GOOD NEWS: The exchange rate has dropped to 1.49!!!!!!! So I thought a good way to celebrate would be some shopping :)
I went with a couple kids in my dorm to the Camden Market Friday. It is the biggest market I have ever seen. We spent 4 hours there and probably only covered half of it. A lot of it is touristy junk but there were some cute stalls with fun clothes and leather bags and other knick knacks in them. I got a really cool new shirt with huge puffy sleeves and a pair of long gold and green earrings to match. While at the market we also ate at a Chinese buffet all you can eat :) It was superb.
Since Lauren and Maddie are gone I went out with two other girls last night, Leigh and Chelsea. They met this guy one of the first weeks here who is a club promoter and apparently he gets paid 20 pounds for each person that shows up to these events he has to work at, so he invites Leigh and Chelsea everywhere and gets them into these really nice places for free. So last night we went to a place called Monroe's over by Oxford Circus that was reeeeeaaally cool. It was kind of hidden underground and there was a really long line outside the door but we were on "the list" so we got to skip the line and go right in. The promoter guy (Joe) also had a table reserved for us so that was pretty neat too. I pretended I was famous for a night haha it was quite fun. We shared our table with some girls our age from Holland that also know Joe and talked to them for a while.
Saturday night we went to an event at a place called Vendome hosted by one of the actresses from 90210. Leigh and Chelsea invited like twenty kids to this one which Joe was really happy about since that means he made big bucks that night so he reserved us another table. This place was even cooler than Monroe's. The entire floor was made of lights that continually changed color and the middle of the room consisted of a rotating DJ booth in the middle of a circular dance floor and then tables surrounded the dance floor. All the walls were made from mirrors as well, so it really reflected all the lights. Leigh said the last time they went they had a table right by the door and Lady Gaga walked in and then ran back to the VIP lounge. My friend Bree thought she overheard one girl say "There's so many celebs in this place it's not even funny" but then after listening to her conversation for a while she realized the girl had said "There's so many steps in this place it's not even funny". (There were a lot of steps between the dance floor and all the table areas, which made it rather easy to trip especially with lights reflecting in your eyes from every angle). We were pretty disappointed once we figured out she said "steps" and not "celebs" and unfortunately we didn't notice anyone famous (course I pretty much stayed right by our table all night). Still anxiously waiting to meet a famous person here...
Well, I'm off to bed now. The cleaning lady came by our room this morning to drop off some toilet paper which finally gave me the chance to ask for another sheet. Every Friday we are supposed to leave our sheets in the hallway and the cleaning ladies will replace them with fresh ones. For some reason, they always give me only one sheet so all I have is a comforter then to use as a blanket, which slightly grosses me out since I don't know the last time it was cleaned (they won't accept comforters to clean) and not to mention it's started getting warm at night as we don't have air conditioning. Anyways, the cleaning lady is really nice but she doesn't speak a word of English so when I asked for another sheet she kept thinking I wanted to change my sheet so she said she would come back in thirty minutes to get my old one. I brought her into the room to show her I only had one sheet and tried to explain I didn't want to exchange it, I just wanted an extra sheet for on top. I thought she understood me but sure enough she showed up thirty minutes later and when I tried to explain again that I wanted both sheets she was like "Oh, I change for you?!" and I was like "No, I keep both" and then she was like "Oh okay, I'll come back tomorrow for exchange" and I was like "No, not tomorrow, I want both sheets" and she just looked at me confused, shrugged and then left. Sigh... she is a really sweet lady but I sure hope she doesn't come back tomorrow...
Tuesday, March 30
Thursday, March 25
Dublin, Stonehenge, Bath and the past week
Hello again!
I've gotten pretty poor at keeping up with this thing. So time for another update.
Today I saw on-line that the Victoria and ALbert Museum had an Alice in Wonderland exhibit so OF COURSE i had to go check it out. Alice in WOnderland is my favorite story of all time. It actually has a lot to do with new ideas of evolution and how humans were just in a state of confusion and didn't know who they were anymore or where they fit in the world/grand scheme of life anymore. That's why all the animals are given human characteristics and they all keep asking Alice who she is and she keeps saying she doesn't know anymore and she keeps growing and shrinking in size... kind of showing how humans were now unsure about their superiority over animals and their spot at the top of the food chain. Lewis Carroll (whose real name was Charles Dodgson) used to exchange letters with Charles Darwin around the time that his book "On the Origin of Species" came out and just several years later Alice in Wonderland was published. Anyways, the Alice exhibit at the V&A was extremely disappointing. It was only two small cases and I definately would not call it an exhibit. So after that I walked around trying to find a topic for my art paper with little success. Then I started thinking I should research Alice-inspired artwork, so just now I found this AWESOME photographer that does the coolest work with underwater photos taken with Alice in Wonderland themes that I am going to write about. Check out the photos here: http://elenakalis.carbonmade.com/projects/2289942
I had to give an art presentation on Monday on anything I wanted, so I decided to present on the recently popular graffiti artist "Banksy". No one knows his real name because as a graffiti artist he obviously has to remain anonymous so he doesn't get in trouble with the law. Funnily enough, his works are becoming so famous now that his lawyer argues he can't get in trouble with the law because his works actually increase the value of a building rather than decrease it. One of his recent paintings sold for 102,000 pounds. Although he does some artwork, he sticks to graffiti because he is really against commercialism and thinks art should be for the people with no entry fees where anyone can view it. SImilarly, he hates advertising and feels like it's a true form of vandalism because it shouts messages at you without giving you the chance to respond and makes you feel inadequate unless you buy something. He's not your typical graffiti guy though.. he actually has really meaningful and thought-provoking works and is actually extremely daring in what he graffitis. I did my presentation on his graffiti of the Palestinian Segregation wall. This wall is 703 meters long (that's from London to Zurich!) and separates Israel from Palestine, making movement across the boundary difficult and it's pretty much an attempt to annex Palestinian land illegally. His drawings on the wall included a lot of images of freedom such as a girl floating away on balloons, a young boy painting a ladder over the wall and another one of two boys digging through the wall to reveal a scene of a tropical paradise in the background. I was shocked he got away with drawing all these things when they have guard watchtowers all along the wall. Most graffiti in London is quickly painted over but his works stay up a lot longer than other graffiti because it's easily recognizable from his style and is considered artwork now. He's a pretty interesting guy and just did an interview with Time Out... you can read it here: http://www.timeout.com/london/art/article/863/banksy-interview
Last night Lauren and I decided to take a dance class in Covent Garden! There's a dance studio there called Pineapple because the building it's in used to be an old pineapple factory. They have almost 100 classes to choose from so we're thinking about buying an April membership pass. It was a lot of fun to get back into dancing since I hadn't done it since high school pretty much. The moves were easy but man, I haven't worked out in so long and realized I have definately lost the aerobic aspect of dance. I felt like I was going to puke from moving around so much. Lauren and I were embarrassed to take the tube home cause we looked disgusting and were sweating and red-faced, but it was definately fun and worth it.
