So Elyse and I spent our first weekend apart since Europe…seriously the first time we have been apart for more than an hour since we arrived here! So while Elyse spent the weekend relaxing and exploring Venice, I went off to Rome with some other people from our class. Here’s the lowdown on my Roman excursion!!! The good, the bad and the ugly: The good- Rome is officially tied with London and Paris as my favorite cities in Europe so far! It has so much history and meshes the ruins of Ancient Rome with the modern city in a beautiful way. [View Full Entry]

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Barcelona was crazy! You definitely need to have a lot of energy for that city! Our entire visit it was in the 70’s and sunny, so we completely lucked out weather wise. We hiked up a lot of hills (sadly we weren’t able to hike through the foothills of Mount Tibidabo and see a woman…. and she was crying…) and we were completely exhausted at the end of each day, but we still experienced the nightlife Barcelona-style! Our first day we climbed Montjuic (part of the way!) where we then took a funicular to the top of the mountain to explore [View Full Entry]

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Lederhosen. Weiner sausages. Oompah Bands. Welcome to Deutschland! Let’s start at the beginning: Elyse and I caught our first night train from Venice to Munich on Thursday night. We had our own beds, which were super comfortable as opposed to having to sit in a stiff seat for 7 hours! We arrived bright and early in Germany, where we met Samantha and grabbed some Starbucks (any European that has a Starbucks is automatically one of my favorites!) We headed out to explore the city…too bad the city didn’t open until practically 10! So we spent some time wandering around unti [View Full Entry]

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So I just returned from an incredible weekend in London, and I’m already ready to go back! Not only did I get to spend an entire weekend surrounded by badass British accents, but I got to actually understand what they were saying (a real luxury I’ve learned to treasure in the past month!) We also got to enjoy some American favorites…beer (we were getting a little wined out in Italy), Diet Coke (no more Coca Cola Light!!) Starbucks (enough said!) and fried food (yay grease!) So we arrived in London on Thursday evening and we easily found our hostel which was [View Full Entry]

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So last week we got a new glimpse of Italy in the small, university town of Padova, which is only about a 30 minute train ride from Venice. The visit was a day trip with our class organized by our professors, so we weren’t sure how fun it would be. We headed out early, oblivious to the fact that we were going to have one of the best days in Italy so far! Needless to say, we absolutely loved Padova! For one, it was completely gorgeous- an urban, university setting weaved together with ancient ruins and beautiful gardens. We started the [View Full Entry]

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Aqua alta hit Venice for the first time during our stay last week and the city went underwater!!! (well, kind of!) We got rain for the second time since we've been here (who said Venice always rains???) and the city flooded a few inches. We went over during the afternoon to hit up the Museo Correr and the water had pretty much receded, but the lowest part of the city, the Piazza San Marco, was still a little flooded and we got to splash around in our rainboots for the first time! It was definately an experience! At some parts of [View Full Entry]

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Verona, our first weekend trip of the semester, was incredible! We caught a 10:00 am train out of Venice and arrived in Verona a little after noon. It was our first train ride over here in Europe, and it actually went surprisingly well! Once in Verona, we grabbed some pizza (sadly, we were kind of craving true Italian food since mediocre cafeteria food is pretty much all we get) and set out to explore the city. The city is so beautiful and completely different than Venice. For one, it’s a more metropolitan city with a gorgeous, pedestrian only, historical center. It [View Full Entry]

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Defintion of Vaporetti Style: Where you get liters of wine for 2 euros and drink them while you are waiting for the sllllooowww water bus to arrive, and because you can just do that kind of stuff in Italy :) Brrr Im freezing! It has been so cold here the last few days. The beginning of my trip was glorious- 75 and sunny everyday. Then all of the sudden it got down to like 45-50 and windy! We definately did not pack the right clothes, anticipating that it would only be like this near our end of our trip (thats what [View Full Entry]

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The first week in Venice has been such a whirlwind!! Even though I’m in one of the most beautiful cities in the world on what would seem to be a 3 month long vacation, I’ve felt like I haven’t had a spare minute this entire week! With classes, readings and class tours of the city, I haven’t had much time to explore the city for myself. However, this weekend Elyse and I have been taking it easy, catching up on homework (this is definitely not a slack off study abroad program!) and “attempting” (this being the key word) to explore the [View Full Entry]

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Ciao from Venice! I have to admit, flying into Venice from Paris (no free movies this time!), was quite an experience. Breaking through the clouds and just seeing water with tiny islands sprouting up, was simply amazing. Elyse and I got seperated seat wise on the plane; however I ended up sitting next to an awesome older guy who was heading to a silent film festival just north of Venice. He had been there every year for the past 10 years, and he had traveled around Europe a bunch. The lady on the other side of me looked like she was [View Full Entry]

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