Goodbyes

Surrounded by my fellow sleeping travelers at, yes, 7:37 pm... I decided that I would write a quick blog. Not about traveling but the people and experiences I had whilst traveling.

I was lucky enough to get to spend this semester abroad. Everyone that I have talked to asks me, "why Wales?" To be honest, I  really have no idea.What I do know is that if I had studied in Rome or Paris or Madrid or some quintessential European city, I would not have had an experience even close to what I had while in Swansea.

Over the past week I have had to say goodbye to more people that were wonderful friends that I ever have had to do before. I cannot say enough good things about my friends because to be honest they are what made this semester so wonderful. Of course the traveling was wonderful. The cities were beautiful, the museums grand, the art work amazing. But it was truly the people that made this trip.

I have had such a wonderful semester, and I said this the other day, but it really was the best of luck that I had which makes saying goodbye to all of them so difficult.

So, thank you parents and family and friends, for keeping up with me throughout this journey of a lifetime, literally.

There will be one more post about Nice and Southern France and then this blog will be adjourned for a while.

~Julia

Paris!

I am waiting for my laundry to be done so I can finish packing! It is pretty strange to think that in two days I will be leaving my home of three plus months and saying goodbye to the people I have seen everyday and have grown to love. More on goodbyes later...

PARIS PARIS PARIS! Paris was wonderful. Alison and I were lucky enough to sell our Paris school trip tickets to two of our friends so we could have more time in the city, we have four almost five days instead of two... It was a bit pricier than we had planned but it was worth it. We flew out on Wednesday and got into Paris around 6 pm. Our hostel was in a really good location, three blocks from Notre Dame. So we managed to get into the city with no problems and we dropped off our stuff and headed back out to dinner. We had decided to treat ourselves to a three course meal at this little restaurant we had read about. We both had french onion soup, Alison does not like onions but she loved this, it was divine. Then we didn't really know what we ordered for our main course because it was hand written french so we just chose two fish dishes. Alison's fish came out as a fish... mine was prepared. Both were good and not something we would normally pick. For desert I had creme brulee which was of course delicious. That night we explored a bit and just walked around till we turned in for bed.

Christmas at Notre Dame

Thursday we were off to Versailles! This one on the top of Alison's list and since she usually just goes along with whatever I want we decided to do this first! It was a bit rainy, but to be honest we are pretty used to that. (Thank you Swansea for being the worlds rainiest city.) The train to Versailles was about 35 minutes from Notre Dame so it was very manageable. The guide books and others had said that you need at least a good half day if not a whole day to do Versailles so we had planned for that. Versailles is huge... I don't remember if you remember Potsdam from Berlin, that palace was like a maids quarter compared to Versailles. It was beautiful, even in the rain. We wandered through all of the rooms and it took us only about an hour. We saw Marie Antoinette's bedroom and the door she escaped through. We walked down the hall of mirrors which was really neat and looked out onto the gardens. Also, we had wanted to do some biking around the gardens because they are so huge but I guess flowers are not so big in December so we didn't get to do that which was a little bit of a bummer. After the tour of the palace we went to a local place to have some galettes and crepes! Galettes are made with buckwheat and for the tourists signs usually advertise them as salt crepes... which is what they tasted like. Salt and pan haus... another weird thing made from buckwheat that my family eats on Christmas. Needless to say I am not a huge fan of galettes but crepes are always delicious! We were done a lot sooner than we planned so we just headed back to the city to do some more things.

We went into Notre Dame and tried to climb the tower, for some reason though we could not find it which is a huge bummer because some of the best views in Paris are from Notre Dame's top. Next time. We also walked over to the Pantheon and went inside that. Alexander Dumas, Marie Curie, and Victor Hugo are some of the famous people buried in the crypt. The crypt was by far the nicest we have seen, it was huge and white, tall ceilings. I think it was nicer than the upper part of the Pantheon. We also got our first real glimpse of the Eiffel Tower from here so that was wonderful! From the Pantheon we went to a neighborhood market to gather some things for dinner. On the way I found my future home and a school, maybe I can teach in Paris... My mom is loving me saying that. At the market we got french bread, clementines, and cheeses; the cheese guy was super nice and helpful and let us taste a variety so we knew what we were getting. It was a delicious dinner... Next we left our hostel again to go explore the Islands which were really close to us and we went in and out of all these cute shops, Thursdays are a nice day to do this because everything is open later Thursday night.

