..Everything In-Between.

To catch you up on my where abouts here in Europe, last weekend I spent most of it here in Florence and took a day trip to Rome on Sunday. I wish I spent at least 2 days in Rome, one was not enough at all. Although, when time is of the essence you gotta do what you gotta do. I could have explored Rome on my own for two days but the thought of it was very overwhelming. So I heading out with a crew from Florence For Fun on a 3 hour bus ride and explored the historic city of Rome for the day. The whole day was very rushed, it was always one thing and quickly on to the next. Our fist stop was the Spanish steps. We heard a little history from our tour guide, took 2 minutes for pictures and moved on to the Trevi Fountain. The fountain was huge and was highly populated with tourists. The legend is that if you throw a coin in you are sure to return to Rome. There are roughly 3,000 coins tossed into the fountain daily, wow! After the Trevi fountain we walked to the Pantheon where the first King of Italy was buried along with his son and his sons wife. His sons wife is the one that Margherita pizza was named after. Then we enjoyed some lunch at a restaurant recommended by our tour guides. There I got some carbonara spaghetti (Rome is where the recipe originates from). It was quite delicious! I met a girl there who is from northern Italy, blonde hair and fairish skin. If I recall correctly..my ancestors are from Northern Italy. After seeing her, I think I fit that profile more then I do here in Florence. Everyones got the dark hair and skin here. She actually said that in northern Italy they speak Swiss German instead of Italian and do not really associate with being Italian. I thought that was interesting! After that we visited a fountain where 3 rivers in the bible come together that had statues on it, pretty neat! Then we made our way to the Coliseum. Along the way we passed some ancient ruins. It is crazy how well everything has preserved so well and no natural disaster has wiped everything out. We finally made it to the Coliseum but sadly weren't able to go in, due to time. Then we got back on the bus and drove to the Vadakin. Which in fact is its own state, they have there own post office and all the kinda stuff. Luckily we didn't have to wait in a long line to enter. You do have to go through security and a dress code check. If what your wearing doesn't cover your shoulders and go down to at least your knees then they will refuse to let you enter. It was pretty intense, there were plenty of people in our group that could not enter. The security guards were dressed in clown looking uniforms that were designed by Michelangelo himself. The inside of the Vadakin was absolutely beautiful! It is incredibly hard to even begin to describe it, there is marble and art every where. Inside you can find one of the only pieces of art work that Michelangelo fully completed and put his signature on. There are tons of people inside, especially nuns that are bowing down to pay respect to Pope John Paul the second. There was also some type of church service going on inside too. With the ancient city preserving so well, the costumes of the security guards, and walking on original cobble stone streets, you literally feel like you've been taken back into time and are living in that period. Throughout the whole day I couldn't stop thinking about my parents, I know they would have loved Rome, especially my Dad! I hope one day they can visit Italy. That concludes my trip to Rome, hopefully from this brief blurb you can gather how rushed the day was. You can make it a one day trip if its a must but I defiantly recommend visiting the city for at least two days so you can appreciate it more. Rome is so much bigger and busier then Florence and makes me glad I live where I live! Enough about Rome, now on to my most recent and exciting adventure--


Interlaken, Switzerland! This by far has been my favorite trip so far. I went with a couple of my roommates and the trip began Thursday! We stuffed our backpacks with some clothes and minimal belongings, took them to class with us, then headed for the train station to join the rest of the students going. Once we got to the train station we met our guides, got on a charter bus and drive roughly 7 hours to Interlaken. The bus ride wasn't miserable until I took some benadryl, passed out for awhile, and woke up when the bus was winding through the mountains. I don't usually get sick on bus rides but the drossy of the benadryl, the time of night, and the winding roads sure made me feel like it. Finally we arrived at roughly 3:30ish in the morning at an awesome hostel called Balmers--minus the community bathrooms. Me and my 3 roommates shared a bedroom with 6 girls who came from Barcelona. The hostel came with free breakfast each morning--cornflakes, cheese, and two pieces of toast with butter and jam. Not my favorite breakfast but when you can get something free in Europe--you cant pass it up! We also got a free bus pass. In the morning after we slept only a few short hours me and my roommate Loryn and her friend Eric decided to go on a hike while the rest of our friends went white water rafting. We met some other girls that wanted to join so we all got on the bus and took it to the train station. There we had planned on taking a train up the mountains a little ways and then beginning our hike. But the train ticket was about 60 swiss franks so we said no thank you! So Loryn, Eric and myself decide to do our own hike--those are always the most eventful! We found a trail and started to follow it. Mean while, it wasn't the most pleasant day outside. It was pretty rainy on and off and cloudy. Any way, were hiking up this trail and we come across some tracks of some sort. They for sure weren't train tracks but looked more like tracks for a trolly. So we thought it would be a great idea to follow the trolly tracks because surly they would lead us to the top! After following them a good 4o minutes we came to a tunnel. You couldnt go over it, under it, or around it. So our friend Eric thought it would be a good idea to try and go through it because we had not seen any sort of trolly pass by yet. So we begin to make our way into the tunnel, and it starts to get dark very quickly. Like pitch black! Shortly after entering we hear the trolly coming. We all book it out of the tunnel like none other! We casually watch it pass slowly by as we are all laughing and freaking out about what just happened. So because there is no way over this tunnel we had no other option but to head back down. As we were heading down we came across a walking trial--one of which we should have taken to being with. We take the trail for a while until we come across more tracks. So because we are so anxious to get to the top we decide to follow the trolly tracks