral and the little colleges right in the center. It also had gardens and a river running on the side of it, which was beautiful. We ate lunch at a cute place called Auntie’s Café and dinner at a pub with amazing fish and chips, the Eagle. We just walked around and shopped the rest of the day before taking the much less confusing route home of a train that went directly into Liverpool St. Station, so we could take the Tube from there back to their hotel. I was exhausted after the day was over.

Anyway, just another Monday in London. More updates on how the week with the parents went later.

Back in the Swing of Things

The stress of working full time and work for two courses finally got to all of us this week. It has been a very busy, crazy week, but now that it is over it hasn’t been that bad. Last Monday, we took a mandatory journalism field trip to the new offices of the Guardian—a very well respected, liberal newspaper in London. The offices were quite nice and we got to talk to the former editor-in-chief of the paper who showed us around. It was an interesting evening. We also had our second big journalism paper due on Friday, so that took up much of my free time this week.

On Wednesday, my British Life and Culture class took another and final journey out of London to Warwick (pronounced without the second W) Castle and Stratford-Upon-Avon. We weren’t particularly looking forward to this trip, since our last one to Canterbury wasn’t all I’d hoped for, and Oxford wasn’t that great either. However, I had a great time.

Warwick Castle was actually an interesting, friendlier castle than Dover Castle. It’s surrounded by gorgeous neighborhoods and even prettier scenery. I even climbed 500 stairs to the top of one tower. It was kind of scary because going up and down was all tiny, circular staircases with not a whole lot of light, so it was kind of creepy, but I made it both up and down.

We then headed to Stratford-Upon-Avon (Avon means river) where we didn’t have much time to explore due to all our previous engagements. We first explored Shakespeare’s birthplace and where he grew up. The outside surrounding his house was interesting, but the actual house itself, I didn’t find very interesting or informative. The town of Stratford, the one little street I had time to stroll up and down of, was very cute. All of its shops were called something having to do with Shakespeare and I’ve never seen so many teahouses in my life. There was the Much Ado About Toys store and others named after Shakespeare plays.

Craving fish and chips ever since we got back to London, we went to a restaurant promising traditional English food and that’s just what we got. We didn’t have much time, but our tour guide told us about a very good sweet shop right next to Shakespeare’s house, so of course the entire group went to it. It was traditional English sweets like I’d never seen them before. I asked our tour guide what a Turkish delight was, because I kept seeing them everywhere and not knowing what they were. The owner opened a bag and let me try one and they were delicious. I bought some Turkish delights and fudge for our long journey back.

Our tour guide was named Trudy, and she was a character to say the least. We had her take us to the British Museum too. She’s kind of crazy. We think it’s an act that she tells us really strange stories and talks in really high, or really low-pitched voices that she changes mid-sentence. She also looks like a slightly younger version of Endora from Bewitched. She’s really cool and always makes our field trips interesting. Tour guides here are hard-core. You have a pass a very official and difficult examination on all things English to get certified as a tour guide. They are incredibly well respected. All of our tour guides have been characters in their own right.

After Stratford, we made a brief stop at Anne Hathaway’s (Shakespeare’s wife, not the actress) childhood house. It was in a pretty area very close to Stratford, but old, preserved houses don’t really make a huge impression to me. Half of the people of the trip, myself included, were going to a football (soccer) game that evening, so we got on the football coach that took us to the Fulham vs. Blackburn match.

Despite all the planning ahead our program did, we got there very early despite rushing through the day to make sure we made it on time. Maddy, Lauren and I immediately went to go and find the stadium and by the time we got there, 2 hours early, hardly anyone was there. We waited around for a while until the doors opened and slowly watched the stands fill full of people. It was a much smaller stadium than I expected, but packed with people. We ate hot dogs—to our delight, as we were afraid sports food would be different in England. It is interesting that in England no alcohol is allowed in the stadium itself, so the outside of the stadium was much more lively than the inside. Going to a football match was a lot of fun, despite the fact that I didn’t know what was going on through much of it. It was very hard-core. The clock never stopped and even if someone got injured, they just played around them. The atmosphere was great. Everyone was enthusiastic and loved being there. We got home around 10:30 and immediately went to more work on our papers, but it was a fun day.

