Paris

Bonjour!  I have just returned to Rome from Paris for the long weekend!  Berlusconi declared this past thursday a national holiday in Italy to celebrate its 150 years as a unified nation.  So Ellis, Marissa, Virginia and I headed to Paris.

We got there late thursday night (the metro from the airport into the city was having a few problems so it was veeeerry slow).  But we finally arrived at the apartment that we rented for the weekend around 10:00pm.  The apartment was in an excellent location.  It was just one street over from the Eiffel Tower!  We couldnt believe how close we were to the tower.  We hadnt eaten dinner yet, so we stopped in a french bistro on our street.  It turned out to be delicious!  I had a croque monsieur sandwich, which is basically two pieces of fresh baked bread with melted ham and cheese inside and then more melted cheese on top.  Yummy!

Friday we headed out to Versailles to see the palace.  I could not believe how huge it was!!!! Not only was the main Chateau itself so large, but the gardens, grounds and other smaller living areas within the palace gates were also very extensive!  It wasnt raining so we were able to walk around and see most of the palace grounds.  The hall of mirrors was beautiful and the whole place was so luxurious and extravagant.  We could have spent all day there, but we had to get back into the city to meet up with Claire and Elizabeth who were joining us from Nantes.

Palace

Hall of Mirrors

Queen's Bed

King's Bed

Gardens

Friday night Claire and Elizabeth took us to eat at a fun little Fondue restaurant that they found in Paris and loved.  We ended up loving it too!  They serve you wine out of baby bottles! hahaha.  We also had lots of bread dipped in the fondue cheese and steak.  Again, the food was delicious and the atmosphere was great.

Saturday was the big tour day.  We started out at the Notre Dame.  Inside was very dark, but peaceful and felt very medieval.  The stained glass windows were also huge and beautiful.  I was looking out for Quasimodo the whole time we were in there, but I never spotted him. 

Front of Notre Dame

Inside Notre Dame

Side of Notre Dame

Next stop was the Louvre.  We went inside to see Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.  I thought it was going to be a lot bigger than it actually was, but it was still impressive with the eyes that seem to be following you.  We saw lots of other impressive works as well by famous artists like Monet and the Winged Victory.  I did not realize that the Louvre museum is actually in an old palace.  I think I like the palace itself just as much as the museum.

Outside the Louvre

From the Louvre, we walked straight down the Avenue des Champs Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe. Along the way, we stopped to have a suger and butter crepe before strolling through the famous Louis Vuitton store on the Champs Elysees.  We then climbed all the way to the top of the Arc de Triomphe.  The spiral staircase was very narrow and seemed never-ending, but we finally made it to the top! Phew!  The best view of Paris can be seen from the top of the Arc de Triomphe! 

Arc de Triomphe

View from the top of the Arc de Triomphe

Last stop of the day was the Eiffel Tower, of course.  I never expected it to be quite so huge either!  I think it was the most beautiful at night when it was completely lit and sparkling!  By this point we were all exhausted, so we crossed the street and went back to the apartment to get ready for dinner.  We ate french onion soup and french fries!  Then had a glass of champagne to celebrate Claire's 21st birthday.  What a great memory to have of your 21st birthday....spending the weekend with your friends in Paris!  Paris is a beautiful city and I am adding it to my list of places to visit again! 

LONDON

My first weekend traveling experience was to London!  And although I have only been to a few places in Europe, I have to say that by far London has been my most favorite!  We had an AMAZING time!  Ellis, Marissa and I left Rome on Friday at 10am and landed in London around 12:30pm.  We immediately knew we were going to love London when the radio station in the bus from the airport into town played some of our favorite oldies songs (in ENGLISH, inlcuding "It's a celebration!") hahaha. 

We were off to a good start until we reached our Hostel.  It was located right across the street from Hyde Park, so we thought that it must be somewhat decent enough for 5 girls to stay in.  But after we walked into the room, saw that another random girl would be staying in there with us, the floors we stayed brown with things growing on them, they only provided you with one thin sheet to sleep on and no towels, the "white" walls were brown and peeling, and you couldnt even flush the toilet paper in the bathroom (it had to be thrown away), we knew that this was not a safe place for us to stay in.  Words cannot really describe how terrible this place was!  I literally burst into tears when I saw the room.  So we cancelled that and went on the hunt for a hotel.  I am not sure why we thought it would be ok to stay in a hostel in the first place, but you live and learn!  With an experience that terrible, we knew things could only go up from there, and they did.  It turned out that we were able to get a great room for all of us in a cute little hotel near Earls Court for both nights.  It was a great location for us because the Earls Court "tube" station was right around the corner, so it was quick and easy for us to move around London in such a short amount of time. 

While we were on the hunt for a place to stay, we did also get to walk through Hyde Park, which was beautiful and full of GREEN, which we do not get to see a lot of in Rome.  It was a nice Friday without rain, so we enjoyed walking through the park.  A little bit later, Charlotte arrived in London and we got her settled in and headed out to a pub while we waited for Elizabeth to arrive.  We were so thrilled to see something other than wine, pizza and pasta on the menu in the pub!

Elizabeth arrived around 8pm and Will Starnes finally made it in around 11pm (his flight got delayed in Madrid for a few hours).  We went to bed early so that we could wake up early for a full day on Saturday.  And that is what we did!  We ate breakfast at the hotel at 8:30am and then hopped on a guided open double-decker bus tour of London by 9:30am.  This tour was the best decision we could have made because we were able to see all of the main attractions in London without wasting time trying to figure out where they were and with a guide to tell us important and fun facts about each spot along the way!  We really enjoyed the tour! 

