Arrivederci London ... Bonjourno Springbreak

April 9th - April 21st 

12 days.

6 cities. 

one hell of a spring break. 

First Stop:

Venezia, Italia. 

to start off, i cannot believe this trip is really happening. i feel like we have planned it forever, and now the day has finally come .. jet setting around europe for the next 12 days, is this real life? well, erin, jade, and i  left saturday afternoon for our first stop of spring break, venice. typical natasha, i was very pessimistic and nevous about this whole entire trip because when i travel nothing every goes over smoothly, something was bound to happen. but, surprisingly, our trip to the airport was smoothy. we made it there and through security with a solid 2 hours to spare so we headed upstairs to the pub and had a little snack and a drink. then it was off to venice. smooth ride for the most part, until about half way through ( our long flight of like and hour and a half) where we hit a bit of turbulence. lets just say i was very happy once we landed. once we arrived and made it through customs we headed out to try and find out way to our hostel. well sure enough the bus we were supposed to take stopped running for the night so instead of winging it with another route, we just took a taxi to be safe. well, not so safe because he drove like maniac and ended out ride going down a one way street the wrong way ... goodness gracious. 

we arrived out our 'hostel' named hotel martello. it was a cute little place we split up two and two and we each had a tv, bed and our own private bathroom with shower. 

after our first experience with hostels, i have been very hesitant to stay in others, but this was a nice surprise. not to far away from the city, the next morning we woke up, walked to the train station, took a train to the water taxi which then took us to san marcos square. a bit of a process to get there, but once we arrived we stayed in one spot for the day. 

we walked around the square, so many shops. we got lost in them after a while because you just keep walking and turning corners and there is always another street. next thing you know you in the middle of god knows where and have to try and find your way back. we strolled around for a few hours, grabbed lunch and then went on a gondola ride. it was so much fun. they start in the open water and then you head down the little canals throughout the area. the views are absolutely amazing. 

after that we headed back in towards the main square and go some gelato. and this, was where the addiction began. oh my god, im in love. thank god they dont have gelato in london or else there would be an issue. then we did some shopping.. of course. all the shops were cute but had alot of the same things, murano glass and masks. there was glass everywhere. cool at first, but after the first ten to twenty stores have the same glass, it gets boring. well imagine it after about 4 hours ... i still dont want to look at another piece of glass. no more ... please! 

me and jade

jade. erin. rachel 

after a succesful day in venice, we headed back to our hostel around 730-8ish because it was sunday and everything around us was closing early. the next morning, we woke up bright and early to catch the train to florence. luckily the train station was literally a 5 minute walk away from our hostel (pure luck) so we didnt have to travel far. but, this is when we hit our first dilemma of the trip.

first off, when we booked our trips, rachel was not going to come with us. she had planned to go to some other countries with a friend, because she had already been to majority of the cities we were going to. but ...when it came down to a few days before, she decided to come with us so she booked all of her tickets separately. she decided not to buy her train ticket to florence and just get it at the train station the day off. well that was a good idea until we arrived at the station and the machine said that the train was sold out. 

[ insert awkward 'what the hell do we do now' pause here]

we all just looked at each other. soooo, now what? well long story short she ended up taking the train an hour after us, but it all worked out because the boys were unable to pick us up at the train station until then anyway. 

first dilemma solved. 

a 2 hour train ride later, we had arrived in florence. 

venice photos

oh, since we have quite a few stops in italy, we started working on basic phrases in italian.. and now i am slowly getting used to using it on a daily basis. and i find the phonetic break down of the words really cool. there is a new add that i have seen lately for 'google voice' and it has words writing phonetically, and it fun to read and figure out the phrase ...ahh i love italian!
 by the time i get home ill be able to say basic phrases in quite a few.

phrase of the day:

hello.
buon giorno


[ bwon zhor-no ] 


goodbye.
arrivederci


[ ah-ree-vuh-dehr-chee ]

Ciao Bello

next stop:

frienze, italia 

arriving in florence on the 11th, this was one of our longest stops. we planned to stay here for four days because we stayed with our friends from roger. earlier in the semester the boys came to visit us in london, so of course we had to go visit them in florence where they are all studying for the term. they have an awesome apartment in florence, so the four of us stayed on their pull out couches, talk about a money saver! well we arrived in florence, and jade, erin and i decided to sit outside of the station on the grass while we waited for rachels train to come in as well as for the boys to get out of class. 

well, that was a bad life decision. after about 10 minutes we noticed some lady standing awkwardly close to us. and then two minutes later she sat right next to me. i knew right away something was up .. out of all the grass that is wide open u decide to sit so close to me your practically on my lap. really lady?! well, the three of us just looked at each other and pulled out stuff close to us. then erin looked around and saw another guy looking at that lady, so she said

 'hey girls, wanna go inside now, rachels train is here' 

and sure enough the lady got up and walked away as soon as we picked up our stuff.