Versailles

Friday everyone else was getting into Paris! Adam and Kyle were going to meet up with Alison and me to do the bike tour by the same company we used in Berlin. We met them there after quite a hike... our hostel was very close to Notre Dame but a good 45-50 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower along the Seine river. Adam and Kyle had gotten very little sleep on the bus so they were tired but we all started off for the bikes! Unfortunately the tour was not as good as Berlin... it was a bit weird because we really hardly saw anything and got a very limited history. It was disappointing especially because it was three and a half hours so that was time we could have spent doing other things. After our bike tour we went to have an early dinner with Maggie and it was nice. Alison and I went to Pierre Herme after to have macarons and found a nice square to sit and people watch while eating them. Macarons are delicious.

Conner, Adam, Me, Al, Kyle

Saturday was a busy day! We started at the Louvre and made our way through that in about an hour and a half just seeing some of the most famous things because it is just way too huge to do anything more than that unless you have more time in Paris. We saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo which was neat to do, but underwhelming. We also went to the Musee d'Orsay which Alison and I both enjoyed more. It was a former train station so it was just a neat building to begin with but it also housed a lot of impressionist paintings which are our favorites. At 3:30 pm we were scheduled to go up the Eiffel Tower so we got there just then and met up with Alex, Zach, Alex, Jamie, Bianca, and Pam. I had already ordered our tickets which was good because we got up faster and Alex and Zach were handed someone else's tickets so they got to go up with us. I do not think I am scared of heights but I was a bit nervous and at the first floor we got off on I was okay with not going further. Zach was as well... but we went all the way to the top. The views were incredible and it was a really neat experience. We got to stay on it until it lit up and then we made our way down. The Christmas Market was also going on so Alison and I walked over to the stalls and walked down Champs-Elysses towards the Arc de Triomphe. It was fun and very Christmasy.

Sunday... Alison was tired of art by Sunday but I still wanted go to Musee de l'Orangerie to see Monet's water lilies. So we separated for a bit. Luckily there was no queue and I got right in. The water lilies were wonderful and it wasn't terribly busy so I was able to watch them for a while. The lower part of the museum had a lot more impressionists as well so I think it was my favorite. It was small enough to not feel overwhelmed but had enough variety to be interesting. Alison and I met up after and got one last crepe before she left to catch her plane, which left an hour or so before mine. I didn't really know what to do because I wanted to get up to the art district but I didn't have enough time so I just walked along the Seine looking at all the street art. Paris is wonderful. Of all my trips this was my favorite and I didn't really expect that, it was just a really nice combination of things.

Sacre Coeur from Musee d'Orsay

So now... I have said goodbye to two of my flatmates which was a lot harder than I imagined, our whole house has been full of tears for two days now. Tonight we are all going out to dinner and then people are leaving from here on out. I can't imagine having had a better experience and I know how lucky I am. Thank you parents for supporting me, financially and emotionally! Thank you to my friends at home, I am so excited to see you! And lastly, and surely not least, to my friends here who made my semester in Wales what it was.

Back to packing... leaving for London to see Les Mis on Thursday and then leaving for Nice on Friday and home next Thursday the 22nd! Time flies!

Julia

Croatia!

So I was supposed to write about this a while ago but things have been going by so quickly here that I haven't really gotten a chance. I leave in one week for France and then two weeks to go home to America... it seems so strange, time really does fly.

I hope I remember enough about Croatia... Croatia we realized was going to be a very different experience than any of the other trips we had been on and were going to go. It is a little of the beaten track and since we were going to Zagreb rather than the coast it was even more so. First of all, I had looked at the weather the day before we left and we knew it was going to be cold. We just did not realize how cold... freezing, literally. None of us had winter coats because we did not even bring them with us to Swansea. There was frost on the ground and the three almost four days we were there, there was sun for approximately for four hours in the national park. Alison and I went off and explored a bit when we got to the hostel, which at first did not let us in so we were a bit worried that it had been closed or something and we would have to sleep in the hall. Luckily a guy staying there let one of us in and we just waited until the employee showed up to let us check in.

Dolac Market with the Cathedral in the background

The architecture was really fantastic and a lot of the building were painted a light yellow color which I am sure would have been even better with sun. There was not a whole lot to actually do, more just see. There were a few museums we went to and art galleries, I found a really cool one called the Naive Art Gallery and I got two posters, one for me and one for Ellen but of course I left them on the train into Paddington and I have not heard back from them! Zagreb also had a huge market everyday with more fruits and vegetables than I had ever seen. Fresh bread and fresh pasta as well. One night we just got a lot of veggies and pasta and made a nice homemade meal in our kitchen which was a fun evening.

