When in Rome...

Okay, lots of recap for the last few days and some pictures for you!

So Thursday was my last full day in Florence and one of the best days of my trip. I did a winery tour which included a stop at two wineries for a wine tasting and a castle in the middle of Tuscany. The first winery was definitely the better of the two. We sampled 5 different types of wine ranging from a light white to a 10 year old chanti reserve. We also did the tour of the winery and discussed the process and what grapes/regions produce which kinds. Maybe I'm just a wino, but I enjoyed every minute of it. After the first stop, we drove deeper into Tuscany to the castle. We just made about a 30 minute stop, but talk about some amazing views...fields and fields of vineyards. I know daddy would love this place! After the castle, we headed to the second winery and did a similar tasting. This winery also had chanti wines, but the flavors weren't as appealing to me as the first. And the lady doing the tour spoke broken English so it was hard to understand. The tour I did was with a small group of people, 7 of us total, and all of them were a lot of fun to spend the day with. We got back in to Florence and two of the girls (from australia) and I went to dinner. It was so nice to make friends along this trip, but especially with those who are your age, speak your language, and are on the same page as you!! We even talked about books and boys while we drank more wine and had ice cream, hilarious!

On Friday, I got up and caught my train to Rome. The hotel I stayed at was sooo nice compared to all my others so that was a welcome sight. First time I'd seen a bathtub since leaving America. Most of these places have very small showers...not good for shaving your legs which is probably why so many of the females don't. Anyways, after dropping my bag off, I set off to find the Colosseum.

Can I just say WOW!! I honesty don't know that I will ever forget the first time I laid eyes on it. It is also so hard to really describe it, but looking at this massive structure knowing its history and what took place and how much life it holds. No words. It is like you are just walking down a street no big deal and then all of a sudden you are sent back all those years and it is just massive columns, ruins, and history. I think the only other thing that has stuck with me like that is seeing Stonehenge back when I was a freshman in high school. After doing the tour, I headed over to Trevi fountain so I could throw my coin in to have the luck of ensuring my return to Rome. So many people there and it is hot and humid as hell in Rome so I headed for dinner after. I decided since it was only 6,I should have a leisurely dinner and after ordering my wine and receiving a bottle at my table, I was in for. I had my Pasta and chicken and slowly took care of the bottle of wine and two hours later I managed to get back safely to the room...to pass out. Aaah Rome, how I love you.

Saturday was filled with more of Rome as I headed to Vatican City. I toured the basilica and the Vatican museum because you can't go to Rome without seeing the Sistine chapel! I'm not gonna lie though, the art and feeling that was in that room was so intense, but I was a little let down. I pictured this immaculate ceiling so high and it was I guess, just too much buildup apparently. Also, they wouldn't let you take pics, but I managed to squeeze one anyways. :)

It took all day to see all that Vatican City had to offer so afterwards, I grabbed some dinner and headed back to the room to pack. Had to be picked up this morning at 4:30 am to catch my flight, but well worth it to be on my way home.

This trip has been a trip of a lifetime and I am blessed beyond words at what I've been able to see, the people I've met, and the memories I've made. I wish I could share more with you and I'll get more pics up soon. Returning to Fairbanks and real life feeling more centered and relaxed. Feel like I gained a sense of self back and ready to push forward into the future with a better understanding of a lot of things including myself.

Firenze...Italian for Florence

So after saying goodbye to the boys in Ravenna, I caught my train to Florence. I got in about 7 and due to some direction miscalculation, spent the next hour walking around the city trying to find the hotel....with my 40 pound backpack in flip flops. BUT I did get to see some of the sights and they were breathtaking. Once I finally made it to the hotel, I dropped my bags off and headed to get some food and then called it an early night.

Tuesday I got up and set out to see what all Florence had to offer. I decided to not use the map at first because you just manage to see so much more exploring the streets and alleys. I saw the Old Bridge, the Old Palace, the Synagogue, and the Cathedral. These places just sound same oh same and they are in a way on the outside, but coming up on the Cathedral, I literally lost my breath. It is just amazing and so big! Walking through the heat and humidity that Florence had to offer, I was exhausted by th end of the day. I was also to the point where I was tired of pizza and pastas so I set out to find a restaurant that served meat and veggies, I know, crazy right?! I did come cross a place and went all out with a steak and potatoes, shrimp skewers, mushrooms and broccoli. One of the best meals in a while and what I needed to break the monotony of food in Italy.

