I have no idea how I am going to pack everything that was Spring Break into one blog post. SO I probably won't until I have a little more time. Which will be never, since apparently now the speed of the semester will be careening out of control until we finish.
Also, I usually pepper my blog with relevant pictures to accentuate the important things that I'm saying. Well, I took over 500 pictures, so that's not happening. I'm lazy and now all of my energy has been going towards the schoolwork that I am perpetually behind on in this country.
SO I'm using my time wisely and uploading said photos to facebook and I will post the links here so you, dear reader, can see them. Hopefully it works.
So anyway, Mary and I were the second group of our apartment to leave. We left after her internship to go to the train station after cleverly arranging our bags to fit maximum luggage while leaving room for souvenirs.
We got on the train at about 5:40 or something, and the three hour-something train ride went by quickly. Usually I sleep on transportation vehicles, but I was too excited for break to start. We chatted and some nice Palestinian man said our English was very difficult to understand. It might have been because we were talking about Broadway musicals that he couldn't understand us. Anyway, we told him we studied in Italy and he said "All of the people in my country go to America to study and you Americans come here?" Yes, sir, we came here. Not regretting that decision.
Here are the links to two of the albums:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=378464&id=697649967&l=efef434af6
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=378470&id=697649967&l=cc0652baf7
So we get to Rome and proceed in our usual way of wandering around the area we think our hostel is in until we find it. We walked past this one. Thankfully we wandered back. The signs on the hostels we pick are not particularly... um... visible most times. And we always seem to need to find them at night...
Anyway, Rome was awesome. We went to Ancient Rome to see all of the crumbly stuff, but we didn't go inside since the lines were so long and we only had a limited time before we needed to get to the airport. It was cool, but we kept getting heckled by vendors and people asking if we wanted tours.
SO then we went to the Trevi Fountain since it's awesome and beautiful. We ate gelato there since we knew we wouldn't have it for a while. It's was beautiful and we didn't want to leave.
Next we wanted to see the Sistine Chapel but we stopped at the Vatican City first. The architecture and the paintings and stuff are stunning. Then we asked for directions to the Chapel and had to walk along the Vatical wall for what felt like forever.
After dealing with the biotch at the ticket booth, we went into the Vatican Museum. Looking at the Sistine Chapel hurt my neck since all the cool stuff is on the ceiling. Fun fact: When on a tour with Zach (he works at Umbra), he told us about "Perugino, who painted the Sistine Chapel's... walls." I'm not sure which ones were Perugino frescoes, since there were other artists too, but he's from Perugia (obviously...) and it's cool that he's in the same viewing space as Michelangelo.
After the chapel we hurried back to the train station and had to ask like 30 police officers how to get to Ciampino Airport.
And here's a third link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=378516&id=697649967&l=b51f00e27d
Our flight to Dublin got in late and we boarded half an hour after we were supposed to have left. Also, it was weird because we had to take a bus to get to the plane. Anyway, we got to Dublin an hour and a half later than we originally anticipated, but since they are an hour behind Italian time we had estimated wrong anyway.
As we make our way through the empty airport, we had to get our passports stamped. The only thing is, we aren't part of the European Union, which has the first booth. No, we're part of Other, which is at the other end. Seriously we had to pass like 22 unoccupied booths to get to the one person working at the other end. It was very strange. But he was really nice. Here's how the check went: "Mary Cole. That could be Irish. (Opens my passport) Yupp that’s an Italian name." Then we were on our way.
As usual, we had no idea where our hostel was. It's one thing to find it on a map and such. It's another to find it in a city. But the Irish were very nice and helped us find it after a stop at good old Burger King (which is totally different than US...)
The hostel was all right. We had to pay to use computers but whatever. It was warm (which is a change for us from Perugia) and comfortable. Now that we are safe and sound, things are looking good for Spring Break.
We turned in at like 2 AM after settling in and checking our Facebooks. Obviously our priorities are in order here.
I must admit that my memory of Saturday is kind of fuzzy. The cold, windy Irish air made it hard to see much less remember what was going on. But Dublin is wonderful. I'm pretty sure all we did was wander around the city and take lots of pictures. St. Stephan's Greene was a cool little park. Dublin is a pretty small city all things considered, but it's flat and the people speak English, so it was amazing.
Mary and I decided to splurge (and I mean SPLURGE) on good Irish food, so we went to a restaurant recommended to us by the hostel. We got an appetizer of the three kinds of stew they offered: Lamb, Beef, and Bacon & Sausage (a Dublin creation) and all three were delicious. Our waiter was awesome and kept checking in on us. We each got a main course (mine was sausages with mashed potatoes and peppercorn dressing and Mary got a potato pancake filled with vegetarian chili) and we also got Bailey's cheesecake and Bailey's coffee for dessert. It came out to be... ummm... 63 euro. But it was soooooooooooo worth it.
We also met this nice Irish priest and his sisters. They got seated at the same table as us. We had a very pleasant conversation with them. Only in Ireland.
Unfortunately at this point my computer is dying and I have a lot of other things to do. I'll try to update tomorrow to finish the week. It might take me a week to talk about everything that we did, but whatever. It's my blog and I'll write at whatever pace I want. That's a lie. I'll write at whatever pace time and battery allows and I'll post when the internet decides to not hate me for a moment!
But here's one more link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=378521&id=697649967&l=c41aeb4261
Ciao for now. Day 2 or 3 or whatever it's considered of Ireland then London and TIna's visit to Perugia. Gahh this is gonna take a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment