Warning: This is REALLY long!!

Hello everyone! I have finally had a few days to reflect on my spring break trip! I saw so many things in such a little amount of time, it took some reflection to really appreciate everything that I saw in the last couple of weeks! I am going to try to keep it short, but I want to share of my favorite parts of each day. I will start with Rome and then go from there...

We left in the afternoon from Thessaloniki to make it to Rome. When we got there, we found our hostel with no problem. It was after we checked in that we found the problem. Kara and I had to share our room first with two Canadian boys, whom we never met, and then some Malaysian business man. It was maybe the most random thing of our lives.

After we settled in, we went right to the Trevi Fountain. It was beautiful! I never expected the fountain to be that amazing! As soon as we got there, it started pouring rain! We bought some umbrellas and just stood in awe of our first monument on the trip. After many minutes, we decided to get something to eat. We found a cute local place and sat down for the first of many heavy, but awesome, Italian meals. I had spaghetti and loved it. When dinner was done, we enjoyed some gelato. Equally as awesome! We finished our dessert and made our way to the Spanish Steps. They were so pretty at night! We sat and relaxed a little before our long walk home. When Kara and I got there, our Canadian roommates were asleep and that marked the first really awkward moment of the trip!! It did not matter though, we were so tired we fell right to sleep, which was a reoccurring theme all trip!

The next morning, we woke up early and headed straight for Vatican City! We made it there pretty early and lines were not too bad. We stood in line for about 20 minutes until I spoke to someone who told us the Sistine Chapel line was twice as large as ours. We skipped out of our line and headed for the long one. TWO HOURS LATER, we finally made it to the Vatican Museum. We walked through what seemed like miles of beautiful art on the walls, on display, and on ceilings until we reached what we had been waiting for: The Sistine Chapel! We walked in and our breath was literally taken away. It was one of the most amazing sights I have, and will probably ever see. It was so large and beautiful. Explaining it would do it no justice! I just wanted to lie on the floor and look at the ceiling forever! Of course I could not, we had to leave to get to St. Peter’s Basilica. It was so huge! I did not expect anything we saw on this trip to be so big! My favorite part of the Basilica was the sculpture done by Michelangelo called “Pieta.” It was of Mary holding Jesus after his crucifixion. It was very moving.

After the Basilica, we made our way to Colosseum!! I could not believe we were actually standing inside of it! It seemed like a dream. We rented some audio guides and walked around listening to information about the construction and games among other things. I feel like we walked around it about a million times. It was just so amazing! They believe it was large enough to fit about 70 thousand people in there! The most interesting thing I heard while there was about one of the uses of the monument. At one time, there was a huge whale built in the middle and when its mouth was opened, about 50 bears came out and were all hunted down for the audience’s viewing pleasure. Is that not absurd?? I thought so! We wanted to see it at night as well, so while we were waiting we had another nice Italian meal. I probably could eat Italian food for the rest of my life!! We went back and saw the Colosseum at night and it was just as beautiful. We made that visit short since it was getting late and we had a big day the next day.

We woke up early again and made our way to the Pantheon. The word “Pantheon” means “all gods.” It was a place that was used to worship all the gods. Again, it was huge! I knew the size of all these places, but once you are standing besides them, or inside them, everything you thought is thrown out the window. After seeing the Pantheon, we had to walk by the Trevi Fountain once more before we got to the metro station. It was even more amazing in the day light! Eventually we made it to our train and before we knew it, we were in Florence for the next part of our trip!

We wasted no time when we arrived. We walked straight to the Gallerie Accademie where Michelangelo’s famous sculpture “David” is on display. The line was much to long so we made reservations to see it the next day. We were not too disappointed though, we had made plans to attend a pub crawl that evening and we were all pretty excited. We grabbed something to eat and headed back to the hostel to prepare for the night! By the way, the hostel was much nicer than our Rome hostel. We were actually all in the same room! Anyways, when we got to the meeting place for the pub crawl, it was only four of us and some random other 3 Americans. They were pretty loud and annoying, you know, my favorite kind of people. Luckily, they were too drunk to keep up with the rest of us and had to leave the pub crawl early. We visited 3 Florence pubs and finally ended up at some club. It was hilarious! We all went our separate ways: Fredo stuck by the bar and kept an eye on us girls. He did not want to dance since he thought all the females were under 18. Kara was dancing with some Polish guy across the club, Sarah found her way to almost every thuggish man in the place, and I was off somewhere battle dancing some Italian man. It was truly a once in a lifetime, random night! I loved it!

