Pictures from the past few days!

So I have finally gotten around to getting some pictures up for you guys to see. I have not yet put my Munich pictures up so all of these were taken in Ireland. First there is a picture of me shown below on an awesome couch in the lobby of our hotel. I really wish I could have one at home!!
Next is a lovely picture of Momma dearest sitting on another piece of furniture found in the lobby of our Irish hotel. I think she looks rather good in the chair!! ;)

This next picture is of my great family (sadly minus Ryan, but he has already been here and has to be a grownup and actually work) after a tour of the Guinness Storehouse. It was a great place to tour and I had a lot of fun. I actually knew a lot of the information they gave us on the brewing of beer (thank you Ryan and Dad) but there was a lot to learn and see!

Next I have a picture of the corner of Dublin Castle (the tower) and the royal chapel (to the right). This was a very cool place to see the tower is from the medieval castle and is the only one remaining from the original.

This is a view of St. Patrick's cathedral which I have not gone in, but my parents did and they said it was beautiful! I am so excited to see it soon. I just thought the outside was really pretty.

That is all for now but once I put my Munich pictures on my computer they shall make an appearance also.

June 20-26, 2010 abbreviated version (more later)

Well I am currently sitting in a pub watching the world cup so all is well with me. I have had a busy few days between flying to Munich to see my parents and visit some cool sites, to then flying to Dublin. Life has been good we have had great food in great places with awesome people. My parents fly home tomorrow so wish them safe travels! Also hopefully I will not be homesick once they leave since I am in such a beautiful place. While in Germany I went to a lot of different churches, the Houfbrau house (i know i spelled that wrong), climbed the tower of Fauenkirche, went to an art museum, and had lots of yummy Bavarian food!! :) Then I came here to Ireland and so far we have gone to Graften street (think shopping), went to a new pub everyday, Guinness storehouse, Dublinia, Dublin Castle, Jameson distillery, O'Connell street, Leo Burdock's, the book of Kells, and many churches. I have had a blast so far and the cuisine is so different than Italian that I am kinda confused but it is so good I am not complaining. I do have classes starting on thursday and I get to move into my housing on wednesday!! YAY for being in Ireland, more will be forthcoming later along with pictures.

June 10-19, 2010 Italy Adventures

Ciao!!!
Well I have a lot to talk about and I have been so busy I can't even begin to express how crazy life has been here. This is going to be a long post with pictures included (hopefully) so please just stick with it and you will be rewarded with amazingness!!

Thursday June 10:
After my classes I did some shopping and then took a bus to Sorrento with 7 other girls from my trip. It was about an 8 hour bus ride and we got into Sorrento at about 3am. Since I had to be up early on friday I went immediately to bed so not a whole lot to talk about today.

Friday June 11:
I took a ferry with the group to the island of Capri. Once we got to the island we took a boat tour around the island and saw such pretty views. A few minutes into the tour we stopped at a place along the coast called the blue grotto. It was so awesome, we got into groups of 4, laid down flat into a row boat, the guy got us to the opening of the grotto grabbed a chain and yanked us through into it. Inside the grotto the water is like glowing blue, it was so cool and some of the guys starting singing in Italian! It was an unbelievable experience. Here is a picture of the amazing water!So after we got back into the big boat we continued on our tour of the island and saw the emerald grotto and this famous rock formation below that has a specific name that is escaping me at the moment. The tour of the island was amazing and I have so many more pictures from it.

We did have some free time once we got off the boat tour, so I took a tram thing up to the city center of Capri. I got a lemon grenita which is like a lemon slushie made with fresh lemons. Oh and Capri (along with all of the Amalfi coast area) is famous for their lemons. With grenitas in hand we walked down a huge slope of the mountains to get to the beach to do some swimming and have some food. Below is a picture part way down to the beach, the ramp thing is what I was walking down and the white blobs in the water are boats to give an idea of how much walking I did.

Once we were down at the beach we got food, which was super yummy and had a great view. Then we all went to the beach which wasn't a sand beach but rather a smooth stone beach. The water was a little cold but it was so clear and blue and refreshing it was totally worth being cold for a bit. In the late afternoon we all took a bus back to the city center and went to a Lemonchello tasting, and then took a ferry back to Sorrento.

