Beginning of the end... Siena, Venice, Cinque Terre, & Amalfi!

Climbing the Tower in Siena!

The week after spring break wasn’t anything special… I was mostly just waiting to find out when I would finally take my make-up exams (stupid strep…). After studying early in the week I find out I’m not taking them until the following week! So by the time the weekend came my plan was to study all the whole time, but unfortunately we had issues finding a good place to go. So instead of studying, Friday Steph and I spent the day wandering the city. It was a gorgeous day and we haven’t had a full day off just to explore (especially since on Sunday’s everything is closed). By the end of the day we decided it would be a great idea to watch the Parent Trap, aka Lindsey Lohan’s best movie.. what a classic

Saturday we took a day trip to Siena! Siena is very cute, I loved the huge square- Piazza del Campo , that everything hangs out in. We decided rather than going in all of the churches, we would just explore and do our own thing. We did however, do one touristy thing, we climbed the bell tower. By the way, not a good idea if you are really tall… definitely would bang your head the entire way haha

Gondola Rides =)

The next few days are a blur… a blur of studying, taking 2 midterms and writing an 8 page paper. It was terrible, but handing in that paper was one of the best feelings I have ever had! And even though I STILL have yet to get my exams back, my teacher told me I did very well on both so I’m happy! To make things even better, I met my parents after school on Thursday! A little bit of a struggle getting there (stupid Verizon not allowing me to get in touch with my parents), but it was worth it. Venice was beautiful and seeing my parents was great. We spent the next few days in Venice, wandering around by the water, going in a few museums and churches like the San Marco Basilica and the Doge’s Palace. The first night we stumbled into this tiny little place for dinner… ended up being one of my best meals while abroad! DELISH! We took a nice gondola ride & I got myself a carneval mask...it was a very successful weekend!

From Venice we traveled to Florence, where we spent the next few days. Food was definitely a major part of their visit. We went to amazing restaurants every night, especially in Florence! I finally went to the famous La Giostra and Il Latini… omg was I full. I cannot explain to you the amount food we ate over those few days, not that I’m complaining! Monday we spent the ENTIRE day SHOPPING =)! We started off at the Prada Oulet which was definitely a success. I even bought myself a Mui Mui wallet—my first big purchase aside from trips!  We went straight to the leather market after the outlet where I finally got my leather jackets! My dad got the belt he’s been talking about since he was last in Florence, and my mom got literally everyoneee presents that day! Skipped class to go shopping? Sounds pretty perfect to me!

At Piazza Michelangelo

Tuesday the fam went to Cinque Terre, and then we met up afterwards to wander around a bit and go to Il Latini. I can’t say this enough… SO MUCH DELICIOUS FOOD! Wednesday I was planning on just getting breakfast with my parents but we decided I didn’t spend enough time with them (since our trip was cut short due to my field trip on Friday) so I skipped my first class and we have a very productive morning! I took them up to my favorite spot, palazzo Michelangelo, then over to the Baboli gardens, wandered around for a bit until lastly we saw the famous For the Love of God, the diamond skull in Palazzo Vecchio Museum by Damien Hirst. It was sad to say goodbye, but I would see them a month later so it made it much easier.

At the Frescobaldi Winery

As they headed off to the Amalfi Coast, I had my Family Business field trip to the Frescobaldi winery (because yes, my teacher is one of the famous Frescobaldi’s) and one of their many estate/castles. The entire day consisted of about 15 minutes of learning about the winery, 2 hours of laying outside in the sun, and 1 hour of being fed really good food and free Frescobaldi wine. What a great day!

I decided to take a relaxing evening Friday night since Saturday morning I was off to Cinque Terre! Unfortunately, my chill night in got interrupted when my friend Ben was locked out of his apartment so I had to let him come crash on our couch. A few hours later (around 3:30 am) my doorbell rang again… I attempted to avoid getting up but no one else was opening the door... it was one of my roommates Steph who was hysterically crying. Apparently she got her bag ripped off of her and she walked home (really, really far) alone. To sum this story up, she got her keys stolen again, got in sooo much trouble with school (which is a little absurd considering she was mugged) and eventually her “punishment” is being kicked out of our apartment! She now has to live with (and pay to live there) with a young couple about 10 minutes away from our apartment. It sucks so much, thank god there’s only a month left (well not thank god, it’s terrible, but at least she’s not living there alone too long).

ANYWAY after that absurd night, I was off CINQUE TERRE! I was so excited because I was going with girls in my pledge class andddd it was supposed to be beautiful! And it was! We had so much fun! Saturday we did a really long hike from Venezia to Corniglia, almost 2 hours all up hill! The views were spectacular! It was so sunny out too, which made it that much better. After hiking around we sat on the beach watching a group of about 75 rowdy college kids. Of course we decided to become best friends with them and joined the beach party haha. We met up with them again that night at the one bar in Cinque Terre, but called it an early night… the sun is exhausting! Sunday we spent the day on the beach and wandering around, unfortunately it wasn’t as nice as it was the day before but still it was wonderful.

