Monday + {Day Thirty-Five: Paris}

Back in Paris! We arrived around nine in the morning and got hideously lost trying to find our Airbnb. But we found it eventually, thankfully! Upon arriving, our lovely host gave us some slippers!

We didn't do much today because of the long night on the night train (Gooligan didn't sleep as well as I did). And then there was the little deal with the train giving us all-day motion sickness! Fantastic! All kidding aside, today was great. Our host recommended this pretty good Chinese buffet!

After the buffet, we came back to our place and kind of hung out while I wrote more of my novel and both of us watched television. Then we headed out to find some groceries for dinner and snacks for the rest of our trip.

We ate in the living room and talked to our hosts who were both home from work. I was shocked to learn from our hosts that they have never been to the United States because it costs too much even for a transit visa to somewhere in South America. (Just to have an hour layover in Miama would set them back almost two hundred euros each!) It really made me think about my American privilege. We have been to something like eight or nine countries (including brief transit stops, such as Iceland and Wales) and we never once had to pay for any kind of visa, even for longer trips. It's like no one thinks that we'd have any interest in immigrating anywhere but everyone thinks that the rest of the world is so eager to move to the United States. Like we don't have a lot of problems that make us a really unideal country at the moment.

But anyway, enough rambling. Our hosts fed us all these delicious Parisian desserts and then I collapsed onto the bed unable to move because I was so full! We went to bed early because we want to go to Versailles tomorrow!

Monday + {Day Twenty-Eight: Florence}

Today was our last day in Florence! Gooligan and I spent the morning filling out postcards and then we took the bus into town around midday. Our first priority was finding a post office. We sent off five postcards today! Apparently the Italian postal system is notoriously slow, though, so hopefully they won't take weeks to arrive at their destinations. We have another batch to send off, but the post offices close surprisingly early here (or at least the one we found), around 1:30 pm. We're taking a train to Venice at ten tomorrow morning, so I'm not sure we'll have time to drop them off before we're off to the next city. So hopefully, if we haven't gotten a card to you yet, we'll be able to send one from Venice!

After we mailed off our postcards, we picked up some groceries at the store for lunch: a baguette, a wedge of Brie, salami, some pasta salad from the deli, and two mysterious fried rice balls. Grocery shopping is so much more affordable than eating out, but the trade-off is that you either have to eat outside (if it's nice), eat while walking (if you can't find a place to sit), or eat (as we did today) at the weird awkward tables right next to the cashiers. At least it was inside, since today was on the cooler side.

Full of food and ready to go, we hit the streets once again. We passed this pretty cool piece of street art.

One of the most problematic aspects of our trip has been doing laundry. Everyone we're staying with has a laundry machine for the most part, but no one in Europe has a dryer. Which would be fine, ordinarily, except that since it's October and kind of wet or cold, it takes about four or five days for anything to dry. Since we're staying in most places between two and four days, it means that unless we do laundry right away on the first day, it won't be dry before we have to go. And even if we do laundry, whatever we wash won't be wearable for four days. Needless to say, it's a tough choice between smelling less-than-fresh and freezing. To make matters worse, we only have four warmer garments between us and right now three of the four are much too dirty to wear.

Thankfully there is an H&M here. Literally every other store we've passed has been in the hundred-euro range, but I found a basic black hoodie for twenty euros at H&M and tomorrow Gooligan and I plan on going to a laundromat in Venice.

The day was not a waste, however! We went to our favorite gelato place one more time. It will be hard to say good-bye to the lovely Il Edoardo Gelato Biologica! Gooligan loves the cinnamon flavor so much! 

After gelato, we meandered back home, stopping at the grocery store again to pick up some more food for dinner. We had a salad with the leftover Brie, roast chicken, and artichokes! Mmm. Then, a little while after eating, our host surprised us by bringing us two slices of the cheesecake from last night. Such a sweet man!

Anyway, it's off to bed, so we're well-rested for our next big travel day! Venice tomorrow and then Gooligan's birthday the day after that!

Sunday + {Day Twenty-Seven: Florence}

Today was a slow day! After spending the morning sleeping in, showering, and doing some homework, Gooligan and I headed down the hill on the bus to the city center. We were fairly hungry, so we headed to this sandwich shop for lunch right away. All'Antico Vinaio is this little sandwich shop that was so bustling the line was stretched across the street, several people wide. Ordering was a little chaotic, but for five euro each Gooligan and I got some sandwiches! Gooligan got Tuscan bacon, truffle spread, lettuce, tomato, blue cheese, and marinated eggplant or something, and I got spicy salami, artichoke spread, tomato, and some kind of cheese. The sandwiches were amazing. Completely worth the huge line we stood in.

