Florence, Italy...through one eye

I've been living in Florence for about a week now, and I am loving it! I love the fact that I have a working kitchen, living room, and our own bathroom! Little luxuries. So far we have seen Il Dumo (and even climbed to the top of the dome!), Museo Dell'Opera del Duomo, Piazza SS. Anunziata, Galleria Dell'Accademia (where the REAL David statue is!), Bargello museum (features a lot of Donatello sculptures), and Boboli Gardens. I love the smaller size of Florence and the walk-ability of the city. I really like not having to take public transportation every single day like we did in Paris. I have also tried 6 different flavors of gelato: pistachio, coffee, dark chocolate, pannacotta (which is a type of Italian dessert), cookies, and some sort of rum delicious flavor. Another thing that I like about Florence so far is that it is MUCH cheaper than Paris...which is good for me since all my money went to having Guiness in Ireland. So you must be wondering why I am seeing Florence through one eye. And here's the story behind that: About two weeks ago, when I was back in London one of my eyes was a bit blurry and I just thought it was because of my glasses. So for most of my time in Ireland I wore my glasses because my contacts were being weird and I wasn't able to see well with them in. Once I got to Florence I finally decided to do something about my blurry eye and I found an English-speaking doctor. After an hour in the waiting room I finally got to see an English-speaking eye doctor! Which was great because I knew the general doctor wouldn't be able to help me much. He told me I had a scratched cornea and  gave me a prescription for some eye drops, which I took for about a day and a half before I had to go back to him to check my eyes again. So this morning I went all the way outside of town to the main Florence hospital, more specifically to the Clinica Occulistica. After wandering around parts of the hospital that I was pretty sure in America you would not be allowed into, I finally found my doctor's office. After looking at my eyes (AGAIN) he prescribed me new eye drops. Great. This entire situation happened to me 2 years ago in the same way. Swollen cornea, eye drops, eye drops didn't work, second kind of eye drops, then I finally was better. I hope that by next Wednesday (which is my next check-up with Dr. Lorenzo) my vision will be better indicating that my eyes are finally better! I will be relieved to get this whole situation over with! This weekend we have a 3-day weekend  in which I will be spending most of it at Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is a series of 5 coastal cities on the West Coast of Italy (by the Mediterranean ya'll). I'm very excited to spend the weekend soaking up the sun. I decided that I'm going to pretend that I'm going on vacation this weekend, even though this entire study abroad experience has felt like a vacation...almost! After all the stress of getting to Florence, finally getting my luggage, figuring out my hacked email (yes this happened to me as well), figuring out my claim to Wells Fargo about the charge on it from when an ATM in Dublin ate it (yes this happened too), and the entire process of trying to get my eyes better...I'm more than ready for the weekend! Bring on the sun! Ciao!

Ireland!

The past week I traveled to Ireland for my first independent travel period. I had a blast! After a couple of days in Dublin two of my best friends from high school came to visit me! I had a blast wandering around Dublin and trying new pubs and new foods! We saw Trinity College, the Molly Malone statue, Saint Stephen's Green park, and shopped on Grafton street...among many other things! I really enjoyed my time in Dublin to say the least. It was nice, once again, to be in a land of people who spoke English! Even though it was difficult to understand some people....I was also very surprised how everyone was so extremely friendly! That made our stay very enjoyable! We also did a day tour of Wicklow Park last Sunday which was a blast! We had a really nice tour guide and we saw the most incredible views of the national park that was just a bit south of Dublin. After about 5 days in Dublin, my friends and I took a bus to Galway, which is on the Western Coast of Ireland. I loved Galway! I wish I could have spent more time there. It is a smaller coastal city, and reminded me a bit of Duluth...but Irish! We had a blast exploring the shops in Galway and walking along the coast. We also did a day tour of the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. The Burren is an area south of Galway that is basically a rocky mountainous area with beautiful views! Here I did a cave tour, which was an okay experience. We also randomly did a Birds of Prey exhibition/zoo thing which ended up being really fun! We got to see really cool birds and I even got to hold my favorite bird ever, the barn owl! I loved it! So much fun. Then we went and saw the Cliffs of Moher on the Western coast of Ireland. Unbelievably beautiful! The cliffs were spectacular and I only wish we had more time there to explore! Overall I had a great day with the tour aside from the fact that I had to take the bus back by myself that night to Dublin to catch my flight the next morning. The flight to Florence was a crazy stressful experience trying to catch my connecting flight in London...but I will spare you the details and fast forward to now. I am safe and loving Florence! I got my baggage back yesterday after 3 hours of getting to and back from the airport. We had a walking tour of Florence today which was beautiful and helped me to get better acquainted with the city. Day off tomorrow! Our apartment in Florence is great and I'm really excited that we have a kitchen and our own washing machine! Ciao!

