TRAVELOGUE.jesswrites.com

I’m in the process of uploading all of my hundreds and hundreds of travel pics into a gallery on my server. It’s gonna take a bit though, so in the meantime you can head on over to my traveljournal that I kept while studying abroad in Rome. There are lots of photos on there of all my adventures throughout Europe.

Also, I just typed up the LONGEST journal entry ever from Barcelona which you can find a few posts down… I still have to type up my journals from Paris and Dublin. (I sadly never wrote about my time in London…)

I flew back to Rome from London this morning. I had to get up pretty early for the flight (3:30 am) so I’m exhausted right now. But I’m at JCU with Ross right now, and I’ll be back on a plane home within 24 hours!

It rained in Dublin the entire time we were there. It was kind of disappointing, but we still had fun. We went out to Irish Pubs and drank Irish beer… ordered big juicy hamburgers, and we spent a day touring the Guinness Factory. We met some nice guys from the USA who went out with one night. It was fun.

I LOVED London. It was much colder than Barcelona and Paris, but we did get a couple partly sunny days so it was bearable. We took a double decker bus tour all over the city, walked through Kensington Gardens, rode the London Eye, and I went to a Jason Mraz concert! The only bad thing about London was the pound because the exchange rate was sooo horrible for us. Everything was twice as much when converted back to US dollars. I could definately live there someday though… or in England. The people are so friendly and easy going, and I adore the accent.

But anyways, the two weeks of traveling was absolutely amazing. I had such a great time and I will always remember it.

Now I’m just really excited to get back home and see everyone… tomorrow!!! I can’t wait!

Super quick update because I only have 3 minutes left at the internet cafe…

Paris is lovely. I really like it. Its very big though and we’ve had to take the subway everywhere. Yesterday it was beautiful outside and we took a nap under the Eiffel Tower. We also visited Notre Dame and all the other famous sites here. Last night we climbed the Eiffel Tower and overlooked Paris at night… breaktaking! Once we were back down there was a light show which made the Eiffel Tower all glittery and sparkley. I can’t describe to you how pretty that was!

We are hitting up the Louvre tonight, and heading to Dublin tomorrow afternoon. I’ll update again soon when I have more time!

Love to everyone, Jess

Oh Barcelona… part one of our four part trip. It’s hard to say now, but it may be the most memorable city on our Eurotrip. We arrived late on Saturday, starving, and had to carry our packs halfway across the city to Centric Point Hostel. We checked in, threw our bags in our 8-bed female room, and went out to find food. After wolfing down a chicken sandwich, we went back to our room and slept. Breakfast was from 8am until 10am so we had to get up at a reasonable time if we wanted to take advantage of free food, which we did. After breakfast we dolled ourselves up and left to venture Barcelona.

As we were walking down La Rambla, we found a Starbucks and went crazy. In the past 5 months I’ve only had one coffee that took me more than 4 gulps to finish and that was at the Starbucks in Frankfurt. So we got our grande cappuccinos, latttes, and mocchiatos and sat down to plan our day. We saw quite a bit, too. We walked through Royal Court, saw the famous column at the end of La Rambla, walked through markets, went to the marina, and did a little shopping all before lunch. In the mall by the Aquarium (where I bought a couple pairs of pants) I was waiting in line for the ATM when I saw three cute surfer looking boys walk by. One with dark curly hair especially caught my eye and I went over to Nikki and Emily to point them out… but they had already disappeared somewhere. We got lunch at a fast food sandwich place called Pans. We were going to go to the Aquarium after, but we read the sign wrong and thought that the admission was 35 euro each. Instead we went to the city park, which turned out to be absolutely incredible. I actually liked it better than Villa Borghese. There was a lake with row boats just like Villa Borghese, but there was also the most beautiful fountain complex that I have ever seen. I was kind of obsessed with it. We sat in the sun for quite awhile after wandering the park and talked about boys… and watched a few cute Spainard boys play soccer nearby. Once we left the park we saw the Arch of Triumph, which was bigger than all of the aches in Rome.