We walked around Florence a lot today, just kind of window shopping and browsing stalls. It's such a great city to walk because everything is beautiful and nice and relatively clean. There are a lot of people on certain streets and today there was a fundraiser for cancer, so there were hordes of people wearing yellow t-shirts. At the time, we had no idea what it was for, since there was a wide range of ages and people who were wearing them. But there were a couple different races--one 14km and one 5km. Pretty neat! 

We also spotted this really cool carrousel while walking around. Around three, we decided to call it an early day. Gooligan and I walked around a ton the last two days and were feeling pretty tired.

We headed back to the train station, where we bought day passes for tomorrow. Day passes are good for twenty-four hours here after the first time you use them. In some places they expire at midnight.

Anyway, while buying our tickets I saw the BEST PRESENT EVER for Gooligan. It's her birthday on the sixteenth--just three short days away!--and I had been wondering what to get her. I can't say what it was yet, because sometimes she reads my blog, but it's pretty great!

After we got back to our place, we rested for a short time, then had dinner just past eight with our hosts. Dinner was amazing! It was nineteen euro each and we were a little unsure. It's more than we normally spend on food for one meal, but it was completely worth it. Our hosts were great and fed us so much. We ate a light amount of pasta, appetizers (chicken liver on bread and salmon on bread), a delicious chicken salad, grilled zucchini, spinach, wine, and a lemon liquor made from lemons in their very own yard! And then for dessert we had crème brûlé and cheesecake made by Mario himself! Perfecto. It was so nice to eat with a family, too. They have four sons between them, but only two live with them. Everyone was so nice and we had a lovely conversation about a huge range of things. Mario speaks the most English, I think, but the entire family understands a certain amount of English, and we had little problem communicating.

Overall, a very wonderful day and we look forward to our last day in Florence tomorrow. Mario gave us another map and circled some places worth checking out!

Friday + {Day Twenty-Five: Rome + Florence}

I woke up at midnight and realized that Gooligan still hadn’t gone to bed. I got up to investigate and she, Sarah, and Shannon were in the other room, desperately trying to call a taxi. Apparently not only was Shannon’s phone having difficulty connecting with Italian numbers, but whatever taxis they eventually did get ahold of simply didn’t have anyone free or working that early in the morning (they needed a taxi for 4:30).

Since our apartment was about five or six km from the main train station (where there are always a reliable number of taxis), we decided, worst case scenario, they’d walk and we’d walk with them. After all, Gooligan and I were leaving from Termini so it wasn’t out of our way—just really early—but we wanted to make sure they got their safely.

Shannon even enlisted extra help in finding a taxi, but to no avail. Not even the super expensive private car company they called could send someone at that time. Not sure if this is normal for Rome or what, but we all woke up and got ready to walk to the train station at two in the morning.

Before we left, Gooligan had a brilliant idea and looked online to see if there were any buses that ran that early (trams don’t start until 5:30). Eventually she found a night bus and we made it to the stop on time. (Not only are the night buses not really advertised, but their stops look a lot different than the bus stops we were used to seeing.) It was just a post with a tiny sign that said “stop” in Italian and had the acronym of the transit system on it.

But thankfully the bus did, in fact, stop when they saw us there and we rode it all the way to Termini where there were plenty of taxis waiting. Since we were really early, and since Termini station doesn’t open until 4:30), Shannon and Sarah waited with us for an hour. We really appreciated it since Rome is not exactly the cleanest or safest place.

But finally Termini opened and since Shannon and Sarah needed to catch a taxi at that time anyway, it worked out perfectly. We said our goodbyes and told them to email us periodically so we know they arrived safely.

Gooligan and I made our way into Termini station, where we found the only open coffee shop and ordered some pastries and hot chocolate. The guy behind the counter definitely gave me a latte instead of a hot chocolate, but after freezing outside, we were just happy it was warm.

After a quick pit stop, we found a warmer place to sit and Gooligan read some of the book we’re reading together out loud. While we were sitting there, so many people stared or verbally harassed us. This is one of the factors that made Rome probably our least favorite city on this whole trip: the aggressiveness of men. From our first horrible encounter on the train to Rome to our last day, the men here are simply reprehensible. Crowning jerk of the trip: the loudmouth we had to listen to blab about how stupid American study abroad girls are, especially when he dropped the c-word.

Gooligan and I have felt safe everywhere on this trip—even in Dublin, which is definitely a rougher city—but there are definitely certain cesspools of males in Europe.

Unless you are an art buff or an archeologist or a devout Catholic, frankly I have no idea why anyone would willingly come to this city. But at least it is behind us now: we are currently on the train zipping along to Florence.

Looking forward to ending this trip on a high note over the next few cities!

