Bonjourno Princepessa

Here are some lovely highlights from Italy:


Since my town is in a pretty inconvenient location I had a pretty ridiculous travel day to get to Italy. I had to get a ride to Darlington, Train from there to Manchester Airport which took like 2 and half hours, then a 40 minute flight to London, then the flight to Italy. It took forever. But we finally arrived in Pisa. We got there so late and ended up walking around the town forever until we finally got a cab after an hour to get our hotel. We actually walked all the way to a hostel and were ringing the door bell when we realize that the girl who booked it had actually cancelled and gone with another hostel. We were standing at the wrong one. So an hour and a taxi ride later we finally arrived at the right one, where the lovely owner Cecilia who we then became obsessed with was standing outside to greet us. It was 11 by then time we got there but we decided to go out and try to find some wine since it was one of the girls Birthdays. Weirdly enough they wouldn't let us take a bottle of wine out. We would have had to buy it and they had top put it in plastic cups for us to walk around with. We were like uhh wouldn't it be better for us to take it in private instead of drinking in the streets??? So we decided to just eat pizza instead.


Day 2: Pisa


We went to the tower the next day and as we are taking pictures pretending we are holding up the tower we run into four other lax girls from our program. We knew they were going to be in Italy at the same time but we did not expect them to be there. There was not really much else to see in Pisa so we packed up and went to the train station for our next destination: Venice.


We decided to get fresh bread and olives cheese and stuff for our four hour train ride. As we are waiting to get onto the train a 10 year old girl pretends gets like caught in a door. One of the girls we are with tried to help her and as she did so she felt someone going into her bag. She pushes the women and then is like wait what did i just do. She apologized and told the women she could go ahead in front of her, but they all just stood there. As she is apologizing I felt someone going in my bag. So I turn quickly to find my bag is unbuttoned and my papers are coming out. Basically we both caught people trying to pickpocket us. It was pretty scary, but we settled down and luckely nothing happened.


Once we got on the train we had our picnic and slowly made our way to Venice....


Day 3: Venice


Our first day out we were waiting for our water taxi (their transportation system) and some random homeless man comes up to me and puts a statue in my face..obviously he doesn't speak a word of English so I am asking all the other girls..should I take it..I finally do and he goes Santa Lucia....I was like uhh grazie??? So needless to say Saint Lucy was with us for the rest of the trip..I don't know what it is with homeless people and me but they love to accost me. So we took the water taxi top San Marco and walked to St. Marks Square. Here we went in St. Marks Basillica, which was really cool. Then we just wandered a bit, watched a little of the Venice marathon that was going on and headed to the Murano, a little island where glass is made.

We then slowly made it back to our hostel,



Day 4:Venice

I was obsessed with going to this Pizza place in Venice called Arca because every book I looked at or every online site I found about Venice said it was the best Pizza. We honestly tried to look for it forever and when we finally were about to give up we stumbled upon it. The pizza was awesome as expected. After that we honestly just got lost and walked. You cant really get lost in Venice so we just walked around everywhere really. Of course checking out the Rivalto bridge and other sights. When we could walk no more we headed to the hostel to take a train to Florence. Waiting for the train for Florence we were playing some silly game when another train pulled in. All these men got off to smoke a cigarette and were trying to talk to us. Well none of us spoke Italian and none of them spoke English, but one guy spoke Spanish and some of us from high school and college could figure out some of the words. It was hilarious. Basically we had no idea what they were saying the entire time so we just started saying random words to them to make it even more confusing.



Day 5 and 6: Florence

Florence was awesome but it rained both days which was annoying. Both morning we had booked reservations to go to museums. The Accademia Gallery and the Uffizi. It was really cool to see everything. David was much larger then I expected! We also climbed the 463 steps to the top of the Duomo in Florence. That was awesome, we saw so much from the top. Our first night in Florence we went out to dinner and then out. As usual the food was awesome but I think we had maybe a little to much dollar store champagne before we left because we were being pretty loud and obnoxious, typical Americans. There were a ton of outdoor vendors in Venice so after we saw all the museums and such we hung around them, then packed up our stuff and head to our finally destination, Rome.



Day: 7,8,9 and 10.

