So for those of you that haven’t been to Dubrovnik, you must put that on a list of things to see before you die. It is by far one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited, if not the most beautiful. Dubrovnik is a gem in itself, and that does not even include the breathtaking ocean views. The water is so clear that it is not uncommon to see the bottom of the Adriatic, and cliff jumping is considered the norm. I had no idea what to expect when we arrived in Croatia, I honestly had never even heard anything about Croatia until SAS. But I am sure glad I did. While this port was a bit more relaxing then Spain and Italy, it held more natural beauty than I could ever imagine. Dubrovnik is not called the “Pearl of the Adriatic” for no reason, it most definitely deserves that title. Anyways, on to my daily activities!
Monday, July 11th:
We arrived in Dubrovnik today, and I was excited to see what all of the hype was all about. So me and what I thought was a few friends decided to walk around the city, turned into quite the large group of us. While I love surrounding myself with lots of people, just a word to the wise, traveling with a large group could not be more annoying and stressful!! So while we did get a slow start, we finally arrived to the “Old City” which is pretty much the epitome of Dubrovnik. The entire city is surrounded by the city walls, and the ground is beautifully tiled with cobble stone that could be confused with tile… aka it was so smooth! It was so pretty. So we enter the old city and walk around, go to the oldest pharmacy in the world (I think) and walk into some churches and monestaries and such. But what is so cool about Dubrovnik is that there are all these little ally ways that are so picturesque and cute, and have the nicest little restaurants. So to get out of the heat, a group of us walked up one of the alleys that turned out to be quite residential, and was really beautiful and quaint.
After a while, the large group turned into just Olivia, Tim, and I. We found the second oldest synagogue in Europe (the first being Prague), and looked around the museum and the synagogue! It was cool to finally see some jewy-ness considering I had been in enough Cathedrals and Basilicas and what not to fulfill my life quota. The synagoge was small but it was so beautifully decorated. We talked to a rabbi that was there, so that was nice to hear his take on the Jewish communities in Croatia. Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, is where the majority of the Jews are located. After the synagogue I was instantly pulled into Michal Negrin (for those of you that have been to Israel…. You know what I’m saying) and had to look at the gorgeous jewelry. I made the mistake of not buying any jewelry in Israel, so I naturally had to redeem myself by buying some earrings in Croatia. :D They are so pink and sparkly!!! So great.
After my small heart attack of excitement, Olivia goes into a museum, and Tim and I decide to walk around and explore. We find this super cute marketplace that smells so strongly of lavender! All of the little stands are selling bags of lavender that makes the whole street smell great. We continue exploring and find ourselves at the bay outside of the walls and see the beauty that Dubrovnik truly holds. We take in the red roofed houses that top the rolling hills, dotted with purple flowers. The site truly was breathtaking. We walk around the outside of the walls before somehow finding our way back to meet with Olivia. We decide that it is lunch time, so we eat at a pizzeria (what else) and drink some delicious Croatian beer.
Afterwards, Olivia leaves to go to her villa but Tim and I still decide to walk the walls. It’s kind of hard to explain without posting pictures, but I will do the best I can. So Dubrovnik is completely surrounded by walls (imagine Great Wall of China-esqe) to protect it because It’s been involved in quite a few wars. I would be able to tell you if I paid attention in Global Studies, but I don’t…..so yeah. However you are allowed to walk on top of the wall, which essentially gives you a bird’s eye view of the city. We get some gelato (of course…. A scoop of “cookies” and “snickers” really made for a great afternoon snack) and head over to the walls. While the walls are beautiful, I realized that they are not for the athletically unfit. The stairs are very steep and the heat doesn’t help, but the views are definitely worth the sweat. So we walk around the whole wall, and realize that Dubrovnik is by far one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen. While on the walls, we see both of Dubrovnik’s well known “cliff jumping” bars. It is SO COOL. You walk to the bars and they are all outside obviously and you can buy a drink and then CLIFF JUMP into the sea. It’s so cool!!!! I never went to the cliff jumping bars but did experience a little bit of cliff (more like large rock) jumping. When I can post pictures, I will so you can understand more ☺.
We finish walking the walls and are beyond exhausted, so we start heading back to the ship. I got separated from the group I was walking with and got a little bit lost, which was scary, but ended up giving me a great walking tour of the harbor! Needless to say I was never so excited to see the MV explorer as I was that afternoon. I finally get back to the ship and start getting ready for the evening. We head out to dinner and I eat the most delicious risotto ever, and continue to soak up the rest of the evening in this beautiful city.
Tuesday, July 12:
I kind of take it easy today, and don’t really make it off the ship until about 2:30 pm. However Jess, Erica, and I try to find this marketplace (which we never found), but end up finding a super nice area instead! We take the bus to what we think is the marketplace, but end up in this super cute area with lots of restaurants and hotels and such. We meander down the area and head straight to the beach! The only unfortunate thing about Dubrovink is that there are no sandy beaches on the mainland, just on the Islands. So by beach, I really mean rocks that lead right into the water. We relax for the afternoon and then head back to the ship. Erica, Melissa, and I head back to that same area to grab some food, and to buy tickets for an island hopping cruise for the following day.
