Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The next stop on our trip was Florence.  This happens to be one of my favourite cities I have ever been to.  It is beautiful and what expect Italy to look like; small streets, old, colorful houses, small markets all around, delicious food everywhere, and gelato stores in every other building.  Once we got there, we walked around in the leather market, which is just street after street of leather goods that are rather cheap since they are all made right there in Italy.  While we were wandering around, Molly, Alexia, and I ran straight into the cast of Jersey Shore.  It was very strange seeing them in person. They were just as orange and trashy in real life as on TV.  They had a couple police and body guards following them, along with a camera crew.  Apparently the mayor or governor (who ever is in charge of Florence) made strict rules that they all have to follow while filming in Florence, so they seemed pretty tamed compared to how they normally behave in the States.  After this oh too exciting event, we decided to go to dinner and then out for the night.  We ate dinner and then sat on the steps of the Duomo with our glasses of wine.  As we sat there, we saw a group of exceptionally tall guys walking past the Duomo.  It happened to be the Canadian basketball guys we kept running into in Rome, it was quite the coincidence once again.  So we went out with them for a night out in Florence.  The next day we went to see Michelangelo's David, ate some delicious Italian food, and wandered around Florence for awhile, then went back to the hostel and swam in their disco-esc pool.  The next day we flew back to London.  We went back to London for a day and a half to do laundry and repack for Barcelona.

Barcelona was wonderful, really warm.  Once we got to Barcelona, we just wandered around / got lost amongst all the tiny unmarked streets, ate some tapas, drank some sangria and went back to the hostel for an early night.  The next day we went and saw all of the Gaudi work, then went to the beach for the afternoon.  I had no idea that the beaches were topless, until everyone at the beach was topless, women of all shapes and sizes.  There were also people selling coconuts, mojitos, air brush tattoos, and massages.  All of this plus the topless women made what should be a relaxing beach experience, quite the opposite.  Molly and I went to swim in the ocean for a bit and while we were swimming near where the waves break, I saw something white and squarish in the water swimming towards us.  I thought it was a stingray so freaked out and yelled at Molly to get out of the water.  We both went clambering out of the water screaming and falling onto the shore and a plastic bag comes floating up next to us.  It was quite embarrassing.  The next day we wandered around Barcelona some more then went to a flamenco dance show, I have never seen anyone move their feet so fast. The next day we spent the whole day at the beach, our flight was not until 9pm so we did not know how else to spend our day beside relaxing at the beach.  Our flight was packed full of Barcelona football fans, the big football game (equivalent to our Super Bowl) was two days later, Barcelona vs Manchester United.  Unfortunately, yet unsurprisingly, Barcelona won.  My last week and a half in London was spent wandering around my favourite places of London.  

My whole London experience was the best experience I have yet to have and probably the best experience I will ever have.  Six months have never gone so fast.  Now that I am back in the States, it truly all feels like a dream.  If anyone who is reading this, if anyone still is, has the chance to go live abroad for a length of time, I say don't think about the repercussions of moving away and just do it.  The chance to go live abroad is quite slim the longer you wait, since the opportunity may never again represent itself, take the chance and I guarantee you will not regret it.  The world is too large and life too short to miss out on any of these opportunities.  I made some great friends in the most unlikely places around Europe and definitely cherish every moment I had abroad.  I also definitely took too much for granted while being in London, but overall, I believe I took advantage of a lot of the time I had while there.  I have never enjoyed a place more than I have London.  I cannot say enough good things about London and the people there.  Hopefully this is not me saying goodbye to London forever.  I hope to move back after I graduate.  So for now, this is more of a see you later London.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The Last Post - Malta, Italy, & Barcelona

Malta Bay
Malta
Malta
The old, historic area of Malta
On the boat cruise in Malta
Blue Lagoon
Blue Lagoon
Blue Lagoon
On the fastest speed boat I have ever been on
Cave tour
Cave tour
Swimming in the Blue Lagoon
Caves
Blue Cave
The Temples of Malta
Best chocolate cake in the world, literally.
Malta beach
At our usual breakfast place in Rome
Breakfast in Rome
Breakfast in Rome with Kelly
Tori and me at the Trevi Fountain
Kelly and me at the Pantheon
Pantheon
Rome's "Wedding Cake"
Trajan's Column
Colosseum
Colosseum
First beginnings of the city of Rome
Built in 1 AD, still use the original door and keys to enter
Vatican City, the Pope is somewhere in that crowd
Love statue in Malta
Malta's crazy nightlife
Spanish Steps in Rome
Olivia's home for 2 months in Florence
Ponte Vecchio
Florence by night
Ponte Vecchio
Market in Barcelona
Barcelona
Molly and Alexia climbing up to see Gaudi things in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona
 Sagrada Familia
 Sagrada Familia
Inside the Sagrada Familia
Inside the Sagrada Familia
Sagrada Familia
Gaudi house
Gaudi house
Barcelona protest
Barcelona protest
Barcelona
Barcelona
Beach, where we spent most of our time in Barcelona

