Amalfi Coast

Hi. I hope everyone had a lovely Cuatro and Cinco de Mayo. I saw a rookie horse won the Derby. Pretty good odds, I hope Steven bet on him. My nights here were nothing too crazy. Elaine and Eliza's Australian friends they met in Portugal are here so we just hung out with them. Their accents are so thick! It's pretty hard to understand. Today I met up with Ellie from soccer. She's taking a travel course for May and was passing through Florence on her way back from Rome so I met up with her and gave her and another girl a basic tour of Florence. It started to rain though so we came back to my apt and I'm really sleeping since I only got four hours of sleep so I sent them off to some wine bar near the train station. The other girl, btw, is taking the Holocaust class and seeing all the concentration camps. I freaked out a little when I heard her say that. From what I could tell, she wasn't worthy of such an amazing course. Anywhooo, here I am. Today is a very grey and rainy day so I decided it would be good to update you of my weekend in Amalfi Coast.

I think I have mentioned before about the Bus2Alps program. It's where you buy this package and it includes transportation via bus and hostel and some tours to places. One of my roommates, Cierra, did a trip like every weekend. She literally rode a bus to Prague, Greece, and Spain. Wayyy too long of bus rides for me. And then for your trip you are surrounded by other American students the entire time and they mainly are just big drinking parties. It's just an easy way to travel, I guess. Versus our trips where we do everything on our own and stumble upon amazing things. Which I obviously like way better. But for the trip to the Amalfi Coast we decided to book it with Bus2Alps. We figured cost wise it was actually better because we would have to take a train to Naples, which was already more expensive than the bus plus hostel and transportation to all the different spots. So we were hesitant, but it ended up being just fine.

The first day we had a boat tour around the island of Capri and to the Blue Grotto. Which might be one of the 7 wonders or something, I don't know. It was weird. So once upon a time it was the private swimming pool of King Tiberius. It can only be entered by this tinyyy hole when the tide is low. So we were on these gondolas and to get in we all had to lay down and the gondolier had to lay down last minute as we went through. And it was this little cave that was extremely blue. It was pretty but for 12 euro I expected a huge cave and you literally went in turned around the boat and went out. I think it was a scam from the Mafia. Anywhoo so after that and the rest of our tour we went to the island of Capri and Annacapri. We took this janky chairlift contraption to the top of the island and saw the most beautiful views. We were on the very top of the island on a cliff just overlooking the ocean and Sorrento, it was really pretty.

The next day was a beach day at Positano. The public beach was a little baby section of rocks so our crew of 200 or so Americans took over the place. We laid out and went on a little boat of 8 people, (one who went to freaking Westlake High School, so crazy.) We went to this sand bar and climbed up the side of a little cliff to go cliff jumping. I fell on my way up and cut my leg, naturally. But didn't stop me from cliff jumping. Then we headed to a cave and were dropped off on one end and picked up on the other. It was so beautiful, just swimming through a cave off the coast of Italy, no biggie. Then went back for some more tanning and got fried. Super shitty!

Sunday we packed up and headed to Pompeii. Now this place actually is pretty much known to be run by the Mafia. The entry fees don't even go to the state and the place isn't being kept up well. I guess a big ruin crumbled recently. But we do as tourists do and still go and pay the 10 euro entry fee and 5 euro for the tour guide. Who was legittt. He was all dressed up and so funny. Everyone knew him and would say good morning when we passed by. (Probably a mafia boss.) haha. But Pompeii was cool. A lot of ruins. The body casts of people weren't in the streets but in some storage rooms kind of. I think the main attraction was the brothel with the paintings of sex positions so customers just pointed at what position they wanted as a way of overcoming any language barrier problems.

And that was pretty much that. The weather was so nice. The places were beautiful. We met a group of guys from Rome that were really fun. It was nice. I don't have any crazy random stories to tell cause my trip was all sketched out but I think it was necessary cause I don't know how we would have gotten from place to place. It was good. A successful last trip. :(   But I'm not going to talk about that anymore cause it's depressing.

So pictures!

Pics from out boat tour to start off the trip.

I think these are famous rocks. The tunnel one is the Tunnel of Love...naturally.

The entrance to the Blue Grotto aka the that little hole.

Blue Grotto

There's a jelly!

View from Capri.

Chairlift

The view from Annacapri. All the way up toppp

View of Positano.

Rocky beach.

Me being all sorts of awkward.

Jumpin off the little baby cliff.

And Pompeii.

Entrance to the brothel. Cue penis..

Mafia boss.

Barcelona

Hellooo!! Okay. Blog updates just to hold you over for the one week till I'm home!!!

