Now that the chaos has died down from midterms and fall break, here I am to tell you all about it!
I'm spending zero time telling you about midterms because that was a horrible stressful week in my life and I do not want to reminisce about it.
But the upside to having a week full of exams is that by Thursday afternoon I was free! Ten days off. Fall break had begun! We were planning on leaving Friday afternoon, but of course the Italian transportation workers had to be tricksters and have a strike all day on Friday. What jokesters!!!! How hilarious!!!! I was not laughing. Luckily we found an alternate mode of transport - a bus that was still running, hallelujah! So the first bump in the road of fall break was really not a bump at all. Being Christina, I packed the night before / morning of the trip, because really when else would I pack?!? Friday at 2:30 we were packed, we were excited, and we were on our way!
First Stop: Pisa, Italy! (Friday - Saturday)
We headed to the Santa Maria Novella train station in Firenze. From there we caught our godsend of a bus to the Pisa Airport, and we walked from there to our first of many hostels. As none of us had ever stayed at a hostel before, we were expecting the worst. Much to our surprise, all of the hostels we stayed at were clean, friendly, and we had our own private room and bathroom to share between the four of us! It was no stay at the Hilton, but hey when dad's not paying you have to make due with what you can afford! Back to Pisa though. We dropped our backpacks and bags and headed out into the city. Everyone says that Pisa is boring and only has the leaning tower as an attraction, but I beg to differ. I found Pisa to be an adorable city, with gorgeous shops, gardens, statues and plenty of history. But yes of course the tower is the main attraction, and for good reason! It was absolutely amazing to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa in real life after learning about it in history classes since elementary school. That lean is no joke! I gave the foundation a break for a while and held it up with my own superhuman strength.
The tower is on the grounds of a gorgeous old church and baptistery. After the sightseeing, we found a hole in the wall pizza place - the best kind of pizza place - and sat down to a delicious "first night of fall break" dinner! Back to the hostel for our first of many nights back in bunk beds. (For the record I had the top bunk every time and resent Eloise to the fullest extent for this …HA I'm kidding if you know me at all you know that I love the top bunk more than anything)
Second Stop: Dublin, Ireland! (Saturday - Wednesday)
We woke up in Pisa and packed our backpacks and bags, checked out of the hostel, and made our way back to the Pisa airport. Dublin here we come! Halfway through the flight we realized Ireland was in a different time zone than Italy, only because we overheard someone else mentioning it. Whoops! We totally would have figured that out … Totally. As soon as we got off the airport shuttle in Dublin center, I knew I was in love. Ireland and it's friendly friendly people captured my heart! While in Ireland we stayed at the most adorable hostel right on one of the main streets of Dublin. We visited the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral, a 300 year old Irish farm in the Burren, the Cliffs of Moher, Galway, Doolin, the Leprechaun Museum, the Jameson Whiskey Distillery, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Phoenix Park, and many many pubs.
I had a blast! Ireland has such a rich culture in storytelling and legend, and it was fascinating to take a tour of the city and learn about it's more hidden past. My favorite part of Ireland was meeting and then petting a tame mountain goat named Billy. Billy Goat. Hehehe. While in Ireland we saw a rainbow every single day, it was seriously like a sign from the Leprechauns. Unfortunately we found no gold!
On "Wednesday morning" (I consider it Tuesday night) we woke up at 2:45 am to catch our 6 am flight to Paris. Brutal! The existence of Starbucks in Ireland made the morning a bit more bearable, but only a bit. (ps you know there was a baby sitting in the row in front of us who cried for the duration of the flight) I instantly felt better upon landing at our third destination, the magical city of lights!
Third Stop: Paris, France! (Wednesday - Friday)
We took a shuttle from the airport into the city, checked in to the hostel, and hit the streets! We saw an amazing amount of sights in Paris, and walked like 80 miles per day. (At least that's what it felt like, clearly my boots weren't made for walking - contradictory to the song) We visited Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, the Grand Palais, the Opera House, Musee D'Orsay, Hotel des Invalides, the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, and probably a few more things along the way - 80 miles a day, I swear! The baguettes and pastries in France are no joke, I tried to eat as many as I could in the three days I was there but I still crave them. There's nothing better than munching on a freshly baked baguette while wandering through Montmartre!
My two favorite places we visited were the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. I was in sheer awe and amazement the entire time we visited the Eiffel Tower. I have seen it countless times in movies, in history books, in tv commercials, during French class; but the real deal is just startlingly beautiful! (especially considering it's just a tower of crisscrossing iron, one in fact that the french hated for years and years after it was built) Notre Dame was equally breathtaking, the sunlight shining through it's enormous stained glass windows is indescribable. In case you were wondering, I did in fact meet the Hunchback of Notre Dame while visiting, but unfortunately Esmerelda was not with him at the time. I cannot recommend enough the Baton Mouches Seine River tour. We took this hour long river boat ride after night had fallen on Paris, and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever done in my 20 years of life. The city literally glows in the dark of night, I guess it's not called City of Lights for nothing! The Eiffel Tower appeared as though it were made of 14k gold. I couldn't stop staring at everything in amazement. The perfect thing for our last night in Paris!
Fourth (and final) Stop: Geneva, Switzerland! (Friday - Saturday)
We checked out of the hostel, grabbed a pastry, and headed to the Paris Train Station to catch our train to Geneva! The train ride was full of gorgeous sights of the French and Swiss countryside, but I hate to admit that I slept for most of the ride. The traveling had been nonstop and my back was seriously revolting against me because of the weight of my backpack. Three hours later we found ourselves dumped in the middle of a quaint city center, Geneva we have arrived! While in Geneva we visited the Jet D'Eau, the War Monument, Lake Geneve, St. Pierre Cathedral, the famous Flower Clock, and one of the United Nations Headquarters. An interesting thing about the city of Geneva is that many of it's residents speak French, due to it's close proximity to France. I truly loved Switzerland. Walking through the adorable city, seeing the lake and the Alps in the background, it was just amazing.
Despite the sights and the fun and the memories of fall break, we were all more than happy to catch our Italy-bound train Saturday afternoon. We traveled from Geneva to Milan, and then from Milan to Florence. The train ride from Geneva to Milan took us through the Alps, past vineyards and fields of sheep and cattle, and bright blue lakes. It's amazing how different the beauty of cities can be versus the pure and simple beauty of nature.
After a minor snafu with the train tickets (we're sorry we didn't understand the directions, we're study abroad students? we're females? we're only twenty? we're American? which excuse will work in this situation?!?), we finally made it back to the start, Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence. Yay!
The walk back to our apartment seemed longer than ever, but the feeling of showering in my own shower and sleeping in my own bed was well worth it. Brava! What an amazing 9 days, I am seriously the luckiest girl alive.
Mi mancano tutti!! 50 more days!
Baci!!Steen
