Spring Break- Rome

03/24/11

     Having less people to get together in the morning makes it much easier to leave on time. The four of us walked over to the train station, which took us directly to the airport where we headed out from. We had a two and a half hour layover in Milan, where we got a croissant and water. I slept on the first portion of the flight from Amsterdam to Milan. Our pilot flew extra low over the Swiss Alps so that we could see them and they were massive. The flight from Milan to Rome I tried to stay awake because I knew falling asleep would just make me that much more tired. By the time we got into the Rome airport, got all our luggage, and took the train and tram back to our apartment, it was already about 3:30 in the afternoon. 

     We didn’t want the day to go to waste though, so we quickly changed and headed out the door to salvage the day! We walked over to Via del Corso to let our visitors do some shopping. We walked all the way down this street until it hit Via del Condoti, the street where all the designer stores are. We walked down this street as it leads to the Spanish Steps. At the Spanish Steps, we walked up them and Ali bought a new wallet. Good purchase considering she lost hers the second day in Barcelona in a cab. From the Spanish Steps we walked to the Trevi Fountain to see it during the nighttime. Last stop for the night was the Pantheon and then we went straight to Dar Poeta for dinner. I was starving because all I had eaten was my croissant so I was very eager to eat! I switched up the pizza I got and had one with eggplant on it and it was just as good as the first one I ate from here. I could tell our visitors liked it and were very content with the food. 

Trevi at Night

Eggplant Pizza from Dar Poeta

     After dinner, we came back to the apartment, got ready, and we were going to go to the club Coyote in Testacchio. After we were all showered and ready, started drinking wine, we decided we would rather have a girls night and just drink wine in our pajamas and chat than go out. Post deciding not to go out, we decided to still take pictures as if we went out which was funny. It worked out well that we didn’t go out though because we got an earlier start the next morning than we would have had we gone out. Plus, it was really nice to catch up with Kelly and Ali and hear what’s going on back in Champaign not over skype or facebook, but actually in person. 

Before not going out...

03/25/11

     At 10 we headed over towards the Vatican, which turned out to be a really long excursion. We first waited in line to go into St. Peter’s basilica, which I’ve already seen but wanted to take them to. As we were going to go in, we realized Kelly was wearing shorts with tights. Technically, you aren’t allowed to have your knees or shoulders showing, but we were wondering if it made a difference that she was wearing tights underneath. Unfortunately, it didn’t make a difference so we had to make-shift a “dress” out of her coat so that her knees weren’t showing anymore. From the basilica itself, we headed to the Vatican Museum that I had yet to see so I joined them in going into it. First, we stopped for paninis at a place along the way. I wanted to make sure they got a chance to try all forms of Italian food that they wanted in their short two and a half day stay (Panini, pasta, pizza, bruschetta, suppli, gelato, wine, etc.). Then, we headed to the museum, which is farther from the Vatican than I expected. The main reasoning behind me wanting to go into the museum was to see the Sistine Chapel. However, in order to get there, the museum leads you through every other room on that half of the museum and it is a way larger museum than I thought. That being said, getting to the Sistine Chapel itself took about 35 minutes. It was worth it when we got there though. However, as much as I don’t want to admit, it was nothing like I expected. For some reason, I was under the impression that the imagine of hands touching took over the whole ceiling. However, this isn’t the case and it’s just an ordinary sized image in the midst of a large number of paintings. It was still really cool to see though. 

Vatican Museum

My favorite sign from the Vatican

     From the Vatican, we walked by Castel San Angelo, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, got gelato from our favorite place Giolitis, saw the Trevi Fountain and did some shopping around the area. Considering how much we walked, we were ready to head back. We were without Gina today this day because her family arrived earlier that morning so it was just me and the two visitors. We decided to shower before dinner so that we would be more likely to go out after dinner. We went to Casetta di Trastevere for dinner where we had a nice dinner and some wine before coming back to the apartment to enjoy a little more wine before heading out. However, just like the night before, we got really tired and decided we’d rather just hang out and relax over wine than go out just the three of us. It was actually one of my favorite nights though because we were hanging out in the comfort of our beds and having a good time.  