Arriving in Ireland

Thursday morning was my last morning in London...so sad! I had a wonderful time during the short 5 days I was in London, and I can't quite figure out if it was because London itself was such an awesome city or if I loved it so much because they spoke English. Anyways, I packed my stuff up and left our hotel at about 10 am yesterday and sat at Starbucks (and had their delicious Salted Caramel Mocha...try it!) for about two hours waiting to go to the airport to fly to Dublin! At about noon I decided to make the long trek to London's Heathrow Airport via the 'tube'...or London's subway system. That journey lasted a little bit longer than I thought it would, but thankfully I'm crazy and left ridiculously early! Phase 1: Get to the airport...complete! I found my airline check-in place with little trouble and I even got the OK for my large-ish bags to be carry-ons! So..now time for my least favorite thing ever...airport security. Well the day was going okay so far...until security. So I take my shoes off (when apparently nobody else had to) and was patiently waiting for my bags to come through the x-ray machine...and waiting...and waiting...then they flag people over to look at my stuff! I am about ready to freak out! I was talking to this guy next to me and saying how I was getting nervous and stuff and he kept reassuring me that it was fine, so I was like oh what a nice airport worker! So anyways, the airport security guy asked me what was in my backpack and I had to quickly search my brain and said, "I don't know...clothes?" "Any electronics?" "Uh...like an adapter....OH and a battery re-charger!" "That's probably it Miss"  Whew! All that work for a stupid battery re-charger that doesn't work at all with these European plugs! This didn't stop the airport security from completely taking all of the items out of my backpack and purse anyways and putting my bags through the x-ray machine again. Although I do have to say that all of the staff were really nice when I was completely clueless as to what was going on and trying to keep my sanity together! Even the nice man who was reassuring me when they were looking at my bags on the x-ray screen was very helpful...even when I saw that he clearly didn't work at the airport and was just waiting for his stuff to go through security...whoops! Phase 2: Go through airport security...finally complete! So now is the boring part where I wait in the airport for 2 hours until my departure time. The flight went well and was only 55 minutes! When I arrived in Dublin I was so excited but a bit nervous because I was supposed to find my friend who was coming on a later flight, which made me nervous again! After waiting for around 30 minutes she finally showed up and we found a double-decker bus that would take us to our hostel! At this point I'm starting to relax more and realizing how exhausted I am! So I power through my fatigue and we venture out to the oldest pub in Dublin/Ireland called the Brazen Head. I had such a great time! Way better than I would have thought! The pub was a traditional Irish pub with tons of pictures pasted to the wooden walls and a small traditional band playing awesome Irish music! After my first Guiness I didn't feel as tired anymore! ;) We met these two American guys who had just come from Oktoberfest in Munich and they were a blast! They were really funny and we learned they were from Indianapolis and Atlanta...or something like that. After they left we talked with these 3 older Irish gentlemen who were hilarious as well! (Even though I could only understand 1/3 of what they were saying...seriously) The old Irish guys we talked to were from Western Ireland, and kept talking about how they loved Garth Brooks...? Anyways, they were hilarious as well and I definitely consider my first night in Dublin a success! I cannot wait until Saturday when two of my best friends from high school are coming to stay with me here! I have been waiting for this Irish reunion for a long time now! Slán go fóill (shlahn goh foihll) or Goodbye for Now in Gaelic!

Harry Potter Studio Tour and Exploring London!