Wednesday, July 13:
Erica, Katie, Jess, Melissa, and I all go on this Island hopping boat tour that takes us to three islands around Dubrovnik. We go to Kolocep, Sipan, and then Laupid (idk how to spell that). The boat trip was so nice and soothing. We go to Kolocep for about 40 minutes, and then head back to the boat to head to Sipan. Kolocep had a very nice beach and a great place for relaxation, but Sipan wasn’t so much the same. Sipan was very hot, and not as beachy as we would have liked. However I ate a magnum bar (YUMMMMM) in Sipan so I can’t complain. We eat a delicious lunch on the boat, and then head over to Laupid. We get three hours to beach it up at Laupid, and we take full advantage of that. We head to the other side of the Island, which is apparently where the nicer beach is, and run into a bunch of SASers! We have a great time playing around in the water and cooling off from the disgusting heat. We then head back to the ship after our very relaxing day of Island hopping. We eat dinner on the ship, and start getting ready for our final night out in Croatia! SAS really likes to do everything together, so of course about 300ish of us go to the same club, which ends up being super fun!
Thursday, July 14:
Erica, Jordan Edelheit (not my roommate, who is Jordan Palisi), and I, head out to do some shopping and cliff jumping for our last day in Croatia. We stop at the grocery store located right next to our ship, and buy a baguette and some cheese to eat for breakfast/ lunch. We shop around and I buy my bracelet for the country (it’s super cool) and some post cards! We then find our way to the beach because sometimes Dubrovnik is SO HOT that you literally have to get in the water before you melt or something. So we go to this area where you can cliff jump….but by cliff jumping I mean jump from a small boulder hahaha. Unfortunately I got very nervous and it took me approximately 20 minutes to jump off the rock, but I finally did it and it was so fun!! The water was so perfect and you could see right down to the bottom. We spend some time treading in the water and then go on a desperate hunt to find some shade. We find a bench right on the “bay” (or whatever you call the area where all the boats are parked) and dig into our typical European lunch. The bread was so fresh and the cheese (which I don’t even like normally) was delicious. Jordan bought a chocolate bar earlier, but that turned into a nutella like state, so we spread that on our bread as well, and that is SO GOOD. After relaxing in the shade and taking in the last hours of Dubrovnik, Erica and I head back to the ship. I find an internet café before I have to leave, and get some much needed facebook time in ☺.
While Croatia was definitely a more relaxing port, It has definitely been one of my favorites so far. Now we have two more days at sea and we arrive in Greece on Sunday! Expect many Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants references ☺
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Hola Barcelona/ Ciao Bella!!!
Barcelona/ Italy Blog Post
Hello Everyone! I know that it’s been a while since I’ve updated, but that’s because I’ve been traveling all around Spain and Barcelona. I have absolutely zero concept of time, but I know I was in Spain on June 27-30 and then in Italy on July 2-8. I will go through the general details of each day so you can live vicariously through me (obvs).
Monday, June 27th:
I arrive in the morning and walk around Barcelona on Las Ramblas (this huge touristy street with lots of street vendors and such) and walked literally like five miles to this beautiful cathedral called Le Sigrada Familia and it was SO breathtaking. Gaudi (an artist/ architect) started it but got killed in the middle of it so they've been continuing to build it for like over 50 years even though he's dead. It's really amazing though. Along the way we stopped to eat some Tapas and I had this delicious egg and potato omelet thing with Spanish beer and it was like mixed with Lemon and it was so good. I also ate something called Chocolate con churros, which is like melted chocolate mixed with milk and churros to dip it in and it was SO GOOD. I walked around with this girl Jordan (not my roommate who is also named Jordan) but she's Jewish and super awesome and this girl named Tyra. So then that night we get back to the boat and I see Olivia (one of the girls I went to Ibiza with) and she invites me to dinner at this Tapas place with a bunch of people. We go to dinner at like 9:15 and we don't get seated till 10:00!!! Except it was sooooooo fun and delicious! The restaurant is called Taller De Tapas and it was really fun. Dinner ended at like 11:30, so then afterwards we headed to a club (or Disco as Europeans call it) which was early for Barcelona, considering people don’t even start going out to clubs until around 1:30 am. While it was a late night, I definitely had a great time.
Tuesday, June 28th:
I wake up after hardly enough sleep to pack whatever I can fit into my northface backpack and head to the airport for our 12:00 flight. We arrive in Ibiza after an hour and were all exhausted, so we headed to our apartment/ hostel, which was surprisingly pretty nice, and take a nap. After our nap, me, Sam, and Olivia, meet up with my friend Paul, and his friends Nick and Natalia. We head to the other side of the Island, San Antonio to watch the sunset, which we ended up missing both nights ☹. After that, we walk up and down the center of San Antonio on a street that is pretty identical to Bourbon Street. I purchase a chicken baguette (SO GOOD) and eat while taking this crazy street in. We head over to a club called Es Paradis, where we are attending Fiesta Del Agua, which is essentially a water party. We are dancing and having a great time till about 5 am (crazy lifestyle I’m telling you), when the water starts flowing from the ceiling! There is a sunken area in the middle of the dance floor that basically turns into a pool for the last hour and a half of the night. There is definitely nothing like that in the states, but I’m glad I was able to experience it. It ended up being a great evening!
