Rome and Pompeii: Pizza, Pasta, Pastries, and Palaces

Our 5 hour train ride to Rome left us surprisingly tired, so upon arriving in Termini station at 11pm we decided it was bed time. Due to some very strong differences of opinions our sleeping arrangements were split up. I was to be situated in the quaint little hostel on the 4th floor of a building, located just 8 minutes on foot from Termini, with Esther and Lauren. We managed to use a lot of hand motions to find our way to the hostel and then miraculously crammed ourselves (plus 3 suitcases) into the miniscule and ancient elevator that took us up to the fourth floor. While disembarking we saw the sign that recommended no more than 200 pounds in the elevator at once (we continued to fit 3 people in all week). Our room turned out to an adorable green little space with 3 single beds, an armoire, and a sink. It was charming, cozy, and European…the only downfall were the shared showers whose water pressure was literally, a trickle and would occasionally stop all together (I wish I were exaggerating)!

Our first day of sightseeing in Rome, Monday, may have been my favorite day in all of Italy. We started out at the Coliseum where were jumped to the front of the line with our “Roma Passes!” It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so warm and perfect for exploring the Roman Forum after the Colisuem. In addition to the sights of Rome, we experienced the very crude men of Rome…while walking to lunch, Lauren got a “Hi Miley Cyrus,” Esther was shouted at “Hey Cleopatra” and I was greeted with “Bon journo Blondie!” Determined not to eat at a touristy restaurant we wandered down side streets until we deemed ourselves far enough away from the Coliseum to eat.

We had lunch in an adorable little cafe and then promptly found the largest cones of gelato at a nearby gelateria. Without patience or a guidebook we plopped down with our ice cream on the huge steps of what we deemed to be an “Italian palace” not until we had finished our ice cream and were attempting to navigate to more sights did we realize we had been sitting on the back steps of a very famous church! Our next stop of the day was the Trevi Fountain, but in finding our way there we happened to stumble upon a side entrance to the Italian Presidential Palace, flanked by 6’4’’ guards in very ornate outfits. Esther and I befriended them and ended up with our very own photo shoot in the courtyards, mere yards away from the Presidential gardens. The Trevi Fountain at dusk was my favorite sight of Rome – everything was lit up and so beautiful at such a lively time of night! We ended our perfect Roman day with dinner near the Spanish Steps – a very memorable one for me complete with fried artichokes, gorgonzola and pear gnocchi, and tagliatelle with duck sauce!

Of course we all managed to sleep through our alarms on Tuesday morning so Esther and I flew out of bed at 1100 to meet Julianne at the train station where we miraculously caught an 1120 train to Napoli. Once in Napoli we caught another, shorter train to Pompeii that provided us with marvelous views of the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. We spent our day “hiking” around Pompeii and taking more pictures than necessary. We stayed to see dusk fall on the stone city – another beautiful sunset in Italy. The three of us found another pizzeria when we arrived back in Rome and had a really fun dinner with free wine and a dessert platter provided by owner – it pays to be female Americans in Italy!

Wednesday was our “holy” day in Rome. We all woke up early and made our way to the Vatican where we had tickets to the Pope’s public “audience.” Being the only non-Catholics in our group of friends (and perhaps in all of the Vatican that day), Esther and I felt especially lucky to have been blessed by the Pope! On our way out of the Vatican, among the masses of people, I had my first small word Wake meets Italy moment and ran into my friend Albert – what are the odds! We finished our day in Rome eating another fabulous lunch and seeing the Sistine Ceiling before boarding our 4 hour train to Florence.