Piazza Navona

Gelato at the Pantheon

03/26/11

     Saturday brought another long, but less touristic day. We started at the Colosseum where Kelly and Ali went in while I waited outside for them as I’ve already been inside. Afterwards we went over to the Roman Forum. Following this we walked over to a restaurant near our school where I’ve had really good pizza before and they enjoyed it. This time I tried the Capricosa Pizza which has prosciutto, mushrooms, egg, and artichoke on it. I didn’t know I liked artichoke, but I loved this pizza! I couldn’t let them leave without having gelato more than once (plus, they made sure I took them there again!), so we headed back towards the pantheon and sat in front of it while eating gelato. 

Outside the Colosseum

Capricosa Pizza

     The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around stopping around random shops to ensure that they left with everything they came for. We finally headed back to our apartment to meet up with the other girls who had returned from Berlin that morning, but were napping that afternoon from exhaustion. Our friend Paul was in Rome the previous two days with his girlfriend and her family, but they left earlier in the day and it was cheaper for him to fly back to Vienna (where he’s studying) on Sunday afternoon. Therefore, he stayed with us at our apartment Saturday night as well. As can be seen, we packed our apartment full with all nine of us staying where six of us normally stay.  

     After showering, we headed out for our last dinner all together. We wanted to go to the Peroni restaurant and walked all the way over there only to discover the wait was way longer than we could bear to wait with how hungry we all were. Instead, we headed back into Trastevere to try out a new restaurant called Tony’s that we heard was really good. We got into this restaurant quickly, although we had to split into two tables of four. I enjoyed this restaurant more than our typical go to Casetta. I ordered the Penna alla Vodka, the only restaurant I’ve seen vodka sauce offered. After dinner, we stopped at the bar Gina was at with her family to say hello and then went back home so our visitors could finish packing before going to bed. It was spring forward at 2 so we watched the clock turn from 2 to 3, never a pleasant sight. We got into bed knowing it was going to be an early morning.

Penne alla Vodka

03/27/11

     I woke up at 7 in order to make sure Kelly and Ali made it safely to the train station nearby us to get to the airport in time. After getting them settled with tickets at the correct terminal and saying goodbye after one of the best weeks of my life, I went with Paul to go see Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. He hadn’t seen these sites yet and was leaving so we went early to assure he got them in. I had done all of this and was back home and in my bed by 9:30. I fell back asleep for about an hour and a half before waking up to a text from Kelly informing me that their flight had been delayed 3 hours and because of that they were going to miss their connecting flight. I felt so bad! They were going to have to wait on standby in Canada when they got there to catch a flight, but the airline was covering the ticket because of the inconvenience which is good. I spent the rest of the day catching up on schoolwork, paperwork for my internship, etc.

Spring Break- Amsterdam

03/22/11

     Arriving in Amsterdam early was key as we were only there for two days and there’s a lot to see in Amsterdam. It was just the eight of us girls going to Amsterdam, but when we went to book hostels, we tried to book two rooms of four at one hostel, but as we did it, my reservation didn’t go through because it was full while the other room did. Therefore, we split four and four and I stayed in a hostel with Gina, Kelly, and Ali. We split according to where we were going for our next destination and the other four girls were going to Berlin, while my hostel was going back to Rome for the remainder of break. We got to our hostel at about 11 am and were greeted by our very friendly owner who helped us carry bags up the amazingly tiny, yet steep staircase. He sat us down with a map and circled everything in location to our hostel and the most key sites to see in our short time there. He even offered to wake up at 6 a.m. to help carry our bags down when we needed to leave on Thursday morning. I really enjoyed our hostel, we stayed at Amsterdam Cribs and it had two adjoined rooms and one bathroom. We had a TV, playstation, DVDs, and coffee! My kind of hostel! However, we were absolutely exhausted and took a quick hour nap before heading out for the afternoon. 

Hostel Kitchen

Name of our room?

Gina in our tiny staircase

     We were meeting the other girls at the Heineken Factory after a quick stop for lunch along the way. We saw a place called Village Bagel and stopped there because it looked good and we knew it’d be fast. I got a BLT sandwich on a tomato bagel. 

Streets of Amsterdam

BLT Bagel Sandwich

     It was a quick walk from here to the Heineken Factory, where we went in for the tour we had heard so much about. Included in the entrance fee was 3 free Heinekens over the course of the tour. It started with the history of the Heineken brand, followed by an overview of the ingredients used to make it (water, barley, hops, and yeast), then we saw how all these ingredients are mixed together to get to the final product. After this was one of the most interesting aspects of the tour, a “4D” virtual experience where we were “turned into Heineken.” We were standing in a room where the ground beneath us shook and water was poured on us as we felt as though we were truly the beer being created. It was really neat! The tour concluded with a bar where we could use our free drink passes to have a couple Heinekens before heading back out to explore Amsterdam. We hung around for a bit and enjoyed the experience and the Heineken tasted so fresh and cold! 