The start to our trip was not the best.  Our flight to Mykonos was canceled two days before we were suppose to leave because of a transportation strike so we could no longer go to Greece, which was quite disappointing, so we had to change our trip to start in Malta, I know, poor me, couldn't go to Greece so had to go to Malta, a beautiful little island.  I knew nothing of Malta, could not have even taken a stab at where it was on a map (it is a little island near Libya in case you did not know either).  Our flight was at 6:30 am.  There was a slight miscalculation of how long it would take us to get to the airport, even though we have flown from this same airport 4 times prior to this trip, nevertheless, we missed our flight.  This was only the second time I have run through an airport to catch a flight, not as fun/ funny when you actually miss the flight.  Well really we missed our check in time by two minutes and had to sit and watch our flight take off so that we could then pay 50 pounds to change our flight to the next morning.  The next morning we made our flight and wandered around the massive, non stop hills in the heat of Malta.  Our hostel in Malta was wonderful.  It was basically Real World Malta.  It was 10 girls and 10 guys that just got keys to a large house.  We all ate dinner together on the rooftop, got drinks together afterwards, and then went out together at night, Real World Malta.  One of the days in Malta we went on a boat tour of Malta and the little islands around the area - Gozo which is the island Calypso in greek mythology - and then on a speedboat tour of the caves in the area, this was probably the most fun things we did on the trip actually.  I have never been on a speedboat as fast as this one.  The guys driving it said it is one of the fastest speedboats out there, which at first I thought they were just trying to impress us, but after my face was frozen in place after the boat went a little over the top speed it could get up to, I would have to say I believe them.  There was a make shift diving board on the boat so we all went swimming in the absolutely clear blue water.  You could see to the bottom even in 7 ft water.  The swimming was going well, really fun, and then two of the girls I was with got stung by jellyfish.  They were not too happy, especially when I said I hope it scars, that it would be a really cool scar - you could see the tentacle marks on their arms, it truly would have been a great scar, but no worries, it did not scar.  The next day, our last day in Malta, Alexia and I did the touristy things, saw the temples that were over 5000 years old, went on a boat tour of the Blue Grotto, went to the old capital of Mdina, not sure why it is spelled so. Then had a six hour layover the next day at the Malta airport heading to Rome.  Because this blog thing is truly not as fun as I thought it would be, and also because it is an absolutely beautiful day in London, my second to last day in London to be exact, I will report about Rome, Florence, and Barcelona in a bit.  To be continued....


So now that I have had a rest from blogging, I can continue with my visit to Rome.  The six hour layover was passed with several bottles of complimentary wine with my three friends traveling with me, this time passed surprisingly quickly.  Once we arrived in Rome, since our day was spent, we just went to the hostel's bar which is actually known around Rome, people not staying at the hostel actually come to hang out at the bar, which I think is a little strange, but no matter.  At the hostel bar, we met up with our two other friends who arrived the previous day.  We met the tallest men I have ever seen in my life.  They were a Canadian basketball team, all over 6'5", except the point guard of course.  Not sure why they were at the hostel's bar, they were not staying near it.  They were traveling on a "mission trip" aka traipsing around Europe, doing touristy things, going out at night, and playing the occasional basketball game.  The next day we played tourist, saw Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, Trajan's Column, the Pantheon, the Roman Forum, Capitoline Hill, Piazza Navona, Palatine Hill, and others.  I knew Rome was a touristy place, but I had no idea how un-Italian like Rome seemed.  Walking around, I did not feel like I was in Italy, just some big city that could have been anywhere in the States.  After all of this touristy-ness, we headed back to the hostel for a quick nap, then ran off to dinner.  I was not that impressed with the food in Rome, it was not bad, just tasted like Italian food that could be found back at home in Springfield, so a little disappointing.  After dinner, we ran randomly into the Canadian basketball team again. The next day, our last day in Rome, we spent almost the whole day in Vatican City.  We got to see the Pope amongst the mass crowds.  As we were walking through the thousands of people hoping to see the Pope, we yet again ran into the basketball team.  We were quite shocked considering there were thousands of people in the crowds and we happen to walk through the entrance right when they do as well.  Small world.  We joined a tour group through the Vatican, which is quite large, very much a maze of sorts.  It took us about three hours to get through, ending at the Sistine Chapel.  The Sistine Chapel was not what I expected at all.  The ceiling was impressive, but the actual chapel itself was small and unimpressive.  Getting out of the Vatican seemed almost impossible, it took us a half hour to get out of there.  After the Vatican, the four of us took two bottles of wine to the Spanish Steps for sunset.  We bought a cheap wine opener so after our first attempt to open the first bottle, it of course broke inside the cork. So we were pretty helpless at this point, until our Italian saviors came to our rescue.  Four Italian guys sat down next to us and somehow managed to open our bottles with the broken screw and their house keys.  It was quite the spectacle, everyone on the steps was watching and cheering each time they managed to open a bottle.  After the Spanish Steps we went to a pub and spent the rest of the night chatting to a priest.  I had never seen a priest in a pub before so this was not what I was expecting from the night, but I guess when in Rome.  The next morning we took a train to Florence, which I shall continue talking about tomorrow perhaps.