Yes, I know this is going to be a book, but hey! I did it : )
Soooo I suck at not updating everyone. I said I wouldn't ever do that again, but look at me! Surprise, Surprise... So here I am updating it now. From the last time I wrote, I have been to the United States and back, as most of you know! Being home from the 2nd through the 14th was so nice. I loved seeing everyone, especially meeting my niece for the first time. She is just amazingly perfect, and I don't think I would ever get tired of holding her. But, all good things come to an end, and I had to fly back to Rome. Since then, I have been busy with school and making plans for upcoming trips. I'll start with Siena....
 |
| kisses for my little niece! |
January 28th - 30th, 2010
Siena & Florence!!!
My friend David and I took a trip to Siena and Florence. We left on Friday, the 28th, and took the train to Siena. We had to switch to a bus, but it was an awesome ride. The scenery in Tuscany is absolutely gorgeous. It looks like a painting. On that ride, I found out Tyler was born, too. We got dropped off at the train station, then had to find our way to our hostel. Siena is a completely different landscape than Rome. I had not walked up so many hills in my life. We eventually found our way after walking a half hour up to the city center. It was not like anything I had expected. A lot of Siena is all solid stone walkways and buildings. It was so much more quiet than Rome. I would walk on the streets and my boots would echo. We found the street our hostel was on, knocked on the door, and no one answered. We decided to just buzz ourselves in and walked up a couple flights of stairs. We knocked again, no answer, so again we let ourselves in. It was the cutest thing ever! Fabrizio, yes, his name was Fabrizio, had my name on a little sticky note saying that we were in room number 1 and breakfast would be served at 8:30 am. David and I opened our door to a quaint little room with an amazing view of the tuscany valley. It was so awesome! After dropping off our stuff, David and I went to the Duomo and city center. We went up to the panoramic view and got some amazing pictures, then went to the crypts and museum. We went out for dinner that night, woke up for breakfast, then explored the city a little more and went inside the Duomo. It was SO HUGE and had such a gothic feel to it. The frescos were amazing, as well as the top of the dome. We took the train that afternoon to Florence. Florence was so cold and rainy.. boo! But, it was still a really pretty city. David and I found a happy hour bar only 5 minutes from our hostel. Happy hours here are so much different than at home. In Italy, they consist of buying your first drink – sangria for me!, which was 8 Euros, then eating as much free food as you want! It was a very unique, culture filled bar, but such good food! My friends Courtney and Claire were in Florence for the day, so we met up with them later that night and got gelato. The next morning David and I woke up and explored. Our first stop was to see Michelangelo's David. You see, you are not supposed to take pictures of him. I don't know if it's because he is completely naked and huge, but I did anyway. Did I get yelled at “No pictures”, yes, but still, what are they gonna do? He didn't disappear, so I think I'm good. : ) After that, we walked to the Duomo and walked up Giotto's bell tower. This was quite the trek, but such great views of Florence. We went to this little pizza place by the duomo to eat, and when we walked down the stairs, we realized everyone signs their name on the wall.. so we did, too! Then we went to church at the Duomo and the priest asked us where we were from. David said Chicago, cause he is, and I just agreed because I didn't want to have to explain myself - the priest didn't speak very good English! After he got done talking to us, he handed me a basket to take up the collection. I thought I would just have to hand it to the next person, then they would pass it to the next. Nope. I had to walk to every person and every row to the very back of the church...which was quite a ways! Then, I had to bring it to this little room off the the side of the sanctuary. It was very awkward, but yet cool at the same time, haha. We then headed to cross the Ponte Vecchio bridge and walk around the shopping district. We ended up coming across a leather goods store = not good. David ended up getting a really nice briefcase and I got a super cute tan leather jacket. All adventures must come to an end, so we headed back to the hostel to get our stuff and then to the train station for the ride back to Rome!
 |
| on the bridge in florence! |
 |
| the panoramic views of siena |
 |
| the amazing carousel in florence |
 |
| the david!..see, told you! : ) |
 |
| view of florence |
February 18th - 20th, 2010
Prague!!!!
