in international
24 April 2012
Yes. I've been to Paradise.
Think of a postcard or a desktop background of a beach or some type of paradise – I was just there. I’m not even kidding you when I say that. The Cinque Terre in Italy is one of, if not the most beautiful place in the entire world. It is on the west coast of Italy, and composed of five little villages that are connected by trains and hiking paths. We stayed in the first city – Monterosso – in a four star hotel that is on the edge of a cliff looking out to the ocean. So beautiful.
We got there on Thursday night at around 9PM, so it was already dark by the time we got there. But included in our room was free transportation to and from the train station, so that was pretty nice. We got to the hotel and although it was pitch black, we could still hear the ocean and were SO happy and excited to see it! We got some food at the hotel then headed up to our room so we could wake up and get out around the town.
When we woke up and headed out, the view was absolutely incredible. I knew it was going to be pretty but I really did not know it was going to be this amazing. You are literally staring out into the ocean with cliffs jetting out .. which you are on one of those cliffs too. We walked down into Monterosso and looked around the place for a bit. We thought it was going to rain later, so we wanted to start hiking early. We got on a train to the last city, Riomaggiore, where we were going to start. Riomaggiore was so cute! We walked around for a bit then got on the trail which was full of love locks and amazing views. We walked through the gorgeous path that was paved out, to Manarola, the next village. This was one of my favorite villages. We walked around and went into the shops, then got some deeeeelicious gelato! It was so so so so good .. and cheap! The gelato here is less than 2 euros, which is so amazing but pretty dangerous seeing how much we love it. After eating, we went up on a little trail where you can see the entire village of Manarola from a cliff. Absolutely. Gorgeous. I can’t even say enough words to describe this place; it is beautiful.
Our hotel up in the mountain!
Monterosso!
Riomaggiore!
Manarola!
All hail Italy
We found out the trails to the next two cities, Corniglia and Vernazza, were closed, so we had to take a train. There wasn’t much in Corniglia, so we skipped it and went to Vernazza. This is the village that most pictures are shown if you google “Cinque Terre.” It was so pretty and so amazing to be there, but there was a flood throughout this place in October 2011, and Vernazza (along with Monterosso) was hit the worst. There was some construction going on on the beach, and some of the buildings looked so run down and beat from the flood. It was so sad to see, but for only 5-6 months passing, they are doing pretty great. Everything was open for the most part and the place was buzzing with tourists. We got some pizza at a cute restaurant where we ate outside right by the ocean. For my first pizza in Italy, it was amazing!
After the pizza, we had to get some more gelato, and it was even better this time. We were able to hike from this village to the next one, which was the last one and the one we were staying at, Monterosso.
Pizza .. by the ocean .. in Italy .. no big deal?
Vernazza!
Saying we weren’t prepared for this hike is a complete understatement. For one thing, I didn’t have any shoes, so I was hiking in flats. But we just did not think about hiking and packing things that we needed .. but did alright with what we had.
The hike took about two hours to complete, and it was along the cliffs with way too many stairs to climb. Once we got through climbing the stairs, they just made us walk down a hundred more just to reclimb a million again. It was crazy. But the views throughout this hike were incredible, so it was completely worth it. Not to mention when we were a little over halfway done with the hike, we were greeted by an old Italian man who sells lemonade along the trail. We bought some and took a little break (we took a lot of ‘little breaks’).
After this, we thought we were almost done, but we still had about 30 more minutes. The path took us straight to our hotel though so it was pretty nice. And with how unreal this place is, I would recommend anyone and everyone do those hikes – you won’t see the entire place if you don’t. It is SO worth it.
After we got home, we went up to the room to rest for a little but but headed out for some dinner. Of course I ate pizza again, and Heather got some ravioli. So. Good. Before we headed up we decided why not, and got some gelato for dessert. It’s too good in Italy – how can you control yourself and not stuff your faces with Italian food and gelato? It’s impossible.
Today we woke up and walked around Monterosso for some souvenirs and things. I got this amazing paining/thing that hangs on your wall that was made by a local who owns a little shop. I HAD to get it. While we were buying it, he showed us a little video he made of the floods, so we were able to see what where we were walking around looked like at the time. It was heartbreaking to watch but made me so happy to see how fast they were able to reconstruct their town together. There is still a lot of work to do, but they are doing really great for such a short time passing.
