Spring Break in Italia!

I have a lot to write about for Spring Break so here we go!

Day 1:
On Friday I left for my flight to Rome. I went with four other girls from my program. I took the train to Gatwick airport and was ready to board our plane at 3:05! My flight actually got in 30 minutes early to Rome, which was nice! We took a shuttle straight to the Alessandro Downtown Hostel. The hostel was pretty nice. The people were very friendly and most of the people staying there were our age. We stayed in a bedroom that was for 6 people so one person in the room was a random person we had never met. The person ended up being good though! He was from Sicily, Italy and had studied in Florence for his undergraduate so we were able to ask him questions about what we should do in Florence. After we got settled into our room we left to find some pasta! We ate at a cute little Italian restaurant and I had lasagna and a glass of red wine. The rest of the night we planned what we were going to do with our time in Rome.

Day 2:
Our first day out exploring Rome was fun! We got up early and got ready for the day and then bought tickets for a bus tour around Rome. The bus was a hop on and off as you please tour so we got to get off and see whatever we wanted to! The weather was gorgeous in Rome! Sunny and warm! I was able to just wear a sweater around and I was even getting a little hot! The first place we saw on the bus tour is known as the wedding cake building. This was the National Museum and resembles a white wedding cake. Our next stop was the Colosseum! I think I took about 100 photos of the Colosseum or more! We got off here and explored! I also saw Constantine's Arch, which is right outside the Colosseum. This is the original arch that everyone copies, including Paris' Arc de Triomphe. We toured the inside of the Colosseum and spend some time looking around at the Colosseum. From there we toured the Roman Forum. Only 5 % of tourist ever make it here. It was really cool to see. We saw the remains of places like Julius Caesar's palace and some old chariot racing stadiums. Rome is trying to build a new underground metro line, but every time they dig in the ground they find new ruins and have to stop. The Roman Forum was really cool and I am glad that I decided to go with the girls, because it was very unique! Our next stop was the Spanish Steps! The girls didn't want to walk up them, but I walked to the top! The place was packed with people! After that we went to the Trevi Fountain! I loved the Trevi Fountain and I think it was one of my favorite places in Rome to visit. I just liked to sit by it and eat gelato!

Day 3:
I decided to get up at 6:15 to go to mass at the Vatican with one other girl who was also Catholic. We had to get there really early, because we heard that it gets really crowded if you don't. We took the metro, which cost us one euro to get there. We had to go through security to get into Saint Peter's Square. We were just planning on going to one of the masses in one of the chapels, but apparently this Sunday was the ordination of some new Cardinals. This meant that the Pope would be giving the mass! The mass we were planning on going to was not going to be given by the Pope. I am not even sure if he gives one to the public every Sunday. We saw a bunch of people with yellow pieces of paper going into the Basilica and we wanted to be able to get in. We asked some of the guards where we could get the yellow pieces of paper to go in. However, they misled us and after searching for the place to get the paper we realized we didn't even need one! By the time we got back up into the line the basilica was full! There was a sitting area with chairs blocked off and one of the guards let us sit in there for mass. We had to wait for awhile, because mass didn't start until 9:30. It was nice sitting outside in the sun though. They had two huge TV screens so we could see what was going on the whole time. Mass lasted from 9:30 to 11:30. It was so awesome though! Each part of the mass was said in a different language- a lot in Italian and Latin, some in Chinese, some in English, and some in Spanish. Unfortunately when the priests came outside to give us communion they ran out! There were about 10 people ahead of me when they ran out. That was kinda disappointing, but at least I get to say that I went to mass with the Pope! The Pope also comes out to a window at noon to give a blessing so we stuck around for that and then headed out. After that we met up with the other girls for lunch and got some pizza. They decided to go shopping and one other girl and me decided to explore the city some more. We walked to one of the cities parks, to the Piazza Naviana, and the Pantheon. Jordan wanted to eat dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, because she was tired of pasta and pizza so we went there for dinner. I was too excited about going, because I feel like I can eat there any time I want to at home and it is pretty expensive! My meal was good though! That night we got a new roommate in our room from Australia.

