Non-Stop Madness

The past two weeks have been full of all kinds of craziness. I was just traveling in Italy for 10 days, I met up with my friend Kate, traveled back to Berlin with Kate, completed an art presentation today, and am meeting my friend Christine tomorrow and dashing off to Prague until Monday. It comes as no surprise that the time has gone by quickly.

I stayed 6 days in Rome and did the typical tourist things: visited the Vatican and St. Peter's (including climbing up the dome), saw the Colosseum, played in the ruins of the Roman Forum, walked down to St. Paul's Basilica where St. Paul is buried, took pictures by the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain, strolled through the beautiful park near Villa Borghese (and visited the museum), and of course ate lots and lots of gelato. I mentioned before that Rome wasn't exactly what I expected and I still hold to that claim but what was nice about staying for 6 days is that we took our time. We were busy everyday but I never felt rushed to see everything.

One of my favorite things about Italy is the "fast-food" options. It was so wonderful when we would stumble upon a little pizza place where they cut the pizza to your desired size and weigh it to get a price. I would usually get a Margharita (just cheese) or spinach pizza. Our first day we went to lunch and got delicious paninis. I choose the mozzarella, tomato, and basil panini and it was so good. I really don't think you could ever go wrong with that combination. Ever.


And since we were on vacation, we ate gelato just about twice a day (which we justified by the amount of walking that we did). It was fun to try new places and flavors. My favorites include chocolate, straciatella (like chocolate-chip), nutella, panna cotta, and hazelnut. On one of our last days in Rome we looked in our guide books and found the supposed favorite gelato place of Pope John Paul II. It's hidden down a little street that was difficult to find but that was part of the charm of it. It was amazing!! The place offered about 30 different flavors and all of them were incredible. Two of my best flavors were banana (literally like eating a real banana) and cinnamon. That combo was delicious. And to top it off, they add a little fresh whipped cream.

On Wednesday night Kate flew in from Connecticut and on Thursday morning we headed to Florence. Florence was wonderful. It has the quaint feel of a Tuscan town on the river and I loved that. It was not nearly as big and urban as Rome and that suited me better. We spent a lot of time shopping, eating gelato, and visiting the important parts of the city: the Duomo (the church), the Uffizi gallery, the Ponte Vecchio bridge, and Piazze Michelangelo which sits above the city and offers a great view of the valley. We only spent 2 full days in Florence but we felt that we saw everything.

From there we traveled back to Rome and caught our flight back to Berlin the next day. I really enjoyed the warm and sunny weather of Italy and it's been difficult to adjust to Berlin's cold and wet weather. I think that I still prefer Germany to Italy because I feel like I fit in better with pace of life in Germany and also Germans' level of cleanliness. And now I'm off to explore Czech culture in Prague.