Alex, Pam, Me, Alison, and Nick at the lakes

The best part of Croatia was Plitvice National Parks. This was a park about two hours away from us and our hostel organized a bus/van to take us there on Saturday. As soon as we entered the park the sun came out which made for a really nice and warmer day. It was a huge park and we had a little more than five hours to explore so we set out on a trail that was supposed to take 4-6 hours using buses and ferries as well as hiking.  It was beautiful and the water was so clear you could see all the way to the bottom. This is definitely a place to visit!

Alison and me at the lakes again

I want to go back to Croatia but think that during the spring or the summer would be best, and it would be a lot of fun to go to the coastal cities to experience a different side!

Hopefully this was short enough and I still have to update on the amazingness of Paris... will do that soon!!

Home in 14 days... so strange! What a wonderful adventure this has been.

~Julia

Novembrrrr Travels part 1: Dublin

Helllooooo!
Once again... I have lacked in my blogging but I am here to make amends!

Two weeks ago Alison and I left for Dublin on a Wednesday night! We got super cheap flight with Ryanair but I forgot my boarding pass in my room and got charged a ridiculous amount so that was a big bummer... we are no longer going to fly with Ryainair because as cheap as they are they just find a million other ways to make you pay. The flight was about 45 minutes... the pilot told us we were landing just about as soon as we got up in the sky. The first two nights we got a private room and the last two nights we stayed in a dorm. Alison and I are a little spoiled when it comes to this but the private rooms are usually nicer and obviously quieter. This hostel had beds that were literally like rocks though so it didn't really matter where we were because it was super uncomfortable... anyway.

So Thursday Alison and I were on our own, our friends were coming that night. We did a free tour of Dublin which was really nice because we got to see a lot and learn the history behind some of the things we might not have known otherwise. And, for the rest of the weekend Alison and I took Alex and Zach on the same tour of Dublin we got. Dublin was very pretty and it was sunny which was a plus! We saw Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral and a lot more. It was a very laid back city compared to London and I think I may have liked it better than Edinburgh. There were surprisingly not as many touristy shops as Scotland and the one that they had there was a chain so there were not a thousand on the main road. The tour of Dublin took around four hours... mainly because our guide didn't really know how to walk and seemed to be on drugs or something. After the tour we did our own wandering throughout the city and got some dinner to take back to our hostel.

Christ Church Cathedral

Friday we met up with Alex and Zach to get our Dublin passes. We got free admission to lots of things throughout Dublin and it was well worth it. Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain all day so we got very wet and I didn't have a hat or a hood on my rain slicker, odd. (Hence why I look like a wet dog in all of my photos.) Speaking of photos... I left my camera battery at home this weekend so my pictures are stolen from Alison and Zach. So we headed off to Dublin Castle to go inside of it but unfortunately Dublin was getting a new president so they didn't really want us in the castle so that was a bummer. We then went to both Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral which were both very beautiful. Europe definitely has a lot of churches, we have probably been in at least two if not way more than that in every city. After that we made our way to the Guinness Storehouse. This was actually really cool, I am glad we had the pass though because I am not sure I would have wanted to pay for it. It is very touristy but it took you through the process of making the beer and we got to taste it and then got a free pint on top of the storehouse in the Gravity Bar which was a glass circle that looked out onto all of Dublin. That was pretty neat and at about this time it stopped raining so it was clear!

Alex, Zach, me, and Alison at Guinness

After Guinness we decided to keep with the alcohol and head over to Jameson Distillery. I was excited for this because my dad has a new found love for Jameson. It was a pretty cheesy tour but once again showed the process from start to finish. At the end we all got a free drink, the options were straight Jameson, Jameson and cranberry juice, or Jameson and sprite. I chose the latter and it was actually really delicious. Alex volunteered to be a taste tester and she tasted Jameson, Scotch, and Jack Daniels. She along with a few other people all chose Jameson to be the best. Then we all tried hers and agreed... the other whisk(e)y's were just gross. It was nearing 6 pm and so we headed out to find another one of our friends to go on a pub tour with her but it didn't work out because we were starving and stumbled into this little vegetarian restaurant that just piled food on top of food and was delicious. After dinner the four of us went to a pub that had a thousand beers and sat around and hung out for a while. The pubs were really fun because it was just so casual and low key and people of all ages were there.

