Italian Adventures

Day 1 (continued): We touched down in Rome, after our first successful Ryanair flight (super cheap flights in Europe, seems a little sketchy that they're that cheap, but everything went off great!) We found the right bus to get us to the center of Rome from the airport outside the city - who knew traveling was so complicated  - and started walking towards our hostel. Our room in the first hostel was a private triple, so we had our own room and a shower/bathroom all to ourselves, which was a pretty nice luxury.

Day 2: After a nice long sleep, we woke up and went to see Rome. We didn't plan a whole lot for our time there, because we figured we would just see everything we wanted to see once we got there and everything would work out. We found a jump on jump off bus for only 16 euros for two days that stopped at all the main tourist attractions in Rome and you could get on or off at any stop. We stopped at the Colosseum first, and took about a million pictures, although did not get inside because they were not running tours due to the snow (yes, it had just snowed in Rome). 

Mary and me at the Colosseum

 After jumping back on the bus, we met up with my friend Declan, from high school, and his girlfriend who are studying in Rome for the semester. They took us to the spanish steps right around sunset, which was beautiful.

Spanish steps

 We then walked through Rome with them, with many stops to take pictures of all of the gorgeous sights, including the Vatican.

Saint Peter's Basilica

We had some delicious Italian pizza near Declan's school and then parted ways for the night. That night we went out with a friend we met at the hostel and met some crazy Australians. We also got free tshirts, which is one of my main goals in life, so that was pretty wonderful. 

Day 3: We had made a plan with Declan to meet up at the Vatican, and we successfully found him, although he was about to leave, since we were a little late. First we checked out Saint Peter's Basilica, and then the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel. It was absolutely mind-blowing to see these places that I have heard about, read about and studied in actual real life. And to think about how long ago they were built and the years of precise work and art that went into designing, building and decorating.  

Saint Peter's

Saint Peter's

Vatican Museum

The Last Judgement, Sistine Chapel

Last semester I took a class on Renaissance art, so it was really amazing to see the Sistine Chapel in all it's glory (although it was nothing like I expected it to be) and actually know what some of the paintings were about. We, of course, discreetly snapped a few pictures of the ceilings to show where we had been, and avoided being caught by the scary guards, who kept shushing everyone.

After saying goodbye to Declan and grabbing some gelato, we went to search for the Trevi Fountain. By the time we found it, it was dark, which actually ended up being a good thing, since there were less tourists and it was lit up and pretty spectacular. We followed the tradition and threw a coin into the fountain for good luck. 

Trevi Fountain

 It was Valentine's Day, so we went to a nice Italian restaurant on the way back to our hostel and all got various yummy pasta dishes for our last night in Rome. 

Day 4: We got up in the morning and managed to find the shuttle bus to our next airport (different from the one we flew into) and arrived in Milan. We did not know much about Milan, but were there because a good friend of Mary's is studying at the Milan business school for the semester. When we arrived and found our hostel - which was not quite as nice as the other one, we shared our room with 9 other people - we took a long nap, since we were pretty wiped from walking around Rome for 3 days. Once we woke up, we explored the neighborhood around our hostel, not one of the fancier parts of Milan, and did a little bit of shopping before finding a restaurant for dinner. Apparently restaurants in Italy don't even start serving until 7:00, so we had a little trouble finding a place at first, but eventually we did and had some delicious carbonara and margharita pizzas. Still tired, we went to bed early that night and slept for a very long, very needed night. 

Day 5: Headed to the Duomo, the huge cathedral in Milan our first morning. It was pretty much the only thing we knew we were supposed to see, besides the small mosaic of a bull on the floor of a mall, whose balls you are supposed to touch for good luck. 

Milan Duomo

The bull

 Then we strolled around for the afternoon. We checked out the hundreds of designer stores and people dressed in really fancy things. We also found a park and a grocery store with some much needed fruit (buying veggies with our meals was much too expensive, so we had had a lot of carbs). 

In the evening, we met up with Mary's friend Maddy and a bunch of her friends at her dorm a little ways outside of the city and spent the night meeting lots of new, fun people. 

Day 6/7: Our last day in Milan was a little bit stressful, as a lot of it was spent at the train station trying to find Ali's friend who was visiting Milan for the day from Florence. Once we finally found her, we met up with Maddy again for dinner and went out with her and her friends again. We had to leave Milan at 4:30 the next morning to get on a bus to the airport, so we decided not to go to bed. Instead we wandered around Milan. We found a kebab shop that had some of the most delicious kebabs we have had so far, and stayed there until the owners got annoyed and kicked us out, since they wanted to go to bed. 
At 3:45 we got everything from our hostel and headed to the train station to meet the bus that would take us to the airport. 

