Spring Break!

And part two begins...  As I left off on my last blog post I was leaving for the train to get to Rome, Italy.  We (Taylor, Jenna, Sarah, and I) had this huge fear of missing our train because who knew that Italy likes to hold "strikes" at the train station for fun until 9:00 at night sometimes!  Well thankfully this strike really ended at 9:00 when our train left at 9:15.  We got into the train and started to get super excited for everything that Rome had to offer us.  Now I might get a little negative in the next couple or so lines about the beginning of our adventure, but I will also explain the positives later on as well.  So please don't think that my trip was awful because it was not at all.  Okay back to the train ride.  We had a connecting train in Verona and we had our eyes peeled for the sign so we knew to get off.  Well, we got off on the wrong spot...oopsies! We were still in Verona just at the wrong station.  We did some quick problem solving and got a cab to quickly get us to the correct train station so we could actually get to Rome.  It was sad that we had to pay more for a little mistake, but I am happy that we are all safe.  Now this train was a night train so we had to sleep as much as we could because we were getting into Rome at 6 am.  Without being said we got maybe 2 hours of sleep and realized that nothing opens in Rome until about 8 am.  We thankfully found a McDonalds, got a coffee and muffin, and went to find the famous Trevi fountain.  We sure did find it!  Although, the fountain was off... yes off, they were cleaning out everyone's coins and we weren't allowed to even get remotely close to try and secretly throw in our coin for our wish.  No worries we went back the next day to find it actually on and running.  Not many people get to say they have seen the fountain on and off in the same visit so I felt pretty lucky. 

I also got to go inside of the Coliseum.  This is 1: something I have always wanted to do and 2: something you have to do if you are in Rome.  Taylor and I waited in line for over a hour just to get inside, but it was very worth it.  It was cool to see were they held all the battles and to see all the history right in front of my eyes. 

I was also lucky to see the Roman Forum, Santa Maria Maggiore, Piazza Della Repubblica, Imperial Forum, and the Pantheon.  The Pantheon was actually pretty cool because this is where Raphael, one of the famous renaissance artists is buried.  After seeing all that we did, we were pretty tired and thought it was a good time to find our hostel.  Sadly enough it took us a solid 3.5 hours to find where our hostel was...  With the 2 hours of sleep, light breakfast, electronics dying, no English, and just being lost.  You could probably just envision the frustration and just about breaking point for a lot of us.  After wiping away the tears we freshened up and went to find food.  thank goodness we went into a little mom and pop shop and they gave us one of the best meals for an amazing price that I have had in awhile.  We got a great nights sleep and set out for the rest of our adventure.  ****Side Note!: After this day I can honestly say I grew more than I have in my whole trip combined.  I know that after that day I can do just about anything.  Just know that nothing can be that bad.  A solution is always out there no matter how long it takes for you to figure it out.****

We found our way back to the city square in about 15 minutes and set off for the Vatican City.  We went inside the St. Peter's Basilica one of the biggest churches in the world.  On our way out it started to rain and then hail.  This resulted in us finding the closest place for shelter and that just happened to be GELATO!  We waited out the storm, left Rome, and moved on to our next city of La Spezia, Italy.

When we saw the coast line on our train on our way to La Spezia our hearts filled with joy knowing that we would be sitting on a beach in less than 12 hours.  Our hotel in La Spezia was hands down about American as you can get in Italy.  They had a continental breakfast, clean shower, nice bed, and the nicest employees that we have been around.  The hotel was called Hotel Ghironi if anyone is interested!  Now I know that not a lot of people know of La Spezia.  People just instantly think of Cinque Terre, but if you are wanting nice sandy beaches then this is the place to go! Needless to say we enjoyed all day by being beach bums and just taking things as they came to us.  This relaxation is just what we needed after the crazy tourism in Rome.

On our next day we went to the well known place of Cinque Terre, Italy.  This place consist of five small villages that have a trail connecting one another for you to hike on.  Our plan went like this: we bought a ticket to ride the ferry to the second to last town and we were going to hike our way back.  Instead we got to the villages parked ourselves and enjoyed more of the sun till we realized it was abut time to go home.  So unfortunately we didn't get out there and hike, but I bet it sure did look beautiful for those that actually went.  this was our last night for beach bumming relaxation because on the next day we took off for Pisa, Italy.

Going to Pisa, Italy was nice because we got to see the famous leaning tower of Pisa.  Other than that the city doesn't really have much to offer.  We got a free dinner in our hostel and called the night an early one so we could be to the airport in plenty of time to make it back to Prague, Czech Republic. 

Our flight went as smooth as I could of imagined it to be.  We were home safely in the Czech Republic.  With this being about the fourth time of us being in Prague we seemed to actually understand where everything was.  Instead of being too touristy we found a nice beer garden and chilled for the rest of the day.  On Easter Sunday we took off to finally go back home to Olomouc, Czech Republic.  It was nice to unpack and be settled in again.  This is the finale to our spring break adventure.  We were away from our dorm room for a total of 2 weeks, visiting a total of 7 cities, having a blast, and making memories that will last forever.  Be ready for some pretty depressing blog posts coming soon... we visit Auschwitz on Monday next week, but before that we have our American Party! Time to rep our Red, White, and Blue pride of the good ole USA!!!

Ciao!