Winter/Spring 2011

My next adventure is coming up. This adventure has more to do with school and less to do with major travel but it is still a new experience that I am greatly looking forward to. For the winter/spring semester I am participating in an exchange program, specifically NSE or National Student Exchange. This program allows students from specific universities across the USA and Canada to go to another participating university for up to a year. From this description you can conclude that I am not going on another European whirlwind trip. I am however going to a place very unlike mine.

Enough with the suspense, I shall tell you where I am going. I am heading off to Sydney, Nova Scotia. Many of you might be wondering where in Nova Scotia is that and I will tell you. It is on Cape Breton Island in the north of Nova Scotia. I am going to be on the edge of the world. I'm going to be about 3,941 miles away from home, should be fun.
This is the Island of Cape Breton. If you have any advice for me I would greatly appreciate it. I hope everyone is enjoy the start of fall and stays safe. Happy travels!

West Virginia

So I have now been in West Virginia almost 2 weeks and so many adventures have happened. The first full day I was here I got to go to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Where we saw the GBT. (see below)
The second day that I was here my cousin and I went garage saleing and found many adorable baby clothes for her brothers upcoming baby. It was great just getting to spend time with my cousins. That evening there was a birthday party for 2 of my younger cousins, both boys. One was turning 5 and one was turning 2. It was rather exciting since they had the party at an airplane hanger. What kid wouldn't love that?
The next day my mom, my aunt, and I set off on an adventure to Michigan to see some of our relatives. It was rather exciting we got to look at a ton of old pictures. It was a rather short venture but well worth it. While we were there we saw some pretty interesting looking dogs. Directly upon returning from Michigan and having a nights rest we had another adventure.
For this next adventure we went to Williamsburg and Virginia Beach. The first day we went to Williamsburg and it was beautiful. My mom and I went through many of the houses and businesses. I highly enjoyed it. The second day was a different story. I walked out of the hotel that morning expecting the same beautiful sun that we had the day before. Well it was not to be. There was a slow and constant drizzle that had set in durning the night and had no plan of stopping. Despite the drizzle it was an enjoyable day and I got my first up close and personal view of the Atlantic Ocean.

When we got back from that trip I spent a relaxing few days hanging around my aunts house. To soon it was time to come home and back to relatity. School is starting soon and all that goes with it. I hope everyone has had a great last few weeks of summer!

Next Adventure

So starting this Wednesday I will be beginning a new adventure! I am go to West Virginia for about 2 weeks with my mom to see her sister. I have never been to the east coast so this is going to be fun. My aunt lives in a small mountain valley town, from what I understand it is gorgeous but there is not a lot there. While I am in the area though I am hoping to be able to go to Virginia Beach and Williamsburg. My mom, my aunt, and I also might make a road trip to Michigan to see some of our relatives. If we end up doing this I'll be able to stop by on the way and see Katie! As much as I am looking forward to being there I am not looking forward to the airplane ride there. We leave the airport at 11pm and fly to Detroit, we then fly to Atlanta and from there we fly to our final destination in West Virginia. Wish me luck and I'll tell you all about it! (I do need luck because I still have to pack sshh)

Home

I am home now and loving it! Though I had an amazing time living and working in Italy for 10 weeks I missed my family and friends here at home. I missed talking to people at my convenience instead of worrying about the time difference and if people would be awake or not. I also missed my cat who I adore. Though it feels slightly strange to jump back into my life almost as if I never left I am enjoying not having to take care of myself (benefit of living at home). Fear not my adventures will not end here. I am off to the east coast, specifically West Virginia, next week to visit my Aunt and her family. It should be a fun and exciting adventure since I have never been there. I am hoping to go to Virginia Beach for my first Atlantic Ocean experience. I also really want to go to Williamsburg. Until my next adventure.

Roma Round 2

The summer has gone by so quickly. So for my last weekend trip I wanted something excited but easily accomplished. Me and my travel buddy Katie decided that Roma met these requirements since there was a few things that we didn’t get to see the last time that we were there. To start off we took a mid-morning fast train from Napoli Central to Roma Termini. Upon arrival in Roma we went to our hostel to check in and drop our bags off. Our first stop after that was San Pietro in Vincoli or Saint Peter in Chains.