Jameson and Sprite

Saturday we met up again with Zach and Alex and a market that had all sorts of goodies. We got pesto hummus, tapenade, and olives with bread for a picnic lunch. Alex and Zach's Dublin pass was good for three days and Alison and mine was just for one so they went off to see some more stuff and Alison and I just explored a bit more. We went into their art gallery but 75% of it was closed for renovation so that didn't take long. We also went back to Trinity to see the long library, the longest library... also I guess in Star Wars, and to see the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is  a really old, beautiful book of the gospels in latin with intricate drawings on the pages. After this we met back up with Alex and Zach for dinner before going on a literary pub crawl. The pub crawl was a lot of fun and our two tour guides knew a lot about the writers and performed skits for us and took us to four different pubs. Alison and I had to catch a 7 am flight so we left shortly after that ended and went back to bed!

I feel like I am selling Dublin short but it really was a lot of fun and a nice city to explore. I definitely want to go back to Ireland though because everyone says that Dublin isn't really Ireland. A future trip.

I will write more later today about Croatia but my fingers are tired and I have to run to campus to turn in a paper!

Ta for now!
Julia

Scouring Scotland (or something cleverer than this title)

Well I am back from Scotland! For a few days now as it were...

Traveling to Scotland was a cinch and really pleasant, no planes, no security, just a lot of riding and looking out at sheep. Fun fact, Scotland has double the amount of sheep than people. Not that surprising and I am sure Wales has a figure similar to that. There are sheep everywhere. Everywhere. Anyway... We got into Glasgow late Wednesday evening and rolled our luggage up a small mountain to our guesthouse. The road that our guesthouse was on was the same road as the Glasgow School of Art which was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh... in case you have not heard of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, as I had not prior to this, he is kind of a big deal in Glasgow. He apparently wandered the world in search of architecture that he enjoyed and ended up making his own because he didn't like anything he saw. Glasgow architecture is very unique and very beautiful but you have to be aware of it. Glasgow is very artsy, lots of galleries which was fun. So back to our guesthouse, it was very cute and we had to navigate through a few doors to get to our room, we had a private with our own bathroom which was extremely convenient. We pretty much crashed until the morning.
Thursday was devoted to exploring Glasgow. We started our day with a hot, freshly cooked Scottish breakfast... delicious. The typical English breakfast includes tea, beans in tomato sauce, tomatoes, eggs, meat (not for me), and toast. The typical Scottish breakfast adds a Scottish scone, which is basically like  a friend potato pancake, but so much better. Alison and I enjoyed this immensely, much better than our Orsa Maggiore lame breakfast.

Scottish breakfast!

After gaining sustenance for the day, also noting that we decided to be super budget friendly this trip and brought many sandwiches and the like, we left and headed down the mountain into town. We were wonderfully located and it didn't take us more than fifteen minutes to get to city centre. It is funny because the city centres are all starting to look super similar and apparently bars in the UK are chains so we saw a lot of the same stuff as we have in Swansea. We wandered to the Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art, but got there a little early so we continued to wander around. It is a really fun city and the biggest city in Scotland. It is fun because Alison and I have gotten so used to navigating cities that it isn't a big deal at all and we are really starting to blend in; we pat ourselves on the shoulder each time someone asks us a question about which bus to take or where something is. GOMA, as it is affectionately called, was neat. I have decided that I really do not get modern art...

This is art... 

But I do like to look at it! We went through this museum pretty quickly, it was pretty small. After this we walked to Glasgow Cathedral. It was really beautiful but they were doing construction on the outside. The inside was stunning, a lot of stained glass and some of the original parts of the building.

Behind the cathedral was the necropolis, which was just a bit eery on Halloween weekend. Across from it was St. Mungo (Harry Potter...) Museum of Religious Art and Life which I was excited for but it was nothing overly spectacular. They did have a nice exhibit of all the religions ceremonies and beliefs for the big five religions. After this we ate our sack lunches in a park which was nice. The leaves in Swansea haven't really changed, just dropped. However, in Scotland the leaves were perfect for fall! Orange and reds and it was wonderful.
After this we tried to make our way to another top sight but we ended up in the Royal Hospital for a nice tour and decided to go to a different place. Next we went to Kelvingrove Gallery which was huge and filled with lots of different things, both art and history. I have also decided that I like French art the best and they had a nice selection of famous artists works. They also had Salvador Dali's painting of Christ of Saint John of the Cross which was huge and a little intense. After making our way through the museum we were planning to go to another gallery but decided instead to do some more wandering through the city. We ended our evening in a little cafe in another gallery close to our accommodation where we had delicious mediterranean food, falafel!

George Square early morning!

The next day we woke up early to get to our starting point for the tour! The tour was leaving from the TI at 8:10 am taking us north into the Highlands of Scotland. There is not so much to say for this part, mostly I will just show you how beautiful it was, and the pictures do not do it justice. Lots of lochs (lakes), glens (valleys), and bens (mountains).

