When in Rome

Thursday I left for my last week long trip while in Europe. To Italy, with UVMer Erin. I packed in my flat mates backpack one last time and said goodbye to one of the best roommates I have ever had. Megan, because when I return back to Vienna she will be on her trip of Italy.

Upon arriving at the airport I was asked to check my bag.. Ugg so I asked how much is it going to cost the lady said oh no we don't charge we just don't want all that baggage on the cabin of the plane. Well in that case ok! Then I found some coffee and a quite place to sit for a while before heading to the gate.

One arriving in Rome, I was so excited I just wanted to get out of the airport but unfortunately our luggage took over 40 minutes to make it onto the belt.. So annoying. And the worst was that Erin had been waiting on the other side of the gate for 2 hours already. When I finally got my backpack I walked though the gate to find Erin sitting on the floor looking like a homeless person waiting for me. Haha she got tired of standing and I don't blame her.

And so we were off to find our cute apartment in the outskirts of Rome. We hopped on the train and got off 50 min later in a cute neighborhood of Rome. We walked to our apartment found Paola the women we were renting from and she let us on. It was beautiful! I became so excited for the next 4 nights. Peace and quite while sleeping, able to make own dinner, shower when you want, and all for just about the price a hostel in the city costs.

Cute apartment

Thursday night we found the grocery store and unpacked. We made pasta for dinner and enjoyed some cheap wine while watching Italian tv. We rested up for a big day ahead.

Dinner!

Ready for the next few days

Friday we ate breakfast in the apartment and headed to the metro were we purchased 3 day metro tickets to get us to nd from the city. We went straight for the Spanish steps to meet up with a free walking tour of the Vatican area of Rome. On the tour we met lots of Americans and learned about there travels nd studies. We also learned a lot about the city of Rome, and worked on our tan/ that later turned into a sunburn. Haha. After the tour was over we found a place to grab some Pannonia and found a shady area to sit and eat. The panini was delicious. Afterwards we searched for an gelato, which obviously wasn't that hard. Yumm.we made our way back to the Spanish steps for another walking tour at 4. This one went the other way into the city, towards the coliseum and ruins. At this point I was pretty fried so it was nice to just follow and not have to try and map out the next destination. I tried to pay attention to the information given on the tour but I don't think I absorbed much. After the tour was over we went for. Drink with a group of people that were on both tours it was really fun to hear where everyone was from and just hang out with people that love to travel.

Meeting point for the tour

Tour guide

Trevi fountain!

Trevi Fountain!

Erin and I

Outside

Inside

Fountains in ever plaza

So many amazing paintings! 

Walking to the Vatican City

Vatican City

Lunch time!

Moped Parking

Exploring the ruins

More ruins!

The cake building

Colosseum!!

When we were too tired to talk anymore we headed home. Back to our humble abod, and made some more yummy pasta for dinner and called it an early night.

DONE with classes! Off to Italy.

This week was my final week of classes/ exams here in Austria. And today was my last time on campus. So weird... but I am glad the school work is over (what little work there actually was).

Monday I had my last german class, and the teacher surprised us by handing us the final, and making it a take home! We have to email her our answers before June 15th, but since I am doing some traveling before than I have already submitted mine.

On Tuesday I had two exams. International Marketing, and Marketing Research. Less then a half hour apart from each other. I had the same teacher for both classes so the exams were structured very similarly. 5 short answer questions, that honestly you really couldn't get wrong. They were very open ended. So I am confident I passed all classes which I am SOO happy about :)

Tuesday night I was invited to a fair well dinner for one of my friends, and I decided last minute to attend. We went to a tiny thai restaurant. I ordered pad thai and it was DELICIOUS!

There were 10 of us at the dinner, it is so rough to be one of the first ones to leave. But the time we all spend together is so fun always, and that is what I will remember. So I gave Mantas (my friend who was leaving) a hug and said see you soon :)

Today Megan and I went to the gym, I had to go to school to print my boarding pass, now I am doing laundry and packing for Italy.

