Roma!

We spent the past weekend in Rome. THE Rome. The eternal city Rome. The Ancient Roman Rome. The Lizzie McGuire Movie Rome (I can’t be the only one who remembers that movie).



Did it live up to the expectations placed upon it?



Yes. Yes it did.



Rome was absolutely beautiful. Our hotel was next to the train station, and since train stations are notoriously dirty no matter what city they are in, the place we stayed at was not nearly as gorgeous as the rest of the city. However, a 15 minute walk got us to the central part of Rome, where it truly deserves every celebratory title ever received.

We arrived in Rome on our first day around noon. After an hour break for lunch and relaxing (riding buses are exhausting, don't ask me how or why!) we embarked on a walking tour of the city. One of the first major sites we came to was the Pantheon. We took fifteen minutes to walk around inside, visit the grave site of Raphael, and marvel at the size of the building itself.

outside the Pantheon

During our walking tour, we stopped and got some gelato - probably the best I've had in Europe thus far. Gelato is the perfect snack for a hot day of walking! We eventually came to a bridge offering beautiful views of the Tiber River that runs through Rome.

the Tiber River from Ponte Sisto

There were people playing music (busking) on the bridge, and some friends and I took our time taking pictures and enjoying the general scenery. We got separated from the group for a short amount of time, but it allowed us to take some pictures of the beautiful streets in the area!

For anyone traveling to Rome, I highly recommend the area surrounding Santa Maria in Trastevere. A visit to the basilica is a must, as the mosaics inside are breath-taking. There are several restaurants and shops to see, and it felt less tourist-y and the pace of life was a lot slower than in central Rome. Naturally we decided to stay in this area after our tour ended. We did some exploring, got some drinks, and had dinner on a covered back porch of a restaurant.

mosiacs in Santa Maria

The next day, we were up early again for a trip to the Vatican. The museum was one of the coolest museums I've ever been to. In my mind, the building itself could constitute an entire exhibit all on it's own.

view outside the museum

ceiling in the map room

a map in the map room

My personal favorite room in the Vatican Museum was a room that contained several large tapestries. The detailing on them was simply amazing! Picture do not do it justice, but here's on anyways so you get an idea of just how amazing these artists were.

 

 and I can't even stitch a straight line!

After lunch, we walked around the outside of the Vatican to St. Peter's Square. The view of the Cathedral is, in a word, intimidating. It is so large (the largest Catholic Church in the world!) and so magnificent.

St. Peter's Square

Five of us decided to wait in line to go inside. After 45 minutes of standing in line, we were finally inside. Was the wait worth it? Yes. I would've waited two hours if it meant getting to see the inside of St. Peter's Basilica. The inside was stunning. Everything was larger than life, yet done with incredible detailing. Pictures and words could never capture how beautiful the inside is.

inside St. Peter's

Since the Vatican took up the larger part of the day, that night was uneventful - we got dinner at a small restaurant near our hotel, split some wine between four of us in honor of our last night in Rome, and I went to bed early.

The next day we visited the Roman forum. We stopped by the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine on our way there. The Roman forum was the birthplace of Ancient Roman civilization, and thus the birthplace of Rome itself. One of the coolest points on our tour of the Roman forum was seeing where Marc Antony gave the famous "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech - in 10th grade English class I was the designated Marc Antony while reading Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," and I had to recite the speech in front of all my classmates.

 

 panorama of the Roman Forum

a little lizard I found sunbathing 

After our tour, we decided to visit the inside of the Colosseum, which did not disappoint.

 

waiting outside the Colosseum

inside the Colosseum

After our three days in Rome, I was exhausted - we definitely had a full itinerary - yet it was one of the best trips I've ever made. Rome lived up to every expectation I had of it, often even surpassing said expectations. I've already made plans in my head to visit Rome again in my lifetime.

Hanging at Da Vinci's Place

This weekend, we visited Leonardo's house. Much to my friend's delights, the entire time we were traveling there I proclaimed loudly how excited I was to be seeing where Leonardo DiCaprio was born and where he grew up (as a joke, obviously).

Naturally, it was not Leonardo DiCaprio's birth house we visited but none other than Leonardo Da Vinci. THE Da Vinci. Not every day you get to do that, eh?

We also visited Fiesole, a small town on top of a hill overlooking Florence. There were Ancient Roman ruins that we learned about, and naturally a museum displaying the artifacts found on the site.

This blog post is going to be light on words and heavy on pictures, because I have finally figured out how to work the macro feature on my camera! It only took me five years! I don't deserve technology. Anyways, enjoy the following examples of amateur photography.

