Today Jacob turned 20! It's crazy to think that this is his 4th birthday that we have celebrated together. I don't think that a year ago today he thought he would be celebrating his 20th birthday in Scotland! We also went to Spain this past weekend which I haven't gotten to blogging about but I will soon.
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday Dear Jacob
Happy Birthday to you!
Tonight I took Jacob to a shop called Chocolate Soup and treated him to a brownie sandwich which he seemed to enjoy. I offered to take him to any restaurant he wanted or make him anything he wanted and what did he choose? Macaroni and Cheese. Sadly it didn't surprise me one bit, hahahaha. My parents brought us Kraft Mac&Cheese from home when they visited so that's what I made Jacob today for his birthday! The Mac&Cheese here doesn't taste nearly the same at home. Again I just want to wish Jacob a Happy 20th Birthday! Love you!
Love Hayley
Monday, April 4, 2011
Spring Break Part 3 - Florence/Firenze as they spell it
Firenze/Florence
March 23rd
We weren’t supposed to leave the train station until 11:11 a.m. but we ended up being at the train station 2 hours early. We didn’t have a specified time that we could use our ticket so we ended up boarding an earlier train. They never checked our tickets on the train ride which kind of made me mad because we basically could have taken this train for free, along with everyone else on the train. Again for this hotel we had no idea how to get there from the train station. Thank goodness for TripAdvisor.com because I read reviews before we left stating that bus 22 was the bus to take in order to get to the hotel. So we decided that we would try it out and watch the stops, hoping that we would get off at the correct one. We ended up finding our stop just by watching the street signs which was a big relief.
We arrived early so we were worried that we wouldn’t be able to check in. Thankfully our room was ready at the Diva Hotel so we went up to our room and dropped off our things. We then took the city bus back into Florence and decided to walk the streets. We went to Florence not knowing what there was to do there. We heard it was gorgeous so we just picked it as a place for our spring break. When we started walking the city we found the Duomo and walked in to find ourselves standing in a beautiful church, with many people lighting the offertory candles. We could have paid money to go to the top of the dome on the Duomo which looked over the city but we were too cheap to do it.
We ate a cheap lunch by getting grab and go salami sandwiches from a little café on the street. We ate dinner at a nice restaurant where we both had tortellini with meat sauce and bruschetta for 23 Euros. We found more gelato in Florence but it was much more expensive than we had seen it in Rome or Pisa. Some were charging 15 Euros for the big cups. Jacob found a place serving “Mars” and “Kinder” flavor, (both candy bars) and spent the money since his goal was to have gelato every day of spring break. It also reminded him of his Grandpa Peebles because he loves Mars bars. I love how everywhere we went on spring break we were always reminded of our families.
We watched BBC news that night and watched all about the Libya, Syria and Japan crises. Also the bombing at the Jerusalem bus station. It made me nervous specifically because we had been using bus stations all during spring break and things can happen at any time. Also one of the main points of planes leaving for the airstrike over Libya was from Italy. I guess I never really noticed how close Italy was to Libya until we saw it on the news. It sometimes makes me nervous being so close to these countries than when we are in the U.S. But if we lived our lives worried every day we would never go out and do anything! It’s like the saying, “Life every day as if it’s your last!”
March 24th
We ate breakfast at the hotel which consisted of a lot of yummy danishes, donuts and croissants. Also they had ham and cheese, which completely confuses me because they just eat it, without putting it on bread or anything. And it doesn’t really seem like breakfast food.
We then went back into Florence for the day and went to a famous gelato shop called Festival de Gelato. It is in guide books and someone I know staying in Florence also recommended it. It is decorated with many neon lights and it’s very festive! Jacob got 70% chocolate and cream puff and I got kiwi. They were both really good, like usual.
Next we walked to the famous bridge in Florence where they have many locks on the railings. Just like in Paris where we locked our love on the bridge, we did it again in Florence. We just stumbled across the locks this time unlike the research of the Paris ones, and we had an extra lock on us. It was fun and now our love is locked in 2 European countries!
We crossed the bridge and walked to the Palazzo de Michael Angelo where we took amazing pictures since it overlooks the entire city of Florence. We basically got the same view that we could have gotten from going in the Dome at the Duomo but this time it was free. Seeing all of the red tops to the houses was gorgeous and I couldn’t believe that we were still in Italy. We ended up eating lunch on the top of the Palazzo de Michael Angelo which consisted of pizzas. We also met 4 people from Michigan up there which was a breath of fresh air, not only because they spoke English but because we felt like they were a little piece of home for us.
Jacob of course had to get more gelato that day so he got Snickers and I wasn’t in the mood to neither pay for more gelato or to eat any. We walked through the famous Florence Leather Markets which I absolutely loved. There were tons of booths all set up hanging with purses and wallets, everything we could imagine made out of leather. We also walked through the morning food market were we bought some dried fruit which was amazing! We had strawberries, pineapple and bananas, all of which was ten times better than the prepackaged stuff in the U.S. We continued to walk the city and found an awesome store which had homemade soaps, lotions and cosmetics called Lush. Supposedly they have some of the stores in the U.S. but none by Wisconsin. We saw some pretty cool products there.
