Tuscany

Yesterday evening I returned back to Rome from my weekend trip in Tuscany. This is one of the trips sponsored by the school, and you pay a flat rate that covers all of your meals, lodging, transportation, and anything else you can think of.

The weekend started early Friday morning where we boarded the bus at 7:30 AM and headed out. The first placed we stopped was at a vineyard for a wine tasting. We tried lots of different of red and white wine, and had some awesome food. This food was more than enough for a meal, but we still had lunch directly after. My favorite thing was the lasagna with truffle sauce. It was the best lasagna I have ever had in my life. It was delicious. We then went to a small town called San Gimignano, and it had some of the most breathtaking scenery that I have ever seen. We had a great meal there and then explored for a while and then headed to our villas. We stayed at a place called Montesigliano. It is like an old, small Italian town that someone has turned into luxury villas and olive groves which produce olive oil. We stayed in 3 villas, and they were all very beautiful and different. Most of the time we hung out in the big villa, which was an entire mansion with tons of rooms and lots of space. We had a lot of fun. We also went to Siena on Saturday, and it was pouring, so that put kind of a damper on that, but it was still cool. 

Some other things we did while there were an olive oil tasting, karaoke, and lots and lots of eating! Tuscany is probably my favorite area of Italy, and I cant wait to come back. I won't forget this weekend ever, as it was definitely one of the best I have ever had!

Kitchen

Living room of the villa

View from the villa

Olive grove tour

Easter Weekend

I can't believe that it is already Easter! Time has literally flown by, and now I will be home in less than 3 weeks! Crazy! Well, Easter weekend was a fun one, and a longer than usual one since we get Monday off as well. Today I am recuperating from my weekend of traveling and waking up early.
Thursday night I went on a school trip to about 10 churches in Rome, which they called a "Church Crawl" for Holy Thursday. It reminded me of Halloween, where there is just people all over walking from church to church, and all of the churches have a display set up where they store the Blessed Sacrament temporarily. We then went to dinner with the school near Piazza Navona and had some of the best pasta I have had here in Rome. Soooo good.

Friday was spent by trying an all you can eat Japanese and sushi restaurant in Trastevere, which is a beautiful area in Rome with lots of great restaurants and nightlife. The sushi was good, for the most part, but we had one roll which was not good at all. But, after all, Rome is not known for their sushi. Ha! Friday night I went to the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum which was led by the Pope, and there were TONS of people and it was standing room only...very cool experience but also a mad house!

Saturday me Lizet, and Bella went on a spur of the moment trip to Naples and Pompei. Naples is known for being dangerous and dirty and for having the best pizza (since pizza was invented there). It was definitely one of the less beautiful Italian cities I have seen, but the pizza was amazing. We went to the L'antica Pizzeria Da Machele, which was featured in the film Eat, Pray, Love, by Julia Roberts. I have yet to see the film, but definitely plan to since the majority of it was filmed in Rome and Naples I guess. The pizza placed was PACKED with people, and we had to wait an hour to even get in the door, but the pizza was definitely worth it, the best I have ever had in my life. The which was weird to me is that they only serve a cheese pizza and a marinara pizza, and I thought, well how good could that be? Well, it was awesome and definitely worth the trip to Naples for.

After lunch we went straight back to the train station to head to Pompei. It was about a 40 minute train ride, and when we got there it wasn't too busy, although about 30 minutes into exploring the ruins, it started to POUR and I didn't have a hood or umbrella, so needless to say I was soaked. My favorite part was seeing the stone frozen bodies that were found after Mt. Vesuvius erupted.

We then headed back home to Rome and the next morning Bella and I left for St. Peter's at about 6:30am in order to get a good seat at Mass. We were about the 7th row back and we had a great view, although it was a little obstructed by one of the TV camera stands which filmed the Mass. It was an awesome experience though, regardless.

After spending about 6 hours at St. Peters, I was starving, so we went to a restaurant in Trastevere and had a big meal. I ordered lamb since that is what I always have on Easter, but it wasn't as good as it is at home. Everything else, was good though. We had salad, prosciutto with melon, milanese, tiramisu, and white wine. Very good meal...minus the lamb.

After that I returned back to my room and slept for about 12 hours, and today I will be spending my last day of Easter break doing homework! Fun!!

My next trip will be this coming weekend to Tuscany with the school, which will be filled with nothing but lots of great food and lots of great wine! I cannot wait!

Eating pizza in Naples

Pompei

One of the bodies frozen in Pompei