When in Rome

As I mentioned at the end of my last entry, the plan for the weekend of April 23-25 was to head south to Rome. We crossed our fingers that the skies opened up again after the epic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. Then even after things started to sound more optimistic that we'd make it out, we were slightly worried that we'd get to Rome, but not get back, because then it was in the news that one of the other volcanoes could possibly erupt!

Well, Thursday night rolled around and we were still going forward with our plans. As far as we knew our flight was still on schedule. Katie Roz actually backed out at first, but after having a productive evening working on her paper, decided to take a chance and risk getting stranded :) We headed out on the late night bus and were at Dublin Airport at about 4:30 AM. Our flight left bright and early at 6:30 AM.

When we got to Rome it was raining. This was not good--the tennis shoes I had packed were starting to fall apart and there were huge holes in the bottoms. And seeing as it rained almost all day Friday, my feet were SOAKED at the end.

Anywho, after we got in to the city from the airport, I called my friend Lindsey from UWEC who is studying abroad there this semester. Upon hearing I was going to be in Rome, she offered to show us around and have dinner! We met up at the train station near our hostel and she took us to the Colosseum. She was a fountain of information--how she remembered all that information astounded me. And we came at the perfect time because it was Culture Week and a lot of places were free to get in to--including the Colosseum! Woot woot! Last week was also Rome's 2,763 birthday!!

The Forum

After the Colosseum, we went to check in to our hostel. The place was called the Overseas B&B. The office was super tiny and the guy at the desk went to take us to our room, which was actually located in a building around the corner on the next street over! We were wondering where he was taking us! The elevator was super tiny and wouldn't close because we had too much stuff in it, so we had to take the stairs. We were in room 401, but it felt like way more than just 4 flights of stairs! The room wasn't too bad. We were in a 4 person so didn't have to worry about sharing it with any creepers. After getting our stuff settled in, we went to Lindsey's neighborhood and she took us to her favorite gelato place. It was delicious!!! and only 1.50 for a cone with up to 3 flavors! Good deal!
Our next stops were Trevi's Fountain, the Pantheon, and then the Spanish steps. The steps were beautiful and decorated with hundreds of pink flowers! Trevi's fountain was amazing too.

The Pantheon

The Pantheon

Fontana di Trevi

Purrrdy

Lindsey= Rome Expert!

Next, Lindsey took us to one of her favorite restaurants in Rome, La Fate (The Fairy) For 10 Euro, we got a 3 course meal: a delicious appetizer, some pesto pasta (my favorite) and a nutella tart dessert. Oh, and not to mention wine :) It was a phenomenal day in Rome, despite being rainy and we were so grateful for Lindsey for all the places she showed us! She got us on the bus we needed to get back to our hostel. I showered, got ready for bed and then was out!!

SATURDAY.

We were woken up at 8:30 by our breakfast delivery provided by the hostel (we had requested that time!) It was croissants and OJ and little cake things. We were all really tired, and unanimously agreed it'd be awesome if we slept a little longer. We ended up not getting out of bed till 10:15! we quickly got ready and then headed down to the metro and got in line for the Vatican Museum...which was super long! We probably waited for 40 minutes. I had thought the Vatican museum was going to be all about Catholicism and all of the Popes but little did I know it was Art...and the location of the Sistine Chapel haha. Shows how much I know. Some of the statues were pretty cool, and the other art work, but like the Louvre, it all started to look the same after awhile. We were there for probably 3 hours. The Sistine Chapel, which was more towards the end of our visit, was INTENSE. I figured there would be a possibility of no pictures--which Yes, was the case, but you're not supposed to really talk at all. There were guards that kept Shushing everybody. I saw one lady leaning back to take a picture and a guard came over and chewed her out and asked her if she wanted to get kicked out. It was nuts.