We had dinner at the Café Duomo which was situated right outside of the Duomo which gave us a beautiful view while we ate. We both had a 9 euro meal deal which consisted of salad, bruschetta, lasagna/spaghetti and a glass of wine. Neither of us like wine so we substituted for the much more sophisticated beverage of water. While we were eating dinner Jacob spotted Jessica who goes to school with us in Scotland and we ended up talking to her while we finished our meals. We showed her the soap store and we again walked to get gelato. Jacob got tiramisu and chocolate orange (Shawn, Jacob’s dad, would have loved it), and I again didn’t get any.
While walking back we received a flyer from someone in the street, usually of which consisted of advertisements for restaurants. To our surprise it was a choir concert that was free and it was Kansas State University that would be singing. It was only about a 45 minutes wait until the concert would start so we decided to attend it. The choir was amazing and it made me miss singing in the choir during high school. They were all really nice and conversed with us since we spoke English and they asked about where we were from and why we were there, etc. We returned to the hotel and read our books like an old married couple, again.
March 25th
We again ate breakfast at the hotel and headed into Florence again. We again walked through the leather markets and bartered with some of the sellers. It was a lot of fun and we eventually got what we wanted. We also saw people selling fake Louis Vuitton purses which was funny because there were huge signs posted saying that purchasing fake goods was illegal. I really wanted one of course, but when I thought about the hefty fine I would receive if I got caught going through security with it in the airport, I could have just bought the real thing! We also saw cops chasing them through the leather markets in a dead sprint, which was absolutely hilarious.
We bought roast beef sandwiches from the food market and they were really fresh. We watched the guy cut the roast beef right in front of us. It was also something different from our typical Italian food. We then walked to get our dessert, gelato, and I got cream puff and Jacob got strawberry mousse and caramel. We had gelato again later that night too, mine was green apple which was disgusting and Jacob had vanilla and cheesecake. We headed back to the hotel to read more of our books and relax before we had to head back to Rome the next day.
March 26th
We checked out of our hotel room at 10 a.m. but left our backpacks there since our train didn’t leave until 2 p.m. We went into Florence one last time where Jacob wanted to get his last cone of gelato. The Festival de Gelato was closed so he got some elsewhere. Jacob had a roast beef sandwich again for lunch and I had a salami sandwich again. We headed back to the hotel and grabbed our backpacks and suitcase and headed to the bus stop to take us to the train station. We were leaving from a different train station from which we arrived which made it a bit more confusing. We arrived there 2 hours early again so we just read our books to pass the time. We boarded the train where we had assigned seats but for some reason they were taken. We paid $90.00 for these seats and they were taken? Really? So instead of yelling at these people we took someone else’s seats until we got kicked out. We ended up getting kicked out with only 20 minutes left to the ride and so we walked back to our assigned seats and the people were still sitting in them. Instead of causing conflict we just sat in the hallway of the train until we arrived in Rome. Trains are a great way of transportation it just is weird because there is no one regulating who sits where, if anyone has a ticket, nothing basically.
We made it to Rome and took another train ride to the airport so we could catch our hotel shuttle bus to the Hilton Garden Inn Airport Hotel for our last night. We originally planned on staying in the airport but after what happened in Paris we decided against that. Therefore we booked the closest hotel to the airport and lucky us, it was amazing. It had a king sized sleep number bed, heated towel rack and many other luxuries. The bummer was that we lost an hour of sleep that night due to daylight savings time.
March 27th
We woke up at 3:30 a.m. in order to catch our flight that left at 6:20 from the Rome Airport. We took the hotels free shuttle at 4:30 in the morning. The driver was driving 140 in an 80 zone. I’m sure that’s in kilometers but still, way over the speed limit. We arrived back to Edinburgh around noon and relaxed the rest of the day and did laundry. We had an amazing spring break and couldn’t have asked for anything better except the taxi the first night in Rome. Jacob and I both decided that Florence was probably our least favorite, we are not sure if that’s because it was the end of our trip and we felt completely broke, or if it was because the city was more artsy and had mostly museums. But overall our trip was great.
And that concludes our spring break trip.
Love and Miss you all,
Hayley and Jacob
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| Jacob and I overlooking Florence |
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| Our lock, the silver one |
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| Gelato = amazing |
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| The dried fruit! YUM! |
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| The Duomo |
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Pisa/Tirrenia
March 20th- Pisa/Tirrenia Italy
Jacob and I took our first metro ride in Rome to Rome's Termini Station. We left rome at 10:09 for a 3.5 hour train ride to Pisa. Once arriving in Pisa we had no idea how to get to our hotel since it was technically in the next town over called Tirrenia. Probably a good 10-15 miles. We asked around and someone pointed us to the bus station so we decided to see if there was a bus that went to Tirrenia. Sure enough there was so we took the bus which costed us 4.60 euros for two tickets. Their buses are nothing like our buses here in Dalkeith. Their buses have 3 doors in which we could enter or exit and we never had to show our tickets to the bus driver. We were supposed to stamp them in these little boxes upon entering the bus but I would say about 95% of the people did not. Therefore the bus rides were basically free. The buses there were also very packed and it got extremely annoying. But hey, it was better than pay 100 euro for a taxi right?
