End of London/Rome

After visiting the countryside, we tried to make the most of our final 4 days in London. On Monday, we toured around the city like crazy, hitting Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, Camden Tow and Kensington Palace all in one day. Throughout the next few days, we also saw Wicked and Les Mis in the West End, both of which were absolutely incredible (and we got cheap tickets and decent seats!), went to a few more pubs, took a guided tour of the city, visited Myrissa's dad's old home in the London suburbs, ate at an Italian restaurant where Sofia used to work, went to Harrod's, went out to a great dinner with my aunt, did a bit of shopping, and stumbled upon an autograph signing for the new superman movie with quite a few celebrities in Picadilly Circus. We're really happy with how much we accomplished to see and do in our week in London!

Then it was time to say goodbye to that beautiful Chelsea neighborhood and head to Rome. Honestly, the trip over to Rome was anything but easy. We were both tired and frustrated from the night before because we had not slept much, and the airport we wre leaving from was a nightmare. We found a cheap flight to Rome in British Airways but it left from Gatwick Airport, outside of London, rather than Heathrow Airport which is very close to the city. Gatwick Airport is like a jungle. The terminals are crowded and noisy and there is hardly anywhere to eat or to sit. Finally, we found space at a restaurant and our food was pretty terrible. Our flight was delayed about an hour without notice, and when we finally got to Rome, our hotel was not what we had expected. It was way on the outskirts of the city in a very sketchy neighborhood and on the complete last stop of the metro. Our room had no air conditioning, no windows, and the entire hotel was guarded by gates and cameras. We spent the evening eating pizza at the Trevi Fountain and moved to a new hotel in the city center the next morning. We felt bad leaving our hotel because the workers were so kind to us, but we knew we had to do it.

When we arrived at our new bed and "breakfast" in Rome, the found that the receptionist did not speak a word of English. She kept speaking to us in Italian, asked if we understood, and when we said no, she repeated herself, asked if we understood again, and then mumbled "mama Mia!" under her breath in annoyance over our lack of Italian fluency. We were taken aback by her blatantly rude attitude, and left to spend the day in the city. We ended up having a great day exploring different piazzas, the Spanish Steps, did some shopping, ate pizza, and saw the Panetheon while eating gelato. The gelato place we went to is the same one I went to last year and it has about 100 different flavors. We went to a piazza called Piazza Del Popolo and climbed up to a small overlook above it called Villa Borghese. From up there we had a view of almost the entire city. On our way back down, the steps were quite slippery and Myrissa fell down and proceeded to slide for about 5 more steps. Luckily, her arm broke her fall, but now she has a pretty intense bruise that we have nicknamed Stella. We had such a great day exploring Rome that we decided to go out for the night, and joined a group of college age students who were going on a pub crawl. We went to two pubs and a nightclub, all of which were really fun, despite the creepy men who were trying to follow us around. But overall we had a great time and met some really cool people from America and elsewhere.

Before leaving Rome, we also saw the Colosseum, had an amazing dinner at a restaurant called Novecento, went out at night to Campo di Fiori, ate delicious pizza, ate local food from nearby supermarkets, and got totally ripped off for a terrible tour of the Vatican. I'm sad to say we payed almost $50 for an English tour with a guide who hardly spoke English and told us nothing about the artwork or history. Seeing St. Peter's was the highlight of the day, which was great but also frustrating because it was the only part of the day we really enjoyed and the only part that was free.

Overall, my second trip to Rome was fantastic, but we realized in a huge city like Rome, cheap hotels are not worth it. Even though our second hotel was in a good location, it did not include breakfast or air conditioning as the website had promised, the receptionist was incredibly rude, and it was very tiny and cramped. Next time, Myrissa and I agreed we will splurge a bit to get a nicer hotel.

Leaving Rome was just as hard as getting there. We dragged our heavy luggage all the way to the train station, waited almost an hour in the heat for our train, and got on the train only to find that the seating was really complicated. For some reason, Italian trains assign seats to each passenger, which gets very complicated because some people decide to ignore the seat assignments altogether while others take it very seriously. It also turned out that not a single person on that train spoke English, and when the seating arrangements got totally mixed up, we were really frustrated because no one understood what we were saying. Finally, we found empty seats, relaxed for a couple of hours, and arrived in Naples only to find that the local train to our hotel was delayed. We waited on the platform, drenched in sweat, exhausted and completely confused until our train finally came. About half an hour later, we were in Sant'Agnello, an adorable seaside town next to Sorrento where our B&B is located.