Now we are currently sitting in a train station in La Spezia, about to head down to Rome. Ready to do some shopping, eating, and touring! The train is four hours and I’m pretty tired so I’m excited to sleep a bit too. After Rome, we head to Naples, then it’s back to London before Scotland with ISA. I can’t believe we’ve already been to three places on this trip we’ve planned since February. It’s going by SO fast. And when I get back to London after this, I have three more weeks left. What? Where did the past four months go? I really don’t get it and am having a really hard time coming to terms with it … soooo I think I’m just going to stay.
Interlaken!
The next stop on our trip was Interlaken, Switzerland! I have wanted to go here for a while now – after seeing so many friends there, it looked absolutely amazing to me. After too many train rides and 8 hours later, we made it there .. AMAZED at the fact that we were literally inside of the mountains. It was incredible.
Interlaken is a tiny town situated in a valley between two gorgeous lakes. The town has no stoplights, which I absolutely loved. People also smiled at us when we passed on the streets, which I haven’t had happen to me in a very long time – I loved it. We walked a little ways to find our hostel, Balmers Herbage. This hostel had some great reviews and it was on the list for one of the top hostels around …. False.
We got there and checked into our room, which was the size of my closet with 3 bunks crammed in. The bathrooms were in the hallways along with the showers – and these showers, in order for them to work, you have to hold the button down the whole time or else it will shut off .. just like the lights. Yep, I finished my shower in the dark. Oh and we were kicked out of the hostel from 10:30-4PM because apparently it takes five hours to clean a room. And this is all coming from someone who loves hostels. Honestly I would prefer to stay in them over a hotel.
Anyways, the hostel was undoubtedly the worst that we’ve stayed in, but it was manageable. We dropped our stuff off and went walking through the town. The place is so cute. It is very rural, but with the typical Swiss stereotypical buildings you would think of. There are some shopping areas but it is SO expensive! We didn’t buy much at all because of the prices .. it was worse than London! What we did splurge on though was some Swiss chocolate. Absolutely. Amazing. They had so many different kinds so Heather and I bought some little truffles that had caramel or coffee or chocolate … it was probably some of the best chocolate I have ever had. The day was almost over, so we headed back to the hostel to hang out.
The next day we were planning on going up the mountains and I REALLY wanted to go paragliding, but it was rainy and cloudy and that weather never mixes well with mountains or doing things up in the sky. So unfortunately, we spent the day on the ground. We went walking to find the lakes though, and we got a pretty incredible view through them of the mountains and everything. I absolutely loved Switzerland – I wish the weather would have cooperated more, but for what we had it was great.
That night the Balmer’s bar was open so we decided to check it out. We were invited over to some French guys table .. and you know the Frenchies .. super creepy. Some Swiss army boys were there too running around the bar, and a group of American’s who were all really nice. They went cliff jumping earlier in the day and say it was the scariest and greatest things they have ever done and recommended we do it. I also met an Australian who is a sky diving instructor in Interlaken. He talked to me all about sky diving and how I need to do it, and told me if I decided to the next day that I could go with him. He was so convincing and cool, so I was completely prepared to wake up and go – and after he talked to Heather a bit, he kind of convinced her too, which is VERY hard to do.
So we wanted to wake up the next morning and get to it, but unfortunately we didn’t wake up as early as we wanted and by the time we got out, it was already cloudy again. But I’ve decided that before we leave we are doing something of the sorts. Especially now that Heather told me she’s ‘secretly’ always wanted to do something extreme like that. As the bar was closing and we were ready to head upstairs, of course the Frenchies came back and tried to tell us they ‘lost their hotel key’ and had to stay in our room … ? Annoying.
The water really is THAT blue
DELICIOUS
Prettiest money I've ever seen
So today we woke up and got on the train to the Cinque Terre in Italy! We are so so excited because A) it’s a beach and Heather has been crying about her beach withdrawal and B) we splurged on a hotel right on one of the cliffs looking out to the ocean, so we are real excited about that! The pictures look gorgeous, so hopefully the weather will work out for us this time!
