daily gelato?

"It's a new dawn, it's a new day,
it's a new life for me...
and I'm feeling good."
-Michael Buble

Italiaaaa! There is no question about it: Italy is an awesome country to visit. Rome, Florence and Venice all had something worthwhile to offer, but Venice came out as the true champ of my favorite Italian city, because even the droves of tourists couldn't take away its beauty.

Our first day in Rome, we started off with the area around the Colosseum. We went into Palatine Hill first, and I couldn't tell you what most of the things we saw were anymore. I do remember seeing the emperor's "gym", where he would have worked out and prepared for competitions, and the ruins of a palace. Beyond that, my memory is gone. (On my behalf, it was a long time ago.) From the hill, you could look down onto the Roman Forum, where ruins lay everywhere. So after a bit of ruin hopping, we walked over to the Colosseum! It was pretty massive, and thinking about everything that went on there so long ago was chillingly cool. Of course the entire time I was in there, all I could think about was the movie Gladiator. I'll have to go watch that again sometime, now that I've been there. Sara and I even had our own Gladiator fight, in the Coloseeum! (You don't need to tell us, we already know we're too cool for school.)





We walked through the city for awhile, going to see some of the piazzas, and of course stopping for gelato. Kaitlin and I thought it was hilarious that from the back of this fountain, it looked like the guy was peeing. We're pretty mature, too. I believe this was Piazza Navona? Anyway, it started to downpour (again), so we decided to eat dinner and get out of the rain. Actually, we were dragged into a restaurant by one of the over-zealous waiters who promises us a free drink and warmth (in response to Sara's demand). He literally grabbed Kaitlin's arm and dragged, but they did have good pastas, so no complaint from us. Then, due to the rain, we headed back to the hostel to curl up in bed for the evening. (Did I mention we saw another group of study abroad students at Kingston in our hostel? Small world.)



The next morning it was off to Vatican City! After Kaitlin mistakenly led us into Vatican City (oops, we can't read signs) and we got kicked out by the Swiss Guard, we finally found our way to St. Peter's Square. Saying that the basilica was huge is an understatement, though I guess that's expected, considering it has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world, holding 60,000 people. But, I'll say it anyway. It was HUGE! It was ridiculously crowded inside, but the interior was certainly impressive. I think I liked the square outside more than the basilica though. Of course, my main interest in Vatican City in general was through my love for Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. If you haven't read it yet, get on that -- it's fantastic. We walked over to the Vatican City museum afterwards. Similarly to almost everyone else there, we were there for the sole purpose of seeing the Sistine Chapel. They make you walk through the entire museum to get to the chapel and back, but it's worth it. The ceiling frescoes and the Last Judgment by Michaelangelo are incredible, even to people who aren't into art (like me).
















We wandered Rome again for a little while, before ending up at the Parthenon. Another point of interest because of Dan Brown (he should be thanked by tourism bureaus across Europe), it was much smaller and simple than I'd imagined, but I liked it. Then we wandered up to another few piazzas that we hadn't seen already before heading back to the hostel for a little while.














That night, the three of us met up with Cailin and Codi again (the girls we had met in Mykonos) for the Spanish Steps Pub Crawl. It was a lot of fun, and we got to meet some people from all over the world who were visiting Rome. Plus, free t-shirts! We also met "California" when Kaitlin tried to pretend she was from CA and ended up picking the same town to be from that the girl lived in: "no way, me too!" oops? Fun night.


The next day, it was on to Florence! I really don't have too much to say about this city. It had unique architecture, delicious gelato, and plenty of famous art museums, all of which I skipped out on. The only real "attraction" I did was go into the Duomo church. Other than that, I spent the two days just walking around the city and taking in some Italian sites. One night we managed to meet up with Codi and Cailin for a third time for dinner and drinks. It sure is a small continent, hm? I did like that everywhere you look in Florence you can find random statues in the piazzas. There were also random parades (with flag twirlers in tights) and protests both days, so it certainly is an active city. And for those of you who don't understand my obsession with gelato, perhaps the picture will convince you of its superiority to regular ice-cream.













Aaaaand now Venice! Pictures will not even begin to do this city justice, but I'll try my best anyways! The attraction of this city is merely walking around its "streets", which is far more enjoyable than in most cities because there is no traffic, and everywhere you walk you're climbing stairs over water. Of course, Kaitlin and I hit up gelato within the first five minutes of being in the city. (Hey, we had to compare!) Then we wandered! No matter where you look in the city, you can find narrow waterways with gondolas. Of course, just about every building and waterway look identical, and there are thousands of tiny streets, so it's impossible to not get lost. There were also shops with masks everywhere, for the infamous carnival that happens in February. Oh, and everywhere you look, there are hundreds of tourists! The city was overrun with them, and we had to go way out of the main paths to find a quieter Venice. We saw the Bridge of Sighs, which was completely destroyed by an egotistical jewelry company who took over the entire surrounding area with advertisements. Don't ever buy anything from this company. We also got another reminder of the "small world" we're in when we saw another Kingston study abroad student there with her mother. Crazy. And now, since I'm getting lazy, I'll let pictures do the rest of the talking!





















































And there ends Italy. I would love to return there someday, though I'd probably leave Florence out of the city list. And of course, Venice would be at the top! Next up? Spain: take three!