Rome

We made it to Rome!

After a 4 hour train ride in a very cool train, we arrived in rome.

It is so much cooler here and not muggy at all!

Nick and I found our hostel and went and had lunch. We were so tired though that after relaxing in the hostel for a bit, we both fell asleep for around 3 hours.

At 8:30 we woke up and now we are headed out to dinner after our 15 mins of free internet a day from our hostel, which has turned out to be pretty nice. The only weird thing is that we don’t have lockers like the other place so we have taken the risk of leaving our clothes under our beds.

As for the fireworks in Venice, we ended up not seeing them because we were so tired and they didn’t start til 11:30pm. We watched a movie and were falling asleep when the huge booms of the fireworks started. Supposedly they were done a 15 min walk away in st. marks square but we still could see the lights and see them clearly.

Then at around 3 there was a huge storm. Our windows were shaking and there was thunder and lightning plus like 50000000% humidity. Basically it sucked for sleeping.

Anyways, we are very excited for Rome and since I only have 3 mins left I’m going to say goodnight.

Love you all!

Katie

Oh I almost forgot!

On our way to venice we went to verona! It was very nice there and we wrote mushy love notes to stick to Juliet’s wall. We stayed there for probably 3 hours and left for venice. It was nice and the place we went for lunch was really good and inexpensive.

Venice

Okay so for florence….

We did go see the duomo and we ended up just splurging and getting a tour, which was nearly private because there was only one other couple there.  Any who, there were two enormous lines wrapped around the building, one for the cathedral, which was free, and then another for the duomo, which was 8 euro.

Both lines we in the sun and hardly ever moved so we paid 15 euro to see both without waiting and get to see some private stuff too like prototypes in architecture.

The duomo was beautiful and so worth it! It was such a pretty view and I wish I could put up photos but the computer I’m writing this on still has a floppy drive and is simply ancient.

We went to the uffizi too but we had to stand in line for 2 hours for that and only went in for about 1 and a half. Nick and I agreed that it wasn’t worth it and we probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else unless they just love museums.

We went to venice the next day.

Venice is hot and muggy and it smells.

It is pretty and we went to st.marks cathedral which was gorgeous but we are lacking inspiration. The food is okay but the highlight of the place is probably that we have our own room which means no loud bunkmates and that’s about it. We are seriously considering getting a hotel since it has been too hot to sleep and there is a crying baby across the street. I don’t know we might be able to wait it out.

I had my first cappuccino here yesterday and it was very good.

We have a fireworks show tonight, which is very exciting! It is to  celebrate the anniversary of the end of the plague. fun fun.

Tomorrow  we leave for Rome, which we are both thrilled about.

Love you lots!

Ciao

Firenze!

Today is officially our day 3 in Florence.

On the first day we got here in late afternoon and walked around a bit and had a not so fabulous lunch at around16:00, which made us not hungry for dinner

We went back to our hostel and met this woman named Enya who was bunking in our hostel room with us. She was on a 10-week trip around Europe but was originally from Vancouver, Canada, so we had lots to talk about.

She invited us to go watch the final world cup game with her, since we had said we were going to try and find a pub or something that was showing it. She said that she has been going to this huge field across the river to see it and so far there haven’t been many people but that might change for the final….she was right.

It was over all a super fun night and very energetic, until we got home and crashed around 24:00

Then yesterday we got to take advantage of our fabulous hostel’s free breakfast deal. It is amazing. You get 8 choices and 6 choices of drink. All free! Nick and I got french toast and juice. Very tasty.

Our hostel is actually super cool. It’s only like 26 euro a night and there is free breakfast, free clean sheets, they have a laundry center(which nick and I used yesterday! very helpful to have clean clothes), plus everything else is super super cheep. Just an example: wine-2.50, beer-1 euro, soda 1 euro, 1000 ml of juice-2 euro. Everywhere else water has been .80euro for a small and 1.60euro for a large. Here it is .60 euro for small and .80 euro for large. AMAZING!!!

After breakfast we went out walking. We decided we wanted to save the main attractions for another time. We walked across the ponto vechio and went to the san lorenzo market where I got a dress and nick got a wallet. We wandered home and decided to go to this place called Mario’s, which Nick’s dad insisted we stop at. We ordered the simple spagetti with tomato sauce and 3 bottles of ice cold water. It was absolutely delicious! Very good choice.

Happy and full we went home and rested for a while. We watched part of a movie and then fell asleep and took an hour and a half long nap, which was very refreshing.

We went to chinese for dinner just to be different and it was actually so good. We got a meal for two for only 28 euro and it came with about 5 dishes to share. The seafood noodles were our faves.

We came home, watched part of a movie and  did our laundry. It was a lovely relaxing day in my opinion.

Today we are going to see the beautiful duomo and hopefully the uffizi.

Love you all!

Ciao for now

Lucca, Viareggio, Pisa cont.

The wall around Lucca

train station in pisa

happy in air conditioning

happy in air conditioned pisa

sitting in the only shade around the baptistry

the baptistry

view from leaning tower

nicks old neighborhood in pisa

Photos from Lucca, Vioreggio, and Pisa

getting picked up by salvatore from the pisa airport

the monestary our hostel in lucca was connected to

our monastary in lucca

our hostel in lucca

first gelato

first dinner in lucca

lost in viareggio

relaxing and getting a bite to eat while watching scrubs in viareggio

Pisa

So yesterday we went to Pisa to visit the leaning tower.

It was hot and sweaty there and much more crowded than Lucca or Viareggio. We went straight to the tower and bought our tickets. Since we were oh so very hot we headed for the super touristy restaurant with menus in about 5 different languages but they had air conditioning and ice, which was good enough for us. Our moods greatly improved due to that.

After we went shopping on the strip of tourist attractions by the tower and I bought a leather bag and a fan which has come in handy ever since then.

We went up the tower, which was very nicely cool (when we weren’t going up the stairs) and it had a terrific breeze at the top.

The view was magnificent and we took lots of photos.

After, we treked along the river in the center of town. We walked all the way to where Nick used to live on via peggia by the river. We are pretty sure we found his house, which was cool to see. We headed towards the train station and got gelato on the way.

When we got back we hung around the hostel and watched Youth in Revolt on Nick’s ipod.

After we went out to dinner at around 20:30 to this really nice little outdoor restaurant in the center piazza in lucca.

I had amazing amazing roasted chicken with potatoes and Nick got pesto pasta, which was also very good.

We got to see part of the world cup game and went for a nice walk after getting chocolate gelato to split. We crashed in bed around  00:30 because we knew we didn’t have to get up early the next day.

It’s 15:45 here and about 32 degrees celcius (close to 95)

We are off to find food and then wander around a while.

Ciao for now.