Small loch

Loch Linnhe 

Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

We traveled close to 350 miles in one day, we got back around 7 pm. It was a really wonderful day, we had a small group and a really good guide. This is hard to compare to Swansea and our sea, my mom asked me if this was prettier, and it is just too different to compare. Both are equally pretty! When we got back we took the 50 minute train to Edinburgh. Edinburgh at night was very pretty and once again our hostel was in a perfect location. This hostel was our first experience in a dorm with ten other people. We have been lucky enough to have private rooms... it was an experience surely. They left the light on and were loud, but it was something that we needed to do. It was also nearly 100 degrees. In the morning we had cereal, toast and fruit provided by the hostel and left for the day.

Down the Royal Mile

Edinburgh Castle

We started at their little farmers market on the castle terrace and nearly blew away walking up the giant hill to the castle. It was a little chilly this weekend, low to mid fifties, but it was clear compared to the rain originally predicted. We wandered down the royal mile, which is in fact a Scot's mile which is longer than an English mile, a small way to rebel. It goes from the castle to Holyrood Palace, where the Queen stays when she visits. There were more tourist shops along this road and in Edinburgh than any other place we have been which was really interesting... lots of kilts, tartan scarves, and whiskey (with an E!). There were also a lot of attractions of the royal mile such as the writers museums, Giles Cathedral, the parliament etc. We stopped along the way to go into museums and had tea and cakes in Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter which was pretty neat. The royal mile took a while to do and we did all the offshoots and that took up most of our day. We nearly tried haggis but I pansied out, even though it was the vegetarian option. For those of you who don't know how disgusting haggis is, the national dish of Scotland, let me inform you. They take out the lining of the sheeps stomach and clean it out and then fill the stomach lining with chopped up organs from the sheep and add onions, spices and oatmeal, cook it and eat it... Ew. They also sell canned haggis for those who want to torture people back home. We were too nice to do that. So, you are welcome.

It is now getting dark here around 5 pm which really puts a damper on things... we wandered around our hostel a bit and then retired for the evening to the comfy bean bags in our hostel.

Edinburgh!

Sunday we did an art gallery before catching the eight hour train ride home... All in all it was a really fun weekend that was very low stress and was beautiful. I would definitely live in Edinburgh and they are in the process of constructing an underground system which I am sure will be really convenient. Everyone should make their way to Scotland at some point.

This week has been pretty uneventful... school work and the likes... although, as my mother said it is like I am at camp. I have four hours of class here a week, all on Monday. Starting in a week I will have five as we are starting a seminar for one of my classes. School here is ridiculous and slightly frustrating. I have a lot of free time which is nice to hang out with friends and plan trips but it is definitely not something I was expecting upon arriving in the UK.

The majority of our friends... 29 of them... left for Amsterdam this evening so it is just my roommates, Alison, Maggie, and me the rest of the weekend. Alison and I are going to London tomorrow to see some museums and do a little shopping. We are just going for the day so it should be nice. Saturday is Bonfire night (formally Guy Fawkes Day). There are supposed to be lots of bonfires on the beach so we are hoping to join one of those! It should be a nice weekend! Next week we are headed to Dublin! There are seven of us going in total but two of the girls are meeting us there and are friends of our friend.

More on that in a few weeks then! This blog is more of a novel... sorry about that... Please feel free to skip around, I won't know.

Cheers! Julia

Adventures in Berlin, London, and Swansea

I am getting to be really bad about keeping up in here! I feel like my weeks go by so quickly with school work and traveling basically every weekend. Ah the torture of being in Europe for a semester...

So not this past weekend but the weekend before, 14 American students took off for Germany. I had originally mentioned going to Berlin one of the first weeks we were here and people were really excited for it! The Festival of Lights was going to be on while we were there so I think that go people excited as well. We left bright and early Thursday morning not so bright eyed and bushy tailed, but we left nonetheless. It is obviously really nice to travel here but for as close as things are it is a good days worth of traveling, generally a ten hour period of travelling: three hour train ride to airport at minimum, then the waiting two hours for the flight, then the two-three hour flight... it definitely adds up. So having 14 of us semi crabby, tired, and hungry was an interesting experience! Adam took care of our hostel which was nice and he navigated us there with no complications. Germany was really interesting right after Rome because as I said everyone spoke English in Rome, and Germany was not so much. They still did but it took longer and they knew fewer words. Of course none of us knew any German so it was an experience, I knew how to say yes, no, thank you very much and excuse me...

