Sweet Home Arizona!!

Well I'm finally back in the states : )

Feels so good to be home!!

I realize I never wrote in my blog about Germany...mostly because we didn't have internet and because I was just exhausted.

So here's a little summary of my time in Germany:

• Berlin was really cool to see...we took a free tour of the city and learned all about the history of Germany which of course included two of the biggest events in history: WWII and the Berlin Wall. It's crazy because there's a cobblestone line placed where the Berlin wall used to be and it just cuts the city into two, literally straight down streets. It also was amazing because the buildings are all really new because 80% of it got demolished from bombs during the war!
• Next was the forrest region of Germany which was absolutely gorgeous!! Germany is covered with 35% forrests so it is green everywhere! We took a hike through the forrest and tried traditional Bavarian food which was tasty but not something I'd want everyday.
• Then we went to the town of Dortmund and the Ruhr region and went to a museum of an old coal factory which is a big part of the Ruhr region. We ate cake and played put put because that's just what you do in Germany I guess?
• We made it to a town called Aachen with a famous church...then drove to the three country corner were Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany meet...that makes 8 countries Mary and I have been to! We ate lunch in Belgium and dessert in the Netherlands!!
• We traveled to Koln where they have their famous dome and we also learned that this was the founding place of cologne, you know like perfume. One of the bridges there also had love lockes lining it...I'm thinking we need to start one of those here in AZ!
• Our last day in Germany was spent by the Rhine river at a castle and just hanging out in a small town. By this point we were all exhausted so we just enjoyed the German atmosphere.
• Mary and I made our final trek home and good news...we're home now!!!

Thank you to Anna for showing us around Germany and her family for housing us most of the nights!! I would not have seen nearly that much of Germany had it not been for you all, so thank you again!

Now it's my last week before school starts...kind of want to cry when I think about school starting not because I don't like school but because it's my senior year ahhh!! What am I going to do afterwards?! This will be the pending crisis for this year ha but I have faith that it will all work out : )

Day 45 - Lounging around Florence

Today was planned to be a relaxed day and that's what it was : )

It was nice to sleep in, gradually head out to the city and take it all in at a leisurely pace.

Highlights of the day:

• 1 Euro Gelato that was cheesecake yum! First place I've found with that kind
  
• Buying leather goods at the leather market
  
• Having a quiet time at the top of Piazza de Michelangelo overlooking the city


• Taking a nap at the top of Piazza de Michelangelo overlooking the city


• Tortellini for dinner


• Lemon cookie gleato

So there was our day...mostly spent overlooking the city, I think it was just what we needed!

Tomorrow we're off to Germany. I'm not sure what our internet situation will be like but I'll keep notes and update my blog when I can!

Look what I found today buddy!

1 more week in Europe : )

Day 45 - Cinque Terre

I think I'm in love with Italy now...Cinque Terre was BEAUTIFUL!! Next time when I come back to Italy I want to stay in one of these towns for a couple days.

We took the "Cinque Terre Trek" tour from the same company as yesterday's "Best of Tuscany" tour. Since this one started an hour earlier, because the drive was over two hours to get to Cinque Terre, they gave us a boxed breakfast which was delicious! As we got closer and closer to the sea the views became amazing! The water is so many shades of blue, it was what I pictured Greece to look like, but not Italy.

We started on our journey in the town of Manarola. Our trek to the next town took us through wine vineyards which are situated on the steep hills and cliffs and along the coast which was breathtaking! The next town we stopped in was Corniglia which was a little bit bigger than Manarola but still not that big! We stopped for lunch here and had typical cuisine for this region which was sea food and pesto pasta (yum my favorite!). It was so nice to sit on the restaurant's terrace, enjoy a nice meal and look out to the sea. Another reason I love these towns is because part of their charm comes from the bright colors of their buildings, they're just so fun!

After lunch we took our final hiking trek to the next town of Vernazza. This part of the hike was a bit more challenging but nothing we couldn't handle. Also by this point the sea was getting closer and closer to us and all we wanted to do was jump in! So the first thing that we did once we got there was jump in...I can now say I've swam in the Mediterranean Sea! The water was super salty but super clear. The view of the beach with the towns was one of my favorite as we were swimming, it was just crazy to think we were swimming in a town in Italy!

