Italian Adventure

Bonjourno everyone!!

I tried to keep this short, but as you know I’m terrible at that plus I did SO much this week that it’s hard to narrow it down. Thanks for supporting me and reading my emails, someday you’ll get a reward for humoring me. Really though, thank youJ

Ok I love London and every week here has been so good for so many different reasons but this has definitely been one of my favorite weeks ever! A group of five of us left at 4:00 Wednesday morning and headed off for a four day trip to ITALY. We flew into Treviso airport and started off our adventure in Venice. When we got there we so badly wanted to go on a gondola ride but for 80 euros we decided it was good enough to take the water bus and just watch the gondolas go by.

 It was so cool to drive through the streets of water and see all of the buildings and houses just right on the water, it really is such a beautiful city! We went to St. Mark’s square and saw Doge’s Palace and went through the basilica and that was great. After that we just walked through the little shops along the water and of course double fisted gelato a couple timesJ. I’m not even ashamed to say that I ate more pizza and gelato this week than I have in my whole life. I kept a tally and all of us ended up eating at least 14 scoops of gelato within four days—disgusting right? It’s okay though, we were walking a minimum of ten miles every single day so I don’t even feel bad! It was so much fun just wandering around the city with no definite plans.

We ended up catching a train at 6:30 and headed up to Florence. I was so excited to have my first real train experience and it didn’t disappoint. The train was empty so we just spread out and relaxed. It reminded me of White Christmas and I broke out singing “Snow” but nobody knew what I was talking about so I just looked like an idiot. It was a great way to get across the country though! I loved Venice, it was a quick trip but we got a taste of it and I hope I can go back in the summer sometime in my life and have a gondola driver/accordian player to take me around the city!  The first day was definitely a success and I was so excited to spend our next day in Florence.

I’m obsessed with FLORENCE!!! Our first priority in the morning was to see the David. We found a good pass for the Accademia and Uffizi that let us skip the lines-so worth it. The David was even more amazing than I was expecting and Ufizi was one of the best galleries I’ve seen. It started off so great when we were standing at the entrance going through security and we saw a group of missionaries. We were all so excited to see them and were going to say hi when I heard “LeAnn?” I turned around and my friend Chris Middleton was standing there!! It was so crazy, I forgot he was even on his mission there and I couldn’t believe the odds that I would see him! I loved it though, it made me so happy! The gallery itself was so impressive plus I saw Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus”—so great. After the gallery we went and climbed the Duomo.

Even though it took going up 400 something stairs it was one of my favorite things. It’s such an incredible view and Florence is such a beautiful city, I could have stayed up there forever. But the rest of the day was so fun with markets, dinner, more gelato, the Piazelle de Michelangelo and the carousel.  So far Florence is one of my favorite cities in the world.

Friday was another exhausting but great day!

We got up to make the 5:00 train to Rome-Hogwarts style baby, complete with our own private room. The travel time wasn’t bad and we made it to Rome by 8:30. I was pleasantly surprised by Rome, it is so much more cityish than I was expecting. Ruins on one side of the street; giant train station on the other. It’s crazy! You come out of the subway and bam-there’s the Colossum!

So we walked through that, the Forum, Palentine Hill and it was all amazing to think how old everything is and how much has happened there! We also got to see Capitol Hill, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps and make a wish in the Trevi fountain, it was such a successful day!

Our next day was just as good, all day in Vatican city. And yes, I have now seen the Sistine Chapel!!! It seriously is AMAZING! I know I use that word a lot but it really is the only one good enough to describe so many of the things I see here. So sorry for my lack of vocabularyJ. But Michelangelo sure can paint, I just stared at “God creates Adam” for literally 20 minutes, ah I loved it! I also went in St. Peter’s basilica which was so cool because I remember spending so much time on it in my art history class. After Vatican city we spent the rest of the day outside.

Of course our last day was the best weather; the sun was out and it was warm, we couldn’t have asked for a better day. I kept thinking of Groundhog Day when Phil toasts to Rome-the way the sun hits the buildings in the afternoonJ it really is so pretty though, I’m a big fan of Rome and am so excited to spend more time there someday!

I’ve seen and learned so many new things this week:

A) Many men in Italy have no shame, if they want to stare-they will.

B) Don’t fall for the tourist scams no matter how much they compliment you.

C) Don’t let strange men tie bracelets on our wrist-they will follow you and try to charge you 18 euros.

D) Nuns are everywhere and if you don’t watch where you walk you are bound to bump into one, nearly knock her over and feel so guilty.

E) 14 scoops of gelato in four days WILL make you sick

And F) Traveling with very few plans and a list of “must do’s” is SO MUCH FUN! There were some close calls and a few times where we were a little worried but we were definitely being watched over and everything worked out perfectly! It’s been a long tiring week but I had the time of my life just backpacking through Italy with four of my friends.