La Bella Italia... Mama Mia!

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February 26th 2008

Published: February 26th 2008

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Euro Chica

Trip to Italy

View of the Alps from the airplane.

Buongiorno amici miei!

So, as I mentioned in the previous entry, the second half of my vacation was spent in Italy! On Thursday, February 14th (Valentine's Day, yay!), Sasha, Emily, and I arrived to a town called Pisa, located in the Tuscan region. In Pisa, we met up with 2 other girls, another Emily and Amy (also language assistants in Avignon). Emily and Amy were waiting for us at the train station, so we just dropped our bags there at the luggage storage, and went to explore Pisa for couple of hours, before heading to Florence. We didn't really plan on spending too much time in Pisa since it's a small town, and there isn't much to see, so we figured one afternoon would be enough. Since it was already lunch time, the first place we went to was a restaurant, recommended to us by a woman from Bed & Breakfast place where Emily and Amy spent the night. I was very excited because this was going to be the first taste of the authentic Italian cuisine, and I must say that the food was excellent, indeed! After our delicious meal, we headed to see the famous leaning tower. The

Pisa

The famous leaning tower in Pisa

tower was sooo weird, but yet amazing! We stood around there for sometime, took many crazy pictures, and then went back towards the train station to catch our train fro Florence. On our way to the train station, we had to find a "gelateria" to satisfy our authentic gelato craving. :-) It was funny to see that the only other people buying gelato at this time of year were American tourists....lol. While we were walking down the street with gelato in our hand, Italians would give us weard looks, because it's way too cold for them to eat it in the middle of winter, even though the climate there is pretty mild.

And then we finally arriver to beautiful Florence! In Florence I stayed at the hostel with Emily and Amy, while Sasha went to a hotel, and Emily (my roommate) went to stay with some people she met through the couchsurfing program. Our hostel was pretty nice. We were paying for an 8-person mixed dorm (the cheapest option), but since they were renovating some rooms, they gave us our own room, which was amazing. The hostel was also small, so we got to meet some people staying there,

Pisa

Girls and I in front of the leaning tower

and we hung out with them for a bit. That evening 4 of us grils (Emily, Amy, Sasha, and I) decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner and some tasty Tuscan wine because it was Valentine's Day, and we were in one of the most romantic cities in the world! For dinner I had a real Italian pizza, followed by tiramisu...ah, so good! On our way to dinner, we ran into a creepy old guy who came really close to Amy and smiled at her and said something in English, but she pretended that she was French, and then he said "je t'aime". We all got a kick out of it because we were previously joking about how we were going to meet handsome Italian men on Valentine's Day. Yeah... that didn't exactly happen. :P

The next day, Sasha and I went to the Uffizi museum, while the girls did their own thing that day. Uffizi was huge, and the art in there was very impressive... it was mostly Renaissance, religious art, which is my favorite. I took an audio guide to help me better understand the history behind the paintings I was seeing, since I have never

Florence

Gelato... a true taste of Italy! :-)

taken an art history course, but so wish I had. After our long tour of the museum, we went to this Michelangelo park, which is located on a hill, just above the city, and the view from there was spectacular! That evening, however, Sasha and I split up, and I went back to the hostel to meet with the girls. Since my phone ran out of credit, and I wasn't able to recharge it in Italy, for some reason, it was almost impossible to reach Sasha and tell her our plans. I tried to send her a message from on of the girls' phones, but it wasn't going through, so then we just headed out and went to dinner without her. The girls wanted to go to some restaurant which their guidebook had suggested, and since it was located on the opposite side of the city, accross the river, I figured it was the best that I couldn't reach Sasha, because I don't think she would have liked walking that far in the cold (and it got very cold that day in Florence). After walking for a very long time, we weren't finding this restaurant, or the street that it

Florence

Valentine's Day dinner with the girls.

was on, so we finally had to settle for the nearest affordable restaurant we could find, which was totally fine with me. I was actually getting upset because girls just insisted on going to this place because of their guidebook, and according my my experiences thus far, most restaurants have about the same prices on pasta and pizza, which is what we were shooting for, so I didn't understand why it had to be this specific restaurant... Anyway, once we sat down and ordered our food, I looked at the map, and I saw that the restaurant that we were looking for was actually in a different part of city. After dinner, we walked around some more to experience Florence by night, and then went back to our hostel to get ready for the next day.

