Hello all!

I spent my spring break traveling around Italy with two friends from ups. It was so much fun! Unfortunately the weather wasn’t that great, and we saved our last four days to stay in Nice to go to the beach, and of course it rained the whole time....

Italy was kind of frustrating for us because we didn’t speak the language, and it’s just so well, frustrating, to not be able to understand signs and maps and converse with people. Half of the time the people were really nice, the other half they were very mean, but we were doing all the tourist stuff and didn’t speak the language, so I would like to think that that was the reason why we didn’t receive a great reception.

We started out in Venice, and it was just like all the postcards! There is not one straight street, and the place is so confusing we spent most of the time being lost. We crossed all the foot-bridges with the gondolas in the canals.... It was beautiful. We also got out first taste of the vendors who WILL NOT LEAVE YOU ALONE unless you buy their junk on the street. They don’t have much of that in France so we were really annoyed. We tried to speak in French in public which worked very well...One man trying to sell us purses told us that Americans would pay 50 euros for this bag, but for US it’s 30! We got a good laugh out of that. We visited the piazza San Marco on Easter Sunday, and no, no terrorist attacks! There were tons of people there, and tons of pigeons. Everyone was feeding them, you’d think these people had never seen pigeons before. We visited the basilica, the Palazzo Ducale, the Guggenheim museum, Galleria Academia, and the big church of Santa Maria.... We were kind of happy to leave Venice because it was totally oriented towards tourists, we didn’t encounter many Italians (and they were not happy). Our first night we had a nice dinner and the waiter was very nice, helping us with words and all. Our hotel room overlooked a little square with restaurants and a church, we sat out on the ledge and people-watched for a long time. We took the train to Rome...it was cool to see the countryside, all the hills, houses, vineyards, etc. we stayed in a hostel in Rome, which wasn’t that nice but had a terrace on the roof where people hung out and drank at night. We got shooed away from some restaurants even though there was space, that made us angry. But then we had good meals in small places where the waiters are straight out of the movies- singing and joking around, escorting us to the door and giving bisous. Seeing all the sites in Rome was incredible, and really special for me being an anthro. major and all. The Colosseum was awesome, so huge and in good shape! You could see the names of the senators still on their seats, and the halls where the gladiators ran out, etc. and the Roman Forum is really cool, lots of ruins of temples and baths... the Vatican was just kind of annoying, we were shuffled through all these rooms with tons of tourists, I didn’t get to see a lot of the things I wanted to see, I just wanted to get out! Plus they had all these gift shops throughout the place that you had to pass by, that just made me angry. It’s kind of degrading to the site! The Sistine chapel was of course very cool. But I was blown away by Saint Pietro. That place was unbelievable! I’ve never seen anything like it. It made Notre Dame look like a grass hut! We climbed the dome to see a great view of Rome, even though it was pouring in Rome we also saw the Capitoline museums, the modern art museum, Trevi fountain, piazza Popolo, the Spanish steps, the Pantheon, the Villa Borghese and the piazza Venezia...along with many other places! It was all so overwhelming, and Rome is a big city with all that stress, so I was happy to leave Rome. (Plus there was a guy in our hostel who snored like a John Deere; it was crazy. It got to the point where I and two other girls tried to wake him up, shook him, and he still didn’t stop. I didn’t sleep much during those two weeks!)

On to Florence....Florence was cool. I didn’t think the city itself was incredibly pretty, but Tuscany is awesome, and the sites in Florence are really cool. We saw “The” David which was incredible! He’s so big and absolutely perfect. I can see what all the hype is about. We visited the Uffizi museum, which had the Botticelli paintings like: "The birth of Venus" and "Primavera", and lots of other pretty works. I walked around the Boboli gardens alone, Karen and I climbed the hill overlooking the city on our last night....We went out alone on our last night and had a good Italian meal, and then some grappa. ugh! the barmaid gave us free shots after that, and munchies which helped. :) We visited the Duomo with its "crypt/gift shop". We were really disgusted after that. We visited Santa Croce to see the tombs of Galileo, Machiavelli, Michaelangelo, and Dante. They were beautiful! The food was soooo good. I had the best tortellinis and the best tira misu EVER. Café au lait was excellent. The gelato is also delicious; we ate it literally everyday (though I will admit I prefer plain ice cream). Lasagne, and all the pasta, pasta pasta, and PIZZA! it was great! One thing that baffled us was the fact that the bread in Italy IS HORRIBLE. It didn’t taste like anything, or it tasted like flour, it was just gross. Of course were spoiled now after eating the bread and cheese in France, but they’re right next door, shouldn’t they have figured it out by now?!?!!

We left Florence for Nice...when we got to the train station in Florence, we found out that our train was an hour late, and we would miss our connection to Nice, and be stranded in either Florence or Milan. I was asking for info from a woman, and she said "yes all the trains are late because of what happened in Bologna" but I didn’t know what that meant. So we found another train and had to pay extra to get there, but when we passed through Bologna we saw what she was talking about: there was a dead body on the tracks!! aahh!!! Luckily I didn’t see it but John did and he said it was disgusting. I didn’t understand why they hadn’t picked it up after at least two hours. (Possible mafia hit? hmmm...)

We finally reached Nice to find it was cold and rainy. Overall the people were not nice, and the city wasn’t that nice either. The beach was gorgeous. I waded in a bit just to know I had been in the med. sea. It was turquoise blue! But it was all stones, not easy on the feet. I went to the Matisse museum and the modern art museum both very cool. We left early for Dijon, and as we did the clouds cleared and it was beautiful. Merde! It was nice to see the coastline as we were leaving anyway; it was gorgeous. Big red cliffs jutting out into the bright blue sea, palm trees and all.

It was nice to be back in Dijon, small and familiar, and cleaner I think. plus I think the people are friendlier. But it was sad to leave Italy; there is so much more to see! I wish I could have spent a month there. I don’t know how to describe it other than the atmosphere was very vibrant (and people do talk with their hands!)....The little experiences, like the nice waiters and shopkeepers, really made the trip a great experience. Plus it was so fulfilling for me to finally see all the things I have been reading about all these years, and all the art I have always wanted to see. Overall it was a great trip! But I was excited to sleep in my room alone, without the constant snoring. :)

So, that is my story from spring break! I hope you all are doing well, and I am excited to hear news from home if you have time to type back.

Much love,

Travy.