When I first arrived in Paris, I thought my dream was to see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum. And it was definitely a dream come true and such a memorable experience that I hope to remember for the rest of my life. But I do have to say that yesterday's excursion to see the Harry Potter Studio Tour topped the Mona Lisa (sorry da Vinci). So Sunday night my friends and I decided to see how to get to the studio for our tour. We found out that where we were ending class that day and where the Studio Tour was taking place were on two opposite sides outside of London. So I began a slight panic. We gave ourselves 2 hours to get to the studio...so we thought we would have plenty of time! Then we started to look into exactly how to get there, and soon realized that 2 hours was not going to be enough time! So Monday morning bright and early I called the Harry Potter tours to move our tour time to the last possible time of 4pm. Which ended up not being a problem, but would cost us 10 pounds. So 3 hours should be enough time...right? We sure hoped so. So then we ran into the problem of not having power or internet at our hotel...our teachers were not happy about this. And I had no way of printing out our email confirmation in order to pick up the tickets at the studio...which caused a lot more stress on me. After a bit of looking up stuff and calling people we found out it wasn't a problem that we didn't have the email print out...whew! So class began at 10 am leaving from the hotel. We seemed to be wandering aimlessly throughout London with our tour guide...when our teachers had had enough of this un-planned tour so we split from the tour guides (who set up our entire stay in London) and ended up being let out early to go to the Harry Potter tour. I was finally starting to feel excited about the tour and not nervous about getting there! Although our class was going out to 'see' the Olympic Village after we left, we weren't too sad about missing it considering our plans had changed and we weren't able to go inside the buildings. We later also found out they couldn't even get close to the Olympic Park and they had to view it from a viewing platform inside of some casino...? Poor planning on somebody's part there as well. The Olympic Park is supposed to be open to the public as a series of community centers, but apparently there is construction an we can't view the buildings or grounds yet :'( Anyways, back to Harry Potter. We took a series of trains and an awesome looking double-decker bus...and we were finally at Harry Potter world! I thought I was going to faint/cry/pee my pants from excitement!! After much freaking out (and not all of it was from me!) we went inside to get ready for the tour. We were about an hour early, but we were excited to wander around the amazing gift shop when we heard an announcement that they were letting people in early! Jackpot! And we go in line to find out our tour group is tiny! Double jackpot! So worth going through all the trouble to finally be at the tour! I can't go into too much detail about the tour itself considering I could write a novel about all the things I have seen! The highlights were seeing the Gryffindor common room, drinking butterbeer (amazingly delicious!), and seeing the many different miniature (and also really big) models of all the buildings at Hogwarts and the wizarding world. Such a great day afterall! Today was our first real day of class with our teacher in London. Today we started off walking across Tower Bridge and learning about the London City Hall designed by Norman Foster. We then continued our walk toward the Millenium Bridge and saw a great view of the Globe Theatre as well. We also stumbled upon a random street food market and I tried Falafel for the first time! It was actually really good and I really enjoyed all the food and the atmosphere at this outdoor market. We then continued our journey to the Tate Modern Art Museum. The building itself was interesting inside as it used to be a power plant of sorts, but the art, especially the human performance art, was really...interesting. Definitely not my taste. We then walked across Millenium Bridge (as seen in the 6th Harry Potter film being broken by the death eaters in the beginning of the movie). We then went to John Soane's museum, but pictures were not allowed inside. All I can describe it as an architectural artifact hoarder's dream. But the museum itself was actually incredible as well as the work Soane did to the interiors. To top the day off we did a quick walking tour of the Financial District and saw the Lloyd's of London building and the Swiss Re 'Gherkin' building. Very cool indeed. I have no idea what is in store for tomorrow as I am completely exhausted from the past two days. It's almost 9:30 pm here...and I am about ready for bed! Dublin on Thursday. Cheerio!

London: Love at first sight!

Saturday I arrived in London via the Eurostar train! So far it has been awesome here! I think a lot of it honestly has to do with being able to communicate with everybody! Speaking English and being understood is so nice right now! I am loving it. First day we traveled to our hotel, to find out we couldn't check in until 3...it was 11. So we hauled all of our bags around with us the rest of the day, but was definitely worth it to see a beautiful view of London from the London Eye. The London Eye is a giant 'ferris wheel' of sorts. Such great views! After such a busy day of traveling, we decided to eat Fish and Chips at a local pub called Bayswater Arms. Great fish and I even got to taste some local beer! Definitely the right way to start off our trip in London! Sunday was a free day for class, so with a bit of research we were able to figure out a pretty awesome itinerary. First thing Sunday morning we were up and ready to travel in the 'tube' to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards! Little did we know how long it would take to get there, and way under-estimated the amount of people that would be there too! Unreal how many people were there to see it! After we explored around this area a little, we were off to Harrod's Department Store! What a dream come true! The best department store I have ever been in, hands down. My mom would have died in the baking section. I almost died in the chocolate section. Luxury label after Luxury label here! And I didn't feel like an idiot wandering around in this huge department store, knowing I would never be able to afford the amazing items they sold...because there were tons of other people there doing the same thing! They also had a memorial to Princess Diana here as well because she was dating the son of the owner of Harrod's at the time. With the memorial is the glass she supposedly drank out of the night she died, and the engagement ring her boyfriend was going to give her. After a trip to Harrod's, we then traveled to Westminster Abbey for their 'Evensong' service at 3pm. What an unbelievable total experience. Even though I wasn't able to take pictures of the interior, I got a nice long look as the amazing boy's choir sang. I really enjoyed being able to understand the service for once! It definitely makes a difference. After our amazing day exploring London, we were ready to head home on the 'tube.' We were in such a hurry that...one of us ended up getting slammed in between the subway car doors! ...and you probably didn't have to guess to figure out that that lucky one was me! Slammed. Right between the doors. I didn't even think about it beforehand! I thought I was being a gazelle and leaping into the train just as the doors were about to close. And close they did. On my arms. I'm just glad it wasn't my head, or worse, my purse! I wasn't really hurt, and I don't even have a bruise! We were definitely ready for another drink at our favorite new place, The Bayswater Arms. I slept like a baby last night! Tomorrow I will try to recount my fabulous (and stressful) trip to the Harry Potter Studio Tour...if I have time! Amazing is all I can say! Cheerio!