Sometimes it Hurts...

It’s a weird feeling I have been having lately. This semester back at UNCG has been one of my best yet. Yet one of the most difficult as well. I really feel at home here in Greensboro and I not only do I serve an awesome God, have wonderful friends in my life, but I have also met a really awesome guy. I really like being in Greensboro. I want to spend the next year and a half I have here enjoying every moment. Having as much fun as possible. Reminding myself that school does not have to be number one or even number two in life. That passing is important but A+’s not so much.

I said at the beginning of this semester that I would focus on having fun. And have fun I have done. But I have also had a lot of schoolwork to get done. Two speaking intensives and a writing intensive is not joke. Oh yeah, and I’m learning Spanish (doing pretty well at it I must say), and I’m a Peer Leader and I’m a Think Tank participant. Now, with barely any time left in the semester, I do feel like I slightly over-committed myself on the school side of things, and I’m looking at how to go forward into next semester, but that is another conversation for another day.

But the main thing that has made this semester difficult is missing. Missing England. Missing Seattle. Missing friends. Missing family. Missing traveling. I want to do all of these things. But I want to be here. I want to be in Greensboro. How do I explain that to people? I do I even make sense of it on my own? Right now at this moment I miss England so terribly much. I miss Ella, Amy and Kayleigh, the wonderful girls I became friends with over there. But I also think about this afternoon when I got to spend time with Kenny. And this evening when I got to spend time with Amanda. Those times were awesome and I really enjoyed them and I know if I left, I’d miss these things just as much.

I guess life is all about finding a balance of all the things you enjoy and love. But why are all of the places, people and things I love so far away from each other?

Having said that it’s such a blessing that I have had all of these experiences to live in different time zones, and to see different things and I would not trade them for the world. Even if I miss them so much I hurt.

I just want to focus on living in today and having as much fun as possible.

Thoughts...

Okay, so I fail. I really really fail. I have been back in America for 102 days and I finally finished putting my pictures up. Yep. I fail.

I think part of the reasons I have put it off so long is because I did not want to accept the fact that my trip is over. I try so hard not to forget it all. I want it to go on forever. This summer kinda sucked. I was so angry that I was no longer in England.

I'll try to post more about my thoughts and feelings about the end of my time their and my re-entry back into America.

I will say though, that now the semester is getting going, I've really gotten into the rhythm of things and I'm getting to spend so much time with friends. I'm incredibly happy and I cannot wait to see what this school year has in store for me.

Something super important to me is the fact that I will never stop going on adventures.

Paris Was...

...Not what I was expecting.
It certainly did not capture my heart like it has done for countless others. That being said, I still enjoyed my trip, but I'm glad I was only there for a short time and I have no huge urge to go back (Venice and Edinburgh however are both calling my name).

Saturday, May 17

The flight and customs went well, then I had to buy a bus ticket. I was under the impression that I could buy one from a machine with my credit card or cash, but the machine only took European credit cards. After a brief search, I found a desk to buy a ticket at and made my way to the bus stop. Paris was hot. Really, really hot. I was very glad that the bus was air conditioned. I found my hostel easily, even though it was out of the way. It was a nice hostel for the price. I found a place around the corner to eat dinner, I  got a Caesar salad- it was too hot for anything else. Across the street was a bakery and I got the yummiest dessert. It was really light and fluffy with strawberries but it wasn't cake. Who knows what it was, I don't read French. haha. My room was on the 5th (6th if you are American) floor and I had to climb A TON of stairs, so I avoided that as much as I could. I went to bed pretty early, because I had plans to get up early to make the most of my only full day in Paris.

