Italy Again

It’s been so long since I last updated my blog that it seems like a daunting task to even begin, hence why I’ve kept procrastinating, but today it’s either finish cleaning or start updating so I opted for the lesser of two evils.  I’m sure there’s things I’m skipping since the last post but we’re just going to have to hit the highlights if I have any chance of ever catching back up. 

At the end of October I flew to Italy to meet up with two of my college roommates, Sharon and Aly, for a little roommate reunion trip.  We’d been planning this trip for a long time and I was so excited to have a week away from all my responsibilities.  I’d made arrangements, and back up arrangements, for Reese and as soon as she and Nate dropped me off at the airport I tried not to worry about her and just let myself be a single individual again (and I don’t mean that as in hitting on guys, I mean that as in two legs and two arms instead of the attachment I usually travel with).  I left very early Saturday morning and flew to Milan.  It was nice to be alone on a flight and just listen to my ipod, the whole worrying about only myself aspect of the trip had to be one of the best parts.  I never had to look around for anyone else or worry about paperwork for the whole family, it was just me.  Clearly I’m overemphasizing this point but it truly was AMAZING!  After I landed at the airport that was actually a ways outside Milan, I had to take a bus to Milan and then a metro to the hotel and I ended up getting there about a half hour before Sharon and Aly so I found some breakfast and then they caught up with me.  Milan wasn’t overly impressive in my opinion, but it was a nice lazy first day for us and Sharon had done a great job of finding us nice hotels to stay in.  We went over to the Duomo which was beautiful, we even climbed up to the top and walked around the roof, after that we just wandered around the city and enjoyed spending time with each other for the rest of the day.

 

Sunday morning we got up and hopped a train to Venice which was by far my favorite destination on our little adventure.  When we arrived at the train station we had to take a water taxi to our hotel and then wander through the awkward streets of Venice.  It would have been amazingly easy to get lost there but somehow we never got too turned around.  After we got checked in we went over to San Marco square and went to a museum of some sort, I don’t really remember since I was far more involved in deciding what flavor of gelato to get next then to pay attention, I do however remember that we got an amazing slice of pizza at some random little closet sized pizza place in an alley on our walk.  The next day it was raining so hard that Venice was flooding, San Marco square was flooded and had these makeshift walkways for people but trying to follow them to get to the line to go in the cathedral was insane so we just took our shoes and socks off and waded through the water until we got where we wanted to be, it was far more efficient and we didn’t have any open sores so I doubt we contracted anything :).  After the cathedral we just meandered about the city eating gelato and enjoying the sights, it was a very relaxing trip and the only thing that would’ve made it better would have been if the rain had stopped or at least not been hitting us in the eyes.

Tuesday morning we left Venice to head for Florence.  Sharon and Aly had reservations at an art gallery but I had decided that I’d rather explore the city so we wandered over to Ponte Vecchio bridge and then they went on to the gallery while I just plain wandered.  I actually had a lot of fun on my little adventure and enjoyed just being completely alone in a foreign city.  After they were done at the museum we all wandered around and then had the best meal of our entire trip at a little hole in the wall restaurant whose name I can’t remember, I do remember that it was good though since the thought of it still makes me salivate.  The next morning we went to the duomo, Aly and Sharon climbed to the top but I opted not to since I’d been having some troubles at this point in my pregnancy and wanted to climb the leaning tower later that afternoon instead, I figured one ridiculous climb would be enough for my body.  They said the view was amazing, the outside was pretty awesome but the inside left a little something to be desired.  When we were finished we took a train to Pisa for the day to see the leaning tower, Sharon and I had reservations to climb to the top but Aly opted to stay down and wave to us.  The climb up was crazy because of the lean, you’d start falling one way and then be falling the other way but it was worth it for the experience.  They only give you a set amount of time at the top but it was enough and when we were done we wandered around the rest of the area and then very tiredly headed back to Florence.

 

Thursday morning we packed up our stuff and took a train out to the small Tuscan town of Chiusi, we’d wanted to go out to Tuscany and it was quite a quaint little place.  There were not many tourists at all and we just spent the day wandering around and talking.  We found a little park to sit in and we sat on top of this hill and looked down at the countryside.  It was a very low key day for us but it was nice to just relax and take in the sights.

Friday morning we left Chiusi for Rome and my final day of the trip.  When we got in and got Sharon and Aly checked in to their hotel we started hitting the highlights, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, Trevi fountain, etc.  I was excited to go back to Trevi fountain since when Nate and I went in 2007 I’d thrown a coin in with the wish of coming back.  The day went by pretty fast and soon it was time for me to fly back to Nate and Reese.  As soon as I sat down on the bus to the airport time seemed to slow down, I was so ready to get back to my family that I couldn’t take it anymore.  I got back super late that night and even though I’d had an amazing time with my friends I was glad to be back home.