Next we took a train to the neighboring town of Monterosso...there was a beach here too so Mer and I got some gelator and headed down there just to relax, well I went to relax and Mary went to jump off of rocks into the ocean. It was interesting because the beach was made of pebbles and we kept finding these bright green and red rocks...I could probably have sat there and collected pebbles all day if I wanted to. Afterwards we took a ferry boat back to the very first town, which we hadn't been to yet, named Riomaggiore. Once again another beautiful sight, although we didn't spend much time there because we took the walk from there back to our first stop at the town of Manarola to meet up with our bus for our journey home. The walk between these two towns is called the Via Dell Amore (Love Walk) and most surfaces of this walk were covered in locks which it is said if you put a lock with you and your love's name on it, throw the key into the sea, as long as the key remains in the sea you two will be together. It was quite cute, might have to bring back a lock with me next time I'm there ; )

We got back on our bus and headed on our two hour ride back home to Florence. Today was an exceptionally awesome day!

Day 44 - Tuscany!!

Today was our "Best of Tuscany" tour that as you can probably guess took us all around Tuscany!!

Our adventures started once we got to Siena which was about an hour and fifteen minute ride from Florence. I had no idea that Florence and Siena have some bitter history between them but apparently they do which I thought was interesting. We had a guided tour of the city which is broken up into 17 contrades each with their own flags, churches, and meeting places. Apparently these contrades are a big deal in the town because they make up their own communities and living within one binds you to certain customs and identity. These contrades become very competitive during the early Palio which is a midevil horse race around the famous Piazza de Campo...I found this very interesting so I'm going to tell you about it!! So there are 17 horses and a lottery decides which contrade has which horse...it is up to the luck of the draw as to which horse a contrade has. In preparation for the Palio there are great parades and celebrating beacuse it is a religious celebration of the Virgin Mary after all (still trying to figure out how the two connect but whatever) and the day of the Palio each contrade brings their horse into their churches and blesses the horse good luck...if it poops in the church, this is supposed to be a good luck sign hmmm. Anyways moving on, on the day of the event the whole town crowds into the Piazza de Campo to watch the 90 second bareback horse race around the campo...whichever contrade wins goes nuts after they win and they get a banner and bragging rights for that year until the next year roles around. Interesting right??

Piazza de Campo

Banner hanging in the winner's contrade from the Palio

View of Siena

Also while we were in Siena we got to go inside the Siena Cathedral which has beautiful marble scenes on the floor and is covered in black and white marble because those are Siena's colors.

See the black and white...cool huh?!

After Siena we traveled to a vineyard for lunch! On our tour of the vineyard we got to see the famous Tuscan white haired cows (they're massive!!), the vineyard, olive trees and where they store their wine. Afterwards they fed us lunch which was DELICIOUS!! We ate bruschetta with their extra virgin olive oil and white wine, next was pasta with ragu sauce and their red wine, afterwards was salad with cheese and some meats and finally we got biscotti with desert wine. Full meal right?! The views from the vineyard were unbelievable...this was the Tuscany I expected to see but better!!

TUSCANY!!!

White cow

Wine & olive oil

Next we headed up to a small midevil town on a hill called San Gimignano. We found the "World's Champion" gelato and had some of that there...I've had better, I'm just saying! Next we climbed up to see some more awesome views and bask in the Tucsan afternoon...Mary and I found a great place (another hangout spot) and just wanted to sit there but we had to meet back up with our tour because we were leaving for a countryside drive of the Chianti. We got to see fields of sunflowers and even pass the town of Volterra (where Twilight New Moon was shot!) as we headed towards Pisa.

Grad pic : )

Could have stayed here all day...view from San Gimignano

sunflowers : )

Ending in Pisa we got to spend some time taking really cheesy pictures with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, of course. Also I learned that the reason it's leaning is because it was built on silt and mushy soil at the time and originally when it was built only 3 stories were built, then as a time of war approached it was abanoned and finally 100 years later the top 5 stories were compelted. Apparently had they built it all at once it would have collapsed!

