2nd week of family

Monday, October 21st:
Everyone was still in Rome this day, but I had to take my New Testament mid-term at school, so Matt replaced me as  tour guide. My family went around Rome and revisited some of the sites that we had seen when Matt studied abroad. Then, we met up at night, but I again had to study for my Culture of Food and Wine midterm the next day, so I was a little stressed out.


Tuesday, October 22nd:
After taking my second midterm, I was finally free!! Everyone met me at my apartment and we headed off to Tuscany for a night to wine taste and see the Northern part of Italy. After driving up to Montepulicano, we arrived at the farm house where we were staying, which was so quaint and cool. Mom LOVED it. We couldn't see much of the grounds because it was dark, so we drove into the Medieval town, ate some food (sub-par) in a deserted restaurant and went to bed fairly early for our next day of activities.

Wednesday, October 23rd:

When we woke up, we found ourselves in the awesome farm house with rolling hills everywhere and an enormous amount of grape vines! It was so cool to finally see the farm in the day, and it did not disappoint. We ate breakfast at the farm, where we were the only guests, and had the FRESHEST meats ever (they were from the pigs on the farm, sorry guys) and really good homemade jams from the fruit trees all around the farm. Then, one of the owners, showed us all around the grounds, and we saw pigs, the vineyards, the wine production factory, and the big villa where the owners live. We ended this tour with a wine-tasting with the wine that the vineyard produces. After staying around for a little while, we headed back into Montepulciano and ate the best lunch ever of the town's speciality noodles, and went into every little shop. The town was way more empty than it was when I went there for wine-tasting in September, but it was still fun experiencing it. When we were totally shopped-out, we drove back to Rome, where I had to say goodbye  after grabbing pizza with everyone, Ali and Emmy. It was sad leaving my family after the awesome week we had all across Italy, but I realized that I only had 50 days left in Italy, so I will see them in no time at all!

Thursday, October 24th:
RECOVERY DAY! I had no classes this day, so I slept for a while, and then did some homework that I missed from the previous day. Cannot remember what else happened during the day, but at night ROBINSON CANO was at the local bar with Venesha, so I went and met him! It was so crazy to meet a celebrity in real life, because I have never met any celebrities before! That was pretty cool, I guess. Unreal.

Friday, October 25th:
My New Testament class had a site visit today, and we visited Saint Peter's! It was really cool to go inside the church because I had not been inside yet on while I have been in Rome (I know, I suck). Anyway, we had to wait in the super long line for hours, which was kind of a buzz-kill, but when we finally got to go inside it was worth it. Then, at night, I met up with my friend, Brent, and we had a PLL marathon and got super creeped out by the show.

Saturday, October 26th/ Sunday, October 27th:
Nothing memorable happened these days, I guess, because I cannot remember anything. LOLZ

La mia famiglia!

Thursday, October 17th:

 THE FAMILY ARRIVED TODAY & IT WAS THE MOST EXCITING DAY IN ROME THUS FAR! 

It all started very early on Thursday morning, when they got to the airport at around 8, and came to my apartment at 10. I didn't have class this day, so even though everyone was tired from traveling, my family and Ali, her mom, and Ron went out for a quick lunch at a really great restaurant that was the perfect first meal in Rome for our families. Then, me and the family walked around Trastevere and I showed them Santa Maria Piazza and some other little shops. After, we hopped in the rental car and drove straight to Naples, where we staying for the night and then driving to Positano on the Amalfi Coast. 

Ali's mom, Ali, Me, and mom

After we got to Naples, we checked into our hotel and went into the actual to eat THE BEST PIZZA IN LIFE EVER. The place did not even look like an amazing pizza place from the outside, but it was so good. 

Friday, October 18th:

After waking up late at the hotel, we left Naples, got a little lost because there was road work and no signs, which is SO ITALY, and started 

driving along the Amalfi Coast to Positano where 

we were staying.

  

We saw tons of beautiful views among the way:

Not really sure where we stopped and took these pictures, but I know that the mountain in the background is actually Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii where the volcano erupted!

  

After driving for a while, we got to Positano and walked up about 116 steps, me and dad counted one day, with all of our luggage to our AMAZING hotel called Conca D'oro. It overlooked all of Positano. Once again, pictures will do it justice. 

We just explored for the rest of this day, and we checked out the town that had a really cool beach (with a lot of sea glass) and a bunch of cute shops and restaurants. We ate at a place that was right on the water , and I had a fresh fish that they had          to cut up right in front of me! The sun was going down too, and it was so cool to see the sunset over the beach. Then we ate some ice cream pop things, which were really good, and walked around the little town more and called it a night!

