Spring Break

[March 15-20]

Hi all!

I hope everything is going well at home, I know some of you are excited to hear what I have to say about my spring break and my visit to Barcelona then my stay with Isa in Trieste and seeing Venice for an afternoon... well I'll tell you.

HOWEVER, I am tired, and while I love keeping everyone informed, it takes some time to write these blog posts, and I have so very little time. Why? I will tell you. Unlike most study abroad students, I have actual classes here, and actual class work... but like ALL study abroad students, I am traveling almost every weekend I have available. With those two things combined I end up with a life that looks like this:

After getting back from Barcelona on Thursday morning (on a flight that left Spain at about 6am so we didn't bother to sleep that night...), I had 20 minutes in my apartment to unpack a few things and pack a few other things before I left to get a train to Venice then Trieste to visit Isa. Then after coming home Sunday evening, I had class at 9am on Monday. I have class at 9 am everyday, Monday through Thursday where I am in the role of "normal college kid" and have to attend class, and do homework and study... then, after 4 days of school, I leave this Thursday night for Brussels to visit with Kelly and Chris Maloney, and see Belgium! Exciting right!? Very! but also tiring.

So, please don't be too disappointed if I don't give every detail of my trip, or if it seems my post is too short for the amount of time I spent in Barcelona... I promise I will have PLENTY of stories and more to tell when I come home, but for now, pictures and my favorite highlights will have to suffice :)

So, here are my favorite parts of Barcelona:

Barcelona reminded me a lot of New York City! The subway system is extremely easy to navigate, and I never felt like I would not be able to find my way home if I was out on my own. Very comforting, and it was a good introduction for me to be on my own here and prepare for traveling more on my own in the future.

The night we got there, one of the workers at our hostel suggested we should go see the fountain and light show that was on that night (Friday) as well as the next night... having just gotten there, we didn't have any other plans, so we figured why the heck not?
BEST. DECISION. EVER. We loved it. In fact, we loved it so much we ended up going back the next night too! Here are pictures of The Magic Fountain of Montjuic:

 Basically, it is this HUGE ELABORATE light and fountain show set to music! It was one of the most beautiful and wonderful things I have ever seen, and I had an awesome time watching it and taking pictures (as you can see, I took a LOT here).

The view from the top of the steps was absolutely beautiful! This is Barcelona at night!

Well, that was a lot of pictures, but really now, is that not gorgeous!? It was a perfect first impression of where we had chosen to spend our spring break!

Anyway, that was our first night, the rest of the time we wandered the city and saw so many cool things, here is a short list of what I did in the few days following this night.

I saw La Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Park Guell, Casa Batllo-- All places designed by Antoni Gaudi, and all phenomenal looking!

La Sagrada Familia 

       

This is the inside of La Sagrada Familia.... I was amazed. It is so cool looking, and my pictures can't even do justice to it.

Casa Mila-- We actually just stumbled upon this on accident!
I didn't know what it was until I looked up where Gaudi houses were later!

This is in the park, Park Guell

Casa Batllo

Palau Guell
It looks like a gingerbread house!

We also went to Las Ramblas! This is essentially a shopping area in Barcelona, with La Rambla being the main street, there is a lot of cool stuff there, human statues, the coolest market ever, and it leads right up to the water! If you want to see more pictures of this area they're on facebook, or I will just share when I come home!

Best market ever. There were so many cool
and wonderful things in here!

Then there was the water... Absolutely beautiful!!

Well, there is a lot more... we went to an FCBarcelona Soccer game, which was really fun! I wandered around and saw a park there, I bought some cool souvenirs  and some other random things.... But I think this post is long enough, and this way I will have plenty to share when I get home!

I will post on my stay with my wonderful sister Isa soon, it was an absolutely splendid, and eventful, weekend and it deserves a post of its own!


Ciao all!

P.S. --  If you actually do want to hear about more of my week in Barcelona, or anything more about what I mentioned briefly here, just let me know in a comment here or on facebook, and I will gladly share more! Otherwise, I will share plenty more when I come home in 2 MONTHS! I'm already half way done with Europe, it's crazy.

Witnessing History

[March 12 &13]

Alright, I know, I never posted on visiting the Vatican!! Fail. But, since so many better things have happened than just my tour around the Vatican Museum, I will skip that, aside from a few words, and you will just have to see my pictures when I get home!!

Vatican Museum: HUGE. It is incredibly enormous. You need AT LEAST 2 hours just to walk through the entire thing... but you could spend an entire day there. The Sistine Chapel took me by surprise the first time i saw it (yes. I went twice.) it was just a little different than I expected. The second time however, was incredible. It was breathtaking to be standing there and be looking at a masterpiece that I'd learned about in classes, and it was especially nice because the second time I went I was with a friend and her roommate-- her roommate is an art history major. It is SO much easier to soak in and really appreciate art when you are with others that do, and know something about it. So that was just awesome. After this we climbed the Basilica. It was an incredible view, and SO much fun to climb!

But now... Because far more important things have happened since I am going to skip ahead and you can all see my Vatican museum pictures when I come back.


