Week 4

This past week has been full of relaxation and organization. The Italians do this weird thing where they give you holidays off, but then they make you make up the holidays at some point in the semester. This Friday was one of our makeup days for the semester, so unfortunately that meant no weekend travel for us and instead a nice Statistics class on Friday afternoon. The week leading up to this Friday was pretty typical. I had the chance to get all my homework in order and recover after my long weekend travel to Nice, while at the same time get everything in order to head off to Greece this Friday! On Tuesday night, it was a friend who we met here's birthday so my five roommates and I all went out with a big group to celebrate. The rest of the week was pretty much class and homework. All of my roommates spent the weekend in Rome so we hung out together and got the chance to explore the city a little bit more. On Saturday night, we all had been lounging around for most of the day and for some reason everyone was craving some Mexican food so we "hiked" across the city down by the Colosseum to find probably the only taco bar in the whole city of Rome;) and I didn't even end up having tacos (the nachos sounded too good to pass up). After our Mexican food overload, we just wandered around the city for awhile and explored. It's so crazy how different this city is at night versus going out in the daytime. Sunday, pretty much everyone in our apartment was getting down to business and we all spent the day camped out in our common area studying, writing papers or for one of my (lucky) roommates, watching Netflix. I personally had the privilege of spending the day working on Statistics homework along with studying for a Lifespan Development test that I had to take today (I got an A by the way!) All in all, it was a pretty lowkey week, sorry I don't have more fun, entertaining stories for you. I pretty much just spent the week and weekend, working on homework, exploring, getting all of my schoolwork prioritized and my to-do list smaller. Missing everyone back home and a special birthday shoutout to Ryan (HAPPY 21ST!!!)

Weekend in Nice, France//Monte Carlo, Monaco

My first weekend in a different country is officially in the books. Lea and I returned this morning around 10 am from our weekend in Nice, France with a day trip to Monte Carlo. We left late Thursday night and caught our flight. It was a bit of a hassle as it was our first time figuring out how to get to the airport from our apartments. At one point, we were walking up the escalator to get to our gate and I tripped UP the escalator and cut my elbow, so as we're standing in line to board our plane, my elbow was bleeding a lot. The flight from Rome to Nice was only 50 minutes so it went by super quick and it was really pretty to fly over the Mediterranean at night and see all the city lights lining the coast line. Once we got off at the airport, we had to figure out how to use the public transportation to make our way into the city center to get to our hostel. It actually wasn't too hard and it was super cheap. The hostel was a pretty interesting thing as we were sleeping in a room with 11 other girls who we had never met. We ended up meeting some pretty cool people though, especially a couple Australian girls who had been traveling for the last three months to avoid the Australian winter! Once we got to the hostel, it was pretty late so we just called it a night and went to bed. The next day, we woke up early and got out to explore the city. We walked along the beach, which was about a 5 minute walk from our hostel and just looked around. We ended up seeing a waterfall from a distance and decided to hike up to find it and it was such a cool thing. We found the waterfall AND a super cool view of the city and the sea. After our little hiking excursion, we went in search of lunch. We ended up at a pretty cool little bistrot where we got these really yummy, really big pizzas and mojitos.  After our lunch, we went and shopped around for a bit and then explored the city center a bit more before heading back to our hostel to take a quick nap. After our little power nap, we went back out for dinner. We had wanted to eat at a restaurant right by the sea, but it was a little overcast a sprinkling on Friday night, so nothing was really open/busy. We ended up at an American style restaurant that was surprisingly really popular. After getting really excited about the salmon dish on the menu, we were informed when we tried to order it that they were all out of salmon and we had to choose something else. I ended up getting tacos, which even though we were at an American style restaurant, definitely did not taste like normal, American tacos. Nonetheless, they were still pretty good. By the time we finished up with dinner, it had begun to downpour, so we hung out at the restaurant and waited it out before heading to our hostel for the night. The next morning, we woke up really early in order to catch a bus to Monte Carlo for the day. It was actually really cheap to get there (1.50 euro each way!) It's about a 45 minute bus ride, but Lea and I decided to get off halfway at a little village called Eze Village, known for having an amazing view of the sea and the bays. We did a little of hiking and ended up at a little cafe where we got crepes for breakfast before heading farther into the village to find the exotic gardens where, everyone was right, they had an amazing view of the sea. The pictures definitely don't do it justice, it was so beautiful. After that, we headed back down to the road to catch the bus to go all the way into Monte Carlo. Once in Monte Carlo, we first stopped at the Monte Carlo casino - definitely not like Fortune Bay! It was so pretty inside and they don't allow gambling before 2pm. After a quick look at the casino and all the expensive Ferrari's parked outside of it, we started our walk around the port to get to the other side of Monaco. We took our time walking and had some stops along the way, like a Monaco burger place to try out their burgers and fries. Not too bad but definitely not like Gordys! We stopped at a little bar place right on the harbor to grab a brownie for dessert and then continued our way along the sea. We saw so many little beaches and these bleachers where people just jump into the sea. As we made our way to the other side, we ended up at the Prince's Palace and did a little shopping in the area around there before heading back to catch the bus and get back to Nice. Once back in Nice, we headed straight to dinner and went to a restaurant right by our hostel where we FINALLY found our salmon! Honestly, it was some of the best salmon I've ever had. It tasted phenomenal. After dinner, we walked around the shops enjoying our last night in Nice and ended up at a little bakery where I got some churros for dessert and Lea got some cotton candy the size of her head. After the bakery, we finished up our dessert and headed back to the hostel where we packed our bags and headed to bed before getting up at 4am to make our way to the airport this morning for our 7am flight. Though only there for a few days, we saw so much of Nice and Monaco and it makes me so excited for all of the trips I have planned for this semester. All in all, it was a great weekend trip. 

