Arriving in Monterosso!

Cinque Terre means "5 towns".  They are on the Mediterranean (northish western) coast of Italy and are known for being beautiful and charming.  There is also an intense hike between the towns with allows for breathtaking views!  This was the one place I really wanted to go since I did not get here on my Italy study abroad 5 year ago.  So just Emily and I decided to go.  We chose to stay in the northern most town, Monterosso, because it is the only town with a beach!

Emily took this one when I didn't know it. I like sneaky pics!

Storm is rollin in!

Our little hotel room.  Basic but good.

Beach in Monterosso.

Emily dipping her feet in the Mediterraean for the first time!  It was cold!

This reminds me of my cat, Belle, and their were cat's in the window!

We arrived mid afternoon, walked around, had some gelato by the sea, dipped our toes in the water, and had a really good sit-down dinner!  Our hotel was like 50 meters (1 block in) from the beach and near some restaurants.  It was basic, but clean and big enough.  The only downside it was near the train tracks where the trains slowed down, so every now and then there was a terrible screeching sound.  After dinner we were tired so we did a totally loserish thing, but it was so relaxing...we got a bottle of local red wine, went back to our hotel, and just read.  Afterall, we had to rest up for the epic hike we were doing the next day (next blog post!).

1.5 hours in Pisa

So after Florence Emily and I split off to do our own thing for the rest of the time we were in Italy.  Since we had to stop and change trains in Pisa to get to Cinque Terre (Monterosso) from Florence, we decided to take a little detour. 

Basically we were there 1.5 hours.  Took a taxi to the leaning tower, took pics for about 20 minutes, to a taxi back, and ate McDonalds for lunch.  This sums up our Pisa experience!

Baptistry and other buildings adjacent to the Leaning Tower.

Yep, it's leaning!!!  I love the clouds here!

Me and the leaning tower.

Of course, typical tourist!  Had to take the picture holding up the tower!

Guarding our stuff!

Self pic!  Liking the dude leaning on Emily's head in the background!

Me, Emily, the Leaning Tower!

Florence: The Day of 3 Breakfasts!

So we (Andrea, Emily and I) woke up in Rome before the crack of dawn to catch a 6:15 am train to Florence.  The plan was to get to Florence early enough to drop off our bags at the hostel and find where to meet our Tuscany bike tour.
Breakfast #1: Pastry and coffee at Rome train station. (6:15am)

Duomo in Florence

Ponte Veccio (spelling??) in Florence before the storm

We arrived in Florence, walked to our hostel, dropped off our bags.  We were walking around and decided if we were going to be on a strenuous bike tour through Tuscany we would need some more to eat than just a pastry 3 hours earlier.  So we looked in some cafes and picked one out that had the cutest old couple working!  It was a tiny yet engergetic italian man, and his fluffy looking wife who pretty much wore a mumu.  They were adorable! 
Breakfast #2: Sandwich at "Grandpa's Cafe" (we called it that, not the real name). (9:00am)

I like to call this picture "Gluttony".  At "Grandpa's Cafe".

We get to the bike tour place and discover it was cancelled due to severe thunderstorms in the area.  (The sky did look scary).  As we were walking around trying to figure out how to spend the day in Florence it started pouring down rain.  By chance we happen to be right by "Grandpa's Cafe", so of course we had to stop back in.  The old man was, of course, very happy to see the 3 young American women again.  He kept talking to us in Italian and we'd smile, don't know what he said.  We wanted to avoid getting drenched, and the had these amazing looking canolis...
Breakfast #3:  Canoli and cappacino at "Grandpa's Cafe" (9:45 am).
*Don't worry, we ate here twice more before leaving Italy!



Cute old people who run cafe.  I had to sneak a pic.

 That is how 3 breakfasts can happen.  I dont think I ate lunch that day though.  But I mean let's be honest, eating amazing food is like the main reason one comes to Italy anyway, right?!?!  We ended up wondering around seeing the Duomo and going to the market.  After some drama with my debit card being frozen due to "suspicious spending" (I had to call them an assure them that "yes, that is all me spending that much, turn back on my card"), we checked into the hostel.

The hostel was very highly rated and it really did not disappoint!!  It was right off the square where the duomo was and I could actually see the duomo from our window.  Plus, it was very clean!  Emily and I stayed separate from Andrea due to difference in booking times.  Hostels are a weird thing.  They put strangers into a room together, no regard to gender, and people generally are pretty cool.  Most are in their 20's and are just looking for a cheap way to travel Europe.  Of course, you must be on your guard for creepers and you should lock your stuff in the lockers (basically don't be an idiot, they're still strangers).  But overall in all my Europe trips I havn't really run across any problems with the hostel clientel.

