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