Friday was Red Nose Day. Yeah, it sounded weird to me at first too, but it is nothing of the sort here. Red Nose Day is a huge charity fundraiser that goes on every year with the entire country getting involved. It’s been in the works publicly for months and all the major stars donate their time to get people to donate money at this huge, all night TV Telethon. It’s a huge deal that raises millions of dollars every year for things like AIDS in Africa, education, women in Africa, cancer research, and stuff like that. We’ve been covering it on MSN a lot, and it’s just something that many celebrities get involved in a good thing to know about. It’s one of those things that you don’t know what it is but quickly find out because it is such a massive event here.

Another massive event here is apparently St. Patrick’s Day. On Sunday, the City of London held a massive St. Patty’s Day festival in Trafalgar Square. In the morning, we got up early and went to the National Gallery for a special exhibit they had on Picasso. It was a really great exhibit. There were so many famous Picasso’s that I recognized, and I learned a lot about Picasso’s life in general, so it was very interesting.

We then camped out of the street where the parade was taking place. It was similar to parades in America, but I enjoyed it. There were at least three marching bagpipe bands in kilts, which was cool to get our Irish music in. Besides that, there were a few amateur Irish dancers and many families and Irish foundations that marched. Afterwards, it was basically a huge concert with a ton of bands performing. We went and got traditional Irish food (Guinness hot dogs) and listened amongst the massive crowd that got drunker by the song. The whole festival was really a huge advertisement for Guinness beer, as most people were getting drunk off of it. Trafalgar Square, a place I’ve come to know and love, was completely trashed like a frat house by the time we left half way through the bands—beer, beer cans and bottles everywhere.

Anyway, we left and walked around Leicester Square, right next door, and were on my quest to see a movie. I had not seen a movie since I was here—probably my longest stretch ever since I’ve seen a film. I was going to go alone and see Revolutionary Road, but when we saw He’s Just Not That Into You playing, we couldn’t pass it up. Besides the fact that there were no previews before the movie (much to my deep dismay), the theatre was incredibly behind (not nearly as punctual as US theatres), there were different warning signs before the films, the seats were much cushier, there was a price different between sitting up in the stalls and the balcony and the seats were assigned (although no one followed the rule) there was no difference whatsoever. Okay, so there were many major differences, but it was still fun and we enjoyed the movie and had a good time.

Anyway, just another normal Monday today. This past week has really been a whirlwind of activity, but it has been a lot of fun. Hope everyone has a good week!

Venezia (Venice)

Thursday (cont.):
We did not quite know what to expect out of Venice because it is, quite literally as we found out, surrounded by water. Venice is beautiful. Their idea of streets is really water. Imagine if every street with cars is really water with boats and there are bridges over each one. You wake up in the morning and go out to your boat instead of your car. Cars don’t exist, at least not in the mainstream, in Venice. Their public transportation system is the same as any subway system, but with boats instead of trains. It’s kind of hard to change that mindset, but it’s such a cool and pretty city that it was easy.

According to our research, Venice should not logically exist. It should be far underwater by now, but it is incredibly sad because the city is sinking at an alarmingly fast rate. I feel like it may soon be just another city swallowed by the sea and never to be seen again. I’m referencing New Orleans, for those who didn’t pick up on that. Venice is rapidly sinking and all of you should go view its charm before it’s gone.

Anyway, we got off the train and navigated the public transportation system (boats) to the mainland where our third and final hostel was. It was still raining at that point and we got a little lost, but eventually found it. We stayed at Hostel CasaLinga. It was my favorite hostel because it was not Americanized like the other places and had Italy charm to it—low ceilings with little, odd quirks. We got the luxury of having the 4-person room all to ourselves, so we didn’t have to worry about locking stuff up or anything. It was a nice place, despite the lack of towels and breakfast.

Starving, by this point, we quickly found a restaurant and ate spaghetti (plain, just the way I like it) before going to bed early.

Friday:
We woke up to a sunny, but slightly cloudy day. We weren’t risking not bringing our umbrellas, but we didn’t need them. It was the perfect day. Although, the day started out a little rough because we began with finding an ATM. Unfortunately for me, the machine ate my card, however two very fast-speaking Italian bankers got my card back and returned it to me after scanning my passport and card. I almost had a heart attack, but all was well.