We arrived at our hotel called Grand Hotel Golf Hotel, and the staff was great. We checked right in and to our delight there was a huge balcony that was perfect for watching the sunset. We watched it every night we were there. We could also see the Mediterranean Sea from the balcony. There was this cute little carnival by the hotel as well which was there every day of the week. It wasn't like a travelling one like the one's that come to Clintonville. It was there all year round which seemed odd and unprofitable.
We had our first Italian Pizza at a small restaurant called Alan's Pizzeria. The 2 pizzas costed us 19 euros along with two sodas. We both loved the pizza and of course Jacob got gelato again. This time he got Stracciella. I was to full to get any.
March 21st - Pisa/Tirrenia
We woke up around 8:00 a.m. to attend the "American" breakfast provided by the hotel. Jacob had peach yogurt, toast, cocoa crisps and biscuits. I had toast and rice krispies. I also attempted to eat what i thought was a hard boiled egg, but it definitely wasn't. It was still orange and gooey in the inside and definitely not hard boiled.
Next we took the bus into Pisa and stopped to get some gelato on the way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Jacob got biscotti and I got peach and strawberry. They were so good and so huge that I couldn't even finish mine in the end. We finally made it to the Tower where we both payed 15 euros to climb to the top. The price was ridiculous in my opinion but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was scared to death climbing to the top since the staircases were spiral and obviously tilting one way. Also very clastraphobic. When we made it to the very top I was hugging the wall so tight that Jacob kept laughing at me. I hate heights and falling off a tower that was leaning seemed very realistic to me. When we finally reached ground I was relieved that I had not died, and had to let my legs readjust from being jelly.
We then walked all of the street markets which was a blast. I love walking through markets and seeing all of the different products. We bought a lot of souveniers and then returned to the hotel in search of some dinner. I don't know what's up with these countries but everything closes early. 3 restaurants we tried were closed, but we finally found one that was open to my surprise. I had spaghetti and Jacob has lasagna, both were delicious. Again we watched the sunset that night from our balcony. We watched a lot of news that night on our T.V. which consisted of CNN and BBC for English channels. The interesting part was that on the news they were talking about Wisconsin and the education riots, etc. I never thought I would be in Italy, and watching the news about my home.
March 22nd - Pisa/Tirrenia
This day we spent the day taking many pictures on beach. Although it wasn't warm enough to swim we still had a great time. We went into Pisa again and found Cafe Miami to eat lunch. We had spaghetti and lasagna again. Jacob and I also returned to the gelato shop where he got mint and chocolate cherry and I just got chocolate cherry. Reminded me of my Dad because he loves black forest cake and this was exactly the same except in gelato form. We again walked through the markets and then headed back to Tirrenia. The one thing we noticed is that portion sizes are much smaller in Europe than in the United States unless you order pizza. Also, their cars are all basically the size of Smart cars.
The next day we left for Florence. And that concludes Part 2 of Spring Break.
Love and Miss you all,
Jacob and Hayley
Jacob and I took our first metro ride in Rome to Rome's Termini Station. We left rome at 10:09 for a 3.5 hour train ride to Pisa. Once arriving in Pisa we had no idea how to get to our hotel since it was technically in the next town over called Tirrenia. Probably a good 10-15 miles. We asked around and someone pointed us to the bus station so we decided to see if there was a bus that went to Tirrenia. Sure enough there was so we took the bus which costed us 4.60 euros for two tickets. Their buses are nothing like our buses here in Dalkeith. Their buses have 3 doors in which we could enter or exit and we never had to show our tickets to the bus driver. We were supposed to stamp them in these little boxes upon entering the bus but I would say about 95% of the people did not. Therefore the bus rides were basically free. The buses there were also very packed and it got extremely annoying. But hey, it was better than pay 100 euro for a taxi right?
We arrived at our hotel called Grand Hotel Golf Hotel, and the staff was great. We checked right in and to our delight there was a huge balcony that was perfect for watching the sunset. We watched it every night we were there. We could also see the Mediterranean Sea from the balcony. There was this cute little carnival by the hotel as well which was there every day of the week. It wasn't like a travelling one like the one's that come to Clintonville. It was there all year round which seemed odd and unprofitable.
We had our first Italian Pizza at a small restaurant called Alan's Pizzeria. The 2 pizzas costed us 19 euros along with two sodas. We both loved the pizza and of course Jacob got gelato again. This time he got Stracciella. I was to full to get any.
March 21st - Pisa/Tirrenia
We woke up around 8:00 a.m. to attend the "American" breakfast provided by the hotel. Jacob had peach yogurt, toast, cocoa crisps and biscuits. I had toast and rice krispies. I also attempted to eat what i thought was a hard boiled egg, but it definitely wasn't. It was still orange and gooey in the inside and definitely not hard boiled.
Next we took the bus into Pisa and stopped to get some gelato on the way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Jacob got biscotti and I got peach and strawberry. They were so good and so huge that I couldn't even finish mine in the end. We finally made it to the Tower where we both payed 15 euros to climb to the top. The price was ridiculous in my opinion but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was scared to death climbing to the top since the staircases were spiral and obviously tilting one way. Also very clastraphobic. When we made it to the very top I was hugging the wall so tight that Jacob kept laughing at me. I hate heights and falling off a tower that was leaning seemed very realistic to me. When we finally reached ground I was relieved that I had not died, and had to let my legs readjust from being jelly.
