blackandgold

Florence, what a place to end a European adventure! Elyse and I traveled to Florence for a day and a half to wrap up our 11 weeks of European adventures, from London to Zurich, Dublin and Munich, we have traveled Western Europe and loved every minute of it! Florence, a short train ride from Venice, was our last stop and we were excited to see the art and Tuscany scenery. We arrived mid afternoon Friday and immediately went to the Accademia to the hottie with a body, David- and boy was he good looking! Michelangelo’s David is such an artistic icon, and obviously we had both studied him in many of our art history classes. But what I did not expect was his sheer size! As we walked into this huge, domed room, David rose above ... read more

The luck of the Irish may exist, but not when it comes to pub crawls. It is official- I am not meant to do a pub crawl! It’s just not in the stars for me- third attempt and third failed pub crawl. This time the problem wasn’t that our pub crawl no longer existed, or was randomly shut down, but that we were the only people on the pub crawl…..not fun! The pub crawl was “supposed” to be a super popular one, but I guess with it being December and all, nobody else was feeling like crawling. We had a really nice guide though who took us around on the crawl, and even though we headed home early (expensive drinks + not many people to meet), it was a pretty good time. We hit up a ... read more

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. The Colesseum was amazing, and the Trevi Fountain by night was truly spectacular (and yes, I threw my coin in!) My favorite part of the trip was my visit to the Borghese Gallery, which is ... read more

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 until things started to open. We started our day off with some shopping and then headed over to the Marienplatz, the main square in Munich, where we watched the 11am performance of the Glockenspiel. The Glockenspiel is ... read more

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 day with some beautiful cathedrals and churches with some great Titian frescos, then went and saw the Basicalla of St. Anthony, only one of my new favorite churches! Catholics pilgrimage to this site where St. ... read more