18 January 2012
Lazy Post About Lazy Days
So I'm ending my second week here, and it STILL has not hit me that I'm literally across the country. I'm starting to think that it never will. I should have updated this earlier because I really am not sure I can remember everything that's happened in the past week....
Wednesday was our first day that we didn't have something planned with ISA. Of course, I completely slept through the early alarm I set to go out in the city and we didn't wake up until 1PM. We'll just blame that on the jet lag... even though it happened on Thursday and Friday too. Anyways, we got up, ate some breakfast, and went out to Oxford Street to once again deal with my phone issues. I finally got my cheap little go phone. The buttons are loud and the texting is a little harder than on an iPhone, but it works, so I'm happy! I'm pretty sure that was just about all we did on Wednesday; it was probably our least eventful day.
When we woke up (too late) on Thursday, we went back out to Oxford Street to a store called Primark. This is kind of a mix between Forever 21 and Target, but everything is dirt cheap. You won't find a pair of shoes more than 15 pounds, tights more than 3 pounds, scarves more than 5, etc. etc. It is absolutely AMAZING and I'm dying to go back! I just got a sweater when I was there, but I have already started a list of things I want to get the next time we are there. Once we finished up there we had to rush home to get ready for the study abroad orientation party which was on a boat! It was pretty fun and we met a bunch of people. After the boat docked, we headed over to our friend Nicole's dorm where she had some people over, and we all headed out to a nearby bar. The bar was packed, but it was so fun to hang out with everyone and meet others!
Now that I'm remembering, I take back what I said. Friday was our most uneventful day. We went grocery shopping and then watched Harry Potter on a laptop since the DVDs won't work in our TV. That about sums up the entire day for us! I've never seen Harry Potter before, which is both embarrassing and sad, so I didn't mind the day. I'm planning on having all 8 (?) seen by the time I leave... and to meet Harry Potter of course.
Saturday was not much different than the other days. We went out around the city a bit and explored a shopped a bit. We were planning on going out that night but decided to save our money, especially since we had to wake up the next morning for the tour of the Tower of London. We met everyone at the tube station on Sunday then walked over to the Tower to begin our tour. Lucky for us it was GORGEOUS outside, but freezing! The pictures all turned out amazing, I just wish the tour was indoors! But we walked around and learned about the murders, beheadings, superstitions, etc. etc. etc. After that we were able to walk around on our own, but it closed soon after our tour ended. After we left, my flatmates and I headed out to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We chose an American-like place, which actually reminded me of Buffalo Wild Wings! It was basically a sports bar and grill just like it, but a lot smaller. The food was delicious though!
Monday was the first day of classes. I woke up a little earlier so I could go and change my schedule around one more time. My official schedule is Web Authoring and Design on Monday, Consumer Behavior on Tuesday (lecture) and Wednesday (seminar), and Art and Society and London Theatre in Performance on Thursday! My web authoring class was very cool. We learned the basics of a program that you make websites off of and it was very cool! I'm excited to get creative with that stuff. The lecture was right after it and it was very very boring. Tuesday was the biggest class I've ever been in. There were well over 100 kids, but coming from Xavier that's VERY new to me. The class was incredibly boring and I made note to bring my laptop for distractions next week. Today was my seminar for Consumer Behavior and it was pretty cool! My teacher is very nice and the things we cover are pretty similar to my classes I took at Xavier. I'm really excited for the classes tomorrow because they are specific London Studies classes that were basically made for study abroad students! Heather and I have the entire day of classes together so that's even better!
