Going Home

Mykell and I on the bus to the leaning tower of Pisa.
This thing is heaver than you may think!
American money! yeah!!
Karissa, Cassie, and Kaari on the plane from JFK to SLC.
Rachel, Chelsea, and Sharele waiting for the plane to take off in New York.
We made it to Utah!
We are the same height. That is neat. (and we have matching pants)

The going home day was by far the longest. It took us 27 hours to complete the journey. We started in Florence at 6AM and took a bus to Pisa. We hung out at the airport there for a while then we had the coolest, unexpected experience. We got to go see the leaning tour of Pisa! Yup, it's still leaning, in case you were wondering. The best part of this little excursion was the cost of the bus pass. It was only 90 cents! once we left Piza we had a 10 hour flight to New York. As we walked off the plane we sang "...and I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free..." We were so excited to be back in America. I love America. Our flight to SLC was delayed 3 hours, so it took a little longer to get home, but we made it. What a wonderful trip. I wouldn't have traded these last 30 days for anything.

4TH OF JULY!!!!

Courtyard at Brancacci Chapel
Painted ceiling in Brancacci Chapel
Chelsea and I at the Duomo
Lindsey and I at the baptistry doors of the Duomo
View of Italy from the Ufitzi

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY EVERYONE! I hope you all enjoyed fireworks and parades and stuff. Italy doesn't really celebrate America's Independence, so we didn't while we were there. We had guided tours today and they were awesome. We started out at the Brancacci Chapel, which has some amazing paintings on the walls and ceilings. It is a small chapel, but I was still in awe by the paintings. They were some of the first paintings that perspective was used. Before this time, all of the important figures such as Christ, the Virgin Mary, the royal family, etc. were painted much larger than everyone else to show their power. So, the contrast to the perspective drawings they changed to was dramatic because now the people in the painting closest to he front where bigger no matter what their status was.

Our tour guide took us to the Academia as well. Here we saw Michael Angelo's David statue. This was amazing to me. It was one of thoes lightbulb, hit-you-in-the-face moments. I never knew how amazing this statue really was until I turned the corner at the museum and there was David staring back at me. This wasn't just a picture or a copy, this was the actual marble that Michael Angelo carved so many years ago. Because I was so shocked, this will probably be one of the most memorable moments of this trip.

To top of a great day, we ended at the Ufitzi gallery. We saw the Birth of Venus painting and many other wonderful works of art. There is so much history and talent in Florence and I can't believe I was lucky enough to see a lot of it. There is seriously nothing like this in the whole world. Florence is so unique.

Florence July 3

View of the Arno River from Ponte Vecchio bridge.

Today was another chill day. We headed back out to the markets and did some shopping. We also went Ponte Vecchio Bridge. In Roman times, Ponte Vecchio was the main way to travel from Rome to the Alps. Today, it is a shopping center. There are shops, mostly jewelry shops all across the bridge and the surrounding areas. It was a fun place to hang out for the day. As we crossed the bridge we walked down the street where all of the designer stores are. That was really cool. All of the hotels on that street are high rolling. Holy cow! Everything was so elaborate and the stores had butlers at the door and everything. The window displays were simple and elegant, but you could tell everything was classy. The doors were huge, and most of them were glass. It was awesome to see thoes stores.
I can see the top of the Duomo from my hotel window, so I wanted to go see it. We didn't go inside, be we saw the outside, which is gorgeous. It is made of red, green, and white marble and is very ornate. From what I've heard, the inside is very plain compared to the other churches I've seen in Europe. This is because it's the first renaissance church.

Cassie and Kaari chillin on the bridge.

Florence Day 2, July 2

Our favorite thing next to eating gelato is sitting in gelato cone chairs!

Today was wonderful. We slept in and took our time to get going. We actually woke up at 8:30, so we weren’t lazy, we just didn’t have deadlines. The breakfast at our hotel was really good. They had scrambled eggs that were wonderful and really good bread. After breakfast Karissa, Chelsea, Lindsey, Kaari, and I hit the town and shopped till we dropped. It was fun to go around the market and look at all of the little shops. It reminded me of shopping in Mexico except more expensive. I had a lot of fun and found some good stuff. What a great day in Florence!

Karissa, Lindsey, and I shopping at the market in Florence.

Karissa and I in the hotel lobby.

Florance Day 1

Today’s train ride was only 3 hours! The view out the window was amazing. Green was very prevalent. I love the beautiful Italian countryside. Today I ate tortellini for lunch. It was so good. It had ham and creamy white sauce. It was delicious. The place we ate was a cute little Italian restaurant. I really liked the feel of it and I enjoyed the food.

Our hotel in Florence is fun. The rooms are cute and it just has a great feel to it. When you come in, you have to go up a few flights of stairs to get to the hotel entrance, so it’s high up. We are on the second floor, so it’s even higher than the main floor of the hotel. It’s fun! I am enjoying Florence so far. We took a LONG nap today. That was really nice and it made my day way better.

Lido Beach

Today was one of the best days of my life. Everything just worked out. Breanne, Mikell, Stacie, Kaari and I went to the beach on Lido Island. It was amazing. The water was the perfect temperature and the sun was out. It was so warm and the water was refreshing. I loved it! I kept looking down the beach and saw and Italian flag, and remembered that I was on the beach…IN ITALY. That is unreal. I’ve been dreaming of this moment my whole life, and now I’m here. It was the ideal vacation day, just how you would imagine a perfect vacation to be. Oh, I can’t forget the best part. We ate gelato on the beach. I don’t think things could be any more perfect. After the beach we went back to Venice and went shopping. I loved today. For dinner we went to a nice little restaurant and I had pizza, it was a thin pizza, in contrast to the fast pizza I ate yesterday. It was yummy. I ate more gelato on the way home too!

Venice Day 1

I am in Venice! We arrived at our hotel at about noon. It took us a while to get there. We got off the train and the Holiday Inn was right there! It only took us 5 minutes or less to get there. We were all so excited to be so close to the train stop. So we walked in and stood in the lobby, then they told us that we were staying in the Holiday Inn Express, which was just around the corner. Well, “around the corner” wasn’t so close. With all our luggage, it took us a half hour to get to the other hotel. It was a little disappointing, but it was fine. Our hotel was really great. It was a step up from our Paris hotel. It was a little bigger and I thought the bed was more comfortable. The walk to the train station wasn’t that bad either. It took us about 12 minutes to walk there. The breakfast was pretty good too. Overall, today was great. After we settled into our hotel we walked through the streets of Venice. It was so beautiful. The buildings were picture perfect, I loved the town in was so cute and exactly what you would picture a Venetian town to be. We ate dinner at a Pizzeria where you just grab the pizza and go. It was huge! Seriously the biggest piece of pizza I have ever eaten. It was thick, much thicker than in the US, which is weird because usually the pizza over here is really thin.