Catching up: Amsterdam and the Amalfi Coast

I'm going to write a quick post this time!  I've gotten behind on writing about my adventures!  I've had 2 trips in the past month: 3 weeks ago, I went to Amsterdam for the weekend, and 2 weeks ago, I was in the Amalfi Coast!
I went to Amsterdam with 2 other girls.  We got there late Wednesday night, and stayed through Sunday.  It's such an underrated city!  I LOVED it! It's beautiful, open, clean, and has a lot of stuff to offer.  We went to the Van Gogh museum on Thursday, and I loved it because he's my FAVORITE artist!  Friday we were able to go to the Anne Frank House which was unbelievably moving and a priceless experience.  We saw the Red Light District which was uncomfortable and degrading.  Definitely only stayed for about 2 minutes which was longer than was necessary.  We went to a Torture Museum which was weird, the Botanical Gardens, the Heineken Brewery, and some of the main squares.  It's a wonderful city, and I definitely want to go back some day!  Plus, I loved being with my Dutch people! 

The Amalfi Coast was a beautiful place, but unfortunately, it wasn't a terrific weekend for me.  It was cloudy and cold our first day there, but Capri is a beautiful, unique island, so it was great getting to see it.  Saturday we spent the day at Positano, but unfortunately, I was sick.  I went home at 6 and slept for the rest of the night :(.  Sunday we left Sorrento (where we'd been staying at this GREAT hostel) and stopped in Pompeii on our way back to Rome.  I'd been there before, but because of culture week, it was free entry!  So, we went in, and me, Tricia, and Nicole had a fun afternoon being goofballs around the city! 

I'm lucky to have been able to go on these trips, and so grateful for all the opportunities I've been given.  I have 2 weeks left in Roma, this week is finals, then my Momma and Mandi get here Thursday, and we have 10 great days together here before I'm on a plane back home!

Conquering Greece!

So, this past week was my spring break over here in Rome.  Some of my friends and I went to Greece with a student trip provider called EuroAdventures.  We went to Corfu and Athens, Greece for the week, spending the first 3 days in Corfu, then the next 3 in Athens!  The traveling was the worst part; we had to take a 3-hour train to Ancona, then a 12 hour "cruise" to some island in Greece, then an 1.5 hour ferry to Corfu, then a 30 minute bus to the Pink Palace.  But, once we got there, the view was beautiful.  My friends and I were all able to be in a room together, thankfully.  We spent Sunday afternoon on the beach with a couple drinks and great weather.  That night was the famous Pink Palace pink toga party!  My friend/roommate Tricia designed all our toga's for us and for quite a few other people.  It was a great dinner followed by some old-school hip-hop music for dancing.  Then, after an hour or so of dancing, they brought out traditional Greek dancers, there was plate-breaking, ouzo shots for everyone, a guy carried a table with a chair and plates on it around with his teeth, I had a plate broken on my head... just some general Greek craziness.  It was a fun night!
Our first full day in Corfu we woke up early to enjoy some morning sun, then we went on a booze cruise.  We stopped in a bat-cave where we were able to go cliff-jumping (which I did of course), then we went to a secluded private beach, then back to the Pink Palace.  On the way back to our room, it had started sprinkling, and I was running in flip-flops.  When I got to the top of the stairs down to where our room was, I slipped and fell down one or two stairs on my bum.  This resulted in the horrendous bruise on my butt that turned me into "Bruise Girl" for the rest of the trip. 

Tuesday, we were able to spend the whole day just relaxing around the beach and then, the hot tub when it got a little cloudier.  Ate a LOT of gyro's (one of my new favorite foods, with lots of tzatziki).  That night, we had one last dinner at the Pink Palace, had a few drinks then got on an all night bus-ride to Athens.  The heater broke on our bus about 2 hours into the drive, so we spent about 40 minutes in a parking lot freezing, where they managed to at least stop cold air from blowing out.  So, it wasn't a pleasant ride to say the least.   Got to Athens around 10 in the morning, checked into the hotel, chilled then went on a 2-hour tour to the main sites of Athens.  We saw the library, parliament, the guards, a park, the Olympic Stadium, and of course, the Akropolis.  We were able to just wander back, do some shopping along the way.  That night, we went to an 8 or 12 course meal with unlimited wine.  It was delicious and SO much fun.  Probably my favorite part of the whole trip.  After dinner we went to a club, but I didn't last out too long. 