Once we finished the tour, we headed to eat some Fish and Chips for lunch at the Silver Cross pub.  It was delicious!  Next, back to tour inside the Tower of London.  It was beautiful, and I could not believe how big the diamonds on some of the Royal crowns were!  Amazing!

Next, we went for a boat cruise down the Thames River from the Tower of London to the London Eye. We were so lucky that it was a sunny and clear day in London on Saturday!  After the cruise we stopped back by the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace.  The Queen was not at the Palace, so we were not able to see the changing of the guards.  They were also not offering any tours of the Palace this month.  But that is ok, I guess I will just have to go back to London sometime again! haha

After dinner, Will really wanted to see Abbey Road where the Beatles famous picture was taken, so we hopped on the tube and headed that way.  We had the best time trying to get the perfect picture of us all walking across the street at the same crosswalk!  Then back on the tube to take one last look at Big Ben at night with all of the lights lit up! Very beautiful!

Our flight left London at 7am, so we had to wake up super early to get back to Rome.  We all cried when we left because we loved London so much!  It was a little taste of home with a unique European flare; It was a wonderful weekend!

Reunited in Rome

What a great weekend we had in Rome!  Elizabeth and Claire came from France, Sara and Charlotte from Spain and Virginia from Florence.  We had them all stay in the hotel that is located on the first floor of our apartment building, which was a perfect location!

Elizabeth, Claire, Sara and Virginia arrived on Thursday evening.  I went and picked them up from the train station since Ellis still had Italian class.  We again cooked them dinner in our apartment since we knew they would be tired from traveling that day. It was our usual meal of chicken, pasta, salad and wine.  Ellis and I had a bit of a buzzkill the next morning because we had to be at school by 9am for a field trip on Friday (even though we dont normally have any classes on Friday).  We hated to leave them for the day, but they figured out how to navigate through some of Rome on their own.  Our field trip was to two different archeological sites where they have found Etruscan tombs.  The first site wasnt too impressive, but I really enjoyed the second.  It was a little bit creepy to think of these dead bodies being all around us.

We got back to our apartment around 5pm Friday and Sara and Elizabeth had just been to the station to pick up Charlotte!  We all went out to eat at our favorite restaurant Friday night called Da Gildo.  Everyone of course ordered pizza or pasta!  We woke up early Saturday to get in a full day of sightseeing.  But not before we ate lunch at the best pizza restaurant Dar Poeta!  Our first stop was to the Colosseum.  We bought tickets and went inside, even though it was raining outside.  We had lots of funny encounters with people inside of the Colosseum.  One of them was with two Asian boys who wanted to take a picture with us.  They held up a sign with numbers on it, but we could not figure out what it meant.  We laughed so hard at that! 

Next stop was the Roman Forum and then off to the Vatican!  We tried to get into the Sistine Chapel but we got there a few minutes too late.  Saturday night, everyone was exhausted, so we cooked in again.  After dinner we walked to the Trevi fountain and just enjoyed each others company. 

Everyone but Charlotte left early Sunday morning.  We had quite the experience taking Charlotte to the train station to catch the bus to the airport!  As Charlotte and I are standing in line to buy her bus ticket, an italian woman cuts us in line and shoves her two tickets in the checker lady's face.  The checker answered her but the woman kept asking her things.  Finally she got so mad at the checker that she threw all of the pamplets and boxes off of the counter at the checker, knocking down her computer and scratching her arm.  Finally the checker lady called the Police and they came to help her.  Our eyes were as wide as they could go as we watched the whole thing happen in front of us!  Who in the world would act like that over a ticket?!

We finally get Charlotte her ticket and send her off (with tears on my end).  As if that wasn't enough drama for one night, we are sitting on the bus outside of the train station to come home, when a man walks up to us and exposes himself!  We nearly died!  He was literally less than a foot away from us!  We immediately turned away and he walked off the bus.  We thought he was gone, but when we looked out of the window of the bus, he was standing right outside the window of the bus staring at us and still exposing himself.  There are just some times when you have to say "When in Rome, do NOT do as the Romans do!"

A French Friend

It has been one looooong week!  But with all that was going on both here and at home, it was nice to have something to look forward to last weekend.  And that was our friend Elizabeth coming to stay with Ellis and me for the weekend! 

Elizabeth is studying abroad in Nantes, France, so Ellis and I met her at the train station on Friday night!  It was a both a tearful and joyful reunion.  I couldnt have asked to have another friendly face to be around at a better time. 

We brought her back to our apartment where Marissa (another one of our roommates) had our dinner ready.  We planned to have our "usual" meal with her, which consisted of Marissa's breaded chicken, pasta, salad, bread with olive oil and of course some wine.  Elizabeth had been traveling all day, so it was nice for us all to be able to relax and enjoy each others company in our apartment.

Saturday, we took Elizabeth to a few of the hot spots in Rome.  We started with our favorite pizza restaurant for lunch, Dar Poeta.  Then headed to the Vatican, followed by the Trevi Fountain, Spanish steps and Piazza Navona.  We all found a local artist with some beautiful paintings of our neighborhood (Trastevere) which we were thrilled to buy!

Saturday night, we went back to the Trevi Fountain to see and enjoy it in while it is lit up.  It was even more beautiful at night than it was during the day.  Elizabeth and I decided we should probably throw in a few extra coins for love hahaha.

It was rainy Sunday, so we werent able to do much outside, so we continued to catch up with each other.  Monday we took Elizabeth back to Termini train station so that she could head off to Florence for a few days.  On Thursday/Friday, "the Wofford girls" are all coming to Rome for the weekend!  I know it will be a weekend full of fun and laughter.  I cannot wait to see all of my other friends who are studying abroad!

But for now, I have to get back to studying for the second Italian quiz this afternoon.  Wish me luck!