The Heineken Factory

Transformation of the Heineken Label

4 Ingredients in Heineken

Where the beer is brewed

Enjoying our first complimentary Heineken

Round Two!

    

     After the tour, we headed back to separate hostels. Everyone showered and then met back up for dinner at a place called Burger Bar. We had heard going into Amsterdam that they had really good ethnic/foreign food, which we have all been craving. This includes a great hamburger. We did a bit of research and this seemed to be the recommended place for a good burger, and boy was the consensus correct because the burger was great. From dinner, we walked around the red light district for a bit and were surprised at the sight. It was very surreal and I for some reason didn’t think it was going to be how people actually explained, but it was. Because there isn’t much of a nightlife in Amsterdam and we were exhausted, we went back to our hostel and fell asleep watching That 70’s Show. I forgot what it’s like to have a TV in our room! 

Dinner place

03/23/11

     We started the day off early and met the girls in the other hostel at the Anne Frank museum at 10:30. World War II has always been one of my favorite events to learn about in history and having read The Diary of Anne Frank multiple times for school, I was really looking forward to seeing this museum. I was a little sad that I couldn’t take pictures inside, but it was with reason. The museum started in the lower levels of the original house where Anne’s father, Otto, ran his business. After going through this part of the house, we walked through the actual bookcase that was used to cover up the hole in the wall that was the entrance to the hiding place of Anne Frank and family during the persecution of the Jewish that occurred in World War II. In general, the house was larger than expected, but when considering the fact that they did not leave that house for two years straight, I can only imagine how small it actually felt. The house was surrounded with quotes from her diary and had several interviews of people who knew her and survived. When I went into Anne’s actual room, I was surprised to see that the decorations Anne always wrote about putting up in her room were still preserved. When we got to an additional part of the museum outside the house, it talked about how each family member was sent to different concentration camp. I actually cried in this room in hearing an interview and recognizing that Anne died just 3 weeks before all concentration camps were liberated. One woman who knew Anne discussed that she may have had a little more hope had she known her father was still alive. One of my favorite quotes I saw in the museum was from Otto Frank, “We cannot change what happened anymore. The only thing we can do is learn from the past and to realize what discrimination and persecution of people means. I believe that it’s everyone’s responsibility to fight prejudice.” 

Gina & I at Dam Square

On the walk to the Anne Frank House

Anne Frank House

My favorite quote from the museum

     With a depressing, but very interesting morning behind us, we went to breakfast/lunch at a place called the Pancake Bakery. I ordered the pancake topped with caramel/mocha sauce, ice cream and whipped cream. While this was extra sweet, I definitely managed to eat the entire thing because it was so good. After lunch we headed towards Vondelpark where we wanted to rent bikes after taking pictures in front of the “I Amsterdam” sign. We all took turns climbing up on the letters and taking pictures. 

Delicious Pancakes

I AMsterdam sign

Some of the girls on the sign

All of the girls on the sign

     By the time we got to the bike rental place, it closed in an hour and a half and the price was nowhere worth the little amount of time we had. Therefore, we just went and sat in the park for a bit. We decided we didn’t need to shower because we weren’t going out that night with our early flights the next morning so we went directly to dinner. We went to a Japanese restaurant where I ordered some form of curry chicken and shrimp noodles. Following dinner, we hung around for awhile before separating again to our hostels to call it a night. Once getting back, we all packed up, showered, and called it an early night.

Vondelpark

Japanese Food

View of the Alps from the plane

Spring Break- Barcelona

03/18/11

     When I woke up Friday, while I was tired, I was eager for the week ahead of me and had no trouble waking up! Our flight left at 9:30 and was getting into Barcelona at 11:35 so we hopped on the train to the airport around 6:30 just to ensure we had enough time to get there. Every time we had previously taken the train and bought tickets to the airport, we hadn’t been checked, so we decided not to purchase tickets this time. Of course, the one time we didn’t buy them they checked, just my luck. Fortunately, the conductor was nice and just let us buy them on the train rather than fining us. As we checked in, it was the first time some people were checking bags since getting here. There were two suitcases between four girls, while Gina and I packed in backpacks as we were returning to Rome earlier. As usual with girls, both bags were overweight and there was quite a bit of rearrangement before we were checked in and through security. As we went through security, I actually ran into my cousin’s cousin, Sara. Such a small world! She had a connecting flight in Rome and we happened to be there at the same time. I of course slept the entire plane ride to Barcelona. When we got to Rome, we hurried over to meet our two friends, Kelly and Ali, who had flown into Barcelona from Chicago to meet us! I felt bad as their flight had gotten in at 8 in the morning and they had been waiting for about 4 hours for us, but they were in good spirits! 