Wednesday, June 29th:
Slept in till 1:30 and then went to eat lunch at the “Haddock” aka the HARD ROCK café. We dined for a while and I drank coffee with Ice Cream in it and it was sooooooo good. While Olivia was having a nice conversation with the Canadians next to us, me and Sam headed to the beach to soak in some rays, and were shocked to find a lot of…..boobs! This was my first topless beach experience, which was a bit shocking but very “European” at the same time. We thought it was great. We also got yelled at for laying in lawn chairs and not paying for them, and apparently there was a huge sign that told us we needed to, but me and Sam had no idea. After the beach, we head to get ready for another crazy Ibiza night! We take the bus to the other side of the Island again, and dine at this delicious restaurant that was located right on the water. While it was a little pricey, the delicious Sangria was definitely worth it. We then head out to Space, where we see Armin Van Buren (insane) and Fedde Le Grand (Who I really liked) and a bunch of other DJ’s. It was SO AWESOME. I definitely need to go back to experience more of the insanity that is Ibiza. Who wants to come? :D
Thursday, June 30th :
We get back to the ship at around 8:00 am, so we naturally head to the dining hall to get some breakfast! I then sleep until 2 pm, and wake up to hang out with Herman and Nauzli (two of my AKPsi brothers)! I took a cab to Herman’s apartment where I meet him, Brittany Yary’s (another bro) sister, and her co-worker. We take the metro (I had no idea there was one….it def would have saved me a lot of money :/) back to Las Ramblas to meet up with Nauzli and Timpane (a bro who I met for the first time!) and go to the Catedral de Barcelona which was beyond beautiful. I had to start heading back to the ship, so I stopped to exchange my travelers checks and got insanely ripped off and probably got 100 less euros than I should have.
After Spain, we have one day in between on the ship before Italy. So on July 1st we had the Sea Olympics! The Sea Olympics were pretty fun and because my team’s color was purple, I very much enjoyed wearing my favorite color!! While it was fun, everyone was recovering from Spain and getting ready for Italy so it was a bit hectic on the ship.
Saturday, July 2:
WE ARRIVE IN ITALIA!!! I was very excited to be in Italy, even though it was in Naples, which I will get into more details later. Erica, Katie, Shane, Mia, Jordan (roomie), and I, wake up earlyish to head out to Pompeii! We struggle to find the metro train business, but we finally find it after following some other SASers. We take the metro to Pompeii and walk around the really cool city of ruins. However, it is quite warm, so we only last a few hours. After Pompeii, we head to Sorrento, which is the most BEAUTIFUL city ever. It is the beginning of the Amalfi Coast, so it is just breathtaking. We got a delicious lunch (lemme tell you, the food in Italy is literally to die for), drank some delicious wine, and relaxed in the shade for a while. We then walked around the city, got some amazing Gelato, and were planning on going to Capri. However, the ferry to Capri was a bit pricier than we expected, so we didn’t end up going. We took the bus back and spoke to some locals, who were so great to talk to. We stopped at this pizza place right outside of the Train Station, and this meal was probably the cheapest and most delicious in all of Naples. We were all a bit delirious with exhaustion, but it was really fun to just sit and eat some AMAZING Naples pizza. We start heading back to the ship, and on our way home, we had a bit of an altercation with a vespa. This guy was riding a vespa on the sidewalk (not as uncommon as one would think in Europe) and like was literally riding right through our group of friends. Us, being in a pizza coma didn’t really realize what was going on and before we knew it he almost ran me and Erica over while attempting to steal Katie’s purse. Luckily he wasn’t as successful as he would have liked to be, and only broke her strap but didn’t end up actually grabbing the purse. We were all definitely shaken up from that and all vowed that we hated Naples hahahah. We didn’t do anything that night because we were all exhausted and kind of scared
Sunday, July 3:
We woke up and the six of us that decided to travel around Italy together (Katie, Erica, Jessica, Rob (my neighbor), and Shane went to the Pompeii museum in Naples. We looked at all of the artifacts from Pompeii which was really cool to see the ancient statues and such. We then decided to eat lunch at this little restaurant that lured us in by saying, “Come in! Drink!” We assumed that they knew English but those four words were literally the only English that everyone in the restaurant knew. So it was definitely a bit of a struggle with the language barrier, especially when I said that we wanted plates, and the waitress thought that I meant ice. However we ate some decent spaghetti and survived the restaurant without too many problems. However, we realized that in italy, restaurants will often bring you food that you don’t order, and while you think it’s free, it most definitely isn’t. At this restaurant we went to, the waiter brought us these three huge plates of meat and canteloupe, and while it looked good, none of us were planning on eating it. So while me, the obnoxious American, tried to explain using my hands that we didn’t want it, they did not understand what we were saying so I had to resort to literally handing the plate back to the waiter and shaking my finger, “no.” I thought it was funny, but am definitely glad that we realized that because those three plates of food we weren’t going to eat would have cost us a whopping 15 euros….which is like 23 dollars ish. After lunch, we head to Sorrento again because we can’t stand to be in Naples any longer, and we walk around and get gelato. We head back to the ship around 5 to get ready for our night train to VENICE! We head to the train station in a rush because we were worried we were going to miss our train. We get there and the board says that our train is CANCELLED. We are freaking out because we don’t understand what that actually means, and we soon find out that the train is only delayed, but that it is delayed 90 minutes. So we sit around at the train station eating McDonalds (don’t judge me) because there is nothing else to do. We finally get on our train and it looks like Harry Potter! Well not really. Our group of six was separated into 4 and 2, and even though we thought we could all be in the same car, we were not so lucky. But, we hung out and talked for a while in one of the cars (and by car I mean compartment) until we got tired enough to fall asleep. I kept waking up in a panic because we had to make a connection and I kept worrying that we were going to miss it. Also, my “bed” was not the most comfortable and considering I slept with my valuables tied to me, it was a bit difficult to get comfortable. We arrive in Bologna (our connection) at like 5:30 am, and are barely awake. We then mosey onto the train and finally arrive in Venice!!