We then decided it would be fun to take the one-hour boat ride to Murano, which is known for its glass blowing—Murano Glass, if you’ve ever heard of it. We got to actually watch people glass blow, which is much more difficult than one would think. It was pretty cool. Of course, there were also lots of glass shops with insane glass chandeliers that were gorgeous and other glass items. I bought a pair of glass earrings, so that made me happy. We stopped for lunch and gelato on the island before heading back to the main island.

We explored further the coast and San Marco’s piazza, which is the most well known place in Venice. There were tons kiosks to buy postcards and Carnival masks at. I couldn’t resist by the end. My obsession with masks got the best of me and I couldn’t resist a sparkling, purple mask. Carnival had actually just happened in Venice a few weeks earlier, so there was still tons of the confetti covering the pavement, which was cool to see. We saw the pigeons in San Marcos and went to the top of the bell tower where we saw yet another overhead view of an Italian city. Venice was beautiful from up high. We were cold so we went into another very unique cathedral that was in the square. It was gorgeous from the outside, because, like Il Duomo, it was not a normal cathedral. It was basically all mosaics and there was nothing plain about it. Everything was colorful and gorgeous.

After we thoroughly explored San Marco’s square, we took a boat to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, where she once lived, but converted it into a modern art museum before her death. I’m not a huge fan of modern art, but it was nice for this change of pace after all the Renaissance art in Florence and Rome. There were some very famous Picasso works there, as well as some Dali’s and Jackson Pollock’s.

We headed back to San Marcos and walked to the famous Rialto Bridge where we took a wonderful gondola ride through the water. The gondola was different than I expected. It was kind of commercial, not to mention overpriced (but for good reason, I suppose), but was completely worth it. Venice is just as I imagined from the movies and so much more. I loved it. It also looked like kind of what I imagine Greece to look like. We ate dinner at a touristy place right on the water overlooking the Rialto. We did the three-course meal deal, so I ate meat pasta, veal and, oddly enough, French fries, not to mention delicious white wine. It was a great first day in Venice.

Saturday:
After getting our full of glass, on Saturday we decided to head to the island of Burano, which is known for their lace making, and is also supposed to be quite cute and charming. It certainly was. The lace was beautiful, but the town itself was quaint and adorable complete with a marketplace and multi-colored houses (lime green, dark green, purple, pink, every color imaginable). We ate more ham pizza and gelato their before strolling the streets and the bridges their before heading back to the mainland.

Despite the fact that Maddy has a fear/hate of pigeons, she and Lauren really wanted to do what all tourists and locals do in San Marco’s piazza—feed the birds, right out of the palm of their hands. They bought a croissant and waited for the pigeons to come—and they did. They will really do anything for food, even jumping onto their arms and eating from their palms. At one point, there were at least 6 birds on Lauren’s arms at the same time. It was pretty hilarious to watch/record for future reference!

We walked again to the Rialto bridge area where we strolled through the streets that housed the high-end shops before eating dinner around the same area on the Rialto we ate the previous night. We did a meal deal again and I felt guilty for not eating much seafood in a fish town. Therefore, my friends convinced me to try calamari with potatoes, a plate-full of spaghetti, champagne, and coffee. The calamari was a chewy. I wasn’t a huge fan, but I would eat it again. We savored what we knew would be our last enjoyable moments on the island before heading back to the hostel to pack up for London.

Sunday:
So tonight we’re back in London. I did miss our flat and especially the Tube, which is by far the best (but most expensive) public transportation system we’ve found. Back to another normal and crazy busy week in London. We have a big journalism paper due at the end of the week and an all day trip to Stratford with a night football game on Wednesday.

48 Hours in Firenze (Florence)

Tuesday:
As three people going on a trip together, we split up the traveling duties—I was in charge of booking the plane and trains and we each took a city to plan for. Maddy and Lauren both researched and booked hostels. Trains became a pain to book. We discovered that the Italian train website do not accept American credit cards, so we were forced to buy train tickets when we got to each city, which worked out fine and that is how most people do it anyway. Traveling within Italy can be seen as easy to some, but it was very stressful for me.

