Spring Break Photo Links

Pisa and Florence

Venice

Rome

Malta

Spring break... a couple of weeks later.

So... Spring break was more than a week ago and I'm a little behind on entries but I'll try to catch you all up on the past couple of weeks of my life, starting with Spring break.

Pisa

Friday, March 6- Four of us flew into Pisa, Italy. There I had my first taste of real Italian Pizza and gelato (both of which were hard to beat during the rest of the trip). We went and saw the Tower of Pisa and the Duomo. They were fascinating to see but there was not much more to see in Pisa. 

 ☜ holding up the tower of Pisa

Florence

Later on Friday- From Pisa, Bayley and I headed to Florence while the other two girls headed to Cinque Tierre to meet up with another group. After arriving in Florence, Bayley and I found our hostel, the Archi Rossi, fairly easily (after figuring out that there are three different kinds of street numbers). We met Melanie, one of our roommates and a German student traveling around Italy alone). For dinner, Bayley, Melanie and I ate free pasta in the hostel's kitchen. It was as great as its price. After a long day of traveling, we went to bed early.

Saturday- We woke up early to be one of the first in line at the Accademia (famous for Michelangelo's David). We were the third and fourth in line so we were able to just walk right in when it opened. Another good thing about being one of the first people in the museum is that we were able to see David without people crowded around it. The statue is spectacular. It's hard to even comprehend how Michelangelo was capable of that much detail in marble. The rest of the Academia was amazing as well.

After the museum, we went back to the hostel for a walking tour of the city. Our guide lead us through the city and gave us a basic overview of the city's history. Later, we visited the Duomo of Florence and another Basilica. The Duomo is beautiful from inside but I think the exterior might be even more beautiful than the interior.

  ☜ Bayley and me in front of Florence Duomo's Bell Tower

We had seen a note in the Duomo announcing English Mass services... so, we went to Mass that afternoon in the Duomo. I had never been to Mass before so I didn't know when to stand, sit, or kneel. It was a very interesting experience.

We spent the rest of the evening window shopping in the designer area of Florence.

Sunday- Another early morning: We were fourth and fifth in line for the Uffizi Gallery, which is one of the premier art collections in the world. Most importantly, it contains works by all four of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo). We walked around Florence some more before heading to the train station for our trip to Venice.

We arrived in Venice in the evening and spent some time getting to know the city (WARNING: that's a euphemism for getting lost...). We arrived at the hostel, which was not the best hostel I've stayed in but it worked for our purposes. We were both tired and a bit cranky from getting lost, so we just grabbed dinner and went to sleep pretty early. 

Monday- In the morning we got breakfast from a café and ate it in St. Mark's square. 

 ☜ St. Mark's Square

We watched people commute in for the day and others setting up souvenir, food and newspaper stands. After we watched Venice wake up, or commute into the city, we went to St. Mark's basilica. The church is basically sinking so the floor has been damaged quite a bit. We had to walk through it on platform walkways. The mosaics in the church are really beautiful; it is a shame that the church is being so badly damaged. After seeing the church, we went to a museum about the history of Venice. It was interesting to see how Venice used to be. I think that the city has become more of a tourist attraction lately but, it used to be a place with festivals and parties for the residents. It would have been a fun place to live. Next we headed back to the train station (and found our way  more easily than the day before). We were headed to Rome! We arrived at night and met up with the other 7 girls who had been in Cinque Tierre. We ate dinner and I had some awesome tiramisu. We went to bed in a room decorated with images of Roger and Jessica Rabbit...

Tuesday- We headed to the Vatican. After walking through the museum, which has some really great art, we go to the famous Sistine chapel. It was very cool. I just sat for a while taking in all the images the cover the ceiling and walls of the room. A young girl in front of me said "Mom, what's everyone waiting for?" It did seem as though everyone was waiting for something. We were all crowded around and the noise level steadily grew until a shout, of "Quiet please" from a guard, started the process again. But everyone was looking at what they had waited for. We then went to St. Peter's church where we saw a strange affection for the apostle Peter. To someone with limited experience with the Catholic church, it seemed peculiar how Peter is held at the same level of reverence as Christ.

That night we followed a walking tour from a guide book that one of the girls had brought. We saw the "four rivers" fountain. It is really cool because each of its four statues represent a region of the world. We also saw the Trevi fountain where we threw in coins. Apparently, that ensures me another visit to Rome. I'm OK with that.

Wednesday- We went to the Coliseum and the Forum this day. A couple of us got a guided lecture (not really a tour since we stayed in one place) of the Coliseum. He kept referencing Gladiator which I have not seen but I guess I should now that I've been there. The Forum was cool to see but I didn't really know what was what (though I pretended...). After a while, it was just more ruins after more ruins.

  ☜ in front of the Coliseum

Thursday- Thursday morning we flew to Malta. For those who don't know where or what Malta is (I sure did not until a few weeks ago), Malta is a small island country south of Sicily. As we were landing, I could see from coast to coast of the island. We spent most of the three days chilling at the beach, eating crepes, and walking around. It was a relaxing break from the tourism that I had done for the past week. We flew back to London Saturday night. 