Milan to Venice: Taxis, Trains, and Tickets

Here is my attempt to adequately describe the first leg of our Italian adventure:

After taking 3 exams on Friday morning I set off with Esther, Juliet, Lauren and Julianne for Milan, the first city on our agenda (because it was the cheapest one to fly in to). We managed to make it to the airport and after the first of many mishaps - waiting in the EasyJet check in line for Spain instead of Italy – we somehow made it on the plane in time for take off!
Upon our arrival in Milan things weren’t looking good – I immediately got a text from my friend Allison, whom we were supposed to meet up with for the night, saying that her flight had gotten cancelled….We then learned that there was a city-wide public transportation strike (we were about an hour away from our hotel, and planning to wake up in the morning and take a train to Venice) – NOT good! In our non-existent Italian we managed to find a seemingly legit luxury bus company running buses to the city center, Centrali Statione (which we learned, exists in most every Italian city), and decided to take it. Once we arrived in Milan the transportation strike was evident – the only form of anything we could find were incredibly overpriced taxis that wouldn’t take 5 people and so in a most ridiculous taxi caravan we made it to our one star hotel (where we had booked a triple room and planned to sneak 2 people in) down a very sketchy street in the middle of nowhere. Of course, Esther and I got voted to be the ones to sneak in so we handed off our bags to the 3 others and made our way down the lighter end of the street to find a decent restaurant (it was nearing 10 o’clock at this point). Luckily, we ended up finding a fabulous little restaurant and had the first of many colorful, tasty, and memorable Italian meals. Esther and I split the classic, Margarita pizza and Gorgonzola gnocchi (unbelievable!). The topic of discussion at dinner ended up being how to sneak 2 people into a hotel in which there isn’t a fire escape, only one door, one front desk, and one receptionist – all of which are located in the same 10 foot radius….the answer ended up being: not possible (which we learned after 2 failed attempts). So LUCKY for us they had an extra double room available, for the price of 50 euros with a fabulous view of the building next door, a “spacious” stand-up shower (conveniently located just 5 feet from the bed), and 2 whole windows that we could open to air out the smoke smell. It was cozy none-the-less and we were lucky enough to be woken up by the cleaning man, about 10 minutes before check out time (which was better than the triple room that woke up to banging and shouting approx. 30 minutes after the check out time)!

Our next task of the day was to somehow get to Venice. All we knew was the name of the cheapest train station and a tip from someone that the green line would take us there. After 2 ticketless tram rides and a 20 minute train ride (on a completely deserted train that could well have been taking us out of the city) we made it to the station and managed to purchase 14 euro tickets to Venice, via Verona – we were amazed at our brilliance and took this as a sign that getting around Italy would be cheaper and easier than we thought (wrong)! Our lunch consisted of various Italians vending machine foods while waiting on a train platform….as we sat waiting and bored I decided to read the ticket to everyone, coming across the phrase TICKET MUST BE VALIDATED, but I got the response “No Borden, we obviously do that on the train…” When the train finally came we lugged all of our bags on and into the overhead bins and settled in for the 2 hour journey to Verona. About 20 minutes into the Italian countryside the train conductor came around to punch our tickets, we nonchalantly handed them over….and he started talking to us in Italian which we didn’t understand until the words “50 euros each” came out of his mouth….we stood there shaking our heads and gaping at him until he called over his English-speaking counterpart who asked why our tickets weren’t validated and explained that without the stamp from the yellow box in the station, we owed 50 euros a piece. After a LOT of arguing, hand motions and offers to get off the train immediately, we managed to talk her down to 5 euros a piece (a small price to pay for our new found yellow box knowledge). The rest of our traveling day continued along these lines…we got on the wrong train from Verona to Venice and ended up getting kicked off in the middle of nowhere and having to switch again before arriving in Venice which was fun (and included our very memorable first gelatos of the trip) until we had to find our hotel by waving a piece of paper with the address on it to any Italian who would stop. A 20 minute, body to body bus ride got us there and it was, to our delight, a lot nicer and a lot bigger than our first hotel. Esther and I successfully snuck in and the 5 of us slept well squeezed into 3 small twin beds!