POPE.

Yesterday, my roommate asked if I was interested in going with her to see the famous smoke at the Vatican and see if they had chosen anyone yet. I hadn't even been aware that there were actually specified times, and you could go and wait an watch... It makes sense, but I had midterms this week so I never really thought about the Pope happenings (P.S. I think I did really well on my midterms so at least my studying paid off!).
I obviously said yes, not wanting to miss out on history if it happened!

We went, and waited... for a long time.... (they were late on their timing yesterday...) and we saw this:

Black Smoke from the Chimney of the Sistine Chapel

This black smoke signified that there was no decision yet. And so we left. I attempted to study for an exam that I had at 9 the next morning but passed out instead. I was tired.

Today, I woke up at 7:00, looked over my macroeconomic notes some more (like I said, hadn't studied it much because of pure exhaustion) then went and too the exam (if you're curious. I think I did really well). Then I came home, and studied for another exam (Italian... not so well, but hopefully decent enough). After that, I had finally finished finals, and was just done. Entirely done. I watched some netflix, and sat in bed and did nothing.

When my roommate asked again if I wanted to go to the Vatican tonight to see if they would choose I said of course! The cardinals went through votes a couple of other times today as well, but I had exams so I couldn't go. I was tired, but I had made up my mind that as ridiculous as it may be to just keep going and doing the same waiting game with no results, I could not BE IN ROME while this moment of history was in progress and not make EVERY effort to be there when it actually happened. As we were going, we were REALLY hoping they would choose tonight. We didn't want to have gone all that way for nothing, plus we are leaving for Barcelona on Friday so we didn't want the decision to happen while we were gone (I know, I know, we have a tough life here in Europe). In reality though (we were thinking) they would not choose tonight, we'd heard that it usually take as at least a few days, probably a couple weeks before they actually have a decision.

When we walked up to the Vatican it was notably more crowded than the night before... so we grew more excited as we felt the energy of the crowed and realized that maybe the Italians (and news people) knew something we didn't, and began to get REALLY excited to see what would happen.


We arrived just in time, we didn't have long to wait before smoke began coming from the Sistine Chapel chimney once again.

Admittedly, for the first second or so we were confused. It was lighter smoke than the night before, but it began to look dark for a split second before we saw:

WHITE SMOKE!!! We were THERE for it!! It was the most exciting thing ever to actually be WITNESSING IN PERSON this historical moment!!

So a few cool things:

-The Pope is 76 and from Buenos Aires, Argentina
-He is the first Latin American Pope, and the first Jesuit Priest to be Pope
-He took the name of Pope Francis I ("I" meaning no one else has ever taken that name)

There is just so much that is incredible in this moment and I am SO blessed to have been here now. I have been able to witness Pope Benedict XIV resign, making history since retiring from the Pope is practically unheard of, witness his last blessing, and witness the very beginning of the Papacy of Pope Francis I, the first Latin American Pope.


So. Much. History.

I have a video of his speech which I will show you when I get home (I would upload it but it's not working... it's only about 10 mins, but it may be a little long for Blogger).

Ciao!!

Rachel Came to Town

[Weekend of February 22-23]

So, after Florence, the next weekend Rachel came to visit! (Sorry, there is a LOT of writing in this post, more writing than pictures...)

I didn't do too much that weekend, until Sunday when I got to hang out with Rachel and my other friend Isabelle basically the whole day...

But first a quick story about Italian transportation system: The most unreliable thing ever.

Saturday night I had planned on meeting Rachel at her hostel and just catching up a little... I went to the bus stop near me to get to her hostel and waited for the usually-mostly-reliable 75 bus. After waiting for almost an hour with no bus, and with looming rain, I finally gave up (which of course when I walked away the bus came...). It was ridiculous. The buses here pretty much run at their own leisure, all I can say is that I'm VERY thankful I am a 2 minute walk from school and don't have to rely on the public transportation much!

Luckily though Rachel had internet access at her hostel, so we planned to meet in the morning at the Vatican!

I had also planned on going to the Vatican that weekend with Isabelle, who is studying here for the semester as well, and is from Germany. I met Isabelle in my marketing class and we get along very well! I also thought her and Rachel would get along pretty well considering Rachel is "studying" in Germany for the semester and loves to practice her German anytime she gets the chance! So, Isabelle and I met by school in the morning and proceeded to walk to the Vatican.

Of course, given the lack of actual street signs and the confusing tangled mess that Roman streets are, we got lost. We luckily got to ask directions from two different people who understood English pretty well, and for what was difficult, Isabelle can speak more Italian than I can! It was interesting, because we talk walked past the street we were SUPPOSED to turn onto about 10 minutes before, and when the nice pedestrians gave us directions (two seperate times) the each stated "be careful if you are walking because the street is very dangerous."

It was.

There were no sidewalks on the street we were going down, and we also had to cross the fairly busy street (where of course the Italian drivers sped by because: "speed limit? what is that?" haha!) AND it was necessary for us to go around a sharp corner where we would basically pop out of no where to the cars driving up to the intersection! Luckily we survived just fine! And we even finally found our way to Vatican City.