I leave for Italy tomorrow morning.
First Rome to see the Coliseum, The Vatican, and plenty of other cool sights.
Then to Florence, where we plan to check out the leather market for 2 days. We also plan on doing a Wine tour through Tuscany, this is kind of going to be a last hurra my time abroad. :)
Then finishing up the trip with a day trip to Pisa, to check out the cool and most well know structure that is the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Lots of Gelato, Pasta, Pizza, and Wine will be consumed :)

Then back to Vienna for 4 days before jetting back to the states.
Time has really flown by!


Sorry no pictures, there will be plenty once I return from Italy, the weather in Vienna has been grey, wet, and cold, and I don't think you want to see pictures of me studying.. haha

Amsterdam!

This past weekend I went to Amsterdam with Erin (from UVM who I visited in New Castle while doing my tour in the UK)

We left on Wednesday and met at the airport in Amsterdam. We arrived fairly late so went straight to the hostel.

Here I go
Thanks to my flatmate who let me barrow her backpack

In the morning we found a Belgium waffle place on our street and grabbed the most delicious waffle I think I have ever had and a smoothie to go with it. While enjoying our breakfast we discussed what we wanted to see, and decided to go to the Anne Frank House first and then go from there.

YUMMY

The line was quite long, but it was nice out and we entertained ourselves by catching up, and discussing what else we wanted to do while in Amsterdam.

Canals everywhere

Line for the Anne Frank House

The Anne Frank House was so interesting, and I was surprised at how nice the living courters were that they hid in. This small factory hid 8 jews during the Holocaust, and feed them as well. During the day they were not allowed to make a sound, while workers made jam below them. They could not use the bathroom, or play any games, they usually read. No sunlight was allowed in, and they were obviously not allowed to go outside at all. Crazy!

After the Anne Frank House we decided to go do the Heineken Experience. Amsterdam is the home of this famous beer, so they have set up a museum like attraction in the heart of Amsterdam for tourist to experience  There were lots of virtual games, videos, hands on displays and more. It was the first place that the line for the mens room was longer then for the women's! haha

Anne Frank House

Erin and I had fun exploring, and enjoyed our complementary beers at the end. Afterwards we took a boat on the canal to the Heineken brand store. It was cool because we really wanted to do a canal tour, and this was included in the tour :)

Beautiful Holland

Who still wears clogs?

Heineken model

Yumm

Boat tour!

On the Canal

After the tour it was time to find food. We went to a Indian place and had a great meal, after we walked around the red light district of Amsterdam and enjoyed watching tourist. We had some fun with statues as well.

Yummy!

Erin's been shot

Having fun

Clogs

Flower shop

Friday we woke up early and went straight to the Van Gogh museum. We were trying to beat the tourist, we were able to purchase tickets to enter at 11 a.m. so we played on the IAMSTERDAM sign with everyone else for a while, and just enjoyed the nice weather.

DAM

So many tourist!

The Van Gogh just opened back up after massive amount of renovations. I am so happy we went, his work is absolutely incredible. I think the works I enjoyed the most were the watercolor, and when you are able to see the layers of paint he uses.

Van Gogh

3 Trees

FAMOUS!
Love this picture
Painted for his nephew 

Afterwards we went to the market and found lunch in a cool turkish restaurant called Bazar, there I had a falafel sandwich. Sadly I didn't take pictures of the market but it was pretty cool, but kind of like every other market I have seen now.

To end out day in Amsterdam we walked back to the main square and people watched for over 3 hours. We checked out souvenir shops, and just walked around. We called it an early night. Erin flew out at 10 am on saturday whereas my flight didn't leave until 5.

So I slept in and walked around for over 2 hours to parts of Amsterdam I hadn't seen yet. Finally arriving back at the IAMSTERDAM sign where I ate breakfast, and had some coffee. After I still had 3 hours to kill so I walked to DAM center where there is a holland beach soccer tournament taking place. I sat there and watched for a while and watched a street performer for a while as well.

Street performance 

Beach Soccer

Holland beach soccer

Finally I decided to head to the train station, but not before grabbing a delicious panini for lunch.

YUMMY

Even the train station was beautiful

BEAUTIFUL AMSTERDAM!

Amsterdam was a beauty but now its start planning for Italy!
My final trip of my semester abroad.