That evening we walked around some more.  The 3 of us ended up at a restaurant and having a fabulous meal!  Caprese (tomato and cheese), pizza, and tiaramasu!  We learned a valuable lesson too: get a bottle of good wine first, then order the house wine (it makes the house wine taste better that way!). 

Me walking around Florence after dinner.

Florence is a great city to just relax and walk around.  The only downside is that there are TONS of tourists.  Though we had to move the day of the bike tour it was still a nice day in Florence. 

Roman Holiday!

So after London, Emily and I flew to Rome to finish our long Labor Day weekend.  I promise we do work too!!

When we arrived in Rome it was warm and sunny.  Emily and I found our hostel and were happy we made the choice to pay for our own room with a private bathroom (which is a luxury in a hostel!).  First order of business was to find food!  Which is not a problem at all in Rome because Romans love good food!  We found a pizza cafe down the street which we could sit outside and enjoy the warm day!  Being a couple of young American women in Italy means you get lots of attention from Italian men, including waiters, and today that meant we got free bruschetta (Emily and I like to call this the "cute girl discount"!).  Haha!  So that made for an interesting meal!

Spanish Steps

Tossing my coin into the Trevi Fountain so I will return to Rome!

Trevi Fountain!

Pantheon

Our view of Piazza Navona during dinner.

Dinner at Piazza Navona!  I'm glad I'm finally old enough to
a decent meal in Italy!!!!

After a power nap, Emily and I decided to see the sights since this was Emily's first time to Rome.  I've been here a few times with both my study abroad trip and post-grad eurotrip, but it's still a great city!  We got some gelato, went to the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and Piazza Navona.  It was really nice to walk around the Piazza Navona because it was early evening and all of the artists were still out seeing their stuff.  We decided it was time to eat again.  This time we went for something a little nicer over looking the picturesque piazza.  We had pasta, red wine, and an old dude lip singing opera in the background.  Emily and I joked it was one of the most romantic settings to a meal we've ever had, even if it was only with each other. 

Later that night the boy externs (Adam and Ketan) met up with us, since they had been in Naples all day.  We got some wine and hung out in the hostel and just talked about travel adventures!

So this started as a normal picture, with the auto-take feature on my
camera.  Then right before it took the boys squished us.  It just makes me laugh!

The next day we were rather lazy.  We got food and walked around a bunch.  Andrea flew to Rome and went with Emily to the Vatican to see the Sistine Chapel.  Since I had seen it, the boys and I made an attempt to go see the catacombs. After a failed attempt to find the correct bus going in the correct direction we gave up and went back to the hostel for naps.  So that was a fail!!  However, I'd seen it, and they didn't care, all we wanted was to rest!  That night we walked by the Colosseum when it was all lit up, went to an AMAZING gelato place, and had a nice sit down dinner.  Naturally, I got pizza, because that's all I ever want to eat in Italy, since no where else compares!!!

Roman ruins near the Roman Forum.  I think the Palatine Hill,
but not sure.  Guess I forgot everything from the Roman Archeology class.

Colosseum at night!

It was a short little Rome trip, but it was cool because all 5 of us got to hang out for a day!  I really do like Rome, but it's definately a city that takes some serious energy to survive!  It's loud,

pushy, and kinda dirty, but of course it's got it's special charm! 

In London?!?!?!

London Eye

So Labor Day Weekend I went to London.  Emily was going there to see a friend and Andrea was going to visit her sister.  Plus, I've been there twice and they speak English, so I feel totally comfortable being by myself there.  On Friday Emily and I took a taxi, 2 trains, a bus, a plane, a subway, and walked to our destinations in London!  Since I've been there and done all of the touristy stuff multiple times (seen Changing of the Guard 3 times and it is still SUPER LAME!), I decided to have a chill weekend.  Emily visited and stayed with her old college roommate who lives there and I got a hotel by myself for the night (Thank you parents for you hotel points!!). 

Looking down at London!

I stayed in a hotel in the Covent Garden area, which is the in the theater district area so there are lots of cool shops, pubs, and people which makes it a great place to just walk around.  It's also very centralized, which is what I wanted.  After checking into the hotel it was about 5:00, so still daylight, so I decided to take a nice walk try my luck at doing the London Eye (I'm an optometrist, I need to do all things related to "eyes"!!!!).  Ok, so the eye is actually a HUGE ferris wheel in which allows for amazing views over central London.  It's not like a scary carnival ride, where it feels like you are dangling from death.  You are in an enclosed capsule with other people and you don't even feel like you're moving.  It was a GORGEOUS evening and getting close to sunset, so I got some amazing pictures!!!

