Rome and Home

Hello all!

Rome was really nice-- we did the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Forum, the Vatican, and all the places in between. Jill did a wonderful job of planning a trip for 3 people who were totally over traveling at that point!

My pictures are really nice....

Unfortunately, I won't be posting them (until further notice) because the airline lost my luggage-- including the cord to upload my pictures!

My bag is either in Dublin or Rome... maybe Paris-- so I'll post pictures and stories if I ever get my bag back!


I'm glad to be back in America!! I've missed air conditioning and my blackberry so very much!! And my family of course!

Ciao!!

Oh, and never go through the Rome airport or use Alitalia-- they're both absolutely awful!!

[insert joke about how nice Nice is here]

Bonjour!

Nice was fabulous. I kinda want to turn around and go back (oh except traveling SUCKED-- it will be a very long time until you ever see me on a train again!)

But Nice was great-- you all know what a beach bum I am. I was loving it there...

We stayed at the Villa Saint Exupery... rated the number 1 hostel in France (founds fancy-- not really).

They have this shuttle service where they pick you up from a tram stop every 10 mins- which was super convenient since the hike up to the hostel would have been intense. One caveat- by entering this van you were taking definitely risking your life. The van showed many many signs of accidents before us and the drivers probably just got their permits a week ago or something! Speed limits were clearly guidelines, not so much laws...

the hostel entrance

bunk beds! hahaha. oh hostels
but we did have this great view from the room
"the chapel" for 1 Euro beers
Yay- the beach!

Rocky beaches are kind of cool!
Not so comfortable when you're laying on a towel but at least you don't get sandy

Also lots of topless women (99% fat and old) and men in speedos (99% fat and old)

The next day we took the trip over to Cannes

The theater where they have the film festival in May

And the beach! Lots of yachts and cruise ships out in the water. Oh and lots and LOTS of people on the beach

Yeah... lots of people!

Okay, so like I said. Trains suck. I'm totally over them. The train we were planning on taking was booked so even though we were at the train station by 7, we had many many hours before we had to be at our connection train to Milan. So we threw our stuff in lockers and took another walk to the beach and around Nice...


So... we hit up McDonalds.... soooo very American of us, I know. But I did keep it Euro-style by getting a beer (for the same price as a Coke) with my Value Meal (I have soooo fallen off the vegetarian wagon!!!)



We had to take 3 trains to get to Rome... slightly better than than from Venice to Nice (4 trains) but still pretty awful since we don't travel light....

they're smiling- but they don't mean it!
and here we are trying to make the best out of a crappy day by drinking some wine
don't worry--- 11 hours later we made it to Rome!


Miss you all (I mean it!)

xoxoxox

"Calling Florence 'Firenze' Is Just So Pretentious"

Florence

Thanks to some wonderful planning by Jill we stayed at this great little hostel right in the center of Florence...

First off was the Duomo

Besides that ceiling, The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore--- aka the Florence Duomo--- was actually kind of unimpressive. So we figured we could climb to the top of the Duomo for the view.

463 steps to the top.

dying...

The trip up was brutal. The only way up is the stairs, but some of the steps weren't so much "steps" as they were ladder rungs! There should be a warning that climbing the Duomo should not be attempted by anyone that's out of shape orrrrr claustrophobic.

Towards the top we were singing 'eye of the tiger' just to keep us going.

But the view was worth it.

some extremely steep steps down

yayyyy we made it!!!

then we just went exploring


Ponte del Vecchio

the church with the tombs of Dante, Gallileo, and Michaelango

We stumbled upon a bar, heard some loud music, and thought, 'that place seems fun!' so we went in and got some drinks.... then we found out that the bar happened to be "The Most Popular North American Bar in Italy".

Figures!!
"We're so American and we didn't even know it!"

Russ and Jill doing some karaoke!

more [drunken] exploring. (although this time we were TRYING to just find our hostel for 45 mins-- the next day we realized our hostel was about a minute from the bar)

Tuscany

Okay, call us lame, but we signed up for the Best of Tuscany Bus Tour. And it was the best money we've spent yet!

our very adorable tour guide

Siena

The people of Siena are extremely extremely rich. But they don't like to show off... so they used the most expensive marble in the world... on the floors...

before entering this room with all the frescoes, we were more or less asked to breathe as little as possible to avoid harming the artwork

Siena is divided into 17 "contrades" (just individual neighborhoods) indicated by plaques on the walls with their mascot animals...



our bus driver stopped along the road so we could get out and enjoy this field of sunflowers

a close up

and a view of the millllions of sunflowers in the field

San Gimignano [pronounced san jim-me-ya-no]

Then we had lunch at an organic farm/winery

olive trees

We met some very friendly cows that liked to be petted and fed by hand....

Then we had lunch.
Everything we ate was produced on the farm...

So yeah, Jill had to talk me through lunch...
I mean we had JUST met the nice little cows... and I was about to eat their
brother/cousin/mother. But Jill convinced me that the cows lived better lives than we did- they slept all day and had a view of the mountains and hung out on a lake.... we study all day and live in Winston-Salem and hang out at Opera House. She made her point. And lunch was delicious.

With each course we got another bottle of wine (which we decided would be split among the 4 of us). There was so much food and wine we couldn't keep up (okay, almost couldn't keep up)

Jill would later regret chugging the last of Tiffani's wine before we left!

Then off to the center of town- called the Medieval Manhattan because of all the towers.



Okay, if you've been keeping up with the blog you know I have a slight obsession with gelato.


We got the best gelato in the WORLD in San Gimignano. No really. World Champions for real...

I got chocolate and pistachio... the cocoa beans were shipped in from Venezuela and the pistachios were from Sicily!

Pisa

the obligatory corny Pisa picture!

anddd other people looking funny doing the obligatory Pisa picture!

Back to Florence

Okay so Day 3:

The Boboli Gardens

I really wish we had seen the "water not fit for drinking" signs beforeeee we saw this awesome fountain thing....don't worry- the water tasted funny so I spit it right back out!

Then after dinner and bottle of wine #2 for the day, we made our way to Piazzale Michaelangelo to catch the sunset and get another good view of the city. By 'made our way', I mean hiked up a freaking mountain. Florence was definitely a good quads workout.

Here's a fake candid we took while enjoying bottle of wine #3

And then we got bottle #4 for the hike back down!

Which of course was followed by bottle #5!


Sorry for the million pictures and not so many stories but Florence was way too beautiful not to post all [or 1/3 of] the pictures!


Today we handed in our finals so we are officially done with class! Tomorrow is our last day in Venice and then we are off to Nice (pronounced niece) to be lazy at the beach-- maybe hit up Monaco for the day (?), then Rome, then home!!!

I'll try to keep updating but I don't know if the hostels will have WiFi! I'll do my best

Miss you all --- Ciaoooo!!!!