At 7 am, we got on a plane to Marseille and said goodbye to our Italian vacation. All in all, an amazing time with amazing companions. I could not have asked for better friends to travel with me. We were all laid back and figured things out as they came at us. We all got to see friends and meet new ones and see a lot of incredible sights. Although we had a great time in Milan, it was definitely not up to par with Rome. I guess it's a place of very high fashion, and if you're someone who has lots of money to spend on very expensive clothes, it is probably more enjoyable than for college students on a budget who are just there to tour around and enjoy the city. The coolest thing that I found about it was that it was a nice contrast to Rome's incredible touristy-ness. It was easier to see the Italian culture since there were many, many fewer tourists. That being said, it was definitely harder to communicate, and I found myself really missing France, where I can speak the language and actually tell people what I want and understand their responses effectively. We felt a little bit helpless in Italy, only knowing about four words of Italian.

First stop: Bordeaux

I'm thrilled to be back in my apartment sleeping in my own bed after a whirlwind of adventures across Europe during my two week February vacation. The update will be long, so I'm dividing it into a few parts.

Day 1:  After a late night of last minute logistic planning for our trip, I took of from the Montpellier train station with my good friends Ali and Mary in my program. We took a 5 hour train ride to Bordeaux, which was actually really nice and relaxing. We napped and read and chatted and enjoyed the view of the French country-side, and it was soooo much nicer than the planes that we took later on. Once we arrived in Bordeaux, we managed to find our way through the ice, snow and cold temperatures to our hotel. We were pretty hungry, so we went to the Carrefour grocery store right downstairs for what ended up turning into dinner. We found chips and salsa in the international food section, as well as bread, cheese, salami and fruit. We had a great picnic on our hotel bed!

Ali and Mary with our feast

Later that night, we decided to go to the movie theater down the street to watch a French love story, Ma Première Fois. I understood more of it than I thought I would, which was a nice surprise, but, in the typical French vain, it was incredibly sad. 

The next morning, we walked around Bordeaux, carrying our bags in pretty cold temperatures, which was not idea. But it is a very beautiful city, and I'm sure it's even better in the spring and summer. 
 

Beautiful buildings along the river

Bordeaux wine, of course

Once we had our fill of exploring, we hopped on a tram and a bus and made our way to the airport to take off for Rome!

Off to Italia!

 

One Month plus some

It has now, officially been over a month since I left home, flew across the Atlantic Ocean, stopped off in Paris and arrived in Montpellier. The internet in my apartment was down this week, so I couldn't post on any of those actual anniversaries, but here we are. It's been over a month. Wow. I haven't posted in awhile because, now that it's been a month, I have finally settled into my daily routine. All of my classes are consistent, I've figured out how to get to and from places (although still taking new routes home to my house to continue to explore the neighborhood) and what to eat. Also, French is, slowly but surely, getting easier to speak and understand. Still nowhere near fluent, and it's still tough, since for some reason French people feel the need to mutter under their breath when talking to you, but I am definitely making progress and getting more confident about it. 


I'm actually pretty busy these days, between homework, (still haven't quite accepted that fact, and have not been dedicating enough time to studying) applying for summer internships, (huuuuuge pain and much more work than I remember) planning vacations, continuing to get to know this city better, and just hanging out and having fun.


We are currently in the midst of the first cold spell since I've been here. Contrary to popular belief, it does snow in the south of France. I think I got a little too overconfident from the month of 55-60 degrees almost everyday. I actually had to go out and buy a new coat because I definitely did not bring one warm enough for weather in the 30s, and also in anticipation for my upcoming trip to London and Paris, where it will definitely be colder than here. I heard choruses of "Il fait froid" all over the place today, because no one is used to it being cold, so when it is, it's a big deal. Yesterday there were pretty consistent flurries all day, although nothing actually stuck to the ground. We're all hoping for beach weather soon, although that is probably wishful thinking...


Speaking of the beach, I went a few weeks ago and never got a chance to post about it. My first time seeing/touching the Mediterranean! We rented bikes (2 Euros a day) and biked, about an hour and a quarter along Le Lez (the z IS pronounced in the south, for all of you Parisian-trained French speakers out there) the river that runs through Montpellier. There is a really nice bike path that runs along the river all the way to the tiny seaside town of Palavas, which is where the beach is. We had a nice snack of bread and cheese and stuck our toes in the water before heading back, since it was getting late in the afternoon and it wasn't very warm out. Here are some pics of the Mediterranean!

The last one is my favorite, because it shows the flamingos! I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but before we got to the beach, there was a swampy, salt water marshy place that was FULL of hundreds of flamingoes. All of the dots you can see in the background are more of them. I've never seen one in the wild, so it was quite an exciting discovery when we figured out what they were. 


So I think that's about it, as far as updates go. In a little over a week I leave for my two week vacation to Rome, Milan, London and Paris, so there will be lots of exciting photos and stories in the upcoming weeks. 


Happy February!