Anyway, back to Europe. I got home on Wednesday from my little extra trip. I went to Rome, Split (Croatia), and Paris with Jenna, Jill (Jenna's sister), and Merritt (Jill's friend from college). We had about 10 days to travel, which was a perfect amount, I think. Here's how the trip went:
After saying goodbye to everyone in Oviedo, then getting on a bus to Madrid, and then a plane from Madrid to Italy, we finally finished our traveling to start our real traveling, if that makes any sense. Jenna and I took a bus in to Rome and then followed directions to get to our apartment where we were meeting up with Jill and Merritt. It turned out that we only had a street name, but no building number. We ended up walking down the street a couple times and Merritt just happened to hear us talking from out the window and found us, thank goodness. We planned everything a lot better after that. After all that traveling, the first thing we wanted to do was eat. And the pasta was delicious. They don't lie about the food in Italy. Finally ready to tour, we conquered both the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. That took the rest of the day, but we made sure to take a gelato break by the river after. I expected the Forum to be just one building, I don't know why, but it's not. It's a bunch of ruins starting from the Roman times and a couple centuries after that. Unfortunately, the Colosseum had a significant about of construction up for restoration on one side, but seeing the inside was pretty awesome cool. All the history is awesome to see after learning about it. A big part of this trip was food, so I might be talking about that a lot. The first dinner was probably our best meal in Italy. We had really good pasta right in our own neighborhood of Trasevere. I would recommend everyone to stay in that part of Rome while traveling, because it was so so cute. After a short walk, we headed back to the apartment to sleep off the traveling and jet lag after a whole day of touring.
Our second day in Rome, we got up early to go to the Vatican. It was the best feeling walking past literally hundreds of people with our online ticket. Why don't all the people do that, I just don't understand. Thanks to Jill for the great planning. We toured the Vatican Museum with a lot of help from Rick Steves (he was present for the whole trip), including the Sistine Chapel. It was really pretty. Then we headed over to St. Peter's Basilica. It was huge! We read that the church is 6 acres. Huge. They also have a famous statue, La Pieta. After another delicious lunch including pizza and lasagna (the best I have ever eaten), we hit some bad luck with our next options of the Palatine hill and the Vittoriano being closed. We did a Rick walking tour through the Jewish ghetto and stopped for the daily gelato break by the river. The break ended up being a little late in the day, so we weren't hungry for dinner. Which was really sad because the food is so delicious. But we made up for it by going to this really cute bar and ordering cheese and wine and playing cards.
The last full day, we toured the heart of Rome (thanks Rick, again). We saw the classic sights like the pantheon, the Trevi fountain, and the Spanish steps. We also stopped in a market and got to shop around. After a yummy lunch including more pizza and pasta, we hopped on a bus to the catacombs of Priscilla. The tour was hilarious. It was the last tour of the day and we were the only ones. The tour guide was literally running through the catacombs. But he did have enough time to stop and scare Merritt :). It was great though. We still learned a lot and got to see the oldest picture of Mary nursing Jesus. We got to have our classic gelato stop with the extra time not spent in the catacombs and it worked out really well. This time we made sure to save room for dinner and made friends with the friendly waiter at dinner. It was another delicious meal.
The next morning, we only had until about noon to tour so we headed out fairly early and walked over to try to see the Vittoriano again. We took the elevator up to the top and saw breathtaking views of the whole city of Rome. It was great. We gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the train station, which wasn't even necessary because our train left 45 minutes late. After about an hour, an announcement came over the loudspeaker in Italian and everyone groaned. The very friendly Italian next to us said that the train was broken and would be stopped for 55 minutes. We started to freak out because we had a boat to catch. Jill and Merritt got off to see how much a taxi would have cost (which was waaaay too much), but luckily it wasn't necessary Jenna and I had a mini freak out session again when the Italian said the train would be leaving again in 5 minutes and neither Jill nor Merritt were on it yet. Jenna ran off to grab them and the train started probably 3 minutes after they got on. I wonder how many people we left behind there. We thankfully made it to our ferry on time. Everyone was surprised to see that we were pretty much on a huge cruise ship-like boat that even included a night club and casino. Jill expected us to be sleeping outside on the deck with water splashing over us and clams snapping at us, but I was a little more prepared after taking a ferry from Wales to Ireland. We all slept fairly well, and Jenna and I got to see a beautiful sunrise over the islands in the Dalmatian Coast. We made it to Croatia!