So, On Thursday night, the 17th, I am sitting in my friend Michelle's room and decide to check into prices and book Prague. It was a spur of the moment idea, but my roommate Courtney had already been, and wasn't sure when a time would be that I could go again. I booked my flight and was off on Friday morning. I met the girls, Michelle, Casey, Rebecca, Claire, and Anna at the airport in Prague, cause their flight got in a half hour after mine did. We checked into Mosaic House after a ride from the airport. It was so nice! Bar, restaurant, nice rooms... and also right by Charles Park, which was names after King Charles, who commissioned a lot of what was built in Prague. We were all hungry, so we walked around and explored Prague a bit. We ended up finding this whole in the wall Mexican place. We walked in and happy hour was just getting done (darnit!) Yes, Mexican in Prauge just doesn't seem right – BUT! It was the hands down best Mexican food I've ever had. I don't know if it was because I hadn't had it in so long or what, but it was absolutely delicious! The nachos we ordered had fresh cilantro and salsa, and the quesadilla was as equally amazing. That night we were going to go out, but everything is so spread out in Prague and it is really hard to find bars on your own. They have a lot of bar crawls because of this reason. We ended up walking around for 2 hours, seeing a lot of the city, but never finding a bar we wanted to go to until.... we found the biggest club in Europe – 5 stories of dancing! There is different music on every level. We were totally down for going in, but while we were standing in the huge line, this kid starts talking to us. We were like “Oh, what's going on here...why is it so packed?” He was like “Oh, it's our prom night and this is our after party!” We were all like oh my gosh, cannot believe: 1. They have prom here, too, and in February? 2. There is no way we are going to a high school prom dance snuck in by an 18 year old and his friends. So, we got in a cab and took it back to our hostel because there was no way we were going to find our way back through this crazy, confusing, beautiful town!
The next day we were all well rested, which we weren't complaning about, and got breakfast in the lobby of the hotel. We went on a free walking tour of the city. We started out in the Old Town Square and saw the the biggest and only astronomical clock in the world. Apparently the guy who made it never received any compensation for it. The only thing he did get was his eyes burned out, cause the Czechs did not want him making one for any other country. He got his revenge on them by having one of his friends go up in the clock and take out a piece of it that made it stop working for 100 years. I stopped and got some hot wine from a vendor on the street, which was so good! We then headed to Estates Theatre, where two of Mozart's Operas were premiered. Mozart loved Prague and would travel there often, because the people of Prauge respected his work. We went through New Town, where the National Museum of Prague is located. Our tour guide informed us that is pretty much a random, not worth it museum. The outside is gorgeous, but besides a few movies being filmed there, only a few rock and beaver exhibits are in there, haha. After that we walked past the Communist museum, then we stopped at Bohemia Bagel, which is a MUST in Prague, because they are amazing! I had a plain bagel with Philly cream cheese. Sooo yummy. You would not believe how hard it is to find bagels and cream cheese in Europe. Before the stop at Bohemia Bagel, we were told a legend of the Church of St. James. Here, a theif tried to steal jewels from a statue of Madonna. She grabbed onto his arm and would not let go. The next morning, a priest had to cut her grip loose of the thiefs arm. Right after this, she ironically let go of it. They mummified the arm and hung it in the church to the right as soon as you enter the doors. This is to warn other thiefs of what will happen if they would try the same stunt.
After being full from our bagels, we moved onto the Jewish Ghetto of Prauge. Here there is a statue displayed of Franz Kafka. He was known as a pessimistic and depressing Jewish writer who died of tuberculosis before any of his writing could be published. He instructed his friend to burn them, but instead he published many of Kafka's works, even though most were unfinished. We then walked onto the center of the Jewish Ghetto. Back in the day, it was a complete slum. This is where all of the Jews in Prauge, 92,000 people, were forced to live because they were banned from living anywhere else. 2/3 of Prauge's Jews were killed during the Holocaust. We saw the Old-New Synagogue, which is the oldest preserved synagogue in Central Europe, built in early gothic style in the late 13th century. It is believed to have been built from stones from the Temple in Jerusalem, and built "on condition", that the stones would be returned after the reconstruction of the Temple. The Jewish Museum in Prague is one of a kind. On the walls when you enter are the names of every Prague Jew who was killed during the Holocaust. There are also over 4,500 painted pictures by children who were in concentration camps. A Jewish teacher was secretly teaching the children while in the camps and had them paint to express their feelings of repression, depression, and sadness. She ended up being able to smuggle them out of the camp and preserve them. These are the last remnants that even prove these children were ever even alive. Also, the Prauge Jewish Ghetto was where Hitler started moving everything Jewish. He was going to make it into a museum of the lost Jewish community after World War II was over. Pretty sick if you ask me!
