Cheers from Scotland: Holiday in Italy

Last night, I got back from probably one of the best vacations I have ever been on. Italy is amazing. It is beautiful, has so much history, is decorated by tons of famous artwork, has incredible weather as compared to Aberdeen, has gelaterias on every corner, and is full of life. I enjoyed being there with one of my best friends, my parents, and my aunt and uncle. It was nice being able to see my parents again. I didn't realize how much I actually missed them until I saw them again in the London airport. I am glad I was able to spend my holiday with them and that they were able to come visit me (even though they said they wouldn't come to Aberdeen to see me ha). Every night I sat down and wrote everything I did during that day. I did this partly so I could remember everything for when I wrote my blog but mostly to help me remember years from now what I did in Italy my junior year of college. I decided that I am going to make a scrapbook of my study abroad experience this summer. I am going to print out all my blogs and put the posts with pictures in a scrapbook. Therefore, I am going to write a blog for every place I visited in Italy (Pisa, Cinque Terre, San Gimignano, Florence, Siena, and Rome). I don't expect you to read all of it because they will be long but make sure to look at the pictures. The pictures do a better job at explaining than I could ever do. So basically the next couple of blogs are really for me but please read them if you'd like. It will probably take a couple of days to get them all finished but I will post them on facebook like I usually do when I am done.

Overall, Itally is amazing like I already said. Since Italy is as wonderful as it is, there are tons of tourists EVERYWHERE. It is hard to have your "own" experience in Italy when you share it with thousands of other tourists. Everywhere you look there are tourist groups who had headphones in and one main tour guide talking through a microphone and holding up some type of flag in order for tourists to not get lost. However, Kristen and I did one of those tours and got lost in the Vatican but I will talk about that later ha. There are also tons of big school groups of kids that would wear something the same, like yellow hats etc. These kids were loud and kind of obnoxious but o well. However, the street vendors were even more obnoxious. They would not leave you alone and would try to sell sunglasses, squishy pigs, artwork, Pinocchio ornaments, statute of David boxers and aprons, and tons of other touristy stuff. Kristen and I bought sunglasses from some sketch guy on the street for 5 euro. The sunglasses ended up having a huge glare on them when you wore them in the sun and every other tourist our age or younger was wearing the exact same pair of sunglasses. I had to buy them though because my real sunglasses have scratches on the lenses and I needed a new pair anyways. This brings me to the perfect weather we had in Italy. Every day it was in the 70s with not a cloud in the sky. The sky was a perfect shade of blue and we even got a little bit of sun with some amazing tan lines. The Asians however did not like the sun and would carry around umbrellas everywhere they went. We didnt' really have a hard time getting around and not knowing Italian. Everyone in the city speaks English. I did learn Grazie (thank you), prego (welcome or your welcome), cin cin(cheers), and dove (where). Every day we ate gelato. It was delicious! My favorite combination of flavors was fragola (strawberry) and chocolate. It's ok that we ate gelato every day because we walked miles and miles every day. At the end of each day my feet and lower back were killing me. Some parts of Italy are really hilly or in the Florence and Rome attractions were really spread out. I guess the last thing I should talk about are the mopeds that Italians ride around. They are everywhere! They never follow traffic rules and they weave inbetween cars. I really wanted to rent one but it was really expensive/ I wouldn't want to drive in the city. My hands would be really sweaty (fun fact for the day is that the only time my hands sweat is when I am nervous in a car).

Here is a list of my favorites in Italy
1. Gelato- a Gelateria in Pisa on the first day
2. Artwork- Michelangelo's Last Judgment on the alter wall of the Sistine Chapel (and of course the cieling of the Sistine Chapel)
3. Statue- Michelangelo's David in Florence
4. Church- The Duomo in Siena
5. City- Florence
6. Scenery- Cinque Terre
7. Historical Cite- Colosseum in Rome
8. Tower I climbed- Duomo in Florence
9. Food- kind of a disappointment- the food was in little portions and not really what I expected. Everything was good but nothing really stood out as great. The pizza was thin crust and some of the crust would burn and the pasta was good but I felt like I could get the same thing in America. They don't use salt or very many other flavorings. However, the gelato was great!
10. fountain- Trevi Fountain in Rome

Kristen and I kept a food journal of our entire trip. Everything we ate we took a picture of. We ate our way through Italy and it was great! I loved it. So here are a couple of pictures from our food journal.