Pisa, Italy

Pisa is only an hour west of Florence via train, so we decided to make a quick stop in Pisa to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Let me tell you, there is not much in Pisa other than the Leaning Tower, a few museums and a lot of tourists! I am very glad we did not plan on spending much time there. We took a very small, almost commuter train out to Pisa, snapped some funny pictures with the tower and had Pizza in Pisa for lunch. However, the pizza wasn’t very good. I was quite disappointed.

The tower itself was also anticlimactic. Yes, it is a leaning tower, but that’s pretty much all there is to it. I would say my favorite part about our trip to Pisa was the entertainment provided by all of the other tourists. There are people everywhere trying to get pictures where it looks like they’re leaning on the tower, pushing the tower up, kicking the tower, sitting on the tower, and many other inappropriate things I won’t mention. My friend Mike got the most hilarious picture where it looks like he imitates Miley Cyrus to knock the tower over “like a wrecking ball”. It was so funny. He definitely got the award for the best picture. Most of the pictures that I tried to take were complete fails, but I think that makes them funny in their own way.

Florence, Italy

Warning: Studying abroad isn’t always fun and games. Accidents and bad things do happen, but you learn how to deal with it on your own and in a foreign country. The trains from Venice to Florence require a seat reservation, meaning we had to pay extra money on top of our Eurail passes to be able to legally take that train. Unfortunately, we missed the train that we had reservations for, but thought it would be okay if we took the next train that was an hour later and still try to use our reservation. That didn’t work at all. We were able to find unused seats, but got fined by the conductor for not having reservations for that train. The fine ended up being more than a new reservation would have been, which was a bummer. Anyways, I took out my wallet to pay the fine to the conductor. Later into the train ride, people kicked us out of our seats because they actually had reservations. So, we had to get up and move to stand by the door of the train, which wasn’t a big deal. We made it to Florence and went to go walk to our hostel.

On the way, we were talking about how Florence was a big city for pick pocketing and how we had to be extra careful with our stuff. At that point, I noticed that my purse felt sort of empty, so I started to rummage through it and couldn’t feel my wallet. I started freaking out a little bit, but tried to keep my cool. I asked my group of Carolyn, Anna, Lachlan, Mike and Keval to wait one second so I could take a better look through my purse. Unfortunately, the wallet was no where to be found. I didn’t really know what to do, so I told my group that it was fine and we should just keep heading to our hostel and I would deal with it once I got there. Thankfully, I had paid for the deposit of this hostel, so I already covered my portion of the cost. I immediately called my dad (ok, so I didn’t figure it all out on my own…) and told him what happened and asked him not to be mad. Thankfully, my dad and I are the logical type, so we reasoned through how I was going to get myself out of this situation. I had lost my wallet which included my credit card, my debit card, my health insurance card, my driver’s license and some cash. I was so unbelievably grateful that I didn’t keep my passport in my wallet and that I had less than 20 euros of cash on me. I was originally planning on withdrawing around 200 euros before this week-long trip. This situation could have been infinitely worse.

My dad advised me that I should go back to the train station and talk to the police there to report my missing or stolen wallet. The only possible situations for what happened were that I didn’t put my wallet back into my purse after paying the fine on the train or someone stole my wallet on the train while I was sleeping (although my purse was in my lap the whole time). Unfortunately, the police at the train station weren’t able to help that much, and weren’t very easy to get to talk to! One of them did speak English, but Mike and I spent a long time trying to get them to open up the doors and let us in. The train I was on went all the way to Rome and the wallet wasn’t found once it got there. I did file a police report though. I also called Chase Sapphire to report the missing card and see if they could send me a new one. They were so nice and said they could get the card to me within two days. Unfortunately, I wasn’t staying in one place for more than two days at a time, so they had to ship the card back to Metz instead. This left me without cash or cards for the rest of seven days we were on break. Thankfully, other people in the group had Venmo, a banking app where you can transfer money to other people’s accounts, and I was able to pay people back instantly.

Back to the hostel, this was probably one of my favorite places that I stayed in Europe. We had a room for all 6 of us together set up almost like a flat. All the beds were in that room but then there was also a nice couch and sitting area. It was really fun to be able to hang out with everyone. We also went out to a club that night, which helped me take my mind off of everything. Although, the club was annoying and you paid the cover fee on the way out the door instead of on the way in, so you had no idea how much it was going to be. Additionally, you paid the cover fee at the bar and they gave you the receipt to get out. By that point, people are drunk and don’t realize that the receipt is actually their ticket out the door and throw it away. Then, they have to pay for the cover all over again. It was nightmare. The club itself was very fun, though!! Mike and Keval managed to find a way into the VIP section. I got snapchats of it the next morning.

