Best Spring Breaaaaaak Ever

Spring break this year will definitely go down as my favorite. What is better than jumping on a plane to Italy with nine of your friends and exploring the country for ten whole days? Nothing, that's what.

We started or adventure Milan (Milano if you are Italian), bussed to Florence (Firenze), then to Rome (Roma), and finally to Sorrento (Surriento). Now the parentheses raise an important question. Why the heck do we call cities and countries something other than what the local population calls them??? On top of there being no reason to have to change a city name, there is actually a much better reason to keep them. Who prefers the name Florence over Firenze? Florence sounds like the name of a girl born in 1910. Firenze on the other hand sounds like the name of an awesome city, and yet we changed the name for whatever reason. Enough about the names. We started out journey in...

Milano
Milan was probably my least favorite of the cities we visited. That is not to say Milan wasn't great (because it was). It is just that the other cities were so fantastic that Milan was kind of left in the shadows. Some highlights of Milan though... We went to the roof of the cathedral and laid in the sun, taking goofy pictures. Also, some lady asked Ashley to take a picture of her "whole ass". We think she meant something along the lines of "all of us". We went to the fancy shopping area with Gucci and Prada and what not, and saw a very disappointing canal, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Milan is very important city of the trip for one reason, and that is that it is where we started our gelato feasting that continues when we got to...

Firenze
We missed breakfast and by the time we got to Florence were ravenous, so we found an Italian restaurant and had one of the best meals of the whole trip. We took the first day to just get accustomed to the town and walk around a bit. We saw a much nicer canal and neat bridge, next to where we got some yummy dinner. The next day was a day for lots of hiking and walking up stairs. We walked up a tower of the cathedral in Florence, which is the most beautiful cathedral I have ever seen. We walked into the cathedral. We walked into the baptism building. We walked back to the canal. We walked across the canal to a viewpoint that overlooked the city, and we walked around the other side to see some gardens and a fortress which we were not successful at entering. That night we got on a train to our next stop...

Roma
Rome is where the trip really kicked into high gear. Literally, we took two tours and saw tons of stuff each day. This is pretty much necessary when visiting Rome because of the vast amount of history and sights the city has to offer. The first day we went took a tour that included the Colosseum, the Palatine hill, and the Roman Forum. The super crazy thing about that day was that it was the anniversary of Julius Caesar's death and we saw his morgue in the Roman Forum. After the tour we did some exploring of our own, seeing Piaza Novano, a castle, another canal, and the Spanish Steps. To end the day we had our first group dinner, which felt a lot more like a family dinner. We made some spaghetti and chicken and beef and toast that we got from material we got from the market and sat down together to eat it all. The food was amazing and the company was even better. This little dinner we had and other we had like it on the rest of the trip were a great joy to me, because it was time for us to sit and talk and laugh together. The next day, we went on a tour of the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica and then went to Trevi fountain, where I failed at throwing a coin in the fountain twice, but everyone knows the third time is the charm anyway right? And fun fact, if you throw a coin into Trevi fountain then you are promised to return to Rome one day. The next morning we woke up and started our journey to our last location...

Surriento
Sorrento was probably my favorite part of the trip. There really isn't a whole lot to the place, just beautiful cliffs and a nice town by the ocean. We took three days to relax and explore the city. This led us to an awesome soccer match on the coast, a black sand beach at the bottom of the cliffs, a beautiful cove with freezing water that led to the ocean and some fun-filled nights. Oh and of course the climax of all of the gelato eating.

Italy was good to me.