Today was another packed day, but I headed out to Pisa to get it started. Pisa is a very small little town and only an hour train ride away so easy to get to from here. It is such a quiet place compared to Venice and Florence with visitors so it was a nice break. I didn't need a map as the Leaning Tower is pretty much all there is to see so I made my way that direction. I was actually a little disappointed when I saw it as it was a lot smaller than I expected. Took the tourists picture I needed though and walked through the streets and back to the train station. When I got back to Florence, I made my way to the class I was taking...the pizza and gelato cooking class. Whoaaa, I know, I know. You are probably dropped jaw thinking about me in a cooking class. But it was actually a lot of fun!!

The class was about 15 people and we learned everything about pizzas starting with how to make dough from scratch. I'm talking mix the yeast and water and all that jazz. I was so shocked! As the dough was rising, we started the gelato mix which is quite simple and comparable to making ice cream, sorta. Once that was mixing, we went back to our pizzas to add the toppings and then baked them before devouring. It was so much fun to see the whole process and know you kneaded the bread and did it all. Made me feel like a real girl...NOT that I would do that all the time, just nice to know I can do it. After stuffing faces with pizza, we had our gelato and talk about heaven!! All in all the day was just a great day. It was nice to do the touristy thing for a bit, but also to have an excursion type deal and not be walking around like a mad woman looking at place after place.

Back in the hotel now and debating which wine tour I'm gonna do tomorrow before Rome on Friday. Getting a little bittersweet as the time to go home is quickly approaching. I've definitely seen a lot and also learned a lot....about myself as well. Excited for the next few days and what there is ahead!!

The beaches of Ravenna

Once Mike's flight got to Bologna, we met up with Heath and headed to his place in Ravenna. We got there and immediately set out for some food and drinks. We went downtown and found a nice little outside place for happy hour. I had a spritz or two which are popular drinks in Italy and we just talked the night away. So relaxing to be with friends, laughing and joking and having crazy conversations. After a few drinks we decided to grab some food and headed to a place called "the wine house". On our way, we passed a couple of the sights of the town including Dante's supposed tomb and what Heath calls the "leaning tower of Ravenna". You can see the pics below....you can't tell, but I'm dancing it out in front of the leaning tower :) So we made it to the restaurant and indulged in our first and second plate, traditional of how Italians eat and, of course, had a bottle of wine. Obviously required in a place called the house of wine! So after dinner, we continued walking around downtown making sure we stopped for drinks at all of the good bars. It was such a fun night and exactly what I needed to relieve some of the anxiety about having to head back in only a week.

Saturday was beach day so after sleeping in and having a late lunch, we headed to the Marina of Ravenna. It s a little hard to explain the beaches, but it is just like miles and miles of sand and umbrellas and people. Very similar to spring break, but here the umbrellas are all owned by the bars that line the beach....one bar after another after another is an understatement. The other difference is that Italian men favor a good speedo rather than shorts and the women seem to like the bathing suit bottoms that are closer to thongs then bottoms....lots of skin to be seen, that's for sure. We set up at the umbrella that Heath shares with a couple of guys he plays football with and they joined us as well. These guys are born and raised Italians and some of the nicest people....and speak English, or tried to! Since I was the only girl, I let the guys head off to walk the beach and check out the "scenery" while I dived in to my book. We were there for hours and I could just feel everything melt away. You know when you are just completely relaxed and content and don't want to be anywhere else? That's about how it was. The sun was shining down and just happiness. About 7 we decided to grab some food and meet up with some more of Heath's friends for some dancing. We walked a ways and stopped at a restaurant translated to "burp" in English and enjoyed dinner. Couldn't help but think of Kirsty when Heath told me what the name was :) So after dinner we set off to find his friends and literally danced the night away. We made it to this place called Zanzibar where all they played was house/electronic type music. Literally everything sounded the same and there were hardly any words at all, but still had fun dancing with good company.

We had another lazy day Sunday with a late breakfast/lunch and headed back out to the beach for the Sunday events that Heath had told us about. I guess for some reason I thought we weren't actually beaching it, just heading to the bars for the events, but I was wrong. And, because I was wrong, I ended up laying out in my bra and panties..... awkwardddd. Hahaha, actually, it wasn't bad as I was still probably more dressed then more than half the people there. The worst part is just knowing I wasn't dressed appropriately and being with a group of 6 guys laying out on the beach. Good thing guys don't care anything about different types of suits because when I mentioned it later, no one had a clue...gooood gooood! Anyways, after laying out for the bit and watching the guys play some basketball and football, we headed to the bar called coco loco. Coco Loco is some scene! It really, really reminded me of college spring breaks. There are people everywhere drinking, music being played, and just a good time. One of their drink specials is sangria so I had some of that and a local pita dish and spent the rest of the night soaking in the atmosphere. I posted a few pics below, but there was one point where a Brazilian man gets up and leads the crowd in dancing and it is almost like line dancing to Italian music, hilarious and so much fun!