The next morning, we got up and went to the Pizzale Michaelangelo for the most amazing view of Florence. It was so beautiful up there. Then we headed to one of the nearby bars for lunch. Our hostel owner told us that the best places to eat lunch in Florence are at the bars because they usually have special deals. Boy was he right! We had a two-course meal for so cheap! We also met this wonderful American couple who gave the boys their leftover pizza. Next, we headed more into downtown Florence and saw the Ponte Vecchio bridge on the way. We headed towards Santa Maria del Fiora, aka the Duomo. It was so beautiful and so massive. I couldn’t fit the entire cathedral in one picture! Unfortunately, because it was a Sunday, we couldn’t go to the top of the dome. We did, however, get to go inside. It is so spacious inside, with high ceilings and grand marble floors. The interior of the dome is stunningly painted various scenes from the Bible. Next, we had more gelato (what else is new…) and explored more of Florence. We tried to see Michaelangelo’s David, but the museum was already closed by the time we got there. We did get to see many similar statues in the square outside of the museum.

Florence wasn’t at all what I expected. Yes, yes, I didn’t expect to lost my wallet, but the city itself was also a surprise. From pictures I had seen, I expected it to be more rustic and surrounded by wine-country. However, Florence is a very bustling, urban city. The size of the city was also perfect; not too big, not too small. We were able to walk everywhere and not have to rely on any sort of public transportation. I really enjoyed my time in Florence and wish we had been able to spend more time relaxing and hanging.

Venice, Italy

Halfway through the semester, we got a week off of school! It ends up coinciding with breaks for many of the other schools in Europe. Remember, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving and have time off then. For our week-long fall break, I decided to embark on a trip down through Italy and then out to Greece. Throughout Italy, I traveled with Carolyn, Anna, Lachlan, Mike, and Keval. The plan was to spend two nights in Venice, one night in Florence, three nights in Rome, and two nights in Mykonos. We were booked solid and busy, busy busy!

We spent ~15 hours traveling by train from Metz to Venice, stopping through Munich on the way where we of course had some Bratwurst. We ended up staying in an airbnb on the mainland and not actually on the island of Venice. This meant that we had to take short train onto the island everyday, but that wasn’t a big deal considering the money we were saving. Although, maybe our airbnb was so cheap because the renter was rather strange… His name was Abu and the running joke was “Abu going to get you”. He had a tendency to hover around us whenever we were back at the airbnb and especially during breakfast. Imagine being at a restaurant where you are the only table and their is one waiter constantly waiting on you. Basically, it was just a little awkward. Thankfully, we didn’t spend too much time in the hostel.

On our first day in Italy, we spent a lot of time just walking along the sidewalks and canals. Wow! It was so easy to get lost in Venice. The island itself doesn’t allow any cars on it, so all transportation is done either through the canals or alleyways. We knew that we wanted to do a Gondola ride at some point while we were in Venice, and it ended up being one of the first things we did. On our way to San Marcos Square, we saw this hilarious gondolier named Alex taking funny pictures with Asian women tourists. We decided we had to do our gondola ride with him, and boy were we right! The entire time he was dancing, singing, posing funny for tourists and greeting the locals. He had all of us laughing so hard. The canals themselves are beautiful. The water is so blue and each house on the canal has a little garage door in the water where they park their boats.

After lots of twisty turns and getting lost, we finally made it to San Marcos Square. As would be the case for much of our trip throughout Italy, San Marcos Basilica was under renovation so we couldn’t appreciate the outside in all of its beauty. However, we did get to go inside. It was so beautiful! The ceilings and walls were all gold mosaics with depictions of people from the Bible and the floor and pillars were all marble. Then, we wandered around and saw the Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal and the Bridge of Sighs. We also ate our first of many gelatos. American ice cream just doesn’t compare to Italian gelato. Actually, in general American food just doesn’t compare to European food. My mouth is watering just thinking about it all.

On our second day in Venice, we did a three-island tour of Murano, Burano and Torcello off of Venice. A boat took us from Venice to each of these three islands where we got to get off and explore for a bit. Murano is known for its world-famous glass. On this island, we got to go to a glass-blowing factory and watch a glass blower create the most beautiful horse, and so quickly! I bought my sister and I matching glass beaded bracelets from here. Then, we went to the island of Burano, famous for its lace and brightly painted fishermen houses. No two houses next to each other were the same color! We ended the tour on the island of Torcello where it is rumored that Ernest Hemingway spent time writing. This was my least favorite island, but maybe it was because I was so tired. It was very small and creepy, seeming to have no actual occupants. There is a very old cathedral on the island that was interesting, but again slightly creepy.

I loved Venice! It is so beautiful and quaint despite the numerous tourists. We got to hang out, see many sights, do some shopping and most importantly eat delicious food! We also spent the perfect amount of time in Venice. I would have liked to relax more, but we were able to see all of the sights in the short amount of time that we had.