We were supposed to meet up with Jaci for dinner, but we couldn’t get a hold of her so we assumed she had ditched us for a boy and went back to our hostel to get ready. We talked for awhile with a girl staying in our room named Polly. She was from England but had been traveling around for the past 6 months. We invited her along to dinner with us and we went to La Rambla to find a restaurant. We were going to order a bunch of tapaps, but the restaurant that we settled on didn’t have very many. Instead, I shared a pinapple and shrimp pizza with Emily. We also ordered a pitcher of sangria. Polly was an interesting girl… she told us about her attraction to girls even though she apparently had a boyfriend back home. More →

Soooooo……

My purse got stolen on the beach this morning. It had my wallet and my digital camera. It really really sucks, but I’m thankful that my passport wasn’t in there… I was just sitting or laying on the beach with my purse right next to me and someone just walked by and picked it up when I wasn’t looking. It’s crazy how easy it is to lose your most important posessions. There one minute, gone the next. Nikki’s helping me out with money until my parents can send me some. And I’ll just take pitures on Nikki’s camera… (we had the same one, anyway.) I’m really bummed out, but I’m not letting this incident ruin my trip.

Besides the theft problem, Barcelona is wonderful. I love it here. It’s HOT and we spent the day at the beach which is really nice. Yesterday we did a lot of sightseeing and I loved everythign that I saw… the park is soooo beautiful! I like it even better than Villa Borghese, which was my favorite place in Rome! There’s a lot more we haven’t seen yet, but we still have two more days here.

I met an adorable English boy yesterday. His name is Ben. I spent most of the evening with him. He’s moving to France next week to be a chef. His accent is so cute, and he has perfect teeth contrary to the stereotype of English people. And, he’s one of the most gorgeous male specimans I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty pleased that I met him. It makes this whole stolen purse thing not seem as bad…

We’re all having a really good time. It worked out really well that we decided to skip Nice… we would have been too rushed here. Spain is so clean and organized, and stunningly beautiful. And things are much cheaper here than in Rome!! Maybe I studied in the wrong city! Lol. No, I’m just kidding, but I’m definately impressed. I hope I like all the other cities just as much.

Hasta Luego!
-Jess

I’m done with the semester! I finished my last exam this morning. It feels great. But at the same time it’s really starting to hit me that this whole experience is pretty much over. My roommate Diana is leaving today… in about an hour. Katie leaves tomorrow. All my other roommates leave on Saturday morning. I’m going to miss my roommates so much.

On the bright side, Emily gets here today. (Nikki’s friend from GVSU) She’s the one who’s traveling around with Nik and I for the next two weeks. So we have two days to show her around Rome, and the weather is suppose to be hot and sunny! Then we leave for Barcelona on Saturday evening. I’m really excited for our trip! I’m actually nearly packed now. I did all my laundry for the trip yesterday and the storage company is coming to pick up my luggage tomorrow morning. One my stuff is gone, it’s really going to feel like the end. I can’t believe this.

But I still have two weeks left… so pray for us to have a safe trip without too many complications! I’ll try to keep you guys updated from internet cafes as much as I can. I don’t know yet if I’ll be able to post pictures… we’ll see.

Oh, by the way… I finally made it to Tivoli! Which, for those of you who don’t know, is a town about 20 miles from Rome known as The Beverly Hills of Rome. There are two huge palaces (villas) there from like 500+ years ago with huge garden complexes. We went to Villa d’Este, which is supposively the prettier one. I posted a few pictures from there.

I love you all, and see you in TWO WEEKS!!!

P.S. HAPPY GRADUATION ALLISON!!! AND HAPPY MOTHERS DAY MOM!!! XOXO

First of all, I’m DONE WITH CLASSES!!! All I have left now is 3 exams and my semester will offically be over. Sad, but exciting at the same time.

Second… we are no longer going to Nice and Monaco in the south of France. Train tickets were too expensive and we would have to spend nearly two days just on trains to and from Nice. It wasn’t worth it to us. So now we are spending two extra days in Barcelona, and an extra day in Paris. I’m kinda bummed, but I’m sure this will work out for the best since we won’t be so rushed now. Plus we’ll have a little extra cash as well.

Our end of the semester photography exhibit was tonight. It went well.

All of the girls are gonna go out tonight and celebrate the end of classes.