So that's the best sum up of the past week.. I think I covered everything? We went to a bar in Leicester Square last night called The Sports Bar .. creative, huh? It was student night so there was no cover charge if you had your student ID. We met up with some friends in the dorms before going out and spent the night meeting other people there and dancing. It was fun and I feel like I've met more people that I'll be going out with later this week too! We are also booking our trip to Ireland in March tonight which is super exciting too! There are 8 of us going and HOLLY WILL BE HERE!! I've already started that countdown even though it's still 50 days away. That is going to fly by and before we know it I'll be picking her up at the airport!! I really can't contain my excitement for that week I might die. I really might. But I think that's about it for this week! Still loving London and love reminding myself I still have 5 more months here! :)
Wednesday was our first day that we didn't have something planned with ISA. Of course, I completely slept through the early alarm I set to go out in the city and we didn't wake up until 1PM. We'll just blame that on the jet lag... even though it happened on Thursday and Friday too. Anyways, we got up, ate some breakfast, and went out to Oxford Street to once again deal with my phone issues. I finally got my cheap little go phone. The buttons are loud and the texting is a little harder than on an iPhone, but it works, so I'm happy! I'm pretty sure that was just about all we did on Wednesday; it was probably our least eventful day.
When we woke up (too late) on Thursday, we went back out to Oxford Street to a store called Primark. This is kind of a mix between Forever 21 and Target, but everything is dirt cheap. You won't find a pair of shoes more than 15 pounds, tights more than 3 pounds, scarves more than 5, etc. etc. It is absolutely AMAZING and I'm dying to go back! I just got a sweater when I was there, but I have already started a list of things I want to get the next time we are there. Once we finished up there we had to rush home to get ready for the study abroad orientation party which was on a boat! It was pretty fun and we met a bunch of people. After the boat docked, we headed over to our friend Nicole's dorm where she had some people over, and we all headed out to a nearby bar. The bar was packed, but it was so fun to hang out with everyone and meet others!
Now that I'm remembering, I take back what I said. Friday was our most uneventful day. We went grocery shopping and then watched Harry Potter on a laptop since the DVDs won't work in our TV. That about sums up the entire day for us! I've never seen Harry Potter before, which is both embarrassing and sad, so I didn't mind the day. I'm planning on having all 8 (?) seen by the time I leave... and to meet Harry Potter of course.
Saturday was not much different than the other days. We went out around the city a bit and explored a shopped a bit. We were planning on going out that night but decided to save our money, especially since we had to wake up the next morning for the tour of the Tower of London. We met everyone at the tube station on Sunday then walked over to the Tower to begin our tour. Lucky for us it was GORGEOUS outside, but freezing! The pictures all turned out amazing, I just wish the tour was indoors! But we walked around and learned about the murders, beheadings, superstitions, etc. etc. etc. After that we were able to walk around on our own, but it closed soon after our tour ended. After we left, my flatmates and I headed out to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We chose an American-like place, which actually reminded me of Buffalo Wild Wings! It was basically a sports bar and grill just like it, but a lot smaller. The food was delicious though!
Monday was the first day of classes. I woke up a little earlier so I could go and change my schedule around one more time. My official schedule is Web Authoring and Design on Monday, Consumer Behavior on Tuesday (lecture) and Wednesday (seminar), and Art and Society and London Theatre in Performance on Thursday! My web authoring class was very cool. We learned the basics of a program that you make websites off of and it was very cool! I'm excited to get creative with that stuff. The lecture was right after it and it was very very boring. Tuesday was the biggest class I've ever been in. There were well over 100 kids, but coming from Xavier that's VERY new to me. The class was incredibly boring and I made note to bring my laptop for distractions next week. Today was my seminar for Consumer Behavior and it was pretty cool! My teacher is very nice and the things we cover are pretty similar to my classes I took at Xavier. I'm really excited for the classes tomorrow because they are specific London Studies classes that were basically made for study abroad students! Heather and I have the entire day of classes together so that's even better!
So that's the best sum up of the past week.. I think I covered everything? We went to a bar in Leicester Square last night called The Sports Bar .. creative, huh? It was student night so there was no cover charge if you had your student ID. We met up with some friends in the dorms before going out and spent the night meeting other people there and dancing. It was fun and I feel like I've met more people that I'll be going out with later this week too! We are also booking our trip to Ireland in March tonight which is super exciting too! There are 8 of us going and HOLLY WILL BE HERE!! I've already started that countdown even though it's still 50 days away. That is going to fly by and before we know it I'll be picking her up at the airport!! I really can't contain my excitement for that week I might die. I really might. But I think that's about it for this week! Still loving London and love reminding myself I still have 5 more months here! :)
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