On Monday Heath had to work so Mike and I hit up the town for some lunch and checking out what museums/attractions the city had before heading our separate ways. The town is pretty small so we could walk to everything.... and everything is actually just about a few basilicas and a museum or two. Either way, we saw what there was to see and then headed back to meet Heath and head to the airport. Mike was off to head back home and Heath took me to the train station to head to Florence. I can honestly say the weekend was so relaxing and fun and just what I needed after being go, go, go for the last three weeks. It is always hard saying goodbye to good friends and not knowing when you will seem them again makes it a little worse. But we had an amazing time and I enjoyed what time I could have with them and I won't take that for granted.

So on to Florence I go...

Scotland: castles, whiskey, and relaxation

The last two days have been amazing....I really enjoyed Edinburgh! I got no sleep while I was there due to some events at the hostel, but an amazing place. I highly recommend. So what did I do?

Well, Wednesday I had to catch my flight from Copenhagen, but I got into town about noon. From there, I took a bus to the city center to find the hostel. This included walking up a very big hill with my very heavy bag in flip flops...not so fun. I dropped my bag off and at 1 pm there wa a free history/walking tour that covered most of the main sights. I decided to do that and, surprisingly, it was well worth it! The guide I had was great and had actually written a book about Edinburgh's history so was thoroughly interested and knowledgable. We saw the best views of Edinburgh Castle, learned about some ghost hauntings, went into the graveyard, an old prison, and down the Royal Mile. We saw where Harry Potter was written and the school hogwarts was said to be mirrored after. Heard about some great authors and saw where hangings took place as well as where taxpayers used to go to pay up. Even learned about where the term "shitfaced" derived. The tour was 3 hours and when it was over I headed down the royal mile to see Holyrood Palace and Parliament and then after finding and taking advantage of a fudgery, I strolled the streets of the Fringe.

Starting this week and for the next month, Edinburgh hosts a festival called Gringe. This is an event full of shows ranging from dance to music to comedy to acting to improv, anything and everything. There are venues all over town holding the shows and a lot of them are even free. People are everywhere handing out pamphlets and just so excited to be a part of it. It is really inspiring and I'm glad I got to see some of it. Anyways, I strolled some of the street shows and then found a restaurant to have dinner, a glass of wine, and some chocolate cake at and then headed back to the room.

Thursday was a very relaxing day and it was just what I needed. I had a late breakfast and then walked out of Old Town to see what the newer city had to offer. I found a park where a kids carnival was going on and walked through before heading back to Scott Monument. You can climb the 287 spiral stairs to the top of the monument, which I did, and get some great pictures. After that, I headed to this great lawn/park area below which spans probably close to a mile. There were tons of families playing, kids rolling down the big hills, local business people eating their lunches. I decided to find a bench and for the next 3 hours I just read and took the sun, noises, solitude, and relaxation in. May not be everybody's cup of tea on a vacation, but I think that's what it is all about.

After reading, I headed to the Scottish whiskey store outside the castle. This is where they do the tour of how whiskey is made. It was very interesting to learn about the regions and how different flavors and colors are produced, but obviously the best part is the sampling you do. I'm not a huge whiskey drinker, but learning the correct way to taste it was quite interesting. The tasting also took place in a room with the largest whiskey collection in the world (Guinness world record collection). Seeing bottles of such variety and some dating to the 1800s was so fascinating. I'd say it was a whiskey lovers heaven! After the tasting, I had received a text from Kirsty that she closed on the duplex for me and since I was in a whiskey bar, what better way to celebrate then to have another drink!!

After the whiskey experience, I headed to see a fringe show called "flash mob" that was made of 6 different types of dancers combining their moves and techniques to create one uniformed show. If you love dancing, it was really cool. I liked it a lot! After the show, I headed to find dinner and call it an early night.