well thinking we just got out of a potentially bad situation, we headed back into the station. and then we realize that the guy clearly working with her, followed us into the station. so we moved closer to the tracks and stood next to the information booth, where this guy creepishly walked laps around us. seriously... your really going to try and steal our stuff, when we are well aware of what your doing. i was about to turn around and tell him to give up, because clearly we're watching our stuff. go find some other people that are dumb tourist and not paying attention and leave us alone. so after about 40 minutes of being creeped on, rachel arrive and the boys showed up. thank god. 

the boys had to go back to class shortly after that, so they took our suit cases, handed us a map and sent us on our way. so we ventured around florence for the after noon and enjoyed the beautiful 75 degree weather... starting off with lunch.

potentially, the greatest pizza ive ever had.

after lunch we just strolled around the city. after some walking we headed over to see 'the fake david' which was outside in a piazza. 

the real one is in the museum and your not allowed to take photos, so this is as good as it gets. then we headed across the river near where the boys have studio so we could meet up with them after. well we attempted to look for a park to hang out in and the first spot we found was a garden. it was beautiful but not the type of place with people lounging out on the grass [hence the stay off the grass signs], so we strolled through and then continued to look for another place. 

erin took our the map and looked for another place to go. we headed down the street to what we thought was a park. well funny story, it ended up being an area that looked like a large green park on the map, but was really completely unaccessible and surrounded by walls. well of course we didnt know that so we just kept walking and looked for the entrance. about an hour later, after we had walked up quite possibly the highest high in florence we gave up and headed down. then i took the map from erin, and realized that we were supposed to go to a little tiny park across the street from studio, not the place that she though aka where we ended up. wahhhh, tash was not to happy. 

luckily, jade captured the moment when i had a mild breakdown. for the record: no, i do not wear my backpack on the front. i actually cannot stand the people who do that. you might as well walk around with tourist tattooed on your forehead. seriously, you look dumb. once we got to the top i was sweating, and my back was killing me so i took my back pack off for a minute and it just ended up in the front. not my proudest moment. although, the girls find it to be one of the funniest pictures from our whole trip! 

frazzled. 

well funny story... not so funny, we walked around forever and have decided to agree to disagree when it comes to pointing fingers to the person who is responsible for getting us lost. 

(cough, erin, cough) 

then we met the boys and headed back to the apartment to make dinner and hang out. then next day we woke up with intention of frolicking around florence, but while walking into the city, we decided to go to pisa instead. no big deal. (detail to follow in the next entry) after about a three hour trip we arrived back in florence and then had a late lunch and walked around the leather market. i wanted to buy everything! while walking around we ended up running into our friends from london, go figure right? small world. so we all went out and had some snacks and drink for happy hour and then we met up with our other friends from roger and grabbed some gelato. once again ....delicious!!!

pretty sunset. 

the next morning we woke up early to head to the duomo. well, about 400 and something steps later .... we made it to the top ... and it was well worth it. incredible view of the city. 

what up florence? 

jade. erin. me. rachel

outside of the duomo

after we headed to a little shop for lunch and then went back to the market to pick up some last minute nick nacks. then we headed back to the area near studio (and didnt get lost this time!) to meet up with the boys. then we headed to the piazza de michelangelo where we had another beautiful view of the city. 

the girls. <3 

erin. bird. me 

after, we hustled over to a restaurant for our last family dinner and then went out for a night on the town with everyone. the next morning we packed up and headed to the train station. it was so nice to see the boys again, but weird that we wont see them again until we move back in to school in august ... i dont like that! we spend alot of time in florence and i absolutely loved it. of course we did alot more than what i mentioned, but if i went into every stop i'd be here writing forever, and lets face it ... i cant focus of that long anyway. over all impression of florence, absolutely beautiful. if you havent been you should go but  i am glad that i didnt decide to study there because its small. i think i would have been bored after a while. then again i guess that would happen anywhere you decided to go eventually. 

phrases of the day:

lets go

andiamo! 

[ on-dee-ah-mo ]

all aboard. 

next stop:

roma. 

andiamo!

Lean With It ...

oops, minor pit stop in pisa! 

like i mentioned earlier.. 

while in florence we decided to make the best use of our time there, 

so we ventured to pisa on morning. we went to the train station, 

bought tickets and took about an hour train ride to pisa.

there wasnt much there other than the tower, so we walked across the 'city' snapped some photos and then headed back to florence for the afternoon. the fact that we able to do that is surreal. this is crazy. 

    

   

because we didnt plan on going to pisa when we got dressed in the morning ... we didnt exactly have the best outfits for this. when you take the photo of 'holding up the tower' you need to stand on the cement  posts. well of course it was windy out and i climbed up there with my skirt on. needless to say, when i jumped down... im pretty sure that i flashed a few people. good life choice natasha. 

oops! at least i got the photo!

terms of the day:

excuse me.

me scusi

[meh skoo-zee]

thank you (very much).

grazie (mille)

[ graht-zee-eh (mee-leh) ]

welcome

prego

[ preh-goh ]

So Much Roma ... So Little Tima

who said you cant see rome in a day?

well to be honest i was doubtful but i am happy to say that we successfully covered the major sites in one day. how i dont know ... possibly the longest day ever be we did it.