Overlooking the Roman Theater at Fiesole and surrounding Tuscan countryside

View of Vinci from the top of the Leonardo Museum

The following are photographs of plants I took using the newly discovered macro/super-macro feature!

Ciao!

San Gimignano

If you’ve ever seen a movie with Tuscany as the location, you are probably familiar with this story line.

The scene: an unhappy woman, usually from a divorce or some other mid-life crisis, makes a spontaneous decision to travel to Italy and chooses Tuscany as her destination. She is scared and her Italian is bad (or non-existent), yet her charm manages to get her around town without too many problems. Eventually, she finds some swarthy Italian man who probably helps her out with some mild crisis she’s having (she can’t speak to the shop owner, her apartment needs fixing, etc.) and she ends up falling in love for a little bit, even though he’s probably a little too young for her. The problems from her previous life have disappeared, and she claims she’ll never go back to America or an American way of life.

Hollywood has gotten predictable.

Anyways, my point is, I have absolutely nothing in common with these movies, save for one thing - I am a woman in my 30s who just got divorced.

I’m kidding.

What I really have in common with these movies is that I too am surrounded by the beautiful Tuscan countryside. I see it during the day when I look out my window, when I’m sipping coffee on the terrace, when I’m going (not often enough) for my tri-weekly run, and this past Wednesday, when I traveled to San Gimignano.

San Gimignano is a small town about an hour bus ride away from Siena situated on the top of a hill with 360 degree views of the surrounding Tuscan countryside. The view did not fail to disappoint. Unfortunately, I forget to bring my good camera on this mini-trip, so all my pictures had to be taken with my iPhone camera.

The view from San Gimignano

Me with the view

A group of my friends had the day off from classes (the schedule worked out in our favor), so we decided we would spend the afternoon exploring one of the many towns that are in the vicinity of Siena. After consulting our program site director, we decided that San Gimignano was the place to go. We successfully used public transportation to get there, and the hour long bus ride provided several views of other little towns in the area along with stunning vistas of the rolling hills Tuscany is known for.

Naturally, within our first hour there we made a pit stop for some gelato. I could go on and on about gelato, but I won’t. My one piece of advice: if you think you’ve have “good” gelato in America, you probably haven’t. Go to Italy, if only for gelato. It might (definitely) be worth it.

My go to flavors: coconut and cioccolato fondente (dark chocolate)

We then took our gelato and bottles of wine and sat down on a grassy patch at the top of the hill that the town is on and sat and chatted for a while. The wine, as usual, was delicious, and I believe at one point I told my friends “I want to have a love affair with this gelato.” Yes, it was that good.

After some more wandering, more enjoying-the-views, we came to the main street of San Gimignano. We were headed towards the bus station, but we twenty or so minutes to kill before we had to catch our bus. We popped into a couple of shops to peek around, and in one winery shop I found these drinks.

Bottles of crema al Meloncello and crema al Limone - basically a creamy, fruity liquor that is delicious

I couldn’t resist the cool bottles, and crema al Meloncello and crema al Limone sounded too good to pass up. We drank the Limone the other night, and while it was strong, it was delicious. Don’t worry parents, we split it between like eight of us. I ended up putting mine in the freezer until it got slushy, and then ate it with a spoon, which made it even more delicious - something I didn’t think was possible.

All in all, my time in Siena has been going great. My Italian gets better every single day - the Italian students who live on my floor have been indispensable in helping me learn conversational Italian - and I’ve met enough people now that I’m likely to see a friend or two while I’m walking to class during the day. Every day, Siena feels a little more homey to me.

Welcome to Siena!

Hello, Siena! Or should I say ciao, Siena!

Admittedly, I’ve already been here for a week, but I’m still figuring my way around the city so I believe a greeting is still appropriate.

I was sad to leave Greece, but I am so excited to be in Italy.

View from the top of Lycabettus Hill, the tallest point in all of Athens. We hiked up this hill our last night in Athens to watch the sunset.

After a beautiful last night in Greece, we all got up before the crack of dawn (our bus left at 3:30am to be exact) to make our way to Italy. Bus and airplane rides are NOT my favorite way to spend a morning because I have a very hard time sleeping on them, but I was too excited to care at this point.

After a short flight, we landed in Italy -- and then we had a three hour bus ride to Siena. Luckily, I had two seats to myself so I was able to lay down and catch some rest.

Riding through the Tuscan countryside was exactly as beautiful as you’d imagine it, but I was very excited when we arrived in Siena. Pictures of this city do not do it justice, it is far more beautiful than any photograph could detail.