We made our way back to Florence and had such a great day! I recommend taking this tour for sure, it was great! Tomorrow Mary and I are off with the same tour company to Cinque Terre, hopefully it's as great!

Day 43 - Eh?

Today at breakfast we met some new friends...two guys from Toronto and another guy from Colorado. They're ending their month long journey through Europe with Florence being their second to last stop and heading to Rome on their last leg...so Mary and I got to give them our new found advice for things to see and do and place to hang out (like our favorite hangout spot!) in Rome.


Mary and I headed into town to start our day of sightseeing which first place we found ourselves at was the leather market which is AMAZING! So many leather things, who knew?? But as we were looking at the leather market a huge black rain cloud decided to come hang out too so all the leather people were racing around pulling their tarpes over their leather goods so it wouldn't ruin it, clearly this was an emergency situation!


We met up with our new found Canadian/CO friends and decided to go into the museum inside the San Lorenzo paraish of the once ruling Medici family which was neat to see and perfect timing because that black rain cloud was now angry and making a ton of thundering noices! Inside the museum we saw Michelangelo's Madonna & Child, Night & Day, and Dawn & Dusk. Apparently the Medici family and Michelangel were pretty tight (here's where I'd be crossing my fingers to show how close they were).


Next we literally ran across the street for lunch because by this point it was still pouring rain outside! Lunch was delicious, my first pasta dish which was excellent!

Afterwards the rain stopped and we decided to wait in line to go into the Academia to see the real David statue. Of course we weren't supposed/allowed to take pictures of the David but I did, woopsies!! The David was really cool to see, it's much bigger in person than I expected and it's just crazy to think that once was a block of marble and now is this perfectly proportioned man! Also I learned that his right hand is made much larger to represent the hand of God...cool huh?!

Check it out...there's me with the David!! Can you see me?

That doesn't look suspicious at all!!

There were other neat paintings and statues in there...many of them tell Bible stories which I liked because I do better with pictures and images : )

After spending a couple hours in there we headed out to the Florence Duomo and Baptistry. The facade of the Duomo is amazing and even just looking at the doors there's tons of different faces on there, insect and animals...I wish I knew what they all represented. The Baptistry doors are known to be "masterpieces"...they're gold and massive, so I guess that's why they're considered masterpieces. After some jumping pics and new running pics that we learned from our new friends we headed over to a super yummy gleato place...ohhh it was delicious!!

Outside of the Florence Duomo


This was our best jumping picture...we weren't quite on our jumping A game that day.

Running pic

Best gelato I've had so far!!

Jared is a Gelato Grouch!!

We headed over the Arno river and made our way to the Michelangelo Piazza because we heard there were great views up there and at a church just past it. Our black rain cloud that was there earlier in the day decided to come back and it started pouring on us!! At one point I stopped caring if I was dry or not because I was so soaked it didn't matter...although you'd think that would be uncomfortable it was so beautiful on top overlooking the city that it probably was one of my favorite memories from this trip : )

View from on top of the hill

View from the church...pretty sunset with the rain clouds

Jumping in the rain...thought this pictures turned out cool!

We were able to catch a bus back down into the city (praise Jesus because it was pouring again and we were far from home) and made it back to our hotel to get dry clothes and head to dinner. We said our goodbyes to our new friends who went off to Rome in the morning...so fun meeting new people along the way!

Day 42 - Arrival to Florence

After 3 blocks of lugging our huge bags (bad idea to pack so much!), one metro line, one train and one bus we finally made it to our B&B!!!

One of our first questions to the guy who runs the B&B was where is a good place to eat lunch?! We were starving by that point and the guy ended up making us lunch here at the B&B! It was so nice to just relax and then have our meal just ready for us AND it was delicious!! We got to hang out with him and his friend Anna who is from Poland and was studying here in Florence so that was fun to talk to locals and friends of locals : )

That day Mary and I just took this day to chill and relax so we watched the finale of the Bachelorette yay!

Clearly that was a lot of work and it made us hungry again so we headed to a place down the street that offers 10% off to B&B customers so we decided to try it and it was once again delicious! I could definitely get used to the Italian food here.

