Rome

Buongiorno!

So amidst all of the traveling I have been doing lately, I am happy to update my last trip for a short while, and what better way to do it with Rome for the Easter weekend! This was an awesome weekend and a very very busy one as well. I knew Rome obviously had a lot of sites to see, being the phenomenal ancient city that it is, but man were there a lot of sites! You really don't realize how much there truly is to see in this city until you get there and spend a weekend walking all day each day going to different sites. My roommates and I started our trip at the beginning of the slightly longer Easter weekend on Thursday. We took a short flight to Rome and took a shuttle into the city where I was first exposed to some of the sites of the city.

The Colosseum

Once we got into the city, our first objective was to locate our hostel. It took awhile but we eventually found it and it was only a short 10 minute walk to the Colosseum! So after we got there, we dropped off our stuff and made our way to the famous Roman Colosseum. It was later in the evening when we got there so we didn't get to go inside of it yet but it was nice to hang out around it while it was lit up. That day was actually Rome's 2,764th birthday so we thought there may be some events going on at night, but for the most part it was pretty quiet. After seeing the Colosseum, which was truly incredible and I couldn't believe I was there, we made our way back to the hostel to get some rest for the long day ahead of us in the morning. For this next day, we had planned to see the Ancient City of Rome as well as a  lot of the other sites in the center of the city. So we got up early and the first thing we went to get was the Roma Pass. This pass is an awesome deal and it allowed us to skip the line for the first two sites we saw and we got to use it for all of the public transportation in Rome for only 25 euros! So once we got the pass we immediately headed to the Colosseum to skip the line and go inside. Once we got inside I really could not believe how large the Colosseum was. It looks pretty large from the outside, but from the inside you can tell just how massive it really is, especially for the time it was used, it was truly an architectural feat. We spent a lot of time in the Colosseum and got plenty of pictures before heading off to the Roman Forum.

A view of the Forum and the Colosseum.

For those who do not know what the Roman Forum is, it is basically a very condensed area of a ton of old Roman ruins lined up along the oldest street in Rome, via Sacra. So we skipped the line for this as well and headed into the area. It was really neat to see so many ancient Roman ruins in one area and the age of the city really stands out here. After walking for a bit through all of these ruins, we made our way up to Palatine Hill, where we were able to get an amazing view of the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and Capitoline Hill. It was really cool to be able to see this whole landscape, and on the other side of the hill we were able to see the very few remains of the massive Circus Maximus arena, where they held many of the chariot races. From Palatine Hill, we went off in search of a pizza place for lunch that we had heard was incredible.It took us a bit of time to locate the pizza place, as it was fairly small, off of a small street in the area of Trastevere. The name of the pizza place is Dar Poeta, and I can say that I had probably the best pizza of my entire life. It was a pizza with pesto, potatoes, and cherry tomatoes and the ingredients were so fresh and it was incredible. Once we finished enjoying our pizza, we went to Piazza Navona, which is a pretty large, really nice piazza, and then we went to the Pantheon. When we got there it was packed and there was a mass going on inside that everyone was trying to see. We decided that we would head there later and we then went to the Trevi Fountain. As soon as I saw the fountain I was very impressed.

The Trevi Fountain

The fountain really is quite large and the sculptures are really neat. It is a very elaborate fountain and I thought it was one of my favorite sites in Rome. We threw some coins in the fountain, and we then went to the Spanish Steps. It was quite crowded when we got there, and we headed up the steps and into the Trinità dei Monti church at the top which was nice. We got a really good view of the city, and just like most other views we had, we were able to see the massive St. Peter's Basilica looming in the distance. From there, we headed down a road to Piazza del Popolo, which is another really neat piazza in the northern part of the city. After hanging out in the piazza for a bit, we took the metro back to the area of the ancient city, where we checked out the massive monument of Vittorio Emanuele II which was extremely impressive and this was also one of my favorite sites to see in Rome. After checking out this massive monument, we started to head back to the hostel when we noticed that they were closing the entire street near the Colosseum and people were gathering all along the street for some kind of event. After asking a couple of people, I was told that there was going to be a special ceremony when the Pope was going to make an appearance down the street in his "Popemobile." Unfortunately, it wasn't for another 2 hours and people were already crowding the area. We were not able to wait that long because we were quite hungry and we had to catch the free pasta the hostel offered that evening. So we got back to the hostel and had some really good dinner. After dinner, we pretty much just hung out with some of the other people at the hostel which was fun. We then went to sleep so we can wake up early to head to the Vatican the next day. Once we got ready the next morning, we made our way to the Vatican and went over to the Vatican Museums, as those usually have the longest line to get in. Even at 9 in the morning the line was already pretty long, and we had to wait for maybe an hour to get in, knowing it was going to be worse later on.

