GL350 Blog Week 3

Another week has gone by here in Rome and it was great! We went on a few student lead tours and had a free weekend as well to travel. For those who read my GL350 blog last week, I'll let you know that I had better luck this week with the public transportation (mainly the train.)

Last week we all went on a tour to the Catacombs which was my favorite so far. I thought it was different than what we usually see which I found interesting. I enjoyed the part when we walked through the catacombs and seeing the tombs because people were so much smaller back then compared to now a days. However I was a little disappointed that we weren't allowed to take pictures.

Over the weekend, some friends and I went to Paris, France for the day on Friday then to Dublin, Ireland Friday night until Sunday. It was such an amazing experience and everything went perfect! We arrived in Paris about 9 am and we got bus tickets that took us into Paris. From there, we wandered the streets and we eventually found Chipolte for lunch. After, we got tickets for the metro and we were able to navigate our way to the Eiffel Tower where we got on the hop on hop off bus. We're pretty much professionals when it comes to the metro. Everything that we saw was SO much larger than I imagined. We were running short on time and a few of us wanted to go to the Louvre Museum and we were determined to see the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Luckily, we were able to get to the Louvre with no issues and there were no lines for tickets. It was meant to be for us to go visit. We were able to go in and out in 20 minutes. From there, we were off to Ireland! Now how many people can say they've been to three different countries in 1 day?

Ireland was nothing like we expected. We thought it was going to be all grassy fields and lambs roaming everywhere. It was so busy yet it felt like we were back home in the states. Everyone was so friendly, not only in Dublin but in France too. The best part about being in Ireland was the Traditional Irish Restaurant that we went to for lunch on Saturday. It was a little pricey but it was worth it. Saturday was the day that kicked all of our butts! We weren't expecting to spend much money on shopping because we thought it was all farm land but we were all wrong. The shopping was amazing and none of us left empty handed.

Barzini talked so highly of Italy and how the Italian people don't like to travel out of their country because its not as beautiful anywhere else. I would have to disagree with him because Italy is my temporary home now and when I traveled out the of country, I thought it was more beautiful than Rome. I took French for a few years so my opinion may seem bias, but Paris is by far my favorite place and I did not want to leave at all.

Its crazy that we already have midterms this week. It doesn't feel like we've hit that half way point just yet. But, this weekend we are off to Florence and I'm glad that we are taking the train this time. I'm ready for a weekend with no flying.