We then walked all of the street markets which was a blast. I love walking through markets and seeing all of the different products. We bought a lot of souveniers and then returned to the hotel in search of some dinner. I don't know what's up with these countries but everything closes early. 3 restaurants we tried were closed, but we finally found one that was open to my surprise. I had spaghetti and Jacob has lasagna, both were delicious. Again we watched the sunset that night from our balcony. We watched a lot of news that night on our T.V. which consisted of CNN and BBC for English channels. The interesting part was that on the news they were talking about Wisconsin and the education riots, etc. I never thought I would be in Italy, and watching the news about my home.
March 22nd - Pisa/Tirrenia
This day we spent the day taking many pictures on beach. Although it wasn't warm enough to swim we still had a great time. We went into Pisa again and found Cafe Miami to eat lunch. We had spaghetti and lasagna again. Jacob and I also returned to the gelato shop where he got mint and chocolate cherry and I just got chocolate cherry. Reminded me of my Dad because he loves black forest cake and this was exactly the same except in gelato form. We again walked through the markets and then headed back to Tirrenia. The one thing we noticed is that portion sizes are much smaller in Europe than in the United States unless you order pizza. Also, their cars are all basically the size of Smart cars.
The next day we left for Florence. And that concludes Part 2 of Spring Break.
Love and Miss you all,
Jacob and Hayley
Sunset from our balcony
Jacob at the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
Me at the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, scared to death
Jacob and the Leaning Tower
The Leaning Tower of Pisa
Another sunset
Jacob and I on the beach
Jacob and I on the beach
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Roma Roma Roma - Spring Break Part 1
Hello Friends,
Jacob and I have finally returned from our spring break trip to Italy and we had many adventures. Our spring break consisted of 3 cities; Rome, Pisa and Florence Italy.
March 16th, Edinburgh, Scotland and Rome, Italy.
The 16th was the day, it was our 3 year anniversary and the day we left for spring break. We had class that Wednesday so our flight was a late one. We didn't even leave until around 4:30 p.m. We flew KLM airlines and therefore we were allowed to check one piece of luggage each at no charge. So we checked one bag and packed both of our clothes in it. We bought a cheap suitcase so we wouldn't lose our good ones if anything did happen to our luggage. We flew from Edinburgh, Scotland to Amsterdam, Holland and arrived twenty minutes early which was nice because we didn't have much time to spare in between our flights. We got on our flight from Amsterdam to Rome and I bought a sandwich at the airport because I assumed that we wouldn't be fed on the flight since it was only 2 hours long. Right after I finished eating my premade sandwich, the stewardess comes around and hands out sandwiches. I tried this sandwich and I don't know what nasty sauce they put on it but it was disgusting! Then I was actually glad that I had purchased my own sandwich because eating the one they served on the plane would've been a real challenge for me.
We landed at 10 p.m. and waited for our luggage at the baggage claim. We waited and waited and waited, looking for a black and red suitcase with a green strap around it. Once the suitcases stopped coming on the table Jacob and I were getting nervous. The same 5 suitcases kept going around and around on the table none of which seemed to be ours. Finally part of the red on a suitcase caught my eye. It was ours, without the green strap to my disappointment. Looks like I will have to invest in a new one for my journey back to the United States in May. Wouldn't someone notice a lime green strap falling off of the suitcase? And how does a strap fall off of a suitcase anyways when it is strapped through the handles? I didn't know where my strap went and I decided that as long as we had our luggage and that the suitcase was intact, that the stupid strap didn't matter.
We had our luggage in hand and walked to the part of the airport where we could catch the train to the city center. Only one ticket dispenser was working and there were some people who spoke a different language using the machine and they couldn't figure it out. There was one train left to take so we just skipped buying the ticket and hopped on the train anyways. A guy came through to check tickets and thankfully he just let us pay the 28 euros for two tickets on the train. It was 11:30 p.m. by this time and we were supposed to take the metro to the hotel once we arrived at the train station but by that time at night the metro was closed. This left us one option: take a taxi. And that's where the terrible first night in Rome began.
