Still in Sorento, no pictures yet

After seeing six comments on the post two days ago, I feel bad not posting again.

Today we went to capri. I think I could easily say it is the most beautiful place I've ever been in my entire life. It is an island off the coast of Italy, and is just breathtaking. We got there at 11 am (about 15 of us went over), and took a bus to the 'centro' markets in the middle of the island. We then took a convertible taxi back down to the marina, which was crazy. We rented these two boats to take us all around the island. The boats had beds covered in beach towels, so we could lay on the boat as it took us around for two hours. We swam in a grotto (cave) and Brian took pictures with his underwater camera. I'm loving this weekend trip, but am definitely worn out.

The island of Capri was gorgeous. Everything was really expensive, so we didn't eat there or anything. We're back in Sorrento now, resting and showering before dinner. The Italian soccer league championship is tonight, and Roma is in the game! We're hoping to find a restaurant where we can watch, but we'll see. Everything is expensive here. I can't imagine how much money I would be spending if I drank with everyone else. I'm glad I don't, I can experience more that way (and remember it!!!) We met a few people from Ohio today, which is always fun. I hope I can post pictures tomorrow back in Rome, I have some crazy ones, and a video of me on the scooter. Madness. I'm being just as safe as the Italians mom. Gramma's Martie and Rose, I'm taking in the sights and taking pictures to tell you all about it when I get back. Grandpa Bob, I'll never forget some of the sights and smells... Never. Trey, if you listen hard enough, I'm yelling from across the Mediteranean, Atlantic, East Coast, and Midwest at you. Stop committing so many errors. You know you miss my aggressive base running. I'd say something here to Andy, but he is clearly too busy in Florida to take a second for a break :)

More on the trip as soon as I can!

Sorrento

Today we got to Sorrento, Italy, which is about 3 hours south of Rome on the coast of the Mediterranean. This place is beautiful. I'm attempting to upload pictures now, but am at a shady internet cafe, so we'll see what happens. We went to the beach (which was rocky) and swam in the sea for a little while. Then we walked back up the cliffs to the city of Sorrento and rented mo-peds, or vespa scooters. It was a ridiculous amount of fun. We rented them for three hours, and it only cost fifteen euros. I didn't crash mine, which was a good thing, and more than I could say for my friend Andrew, who hit a street sign and a wall. He won't tell us how much he has to pay in damages, but I think it was pretty significant. After he wrecked, two of them headed back so Brian and I were left with our scooters. We headed south down the coast towards Positano, and winded through the mountains on our scooters. It was so fun. People here drive like maniacs, there are no traffic rules, everyone passes eachother at will, and you could have cars passing in the wrong lane with no warning or consequence. It was so fun, and after a couple hours, I think we got the hang of it. People are going out to dinner now, so I think we're going to try and catch up with them, this place is gorgeous, I hope the pictures work. More tomorrow, we're headed to Pompeii.

This picture took twenty minutes to upload, but is an aerial view of Sorrento. The mountains in the back are where Brian and I drove the scooters.

More pictures tomorrow hopefully!

Finishing classes and looking forward to the weekend

So it's Wednesday and my third day of classes (and first week) is over. We head to Sorrento (in southern Italy) this weekend as a group. The University sponsors one trip on the weekend, and it's this weekend. I hear Sorrento is warmer than Rome (it's been raining ever since Katie left on Sunday) and there are beaches there.



My roommate Brian and I are talking about renting mo-peds and cruising around down there. We want to fit in, so we're going to try and hit as many Americans as possible (just kidding). My classes are good so far. It's difficult to squeeze two classes that are normally three months long into five weeks. We were in class for 7 hours the first day and 8.5 yesterday. Luckily, we just have 2 and a half hours today, a light day before we leave tomorrow.



Different people are taking different combinations of classes here, so other people have class from 2-7pm today. Luckily, I'm not one of them. I bought stuff to make beef quesadillas at the supermarket. I'm 100% sure that I purchased ground beef, but it looked like it does in America, so we're taking a chance for dinner tonight. Our stovetop is one that you turn on the gas and have to light yourself with a lighter. This has been a constant source of comedy for my roommates. Usually, they come back late and decide to make eggs (scrambled eggs are universal) but cannot figure out how to light the stove. I can hear every word from my room, and it's kind of a nice side entertainment.

We don't have much television here. There is a small TV in our dining room that has maybe five channels. One of them is CNN in English, but it isn't on all the time, a little confusing.

I'm bringing my camera to Sorrento this weekend, hopefully I'll have some visually stimulating images for the blog next week. I feel like after posting pictures, a blog post with just words leaves a little to be desired.

