Last Week in Paderno

I can't believe these amazing four weeks are at an end. What a life changing experience. It has been a very busy and emotional last week.

Monday afternoon we had an Italian lawyer speak in our law class. It was very interesting, and I've enjoyed studying law in a foreign country because we've touched on many legal issues at the international level. Tuesday we took a trip to the Uniconfort corporate office and factory for my finance class. They are a private company that makes boilers for people to recycle their waste and make it into heat, steam, and electricity. It was a very interesting visit and gave great insight into how an Italian business is run.

Tuesday night we had our "formal dinner" at a hotel in Castelfranco. There is an opera camp here, and the students performed for us. We were then escorted outside to some big tents for appitizers and mimosas. We continued on to the dining room where Dr. Al Ringleb (founder and executive director of the CIMBA program) made a speech, toasted, and welcomed us. The program fee includes the cost of the formal dinner, but Dr. Ringleb treated each table to bottles of white, red, and dessert wines native to the Treviso region. The food and wine were FANTASTIC! We were served two pastas, chicken with walnuts and vegitables, an amazing dessert, and espresso. The whole ordeal lasted a long time and was a great treat. It was a perfect way to celebrate with new friends.

I'm not sure if this news made it to the states or not, but there was a tornado that hit Treviso a few minutes up the road from Paderno while I was in Rome last weekend. It completely wiped out a town that I have ridden through many times. We passed through on the way to dinner Tuesday night and it was so sad. Please keep the townspeople in your thoughts.

These last few days have been exciting but also sad. Most of us are traveling after, which we are all excited about, but at the same time we do not want to leave what we have established here. I have my two finals back to back in the morning and then I am making my way back to Marco Polo airport to meet my parents!! We will then head to our cruise ship and leave port Saturday morning. We head first to Split, Croatia then to Athens, Greece and then on to Istanbul, Turkey. We stay there for two days and then continue on to Mikonos, Greece, then Ephesus, Turkey, Santorini, Greece (ohhh boy), Katakolon, Greece, and return to Venice on day 12. We fly out of Venice and will be back in Dallas on the 24th. Internet is not free on the ship, so I plan to journal every day and update when I get back to the states. I am very excited to see my parents and share my time in Europe with them.

I have grown a lot in these four weeks. I think the biggest change has been my thoughts on communication. While in Rome we were having trouble communicating with the clerk at the hostel and that was the last straw. When I get back to the states I am going to learn Spanish. There is no reason for me not to... it can only benefit me and I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to expand my knowledge. I have a few friends who are fluent and can help me practice. After Spanish I may do French and German, and then after that probably Italian (for the next time I visit Florence!!)

Also, my mom keeps mentioning to me how many of you enjoy reading my blog. She says a lot of you have mentioned that I would be a great travel journalist. I am very flattered and think getting paid to travel and write would be a wonderful experience. We'll see where my travels take me. For now, however, I am just going to relax and enjoy my family on our cruise!

Ciao!

Videos & Pictures

I have uploaded all of my pictures to my website (click here) so take a look.
Below are a few videos that I have taken. They might take a while to load, so just pause each one until they're fully loaded to avoid choppy watching. I hope you like them!


Rome Videos

Inside St. Peter's


St. Peter's Piazza


Colosseum


Rome View from Castel Sant'Angelo


Piazza del Popolo


Spanish Steps at Night


Trevi Fountain at Night


Organ Fountain at Villa d'Este



Florence Video

View from atop the Duomo



Cinque Terre Videos

Our appartment in Monterosso


Trying Grappa





Tomorrow is the last day of class and I just can't believe it. We are all SO sad but studying hard for finals. We will probably eat dinner at the pizzeria tonight and tomorrow and spend some time at the bars to enjoy our last nights together. We are already talking about reunion trips and visits. I will write about everything that has happened this week in a post later.

...Do as the Romans do

Our second day in Rome started out rainy, so we slept in for a few hours until it stopped. We knew our Roma pass was our ticket into the Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine Hill, which meant we wouldn't have to wait in the long ticket lines. We took the metro to the Colosseum and walked right in. It was a Saturday and the place was buzzing with tourists. The wind picked up at some point and started blowing dust, small rocks, and dirt from the surrounding ruins, which was annoying and a little painful. The wind would last all day because another storm was blowing in. The Collosseum was great, it was surreal standing where so much history had occurred.

We grabbed a panini and walked right by the ticket lines into the Forum and Palatine Hill entrance. The Roma Pass proved to be a really great investment and time saver. On top of the hill, I walked through the ruins of Augustus' house, looked into the heart of Circus Maximus, and down through other various ruins. We moved on to the Forum, and kept getting bombarded with wind-filled dirt. I can't believe the little bit that is left of the ruins are still standing. I was really excited to be there and can't imagine what a big history buff would feel like.

We exited the Forum and were right by the Victor Emmanuel Monument, so we sat on the steps and took pictures. The monument is unnecessarily huge, but still beautiful. We made our way back to the metro and went to our bus stop for the afternoon excursion to Villa d'Este. We arrived at the Villa and it was the most beautiful place I've ever seen. There were fountains everywhere... I can't emphasize how many fountains there were. We walked around for a few hours, saw the water-powered organ foundtain play it's tune at 4:30, and then had wine and a panini on top of the palace. Again I felt bad for spending the money, but it was GREAT wine, and this time Danielle said, "We're drinking wine on top of a palace near Rome." We had the option to stay at the Villa or go on to Hadrian's ruins, but we decided the place was to beautiful to leave and we had already seen enough ruins for the day. Good choice.

