World Italy Lazio Rome

Alyssa's in Romaaaa!

Before I disappear... Oct 29, 2009

Before we disappear off to our trip tomorrow, I thought I'd make a quick entry!

Last weekend we went to Venice, VENEZIA, for the day Saturday. We caught a SUPER early plane on Saturday morning (we left our house at 4:45 AM!!! And I am NOT a morning person! Kind of painful...) and then once we landed at the airport, had to take an hour boat ride to actual Venice. We were only in Venice for like 8 or 10 hours but I loved every minute of it. I wish we could have stayed longer, but Venice is very expensive, and we had to get home and study for midterms (me and Alyson had two on Monday so we needed to study on Sunday!) so we made it a day trip. It was a pretty expensive day trip because of transportation but it was worht every penny. We took a plane because it was the exact same price as a train but saved us about 6 hours of travel time total...which I was all for!

We got to Venice and walked around St. Mark's square, the main piazza area in Venice. It was really pretty! We were afraid it was going to rain because the weather had said it might rain, but thankfully we got a BEAUTIFUL day...it even warmed up to the point I could take my jacket off for a bit! We wandered through the streets of Venice for a long time in the morning, just appreciating how cute and crazy of a town it is. It's SO WEIRD to see all the canals instead of streets! There are alleyways and small side streets but there's virtually no cars, and tons of canals. Everywhere you look is water! No wonder they call it the sinking city...

We were all exhausted so we got coffee and a quick breakfast as a pick-me-up and then decided we couldn't wait any longer to go on the gondola ride! I was SO excited for it. It was expensive but because there was 4 of us we split it and it wasn't too bad. You have to ride a gondola while you're in Venice, don't you!? I can't imagine going and NOT riding one! We got two bottles of wine and got a gondola ride that was like 45 minutes or so long, and took us through a ton of canals and to the main huge channel area. It was beautiful and so much fun :) Unfortunately our driver wasn't wearing stripes, and didn't serenade us, but we passed a few drivers who did so we were content :) We passed the house Marco Polo lived in, and saw a bunch of crazy houses and shop fronts that are only accessible by gondola/boat!

After the gondola ride we walked around some more and just wandered happily, taking pictures and talking and admiring Venezia. We stopped to finish our wine and sat for a long time watching people and tourists, and the beautiful gondolas go by in the canal. We started to get hungry so we wandered alleyways for awhile again, trying to find a restaurant that wasn't so touristy, but unfortunately tourism is Venice's main source of income and it's small so there wasn't many options...but we found a place that had great pizza that we highly enjoyed, so we were satisfied. By then we were all starting to hit a wall with how tired we were- Kristen even fell asleep at the table after we finished eating! We walked around a little more and then headed back to take the boat back to the airport, where our plane was delayed, and then had to take a taxi home. Talk about transportation- it took taxis, boats, and planes to get us to Venice! But I can't even begin to describe how worth it it was...I LOVE Venice, and would move there if I could :)

When we were on Venice me and Kristen got our Halloween "costumes!" We are going to be in Barcelona together on Halloween, and didn't want typical normal costumes, so we got these really cool masks in Venice. Mine is black and gold and covers the top half of my face and is actually really beautiful and glittery, with a ton of feathers on the top of it. Kristen's is green and gold. I'm so excited to wear them!

Speaking of Barcelona...WE OFFICIALLY LEAVE TOMORROW!!! I am soooooooooo excited I've been trying not to think about it all week cause I get too overwhelmed to concentrate! Barcelona tomorrow until Tuesday, then Amsterdam until Thursday, and then Paris until Sunday :) I will have a nice long update and tons of pictures for you guys when we're back! I won't be back until Sunday the 8th or 9th so it will be awhile until my next update...

Oh, before I forget! Yesterday was the day Alyson's mom had managed to get us special tickets for the Vatican. We weren't really sure what that entailed exactly, but we found out it was tickets for the papal audience. The Pope speaks every Wednesday in St. Peter's square, so we headed over there and got there right at 10:30, so at first we weren't allowed to where we thought we were supposed to be with our tickets. At around 10:40 or 45 we were allowed into this seating area, but there were no seats left, so we were just standing in the back holding our tickets. A lady in front of us saw us holding them and was like "Oh, you guys have yellow tickets? You get to go up there!" And poitned further up, so we were like oh, alright! I had been wondering why all the tickets I was seeing were orange, but we were new to the process and not sure what to expect.