Getting Settled and Saying Goodbye

Today is Sunday in Roma. Come to think of it, I guess it's Sunday in America as well, just not as late... Katie left Europe today, and fittingly it rained as she departed. We barely made it to the airport in time, and I'm not even positive she made it on the flight. Last I saw, she was sprinting off with some guy from American Airlines. I think he took care of her, which is a relief.

I'm back at the Residence, waiting to use the stove to cook a hot dog. I don't know how interesting the blog will be if Katie isn't here. I'll update it with pictures of weekend trips, but I don't think I'll update it daily. I can call people more easily now, so I'll try and catch up with some people on the phone...

Some roomates and I are headed to the Hard Rock Cafe to watch Game 7 of the Cavs vs. Celtics playoff series. Should be a good time, I miss American sports a ton...

As a "sign-off" for the trip with Katie, I think I'm going to upload a ton of photos of stuff we saw, stuff we loved, stuff we hated, stuff that made us laugh, stuff that confused us... Enjoy the pics, thanks for reading, pray for Katie's safe travel.

this was taken as we were wandering around Rome, it was a sweet street, and we kept trying to take a picture with Katie on my back, but since we had no one to take the picture, we settled for this pose

my wingspan = a smart car

katie and I at la piazza di san pietro (st. peter's square)

Under the Arc de Triumph in Paris... Derf asked who's Triumph it was celebrating, I heard some British people talking about Napoleon, so I'm gunna go ahead and assume they were right

This is St. Michel church, just up the river from Notre Dame.

Me and the pretty girl found a stranger to take our picture on a bridge over the Seine

This is Katie and a moose... or a deer... or an elk... She asked me not to put this picture online... sorry katie :) I had to

our good friend Mona

For a short while, Katie and I posed like statues for fun

my turn

You lose track of what day it is in Europe.. easily

So today is Saturday, and it's been about a week since I last posted. We left France (which was SO fun) and got to Italy. We stayed at this cool bed and breakfast, but they had no internet, and we didn't really stop to go to an internet cafe, there was too much to see in the city.. I'll post some pics and give some quick highlights to the week.

Before we left France: We went to see Notre Dame and St. Sulpice (from the Da Vinci Code). They were pretty cool. Then we saw the church of the Sacre Couer, or Sacred Heart. It was so beautiful. I lit a candle for Gramma Martie and we watched about three hundred people as they sat on the steps and overlooked the entire city of Paris. It was really awesome.

We then walked around Montmartre, which is supposedly the most romantic neighborhood in Paris. It was really nice, and we stopped for an overpriced dinner. It was ok, not as good as Le Marmite, the best restaurant ever.

We ate some gelato on the steps of the Sacred Heart and then went back to the hotel. The next day was our last day/travel day/craziest day of perhaps my entire life. Long story short, we were late for our plane and they still let us on. Very thankful for that. Before we left though, we went to the Gardens of Touilleries (pretty cool) and the Orsay Museum. At Orsay, we saw a couple famous paintings, including Van Gogh's "Starry Night."

Once in Rome, we went to the Coliseum the first day. We don't really know much about it, but it was cool to see. They charge you a ton of euros to go into any attraction in Rome. The upside to that is that there aren't that many attractions, because the city itself is really pretty. We didn't stay in the prettiest part of the city, so we didn't see "beautiful Rome" until yesterday.

Thursday we went to the Vatican. I would say this was our best day in Rome. We went to St. Peter's Square (Piazza di San Pietro), inside St. Peter's Basilica, up to the top of the dome (where I took pics I'll paste below), and into the Vatican Museums. Part of the Vatican Museums was the SISTINE CHAPEL. You had to walk about an hour and a half through twenty museums before you got to the Sistine Chapel, it's the Vatican's way of making sure you REALLY want to see it. And we did. You can't take any pictures in there, but Katie and I stared at the ceiling for at least a half hour. It was truly beautiful. We've seen nineteen nuns in Rome so far, I've been keeping a close count. I don't want Katie to go, but she insists that her body will shut down if she doesn't have Applebees in the next 48 hours. Ok, so she didn't say that, but I wish I had some boneless buffalo wings right now.

We walked around Rome for five hours straight yesterday, covering at least half of the city. We saw the Trevi Fountain, Circus Maximus, and the Pantheon (we saw a ton of other stuff I can't spell too).