Arriving at our new hotel was really great. After sub-par accommodation in Rome, we arrived at Casa Susy, a pink bed and breakfast overlooking Vesuvius in the distance, and were greeted by the adorable Italian owner, Susy. We finally settled into our comfortable room (with air-conditioning!!!) and changed right away into our bathing suits. We walked along the breathtakingly beautiful coastline, passing by luxury hotels and restaurants overlooking the sea and the mountains, until we walked down many stairs and through a tunnel to the beach, all of which took no longer than 10 minutes. By this point, it was about 8 PM, so the beach was totally empty and Myrissa and I swam and watched the sunset blaze red and pink over the water. I really do not have the words to describe how gorgeous and peaceful the water and sunset were. We both agreed that we would come back to this exact spot many times in the future. We then had pizza at a cute local restaurant, then I Skyped with Joe for about an hour (which was so nice!) and spent the night sleeping so comfortably in our new hotel.

We woke up to cloudless skies and a perfect view of Vesuvius and Naples in the distance. Susy made us breakfast and homemade cappuccino, and afterward we headed for Positano for the day. After a somewhat terrifying bus ride that literally wove through the cliffs over the ocean, we arrived in Positano where we had a delicious lunch and laid on the beach all day. We bought some homemade limoncello, swam in the clear blue water, shopped (of course), napped in our lounge chaurs, got really nice tan lines, and just appreciated the unbelievable beauty of our surroundings. We went back to the same pizza place tonight and were greeted with free champagne and a friendly "welcome back!" from the waiter. The pizza was delicious and now we're going to sleep in our wonderfully air conditioned room. I think that our first day and a half in the Amalfi Coast has made us both realize how wonderful this trip and life in general really are.

xoxo
Christina

P.S. I will never take air conditioning or cold water (most water here is room temperature) for granted ever again!! also I finally learned how to add line breaks to my posts so that everything isn't one giant paragrap! but my grammar and spelling will probably not improve because typing on my iPad is really hard!