Thursday night I found us a beer garden with traditional food which was interesting, it was really beautiful but it was a bit pricier than we thought, not by much but still. I had some sort of potato pasta with cheese and onions which was good but I probably would not get it again. We then wandered our way to what we thought was the Festival of Lights, luckily it wasn't really because it looked like really tacky Christmas decorations. When we asked someone they said we were at the end of it. Three of my friends and I got a private room at the hostel which was really nice, also the beds were super comfy and the pillows were amazing so I had a hard time waking them up in the mornings! My bed at home is nice but some of the girls' are really uncomfortable so I don't blame them!

The next day we all split up based mostly on who was awake and who wanted to do what. A group went to a concentration camp, some slept in for a bit, and three of my other friends and I went to do a bike tour that one of my friends from home had recommended. It was really fun and it was five hours so we covered a lot of ground and saw all the big sights. We saw the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie which was really neat, history that was almost within my life thus far. It was a lot of history but obviously compared to Rome it was a lot of recent history.

Berlin is really beautiful and the weather was lower 50's but it was sunny so it was nearly perfect. Then after that we kind of wandered around until we were to meet up with the rest of the group to go to the Festival of Lights; everything we had seen that day was going to be lit up. Everyone had really nice days so it was good that we were able to split up and do what we wanted to. The Festival was really awesome, there were a ton of people out.

Saturday we went to Museum Island and did a few museums there. They had a lot of beautiful museums and it getting hard to differentiate from the ten other museums I have been to here. One of the museums was dedicated to Egypt which is again fun for me because of my class. Another museum has taken whole parts of buildings and reconstructed them in rooms so that was amazing. The museums took up most of the morning and that afternoon I really wanted to go to Potsdam so everyone met up once again around 2:30 to take the train out there. It was a little ways to get to Potsdam but once we did it was worth it. It was a bit confusing getting to the actual palace and at first we ended up at the guest house, which I would surely be a guest at. When I asked for directions the lady told us that we should stay a bit longer because they were going to be lighting it all up which they only do once a year... I would have to say that we have had the best travel luck, there are always things that are going on that we don't even know about. The Palace was so beautiful and I am so glad we made it out there to see it.

Reichstag

Sunday was a bit of everything... our flight was at 5 pm which was really nice because we had a lot longer to do things. On our bike tour we had stopped at the Memorial for Murdered Jews but we didn't realize there was more underneath it actually. So we decided to check that out... it was very emotional and well done. It was very personal, it had parts of diaries and letters on the floor in the second room, the third room was about specific families and what the Holocaust did to them, and the fourth room was interviews with people who had survived. I eventually want to visit a concentration camp but I am pretty sure I would be even more of a wreck so I would have to be feeling very strong that day.
So after we did that we went back to the central area and people did a bit of souvenir shopping and drinking out of steins.

Sanssouci Palace

Our traveling home was a bit tedious and after our flight we split up... Alison and I have the britrail pass which was worth the price. Two of our other friends came with us as well because we were going to get home a little after 1 am and the rest of the group was not going to be home until 9 am, and had to spend five hour in a train station... needless to say I was very grateful to be warm and sleep in my bed that night.

The following week was pretty uneventful... School work and just hanging out which was nice. Alison and I didn't really have anything planned for the weekend so my friend Hannah who is studying in London offered her place to let us stay. We left Friday morning and got in early afternoon. I have been to  London, thanks to my wonderful parents, when I was a sophomore in high school so I remember most of the big touristy stuff and Alison is coming back with her family in December. So basically all we wanted to do was have a chill weekend wandering markets, doing a Harry Potter tour, and seeing a play. Well, we got to do two markets, but we were too late for the Harry Potter tour, and ticket prices were not cheap enough for two girls traveling on a budget! It was a fun weekend though and we accidently wandered into the changing of the horseman and then the changing of the guard... which really is not worth it. We got stuck in a mass of tourists and we couldn't get out for a good half an hour. We also had perfect sunny weather... everywhere we go the sun seems to follow so I take that as a good sign! We don't have anything going on the first weekend of November and all of our other friends are going to Amsterdam that weekend so we are going to go into London for the day and hopefully see Les Mis then!

Today we are leaving for Scotland! I am really excited for this trip! All we have to do is sit on a train for seven hours, no flights or anything! Alison has her last class at 2 pm so we are leaving after that. We are going to Glasgow tonight and will have the day there tomorrow and are also spending the night there tomorrow night. Friday we are doing a day tour to Loch Ness, Glencoe, and Inverness which I am really looking forward to. It should be beautiful. Friday night we will take the 50 minute train from Glasgow to Edinburgh where we will spend the remainder of our time!