My flight to Bologna, Italy was this morning and I had to be up at 4 am. Yep, not cool at all. I basically got no sleep because Edinburgh is a party city where I was at and they are loud. In fact, walking to the bus at 4:15, I passed a lot of patrons just heading home. Caught my flight to London for my layover and then the last flight here to Italy. I managed to get set beside a 9 and 10 year old girl on the flight and as much as I wanted to, they wouldn't let me sleep. They were definitely cute though and so polite. They were from outside London and were headed with their family on vacation to a villa in Tuscany. They asked me millions of questions and revealed tons about their life. I know what sports they play, favorite subjects, what countries they've been to, what their favorite colors are. I know about their parents divorce and how they are now step sisters and all live in a new house. They were pretty fun and normally I hate plane conversations. So, anyways, made it to Bologna and now I am currently waiting for Mike Davis to land so we can meet up with his friend Heath who is hosting us this weekend and see what Ravenna is all about!!

Copenhagen

The last two days I've spent roaming around Copenhagen. What a beautiful city! When I got off the plane Monday morning, I headed towards the hostel which was located downtown. I love it when you get good directions and your hostel is super badass! My room was an all girls room and the bathroom and shower were in th room rather than down the hall. Yes, this is something to be excited about! The hostle also had an amazing lounge with big screens playing the Olympics and a bar with the cheapest drinks you can find in town. Copenhagen isn't a cheap place.

So after checking in, got out the map to see where all the sights were located. Because I was downtown, I just headed in the direction of the walking street which is full of shops. Normally I'm a huge shopper, you know this, but I haven't bought anything on the vacation yet as far as souvenirs go and I sure didn't start in Copenhagen. They had lots of local places, but they also had places like h&m, foot locker, Disney store, and Abercrombie. Amazing what manages to make it around the world. The walking strip takes you to the area of town where Tivoli is and the hard rock cafe is right around the corner. I went ahead and decided to check out Tivoli to see what it was all about. Basically, it is an amusement park in the middle of the city. It has a ferris wheel, roller coasters, fair games, restaurants, live music, and a big lawn to lay around on. Very nice place and a good way to lose a few hours of a day.

After Tivoli, I headed back down the walking street to the other side of town to find the little mermaid. As I got back close to the hostel, I entered Kongens Nytorv and Nyhavn. This is the area of town right on the harbor with lots of bright colored buildings, bistros and restaurants lining the streets with their outside seating, and sailboats and canal tours taking off. It is very pretty , especially at sunset lit up. After walking down the dock, I came upon the entrance to the sand carving festival so I had to enter. There were about 25 different sculptures all made out of sand by different artists. It was amazing to see such detail and talent in these. It very much reminded me of the ice sculptures in Fairbanks each year except these were of sand.

After the sculptures, I kept walking along the water, passing the Amalienborg palace and the Marble Church before coming to more piers and on to the little mermaid. I don't really know what I was expecting, but she was kind of smaller than I was anticipating. Her history and story though definitely bring her size to life since she is one of the most visited attractions in Denmark. It did take me quite a while to get down to her, so afterwards, as it started raining on me, I popped in to a restaurant for some dinner and then wandered to the hostel for some settling in.

Tuesday was an overcast day for the most part, but on my agenda was to see what I missed the day before. I headed back into town to find the Round Tower and climbed the spiral "staircase" to the top. There aren't actually any stairs as you walk up, just stones that angle upwards to the top. On top outside you can see the city, but in reality, there aren't too many big or breathtaking views from there. I got some pictures and decided to head towards the Rosenborg, the royal garden, and the botanical gardens. I managed to get lost on some side streets, but just walking around was entertaining in itself. There are tons of street show acts in town.... everything from jugglers to musicians to those people who dress up and just stand still. I finally got to the palace and walked around the lawn and garden up to the museum. As I got to the top, it was time for the changing of the Royal Guards which was fun to get to see. After checking out what all it had, I headed over to the botanical gardens and found a quite spot next to the lake where I could read my book. At this point the sun was shining and it was so peaceful and serene.

After some time at the lake and then touring the rest of the gardens, it had started to sprinkle on me so I headed back to the hostel for a bit. I took a quick nap, caught up on some emails, and headed out for some dinner. I found this nice little Italian bistro by the water and sat eating and watching the sunset with a blanket they give to customers when there is a chill. Very nice! After dinner, I got a milkshake from this basement ice cream shop, walked the streets a bit more, and headed in for an early night.

This morning I had to get going pretty early as my flight to Scotland is soon. Sitting at the airport now and ready to see what the next location has in store!!