Because it’s so “easy” to travel within Italy, trains are not loaded until like 15 minutes before they are ready to depart, so when we got the Rome train station 2 hours early, we were forced to wait around in the station with no waiting area for over an hour. There is nobody to check train tickets until the end of the journey when the conductor checks the tickets towards the end. It is a different way of doing things compared to what we were used to, but it all worked out fine for us.

We got into Florence, my city to plan, by lunchtime, where it continued to downpour. We checked into our hostel, which was much nicer than the one in Rome, but along the same lines. There were six people to a room, also with lockers to lock up our stuff. Florence is nice because it is such a compact, tiny city. It was very easy, and a relief to us, to walk for the entire time there opposed to figuring out another public transportation system. We ate lunch and explored the center of town near our hostel. The center of town is a piazza housing a huge, ancient cathedral called Il Duomo. It is by far my favorite cathedral in Europe. It was so unique and unlike any church I’d ever seen. First of all, the outside was light pink and light green trim surrounded in whiteness. The church had so many layers and intricate architecture. It was beautiful.

We then explored Palazzo Medici-Ricardi, which was a palace with many works of art. Florence is really a memorial to the Renaissance period, which was very interesting to explore. I discovered a dinner theatre called Teatro del Sale through my online research and we decided it would be worth spending an evening there. It was a members-only club, so we bought membership at the door for 5 euros and paid for dinner and the show. The place is supposed to be filled with locals and traditional Florentine and Tuscan food, so this was probably our only taste of authentic local life. Dinner was from 7:30-9:30 and we literally ate for all two hours straight. Italians can eat. We snagged a comfy three-person table close the stage when a man, presumably the chef, proceeded to scream from the kitchen in Italian whenever the next course was out. We assumed he would say what the food was and make a joke when announcing it, but it was never in English.

The food was delicious. It started with appetizers—a wide selection of beans, salad and sauces. We loaded up, and were cordially told by a worker that we should only take small portions, because that is how Italians eat—a lot in small sizes. Maddy and Lauren seemed a little offended, but I was too happy to fully embrace Italian culture outside the touristy places to care. Then came the real food—meatballs with capers, shell pasta with tomato sauce, meat and cheese, risotto, lamb and chicken, sausage and potatoes, oysters and, finally, rich chocolate brownies with thick cream and huge wafer cookies for dessert. It was an amazing meal. The entertainment consisted of a two-man band that sang only in Italian. Despite being exhausted by the time they started at 9:30, we enjoyed the music and thoroughly enjoyed our evening.

Wednesday:
Wednesday was another rainy day, but just as enjoyable. We began the day, thankfully the least rainiest part of it, by going to the Boboli Gardens, which we were told were amazing. Even through the rain and clouds, you could tell what a beautiful place it was. We came, thankfully, before the tourist rush, and the rain for that matter, and walked through the beautiful gardens and fountains. There was also a great overview of Florence and the Tuscan countryside, which was great to soak in. It was a definite highlight of the week. With our ticket came admission to a costume and china museum, which was also very cool. The costume museum was kind of like a history of fashion and the china museum had a lot of interesting things. It was a very enjoyable morning.

We ate lunch and attempted to dry off over pasta before walking more in the rain. The Gardens were somewhat far from our hostel, across the Arno River, which is beautiful and had gorgeous bridges. We stumbled across an Opera museum, which was more of a museum that housed artifacts that had been stolen from Il Duomo, but were later found and placed in this museum. It was an interesting piece of history to see.

We went back to the hostel to change our jeans and socks before heading to the Vecchio Palace, which was filled with immaculate art pieces, which was gorgeous. We soaked it all in, before walking along the River and going across a very cool bridge that was not only a bridge, but had shops throughout. It was a bridge filled with JUST jewelry stores. Quite amazing that that much jewelry actually exists, but it was a very cool bridge. We ate dinner in the Palazzo surrounding the Vecchio Palace and went back to the hostel exhausted.