After the Eye, I caught a cab to the theater where I saw Dirty Dancing.  Originally, I thought I may be going to the play with some other people, but that didn't work out.  So I decided to be gutsy and go, since I really wanted to see it.  I must admit I had some reservations about seeing a play by myself, since that does seem rather loserish, but then I decided not to care.  It was GREAT!!!!  Such a fun show if you like the movie!

The next day I checked out of the hotel and walked around my area of the city a bit.  Had some coffee, went to Trafalgar Square, saw the Texas Embassy, and eventually made my way to Harrods!  Harrods is amazing!  It's a luxury department store/restaurant/market/tourist attraction all in one. The food halls are out of this world!  They have everythings and are first class!  I bought some teas, and some super cute cupcakes to take to a BBQ at my friend's sister's house that afternoon.  I seriously spent like 2 hours wondering around this place! 

I eventually made my way across town to Borough Market.  An outdoor food market which is so neat.  I ate some great food (all natural no lactose/sugar smoothie, a lamb "bap" (sandwich) with mint jelly, and some other cool stuff).  I met up with Emily and her friend Robin, so it made it nice to wonder around.  After roaming around the market for a while I decided to get my stuff and head out to North London where I was staying with Andrea's sister and sister's boyfriend for the weekend. 

Need a fresh rabbit?

P.S.  Did I mention the weather this whole weekend was UNBELIEVABLY AMAZING!  3 days in London, no rain!  Wow!

Made it to North London, found their flat.  They were having a BBQ (with lots of really good wine!) with some of their friends.  They are both artsy people and work in the film industry, so they had some really interesting friends, all of whom were super nice and fun to talk to!  We had a great night in their garden talking, drinking wine, listening to music, roasting marshmellows, and watching a dance party!

On Sunday, we woke up went to breakfast (late) and went to Air Studios.  They know a guy who works there to let us in. Glen is a nice, jolly, man from New Zealand who resembles Santa Clause in some ways.  He also kind of reminds me of Hagrid from Harry Potter.  He was super nice.  Air Studios is like an old church, in which they now do all the orchestra recordings for all of the major films.  We got to sit in the balcony and watch/listen to the 82 piece orchestra record music for the new Chronicles of Narnia movie!  It was sooooo cool!!!  Plus, you get to see clips of the movie as the matching music. 

Air Studios

We then went to Camden market which as a little more funky/artsy vibe and they sell more clothes and stuff.  Markets are always such fun!  That night Andrea, her sister Leah, and her sister's boyfriend Derek went out and had the best Indian food I have every had in my life!!  It was so good! 

Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Station!!!  If you've seen Harry Potter you get this!

Oh, so they work with Tim Burton, and after dinner we got to go by "Rackham" which is where their offices are.  It was a really cool old house with lots of weird stairs and a lot of character, very appropriate for Tim Burton offices I thought (I mean, they can't work in cubicles!).  I got to see Tim Burton's actual office where he works!  There's a random claw leg bathtub and toilet in there, apparently it came with the house, he doesn't use it as a place to think, I just thought it was random! They were such nice hosts and all of their friends were great which made for a great weekend and an awesome London experience!!!

Best Wednesday Night Ever!!!!

So as usual I'm still behind on blogging.  My internet subscription ran out and I couldn't figure out how to add more minutes on the German website.  Apparently all you need is the "english version" in the top left corner...missed that.



I love this picture because Ketan looks like a special ed kid and Emily looks like she could care less!!!

 So a few weeks ago, on a Wednesday, the 5 externs headed to Regensburg to meet with Dr. Eddis's sister who is also an optometrist. She works at a base near there and we were going to be working with her for a few days. Regensburg is a great town which is really cute!! It's closer to the Czech border, but still in Bavaria, meaning Bavarians like their fests. Apparently when we were in town they were having a fest!!! We should have known it would turn out to be a ridiculously fun night when we were told to bring our dirndls and lederhosen. The pictures will tell....

"Family Christmas Card Picture".  The group in their German outfits!!

Germans dancing and singing on the tables, guess we better do it to!?!

Hanging out in Nuremburg on the way back to Schweinfurt the next day.

Leaving Regensburg.  Conquered.

Girls in front of the old church in Nuremburg.

Highlight of the night: Standing on the tables, swinging my 1 liter stein of beer, singing "Sweet Home Alabama" with a bunch of Germans!!!!  Good times!!!!!