Starting with my weekend in Barcelona.
I'll begin with my trip there. I left from Florence to Pisa at like 6 pm. Got through Ryanair and everything rather easily. Got to Girona, a city outside of Barcelona, like an hour and a half bus ride. Similar to Pisa and Florence. So by the time I got to Barcelona it was midnight. Maddy had helped me figure out which metro lines to take to get to the boys apt. but I had their address just in case. So after about fifteen minutes of wandering, I came to a conclusion the metro was no longer running. So I ended up taking a taxi which was actually really easy and only 10 euro. It was the getting into the boys apartment that was the real kicker. I didn't know which number apt they were so I didn't know which one of the thirty buttons to press. Of course I couldn't get ahold of them on their phones because I didn't have a star or pound in front of their numbers... and apparently that is necessary.. So I literally was in Barcelona, at their apartment building, just standing outside the door for an hour until someone left so I got inside and just sat on the stairwell. Luckily I got on a free wifi network and half an hour later got ahold of one of the boys through Facebook and found out which apt to go to. Just an hour and a half later, no biggie.
Other than that mishap my trip was a lot of fun. It was nice to be on my own and just do whatever I wanted to do and go wherever and get completely lost and not feel bad. The weather was pretty nice the whole trip so that was nice cause it had been raining in Florence for the whole week. Let's see I spent a day at the fake beach, went up to Gaudi's park which had a really pretty view of Barcelona, saw La Sagrada Familia. Maddy, Chris, and I went and saw the stadium where they held the Olympics. That was really cool. Then Chris and I literally walked the entire coast of Barcelona. And of course there was the Real Madrid Barca game. Ughh. The city was so awesome the day of, everyone (literally everyone) was in a jersey. Every bar was packed, people had chairs outside bars and were watching the game through the windows of the store. Too bad they suckeddd. The next day, the city was so quiet. Like they were all in mourning. I think that was my favorite thing about Barcelona, the soccer culture. I loved it.
It was really nice to see Maddy and the boys. I hadn't been around boys in so long so that was fun. Really nice of Gabe to let me stay in his apartment. I had a bed and everything.
So that was Barca in a nut shell. It was really quite nice. I didn't do any of the late night discotecas, but that was fine with me. I really enjoyed the laid back trip.
Ended on quite a fun note. So my flight back was at 8:20 am with the gate closing at 7:50. I looked on their website and saw a bus was leaving at 6 which would get me there at 7 30. Close, but the airport was so small I figured I would be fine. Funny thing wasss that when I got to the bus departure station, the bus leaving for the Girona airport was actually leaving at 7:30, making me completely miss my plane. After talking to some bus drivers in broken english/spanish/italian I ended up hopping on a bus to the Girona train station at 6:30 to get me there at 8 to then take a short taxi ride to the airport. Figured it was at least worth the try. So I got to Girona at 8 and sprinted to a taxi yelling "aeropuerto rapidoooo!" He was didn't miss a beat, grabbed my bag, threw it in the back, ran to the drivers seat, and sped off. Literally speeding and driving like a crazy person, going on the other side of the road in oncoming traffic to pass big trucks and buses. I actually put my seat belt on and was holding my breath the whole time. Got to the airport at 8:15 threw him 20 euro and sprinted inside to the RyanAir desk. Showed them my ticket and they just looked at me and said hurry. So ran upstairs, was sliding on the slippery floor, got through security, ran to the terminal that was obviously already closed, the lady at the desk let me under some rope and through and I literally walked straight onto the plane and in a seat. It took me about three minutes and I started cracking up. I was soo luckyyy. It was quite the end to the trip but I was soooo happy it all worked out. haha

Well since I was solo most of the time, I don't have a lot of pictures and I don't have a picture of myself. Sowwies.

Las Ramblas, their main street. I took the metro here on my first day and walked the whole thing, all the way to the water.

The only photo I have of myself in Barcelona. :)

Fake beach

I loved this. They have this system where you can rent a bike at one stand like this and then leave it at another stand anywhere else in the city. I noticed it in Paris too. Everyone was biking everywhere. I thought it was the coolest thing. You just have to be an EU citizen to use them. Lameee

These both are La Sagrada Familia. Not quite sure what it is, but it's cool.

And the Olympic Stadium.

View of Barcelona from Park Guell

Pretty much sums up the city. The Nike store is actually just an FC Barcelona store. It's awesome!

Paris

Okay wow. I'm really sorry. As the number of days left go down, it seems the more and more stuff I have to do. It wasn't very nice of my teacher to have presentations and papers due the week before finals. I don't like it. But I can not believe that I am home in two and a half weeks. Holy crap. But before I get there, let me update you.

