All Around Italy!

We pretty much did Rome in a day! We took the bus to the main station, which is HUGE. We spent half an hour looking for a map. Then we got some authentic Italian Pizza, which was GREAT! Most of their crusts are really thin, except when you get to the Naples area. And each piece is like a quarter of the Pie! The food in general was AMAZING. (Molly was telling us that the American idea of Italian food is not always the case; it comes from the south of Italy, where they have huge portions and lots of people in the family and stuff. Not all Italian food is like that). Anyway, We went to San Maria Maggiore, a really pretty Church. Then we walked to the Barberini-fontana di Trevi, because Molly suggested the Trevi Fountain. But this wasn't the right one. We found the right one, and walked to it, It was pretty cool, lots of sculptures and stuff. Then we walked to the Pantheon, which was once again disappointing. Not many sculptures. Got some Gelato, which is AMAZING. (Italian Ice Cream, but so much better and richer) We kind of got lost trying to get to the Parliament building, which turned out to be disappointing. Then we decided to go to the Spanish Steps, because Molly suggested it. We were close to the Piazza del Popolo, which was cool, a nice fountain with statues and stuff. Lots of those Living Statues. Also, side note, pretty much every street has a Piazza, a little circle thing with an obelisk in the middle. But most of the obliques have Egyptian hieroglyphs...weird. Anyway, then we went to the Spaninsh Steps, which also weren't that great. Just steps. Woo Hoo. We decided we'd go try to see the Colosseum. Originally them. we were going to wait for Molly, but we figured what the heck, and walked there. On the way, they had this cool building decked out with statues. I guess the Italians call it the Typewriter, it's a modern building. We walked the Dei Font Imperiali, the main road to the Colosseum, and it had statues of the Cesars, which was neat. At the Colosseum, they have people dressed up like Romans to take your pictures with. So we walked all around te Colosseum, but couldn't find out how to get in. Apparently it closed at 4:30, so we figured we'd go with Molly later. Then, wince we still had a few hours to kill, we walked to the St. Giovanni in Laterano Church, which was beautiful. Lots of sculptures of saints, which were really neat. Then we went back to the Colosseum, walked around for a bit, and walked the Circo Massimo, a big grassy area. We took a break, cuz our feet were killing us. Then we walked along the Tevere river, past 9 bridges,m and past this cool castle of St. Angelo, which has three different layers, all built on top of each other. One is medieval, one is renaissance, and one is something else. It was a long way to get to Mollys, but we got there eventually.
(It was really weird being somewhere i don't' speak ANY of the language. I keep wanting to respond in French, that's the first other language that comes to mind. But i can't even ask 'do you speak English', because i dont' now how. But the weather was AMAZING...can't beat it. i think it's the first time i didn't have to wear a coat! and the food is amazing. And the little houses and shops are all Italian design and stuff, so it was a very good fist day. Lots of smokers, though)
When we got to Molly, she took us back to her place, talked a bit, had some pasta, checked e-mail, showered, pretty much relaxed, it was nice. But we had to wake up at 6 to get the train to Pompeii. Slept on the train to Napoli, which was our changeover. Got on a train to Pompeii, but we should have gone to Pompeii escavi, not the city of Pompeii, which we did. So we had to go back a few stops. But we met some nice older Americans, and talked to them and found it together. Ate lunch at a nice little place, more thin-crust pizza. Pompeii wasn't as cool as i was expecting. lots of parts of old stone buildings. Got to see some of the pottery and bodies that were preserved by the ash, that was cool. The city is REALLY big, so we spent a long time walking. We took a break in t a cool Colosseum, really nice view of the city and Mt. Vesouvious, because Pompeii is on a hill. On the way back we split a thick crust pizza, which was good, but salty. Got the train tickets, but it was supposed to leave in 3 minutes, so we were freaking out, and some guy helped us. We thought he worked there, but he wanted euro and stuff. Kinda awkward, because we didn't' really have much change to give him and he got mad. Anyway, we got back to Molly, had more pasta, played chess, and slept.