Thursday:
I was sad to leave Florence, especially since we were not there that long, however, we made our last day worthwhile. We got up early and had the same breakfast as the day before and checked out of the hostel, but left our stuff with them for the time being. Florence was a luxury because it was so small that our stuff could stay at the hostel and not be a pain to go back and collect later in the day. We decided to go to the Museo Academia—an art museum with its crown jewel being Michelangelo’s David. It was a nice museum to go through in the rain, because it of course rained this day as well. David was pretty cool to see in person. It was very large and somewhat moving. I can see why it’s famous.

We then went back to the hostel and got our stuff before having our last meal in Florence. We ate at another cute little Italian restaurant where an older lady who worked there immediately collected our umbrellas and put them in plastic bags. It was kind of a lost cause, as all our bags were soaking, but it was cute how she mom-ed us. I ate Florentine pizza (red and yellow peppers and salami) before sprinting to the train station to escape the rain. Our train was also late to Venice and it was another worrisome waiting period.

When In Rome...

Back from Italy today and had a wonderful time. It was quite an adventure for my two friends, Lauren and Maddy, and I to go to a foreign country on vacation without our families for the first time. Anyway, here are notes on my journey through Italia that I have broken down by city. Will post the other two cities tomorrow. Enjoy!

Saturday:
We began our journey by taking the Tube out of the city to London Heathrow airport to start our Italian adventure in Rome. My memory on Rome is slightly fuzzy, but I will do the best I can to remember all I can. The flight was fine, despite severe ear popping, but they served a “light snack” in the form of a delicious sandwich. Just FYI, British Airways has good food. Not yet brave enough to figure out Rome’s transportation system, we split a cab to our Hostel Alessandro in the middle of the city.

Our hostel was definitely meant for youths, as most people were our age and eager socialize. There were eight beds in a room with lockers to store stuff (that’s basically how hostels nowadays work—just dorm style living with limited amenities). Our hostel was also kind of a party hostel, with pub-crawls offered and a bar right inside the place. The bed was uncomfortable, so it was probably my least favorite hostel, but it was nice enough.

By this point, it was already late in the day and we were getting exhausted, but that didn’t stop us from exploring the area by going to a nearby piazza with a fountain for dinner. We found a cute little place and ate the first pasta dish of what would be many over the week. We did discover, much to our dismay and annoyance over our week, that Italian restaurants do not offer any type of free tap water. If you want water, its mineral water and it costs money. And, like Paris, all other soft drinks are very overpriced. We ended up buying water bottles that we continually filled up and carried everywhere. Anyway, we explored the piazza and went back to our hostel where we talked to this other girl traveling in Rome and then went to sleep.

Also interesting about Italy in general was that nearly everyone spoke English. It was similar to Paris, but English seemed just as predominant as Italian, even in the small city of Florence. It was convenient for us, but is kind of sad because they’ve adapted to English because of the huge tourist value of the place.

Sunday:
Our first day in Italy began with us taking advantage of the complimentary breakfast at the hostel. It was pretty disgusting—hard-as-a-rock bread, warm milk and cereal and bad coffee.

We decided to hit up the major touristy things first, so we explored the transportation system in Rome (much like any other subway system, but not nearly as smooth or easy to use as the Tube) and went to the Coliseum. The Coliseum was something that I guess had to be seen and it was kind of cool, but not a highlight of the trip. However, our ticket to the Coliseum came with entrance to the Roman forum, which was definitely a highlight of Rome for me. It was, to me at least, just a huge, ancient park that was so sprawled out and beautiful. I loved it. It was then that a few drops of rain began to fall. It was no big deal. What’s a few drops of rain? None did we know that this would be the first few drops of rain that would not stop for four days! We made our way through Italy defying the rain, but it did make the trip uncomfortable and was an inconvenience. More on that later I am sure.

Anyway, we went to lunch at Piazza Novana. Rome has some beautiful piazzas and fountains, but besides a few notable places, Rome was kind of just another city complete with all that cities have to offer—graffiti, pick-picketers, etc.

All the cities, but Rome especially, is filled with men trying to take money from unsuspecting tourists through the weirdest methods, like by offering women flowers for free, but then following them demanding money. We were warned of this early on, so we avoided it, but it was hard to watch others get tricked. Paris was even more like this, but it was hard to see in Rome. What they say about Roman men is true, if you were wondering.