This is a church that from the outside one wouldn’t think held anything magnificent but one would be mistaken. San Pietro in Vincoli holds the chains of Saint Peter which bound him in Jerusalem and Roma. The church also holds Michalangelo’s Moses. This church was the main reason that I wanted to come back to Roma but it was a good decision all the way around.

Next on our list of things to see was the Mouth of Truth. It is said that if a liar sticks their hand in the Mouth of Truth it will be bitten off. The exit for the Mouth of Truth is through the church that it is located at which is Santa Maria in Cosmedian.

The church was a hidden gem that I am glad we took the time to explore. I don’t know much about this church but I would like to learn more. The third stop in our Roma voyage was the Pantheon which we had sadly missed on our last trip. The Pantheon if you have never been is a rather awe inspiring building. It was originally a pagan temple but now is a Catholic church. That one building can go through so many changes is amazing.

The last stop on our Roma was the Capuchin Crypt. This is the crypt of the Capuchin Monks. They have made art work out of the bones of the monks who have died and been buried in the holy ground for awhile. To see this you would think it was a little creepy and in fact it is a little creepy, at the same time though it is a spectacular accomplishment of art work. The best thing about all that we did is that it was mostly free. We had to buy a metro pass and a couple of places asked for donations, other than that the weekend was rather cheap. To make the weekend more expensive we had dinner at Hard Rock Café. This was my first Hard Rock experience at let me just say that I enjoyed it, especially since I haven’t had a good American hamburger and fries since I left the states 2 ½ months ago. So ended our Saturday in Roma! Sunday we just a relaxing day spent wondering around Roma. My weekend ended rather early but it was beautiful and I would do it again.

2nd to Last Weekend

So last weekend my travel buddies Katie and Tasha and I wanted to go to Paestum where the temple of Athena is. We were told that is a pretty spectacular experience. Well we'll never know. Last Saturday we went to the train station planning on going to Paestum but the train station was insanely busy and the kiosks wouldn't give us the ticket to Paestum we had to go to a ticket window and many of them were closed. This being the case we made a briefly thought out decision to go to Sorrento for the day. The decision made we hopped onto the Circumsuviana line to Sorrento. It took us about an hour to get there and we had one amazingly relaxing day.
We started off by walking to the beach/coast. It was a rather pleasent walk with lots of stairs.
Look at those stairs but that's alright the view from the top was spectacular!
We walked down this road to the ocean and saw what the Italians consider a beach. Keep in mind you have to pay to rent a chair and an umbrella.
We saw the ocean and we saw how beautiful it was. Then we had to walk back up the stairs. You might have thought the first set were bad but the ones we took back up were worse. These went straight up the side of the cliff with switch backs.
After the beach we spent the rest of the day wondering around shopping and just absorbing the beauty that sourounded us in Sorrento. For lunch I had some of the best gnocchi that I have ever had. It was a gnocchi in a tomato sauce with motzorella.

Roma!

I know I am behind on my adventures but things have been a little crazy here in Italy. The other weekend me and my two travel buddies headed off for a fun filled weekend in Roma! We attempted to head out fairly early on Saturday but that didn't end up as well as we planned. We waited for the bus for over an hour but it never came. After an hour or so had gone by our directors car pulled out of the hotel's parking lot and she asked us where we were going. So we told her and it turned out that she was going to Rome as well so would be able to give us a ride to a different bus stop by the base that is more reliable. Once we finally got on the train and made it to Rome we walked to our hostel.
This is the street right out of the train station that we walked down to get to our hostel. It was a fairly simple and easy walk, thank goodness. Upon arriving at the hostel we put our stuff in our room and headed out to Vatican City. Originally we planned on walking there but after getting lost for over 40 min we decided to just take the metro which was a very simple and easy thing to do.
One of the train lines, not the one that the Vatican is on by the way. It's a good thing we noticed this before we just sat on the train. We finally made it to the Vatican and went directly to the Museums. They were as spectacular as I remembered from the last time that I was there. This time was a little different since I wasn't in a tour group and I had some awesome travel buddies.
After we made it through the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel we headed to St. Peter's Basilica to see all of the beauty that it had to offer. We exited the museum and went to the right. Well we should of gone to the left because we ended up walking most of the perimeter of an entire country. But hey not many people can say that they've done that.
It actually wasn't that busy when we went. We walked right into the Museum and right into the Basilica. After we were done with the Basilica we started to walk back to our hostel and along the way we saw most things that you need to see in Roma! We saw the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, Tritan's Fountain, and much more. So ended our first day in Roma! The next day we went to the Colosseum and saw Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. They were quite amazing! And so ended my trip to Roma!!

