Its been a week since I have had a chance to write. We visited two awesome places last week in art class, I reallly enjoyed them. One was a synagogue and another was a convent but also had a huge church attached to it designed for and by Ferdinand and Isabel. I will have to put pictures on Facebook sometime so that everyone can see them. I still have not quite figured out how to put them on this blog, someone smarter than me will have to let me know. Last week was also a fútbol game with españa. I watched it at the bar with my parents and their friends. My friend Beth ended up walking past us on her way home and so she had to stop for drinks too. My classes are in full swing, I had a presentation last Tuesday and a paper due last Tuesday. It is hard to believe, but final exams start three weeks from Wednesday!
This past weekend we went to Italy, which was absolutely gorgeous. We flew right into Rome but as usual, there is always an adventure to be had. Our flight left earlier than we could catch a train or bus from Toledo into Madrid so we decided to stay in Madrid. Well, when we got there we had a few surprises in store for us. THe first was that the metro was on strike )still, its been a week plus.) It is running, but it runs with half of normal capacity, meaning you have to wait more. THis made us getting to the airport on time in the morning via metro impossible. Luckily we had our first encounter with a really nice man who showed us how to get there by using the ceranias which are like higher speed trains with fewer stops. When we combined that with the metro for a litt,e we could get there on time without paying for a cab. Next came the hunt for the hostel we had booked. When we got there, we found out that the water wasnt working and so he had us booked at a different hostel and it was off to find that. I also forgot to mention that this past weekend was gay pride weekend in Madrid. When we got there Thursday night, there was a huge concert going on, sort of like a scene out of the Birdcage, if you have ever seen that movie. We found our hostel, which was right by the main square where the concert was. We ran into all sorts of booking issues and ended up splitting hostels. Plus, we could hear the concert. We had to get up and leave our hostel by 5:30 am and we headed to the trains, there were a ton of people still out, partying. This is pretty normal in Spain but it still made us laugh.
The flight to Roma was pretty easy, no real issues. Once we got to Italia, we all kind of realized oh yeah, none of us speak Italian. We basically tried to speak Spanish to everyone out of habit. Luckily we found some nice people who explained to us what train to take and then later what tram to take, which was a fun adventure. They really have no way of monitoring who pays for the trams, so we bought tickets but did not really need them, everyone seems to rid eit illegally.We also met a very nice man who helped us look up how to get from the station to our hotel. This part of the trip was filled with some really nice people, considering we were idiots and did not have a map. The hotel was really nice and in a great part of town. We squeezed five of us into a room for 4 but it was way nicer and cheaper than staying in a hostel, believe it or not. After we got settled at the hotel, we went out exploring.
We started just walking the streets. We knew we had to walk across the river to get to a different part of the city. As we are walking, one of us just says oh we have to get a picture of the five of us somewhere along the trip. We hear a voice say, I can take it. It was a woman, with her husband and one of her sons. They are from Cincinnati, the husband works at P&G, they live in Blue Ash and her other son goes to Xavier, although I do not know him. The world is a tiny place. She also gave us a map, which was amazing. It was just hilarious, and it definitely made us all miss our moms. After that, we did more wondering.We happened upon some "ruins" just in time to realize that they were in fact, a cat shelter. Only in Rome. After that we found some amazing buildings and then headed to the Colosseum. That was by far my favorite part of Rome. We paid to go inside and it was totally worth it. We also went to Palatino and walked around a lot of Roman ruins, we saw Augusts' house or what was left of it. It was blazing hot that day and we headed to the Trevi Fountain. We threw our coins in and then we found a place to get pasta for dinner. The pasta was delicious, there were about 30 different kinds to choose from and the house wine was also very good. After that we started to head back to the hotel and rest for the next day. We found a sort of fair along the river with shops and restaurants that we looked at on the way home.
The next day we hit the Vatican earlyish. Our hotel was only about a 10-15 minute walk from there. We went into St. Peters Basilica and also went and looked at the popes' tombs. After that we wandered, we knew we wanted to go to the Spanish Steps. We went and saw the Medici Castle, climbed the Spanish Steps and went to the Piazza Navona. We grabbed more pizza at the place right by our hotel and got ready for the Spain game! We watched it at a bar and met some people from the US and Italy, both of which were born in Cuba, go figure. Spain won of course and we celebrated with our 3rd helping of gelato on the Italy trip.
Now comes the ugly side... We got to the airport more than an hour ahead of time, waited at our gate and were totally ready to go. Then we find out they changed our gate to another terminal. We literally run there and find out that its not hte right flight. By the time we all ran back, only 2 of the 5 of us made it. The 3 Emily's of the trip did not make it and the people at the gate and airline were less than friendly nor were they helpful. THe next flight with that airline to Madrid did not leave until 9:15 pm and we would not have gotten back in time to get a bus to Toledo and make it to class on time. We found another airline with an earlier flight but it did cost us each 140 euros. I tried to tell myself that its all part of the journey that is traveling although my wallet is hurting badly at the current moment.
Getting back to Toledo never felt so good. It was definitely strange being there on the 4th of July but I got to talk to my family and that was nice. Yesterday it was stinking hot, word on the street is that it will be getting up to 110 or so until it cools off. A friend and I had to go hunt for towers for our art class and that exhausted us pretty much for the rest of the day. I did get to go home for lunch which is always a nice change. I was so beat from the sun though. Today we went to visit an old hospital that looked like a convent. I also bought a pair of sneakers for 5 euro. Now it's off to more class and trying to avoid the heat.
Cheer for Spain tomorrow!
Emily
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