Anyway, Piazza Novana was very pretty and close to the Pantheon, which was much less impressive than one would imagine. We actually walked in it just thinking it was another church before leaving then realizing it was the Pantheon. The Trevi fountain was nearby so we went there and all threw coins in the water and swore we would one day return. The fountain was not my style at all—much too flamboyant for my taste, but it was pretty spectacular. We took the subway to the Spanish steps, where we climbed every step and went into the church at the top in order to dry off a bit, although it didn’t help much. It is still pouring rain at this point, and had been all day.

Piazzas are kind of hard to judge in Rome because some of them were full of activity and things to do, but others were just squares with literally nothing in them but open space. We went to Piazza del Popollo, where there was nothing there, before heading to the Galleria Nazionale d’arte antica, or the National gallery of Ancient Art. I particularly loved the ceilings of all of them, which were covered in beautiful works. If you’re ever in Italy, wherever you go, you cannot forget to always look up wherever you are. We ate dinner at a cute little restaurant on a side street near the Trevi fountain before taking the Metro home soaking wet.

Monday:
Because of my good Catholic friend Maddy, we decided to explore Vatican City for the morning. I’m sure I was the only Jew to ever to go Vatican City. It was nice. I would have never gone there on my own, but I guess it was good to go to. The square was pretty and we went into St. Peter’s basilica, which was cool. To go to the Sistine Chapel we had to buy a ticket to the Museo Vatica (Vatican Museum) and walk through the entire museum to get to the Chapel. It was quite a scam in my opinion to make all of us walk through so many rooms just to see one room in particular. It was the walk that would never end, but I guess the Sistine Chapel was worth it, although it was kind of anticlimactic to be in there. It was pretty, but different than I imagined it to be. We got stuck in a tourist trap by eating at the Vatican Café across from the museum, which was terribly overpriced for just a sandwich and gelato.

We decided to take a nice long stroll, partly in the still pouring rain, to the Castel Sant’Angelo, which was a gorgeous medieval castle. Unfortunately, the museum part of it was closed, but the walk around it and through the park was lovely. The Fiume Tevere River, which runs through Rome, was near there so we decided to take a walk along the River to our final destination of the day. We crossed the Isola Bridge, which had a little island in the middle of it and got terribly lost (again). We actually didn’t need to cross the bridge to get the place we were trying to go, so we took a huge detour, but we saw some cool architecture, so it was okay. We eventually got to the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II where we were told a very cool panoramic view of Rome was. The view was quite beautiful. It was a great overview of Rome that was breathtaking. It was worth getting lost for.

Unsure of what to do next, we walked in the direction of the Trevi fountain because we wanted to see it all lit up at night. We ended up getting caught in the rain, so we stopped somewhere that we thought had dinner food, but didn’t, so we just had drinks and appetizers there. I had wanted to try Limoncello, which is an Italian lemon liquor, since I got to Italy because I love lemon. It was not very good and very strong. However, due to my terrible hand-eye coordination I proceeded to spill the entire 4-euro drink all over our complimentary, and delicious, bread and the table. It was awful, but I think it was meant to be.

We then had, in my opinion, the best meal of the trip. We ate at this little restaurant on the side street that seemed to be family-run. There was a little old man in the back with a younger guy watching over us—his only customers at the time. A lady came in at one point, apparently bringing in a dish she had just made. It was the perfect atmosphere for a nice, peaceful dinner in Rome. We ordered the meal deal, which many restaurants have, so it’s basically a pre-set menu with some choices for each course. I had white wine, spicy spaghetti (a current favorite of mine), veal with potatoes and salad. The veal was delicious, but I had veal again in Venice that wasn’t quite as good. The meal came with a fruit salad, which we were not too excited about. To our delight, the older man came over and told us that the fruit salad was “no more” and would we like tiramisu. We immediately said yes, and that was music to our ears as we ate the best tiramisu I’d ever had.

It was a great meal. The nice old man asked us about ourselves and we told him we were going to Florence and Venice next. He proceeded to say, in a very Italian way, “Venice is wonderful in June, July, August, not now.” It was hilarious. We said goodbye to Rome by waiving goodbye to the Trevi fountain and going to bed at our hostel for one last night.