Hopefully I’ll get to Tivoli this weekend…

So, I’m now in my last week of school. Exams start this Saturday. (Crazy, right?? Why on the weekend?!?) But anyway… after today, I have 11 days left in Rome. This semester went by really really fast. I always knew that it would, but now that I’m actually at the end, I’m realizing it even more. But that’s okay because I’m ready to move on. I’ve seen everything in Rome that I wanted to see…. multiple times, actually. I’ve made some amazing friends, had once in a lifetime experiences, and learned a little bit more about myself along the way. I’ll be sad to see it all come to an end because I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better semester abroad. But I am really excited to see a few new places during our two week Eurotrip after exams. And then I’m even more excited to see my family and friends back in Michigan, because I really truly miss everyone. And then, of course, I’m excited for little things like my mom’s potato salad, Taco Bell, driving, English, the US dollar (cuz the Euros getting really expensive), and TV. It’s funny what being abroad makes you miss. I hardly even watch tv when I am home…. haha.

As long as I don’t fail my finals, I will have managed to pass all my classes. (Not that I expected not to or anything.. but passing is always a small sort of accomplishment for me.) But I’m going to have to do a lot of studying for Italian and my Roman Monuments exams. The others will be a piece of cake. (Oh, that’s another thing I miss… cake.)

Okay, well I have nothing else interesting to say right now. Hope you are all enjoying nice springtime weather.
xoxo,
Jess

I spent the entire past weekend in Rome. Tuesday was Italy’s liberty day so we got it off from school. We had a really good time visiting all of our favorite places in the city. We ate way too much gelato, went to Villa Borghese for a boat ride, got cappuccino at Rome’s number one rated coffee house, took pictures of the Collosseum at night, and went to one of the Roman beaches for a day.

I have to keep myself busy here because I’m starting to get kind of antsy in Rome… I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I’m homesick… just ready to be done. I’m very excited to travel around for the last two weeks with Nikki and Emily. We have so much great stuff planned and it’s going to be the trip of a lifetime. However, Rome is getting so jam packed with tourists now that everything is starting to get on my nerves. I’m going to miss my roommates so much once we leave, though. They have become some of my closest friends.

But anyways, the beach was pretty cool. We didn’t get the sunniest day for it… but it was really warm so it was still nice to lay in the sand. We had to pay 5 euro to get into this beach complex thing, but it was worth it because it had beach volleyball courts, a pool, food, bathrooms, etc. Kind of like a resort except without a hotel.

Also, this weekend a watermane broke on our block. We had no water for more than a day and it was pretty inconvienent. We couldn’t flush our toilets, take showers, brush our teeth without bottled water, cook, was dishes, etc. We were all pretty patient about it though. I think we have gotten used to Italy being inconvenient so things like that don’t phase as much anymore. Luckily it was fixed before Tuesday, though, because they wouldn’t have worked on a holiday!

Ok, well I have class in a few minutes so I’m going to run. We’re hopefully going to go to Tivoli Gardens tomorrow and if we do, I’ll have new pictures to post.

Love to all,

jess

Verena and her family invited me to spend Easter weekend with their family in Germany. I was very happy for the opportunity to see them all again. I was also very glad to be out of Rome for the weekend, because as you can imagine… Rome is quite a popular destination for Easter–particularly the Vatican area where I live.

On Friday afternoon I felt to Hannover (nearly missing my flight because of all the traffic in Rome) and arrived there around 6:00 pm. Verena and her dad were at the airport to meet me. We went straight back to their house where dinner was waiting for us. It was so nice to eat German food after 3 months of nothing but pizza and pasta. And Verena’s mom is an amazing cook. After dinner I went out with Verena to a little music bar along with Mira and her boyfriend, Mira’s brother Toby, and Felix—Verena’s boyfriend. They all spoke pretty good English, which I was thankful for. We were there for a couple of hours before we left and went to Felix’s house to play a couple video games. The game was completely in German, but it was like a gameshow of recognizing music so I could play too… (most of the songs were American anyway.) Funny times.

The next morning the whole family at e breakfast together and then Verena had to leave for work. The rest of us went into Brenswick to go shopping. I didn’t have much money or space in my backpack, so I didn’t buy anything. But it was nice to walk around the city and the mall because it was such a different atmosphere compared to the cities in Italy. I don’t know why, but I was pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the house so I took a nap before dinner. When I woke up, Verena was back from work and we sat down at the table for some cake and tea. Not to much later, we had a huge salmon dinner which was one of the best meals I’ve had in months. I was still tired and really didn’t feel like going out anywhere, but Verena wanted to go play pool with some of her friends for a little while so I went. None of the people we met up with spoke any English so I just kind of sat there most of the time. We didn’t stay long though, and I got to go to bed early. More →