London & the countryside

I haven't had a chance to write my first actual post because we've been so busy and have had limited wifi, but I'll try to remember what we've done so far! The trip over here was easy. My bag was almost overweight, of course, even after I took out a sweatshirt and pair of shoes on the way to the airport. We took Virgin Airlines over and it was great. The pLane was enormous; each seat had its own TV and they were pouring champagne as we boarded the flight. One of the flight attendants saw us looking at the champagne and asked if we would like some. We jokingly said yes, and a few minutes later champagne was delivered to us at our seats, completely free of charge. The rest of the flight was easy and we enjoyed talking to the flight attendants and hearing their British accents. When we landed at Heathrow, it was almost 8 PM, and we decided to take the underground to my aunts house in the Chelsea district of London. Taking the underground was pretty fast, and incredibly easy, even with our huge suitcases. The first part of London we saw when we came off the underground was Sloane Square, a cute square road with shops, restaurants, and a double decker bus parked on the corner. We found our way to my aunts house from the underground station without a problem, and when we arrived, she and my uncle had food waiting for us and talked to us about London sightseeing before going to sleep. Their house is really beautiful; since its in the city, it's really narrow but has 6 floors inside, with a lot of staircases. The next day, we wandered over to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. The crowd in front of the palace was enormous and we couldn't see much, but I was able to get a few decent videos. Then we decided to check out Picadilly Circus and Soho, so we took the underground over and walked around for a bit until lunch. We decided to go to St. James' Pub, where we had fish and chips, British beer and Swedish hard cider, all of which were delicious. Then we stumbled upon Carnaby Street, which is a cobblestone, pedestrian only road lined with shops. We went into Monki, where I found an incredible cream colored cable knit sweater for 25 pounds, and convinced myself it wasn't expensive since it was only "25". After buying it, I realized I had just spent nearly 40 American Dollars on one sweater. Lesson number 1: converting pounds to dollars is not fun. Later that evening, we drove with my aunt and 8 year old cousin Langan to their weekend home in the countryside. The home they rent belongs to a very important English duke, who is one of the most prominent land owners in the UK. The home is in a small, somewhat remote village called Badminton, where all the homes are hundreds of years old and the scenery looks like something out of a fairy tale. Myrissa and I shared a cozy room in the attic of the house slept like babies under a thick down comforter and cashmere blanket. We kept joking that we felt like we were on a romantic getaway weekend. In the morning, my aunt took Myrissa and I to a nearby town called Teterby, where we walked around, shopped and had lunch. The town is hundreds of years old and is apparently a very popular place to visit. My aunt brought us to beautiful boutique shops, where the prices were totally outrageous, but it was fun to try things on anyway. We went into a store that sold gorgeous jackets; so gorgeous that even Kate Middleton shops there. I fell completely in love with a dark brown leather jacket that cost about 1,000$. We had lunch, then went back to the house where my uncle and 6 year old cousin Finnian had just arrived from London. It was Finnian's birthday and he'd had a tee-ball game that morning, during which he hit a grand slam. We had cupcakes for his birthday, took a walk around the estate, where we saw the duke's enormous palace, and ate some delicious pasta carbonara. They have a trampoline in the backyard, so we bounced around on there for a while and then went to feed the neighbors pigs with Finnian. On the way we came across a treehouse with a zip line coming out of it, and despite being scared, all three of us gave the zip line a try. It hurt my hands and I almost crashed into a tree, but it was so fun anyway. Then Myrissa and I drank some French wine that my aunt gave us and went to sleep. Today was my aunts birthday. We went to an old English inn and restaurant for her birthday brunch, where we had champagne, wine, hard cider, roasted chicken, poached eggs with crab meat, goat cheese with beets, some sort of puréed liver spread on toast, and homemade ice cream for desert. We decided to be adventurous and try some new things, being that we're in Europe. Tonight we came back to London and walked around Chelsea and Kensington, where we found the mom's house from The Parent Trap, but were sad to see that it is under construction. We walked by Harrods, which was lit up so beautifully, then decided to try some British McDonald's, which was cool because they had waffle fries. When we walked home, we got really lost somewhere in the Chelsea neighborhood, which was tough because so many of the houses look the same here. Finally we were so tired that we hailed a cab, only to realize we were literally down the road from my aunts house and paid for a cab for no reason. Lesson number 2: bring a map everywhere we go. Sorry for any typos and bad grammar; I'm typing this on my iPad and it's really hard!

Is this actually happening?

This semester, Myrissa and Sofia came into my life as random roommates. In January, we were strangers, and today, they're two of my closest and dearest friends. I can't say how often Myrissa and I obsessed over The Lizzie McGuire Movie this past semester, but it was pretty often. We'd watch the movie, sing and dance along to the soundtrack, and wish that we could galavant through Italy like Lizzie McGuire did. My obsession with Italy started last summer when I went there on an incredible 3-week study abroad trip through school. We went to Sorrento, Florence, Venice, San Remo, Cinque Terre, and Rome, to name a few, and since then I've been wishing I could return. And my obsession with Italy continued when I met Sofia, our Italian roommmate who was studying at Maryland through an exchange program with her home university in Milan. One day, Myrissa and I were fantasizing about going on a Europe trip, as usual, when Sofia invited us to visit her over the summer. At that point, we weren't sure if she really meant it, if our parents would let us, if we had enough money, or if the two of us would ever be able to navigate our way to Sofia's house in Padova. That was sometime in February, and it all seemed like a daydream then. Tomorrow, Myrissa and I are flying to London at 7:45 in the morning. Since we're supposed to be there at 4:45, I doubt I'll get more than a few hours of sleep tonight. I can never sleep before flights. What started as a fantasy trip to Italy while we were watching Lizzie McGuire evolved into a 6 week adventure to London, Rome, Sorrento, Florence, Padova (and surrounding areas), and Sweden. Since we were already paying for plane tickets over to Europe, we figured we may as well extend our trip from just Italy to include London and Sweden, since I have family there that we can stay with. We are going to "backpack" through Europe (I'm using the term "backpacking" very loosely, since my already huge suitcase is likely overweight), taking planes, trains and probably some buses, boats and bikes along the way. I'm seeing some of Europe's most beautiful cities, visiting family, and traveling with two of my best friends. In the words of Lizzie McGuire, this really is what dreams are made of. Wish us luck! xoxo Christina