Next day was a fairly early start. Went to the Colosseum, whcih was cool. Fairly big, and i guess they still have concerts and stuff there. I think there was a jazz concert coming up, beachhead they piped in some Jazz, which was cool, if not the ambiance I was expecting. Colosseum was neat. In the center they had a bunch of particians, i guess, that would have been under the wooden stage, for animals, and to make channels when they had naval battles. Before that, we went up to the Foro Romano and the Palantino, which was cool. You buy tickets for all three, those and the Colosseum, so we skipped the long lines at the Colosseum, and got our tickets there. Then, after the Colosseum, we went to the Vatican. Saw St. Peter's Basilica first, because the line for the he Sistine chapel and musi vaticani was super long. We got to see a tv screen of the pope giving mass, which was cool. But it started raining, while we were in line for the basilica, but it was still nice. The basilica was cool big, lots of neat sculptures and wavy columns. La Pieta was there! Then we tried to se the Cupola, and waited in line for it, but it was like 7 uro, so we changed our minds. But we met a nice family from the states and talked to them in the line, so it was nice. Then we waited in line for the museum, which took an hour, but moved quickly. The musi was cool, lots of sculptures. The Thinker, this famous one with the guy and his sons and the snake..i forget what i's called. Anyway, at the end was the Sistine chapel, which was huge and amazing. Also saw the classical school of Athens, which took up an entire wall and is part of an entire room, that was really neat. After that, our feet really hurt, but we walked over to St. Angelos again, but we couldn't really see it. Then we went back to Mollys, had a nap, and took her out to a neat little Italian restaurant, the falcone. We had this cool fried rice and cheese things, called panzerotti or something like that. Then we got tickets to Florence, which we had to wake up at 4 in the morning for. Napped on the train, and got to Florence fine.Walked past San Lorenzo market, which was really cool. picked up some beaks and stuff for hemp making. Then we found the Duomo, which was beautiful! All green stone and intricate sculptures. Saw the bell tower, which was really big and cool, done in the same style. Then we saw the Bapistry Doors, which were all Gold, and had scence from the bible on them. Really, really neat. Then went into the Leonardo da Vinci museum, which was kinda cool. They had a sculpture garden, which was cool, and had a copy of Michelangelo's David. And some Adonis one, and Hercules, too. We waited in line to see a weird little thing, which was kinda useless, just a lame museum. Then we went down tot eh bridge called Ponte Vecchio, which had Tons of Jewlery, all gold and diamonds and stuff. Then we waited for the Musi D'Uffizi, which was cool. Had lots of famous stuff, some da Vinci, Botticelli (birth of Venus, and La Primavera), Caravvagio, Durer, Michelangelo, raphel, titiann, Rubens, Rembrant...lots of them. We had to miss the Bargello, which had Donatellos David, and the Accademia Dell'Arte, which had Michelangelo's David, but it was ok. We walked back, got a t rain ticket to Pisa. It was freezing, raining, windy, and miserable. But we saw the tower, which was neat, and smaller than i expected. Got some cool pictures. We got tickets to the other train station we were leaving out of, because it wasn't the main station. Then we went to dinner. But i guess we thought the ticket to get to the other station was at 12, when really it was at 11, so we stayed to late at dinner and had to walk in the freezing rain to get to the train station,. Not fun. And the station was really sketchy, and out train was 45 minutes late. We didn't' get out of there until 2:30 in the morning, and the train was so crowded, we had to fight to get any where. We finally found our compartment, but the whole thing sucked. We got in around 6, so we went walking around Venice, which was really neat. Lots of small houses, canals, and by midday there were lots of vendors. I spent too much money, got more beads, a shirt, and mostly food. But at like 8 in the morning, the tourist info place finally opened, and we got a map. We saw the Ponte di Rialto, which is a famous bridge, i guess. Saw San Marco Basilica, which was almost as intricate as the one in Florence. I realized i hadn't needed to delete pictures, silly me. So i don't have as many as i'd like, but i'll get some from Dan. There was also this really tall tower, and a live orchestra playing, which was neat. We were going to go into Duncale Palazza, but we cheaped out and walked around some more. Ate at a kinda good place, and wandered around aimlessly for a bit. Went into a casino, which was interesting. Dan played Blackjack, and broke even, which is good. In order to get in, you had to pay 10euro, but you got a ten euro chip. The kicker is, that chip is non-redeemable, you have to play with it. So dan got out on his first try, then played with mine and got 20 euro, so we each got the ten we put in back. We then walked around some more, ate at various places and had lots of good pastries. Then we left on the train for Bergamo station, which is by Milan. Walked around Bergamo for a bit, it was kinda nice. But the airport SUCKED. I guess they had a policy against sleeping, so every hour or so they'd coe around, wake everyone up, and move us to the other side of the station. Grr... But we got to London, and it was Snowing! Kind cool. Dan had wanted to go into London, but he changed his mind, which was good for me, i didn't want to pay the 25 euro to take the train there and back, because i'd already been to London. We had like an 8 hour layover, and it was Easter. But it was nice, there was this really big window, and we sat underneath it and read in the sunlight, it was great. Then we got back to Shannon, took a bus, and i slept for like 14 hours! took me all day to upload pictures and blogs, so now i'm going to bed.