Day 4:
I slept in until about 10 on Monday. We all got ready and went out to get lunch. After that I went back to the Vatican with Jordan to tour the Vatican Museums and the Basilica. When we got there the line was pretty long. There were a lot of tour guides trying to get us to take tours with them. They were all telling us that the line was 2 hours long and that we would get the student discount of 35 euros (14 for our ticket in) to go on a guided tour. I was glad we ignored them! They were all very pushy and would not leave us alone though. We ended up waiting in line30 minutes and I got my ticket for 8 euros! It was so crowded inside it would have been hard to go on a tour anyways because you couldn't hear. I saw a lot inside! I felt like it was all of the museum's that I have visited this semester so far put into one. Everything was so beautiful though! I got to see the Sistine Chapel, the room of statues, the rooms of maps, and so much more! After being in the museum and looking at everything for awhile I went back out to Saint Peter's Square and went inside the Basilica. It was beautiful! Everything was so huge! I will have to post pictures of it from online because my description won't do it justice. After this I went to grab a pizza with Jordan and then we met up with the other girls. We went back to the Trevi Fountain to get geltao. I had chocolate chip this time. We decided to do a pub crawl that night so we went back to the Spanish steps where we were suppose to meet. We ended up meeting a bunch of people that were from London. We went all the way to Rome to meet Londoners! They were following the Chelsea football team that played in Naples the next day. We hung out with them for most of the night.





Day 5: On Tuesday we checked out of our hostel and went to the train station to head to Florence. We had awhile before our train left so we went to McDonald's to get some lunch. We randomly ran into the Chelsea fans from the Pub the night before. It was really funny! We talked with them some more until we had to get on our train. I went to go to the bathroom in the train station before we left and it cost me one euro! The train ride was about an hour and a half. Florence was beautiful! Once we got off the train it took us about 10 minutes to walk to our hostel. We had to ask an old man on the side of the rode how to get there. He didn't really speak English, but he walked us all the way to the hostel and then left. This hostel was a lot nicer than our other one! It almost seemed like a hotel! Only it cost 15 euro a night! We met up with another girl in our program, Krista, who had been traveling by herself. She was in Florence for the night. She walked us to one of the main squares and we ate dinner. I had penne pasta. After dinner we went to go see the famous David Statue in a museum. It was huge! After that we went to get geltao and I had cookies and fudge. It was pretty good!

Day 6:
The next day in Florence was a good one! We got up early and did a bus tour. We decided to do a bus tour because our friend, Krista suggested that we do it. The bus took you to a town that was right outside of Florence called Fiesole which is on top of a mountain and overlooks the city. The bus ride up to it was amazing! Florence is defiantly the Italy that you would see in the movies. Once we got to the top of the mountain the bus stopped for 30 minutes. We ran over to some spot next to someones house and got to see the view of they city. It was so pretty! The next spot on our bus stopped at an overlook that was closer to the city by the river. Then, we stopped at a famous bridge in Florence. It was a lot of stores on it which pretty much only sell jewelry. Finally we went to the city center to view the cathedral and bell tower. I decided to go up the bell tower to get another view of the city. Once the other girls I was with found out there wasn't a lift at the bell tower and you have to walk up the stairs they decided not to go. So I went up by myself. They decided to take an hour train ride to Pisa to see the leaning tower. I decided to just stay in Florence and go up the bell tower, because I felt like I still hadn't seen all of Florence yet and it was getting dark. After I spent some time in the tower I went to the square and bought a small painting.




Day 7:
I woke up early to catch my 9:25 train to Venice. It was about a two hour ride to get there. From there I had to get on a water boat to get to my hostel. Curtis was coming out to Venice for the weekend. We were going to meet at the hostel. I got there first and I ended up getting to the hostel before check in which I didn't know.The people there were very, very nice though! Probably the most friendliest people I have met since I have been here. Curtis eventually got there and we went out to grab something to eat. I had ravioli and he had a calzone. We also shared burshetta. From there we just started walking around and wondering. We stopped in a lot of stores. Venice is known for it's Murano blown glass. It was all so pretty. We went in to so many stores to look at it all! We also made it to San Marco Square.

Day 8:
On Friday we had breakfast at our hostel. It was very good! We went to ask the man who owned the hostel what we should do for the day and how to get there. He gave us some good tips and he also told us how to get a cheaper gondola ride. The first thing we did was go on the gondola ride. It was in the morning and it was very pretty! We took a 30 minute ride around one of the smaller canals. Our gondola man was very nice! We tried to tip him at the end but he refused to accept it! After that we went back to San Marco Square and we walked along the bank for awhile. The sun was out and it was very warm! We sat out on a bench overlooking the sea for awhile. We also so the Sigh Bridge. We then ate lunch at a place by the water. We both had very good pizzas! Then, we went to one of the water boats and took it out to one of the islands, Murano. We mostly just walked around and looked at some very expensive glass! When we got back we went looking for another famous bridge. We ran into a family from America and the dad graduate from Notre Dame so that was kinda cool! We found the bridge right around sunset! It was very pretty! We grabbed some dinner and went to bed early because we had to gt up early to take the water boat to the airport in the morning! It was the best Spring Break I've ever had!

