The rantings of a pirate

After about a month of entertaining people in London, I feel like I'm finally ready to go back to my normal existence. I had so much fun and so many adventures with Andy in Italy. I can't even begin to describe all of the amazing things we saw. We briefly got a taste of the following cities: Venice, Florence, Sorrento, and Rome. I had only ever been to Venice before and was pretty biased when we first arrived in Italy. However, I must say that after having seen more of Italy, my vote goes to Florence. I absolutely loved it there! It was very picturesque and there was just so much wonderful art, architecture, and history. Although I have really enjoyed London so far, if I could do this whole studying abroad thing again, I would probably choose to go to Florence!

Andy and I managed to pack pretty much everything you can possibly think of seeing in these cities into our trip! I think we were both completely exhausted by the end of it, but it was definitely worth it and I would do it again if I could. This is a small list of the things we saw and did:

VENICE: St. Mark's Basilica/Square, Doge's Palace, Rialto Bridge, Accademia, short excursion to the island of Murano, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Santa Maria della Salute
FLORENCE: Accademia (where we saw Michelangelo's David - very impressive), Ponte Vecchio, Uffizi (saw many paintings that I've studied in previous art history courses!), San Lorenzo, Piazza Michelangelo (spectacular views of Florence and we watched the sun set from here!), Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce, Palazzo Pitti, the Duomo (we even climbed to the top of the dome...463 stairs!!), Bargello (where we saw Donatello's David - equally impressive)
SORRENTO: day trip to the island of Capri where we saw The Blue Grotto (hole in the cliff where Roman's used to bathe - the water was the most amazing shade of blue), the Gardens of Augustus, and Monte Solaro (we took a chair lift to the top of this mountain where we saw the most breath taking views); short excursion to the town of Positano on the Almalfi Coast, took a day trip to the Pompeii ruins (this was one of my favorite parts of the trip, except it was raining the entire day)
ROME: Santa Maria Maggiore, Fontano di Trevi, Pantheon, Capitoline Museums, Mercati Trainei, The Vatican (climbed to the top of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica - 551 stairs!!!!), Vatican Museums (where we saw the Sisteine Chapel), The Colosseum, ancient ruins in the city itself

So, maybe that wasn't the shortest list, but we really did do everything!

A few days after Andy left my sister arrived in London. A few days after she arrived my parents arrived! I was sad that Andy was gone, but it was so nice to see my family and more familiar faces. I'm so glad that they had the chance to come over here and see how we do things "London style". Lianne left a few days before our parents did, so I had some nice quality time with the rents! I hope they all had as much fun as I did...even when things got crazy!

This is a random thought, but I had a really interesting experience the other day when I was waiting to meet up with my parents. I went to a Cafe Nero near my work to get something to drink and read a book. While I was standing in line to place an order I heard, what I believed to be an old man, ranting at an invisible person in an almost pirate-sounding voice. I couldn't make out what he was saying. I only understood that someone or something must have done him great injustice because he was really having at it. So I got my cappuccino and sat down with my book...all the while this old man, which I soon realized was a woman, went to order another coffee. While "she" stood in line she continued to rant in this awful pirate voice. When someone spoke to her to take her order she responded in a normal voice and with a sound mind. However, after her order was taken, she continued to rant again. Well, someone must have taken her spot in the cafe, for she proceeded to sit on the couch across from me, drink her coffee, smoke, and rant in her insane guttural tones. I continued to read my book....I was really not about to move. I had to concentrate really hard on the words I was reading to stop myself from bursting out laughing. The experience was really interesting I must say. She really let him/her/it have it! And when she was done getting everything off her chest, she simply walked out of the cafe. I later translated this incident to my mother, prefacing it with, "I really shouldn't be laughing about this because someday that will probably be me!"

Anyway, pictures will be up really soon....I promise!