Saturday, October 19th:
DAY TRIP TO CAPRI
Since mom and dad have never seen Capri, we took a boat from Positano to Capri in the morning to spend the day there. The boat ride there was super fun and once we got off the first boat we walked around the town for a little bit and then got back on another boat to tour the WHOLE island. I explained to everyone that we needed to do the boat tour cause Matt only wanted to hike on the actual island. BUT we went on the boat and it was amazing! I could not believe that I got to see the whole island again. However, this time me, mom, and Matt went into the Blue Grotto, which was cool and dark, but a total tourist trap. It was actually crazy when we were entering into the Grotto because we crashed into another little boat. Scary stuff. Later on in the day, we went back to Positano and shopped around a little more and ate some seafood on a cliff.

Sunday, October 20th:
This was our last day in Southern Italy, and we had to trek back to Rome so I could take my midterm for my Theology class. After I studied at breakfast, we left Positano and drove to the actual city of Amalfi, which was super crowded, so we couldn't really get out of the car and look around. Instead, we ended up in a small city where we stopped and I collected a bunch of sea-glass and everyone else sat by the water. We also saw a bride and a groom, which was pretty cool! After leaving this small city, we continued on and finally got back to Rome late at night. I had to study so we grabbed dinner quickly at Dar Poeta where we again ate the Nutella calzone. BEST.THING.IN.ROME

Papa, Papa!

Wednesday, October 16th:

For my Theology class on this Wednesday, we got
 tickets for the papal audience!
My roomies and I got up so early and walked to St. Peter's in the semi-drizzle of rain. We got seats on the barricades because that is where the "Pope Mobile" passes and we waited for hours for Pope Francesco to arrive! There were a bunch of super cute kids in front of us and everyone was generally happy, which was nice to see. Then at 10:30, the Pope came out and greeted the audience and rode around on his little cart in the audience. He came close to us and it was so surreal that the POPE was so close to us. Although I didn't get the best pictures or get THAT close to him, the other Providence College students gave him a zucchetto ( a little pope hat) with a note inside that he read and it was all over the news! Then, the Pope read an address to the people and he mentioned that Providence College was in attendance. It was a really cool experience!

Let’s talk about Paris

Paris was amazing. The end.

Just kidding, of course I will elaborate! 

So, Ali, Emmy and I left Rome at 6 pm. on Thursday for the Roman airport. Ali and I were super pumped because it was our first time out of Italy since we got here in August! We arrived to the airport smoothly and got onto the plane after eating some bomb pizza and a whole sleeve of Italian cookies. Sidenote: Italian airport food is better than America’s REAL food, so I’m just screwed when I go back to the States.

We landed safely in Paris  at around midnight and found our hostel in Paris!

Another sidenote: I am not a hostel person. Call me spoiled or whatever but im not down for sharing bathrooms and rooms with people you don’t even know.

However, we met up with SHLEBY! WOOP! And met her roommates, who knew HASHIM FROM CALIFORNIA> CRAZY SHIT

Friday:

We got up super early to meet our travel group, that is WSA( weekend student adventures) ((Rick Steve’s son runs it)) (((Rick Steves writes very famous travel guides))) and we were on our way after the hotel breakfast of great French bread and some cereal. Our tour guide, Kevi, was really cool, and took us first to the hipster section of town. It was called the sacre coeur- I think- and we went to a really nice church that looks over the whole city. Then, we went to Notre Dame- which was by far the coolest church I have ever seen. It was such a contrast to the Ancient style churches in Rome because it is Gothic architecture and has really cool stained glass windows! Next, we walked and walked to the Latin quarter, where all the students hang out, and Emmy and I bought BERETS. Hell yeah, I am in love with mine. Finally, after walking all day, we ate lunch at 4. We ate little sandwiches with ham, cheese, and salad and a plain sugar crepe- not the best crepe I had. To burn off our lunch, we walked around

more and went to the Eiffel Tower! I could not believe how huge it was! Ali, Shelby, Emmy, and our new friends, Abby and Elizabeth and I took so many pictures and ran all around the grounds! Then, although I was not even hungry, we went to our nice dinner, where we ate bread with goat cheese,  escargot, salmon and potatoes, and chocolate cake! It was such a cute little French restaurant and such a great experience. Then, we went back to the Tower and took some more pics, but this time from the top! We skipped the line because we were with the tour group and we saw it sparkle! We ended our night back at the hostel and met up with Emmy’s friend in the student part of town at a bar! It was cool and we got great nutella and banana crepes for a midnight snack.

Saturday:

Again, we got up early and we made our way to the Lourve. It was the biggest museum ever and it had so many nice pieces of work in it…. Including the MONA LISA. It was  surreal seeing her actual face, but I totally thought it would have been bigger. Also, right before we saw her, I asked Kevi if there was anything by Da Vinci, and then he just stopped and goes um. The mona lisa? How could I forget?! To end our tour, Ali, Emmy and I walked around the Napolean Apartments, and saw the crown jewels! So pretty. Wish I had money to buy that bow diamond. Hmm. What did we do next? We had some free time for lunch and we ate a Croque Madame- with an egg on top- and then ate macarons at Laduree- a great macaron place that is famous. I got chocolate, coconut, chocolate and coconut, lemon, coffee, and pistachio. I cannot even choose a favorite, but if I did, I would choose pistachio. Or the coconut one. Or the chocolate one. Or all of them. 