Okaaaaayyyy so I should probably tell you about Dublin. Maddie, Maddie's sister Alex and Maddie's friend Amanada and myself all went to Dublin for St. Patrick's Day! It was an absolute blast. We got into Dublin around midnight on Tuesday night and just went straight to bed. THe next morning we got up early and walked to the Guiness factory to get a tour before the parade. The parade started at 1 pm so we headed down to the City Hall to watch the parade. After that we just walked around the streets and hopped around to different pubs the rest of the night. Everyone in Dublin was so friendly and everyone would just say cheers as you passed them on the street and it was such a fun celebration. We left Thursday morning to make it back in time for class. Nothing out of the ordinary to report, just a really great St. Patty's day. Here's some pictures.
Trinity College
St. Patrick's Cathedral
This weekend I went to Stonehenge and Bath through a school-sponsored trip. Stonehenge was pretty much exactly as I pictured. One interesting fact I learned on the bus ride there is that the reason the British drive on the opposite side of the road is because back in the day when knights used to ride on horses and the majority of the population was right handed the would ride so that their right hand would be more easily available to defend themself if an enemy was approaching. It would obviously be easier to hit an enemy with a sword if they were coming up on your right hand side.
I didn't know what to expect about Bath but it was an absolutely gorgeous town. It's set all along these beautiful hillsides and it is very quaint. We went to see the Roman baths and then had lunch before heading back to London.
All the students here have been watching the March Madness games so it was pretty disappointing when KU lost. My friend Luke in the Stonehenge picture with me is a huge Syracuse fan as he's from that area so I was hoping we would get to play each other in the final four. Unfortunately KU just played terrible against Northern Iowa. Really choked on that one. Oh well, can't complain considering we've had some pretty good seasons and I'm glad I wasn't in Lawrence for that one haha.
Oh yeah! and while we were watching the games one night, my friends Luke and Josh and I were staring out the window at the buildings across the street trying to figure out how the different living flats were arranged inside. So we decided to walk over and see how many numbers were on the door to get a better idea of how many flats are in each building. While we were looking at the doors, a man standing outside asked what we were doing so Josh and Luke (two of the friendliest, chattiest guys in the world) started telling him that they were wondering how the building was laid out. I felt awkward at first cause it probably sounded like we wanted to rob the place or something but the guy actually turned out to be pretty nice and told us some fun facts about the building... turns out it used to be a hostel for the Navy and they used to have a Secret Service office in the basement that no one knew about until years later. He also told us the bottom floor flat just sold for 4-5 million pounds. We peeked in the window as the guy is currently doing renovations and not living there. You could see some gorgeous chandeliers and a new fireplace all redone. It looked quite nice.
TOnight I'm going to see Shakespeare's Measure for Measure with my Shakespeare class. Lauren is in Germany with her Dad this weekend and Maddie went to Florence to visit a friend, so it's going to be weird being here this weekend without them!
I've gotten pretty poor at keeping up with this thing. So time for another update.
Today I saw on-line that the Victoria and ALbert Museum had an Alice in Wonderland exhibit so OF COURSE i had to go check it out. Alice in WOnderland is my favorite story of all time. It actually has a lot to do with new ideas of evolution and how humans were just in a state of confusion and didn't know who they were anymore or where they fit in the world/grand scheme of life anymore. That's why all the animals are given human characteristics and they all keep asking Alice who she is and she keeps saying she doesn't know anymore and she keeps growing and shrinking in size... kind of showing how humans were now unsure about their superiority over animals and their spot at the top of the food chain. Lewis Carroll (whose real name was Charles Dodgson) used to exchange letters with Charles Darwin around the time that his book "On the Origin of Species" came out and just several years later Alice in Wonderland was published. Anyways, the Alice exhibit at the V&A was extremely disappointing. It was only two small cases and I definately would not call it an exhibit. So after that I walked around trying to find a topic for my art paper with little success. Then I started thinking I should research Alice-inspired artwork, so just now I found this AWESOME photographer that does the coolest work with underwater photos taken with Alice in Wonderland themes that I am going to write about. Check out the photos here: http://elenakalis.carbonmade.com/projects/2289942
I had to give an art presentation on Monday on anything I wanted, so I decided to present on the recently popular graffiti artist "Banksy". No one knows his real name because as a graffiti artist he obviously has to remain anonymous so he doesn't get in trouble with the law. Funnily enough, his works are becoming so famous now that his lawyer argues he can't get in trouble with the law because his works actually increase the value of a building rather than decrease it. One of his recent paintings sold for 102,000 pounds. Although he does some artwork, he sticks to graffiti because he is really against commercialism and thinks art should be for the people with no entry fees where anyone can view it. SImilarly, he hates advertising and feels like it's a true form of vandalism because it shouts messages at you without giving you the chance to respond and makes you feel inadequate unless you buy something. He's not your typical graffiti guy though.. he actually has really meaningful and thought-provoking works and is actually extremely daring in what he graffitis. I did my presentation on his graffiti of the Palestinian Segregation wall. This wall is 703 meters long (that's from London to Zurich!) and separates Israel from Palestine, making movement across the boundary difficult and it's pretty much an attempt to annex Palestinian land illegally. His drawings on the wall included a lot of images of freedom such as a girl floating away on balloons, a young boy painting a ladder over the wall and another one of two boys digging through the wall to reveal a scene of a tropical paradise in the background. I was shocked he got away with drawing all these things when they have guard watchtowers all along the wall. Most graffiti in London is quickly painted over but his works stay up a lot longer than other graffiti because it's easily recognizable from his style and is considered artwork now. He's a pretty interesting guy and just did an interview with Time Out... you can read it here: http://www.timeout.com/london/art/article/863/banksy-interview
Last night Lauren and I decided to take a dance class in Covent Garden! There's a dance studio there called Pineapple because the building it's in used to be an old pineapple factory. They have almost 100 classes to choose from so we're thinking about buying an April membership pass. It was a lot of fun to get back into dancing since I hadn't done it since high school pretty much. The moves were easy but man, I haven't worked out in so long and realized I have definately lost the aerobic aspect of dance. I felt like I was going to puke from moving around so much. Lauren and I were embarrassed to take the tube home cause we looked disgusting and were sweating and red-faced, but it was definately fun and worth it.
Okaaaaayyyy so I should probably tell you about Dublin. Maddie, Maddie's sister Alex and Maddie's friend Amanada and myself all went to Dublin for St. Patrick's Day! It was an absolute blast. We got into Dublin around midnight on Tuesday night and just went straight to bed. THe next morning we got up early and walked to the Guiness factory to get a tour before the parade. The parade started at 1 pm so we headed down to the City Hall to watch the parade. After that we just walked around the streets and hopped around to different pubs the rest of the night. Everyone in Dublin was so friendly and everyone would just say cheers as you passed them on the street and it was such a fun celebration. We left Thursday morning to make it back in time for class. Nothing out of the ordinary to report, just a really great St. Patty's day. Here's some pictures.