Sunday, May 18

I took the bus to the Louvre nice and early. I wasn't sure how busy it was going to be so I arrived an hour before they opened. The courtyard out front was so empty, it was beautiful and actually quite peaceful. I was second in line, but by the time they opened the line behind me was very long. I went and got a audio guide, and I'm glad I did because the signs were all in French (in Italy, the museums had Italian and English). The main reason I decided to go to Paris at all was because I really wanted to see my favorite piece of art which is in the Louvre, The Nike of Samothrace. Well, I went off in search of that piece first and I find out it has been closed for the past few months and won't open until the end of summer for restoration and research. I was crushed. That was one of the main reasons I went and I didn't get to see it. You would think that when you visited that piece of art on their website an alert would come up, but nope... I had myself a little pity party in the bathroom, then I went on to try and enjoy the rest of my time in the Louvre. I stopped by the Mona Lisa to see what the hullabaloo is about. I still don't like it. The museum was so calm at first, but by the time I left at 11lish it was crazy and the tourists were started in get on my nerves. I walked to the Eiffel Tower and I realized I didn't need the directions I had printed out. You could see I most of the way along the river. When I first saw it I  started to laugh. I just couldn't believe I was in Paris. I found the line to climb the stairs and bought a ticket, then started the accent. The stairs weren't bad at all, but the heat did make me wish I had bought water before heading up. I ended up getting some at the 2nd "floor". The wait for the lift to the top (and back down) was ridiculous and they really could have organized it better. The view was amazing! You could see for ages. Once I made it down I got the cheesiest ham and cheese crepe (per Erin's request)and ate it on the lawns out in front of the tower. A man walked by while I was chowing down and said "bon apitet!" I thought that was pretty neat. I got an older couple to take my picture and I am so glad they did, they turned out really well. I started heading back towards my hostel and found a Starbucks to use the bathroom and then I decided to turn around and head towards a church I wanted to see called Sainte-Chapelle. It was a long walk, but wow, Sainte-Chapelle was amazing! So breathtaking. The whole church is made of stained glass. The lady at the ticket desk gave me the price for EU students, which was so nice. The Louvre didn't give me that! I got there just in time, by the time I left they had closed the gate! I started wandering towards Notre Dame which is just around the corner to take some pictures and I ended up finding a pet and flower market. I would have loved to have bought some plants there. Out front of Notre Dame a food festival type thing was wrapping up and I got a 2ft long baguette for 1 euro 50! The cheapest thing in all of Paris it seemed. I rode the Metro back to the hostel then grabbed some more water to go with my baguette dinner.

Monday, May 19

I got up and finished packing then grabbed breakfast downstairs before heading to the Jardin Luxmbourg (big gardens where the senate is housed) to see the Statue of Liberty. My feet hurt so bad and all I wanted to do was sit forever. The Statue of Liberty was small and I was really surprised! For some reason I thought it was the same size as the one in New York. I sat in the sun for a while and wandered around looking in shop windows nearby before deciding go ahead to the bus station that takes you to the airport even though it was a bit early. It ended up being a good thing because there was mall with free wi-fi across the street. It also had shops I enjoyed more so than the area I was at before. I slept most of the bus ride to the airport. Then the airport made me mad because it was really hot inside and the drinks were really expensive. The flight back plus the bus to Keele were really easy and uneventful.

Rend Collective Concert in Belfast

Thursday May 15th and Friday May 16th

On May 15th I left Keele at 10:30 pm to go to the bus station to take a bus to the Manchester Airport. I had a flight to Belfast early the next morning before the busses started running. I got to the airport around 1:30 after my National Express bus was 30 minutes late. I found a dark area with some benches to lie down on and I got some rest, but around 4am the airport got very loud! Who would have thought. I found a Café and got some tea and waited until my flight. The flight ended up being very quick, but the flight attendants were much to cheery for the hour. haha.

I took a bus from the airport to the Belfast city center and found my hostel easily, dropped off my bag and met up with Erin. We went by St. George's market, but since it was a weekday, the vendors had more food and veg than the arts and crafts we were looking for. Luckily a new market had just opened up for the summer season in front of the city hall. There was a lot of really neat food vendors there and we ended up getting some German Braughtworst. It was really good, but super filling. We ended up eating the braughtworst and feeding the buns to the pigeons. It felt really warm to Erin and I, but really it was only about 69 degrees. We wandered around the shops in the city center and I ended up leaving my phone in a bookstore (Eep!), but thankfully it was still there when we retraced our steps. We headed over to Queen's University (where the concert was being held) and hung out on their front lawn and used their Wi-Fi. Their grass was pretty much perfect. By the time the concert was supposed to start I was so exhausted and ready to crash, but once Tenth Avenue North came on, I forgot all about that. Both Tenth Avenue North and Rend Collective were so good. We were right up at the front and we got an amazing view of the whole performance. We certainly were so blessed to be able to worship our Lord in such a great setting with everybody else there. After the concert, I went back to my hostel and got a good sleep before heading to Paris the next day

