Our journey began in Roma; Marisa, Brigette, Denise, and myself. I can’t say my knowledge was vast on the subject upon arrival, to be honest a big chunk of it came from the Lizzie McGuire movie (thank you Disney.) We stayed there for about 2 days visiting the most touristy sights and being annoyed by the tour groups. I’m just going to say: at no point in my life will I ever be a part of a tour group in a city. While I realize that I was a tourist there is a vast difference between being a tourist and being part of a tour group. I refuse to follow a woman with an umbrella or flower held high in the air while she speaks to me through walkie-talkie sending bits of information through an earpiece while we block up the road. Maybe I’m just too prideful for that or maybe I just refuse to lose my dignity in such a god awful way, either way I’m discovering cities on my own.
Anyways, after getting off the overnight train, which was an experience in itself, we dropped off our backpacks (yes, we all only took just one, incredible, I know) at our hostel. The Yellow hostel was my first hostel experience and I can’t complain. It was trying way too hard to be cool, playing top 40 hits as we paid and received our keys, but it was very accommodating and relatively clean. We started off the tour of Italy in the Vatican, touring the church and completely missing the Sistine chapel. We saw the Pieta and the incredible architecture before heading off to the Pantheon. In case you weren’t aware, it is election time in Italy and so we walked through a rally in front of the Pantheon on our way inside. To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed with it. Maybe because I didn’t know too much about it, but we went and saw Donatello’s grave.
Our first Italian lunch was at a small Trattoire where the waiter was admittedly hung over but very friendly. We shared two pizzas and explored the ancient aqueduct in the basement. The Trevi fountain followed which was what I was most excited to see. It was swarming with tourists and men trying to sell worthless toys. We threw our obligatory coins in the fountain, one promising a visit back to Roma and another granting us a wish. I’m not entirely positive but I’m relatively sure that three of the four of us wished for the same thing. Who goes to the Trevi fountain single and wishes for anything but true love? We found our way to the Spanish steps that were covered in people, thousands of people, just sitting. Marisa, Brigette, Denise, and I joined them for close to 30 minutes. A short pause at the hostel and then we found a small trattoria for a mouth watering dinner.
Day two commenced with the Colosseum, the most amazing place in Rome. I can’t even begin to describe the grandness of it, but just know that it’s INCREDIBLE. The rest of the day was spent wandering the streets looking for a movie theatre where we could sit for more than 50 minutes and enjoy cin cin cinema. To no avail did we ever find the place we only increased the size of our blisters. Dinner was amazing, Gnocchi is my favorite food I’ve decided.
Day 3 (this entry will now become more list like with side notes.)
Sistene chapel- incredible, I got goosebumps I also ran into a friend from UK who is studying in Spain, what are the odds?
Train to Florence, my favorite city.
Met Brigette’s roommate
Explored the city, which was less touristy but still filled with high schoolers that seemed to be following us everywhere we went.
Incredible dinner, as usual.
Day 4
Florence market, incredible sandals purchased. Real Italian leather, real gangster.
David- magnenemous
Dinner with Tiramisu, my favorite desert of all time. I forgot to mention that every day there is at least one cone of gelato, true story.
Day 5
Uffizzi. I made a brochure for the Uffizzi in middle school, never thinking I’d ever go there. It was pretty cool, I loved the Botticelli’s but besides that I wasn’t too impressed.
The group split up and Denise and I wandered into a café where we sat for hours playing sudoku, talking, and reading. At the time I was reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I would highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone. I actually ended up buying it for myself after an incident involving applesauce and a borrowed copy. In short the author spends a year living abroad, four months in Italy, four in India, and four in Indonesia. Pretty much she writes a story about my life, well not exactly but I feel like we have a lot of the same sentiments. In the book she talks about everyone having a word to describe them, just one word. I searched for my word for a long time, one to describe me in a purest sense. I found it while sitting at the café reading and being harassed by a homeless man who was later forcefully removed from the premises.
For dinner Marisa, Denise, and I went to a place across the street from our hotel where we were serenaded by an accordion and I ate the most delicious spaghetti of my life. Al dente with tomato, garlic, and chili flakes. Mmmmmmmm.
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Day 6
Left Florence after taking obligatory silly photos in from of the Duomo.
Train to Venice.
Checked into our hotel in Mestre, only a busride away from the island. It was a 3 star and only 20 euros a night, complete with CNN and MTV Italy.
Dinner at an Oyster Bar that we liked to call TGIVenice.
Day 7
First day of Venice Tour. I’ve never been in a more confusing city in my life. It was picturesque but practically impossible to get anywhere on a schedule. We visited the Guggenheim, which is frankly the best museum I’ve ever been too. The air was stuffy and the rooms were packed but it was the house Peggy Guggenheim (just because I say her name don’t think I know who she is, I have no idea) and it was filled with modern art that I adored. There was an entire room devoted to Pollock. Other artists included Dali, Picasso, and Picabia. I nearly died when I saw the one by Picabia, who is a dadaist, and i love dadaism. On the way home we ended up missing our stop and riding the bus back to the depot where we saw a man who was in the process of being arrested, be released and walk toward us as we were being told by a man who didn’t speak English that the last bus had run and there were no more until 5 a.m. We clutched each other and ran to a hotel where the concierge, who spoke English, pointed us in the direction of the train station. We bought tickets for a train scheduled to leave in 8 minutes and sprinted to the platform where we waited for about 5. Looking back it was a bit comical.
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Day 8
Went back to the island to finish exploring that seemed to be only inhabited by tourists and shop owners. Our train left at 10 p.m. so we wasted a lot of time at cafes and restaurants. One of which was a pizza place called Alla Strega which reminded me of Strega Nona, one of my favorite books when I was younger. This place had the best pizza I have ever tasted. There had the widest variety and the weirdest combinations. I ended up ordering the Diabolic, which included onions, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms (this is the only time I’ve enjoyed mushrooms, I usually LOATHE them with the passion of a thousand blazing suns) and brie. I was sold on the brie.
Day 9
Wake up on the night train where Denise and I shared a compartment with a man who may have been in the mafia but was the nicest French/Italian speaking man I’ve ever met and a soccer player from Luxembourg who smelled like sweat and urine. We finally got back to Aix a little after 12 where we shared a bus with Irina, a friend from IAU who I adore. She’s probably one of my favorite people I’ve met since being here. We talked about her trip to Cannes and my upcoming trip to Dublin (I leave tomorrow.) When I finally made it to my house I set up a towel on my terrace and sunbathed for hours, leaving my back lobster red (although not quite as bad as last spring break in Alabama, Jennifer remembers…)
Tomorrow morning I leave for Nice where I’m meeting up with Katy and her mom (YAY) and spending the day eating gelato on the beach. We’re staying at a hostel where they have a never ending cereal bar with every flavor, including Nutella, and in the morning we depart for Dublin where we will learn Irish jigs.