Trinity College
St. Patrick's Cathedral
This weekend I went to Stonehenge and Bath through a school-sponsored trip. Stonehenge was pretty much exactly as I pictured. One interesting fact I learned on the bus ride there is that the reason the British drive on the opposite side of the road is because back in the day when knights used to ride on horses and the majority of the population was right handed the would ride so that their right hand would be more easily available to defend themself if an enemy was approaching. It would obviously be easier to hit an enemy with a sword if they were coming up on your right hand side.
I didn't know what to expect about Bath but it was an absolutely gorgeous town. It's set all along these beautiful hillsides and it is very quaint. We went to see the Roman baths and then had lunch before heading back to London.
All the students here have been watching the March Madness games so it was pretty disappointing when KU lost. My friend Luke in the Stonehenge picture with me is a huge Syracuse fan as he's from that area so I was hoping we would get to play each other in the final four. Unfortunately KU just played terrible against Northern Iowa. Really choked on that one. Oh well, can't complain considering we've had some pretty good seasons and I'm glad I wasn't in Lawrence for that one haha.
Oh yeah! and while we were watching the games one night, my friends Luke and Josh and I were staring out the window at the buildings across the street trying to figure out how the different living flats were arranged inside. So we decided to walk over and see how many numbers were on the door to get a better idea of how many flats are in each building. While we were looking at the doors, a man standing outside asked what we were doing so Josh and Luke (two of the friendliest, chattiest guys in the world) started telling him that they were wondering how the building was laid out. I felt awkward at first cause it probably sounded like we wanted to rob the place or something but the guy actually turned out to be pretty nice and told us some fun facts about the building... turns out it used to be a hostel for the Navy and they used to have a Secret Service office in the basement that no one knew about until years later. He also told us the bottom floor flat just sold for 4-5 million pounds. We peeked in the window as the guy is currently doing renovations and not living there. You could see some gorgeous chandeliers and a new fireplace all redone. It looked quite nice.
TOnight I'm going to see Shakespeare's Measure for Measure with my Shakespeare class. Lauren is in Germany with her Dad this weekend and Maddie went to Florence to visit a friend, so it's going to be weird being here this weekend without them!
Tuesday, March 23
Robert Spotting
Robert Pattison offered a girl in my program his seat at Starbucks on Saturday!!!!!!!! and then apparently he started making fun of her saying that only Americans get ice in their drinks. and then he was spotted at Gloucester Arms later that day. I walked right in front of Gloucester Arms at dinnertime, probably when he was there! This means he is in town. I want to meet him SO BAD.
Saturday, March 20
Mum and Pop's Visit!
Hello again!! It’s been ages since I have updated this thing, so I have lots to add now and this may take a while… eek. Let’s see… going back three weeks ago when Mom and Dad first arrived…
Sunday, February 28th
Mum and Pops flight was only delayed one hour, so they got in about 1 pm London time. I took the tube and met them at the airport. After checking into their hotel, we walked up to Hyde Park (viewable from a hotel window) and walked around Kensington Palace. We then had a proper English afternoon tea at The Orangery. This adjacent building to Kensington Palace used to be a garden room where parties were hosted. Now they serve tea and crumpets and such. Our standard tea came with a cute three-layered plate setting, one plate of finger sandwhiches, another plate with an orange biscuit and the top plate with a cream puff and tart for dessert. It was really cute and I was going to take a picture of the food, but I ate it before remembering to take the picture… whoops.
After tea, I showed Mom and Dad the fanciest street in London where the three most expensive houses in the UK are located just across from the palace. We continued walking around the High Street area and went into an old church courtyard that was quite pretty. Next, we headed down to get a real view of the city… from the London Eye of course! Mom was kind of nervous, which made me a bit nervous, but once you’re on it you are pretty much in a huge room and can’t even tell you’re moving. It wasn’t at all as scary as I thought it would be and the view was magnificient!
After the London Eye, I dragged Mom and Dad to a 450 year old pub I had been wanting to check out for a while. It’s called Lamb and Flag but back in the day it used to be called The Bloody Bucket because of all the fights that took place in those crazy medieval times. It was a really cute place with old hardwood floors that were cracked and slanting and you could tell it was really old. Our bar tender was really friendly and started talking to us and come to find out he was supposed to visit Kansas City last summer to participate in some sort of Shakespeare performance but they were unable to raise the funds for the trip in time. Anyways, we had a glass of wine and here is a picture of Mom and I just outside…
After that, we walked through Chinatown, down to Leicester Square, to Trafalgar Square and then back up to Picadilly Circus. They are all somewhat in a circle adjacent to each other. Here’s a picture of Dad and I in Chinatown…
Then we decided to call it a night.
Monday, March 1st
We got up early Monday morning and took the bus to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. I had read it happened at 11, but it actually didn’t happen til 11:30 and we had gotten there an hour early, so we had some time to check out the Buckingham Palace gift shop and we sat outside for a while watching all the people. It was a fun area because everyone around us was speaking different languages since it was all tourists in to see this touristy event. We managed to get a front row spot on the street and spoke with one of the guards for a while. Mom asked him where the Queen lives and where Prince Charles lives and all that fun stuff. He kept telling a young girl next to us to step up onto the pavement off the street (no one is supposed to be standing on the street because they might get run over by the horses) but she only spoke Portuguese and couldn’t understand him… or so we thought. He probably walked by five different times and told her to get on the curb but everytime he left she would step back on the street again. I’m not sure if she actually couldn’t understand him or was just being ornery.
Anyways, after the changing of the guard I walked down with Mom and Dad to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben and then I had to leave to take a Psych midterm (got an A!). Mom and Dad then went to see the Tower of London where they have the crown jewels and it’s an old castle and such. After that they stopped by Harrod's as well.
I met back up with Mom and Dad later that evening after my classes and we ate at Gloucester Arms, just on the corner of the block I live on. After that, I showed Mom and Dad a few of the places us students enjoy hanging out at (Archangel and Builders Arms). Every Monday Builder’s Arms has a free comedy act so we managed to sit in on it during the intermission. One of the comedians picked Dad out of the audience and made a joke with him… Dad was wearing a black leather jacket and so the comedian (who happened to be Pakistani) said he looked like he was in the CIA or something and that he’s the guy who always sits next to him on a plane. It was pretty funny. We headed out before the end though since Mom and Dad had to get up early the next morning for PARIS!
Tuesday, March 2nd
I sat in the library studying all day while Mom and Dad saw the sights of Paris. They saw the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Notre Dame, among other things. Dad said he tried to order a coffee there for him and Mom to share one morning but they gave him a little Dixie cup of espresso. They just don’t seem to understand the concept of American coffee.