Pictures are here:

Italy

Dublin for St. Patricks Day!

Got to the bus and airport, no problem. Got to Dublin eventually, by this time we were starving. But all the places had jacked up their prices for St. Patties Day. We eventfully found a fairly good cheap place, and had some breakfast food.s Then we walked around for a bit, found our hostels and stuff. Brette had tons of trouble getting out of her second night, because she wanted to leave early. My hostel strait-up cancelled my booking without telling me. I guess there was a huge thing going on, and they said they sent an e-mail, but i never got it. They did find me another hostel, but it was 27 euro instead of 17. I'm going to try to get them to pay for it. Anyway, dealing with those things took up a while. Afterwards, we wandered around. Saw Trinity College, which was pretty, but the Book of Kells was closed. We tried to find some Jazz Bars, and some random guy on the street told us where one of them was, and also explained all the famous Irish musicians over the ages. We were supposed to go to JJ SMiths, but that jazz didn't start until 8, so we went to try to find food. On the way i saw these cool braziers with actual fire outside some shop, and went over to check it out. Turns out they had live Jazz upstairs, which was sweet! It was the Dublin Jazz orchestra, and they were really good. They played a lot of stuff we had played in our jazz band at Muhlenberg, and had some cool vocals and solos. We met up with Cielito, then pretty much passed out. Before that, we ate at Supermacs, because everything else was too expensive (no relation to a McDonalds with Super Powers...I asked)
On St. Patties day, we got up, met at their hostel, and met a bunch of other people from their hostel, which was cool. Two dudes were from Zimbabwe, one guy was Israeli, and another girl was American. They were pretty cool. We saw the parade, which was neat. They didn't' really have any floats, only two, a cool robot and a motorcycler. Not many balloons, either. An owl and some cool dragons, and they made them dip down over the crowd, it was cool. Mostly walking people dressed up in really neat costumes. There were so many American marching bands, though...i think more than the Irish stuff! We saw Council Rock South, props to Jeff. Grabbed some pub food and drinks at one or two different pubs, pretty cool. Did the pub crawl for a bit, but it was really crowded, so we went back to the hostel to hang and play some games and stuff, which was fun. THen Dan and I caught the bus to the airport, and caught the plane to Luton, London, and slept at the airport. It sucked. Got up early, slept on the plaine, and off to Italy!!


Here's the Album:

Dublin for St. Patties

Scotland!