When we woke up the next morning, we went straight to the gallery. We went in and unlike the Sistine Chapel, we turned one corner and there was “David.” The sculpture looked so real that you thought he could move at any moment. I had no idea he was so tall, about 17 feet tall to be exact. (Weird I did not realize he was so big..that seems to be a theme.) I took a secret picture of him just to show how large he was. I do not think we would even come close to his waist. We left and grabbed a quick lunch and did some more sightseeing and shopping. Then Alexa and I decided to go to another gallery. Florence is the birthplace of the Renaissance so I was excited to see this art work. My two favorite pieces were by Botticelli, “Birth of Venus” and “Primavera.” Look them up, they are amazing! After the art, we decided it was time to get some gelato. We went to the Gelateria de Neri. I can not even describe how good it was. I have not had gelato since because nothing will be as good as this! We walked around a little bit more and then called it a night.

We woke up really early the next morning to climb to the top of the Santa Maria del Fiore. This gorgeous cathedral has a tower that is open to climb. There are 412 steps and we climbed them all at 8 in the morning. It was actually good we went that early since the stairway is really built for one person going one way. Not many people going up and down all day! Besides the tiny stairway, the view was amazing! We could see the whole city and the countryside. Climbing the stairs was definitely worth it!! We finally made our way down and had lunch at the best bakery in the world. We ate pizza and then had some amazing desserts. I had a pineapple fruit tart. I will probably never find anything that was that good! (I just realized how intense I am about the food part of this trip..ha ha ha!!) We left Alexa in Florence to continue her trip and we made our way to the train station. We were on our way to Venice!

When we arrived, we needed to figure out a way to make it to our hotel. Did I mention it was about 30 minutes outside of the city? We made it out to the middle of nowhere, and to our Holiday Inn Express! We were soo happy! It had a huge bathroom and a working tv. Keep in mind that even though we were on spring break, having a tv was great. We have not watched tv in about 2 months. So, even though it was in Italian, we loved it! After we settled in and watched a few videos on MTV Italy, we made it back into the city. We walked out the door of the train station and we were starring right at the Grand Canal!! I could not believe what I was seeing. You hear about Venice being all water, but I do not think you believe it until you actually see boats, gondolas and water buses traveling all over on canals. It was awesome! We walked aimlessly through the few streets along the canals until we found a local pizza place. We ate huge pizzas and walked some more. We went back to the hotel and watched a few more videos before bed.

We did not wake up so early on this day, but we did wake up early enough to catch our free breakfast. When you are a college student traveling out of a backpack, nothing sounds as good as a free meal! We went into Venice and the first thing we did was buy a water bus pass. We just got on and rode it until we felt like getting off somewhere. Us girls met Fredo at the Rialto and we all decided it was time for our gondola ride! We found a great/cute gondolier and we all had to pay 20 euro for the 25 minute ride. Maybe the best 20 euro I have ever spent, except for the pub crawl. (Did I mention we got free t-shirts on that pub crawl? Ha ha) Anyways, the gondola ride took us all over the city. We saw where the movie “The Italian Job” was filmed and also where Marco Polo lived. When it was over, Fredo took us to St. Marco’s square where he had been all morning..feeding the pigeons. You could buy a bag of corn for 1 euro and feed the hundreds of pigeons. Everyone did it, even me. My travel companions enjoyed it more than I. One time, feeding one pigeon, was good enough for me. After I was done, the girls and I caught a water bus out to the island of Lido and ended up renting a bike thing. It looked like a Flintstones golf cart. There was room for two people in the front and two in the back. We only had three, so that's all the pedal power we had. We rode around the island laughing the whole time! The looks that we got from everyone were priceless!

We thought that the bikes were going to be the most random part of the day until we took the train back to our hotel. Across the street there was a mini-carnival! It was still open when we got home and the first thing we did was brought our stuff inside and ran outside to the bumper cars! We bought our tickets and picked our favorite cars. It was going to be just us three girls until some 5 year old Italian boy came out of no where and got into a car of his own. When we started, I do not think I could have laughed any harder. It was hilarious. Riding bumper cars with a 5 year old Italian boy in Venice? Who am I?

We checked out of the hotel the next day and spent the whole next day relaxing in Venice. We sat by the canals and bridges and just soaked up the sun and the beauty of Venice! It was one of the greatest parts of the trip! We finally had to tear ourselves away from the sun and get on a bus to the airport. We had some delays and almost missed our plane to Paris! We were within 10 minutes of the check-in desk closing! It was time to board and before we knew it, we were in the strangest airplane of our lives. We took RyanAir which is a discount airline. They squish people in the planes and fly in and out of old airports outside of the cities they fly to. Our seats would not even recline. There was no extra room. Our knees touched the seat in front of us no matter how we sat. Then they charged us for soda and gave us the smallest Pepsi can I have ever seen in my life! Aside from no room, the flight went well and before I knew it we were in Paris!! I was finally in Paris!!

