Thursday, March 29, 2012

Corfu, Greece: Spring Break

On Friday, March 16 I got to leave for Greece through a program called Bus2Alps.  I can not get over how great of an experience it was and how much fun I had on the trip.  We started off taking a five hour bus to catch an overnight cruise ship to Corfu.  The cruise ship was nice, I got to walk around and meet the other people that were on the trip with me.  The food that they had for dinner was absolutely horrible though.  I had gotten chicken and could not even eat half of it because it was still pink on the inside.  Once we finally reached Corfu we were all picked up by buses that would take us to our hostel called the Pink Palace.  It was a really cool place right on the water.  Our room had a balcony that overlooked the water and we got to see the sunset from there, so beautiful!  We spent the rest of the afternoon (now Saturday) walking along the water and just exploring a little bit.  My roommate, our trip leaders, and I got daring enough to go in and under the water.  It warmed up right away, it was just the initial shock that seemed cold.  After our swim we went back to shower and went to happy hour before our toga party dinner.  After dinner they had a traditional Greek dance performed and even did some plate smashing over people's heads. 


The next morning we woke up and went to breakfast where we signed up for ATV riding around the island of Corfu.  It was a toured ATV trip where Makenzie rode on the back of my ATV because she forgot to bring her driver's license on the trip.  We were towards the front of the pack because ours drove 300cc compared to the 150 everyone else had.  While we were going along the leader kept stopping and would go back to make sure that something was not wrong.  We found out later that some girl towards the back of the back somehow drove her ATV off a cliff and was able to jump off.  Thank goodness she was okay.  The leader came driving up with her on the back of his ATV.  While we were waiting for the leader to come back up, I met my friend Ross who ended up being becoming one of my good friends on the trip.  We kept driving further until we took a stop at a beach for some pictures where I met Ross' friend Mike who is now one of my good friends too.  We then drove around the island the rest of the day and got to stop at one of the highest points for lunch overlooking the ocean.  Once the ATV tour was over we all waited for the rest of the people on our trip back to get back from their cruise ship activity where I met Ross and Mike's friend Kathleen.  I am so happy I became friends with them because they go to school at Northeastern so I will be able to see them when we all go back to the United States.  The rest of the afternoon we hung out in the hot tub where we met more really good friends, Erin and Katherine.  After the hot tub we had to go and pack for our overnight bus ride to Athens. 

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Midterms week

Midterms here are a lot harder than they are at Worcester State.  Usually at my home school they are spread out between classes by a week or two depending on how the professor schedules it, so it is not as stressful.  At my school in Italy they put all of the midterms in one week for every class, so it is almost like finals week making it a lot more stressful.  I have already taken two of my midterms and they went better than I thought they were going to go.  I have my last three midterms tomorrow and then I am on my spring break! Earlier this week my roommate Alex told me about this bar which is an American coffee shop called Astor's.  They have this awesome deal there where you can get unlimited coffee for a month at a price of 30 euro.  As soon as she told me I was out the door on my way to get my coffee card.  The major incentive for me of getting this card was the iced coffee! No one here uses ice because Italians think that cold things give you a cold so they avoid them at all costs.  Normally, they do not even refrigerate their water.  I  have had my coffee card for two days now and I have already had three different types of coffee.  They have a long list of about 30 different coffees you can get with the card.  Also you get a maximum of four coffees a day, but I could never drink that much in one day.  You might be thinking to yourself, whats the big deal with this whole coffee thing?  Well if you enjoy coffee in America and come to Florence and realize there is no Boston Donuts, Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks you will understand what I mean. 

The best news is that after finals are over, I am going to GREECE for my SPRING BREAK on Friday.  I am beyond excited!  It is one place that I have always wanted to go.

weekend

This past weekend I just hung out in Florence, it was nice just to be able to relax and not worry about traveling.  I hung out with my cousin for a majority of the weekend which was a lot of fun.  We just walked around and took turns making dinner for each other.  It was really funny because one of the nights while we had dinner we were skyping our mothers who were together eating lunch. 

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Birthday Weekend in London


On March 2, I had to wake up at about 215 am in order to pack my bags and make it to the train station for 315 am for a bus to Pisa airport with my roommate.  When we got to the airport at around 445am we got out bags checked in and went to go through security.  The woman working at the security area told us we could no go through security yet because all of the flights were going to be delayed until about noon because of the fog outside.  We could not believe that we had just woken up so early to find out that we were going to just sit around at the airport for about 7 hours for our plane to take off.  Everything ended up working out once we took a nap and got to London.  We took a train from Stansted Airport and then took a tube to get to our hostel.  The first two nights we stayed in a room with 6 other people and on the third night we stayed in a room with 20 other people!!  By the time we had arrived at the hostel and checked in, it was about 530pm so we spent the whole day traveling.  We decided that because most of the museums would be closing we should just walk around and see what London had to offer us.  We ended up wandering over a bridge and were able to see the London Tower Bridge right next to us.  Then we found and visited St. Paul's Cathedral which is yet again another beautiful church in Europe.  We both were so hungry and thought we should find a place for dinner so we ended up eating at our hostel, St. Christopher's Village, where you get a discount on all food.  We ended up just hanging out that night and visiting my roommate's friend from home who actually works at the bar right next to where we were staying.  It was a weird coincidence.