On Friday early in the morning, we had another friend from Avignon, Nicole, arrive to Florence. She actually took a bus all the way from Avignon, which took about 10 hours or so to get to Florence. The poor girl was exhausted when she got there. At the same time, there were some complications with her housing in Florence, so she pretty much

Florence

Amazing view of the city from the Michelangelo park

had no where to stay, and was freaking out. So, then, we packed our bags, checked out of the hostel, since we were going to leave for Rome that afternoon, and we left our stuff with Emily's hosts. Nicole left her stuff with ours, and so in order to make her feel a little better, I walked with her around the city, while the other 3 girls finally decided that they wanted to see the Uffizi museum. There was still no news from Sasha, even though I sent her couple of text messages from Nicole's phone, which she actually never received, as I later found out. Nicole is a picture freak, just like me, so we walked around a lot and took many random pictures of different buildings, the river, bridges, etc. So luckily, our little tour had put her in a better mood, and it got even better when she received a call from Silvia (Italian assistant in Avignon, who lives in a small village near Florence), and Silvia ended up inviting her to come and spend the night at her village. Later on that afternoon, we met up at the train station to buy our tickets for Rome.

Florence

Sasha and I

There was a self-service machine, so Emily and Amy wanted to buy their tickects on there just to avoid waiting in line at the ticket counter. Emily went first and put in her credit card, and it seemed like everything went through except that there was no ticket! Freaked out, we went to the ticket counter and started arguing with the guy who just kept repeating in his thick Italian accent, "the ticket is in the machine." Finally, however, Amy and I bought our tickets there, and they gave Emily some piece of paper and told her to see the conductor on the train. Once we got on the train, Amy and Emily went to look for the conductor while I stayed with our bags, and just a few moments later, they came back with a grin on their faces, telling me that because of this misunderstanding, the conductor promoted us to the first class, where they actually served drinks and snacks, and had comfy seats!

After our very comfortable ride to Rome, we finally got there around 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Our hostel was very nice, even though we ended up staying in a 8-person mixed dorm

Florence

Admiring the view

this time. That first night it was only 3 of us girls in the room, and the rest were guys, which was fine until they started smelling really badly...lol. That same evening Emily, Amy, and I went and got some cheese, wine, and salami from the grocery store, and we just hung out in the hostel for the rest of the night, playing cards with some 19-year-old British guys who turned out to be pretty cool. The staff in the hostel was very amazing, as they created a very friendly atmosphere in the hostel, and even cooked dinner for us.

I finally got in touch with Sasha, so the next day I went to meet up with her at the train station before she was going to leave for Dubai. She told me to meet her at the "Body Shop," but the train station was huge, and there were many stores and restaurants, so it took me about half an hour to find her. I almost started freaking out, thinking that she was going to leave before I had a chance to say goodbye. So then, I finally found her, and we hung out at the cafe in the

Florence

Trying to make Italian gesture with hands... yeah...

train station for about an hour before she left. After that, I met up with the girls again and we went to a park and just sat there for a while, soaking up the sun, as it was a very beautiful day in Rome. We didn't want to do any real touristy things that day because we got strict orders from my roommate Emily, who had stayed in Florence for an extra night, not to go anywhere without her. So that evening we went to a nice restaurant near the Colosseum (which, by the way, looked magnificent at night), and then we went to meet up with Emily and Nicole to make plans for the next day.

