Tuesday, December 11, 2007
back in the U S of A
Wow I can't believe I am back home right now...we had safe travels coming home. It was a long day of traveling...over 24 hrs and the jet lag has finally caught up to me and I'm exhaused. Our final days on the trip were wonderful. Athens was a great place to end the trip. Our first few days there we had amazing weather...warm and sunny. It felt like we were back in Santa Barbara. As a group we went to the Acropolis and Mars Hill. We had finals so most of our free time was spent studying...we found a starbucks...it was great...and they had their red christmas cups...enough said :-)Shopped a lot and walked about the Plaka. Watched the sunset on Muse Hill on our last night with a lot of people in our group. It was beautiful (the ocean on one side and the acropolis on the other) and such a great way to end our last day. We had a Christmas party with pictionary and secret santa gifts. We all told stories of our favorite christmas memories. it was such a blast...i think i laughed for 2 hours straight. It was hard saying goodbye to everyone...we didn't really have a good chance to do it at the airport. it's weird not being with everyone now...hard to adjust to seeing people who became my family every day to not seeing anyone. its definitely quiet at my house... my first morning home i half expected to see 15 people downstairs at breakfast...weird. i got to go up to SB this weekend and see my roommates and a bunch of other friends. it was wonderful...i've missed people in SB so much and it was so refreshing to see them all. Can't believe its over...it was definitely the trip of a lifetime and one of the best semesters of my college experience.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
only 4 days left....what is going on???
I can't believe that we are in Athens, Greece...our last city. We only have 3 days left and its so surreal. I'm definitely getting antsy to come home but at the same time i'm so sad to be leaving europe and all the wonderful people that i'm with. we have been talking about all the withdrawals we will have when we go back. we go from seeing each other 24/7 in our good times and bad to being home and all separated for a month until we go back to Westmont. so sad...
Italy has a whole was great! Florence was great besides the fact that i had a really bad cold that sucked all my energy away. Some highlights were eating tons and tons of gelato, climbing to the top of the duomo for amazing views of the city, going to the Michelangelo Piazza which is up on a hill that overlooks the entire city of florence, the Uffici Gallery, eating at a restaurant that won best pizza in the world a few years back, and Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving might be one of my favorite days on the trip as a whole. We had it on Friday instead of thursday since the church we needed to use was all booked up on thursday. we started the morning off with a game of american football. we found an amazingly beautiful park along the river arno and played for about 2 hours. in the afternoon we headed over to a church to make our thanksgiving meal. almost everyone cooked something. we made everything from scratch (expect our bough pumpkin pies). it was utter chaos and soo great. everyone brought to the group their favorite thanksgiving recipes and was in charge of making it. jess caswell and i made stuffing...we made amazing stuffing! it was just incredible...every single item of food was great and everything we on without a hitch. it was just so great to cook with everyone, listen and dance to music, eat thanksgiving meal together, and hang out. someone also made a picture slide show of the trip that was fun to watch.
Rome was good too...Our hotel location was not good however. we were on the outskirts of town and had to take a train into the city that only came 2 times an hour and sometimes decided not to show up at all. On the first day a bunch of us went to the Vatican to go to church at St. Peters. We could not go in b/c there was special ceremony going on but they had screens outside that broadcasted the ceremony. we wanted to wait for the pope to come outside. it started to rain and none of us had warm clothes or umbrellas. the pope did come out to the steps of the church to address the crowd but i couldn't see anything b/c of all the umbrellas...everyone else seemed to be prepared. so we got soaking wet but at least we got to see the pope and hear him speak. Other highlights include: a big adventure on the buses to get to the colosseum on our first night in rome, the trevi fountain all lite up at night, the Pantheon, going to the colosseum again and the Forum, hanging out on the spanish steps at night.
We are now in Athens. our hotel is right in the plaka and if you walk down the street you can see the acropolis. we have finals this week so a lot of our free time is spent studying. we are planning on going to mars hill and the acropolis tomorrow. on our last day a bunch of us are planning on taking a trip to an island. can't believe i will be on a plan coming home soon...this semester has flown by...can't wait to be home and go up to sb next weekend...see you all soon!!!
Italy has a whole was great! Florence was great besides the fact that i had a really bad cold that sucked all my energy away. Some highlights were eating tons and tons of gelato, climbing to the top of the duomo for amazing views of the city, going to the Michelangelo Piazza which is up on a hill that overlooks the entire city of florence, the Uffici Gallery, eating at a restaurant that won best pizza in the world a few years back, and Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving might be one of my favorite days on the trip as a whole. We had it on Friday instead of thursday since the church we needed to use was all booked up on thursday. we started the morning off with a game of american football. we found an amazingly beautiful park along the river arno and played for about 2 hours. in the afternoon we headed over to a church to make our thanksgiving meal. almost everyone cooked something. we made everything from scratch (expect our bough pumpkin pies). it was utter chaos and soo great. everyone brought to the group their favorite thanksgiving recipes and was in charge of making it. jess caswell and i made stuffing...we made amazing stuffing! it was just incredible...every single item of food was great and everything we on without a hitch. it was just so great to cook with everyone, listen and dance to music, eat thanksgiving meal together, and hang out. someone also made a picture slide show of the trip that was fun to watch.
Rome was good too...Our hotel location was not good however. we were on the outskirts of town and had to take a train into the city that only came 2 times an hour and sometimes decided not to show up at all. On the first day a bunch of us went to the Vatican to go to church at St. Peters. We could not go in b/c there was special ceremony going on but they had screens outside that broadcasted the ceremony. we wanted to wait for the pope to come outside. it started to rain and none of us had warm clothes or umbrellas. the pope did come out to the steps of the church to address the crowd but i couldn't see anything b/c of all the umbrellas...everyone else seemed to be prepared. so we got soaking wet but at least we got to see the pope and hear him speak. Other highlights include: a big adventure on the buses to get to the colosseum on our first night in rome, the trevi fountain all lite up at night, the Pantheon, going to the colosseum again and the Forum, hanging out on the spanish steps at night.
We are now in Athens. our hotel is right in the plaka and if you walk down the street you can see the acropolis. we have finals this week so a lot of our free time is spent studying. we are planning on going to mars hill and the acropolis tomorrow. on our last day a bunch of us are planning on taking a trip to an island. can't believe i will be on a plan coming home soon...this semester has flown by...can't wait to be home and go up to sb next weekend...see you all soon!!!
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