Monday, July 2nd 2007: ROME!!

In front of the Vatican

Roman Fountain

The Colosseum

The Pantheon
The group at the Colosseum
Today was an interesting day. Rome was amazing but we ran into a few bumps here and there.
We left the hotel at 5:50 this morning to catch our train and two of the girls ended up missing the train waiting in line at Mcdonalds! Luckily they got on another train and we met up in Rome. Our first stop was the Coliseum! It was INCREDIBLE! You can still see all the underground passageways and rooms where the gladiators would get ready and the exotic animals were kept! It was bigger and better than I thought it would be. It was about an hour wait to get in but it was well worth it! Afterwards, we jumped back on the bus and headed to the Pantheon. We also stopped for some famous Rome pizza and gelato. The gelato here is so good! I wish I could bring some of it home for everyone to try. The Pantheon was so beautiful. We were happy to find out that it was free to go in too. The best part was when the rain started coming down into the building through the oculus of the ceiling. It was such a great experience. We then went to the Vatican but didn’t go through since there was a 2 hour + wait to get in and we didn't have the time. I would have loved to have seen St. Peter's and the Sistine Chapel but we later found out the Sistine was closed anyways. We jumped back on the bus and went to the Roman Fountain. It was so pretty! We were told that if you throw a coin into the fountain you will come back to Rome again sometime in your life so we all spent some time at the fountain taking pictures and throwing in our coins. We left Rome around 7 pm and got home around 10:30. It was a long day but well worth it! I HEART ROME!

Sunday, July 1st 2007: Florence

Today was our first day in Florence! Our wake up call to our hotel room was at six this morning and the hotel arranged breakfast early for us which was nice. Our train ride was around two hours which really wasn‘t bad at all. We’ve gotten so use to long train rides that a couple hours is nothing. Florence is really pretty. It has more of the country Tuscany style architecture here than in Venice. When we arrived to our hotel, we took an hour nap in our super air conditioned room! It’s just as hot here as it was in Venice which is a good change but I personally prefer the cooler 70 degree weather we had in London and Paris. The five of us girls went out to a delicious Italian restaurant and walked around some of the shops. Tomorrow ten of us are taking an early train out to Rome for the day! I am so excited to go; it’s the one place that I’ve really wanted to see on this trip so I can’t wait! I wish we had more time to spend there but a day is all we have. We found out we can get a ticket for a double decker bus that goes around to all the top spots so we should be able to see most of it. ROME here I come!

Saturday June 30th 2007

After today, I really don’t want to leave Venice. About seven girls decided to go to the beach for the day but I wanted to stick around Venice and take in as much as possible! I’m going to Cancun in December anyways, so I’ll wait to enjoy the beach then :) We spent the day wondering around and shopping. I came across this awesome music shop and ended up buying bongos! It’s going to be rough getting them home but it will be well worth it! I now have drums from Mexico, Africa and Italy! The best part of the day was our gondola ride! Who goes to Venice and doesn’t take a gondola ride? Our gondolier was so funny. He was very flirty and entertaining. We got home around 7 PM and ate at a restaurant next to our hotel. It was great food and very relaxing. We are leaving for Florence early tomorrow morning so we just hung out and swapped pictures before we headed to bed.

Friday, June 29th: Venice!

mmmm...gelato


St. Marks Basilica


` Lindsey and I just enjoying life in Italy
Our entire time in Venice we are free to do what we want. We have nothing planned as a group which is really nice. I love Venice! We spent the day walking around the city and slowly making our way to St. Marks Basilica. It's so hard to get around here! There are so many small alleyways and 400+ bridges! It’s like a maze! There are no cars either! The locals either ride in boats or walk. The city is full of history and is more beautiful than I imagined. It's sad that it's sinking :( Italy is known for their gelato and pizza so we found those right away. Our hotel is pretty nice and has great breakfast. I am sharing a room with Kaari and Jessie. We flipped on our t.v. a few hours ago and were shocked to see the terrorist threats going on in London and Scotland! It’s like they are following us! Its crazy to see Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square on the T.V. Same with the Glasgow Airport in Scotland! We were just at those places a week or two ago! It’s pretty scary but we are having the time of our lives and we won’t let it scare us!

Thursday June 28th: Last day in France

Us hanging out in the sleeper train
Venice, Italy

Train station in Venice
Me on one of the 400 + bridges in Venice

Today was our last day in Paris. We spent our last few hours walking around, getting our last crepes and shopping. There where so many people in the stores! I just don’t have the patients so I got a bit irritated after a few stops. I was ready to get to Italy for sure. We left our hotel around 5 pm and took a bus to the train station. Our sleeper train was really fun! Long…but fun. Each room held 6 people and luckily we only had five in ours which offered a little more room. Kysha, Lindsey, Rachel, Kaari, and myself ended up together so we were really happy. I played a guitar some Italian boys on the train let me borrow which was fun. We stayed up talking and playing games for a few hours, then folded the seats into bunks and when to bed. It really wasn’t too bad minus the bathroom. I tried to avoid it at all costs because it was so disgusting. All 60+ riders had to use it! Our train ride was from 8pm to 10am. We were all so excited to be in Italy when we woke up! It took awhile to get to our hotel though. After the sleeper train, we rode another train to our hotel station, then drug our luggage three miles to our hotel! It really sucked for those who had lots of heavy luggage! Luckily I didn’t have much. We settled into our hotel rooms and hit up Venice right away. Venice is Beautiful! I can‘t believe I‘m here!!

Wednesday June 27th: Versailles and the Eiffel Tower

The Hall of Mirrors
A beautiful Chateau on the grounds of Versailles
Versailles!
Top of the Eiffel Tower
The group posing for a picture on the Eiffel

Today we went to Versailles! I’ve been waiting to go there and It was just as amazing as I had hoped. Unfortunately, the place is so big we didn’t even see half of it and we were there all day long! We met our tour guide in our hotel lobby at 9:30 a.m. He was pretty rude to a few of the people in our group and seemed a little bitter towards us because we're Americans. He was very informative though so I just shrugged it off and enjoyed Versailles! The Hall of Mirrors was the one room I wanted to see the most and I heard it was closed for renovations! Luckily our tour guide told us we were just in time because it just opened yesterday! I was so happy! We have been so lucky on this trip so far. A little background on the Hall of Mirrors: The over 300 year old room was made for Louis XIV and is now the masterpiece of Versailles. The hall is the largest room in Palace and is filled with numerous chandeliers, impressive pillars, paintings, seventeen windows and seventeen mirrors. The room was made to be jaw dropping and that’s exactly what it is. Mirrors were expensive and rare in the 1600s and even having a hand held mirror showed that you had money and power so you can only imagine how impressive the room was to guest of the King. Versailles’ grounds are so incredible that it puts all the other grounds we have visited to shame! We all got very tired and a little ornery by the end of the day. When we got home it was starting to get dark so we hurried to head up the Eiffel Tower before sunset. We had such an amazing time and the view of Paris was awesome. Afterwards, we grabbed some crepes and headed home to bed.