Saturday June 12:
On saturday I took a bus to Positano which is one of my favorite places I have gone to so far on my trip. As soon as we got there we had to walk down 800 stairs to get to the beach but once again it was totally worth the long walk. The beach in Positano is actually a black sand beach, but it turns into a rocky beach when you reach the water. The biggest problem I found with the black sand was the whole it being black means it is like 10 times hotter than regular sand. It literally burned my feet when I stood on it before going in the water. Below is a picture of the black sand beach.

We spent a lot of time in Positano at the beach and the 10 of us (we found the 2 guys that came down on their own from our group) rented a boat to go out around the area. After we all got on our private boat we went to this slightly secluded beach and the captain (who spoke very very little english) motions for us to jump out of the boat and go swimming and cliff jumping if we wanted to. So we went swimming and I jumped off the 10ft cliff into the water twice. I was terrified before doing it but it was so fun!!! After that we climbed back on the boat and then he moved around a bit to a cave and once again told us to jump out and go swimming through the cave. The water by the cave was so cold and the current was pretty strong but we all swam through the cave and then met him in the boat on the other side of it. Once the boat ride thing was done we had a little bit of time left and we got some grenitas to pass the time before heading back to the hotel in Sorrento. Once back in Sorrento we had dinner at the hotel and then went to a bar called the English Inn to watch the England vs. USA world cup game!!

Sunday June 13:
We checked out of the hotel pretty early and then took a bus to Pompeii. If you don't know the story of Pompeii, I will give you the most basic run down of it. Pompeii was a very rich roman port town in Southern Italy area in the ancient times and then suddenly without warning Mount Vesuvius erupted and covered the entire town in ash and lava. The eruption killed everyone in the city because even if the lava and ash were survivable the toxic gas that came out wiped out anyone that was left. The picture below is a picture of what used to be the main forum in the town with a picture of Mount Vesuvius in the background. We only had about an hour and a half in the actual city of Pompeii which was not enough time to see everything. Oh well, that just means I need to go back. :)

After Pompeii we all got back into the buses that took us to Mt. Vesuvius to climb up the volcano. It was an interesting experience climbing up the volcano because its really steep and rocky, which for me does not seem to make sense with it being a volcano, but it was cool anyhow. The picture below is a view partially up the volcano, the post is the guard preventing someone from falling. The view from the volcano were amazing!!

This last picture is a group picture of all of us that climbed the volcano. It was our victory picture!! After Mt. Vesuvius we started the 8 hour trip back the Florence, all in all it was an amazing weekend!


Monday June 14:
Not a whole lot happened today other than classes and then a few things in the afternoon. I went to the Palazzo Vecchio and saw some pretty cool frescoes that are in there. After that I wandered around for a bit and Sarah and I tried to find a place to watch the Italy vs. Paraguay world cup game outside. Finally we found a piazza that had three screens up, so we watched with probably about 300 Italians. Such a great experience!

Tuesday June 15:
My last day of classes and day one of finals. I had my history final which I think went well so that was good and then a large group of us went to the market for some last minute shopping before we all head home. After shopping I went back and studied for my poly sci final which was on wednesday. Not a whole lot else happened, though I did go to a fabulous place for dinner!

Wednesday June 16:
I am officially on my *spring* break in the summer since I finished my poly sci exam. Since this is one of our last days together we had a large group of us go to dinner at a really nice family restaurant. If I am ever back in Florence I am so going there!!!! Everyone in the group ended up going out since it was almost the end of the trip and there is nothing on thursday that we had to do.

Thursday June 17:
I still didn't do a whole lot today in terms of sightseeing since I did a lot of that early on in my trip. I was doing laundry (which in and of itself is not fun) but when we were there it started pouring down rain and then the quarter size hail started!!! HAIL, in Italy!! I was so confused! Since tonight was the last night with the whole group we had a really big dinner at the hotel that was amazing, and we celebrated with the professors.

Friday June 18:
Everyone pretty much left today to go back to the states which was really sad, especially because Jenny was supposed to get here today but her flight was canceled so no Jenny today. I wandered around the city by myself and just kinda said goodbye to the city that I have come to love over the past month or so.

Saturday June 19:
I woke up really early today to meet Jenny at the train station at 7:13am this morning since that is when her train was supposed to get in. Sadly the train was like 70 minutes delayed so I just people watched for a while in the train station. It is raining today and Jenny isn't feeling the greatest so we are just chilling in the hotel trying to let her rest before we go to Munich tomorrow. Since Jenny has already been to Florence we are both ok with not doing a lot today. Tomorrow will be an adventure because we are going to Germany, yet another country that I don't speak the language!! :)

June 6-9, 2010 Italy!

