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.