FINALLY blogging again. Everything up until Spring Break!

Soo I haven’t blogged in ages. I am already mad at myself for that! I’ve been up to so much these last couple of weeks and I wish I could remember every instant of it. Actually, there are a few things from Amsterdam that I wouldn’t mind forgetting, but that’s besides the point. Just a quick review: I took a weekend trip to Amsterdam and Brugge at the beginning of February (with Shannon and Jen) and a weekend trip to Paris on Valentine’s weekend (with Shannon and Lily).

Didn’t really care for Amsterdam, I mean it’s something that I think every experience once, but I don’t think I’ll ever go back there again. I should have known it was a bad sign on our way there when our tour guide was talking about where the good “coffee shops” were (for those of you who don’t know, DON’T sell coffee) and I told her that I don’t smoke weed, and she told me, “Oh you can just eat a space cake.” Umm, hello? That means I don’t do drugs? What a spaghett. Amsterdam just really made me appreciate the society that I grew up in. I think it is really sad that little kids grow up in the Red Light District and think that prostitution is normal. They actually pay taxes and have their own union. I am very thankful that I did not grow up in a place like that! We stopped in Belgium on our way home which made my weekend. Brugge was amazing. I had a real Belgian waffle and I also had my first beer!! It was a Timmerman’s strawberry beer and it was delicious. Probably the only beer I will have in my entire life so I’m glad I enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed Paris with the girls on Valentine’s Day weekend. The Eiffel Tower was way more enormous than I had ever imagined it! I wish it would have been warmer so that we could have had a picnic in the park below it. Hopefully my mom and I will get back there in May! I also visited Notre Dame, shopped around and ate lunch in the latin quarter, walked along la seine, visited Sorbonne’s campus, and LOVED going to Sacré-Cœur on Valentine’s Day. And the cherry on top of the perfect weekend was when I got to see Camille for a little bit! It was so nice seeing a familiar face!

And now on to spring break. Wow. I had the most incredible spring break possible. Lily and I visited Switzerland and Italy for a total of ten days. We spent the first half of the break in Zurich and the Alps, and the second half in Rome. Visited some of the most beautiful places I have probably ever been in my entire life. I know that I am over using the word beautiful, but I don’t know how else to describe the things that I saw. Everything was absolutely BEAUTIFUL.

When we arrived in Switzerland, Pascal was waiting for us right after customs. We had flown into Zurich which is where he is from. Pascal was an exchange student in St. Louis in high school and I met him when he was in St. Louis visiting a few summers ago. Pascal- I don’t know if you are reading this or not, but you were the best host we could have ever asked for!!!!! He picked us up from the airport and took us back to his family’s house that was absolutely incredible. Lily and I had our own studio that was separate from the house. We had McDonald’s for dinner since we got there so late. To give you an idea of how wealthy Swiss economy is, McDonalds was about 12 dollars per meal. Instead of having a dollar menu, they had a 2.50 menu! What the heck. Anyways, the next day we did a bunch of exploring with Pascal before he had to go to an interview. His brother, Silvan (named after Sylvan Learning Center... he can’t even spell his own name…) met up with us and we went to Sprüngli to have hot chocolate in the café upstairs that my friend Chris had recommended. It was so yummy because it was made with their delectable Swiss chocolate. That night, the brothers all cooked dinner for us before we went out. The next day we went up to the top of Uetliberg to get a panoramic view of Zurich. I also got a Swiss Army Knife and picked up a bunch of chocolate bars to send to my family. That night we had a traditional Swiss dinner dish. We had noodles with applesauce and shredded cheese (which was SO GOOD!!!), and some sort of meat. They eat salad after dinner, which we accidently messed up on. But we learned from our mistake and ate our salad after dinner for the rest of the nights! His mom had the best homemade salad dressings. And the cheese was also unlike any cheese I had had before. There was cheese involved in every meal, which I really enjoyed. I accidently called one of the cheeses “Swiss cheese”, since that is what we call it at home, and I got a very confused look in response to that. Oh how I will miss that food now that I am back in London! One of Pascal’s friends, Alex, was able to get us a VIP table at one of the most exclusive bars in Zurich for Saturday night. Saying it was very fun would definitely be an understatement!

We headed to Pascal's family's house in the Alps on Sunday and we got to go skiing on Monday morning. Pascal basically tried to kill me when we got out there, because after I requested we start on an easy slope, he took me to the top of the mountain and made me go down a red run. This happened multiple times throughout the day. I managed to go the whole day without falling, but that was because eventually I refused to ski down one of the slopes so I walked took my skis off and walked down. I most likely would have fallen if I had attempted so ski down it. But I loved all of the views!!