After leaving the Vatican, we grabbed some pasta at a restaurant nearby. For some reason all I wanted to do was eat...it may have been PMS but it may have also been because we were in a country known for its delicious food! When we left I was really excited for it to be time to eat again. We had talked about going to a restaurant Katie's friend Beth that I met in Paris had been to when she was in Rome that had delicious tirimasu. That would have to wait however, because our next stop was St. Peter's Basilica. It was beautiful. I had a bit of a blasphemous moment, however. There was a service going on while we were there and there was a priest who was dressed in white, which I'm sure is the general apparel for the priests in Italy, but I said to Katie, "Is that the Pope?" and she said "No" and I said (in a whisper, mind you) "DAMN!" and then immediately placed my hand over my mouth and mentally prayed for forgiveness.
After checking out the inside of the church, we headed up the stairs to the dome. CRAZIEST SET OF STAIRS EVER. There were multiple different kinds, long ones that were used for horses (why there would be horses inside going up and down the stairs I'll never know) Towards the top they got really narrow and part of the wall slanted over us so we had to go sideways. I was really huffing and puffing towards the end and I thought I was going to keel over. The view was well worth it though. I couldn't help but think while I stood and leaned on the railing, "Little Katie Andrist, from little old Elk Mound, Wisconsin, is looking at almost all of Rome right now." I just honestly can't believe this has happened to me, and that I've gone to all these amazing places. I am very near being broke financially right now, but seriously, it's been worth it because I will never have a chance to go to this many cool places for the prices that I have ever again, and I would have never met all the people I met this semester.
Anyway...I'll save the reminiscing, what-I've-learned-and-how-I've-changed sentimentality for another entry. Here are some pictures from the top of the dome.



After the dome, we headed out to find Katie's tiramisu (how do you even spell that?! My Firefox spell check keeps underlining it) restaurant. On the way, we passed a little market with a bunch of stands. I ended up buying a bracelet with letter beads and it says Italia. It was only 3 Euro and was really cool. It looks like something I could have made myself...haha. We found the restaurant, which was a pizzeria. The cutest old Italian man ever worked there. The pizza was really good, as was the bruschetta we ordered, along with the free bread wedges the guy gave us, the wine and tiramisu! You'd think after having that big of a meal we'd be done eating--but no--we tracked down the gelato place Lindsey took us to the night earlier. It was still delicious the 2nd time. I got a flavor called something like Chocolate Fondue, and it was sooo good and dark but very drippy. I ended up with chocolate all over my face. We caught the bus at the same stop and headed back to the hostel.

Our flight Sunday left at 10:55 AM. It was nice to not have to crash at the airport this time. Katie headed off to Poland. I am a little sad I didn't make it to Poland because I had really wanted to see Auschwitz, but I can't really complain. I still find it hard to believe I can say I've been to Rome. All these places used to seem so far away and unattainable. Oh boy. Here I go again!

This week is Reading Week...our lectures have ended and finals start next week. I have started studying, maybe not as much as I should. All my finals are essay exams...yuck! Luckily I know for the most part exactly what questions will be on them and I can pick which ones I want to do, so that should make studying less of a challenge than trying to cram everything in to my brain.

This weekend a big group of us are going to the Wicklow Mountains, where Braveheart and like, omg...PS I LOVE YOU was filmed. We are going to Dublin Friday to do a little souvenir shopping because they actually have shops with decent prices, spending the night in a hostel, and then doing a tour Saturday and then heading back Saturday night.

oh and ps. I ended up throwing my shoes out...they got so wet from the rain and smelled really bad and the bottoms were just completely obliterated!

Ciao!

The Aran Islands and Volcanic Ash

On Saturday the 17th, I went on a day trip to the Aran Islands through the International Society. They had a weekend trip too, but they had a 50 person limit and we didn't make it at the sign up. I'm kind of glad I just did the day trip. The Islands, well there are 3 and we only went to the biggest one, were cool and I had really wanted to visit them while I was here, but they weren't like as amazing as I had thought they'd be and it looked pretty much like other parts of Ireland. Not to sound jaded or anything haha.

We left at 7 am on Saturday morning...ouch! I passed out on the bus pretty much right away. I woke up a few times here and there but my head just kept falling down and I fell asleep like 3 times! We got dropped off at the ferry port. The ticket lady yelled at our group to get out of the office because there were too many of us. She gave our group ticket to Colleen. None of the officers from the International Society were with us because most of them were on the weekend trip. We boarded the ferry (it was my first time on one!) I always assumed taking a ferry meant just meant standing on a boat, but this one had an upstairs and a downstairs with really nice seats. It was about a half hour ride there. It took us a little while to get off because the people in front of us had a couple of dalmatians with them and one was scared to go up the stairs to get off!