We spent all day Sunday exploring the absolutely gorgeous city of Venice. I had never been and was absolutely blown away by the Grand Canal and all the beautiful and colorful buildings lining it. We spent the day exploring the area around San Marco square, playing with the pigeons, adoring the art and architecture, and splurging on a gondola ride through the adorable little canals. I think my favorite part of Venice was the boat ride at sunset we took back to the train station….one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen and it just took my breath away on the water. Julianne also managed to find the Wake house in Venice on the ride back, very neat to see, but it made us a bit jealous! After all 5 of us purchased Venetian masks to wear on Halloween we bored our (a lot more expensive) train to Rome…

Seeing as this covered only 2 of our 7 days in Italy there will be more to come, but dinner calls for now in Paris!

comptabilite

As most of you all know the BU program I am studying abroad with is designed to be half classes and half internship and today, after a week long fall break in Italy (which merits about 3 posts which I will have to tackle at a later date...), was my first day working at Cabinet Chancellor & Associes! So here are some key points:

1) Beginning November 15th I will be the only girl working at the firm (the other girl intern is leaving then)....

2) I have quickly become the firm's "how do you say it in the States" go to girl...

3) The dress code seems to be non-existent (and here I was all excited to see how stylish French business people are!)

4) I knew the word for "computer" in French this morning and they all flipped out/overreacted and told me I was the best French speaker they'd ever heard

5) My commute is less than half an hour....which I appreciate immensely after my 1.5 hour commute this summer!

That's all for now, Italy posts to come with tons of pictures and as many stories as I can remember!

(comptabilite means accounting in French!)

London Town

This weekend I began my month of travels with a short trip to London to see my dad who happened to be there on business! We were SO lucky that the timing worked out. I began my first solo European trip by waking up at 5 am on Saturday morning in order to catch the 730 Chunnel train to London. I was bleary eyed and quite frazzled but luckily managed to make it onto the train just in time for departure (I had to deal with the early morning and unreliable Paris metro, and three ticket retrieving machines that wouldn’t identify my non-European credit card.)

After a quick and enjoyable 2.5 hour train ride I met my dad at St. Pancreas station on what turned out to be a very cold and windy October day. We managed to fit in a LOT of sightseeing. First we went to the National Gallery, thinking it was the National Portrait Gallery and upon realizing our mistake, quickly left and found what we were really looking for. We walked around the National Portrait Gallery for about an hour – we followed British History from Henry the VIII all the way to an entire room dedicated to Twiggy! After the museums we took a bus tour around the city, and got off around Oxford Circus. For lunch my dad managed to remember the name of, and navigate the cab to, one of his favorite pubs from when my parents lived in London. The Grenadier was down a really small side street and had amazing fish and chips which I had for lunch, and according to my dad, Bloody Mary’s which hadn’t changed in 20 years! After lunch we walked down to Buckingham Palace (which my dad insisted was “just the carriage house”) and then to the Thames River where we caught a boat tour which took us past London Tower and London Bridge and then finally to Canary Wharf, a little ways out of the city, where my dad was staying.















Before dinner we had tickets to see Sister Act in the West End. The story line was the same as the movie (which I had seen but my dad had not) but all of the music was original and it turned out to be a really good show!! After the show we found an Indian restaurant for dinner where they informed us that we either had the option of chicken or duck dinner, we got one of each as well the Indian version of crepes, I think. Luckily, the chicken “dinner” lived up to the high expectations I had as an Indian food first-timer! Finally we went for dessert at Garfunkel’s which was surprisingly hopping for midnight. After good American dessert food we were ready for bed.
So of course, I could not be in London without visiting the famous platform 9 & ¾ at King’s Cross Station… which just happened to be across the street from St. Pancreas! On our way to the train station Sunday morning I dragged my dad into King’s Cross and over to the platform where after A LOT of camera problems he snapped one of my favorite pictures, ever! What a great note to end my quick little London excursion on!

musical metros

Another lovely, but BUSY week in Paris:

lundi: After class BU had another theater outing for us. This one was the see Un Air de Famille at a small theatre near Saint Germain des Pres which was VERY hard to find. We got lost multiple times trying to find it and walked into the theatre about 2 minutes before the show started!

mardi: Dinner night with Mme Boudet! I was a bit hesitant to eat the fish that she had nuked instead of cooked, but it turned out to be a very good dinner....Esther and I always get a kick out of the debates she likes to start with us!