One of the corridors leading to the Sistine Chapel.

We got in and headed to the Sistine Chapel. It took a bit of walking to get to the chapel but the walk to the chapel was pretty neat. We went through a number of corridors that were very elaborately decorated and were lined with numerous sculptures and paintings. When we finally got to the Sistine Chapel I was pretty impressed. The artwork was very nice and we hung out in the chapel for a bit and started going to a couple other parts of the museums. There were a couple of little parks we went through that had some pretty cool works of art and then we went to a sculpture museum with a ton of really neat, elaborate sculptures of a ton of different stuff. I really enjoyed this part of the museum and I thought it was really cool to see all the different types of sculptures that were contained here. After checking that out, we exited the museum and headed to St. Peter's square in hopes of entering the Basilica. When we got to the square, I was totally blown away at how large the church was and it was a really amazing setup. However, I had never seen a line so long going into the Basilica. The line literally went around the entire square (which is huge) and it was probably at least three hours long. I think this was mostly due to the holiday weekend, and, because they were closing the Basilica in three hours to prepare for an evening vigil, we decided that it would be best to not get in the extremely long line. It was still really neat to just hang out in the square and relax in the Vatican City, I couldn't complain haha. After hanging out for a bit in the Vatican, we headed down the main street there and walked a bit along the Tiber River which was quite scenic. We got some food, and then headed back to the Pantheon to see if we could get inside. When we got to the Pantheon, there was no mass taking place so we were able to go inside. It was HUGE on the inside and I thought it was incredible. The architecture inside the Pantheon is remarkable, and we were also able to see the tomb of Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of Italy, which I thought was awesome to see. After spending some time in the Pantheon, we ended up going back to the Vatican because I wanted to go to the post office there and get some

St. Peter's Basilica

Vatican stamps to send a postcard, it was pretty cool to see the little post office there and just outside of that was a pair of Swiss guards dressed in some pretty elaborate uniforms. We watched the changing of the guard which was cool and then we ended up seeing if there was any way to go into the rest of the city, Since St. Peter's is really near the front entrance to the city. However, after asking one of the Swiss guards, we found out that the rest of the city is private, and it is not open to the public. It was still cool to walk around a bit of the city, and when we got done with that, we headed back towards the ancient part of Rome to check out the Bocca della Verità. Legend has it that if you stick your hand in the mouth of this sculpture, it would be bitten off if you were a liar. This is a popular tourist attraction and when we got there, it was unfortunately closed. We then headed back to the hostel after that and got some dinner. After dinner, Mike and I wanted to check out some of the nightlife in the city. We didn't end up leaving the hostel until a little late that night, but we found a pub in a part of the city that we hung out at for a bit. After that, there wasn't much else to do and we basically made our way back to the hostel to get ready for our last half-day in Rome. When we got up the next day, Felix and our buddy Nick went to mass, and Mike and I went to the Trevi Fountain one more time so that he could throw a coin in the fountain. After going to the fountain again, we decided to go to the Vatican again, since it was Easter day. When we got there, there were a TON of people on the way there and when we actually got to the main square, I was able to hear an older man's voice on the loudspeakers. The entire square was packed with people and I don't know if I've ever seen that many people in one area before. After the man was finished talking, everybody was clapping and then people began to exit the square. After I heard that, I was pretty sure that it was the Pope, although I wasn't certain, since it was difficult to see him from where we were.

