Ciao!

For the long weekend, I traveled to Italy. Once again it was going to be too far to take a train so we took our very safe RyanAir, only 5 euros for a one way flight to Venice! I won't lie I didn't do a whole lot of research on what to do or what to expect so when i arrived in Venice and realized all transportation was by water it amazed me. We sat down at a nice pizzeria and grabbed our first slice of italian pizza and white wine. The next morning we woke up with only 4 hours till our train to Florence, so we were looking for a quick canal tour of some sort, but then we realized we should just take the public transportation waterbus, which was the perfect tour of the canal. Venice is yet again another place we visited that I would like to go back to and spend more time relaxing and walking around. We went to the main plaza, and all around it were small streets with stores after stores of beautiful jewelry and very chic window displays, I guess i will have to go back when i have enough money to buy those rings and necklaces :) . Our hostel in Florence, Hostel Veronique, reminded me of the typical italian/european apartment. The lift was very small and old, and the room was lets say..not to clean along with sharing a bathroom that was outside down the hall. Although the flat wasn't ideal looks wise it was perfect location. We had a view of a chapel,a large outdoor leather market, and central located to many of the piazza in the area. Florence had amazing window displays and their fashion is one i would like to put into my own style. We started to walk around Florence the next day, and came upon Pitti Palace, where we were able to see a exhibit of costume and how it shows the economy of the different time periods, along with a hilly garden which gave us a good view of the city.
On June 24 is the Tournament of St. John, which was a saints holiday where the city is split up into 4 teams. The 4 teams had been playing in game in the last couple weeks and on this day is when they championship is. I can't begin to explain what the rules of this game was, but it was a combination of football, soccer, rugby, and boxing. We had no idea what we were getting ourself into. The game starts and they were all wearing plain T-shirts medieval pants, and their were 3 refs who were also dressed in medieval dress. The whistle blew and complete mayhem occurred i sat there with my mouth opened, trying to figure the game out, or even what part of it to watch, left and right there were random fist fights, the players were ripping each others shirts off, people were pushing the refs around, and then somewhere in that mix a guy had the ball. If i could suggest a time to go to Florence go on June 24, it was an unforgettable experience, I wish i could go back again next year to watch. We then traveled to Rome, where we mostly did the typical tourist stuff, we did the hop on hop off tourist bus which took us to the Coliseum and Fountain di Trevi for the first day and the second day we went to the Vatican and Spanish Steps.

At the Vatican we were persuaded by a guide outside to do their deal, which is a 50/50 chance that its legit, we happen to luck out and we got a tour guide who's family is from San Marino! It was a 2 hour tour, and he sat us down before and explained all the art work in the Sistine Chapel. There is so much of Michael Angelo's life and work that i had absolutely no idea about. I had seen his famous panel of God giving life, but I didn't even ever closely look at it. The other panels that he painted were so interesting to look at and see how he interpreted the different sections of the bible. One thing that he was talking to us about was that Michael Angelo and Pope Julius II did not get along, and their are small things in his paintings that mock the Pope, which i thought was interesting seeing that Julius II was the one who hired him. Our guide was somebody that you could just tell was born to be a tour guide, he showed such interest and enthusiasm that it made it very enjoyable. Now for the food, yum! I had my fair share of pesto pasta, pizza, and gelato. I had tried many different flavors of gelato, my favorite were tiramisu, nutella, and wait for it...Chocolate, who saw that coming right. One thing that changed my mind after going was their sense of style, i guess i should have thought more about it seeing that Milan is one of the top fashion cities, but i was expecting people to be tacky, more jersey shore like, which is probably why the Italians got so upset about that show. The men were very well dressed and not as metro as many people might think, and the women were perfectly put together with a variation of outfits while as compared to american style where it seems like many people wear the same combinations of clothes. I'm so glad that i choose to go to Italy for the long weekend, all our travels worked out perfectly, we caught all our trains, found all our hostels easily, and figured out maps and metros within the first couple hours of being in each city. Throughout my time in Europe it has been so much fun to be in Europe for the FIFA world cup, all these countries get so into the game and it shows in every city that we go to. In Florence we were able to grab a table at a pub and cheer with other Italians to support their team, unfortunately they didn't win though. We watched two US games while in Italy, one in Florence and the other in Rome. In Florence it was fun because the pub was filled with Americans that were traveling in europe. The one in Rome the three of us girls wore navy and white striped sweatshirts and wrote GO USA on our face, we got some looks but felt good to get into the world cup and cheer for our country. Sadly we lost :( . It's hard to believe that this was my last weekend travel during my study abroad, and that i will be back in the states in 5 days!! I wish I could have spent more time in Venice and Florence, It would be fun to do more exploring of the canals and the fashion in those two places.
Arrivederci!