The city of gondolas, spritz and glass

This past weekend was epic! The trip was definitely all packed into the short time of two days, but we got to do every major thing to do in Venice. Saturday morning, when we arrived we took a two hour guided walking tour around Venice. After we had a little more than two hours of free time to roam and explore on our own. Venice is known for their seafood because the city is built in a lagoon right on the ocean. My roommates and I got a huge plate of fried seafood and a glass of vino for lunch. It was filled with fried calamari, shrimp and even whole little fish. The little fish were still had their eyes and all. I could not bring myself to eat that yet but I loved the calamari and shrimp. It was a nice change from all the pizza and pasta I eat in Florence. After our lunch, we went on a gondola ride through the canals of Venice! This was such a cool experience. Our gondolier even sang to us! Everyone was staring, taking pictures and laughing with us as we were rowing through the canals of Venice. As our gondolier was singing he let one of my roommates stand on the back of the gondola with him and steer the gondola! We truly had the whole gondola experience!

That night we took the train back into Venice, since we were staying at a hotel right outside the city, and had dinner. At dinner we finally tried Spritz, "the Venetian drink." Spritz is a cocktail that Venetians usually drink around noon and is made up of one part white wine, one part aperol and one part sparkling water mixed with a little ice and an olive. It is one of the only Italian drinks that I have seen have ice in it. Italians do not like ice in their drinks because they believe it blocks their digestive system. Spritz is an orange drink and has a bit of orange/peach taste to it. Personally, it was not one of my favorite alcoholic drinks that I have tried since I have been here, (give me a glass of vino and I will be more than happy) but I had to try it since I was in Venice!

On Sunday, we took a boat to Murano, a small island off of Venice famous for their glass blowing. There we toured a glass blowing factory and witnessed a "glass mister" heat and transform a ball of glass into a bowl. Then he created a horse in literally less than two minutes! It was such a unique and cool process. Then we got back on the boat and made our way to the island of Burano. This island seemed kinda of deserted but it is known to be famous for all of the colorful houses. They are also known for their hand-crafted lace. After an hour of shopping around on the island of Burano, we boarded the boat and headed home!

In less than two weeks we have a week off for spring break and I am so excited because I will be traveling to Belgium first and then to Barcelona for the week! But... it is starting to hit me that i have already enjoyed half of my time here and after spring break I will only have the other half of my experience. My time here so far has truly gone by way too quickly! Life here is so rich, vivacious and abundant!

<3 Buonasera

 The church 

 Love locks <3

 Gondola ride 

 Sam and I on our way to the main island of Venice

 The roomies on the island of Burano 

The "glass mister"

 The Venetian drink: Spritz 

 Burano 

Lace masks 

Roma

This past weekend I went to Roma with my abroad program! It was a weekend trip so we stayed Friday, Saturday and came back to Florence Sunday. We saw basically every major sight in Rome. We saw the Trevi Fountain where I tossed my coin in over my left shoulder. One coin means that you will return to Rome another time in your life. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that that will happen. We saw the Spanish Steps, the American Embassy that is stationed in Rome, the Pantheon, Castel Sant'Angelo and lastly we visited the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum. The Vatican was my favorite part of the whole weekend! Did you know that Vatican city is legally its own country? They broke off from Italy because of religious purposes. Vatican City it is the smallest country in the whole world surrounded only by small gates in the center of Rome. The actual Vatican church was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen though and definitely the highlight of my weekend! The church was huge and so intricate on the inside. We spent two hours on the inside just looking and observing everything. It shocked me how detailed and gorgeous the architecture was. After that we visited the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted the whole chapel; it was amazing! I don't have any photos from the Sistine Chapel because they do not allow you to take photos. Sunday we visited the Colosseum, or what was left of it. Half of the top of the Colosseum fell down some years ago due to an earthquake. The seats on the inside were made of marble and now there are just huge holes in the walls and seats from where people dug out the marble and stole it. But they have reconstructed a small area of how the seating used to look and a small portion of the arena. I learned that the arena was covered in sand to soak up the blood from battles that took place at the Colosseum. All in all, Rome is beautiful and I would love to visit the city again for a longer time period.

The weather in Florence has been beautiful all week! Today it was in the 70s and we didn't even need a coat on to go outside! Saturday morning we are off to Venice for the weekend and will return back to Florence Sunday night!

Here are some photos from Rome this past weekend..

Godere :)

 Spanish steps

 Trevi Fountain

Trevi Fountain

 My lucky coin at the Trevi Fountain 

The Pantheon

Sam and I on the top of Castel Sant'Angelo 

In the Vatican

 Colosseum

Piazza Michelangelo

Ciao friends and family! I finally got my blog set up, so hopefully I can start updating it regularly. Today we went up to Piazza Michelangelo, which is the highest point in Florence and overlooks all of Tuscany. It was beautiful! After we enjoyed authentic Italian pizza at our favorite pizzeria, Gusta's, and topped the night off with delicious gelato! Tomorrow I am off to Roma for three days of adventuring! Until next time.. Ciao!

City view from Piazza Michelangelo! 

Duomo! 

Thumbs up!

The Arno river