Spring Break in Italy

Wow, sorry this post took me so long to post. I went to Italy for Spring Break. It was extremely fun, interesting, beautiful and extraordinary. The first city I went to in Italy was Venice. This was probably my favorite of the towns I went to because of its beauty and peacefulness, even if it did not have as many "monuments" and the like. Venice also had the cheapest gelato of the places I went (I had this every day). I also rode on a gondola with the other 4 guys I went with on this trip.





St. Mark's Square












The Gondola Ride


Me with my new "Buff" hat that can turn into a neckerchief, mask, beanie, etc. (Used on the show Survivor)












The very nice hostel room that I got to have to myself for one of the nights.

Next, I went to Florence. This place was noisier and way more crowded, but it did offer some incredible museums and statues. This is the town with Michelangelo's David, which was way bigger than I thought it would be.



This is the Dome (Duomo) that I went up to the top of


In the inside


And from out the top







Like and ice cream scoop


Later, I went to Pisa with the leaning tower one early morning. Below are the pictures from that.








Rome was the last place I went in Italy and it was "colossal." The first day I was there, I went to the Vatican city. Here is where St. Peter's Basilica is as well as the Vatican Museum which contains the Sistine Chapel inside. Honestly, I was disappointed in this part of Rome because I did not like how the Catholic church had leeched all the money and stuff out of Rome into this one place. They even took from the Colosseum, Roman Forums, and Palatine Hill (which I went to on the second day) to make their church building look even better. My camera also went nuts on me when I went inside, so I don't have many pictures of the Vatican myself. My friend will send me his sometime and I will update this with them.



Outside the Vatican


One of the Vatican's Guards


The last picture I could take of the Vatican before my camera went haywire

The second day in Rome, I went to the Colosseum and the Roman areas near it. This was my favorite of the places in Rome because it felt really neat to finally see this stuff in real life. Below are some of the countless pictures I took of this.



What I thought was the Four Rivers Fountain, but it is not


This old man was dancing around enjoying life around this fountain. I'm guessing he is there every day because everyone around knew him and waved to him


The Trevi Fountain


Two of the guys Austin and Matt with me and the Trevi Fountain





You better know what this is...


The Group


Me with the Roman Forums in background


The Pantheon


Next stop...France and Switzerland!

Blenheim Palace and Barcelona!

Okay, 2 weekends ago I went to Blenheim Palace which is located in a village just north of Oxford called Woodstock. It was fun and really pretty. Below are some pictures I took there for you to understand the place I was at.








End of Blenheim Palace Pictures.

Now Barcelona was sure something! It was cool to see people driving on the right side of the road for once. At the airport I forgot to put my toiletries into a small baggie and as I was reaching in my bag to get them all and put them in a baggie, I cut my finger on my disposable razor (which was not taken from me when I got on the plane). At first I thought it was an extreme paper cut, but later I figured out otherwise.
When my friends and I got to Barcelona Wednesday night, it was around midnight or so (we lost an hour). We got on a sub and went to the district Les Corts where our hostel was. But we had trouble finding it and ending up asking a guy to direct us to it. Now Mom, you are going to go ballistic when you hear the rest of this story. This guy helped us to our hostel, and then we tried knocking on the door but we could not get in because we had arrived too late. So we were without a place to stay for the night. A little after realizing we needed to find somewhere else to sleep, the guy that helped us earlier ran into us again. He told us our options were go to the city center and find a hotel or hostel IF they are open then we can stay. The other option was to stay with him for the night. Now, this guy was NOT sketchy at all, and was the coolest guy we had ever met. We decided to stay with him for the night (Mom I know this is crazy). He had some chairs and other items that we helped him carry to his apartment. His apartment was nice and to buy it would cost him 300,000 euro, but he pays 900 euros a month to stay. We told him how much he could get for 300,000 dollars in the U.S. to stay at and he was amazed. The guy's wife was not home and he gave us 2 mattresses and a couch to sleep on. He even let us use his computer to look up information for Barcelona. Although, the idea of staying with a complete stranger at 2:00 am in the morning in the middle of Barcelona's stinky part of town may sound crazy, it worked out for the better. I was with 4 other guys and we felt completely safe with this guy.
The next day we got our hostel figured out and we had to pay for that night we missed. After that, we went down to a cooler part of town, met up with some of the girls who were staying elsewhere in Barcelona, and went on a fat tire bike tour. This tour was awesome. We went all over Barcelona on these funky shaped bikes following a really funny tour guide who liked to fool us into thinking the facts he stated were really what happened. Here are some pictures from the bike tour:



Our tour guide, JJ



The Mammoth I climbed on








After the bike tour, my friends and I went to the Picasso museum. This museum was not the greatest because Picasso's best stuff was not included. The museum barely did justice to such a great artist and I was disappointed. Later that night, my friends and I went to the Hard Rock Cafe. I sat next to a guitar signed by Weezer (if you know who they are), and there was an Aerosmith guitar on the way to the bathroom that was signed. After dinner, my friends and I wanted to sleep and so we went to bed at 9:00 pm haha.
Here are those guitars:






The next thing I did was go to Figueres, a town outside of Barcelona where Salvador Dali's museum is located. This museum was insane! It had all sorts of weird art and the museum was designed by Salvador Dali himself. ALSO, his most famous piece, Persistence of Memory was at the end of the museum. It is only in Barcelona for 3 months and my group was lucky to see it in this small window of a time. Below are some pictures from the museum.




Also later that day, my friends and I went to this HUGE fountain in Barcelona that plays music every weekend at 7:30 pm until 9 pm. I don't have pictures of it that are really good, but I will borrow some from a friend whose camera was able to capture this better. Here are the ones I have:




My friends Taylor and Melanie.

The last day of fun(not including the day we had to get back), my friends and I woke up and headed behind the area where the huge fountain is located and into an area where there was the 1992 Olympics (which the U.S. dominated). I have included a few pictures of that below as well.


My friend Matt posing like the statue.








When we were heading back, there was a marathon beginning near the fountain. Two of my friends and I jumped into the race and ran a little bit of it. I have a video I included below that is of us starting it:




Later that day, a bunch of the groups that went to Barcelona met up and we went to a beach outside of Barcelona (I will edit this and add the name of it later). It had been really warm until this last day, but it was still really fun. We played Frisbee on the beach and one of my friends jumped in the Mediterranean and swam for a bit. He froze his butt off and somewhat regretted doing that. I also was running along the beach and I cut my foot on some glass. I cleaned it off and kept it covered the rest of the trip because it would be awful to get an infection, especially from Spain.