So I will write more about that soon!
One day, I will write a nice short blog.

Ta! Julia

Roaming Roma!!!

Buena Sera! I am back in sunny Swansea (not) after a wonderful whirlwind of a weekend in Roma. (Let's see how many alliterations I can use throughout this blog...) To say the least, Rome was amazing.

To say more...

Thursday morning Alison and I caught a taxi at 5 am to the train station. Our train was to Reading and from Reading we took another train to Gatwick Airport. This went smoothly and we made the trains on time. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, both of us were pretty nervous about flying on the budget airlines because there are plenty of unpleasantries that can be associated with flying on them. We flew out on Easyjet with zero hiccups and made really good timing into Fiumicino. From the airport we had a car service from our hostel pick us up which was super convenient and made for quite a lovely ride into Rome. The car dropped us off on some side alley road and my immediate thought was that this guy was just going to leave us in the middle of some random Rome neighborhood and we were going to be wandering around for an hour trying to figure out where to go. However, it turns out he dropped us off perfectly the hostel was just not labeled the best and the name was not really visible and also the Italian version of the name. We stayed at Orsa Maggiore which I would highly reccommend. We had a private room overlooking a courtyard and we were perfectly located. Everything was about a 15 minute walk, except for the Colleseo which was just a little further. We walked everywhere so I came home with new blisters, but it was good to walk off the gelato, pizza and pasta!

Thursday Night
We just looked around our area and ate some gelato, of course. Our area was really nice, in Trastevere, and was a perfect starting place for exploring Rome. We had dinner at Dar Poeta which was delicious. It was really close to our hostel and almost all of the other patrons had their guidebooks, like me. We went early enough that it wasn't busy and we each got a pizza (we had leftovers for lunch the next day.) We also had a nutella and ricotta calzone which was like eating heaven in a pocket. Nutella is delicious and all of us Americans are going to come home obsessed. After our lovely meal we were pretty exhausted, having been up for over 18 hours and traveling for nine so we decided to go to bed semi-early after walking along the river and seeing the buildings and castles lit up. As I am writing this I am remembering also that we went to Piazza Navona where there are two huge fountains by Bernini and it was really amazing to see those. There were lots of little paintings and people selling things in the piazza too and we saw this almost everywhere we went.

Looking good after a long day, Dar Poeta!

Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi

Walking under the moon, very close to our hostel!

Friday
We got up and had a little quaint breakfast in our hostel, toast with cheese and jam is very big here and it is slowly growing on me. After this we planned to go to the TI (Tourist Information) to get our Roma Passes and then go to the Vatican. Our walk was along the river once again, Rome is quite beautiful. The walk up to St Peters Basilica is beautiful and lined with columns. In case you visit... there are people who constantly come up to you while you wait in line to get in (to get in is free) trying to get you to join their tours and tell you that the line takes two hours... the line to get in took at most 15 minutes so they try to catch you right away. That was interesting to see but made us feel well traveled to know better. Anyway, the inside was so beautiful and overwhelming.

Walking up to the Piazza and Basilica 

Michelangelo's dome, top of Bernini's baldichin

Beautiful

Things were not labeled very well and I didn't get an audio guide which I really enjoy doing because otherwise I am completely clueless. So all I can really tell you is that is was amazing and huge and beautiful.

At this point we got some sustenance before joining the next line on the other side to get into the Vatican Museums. There are about 15 museums... give or take. Each equally impressive and containing a multitude of paintings and artifacts. I am taking a Egyptian Art and Architecture course here so I am really loving getting to see all of the things we are talking about in class and the Egypt museum here was really amazing. Also, every ceiling was painted and it was just so much to take in. I got an audio guide here, Alison didn't, so I told her some of the things. I am really glad I got that because otherwise I would not have appreciated it as much. We went into the Sistene Chapel of course, but, I hate to say that after seeing pretty much everything else in the museums (this was our second to last stop in the museums) I was not as impressed. Everything else seemed to me just as spectacular but it was of course amazing as well. We saw The Tranfiguration, Raphael's last painting before he died, which was really neat. There was just so many things to see it was nearly impossible to gather the importance and significance behind everything. That being said, the museums were one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Michelangelo's inspiration

Also, I can't seem to find my pictures of the rest of the museums but more photos from the trip are on my facebook album! So after the Vatican we went back to our hostel mid afternoon to refuel and give our feet a quick break before heading back out. This afternoon we went to Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps which are probably in the top 5 of things that we saw. It was just pure Rome, minus the millions of tourists.