After getting off the ferry, we boarded a tour van. The guy drove us for like 15 minutes and told us some history and information about the island, and then he dropped us off at a beach and said he would pick us up in like 2 hours. We hung out at the beach for a little while, then walked over to Dun Aonghasa, an ancient Celtic stone fort that was up on a cliff. When we reached the top, I went over and sat on the very edge of the cliff. It was weird, like part of me was obviously a little scared I'd fall over but it just didn't seem like that big of a deal when I went to the edge. Maybe I have faced my fear of heights in someways! We also had fun laying on our stomachs and looking straight over the edge.

After we got picked up by our bus driver, we stopped at some ruins of some old churches. We also stopped to look at some sea lions that I would have never noticed if the driver hadn't pointed them out because they looked just like the rocks!

We drove back in to the village, had lunch at a coffee shop, and then walked around a little bit. We went to the sweater shop. Then we took the ferry back and got back on the bus. I passed out AGAIN. I don't remember the last time I slept so much on a journey before :)

One of my favorite things in Ireland are the stone walls.

MOO.

With Katie and Amanda on the beach

The wall of the fort

Being a BAMF

The view straight down

2 of the 7 churches left.

We didn't eat here, but still thought it was funny.

We are supposed to be going to Rome this weekend but it's looking a little iffy because of that volcano erupting in Iceland. Flights through Ryanair are delayed out of Ireland up until Wednesday at 1 PM so far. My roommate Kathleen and some other girls from UWEC were supposed to have gone to London this past weekend, but that got canceled. I really hope flights go out on Friday because I want to go to Rome sooooooo bad. I haven't done a lot of travel outside of Ireland. I shouldn't whine because either way this one semester has been way more traveling to cool places than I've ever done in my entire life but still! Some news stories make it sound like it's getting better, but some make it sound like there's no end in sight.

My Irish dance recital is this Wednesday. Im a little nervous. The audience is only going to be people that we invite but I am not very good! This is the last week of classes which is crazy! I'm excited for no more classes but it's sad because it just means I'm getting closer and closer to being done here! Next week we have a Reading Week and then 2 weeks of finals. I'm leaving 1 month from today. Soooo crazy!

Katie and the Chocolate Factory

This past weekend, April 9-11, I went to Brussels, Belgium, with Liz and Amanda. We headed out Thursday night at 1 AM for Dublin airport because our plane was pretty early. There is a bus company that runs pretty much 24 hours unlike Bus Eireann and makes slightly less stops. I slept a little bit on the bus, but the lady behind me was coughing and snoring the entire way.
When we got to Brussels, we got a round trip bus ticket (I don't know if I've explained this but the airline we fly through, RyanAir, is a cheapfares line, and therefore drops you off at airports that are not exactly nearby the actual city you want to visit) in to Brussels. We made sure we knew when the last bus was going back in to Charleroi, the airport, so we didn't have another mishap like Katie and I did in Paris! We also grabbed maps at the tourist information desk.

The bus dropped us off somewhere in Brussels. We pulled out our maps and tried to figure out where the heck we were on the map, which was a challenge. We were near some sort of shopping center/train station.We thought we suddenly had an idea of where on the map we were and went up to a guy working at the train station and said "Is this where we are?" We felt so intelligent :) We also discovered we had quite a ways to go to get to our hostel, which haha is an interesting story. When booking our hostel, which we did a little late in the game, one of the only places still available and cheap was the Van Gogh hostel. Some of the reviews on hostelworld.com were pretty good but some made it sound like the sketchiest place on earth. Some people called it a "hole" and claimed that it was possible to get in to any of the rooms. My favorite was the person who wrote that the hostel was not good at keeping their reservations straight--she had booked an all female room and ended up staying in a room with 2 middle aged men! We reserved a 4 person female room and prayed we actually ended up in it...and were relieved at the idea of only having 1 other person to potentially deal with.

Anyway, after getting our bearings, we started heading towards Grand Place, or Groote Markt, the main square in town. It wasn't a bad walk. The architecture of the square was amazing. It was very European!

We got lunch at a sandwich shop (a lot of the restaurants in the square were really expensive and a lot of the hosts tried to butter us up to get us to come in) and then went to a chocolate shop that was advertised on the map called Chocopolis that said it gave out free samples. Ha, little did we know they weren't the only place in town that gave out free samples! but I'll get to that later. I also bought a little cup of chocolate pudding type stuff. It was yummmmy!

