Italy!

Ok so back to Bonn. Everyday in Italy was so sunny without a cloud in the sky and in the high 60s and low 70s and even felt warmer than that sometimes. It was awesome. So the first day wegot there we were in Rome and stayed until Tuesday morning. In Rome we walked around a bitand then towards the end of the day Austin, Lars, and I walked around looking for a place to eat gelato. 1st gelato in Italy was so delicious. Afterwords it ended up just being Austin and I walking around and we decided to look for the Trevi Fountain. After what should have been a 20 minutewalk (maybe) took us almost an hour to find. We took lefts when we should've gone right, above a tunnel when we could have gone through it and at Via della Quattro Fontane was our downfall. We returned there two times just stop and reorient ourselves. It was confusing. Eventually we got there! Another gelato was called for and then we walked back to the hostel to sleep. Saturday we ended up at the Vatican and got a tour that lasted about 3 hrs. There was so much artwork on the ceilings, walls, just everywhere. I can't exactly remember what we did in order but more wandering was done every night looking at the sights full of lights and then we saw the same sights in the daylight. They were so pretty! It was amazing to see what the Romans were capable of doing. On Sunday we took a tour of the Colosseum and the tour that we were going to take for the Roman Forum was way too large so we wandered off on our own and just followed Austin who was pretty well informed about

things. Every day the food was pretty good. Pizza, spaghetti, lasagna, tortellini, and gelato. It was tasted good. Especially the gelato that was probably my favorite thing to eat. On our last day in Rome we met Ben, a person from Zimbabwe who moved to Australia and has been travelling around for about 9 months now. That type of lifestyle seems so neat. When he got bored in one place he just found his way somewhere else. Also! I met these Japanese students from Nagoya and Toyota in Rome and when we arrived in Florence the next day I saw them riding bikes in front of the cathedral.

So Tuesday morning we all woke up early to make the 913 train at Termini. Candy and Edgar

arrived first and were waiting at the end of platform 2 where it said the train to Florence was. About 5 minutes or so til the departure time no train had arrived and so I went to ask someone and found out that the train was on platform 8. We all ran over and made it just in time to see our train leave without us on it. Super lame. We waited almost 3 hrs for the next train and saw Ben in the same compartment so we sat and talked the whole ride there. In Florence after checking in we ate some pizza and waited for Candy and Edgar so we could go to the Uffizi museum. It was at that point that I realized that I was done with art for a while. However! All the paintings and statues were amazing. The entire ceiling was painted with angels, faces, and little scenes. At night we crossed the river and walked up a hill to see a statue of David (not the real one) and got an awesome view of the city.

The next day we woke up early to go on the Best of Tuscany Tour. They took us to Siena, San Gimignano, a farm with amazing pasta, bread, cheese, and almond biscottis. All the food was so good. In San Gimignano it was a cute little town enclosed by the original city walls with several towers still left over. It was probably there that I had the best gelato: chocolate and saffron. After

that, they took us to Pisa and were there for about an hour or so. Apparently a lot of the buildings were leaning but nothing as obvious as the tower. We got back, chilled, ate, and then at night Austin and I went walking around again looking for a specific store. After we found it (or what we thought was it) we wandered the streets without a destination. We found a small park and started playing on one of those things like a carousel. It was pretty fun and hard not to laugh while playing with it but afterwords my stomach and head wasn't feeling so great. The morning before we were supposed to leave we entered a church that had monuments to Galileo, Dante, Machiavelli, and other people I can't immediately recall. Austin, Lars, and I found our way to the Duomo and walked in. It wasn't one of the most decorated buildings we saw in Italy at that point but it was still really pretty. On the inside it had that picture of Dante with Florence to the right of him, the 9 circles of hell behind him and the entrance to hell to the left of him. We all met up at the train station and made our way to Venice. Venice super pretty but pretty chilly. The food was good as always and we wandered the winding streets without purpose.

The next day we were looking for the Deutsche Bank on the island but on the way we stopped to see an exhibition on Da Vinci, then for gelato and a 40 minute gondola ride. That ride was pretty neat. The gondolier took us under the Rialto bridge, next to the fish market and through the canals. Later that day we passed by the cemetery and landed on Murano thanks to the help of the vaporetto which was incredibly

slow. We saw a man make glass for about 10 minutes before they closed and we just walked around looking at all the glass and buying souvenirs for ourselves and others. The last day in Venice we just walked around looking for things to see and enjoying our final meals of pasta, curry, and more gelato. Sadly, it all had to come to an end and we landed in Frankfurt, bus to Cologne, train to Bonn, bus back home. After all was done I got home at about 4am. I have to say that this was the best spring break ever.