mercredi: Esther and I were very "productive" before class and went shopping in the Marais. We found a ton of cute boutiques and made some purchases before having Paris' best falafel again for lunch and then going to class. My econ class was held at the WEU (Western European Union) which we learned that it has no real political power or defined function in Europe (it's not associated with the European Union)....although we did have a very interesting class. After one of the directors gave his presentation he handed us over to about 8 interns from around Europe who each presented on a defense subject pertinent to Europe today and then we had a debate/discussion about issues in Europe and the United States. It was especially entertaining to hear the interns curiosity and opinions on the Obama administration!

jeudi: Esther, Juliet, Lauren and I found a very small, hole-in-the-wall Sangria bar that had been highly recommended to us. The Sangria was really good and it was full of French people our age who were really fun to talk to!

As I was traveling around Paris on Wednesday by metro, it hit me that Paris really does have the best of so many things - including metro performers. On my way home there was a violinist playing Pachelbel's canon with a boom box backing her up while I waited and then when I got on the train I was greeted by a Spanish singer whose act was complete with an amp and his CD taped onto his guitar. At one point I could hear the Spanish folk music in one ear and the violin canon in the other - oh Paris!

parisian walk

Due to a very uneventful week of being sick and doing nothing exciting aside from going to class, I was very ready to get out of the house and do something this morning when I woke up FINALLY feeling a little bit better.

Esther's friend from home Craig is visiting her for the long weekend so we decided to take him to the best falafel restaurant in Paris for lunch. We rode the metro to the Marais (which has fabulous shopping that Esther and I exercised a lot of self control to avoid), and with my Aunt Maurine's help found L'As du Falafel which wasn't hard to spot with a line half way down the street. We bought our falafel (topped with eggplant!) and thoroughly enjoyed it on a bench before setting off to wander around the city. We covered a lot of territory...walking from the Marais to the Bastille and then along the Siene down to Notre Dame, where we found a very fun little park behind the church with a do-it-yourself tiltawhirl. Upon jumping on it, we realized it spun a lot faster than one would think and we probably had a little too much fun for a bunch of 20 year olds.

After Notre Dame we wandered down to the Latin Quarter and Saint Germain district and from there we walked past the Louvre and Place de Concorde before ending up along the Siene again which we followed to the Champs Elysees, taking pictures of all the beautiful ponts (bridges) along the way. Just before going home we stumbled upon a Vogue exhibit along the Champs Elysees sponsored by Sephora. The sidewalk on one side of the avenue was flanked on either side by assorted Vogue covers from 1920 to present. It was so much fun to see how the covers, models, and even prices have evolved over the years.

After 5 hours on our feet we took the metro home at sunset and turned onto our street just as it started to rain. As we passed our favorite Moroccan restaurant and waved to the owner he came out and asked how my throat was and then told us that we had to come in for tea because it would make me so much better. My favorite mint tea was the perfect end to the day, and as always, it was "on the house!"

flying pigs, colorful clothes, and apple pancakes

I'm not sure that a post can do our trip to Amsterdam this weekend justice, but I am going to try!

After taking 2 exams on Friday morning, it was off to Amsterdam....for me, Juliet, and Esther it was via Charles de Gaulle airport, for the rest of our 14 person group is was via unknown French, Belgian, and Dutch roadways (I think I made the right choice). Our train ride to the airport was perfectly timed and without any major events, unless you count the karaoke singer on the RER who decided to perform upwards of 5 montages complete with background music and special effects. We walked right into the Air France terminal, printed off our boarding passes and headed through security without anyone even taking a glance at Esther's passport. We had a whole row to ourselves on the plane and had a very enjoyable flight which consisted of the sticky-note game, takeoff, cokes and tortellini crackers, and then immediate touchdown. We walked off the plane in Amsterdam, out of Shiphol airport and onto a train, once again without anyone so much as glancing at our passports. We somehow managed to navigate ourselves to the hostel via one train, one tram, and a lot of walking. Inspired by the name and nice website we had hopes (or at least I did) for the Flying Pig Hostel, but we turned out to be very wrong....