Monday, July 4th: HAPPY 4TH OF JULY (Even though we didn’t do anything American)
So because of the night train, I can’t really separate my days, soooooo sorry. Anywayssss we get to Venice with all of our stuff and start looking around for a hostel. We finally find a hotel which has AC/ fans/ and private bathrooms, so we consider ourselves likely. We put our stuff in storage because our room is not ready yet, freshen up a bit, and then head out to enjoy Venice! I get an espresso (not as large as I wanted….I clearly was confused) and a Croissant which is a typical Italian breakfast. We then start walking around the city in search of the Grand Canal! Which we kind of stumbled upon. We were taking in the beauty of the city, and realized how lucky we were to actually be seeing Venice. We then find a gondola and I convince him to give us a ride for 10 euro a piece (20 euro cheaper at least than pretty much everyone else) and he does! We were so happy that we were riding in a gondola and it was definitely worth the 10 euros. We then eat at this delicious place that our gondola driver (or whatever) recommended, and ate and relaxed and drank wine and had a great relaxing lunch. We finish and decide to go to this famous square, St. Mark Piazza or whatever, get some gelato and decide to go home. Except for the fact that we got SO LOST. Venice is not easily navigatable so we got really lost and the 20 minute walk took us like an hour. We go take naps and shower, and go to this American-esqu (kind of) pizza place because it has free wi-fi. The food was pretty good, but we just wanted to take advantage of the free wi-fi, that wasn’t even very reliable. We then go back to our hotel, and Erica and I decide to walk around the city ourselves. However, Venice does not have a very hoppin night life, so we really just walked around and talked because there wasn’t much to do.
Tuesday, July 5
We wake up and do some SERIOUS shopping in Venice (well I do…) and soak up the rest of the city. Oh, I forgot that me and Rob went to go find the Jewish Ghetto which really turned out to be just kind of an empty square, but it was cool to see Hebrew written on the buildings. We then stopped to get lunch and I ate an entire pizza (oops hahahah) which was DELICIOUS before we meet up with the rest of the crew to take the train to Rome. Because we are cheapos, we take the 6 hour train ride vs. the 3 hour one because its 30 euros cheaper. So we get on the train with some bottles of wine so that we can entertain ourselves during the six hours. We end up having a great time, even though six hours did seem like a pretty long time when we were aching to get to Rome. We finally arrive in Rome and I take out my handy dandy guide book (Let’s Go! Europe….Seriously I would recommend that to all students) to find this hostel called Alessandro’s Palace. I correctly navigate us to the hostel, and we book our rooms! The hostel was super nice, had its’ own bar, with free pizza at 8:30 and complimentary breakfast and coffee in the morning. We also got free wi-fi and the six of us got our own room, which was super nice. We unload our stuff, get some free pizza, and then shower and get ready for dinner. We finally make it out to dinner at around 10ish, and go to this street called Campo De Fiori (thanks Hadas ☺). We picked the first restaurant we saw, and it was SO DELICIOUS. I literally had the best Pesto sauce of my entire life and could have eaten a whole freaking bowl of it. Yum yum yum yum. After that we go to this nightclub/bar thing where we hang out for a bit before we all headed home for the evening. But as a side note,
Wednesday, June 6:
Before I continue, I must let everyone know that I LOVE ROME. I fell in love with the city because I love how modern meets ancient, and it is absolutely full of life. Okay now….We wake up early (which was only a good idea in theory….hahahah) to do some serious Roman Site seeing. However, none of us know where we are going! So we start randomly walking around Rome until we find this monument which I thought were the Spanish steps, but were definitely not. It was a monument dedicated to the first king of Italy……. But still very beautiful! We then walk among some ruins (so great….I love ruins) to find the Coliseum!! It was so great and naturally I sang “This is what dreams are made of” on my way to reenact the Lizzie McGuire movie. We walk around the Coliseum because we were too cheap and tired to want to wait in line to go inside. We run into some Gladiators and one of them ends up being Israeli! So we get the super touristy gladiator picture foooo free. Yeeee. We then go to find food, and unfortunately we had our worst meal ever in Italy. We went to this restaurant that was run by Indians, so that was mistake number one. The food looked like we could have heated it up ourselves, and it was basically a huge rip off. So a lesson to everyone out there, don’t freaking eat at restaurants right next to huge tourist monuments! They are overpriced and not good at all. So then we continue on our way and make our way to the Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain! We struggled to find them, but luckily we found them with relativity no difficulty.
The coolest thing about Rome is how these ancient monuments are just located in the middle of a modern city. Like the Spanish steps are just at the end of this really nice shopping street, and the trevi fountain is kind of hidden within some buildings. And while they were both so beautiful, there were SO MANY TOURISTS, so it was a bit overwhelming. Then after the Spanish steps, we naturally went to go eat Gelato because I ate it every day in Italy… yum! Then we start making our trek to the Vatican… or to the metro to go to Vatican city. So we got there and me being Jewish obvi I didn’t think that I would like the St. Peter’s Basicila, but I was shockingly surprised. There was a small line but we didn’t really have to wait because we kind of squeezed our way to the front before the doors closed. I expected that I wouldn’t be interested, but I was actually so BLOWN AWAY. The cathedral was sooooo intricate and so beautiful and so breathtaking. I’m not one for churches or anything, but I feel like I could have spent all day looking at the intricate art and architecture. It is just a building that can’t be adequately represented in photos, but really needs to be seen in person. Anyways, after St. Peter’s Basilica, we went back to the hostel to relax because we were SUPER tired. We all relaxed and then started getting ready to go out to dinner.