Beach 5 min for our hostel

Waterfall that we hiked up to

Pizza lunch

view from the Eze Village exotic gardens

Monte Carlo casino

Inside the Monte Carlo casino

A couple of the yachts in the harbor outside Monte Carlo

Cement "beach" where people would jump into the sea and swim

Prince's Palace//Monte Carlo

View from the Prince's Palace

Salmon dinner!!

UPDATE

Sorry, I haven't posted in awhile, things have been crazy busy with school picking up and figuring out how to balance classes while still finding the time to explore. So, a lot has been happening since I last posted to my blog. On Sunday, September 3rd, Lea and I took a day trip to Naples and got a chance to explore the city which was super super cool. It's right on the sea so the view was amazing and the weather wasn't crazy hot! While in Naples, we got to check out the Castle of Saint Elmo, which is a castle that sits on top of the city and overlooks pretty much everything. It was about a 45 minute hike filled with constant incline but it was completely worth it when we got up to the top and had the best view of the city of Naples. Last week was pretty normal between going to classes, doing homework and cooking meals. I got all my trips booked with both Lea and our other roommates, so I'll be traveling around pretty much every weekend for the remainder of the semester. Lea and I actually leave tomorrow for our first out of the country trip. We're headed to Nice, France and are going to spend a day in Monte Carlo as well. As for my other trips, I'm headed to Athens, Paris, London, Krakow, Barcelona, Madrid, Amalfi Coast and Tuscany but not in that order! This past weekend, my roommates and I made the trip to Florence to check out Brunelleschi's dome and the statue of David. It was such a pretty city and actually reminded me a lot of Rome in the way that it's set up, it's just not quite as big. We only were there for one night, so two days but I'm kind of glad because it's a pretty pricy city! We went out on Saturday night to explore the city and ended up coming across a bar that had a bunch of college t-shirts hung up all over the walls. They had a Creighton one hanging up, so the owner took it down and let us sign it which was super cool! Overall, it was a really great weekend trip! We ended up getting heart shaped pizzas from a little pizza parlor and they were AMAZING. Probably the best pizza I've had yet since being here. Since getting back, I've just been focusing on schoolwork this week and looking forward to this weekend. Classes have been going well and I really like them for the most part (except maybe not statistics all that much). Right now, I'm about to head out for dinner with my roommates to some local Japanese restaurant that is supposedly super good so I'll have to let you know how it goes. I promise I'm going to be posting more now that I have more of a schedule going and I will post pictures below so you can check out the start to my weekend travels!

P.S. Fun fact about my trip to Naples, I got attacked by a dang pigeon while I was there. I was sitting outside at a restaurant for lunch and all of a sudden something was pecking at my toe and trying to eat it so I kicked my leg and looked down and there was a pigeon just standing by my foot looking at me! So many pigeons here, it definitely takes some getting used to, and it doesn't help that they all seem to have no fear when it comes to being around humans.

Naples 

View of Naples 

Standing in Castle of Saint Elmo overlooking  Naples

Brunelleschi's Dome in Florence

Signing the Creighton shirt in Florence