The Royal Ballet

Thursday, May 8

The train to London was cold and it was raining outside (now that I typed this I wondered where else it would be raining? On the train? I hope not). But we were determined to make it a good day!
We went to the box office to pick up our tickets and the man at the desk seemed a little surprised that we had such good tickets on the closing night. Yes, we are students and yes we each paid our left arm for the tickets, but hey! Don't underestimate us. We had sort of planned to go to the British Museum, but we ended up having a lot of fun just wandering around Covent Garden. We brought our dresses and makeup to change into and we ended up using the dressing room in H&M. The guy was really nice to let us use them. We went to Garfunkel's for dinner and both ended up getting cheeseburgers. They were so good, even if a little messy. But hey, we made it work!
The ballet was so wonderful. I had never seen anything like that before. The talent was amazing. The show was called 'A Winter's Tale' and it was one of the ballet's original works. The story line was really good. What really blew me away was the set in Act 2. I really think I would excel at something like set design. Picking a major sucks...
After the show we went to the coach station and caught a bus back to Keele. By the time we got back we were exhausted and it was so wonderful to sleep!!

When in Rome...

Monday, April 28

We made it to Rome in the early afternoon and went to got check into our hostel. The hostel I booked for us in Rome ended up being really nice! We arrived in Rome earlier that we thought we would and after a quick look at a map we realized how close we were to the Trevi Fountain and a church I wanted to go see, so we set off into the city. We were in Rome soon after the Pope sainted some people and the city was insanely busy! There were thousands of people at the Trevi Fountain and it got Erin and I thinking - why is it so famous?! We read about it on Wikipedia and we still don't really know. The church I wanted to visit is called the Church of San Carlo of the Four Fountains. I learned about it in Art History classes and thought it was just so beautiful. It is one of the more overlooked churches because it is so small, but the architecture is unbelievable. I'm so glad I got to go!

Tuesday, April 29

We went to the Coliseum and the line was so long! You are told over and over how big it is, but man, it is HUGE! I just couldn't get over the fact that something so massive yet so intricate was built so many many years ago. We wandered in the Roman Forum next and ended up getting a little lost. We were so hungry and wanted to get out of the ruins! We headed towards the Pantheon and looked for food along the way and we ended up popping into the most amazing baguette place. We were so hungry and it just tasted perfect. We both got ham and cheese with truffle dressing. The place was a little hole in the wall and we had to point at the menu to order, but that's the best kind of place isn't it!
We made it to the Pantheon, and again, I was blown away by it's massive size. When you see pictures of these places in class, you really have a hard time getting an idea of the massive scale. We went to Piazza Navolo and got some gelato to enjoy while people watching before heading back towards the hostel.

Wednesday, April 30

We took the Metro across the river to check out the Vatican. We left the subway and started to follow the HUGE crowd of people. We couldn't figure out why there were so many people on a random Wednesday morning. Then we saw the pope. That's right. There he was. Riding on the car thing out in the open. I think we were about 10-15 feet away from him. Purely accidental, but pretty cool if you ask me. We then went to wait in line for the Vatican Museums. We really should have bought our tickets online. The line to get in was so long. Ugh. In the museum they had some really great contemporary and modern art pieces I didn't expect. They all had religious themes, but had a modern take. That was definitely my favorite part of the Vatican. We also saw the Sistine Chapel which was actually bigger than I thought it would be. I had been told it was smaller, and I guess if you compare it to the average sized church of the era, it was pretty small, but still, very large with really high ceilings. We went to go get in line to enter St. Peter's because I wanted to climb to the top of the dome. While waiting in line I mailed a postcard to my family from the Vatican post office. I thought that was pretty neat! The dome was great! A lot more people were climbing it than I thought there would be. After all the craziness at the Vatican, we went back towards our hostel and met up with Erin's friends Kat and Brandy from Northern Ireland. It was neat that we were in Rome at the same time! The dinner was very fun and lighthearted.

Thursday, May 1

We didn't have any real plans for today, so I started googling to see what I could find. We found this place called the Rome Cat Sanctuary. A few years back, some ladies converted some ruins (the temple where Brutus stabbed Julius Caesar) into a sanctuary for the stray cats of Rome. They started fixing them and treating them for any sicknesses they may have. Now the sanctuary is open to the public for people to come and play with the cats. Also, you can adopt the cats - actually bring one home, or virtually by donating a certain amount each month. And crazy enough, it was right across the street from the amazing baguette place! We went and grabbed some lunch then visited the cute little kitties.
On our walk to the cat sanctuary we saw some signs for the Rome Zoo and Erin hadn't been to a zoo since she was a toddler, so we found some wifi, located the Zoo and off we went! It was really neat to see all the animals. Zoos are still fun even in different countries. Much to Erin's delight we saw some giraffes. I really loved the baby goats. So cute!