After this longgg, cold, snowy walking tour, I decided to do a walking castle tour next! The girls I was with were going to do it the next day because their flight left later than mine. The walk to the castle was quite the steep one, but once we got to the top, the views were amazing, as well as the castle! You could see all of Prague's city line, Charle's Bridge, The Hunger Wall, and the little Eiffel Tower. After taking all of that in, we headed up into the castel. Prague's castle is the largest coherent castle complex in the world, and has a very gothic look to it all. There is a toy museum also, which has a statue of a naked boy outside of it. This boy is known as good luck to become pregnant if you rub it, so you all know I definitely did NOT do that. Our guide told us that he'll see old Russian women rubbing it and their husbands are cringing in the background, lol. St. Vitus Cathedral is absolutely breathtaking. The intricate delicate details that are all part of this gothic structure are stunning. It took them many years to construct it. Because of the lack of engineering techniques back then, they would build a part of it and hope it would stay up. Most of the time it didn't, so they would have to start over again. After the whole tour, we stopped at Strahov Monastic Brewery. This is where award winning beer is brewed by the monks who live there. I had some of the special semi-dark lager, “Amber”. It was so cold out that I was just excited to get inside. I didn't get any pictures, which I'm still upset about. But, I guess it just means I have to go back now! I had to take public transportation to get back to the hostel, so that involved switching from the green line to the yellow line. You all know how I am at direction, so that was quite the stressful experience for me! That night we went to a bar crawl of a few different unique bars around Prague. We met some guys who were stationed in Vencenzia, Italy, so we hung out with them for the night. The next morning my flight was at 11, so I was off and back to Rome. It was a great, fun-filled weekend, full of beautiful architecture and crazy stories. I would definitely like to go back to Prauge sometime!
 |
| all us girls in old town square |
 |
| astronomical clock |
 |
| yummy hot wine! |
 |
| sooo cold! brrrr. |
 |
| part of the church in the castle grounds |
February 25, 2010
Today was Friday.. I had to go to one class today. My first friday class in like 3 years! It was pretty much pointless, like all classes... hehe jk. But, after that, I went over to Campo di Fiori and did a little retail therapy. I got some rain boots and a pair of heels, which were only 20 euros each. Then, I went to the market and picked up some fruits and vegetables and went to the grocery store, or as they call it here “despar,” for other things. It was gorgeous in Rome today. A little bit windy, but the sunshine felt amazing. After that I came home and made some risotto and took a nap. Woke up and studied for midterms and then made some dinner. Some of my friends were mentioning getting tattoos tomorrow, so I think I'm gonna do it. Courage in Italian is coraggio, so that's what I'm getting with a little cross at the end of it. While I do HATE needles, I'm gonna suck it up... I only live once! :)
February 26, 2010
So, today was a day devoted to studying and looking up places for mom and Aunt Janice when they come in April. Nothing too excitiing...BUT, I did get a tattoo. Yes, that's right, a tattoo. It's not in a place where anyone can really see in, unless I'm in my swimming suit. I got coraggio, which means courage, in Italian, with a cross at the end of it. I've been going through some downs in my roller coaster of life, so figured I would get it to get me through.. I absolutely love it! One of my friends was like “Oh, I love it! It looks really classy!,” lol... so I'm sure you will all like it as well. The whole experience was awesome. It was at this tattoo place called lucky signs and the guy who did it was so awesome. We just showed him what we wanted, and after 15 min of getting inked, I was done. The feeling I cannot even explain. It was like a pushing burning, which didn't technically hurt, it was just uncomfortable. I even laughed towards the end cause it just started to tickle, lol. After all that, my friend Betsi and I went out to eat in the Jewish Ghetto and then got gelato at this amazing place by the Pantheon. They have like over 100 flavors of gelato = heaven!
 |
| me checkin' it out..eeek! |
 |
| alll done! : ) |
 |
| see... coraggio=courage |
 |
| with our awesome artist! |
No comments:
Post a Comment