We've eaten loads of gelato, and I had whipped cream on mine last night, it was sooo good.

this is a statue of a baby strangling a duck at the Vatican...
the first car looks like a Tonka truck

this is Katie and I on top of the cupola of St. Peter's Basilica

This is the picture I took of St. Peter's Square, it looks like a postcard

I took this picture for John and Sean, but then Kate asked about speedos, so yes, I have seen a few

This is Katie and I at the Coliseum

Day Five: Hello France

So we got in late to Paris, people associated with international flights don't seem to be too keen on schedules or keeping to them. Regardless, we got to Paris about midnight two nights ago and had our first "crisis." We got to the metro station (similar to London's underground, Paris' is a subway called the Metro), and the machines were in French to sell us tickets. No problem, we hit a little icon and bam, we've got English. So we go to buy some tickets, and they don't take Euros... like.. the cash. They say they'll accept the coins (euros come in one and two euro coins as well), but we didn't have any of those. No big deal, right? I mean, we've got credit cards. We try those, but the reader won't read them. Now Katie starts to get a little exasperated. She was right, the language barrier would prove to be difficult. We aimlessly walked around for about thirty minutes, trying to figure out what to do, not being able to read any signs, and finally we asked a guy if he could speak english. He spoke very little, but pointed us to an information desk about a half mile down the terminal where a little spoke enough english to help us. Then we got on the metro, found out our directions we received were bad, and it took another hour to get to the right hotel.

We slept in pretty late, seeing as we had about 10 hours of combined sleep the first four nights combined, and ventured out into Paris. Before we went out though, we decided to take the hotel manager's recommendation for lunch, and here's what we got.

that was katie's salad.. she loved it

this was my half-chicken, it was the most delicious thing i've eaten outside of America, and rivals most things I've eaten at home...

So our first meal in France was awesome, seriously we talked about it the rest of the day. After eating, we ran into an American couple (older people) at the restaurant. They were from Florida and visiting Paris before they went to see their son, who was studying in Rome. Their son's roomate was Tony Blair's daughter. First of all, co-ed roomates are funny to me, but to have the former prime-minister of England's daughter as your roommate would be CRAZY.

After talking with them, we went to the Louvre. This is the biggest museum on the planet. OK, so I don't know that for sure, I'm just saying. It was about five football fields long by five football fields wide. There is so much famous stuff there I cannot begin to explain it, so I will show you pictures.

This is in front of I.M. Pei's glass Pyramid, which is actually the entrance to the Louvre

oh and this little gal here is the mona lisa, found her hanging out with no one even remotely trying to see her!

ok so I lied, there were two hundred people trying to see her, but Katie got close! (see below)

Katie just hanging out with Mona...

this is me next to a giant cup

I'd upload more pictures of the cool stuff (I think Katie and I took about 200 combined at the Louvre), but it takes about a minute to upload each picture, and I have little patience. So I'll continue to talk about what we did the rest of the day.

After the Louvre, we went back to our hotel and sat down for about fourty five minutes.. Walking around the Louvre was tiring, so the break was great. Then we left the hotel, and decided to chance going to the Eiffel Tower. We had heard it's cool to see the lights turn on, and it was about dusk, so we hopped a Metro and headed across the Seine. We got there, and walked through about the half mile park below the tower (or Tour Eiffel, as the French call it), and as we were approaching, the lights turned on.. It was just after sunset, and was pretty sweet.. There were people making out in the grass all around us, and Katie took pictures of every one of them. Then we got to the base of the Tower, and quickly decided we had to go up as high as we could. There are four pillars at the bottom, and we smartly (sarcasm) chose the one without an elevator. We said screw it, and walked sixty flights of stairs to the second landing. That was a hike, and Katie was a trooper. Below are some pics from the night.

This is Katie just leaning on the Tour Eiffel, no big deal

and that's us, re-enacting the birthday card that Katie's roomates gave her, except this one isn't photo-shopped

Like I said, I could upload photos all day, but it takes a while, so I'm going to stop now. Day one in Paris was awesome, maybe our best day in Europe so far.

Day Four: Recap of London, pictures, and heading to Paris tonight

Katie and I by the River Thames at night
Katie found a cool blue door, mom asked that we have pictures with people in them, so I obliged
This is the courtyard at Westminster Abbey, taken from the cloisters, made me think of Phil Grefrath, he'd love this grass...
The one and only. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) was nowhere in sight, Katie checked.
This is Picadilly Circus, the Times Square of London

Last night was our last night in London, thank the Lord. Katie and I are both excited to get out of the dorm-style european hostels. The place and the people were friendly enough, people there just don't put much priority on sleep.

We head to paris this afternoon, grabbing a train to the airport in a couple hours. We're staying at a real hotel there (thanks gramma rose), so there should be more resting going on than in London.

Today we woke up, checked out, and went to a park. Katie didn't sleep well last night, so she grabbed a nap while I watched a soccer tournament next door, which was being emceed by a radio DJ. Let me tell you, THAT was entertaining.

Recap of London highlights:
Things we loved:
Tower of London
Westminster Abbey
Thames River
The parks
Things that were overrated:
Buckingham Palace

We loved London, we really did. We're excited for Paris though. I've already lost some stuff, but Katie's still talking to me, so that's good too.

Hope you enjoyed the pics. Pray for travel, and that our hotel is sleep-friendly.