This is my much needed update from the past two weekends bc I’ve been traveling so much I really haven’t had all that much time to blog. So here goes… Florence was so much fun. I got to Livorno and met up with Dustin on Thursday, we rented a car, and went along the north eastern coast of Italy. It was gorgeous, a little cold but still a much needed beach trip. We got some sun and spent a good portion of Friday at the beach. The whole rent a car thing was interesting trying to maneuver ourselves in a vehicle in a different country, but Dustin knows how to drive stick shift so we got by just fine. Friday, after we got back from the beach and returned the car, we hoped on a train to Pisa (home of the leaning tower). Friday evening/Saturday morning we saw Pisa – climbed up the leaning tower, went into the Cathedral, and went into the baptistery. Saturday afternoon, we left for Florence. It was a really busy four days. We tried to do as much as we could outside, on Saturday in Florence because we knew it was going to rain on Sunday. So we went to Piazzale Michelangelo, Neptune’s fountain, Ponte Vecchio (the first bridge in Florence across the Arno river), Piazza della Signoria and Palazzo Vecchio, and Pitti Palace. Then we had dinner with Allison on Saturday night and I got to catch up on life abroad with her. It was so good to see her!! We talked a lot about grad school/florence/sevilla/school/and traveling.
Then on Sunday, we did the Duomo and the Galleria dell’ Academia, which has Micheangelo’s David in it. We tried to meet up with Jason/Miya who happened to be in Florence that weekend too, but the line was really really long for the Galleria dell’ Academia and they had to catch a train back to Rome, so it didn’t end up working out. But that’s okay because Jas/Miya are in Sevilla this weekend to see Semana Santa processions! Florence was amazing. I'm so glad i got to go, it's a lot like sevilla and a lot like rome at the same time... which are both very different cities, but two of my favorite cities in the world. It has the best of both worlds, it has a river like sevilla, and its slower paced but still really busy like an italian city. and of course it has italian food/roman history, which i love too.
Sunday night, I traveled home and got back Monday morning… funny story… I took a train to Milan from Florence to fly out of Milan on ryanair bc it was cheaper. So I got on my 8:15pm train and went to go sit in my seat and then the guy want like you made this reservation for 8:15am, not 20:15pm ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I wanted to cry, seriously it was a val-freezeface moment (bridge-ies will know what that means). But I didn’t cry, I just turned bright red and I was all upset because it was like 8:10 by then and I was like well this is probably the last train to Milan for tonight, and if I miss this train then I will miss my plane home to Sevilla. it would just be a really BAD chain reaction. So I stayed on the train and I was like I don’t care, I have a ticket. And I just sat in another seat. The entire time though I was like freaking out that the conductor would come over and kick me off the train or something, or fine me like 1000euro. But he never came to check my ticket, which turned out to be sooo lucky. Anyways, all was well and I made my plane.
Merillat and Jacob were on my same flight home that got into Sevilla on Monday morning at like 9am. And so we rode the airport bus back to Prado together. Merillat and I decided to sleep the rest of the morning and go straight home instead of trying to catch another bus to UPO with all our belongings, just to make it to Ana Claudio’s class. And Manoli missed us so much, she gave us breakfast even though it was like 11am with chocolate éclairs too!! And she gave us even had a surprise for us at lunch, chocolate/strawberry icecream Sundays!! It was such a wonderful welcome home.
The week went by like a whirlwind. I got into ASU, then heard just the same from TCU the next day. I was suffering from another bout of the cold before Morocco and trying to sleep it off to get better. I had SD card problems with my florence picts bc I dropped my canon camera on the leaning tower of pisa, so Brian (who is my hero now) saved them ALL, somehow. The metro opened on Thursday so Brian, Ali, and I had a great day adventuring and making history as we took the metro for the first time and wandered around Sevilla more. Then we left for Morocco early in the AM on Friday morning. I’ll write more about my Moroccan/African/sahara desert adventure later this week! Hasta luego!!
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