Londra, Firenze, and more Roma!

Wow, so much to write about! I really need to blog more often...

     On October 7th I went to LONDON! I left my last class 30 minutes early, walked very quickly to Largo Argentina, waited about ten minutes for the bus (which seemed like a lot longer) which took me to Termini, where I literally ran to the Terravision shuttle station- it was about 5 minutes before the shuttle was supposed to leave and I couldn't find the place, so I was frantically going around until I saw the bus and then I started running! Whew... so after that panic, I waited like 15 minutes for the bus to leave (...) and about an hour later arrived at Ciampino airport. It's a tiny airport, so I just wandered around until about an hour before the flight took off. I flew Ryanair, so I waited the last hour in line just to make sure I got on (and got a good seat!) I sat by the window and had a spectacular view of Rome at night. The flight was only about 2 hours, and when I arrived in London, I ran to my second shuttle in a panic (deja vu?) which took me to Baker Street! I got there a little early, so I waited a couple minutes until I saw Andrew walking down the street! :) We took a double decker bus- a good first thing to do in London!
     Friday morning, we went to Trafalgar Square, where we took uber touristy pictures with the huge lions; Westminster (which has Big Ben, the Thames River, Parliament, and the London Eye), where we took pictures of a couple from the US who forgot their camera and is now going to send us a copy of their book when they get home; Leicester Square, which isn't pronounced how you'd think; Chinatown, where we took way too many pictures because of Andrew's new camera lens; Piccadilly Circus, which isn't a circus but a circle to us Americans; and University College London, the beautiful college where Andrew is studying this semester. For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant. Yes, Italian. I seriously will never get tired of Italian food. I eat pasta in Johns Creek, I eat pasta in Roma, and I eat pasta in London. After dinner we went back to Westminster, which was really cool because at night it was all lit up, and for some reason that night Parliament and Big Ben were lit with colored lights.
     On Saturday, we saw Portobello Market, the beautiful Kensington Gardens, V&A, Buckingham Palace, and St. Paul's Cathedral. After dinner we went to the Globe theater and saw Henry IV Part II! While not exactly the most thrilling, understandable play this century, we got to be groundlings and lean right up against the stage, and we definitely had some good laughs. It was so cool to see Shakespeare performed in London, in the Globe, with accents and all! We stood for more than three hours, and there was a closing bit since we went on closing night- we were very lucky because they added shows that season- it was so worth it!
     Sunday we were again very busy! We went to the Monument, where we climbed 311 spiral steps up inside the huge Doric column for an awesome view of London, and Greenwich, where the Prime Meridian is located. We went to the British museum with about an hour before it closed, so we saw the main attractions of the museum, such as the Rosetta Stone and pieces from the Parthenon. When the museum closed we went to King's Cross Station, where we dorkily asked a security guard where Platform 9 and 3/4 was! He was confused, so we specified, "like, in Harry Potter?" He wasn't sure where it was and we couldn't find it- we found Platform 9, and Platform 10, but no 9 and 3/4! It was pretty funny, though, and I think he thought we were crazy. Those Americans.
     Monday morning Andrew had class, so I started working on a paper for my own class. Afterward we walked around and had lunch at a nice cafe before I had to get on the shuttle to London Stansted. The journey back was relatively uneventful- I had a great view again from my window seat.
     I hope I didn't make that too long- I tried to keep it relatively short! It was great getting to see Andrew and as much of London as possible in one weekend! :) I can't wait for him to come to Rome!

     The next weekend, I went to Florence with my roommates on an excursion with our program, API. We went on a tour of the city and saw the Duomo, the Medici family house, and Ponte Vecchio. Afterward we spent a lot of time around the markets and had some fun looking at jewelry worth hundreds/thousands of euros! For dinner we went to a small ristorante, which was delizioso.
     Saturday morning we met for breakfast at 7:45 and then headed to the Duomo, the huge cathedral that Florence is famous for. It is covered with beautiful colored marbles, and we were there at 8:30am sharp when they opened the doors so we could climb the almost 500 stairs up to the top. We had to meet with the rest of API at 10:30 to go to the museum, so we wanted to do it before the museum to avoid the long line to go up. At the top, it was an absolutely beautiful view. It was a clear, cool morning- perfect weather. After climbing back down, we went to the museum where we saw the David by Michelangelo. I'm not going to pretend to be an art expert or anything, it just looked pretty impressive to me! I've seen pictures of it, but I've never noticed how expressive his face is before. Or how big his head and hands are...

   On Sunday, Claudia and I went to the Circus Maximus where a bunch of Ancient Roman reenactment groups were doing performances. There were soldiers, gladiators, and dancers, and the whole place looked like a Roman military camp. It was a lot of (geeky) fun! We saw soldiers demonstrate military tactics and a lot of costumed people do a full Roman wedding, which was very colorful- people think of the Romans as all wearing white, but that's not the case.

     Midterm week can be summed up pretty quickly. Study sick study stress study still sick study midterm study stress next midterm study tissues last midterm DONE. I survived, and I think I did pretty well?

     Friday I went to the tour of the Vatican Museum with API and got to see many famous things, such as the statue of Laocoon and the Sistine Chapel! Also, among the not-as-famous things, I saw the Borgia room- the tour guide talked about how corrupt they were, and I was just standing there like hehe possibly my ancestors.... on Saturday, I went to the Villa Borghese Gardens, which was very pretty, and Sunday I took a walk to Palazzo Spada, where I saw the really neat illusion by Bernini- it's a corridor that was made to look much longer than it actually is, and the statue at the end looks life-sized when it's actually about 3 feet tall! After I left, I people-watched in a piazza for a little while and had fun understanding pieces of the Italian that people were saying.

Photo albums!
Tarquinia
Marino Wine Festival
London
Florence
Vatican Museum and Villa Borghese Gardens