First thing's first, Paris.
Paris was beautiful. A huge city but really elegant... if you may.
So Eliza, Elaine, and myself got up and left Florence at like 3:30 to get on our early flight. We stayed in this really cute little apartment right by Sacre Coeur and two stops from Moulin Rouge. It was adorable. The guy couldn't speak a word of English so that was a little challenging, also the reason why I didn't have wifi the whole weekend, there was no way we could figure out what he was saying. But it was still so nice.
After we got all settled we decided to check out the Eiffel Tower. We bought a three day metro pass which was perfect. The metro was a little confusing but really convenient once we got it down.
The Eiffel Tower was amazing!! It's kind of ugly but just so daunting and fantastic. I loved it. There is this big park all around it so people just have picnics right underneath the Tower. I saw a group of 70 year old men playing bocce ball. And then there was this giant truck/bus that stopped and had a flash fashion show. Super weird but I liked it.
We spent four hours in Louvre. There was soo much artwork. Saw Mona, she's cool. There was a band playing outside the building so we watched them for awhile. We walked down Champs de Elysee. Saw the Arc de Triumph. Climbed the Arc de Triumph. Saw a beautiful view of the city and the Eiffel. Walked back down Champs de Elysee. Bought the famous macaroons from Laduree. Holy shit I almost died they were so amazing. And then we passed this building with a big line outside. Found out it was an Abercrombie and Fitch after seeing the five models standing outside topless and in bright red board shorts and flip flops. We asked the guard why there was a line and he went off saying that no Abercrombie is like the one in Paris, there is a garden and five levels or something crazy. We were skeptic so he let us in. The place was freaking weird. Right when you walk in there is another model that you take a polaroid picture with. And then you're greeted by a girl and guy dancing. And then you have your typical cologne suffocating, music blasting, dark store. Except this one had five levels. It was so weird. We walked in and walked right back out. But not without getting the models numbers. Who btw, just ended up inviting us to a "sex party", we politely declined.
We went to the famous graveyard, Pere Lachaise. It was giant. Reminded me of the Phantom of the Opera actually. It was kind of cool walking through it. It was actually beautiful. So we went to the graves of Chopin, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Gertrude Stein, and Oscar Wilde. As Eliza and Elaine were playing Edith Piaf's music at her grave, too much for me.. I want wondering. And what did I find... The section of the graveyard with monuments dedicated to the memory of Jews from WWII. It was obviously the most emotional spot for me from the whole place. It was so beautiful.
We saved climbing the Eiffel Tower for our last day there. Naturally it was so freaking windy and cold that day! Plus side, because of the nasty weather there wasn't a line to climb, when usually it's like two or more hours. The climb was fun, you can only go to the second level or something, which is still really high up. And then you take the lift to the top. The wind was crazyyyyy! But the view was awesome. And I was on the Eiffel Tower! I felt like Anastasia. :)
After we climbed we decided to just take a stroll and ended up in this big square with all these flags and people. We knew there was the big marathon going on so we though maybe we had found the finish line so we went in to investigate. After ten or so minutes the place got packed and there were all these French flags and big screens and this announcer comes on to introduce someone.. It was then that we realized we had stumbled into a political rally. haha. But it was kind of fun and we were trapped so we just decided to hang out, pretend we were French. But after like six speakers and the Prime Minister, we realized that Nicolas Sarkozy was here. And sure enough this pounding techno music came on, the flags all went up, the crowd went crazy, and Sarkozy came out. He gave about a 45 minute speech, I obviously had nooo idea what he was saying but he was so good. Got us fired up. When the crowd boo-ed, we boo-ed, when they cheered and screamed, we joined right in. It was nuts. When he was done they played the national anthem and everyone was screaming it and waving their flags. The three of us were just standing there with shit eating grins pretending to mouth the words. It was too much.
One of the last big landmarks we saw was Notre Dame. It was really beautiful, but the Duomo is more impressive I think. But while we were just sitting there we met this older man who I believe is autistic but nonetheless we struck up some conversation and watched him draw. He likes to draw things that leave impressions on him, so he was currently sketching Notre Dame. After about 30 minutes of conversation we asked him to draw a picture of us. So he did. It's pretty abstract but lovely.
We didn't end up going out while we there except for a happy hour drink on this random street that was full of bars. Ended up being a popular gay area. We caught on to that after all the trannies and the Bear Bar. Literally packed with bears!! Reminded me of Dana.. haha
The last night Eliza and I went out to see the Eiffel Tower light up. We decided the park would be fun. So we found a good spot close but not right underneath it so we couldn't see it. We laid down and watch it light up for five minutes. It was beautiful. I couldn't believe it. I was watching the Eiffel Tower light up. I'm so lucky.
Paris was really expensive so we only went out to one nice dinner. But for lunches I covered the bases and had french onion soup, their croque monsieur (ham and cheese), and lots of crepes. They were so freaking yummy.

So that was my Paris trip in a nutshell. I loved it. The city is really beautiful. Maybe not for me. I'm not elegant enough. But I still really enjoyed it.

Let's see what pictures I can find for youuu...

The view from our apartment. That's Sacre Coeur in the background.

Sacre Coeur

My first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower!!

Dog photo shoot. Something I totally would do..

You can't really see cause I was creepin, but it's the old men just playing bocce ball..

Hi, I have the longest legs known to mankind..

Flash fashion show. And sick Asian..

The best macaroons everrr

Arc de Triumph

The view from up top

Waiting outside the Louvre

Mona doin her thing..

Me doin my thing..

The band outside the Louvre

Pere Lachaise

Apparently he was quite popular with the ladies so everyone rubs him for sexual powers...

Oscar Wilde's grave. It's surrounded by glass and there's all these saying and messages for him. I liked it. 

And then these.

At the top of the Eiffel Tower.

And the rallyyyy

Sarkozy

 The Eiffel Tower all lit up at 11 pm

 Couldn't leave without a picture.

Nick, the artist man we met outside Notre Dame

Notre Dame

 Quasimodooooo!