The bartender at the hostel showed us this area that is pretty much only for the locals and has the most authentic Italian restaurants in all of Rome! So we took a bus which was actually an awful idea because it was SO CROWDED and awful. We were like sardines stuffed on the bus, and it was definitely not a fun experience. But after we finally arrived at the stop, we got off and started wandering around the streets looking for the best restaurant. So we turned down some alleys and found this SUPER romantic quaint little restaurant that had roses on all the tables and a guitar player playing outside. So we decide to eat there and I have a hard time ordering because the pastas aren’t very descriptive… well the menu is in four different languages, and the English section says the type of pasta but like what type it is. So it’s confusing but I ordered plain old Spaghetti and tomato sauce which was still beyond delicious. And let me tell you, the parmesan cheese was SO GOOD and I’ve never really been a huge parmesan cheese fan. But it was delicious and the best I’ve ever had probably. After dinner, the waiter came and told us that there was a wishing well downstairs, so we all went downstairs into the basement and everyone pretty much had a very emotional experience. It was so beautiful and just not even explainable. It just added to my love for Rome, especially the ancient meets modern part of it.
After the wishing well, we walk around the neighborhood and decide to walk next to the river, which is a beautiful area. When we get down there, there was some sort of promenade with restaurants, bars, shops, etc. we stopped at this hookah bar and smoked some hookah and drank more wine right by the river, and it was a really great evening for everyone. Me and Jessica went on a walk farther down, and we saw this Acapella group perform and they were so talented they gave me tingles. Then we started walking home (terrible idea) and the 20-30 minute walk ended up taking about 2 hours. Considering I was falling asleep at the hookah bar, I was not very happy to still be walking. We finally made it home and slept very soundly.
Thursday, June 7:
Wow, I can’t believe I wrote so much about Wednesday! Crazy that you can do so much in one day….. (smart side comment obviously) But anywayyyyyyyys today we wake up and go to the Sistine chapel! We wait in line for about an hour which isn’t sooo bad….except that when we left the Sistine chapel there was no line at all. But we wait in line and I buy a scarf from some woman who is selling them and I buy it for 3 euros instead of 8, so clearly I’m a pro haggler Yeeeeee. Then we get in and walk through the museum and again I am shocked by the beauty of the Sistine Chapel. It really was breathtaking minus the whole being shuffled like cattle to get into the building because there are so many freaking tourists!!! Ah I definitely could not deal with the tourists any longer than I had to. After the Sistine chapel, we went to get lunch at a decent place and then went to the Panthenon! The Panthenon was the last touristy site that we visited, and it was so cool. They have a hole in the dome of the roof and apparently when it snows it becomes like a snow globe inside the building, and is really a site to see. After that some of the people in our group had to head back to the ship from some field trips, so we all headed to the Trevi fountain again and then split ways. Jessica and I went shopping where I spent way too much money (clearly), and then went back to the hostel. We went out to this “take away” pizza place across the street for dinner where I had this delicious sun dried tomato pizza and some traditional margarita pizza…and what was cool was that they weighed the slices to see how much to charge you! It was like fro yo for pizza. Then afterwards we went to Campo De Fiori to go out to some bars, but it was not as popular as we thought. However we walked around and met some people and found a whole in the wall bar which was filled with only Italians so that was really fun!!! Overall it was a fun experience even though we did not end up going to our original destination. Me and Jessica ended up meeting some Italians, so it’s always fun meeting up with some locals and talking to them and getting to know them and such.
Friday, June 8:
Sadly this is are last day in Rome!!! I was so sad to leave the city that I truly did fall in love with from the beginning. But, I was definitely ready to stop living out of my backpack and finally spread out my stuff on the ship. Jessica and I woke up and had an espresso and croissant and walked around the neighborhood of where our hotel was and soaked up all the time we had left in Rome. We then went to the train station to catch our train which ended up being 2 hours delayed, but we finally made it safely back to the ship.
Considering I don’t even want to go back through and read this whole blog/ even check for spelling errors (please don’t mind those), I will be shocked if you actually read it all the way through all the way to the bottom! Buttttt now you have a play by play for my Spain and Italy trip and tomorrow I leave for Croatia, and I will update you on that when I return ☺.
Hello Everyone! I know that it’s been a while since I’ve updated, but that’s because I’ve been traveling all around Spain and Barcelona. I have absolutely zero concept of time, but I know I was in Spain on June 27-30 and then in Italy on July 2-8. I will go through the general details of each day so you can live vicariously through me (obvs).
Monday, June 27th:
I arrive in the morning and walk around Barcelona on Las Ramblas (this huge touristy street with lots of street vendors and such) and walked literally like five miles to this beautiful cathedral called Le Sigrada Familia and it was SO breathtaking. Gaudi (an artist/ architect) started it but got killed in the middle of it so they've been continuing to build it for like over 50 years even though he's dead. It's really amazing though. Along the way we stopped to eat some Tapas and I had this delicious egg and potato omelet thing with Spanish beer and it was like mixed with Lemon and it was so good. I also ate something called Chocolate con churros, which is like melted chocolate mixed with milk and churros to dip it in and it was SO GOOD. I walked around with this girl Jordan (not my roommate who is also named Jordan) but she's Jewish and super awesome and this girl named Tyra. So then that night we get back to the boat and I see Olivia (one of the girls I went to Ibiza with) and she invites me to dinner at this Tapas place with a bunch of people. We go to dinner at like 9:15 and we don't get seated till 10:00!!! Except it was sooooooo fun and delicious! The restaurant is called Taller De Tapas and it was really fun. Dinner ended at like 11:30, so then afterwards we headed to a club (or Disco as Europeans call it) which was early for Barcelona, considering people don’t even start going out to clubs until around 1:30 am. While it was a late night, I definitely had a great time.