The Swiss Guards

Once people began to leave, me and Mike were able to get into the square and we realized that the Easter mass had just ended. I don't think we would have been able to make it to the actual mass if we had gotten there earlier though because I think we needed a special ticket to get into the city for the mass, which is free, but you need to book a year in advance! But it was still cool to see a bunch of people from different countries waving their flags and the overall atmosphere of the city on Easter was really nice. We hung out again for a bit in the square and then headed back to the hostel to get ready to head back to Torino. Before we made our way out of the city, we checked out one last church, one of the four main churches in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore. This was a very impressive church and it is probably one of the nicest churches I have been to so far. After checking out the church, we headed back to the shuttle, and two shuttles and a flight later, we were back in Torino. This was an extremely busy trip, as we saw a lot of sites in this incredible city. Although it was quite exhausting, I was really happy with the city and I was just amazed at how much there was to see. Although I wish we could have gone into St. Peter's Basilica, which I have heard is amazing, I guess you simply cannot do everything in Rome in 3 days. This was a really awesome trip, but I gotta say that I am pretty traveled out at the moment, since I have been doing so much of it lately. I only spent one full day in Torino this week! So I am definitely excited to stay in Torino for probably the next two weeks before my program is over! That's about it for Rome.

 Ciao!

Cinque Terre/Brussels

Ciao a Tutti!

So this past weekend has been an extremely busy one. I took a trip to Cinque Terre over the weekend and the day after I got back I left for Brussels to visit the European Union Parliament with my economics class! It was really excited but VERY busy and definitely exhausting, but I can say these two trips were well worth it. Starting on Friday, I was getting ready for my trip to Cinque Terre.

Manarola

For those who do not know, Cinque Terre is an absolutely beautiful and incredible place along the Ligurian coast, just South of Torino. In English, Cinque Terre translates to "5 towns," and these are five towns literally built along a series of cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. You could either hike along a coastal trail between them, or you can hike up along the higher cliffs looking down on the towns through all 5 areas. You can also take a train, which is the fastest way to get between the towns. The total hike is about 5 hours, and it's well worth it. There was a large group of us that decided to go this weekend, so we decided to catch a really early train on Saturday morning at 5:20am so that we could get in to the first town Monterosso at around 9:30am. Then we would stay the night in a nearby city on Saturday night and leave Sunday evening at around 6pm back to Torino. The beginning of this trip started off a little slow after me and my roommate, Mike, missed the 5:20am train and got on the wrong train headed towards the coast, but near France! haha. So as soon as we found out, we were able to turn in the other direction, and about 5 trains and hours later we finally made it to the second city of Cinque Terre (Vernazza) and we met up with the others. It was quite an adventure at the beginning, but we made it there and after meeting up with everyone else, we walked around the town for a bit and then took a train to the city of La Spezia, where our hostel was nearby. We got into La Spezia, went around the city, and then took a bus a little ways into the hills and barely found our hostel. The hostel was really nice and was more like a bed and breakfast. I really liked it and it was in a nice small town in the hills of the Ligurian coast. We got some sleep and the next day, we headed back to Cinque Terre and began our hike. We took a train to the 5th town, Riomaggiore, and took a coastal path from there to the fourth town, Manarola. This was an amazing path and we had some beautiful views of the coast from here. It was awesome, and after spending some time in Manarola, we went along the coastal path again, getting some awesome pictures of the town on the way.

Vineyards cut into the hills.