One man, Two Guvnors

Today I had British Life and Culture. Class was mostly people giving presentations. I had to give mine on Liverpool's Pier Head, transatlantic immigration and the Titanic Memorial. I also had to give a presentation in Art History today. We had to take photographs and match them to Impressionist paintings. I think I did a pretty good job. Here are a couple of my examples:












We also went and saw the play One Man, Two Guvnors tonight. It was a comedy and was a lot better than I thought it was going to be! Here is a preview:

Paris

On Saturday we woke up at 4:45 to head to Paris for the day. We took the Eurostar which is the train that takes the underground tunnel from London to the rest of Europe. The ride was about 2 hours long. When we first got to Paris we decided to just go ahead and do a bus tour so that we could make sure we saw everything that we wanted to. We saw the Arc de Triomphe from the bus. We didn't get off the bus though. The first place we went to was the Eiffel Tower. We grabbed some crepes from a stand right outside the Eiffel Tower for lunch. I had a chocolate one and Curtis had a chocolate and banana one. They were very good! Then we went to get in line to go up the Eiffel Tower. The line to walk up the stairs instead of taking the lift was much shorter so we did that. It was 328 steps to the first level and 669 steps to the second level. The view from there was pretty amazing! Paris is a very pretty city. It is filled with lots of trees, unlike London. I bet it was great during the summer. I stopped inside one of the stores in the Eiffel Tower and bought a photo. After that we went back down and took some pictures from the ground. The next stop on our bus tour was the Lourve. I bought a ticket to go see the Mona Lisa. Curtis waited for me because he has already seen it. To be honest it really isn't that impressive, but I am glad that I can say I saw it. The next stop on our tour was Notre Dame. We waited in line for awhile to be able to go up to the top of it. We shared another chocolate crepe while we waited in line. The view from the top of the church was great too! It was cool to see the Eiffel Tower from far away. We also saw the bell at the top. It use to take 16 men to ring it back in the day before they made a machine to do all the work. We went inside the church afterward too. Then we grabbed a quick dinner and headed back home on the Eurostar!

Wembley and Thriller Live

On Wednesday we didn’t have to go on our weekly field trip so I worked on a paper for most of the day and went grocery shopping. Later that night I went with some of the people from my program to the England vs Netherland game at Wembley. We didn’t purchase tickets beforehand so we had to get them at the stadium. They weren’t the best seats, but it was still really cool! I bought an England scarf to wear during the game before. The game was pretty exciting, especially towards the end of it. Early in the game the Netherlands scored two goals right after each other. With about 10 minutes to go in the game about half of the people I went with decided to leave early to beat the crowd. Right after they left England came back to score two more goals! Unfortunately, the Netherlands scored one more goal to win it. The stadium seats about 93,000 people! It was a really cool experience!

On Thursday I met up with Curtis and we went to Garfunkel’s for lunch. I had a chicken barbeque pizza and he had an omelet. Our waiter was really friendly and he was talking to us about wanting to move to the US. When he asked what the weather was like in Indiana he was really excited because he loves snow! We also went to Dorothy Perkins to shop after lunch. From there I went straight to British Life and Culture. The rest of the night I spend relaxing and went to bed early.

On Friday I had British Life and Culture and we watched the movie Bend it Like Beckham. It is so weird being about to pick up on all the little things that happen in British movies now. I love it! I went back to my flat to eat lunch and then from there I went to Curtis’ flat. He helped me edit one of my papers for art history and I trimmed his hair for the first time with clippers! We went to get half priced tickets for Thriller Live. Before the show we ate at Giraffe! It was very good! We are planning on going back on Tuesday! Thriller was different from what I expected it to be, but still very good! Here is a preview:

Dover, Tate Modern, Jack the Ripper, Dinner at Philippa's, and Ceremony of the Keys