Tuesday, June 28th:
I wake up after hardly enough sleep to pack whatever I can fit into my northface backpack and head to the airport for our 12:00 flight. We arrive in Ibiza after an hour and were all exhausted, so we headed to our apartment/ hostel, which was surprisingly pretty nice, and take a nap. After our nap, me, Sam, and Olivia, meet up with my friend Paul, and his friends Nick and Natalia. We head to the other side of the Island, San Antonio to watch the sunset, which we ended up missing both nights ☹. After that, we walk up and down the center of San Antonio on a street that is pretty identical to Bourbon Street. I purchase a chicken baguette (SO GOOD) and eat while taking this crazy street in. We head over to a club called Es Paradis, where we are attending Fiesta Del Agua, which is essentially a water party. We are dancing and having a great time till about 5 am (crazy lifestyle I’m telling you), when the water starts flowing from the ceiling! There is a sunken area in the middle of the dance floor that basically turns into a pool for the last hour and a half of the night. There is definitely nothing like that in the states, but I’m glad I was able to experience it. It ended up being a great evening!
Wednesday, June 29th:
Slept in till 1:30 and then went to eat lunch at the “Haddock” aka the HARD ROCK café. We dined for a while and I drank coffee with Ice Cream in it and it was sooooooo good. While Olivia was having a nice conversation with the Canadians next to us, me and Sam headed to the beach to soak in some rays, and were shocked to find a lot of…..boobs! This was my first topless beach experience, which was a bit shocking but very “European” at the same time. We thought it was great. We also got yelled at for laying in lawn chairs and not paying for them, and apparently there was a huge sign that told us we needed to, but me and Sam had no idea. After the beach, we head to get ready for another crazy Ibiza night! We take the bus to the other side of the Island again, and dine at this delicious restaurant that was located right on the water. While it was a little pricey, the delicious Sangria was definitely worth it. We then head out to Space, where we see Armin Van Buren (insane) and Fedde Le Grand (Who I really liked) and a bunch of other DJ’s. It was SO AWESOME. I definitely need to go back to experience more of the insanity that is Ibiza. Who wants to come? :D
Thursday, June 30th :
We get back to the ship at around 8:00 am, so we naturally head to the dining hall to get some breakfast! I then sleep until 2 pm, and wake up to hang out with Herman and Nauzli (two of my AKPsi brothers)! I took a cab to Herman’s apartment where I meet him, Brittany Yary’s (another bro) sister, and her co-worker. We take the metro (I had no idea there was one….it def would have saved me a lot of money :/) back to Las Ramblas to meet up with Nauzli and Timpane (a bro who I met for the first time!) and go to the Catedral de Barcelona which was beyond beautiful. I had to start heading back to the ship, so I stopped to exchange my travelers checks and got insanely ripped off and probably got 100 less euros than I should have.
After Spain, we have one day in between on the ship before Italy. So on July 1st we had the Sea Olympics! The Sea Olympics were pretty fun and because my team’s color was purple, I very much enjoyed wearing my favorite color!! While it was fun, everyone was recovering from Spain and getting ready for Italy so it was a bit hectic on the ship.
Saturday, July 2:
WE ARRIVE IN ITALIA!!! I was very excited to be in Italy, even though it was in Naples, which I will get into more details later. Erica, Katie, Shane, Mia, Jordan (roomie), and I, wake up earlyish to head out to Pompeii! We struggle to find the metro train business, but we finally find it after following some other SASers. We take the metro to Pompeii and walk around the really cool city of ruins. However, it is quite warm, so we only last a few hours. After Pompeii, we head to Sorrento, which is the most BEAUTIFUL city ever. It is the beginning of the Amalfi Coast, so it is just breathtaking. We got a delicious lunch (lemme tell you, the food in Italy is literally to die for), drank some delicious wine, and relaxed in the shade for a while. We then walked around the city, got some amazing Gelato, and were planning on going to Capri. However, the ferry to Capri was a bit pricier than we expected, so we didn’t end up going. We took the bus back and spoke to some locals, who were so great to talk to. We stopped at this pizza place right outside of the Train Station, and this meal was probably the cheapest and most delicious in all of Naples. We were all a bit delirious with exhaustion, but it was really fun to just sit and eat some AMAZING Naples pizza. We start heading back to the ship, and on our way home, we had a bit of an altercation with a vespa. This guy was riding a vespa on the sidewalk (not as uncommon as one would think in Europe) and like was literally riding right through our group of friends. Us, being in a pizza coma didn’t really realize what was going on and before we knew it he almost ran me and Erica over while attempting to steal Katie’s purse. Luckily he wasn’t as successful as he would have liked to be, and only broke her strap but didn’t end up actually grabbing the purse. We were all definitely shaken up from that and all vowed that we hated Naples hahahah. We didn’t do anything that night because we were all exhausted and kind of scared
Sunday, July 3:
We woke up and the six of us that decided to travel around Italy together (Katie, Erica, Jessica, Rob (my neighbor), and Shane went to the Pompeii museum in Naples. We looked at all of the artifacts from Pompeii which was really cool to see the ancient statues and such. We then decided to eat lunch at this little restaurant that lured us in by saying, “Come in! Drink!” We assumed that they knew English but those four words were literally the only English that everyone in the restaurant knew. So it was definitely a bit of a struggle with the language barrier, especially when I said that we wanted plates, and the waitress thought that I meant ice. However we ate some decent spaghetti and survived the restaurant without too many problems. However, we realized that in italy, restaurants will often bring you food that you don’t order, and while you think it’s free, it most definitely isn’t. At this restaurant we went to, the waiter brought us these three huge plates of meat and canteloupe, and while it looked good, none of us were planning on eating it. So while me, the obnoxious American, tried to explain using my hands that we didn’t want it, they did not understand what we were saying so I had to resort to literally handing the plate back to the waiter and shaking my finger, “no.” I thought it was funny, but am definitely glad that we realized that because those three plates of food we weren’t going to eat would have cost us a whopping 15 euros….which is like 23 dollars ish. After lunch, we head to Sorrento again because we can’t stand to be in Naples any longer, and we walk around and get gelato. We head back to the ship around 5 to get ready for our night train to VENICE! We head to the train station in a rush because we were worried we were going to miss our train. We get there and the board says that our train is CANCELLED. We are freaking out because we don’t understand what that actually means, and we soon find out that the train is only delayed, but that it is delayed 90 minutes. So we sit around at the train station eating McDonalds (don’t judge me) because there is nothing else to do. We finally get on our train and it looks like Harry Potter! Well not really. Our group of six was separated into 4 and 2, and even though we thought we could all be in the same car, we were not so lucky. But, we hung out and talked for a while in one of the cars (and by car I mean compartment) until we got tired enough to fall asleep. I kept waking up in a panic because we had to make a connection and I kept worrying that we were going to miss it. Also, my “bed” was not the most comfortable and considering I slept with my valuables tied to me, it was a bit difficult to get comfortable. We arrive in Bologna (our connection) at like 5:30 am, and are barely awake. We then mosey onto the train and finally arrive in Venice!!