Flying into Barcelona

     From the airport, we headed out to the apartment we had rented for the next four nights. As we got there, we realized how lucky we were in terms of location. We were located directly next to a metra stop that could bring us to touristic sites, a ten minute walk from the beach, and a ten minute walk from all the places to go out at night. The apartment was very nice, but as usual, we fit eight girls in a six-person apartment. With all of our luggage taking up the ground, the place felt immediately smaller. It was the perfect place though and we never had any problems, just took turns sharing beds. 

View from our apartment

     Within a half an hour of getting to our apartment, our three guy friends studying in Barcelona this semester picked us up from our apartment to take us to lunch and head to the beach. We ate at a kebab place (which I hate to admit, but we liked it so much that we had it three times within two days!). Hey, you can’t resist when it’s that good and inexpensive. From lunch, we wandered over to the beach and sat it a sunny spot from which we didn’t move for nearly 6 hours. 

A view down the beaches of Barcelona

Hanging out on the beach!

     We decided to have a relaxing first day of spring break, leaving the remaining days for site seeing, and spend the first catching up with friends on the beach while sipping on a few beers. I couldn’t have asked for a better start. Come about 6 p.m. everyone headed back home for a nap before going out for the night. Originally, we planned to take an hour nap, but that quickly turned into a two and a half hour nap. Because of sleeping later and only having one shower for eight girls, we weren’t even ready to go get dinner until about midnight. However, in Barcelona, people don’t typically go out until about 2 or 3 in the morning, so it wasn’t a big deal. Because we were pushing for time, we walked over for kebab number two of the trip. 

Kebab

     After dinner, we went to a bar called Dow Jones. It is modeled after the stock market in that the prices of drinks fluctuate in price based off demand. Therefore, if a specific drink is in high demand, the price increases. Meanwhile, those not in demands go down in price. All the while this is happening, there is a screen monitoring prices so that everyone is aware of what’s going on in the “market.” Not to mention, every so often, the market crashes and all drinks are cheap! This was one of my favorite bars I’ve ever been to. From Dow Jones, we met our guy friends at a club called Ocsuim where we stayed out until 5:30 in the morning! Talk about a late night!

Dow Jones "Market" Screen

03/19/11

     We got a later start than intended on day two, as can be imagined considering what time we went to bed at. Our goal for the day was to try and get FC Barcelona soccer game tickets for the game that night, only to find it was already sold out. Hearing this, we stopped for lunch along the beach where I had the chance to try some Spanish specialties. We all split an appetizer of calamari, an enormous platter of seafood paella, and all of this was complemented by a glass of sangria. The paella was fantastic and reminded me a little bit of gumbo from New Orleans, only better…if possible! The restaurant we ate at was right along the ocean, making for a beautiful view. 

View from our lunch table

Sangria

Seafood Paella

     By the time we finished lunch it was about 4 and everything was still closed from “siesta” time in Spain. We decided to go back to our apartment, shower and get ready, as we planned to head to the soccer stadium for the game at 7 in hopes of buying tickets off someone there. Unfortunately, this attempt was unsuccessful, but we did randomly run into two boys from our program, as well as our guy friends studying in Barcelona and a group of our other guy friends who were visiting them. It was so good to see everyone! 

Some of the girls at Catwalk

     Because we didn’t have tickets to the game, but the boys did, we decided to walk around and see the city at nighttime before heading back to the apartment to get ready before meeting back up with everyone later. That night, we went to a club called Catwalk. The club wasn’t that crowded, but we still had a great time being with friends who we haven’t seen in over two months. I also happened to run into a friend from high school who is studying abroad in Florence at this club. Ironically, this is the third city I’ve randomly run into her while abroad! Come 6 a.m., we decided it was about time to head home and get to bed so we could accomplish everything we wanted the following day. 

