Total Eclipse of the Heart...Milan Day 5 in Italy

So we headed out to Milan. It was raining very hard the whole time we were there...but we managed to brave the rain for a few hours to get some of the important sightseeing done. First we saw the Cathedral...which happened to be conveniently right next to the major Shopping center. The Cathedral was gorgeous but to get out of the rain we decided to do what else but go shopping! Claro! Well when we first got there we saw a Mercedes Benz store...there were no cars in the entire store only clothes and gloves. Who knew Mercedes Benz had a clothing line. The only store we actually set foot inside was Louis Vuitton. We tried to check out the prices...even the scarves didnt have prices on them, it scared me. After that we got gelato...Claro and decided to check out the Castle.

We saw the outside of the Castle but were too cold and wet to go any further and decided to get some Roasted Chestnuts to warm up and then we headed back to the hostel where we took a nice nap before heading out to dinner.  I had delicous Gnocchi and Pesto. It was fabulous. The next morning we headed to the airport :( it was quite sad.

Gnocchi

Trying out the designer sunglasses

Shopping Center

Cathedral

Inside the Shopping Center

Mercedes Benz Store...who knew they had a clothing line

LV

We wore our hoods all day...silly rain should have gone away

Castle

Oh ya know just a little day trip to Sienna Italy nbd Day 4

We woke up the next morning and decided to take a day trip to where else but...Venice! So we headed to the train station ready to purchase some tickets and go...unfortunately we discovered that every single train for the day and by every single train I mean EVERY single train had been booked for the day to Venice, so we started debating places to go. Verona to see some Romeo and Juliet sites? nope. Pisa to see the tower? Although very cheap, nope.  Tuscan Countryside? Yes please, but no trains go out there. Closest city to the Tuscan Countryside, Sienna? Yes Please! So off we went to Sienna, not really knowing what to expect.

When we get there we walked out of the train station and found the closest bus stop. Then asked some Italian high schooler who barely knew how to speak english what bus takes us to city center. Through hand gestures and his broken english and our spanish that is closer to italian than english is...we finally deciphered that it was the 77. So we finally made it to the center of Sienna, so what did we do naturally but started exploring.

What is Sienna Italy like you ask? Well I think that the best way to describe Sienna is that it is sort of like the Toledo of Italy. It has a little bit of a different feel than the other cities in Italy, a more homey feel, a comforting feel. We found gorgeous streets and beautiful views. But we knew there had to be something more to this town, right? We were distraught at what to do and started contemplating following random groups of people around like stalkers when suddenly a miraculous thing occured....we heard people talking english, no not broken italian english, not even england english, but AMERICAN ENGLISH!

It turned out to be the absolute most adorable newlyweds on their honeymoon. They were from New York and this was their last stop on their Italian honeymoon before returning home. They were so sweet and gave us directions to this Cathedral that they said was amazing. So we found the Cathedral and I have to say I have not seen a more beautiful Cathedral in my entire life (and lets face it after this trip I've seen a lot of Cathedrals). You can look at the pictures below and you will se why. I am not even going to try to describe it...I would not do it justice.

So after being amazed by our 3 Euro...thats right I said only 3 euro...entrance into the Cathedral we decided to get some pizza before heading out from Sienna to go to Milan. So we found this amazing plaza that sloped downward. We got some pizza and headed out. Here are some pics of this gorgeous Italian Pueblo:

The Cathedral

The floor of the Cathedral....Amazing.

Paintings like this were all over the Cathedral

The Altar

The Cieling of the Cathedral

The Ceiling of the Library of the Cathedral

Us in front of the Plaza

Italy Day 3: Florence

The next day we headed out to Florence...after missing the first train we caught the second and we were off. Our hostel in Florence was very cute...we got a room just to ourselves and Leonardo, the owner, was very nice. He showed us all of the tourist sites on a map so we wouldn't get confused and thus we headed out to see what Florence had to offer.  Florence had a very artsy atmosphere, there was seriously some amazing work of art around every corner....i mean literally ever corner. I think if I had grown up in Florence I would now be able to draw amazing portraits and paint fruit instead of my wonderful stick figure drawings. It think I would at least be able to stay in the lines (just kidding I can do that now...most of the time). Anyways moving on...first we headed to see what else but The David!  The David, for those of you who don't know, is a gigantic statue (seriously he's 17 ft tall...thats 3 of me!) of David...you know from David and Goliath...the guy with the sling shot, yep that David. David was absolutely amazing! The details down to the veins in his arms and the wrinkles on his face, hands, and his knuckles were so intricate. It astounds me that Michelangelo was able to carve all of that from a single block of stone....just another reason I am now in love with Michel.