Nestea!

Enjoy this while I'm trying to catch up on sleep

3 weeks left?

I have 3 and 1/2 weeks left. Its hard to realize this since a few weeks ago I didn't think the summer was ever going to end. Now it's nearing the end and I'm not even sure what to think. I have grown attached to 2 different groups of kids and in 3 weeks it will all be over. Weird.

One of my kids said the one of the most adorable things the other day. "He just said the "SH" word and I don't mean shutup" I was trying so hard to take him seriously but it was so hard. I think I started to laugh towards the end of the conversation and I really hope my 7 year old didn't notice.

Verona and Venice Part 2

So we left Verona about 12pm and hopped a train to Venice. This only took about an hour and I slept most of the way there. Upon arrival to Venice we immediately got back in line to get tickets back to Napoli. It was a little tedious when all I wanted to do was go out and see the city but it had to be done. Well upon purchasing return tickets I walked out of the train station and saw this!

You can see the water with boats going up and down it. It was amazing!! We walked out of the train station and just to the right was the vaporetto that we needed to take to the Rialto exit to get to our hostel. Let me just say that I think it is way to expensive to ride a vaporetto. It cost me 12 euro for only 2 tickets and that just covered getting there and back. We walked on and sat in the waiting dock and this was the view.
The vaporetto finally came and we took it to the Rialto exit no problem. We saw some interesting things on our trip down the Grand Canal though. Here is a look at what we saw.

An ambulance just cruising down the canal off to something important I would guess.

The first look at the Rialto bridge as we neared our stop was amazing. You never expect something so historic to be just around the corner but thats the way it seemed with everthing in Venice. Upon arriving at our stop we went over the Rialto bridge and followed the directions exactly to our stop. We had been a little leary of the directions that the hostel had online since others had commented that they were not very good but we had no problem with them and went straight to our hostel no problems. We weren't quite sure what to expect from our hostel. There had been mixed reviews about it online so we were a little skeptical but our worries were for not because upon getting there we discovered we had one of the coolest set ups ever.
We had reserved a 6 bed mixed dorm. This means that there are 6 beds in a room and it doesn't matter what gender sleeps there. Well that's technically what we got but it was way better. We walked up these stairs to our room and you open the door and there is only 3 beds and 2 of them are already taken. This made us a little worried until the lady showing us our room opened a door on the other side of the first room which was another room with 3 beds. It turned out that our room only had 3 beds in it and that we could lock it and to top it off they even provided a towel which many hostels do not do. After that we just wondered around the city. We had no plan and no agenda which made it spectacularly relaxing. Here are a few photos of the city.

The wall at the Disney store!
Something beautiful!
San Marco
A beautiful little canal
My favorite!

And so ends my trip to Verona and Venice. It was an amazing experience that I shall never forget. I have come to the realization that when you travel you learn new things about yourself and I have been finding them at ever corner. Dream sweet dreams and live happily!

Verona and Venice Part 1

A lovely weekend away to the beautiful cities of Verona and Venice was just what I needed for a refreshing view on life. I began my journey Friday night with an over night train to Verona. It was definitely an experience I will never forget. Upon finally arriving in Verona we walked to the Arena, which was pretty spectacular. We also saw some interesting things along the way. (One might think we were in Vegas)
We finally reached the Arena and they were setting up for an opera with an asian theme. We had planned on going inside since I thought it was only going to be 3 euro but it turned out to be 8 euro so we decided not to go in. However I did get some amazing pictures of the outside. Here's one of me in all of my traveling gloriousness.
After we finished viewing the Arena and having lunch we walked the short distance to Juliet's house and balcony. I must say I was expecting more but it was still a pretty amazing experience. Just to see all of the writing on the wall and to see the balcony that they say was the place of the such a momentus ocassion was pretty mind blowing. To also know that so many people come there each and every year just to see it.