Figuring out how to get to Rome from Zurich turned into a huge ordeal because the train that we had overnight tickets for no longer exists. Which we didn’t know about. So when we got there and had to rebook tickets for a train that actually exists, the prices were very steep, but Alex said he would pitch in for the tickets so we didn’t have to pay as much. We refused at first, but he insisted, so we eventually accepted his offer. It was very, very, nice of him to do that! We got to Rome the next day and went straight to our hostel. Our hostel was so much fun. The staff was friendly and the beds were really comfortable. The people staying there were very cool as well! I roomed with a boy from New Zealand, and a brother and sister from Argentina. We had a four person dorm ensuite. The ensuite wasn’t really true though, because we didn’t have a toilet. We had a beday with a shower over it. It was odd. So I just showered down the hall.

Wednesday morning we woke up early because one of my roomates said that we would be able to see the Pope because he does something on Wednesday mornings. I think we were supposed to have tickets, so we didn’t end up seeing the Pope himself, but we did go to the Vatican, St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Vatican Museum (which had the Sistine Chapel!). Afterwards, we went to Castle Saint Angelo, which was the Pope’s hideout back in the day. On Thursday Lily wasn’t feeling up to it, so I explored Rome by myself (which probably explains all of the awkward pictures I have in front of random sites by myself). I went to the Colosseum and saw all of the ruins around it. There were remains of villa up on a hill that I found fascinating. I took lots of pictures of it because I wouldn’t mind living in a similar house someday! I then walked to the Pantheon and had a great lunch outdoors next to it since it was so nice out. I had lasagna which was scrumptious. I ate every last bite of it! I also really enjoyed people watching while I ate my lunch. After the Pantheon, I went to Trevi Fountain which was more enchanting that I had pictured it to be. It was so detailed and magnificent that I would have stayed there for a lot longer if it hadn’t been raining. I awkwardly asked some lady to take a picture of me by myself throwing my coin into the fountain. I was happy when Lily and I returned the following day so that we could take pictures together.

Since we had decided to stay in Rome a couple of extra nights instead of traveling to Naples, we didn’t have room at our original hostel so we had to book something else. Thanks to hostelbookers.com we ended up at some weird “hostel” which was actually just some guy’s apartment. I don’t think he showered once while we were there. There was no hot water and the shower head wasn’t even connected to the wall. The “living room” was the only place that had wireless internet, so at night, Lily and I sat in the hallway, on a bench, with our little space heater turned on full blast. None of the other people staying there talked to us. It was a very strange predicament. Luckily we spent all of Friday out and about so we didn’t have to spend much time there. We woke up and had breakfast at some bar a few buildings over (which for some reason the place was called a bed and breakfast, and there was no kitchen in the apartment, we had to go to some bar to eat breakfast…weird, I know) and then we went to Villa Borghese which I can proudly say is my new favorite museum in the ENTIRE WORLD (literally!). Our family friend, Paula, had recommended it (along with everything else I did during my trip to Italy) and she was right on the spot with how incredible it was.

Afterwards we walked around looking for a Church called Santa Maria degli Angeli but we couldn’t find it. We ended up booking our ticket for the train from Rome to Napoli for this morning so that we could make our flight (which was still booked out of Napoli since we were originally planning on going there until we heard it was not safe for two young American girls to go to). It was cold and raining, so we went shopping for a little bit and then we went to Trevi so that I could show her how pretty it was. Afterwards, we went back to the “hostel” (which I refused to use without the quotation marks around it because it was NOT A REAL HOSTEL) and got cleaned up before we went to dinner. I had mozzarella sticks as an appetizer and they were so good that I even ended up ordering a second order of them. Hey, when in Rome, right? Then my pasta alla vodka came out and it was so delicious that my mouth is watering when I think about them right now. I was so stuffed after dinner I couldn’t even order dessert :( But I was able to sleep well that night!

This morning was a disaster at the Roma Termini, which is the main train station in Rome. Our train to Napoli was delayed for an hour and a half. We did the math and realized we were going to miss our flight if that was the situation. We waited in line, spoke Spanglish to the worker, and he told us our only option was to pay another 40 euro to get onto the next train to Naples. We told him we didn’t understand why we would have to pay another 40 euros because we were originally told that we would be getting into Naples at 10:36 and we still had to catch the bus once we got to Naples in order to get to the airport and make it through security and customs before our 12:55 flight. He then suggested that we pay another 10 euros and get into Naples at 11:45. He understood that we would miss our flight but said we would have to pay 40 euros to get there on time. We asked to speak to a manager because we thought the ticket should have been comped for the difference, and he said we couldn’t speak to the manager. We said that would NEVER happen in America. Low and behold, I guess those were the magic words, because next thing I knew we were on the express train to Napoli without paying an additional fee. We got to Naples earlier than expected, never got questioned on the train, and we made it back to the London airport in record time! What a trip!

I look forward to sharing more of my experiences. I promise I’ll start blogging regularly again :)