Reunion in Cinque Terre <3

The rest of the week we had a lot of work to do, which was really frustrating considering all we wanted to do was hang around Florence. Still, we had a good time, as always, exploring the streets of Florence and taking it in as we approach the end of our trip (the thought of which makes me want to cry). Thursday was our Italian exam, and as soon as that was done we headed towards the train station and AMALFI COAST here we come!!

The trip there was super easy, minus the sketchiness of Naples, and we were in Sorrento in a few short hours! I was surprisingly happy with our hotel, we had a really nice, clean room, and the boys were only a few doors down, plus it

Boat Ride Around CAPRI!

 included a relatively decent breakfast. Friday morning we woke up, bought us some wine for the day, and headed to Capri! Capri was awesome! We took a boat around the entire island & we saw the Blue, White, and Green grotto. We almost went swimming when we went into the Blue Grotto, but then we realized that when we would climb back into the boat we would definitely tip it over and all of our belongings would dump into the water…. It was probably for the best considering not one of us had a towel and the water was verrrry cold. The rest of the day we spent lounging on these huge rocks with a bout 30 other kids from Rome, Florence, and Barcelona and enjoying the gorgeous weather. It was a little windy, but it didn’t matter, we were still on the beach in Capri! That night we went to a really good seafood dinner & to a bar where all the American college kids go while visiting. We had a blast, so many of our friends were there, it was like one giant reunion!

Jumping off a cliff in POSITANO

Saturday was by far my favorite… POSITANO! Positano was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!! We had a little delay going, aka the bus took FOREVERRRR to get to Sorrento! Luckily we are top-notch time wasters so we (aka the group of 15 of us) got some wine and hung out in the sun until our bus finally arrived! As soon as we got to Positano I literally RANNNN to the ocean (may or may not be because I was going to pee my pants) it was UNBELIEVABLE! SO blue and clear! A few minutes later a bunch of kids were getting ready to go cliff jumping, so again I ran across the beach to join then! We took a boat over to another part of the beach and began one of the coolest things I did while abroad. There were 3 different height options, so of course we started small, but after that first jump I was on an adrenaline high! The highest one was between 30-40 feet high! The scariest part was definitely climbing up to the get to the jumps… you are literally scaling a cliff (sorry Mom). The water was pretty cold but it didn’t matter, it was too much fun to even think about how cold it was!  When we came back to the beach to join the rest of our friends I found my three best friends here completely passed out asleep on the beach… but in the FUNNIEST positions… just take a look!

How I found my friends...(thats Steph under the blanket)

The rest of the day we hung out on the beach, wandered the town, and eventually attempted to find our way back to the bus station (aka going to the complete wrong way and having to walk about 30 minutes uphill to eventually find it). After waiting for the bus to come, we hopped on a bus that definitely wasn’t meant to take all 30 of us… meaning there was not a single empty seat and we all ended up standing for an hour on a hot crowded bus. Terrible. By the time we got home and grabbed some food it was about 10:30 and we were dead. Lauren, Steph , Jeff & I all fell asleep as soon as we hit our beds. THE BEST day!

Sunday we headed to Pompei to add a little culture to our trip! Definitely a lootttt bigger than I imagined. It was pretty cool, even though our tour guide was kind of a weirdo and definitely knew he weren’t listening to him. We realized as we were heading for the Naples train station that we would cut it VERY close to catch the next train for Florence, so when we got off the train from Pompei the 6 of us RAN to the ticket area and then RAN to the train… all while holding all of our bags. We literally made it with 2 minutes tops to spare. All I can say is… WINNING!

POMPEI

Now I’m back in Firenze and we are all freaking out realizing how few days we have left here, and on top of that how much work we have. The last thing we want to be doing on our last few weeks here is studying & writing papers, yuck.  I decided that everyday after class I’m doing something, even if that something is wandering around for 2 hours like I did on Monday. Today I decided that I was going to go for my usual routine… go on a run around the Arno and then hike up the Michelangelo & run back down.. its perfect. I get exercise and my favorite view of the city in one!

 Earlier today I did start my morning in an.. interesting way. Haha well I was walking to school as usual with Lauren and Jeff wearing Lauren’s shoes which are a little big on me, and they are pretty beat up… with that said about 5 minutes on our way to school the shoe snaps! So now I have one shoe, and one sock since Jeff was nice enough to lend me one of his. A few minutes later, SNAP the other one breaks… now I’m wearing both of Jeff’s socks walking to school basically bare foot. So I walk into class and 45 minutes or so in my teacher says we are going to take a little trip over to this one church… well I can’t exactly do that so she’s nice enough to let me leave class and tells me to go to H&M to get a pair of shoes. After awkwardly walking by  myself over to H&M to buy some shoes, I realize that it’s still closed! Now I have to sit outside for about 15 minutes by myself and barefoot and realize that every Italian is looking at me like there is something wrong with me. I run into the store when it finally opens, buy a pair of shoes real quick, and head back to school… only to realize that this pair is too big and are falling off my feet. AWESOME. Hahah whatever at least I had something on my feet at this point, right? Goooood times

This is my last weekend in Florence! I hate it!  But the weekend after I’m heading to CROATIA, which will be incredible, I’m so psyched! And after that Munich, Germany for Springfest! I have a crazy couple of weeks left until I’m America bound… okay I’ve got to get off the computer! Can’t waste any more time! Ciao!