We walked into a tiny little building and squeezed ourselves and our bursting bags down the 2 feet wide staircase to the reception area....which was actually a bar and lounge room with a small desk to one side. Upon checking in we were told that due to overbookage, our 8 person hostel room would be broken up into 2 rooms of 4 (translation in our heads: 2 separate rooms with 4 beds each, no problem!) however after we paid she gave us the sheet with our room numbers on it which looked like this: (room 11 beds 1, 3, 5, 6 - room 15 beds 2, 4, 6, 7). After we realized that this meant other people were sleeping in beds 2, 4, 7, 8, 1, 3, 5, and 8 the arguing began. She somehow managed to convince us that it was fine and that there was nothing we could do about it so we placidly accepted free drink chips and stalked off to put our stuff down. With three keys to room 11 in hand we decided it couldn't be that bad and with a lot of pep talking from Esther we thought maybe it could be a good experience.....then we walked into room 11 and found 2 girls in combat boots passed out on their beds, there was also another pair lined up against the wall. After about 2 minutes of gaping at each other and our "roommates" we stalked right back down the 2 foot stairs and attempted to argue our way into an 8 person room. Instead we ended up getting an 8 person room for the next night and keys to room 15 so we could decide which of the roommates were better. Luckily, room 15 was much better; the girls were from upstate New York and much nicer/lacking combat boots. We decided we could live with them for one night and pawned the combat boot girls off on the people in our group who had yet to arrive.


We spent the rest of Friday night exploring Leisenplein, the lively little square about 5 minutes from the hostel. We ate dinner at a Mexican Restaurant which had frites as a side with everything and found the best Belgium waffle place for dessert!

We woke up multiple times Saturday morning, first to a mysterious alarm clock, then to a "grizzly bear" snoring in the bed next to Lauren and me (she had refused to sleep in the combat room and was therefore sharing my bed), and finally to our roommates getting dressed with the lights on way too early in the morning. After waking up for good we found an amazing Dutch Pancake Corner right down the road. I ordered a hot chocolate and junior apple pancake which turned out to be huge! It was kind of like a crepe but a little doughier in the middle and with the apples baked right on the top. While everyone else went to the Anne Frank house (which I had already seen) I found Westerkerk, the church in Amsterdam with the highest steeple. I then managed to stumble upon the Kath Kidson store, (which is Kitsch Kitchen in Dutch). Esther and I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Amsterdam and loving the cute the apartments, canals, and boutiques. The people watching was also phenomenal…it was so refreshing to see the Dutch women wearing color as opposed to France where for 95% of the people, back is the color of choice. We stopped for coffee at a cafe just in time for it to start pouring so we ended up taking the tram back to the Flying Pig.


We met up with the rest of our group at the hostel and then ventured out for dinner after deciding it wasn’t worth it to shower in the small and dirty bathrooms with questionable towels. Our original plan was to try a restaurant called Envy we had passed earlier…so we all trekked through the POURING rain for 20 minutes just to find out they had a 1.5 hour wait. So we wandered around some more, cold, wet, and famished until we finally stumbled into an Italian restaurant. After dinner we went to walk around the Red Light District…it was definitely something to see while in Amsterdam but after having seen it I have no desire to go back!


We woke up on Sunday morning and went to buy postcards and visit the I Amsterdam sign at the Museumplein. I felt like I was at Amsterdam’s version of the bean…everyone there was having their own photo shoot. After walking around the plaza, Juliet, Esther, and I had to book it to the airport. We made it just in time to grab a sandwich before boarding another short and easy flight. We were once again amazed to walk out of Charles de Gaulle airport without so much as a glimpse of customs or security.

Getting off the plane from Amsterdam and STILL being in a foreign country was a little weird, but then I realized how truly lucky I am that although such a fun weekend had to end, the next day I would be starting another fabulous week in the city of Paris!