We walked out of Rome's Termini Train Station looking for a taxi that would take us to Hotel Villa Tassoni which was across the city on the opposite side of the Vatican. This guy was being really pushy and was saying "Taxi, taxi, taxi" and he spoke English so Jacob jumped at the opportunity. Before I could come to my sensed Jacob was sitting in the taxi and had already given our luggage to this creepy man. We hopped into the car which was a huge mistake. First of all, there were 2 men in the front seat. Not one, but two. Since when did there need to be two people to drive the taxi? Last time I checked there was one steering wheel and one set of foot peddles! The taxi started going and I had given this guy the address to the hotel assuming that he knew where we were going. He hopped on his phone and started calling all these people asking where this hotel was. I started examining this so called "taxi" and noticed, no meter, no gps, two creepy men, and wait....we were in a black taxi. I remembered reading about how taxis in Rome were white, not black....white. Anyways, we made it to the hotel, after much praying, and we were greeted by the receptionist outside. Jacob and I hopped out of the taxi and the guy said "You owe me 55 euro". Man, that was a lot of money but when it was 12:30 in the morning we didn't much care. Jacob handed him a fifty in search for 5 euros worth of change. Jacob then turned to grab our suitcase and the guy said, "You only gave me 10 euro". Jacob searched his pockets and the car, obviously knowing that the only bill he had in his wallet was a 50 that must have been what he payed the driver. We figured that the man slipped the 50 euro bill in his pocket and pulled out a 10 claming that we only paid him that much. In the end I had to give the driver my 50 and the two creeps sped away in their little black fake taxi. They gained 100 euro off of us for a 10 minute taxi ride. That equals $140.00 with the exchange rate and we had only been in Rome for 3 hours. Holding back tears we checked into our hotel where the reception guy was more than helpful. He apologized for what happened to us and let us know that if we needed a taxi again that he new some that were reliable. We settled into our room which was spacious and then the water works started. I couldn't understand how someone could take advantage of two 19 year olds and feel good about themselves? I was so mad but Jacob thankfully reassured me that it was just money and that we were safe and that's all that mattered. Jacob and I decided that setting an alarm for the morning would not be a good idea.
March 17th, Rome, Italy
We woke up at 10:30 a.m. due to the lack of setting the alarm which got us off on a late foot. Our hotel was close enough to the Vatican that we walked there that morning and planned on seeing just that for the day. We saw the door to get in and there was not a single person outside. We thought this seemed odd because we heard of the enormous lines to get in. We walked right in, not having to wait a single minute and actually got a discount on admission since we had our International Student I.D. Cards. It cost us 16 euros for 2 tickets instead of 30 euros for 2. We basically got 2 for the price of one. This was for the Vatican Museum not including St. Peters Basillica (which we never did get to see.) The Vatican is something that is unexplainable unless you have been there already. The paintings, statues, jewels, fountains, just everything is breath taking and pictures and videos just don't do it justice. We spent about 2.5 hours there but could have easily spent more.
We got lunch across the street from the Vatican where I ordered spaghetti with tomato sauce and Jacob ordered lasanga. When they have on there menu spaghetti with tomato sauce, they literally mean dumping a can of tomato sauce upon noodles. Disgusting. We had a cheap dinner that night which consisted of jelly sandwiches and ramen noodles. (Our hotel room had a stove top). That nice we also had gelato for the first time which captured our hearts. Jacob had Lindt Mint and I had Frutti di Bosci and they both were amazing. Please prepare yourself for more gelato flavors in the upcoming blogs.
March 18th, Rome, Italy
We decided that booking an open bus hop on hop off tour would be the best way to see the sights in Rome without having to figure it our ourselves. This was probably mine and Jacob's best investment. It cost us each 25 euros for a 48 hour pass on the hop on hop off bus. That day we saw the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Vatican and the Colosseum. We saw other places too of which I cannot recall. We paid 12 euros each for a 2 day pass to the Colosseum which seemed a little to expensive in our eyes. The Colosseum was gorgeous on the inside and out but there wasn't much to do there which was kind of disappointing.
We ate some gross ham and cheese paninis that day at a restaurant that definitely were not worth our money. Also a guy tried to give me a "gift" aka a free fake designer wallet. I wanted to say "Yeah, a gift means you hand it to me and I pay you." Not happening that's for sure. I was disappointed in all of the sellers by the Vatican and other monuments. I felt like those should be treated with respect and not as a tourist hub to make money. Again we got gelato; Jacob got Nutella Cake and I got Strawberry and Mandarin. That night for dinner we decided to buy our own noodles, tortellini and bolognese sauce and make our own Italian meal. It was one of the best Italian meals we had our entire trip and we (mostly Jacob) made it ourselves! That night we sat and read our books we brought with and played 20 questions like an old couple :)
March 19th, Rome, Italy
We started out our day by getting gelato. Jacob got Millenium and I got Butterscotch and Lemon, not expecting it to be butterscotch since everything was in Italian. I ate the lemon and chucked the butterscotch. We then hopped on the tour bus and finished the stops that we hadn't seen the day before. We decided that we wanted to eat lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe which cost us an arm and a leg. $44 for each of us to eat. So $88 all together. We did get a souvenir cup out of the meal though so it was all worth it. Plus, in Scotland we can't find a decent hamburger to save our lives so the Hard Rock Cafe satisfied that. We finished up all of our souvenir shopping since we were leaving for Pisa, Italy the next day. That afternoon we got gelato again; this time I got Nutella Cake and Jacob got Villagettto Nutella. We ate the remaining spaghetti from the night before for dinner. We new that the next day we would be up early and on the train to Pisa.
(On a random note, I noticed in Rome the that stoplights are different shapes. The green light is shaped like a vertical rectangle, the yellow like a triangle, and the red like a horizontal rectangle. This must be for the people who are color blind. What a bright idea?)
And this will conclude Part 1 of Spring Break in Italy.
Jacob and I have finally returned from our spring break trip to Italy and we had many adventures. Our spring break consisted of 3 cities; Rome, Pisa and Florence Italy.
March 16th, Edinburgh, Scotland and Rome, Italy.