My favorite fountain! I threw in two coins... one to return to Rome, the second to fall in love with an Italian man, the third was to marry the Italian but I was feeling stingy.

Spanish Steps!

Also, it is really funny because in Rome pedestrians just did whatever they wanted and didn't have a care in the world. In Swansea cars definitely have the right away but in Rome people just walked in streets and the vespas and cars had to navigate around them. It was pretty nice, also we got to use our normal driving on the right side so that was convenient for us to not get hit. Another thing that was semi disappointing was the amount of English used... everyone spoke english. Alison and I had been practicing our Italian for weeks (we had a vocabulary of about ten words: grazie, scusi, pizza, pasta, delicioso, preggo, buena sera, gelato...). We did get asked things in Italian a few times which we were excited about because we have also been practicing blending in, which mainly means not talking so loud and wearing lots of layers and scarves. Everyone looks so put together, children here dress better than me on my best day. Anyway, making progress. Back to the day, sorry for the sidetracking! I am pretty sure we then just explored some more and found a place to eat dinner and fell asleep.

Saturday
Today was our tour of Ancient Rome! I love love loved this day. We had perfect weather, dress and jacket. After a pastry at a little bakery in the Jewish Ghetto we continued on to the Roman Forums. We wandered the grounds with all of the ruins which was both magical and eerie; a whole other world before ours. The amount of buildings still standing is impressive and it was just an experience that can't be replicated. It was also a huge area that Ancient Rome stood on.

One of my favorite buildings, Il Vittoriano in Piazza Venezia

Remains of the Forums 

Of course we made our way to the Colosseo, I am running out of adjectives here so sorry for repetition. The colosseum is just so crazy because it is so huge and beautiful. It was fun to see the typical shot of it on the postcards but going inside was also really neat. I am sure people have heard but Emperor Trajan supposedly brought in 11,000 animals to be slaughtered and 10,000 gladiators for one celebration... nice memories. It can hold in between 50,000-70,000 people, it was built so long ago without all of our modern technology.

Inside of the Colleseo

We humans can be pretty creative... So after the tour of Ancient Rome, I had made reservations for Museo Berghese so we made it over to Villa Berghese which was the farthest away from us and also situated at the top of a huge hill. Of course I read the reservation wrong so we arrived very early but it turned out to be okay because we had a nice lunch with a very flirty old Italian man who wooed us and then charged us for the bread which we didn't eat! Reminder: They charge you for bread (ridiculous) and they add things to your bills so if you don't look carefully you will end up paying for things you did not eat! Very irritating but part of being a tourist unfortunately. The Berghese Gallery was very pretty but once again they did not have an audio tour so I am not even sure of all that we saw, lots of works by Carvaggio, Bernini, Botticelli, and Raphael. I wish I had taken an art appreciation course before this because I am sure it would have been very beneficial.

Museo e Galleria Berghese

It was a lot of information and visuals during this day. We ended up back in a popular piazza where we had pizza bianca (basically like a thinner focaccia) and sat in the middle of the square, just fitting right in with the locals. We also had a drink at a cute little wine bar and sat and people watched. A very enjoyable evening to a very lovely day. At this point both of us were getting quite sad to leave and also stressing out about our journey back... We got take out from Dar Poetta and ate our half of the calzone in our hostel overlooking the courtyard and listening to italian live music. This was one of my favorite parts and made me so thankful to be able to have the opportunity to do this and to travel. I cannot imagine having a better semester abroad and it still just the beginning. I am loving each and every single day of this time here.

Sunday
Entirely devoted to travel so I won't go over too many details, only minor hiccups, but it did take us over twelve hours to get back to Swansea. Long day but worth the days in Rome undoubtedly.

And so the whirlwind weekend ended and we went back to life in Swansea, which while a bit sad about leaving Rome, I love Swansea and being here. Last night a group of us went to the Black Boy, a local not-so-politically-correct, pub. It was so fun to just sit around and hang out. I am looking forward to many more nights of this. We have a super group and we are slowly adding more locals, mostly our flatmates who are so much fun.

Tomorrow twelve of us are headed to Berlin! There have been some travel alerts... ie they have found two bomb-y things on the rail tracks and the air control personnel are threatening to walkout... so fingers crossed that all goes well! We are going to the Light Festival which looks amazing! Pictures to come and more writing!

Once again, I apologize for the length of this blog! Feel free to read and skip around or just look at the photos!

Cheers! Julia