View of Siena from where we ate lunch the very first day here

So now I’ve spent a week in this lovely city, and I’ve been getting to know it a little better each and every day. I have my favorite running spot -- an old fortress that has breath-taking views of the city and the surrounding Tuscan countryside -- and I’ve had waiters recognize me and say “Ciao!” to me while walking down the street. Slowly but surely, I’m turning Siena into home. Unfortunately, about the time Siena becomes home it will be time for me to leave, but maybe I just won’t leave!!

One last note: we visited the Duomo on Friday. I won’t write much about it, because I feel that words simply cannot describe how beautiful this cathedral is. I caught myself forgetting to breathe at times because it was so magnificent. If you ever find yourself in Tuscany, take the time to visit the Duomo in Siena.

  

Duomo in Siena

Last Days in Greece

To be fair, I am not in Greece right now. I am actually in Siena, Italy (!!!) - but more about that in a later post. Here's a quick shout out to copy and pasting, for allowing me to write my blog and then post it a couple days after the fact. Keep in mind these are things I wrote about 5-7 days ago that I'm just now posting.

Anyways. Greece. Last days. Sadness. Excitement. Walking up a lot of hills.

Class. Putting the study in study abroad. Two weeks goes by a lot faster than you might think (unless you are five years old and waiting for Christmas morning... time slows down then I'm pretty sure) and low and behold, the exam is upon us quicker than I would like to acknowledge. Is it wrong I'm not horribly concerned? I've been to every class, took notes, paid attention during excursions... I'm optimistic. I know my stuff. I've still taken it upon myself to study, but only for an hour or so a day these last couple days before the test. I guess we'll see how the exam goes... (side note: it went fine, I think - we'll see what the grade is though)

Thursday (September 25th) we went on an excursion to Delphi. Big oracle for the Ancient Greeks. Huge temple to Apollon. It wasn't picturesque at all.

Just kidding. It was beautiful. Temple of Apollon at Delphi.

Delphi was such a sacred place for the Ancient Greek people, and it was so surreal to walk around and see all the ruins. They erected these huge buildings so meticulously to ensure perfection, and they such limited building tools compared to today. It blows my mind every time I think about it.

Not only was the oracle of Delphi a cool site to visit, the drive there was amazing. Greek mountains are gorgeous, and apparently there is some good skiing in the winter. Greek and skiing are two things I do not typically associate, so I was surprised to drive through a small village and see ski shops and signs for various ski resorts. Guess I'll have to go back to this area for a ski trip someday...

 Speaking of traveling back to Greece, I have to go back someday because of the food. Oh, I could write an entire 500 page ode to the food of Greece. Everything is fresh, there's olive oil on just about everything, and the wine is superb. One of my personal favorites was the tzatziki. For those who have never had tzatziki, it's a dip made from yogurt (Greek yogurt, obviously - "regular" yogurt in Greece is not considered real yogurt) and small chunks of cucumber, with plenty of garlic, and other spices depending on the recipe - cumin, anise, dill, etc. For those who have tzatziki in America, it is roughly 10,000 times better in Greece. The Greek salads are delicious as well - no lettuce; just red onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers in olive oil and spices with a big slab of feta cheese on top. Depending on where you get it, sometimes olives will be included. Olives always have the pit in them, which creates the need for awkwardly spitting the pit out in your hand when no one's looking and placing it on your plate.

And the gyros. My goodness, the gyros. By our apartment in Varnava Square, there is the best gyro place in probably the world. I always got the chicken with everything on it, everything being the meat, tzatziki, red onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and fries. The best part? These gyros were only €2. I had to control myself around these gyros, otherwise I could have honestly eaten them for every meal. There are a couple of boys studying abroad in the same program as me who might have actually eaten there every meal and every snack - I think one averaged 2 gyros a day.

The wine deserves a shout out as well, because it was ubiquitous in Greece. Every restaurant brought out wine for the table, and bottles of decent wine were very inexpensive everywhere you went. To make a long story short, if you consider yourself a "foodie" or a gastronomy expert and need a destination for your next travel expedition, go to Greece. You won't be disappointed.

Anyways, we have a limited time left in Greece. It seems like only yesterday I was landing here, but it also feels like I've been here for five months. Covering an entire four credits in two weeks time was a little hectic - our schedule was packed! It was worth it though. I'm glad I got to see so much of Greece. I'm very excited to travel to Italy, so leaving Greece will be bittersweet!