After Chocopolis, we went to find Petit Julien, or Mannequin Pis, a fountain/statue of a little boy urinating. There are 2 stories explaining the origins of the fountain:
1) A young boy got lost from his parents on the street where the fountain is today, and I think supposedly was found urinating there?
2) The fountain is a tribute to a little boy who in the 1600s saved the day by urinating on a lit firecracker

I like the 2nd story better :)


Next stop: The Chocolate Museum! Here, we got more free samples. The museum was cool...I mean, hey it was devoted to chocolate, but we were starting to get a little weary because it was super hot and crowded...it wasn't a very big building. My favorite part was the demonstration by the chocolatier. We got to see her make chocolate shells, and she gave us 2 more free samples!


After the chocolate museum, we found our hostel and took a much needed nap. The hostel lobby was pretty nice, and didn't make it seem like a "hole" so we thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad. We got to our room (no middle aged men to be found!) and weren't impressed but weren't horrified. It definitely was not a nice room. The metal folding chair that was the only furniture besides the beds had the paint rotting off. There cracks and scratches in the walls. All in all though, it wasn't nearly as sketchy as we had feared..and the locks on the doors seemed to be fine. It was definitely the slummiest hostel I've been in so far. The street was super noisy though, but I was so tired from the lack of sleep I'd had since Wednesday night that I still took a decent nap. We got up and headed for dinner at about 8:00. We ate at a pita place in the Grand Place, which was very conveniently located next to a chocolate shop with a fondue fountain in the window that said "Sample the fountain for free." Yes, please! We went in, sampled the fondue fountain, along with all the other chocolates they had out for sampling. We bought some little chocolates too. We walked around the square and essentially did a Chocolate Store Crawl. I bought a box for my sister. Then we headed back to the hostel and called it an early night. We ended up getting a roommate in the middle of the night because her plane got in late, but she pretty much unpacked her stuff when she got there and went to bed which was nice.

Saturday we ate breakfast and checked out of the Van Gogh, because we planned to spend Saturday night at the airport because our plane left really early again. We decided to do some non-chocolate store sight seeing and got on a Hop on Hop Off Bus. The first place we got off was the Atomium, a building shaped like a giant atom. It had exhibits inside too. It was sort of like a museum for technology. To get to the top molecule, which boasted a great view of Brussels, we had to wait in line for the elevator because that was the only way to get up there. We waited for about 20 minutes or so. The Atomium elevator is the fastest in Europe. It goes up about 335 feet in 20 seconds! The lady in the elevator gave us all the info we needed. The view was pretty cool....and we could see the "Mini Europe" park which is basically, a miniature version of all of Europe.

After we got back on the bus we hopped off again back at Grand Place and got Belgium Waffles! Belgian waffles are legitimately good and unlike anything they try to claim is a Belgian waffle in the states. Theyre so warm on the inside and you really need to try one to know what I mean! Liz and I had chocolate and strawberry with whipped cream and Amanda had kiwi and caramel and whipped cream which she said was really good!

We got back on the bus again and went to a really nice park There was a pond in the middle and the walking path went in a circle, so we did a loop around and took some pictures of the trees and some ducks being fed.
We walked back to the square again and ate dinner at the same place we ate the night before, and of course went back in to the chocolate shop. Funny story--we went in to a different chocolate shop earlier on Saturday with a fondue fountain...and the girl from the one Friday night was working there too and we were pretty sure she recognized us! We probably looked like all we were doing was walking around eating chocolate...which we kind of sort of were. We all bought more little chocolates. I bought a box for my cousin Molly and a box to take back. Which yes, is already gone.

We caught the bus back to the airport, and had another looong night. I did sleep a little, which is weird because the chairs were far less comfortable than the Dublin ones. When we got back to Limerick, I took a 5 hour nap from like 5 to 10 PM...and woke up exhausted still and went back to bed for the night. I don't know the last time I slept that much!

As a city, I don't feel I learned as much about Brussels or experienced it quite like I did like Paris, obviously because I was only there for a couple days, but I think I definitely got a good taste of it. No pun intended. :)