The 16th was the day, it was our 3 year anniversary and the day we left for spring break. We had class that Wednesday so our flight was a late one. We didn't even leave until around 4:30 p.m. We flew KLM airlines and therefore we were allowed to check one piece of luggage each at no charge. So we checked one bag and packed both of our clothes in it. We bought a cheap suitcase so we wouldn't lose our good ones if anything did happen to our luggage. We flew from Edinburgh, Scotland to Amsterdam, Holland and arrived twenty minutes early which was nice because we didn't have much time to spare in between our flights. We got on our flight from Amsterdam to Rome and I bought a sandwich at the airport because I assumed that we wouldn't be fed on the flight since it was only 2 hours long. Right after I finished eating my premade sandwich, the stewardess comes around and hands out sandwiches. I tried this sandwich and I don't know what nasty sauce they put on it but it was disgusting! Then I was actually glad that I had purchased my own sandwich because eating the one they served on the plane would've been a real challenge for me.
We landed at 10 p.m. and waited for our luggage at the baggage claim. We waited and waited and waited, looking for a black and red suitcase with a green strap around it. Once the suitcases stopped coming on the table Jacob and I were getting nervous. The same 5 suitcases kept going around and around on the table none of which seemed to be ours. Finally part of the red on a suitcase caught my eye. It was ours, without the green strap to my disappointment. Looks like I will have to invest in a new one for my journey back to the United States in May. Wouldn't someone notice a lime green strap falling off of the suitcase? And how does a strap fall off of a suitcase anyways when it is strapped through the handles? I didn't know where my strap went and I decided that as long as we had our luggage and that the suitcase was intact, that the stupid strap didn't matter.
We had our luggage in hand and walked to the part of the airport where we could catch the train to the city center. Only one ticket dispenser was working and there were some people who spoke a different language using the machine and they couldn't figure it out. There was one train left to take so we just skipped buying the ticket and hopped on the train anyways. A guy came through to check tickets and thankfully he just let us pay the 28 euros for two tickets on the train. It was 11:30 p.m. by this time and we were supposed to take the metro to the hotel once we arrived at the train station but by that time at night the metro was closed. This left us one option: take a taxi. And that's where the terrible first night in Rome began.
We walked out of Rome's Termini Train Station looking for a taxi that would take us to Hotel Villa Tassoni which was across the city on the opposite side of the Vatican. This guy was being really pushy and was saying "Taxi, taxi, taxi" and he spoke English so Jacob jumped at the opportunity. Before I could come to my sensed Jacob was sitting in the taxi and had already given our luggage to this creepy man. We hopped into the car which was a huge mistake. First of all, there were 2 men in the front seat. Not one, but two. Since when did there need to be two people to drive the taxi? Last time I checked there was one steering wheel and one set of foot peddles! The taxi started going and I had given this guy the address to the hotel assuming that he knew where we were going. He hopped on his phone and started calling all these people asking where this hotel was. I started examining this so called "taxi" and noticed, no meter, no gps, two creepy men, and wait....we were in a black taxi. I remembered reading about how taxis in Rome were white, not black....white. Anyways, we made it to the hotel, after much praying, and we were greeted by the receptionist outside. Jacob and I hopped out of the taxi and the guy said "You owe me 55 euro". Man, that was a lot of money but when it was 12:30 in the morning we didn't much care. Jacob handed him a fifty in search for 5 euros worth of change. Jacob then turned to grab our suitcase and the guy said, "You only gave me 10 euro". Jacob searched his pockets and the car, obviously knowing that the only bill he had in his wallet was a 50 that must have been what he payed the driver. We figured that the man slipped the 50 euro bill in his pocket and pulled out a 10 claming that we only paid him that much. In the end I had to give the driver my 50 and the two creeps sped away in their little black fake taxi. They gained 100 euro off of us for a 10 minute taxi ride. That equals $140.00 with the exchange rate and we had only been in Rome for 3 hours. Holding back tears we checked into our hotel where the reception guy was more than helpful. He apologized for what happened to us and let us know that if we needed a taxi again that he new some that were reliable. We settled into our room which was spacious and then the water works started. I couldn't understand how someone could take advantage of two 19 year olds and feel good about themselves? I was so mad but Jacob thankfully reassured me that it was just money and that we were safe and that's all that mattered. Jacob and I decided that setting an alarm for the morning would not be a good idea.
March 17th, Rome, Italy
We woke up at 10:30 a.m. due to the lack of setting the alarm which got us off on a late foot. Our hotel was close enough to the Vatican that we walked there that morning and planned on seeing just that for the day. We saw the door to get in and there was not a single person outside. We thought this seemed odd because we heard of the enormous lines to get in. We walked right in, not having to wait a single minute and actually got a discount on admission since we had our International Student I.D. Cards. It cost us 16 euros for 2 tickets instead of 30 euros for 2. We basically got 2 for the price of one. This was for the Vatican Museum not including St. Peters Basillica (which we never did get to see.) The Vatican is something that is unexplainable unless you have been there already. The paintings, statues, jewels, fountains, just everything is breath taking and pictures and videos just don't do it justice. We spent about 2.5 hours there but could have easily spent more.