Since the next day was a Monday, we were told to do our Vatican tour then, because usually less people tend to go there on a Monday. I don't know how true that was, but when we got there (and we went pretty early), the line was HUGE! We wanted start the tour by first visiting the famous Vatican museum. Oh, I was so overwhelmed with the beautiful art in this museum, and especially the art in the Sistine Chapel, painted by

Florence

They called me Audrey Hepburn

Michelangelo. The girls new that I was a religious art freak, so they let me wander by myself, while they pretty much breezed through all of the rooms. After a good couple of hours at this museum, all of us were pretty much exhausted, and then we decided to go out and find some food, before heading over to the St. Peter's Basillica. St. Peter's was also an amazing place to see! I just couldn't believe that I was actually there, in the same place where St. Peter was, and where a lot of the saints relics still remain... it was too much for me to take in. After a brief tour of the inside of the Basillica, we climbed the tower, since they were going to close it within the next hour or so. To climb the tower, you had to go up over 500 stairs, which was very exhausting, but so worth it in the end! From the top of the tower, you could see pretty much the entire city of Rome, and we got there just as the sun was setting, so the light was magnificent for the pictures. After taking some pictures, I hurried down to

Florence

The awesome looking Cathedral!

spend more time in the Basillica, while the girls stayed up at the tower for a little longer. So on our way from Vatican, we went to see the famous fountain, Trevi, and to throw some coins in it -- the legend says that the first coin you throw in is to fall in love, and the second one is to return back to Rome... we'll see how true that is. :-) After the fountain, we headed over to the famus Spanish steps, but didn't really get anything out of seeing it because it was already dark.

On our last day in Rome, we decided to visit the Ancient City, which includes the Colosseum and the Pantheon, among many other ruins, located on the hill above the Colosseum where Ceasar Augustus' palace used to be. We went up to the hill first where we bought the ticket to see those ruins, and which ticket also included the enterance into the Colosseum. It was interesting to see the ruins of Ceasar's palace, but except for the fact that he lived there, we didn't know anything else about those ruins. At one moment we were stoped by an American couple who

Rome

Colosseum at night

asked us about some of the ruins, and we had no idea. To make the matters more interesting, my roommate Emily confessed that she was a history major at the University of Michigan, and then she asked "what's so special about the Colosseum?"haha... it made all of us laugh. Soon thereafter, we descended down from the hill and headed to the Colosseum. After taking a bunch of pictures and listening to the audio guide on the Colosseum, we headed over to find the famous Lion from the movie Roman Holiday (with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck)... the legend (according to the movie) is if you are a liar when you put your hand into lion's mouth, the lion will bite it off. Afterwards, we headed over to an old Jewish neighborhood to eat a lunch, and then we visited the Pantheon and got some yummy gelato, yet again! :-) As every other night, we were planning on going out, but once we got to the hostel, it was just way too difficult to get out because all of us were pretty much exhausted (including Emily and Amy who are known as party girls). We did, however, make ourselves go out

Rome

Girls in the Vatican

to this very nice vegeterian restaurant on our last night in Rome and we splurged on some great wine and a nice meal. :-)

We left Rome around noon the following day (Wednesday, Feb 20th), and we flew into Lyon around 1:30. From Lyon we caught a train to Avignon, and finally arrived back here around 6 pm. The trip was amazing, and everything went well, except for the fact that my phone got stolen in the hostel in Rome, but I feel like it could have been worse. It was so nice to be back in Avignon, where I could relax and sleep in... :-) Within the next couple of days that's pretty much all I've done. I started going to the gym again, and it's been difficult going back, but I'm slowly getting back into it. I also taught one class yesterday at the middle school, and that went well, even though I wasn't really too prepared. Because of some general testing, all of my high school classes are cancelled this week, which is mostly where I teach, so I feel like I get another vacation... it's great!

So the next trip that I'm planning will

Rome

St. Peter's Basillica

be to Greece, hopefully. We get another 2-week vacation in April, which is right before I go back home. I will keep you updated on this.

Keep in touch!

Love,

Darija

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