Monday, July 4th: HAPPY 4TH OF JULY (Even though we didn’t do anything American)
So because of the night train, I can’t really separate my days, soooooo sorry. Anywayssss we get to Venice with all of our stuff and start looking around for a hostel. We finally find a hotel which has AC/ fans/ and private bathrooms, so we consider ourselves likely. We put our stuff in storage because our room is not ready yet, freshen up a bit, and then head out to enjoy Venice! I get an espresso (not as large as I wanted….I clearly was confused) and a Croissant which is a typical Italian breakfast. We then start walking around the city in search of the Grand Canal! Which we kind of stumbled upon. We were taking in the beauty of the city, and realized how lucky we were to actually be seeing Venice. We then find a gondola and I convince him to give us a ride for 10 euro a piece (20 euro cheaper at least than pretty much everyone else) and he does! We were so happy that we were riding in a gondola and it was definitely worth the 10 euros. We then eat at this delicious place that our gondola driver (or whatever) recommended, and ate and relaxed and drank wine and had a great relaxing lunch. We finish and decide to go to this famous square, St. Mark Piazza or whatever, get some gelato and decide to go home. Except for the fact that we got SO LOST. Venice is not easily navigatable so we got really lost and the 20 minute walk took us like an hour. We go take naps and shower, and go to this American-esqu (kind of) pizza place because it has free wi-fi. The food was pretty good, but we just wanted to take advantage of the free wi-fi, that wasn’t even very reliable. We then go back to our hotel, and Erica and I decide to walk around the city ourselves. However, Venice does not have a very hoppin night life, so we really just walked around and talked because there wasn’t much to do.
Tuesday, July 5
We wake up and do some SERIOUS shopping in Venice (well I do…) and soak up the rest of the city. Oh, I forgot that me and Rob went to go find the Jewish Ghetto which really turned out to be just kind of an empty square, but it was cool to see Hebrew written on the buildings. We then stopped to get lunch and I ate an entire pizza (oops hahahah) which was DELICIOUS before we meet up with the rest of the crew to take the train to Rome. Because we are cheapos, we take the 6 hour train ride vs. the 3 hour one because its 30 euros cheaper. So we get on the train with some bottles of wine so that we can entertain ourselves during the six hours. We end up having a great time, even though six hours did seem like a pretty long time when we were aching to get to Rome. We finally arrive in Rome and I take out my handy dandy guide book (Let’s Go! Europe….Seriously I would recommend that to all students) to find this hostel called Alessandro’s Palace. I correctly navigate us to the hostel, and we book our rooms! The hostel was super nice, had its’ own bar, with free pizza at 8:30 and complimentary breakfast and coffee in the morning. We also got free wi-fi and the six of us got our own room, which was super nice. We unload our stuff, get some free pizza, and then shower and get ready for dinner. We finally make it out to dinner at around 10ish, and go to this street called Campo De Fiori (thanks Hadas ☺). We picked the first restaurant we saw, and it was SO DELICIOUS. I literally had the best Pesto sauce of my entire life and could have eaten a whole freaking bowl of it. Yum yum yum yum. After that we go to this nightclub/bar thing where we hang out for a bit before we all headed home for the evening. But as a side note,
Wednesday, June 6:
Before I continue, I must let everyone know that I LOVE ROME. I fell in love with the city because I love how modern meets ancient, and it is absolutely full of life. Okay now….We wake up early (which was only a good idea in theory….hahahah) to do some serious Roman Site seeing. However, none of us know where we are going! So we start randomly walking around Rome until we find this monument which I thought were the Spanish steps, but were definitely not. It was a monument dedicated to the first king of Italy……. But still very beautiful! We then walk among some ruins (so great….I love ruins) to find the Coliseum!! It was so great and naturally I sang “This is what dreams are made of” on my way to reenact the Lizzie McGuire movie. We walk around the Coliseum because we were too cheap and tired to want to wait in line to go inside. We run into some Gladiators and one of them ends up being Israeli! So we get the super touristy gladiator picture foooo free. Yeeee. We then go to find food, and unfortunately we had our worst meal ever in Italy. We went to this restaurant that was run by Indians, so that was mistake number one. The food looked like we could have heated it up ourselves, and it was basically a huge rip off. So a lesson to everyone out there, don’t freaking eat at restaurants right next to huge tourist monuments! They are overpriced and not good at all. So then we continue on our way and make our way to the Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain! We struggled to find them, but luckily we found them with relativity no difficulty.