Here’s some cool pictures they took…
Wednesday, March 3rd
I continue studying that morning while Mom and Dad enjoy Paris. We met up that night when they got back and headed to Harvey Nichol’s champagne bar for dinner. Harvey Nichols is the cool place to eat here in London. A lot of famous people go there for dinner in their restaurant and the champagne bar is decorated really pretty with chandeliers and little tables by windows on the fifth floor that look out to a pretty building and the street below. I would go there every weekend if I could, but us students stick to the cheaper places. They also have a sushi bar there that has sushi plates that go by you on a conveyer belt and you just grab whatever you want to eat as it goes by. We actually might go there this week since Maddie’s sister and friend are in town visiting.
Thursday, March 4th
We got up bright early and headed down to Leicester Square to get Billy Elliot tickets for the evening! After picking up our tickets, we walked around the Soho area and up to Oxford Circus, doing some shopping along the way. At 11 pm we met up with a Beatles Walking tour and got to see Paul McCartney’s current office, a recording studio the Beatles worked in, the location of their last concert on the rooftop and the place where John and Oko or Yoko or whatever her name is met. Then we headed over to Abbey Road and saw EMI studios. I got some pictures of Mom and Dad crossing Abbey Road… Mom was being a goofball as you can see from her swinging arms…
That evening we saw Billy Elliot the musical. It was an adorable story about an Irish boy who just wanted to dance but his dad thought that was weird since he was a boy and it was also about they miners riots going on in Ireland. It was really great.
Friday, March 5th
Relaxed this morning before heading off to Venice!!! We got to Venice in the evening and had to take a ferry to our hotel. Instead of having a metro system in Venice they have a ferry system. Our hotel was beautiful and we had a window overlooking the Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge. That night we ate at a restaurant on the water and then walked down to San Marco square.
Saturday, March 6th
In the morning we headed to the Venice market. It had tons of fresh fruit and tons of fish. I’m mad at myself for not getting a fish dish to eat while we were in Venice since the seafood is so fresh, but I’m not a huge seafood fan anyways. We got some pistachios and strawberries from the market as a snack.
After that we walked around and got offered Gondola rides about fifty million times. Finally we found a Gondola guy we liked who gave us a decent price so we took him up on the offer! Got some good pictures on the Gondola...
That evening we ate on the water again. I also forgot to mention we got gelato every single night in Italy after dinner. It was fantastic.
Sunday, March 7th
We left Venice in the morning to take the train to Siena. The train system in Italy is superb. It is so simple and incredibly convenient. They have trains that leave to different cities several times a day. We had to switch trains in Florence to get to Siena, but it didn’t take long and wasn’t difficult. Upon arriving in Siena, the guy we were renting a room from was not informed by some other lady that there would be three of us and as such they had not put an extra bed in the room for me. It actually turned out quite nicely because he gave us another room for free! Our place there (not really sure what to call it… it wasn’t a hotel but it wasn’t an apartment either) was really nice. It consisted of a big living room and hallways with five or six bedrooms in the “apartment” that were all rented out to different people. We really only saw one other person though and pretty much had the entire living room to ourselves. There was also a kitchen, but it was usually locked and we didn’t use it.
I had been to Siena two and a half years ago for the Palio (a big horse race festival between the 17 neighborhoods (contradas) that happens twice a year). Sienese life pretty much revolves around this race. I absolutely loved Siena the first time and it was great to be back in the charming little city in Tuscany. The city is completely walled in like a fortress and actually used to be an important city back in the day until it was defeated by Florence in a power struggle. It is small enough to easily walk across the entire city within an hours time and the main square is called the Campo. That evening we went down to the Campo for dinner and I was surprised by all the local crowds enjoying the evening there. It looked like a football (soccer) match had just gotten out and everyone was eating after it. I didn’t think it would be very lively since it’s off-tourist season and it’s sucha small city but the cool thing about Siena is the big community environment it is and how everyone congregates and visits outdoors on the streets and the Campo area.
Monday, March 8th
This morning we got up and walked around the streets and then went to the Torre del Mangia (the main tower) in the Campo. We walked all the way up to the top and got some beautiful views of Tuscany. It was quite a climb though… some 400 something steps. It was also terrifying at the top because despite the sunny appearance it was actually extremely windy and I felt like the tower or myself was going to be blown over. Pretty pictures though…
After this, we met up with my friend Annie who is studying abroad in Siena this semester. We were high school friends and roomed together on the Italy trip two years ago. She gave Mom and I these pretty yellow flowers as it was “Women’s Day” in Italy. Then she gave us a tour of the Duomo in Siena (the main church). She just got done studying it for one of her classes and told us some interesting stories about the building. My favorite thing about it is that they have all the pope’s heads sculpted around the ceiling, looking down at you. It is kind of eerie but cool. Unfortunately, my camera died in the Duemo, but luckily Annie let me use her laptop to charge it.
After the Duomo, Annie took us to another church where St. Catherine of Siena is mummified. We could see her face and they also had her pinky finger in a case. It looked too big to be her pinky finger though, especially since she was known to be an extremely tiny woman and had a tiny face. Either way, it was really interesting to see her.
Annie then showed us her apartment which was really adorable and had painting murals on the walls and pretty marble floors. That evening she showed us a local restaurant for dinner and it was superb. She is also a Theta at Mizzou so of course we had to take a Theta picture…
Tuesday, March 9th
This day we took the train to Roma. It was snowing most of the way there because we were up in the mountains and when we got to Rome it was pouring rain all evening. We couldn’t really complain though since we had amazing weather the whole trip. Ever since Mom and Dad got here I don’t think it has rained any of the days I’ve been in London. A miracle.
Anyways, that evening we went out to dinner by Piazza Navona and then called it an early night due to the nasty rain and wind.