NEXT WAS THE BEST PART OF THE TRIP:

We hurried back to our hostel to meet our group and go on a bike tour of the city. I was so excited to go bike riding it was ridiculous. We bought gloves, some water, and a Kit-kat bar, put on our green safety vests, and headed out to ride! It was so fun! We saw the Effiel Tower, a bridge, the river and a lot of sights. I have never laughed so hard riding a bike. Then, we made our way to our boat cruise on the Siene- which was amazing too! It was freezing on the boat, but I had a blast talking to Ali, Shelby, Emmy, Abby and Elizabeth over the grossest wine ever. We saw even more of the sites and then rode back to drop off our bikes, and went home. We ended the night somewhat early at 1:30, because we had to wake up at 4 the next morning to catch  our plane.

Sunday:

My alarm woke me up at 4 and it sucked waking up and leaving Paris. The trip was too short! We made our way to Rome safely though!

Vatican Trip

Tuesday, October 8th

The most exciting day this school week was visiting the Vatican Museum with my Art History class. Although it was pouring rain, we had a great time. Here are some highlights:






We started out by seeing some paintings by Rafael. The colors were so bright that I could not believe they were painted around the 1600's. Pictures will do them justice.

Everything was just so detailed, as you can tell!  And the colors were that bright in the dark light! Crazy stuff.

Okay, I lied. Wednesday was the most exciting day of the week. We went out to dinner with Ali's grandma and her great aunt to Taverna Trilussa, which I have been dying to go back to! It was amazing, just like last time! I had ravioli mimosa, and a nutella /cream/ cookie/ cake thing for dessert, which was literally one of the best things I have eaten here!

Already October!

I cannot believe that it is already OCTOBER! Also, I just realized that all my blog posts begin with me saying "I cannot believe how much time is going by, how is this time going by so fast, etc, etc," so I'm  sorry. It's just the way I feel. Obviously, you can tell.

So, last time I wrote was last Saturday! Nothing happened on Sunday that I can remember!

Monday, September 30th:

This day I think was pretty basic. Hahaha, the fact that a day in ROME is now "basic" is unreal. I went to class, gave an oral presentation, blah blah.

Tuesday, OCTOBER 1st:

WHOA. This day was pretty kewl. My art history class and I went to a church 2 minutes away from my house called Santa Maria in Trastevere. I had already been there, but it was cool because there was a huge conference for peace taking place inside; it was packed! Then, we walked to another church in Trastevere called Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. This was a smaller church that not a lot of people know about and it was really beautiful! There was even a convent there, so a nun gave us a special tour of some frescoes in a hidden room. HOWEVER, when I tried to take a picture, the nun yelled at me. A NUN IN ROME YELLED AT ME. It was pretty horrible. I recovered though and my roomies and I went out to dinner later at the restaurant right behind our house. It was really good, and since it was so close we will def. being going back.

Wednesday, October 2nd:

GREAT DAY AGAIN. With my Theology class we went to a church called Santa Maria Maggiore, and we got a VIP tour. It started off with going on the loggia (porch) of the church where I touched the mosaics, but then our guide took us into these back rooms. In the back rooms there were all these old robes of previous popes, a staircase made by Bernini, and a part of Paul's Letters! But it didn't stop there! The guide took us on the roof! You could see all of ROME, and it was so cool!

Santa Maria Maggiore

Staircase by Bernini

Pope's robes, so fashionable

On top of the Church

Thursday, October 3rd:

SHELBY ARRIVED TODAY! She got in at around 1, and I took her to Prati to show her our school and to walk around with Ali! Then, we went to DAR POETA again, and I could honestly live there for the rest of my life. That nutella calzone is too good.

Friday, October 4th:

We woke up today and were on our way! We first went to the Panethon and went inside, which I have already been in, but it was still cool! Then, we went to the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, and the Roman Forum, which was really great!  It's always great to see all the sights again! 

  Saturday, October 5th:

I had the most fun this day! We first went to the Castle- which is Castel San'Angelo that I pass on my way to school every single day. It was an old place that the popes used to live in/ hide from enemies (I think). Then, we went to the Spanish Steps and shopped on Via Del Corso- the fancy street in Rome. For dinner we ate at the place right behind our house and I got pasta with artichokes and tuna, which was delicious, of course. I finished dinner with a tartufo- one of my favorite desserts- which is chocolate and vanilla ice cream covered with dark chocolate. So good. 

CASTLE

This bird knows what a good view is

Pasta with tuna

Tartufo. stop.

Where I walk everyday for school UNREAL

Sunday, October 6th:

In the early morning, Shelby left :( Then, like a typical Sunday, Ali and I did homework all day and went grocery shopping.