Ciao!!
As you can probably guess from me not updating the blog, I have been pretty busy lately. A few days ago I went to the Baptistry by the duomo. The picture below is one part of the mosaic on the ceiling, it is so beautiful the picture does not do it justice.

Another of the places I went to recently was the Pitti Palace and the Bobli gardens. The Pitti Palace used to be a palace that the Medici family stayed in, and some other political figures when they were in power. It has now been turned into a museum. My favorite part was the costume museum, they had a bunch of dresses and suits from a range of time periods spanning from the 1400s all the way to the 1990s. It was so cool, and I saw a dress that I really really wished I could have taken a picture of. Oh well, after I wandered through this massive museum they have a really large 'garden' behind it. The garden is huge but its really just a bunch of trees and shrubs that they arranged to look decently pretty. I was not a big fan of it. But they had a great view from the top of the garden. The picture below is of a section of the old wall of the city and a view of the countryside. Another trip I took was up Michelangelo's piazza up on the south side of the Arno river. I have already been up there for really nice pictures but this time it was around sunset so the pictures are so amazing in my opinion. The first one below is a view of the city in general from the piazza. The second one is a close up of the ponte vecchio and some of the other bridges crossing the Arno.

On monday I went to Pisa and Lucca, mainly to see the leaning tower but also just to get out from Florence. The leaning tower was quite amusing, I was actually surprised by how much it is actually leaning! Lucca is a small town version of Florence and it was really nice, I recommend visiting there if you ever go to Pisa, its quiet but very picturesque.

There is so much else I have been doing, but it is really hot right now here and there is no AC and I can't open windows because of mosquitoes, so I have to stop writing before my lap overheats from the computer. Tomorrow I am leaving for the Amalfi coast so for sure I won't have any more posts until probably monday afternoon.

June 3-5, 2010 Florence, Italy

I seem to be getting worse at keeping people updating on what I am doing while here in Italy. So I guess I need to be a little better about scheduling my time! Anyway, June 3rd was thursday I believe and I had classes in the morning while it was raining and then I was going to go to Pisa and Lucca but because of the rain I staying in town. I did end up going down to Santa Croce which is a really cool church down by the Arno river that has many famous people buried there like Michelangelo for example. I spent a good deal of time there and then came back to the hotel only to leave again in a few hours to meet with some of the other students from our group and one of our professors Dr. Carter at the Duomo steps. We all went out for dinner at this place by San Lorenzo, it wasn't one of my best dining experiences here, but the company was good! :)

After dinner we all went back to the Duomo to go to mass (in Italian) and following mass there was a Eucharist prossession(?) around the Duomo and through the streets to San Lorenzo. Once the mass of people got to San Lorenzo there was a benediction and prayer. The whole experience though not the easiest to understand (it being all in Italian) was really cool! I didn't take pictures of it but Dr. Carter did and he said he would share them later. That was pretty much my thursady.Friday June 4th was another adventure, three of us took a bus to Sienna for the day and the bus ride was really short and very pretty! We got to Sienna around 11am and went to San Domenico and looked around inside the church (no pictures). The church was very large but simply beautiful, the head of St. Catherine of Sienna is in the church. After that we walked down some really steep roads to get to St. Catherine's house and sanctuary, which had some amazing decorations! We then walked up a very steep road (that seems to be all Sienna roads...steep!) to get to the Piazza del Campo, it's the main square. There was a lot of people around there and a lot of restaurants so we stopped for some food. Once again didn't care that much for the service at the restaurant and some of my food was waaay to salty but otherwise a decent meal.

After lunch we walked to the Palazzo Pubblico which is just off of the Piazza, this place is the old town hall building in Sienna. There are some very lovely decorations inside including Lorenzetti's Allegories of Good and Bad Government. The bad government one was in really bad shape but the good government one looked really nice! They won't let you take pictures there either, sad. :( After the Palazzo we headed up some streets to get to the Duomo of Sienna. That church is probably one of my favorites so far this trip (and I have gone to a LOT of churches!) there were inlaid marble floors, marble busts of all the popes, a fabulous pulpit done by someone that I have studied before, and a lot of other pretty things. The pictures below are from the Duomo. After the Duomo we were getting kinda tired and we had gone to all the major things in Sienna and the steep roads were not worth just wandering aimlessly so we went back to the bus station to go back to Florence.