The next day we wandered around the city again, got Pizza Hut (SO good!), and went to the Flea Market.  The flea market was composed of mostly normal type stores, so it wasn't very cheap.  Got a lot of gifts though.  We had one last dinner out with lots of traditional Greek food.  I went to bed early, I was BEAT from a crazy week!  The next morning, we got on a 3-hour bus, a 14-hour cruise, and a 3 hour train ride.  Finally, we were back in Rome sweet Rome after a long, but awesome week!

Random Roamings in Rome!

The past week has been full of random adventures.  Last week Friday, I FINALLY made it to the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Dome.  My friend, Ashley, and I started out the afternoon by climbing to the top of St. Peter's dome.  You can either take an elevator the first half and walk the second, or you can walk the whole way, 551 steps up.  We decided to walk the whole way.  It was so worth it though, spectacular views of Rome!  We spent a while up there taking in the view, then stopped at the souvenir shop on the way down which is situated right below the dome, about 3/4 of the way up.  Got some presents for people!!  When we got down, we were a bit more tired than we'd thought we'd be.  The Vatican Museum is situated about 10 minutes outside of the actual Vatican.  It's HUGE!  We spent at least 5 hours there.  I loved the apartments painted by Rafael, and of course, the Sistine Chapel.  It was smaller and darker than I expected, but still breathtaking.  We had walked for about 7 hours straight, so we were pretty exhausted.  We spent the evening relaxing and watching movies.

Saturday, it was a gorgeous day.  We checked out this park on the back side of Gianicolo Hill, laid out a blanket, and read and slept in the sun.  It was nice being able to actually hang out outside.  That night, we weren't planning on a night out, but we decided to go this bar just for a couple drinks.  We ended up meeting some British guys who were the band for the opening act for James Blunt!  We took them to this club Bloom, and we hung out for a while.  They told us they'd get us into the James Blunt concert the next day, and they totally did!  They put my and my friends' names on their list, so we got to go in for free.  We had awesome seats, then later in the show, they came and found us to get us After-show Party Backstage passes!!! AHH!!! So, after the show, we got to go hang out in their dressing room, chill, have fun, meet some of James's band members, and then they took us to look at their tour bus!  It was such a surreal night!  It was wonderful!

Then, Tuesday for my Art History class, we went to the ancient part of the port city Ostia.  It was cool that whole cities are so well-preserved.

Thursday was both St. Patty's day and the 150th Unification of Italy Anniversary.  It was quite the day for celebrating.  We focused on the St. Patty's aspect because the Italy Anniversary was more for families, and actual citizens.  We just went to a few Irish pubs, tried some green beer, and got awesome, tacky, huge hats for getting a Guinness!  I didn't last too long because the weather just wasn't cooperating, and I am not a fan of walking in pouring rain with my leaking boots and broken umbrella.  So, we took it easy the rest of the evening.

I must say it's been quite the random collection of events here in Rome this week!  Gotta love it!

CARNIVAL IN VENICE!

So, last weekend I went to Venice, Italy for their famed Carnival celebration (the period leading up to the season of Lent).  It's one of the oldest, longest running festivals in the world.  I went with a group of 8 people.  We flew out of Rome Thursday night, and got to Venice around 9.  It was incredible the first few views; you have an idea of what to expect from movies, but it's SO different actually being there!
We walked to our hotel, taking lots of pictures of our first glimpses of Venice on the way.  Our hotel was AWESOME, two rooms, 4 people to a room with HUGE beds.  Us girls got the bigger room with the pretty chandelier!  We dropped our stuff out and went out for the night!  Met some crazy people on the way.  We made friends with a group of people doing a "bridge crawl" where every time they cross a bridge, they took a drink (which is VERY often in Venice).  Then, at the square that was the party-place for the night, there was an outdoor DJ, and tons of people in crazy costumes.  I made friends with a girl in a full-on kangaroo costume!  Loved it!  Didn't stay out too late, though (relative to Rome at least), because we had a big day the next day!