We got lunch across the street from the Vatican where I ordered spaghetti with tomato sauce and Jacob ordered lasanga. When they have on there menu spaghetti with tomato sauce, they literally mean dumping a can of tomato sauce upon noodles. Disgusting. We had a cheap dinner that night which consisted of jelly sandwiches and ramen noodles. (Our hotel room had a stove top). That nice we also had gelato for the first time which captured our hearts. Jacob had Lindt Mint and I had Frutti di Bosci and they both were amazing. Please prepare yourself for more gelato flavors in the upcoming blogs.
March 18th, Rome, Italy
We decided that booking an open bus hop on hop off tour would be the best way to see the sights in Rome without having to figure it our ourselves. This was probably mine and Jacob's best investment. It cost us each 25 euros for a 48 hour pass on the hop on hop off bus. That day we saw the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Vatican and the Colosseum. We saw other places too of which I cannot recall. We paid 12 euros each for a 2 day pass to the Colosseum which seemed a little to expensive in our eyes. The Colosseum was gorgeous on the inside and out but there wasn't much to do there which was kind of disappointing.
We ate some gross ham and cheese paninis that day at a restaurant that definitely were not worth our money. Also a guy tried to give me a "gift" aka a free fake designer wallet. I wanted to say "Yeah, a gift means you hand it to me and I pay you." Not happening that's for sure. I was disappointed in all of the sellers by the Vatican and other monuments. I felt like those should be treated with respect and not as a tourist hub to make money. Again we got gelato; Jacob got Nutella Cake and I got Strawberry and Mandarin. That night for dinner we decided to buy our own noodles, tortellini and bolognese sauce and make our own Italian meal. It was one of the best Italian meals we had our entire trip and we (mostly Jacob) made it ourselves! That night we sat and read our books we brought with and played 20 questions like an old couple :)
March 19th, Rome, Italy
We started out our day by getting gelato. Jacob got Millenium and I got Butterscotch and Lemon, not expecting it to be butterscotch since everything was in Italian. I ate the lemon and chucked the butterscotch. We then hopped on the tour bus and finished the stops that we hadn't seen the day before. We decided that we wanted to eat lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe which cost us an arm and a leg. $44 for each of us to eat. So $88 all together. We did get a souvenir cup out of the meal though so it was all worth it. Plus, in Scotland we can't find a decent hamburger to save our lives so the Hard Rock Cafe satisfied that. We finished up all of our souvenir shopping since we were leaving for Pisa, Italy the next day. That afternoon we got gelato again; this time I got Nutella Cake and Jacob got Villagettto Nutella. We ate the remaining spaghetti from the night before for dinner. We new that the next day we would be up early and on the train to Pisa.
(On a random note, I noticed in Rome the that stoplights are different shapes. The green light is shaped like a vertical rectangle, the yellow like a triangle, and the red like a horizontal rectangle. This must be for the people who are color blind. What a bright idea?)
And this will conclude Part 1 of Spring Break in Italy.
Me at the Trevi Fountain
Jacob throwing a coin into the Trevi Fountain
The Colosseum
Jacob and I inside the Colosseum
Our homeade Italian dinner
Jacob and I at the Colosseum
Me at the Vatican
Jacob and the Vatican
Love and miss you all,
Hayley and Jacob
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
3 years and Spring Break
Jacob and I will have been dating a total of 3 years tomorrow. It's crazy to think that 3 years ago Jacob and I were in my basement playing guitar hero and just getting to know eachother. Now we're in Scotland together have the experience of a lifetime. Tomorrow we leave for Italy for our 10 day spring break. We will not be returning to Scotland until March 27th. We will be traveling to Rome, Pisa and Florence. It's much cheaper to travel in Europe than to travel in the United States. Sadly we aren't taking our computers since pickpocketing is common so I will not be able to blog at all. I will blog as soon as I return to Scotland to inform you of our adventures!
Love and miss you,
hayley and jacob
Love and miss you,
hayley and jacob
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Peebles
Yesterday Jacob and I took a trip to a town about 30 miles away from Dalkeith called Peebles. Since it's Jacob's last name we had to visit it. We caught the bus at the Edinburgh Bus Station and it costed both of us 8.60 pounds to round trip, which isn't too bad. The weather was not ideal and consisted of a mixture of snow and rain. When we arrived it reminded us a lot of Marion except with a few more shops and cafes. We grabbed some lunch, shopped around and walked along the river Tweed which runs through the town. Peebles has the nicest people we have met so far in all of Scotland. Everywhere we went people asked us where we were from and what brought us to Scotland. We obviously would tell them that Jacob's last name was Peebles and many of them would ask if he was related to Hugh Peebles (also from the States) who lived there. Maybe Jacob is related, who knows? We definitely enjoyed our day there and even though we probably won't be returning I'm sure Jacob's happy to say he's been there. Love and Miss you,
Jacob and Hayley
Friday, March 11, 2011
Family Time and Arthur's Seat
Hello,
Well my family has been gone since Monday but I've been so busy that blogging took a back seat for a couple of days. My family, Jacob and I climbed up Arthur's seat which I swore I would climb before I left here so I'm happy to have that checked off of my list. Everyday that my family was here is was bright and sunny which is not typical Scotland. Scotland has rainy weather constantly and that's the extent of their weather. Jacob and I showed my family where the Scottish Parliament was and where the Queen of Scotland lives. We ate a lot of good food including fish and chips and calzones. My Dad has a new found love for haggis as well as Jacob and to be honest it's not that bad. On Sunday Jacob and Summer decided that they wanted to get their feet "pedicured" by Garra Rufa fish. Basically they stuck their feet in a tank and fish sucked on their feet and ate the skin. (Interesting to say the least.) My parents left on Monday morning and I really don't know where the time went. It felt like just yesterday that Jacob and I went and picked them up at the airport and then they were gone. Pictures will be able to do more explaining than I ever could about our hike up Arthur's Seat so......
