When in Rome!

This past weekend was extra special because Christy was able to go with us on our weekend excursion to Rome!   On Friday morning, we hopped on a train and got to Rome around 10 am!  After checking into our hotel, we headed to see the Roman Parliament building!  It was absolutely enormous.  It definitely looked quite official.  Our next stop was to the Colosseum and the Forum.  The Forum was much cooler than I expected.  It was crazy to look at all the ancient ruins and try to fathom how old they were.  The amount of history in Rome was just astonishing.  After exploring the Forum for a while, we headed to the Colosseum.  

Us girls in the Forum!

The Colosseum was even more amazing than I imagined.  Surprisingly this was my favorite spot in all of Rome!  The outside was beautiful, but it was even more intriguing on the inside.  I remember watching Gladiator as a kid at my aunt and uncle's, but I never knew I would actually be in the actual Roman Colosseum.  It was crazy to think about all of the history and the battles that occurred there. 

Katie, Me, & Jade in front of the Colosseum

Inside the Roman Colosseum.  This was breath taking.  It definitely took a while to try to take it all in! I can't believe how well everything has been preserved and restored.

Me, Jade, Katie, & Christy

Trying to escape the Colosseum! Help!!!

After going all over the Colosseum, we decided to have lunch at a little cafe called Dante's.  We were having a hard time choosing where to go because we didn't have any recommendations, but we were pleasantly surprised with our food.  

They had chicken salad!  That was a big deal to us because that is extremely uncommon to find in Italy!

After lunch, we headed to the famous Trevi Fountain.  I know it's cheesy, but I have always dreamed of throwing a coin in the Trevi Fountain and making a wish.  We heard that it is usually extremely crowded at the fountain, but we lucked out.  We were able to take a bunch of pictures right in front!  

This was our silly Trevi Fountain picture! 

We threw way too much change into that fountain hoping that one day our wishes would come true.  We shall see!

After the Trevi Fountain, we headed to the gorgeous Pantheon!  

Inside the Pantheon!  The ceiling was spectacular.  The hole in the top is the only source of natural lighting, which is why it was fairly dark inside.  

After a day of sight seeing, we went back to the hotel and freshened up for dinner.  On our way out we found a cute Christmas tree!  It definitely got us in the holiday spirit!

Day 2 in Rome!  We started our day by meeting up with a tour group in Piazza Repubblica.  This was a gorgeous area of Rome.  There was an amazing fountain in front where this picture was taken!  

Me & Katie

For our second day in Rome, we headed to the Vatican City.  Boy was there a lot of history there.  We've learned a little about the Vatican in my art history classes in Florence.  I can't believe they have their own police force and postal service.  It definitely is an important part of Rome, but still separate.  

Inside the Vatican Museum!

View of Rome from a window in the muesum

Some of the amazing artwork!

After hours of touring the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel, we sat out in the courtyard to take a little rest.  We lucked out with a gorgeous day in Rome with beautiful blue skies and great weather.  

After the Vatican, we headed to St. Peter's Basilica.  This was definitely the most touristy part of Rome.  The line to get inside the Basilica was the longest line we had ever seen.  St. Peter's was beautiful!  

Our next stop was to the famous Spanish steps.  Our hotel was conveniently located right near the steps which was nice.  One of my favorite things was watching the beautiful sunset in Rome while just relaxing on the Spanish steps.  After two days of walking all around the city, we were really tired so this was the perfect last stop. It was hard to get a good picture there, but at least we tried!    

Christy, Jade, Me, & Katie

Overall, we loved Rome!  It was so nice to have Christy with us to explore the city.  I had heard from a lot of my friends that Rome was packed with people, but I think we went at the perfect time because we didn't face too many crowds.  I definitely want to come back someday.  I think Rome is one of those places you could visit over and over again and still learn something new.  I don't think I could ever study abroad there because I love that Florence is so small, but it definitely is my second favorite place in Italy!

Barcelona Bliss!

This past weekend I made my first solo trip abroad to visit all my Cal Poly friends in Barcelona, Spain! This trip couldn't have come at a more perfect time because I definitely needed a little time with my friends from SLO!  

