Dublin, Ireland

This last Thursday my same travel crew and I embarked on our last adventure to Dublin, Ireland; we flew from Rome on RyanAir for a 30 euro each way!! Our accommodations this trip were much better we rented an apartment really close to everything the Temple Bar District, Trinity College ,,,pretty much walking distance to everything which was perfect; the apartment had two bedrooms, kitchen, two bathrooms, and a living room with two sofas so everyone had something to sleep on which was nice. We went to the Guinness Storehouse where we took a tour of the seven floors showing everything from how Guinness was made to how to pour the perfect glass, and even a tasting as well as a glass on the 7th floor (gravity bar) with views of the entire city. We also took a Double Decker tour bus the second day being that we only had a short amount of time to see everything we felt this would be the best way to accomplish it; the tour drove all around Dublin making 23 total hop-on hop-off stops at major landmarks. The weather in Ireland was amazing since Rome is currently experiencing record high temperatures for the summer (mind you we have no AC in our flat) , it rained a little and was cloudy the first two days much like Boston i thought, but the third day was beautiful sunshine and still perfect with temp around 65. Not to mention people are much nicer than in Italy, I have come to the conclusion we are not well liked here; ohh and my favorite part.....

EVERYONE SPEAKS ENGLISH!!!!

p.s. for those of you who don't know I am now leaving Italy this Wednesday to fly back home; this trip has been amazing and I have truly enjoyed every moment and every experience here and probably learned a lot of things that I never would have learned had I not done it HOWEVER I cant wait to be back in the US and see everyone!!

Cheese

So today we went to the cheese farm ... pretty weird it was right by Bracciano the lake town we went to with the castle; we basically just watched a man stir some sheep milk that turned into some nasty tasting and looking cheese!!! not what I had expected but an experience none the less I suppose. We fly to Dublin tomorrow so I will probably will not have internet until monday.

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Tomorrow instead of class we are going to a cheese making factory about a hour away... will let you all know how that goes tomorrow nothing to report really just getting excited for Ireland we leave Thursday.

Florence

After our day in Siena we woke up and got on a train to Florence where we spent the day exploring the town; we got to see the "real" statue of David by Michelangelo's, as well as the replica, I have to say it was pretty incredible the amount of detail and size for that matter for that time period. As for the rest of the town there was beautiful architecture and charming streets; most of the town is really artistic ..paintings sculptures etc...

Siena

The travel crew..minus laurenThe Hotel

Well the crew decided to take off for the weekend and head to Siena and Florence; and after a full blown sprint to make our first train(I'm talking this should have been on a movie the doors literally closed seconds behind us)I would say we were off to a great start! Traveling by train in Italy is very confusing we had quite the time trying to figure out what train to even get on and right when we did all I remember hearing is "Train 557 to Siena is now departing from platform 13" and the running began. Thankfully we made it to our second connecting train and we actually ran into on of our professor's Chef Zeck and his wife who were also traveling to Siena for the weekend and had gotten off on the wrong stop so they were just getting back on the right track themselves. After all arriving in Siena we parted ways and checked into our hotel; now being that we are trying to travel and all conserve money we decided to share a room made for four people (there were 6 of us) let me tell you this room was not made for 4 adults ...maybe if they were midgets or even small children it would have worked but this was not the case. The room consisted of one king bed and a set of bunk beds all in a room that was maybe 10x10 and one small bathroom; so needless to say that was quite the adventure in itself. Later ,and after finding out there was this amazing restaurant chef told us we had to go to while we were there we made a reservation for the night and began to explore. We stumbled upon a music festival with live rock music and even a band marching up and down the streets we then went on to dinner; several hours and a few bottles of wine later we had experienced probably one of the best nights here so far.

Bracciano & Sperlonga

BRACCIANO

On Friday Lex, Lauren, Lucas(my roommates), and my new friends Stephanie and Kyle and I decided to take a day trip to Bracciano, Italy. We rode the train about an hour to this small lake town with a famous castle know as Castello Orsini-Odescalchi (one of Italy's finest privately owned castles). The castle itself was amazing and we went on a tour inside to at least half of the castle part of it remains private due to the fact that one of the princesses still resides there sometimes. I can't show you any pictures of the inside because photography was not permitted but it was truly beautiful. One of my favorite facts besides the historical things like kings and the pope hid out there during war was the fact that Tom Cruise got married there!! :) The castle like I said is privately owned and now they just do tours and host private functions like weddings to make money.

Sperlonga

Today the same group of us decided to check out another beach town about an hour and a half away called Sperlonga. It was a beautiful beach supposedly quite a few movies have been filmed here not sure exactly what though ,,, we basically just went swimming in the sea ..much colder than the other beach or at least the other day when we went but still fun none the less! Also my interesting fact of the day nothing in Italy is free all of these beaches we have to pay to even use which I found strange and second cool fact McDonalds here serves beer!!

MEXICAN FOOD

We finally found Mexican food!!!.. and not to far from our flat. Not the best but defiantly not the worst probably the best thing i have had here just had to let you guys know it did exist :)

Ostia Beach

Yesterday we decided to FINALLY go check out one of the beaches nearby we took the metro to a train and rode that into Ostia it took about 30min to get there but was well worth it. We ate lunch at a bistro off the sea and decided to be adventurous and try "seafood pasta"...not such a great choice i think most of it was still alive; it was full of tentacles and other weird things.

But the beach was great we spent basically the entire day there relaxing on our day off. (We heard that that's what the Romans do on independence day ...so you know what they say When in ROME!!!)

Fish Market and Plans for Tomorrow!

Today we went and checked out another Open-Air Market,,what we found interesting about this one was the fish, octopus, sharks, and other crazy sea creatures for sale to eat!!

Check it out....

As for tomorrow it is Italy's Independence day therefore we have no class due to the fact that our school will be closed so we are all going to the festivities including the parade at 10am tomorrow.