The coolest thing about Rome is how these ancient monuments are just located in the middle of a modern city. Like the Spanish steps are just at the end of this really nice shopping street, and the trevi fountain is kind of hidden within some buildings. And while they were both so beautiful, there were SO MANY TOURISTS, so it was a bit overwhelming. Then after the Spanish steps, we naturally went to go eat Gelato because I ate it every day in Italy… yum! Then we start making our trek to the Vatican… or to the metro to go to Vatican city. So we got there and me being Jewish obvi I didn’t think that I would like the St. Peter’s Basicila, but I was shockingly surprised. There was a small line but we didn’t really have to wait because we kind of squeezed our way to the front before the doors closed. I expected that I wouldn’t be interested, but I was actually so BLOWN AWAY. The cathedral was sooooo intricate and so beautiful and so breathtaking. I’m not one for churches or anything, but I feel like I could have spent all day looking at the intricate art and architecture. It is just a building that can’t be adequately represented in photos, but really needs to be seen in person. Anyways, after St. Peter’s Basilica, we went back to the hostel to relax because we were SUPER tired. We all relaxed and then started getting ready to go out to dinner.
The bartender at the hostel showed us this area that is pretty much only for the locals and has the most authentic Italian restaurants in all of Rome! So we took a bus which was actually an awful idea because it was SO CROWDED and awful. We were like sardines stuffed on the bus, and it was definitely not a fun experience. But after we finally arrived at the stop, we got off and started wandering around the streets looking for the best restaurant. So we turned down some alleys and found this SUPER romantic quaint little restaurant that had roses on all the tables and a guitar player playing outside. So we decide to eat there and I have a hard time ordering because the pastas aren’t very descriptive… well the menu is in four different languages, and the English section says the type of pasta but like what type it is. So it’s confusing but I ordered plain old Spaghetti and tomato sauce which was still beyond delicious. And let me tell you, the parmesan cheese was SO GOOD and I’ve never really been a huge parmesan cheese fan. But it was delicious and the best I’ve ever had probably. After dinner, the waiter came and told us that there was a wishing well downstairs, so we all went downstairs into the basement and everyone pretty much had a very emotional experience. It was so beautiful and just not even explainable. It just added to my love for Rome, especially the ancient meets modern part of it.
After the wishing well, we walk around the neighborhood and decide to walk next to the river, which is a beautiful area. When we get down there, there was some sort of promenade with restaurants, bars, shops, etc. we stopped at this hookah bar and smoked some hookah and drank more wine right by the river, and it was a really great evening for everyone. Me and Jessica went on a walk farther down, and we saw this Acapella group perform and they were so talented they gave me tingles. Then we started walking home (terrible idea) and the 20-30 minute walk ended up taking about 2 hours. Considering I was falling asleep at the hookah bar, I was not very happy to still be walking. We finally made it home and slept very soundly.
Thursday, June 7:
Wow, I can’t believe I wrote so much about Wednesday! Crazy that you can do so much in one day….. (smart side comment obviously) But anywayyyyyyyys today we wake up and go to the Sistine chapel! We wait in line for about an hour which isn’t sooo bad….except that when we left the Sistine chapel there was no line at all. But we wait in line and I buy a scarf from some woman who is selling them and I buy it for 3 euros instead of 8, so clearly I’m a pro haggler Yeeeeee. Then we get in and walk through the museum and again I am shocked by the beauty of the Sistine Chapel. It really was breathtaking minus the whole being shuffled like cattle to get into the building because there are so many freaking tourists!!! Ah I definitely could not deal with the tourists any longer than I had to. After the Sistine chapel, we went to get lunch at a decent place and then went to the Panthenon! The Panthenon was the last touristy site that we visited, and it was so cool. They have a hole in the dome of the roof and apparently when it snows it becomes like a snow globe inside the building, and is really a site to see. After that some of the people in our group had to head back to the ship from some field trips, so we all headed to the Trevi fountain again and then split ways. Jessica and I went shopping where I spent way too much money (clearly), and then went back to the hostel. We went out to this “take away” pizza place across the street for dinner where I had this delicious sun dried tomato pizza and some traditional margarita pizza…and what was cool was that they weighed the slices to see how much to charge you! It was like fro yo for pizza. Then afterwards we went to Campo De Fiori to go out to some bars, but it was not as popular as we thought. However we walked around and met some people and found a whole in the wall bar which was filled with only Italians so that was really fun!!! Overall it was a fun experience even though we did not end up going to our original destination. Me and Jessica ended up meeting some Italians, so it’s always fun meeting up with some locals and talking to them and getting to know them and such.
Friday, June 8:
Sadly this is are last day in Rome!!! I was so sad to leave the city that I truly did fall in love with from the beginning. But, I was definitely ready to stop living out of my backpack and finally spread out my stuff on the ship. Jessica and I woke up and had an espresso and croissant and walked around the neighborhood of where our hotel was and soaked up all the time we had left in Rome. We then went to the train station to catch our train which ended up being 2 hours delayed, but we finally made it safely back to the ship.
Considering I don’t even want to go back through and read this whole blog/ even check for spelling errors (please don’t mind those), I will be shocked if you actually read it all the way through all the way to the bottom! Buttttt now you have a play by play for my Spain and Italy trip and tomorrow I leave for Croatia, and I will update you on that when I return ☺.
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