On Thursday night, I took a flight from Florence to Barcelona!  Then Friday, the exploring began!  One of the first places, all the Barcelona girls (Kelly, Bianca, Ashley, & Mary) took me was to an amazing sandwich place called Bo De B's!  It reminded me of a better version of Chipotle.  Everything was so fresh and delicious.  They literally grill the meat right in front of you and add all the freshest vegetables to your sandwich!  I also tried Bravas (yummy potato bites) for the first time and I was in heaven! 

Then we went to this amazing indoor market.  It definitely reminded me a little of the Mercato Centrale in Florence, but an even better version!  There was tons of fruit, chocolate, fish, vegetables, meat and sweet treats!  My favorite part of the market was the amazing juices.  Only one euro for basically any fruit combination you could possibly dream of!  I got the strawberry banana and it was delicious!

I'm already craving another one of these!  They were so fresh and tasty! 

After going to the market, Kelly and I headed to the famous Parc Guell in Barcelona! This was such a beautiful place and provided us with the most incredible view of the city! Everything was so green and lush!

So excited to be reunited together!  Once Kelly and I are done with our semester abroad, we will be living together in our cute apartment in SLO!  This will be put up somewhere in our apartment for sure!

After Parc Guell, we headed back to Kelly's apartment, but stopped at the Arc de Trimof!  I didn't even know Spain had one until I saw it on one of the metro stops!  It was definitely not as big as the one in Paris, but still was cool to see.

For my next day in Spain, Kelly, Ashley, & I went to visit La Sagrada Familia!  This was by far the most beautiful place in Barcelona!  My jaw literally dropped.  I was so amazed at how big and detailed it was.  Gaudi is an absolute genius in designing it!

Inside was just as gorgeous as the outside.  It was so white, clean, and open.  The glass windows were spectacular as well!  This place literally took my breath away.

Kelly, Ash, and I decided to climb to the top of La Sagrada Familia!  It was so beautiful and such a great experience to be up so high looking down on the city!

Later that day, I was lucky enough to go with everyone to the Barcelona soccer game!  I never imagined I would get to that, so it was definitely one of the highlights of my trip!  Kelly was nice enough to reserve me a ticket through her school, so I was able to go to the game and be with all my friends!  I can't even explain the energy that was in the stadium.  Spain loves its soccer team and the fans sure know how to roar!  There were thousands and thousands of people out there to support the team, which was so amazing!

Luckily our seats were pretty good!  It was so much fun to watch the Barcelona team play and WIN the game! Woohoo!

Kelly & Me cheering in the stands!

 All of the girls & Grant! Go Barca!

Me, Bianca, & Kelly!

The soccer game was such a blast and definitely an added bonus to my amazing Barcelona trip!  I had so much fun visiting this incredible city.  Besides the crazy and insane nightlife, Barcelona has so much to offer! There is so much history and beauty within the city.  Barcelona is definitely much bigger than I initially anticipated and I'm thankful I had my friends to show me around.  I'm so happy I was able to see so much and spend time with all my SLO friends.  At times, I miss Cal Poly and all my friends there, so it was nice feeling like I had a little piece of home with me. This was definitely a weekend I will never forget!

Prague-tastic!

This past weekend, we celebrated my roommate Alex's 21st birthday by making a trip to Prague! We decided to go through a travel company that would take us by bus from Florence to Prague.  Boy was that a mistake.  We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into until the day before when we found out that the bus ride was a whopping 12 hours!  Not fun at all.  The bus ride there wasn't too bad because we left Florence late Thursday night and arrived in Prague on Friday morning, so we were able to sleep the whole way.  

After arriving to our hotel, we checked in and then headed out to explore the city of Prague.  We were able to do a walking tour of the entire city in about 3 hours.  Prague was much different than I had expected.  It was extremely beautiful and full of a ton of history!

An old church in Prague!

The entire group exploring the city!

A gorgeous view of Prague from one of the oldest bridges

My favorite part of walking around Prague was visiting the famous John Lennon Wall.  This spray painted wall was amazing!  So much talent was put into making it special.  I loved the emphasis on peace and love.  We had lots of fun taking a ton of pictures here!

Peace, Love, and Prague!

After climbing a bunch of stairs, we got an even prettier view of Prague!

This was the oldest working clock in the world!  Crazy right?  I can't remember an exact date but I think that it's amazing!

Prague was definitely one of those places I never expected to visit while I was in Europe.  It was more beautiful than I could have even imagined and I'm grateful for the opportunity that I had to go there!