It took us a while to figure out where we bought our bus tickets but we got our tickets and found our bus (which was a double decker!!). A few minutes after we got on our bus we left Sienna but didn't get very far before the bus just pulled over to the side of the road and people started getting off (to clarify this was supposed to be a direct Sienna to Florence bus with no stops) so we were highly confused. Finally we just followed the crowd and were moved to another smaller bus across the road. We still have no idea what is going on and we are not all fitting on this bus because there are less seats, and I am one of the people without a seat. Finally someone on that bus that spoke English told me that there was another bus behind the one I was on that was also going to Florence and that the air had stopped working on the original bus which was why they had us jump ship. So at this point I go to the other bus which was really nice because there were like only 7 other people on the bus with me and a lot of them were American. But the bus finally did make it to Florence in only a few minutes longer than it was originally supposed to take!

I didn't do a whole lot else yesterday because my feet hurt so much, they are the main thing that is slowing me down. Today I was originally planning on going to Venice with a few people but with my feet hurting and the cost of just getting to Venice I decided to stay in Florence and relax and do some homework today. I think I made the right decision. It would have been nice to see Venice but I just don't think it would be worth it in the long run. I am still planning on going to Pisa and Lucca tomorrow afternoon though! Ciao!!

June 2, 2010 Florence, Italy

There is not a lot to say for today since when I woke up it was raining and my first class was canceled. There was a national holiday today in Italy (I think some sort of independence day-like thing) so everything was closed including the school. That however did not stop my one midterm from occurring, so I had to study for that. After a delicious lunch I took my midterm and I think it went well, then I went on an adventure to find a laundromat to clean my clothes since I had just about ran out. I was successful and then I had a yummy dinner. All around a great way to unwind from a super busy weekend!! Sorry it wasn't very interesting!!

May 31- June 1, 2010 Rome, Italy

I believe I left off talking about my winery tour, but if I am wrong let me know and I will back up a few days. So starting very early on monday morning I got up to take a three hour bus ride to Rome with the class. The bus was very nice, but I slept most of the ride since I was up at 5am, which normally would be fine but with everything I have been doing was sooo not cool. When we checked into the very nice 3 star hotel in Rome the whole group gathered downstairs in the lobby to go on a short tour of Rome for the day. We ended up leaving for the first church of the day at around 10am I believe. The first main site I saw was St. Peter's and Vatican City which was amazing! It's so weird because it is fenced off since it is its own city-state, but its in the middle of Rome.


While in the area of the Vatican we stopped at the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine chapel and the Raphael rooms that were there. The picture below is in the Raphael rooms and is called 'School of Athens.'
There were a few other sites that we saw throughout the day but mostly we saw the Vatican. The last main site we saw was Trevi fountain which was cool but very crowded, I think the picture below was the best I could do at the time. :)

That night when I went to dinner I ended up going with the professors by myself because some of the other girls where going to go with me but they decided to chicken out and I was ok with going. The upside I have found of eating with the professors is they pay for the wine and water which is really nice. I had a very good dinner that was not very far at all from the hotel in Rome!

The next morning was our last day in Rome and we had a lot planned originally for it, so after a really yummy breakfast at the hotel we all headed out to our first site. We went to the Pantheon first and I got some really good pictures there! Two of those are below.


So then we went to a few sets of Roman ruins including the Forum which was the main political center of ancient Rome. I took some pictures but we didn't go down inside it because it cost money and we had other things to go see.
The last place we went to as a group was the Collasium(?) which was cool but once again I didn't go inside it because it cost money and was really crowded. The professors then decided to give us the rest of the day off until dinner at 6pm (it was noonish) so we could do what we wanted.
Me being the church nerd that I am went around the rest of the day with Dr. carter and two other students to a total of 15 churches. I ended up seeing the burial places of 6 apostles, the pillars from the scourging of Christ, the steps from Pontius Pilate's palace that Christ walked on, Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Theresa (below), and many more fun things!
I will fill everyone in on the many churches when I get home there is too much to say now and I still have to do some readings for class tomorrow! Ciao!!