Wednesday, March 10th
This was probably one of my favorite days of my life. We got to the Vatican fairly early in the morning because we’d heard the crowds are awful in the afternoon. Little did we know that every Wednesday the Pope comes out for an audience and we just so happened to be there right on time for his appearance. We were walking around St. Peter’s for a bit when we noticed a lot of people starting to take seats and just decided to join the crowd and sit for a while. Next, an organ started playing and everyone stood up and started clapping. Before we knew it, there came the pope walking up to the altar! We were so shocked and delighted that we got to take part in this. Mom texted some of the relatives since we were so excited about seeing the Pope and Uncle Terry responded with, "Ask him if he's heard of me." I thought that was pretty funny. I snapped some pictures of the Pope, but even with the zoom it looks far away…
After staying in St. Peter’s for an hour or two, we walked over to the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican Museum is a serious LABYRINTH. We had to walk for a good thirty or 45 minutes before finally reaching the Sistine Chapel in that building. It was worth it though. The Sistine Chapel is beautiful. After that, we headed back to St. Peter’s as we did not want to be late for our Scavi Tour! Adam Johnson, a family friend of the Fracol’s side and seminarian in the Vatican was supposed to be our tour guide. While we were waiting for the Scavi tour to begin, we started talking to one of the other tour guides and asked if he was Adam as we had never met him before. He was not, but five minutes later he pointed out Adam walking up. We knew Adam had a good sense of humour as we had sent him some e-mails about our visit and had heard lots about him from the family, so Mom decided to tease him and walked up to him and told him he was walking the wrong way. He laughed and said “No, I think I’m going the right way” and went into the office to sign in. Later that day he told us he was 90% sure she was Laura when that happened even though we had all never met before. He was an excellent tour guide and kept up the suspense through out the tour. I had been on this same tour two and half years ago when I came to Italy with a group of students from my high school, so it was fun seeing how much I remembered. I realized I’m much more of a visual learner than an audio leaner as I remember my way around what all the rooms looked like but I could not recall any of the stories. It was good to hear the stories again and we got to walk on the street from around the second century and see all the ancient mausoleums that St. Peter’s was built on top of. At the end of the tour we got to see what are most likely St. Peter’s bones. After several failed attempts to identify his bones among the other people that were buried next to him, eventually a separate compartment in his tomb was found with a small slit labeled “Here Lies Peter”. Upon examining these, they were found to be a man in his sixties of a strong build like a fisherman and all bones were found except for anything from the ankles down (Peter requested to be crucified upside down because he felt he was unworthy to die in the same way as Christ, so when they removed his body the easiest way would have been to just cut off the feet).
After the Scavi tour, we went back into St. Peter’s with Adam who gave us a thorough tour of the place. He knew all the stories associated with each statue and painting. One story I thought was funny was that most the popes have statues made of them with their name underneath… one of the Gregories who was fiscally irresponsible among other things has his name engraved with a large spot that should hold a statue… but no statue. If you didn’t know that story, I would have just assumed they were restoring his statue or something, but nope, there has never been a statue in that empty spot. He also told us another good story about the pope that was captured by Napoleon (I forget which pope). This particular pope did not want to be pope at all and rather just wanted a quiet life of study and prayer. When Napoleon captured him, he locked him up in a room, which ironically was exactly the kind of life this man wanted. Napoleon then told him he was going to bring down the church and the pope responded along the lines of “If I can become the pope with all my flaws and all the popes before me with their flaws could not destroy the church, then you will not be able to either”.
After this, Adam walked us over to the seminary he lives and studies at and showed us around. It was really nice and they have a beautiful soccer field and orange tree orchard and it was very peaceful. He also took us up to their rooftop seating area that overlooks the entire city. It was beautiful with the sun setting. After that, we went to their evening prayer at the seminary with him and it was so cool to sit in on that. All of the seminarians have amazing voices and the hymns sounded so pretty. After that, we went out to dinner with Adam at a local restaurant and then he showed us a really good gelato place where the people working there were really friendly and it was my favorite gelato out of the whole trip. Did I mention I got gelato every single night in Italy? Yup. My favorite was orange-flavoured chocolate. Here's some views from the top of the seminary...
Thursday, March 11th
On Thursday morning we got up and saw the Pantheon. This is my favorite building ever. It is just so amazing because it is 2000 years old and probably the best preserved ancient building. If you looked up at it and block off your eyes so that you can’t see anything but the building you can picture yourself in ancient Rome and feel like you’re actually there. I like to pretend everyone is walking around me in togas while I look at just the building. Inside the marble floors are gorgeous and the only source of light is a circular opening at the top of the dome.
After the Pantheon we went to see the Wedding Cake Building (it looks like a wedding cake) and the Coliseum. At the Coliseum, everyone was tourists of course and so we could hear all these different languages being spoken around us. Mom thought it was funny to talk in gibberish and sound like she was speaking a foreign language. I couldn't decide if I was embarrassed or if it was funny... so it was embarrassingly funny. We got an audio guide at the Coliseum, but Mom and I quickly realized we lacked the attention span to listen to the audio guide, hence the picture of her frowning while listening to it. It’s just more information than we wanted to know. And like I said, I’m not an audio learner… I can only remember stuff I see. Dad loved it though. Unfortunately when his turn came to listen to it, I told him the wrong spot to stand in and he couldn’t find anything the audio guide was pointing out. We didn’t realize this fact until after he had listened to about ten minutes of the information.
After the Coliseum we walked back to the hotel. I had a pretty good memory of the city layout and was able to find everything easily, but on the way back we took the side streets and I got lost. Fortunately we didn’t go too far out of the way. After resting at the hotel for a bit, that night we walked up to the Trevi Foundtain and had dinner at a restaurant I ate at two years ago called Antica Peroni or something like that. It’s where they originally made Peroni beer. After dinner, we walked from the Trevi Fountain to the Spanish steps, looked in the church at the top of the steps and then back to the hotel. It was a beautiful night out.
Friday, March 12th
Friday morning we walked around the Campo dei Fiori market right outside our hotel. They sold fresh fruit and vegetables and some clothing items and nuts and spices and other things. After that we walked over to Piazza Navona which had all the painters out selling their work. Mom got a pretty painting for the house.
After that, we decided to walk back to the Vatican since the other day we had taken a taxi as it rained in the morning. It was fun to walk there and cross the river and see the St. Peter’s in the distance in front of us. We also got some more souvenirs ☺
On the way back from the Vatican, we stopped at a local sandwich and pastry shop and got two sandwhiches and this cherry cake thing and took it back to eat on the rooftop of our hotel. The weather was beautiful, the sun was out and we could see the rooftops all throughout the city. And the food was delicious as well.
We rested at the hotel for a bit while a bout of rain passed by and then that evening we walked to St. Mary’s Cathedral. There are several St. Mary’s in Rome and I forget what the full name of this one was. It is just behind the Wedding Cake building and there are a ton of steps to walk up to get to it. After walking up the steps, you can look down into the Roman Forum (the ruins) and see the Coliseum in the distance. The church itself is also gorgeous inside and when we went they were doing the stations of the cross. It was forbidden to take pictures inside though.
After seeing the church, we walked down to the Trastevere area for dinner as we had heard there are a lot of fun restaurants around there. There were tons of restaurants and we found a cute pizzeria, but after dinner we decided to head back to the Trevi fountain as we liked that area better. We went and sat by the fountain for quite a while for our last night in Rome.
Saturday, March 13th
Our last morning in Rome we took a taxi to the Holy Stairs. These are the stairs that Jesus Christ descended when Pontius Pilate sentenced him to be crucified. Constantine’s mother supposedly brought them over to Rome. To go up the stairs, one must kneel and walk up the steps on one’s knees. There are also prayers that accompany the stairs and are to be said on each step. We went up the stairs on our knees and it was a really neat experience. The stairs have been covered with wood to protect them, but they left holes in them where spots of Jesus’ blood are believed to have hit the stairs.
After this, we checked out another gorgeous church across the street before heading back to our hotel area.