Friday, May 2

Today was spent travelling back to Keele. Erin joined me and stayed for a week before heading back to Northern Ireland. All in all, Italy was great, but I definitely am so glad I studied abroad in England instead. The pasta and pizza and gelato were wonderful and I miss it so much. Italy really knows how to do it.

If you would like to see pictures from all my travels before they go online here, go check out my Facebook!

San Felice - A Small Beach Town in Italy

Friday, April 25

In the morning we took a train to Latina, the closest place to Sabaudia (where we thought our beach hotel was). I had found online that there was a bus that went from the train station to the town, but when we got to Latina, nobody spoke English and there were no busses to San Felice (the town next to Sabaudia where our hotel actually was). We ended up having to use our translator app to tell a taxi driver where we needed to go and took a very expensive ride through the Italian country side. It was painful to spend that much money on a taxi, but I am so glad we got where we needed to go safely.
After arriving at our hotel we walked along the beach and checked into our hotel. The staff upgraded us from a Park-view room to a Sea-view room. It was very nice of them. We also ended up with a balcony. We wandered around the town, got some gelato and pizza for dinner and just relaxed for the rest of the day.

Saturday, April 26

We slept in a little then went to the beach. The water was too cold to swim, but the sun was warm and our hotel had lounge chairs out on the beach for the guests. It was amazing to be lazy and read my book. It seemed unreal that I was on vacation in Italy!

Sunday, April 27

It rained… We took that as an opportunity to lay in bed, watch programs and read our books all day. It sucked that we couldn't go to the beach, but hey, after a crazy week of travel, it was good to rest in a comfy bed. For dinner we went to the beach restaurant to get a pizza and while we were waiting for it we walked along the ocean because it had stopped raining. Then Erin dared me to run into the sea, and so I did it. The people who worked at the restaurant thought I was crazy, but hey, I never know when I’ll have the chance to go into the Mediterranean again!

Monday, April 28

The hotel staff was super nice and when they went on their morning newspaper run, they also bought our bus tickets to Rome for that day. That meant we got to sleep in a little bit longer before having to leave. The bus ride was… Interesting. The bus had seen much better days and the Italian roads are full of potholes making it a very bumpy ride. We made it to Rome though and took the Metro to the station closest to our hostel.

Venezia

Wednesday, April 23

We woke up at 1am. Yes. 1am. We had to check out of the hostel, catch a city bus to the coach station, a coach to the airport and then a plane to Venice. After lots of travel and lots of naps in weird places, we were in Venice by 9:30. Then we had to take another bus to Mestre, the city next to Venice we were staying in. We walked to our Hotel and it turned out to be really nice! If you are going to Venice anytime soon, stay in Hotel Guidi. The staff speak English and its only a 10 minute bus ride to the center of Venice.

After finding food, we took a nap during Siesta time – pretty much everything in Venice closes from 1 – 3:30 so the workers can go home, eat and rest. I don’t know what in the world America is thinking, but I wouldn’t complain a bit if I was told to go home and nap!

We went into Venice in the afternoon and just wandered around exploring. It was so warm compared to England. The sun combined with 70 degree weather made me put on a skirt and a tshirt. It was a very welcome change. I really do prefer the warm weather.

 

We found strawberries, kiwi and paninis for dinner and it was such a good decision. The fruit here is so fresh and so sweet. We called it an early night and watched Eat, Pray, Love while eating dinner.

Thursday, April 24

The hotel had breakfast for us and that was a nice change. We had some pastries and yogurt before heading off for the day. We walked all the way across the city to San Marco Piazza so I could climb the Clock Tower. (After climbing St. Paul’s and Arthurs’ Seat, I have decided I want to climb as many things as I can on my travels!) When we got there we found out you can only take the elevator up. I was pretty disappointed, but I’m sure Erin was cheering on the inside. The view from the top was amazing. You could see the whole city! We happened to be up there when noon hit so we got to see the bells in action! It was really neat.

We went in search of Calzones once we made it to the bottom. That calzone was so good. Erin and I both agreed that we will never be able to eat an American Calzone again. We took a WaterBus back up the Grand Canal. As was the rest of the city, it was extremely beautiful. We got some more Strawberries, then went back to Mestre to rest.

Then we went out into Mestre to get pizza for dinner and to see how far away the train station was because we needed to go there the next morning to go south.

So far, Italy has been great. More people speak English than you would think, and it’s amazing how much you can understand from context clues. Currently it is Friday the 25^th and I am sitting on our train to Sabaudia. I am so glad we have almost a week left because I don’t want to leave just yet! (And I don’t want to have to go back to school to work on essays)