I have been in Florence for 3 months studying abroad and I am learning a lot about myself. I cannot believe this experience is coming to a close. School is keeping me busy as well as trying to figure out how to get everything home. Projects for school are this week and next week and then finals are in 2 weeks. This weekend I am exploring Florence, since I didn't really do that in the past 3 months. Saturday I am going to Venice and Sunday I think I will go to Pisa and Lucca. Then next weekend I am going [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 Me and my roommate, Caryn and our friend, Ben, on our abroad program went to Paris this past weekend. We flew into Paris Friday morning through AirFrance. We got in around 9:30am but we spent 2 hours in traffic on the way to the hotel. I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep so i was frustrated but once we were out of traffic it was fine. We got to the hotel, we stayed at Le Meridien. It was very very nice and everyone was so nice to us and helped us out a lot. The rooms were also [View Full Entry]

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I'm taking a wine and food pairing class in Florence. For the class we were able to visit a Chianti vineyard. We had to take a bus and it was about an hour bus ride to the vineyard. We toured the vineyard, it was a nice Fall day so the colors were amazing. We then got to taste 3 Chianti wines, 1 was the basic Chianti, the second was a 2006, and the third was a super Tuscan Chianti. The second wine was my favorite so I bought two bottles, one for my mom/myself and my dad. I also bought extra [View Full Entry]

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My roommate Megan and I heard there was a Beatles cover band on a Monday night at a bar that we frequently go to. It was mostly girls because it was sponsored by Bus2Alps, which is a travel program for students abroad that takes care of transportation and hostels. Megan and i were so exhausted that night, we only were there for half of the set. We ran into my trip leader for Prague and played darts with him and another Bus2Alps guy while waiting for the band to start. We also got invited to play darts with, at the time [View Full Entry]

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The weekend after Fall Break, me, my roommate Caryn, our friend Abby (from our program) and another friend Matt went to Ravenna, which is about an hour and a half from Florence. We took a train which was not that expensive. When we got there it was confusing on which way to go first. We eventually figured out where to go first to buy tickets. We bought tickets for all 4 places to see the mosaics, but they were not all connected. The first place we went was a courtyard and then we went to a church filled with mosaics. It [View Full Entry]

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We came back from Madrid on Tuesday so we still had a couple days of Fall break left. Me and my roommate decided to go to Milan for the day. We took the train and it took about 2 1/2 or 2 hours and 45 minutes to get there. Once we got there, we went to the Duomo in Milan. It was very pretty, I think it was better than the Duomo in Florence, but just the front of it. We didn't get to climb to the top. Instead, we spent a few hours trying to decide what we wanted to [View Full Entry]

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We left Barcelona Sunday and got into Madrid around 4. We flew Ryanair again, but it was much more organized and I liked the Madrid airport much more than Girona. Our hostel in Madrid was harder to find but it was very clean and there was a bathroom in the room. There was also free internet like in Barcelona. Again breakfast was included, but not really. There was a Starbucks directly next to our hostel so we just ate there for breakfast. Madrid was very similar to Barcelona, but not as crazy. We met up with one of my roommate's friends [View Full Entry]

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For the first 3 days of our fall break we spent it in Barcelona Spain. We flew Ryanair from Pisa to Girona, I suggest not taking Ryanair. They offer extremely cheap flights but for a reason. You have to print out your boarding passes ahead of time, if you don't it is a 50 euro fee so make sure to do that if you book through them. Also, there are no assigned seats which would be fine if it was in an organized way to get to the plane. However, about an hour before the actual flight and boarding time people [View Full Entry]

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A last minute trip was to Perugia. We just took the train from Florence, it was about 2 hours or so, not too bad. It was a very pretty train ride too so it went by fast. Once we got there, we had to follow a tour group because we had to take a bus and there were about 5 different routes that they were going so we just tagged along. After we got off the bus, it was quite a walk to the actual festival. The festival only lasts 2 weeks and we went the last week. Perugia is where [View Full Entry]

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A couple of weeks ago we went to the Boboli Gardens which is connected with the Pitti Palace but we didn't go into the palace that day. We stopped to get a few sandwiches and ate them in the Gardens. The Boboli Gardens are open and uphill so it was a little hike to the top, and along the way there are paths to either side to explore further. A person could spend all day in the Gardens exploring statues, monuments, and just walking around. There are bunch of little museums connected to it too, but we didn't go into those. [View Full Entry]

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