We made it back to our hostel and got ready to go out for the night. I laid down for about an hour to recoop while the other girls went and got dinner. We had called and reserved spots on the Colloseum Pub Crawl. A pub crawl is when you pay an amount of money, get a free shirt, and visit different pubs all over the city, eventually ending up at a dance club. It was fun and we got a lot to drink for the amount of money we paid (18 euro... we might have been able to get 3 drinks each for that anywhere else). There were too many Americans though, so Maria and I walked the streets for awhile and eventually went home.

The next morning was hectic, the other girls were really hung over and we had to catch our 8 hour bus back to Paderno at noon. We went and chilled at the Spanish Steps again and made our way back to the pick-up spot for the bus.


Overall Rome was my least favorite visit. I appreciate all of the history the city has, but I would not go back on my own dime. At least I can say I have been there. I did enjoy myself, it was just too touristy and the big city made me forget I was in Italy. It felt more like NYC or a big city in the U.S. I would have rather gone to Munich, Paris, Barcelona, or back to Florence... but I couldn't have come to Italy and not gone to Rome!!

Pictures will be up as soon as I have time. I can't believe it's my last week here!!! It is so sad, we are all depressed about leaving this beautiful country and the new friends we have made.

When in Rome...

My weekend in Rome was nice. There was a lot of walking but that was expected. We bought a Roma Pass, which includes 3 days of transportation (metro, buses, trolleys) and free entrance into the first two sites that you go to. After the first two sites, you get discounts on the rest you go to. It was 23 euro, which was a steal.

Our hostel was cramped with 5 girls and we had to deal with the noisy traffic down below, but it was right by the Termini train station (easy access to the metro) so that was a plus. The first day we started early and headed straight to the Vatican Museum. They had a really cool Egyptian display out that I enjoyed. We saw many statues and paintings that were beautiful. The room I most loved was painted with the story of Constantine the Great, who is considered the first Christian Roman emperor and is responsible for the rise and legality of Christianity. The walls showed his vision of a cross, the battle scenes that he was victorious in, and his making Christianity legal in Rome. The Sistine Chapel was last in the museum and just wonderful. I would’ve liked for it to have been better lit. My neck got sore from staring at the ceiling so long, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off of the art. We weren’t allowed to take pictures but I was sneaky and got a few without flash (bad quality).

We exited the museum and ate lunch outside the old city walls at a cute little pizzeria. There “promotion” or special of the day was a drink and pizza for 6 euro. Great deal! They were so kind and instead of giving us just one piece, let us sample about 5 different kinds of pizza. We had four cheese, pesto, mushroom, margherita (Italy’s version of our basic cheese pizza), and (drum roll please) salmon and zucchini. The salmon/zucchini one was surprisingly sooo good and my favorite thus far. I wish I could get it in the states.

We then worked our way to St. Peter’s piazza and basilica.Saying it is the greatest church in the world is an understatement. We were allowed to take pictures, but of course the quality of lighting and my camera don’t portray the intensity of it all. The Chapel of the Holy Sacrament is curtained off and strictly reserved for prayer, so I went in to say a few. Kneeling in that chapel had the ability to remove all doubt, sadness, and pain. I have never been more humbled by the presence of God than while in that chapel. It was a very moving and emotional experience for me. St. Peter’s tomb is directly underneath the main altar, and it was beautifully decorated. There are at least a dozen altars in the church, and each one had enormous paintings above it. It wasn’t until about halfway through the church that I realized these “enormous paintings” were actually mosaics!! Only by looking very closely can you see the outlines of the thousands of tiles (smaller than a computer key) that made up the huge works of art. After I realized this, I had to backtrack and look at all of them again because they had a whole new beauty about them. Also located in the church is Michelangelo’s Pietà, which he finished at the age of 24. The Pieta is beautiful and looks so real that I forgot it was made of stone. Jesus really appears to be dead and Mary’s features are so torn between her agony and her destiny that I wanted to reach out and comfort her.

After a long morning at Vatican City we made our way towards the Castel of Sant’Angelo and the Mausoleum of Hadrian. The castle was awesome and the view from the top was great. We ended up going to the bar on top of the castle and splurging on wine and desserts. I felt bad spending the extra money, but as Danielle put it, “We’re drinking wine on top of a castle in Rome” so of course it was a once in a lifetime ordeal. We each got a different dessert so we could all try some. I had my first cannoli, some apple pie, and some cherry cheesecake. They were all delicious and the vino bianco (white wine) was perfectly paired. Our view overlooked St. Peter’s and the snack was a nice break.

We went back to our hostel to rest and grab dinner nearby (we had doner kebabs, which are a mix between a chicken burrito and Greek gyro… quite interesting) then made our way to the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain (yay!!) by night. The steps were great, covered in people drinking (everyone had their own personal bottle of preference) and it was a great people-watching experience under a full moon. I snagged a video of some Americans playing the guitar and everyone singing along, which I’ll post later. We saw the Spanish Embassy and some monuments as we made our way to the Trevi Fountain. Most people don’t know what the Trevi is, but I have been interested and highly anticipating my visit to it. I’ve heard it is best to go at night because its beauty is even more profound. The fountain of course was even bigger than I had anticipated and SO beautiful; it was probably my favorite site of the entire weekend. Definitely a great place for romance and gelato!

We made our way back to the hostel and prepared for our trip to Ancient Rome in the morning.