After that 10 hour boat ride, we dropped off our luggage at our hostel and hopped right back on another boat. We took a boat tour (a speed boat, not a ferry this time) and saw some awesome caves and islands. We got to see the blue cave, the island of Vis, a cool cove, the green cave, Pakleni island, and finally Hvar island. On Vis, we got lunch. Unfortunately, we did not enjoy their delicacy of anchovy pizza. Not my favorite. But we swam in the Adriatic Sea by Pakleni Island and enjoyed some Piña Coladas on Hvar as well as seeing the awesome caves, so overall, it was great. We were exhausted after being in the sun all day, so after a really yummy dinner, we fell asleep very quickly.
We needed to get up early the next day to catch our tour to Plitvice National Park. That is possibly the place with the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen. We got to walk on wooden walkways right over the water and it was so gorgeous. Our tour guide Petar loved to talk as well so we learned a lot about Croatia. Our tour was a little late and it's about a 3 hour drive to get to the park so it was a long day. After eating pizza and playing cards, we fell asleep exhausted, again.
After having tours of everything besides the city we were actually staying in, Split, we were excited to explore our "home" a little. We took a walk (that turned into a hike) to a pretty viewpoint of the city and then headed down to the beach. After laying out and swimming for a little at two different beaches, we somehow hitched a ride back into town with a local Croatian. She was a middle aged lady with a really tiny car that already had two kids in the back, but somehow we managed to fit four more tall girls in the car. It was really sweet of her, though, and we loved talking to her. We then started our tour of Split and found out that the whole city is built into Diocletian's Palace! It was awesome to see modern stores built into the old palace. We ate a fairly early dinner and got ready for our midnight flight out to Paris.
We landed in Paris around 2am and got into our apartment very easily, thank goodness. We slept for a while and then ate a late breakfast of yummy crepes and cappuccinos. We climbed Sacre Coeur, a basilica on a hill, and saw amazing views of all of Paris. We walked around the neighborhood of Montmartre and after a yummy chocolate croissant, took the metro to the start of our bike tour. It was a great way to see the city without getting tired from all the walking. We saw the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Napoleon's tomb, and many other sights. After the bikes, we bartered a 25 euro bottle of wine down to 4.40 and sat in front of the Eiffel Tower and played cards for a while. We took a dinner break and ate really yummy duck, only to return to the Eiffel to watch the light show. I really do love when all the lights twinkle on the Eiffel. It's really pretty. We got a beautiful night view of Paris after climbing the tower and started to walk home to our apartment when we saw Molly, a friend from college! We knew she would be in Paris, but didn't think we would run into each other. It was so great to talk to her for a little while, and made plans to meet up for dinner.
The second day in Paris we woke up early to beat the lines for the Louvre. We only had to wait about 20 minutes and Jenna and I even got in for free with our international student ID. Rick guided us among the 35,000 (that is a real fact) pieces of art, including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. After only two hours in the museum, we were exhausted and needed a coffee. We walked over to the neighborhood of Marais and after failing to find a cafe, got lunch at a falafel place. It was so good! We also went thrift shopping and it was a lot of fun. We did another walking tour and saw the lock bridge, Le Deux Magots (a cafe frequented by Hemingway), and ended in the Luxembourg gardens. We also ate these really delicious macarons. I love them. We met up with Molly and her boyfriend Joe in the Latin quarter for dinner and had a really great time.
Our last day of the trip, we decided to slow it down a little and had a nice breakfast close to our apartment. We then took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe then walked down the main street, Champs-Elysees. The Petit Palais was our next stop. It was a building built for the world fair, along with the Grand Palais across the street. Lunch was really delicious on Rue de Cler, along with some cute outdoor markets. We walked over to the Orsay Museum next and saw a lot of Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, and Van Gogh. The museum closed earlier than we thought so we didn't get to see everything we wanted, but we still saw a lot. No one was that hungry so we just headed out for some wine and cheese at a local bar.
The next day we had an early flight out of Paris and I spent 20 hours traveling, including 15 on airplanes. But it was all worth it because I made it back safely and got to see my family that night, as well as eat In-N-Out and drink a real milkshake. I have missed those.
It is really crazy to think about all that has happened in the last 5 months. I have been to 8 different countries, learned so much about a lot of different cultures, made some great friends, and learned more about myself. I loved the trip with Jenna and Jill and Merritt as well as all the other excursions through Spain. And I can't forget about Spring Break 1 and 2. I am really blessed to be able to have the opportunity and am so thankful for all the prayers and support that everyone has given me in this time of my life. So thank you :)
One last thing, if you haven't noticed yet I haven't put pictures on my blog posts the last couple times. That's because I had some computer problems and haven't even uploaded my pictures. So they might go up on Facebook, but maybe not. Just for fun, if you wanna see something really awesome Jenna made this video. It's our trip in 7 minutes and is really cool.
Beso, beso