I am staying at a hotel just 15mins outside of the city of Florence. The Hotel Concorde. We arrived last night, and my sister and I got on a bus almost immediately to get into the city. We both ate calzones and watched street performers in one of the squares. It was neat, and we then met up with Ramy, Fransico and JP to try to figure out how to get back to the hotel...that took a while. Today was more interesting, however. We got up as a group and came into the city via our Italian bus driver Antonio. [View Full Entry]

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Before we made it to Assisi we had to stop in a pottery warehouse. I am not certain, but Sebastien said it had something to do with Antonio doing paperwork there or something...either way it was just a reason for the pottery people to get a bus load of tourists into their shop. When we got there a woman walked us around her warehouse and showed us examples of plates and mugs that they hand paint or whatever. Unfortunately for her, I had actually taken a ceramics class last year so I knew the stuff there was way overpriced, so [View Full Entry]

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ROME Europe » Italy » Rome By krstnhsy June 2nd 2007 kristen hoseyI like Rome but it is not quite what I expected. The Vatican is pretty neat. I thought that the Sistine Chapel was smaller than I expected but it still took my breath away. To me it barely looked longer than a basketball court...but the paintings were still stunning. Today I went to th [View Full Entry]

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Glass and silk. And apparently weird Marti Gra masks are the big things sold here in Venice. I did end up buying some Venitian glass...now I just need to make sure it doesn't get destroyed over the next 2 weeks! Yesterday, Tuesday May 29th So, we arrived at our 'London Hotel' sometime in the evening yesterday after our short stop in Milan. When we entered the area of our hotel Shan said she noticed a tkd sign on our way in. So, of course I walked up and down the roads looking for ever trying to find the daggum school, [View Full Entry]

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FINALLY! ITALY! This morning we left Switzerland and crossed into Italy! We just arrived into Venice a few hours ago (about 7pm) but we did have a short stop earlier today in Milan, aka: fashion capital. I personally did not find Milan too appealing compared to Lucerne and stuff, but there were two redeeming elements in my opinion: Piazza del Duomo and Castello Sforzesco. We were only here for literally 1hour and 15mins but my sister and I ran to the castle from the cathedral anyway. [View Full Entry]

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Okay. So I am going to make a trip to Germany and Switzerland! The Swiss Alps are soo beautiful! I loved it. Lucerne is a little expensive. The francs exchange better (1$=1.15franc) but it evened out with dinner being about 20-70francs! Soo: Sunday, May 27: We left Germany and crossed into Switzerland and went through the Black Forest, stopping at an area where they build coo-coo clocks. These forests are named this because they are where bandits used to hang out and ambush people. Also, I think some of the Brothers Grimm fairy tails were based on these forests...at least [View Full Entry]

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I really loved Germany! I will have to plan my own trip later and come back just to travel around Germany! We arrived in Heidelberg and walked around for a few minutes and then we hiked up to the hilltop schloss (this big, cool looking castle). It was neat. We only had about an hour, and then we walked back down to the city and crossed over the river to hike up philosophers trail. That was not that much fun. Shan got something to drink and I went into the gift shops and bought myself a book and a mug [View Full Entry]

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Amsterdam is crazy! We got here later on in the evening on Thursday May 24th. Our hotel was amazing, but I had a feeling that it was once a nursing home and my bed found its way there from a hospital...it definately was on wheels and adjustable. Some of us, including myself, went out that night. I got Mexican food (a salad) one road over from where we were dropped off and it took for-ev-er! Like two hours! So by the time we finally finished we had to go back to the hotel because the driver could only stay out [View Full Entry]

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Okay, so on our way to Amsterdam we stopped for like 2 hours in Brussels. We had a little trouble with the shop and restaurant owners though...like we got out of the bus and walked to a square, passing a statue of Don Quote, and went on to the statue of the peeing boy. Then, after a few quick photos I stepped into a gift shop to check out the outrageous prices and we all got yelled at for touching the stuff. So we left and Shan and I along with about 6 other individuals got lunch at a restaurant [View Full Entry]

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OKAY. So I realized that when I saved my last entry that it did not publish it, so now that I know my way around this blog I might get this out faster...maybe. Monday May 21st: Our tour group left London at 10:10am (London time duh) and we traveled to Paris via Eurostar (?), which is a train. We arrived at about 2pm Paris time (so we lost an hour and now I am 6 hours ahead of most of you guys) and checked into our hotel, the Avenir Hotel+9. From there I grabbed a quick bite to eat down [View Full Entry]

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