Thursday, May 10, 2007

Week 12: Italia, the full version

Ahhhh Italia. Buongiorno! Bella, bella, bella. Vabene. Alora. No bene. Gelati? Tiramisu? Pomodoro. Arrivederci. Ciao!

Yep, that was me for the last week and a half. What a fun time, minus the chaos that embodied the first 24 hours of our trip, starting in the train station at Prague. The genius behind the counter one day before gave us a ticket from Prague to Venice, not Venice to Prague. Hence, I spent a good 45 minutes arguing with a night manager before swapping phone numbers and agreeing to figure it out later (we had to buy ANOTHER ticket). That has turned into a one to three month process whereby we MIGHT get a 100 percent refund. Great.

So that cut deeply into the time that I should have been sleeping to wake up at 4:30 AM to make our 7 AM flight to Rome. Oh, the 7 AM flight that was delayed until 9:50 I mean. So we arrive in Rome 3 hours late, crazy with anticipation of the sights... but first to find our hostel. Two hours and two bus rides later, we arrive at Litus Roma. By Roma, they mean Litus, which is Rome's old port. Oh, our hostel is on the beach. Awesome. Except we are there to see Rome, not the sea. Another hour of public transportation passes to get to Rome. Not kidding at all. We hit the sites, hard. Then we proceed to have more public transportation issues later because the A metro line closes at 9 PM... who knew? We eventually made it back though, and after that our troubles were mainly over.

We had great weather our three days in Rome. I travelled with my friend Heather who is studying interior architecture at KSU.

The Colosseum, day.

And night.

The bridge to Trastavere at sunset.

St Peters.

Trevi Fountain.

After Rome we headed to Orvieto to relax a little and visit people from KSU who were studying there. There is actually a lot to see there, suprisingly. It is a beautiful little town on top of the hill. They made us some delicious pasta and peas dinner and then we went for cappuccino before going to bed.

Around noon the next day Heather and I headed on to Siena. (this is me and Adrienne at the train station)

Then it rained a lot in Siena. The next day we climbed the tower of the Palazzo Publico. SO COOL.

Here is Heather and I...

That morning we went on to FLORENCE! I got to see the David and the Duomo! (My life is complete!) We were there for 2 and a half days. On our list of sites include the duomo (and climbing through the inner and outer dome to the top high above Florence), the Palazzo Piti, Academia d'Academia, Palazzo Vecchio, Uffizi Gallery, etc. WOW we were busy bees on this trip.

Here are Micheangelo's stairs at the Laurentian Library.

The climb up to the top of the duomo... a very odd space.

Me at the top, before the rain!

A view from this Unesco world heritage fort we hiked up to. See the duomo?

My sketch of David since they don't allow photos...

The Ponte Vecchio...

We left Florence around noon on Thursday and stopped by Pisa on our way to Cinque Terre. Pisa is one of the most fun places to take pictures because there are so many interesting views and angles to explore, even without the "leaning tower." Here is the main lawn.

Columns on the tower. (yes for a low low price of 15 Euros they let you climb it... but hey, whens the next time I will be in Pisa?)

Ha I love this one... I was trying to smile, not look worried, but the rain made that kinda hard...

Trying to keep the tower from falling...

So we left Pisa and headed on to Cinque Terra... the coast of Italy south of Genoa, and one of the most beautiful places in the world. It rained... again (are you starting to see the trend?) but we decided to do the hikes anyways. Low and behold, by the time we got on the trail it had basically cleared up. We had some intense hiking involving a free beach that didn't really have a trail to it and even less of a trail on the way back up, but it was super fun. We also had some more delicious gelato because that is what you do in Italy when you are hot.

View of Vernazza, one of the towns, from the trail.

More in Vernazza.

The "free beach" where I slipped and fell in the ocean.

Me, Heather, and the two canadian girls we went hiking with from our hostel. We are dirty, and I am soaked, but still having a lot of fun.

The next day we departed for Venice bright and early. It was about a 6 hour train ride. We arrived excited and ready to sight see. But then we waited for someone to come check us into our hostel for an hour and a half... and during this period of time I dropped my camera, still in the case, again, and it broke, again. So I will be getting Heather's pictures at some point of Venice since I only have the 7 I took on the way from the train station to our hostel. Venice was incredible.

Our first day there we just walked around and took it in. Day two we hit the islands of Murano, Burano, and Torcello. Day three we did the attractions in St. Mark's Square and laid on the beach on Lido before taking the 16 hour sleeper train back to Prague. Oh what a trip. As amazing as it was, it was nice to come back and sleep in my own bed.

Then I checked my email and realized I had midcrits for studio on Thursday. So I cranked out a project in 2 days. And in between that I studied and passed my test in Czech language and did laundry. And then I slept all day yesterday.

I need to finish planning the rest of my travels at the end this week, get a lot more work done on studio, and get ready for Barcelona!!! (yeah, im going to Barcelona this weekend for 4 days, Berlin next weekend for 3 (we got bus tickets for forty dollars...), and then I have one weekend in Prague before I take off on my big adventure. Weeee! I hope everyone is well... its lunch time for me! Love you all, Sally.

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