european adventures
I got back yesterday at ten a.m., from a flight at six in the morning. We left the airbnb around four a.m. with maybe an hour of sleep each.
The last night we filled our selfs to the brim with veal, pasta, and bread, in the corner of a restaurant recommended from a friend. We indulged, saying it is our last night and come on we are in Millan, we will eat better in Madrid... so we each shook off our worries and continued to finish our plates. We met up with a friend and grabbed a few drinks laughing and talking about Millan, then found our way home, packed as well as we could and went to bed. We were startled at three thirty in the morning by the alarm, but let me start from the beginning, in Florence. We arrived by plane. Libby, Elizabeth, Claudia (Elizabeth's spanish host sister), and I arrived around eight in Pisa. The person supposed to pick us up was an hour late, and while I was sitting chatting with Claudia, while the others tried to contact the driver, a worm randomly fell from the roof onto my head... weird start to the trip but none the less we were in Italy, so did we have room to complain? Not exactly. It took an hour to get to the villa, and although it was too dark to see the rolling hills of Tuscany, the moon still lit the tops of them.
Arriving was a whirlwind, in a good way. There were so many people arriving at the same time, energy was high, all of us overly excited, that if anything went wrong, it wouldn't touch us. All in all, there were thirteen of us. Two sets of parents, four girls, and six boys. It was crazy fun. We went into the city at night, and walked around Florence during the day, grabbing pizza here and snapping pictures there. We spent the whole first day touring around, Elizabeth and one of the boys guided us, they had been there before. Every night we stayed up late dancing, blasting music, and talking. Day by day groups of people slowly left leaving us girls. We had a whole day and night to ourselves, Claudia left the morning of the fifth day to go back home to Madrid and we left in the afternoon by train to continue of trip. Next stop was Rome.
I want to say we arrived around three but I'm not sure, first we had to scavenge for wifi given our Spanish mobile plans didn't exactly help us out in Italy. We called an uber and started our journey to our next sleeping location, an apartment of our friends who was studying in Rome. The drive was mesmerizing, I have never seen anywhere like Rome before. When we got to the apartment, we buzzed in, hauled our luggage up, and plopped it on the floor. Again we would be staying with a lot of people, but hey we weren't paying so we didn't mind. There would be three of us and two other boys visiting their friend in Rome, they were from Mexico, they were also studying abroad. We were only in Rome for two nights but it was so cool. The area that we were staying was basically a college town in Rome, most of the students were from USC, studying at John Cabot for their fall semester. We met a ton of people and had dinner at Tony's, our friends' favorite restaurant in Rome. They took us there that night, we got a free bottle of proseco, two free amazing appetizers, and free deserts. The owner was amazing. We were seriously feasting, did I care, hell no. It was undeniably some of the best Italian food i'd ever had. We stayed up late that night, talking and socializing outside with all of the college students, forgetting about home, only thinking about how young we were. The next morning we woke up a little late, got ready, headed out for breakfast. Frech toast, fresh squeezed orange juice, scrambled eggs, and bacon. After that we headed into the center of the city making sure to stop by the Trevi Fountain and one of the famous churches. We hopped onto a tour bus, agreeing that we wouldn't be able to see all the places walking in one day, and enjoyed the breeze while seeing the city. I have to quote my friend on this, "on like every corner there is a historical monument," it is true. We spent the night hanging with friends, eating, and doing what kids do best, and fell asleep late, only after grabbing the best make-your-own sandwiches i've ever had. The next morning we ate bagels, had the boys give us a failed tour, and grabbed gelato before we headed to the train station. All in all Rome was incredible, the cobble stone streets filled with students and gelaterias is pretty unbeatable. But our next stop was Millan, so we packed up and made our way to the train station.
It was a three hour ride, we arrived at nine p.m. walked to meet the owner's grandson to get the key and then taxi'd to the airbnb. This night we wanted to chill, to just grab food, take a shower and watch the Lizzie McGuire Movie because hey we were in Italy. So we walked downstairs and found a hamburger place next store. We ordered fries to share, a vegan burger, a loaded hamburger, and a chicken burger, all which melted in our mouths, then walked up exhausted to the airbnb, showered off and got into bed. After which, none of us could make it through the ending of the movie. The next day was spent touring around the city of Millan, it is weird and cool at the same time, it definelty has a certain vibe to it. We went to the palace and toured the Pinacoteca di Brera museum then walked forty minutes back to the airbnb to get some work done. After showers, we put on our last clean outfits, or semi-clean and rushed out the doors into the traffic of Millan's night life. The streets were filled with people. We found the restaurant our friend had mentioned and ushered in & what comes after?
I think you know the rest.
XOXO,
Lauren
