PURSES

LUNCH and walkin around Roma

We found a HARD ROCK CAFE and all literally jumped for joy at the sight of American food. Just so you know, we shared chicken nachos and I had a huge cobb salad, YES. Then we just walked around the city. Here are some pics!

The Vatican

We were in the Vatican! There were so many rooms to walk through and TONS of people, but I saw so many beautiful pieces of art! Unfortunatley, we were STRICTLY forbidden to take pictures, but Joe took a few anyways.

Day 2: Saint Peter's Basilica

I think it will be easier to break up the Rome trip because we did so much! The second day we took a taxi to Saint Peter’s Basilica and waiting in a GINORMOUS line that wrapped around the entire court! We took a few pictures outside while waiting; it was a gorgeous church! So, as I walked up the steps to Saint Peters, I was no longer in Rome, no longer in Italy, but in the Vatican City, the smallest state in the world! Little did I know, that the Vatican City has everything any other state has, a newspaper, a postal office, and way back they even had their own currency! I thought this was pretty cool. SO, there is a lot to say about St. Peter’s Basilica. It is the largest Catholic Church in the world, but the funny thing is that is really doesn’t look all that big, and that is because when you walk in, you have absolutely NO perspective because everything is ENONORMOUS! There is not just a few huge pillars or one giant fresco, EVERYTHING is giant! So there is no way for your brain to see that is so large, because everything in there is built on such a large scale that it appears normal. For example, in the fifth picture, the letters that are going around the dome are two people tall! That's me stacked on top of you! And in the same picture, the huge mosaics you see don’t look very big at all right? Well in the sixth picture, the pen that the man is holding in his right hand, you have to look closely, is NINE FEET LONG! I just couldn't believe it! That is how big this church is!

When in Rome,

Do as the Romans do! We woke up at 8 and ran to the train station to be there by 8:30 and left on our way to ROMA! When we arrived we all put our stuff in our rooms in the Hotel Portamaggiore, which was a pretty nice hotel, and then began our very, very hectic weekend! Rome is HUGE! We went to the Colosseum first where we waited in line in the rain for a while, but while waiting our teacher began telling us so much already! The Colosseum is an elliptical amphitheatre that is in the center of Rome. This is the ONLY amphitheatre that can be called “colosseum.” It is commonly misused when people are generally talking about amphitheatres, but this is actually the title that this amphitheatre was given in 70AD after the COLOSSAL statue of a rich man named Nero who lived on the hill next to the Colosseum. So, it was built between 70 and 72AD!! Incredible! It originally sat 50,000 spectators who came to watch the gladiators flight until their death. We heard incredibly gory stories, which I won’t repeat on here, that our teacher told us about the fights. These festivals, if you will, lasted all the way from dawn until dusk. It took approximately one hour for the people to file into the Colosseum, and there was one break for lunch, where the Emperor would leave and get his lunch while most of the other pagans stayed to watch the hangings and beheadings of the criminals. As time went on, the people demanded more extravagant shows, so the Emperor had many exotic animals shipped there to fight. He would also drop flower pedals half way through the show from the tops of the Colosseum; imagine millions of flower pedals floating down while sitting in the Colosseum. I imagined it would be a very peaceful and beautiful experience, until I was told this was only done in order to take away the odor of the blood and rotting bodies that had already been killed. Peaceful huh?

We saw where the animals were kept down below and how the Romans built lifts and “elevators” to hoist the giant animals up to surprise the audience. They were very clever indeed. I will let the pictures tell the rest…

Halloween Eve

The night before Halloween we all went out and had a good time, I just thought I would put up some more pictures of all of us hanging out in Florence. Unfortunately, I got really sick the next day and didnt go out for Halloween. I think all of the travelling has gotten to me. It is Novemeber 11 and I am still feeling awful, but this night was very entertaining!

OH Switzerland! (Interlaken)

OH Switzerland! The people here are just way too nice! This trip was the fourth weekend in a row traveling and Pablo, Joe, Stu, Paul and I met my friend from Lake Forest, Caroline, in Interlaken! Caroline is studying in Paris, so we decided we needed to do some traveling together! The first day we got to Interlaken, we went to our hostel called “Funny Farm,” and put our huge backpacks in the luggage room. The worst part about taking the overnight train is that you leave at like nine or ten at night, then you get in to the destination at around seven or eight in the morning. Obviously it is not a very comfortable sleep on a raging train, so it is no fun waking up and finally getting to the place you are staying, then you CANT check in!! We have all gotten used to “showering” in the hostel/hotel lobby bathrooms, since we are students traveling in Europe, right? This is what we do. Unfortunately. Anyways, after awkwardly cleaning up and brushing my teeth in the lobby bathroom, we are ready for the day!
Interlaken is a pretty small town surrounded by the Swiss Alps. It is known as the extreme sports capital of the world and is where people from all over come to do crazy things, like Pablo, but we will get to that later. First! Our first day we decided to hike up a HUGE mountain! I cant remember the name and wouldn’t be able to spell it anyway but it was BIG! And I climbed it! It took us close to three hours and we made a few stops along the way, but we finally reached the top where there is this lodge with a restaurant in it. Pab and I ate our first Swiss food there and it was really good- I had toast with hash browns and eggs and then Swiss goat cheese on top. It was all stacked up and I devoured it! I was so happy that it wasn’t pizza or pasta!
After that we took a train all the way down the mountain! The tracks are actually pointed straight down steep enough that the train was built on an angle. It is hard to explain, but the train car looks like it has been chopped off at an angle. In the evening we all went bowling! I had a blast and the boys were blown away by my skills, that Joe and I bet 10 euros on a game. Of course, tall, dorky Joe, who is my favorite guy, whips out his bowling skills and kills me! The score was like 200 to 96 or something! I choked.
Anyways, that night we made a huge bonfire in a place we found while hiking. Caroline was supposed to get in to Interlaken that night but there were massive train strikes in Paris, so she was not able to get there until 2 AM. So Pablo, Joe, Stu, Paul and I made a fire, (I was in charge of finding brush) and it was so much fun! Did I mention that it was 5 degrees in Switzerland! It was so cold, so the fire felt really nice after the long day.
The next day Caroline, Pab, and I went to eat at Hooters! They had one in Interlaken, and it isn’t very usual to find American places like this in Europe so we had to jump at this opportunity and eat nasty greasy chicken. As always when going to Hooters, the food is never good, but we had a great conversation and it was so good to see Caroline again! I hadn’t seen her in five months! After lunch, we walked around and did some shopping! We took tons of pictures as always.
The third day, Pablo decided he wanted me to have an early heart attack; he decided to go skydiving from 14,000 feet out of a helicopter! Caroline and I waited in the big field he was supposed to land in and the woman finally told us that the helicopter was up and they were ready to jump. She showed us where to look and it was the tiniest white dot in the sky! I couldn’t see Pablo jump out but a few hundred feet down, I finally could spot the little black speck falling from the sky!!! He kept falling and falling and falling and falling and I was really freaking out that the parachute was not coming out!! Then it finally did and Pablo came down with a crazy Australian guy named “Wolf” and they glided with a big red parachute all the way to us! Pablo kept talking about how amazing it was and how cold he was and he can tell you more about it at pabbr.blogspot.com if you want to read more about it!
The second night we built another bonfire so Caroline could enjoy it as well and we sat and looked over the entire city of Interlaken.

[The first picture is the mountain we climbed, and it is hard to see but the resturant is way up at the top!]