It was about midnight, so we went right to our hotel when we finally got into the city. When we got into the cab, I could tell the driver where we were going in French! It was a great feeling to use the language I had been learning for so long! Our hotel was in the neighborhood of the Moulin Rouge, which is not the best neighborhood, so we were happy when our hotel was nice on the inside! We went right to sleep and woke up early the next morning to see the Notre Dame. Before getting there, we stopped to have breakfast at a local café. It was great! I had wonderful bread with apples in it and cafe au lait (coffee with milk). We made it to the church and it was beautiful inside. We hurried through it because I had to go meet Katelin Dailey under the Eiffel Tower at noon! It was not until we got home that we realized we had missed the most beautiful part of the Notre Dame, the side with the all the flying buttresses and what not. We were pretty impressed with ourselves.

We made it to the Eiffel Tower and I was searching through the mobs of people waiting to get to the top, and all of a sudden I saw Katelin coming towards me! I started tearing up when I saw her! It was a great moment! We talked for a while and then decided to meet later at the Arc de Triomphe for dinner. Then my roommates and I finally got on the elevator to the top! It was an amazing view! You could see the whole city of Paris! I loved it! I was a little scared looking straight down, but it was worth a little worry to be on the top of the Eiffel Tower. When we headed back down, before we made our way to the Arc, we stopped for fries. Yes, you guessed it, French fries! Maybe it was being in France under the Eiffel Tower, but they were the best fries I ever had!

We met Katelin and her mother, Paulette, at the Arc and made our way down the most famous street in Paris: The Champs Elysees! I remember singing a silly song about the street in high school French class and now I was walking down it! We did a little window shopping and ended up taking a metro to the Latin Quarter for dinner. We stopped at a pub for a happy hour drink and finally ended up at a popular local restaurant. I had some onion soup and filet mignon and it was one of the best meals I will probably ever have. (No offense Mom or Grandma, but it was good!) I said good-bye to my Minot friends and the girls and I made our way back to the creepy part of town, back to our hotel.

We woke up early again and started on our way out to the Palace of Versailles. It was the palace that Louis XIV and Marie-Antoinette lived in, before they had their heads chopped off! It was a beautiful day and we finally got our tickets and headed into the gardens. We could not believe what we saw! Even though it was too early for flowers to be blooming and the fountains to be going, the whole place was amazing! I never imagined it to be as big as it is! We went to Marie-Antoinette’s quarters first and looked around her whole place. She had a bigger piece of land to herself than most farms in ND! We leisurely walked around her gardens and enjoyed the scenery. Then we went back up to the palace. The two hour line had disappeared by then and we walked right in. The palace was covered in gold and amazing art work! My favorite part was the opera house! It was gorgeous! People these days have their own theater room, Louis had his own Opera House!! We also saw the famous Hall of Mirrors where the Treaty of Versailles was signed to end WWI.

After we left the palace, we made our way back into Paris and Kara and I went straight to the Louvre. We knew it was free for students after 6pm on Fridays so we waited until then. The Louvre is so large it would take days to see everything, so we picked out our favorites and found those. We went to the Mona Lisa first. She was a lot smaller than I expected. That was the only thing on this trip that was smaller than I expected! We saw the famous sculpture of Venus de Milo and we went to see the Code of Hammerabi. We saw another Michelangelo sculpture and made our way out of the Louvre. We then went back to the Eiffel Tower to see it at night as well! It was just as amazing at night! I loved the lights and the light show. As tacky as the light show might be to the residents of Paris, I loved it! We ate some fruit tarts and just enjoyed the evening looking at the tower.

We finally pulled ourselves away and went back to the hotel. Kara and I had to pack since we were leaving at about 4:30am to make our flight. We slept for only 2 hours and then went to the airport. We had a layover in Stuggart, Germany on our way home and we took advantage of it! It was around lunch time, so we enjoyed some weinerschnitzel and beer. A short flight later, we were back in Thessaloniki! It felt so good to be back to a place that was familiar! We unpacked and relaxed the rest of the day!

The next day was Easter and Brandy and her boyfriend came back to Thessaloniki in time to enjoy the holiday with us as well. We all made a little something for Easter dinner and it was much better than I expected it to be. I was very homesick the night before thinking about how Easter just was not going to be the same, but my company made the holiday really great!

Since then, we have been sleeping late and just enjoying our break from school! It is almost time to go back, and we are ready! The weather has been amazing since we have been back, and we can also not wait to hit some beaches in the last few weeks of our stay here in Greece!

Well, that is it! Sorry that this entry was soooo long! I hope you enjoyed my stories and pictures of my travels! I will be adding the rest of the photos tonight! I hope you all have a great weekend, and it is only 2 more months until I see you all! Until my next blog..take care!