So, we headed up to the guard and showed him our tickets and he waved us on down a long pathway that everyone was staring at us as we walked down. We kept walkign until we hit the next guard, expecting him to show us to our seats, and he waved us on down even FURTHER, meaning we were getting closer and closer to the Pope! At this point we were all like Whhhaaattt the hell!? How much closer can we get? Until they waved us up onto the seats that were sitting parallel to where the Pope was, up on top of the stairs next to St. Peter's Basilica. We were DYING. He was probably 75-100 feet from us for the whole hour and a half that he spoke, and then at the end when people got up to leave, we moved closer to him and when he passed us on his way out in his Pope Mobile he was so close we could see the wrinkles on his face and the hair on his head! It was so incredible. I am not religious in the leeeaasssttt bit but I had goosebumps when he went past, the reaction people had to him was amazing, and it was just so weird to say that was the POPE that went by so closely that we could practically smell his breakfast on his breath! He was such a cute old man. Me and Lauren have affectionately started calling Pope Benedict "Benny", or even better, "Eggs"...I feel like since I've stood so close to him now we're practically best friends, so I'm sure he doesn't mind ;)

We didn't tour the Vatican because we're doing a 5 hour site visit there with our Baroque Art class, so I didn't feel the need to go yesterday...5 hours should be plenty! It's a little embarrassing that we've been in Rome 2 and a half months without seeing the Sistine Chapel, but we still have another 5 or 6 weeks so I guess I'm not worried about it yet!

Last Tuesday we had like 15 of our friends over for a pumpkin carving party to get into the Halloween spirit, and it was so much fun! Unfortunately our crabby old Roman neighbor ratted us out and the landlord got mad at us adn talked to the people who work at our school....whatever, they're annoying. Roman people are rude and I don't liek the way our neighbor handled the situation, she was really rude to us and yelled at us even though everyone left our apartment by 12:20, but she screamed at us and told us "it's not a discoteca" at our apartment.....apparently she was never young. But anyways! It was really fun, everyone came over and we carved pumpkins and roasted pumpkin seeds and had a cake shaped like a pumpkin and pumpkin cookies from our favorite bakery...it was such a nice night, the last one we all had together because everyone left for vacation right after! It's funny, I'm going to miss them all while we're gone even though some of them will be in Barcelona and some will be in Amsterdam while I'm there! It's weird how attached we get to each other when we're together all the time.

This week also, Lauren randomly woke up in the middle of the night with her lip swollen about 6 times it's normal size. Me and Alyson were so worried! Alyson woke up every hour or so throughout the night to check on her because we were afriad of her throat swelling and closing up or something! Thankfully it didn't and after about 24 hours her lip slowly went back down to normal size, but looking back on it now, the pictures are HYSTERICAL. I posted one for you guys to see. You'll never believe it was real, the picture looked photoshopped! I was laughing so hard while we were taking the pictures that my stomach was cramping, I had tears RUNNING down my face (Thanks Mom for letting me inherit the whole laughing-until-you-cry-hysterically gene...), when I went to wash my face I had black smudges and makeup from my eyebrows down to my chin because I was laughing so unbelievably hard at the whole situation. Lauren couldn't even talk normally it was so swollen! We still to this day don't know what she ate or touched or got bit by...

That's the second time this week I've laughed until I cried, because me and Alyson have a crush on our History of Modern Italy professor. He was dressed cute the other day and when I pointed it out to Alyson, she told me that she couldn't focus on his outfit because she was too busy "noticing how his Levis hugged his rear end"...and I laughed, thought about what she said, and then started to laugh hysterically to the point that I was about to excuse myself from class to pull it together because I was a MESS. I had to tell Alyson not to look at me or talk to me for the next 10 minutes because everytime she looked sideways at me I started all over again. I tried to drink water to calm down, but I spit it up as I was trying to drink it. And then to make matters worse, he bent over to fix the projector....let's just say we both lost it at that point. I was so scared he'd turn around and ask us what was going on...thankfully, he called for a break just in time.

(Sorry this update is so random and all over the place, there is no order to anything I'm saying!) The weekend after we get back from our Barca/Amsterdam/Paris vacation, I'm going to Prague with Lauren and our friend Courtney who is studying in Siena! I'M SO EXCITED FOR PRAGUE! I feel like it's not a place people usually get to go to, unlike Paris or London which are more mainstream, so I'm super super suppperrrr excited to get to see it. I'm hoping it will snow while we're there...apparently Prague gets very cold! It would be fun to see snow in Europe :) And then the weekend after that, Mom and Uncle and Lucas come!!!! I can't waiiiittt it's finally getting so close to their turn to come and I am so excited to show them all around and show them all the beautiful sights and all my favorite places in Rome! We're also going to Florence and maybe Naples, and then that really will be my last vacation before it's time to come home :( I don't want to come home!!! Maybe I'll just stay in Europe forever....catch me if you can :)

Miss & love you all, I will update when we're back from vacation!