Finale

My last two weeks of living in Italy have been filled with traveling! First on May 13th, Jessica and I flew to Pisa. I think Pisa is my favorite place in all of Italy. Its a small town and you can walk to almost anywhere by foot. The square with the leaning tower is so beautiful and peaceful. There were people scattered around laying in the grass, many people posing with the tower, and a row of shops with souvenirs. We stayed there two nights, on the second day Tsveta and Emelia arrived. We went out for dinner that night and then walked to Piazza Garibaldi and had the best gelato! I had yogurt and cheesecake flavor and it was incredible! The next day we went to the train station and took off to Florence. We stayed in a hostel called 'Plus Florence'. Plus has many hostels in touristic places in italy and is very affordable and offers alot of extras like a pool, wireless internet, restaurant and bar, washing and drying machine, and a really friendly staff who spoke great english! We stayed there for two nights and did some laundry! it was great to finally have a machine wash my clothes instead of doing it by hand! In florence we could walk to almost everywhere we wanted to go so after getting our room and putting our luggage away we walked out the door and headed towards some historic buildings. As we were walking, we walking through some streets filled with vendors on the left and right. The sold a variety of goods from leather bags and jackets to jewelry and necklaces. It was fun to haggle with the vendors to get a better deal on really interesting items. Tsveti tried on a necklace and she talked the price down from 8 euros to 2! She was so proud of herself! From there we walked to the Cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore and the Duomo in Piazza d. San Benedeti. Jess and I decided to venture up the winding, narrow stairs of the Duomo to see a beautiful view of the city. Although half way up we regretted our decision (there are 463 stairs, and the higher you go up the hotter is gets) but we made it to the top and called tsveta and emilia and played 'where's waldo'! We found them almost instantly. it was great to see the whole city from so high up! On our way down we got a close up look at 'The Last Judgement', and enormous painting inside the dome. There was so much action in this painting I could have stood there for hours finding new things to look at! I wish that i could have, but the line behind me was backing up and people were ready to leave. Other places we visited in Florence were the Piazzale Michelangelo where we had a great view of the city, Palazzo della signoria where the statue of David stands along wish some other really interesting statues. It looked like they were preparing for a concert in the evening. We walked to Ponte Vecchio which is a bridge lined with jewelry stores and other shops. After Florence we went to siena for the day and then back to pisa. Siena was ok, there was a piazza with big fancy buildings, but by this point i was exhausted and it was too hot outside. so i just relaxed in the shade while tsveti and emelia took pictures. Our train back to pisa was awful! It was so warm on the train and it felt like there was no moving air, i did manage to fall asleep but woke up covered in sweat! it was not a great train ride at all! Once we got to pisa, we took showers ate some dinner and then headed to bed because we had an early flight to palermo in the morning. In Palermo we waited to meet other erasmus students from different countries to promote tourism in a town called Mount d'Affermo. There was about twelve of us exchange students and the rest were former erasmus students who went to work on projects. Only the twelve of us were writing about the town. The town was very small and peaceful and didn't seem like a place any tourists would really want to go. It was nice and relaxing but other than that it was pretty boring. We were there for three days and went to another little town ontop of a mountain called Tusa. Tusa was a bit larger and had more places to go, but still nothing to do as a tourist. The one Hotel in Tusa did make a nice pre-dinner snack for us with great food like bruscetta. The next day we traveled for hours south to the resort for the erasmus event. Our group arrived a day early because we were so close. There were erasmus groups from all over Italy coming to meet. We were there for four days and they consisted of laying by the pool, tanning, swimming, and eating some great food! It was a nice vacation and i got to meet other erasmus students studying in other parts of italy. It was a really fun time and a great way to spend my last days in italy. The day I arrived back home from my two week long vacation, i had to unpack, and start packing everything. I only had one day left in Italy before i would have to make the big flight home. My last day was peaceful, spent with the girls. Packing and relaxing and getting last minute things taken care of. My Flight home was long, I spent over 24 hours traveling! But I did it all on my own. Being home now is great, but I do miss all of my friends and the life I had made for myself over there. It feels like I've only been gone a few days. But I wouldn't change anything for the world. It was the trip of a lifetime.