Now, since we got lost we were late for meeting Rachel, so we kind of wandered, went into St. Peter's Basilica and then found her! Rachel and her friends attended the 9:30 mass in the Basilica  which we had all meant to go to together, but... we were late.

We looked around the Basilica, and I saw:

Michelangelo's Pietà

And just .... well, the Basilica it'self!! Here are some more pictures of this fantastic building!

  After this, we waited around to see....

Pope Benedict XVI

THE POPE!! And witness his last blessing!!! Here's a picture Isabelle took of him, her camera has 20x zoom!

This took until about 12:30 so unfortunately we missed the time for entry into the Vatican museum, so instead we went and got some food where I ordered this delicious cappuccino:

Mmmm!!

 Then Isabelle Rachel and I went and visited the Spanish Steps!

Which, apparently I didn't actually take any pictures of... but here's me at the top and some pictures of the view!

It was a cloudy day, but luckily the rain held off while we were out!


The rest of the time, Rachel and I wandered around the city. We ended up stopping for cappuccinos again later and talked for about 3 hours at the coffee shop (which are called bars, and bars are known as pubs). It was really wonderful to catch up with her, and it was extremely good for my home-sickness to talk to someone from home. That day really helped me snap out of some pretty bad home-sick feelings and gotten me to just enjoy being here more than ever!

Because we didn't get to go to the Vatican museum that weekend, Isabelle and I made plans to go the next Saturday (since we couldn't travel anywhere anyways due to a marketing project which was due this past Tuesday.)

The Vatican was absolutely spectacular, and HUGE. But there's so much it will be another post.... coming soon.... hopefully. ;)


Ciao!!

Firenze!

[Weekend of February 15-17]

Ok ok, I know, I'm STILL weeks behind!! A lot has happened too, Rachel visited, I saw the Pope, I went to the Vatican... oh boy, SO much. But, let me back up a few weeks to Florence!

Florence, Firenze in Italian, was wonderful. It's smaller than Rome, but there is still a lot there. I liked the size of it actually, it felt nice and homey... It was really awesome! Probably one of my favorite cities I've been to!

We took a buss to get there, and after checking into the hotel, we went and met up with tour guides to have a look around Florence! Here is where we started:

The Rape of the Sabine Women

<-- I just love this statue. I don't know why, but this is one of the ones that I've learned about and it was incredibly cool to me to be looking at in person!

This is located in the square by the Palazzo Vecchio

Palazzo Vecchio Clock Tower

We also went to the Uffizi Gallery, where I saw the Botticelli's The Birth of Venus and Primavera, which I had also studied in my general education class on the Arts, so it was very very cool seeing those in person! (Couldn't take pictures...)

After that we had free time to just hand out and wander around Florence, where I got some pretty good pictures:





























This is one of my all time favorite pictures, featuring the Ponte Vecchio (a famous bridge lined on both sides of the streets with shops, mostly expensive jewelery)

Ponte Vecchio

The next day we visited the Duomo, and Michelangelo's David statue!

Duomo

The Duomo is absolutely fantastic! The outside is extremely decorative and attention grabbing.

 <-- The Inside however, is very plain. It is still beautiful, but it was made less flashy than the outside of the building. The exterior was basically to show off power/wealth to visitors, while the inside was more practical and a place of meeting.

I think this is just awesome!

Inside the Duomo

<-- Here's a cool picture I took of the inside, you can see a very decorative ceiling, but that was the most decorative part. These candles (as usual in churches) are lit in memory of deceased friends/family...

After seeing this, we got the rest of the day to wonder around and shop or see whatever. Florence is known for their leather goods, so I proudly purchased a made in Florence leather jacket, and then just had time to look around the city. 

Unfortunately I missed the chocolate festival that was going on that weekend! I don't know how it happened but I heard about it late or something, so we didn't find it! It was a bummer.

<-- This is one of my favorite pictures, I just love the carousel in the middle of the plaza with the giant arch in the background!








The last thing we did on this trip was a wine tasting! It was very fun, basically we were just fed a very delicious meal with wine selected to complement each course! It was very good, and I bought a couple bottles of wine from the winery we were at!

We left Sunday morning and stopped for the wine tasting in Montepulciano, Tuscany. Tuscany is beautiful. I can hardly imagine what it must look like in summer! Here are some pictures from the wine tasting and Tuscany:

Giant barrels of fermenting wine.

The barrels are empty,
but I thought it still made a cool picture!

The building where we had our meal and wine.

At the tasting, everyone is enjoying
conversation and the meal in front of us

The view from where we were, overlooking part of Tuscany.
Like I said, I can't even imagine how beautiful this is in summer!

Well, that pretty much sums up Firenze! It was a really great trip and I am so thankful it was part of my program!

P.S. Seeing the David statue was absolutely fantastic! However, I didn't take a picture because they weren't allowed... but really, the room it's in is designed specifically FOR the statue, so it looks magnificent where it is, with everything else just leading up to it!


I'll work in the next post soon!

Ciao!!