alright so we did alot in one day so i will give u a quick overview and then post alot of pictures.
we decided to take a slow train from florence to rome, because not only was it cheaper, but a 3.5 hour train ride meant that we could sleep! all of our traveling has been fairly short 1.5 to 2 hours trips so by the time were settled if we were lucky we could get in a quick nap before we had to wake up (so we didnt miss our destination) and by this point in our trip we were absolutely exhausted. all wanted to do was sleep in, but there is no time for sleep!

 when we arrived we had to venture to our hostel which we booked closer to the airport because when we left rome, our flight was at the crack of dawn. well good choice for the day we were leaving but until then, our hostel was in the middle of now where and we had to travel a solid 40 mins to get into the main city. and let me tell u this 40 minute trip was not pleasant. we went from the train to a metro, where we had to switch lines and then to a bus and then from the bus stop walk to our hostel. well i figured out the trains fine, and then we made it to the bus where i asked the drive about the stop we were supposed to go to. and he so calmly responded with, 'i dont know where that is'. seriously?! as if my anxiety wasnt through the roof as it was.

side note: although looking back the trip from the main train station to our hostel seemed to go over smoothly, at the time i was bugging out. the whole not knowing where you going and not being able to ask anyone because they dont speak english thing, no so much fun. after we had to sit on a metro covered in graffiti and had to watch out bags like hawks because some women was being sketch and circling us. although, after florence we were a bit skeptical and paranoid about everything, but still this women was creepy. she was standing next to me and erin and then when we took out bags off and held them in front of us, she got out of the car and got back on and stood next to jade and rachel... def sketch.

anyway.. we arrived at our hostel. which was the icing on the cake. it looked like an abandoned building. i literally stopped in front of it and just laughed, because i didnt know what else to do. well, i guess this is why people say not to judge a book by its cover because once we were inside, it was completely different, pretty nice actually. apparently they dont value first impressions in rome because this place looked like crack alley.

the picture doesnt do the sketchiness justice. 

i swear. 

but on to the more interesting stuff. we woke up bright and early the next day because we only had one day in rome so we needed to get a move on. once we arrived in the city, we decided out best bet was to do a bus tour because it was the easiest way to get to everything. all of the sites were scattered all over the city and for us to try and figure out how to get to each place would have wasted to much time. i dont know why we didnt do more bus tours when we went on trips. they are very convenient they drop you off in front and come around every 15-30 mins and you just hop on when your done and go to the next stop.

First Stop:

The Colosseum

we ended up lucking out because the week we were in italy was 'cultural week' and site and museums throughout italy had free entry ...score!

Next Stop: 

Vatican City 

St. Peter's Basilica

and then we went to the vatican museum

Laocoön and His Sons

i tried to get a photo of the ceiling, but the people were crazy strict about talking and taking photos and i figured getting kicked out wasnt really something that i wanted to happen.

after we spent hours in vatican city between going through building and waiting in line, we hopped back on the bus..

Next Stop:

 The Spanish Steps.

the girls on the steps.

at this point i was very cranky and didnt care what so ever about the steps so i took the picture, we walked up and down, chilled for a few minutes and then bounced. so needless to say i dont have much to say about the steps other than that they look just like any other set of steps that could be in any city.

the on going joke of the day was that every large set of steps, was the spanish steps. yes, very dumb and silly .. but pretty entertaining while sitting on a bus. 

Next Stop:

The Trevi Fountain 

i was SO excited .. it was definitely my top sight to see while in rome. for those of you who dont know my obsession with the lizzie mcguire or if you havent seen it, the whole movie is filmed in rome. and ever since ive seen the movie ive wanted to go to the trevi fountain.  so of course as soon as we arrived i scoped out the area to try and place the clips from the movie to the actual area. i havent decided wether or not they actually filmed the whole scene in that area but it was still really exciting! 

making a wish! 

Last Stop:

The Pantheon

so at this point, we have been out all day and are absolutely exhausted, hungry and it has started to rain. so we were all over sightseeing. but we pushed through and shuffled to our last stop. it was already late so we assumed that it would be closed, we would snap a photo and then go to dinner. well little did we know it was still open. as we're walking down a little side street, kristin was in the front and saw it first. mind you that kristin has already been to rome, so she was pretty much our tour guide for the whole thing. but she still loves sightseeing and is always excited for where we are going. well sure enough she runs up turns around and with a bug smile on her face goes 

"good news guys, its still open!!!"

we all just froze. 

[insert awkward silence]

as soon as we heard her say that,

we kissed the idea of dinner anytime soon goodbye.

luckily it wasnt that big so we went it, 

looked around for a bit and then bounced for dinner. 

overview of our day:

6 major stops

after this... we were a little delusional 

followed by the most important stop of the day..

GELATO!

oh . my. god.

its delicious. 

after our long day we headed back to the metro and ventured back to our hostel.

Rome Photos

Phrase Of The Day

Goodnight

Buono Notte

[ bwoh-nah noht-teh ]

Hi / Bye [beautiful]

Ciao Bello 

[ chow bell-ah ]

bunono notte italia.

Next Stop: 

Athens, Greece