Well my family has been gone since Monday but I've been so busy that blogging took a back seat for a couple of days. My family, Jacob and I climbed up Arthur's seat which I swore I would climb before I left here so I'm happy to have that checked off of my list. Everyday that my family was here is was bright and sunny which is not typical Scotland. Scotland has rainy weather constantly and that's the extent of their weather. Jacob and I showed my family where the Scottish Parliament was and where the Queen of Scotland lives. We ate a lot of good food including fish and chips and calzones. My Dad has a new found love for haggis as well as Jacob and to be honest it's not that bad. On Sunday Jacob and Summer decided that they wanted to get their feet "pedicured" by Garra Rufa fish. Basically they stuck their feet in a tank and fish sucked on their feet and ate the skin. (Interesting to say the least.) My parents left on Monday morning and I really don't know where the time went. It felt like just yesterday that Jacob and I went and picked them up at the airport and then they were gone. Pictures will be able to do more explaining than I ever could about our hike up Arthur's Seat so...... |
| Arthur's Seat. Yes, we climbed up that. |
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| Jacob and I at Dirleton Castle |
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| Summer rinsing her feet |
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| Where the Queen of Scotland lives |
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| Where the Queen lives |
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| Hiking up Arthur's Seat |
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| Still climbing |
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| Snuck a picture of my parents. How cute :) |
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| My Dad and Summer at the top |
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| The view of Edinburgh from the top of Arthur's Seat |
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| My Parents :) |
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| My Dad, Summer, Mom, and I at the top of Arthur's Seat |
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| Again |
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| Jacob and I |
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| My Mom and Summer |
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| Love this picture. It's Jacob of course |
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| Climbing back down |
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| Summer's feet with the fish |
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| Jacob's feet with the fish |
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| Great sign in Dalkeith. Just had to add this! So on a different note, the Dalkeith house has been very frustrating lately. There are a lot of immature people here and most of them are over 20 years old so it really confuses me. We have had theft, puking, stealing food and many other things happening in this house which makes some people feel unsafe in the house. Someone replaced Jacob's 5 pound bill with a 5 dollar bill which doesn't do us any good over here. His wallet was hidden under clothes in his dresser drawer which means that someone had to have dug for his wallet to do this. Not knowing who did it, he ended up getting a single room and hopefully he will remain there the rest of the semester so we don't encounter anymore of these problems. The other night someone threw up in the library on the chair and left it there over the weekend. And last night was what really just pushed me over the edge; Last night Jacob and I arrived home around 11:45 because we went to the Battle of the Bands at the Hard Rock Cafe in Edinburgh. We got back and were chatting with my roommate Kim when the fire alarm went off. I grabbed my wallet, coat and threw some shoes on while Jacob grabbed his computer, and the three of us rushed down the stairs. About 25 of us flew out the front doors and then the sirens from the firetruck started. Someone purposely punched the glass on the fire alarm and set it off. Half the people in the house were sleeping since it was midnight and some even had flights early in the morning. They kept us outside because they wanted someone to confess but surely no one will. I was not a happy camper when I had to be somewhere at 9:15 in the morning and I was just crawling into bed at 3 a.m. Still today no one has confessed and in my opinion people should be sent home soon. There's a handful of people who are constantly causing problems here and I'm sick of it. Now our house is also a "dry house" meaning that alcohol is not allowed in the Palace any longer. It is definitely going to be a breath of fresh air when Jacob and I leave for Italy on Wednesday. Today Jacob and I and some other people from the house went on a house field trip to Direlton Castle, North Berwick, St. Abbs Head and the Glenkinchie Whiskey Distillery. The Distillery was boring in my opinion but that's because I'm not really into alcohol or the making of it, or the smell of it for that fact. And when we were offered samples at the end I kindly turned them down. The pictures below will do most of the talking from our trip today: Anyways. |
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| At the Castle |
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| Jacob and I on the beach in North Berwich |
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| J + H |
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| On the beach again |
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| Walking back to town from the beach. Loved the rocks. |
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| St. Abbs Head |
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| St. Abbs Head |
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| Me |
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| Jacob and I |
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| Jacob. This picture shows how high up we were |
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| Jacob and I |
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| I ran around in here because it reminded me of Alice in Wonderland |
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| At Dirleton Castle |
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| Jacob |
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| Jacob and I at St. Abbs Head Goodnight all. Tomorrow Jacob and I are going to a town called Peebles which is only about half an hour away from Dalkeith. Peebles is Jacob's last name for those of you who aren't aware. Hopefully it's a good day. By the way, the temperature in Wisconsin was warmer than in Scotland today. Thought that might make you smile :) Love and miss you, Hayley and Jacob |
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