After we arrived in Florence, it was only around nine in the morning, and we couldn't check into our Airbnb until seven at night, so we dropped our bags at a manned bag desk at the train station. About five euro per bag for the first five hours, then seventy cents for every additional hour. In total it cost us fourteen euro to be bag-free in the city all day, which was a deal. We took our valuables with us, just in case, which meant our daypack was heavy enough to deal with as we took turns carrying it.

Our first stop was the Galleria dell'Accademia, the museum that houses Michaelangelo's David. Tickets were eleven euro each but completely worth it. I was blown away by the statue. There is, obviously, a lot of other amazing art in the museum--and a whole wing devoted to old instruments--but I didn't realize how big David was. We weren't allowed to take photographs but even if we had, I'm not sure the scope of the statue would be captured. My brain can't even wrap itself around how Michaelangelo sculpted something so much bigger than himself.

Anyway, after the Galleria, we stopped for lunch right next to the Duomo (we didn't go in, though, because we wanted to save something for another day). Then we got gelato (some of Gooligan's favorite so far!) and hiked over to the river, the old medieval bridge Ponte Vecchio, and up through Piazzale Michaelangelo, a square that has a fantastic view of Florence.

Gooligan and I sat on a stone wall for awhile and read each other parts of the book we're reading together, then made our way back to the train station with a stop at a grocery store for some snacks for the next few days.

After we picked up our bags, we caught the bus to our Airbnb. Since we were still early, we sat around in San Marco square for awhile killing time, ate a slice of awful pizza, and then made our way over to the bus.

Check-in went smoothly; we're staying in a detached room from our host family. The room is beautiful, there is a great mix of privacy but also someone around to ask for help/advice. The only slightly inconvenient thing is that the bathroom is up in the main house and you have to go up these stairs and through the kitchen, so at night or during meal times it's a little awkward, but they're been great so far!

Plus the bed is perfect. Almost too perfect. Prying myself out of it to do anything over the next three days will be an ultimate test of my willpower. Just kidding. But boy am I looking forward to sleeping!

Friday + {Day Eleven: Paris}

The good news: our taxi arrived on time! The bad news: apparently it was cash-only. We didn't have any cash, of course, because we were leaving the UK for the EU, so after he dropped us off at St. Pancras train station, Gooligan had to run inside and find an ATM to pay the man. Lesson learned for the future: ask ahead of time if taxi cab takes cards. This will be less of a problem from here on out, though, since we're going to be in the EU and dealing with euros for the rest of our trip.

The train to Paris was lovely. Taking the train is a nicer way to travel than flying: less panic over your bag because Eurostar doesn't have weight restrictions, less security, less hassle in general. Once we got on the train and it started moving, our ears popped from the pressure of going underground. In order to get to Paris from London, we went under the channel!

I slept through most of the train ride—which was actually an hour shorter than I thought it would be due to traveling into the next time zone—and when I woke up we were in Paris!

The Paris’s metro system is quite similar to England’s underground, which we had become quite proficient at, so finding the correct stop was relatively easy. Once we were there, we called our host. His brother came to meet us, walked us to our place, gave us our key, and told us to call him if we had any problems.

Since we were ravenous at this point, we Yelped a place to eat and headed off after a few minutes. The place we ate at—Bistro 31—was delicious. It was also filled with almost exclusively French people. The food was perfect. Gooligan and I split a delicious pasta dish.

After eating, we made our way to the Eiffel tower! Sometimes famous tourist attractions don’t live up to the expectation, but the Eiffel tower is amazing. I can’t believe that it only took a little over two years to build; it’s so huge and the idea of people climbing up so high in the air and building this giant metal structure is incredible.

Anyway, we bought tickets to go all the way to the top. For youth (under 26) it was only 13 euros a person. Not a bad deal at all, considering there are several different observation floors and you can walk all the way around the tower on each of them.

It took a lot of time to see the tower, though; we waited in line for several hours collectively, probably, but it was definitely worth it. The view of the skyline was so beautiful. The only shame, of course, is that by viewing it from the Eiffel tower, the Eiffel tower is missing from the view.

We wanted to go up at night originally, but we originally got in line at four and by the time it was getting dark (around 7:30) we were getting hungry and tired. So we stayed through the beginnings of dusk, saw a few lights around the city from the tower, and then came down. By the time we arrived at the bottom, the entire tower itself was lit up. Beautiful. We stopped to use the bathroom and when we came out, there was a rotating light display that made the tower look like it was sparkling.

Then, happy and content, we made our way home, stopping to pick up some wine. When we arrived home, we discovered that the nearest grocery store was around two miles away. Gooligan and I put our shoes back on and headed out again. Luckily being without a car is fine in Paris: we walked a few blocks to the Metro, hopped on one line, got off it about nine minutes later and walked a few blocks to the store! So convenient.

At home, we dined on salami, Brie, baguette, tomatoes, and wine, while swapping stories about how we met our respective partners. A great end to a great day!