Final Adventures in Italy On Sunday, November 23, I had my first visitor from home. I was so excited that Tyler was able to come and see me here in Florence, especially since I know he's always wanted to come to Italy! Sunday morning I took the shuttle to the airport to pick him up. From there we headed to the apartment he'd rented for the week (at a significantly cheaper price than hotels or hostels) and checked in there. The place was teensy, but fine. Un...

Fiesole Saturday, November 15 Fiesole is one of Florence's many suburban neighborhoods and is, by all accounts, the prettiest. Aneisa, Annie, and I decided one Saturday to hop the Number 7 bus from Santa Maria Novella station and see what it was all about. After a fifteen minute drive through some of Florence's prettiest neighborhoods and up a long, winding hill, we were deposited in the main piazza. It appeared that the town had newly renovated their main s...

Fall Break (Part II) - Naples and Pompeii After a brief sojourn in my own bed in Florence, the second part of my break consisted of meeting up with Katy and Aneisa in Naples to see Pompeii. I took the train from Florence to Naples, which proved to be a hectic experience. It was the first train I'd ridden where seats were assigned, though it took me about 15 minutes to actually realize this. I sat in a number of other people's seats before picking up on the fa...

Fall Break (Part I) - England I noticed that it's been almost two months since I updated my blog, which has shamed me into FINALLY writing about my fall break. For the first five days of break--from October 24 through the 28--I visited Beth in Leeds, where she is studying for the year at the University. This was especially nice since I didn't have to pay for a hotel or a lot of my food. (Thanks, Beth!) Plus, it was great to get to spend time with someone fro...

ROME, pt. 3 Sunday, September 14 We had free time in the morning for about four hours, so Katy and I went to Trastevere, a little neighborhood on the south back of the Tiber. It's apparently a very old neighborhood that is representative to the true Rome. We wandered around aimlessly for a while, and we stumbled upon a beautiful little church called St. Mary in Trastevere. Inside there are large columns lining the nave, but all of them are in different styl...