"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon
Who is already sick and pale with grief" - Romeo

"O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet." - Juliet

That is the end of Juliet's House but we still had about an hour to walk back to the train station to catch our train to Venice so we just wondered back and along the way found some of these delitful treats.

These humorous items were for sale at one of the vendor stands and we found them very amusing. My favorite part of the entire trip of the entire trip happend not in Venice but in a vendor's market in Verona. Here is why!
Do you see why this was one of my favorite parts? No then why don't we take a look at what happened next shall we.
The raspberries were quickly devoured and highly enjoyed! I was afraid that I was going to have to wait until I got home in order to get myself some raspberries but now I know all I have to do is just hop on a train to Verona to get them. So ended my trip to Verona and began my trip to Venice which will be coming later!

Mail How I love Thy

I love my mom! The last few weeks I have gotten 2 cards and 1 small package from her. I got the small package today. I came back from clubs to find this on the table:

This made me super excited!!! Especially when I opened it to find this:

But that's not all! You flip this drawstring bag over and you get....

Isn't this one of the most adorable things you have ever seen? I absolutely love it!!

Change Thy Name is 7 year olds

As the title may imply there have been some changes here in Italy. I was moved from the 10 year old group to the 7 year old group on Tuesday. It was definitely a change that I was not expecting this late in the summer but one of the counselors was moved to the CDC so it was a necessary change. First off I must say that my 7 year olds are totally different from my 10 year olds. They are opposite in maturity and behavior. They are not opposite in what they like though. This greatly surprised me since there is 2 to 3 years between them. It seems everyone no matter the age is reading Percy Jackson. I may need to read this. I have enjoyed the 7 year old group the last few days but I really miss my 10 year olds. I had bonded with them and they had learned what to expect. Now everything has changed. On the positive side though it should help make the summer go faster especially seeing as of yesterday I have exactly a month before I am home!

Capri Round Two

I went to Capri again today with my friend Katie and her boy. It was one of the most amazing days ever. We caught the bus this morning about 7:20 and then rode it all the way down to the port where we caught the 8:10 ferry out. Upon getting there we had breakfast/lunch. It was delicious. I had a caprese pannini which was mozzarella cheese and tomato with an espresso. My other meal was risotto with a lemon flavor. I was one of the most amazing things that I have ever eaten. It was so good. I must learn how to make risotto when I get home because it might just become one of my favorite foods. It was an amazing day and I am so glad that I was able to go back to such a lovely island. Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

This was the view from the tram that took you to the top of the island.

This is one of the streets with very high end shops (which I went into)
The tram that took us up and down the hill

So friday night Katie and I went and got pizza for dinner at the one place that was open on base. I had one of the most interesting pizzas that I've ever seen and it was delicious.

It had hot dog chunks and french fries on it with cheese and tomato sauce.

Week Four

It's been awhile but I'm still having fun! I went to Florence last weekend and this weekend I'm going to Capri again this weekend and Venice next weekend. I've definitely been busy and looks like it will continue that way until way after I get home. At the moment I am enjoying watching American TV in my new apartment on base and attempting to do the hw for the classes that I have to take through camp. They are papers on program evaluation using different qualifications and personal evaluations and stuff like that. None of it looks very difficult but it does look fairly time consuming. I need to get going on this since I don't want to do all of it in September once I go home. Its been a long hard week but I it has still been enjoyable.

Gives me Hope

This blog is called Lets See a Little of the World so I know this post really doesn't apply but I want to tell everyone about an exciting moment for me which happened at camp today. I was monitoring all of the people who were not in the pool today which includes make sure the campers are not in the grass area. Well two 9 year old girls had gotten out of the pool and gone over to the grass to lay on their towels. I went over to inform them that they had to go back over to the concrete area of the pool. In the time that it took me to walk over to them they had both pulled out their books which gave me a fondness for them right away. Now it wasn't that they were reading that made me stop but what they were reading. They were reading Anne of Green Gables which is one of my all time favorite books. One of the girls even had a movie version copy of the book. This made my day and just gave me hope for the younger generation on their taste in literature. Now I hope everyone else is having a great day!