Rome was great...I actually have four days there but others only had two so we pretty much did like everything in the first two days. Our first day there was a huge riot going on which was pretty scary we spent so much time trying to avoid walking through it but finally realized that it was impossible so we had to just charge through to go anywhere. We also saw a car surrounded by bodyguards who we found out was the president of lybia? We finally made it to the Colosseum where we took a private tour. Everything was really far from the hostel so after walking around a bit more we finally made it back to the hostel. We ended up going out that night and it was really fun. I ended up making friends with the bartender who later caught me falling asleep at my table so he made me a coffee drink. then gave me free cake. So I gave him my name to facebook me haha. That night though we were completely attacked by mosquitoes in the hostel. I am talking about attacked. I was alright because I don't really get bit but two of the other girls had massive bumps all over there bodies..

The second day we got up really early to go to the Vatican and St Peters Cathedral. We were all still pretty hungover from the night before so we were being pretty ridiculous in there. We still got those little talking tours though and saw everything there was to see. It was pretty incredible. Later though me and Danielle somehow got separated from the other two so we got separated and did not have a map so we decided the only thing to do was to have some wine..well that turned into 4 glasses....after dinner...another bottle of wine..and two shots later we finally started back to our hostel ..we arrived 8 hours later..and the others were starting to get really worried about where we were...esp since we were the two that kinda just listened to where we were told to go during the day. Obviously we finally made it back.

the third day we got the best gelato in Rome according to Rachel ray and let me tell you it was gooooood. After we got our ice cream we walked over to the Trevi Fountain and of course threw in some coins to make sure we would return to Rome. We then walked to see the Spanish Steps. After finally making it to the top of them we decided it was time to find some food. We then walked around for what seemed like forever, got some more gelato and finally made our way back to the hostel. That night two more girls left. So it was only Katelyn and I and she was actually leaving in the morning. So we just shared a bottle of wine and watched Gladiator.

My Last Day:
So the next day I was on my own..everyone had left. So i decided to go to the flea market that only happens on Sundays. This flea market also happens to be on the complete opposite side of where we were staying it took me almost two hours to get there. .Well I got lost for about a half hour but that actually brought me to a really cool church, Santa Sabina it was called it had awesome views so I didn't mind, my detour. When I finally got there..I was hot..exhausted..and pretty much delirious..so when a women started putting a leather jacket on me ..I did not try to stop her. I looked in the mirror and actually liked what I saw and I of course have wanted a leather jacket for a while. So I am thinking that if I only had enough cash on me I would totally buy it, then she is telling me that they take credit card. Now that is fate, so I bought it. I swear I didn't realized until like ten minutes later what I had done. I was i shock. So then I saw scarfs on sale and they were only 4 euro so I decided that was such a good deal I had to have two..until I walked by a stand ten minutes later and they were selling them for 2 euro.
Once I finally left the flea market I decided to try for another Rachel Ray restaurant that I had looked up. So I walk to the street it is supposed to be on and all of a sudden this amazing smell hits me, I cant figure out where ti coming from because the only place I see has like beads coming down from the door..you know like old school 70s style ones. I notice that they guy standing at the door has like all these names on a list and keeps sending people away. I asked him if there is a wait and he looks like he has no idea what I am talking about, so I just figured he didn't speak English. I was about to walk away when he goes, for how many. I told him one and he whispers wait here. I was like dear god what did I just get myself into..I thought because of the smell this was a restaurant but what if it isn't, what will I do? I had an urge to leave but something forced me to stay. Well two minutes later he talks to some old couple in Italian and then looks two me and says you will be sitting with them. I was like uhh okay. So I sit across from this couple who honestly do not speak ONE word of Italian so I just keep looking up and smiling at them. The guy was very nice offering me wine and water but his wife was far from thrilled. I don't think she was very happy I was interrupting her Sunday brunch. The waitress finally comes over and thank god she spoke perfect English. She told me the restaurant was run by some society so I had to sign up before I could be served..Don't ask..i didn't. So I get the menu and the first thing I see fungi lasagna, Iit was literally exactly what I wanted. So when I finish ordering she is like that's it? I was uhh yeah...apparently you were supposed to order like three courses...but only had 16 euro and they only took cash so that was really all I was getting. I finally got my baked mushroom lasagna I am not lying when I say it was probably the best thing I have ever tasted...perfect!!! I wiped it all up with my delicious bread as well. I decided that while my happy couple across from me was getting there second courses I should probably leave them in peace. So I walked around some more. of course going back to the delicious gelato place then to the Trevi fountain because it was right down the road. There I threw a second coin over my shoulder...first one is to return..second is to fall in love with an Italian man! I went back to my hostel to pack and left early the next day for the looong way back. On my way back I had to go through Kings Cross in London to get a train to Darlington and here I stopped at platform 9 and 3/4 to take a picture. So all in all a very successful trip. I am having problems uploading photos, but hopefully I will get that sorted and get them up soon.