Day 41 - Vatican...which makes our 5th country we've been to so far on the trip!

Once we got inside the Vatican and our tour guide said as of when you walked through those doors you are officially out of Rome and in the Vatican...Mary and I looked at each other and said number 6!! Which is the number of countries that we will have been to by the end of our trip...we were pretty excited to add that one to the list : )


Day 41 - This day was all about the Vatican but not before a little mishap in the morning…I went to withdrawal money out of the ATM (bancomat as they call them here), it read my card, took my pin number, asked how much I wanted to take out, gave me back my card and then never gave me my money! So I freaked out a little, but like anything it ended up being okay pheww!


We headed to the Vatican, signed up for a tour and got on our way. Our tour guide was great and pointed out some really useful things to know and see…I sure wouldn’t have wanted to tackle those museums and galleries on my own because there’s so much to see it almost starts to look the same! It was neat though they had statues from the Forum in there, baths used by ancient Romans, tapestries of Christ’s life, tile mosaics all on the ground and of course the Sistine chapel. He talked for quite a bit about the paintings in the Sistine chapel and our tour guide pointed out significant figures throughout it…the painting on the ceiling, you know the famous one with the two fingers almost touching, is the story of creation...that particularly famous part of the painting is representing God creating man. But I was surprised at how little that portion of it is, it’s always talked about and I expected the whole ceiling to be that one part of the painting but turns out it’s a small part to a much bigger picture. I’d just to like to point out that in the middle of creation and the ceiling is when God made Eve…that’s right, women are the center of the universe, okay okay that’s a little dramatic but still makes me feel better about myself to know how much God values women : )

Afterwards we went of the scavi tour, which scavi in Italian means excavations. So it took us to the crypts below St. Peter’s Basilica where the Popes are buried but what we focused even more on was what’s underneath the old Popes…mausoleums and the Apostle Peter’s tomb found just in the 1940’s! It was neat to see where Jesus’ best friend was buried and look what’s on top of him, one of the biggest churches in the world. Mary was in catholic heaven here…me not so much, but it was neat to see the Vatican.

Afterwards we went back to our favorite hangout spot…the fountain, one of many, but this one is just special to us because it’s not a well known one, it’s pretty modern and you can walk in it. It felt like we were at a water park or something sitting there with the splashing water and people coming to just relax. So we just got some gelato and hung out there for a while until we headed back to our hotel for our last night in Roma!

Day 40 - If I had my own fountain....

So during one of our days in Rome, Mary and I were sitting waiting for one of our tours and she asked me what I was thinking about and here was my response "I'm thinking about if I built my own fountain I'd want there to be seats all around it because I love just sitting on the fountains and I would tell people, beacuse my fountain will be a big deal and a big tourist attraction, I will tell them never to put railing around my fountain so everybody could enjoy it...and I'd also put foot recliners so you could just relax"...random I know but this day in Rome really showed me how much I love fountains!!

Day 40 - Our second day in Rome went a little something like this...We started off at the Spanish Steps which had a ton of steps (shocking right?!), a beautiful site of Rome and we bought some artwork from a local artist. Next we headed to the Barberini Plaza which had a really cool fountain of Triton spouting water out of a conch shell and fish underneath him…sounds weird but it was a neat fountain (see picture below)! Afterwards we walked up the hill (one of the 7 here in Rome, learned that yesterday!) and found this intersection with four fountains and one of the corners had a neat little church inside of it which apparently can fit into one of the piers of St. Peter’s...just goes to show how big St. Peter's is and how small in comparison this church was.

Next we headed to the Trevi Fountain which of course I threw in my penny so I have to come back one day! I was reading that the God Neptune is the guy standing in the middle with two tritons on the side with horses which symbolize the two conditions of the sea. Although filled with a ton of people it was so nice to just sit by the fountain, feel the cool water and just relax…the fountains are probably one of my favorite things here in Rome, also because you can drink out of them, Ancient Romans know what’s up with their free water!

Next up was the Pantheon, which has tombs of Roman kings and the artist Raphael. Later we headed over to the Plaza Navona which was another favorite of mine because it had another neat fountain (yay!) and some gelato!

