I've decided to do a little bit of retroactive updating from this semester. It will give me a chance to look through all my photos, job my memory...and put off studying for exams. :)
I'm going to start with my favorite trip of the semester, ROME. Jana, Rachel, and I went to Italy for the long weekend of March 24, 25, 26, and 27. Started out with catching the bus out of Denia to Valencia, the metro from the bus station to the airport, and a flight out of Valencia around 9pm. I continue to have mixed feelings about Ryanair, the airline that doesn't assign seats and charges 3 euro ($4.50) for a half-liter bottle of water. But we were happy to be there anyway.
Flight arrived to Ciampino airport (half hour outside of Rome) around 11:30, we caught a bus to the main station in Rome, and then wandered for about 20 minutes before finding our hostel. Finally, at 1am, we fell into bed fast asleep.
Next day: up bright and early to head out to Vatican City. The place was absolutely JAMMED with people, including several groups of teenage boys passing around a joint. Is marijuana not illegal here or something? I saw people smoking it in every major city we went to in Spain, France, and Italy. Welcome to Europe.
After a couple of hours, we made it in to see the Sistine Chapel, some old artwork, and St. Peter's Basilica.
What follows next is the best type food I've ever tasted: gelato. I absolutely cannot do it justice, it is that good. It's like ice cream, but lighter. Maybe a cross between ice cream sherbet. The best flavors to get are fruit flavors (strawberry was my favorite), but Jana discovered that Tira Misu was pretty darn good too. After our first rendezvous Signor Gelato, we went to Castel Sant'Angelo (which is a mausoleum) and the Spanish Steps. We figured we had to stop there because we were on the Semester in Spain, after all.
Back to the hotel for a quick sleep, and we headed back out to find a place for dinner. We found this realllllly cute little cafe with outdoor seating and reasonable prices. After stuffing ourselves with delicious pizza, lasagna, and tortellini, we returned to the hostel for a little party...
a TOGA PARTY, that is!! haha. We were a little out of control. We fashioned togas out of the extra sheets, collected leaves on the way home for our hair, and snapped several pictures. We may or may not have jumped on the bed a bit too.
Next day: the Colosseum! I was very excited to see this because it's such a global icon. I'm normally not a history/architecture person, but it was so cool to be in a place that was built a couple of thousand years ago. Plus, it's HUUUUGE! Guests can be on the first and second levels, and it's equally impressive from both points of view. I absolutely loved it. I feel like it's one of the iconic symbols of Italy.
After we had had our fill of the Colosseum, we went next door to the Roman Forum, which is an extensive collection of gardens, statues, and old buildings from the time of the Roman Empire. We took advantage of the sun and warm air and did a bit of napping on the lawn. We wandered around a bit, smelled the flowers, and took lots of pictures. Rachel was absolutely in her element with all the historic buildings and old things made out of stone, and we indulged her a bit. :)
Next, we caught the metro out to Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. This was where Jana was in her element and she was beyond excited to throw her coin into the fountain to assure her return to Rome. The place was packed, but we muscled our way to the edge of the water in order to toss our coins. We even managed to get a good photo of us there, thanks to Rachel's insanely long arms.
By this point, we were pretty tired after two full days of sight-seeing (the nap in the Forum helped, but only a little) and we decided that a sleep in the hostel was in order. We went to the same cafe for dinner again because we loved the food so much and because our waiter was such a gentleman. His English was pretty good and we talked to him for a bit as we ate some more delicious food. After a trip for some gelato, we headed back to our hostel to go to bed because we had an early flight.
Next day, 3:45am: We wake up (ish), grab our bags, stagger out to the street, and trudge to the bus station to catch the bus to the airport. 3:45am really is an ungodly hour, especially on the day that all the clocks move ahead one hour.
Got to the airport, made it through security and passport/visa check with no trouble, waited a bit, boarded our flight, and made it back to Spain safe and sound. Up until this point, we had made every flight, bus, train, etc. with no difficulty. But when we arrived at the Valencia airport, we found that we had only an hour until the bus to Denia left. No problem, right? The metro goes right from the airport to the bus station! WRONG. The train sat at the airport for about 20 minutes before leaving again, we just missed the train we had to transfer to in order to get to the bus station, and when we finally got above ground with 5 minutes to spare, Rachel booked it to the station to beg the officials to sell us tickets and hold the bus for us.
But no such luck.
Jana and I arrived shortly after she did, and found her arguing heatedly with the man in the ticket booth who told her that the bus left 5 minutes before she got there. Now, we had dealt with transportation being behind schedule (and many other things behind schedule, for that matter) because that's how things are done in Spain. Absolute punctuality is not super important. But we had never in our lives experienced transportation that left AHEAD of schedule. We had to wait in the station for two hours for the next bus and we eventually made it back to Denia safely, but we were not exactly happy campers. :)
Except for the bus hiccup at the end, the trip was absolutely fantastic. I especially enjoyed being in Rome because my ancestors came from Italy and plus, it's GORGEOUS! Wayyyyy prettier than Paris. Here's how the trip breaks down by the numbers:
52: Hours spent in the city of Rome
6: Times that speaking Spanish got us farther than English
551: Steps to the top of St. Peter's Basilica
136: Spanish Steps
26: Emergency sirens heard in those 56 hours (even more than Madrid)
36: Ounces of gelato consumed
1: Number of times that Jana got the big key in the door the right way on the first try. :)
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