03/20/11

     Somehow, we all managed to get up at a much more reasonable hour this morning and headed out to grab a quick bite for lunch before heading to the church La Sagrada Familia. For lunch, I ate eggs with ham and potatoes. The sun was shining extra bright during lunch and I’m pretty sure I got burnt as several people mentioned that freckles were starting to appear on my nose. 

Ali & I at lunch

Eggs, Ham, & Potatoes

     From lunch, we headed over to La Sagrada Familia, which has a very gothic appearance and was designed by Antoni Gaudi. Construction of the church began in 1882, yet to this day it is still incomplete. It is said that it will not be fully completed until 2027. I didn’t think it was possible to take that long to build one church, but it combines many different architectural styles and is beautiful. We walked around a bit inside, but were unable to go to the top as tickets for the day were already sold out. 

In front of La Sagrada Familia

Closer to the church

Inside the church

View of the ceiling

     After going here, we headed over to Park Guell, also designed by Gaudi, as are the majority of sites around Barcelona. We walked around the gardens and took pictures at the top, giving a panoramic view of the city of Barcelona in it’s entirety. Because these two sites were the farthest from our apartment, it took quite a bit of time to go to both and we called it a day after a lot of walking and headed back home. 

Going into Park Guell

Overlooking the view from Park Guell

     We had plans to meet the boys at one of their favorite sandwich places for dinner called Bo de B. When we walked up to the restaurant, we could tell it was going to be good given the long wait. By the time we all got our sandwiches, we had waited over an hour (granted, there were 15 of us so that in itself takes awhile!). The sandwich was well worth the wait. I got a chicken sandwich and then you pick whichever fresh ingredients you want on it. It is the closest thing I’ve eaten to a Chipotle burrito since coming abroad so it definitely hit the spot. 

Bo de B

Waiting for our sandwiches!

     Considering it was a Sunday, there wasn’t much going on regarding nightlife according to the boys and the Illinois/Kansas basketball game was on way later. We just decided to go to an Irish pub to hang out and watch whatever part of the game we could before the bar closed due to the time difference. Because the start time was delayed, the game didn’t start until 2 a.m. and the bar closed at 2:30 so we only got to watch a brief bit of it. I figured I didn’t have to worry about finding out who won as I was sure that if Illinois lost, I would quickly find the outcome from Sam. I was right and woke up to a facebook post from him saying, “Too bad for the Illini.” I had to laugh a bit. While I was upset I couldn’t watch the whole game, it was a good reason to go to bed at a much more reasonable time for once.

At the pub for the Illini game

03/21/11

     With our night coming to a halt much earlier than the previous nights, we were able to be much more productive the following day. We started out by going back to Bo de B for another sandwich and this time sat inside. While I liked my sandwich the night before a lot, I decided to switch it up and get a smoked salmon sandwich. I didn’t put as much on this one and it tasted very fresh. There’s no way to compare the two sandwiches, but I thoroughly enjoyed them both. 

     Then we began on our journey for the rest of the day. We met up with a couple of our guy friends visiting from home and walked down the famous street in Barcelona called La Rambla where there’s numerous shops and people dressed in costumes to try and get money. It was a very entertaining walk. This walk led us directly to our next destination, La Boqueria market. This is a famous fresh market in Barcelona where you can buy just about any form of fresh food you want, including aisles and aisles of candy, which automatically drew my attention to it! 

View down La Rambla

Entrance to La Boqueria

Lots and lots of candy!

     The last major site we wanted to see before we left was the Casa Batllo, another Gaudi creation. We had seen it on multiple postcards and thought it looked really cool and wanted to see it in person. It wasn’t a far walk so we headed there and snapped a couple photos. After a lot of walking, we were pretty far from our apartment so we hopped on the metra and took it back to us. Before going back to our apartment though, we walked over to the beach for one last view of it and hung out in the sand for about a half an hour. 

All the girls at Placa Catalunya

Me and the visitors

Casa Batllo

One last stop at the beach

     Realizing we still had to pack everything up and get ready before meeting the boys for dinner, we walked back to our apartment. We met them at Rosa Negra, a Mexican restaurant where we celebrated three of our friends there 21^st birthdays that were all within a matter of a week. The set plate came with a mass quantity of food including nachos, chips and guacamole, taquitos, fried jalapeños, quesadillas, burritos, and a margherita. Following dinner, we said our goodbyes and headed back home and were in bed a little after midnight, knowing we had to be up at 4 a.m. to get to the airport in time for our 6:15 flight to Amsterdam! 

One side of the table at dinner

Other side of the table