Once back in our area of town, we checked out the Campo dei Fiori market one last time, walked back to the Trevi and the Pantheon and looked out the rooftop deck one last time as well to say good-bye.
Sunday, March 14th
Back in London, we walked to the Portobello Market in Nottinghill this morning. It has a lot of antiques and jewelry. I found an awesome pink and gold chair that I want to recreate when I get home. It was lovely weather once again outside and a beautiful morning.
After having our fill of the market, we went down to Trafalgar Square to see the St. Patrick’s day festivities. London’s parade is on the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day. They had a huge stage set up and it was packed with people. We found a spot on some stairs to sit and chatted with the people sitting next to us.
That evening we joined my roommate Maddie and her friend and sister that were in town to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D in the Leicester Square theater that hosted the world premiere of the movie. I looooooooove Alice in Wonderland and the movie was adorable. The theatre was humongous… probably bigger than the theatres that host plays in London. After the movie we ate at the pizzeria (as if we hadn’t already had enough Italian food the previous week) on the corner of my street. It was Princess Diana’s favorite restaurant and they have a painting of her with the cook inside.
Monday, March 15th
This was the morning Mom and Dad left, so after spending the night at their hotel I told them good-bye. I submitted a request to have my flight moved up to May 7th, so hopefully that will work out and I will be home in less than two months! I can’t believe I’m already pretty far past the halfway point here… it has gone by so fast. But the trip with Mom and Dad was wonderful and I can’t wait to come home to meet my neice!
Sunday, February 28th
Mum and Pops flight was only delayed one hour, so they got in about 1 pm London time. I took the tube and met them at the airport. After checking into their hotel, we walked up to Hyde Park (viewable from a hotel window) and walked around Kensington Palace. We then had a proper English afternoon tea at The Orangery. This adjacent building to Kensington Palace used to be a garden room where parties were hosted. Now they serve tea and crumpets and such. Our standard tea came with a cute three-layered plate setting, one plate of finger sandwhiches, another plate with an orange biscuit and the top plate with a cream puff and tart for dessert. It was really cute and I was going to take a picture of the food, but I ate it before remembering to take the picture… whoops.
After tea, I showed Mom and Dad the fanciest street in London where the three most expensive houses in the UK are located just across from the palace. We continued walking around the High Street area and went into an old church courtyard that was quite pretty. Next, we headed down to get a real view of the city… from the London Eye of course! Mom was kind of nervous, which made me a bit nervous, but once you’re on it you are pretty much in a huge room and can’t even tell you’re moving. It wasn’t at all as scary as I thought it would be and the view was magnificient!
After the London Eye, I dragged Mom and Dad to a 450 year old pub I had been wanting to check out for a while. It’s called Lamb and Flag but back in the day it used to be called The Bloody Bucket because of all the fights that took place in those crazy medieval times. It was a really cute place with old hardwood floors that were cracked and slanting and you could tell it was really old. Our bar tender was really friendly and started talking to us and come to find out he was supposed to visit Kansas City last summer to participate in some sort of Shakespeare performance but they were unable to raise the funds for the trip in time. Anyways, we had a glass of wine and here is a picture of Mom and I just outside…
After that, we walked through Chinatown, down to Leicester Square, to Trafalgar Square and then back up to Picadilly Circus. They are all somewhat in a circle adjacent to each other. Here’s a picture of Dad and I in Chinatown…
Then we decided to call it a night.
Monday, March 1st
We got up early Monday morning and took the bus to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. I had read it happened at 11, but it actually didn’t happen til 11:30 and we had gotten there an hour early, so we had some time to check out the Buckingham Palace gift shop and we sat outside for a while watching all the people. It was a fun area because everyone around us was speaking different languages since it was all tourists in to see this touristy event. We managed to get a front row spot on the street and spoke with one of the guards for a while. Mom asked him where the Queen lives and where Prince Charles lives and all that fun stuff. He kept telling a young girl next to us to step up onto the pavement off the street (no one is supposed to be standing on the street because they might get run over by the horses) but she only spoke Portuguese and couldn’t understand him… or so we thought. He probably walked by five different times and told her to get on the curb but everytime he left she would step back on the street again. I’m not sure if she actually couldn’t understand him or was just being ornery.
Anyways, after the changing of the guard I walked down with Mom and Dad to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben and then I had to leave to take a Psych midterm (got an A!). Mom and Dad then went to see the Tower of London where they have the crown jewels and it’s an old castle and such. After that they stopped by Harrod's as well.
I met back up with Mom and Dad later that evening after my classes and we ate at Gloucester Arms, just on the corner of the block I live on. After that, I showed Mom and Dad a few of the places us students enjoy hanging out at (Archangel and Builders Arms). Every Monday Builder’s Arms has a free comedy act so we managed to sit in on it during the intermission. One of the comedians picked Dad out of the audience and made a joke with him… Dad was wearing a black leather jacket and so the comedian (who happened to be Pakistani) said he looked like he was in the CIA or something and that he’s the guy who always sits next to him on a plane. It was pretty funny. We headed out before the end though since Mom and Dad had to get up early the next morning for PARIS!
Tuesday, March 2nd
I sat in the library studying all day while Mom and Dad saw the sights of Paris. They saw the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Notre Dame, among other things. Dad said he tried to order a coffee there for him and Mom to share one morning but they gave him a little Dixie cup of espresso. They just don’t seem to understand the concept of American coffee.
Here’s some cool pictures they took…
Wednesday, March 3rd
I continue studying that morning while Mom and Dad enjoy Paris. We met up that night when they got back and headed to Harvey Nichol’s champagne bar for dinner. Harvey Nichols is the cool place to eat here in London. A lot of famous people go there for dinner in their restaurant and the champagne bar is decorated really pretty with chandeliers and little tables by windows on the fifth floor that look out to a pretty building and the street below. I would go there every weekend if I could, but us students stick to the cheaper places. They also have a sushi bar there that has sushi plates that go by you on a conveyer belt and you just grab whatever you want to eat as it goes by. We actually might go there this week since Maddie’s sister and friend are in town visiting.
Thursday, March 4th
We got up bright early and headed down to Leicester Square to get Billy Elliot tickets for the evening! After picking up our tickets, we walked around the Soho area and up to Oxford Circus, doing some shopping along the way. At 11 pm we met up with a Beatles Walking tour and got to see Paul McCartney’s current office, a recording studio the Beatles worked in, the location of their last concert on the rooftop and the place where John and Oko or Yoko or whatever her name is met. Then we headed over to Abbey Road and saw EMI studios. I got some pictures of Mom and Dad crossing Abbey Road… Mom was being a goofball as you can see from her swinging arms…
That evening we saw Billy Elliot the musical. It was an adorable story about an Irish boy who just wanted to dance but his dad thought that was weird since he was a boy and it was also about they miners riots going on in Ireland. It was really great.