On Sunday I went to Dover, England with Curtis. Dover was about an hour and 45 minute train ride north east of London. It is located on the coast. The first thing we did when we got there was walk to the Castle. The castle was very pretty. There were a lot of kids there! They had the inside of the castle decorated with some typical mid-evil furniture and clothing. This castle was used up until after the World Wars though. Being on the coast they had to use it to protect any enemies from invading Britain. We spent most of our time just walking around and going to the top of the tower for the view. We also brought our lunch and ate it there. The sun wasn't out at first, which made it really cold, but as soon as it came out it felt great! From there we wanted to walk to the White Cliffs of Dover. It took us awhile to figure out how to walk there. We thought it would be really easy because we saw the Cliffs from the castle, but there was no pedestrian sidewalks. We ended up walking around for awhile and then going back to the castle to ask one of the workers how to get there. She told us to just walk on the side of the road. It took awhile to get there because there wasn't much room on the side of the road to walk and it was all uphill. Once we got there though it was totally worth it! It was absolutely beautiful! We mostly just walked around and enjoyed the view.








On Monday I had to meet Philippa at Tate Modern. This was the first art museum that I had been to that had modern art. I didn't really like much of it. I don't really understand modern art. One piece that we looked at was just a mirror. That was it. A plain square mirror. It doesn't seem very impressive to me. After that I was able to go home and grab a quick dinner before I had to meet our program for a Jack the Ripper walk. Jack the Ripper was a man in the 1800's who killed 5 women and was never caught. We walked to all the places that the man had killed the women and the tour guide told us all the details. It was really creepy because it was dark out and every time someone heard a random noise someone in the group jumped.

On Tuesday I had British Pop music with Rob. We talked a lot about the Sex Pistols. After that I had British Literature and I had to give a presentation on Evelyn Waugh. Waugh was an English literary author. I got a perfect score on my presentation! After that I had to go straight to Kennington where Philippa lives for dinner. Philippa was really generous to have all 30 of us over for dinner! She prepared lasagna for all of us! It was really good and a lot of us wanted the recipe, but when we asked her she said she didn't have a recipe for it and that she just made it up. She is brilliant! She also had a lot of snacks that she made and ice cream for us. From there Philippa took some of us to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London.

Courtauld, Imperial War Museum, West Ham VS South Hampton, and Rochester

Monday I went to the Courtauld Museum for Art History. This is where many of the Impressionist paintings are displayed. I saw many of Monet's painting there along with Renoir, Manet, and Degas. Impressionism started after the invention of photography. Painters were no longer needed to slave over portraits of people and try to make them look as realistic as possible. Painters now had more freedom to paint. Here are some of the painting I saw:





On Tuesday I had British Pop Music with Rob. We mostly talked about Led Zeppelin and Progressive Rock (but Rob hates ProgRock). From there I met Nora for Brit Lit at the Imperial War Museum. She showed us around the World War I area and took us to the trenches. I cannot believe that war was like that only a hundred years ago. Over 3 million British men died. It was very sad to walk through the museum knowing that most men were just thrown out onto the battle field and had absolutely no chance of living. The trenches were cool to learn about. The exhibit actually smelt like the trenches though- rioting bodies and yearn. It was gross! I had to plug my nose when I went through. Unfortunately, that is what those men lived in for months at a time. Nora told me an interesting fact though. She said that in no man's land men from Germany and Britain would wave a white flag and then go out and play football with each other sometimes. Nora only kept us for about an hour, which was really nice because we had to make our way to Uptown Park to see West Ham take on South Hampton. This game was an intense one! Both teams are at the top of their league and are big rivals. The crowd was a lot louder at this stadium than at the Everton game, which surprised me. It was a very fun game. A played on West Ham's team ended up getting a red card about 15 minutes into the game so they were down one player. They ended up holding on and the game ended in a draw 1-1. Here is a video that I took at the game when the West Ham fans were singing their song at the game!





Today we took our day trip to Rochester. Rochester is where Charles Dickens lived for most of his life. England is celebrating Charles Dickens 200th Birthday this year so it was an appropriate time to visit! Nearly every pub and stores name has something to do with Dickens or his writings. Most of the pubs he actually went to when he was alive too! When we first got to Rochester from the train we visited a museum that was called the 7 Poor Travelers. This helped inspire one Dickens novels. We also got a visit from a "Crier" who is the person who shouts things out in the town. Today they only do it for tradition, but the man said that when the Queen passes away he will have to go around the town crying "The Queen is dead, long live the King". It was very interesting. From there we went to Rochester Castle, which was built by the Normans. It was so cool! The view from top was amazing! It is kinda hard for me to describe, but here are a bunch of pictures!