☜ Taylor and I in Malta

Oh, and I got some awesome turquoise pants in Malta:

By the way, here's the links to my facebook albums:

Budapest

Vienna

Budapest and Vienna! (I know it's long but there's some gems of cheesy jokes sprinkled throughout to keep it interesting)

So... I got back early Sunday morning from my travel break to Budapest and Vienna. The trip was good but a couple setbacks kept it from being exceptional. So here's the lowdown on the trip (skip to the end if you'd like the Reader's Digest version instead of the play-by-play):

Play-by-Play Version

We (Cammy, Megan, Kyle and I) left Oxford on a bus at 1:00 Friday morning headed for Stansted airport. Our flight was at 6:35 that morning,

 arriving in Budapest about 10:00 AM. After a motion-sickness inducing cab ride, we arrived at our hostel which was a funky new-age kind of place, complete with incense and a Buddhist mural in our room. We took a walk through the Pest part of Budapest, after fig

uring out their public transportation system, and then crossed the bridge to the Buda side, which, as we soon found, is really hilly. We went to the top of a hill called "Castle Hill" where we saw a church and the Fisherman's Bastion, which looks like something you'd see in a Disney movie. While up there, we also went into a marzipan museum where they had made sculptures of buildings, people, and even movie scenes out of marzipan (a sugar and almond paste mix). It reminded me of Ace of Cakes, for those of you who have seen that show...

After that we climbed Gellért Hill to the Citadella, a former fortress. From the top, you can see almost all of Budapest.

The view from the Citadella

After the Citadella, it was late and we were really hungry, in Hungary... Should've gone to Turkey... As we walked towards our hostel, we stopped in  a few places that were open but they weren't serving food at that hour. Finally, we saw a pub that was opened and looked like it would still serve food. Ignoring the name, "Nevada Pub," we ventured through the door, ready for some authentic Hungarian cuisine. Instead we were greeted by a guy dressed as a cowboy. The whole place was decorated with American West posters, pictures, etc. Anyways, since we were starving and they were serving food, we ate there; but I didn't order the "Texas Steak" or anything else too American.

The next morning we woke up early to pack and head out to find the bus that would lead us to our caving guide. We finally found the bus to take us to him. After we dressed in our extremely attractive caving outfits, we headed to the entrance of the cave.

Me between a rock and a hard place 

(which happened to be another rock)>

The caving was amazing!!! It was so much fun. I didn't get too claustrophobic, which is something I was really worried about before going in. It took us about 2-2.5 hours to do the tour through it. The caves were not wet, nor did they have stalagmites or stalactites because it was formed by thermal waters flowing through the hills. It goes under the residential part of Buda almost to the Danube River.

After our caving, we headed to the train station. We bought gyros to eat while we waited for our train... and then we missed the train. Fortunately, there was another one leaving in a couple of hours. So, we walked around the neighborhood surrounding the train station while waiting. We got into Vienna at about 8:00pm and rode to the hostel in a taxi. I disappointed that this hostel didn't have incense. We ate dinner ate a restaurant near the hostel; we got there just in time- they were about to close the kitchen. We went back to the hostel and, like the crazy kids we are, went to bed. 

The next morning, we headed out the Schonbron Palace. It was the summer palace of the Hapsburg family. It was gorgeous inside! Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside so, I have none to show you of the interior... I guess you can google it if you want to see pictures.

Next we found our way to St. Stephen's Cathedral. But, before we went in, we found a restaurant with wienerschniztel. It was kind of expensive so, my friend Kyle and I split one wienerschniztel and a hamburger, which was much cheaper. It was really good! I don't think you can really go wrong by taking meat (in this case veal), breading it and then frying it. By the way in a continuation of our American-themed restaurant tour, the restaurant was named Chattanooga Cafe, but it did have Viennese cuisine. Next, we went into St. Stephen's cathedral which is huge and beautiful. We did not see his hand in the box because we didn't want to pay money for that. Across the street is St. Peter's cathedral which is not as huge but it is beautiful. 

<-St. Stephen's -exterior    

St. Peter's- ceiling>

We then made our way to the bus station which was difficult because we had people give us at least 5 different directions to the station. We caught the next bus to the Bratislava airport, which as I later found out, is in the tiny country of Slovakia. We were a couple of hours early so we just hung out in the airport's cafe drinking coffee. After the flight and bus ride from London to Oxford, we arrived at our house at 4:00 am Sunday. I was in bed by 4:20.

Reader's Digest Version (AKA for those of you that are not my grandparents or parents and don't care about every detail)

Thursday

-Budapest

-hostel had insence and Buddha mural.

-took us forever to figure out transport

-saw Pest

-saw Buda- climbed hills, saw buildings and views, went to marzipan museum

-ate at American West themed restaurant (it was the only one open)

Friday morning

- went caving. It was awesome- highlight of trip

Friday afternoon 

-missed train

Friday later afternoon

- rode later train to Vienna

-got to hostel, no incense 

Sat.

-Went to Shonbron Palace

-Ate Wienerschnitzel

-Went to St. Stephen's Cathedral

-Went to St. Peter's Cathedral

-Found bus to airport

-Hung out in airport

-Flew to London

Sunday Morning

-Arrived at house at 4:00am

-was asleep by 4:20

THE END

I'm leaving tomorrow night for my Spring Break trip to Italy and Malta- so keep a lookout for an entry on that trip.

On a different note, I found out this weekend that I for sure got the camp counselor job at ACU. So, I'll be in Abilene again for the summer.