 The museum with the David didn't have much else to offer so after that we headed out to the Duomo and on the way bumped into the plaza where the David used to be held, which is basically like an outdoor museum of amazing sculptures, including a copy of the David. See what I mean about Florence being all artistic...I don't see sculptures of Poseidon on the streets of Minneapolis...now do I? Anywho after admiring the many statues we moved on and finally we found the Duomo. The outside was Amazing....it had beautiful architecture and I loved the colors. There was a gold door...yep a door made out of gold...im telling you these Italian Catholics and their Duomos, they are crazy! I guess the gold door is quite famous...I of course had no clue. Next, we went inside. The inside was much more plain than the outside but it was huge! We lit some candles to say a prayer for someone and put it on the candle things. After walking around the Cathedral and taking pictures we went to the bridge.

There is a bridge in Florence that has houses on it! Can you imagine just being like "oh hey yeah I just live on that bridge over there...yeah the 3rd house from the left, yeah that one". I mean who thinks to build a house on a bridge? So crazy! After that we went to the marketplace and ran into the other group from the fund that was there. It was fun to see them and do a little shopping with them. They told us about how they saw us miss the train....they were on it. Ha we had a good laugh over it. After dinner we headed to bed. Ready to face another day :).

Here are some pics:

The Duomo (thats Catedral for all you hispanohiblantes...and Catedral
is Cathedral for all you lame english speakers)

I guess this pure gold door is famous or something...
who knows what those Italian Catholics are up to

I said a little prayer for you...if you are lucky chosen one that is

Ceiling in the Duomo...Gorgeous

So big!

Craziness...thats all I've got to say!

Free outdoor statue museum on the plaza...yes please!

The Copy of David (we are not allowed to take pics of the real one...
seriously those museum police were more strict than the Vatican police.
You dont hassle with the David (the Hoff or the statue).

Italia Day 2: Rome

We woke up bright and early the next morning and headed out to tackle our full schedule. First we went to the Vatican...where we bumped into another group from the fund (our school) and claro cut in line with them. The Vatican was absolutely amazing! The first exhibit was an egyptian exhibit...complete with real mummies! You could even see the toe nails on the mummy, which was alive about a thousand years before christ. It was crazy. They also had many egyptian statues, of the gods etc, and egyptian heieroglyphs. The next exhibit was the Greek and Roman exhibit, which included a lot and a lot of statues, including ones of gods and important figures like Cicero. The next exhibit had a lot of awesome roman statues and items like old roman baths and I even saw a pig statue....which I was of course very excited about. After those exhibits there were a lot of rooms with paintings in them and finally we got to the Sistene Chapel!!!! It was indescribable! I still cannot believe that the cieling can be finished in one lifetime! Michelangelo is a genius and I am such a huge fan of him after visiting Italy! I even snuck a picture of the cieling before the Vatican Police (they have their own police) came up and told me I wasnt allowed to take pictures. After we left the Vatican we went for more Italian Pizza...and then of course we had to get some gelato. We had pizza and gelato at least once a day when we were there. After lunch we went to see St. Peters Basilica, but after seeing the line me and Nicki decided we would rather go to the Coliseum, so Clare went to St. Peters Basilica with the other group.  Here are some pics from the Vatican:

Mummy

Hall of Greek/Roman Statues

Heracles

Roman Bath



Pig Statue...my fav :)



Sistene Chapel Cieling

The Vatican does not mess around when it comes to crosses

We got to the colieum and there were these gladiators everywhere trying to get people to take pictures with them...luckily, we had been warned! What they do is pretend it will be free and then after the picture tell you you need to pay 20 Euro....we were too smart for this and so while we were in line we watched person after unsuspecting person get jipped. When we got into the Coliseum it was amazing! It was crazy how much technology they had back then, that we are still using almost the same exact builing techniques as thousands of years ago blows my mind. When we were at the Coliseum we bumped into my friend Nicole and her boyfriend that was visiting, Jeremy, and decided to get gelato with them afterwards...because another gelato was definitely necessary. Then we met up with Clare and went to the Ruins. Here are some pictures from the Coliseum:

Animal Bones Found after the Fights

Us being fighting animals

The Ruins were absolutely amazing. There were so many amazing Roman Temples and it was so incredible to walk down the street that thousands of years ago romans used to walk down to go pray to their gods. The Roman Ruins are basically this area of Rome that has been preserved for thousands of years, just hasnt been touched. It is called the Roman Forum and there were marketplaces, government buildings, houses of Emperors, and temples here. Here are some pictures from walking through it:

Italy Day 1: Rome...It almost didn't happen

DAY 1: MADRID

So Fall Break was finally here and off to Italy I went. Since our flight left at 4 on Tuesday we (me and the other two girls I travelled with) thought we'd hit up Madrid early so we left at 10 am. Nicki and I needed to buy a new suitcase because ours were too big for Ryanair and Clare needed socks so we went straight to shopping. Nicki and I found suitcases for 25 euro but bargained them down to 20 and Clare found her socks. Next order of business was to take out money for our big trip. This is where my blondeness was at its peak.

So I go to the ATM and try to take out 200 euro...no luck the ATM ends the transaction. So I try another ATM because sometimes they can be funny little things over here...I end up trying 6 different ATMs and none work. At this point I am freaking out because I am about to go to Italy with no cash and no way to get any. So I call my dad internationally...completely forgetting that it is 6 am back in the states and tell him to check on my account when he gets to the bank because something is not right. Then we go to mickey d's for a quick lunch...because at this point we are running late...when my brain magically turned on and I thought of an idea. I run out of McDonalds to the nearest Caja Madrid and try taking out 100 euro and it works! Stupid me forgot about my 200 US DOLLAR a day limit and since 200 euro exceeds 200 dollars it didnt work. So I took my money and we started our trek to the airport.

When we got there we only had 40 minutes til our plane left and naturally our flight was all the way on the other side of the airport. So we hurried our little buts off only to get confused at the check in counter because there was no passport stamping place like ryanair has. Well apparently easyjet is just nicer than ryanair and doesnt care about silly little things like that so we headed through security. Security in europe is nothing like the U.S., basically you just walk on through, they really dont check and frankly they really dont care. So luckily that was no time at all. We ran to our gate and got there just as they started boarding. It was fantastic timing. In line we even bumped into some people from St. Bens in Minnesota who were doing a Greece Rome study abroad and were heading out to the second half of their study abroad in Rome but had just had a break and went to Spain for vaca. And this little adventure is only one of the reasons my theme for this trip is "it almost didn't happen"

DAY 1: ROMA

We finally landed in Rome and found the traint to get into the city. We were relaxing on the train when suddenly we noticed that we were at our stop...we quickly ran down the stairs only to have the train doors close on us so we ran to the next doors and they closed on us too. It was very sad. We got off at the next stop and looked around confused and dazed when a cute little italian girl came up and asked us if we had missed our stop. We told her where we were trying to go and she gave us directions. We hopped on a train and went back to the last stop and continued on from there. We finally found our hostel, which had a hip fresh atmosphere. For the record all italians really do speak how people think they speak and the manager and the front desk worker had very italian accents. They gave us orange juice while we waited for our room, since we had showed up late it wasnt ready. After we finally got settled in our room we hit the town.

First we visited the Colliseum...which is absolutely amazing to see at night. The lights coming from the gorgeous arcs and pillars is breathtaking. After the Colliseum we walked and old ancient pathway through the ruins...it was the perfect activity to do on a halloween weekend. The pathway led through old temples to the Roman gods and buildings that were thousands of years old....after awhile we got kind of creeped out and decided to explore more of the city. We saw a gorgeous museum on our way to the Trevi Fountain. When we got to the Trevi fountain we asked some Romans about the coin toss tradition (in case you were wondering its right hand, left shoulder) and made our wishes. Next we climbed the Spanish steps and then we looked at  some more pretty fountains. As we started to go back to our hostel we walked past a tea bar and went in for a cup. Lets just say the waiting staff was very excited to have foreigners come in...we didnt even have to pay for our tea or the free strawberries and grapes and other delicious items they gave us. After being stuffed with fruit and tea and yummy goodies we headed back to our hostel...ready to wake up early and head to the vatican. Here are pictures from day one in Rome:

The hostel put us straight to work

Our orange juice



Coliseum <3



Roman Ruins

The ancient pathway was scary

Chilling on some Ruins

Making a Wish at the Trevi Fountain

Spanish Steps