Friday we woke up fairly early, had breakfast in the hotel, and made our way to San Marco, the famous square of Venice.  On the way we stopped for pictures on the famous Ponte Rialto (the big famous bridge).  I could have stayed all afternoon, but we made it to San Marco's.  It's the square where the pigeons will actually land on you, and it's right next to the water.  Thank goodness, it was way too crowded for any pigeons to land on me, I hate pigeons.  This was the main area for Carnival, so there were a lot of people in the most elaborate costumes I've ever seen.  They were gorgeous! We had bought some confetti on our way there, so we goofed off a little throwing confetti trying to take cute-sy pictures.  It sort of worked.  Then, we wandered off looking for a place to eat, and we went down this designer row street.  There was Chanel, Hermes, Gucci... I had to have blinders on because I just kept stopping to drool.  After lunch, we made our back to Ponte Rialto to go on a gondola ride.  The boys were too stubborn to stop and ask for directions, so we kept going in the completely wrong direction.  Us girls, contrary to the boys' assumptions, actually had a good sense of where we were and made our way around the city fairly easily.  So, we split off from them, and made our way to Ponte Rialto with only one wrong turn (in contrast to the boys' 3 wrong directions).  We'd stopped to get wine for the gondola ride, so the boys had beat us there and gone on a gondola without us.  Jerks.  BUT, it ended up working to our advantage.  Gondola's are priced by boat, and on the main canal, they can get pretty expensive.  Since it was just us 3 girls, it was pretty pricey, and we were debating whether or not to go.  Then, these 3 Americans who'd been waiting for people to split a gondola with asked if we wanted to share a gondola.  So, it was cheaper with 6 people rather than 4!  It was really fun and cute, our gondolier's name was Max.  He gave us a lot of information about Venice.  The people we shared the gondola with lived on the army base in Germany and were on vacation.  Then, after we got off the gondola ride and saw this guy wearing a cute sailor hat talking into a fancy camera.  After he was done, we asked him where he got his hat, and he let us each get a picture in it.  I asked him up what was up with the fancy camera, and he told us he's from New Zealand and he won a contest to travel the world for 3 months and document it.  Then, the guy who was with him, I asked if he was going with him, and he said no, he was from Australia, and he was just backpacking around the world for 9 months.  I was in love to say the least.  Then, us girls FINALLY got to go shopping for our masks!  We found this great store, and I wanted the most elaborate mask I could afford, but the full face masks were difficult to breathe in.  I found a gorgeous, half-face mask with feathers, so I was thrilled to finally have my mask!  On our way to San Marco's, we had passed some awesome sales, so after masks, we went shopping!  I got a pair of awesome, super comfy 10 euro shoes, a 5 euro watch, and some presents for Mandi, Ryan and Mommy of Murano glass which is unique to Venice.  We made our way back to the hotel before it got dark, and took well deserved naps.  We had one last crazy, fun night out in Venice, and I made sure to use the last of my confetti!

Saturday morning we woke up and checked out of the hotel and got our last glimpses of Venice.  We slowly made our way to the train station trying to get our fill.  Wish I could have stayed longer in the City of Sin, but hopefully, I'll get to go back!

True Appreciation

This is a post I started last week, and am just now posting.  I will put up one about Venice tomorrow!
It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, but I haven't really done anything terribly exciting since then.
 Two weeks ago Friday, I went to Pompeii for a day for a class.  It was SO cool!  Pompeii is the best preserved ancient Roman city because Mount Vesuvius (which is right next to it) erupted it and covered it in ash and debris which kept it preserved!  We spent the day there as a class walking through as much as the city as we could!  It was amazing!

Mostly, I've just been really getting to know, experience and appreciate the gorgeous city I'm in.  Last Saturday, I took the afternoon to explore Gianicolo hill, the area behind my residence.  It had such amazing views of the whole city, and it was one of the most perfect days I've had here even though all I did was walk, sit, read, and enjoy. 

The next day (Sunday) I FINALLY made it to the Vatican!  I wandered the Square, went and had a relaxing, solo lunch, then went back to explore St. Peter's Basilica.  It is honestly awe-inspiring.  To think men can believe in something so strongly that they can build such works with their hands is dumbfounding.  I met up with some friends then, and we attended Mass at the main altar in St. Peter's... no big deal.  I couldn't understand it, though, because it was in Italian, and my Italian isn't quite up to that level yet.

Since then, nothing exciting has happened other than just an absolute sense of appreciation for where I am.  It will hit me at different times that this is real, that I'm actually here, and I'm trying to keep that sense of appreciation with me all the time!