We left early in the morning on Wednesday. No reason to, but had to make sure we were there early, or course. Got to the airport, got in, no problem. They had free samples of Irish Whisky in the airport duty free store, which was cool. Plane ride was fine, got some reading in. Got to Scotland fine...bumpy ride and lots of wind, but it was good. Emma met us at the airport, and helped us get on the bus, which was nice of her. We got a bus to the Edinburgh bus station, which is right near the royal mile, which is the mile between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace. So Emma's flat was pretty centrally located. We dropped some stuff off at Emmas, then went to climb Arthur's seat, which is this cool rock formation thing. We hit a crazy storm on the way yp, and waited for it to pass in a parking garage. We walked up a little crag, then i decided to do the actual Arthur's Seat. (which apparently is named for some actual Arthur king guy, not the Mythical King Arthur. Ahh well) SO WINDY!! I couldn't even stand up properly at the top, it was crazy! Fun, though. Then we came back down, had lucn at a nice Spanish place Emma recommended, and went out for drinks with Emma and her friends, which was cool. We went to Greyfriars bobby, which there is a story about. I guess there was this guy and a dog, and they were insuperable, and when the guy died, the dog slept on his grave every night until he died. I guess Disney make a movie about it. Then we went to a bar that had flavoured shots, that was kind of cool. Then we went to Nicol Edwards, which is one of the most haunted pubs in England. Emma had friends there, and they gave us a free tour! Pretty sweet. Not really scary, but cool catacombs under the pub.
Next day we took a train to St. Andrews, which was a really nice, quaint Scottish town. We had to do some finagling, because we took the wrong train, but we got there eventually. I guess there is a famous golf course there, which Brette was big into, so we took lots of pictures there. The club house was so fancy, though! So expensive! Sheesh! We walked around a bit,had a nice lunch of tomato soup and sandwich in some pub. We also saw St. Andrews Campus, which was really neat. We saw this amazing cathedral..half of it had fallen over, but there were some walls that were still standing...it was awesome! there was a graveyard around it, and a wall from a castle behind it, as well....So cool! We headed back after that. We ate at a kinda fancy resturaunt back in Edinburgh, and had Haggis, which was actually really good. Had traditional Scottish desert, cranachan, which was really good. Fruit and whipped cream type stuff, which shortbread, very nice. Then we came back to Emmas, watched little miss sunshine cuz brette hadn't seen it, and fell asleep.
Next morning we got the bus to Pitlochry, which is by Perth, and is the Gateway to the Highlands. It was amazing! Reminded me of New England, actually. First time i saw actual trees, and mountains in the background, and lakes and rivers,....it was awesome. There was a neat little bookshop right by the train station, and it had really nice copies of Lord of the Rings, which i got for 50 pence each! I shouldn't have, I don't' have space to bring them back, but i couldn't resist. We walked up a little nature trail, by this damn that has fish ladders, but the salmon werent' in season. We stopped at the McKay bar (for mike), and has a really good steak stew. They had Pie and a Pint deal, so we had that, haha. We then walked to the Brewery, but it was closed. When we asked about it in the hotel pub, they gave us free samples of the microbrews, which was really nice of them! They tasted pretty good. Then we walked around main street, which was nice, and walked past a farm to catch our bus back. it was sooo pretty there. We saw some sheep and stuff. Got the train back, and went to the world's end pub, which was good. So called because it is on the spot that the old city ended, before the expansion, so it was the end of their world.
Next day we did the stuff around Edinburgh. Got a bus tour, which was good. We heard a bagpiper, which Brette was very excited about, but he didn't' sound very good. All dressed up, though. Edinburgh Castle was really cool. its on a huge mountain/hill. Emma told us that by law, everyone is required to be able to visit the war memorials, and there is one in the castle. So we asked to go see it, and they walked us up into the castle, and we didn't' have to pay to get in! We walked around a bit, trying to find the cafe where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter. We found one, but there was supposed to be another, real one. We looked for it for a long time, but couldn't find it. Eventually we ate at this cool college hippy type coffee shop thing. Really neat. Then we saw the campus of the university of Edinburgh, which was ok. We came back to Emmas and decided to go see the Palace of Holyrood before going to see the monuments and stuff around. We stopped in some shops, and decided not to actually go into the palace. The girls wanted to shop instead of going to the monuments, so i decided to climb Arthurs seat again. Then we ate a the tollbooth pub, which was nice and quaint. Then we went to Emmas recital, which was really good. We tried to find soe traditional music, but we couldn't and gave up. Off to Dublin next!

Here's the Album:

Scotland

Cork Day Trip

Quick post today, not all that much actually happened. I had a shindig over here last night, and we all agreed to wake up and get to the bus station for 8 so we could get the bus into the city and then into Cork, where we were going for a day trip, provided through the school. I guess i got it in my head that i had to wake up at 8, not be there for 8, because i set my alarm for 8, not 7:30. So everyone else assumed i had taken an earlier bus, and left without me. So i was late, had to wait in the bus station for an hour before the next bus came, and it was a not a good situation all around. But I did get some reading in, so it's not all bad.
We i got there and finally met up with people, we waited around for the hop-on-hop-off bus, but it took forever, so we decided to wander around for a bit. It's actually a really nice city, i like it better than limerick. Lots of side streets, little shops and markets and cafes and stuff, very quaint.
so we had a lunch ticket for a museum cafe, and we walked to the museum. It was pretty good, nothing spectacular. They actually had representations of venus di milo and some other stuff we saw at the louvre, so seeing these reproductions was kinda lame, haha. But lunch was really good, I had sea bass.
Then we wandered around for a bit more, waiting for the bus, which finally came and took us to the goal, also known as a jail. it was kinda cool, we had tickets for an audio tour, which was long, but interesting, i guess. Then we got back on the bus, which has some cool information about the city. We saw some cool churches and stuff on the way, which was neat. Then we shopped around for awhile longer, then took the bus back, and here we are! A fun day, if not a lot that happened. But next week is Scotland, Dublin, and Italy, so more from that later!

Justin