We then discovered that the coastal path from Manarola to the 3rd town, Corniglia, was closed, either from construction or a possible landslide. So after turning around from that, we decided to take the more intense path, up into the cliffs above, to get to Corniglia. This turned out to be quite exhausting, as there appeared to be endless steps, and after over 1000ft. of elevation gain, we made it to the top of the cliffs and had a stunning view of the towns beneath us. Walking along this path was truly incredible, as we were able to see Corniglia below us, and we made our way towards the town. Another amazing thing we saw were the surrounding hills above the towns. The workers from these towns would literally cut into the hills and create rows of vineyards up and down the hills. It created an astonishing view and I had never really seen anything like it before. What's even more amazing was the workers had built a track made from a single steel bar, that would go to the top of the hills, and was used to help them transport the grapes to the bottom of the hills from the vineyards at the top, using a makeshift motor device, with a chair the workers would sit in. Let me tell you, if you are afraid of heights, I would not recommend doing this as I could not believe how the workers used this machine because at some points the track would get extremely steep! Once we got down into Corniglia, we got some amazing mint chocolate gelato, and made our way down a few hundred steps to the base of the cliff where the train station was located. We then took a train from Corniglia to the first town, Monterosso where we basically stayed on the beach until our train came. We then hopped on our train and finally made it back to Torino. This trip was absolutely incredible and I had an awesome time in Cinque Terre, despite the long adventure getting there haha. After we had got back from Cinque Terre, I immediately had to start packing again for my trip to Brussels, Belgium! My economics class had planned an optional trip to Brussels to visit the European Union Parliament. If you aren't familiar with the European Union, I could probably spend a very large amount of time talking about it, although for the sake of the length of this blog I will leave it up to you to look it up haha. Anyways, the next day I was headed off to Brussels in the afternoon and finally arrived there that evening.

When we got there we checked into our hotel and we basically had the rest of the evening free, as we would visit the Parliament the next day and then leave that evening. So myself and the two friends that I booked the hotel with decided to see as much as we could during the short amount of time we had in Brussels. We unpacked and headed to the Grand Place, which is basically the center of Brussels. On our way walking there I was amazed at some of the architecture that Brussels had to offer. There were many palaces and cathedrals in the city and I was blown away when I saw them. When we got to Grand Place it was amazing. There was a huge palace with a bunch of shops all around the area and there were a lot of people out on this Monday night. Once we got some pictures, we set out to get an authentic Belgian waffle and IT WAS AMAZING. I had one topped off with some Belgian chocolate which tasted incredible. After that we then set out to have some Belgian fries which were also incredible. We also had sampled some Belgian chocolate before and it was delicious. After eating the amazing local food, we decided to check out a bar called Delirium, this bar contains over 2500 different types of beer so we had to check it out. It was really cool and I cold not believe how packed it was for a Monday night! It is pretty well known and, like I said, there is a lot of beer there. My buddy Nate had a traditional Belgian cherry beer which tasted absolutely delicious and I had myself a honey flavored beer. They tasted pretty incredible and all three floors of this place had really good music and vibes and we just had a really fun time hanging out there. After seeing Delirium, we made our way back to the hotel and got some sleep. We woke up the next day and made our way to meet the rest of the class at the Parliament. When we got there, I was pretty impressed with the overall size and structure of the building. It was very modern and it looked very impressive.

A waffle truck hahaha.

We met up with the assistant of one of the former Vice Presidents of the European Union and she took us through the building up to a conference room and explained to us some of the basics of how the European Union works. It is a very impressive and somewhat complex institution, but it was really interesting to learn about how it works and how many people are involved in it. After this, we had the opportunity to possibly attend a conference involving the Minister of Finance from Italy as well as the former Vice President of the Parliament. Unfortunately, the conference was full and we were not able to meet the former Vice President, but his assistant did give us a quick tour of the inside of the Parliament and I thought it was very impressive. I was really happy with being able to go inside of the Parliament and seeing what it was really like, since we had learned a lot about it in my class. After that we also got the chance to see the European Commission, which is one of the world's most important and controversial political institutions (you might also want to look this up). That was really neat to see and after that we were able to see the Council of Ministers of the European Union which was also really neat. After seeing these sites, we then made our way back to the airport and made it back to Torino at around midnight. This was yet another really good trip and I wish I could have spent more time in Brussels to see more of the city. I would love to go back and check it out if I ever get the chance again. After these two trips, this week has proven to be probably the busiest so far. As I am only spending one full day in Torino before heading off to Rome this Thursday for Easter weekend! There is a lot of traveling this week but I think I'm going to relax and stay in town the following weekend to give myself a break. But anyways, I should be getting ready for Rome and I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Ciao!