The next morning we woke up and went on a free tour that our hostel provided.  It turned out to be the best tour I have ever been on.  The tour guide kept me engaged the entire time and told interesting stories about the history of London.  The tour guide brought us to all the royal places of London such as Buckingham Palace.  The best two stories that he told us were about a couple break-ins at Buckingham Palace.  I could not even believe what I was hearing.  We also got to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the court houses on the tour.  After the tour was over we were all invited to lunch at this pub where I got to try some genuine English food.  We went back to the hostel after and got ready for a pub crawl that was also set up through the hostel.  My roommate and I ended up meeting some of the Queen’s guards, which means that they are in the UK army.  They were asking us if we had gone to Buckingham Palace and if we saw the changing of the guards.  We said that we had earlier that day and they told us that they were in it.  The next day we woke up and did some more touring around by ourselves to see Abbey Road where the Beatles crossed the road.  We also went to the shopping center called Brick Lane and Camden where they had some mini markets also.  Then we went over the London Tower Bridge, which was amazing! I could not believe how big it was.  Then we ended up going to a mall where we shopped around a little bit and got to go to the movies.  It was wonderful to just be able to watch a movie!  We ended up seeing The Vow, which was awesome!  I had never been so excited to watch a movie in my life just because watching TV is so rare while I am abroad.  Later that night we ended up meeting up with the Queen’s guards to hang out for a little while then went back to our hostel for some sleep.








In the morning I was taking the plane back to Pisa by myself while my roommate stayed until later on that night because there was only one spot available for the flight Monday morning.  I had to wake up at 4am to take a bus to the train station which brought me to the airport.  Once I got to the airport and got my bag checked in I went to go through security.  I had everything back with me on the other side except my suitcase.  A woman came up to me that worked at the airport and was asking me what was in my suitcase, almost drilling me.  I had never been so scared in my life.  I thought that I was going to be arrested or something.  For some reason the security was much more intense in London than it was in Pisa, and their detector was saying that I had something in my bag.  So sure enough it got searched, but obviously there was nothing in my suitcase for me to worry about.  Good thing I got to the airport well in advance because it ended up taking an extra half an hour for my bag to be searched.  Everything ended up working out and I made it back to Florence safely.

21

This past week has been super busy with school and midterms coming up, I have not even had time to write about everything going on.  The night of my birthday I ended up going out to dinner with my cousin and a bunch of my friends to a restaurant called Tijuana's.  It was a perfect place to go because everyone was getting sick of Italian food and in need of some Mexican food.  I was recommended to get the fajitas, so that is exactly what I got and it was delicious.  It turned out to be a great day!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Coming up

Today is my 21st birthday and I am leaving for London tomorrow morning to celebrate! I am meeting my with one of my mom's coworker's daughters named Emily. I am really excited to see all of the wonderful places and blog about it when I return, it should be fun!!

Prague: a fairy tale





I have been so busy this past week that I am finally getting a chance to blog again.  Last week I booked a last minute trip to Prague! I am so happy that I ended up going.  The buildings there are also so colorful, but the architecture on the buildings is completely different from the other places that I have visited so far.  The whole city is like a fairy tale.  To get there we took a bus overnight which was extremely uncomfortable just sitting there and trying to sleep for about 13 hours.  When we got there we checked into the hotel and went straight on a tour of the city to see what the city had to offer.  We stopped at the John Lennon wall, which was very cool.  There is also a very tiny bridge with a cement wall and bars.  On the bars there are locks around the bars that couples put there and then throw the key into the river below.  It is supposed to signify that their love is locked away.  Then we walked up to the castle! It was not what I was expecting at all.   at first I didn't even know we were at the castle because I was expecting more of an all stone and extremely tall building.  Turns out it was more of just a little town.  On the way back we got to cross the St. Charles Bridge.  The view from there was incredible.  Then we continued back towards the old town square where we got to see the famous clock tower.  That night we got to check out this placed called the 5 story club.  On every single floor they play different types of music.  They have the current music on one floor, music from the 70s and 80s on another floor with all the classics, another they play just techno and so on.  The next day we walked around again and tried to go to the Jewish ghetto for the Holocaust museum, but turns out they are closed on Saturdays so we were not able to go in.  So we explored the streets of Prague and found a beer tasting place.  You get to pick from thirty different types of beer whichever ones you would like.  They had flavors like raspberry, grapefruit, and chocolate.  Prague was a blast and I would love to go back someday if I get the chance to!