Afterwards we tried to see the Botanical Gardens across the river but it didn’t work out so we headed back towards the Trevi Fountain so we could get some good dinner (which we did!) and see the fountain at night!

Day 39 - Ruins

Just arrived in Florence where there is working internet yay! So here's my posts for Roma : )

Day 39 - We started our day early because we knew there was so much to see and so little time!! So we tackled the metro and headed to the colosseum and upon walking just out of the metro station we were right in front of it! It’s an amazing figure and such an iconic one of Rome. We were warned about people trying to get you to take their tours so every person that asked us if we were interested we told them “nine!” which we learned in Paris to say to Gipsies because it’s the German word for no and apparently they leave the germans alone, or so our tour guide said. But we heard this one girl speaking American English and she looked our age so we decided to check it out. After becoming convinced, which I still am glad we did it because nothing was labeled inside, we headed on our tour of the Colosseum and the Palantine Hill which also includes the Forum.

These old ruins are AMAZING!! There’s seriously nothing like this back in the U.S. Some of these things date back to BC time…isn’t that’s crazy!? Our tour guide was even telling us how they are having a hard time building a third metro line because they keep finding ruins underground all across the city!

I could talk about each of these for days so here’s my favorite parts of each:

Colosseum – favorite part was learning about the gladiators! I’ve never seen the movie Gladiator, which apparently is historically false, but turns out gladiators were slaves, prisoners of war, young recruitments or men who really just wanted to be gladiators. It was neat though because our tour guide would show us pictures of what Rome would have looked like back in Ancient times compared to what it looks like now and the Colosseum used to have this huge statue of Nero, not sure why I found that so cool but just to imagine what Ancient Rome used to look like! Also it was neat to see the basement of the colosseum where they used to keep the animals with the little compartments and trap doors and good things like that!

Palantine Hill – My favorite part of this was the Domus Agustana and the area around it like the stadium, baths and the circus maxima (another stadium like thing where they’d have chariot races, of course) which all of this was where the Roman emperors would have chilled and hung out…man do I like their style! It ‘s mainly just the skeletal structure of it all but it’s just crazy that you can walk all throughout it and also it’s neat to think I was walking around where Julius Caesar and Cleopatra would have walked!

Forum – I have to say I think the Forum was my favorite part of all three of these! Mostly because they were all condensed into a small area, so it felt like you got ten for the price of one! Also I had my handy dandy Rome guide book (thanks Grandma J!) so I was in heaven figuring out which one was what and learning what they all were. But my favorite ruin was House of the Vestal Virgin…I mostly found this story more interesting than the ruin itself but anyways so there were these 6 chosen girls who had to keep the sacred flame burning and they were worshipped like goddesses but they had to remain virgins for 30 years, if they found to have broken this vow of chastity or let the flame burn out they were either beaten or buried alive (uh oh!) but if they kept it they had a ton of power and were seen as the most beautiful!

Afterwards Mary and I got sandwiches and relaxed in the shade next to the Colosseum. After getting motivation to hit the sites and heat again we ventured over to Trajan’s Market which is this huge ruin which used to be, as you probably have already guessed, a big market place ancient romans used!

We headed home for a little bit, changed and headed to the Vatican for mass. Afterwards Mary and walked around some other sites like Castle Sant’ Angelo, Palazzo Glustizia (which according to my map is about to collapse on itself due to the weight, yikes!), Ara Pacis and the Mausoleo Augusto. This was probably one of my favorite times in Rome so far because it was dusk so it was nice and cool out, we found a little marketplace with souveniers, a little fountain we could walk in (I thought my feet were dirty from the day but turns out I had a Tom tan!) and this neat artists who had his work (not sure I can call it that because it was different household items with sayings next to them) all along a fence. We kept walking and landed at the Piazza del Popolo which has these great big fountains and two twin churches and Michael Jackson, well not really but later that night there was a great impersonator!

Our favorite hang out spot

It makes me so happy that I twirl!

Piazza de Popolo

We found some dinner and then headed back to our room for some much needed sleep!