My Two Weeks In Torino/Paris

Ciao and Bonjour!

So it has definitely been awhile since I have had a post on my blog. This is mostly due to the fact that I have spent two consecutive weeks in Torino and just got back from Paris this previous weekend! I didn't have much planned for the two weekends of this three weekend span so I pretty much laid low during these first two weekends and stayed in Torino, relaxing and enjoying my time living here. I think it is very important to spend some time in the actual city that you are studying. It is also very important to just live a regular life in the city and not have to worry about traveling everywhere all the time. It was a really relaxing couple of weeks and I had an absolutely awesome time staying in Torino.

The chocolate Italy!

The highlight of my first weekend in this span staying in Torino was definitely the chocolate festival. We went as a group over to the festival downtown and it was really cool. Definitely the most chocolate I have ever seen. They had a huge map of Italy made of chocolate! With miniature famous sites to see around Italy in their corresponding geographical city, completely made of chocolate! We checked out a few of the chocolate booths set up, selling a bunch of different types of chocolate and then I was off to relax back at the apartment. I spent this weekend as well as the next experiencing a lot of the nightlife that Torino has to offer and I gotta say it was extremely fun. We went to a number of clubs and bars in the city and I had an awesome time. I had so much fun at the clubs, blasting electronic music, dancing on stages, and partying until about 6am haha. It was really cool and I was able to sleep in for as long as I needed to which was nice. The following weekend I stayed in Torino and once again, had an amazing time. The highlight of this weekend would have to be visiting the automobile museum as well as having a barbecue at one of the parks in town (or so we thought). So in between the more clubbing we did during this weekend we first checked out the newly renovated automobile museum in Torino, which was probably one of my favorite museums so far. It was really nice and they had a very impressive collection of cars here. They had a lot of older cars, as they went over the general history of the automobile, with influences in European countries.

An old FIAT. Straight outta Torino.

They had a lot of cool racing cars (Ferraris, etc.) and then they had a pretty cool collection of more modern cars and some concept cars (probably my favorite part of the museum). There was another section going over the designers of the cars which was really cool. It was a very impressive museum with very unique and creative exhibits that really demonstrated the reason why Torino is the automobile capital of Italy. The next day, a large group of us that were still in town had a barbecue in a park. It was really cool, although it took us about 2 and a half to 3 hours to get there! We had no idea it was going to be that far, and we had to hop on a bus for about 45 min. then walk pretty much forever until we reached a spot. It was funny though and we all joked about it when we got there. It was really fun though, we hung out with some Italian friends as well as friends within the program, and we cooked some pretty good food from our makeshift fire that we made from a tree stump haha. We had a really fun time there and it was worth the walk. This was another successful weekend in Torino and I was really glad that I stayed and relaxed in the city with some friends. The next weekend (this past weekend) I had the opportunity to visit Paris, France and it was incredible. I went with a few people from the program and one of them, Miles, had a friend who was studying abroad in nearby Beauvais, France. This worked out perfectly because the airport we flew into from Torino was actually in Beauvais and I got the flight for really cheap. It was awesome because as soon as we got there, Miles' friend Josh (the one studying there) had us picked up by some of his French friends who have cars, and we got a free ride straight to the school. We arrived in the evening, and Josh was organizing a big party at the school that night, so as soon as we got to the school we immediately started partying haha. The school was really neat and it was basically exactly the same as a traditional American college campus. This is not common in Europe, but I thought it was really cool and it reminded me a little bit of back home.