Friday, March 5th
Relaxed this morning before heading off to Venice!!! We got to Venice in the evening and had to take a ferry to our hotel. Instead of having a metro system in Venice they have a ferry system. Our hotel was beautiful and we had a window overlooking the Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge. That night we ate at a restaurant on the water and then walked down to San Marco square.
Saturday, March 6th
In the morning we headed to the Venice market. It had tons of fresh fruit and tons of fish. I’m mad at myself for not getting a fish dish to eat while we were in Venice since the seafood is so fresh, but I’m not a huge seafood fan anyways. We got some pistachios and strawberries from the market as a snack.
After that we walked around and got offered Gondola rides about fifty million times. Finally we found a Gondola guy we liked who gave us a decent price so we took him up on the offer! Got some good pictures on the Gondola...
That evening we ate on the water again. I also forgot to mention we got gelato every single night in Italy after dinner. It was fantastic.
Sunday, March 7th
We left Venice in the morning to take the train to Siena. The train system in Italy is superb. It is so simple and incredibly convenient. They have trains that leave to different cities several times a day. We had to switch trains in Florence to get to Siena, but it didn’t take long and wasn’t difficult. Upon arriving in Siena, the guy we were renting a room from was not informed by some other lady that there would be three of us and as such they had not put an extra bed in the room for me. It actually turned out quite nicely because he gave us another room for free! Our place there (not really sure what to call it… it wasn’t a hotel but it wasn’t an apartment either) was really nice. It consisted of a big living room and hallways with five or six bedrooms in the “apartment” that were all rented out to different people. We really only saw one other person though and pretty much had the entire living room to ourselves. There was also a kitchen, but it was usually locked and we didn’t use it.
I had been to Siena two and a half years ago for the Palio (a big horse race festival between the 17 neighborhoods (contradas) that happens twice a year). Sienese life pretty much revolves around this race. I absolutely loved Siena the first time and it was great to be back in the charming little city in Tuscany. The city is completely walled in like a fortress and actually used to be an important city back in the day until it was defeated by Florence in a power struggle. It is small enough to easily walk across the entire city within an hours time and the main square is called the Campo. That evening we went down to the Campo for dinner and I was surprised by all the local crowds enjoying the evening there. It looked like a football (soccer) match had just gotten out and everyone was eating after it. I didn’t think it would be very lively since it’s off-tourist season and it’s sucha small city but the cool thing about Siena is the big community environment it is and how everyone congregates and visits outdoors on the streets and the Campo area.
Monday, March 8th
This morning we got up and walked around the streets and then went to the Torre del Mangia (the main tower) in the Campo. We walked all the way up to the top and got some beautiful views of Tuscany. It was quite a climb though… some 400 something steps. It was also terrifying at the top because despite the sunny appearance it was actually extremely windy and I felt like the tower or myself was going to be blown over. Pretty pictures though…
After this, we met up with my friend Annie who is studying abroad in Siena this semester. We were high school friends and roomed together on the Italy trip two years ago. She gave Mom and I these pretty yellow flowers as it was “Women’s Day” in Italy. Then she gave us a tour of the Duomo in Siena (the main church). She just got done studying it for one of her classes and told us some interesting stories about the building. My favorite thing about it is that they have all the pope’s heads sculpted around the ceiling, looking down at you. It is kind of eerie but cool. Unfortunately, my camera died in the Duemo, but luckily Annie let me use her laptop to charge it.
After the Duomo, Annie took us to another church where St. Catherine of Siena is mummified. We could see her face and they also had her pinky finger in a case. It looked too big to be her pinky finger though, especially since she was known to be an extremely tiny woman and had a tiny face. Either way, it was really interesting to see her.
Annie then showed us her apartment which was really adorable and had painting murals on the walls and pretty marble floors. That evening she showed us a local restaurant for dinner and it was superb. She is also a Theta at Mizzou so of course we had to take a Theta picture…
Tuesday, March 9th
This day we took the train to Roma. It was snowing most of the way there because we were up in the mountains and when we got to Rome it was pouring rain all evening. We couldn’t really complain though since we had amazing weather the whole trip. Ever since Mom and Dad got here I don’t think it has rained any of the days I’ve been in London. A miracle.
Anyways, that evening we went out to dinner by Piazza Navona and then called it an early night due to the nasty rain and wind.
Wednesday, March 10th
This was probably one of my favorite days of my life. We got to the Vatican fairly early in the morning because we’d heard the crowds are awful in the afternoon. Little did we know that every Wednesday the Pope comes out for an audience and we just so happened to be there right on time for his appearance. We were walking around St. Peter’s for a bit when we noticed a lot of people starting to take seats and just decided to join the crowd and sit for a while. Next, an organ started playing and everyone stood up and started clapping. Before we knew it, there came the pope walking up to the altar! We were so shocked and delighted that we got to take part in this. Mom texted some of the relatives since we were so excited about seeing the Pope and Uncle Terry responded with, "Ask him if he's heard of me." I thought that was pretty funny. I snapped some pictures of the Pope, but even with the zoom it looks far away…
After staying in St. Peter’s for an hour or two, we walked over to the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican Museum is a serious LABYRINTH. We had to walk for a good thirty or 45 minutes before finally reaching the Sistine Chapel in that building. It was worth it though. The Sistine Chapel is beautiful. After that, we headed back to St. Peter’s as we did not want to be late for our Scavi Tour! Adam Johnson, a family friend of the Fracol’s side and seminarian in the Vatican was supposed to be our tour guide. While we were waiting for the Scavi tour to begin, we started talking to one of the other tour guides and asked if he was Adam as we had never met him before. He was not, but five minutes later he pointed out Adam walking up. We knew Adam had a good sense of humour as we had sent him some e-mails about our visit and had heard lots about him from the family, so Mom decided to tease him and walked up to him and told him he was walking the wrong way. He laughed and said “No, I think I’m going the right way” and went into the office to sign in. Later that day he told us he was 90% sure she was Laura when that happened even though we had all never met before. He was an excellent tour guide and kept up the suspense through out the tour. I had been on this same tour two and half years ago when I came to Italy with a group of students from my high school, so it was fun seeing how much I remembered. I realized I’m much more of a visual learner than an audio leaner as I remember my way around what all the rooms looked like but I could not recall any of the stories. It was good to hear the stories again and we got to walk on the street from around the second century and see all the ancient mausoleums that St. Peter’s was built on top of. At the end of the tour we got to see what are most likely St. Peter’s bones. After several failed attempts to identify his bones among the other people that were buried next to him, eventually a separate compartment in his tomb was found with a small slit labeled “Here Lies Peter”. Upon examining these, they were found to be a man in his sixties of a strong build like a fisherman and all bones were found except for anything from the ankles down (Peter requested to be crucified upside down because he felt he was unworthy to die in the same way as Christ, so when they removed his body the easiest way would have been to just cut off the feet).