Capri

I had the chance to go to Capri yesterday (Saturday). There are really no words to describe how beautiful it is there but I'll try. My group arrived a little before 1pm and we walked around and found a place to eat lunch. I had this pizza and water. It was pretty delicious.
After lunch we went on a boat ride around the island. It was 20 euro per person for the 2 hour ride and believe me it was some of the best money I have ever spent.
This picture doesn't even do it justice. It was one of the best experiences I have ever had. I wish that everyone would have the opportunity to go to Capri at least once in their lives. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to go and experience its beauty.

Week One

I made it through week one! It was a tough week but I made it. Throughout the week I was faced with some challenges but I feel that I handled them appropriately. I'm rather exhausted though and I'm hoping to get some extra sleep this week. I don't know if this will happen but it is a hope of mine. I wish everyone a sunshiny day and a great week.

First Day of Camp

Today was the first day of camp here in Naples, Italy. One would think that with Italy in the name the sun would be shining and everyone would be sitting in the shade to avoid getting a sunburn. What happened today was almost the exact opposite of that. The morning started off fine, the other counselors and I checked all the kids in and gave them name tags. After we went to our designated age group spot to discuss what we were going to do for the day and what clubs they wanted to participate in we got ready for snack. We had snack and everything seemed to be going quite smoothly until the entire camp gathered for the morning gathering. The weather then decided to break loose and dump buckets and buckets of rain in about 20 min time. It was insane!! We had about 150 campers under the age of 12 and above the age of 5 in a pavilion in the middle of a field with water starting to leak from the roof. All of the counselors were singing songs and dancing around trying to get everyone involved which was a challenge since there were a number of campers who just wanted to go out and run in the rain. Lets just say the morning was definitely a challenge that I'm not sure I was prepared for but I did make it through!! The day got more hectic but we survived and I didn't lose a camper!! Yay me! Well today has been a long day and I must get up early tomorrow so ttfn.

Rain

Who would have thought that in Napoli, Italy it would be a rainy Sunday? Well not me for sure. When I found out that i was coming to Napoli I looked up the weather for the time that I would be here and everything that I found said an average of 85 to 95 degrees with high humidity. So what to my surprise that when I got out of the train station yesterday it was raining and continued raining for a good 15-20 min. I figured this was a random occurance and would not be repeated. Then what to my surprise when a little after 11am this morning it started to rain and has yet to stop. For this reason it has been a lazy Sunday, meaning I have yet to leave the hotel and probably will not unless I go out for dinner. I hope everyone else is enjoying better weather than I am. Have a great day!

Pompeii

Today the day camp counselors went to Pompeii. It was rather an exciting adventure. We started out the day by meeting at 8:30am to walk to the bus stop to catch an 8:50am bus. Well we waited for said bus almost an hour and when we finally gave up all hope that it was ever coming and got on a bus that would take us to the same place just not as fast, the other bus showed up. That was the start to my exciting day. When we finally got off the bus after about 40 min we walked to the train station where we got on another train to Pompei Scavi which is the train that stops right outside the entrance to Pompeii.
We then had lunch before we went into Pompeii. I had a capri pannini which had tomato, mozzarella, and basil on it. It was pretty delicious. After lunch we walked through the entrance and bought our tickets. Upon entering this is what we saw:
Then we walked around for about 3 hours. It was really interesting for the first hour but after that it all looked the same. At the end we went to the amphitheater. It had lots of trees and bushes around it that reminded me of home. We left Pompeii about 3:30 to head back to Naples. This turned into a wild ride. After arriving at the train station we made our way out of that building and towards the bus stop. There is something everyone must understand about Napoli. The buses do not run on time! We waited for the bus for over an hour and while we were waiting we got whistled at by 80% of the guys that drove by. When the bus finally did arrive it was full and so we couldn't get on it. So for our backup plan we got back on a metro train and rode it to another bus station to catch a different bus. That one ended up being mostly on time and it got us back to the hotel in not to much time. All in all it was a most exciting day. And for everyone's enjoyment a picture of me and a lemon right outside the entrance to Pompeii.