Once we started partying over there, we went to the main area in the school where the party was, which was an area with two big rooms, with a dance floor, bar, etc. They also had some live music playing and even a little catwalk set up for a fun fashion show that we all did haha. It was super fun and I met so many nice French students there. I could not have asked for more and French people really are some of the nicest people I have ever met. The student life here was awesome, and I wish my school in Torino was similar to this. We all had a blast the first night, dancing with French girls and partying late in the night haha. The next day, we took a train to Paris, which was about an hour to an hour and a half train ride. When we got there, we took a metro into the main part of the city and began our tour. We had a French guy with us for any translation we needed and the first thing we did was head into a creperie, which is basically a restaurant dedicated to a bunch of different crepes. I had a crepe covered in homemade chocolate and it was INCREDIBLE. It was a great way to start off our time in the city of Paris. From there we made our way over to the Notre Dame which was quite a site to see. That was really cool and from there, we walked over to the Louvre, which was quite huge. We didn't have time to go inside of it, however, because the Louvre is basically a day trip just for the museum! From the Louvre, we walked all the way to the Arc de Triumphe, stopping for some Starbucks on the way, of course. This thing was massive and another really neat site to see in the city. As we saw the sites around the city, we could always see the Eiffel Tower looming in the sky, so after seeing the Arc we walked over to the one and only Eiffel Tower.

Me chillin at the base of the tower rockin a blazer.

When we got there and stood at the base of it, I could not believe how massive the tower really was. It was truly incredible to see and I never thought I would be standing at the base of it. It was definitely one of the coolest sites I have seen, and we got plenty of pictures of it. At this point, our group separated a bit, as some people needed to head back to Beauvais for the night, giving us the option of heading back with them, or staying in the city for the night and staying at one of Josh's French friends' apartment in a suburb of Paris. After seeing the tower, my decision was easy to make, and I decided to stay in the city. Night time approached and we were able to see the tower light up under the night sky, which was an amazing site to say the least. Then, for about ten minutes on the hour, every hour from about 9pm to 1am, the entire tower would literally sparkle. There were thousands of little flashing lights installed on the tower and for ten minutes they would flash and it was unbelievable. It was so neat and I knew that we had to make our way to the top. So a group of us took the stairs to the second floor, then an elevator to the very top, and we made it up for about 9 euros total. It was a breathtaking site of the city, especially at night, seeing all of the lights of the city. On the inside of the top of the tower, it was really cool because they would have flags of large cities around the world, with the distance of how far that city was from where we were, in the corresponding direction. I thought that was pretty interesting and it was neat to see. After seeing the tower, we took a metro outside of the city and got a ride to the apartment of one of our French friends to stay there for the night. We basically spent the rest of the night talking with them about French life and the differences and similarities between their way of life and our way of life. It was so neat to talk to these guys about life in France and I found it to be very interesting. We talked for hours and at about 6am I ended up going to sleep haha. Like I said, the French people are extremely nice and I was very grateful to have a free place to stay in Paris (saving thousands of euros haha). I learned a lot about the culture there and I talked to them a lot about American culture which was cool. The next day was probably one of the most exhausting traveling days I've had so far.

The sparkling tower.

We woke up at around 10:30am and traveled the entire day, finally getting back around 8:30pm. To make a long story short, from the apartment we stayed at, we had to take a suburban train to one of the main train stations in Paris, then we had to run to the metro, then we had to take the metro to a second train station, missed the first train, the second train was later than expected making it more stressful to catch the flight, then we finally took the next train to Beauvais, got a ride from French friends to the airport, flew to Torino, took the shuttle from the airport to the city, then hopped on the second metro to my part of the city, and I finally arrived at my apartment. 8 total modes of transportation with about 6 different modes of transportation in a row. It was crazy but we somehow made it back on about 4 hours of sleep so that was interesting haha. In the end, I still think it was all worth it. I definitely wished I could have stayed in Paris longer because we seriously were only there for like half a day. We did a lot with the time we had but it definitely would have been nice to see more. I can't complain though because we did have a free place to stay and the flights were cheap. All in all I loved the Eiffel Tower, but it's hard to say which was better between that and just interacting with the French people. Having fun with the French students on Friday night and Saturday was awesome, and I think most of the time it's the people you meet that really make your trip worth it, no matter how many sites you see or all of the places you go. The connection you get by meeting people all over the world and learning about their culture often makes trips even more memorable, and I think I learned that a lot from this trip. Josh is a really cool guy, and his French friends are what made this trip really great for me. That's about it for this trip. Don't forget to check out Facebook for more pictures!

Au Revoir!