After the Scavi tour, we went back into St. Peter’s with Adam who gave us a thorough tour of the place. He knew all the stories associated with each statue and painting. One story I thought was funny was that most the popes have statues made of them with their name underneath… one of the Gregories who was fiscally irresponsible among other things has his name engraved with a large spot that should hold a statue… but no statue. If you didn’t know that story, I would have just assumed they were restoring his statue or something, but nope, there has never been a statue in that empty spot. He also told us another good story about the pope that was captured by Napoleon (I forget which pope). This particular pope did not want to be pope at all and rather just wanted a quiet life of study and prayer. When Napoleon captured him, he locked him up in a room, which ironically was exactly the kind of life this man wanted. Napoleon then told him he was going to bring down the church and the pope responded along the lines of “If I can become the pope with all my flaws and all the popes before me with their flaws could not destroy the church, then you will not be able to either”.
After this, Adam walked us over to the seminary he lives and studies at and showed us around. It was really nice and they have a beautiful soccer field and orange tree orchard and it was very peaceful. He also took us up to their rooftop seating area that overlooks the entire city. It was beautiful with the sun setting. After that, we went to their evening prayer at the seminary with him and it was so cool to sit in on that. All of the seminarians have amazing voices and the hymns sounded so pretty. After that, we went out to dinner with Adam at a local restaurant and then he showed us a really good gelato place where the people working there were really friendly and it was my favorite gelato out of the whole trip. Did I mention I got gelato every single night in Italy? Yup. My favorite was orange-flavoured chocolate. Here's some views from the top of the seminary...
Thursday, March 11th
On Thursday morning we got up and saw the Pantheon. This is my favorite building ever. It is just so amazing because it is 2000 years old and probably the best preserved ancient building. If you looked up at it and block off your eyes so that you can’t see anything but the building you can picture yourself in ancient Rome and feel like you’re actually there. I like to pretend everyone is walking around me in togas while I look at just the building. Inside the marble floors are gorgeous and the only source of light is a circular opening at the top of the dome.
After the Pantheon we went to see the Wedding Cake Building (it looks like a wedding cake) and the Coliseum. At the Coliseum, everyone was tourists of course and so we could hear all these different languages being spoken around us. Mom thought it was funny to talk in gibberish and sound like she was speaking a foreign language. I couldn't decide if I was embarrassed or if it was funny... so it was embarrassingly funny. We got an audio guide at the Coliseum, but Mom and I quickly realized we lacked the attention span to listen to the audio guide, hence the picture of her frowning while listening to it. It’s just more information than we wanted to know. And like I said, I’m not an audio learner… I can only remember stuff I see. Dad loved it though. Unfortunately when his turn came to listen to it, I told him the wrong spot to stand in and he couldn’t find anything the audio guide was pointing out. We didn’t realize this fact until after he had listened to about ten minutes of the information.
After the Coliseum we walked back to the hotel. I had a pretty good memory of the city layout and was able to find everything easily, but on the way back we took the side streets and I got lost. Fortunately we didn’t go too far out of the way. After resting at the hotel for a bit, that night we walked up to the Trevi Foundtain and had dinner at a restaurant I ate at two years ago called Antica Peroni or something like that. It’s where they originally made Peroni beer. After dinner, we walked from the Trevi Fountain to the Spanish steps, looked in the church at the top of the steps and then back to the hotel. It was a beautiful night out.
Friday, March 12th
Friday morning we walked around the Campo dei Fiori market right outside our hotel. They sold fresh fruit and vegetables and some clothing items and nuts and spices and other things. After that we walked over to Piazza Navona which had all the painters out selling their work. Mom got a pretty painting for the house.
After that, we decided to walk back to the Vatican since the other day we had taken a taxi as it rained in the morning. It was fun to walk there and cross the river and see the St. Peter’s in the distance in front of us. We also got some more souvenirs ☺
On the way back from the Vatican, we stopped at a local sandwich and pastry shop and got two sandwhiches and this cherry cake thing and took it back to eat on the rooftop of our hotel. The weather was beautiful, the sun was out and we could see the rooftops all throughout the city. And the food was delicious as well.
We rested at the hotel for a bit while a bout of rain passed by and then that evening we walked to St. Mary’s Cathedral. There are several St. Mary’s in Rome and I forget what the full name of this one was. It is just behind the Wedding Cake building and there are a ton of steps to walk up to get to it. After walking up the steps, you can look down into the Roman Forum (the ruins) and see the Coliseum in the distance. The church itself is also gorgeous inside and when we went they were doing the stations of the cross. It was forbidden to take pictures inside though.
After seeing the church, we walked down to the Trastevere area for dinner as we had heard there are a lot of fun restaurants around there. There were tons of restaurants and we found a cute pizzeria, but after dinner we decided to head back to the Trevi fountain as we liked that area better. We went and sat by the fountain for quite a while for our last night in Rome.
Saturday, March 13th
Our last morning in Rome we took a taxi to the Holy Stairs. These are the stairs that Jesus Christ descended when Pontius Pilate sentenced him to be crucified. Constantine’s mother supposedly brought them over to Rome. To go up the stairs, one must kneel and walk up the steps on one’s knees. There are also prayers that accompany the stairs and are to be said on each step. We went up the stairs on our knees and it was a really neat experience. The stairs have been covered with wood to protect them, but they left holes in them where spots of Jesus’ blood are believed to have hit the stairs.
After this, we checked out another gorgeous church across the street before heading back to our hotel area.
Once back in our area of town, we checked out the Campo dei Fiori market one last time, walked back to the Trevi and the Pantheon and looked out the rooftop deck one last time as well to say good-bye.
Sunday, March 14th
Back in London, we walked to the Portobello Market in Nottinghill this morning. It has a lot of antiques and jewelry. I found an awesome pink and gold chair that I want to recreate when I get home. It was lovely weather once again outside and a beautiful morning.
After having our fill of the market, we went down to Trafalgar Square to see the St. Patrick’s day festivities. London’s parade is on the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day. They had a huge stage set up and it was packed with people. We found a spot on some stairs to sit and chatted with the people sitting next to us.
That evening we joined my roommate Maddie and her friend and sister that were in town to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D in the Leicester Square theater that hosted the world premiere of the movie. I looooooooove Alice in Wonderland and the movie was adorable. The theatre was humongous… probably bigger than the theatres that host plays in London. After the movie we ate at the pizzeria (as if we hadn’t already had enough Italian food the previous week) on the corner of my street. It was Princess Diana’s favorite restaurant and they have a painting of her with the cook inside.
Monday, March 15th
This was the morning Mom and Dad left, so after spending the night at their hotel I told them good-bye. I submitted a request to have my flight moved up to May 7th, so hopefully that will work out and I will be home in less than two months! I can’t believe I’m already pretty far past the halfway point here… it has gone by so fast. But the trip with Mom and Dad was wonderful and I can’t wait to come home to meet my neice!
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