one more time. Hoping they dont lead us to another tunnel. Mean while, these tracks are on the steeper side and are lined with rocks, it was not an easy walk! Gods beauty was defiantly reveled through the many incredible views along the way (pictures to come as soon as I get home!). Any way, we finally reach a point where we see some men herding cattle. Side note--all the cattle, sheep, and goats in the mountains have really big bells on them. So you can hear them from a distance! So we proceed to ask these men where we should go to get on the trolly  that had been passing us periodically through out the day on our hike up. They sent us in the right direction and we finally made it to the trolly station. There we were greeted by a man who had already heard about us by the people running the trolly that passed us a couple times on our hike up. We asked him how much it would cost to take the trolly down the mountain and he said about 25 swiss franks. After that response- - the trolly was not an options, we had only brought up with us 20 euro. So our next question was- -food. Where can we get food. He directed us to a cafe that was next door. On the outside there were signs for a buffet. We were so excited and hoped that they would take euros! We walk in and it was basically a concession stand of drinks. There we also found the two men that were herding the cattle earlier and gave us directions. They offered me a sip of their hot tea and it was not what I expected. It definitely had liquor of some sort in it- -a lot of it! I guess thats what they do there. Then the kind gentlemen that greeted us and gave us the disappointing news about taking the trolly down provided us with free hot tea, coffee, and cookies! My friends Loryn and Eric went with the hot tea and liquor while I went with the black coffee. Black coffee isn't usually my thing but it really wasn't that bad. My Dad might be rubbing off on me- - he loves his black coffee! So after we enjoyed so much needed snacks we decided it was time to head back down. This time we got good directions so the hike down was a lot quicker. That is until we hit a road block- -what we think was a lost cow. This cow was so massive and was right in the middle of the trail and there was no way around it. On the other side of the trail was was a fence with a gate so there was no way to shoe it away. Loryn begin to speak her own language to it in hopes that it would move and it wasn't working, although it was very entertaining! Finally Eric decided to jump the fence and as soon as he did that and was on the other side of the cow I think it got scared and started going in the other direction. Shortly after that we made it all the way down the mountain and back to Interlaken. When we got back to the hostel we were beyond ready for dinner, since we had not eaten an actual meal all day. Everything in Switzerland is really expensive, especially food! My roommate Loryn had brought with her 3 packs of ramen noodles she had bought in Sweden the weekend before. So we cooked those up for dinner and tried to enjoy them as much as possible as they are nothing like the Ramen noodles in the states. Then that night we went to the underground bar at the hostel called Metro. There we got a free beer just by staying at the hostel. The next day (Saturday) we went canyoning! It was seriously the most amazing experience ever. I was debating whether I should do white water rafting or canyoning and went with canyoning because I honestly dont know where else in the world you can do this kind of thing. We basically got in wet suits and put helmets and life jackets on and jumped off water falls, floated down the rapids, repelled, and swung between canyons. There were three different levels you could choose from and I did the first one and it was still an experience unlike any other. The rapids were pretty intense and on the first rapid we floated down I decided to go first- -It was a mistake. The instructor never told me to plug my nose and where to end and and so as Im floating down Im twisting and turning trying to keep my head out of the water and basically feel like I am drowning. It was kinda scary but apparently it was pretty entertaining to those watching. I made sure not to make that mistake on the second rapid! When we got back to Interlaken we washed up and enjoyed another free beer! That night I was pretty exhausted so I head to bed early along with my roommate Loryn who wasn't feel so well. Although I went to bed early I didn't get much sleep. One of the gals in the room I was staying in decided to bring a guy back and decided to enjoy some disturbing activities, haha. Everyone else was sleeping like a rock but because this persons bed was right next to mine I clearly couldn't go back to sleep at all. Finally 5:00 am rolls around and I still cant fall asleep so instead of laying there disgusted and irritated I decided to get up and go watch the sunrise. I asked the man working the night shift at the hostel where a good place to go watch it would be and he directed me to a small hill just down the road. I was there about an hour and a half and never really got to see the sun rise. It was more of seeing the town go from dark to light because it was cloudy and rainy out. But thats okay it was still cool to see. Then I made my way back to the hostel and enjoyed so breakfast and hot tea. At the point its around 7:30 am and Im ready for some sleep. So I head back to the room in hopes that the disturbing activities are over. Thankfully they were so I was able to catch a couple hours of sleep! Once we woke up in the morning we went downtown and did a little souvenir shopping, chocolate tasting, and had my first ever hooters experience (It wasn't that exciting) The hooters was locate next to a famous hotel and there is a story behind it. It is something like this guy wanted to have some type of business there and was told no that a restaurant  needed to go there because the existing building had bathrooms. So in-spite of being told no to his plans he went ahead and build a hooters. After lunch we headed back to the hostel to pack up and begin the 7 hour bus ride back to Florence. The way home was not as brutal as on the way there because we were able to enjoy the beautiful scenery along the way. Switzerland was incredibly beautiful and I would go back in a heart beat. The people are extremely nice and the place is so clean. In fact- -I wouldn't mind doing my internship there! The only down fall is everything is so expensive there. Over all it was a successful trip (: That concludes my adventure to Interlaken and everything in-between. I cant wait to post pictures when I get home! Its time for this post to come to an end as it looks like the lab is about to close! This coming weekend, I take on Croatia! Should be another exciting adventure! Ciao! ox-